Denial of recognition central to conflict

Among the host of Irish, British, American and other figures that deserve credit for the wondrous achievement of the Good Friday peace agreement, one stands out with special eminence, John Hume.

For decades John Hume has been striving for precisely the kind of agreement between the two communities in Northern Ireland that the Good Friday deal represents: one that respects, enhances and recognises the traditions of the two communities and which threatens neither. It was John Hume who pushed the British government to declare that it had no strategic, economic or selfish interest in remaining involved in Northern Ireland, thereby unfolding an opportunity to engage the republican movement.

It was he who saw that the former policies of marginalising the Provos hadn't worked, and wouldn't work, and had to be replaced by a strategy of co-opting them. It was he alone who devised the idea of an all-Ireland referendum to ratify any settlement, a ploy to meet the claim for national self-determination. It was he more than any other person who mobilised international and, particularly, American opinion behind the peace process. It was he who provided the essential bridge between Gerry Adams and constitutional politics.

For more than two decades his persistence endured, often to the point of tedium. His obsession with it and, almost by extension, with himself made him a difficult colleague within the SDLP and elsewhere. It probably made him unsuitable as a candidate for the Presidency. But those very same qualities contributed hugely to the achievement of the peace agreement, and it would be churlish of those of us who have been critical of him in the past not to acknowledge now his enormous contribution. Without challenge, he is the greatest Irish person of our time.

Whether the Good Friday agreement consolidates the union or advances the cause of Irish unity hardly matters. What it does magnificently is accord that recognition to the two communities in Northern Ireland, the denial of which was fundamentally the cause of division and violence.

Human beings and human communities are not motivated only by the primal instinct for self-preservation and for economic enrichment but also hugely by a desire to be recognised as equal or of equal worth in society. This was identified by Plato almost 2 1/2 millennia ago - he called it thymos - and was given full explication by Hegel.

Northern Ireland, especially from 1922 to 1969, was a model of a society that denied recognition to a large minority. That denial was captured in the phrase "second-class citizens". The minority culture was ignored, the state to which they felt an attachment regarded as "alien", their rights to equal participation in society scorned, their very place in society threatened.

And then in the succeeding 30 years that denial of recognition extended to the unionist community as well. They were derided internationally and even in their "mainland country" as bigoted fascists, unfit for inclusion in the civilised world of liberal democrats. On the international stage it was the nationalists, and later republicans, who were accorded recognition and respect.

Perhaps it was for this reason, at least in part, that John Hume was hated so much by unionists. Wasn't communal violence inevitable, given the denial of recognition to both communities, even if that denial came about in very different ways?

The Good Friday agreement magnificently addresses both facets of this denial. It changes the ethos of the Northern Ireland state profoundly in ways that now accord full recognition to the nationalist community and, dextrously, it restores recognition to the unionist community.

Remembering the Northern Ireland of Lord Craigavon and of Viscount Brookeborough, the Good Friday agreement seems all the more remarkable. The nationalist community is incorporated into the fabric of the reformed state, in contrast to its former total exclusion, through the arrangements for a new executive authority and Assembly, through the legal underpinning of its individual and group rights, through the new plans for policing and through the establishment of the North-South Ministerial Council.

The conferring of recognition on the nationalist community is perhaps nowhere as vivid as in the undertakings in the agreement on the Irish language. It speaks of "the importance of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity" and goes on to undertake to "facilitate and encourage the use of the [Irish] language in speech and writing in public and private life where there is appropriate demand". Just think of how that resonates against the ethos of Brookeborough's Northern Ireland.

The agreement accords recognition to unionists in its incorporation of the principle of consent and the undertaking by the Irish Government to initiate changes in Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution.

President Clinton is credited with playing a crucial role in resolving last-minute difficulties in the talks. The claim seems far-fetched. But he did play an absolutely crucial role, and again in the context of recognition. His granting of a visa to enter the United States in early 1994 to Gerry Adams conferred recognition on the republican movement from the most prestigious locus of power in the world. That was crucial in the psychological transformation that drew the republican movement into the peace process.

President Clinton conferred reciprocal recognition in inviting the unionists to the White House in 1995, the ultimate reassurance that they no longer were the pariahs internationally. His clever references to both "Derry" and "County Londonderry" in his speech in Derry in December 1995 underscored the way he accorded recognition to the two communities. His availability in the middle of the night to talk to both sides in Northern Ireland in the last hours of the peace talks was a further confirmation of that reciprocal recognition.

Of course, there will be difficulties ahead, over decommissioning (Tony Blair's letter to David Trimble last weekend presages problems on that front), over policing, over prisoners and over the inevitable further violence.

But a mighty leap has been made towards a resolution of our difficulties and towards according all people on this island (except the poor) recognition of their equal worth. Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair, Mo Mowlam, Bill Clinton, David Trimble, Gerry Adams, as well as John Hume, have all been accorded credit for this achievement. A few others deserve mention, too, including Albert Reynolds, John Major, Patrick Mayhew, Peter Brooke, John Bruton, Dick Spring, Sean O hUiginn Noel Dorr, Michael Lillis, Fergus Finlay, Dermot Gallagher and many others. And also Charles Haughey. It was he who, with John Hume and Gerry Adams, originated the peace process in 1989 and who handed on the baton quietly and without acknowledgement to Albert Reynolds in February 1992.