Higgins says challenge is to 'root out hatred'

PRESIDENT MICHAEL D Higgins has commended the “intertwining” relationship between Ireland and Britain but warned that one of the remaining challenges in the peace process was to “root out hatred”.

Mr Higgins, who last night delivered the annual British Council lecture at Queen’s University, Belfast – the first time it has been given outside London – spoke of the need for nationalists and unionists to shed old “destructive stereotypes” and how there was still a distance to travel to complete the peace process.

“Part of that challenge is to root out hatred from our midst,” he said. “Hatred is a word that has dropped from our discourse. We have become accustomed to talking of sectarianism but is it not hatred by another name? It is bred by intolerance and indeed by a lack of the capacity or opportunity to change. It is not unique to any one group or place.”

The President said that dealing with such hatred and sectarianism rested with government to a degree but to a greater extent “with countless individuals who take a journey into the unknown animated by the courage of departure and a generosity of spirit, and who are willing to review the narratives they have found, are willing to listen to the narrative of the other and to pause, review, forgive, allow or pardon”.

“In that sense, the next stage of the peace process requires us all to be pilgrims on a journey of such ethical reflection as will lead us to the light of peaceful enjoyment of the complex way our lives are intertwined,” he added.

Mr Higgins spoke on the theme of migrants and memory. “We in this island are involved in a new kind of symbolic migration – from peace to true reconciliation,” he said.

“In the peace process, we have been engaged in one of the most ambitious and far-reaching political projects of our times. The results could be described as so much having been secured and so much yet to be commenced,” he added. “Lives have been transformed beyond what might have been imagined when we began that journey. We all know in our hearts that we have some way to travel yet, some work to do before we redeem the full promise inherent in the peace process.” The President spoke of the challenge of dealing with the past and the difficulties of reconciling those who had suffered through bereavement or injury with those who had caused that pain.

He praised the “moral gift” that those who had suffered had contributed to the process. “More than any other group, they have been asked so much more than others – and are asked daily – to make a most difficult accommodation for peace. No group has done more to bring about the benefits we have all gained from the peace process than they and I salute them,” he said.