Sectarianism a shared social problem which continues to shape us all

MOVING Beyond Sectarianism is one of several projects on sectarianism currently in gestation or under way. As the project enters its second year, we are far from conclusions, but elements of a framework for responding to sectarianism are becoming clear.

One basic measure necessary for engaging sectarianism will be redeeming our use of the term. "Sectarianism" and its variants are employed often enough, but usually as terms of condemnation, whether emotively and abusively, or politely and even quasi analytically.

What all such condemning usage shares is that the judgment is always applied to others. And since what we see as sectarianism in others is never understood by them as sectarianism, but as loyalty to tribe or truth or tradition, the conventional language of sectarianism manages only to make the accuser feel righteous and the accused aggrieved, while engaging no one.

Self deception easily accompanies the action of condemning. As we experience sensations of distancing and even cleansing, this obscures how our action may mirror what we are condemning. I remember vividly an example relating to the X case, when the Attorney General forbade a 14 year old girl, raped by a family acquaintance, to travel to England for an abortion, and a nation riven by abortion debate resounded with recrimination.

In an RTE radio discussion, a politician furiously condemned the self righteous bigots who, by their opposition to abortion, would make this sorry situation into standard Policy. Having generally been on the anti abortion side, I felt myself unjustly caught in the spray of his fuming, and I bitterly noted the irony that to condemn the self righteous bigotry he deplored, he had worked himself into a lather of self righteous judgment.

And my own quiet pleasant sensation as I condemned what he was doing? Not a million miles from self righteous bigotry, I'm afraid. Going down the road of condemnation, we are always in danger of taking with us the mire we mean to leave behind.

As regards sectarianism, the first step out of the mire is to recognise sectarianism not as someone else's problem, but as a shared social problem that shapes us all. This may sound simple, even trite, but the step is rare enough, and when undertaken yields a shift in perspective of Copernican significance.

I saw this most clearly when participating as an outsider in an ecumenical working party on sectarianism.

Since most participants had spent their lives opposing sectarianism, they might reasonably have approached the problem by defining the high moral ground on which they stood.

While this attitude was an occasional temptation, the group consistently refused to yield to it, recognising instead how much they had been shaped by sectarianism, how easily certain situations, words, symbols could trigger sectarian responses, and how their moral authority to address sectarianism derived precisely from their refusal to see themselves as entirely separate from it.

In its final report, the working party made a similar point by describing sectarian violence in Northern Ireland as a social pyramid. At the pinnacle are those who commit sectarian murders, at the broad base is the mass of ordinary decent citizens, implying that, while our culpability may vary, all are inescapably part of the system and share some responsibility.

If someone should recoil at so inclusive an image, maintaining that by the evil of their actions some people draw a line between themselves and the rest of us, I would be willing to consider the issue. But if the pyramid image risks being too inclusive, surely the greater and more common danger is drawing separating lines too frequently, too firmly, and too far from ourselves.

While sectarianism shapes us all, it takes forms as diverse as society. The most obvious sectarianism comes from orange and green varieties of fundamentalism. These shout their loyalties so loudly that their sectarianism can be almost cartoon like, although still real and dangerous.

Liberal forms of sectarianism are less colourful, and because liberals are likely to define themselves against standard issue versions of tribe, truth and tradition, they may easily miss how their own adherence to their own versions can also be sectarian.

I know this trap from the inside, having fallen into it. Speaking to a gathering of long time ecumenical activists, I identified Protestant evangelicalism as including some of the most intransigent of Christians, as represented by Ian Paisley, and some of the most creative and self critical, as represented by ECOXI (Evangelical Contribution On Northern Ireland).

In the following discussion, one baffled participant asked if I really thought Ian Paisley was creative and self critical. I assured him that he had misunderstood me, that I had identified Paisley with intransigence. I replied with a chuckle, and laughter rippled around the room.

I thought no more of it until an evangelical friend approached me later. The group's laughter registered relief and bonding, he interpreted, because my clarification got the boundaries back in proper alignment: we in that room once again knew ourselves as the good and true, while Paisley represented the bad and false.

My friend was right, and I had instigated the situation by thoughtlessly using Ian Paisley as a standard demon figure to signify intransigence. What are such actions if not liberal bigotry? Ecumenical sectarianism? Demonising people and reinforcing rigidly exclusive boundaries are two of the main methods by which sectarianism operates. The ecumenical tribe is as much a tribe as any other.

Any process of moving beyond sectarianism will require us to recognise demonising and dividing as constant problems and as everyone's problems. Because at heart sectarianism is about the complexities of dealing positively with difference, and because this challenge is universal, sectarianism is not a problem to which ecumenism, or any other form of liberalism, is automatically or easily the answer.