Northern Ireland After the Good Friday Agreement: Victims, Grievance and Blame
264
Northern Ireland After the Good Friday Agreement: Victims, Grievance and Blame
264Paperback(New Edition)
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780745316734 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pluto Press |
| Publication date: | 03/20/2002 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 264 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Mike Morrissey was Senior Researcher on The Cost of the Troubles Study and is the Director of the Urban Institute, University of Ulster. He is the co-author of Northern Ireland After the Good Friday Agreement (Pluto, 2002) and City Visions: Imagining Place, Enfranchising People (Pluto, 2002).
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Putting the Past in its Place: Issues of Victimhood and Reconciliation in the Northern Ireland Peace Process
Any serious attempt at assessing the human impact of the Troubles was deemed premature until the beginning of the peace process of the 1990s. Until then, such assessments had been confined to statements about the total number of bombs and shooting incidents, fatal casualties and the estimated damage to the economy. Any examination of humanitarian damage due to the Troubles whilst the conflict was ongoing was likely to underestimate it, since for the most part, the society functioned on the basis of denial of the conflict and its consequences. Perhaps it is true in all violently divided societies that auditing the harm caused by that conflict must be a task associated with the end of such conflict. Such work cannot, it seems, be undertaken whilst the conflict is ongoing and survival the main goal.
The ceasefires of 1994 created a new atmosphere in Northern Ireland in which an appraisal of the impact of the Troubles became more possible. None the less, such appraisals are fraught with difficulties. So complete is the division of Northern Ireland society that the identifications of the assessor with one or other side of the conflict will tend to blind him or her to aspects of the total picture. Nor are academic researchers above these processes. The challenge of arriving at a comprehensive overview of the humanitarian costs of the Troubles in Northern Ireland is the challenge of overcoming the effects of one's identification with one or other side of the conflict, and the challenge of being able to set aside some of the most intense personal experiences of most of our adult lives (in the case of the authors). The reader must judge how successfully that challenge has been met.
Since the late 1960s, over 3500 people out of a population of 1.5 million have been killed in the conflict in Northern Ireland. Official statistics for this period show over 40,000 people injured, although the real figure is likely to be higher since not all injuries were officially recorded. By March 1995, the British government had paid £814.219 million in personal injuries compensation, and a further £300.516 million for damages to property (Bloomfield, 1998: p. 4). Yet in comparison to location in the world experiencing conflicts, Northern Ireland's Troubles are relatively small scale, or 'low intensity' with an overall death rate of 2.25 per 1000 population. This is about the same level of conflict as the Middle East or South Africa, and worse than Turkey (0.57 per 1000) and Argentina (0.32 per 1000). However, Salvador (20.25 per 1000) had almost ten times the death rate, and Cambodia (237.02 per 1000), where about a quarter of the population died, had a death rate approximately 100 times that of Northern Ireland (Fay et al., 1997: p. 44).
Suffering, however is a difficult commodity in which to draw comparisons. As Frankl (1959: p. 64) points out, 'suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative.' This 'filling of the human soul and conscious mind' with the pain of its past is the challenge that Northern Ireland, poised as it is on the edge of peace, must address itself. In this first chapter, issues of definition and contested views of victimhood (see Smyth, 2000) will be described. The prospects for finding successful strategies to manage the past and for the emergence of an agreed account of that past will also be assessed. The chapter will also examine definitions of victimhood in the context of arguments for and against universalistic and inclusive definitions and their implications for politics and for targeting humanitarian resources. Finally, the role of those bereaved and injured in achieving reconciliation, and in assisting the society with the task of managing the past will be addressed.
DEFINITIONS OF VICTIMHOOD
Definitions of victimhood in Northern Ireland's Troubles are characterised by two main trends, namely universalism and inclusion. Universalistic definitions of victimhood tend to emphasise that all residents of Northern Ireland – and those who live beyond Northern Ireland – have all been affected by the cumulative effects of three decades of violence. Many people who have lived through Northern Ireland's Troubles would describe themselves as having been harmed by the events of the last 30 years. There are many who nurse a festering anger at various politicians or public institutions. Many others are fearful of a return to violence and find it hard to trust the possibility of a peaceful future. Many are acutely aware of the harm done to others through death, injury and human rights violations. Consciousness of the harm done to a member of one's own community is very high, since in divided societies such harm takes on a wider significance. A harm done to one is perceived as harm to every member of that community. Feelings of anger, fear and grievance are expressed publicly and communally, with much long-term grieving and most forms of remorse relegated to the private sphere.
The idea of universal victimhood within Northern Ireland is central to politics in Northern Ireland and is compounded by the political cultures of both Loyalism and Republicanism. The cultures of contemporary Loyalism and Republicanism (Smyth, 1998) in Northern Ireland are cultures of victimhood. Both Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries make reference to their status as victims as a context that justifies their respective recourse to armed conflict. Loyalists see themselves as victimised by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), whereas Republicans describe themselves as victims of British Imperialism and Loyalist sectarianism. By claiming the status of victim, they each depict their position as deserving of sympathy, support, outside help and intervention by allies in order to dispatch the victimiser.
Furthermore, since all victims by definition are vulnerable, the violence of the victims is seen in the context of their victimisation. This can render the victims' actions, including their violent actions, the responsibility of the victimiser. It is increasingly common to see ageing war criminals portrayed as old, infirm and vulnerable. Claims to senility, infirmity and vulnerability are then used to argue the pointlessness of prosecution or extradition, as in the case of Augusto Pinochet, the former president of Chile. Those who have participated in the violence of the past, particularly those who have killed and injured others, may themselves lay claim to victimhood in the new dispensation, since without such a moral fig leaf their violence becomes too naked, politically inexplicable and morally indefensible. Claiming the status of victim is an attempt at escaping guilt, shame or responsibility. Universalistic definitions of victimhood, by including everyone as a victim, tend to facilitate this escape, and therefore tend to promote a political culture of powerlessness and undifferentiated chaos.
The effects of political violence are not limited to those injured or killed. The effects are pervasive. Within Northern Ireland, social and political institutions have been shaped by the history of division. They have been formed and have adjusted themselves to ongoing violent conflict. During the conflict, cultures of denial and silence (for example, Healey, 1996) prevailed within such institutions and remain virtually intact to this day. Therefore, these institutions, too, can be regarded as 'victims' of the conflict, shaped as they have been by the operational and cultural constraints of the Troubles. Yet most of the attention to the impact of the Troubles has focused elsewhere – on the human impact, on those who have been bereaved or injured.
The ending of the institutional silence on such issues began in 1997. The British government appointed a Victims Commissioner, Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, to investigate the situation of victims and make a report to the government. A unit within the Northern Ireland office, the Victims Liaison Unit, was to co-ordinate the affairs of victims, and a Minister for Victims, Adam Ingram, was appointed. However, it posed a difficulty, particularly for those in the Nationalist community, that he was also simultaneously Minister for Security. Mo Mowlam, then Secretary of State when welcoming the Belfast Agreement in the House of Commons, indicated the government's intention in relation to the appointment of Bloomfield:
It is important when we are talking about all these positive developments that we do not lose sight of the terrible price that has been paid by the victims of violence and their families. No amount of progress in the search for lasting peace will bring back those loved ones who have been lost. But I hope that Ken Bloomfield's Victims' Commission will soon be in a position to provide us with some practical suggestions as to how we can best recognise the suffering endured by the victims of violence and their families. I cannot say better than the words in the agreement itself. 'The achievement of a peaceful and just society would be the true memorial to the victims of violence.' (Northern Ireland Office, 1998)
Bloomfield published his report in May 1998, noting in his introduction the demands that this role had placed on him:
In more than twenty-five years of public service I have never been asked to undertake a task of such human sensitivity. The letters I have read and the stories I have heard in carrying out the work of the Commission will be burned in my memory forever. (Bloomfield, 1998: p. 6)
The Good Friday Agreement, signed on 10 April 1998, contains two paragraphs – 11 and 12 on page 18 – on the issue of victims. Bloomfield's report to the government examined the definition of victim and found 'some substance in the argument that no one living in Northern Ireland through this most unhappy period will have escaped some degree of damage' (ibid.: p. 14).
Whilst Bloomfield recognised that the experience of grievance may be widespread, it was clear to him that universalistic definitions of victimhood would neither aid the targeting of humanitarian resources at those in most need nor assist the development of social policy in the field. Practical concerns such as the targeting of resources moved to the foreground as political agreement was achieved and the prospect of social provision for victims became a real prospect. The Bloomfield Report refers to the need of the Victims Commission 'to aim its effort at a coherent and manageable target group' (ibid.). The difficulties with universalistic (or over-inclusive) definitions were not only practical and resource driven. It was also clear that in moral terms, such definitions failed to differentiate between the enormous loss and suffering of some and the lesser suffering of others, thereby creating further grievance.
CONTESTED NATURE OF VICTIMHOOD: INCLUSIVE DEFINITIONS
The contested nature of victimhood had emerged from early on in the Northern Ireland peace process. The difficulty for some in recognising the suffering of the 'other side' precluded them from allowing victim status to the 'enemy'. Therefore definitions that permitted a bilateral approach to the conflict were bound to problematic for those with these kinds of difficulty. To begin with, inclusive definitions relying on human suffering as the qualification for victim status were operationalised, notably by Bloomfield, whose brief from the government was 'To lead the Commission to examine the feasibility of providing greater recognition for those who have become victims in the last thirty years as a consequence of events in Northern Ireland....'
The Secretary of State in announcing the Commission had referred to 'The pain and suffering felt by victims of violence arising from the troubles of the last 30 years, including those who have died or been injured in the service of the community.'
Bloomfield's brief was therefore permissive of an inclusive approach. He settled on 'the surviving injured and those who care for them, together with those close relatives who mourn their dead' as his 'coherent and manageable target group' (ibid.). No exclusions of paramilitaries or their families, nor of victims of state violence was contained in the wording of the final document, although some later complained about de facto exclusion from the process of consultation and insufficient emphasis on victims of state violence in the final report. These complaints notwithstanding, Bloomfield's approach did not categorically exclude those who had been, up until then, excluded elsewhere by reason of their affiliations, their previous actions or, in the case of victims of state violence, the identity of those who bereaved or injured them.
This inclusive approach posed challenges to those who had been victimised by those on the other side of the conflict, who had to countenance the inclusion of those from the community that had harmed them in the same 'victim' category as themselves. A great deal of anger was expressed, often by former members of the security forces, about their being considered in the same category as 'terrorists'. The politics of victimhood was being defined in response to Bloomfield's inclusive approach.
On the other hand, tentative and eventually more confident alliances* that crossed the sectarian divide were formed between those who had suffered. Self-help groups, and groups focusing on delivering services to those who had been bereaved and injured operationalised an inclusive approach. Indeed, it is difficult to anticipate how, ethically, anything other than inclusive approaches can be used in the delivery of human services. Yet although unity within the population of those bereaved and injured in the Troubles was an unlikely project from the outset, it was attitudes to the Good Friday Agreement that in the end composed the main fault-line within that population. Whether the victim constituency polarised on the issue of the early release of prisoners or whether this issue merely crystallised existing division is an imponderable. Whatever came first, lobbying to disqualify certain categories of people from legitimate victimhood intensified alongside the activities of the anti-Agreement lobby. The use of the terms 'innocent' or 'real' as qualifications for victimhood began to appear.
New groups began to spring up, representing various interest groups in the field. FAIR (Families Acting for Innocent Relatives) and HURT (Homes United by Republican Terror, later changed to 'Homes United by Recurring Terror') are two examples of groups formed from mid-1998 onwards who adopted an exclusivist approach, describing themselves as 'victims of terrorism', 'innocent victims', or 'victims of Nationalist terror'. These groups were largely concentrated in the border regions, in regions where death rates of the local security forces had been highest. Their energies in the initial phase of their operation were concentrated on lobbying, meeting politicians and voicing opposition to developments such as early prisoner releases. Attempts to include them in the broader rage of activities in the field continued but did not always meet with success. FAIR, for example, was invited to join the Touchstone Group, an advisory group to government established at Bloomfield's recommendation, but did not take up its seats. Early prisoner releases as part of the Good Friday Agreement was a difficult issue for many who had suffered at the hands of paramilitaries. The difficulty posed by early prisoner releases was recognised by the government in the timing of announcements of such releases alongside announcements of measures designed to help victims. Some of these measures were hastily designed and were later much criticised, such as the location of a Family Trauma Centre in South Belfast, rather than in North or West Belfast, where the effects of the Troubles had been most marked.
The reliance of both Loyalist and Republican politics on notions of victimhood has already been noted, and therefore it was, perhaps inevitable that bids for the admission of ex-prisoners to the category of victim would be made. However, perhaps one of the effects of continuing pressure from groups such as FAIR was to ensure that lobbying to include prisoners under the victims remit became increasingly less likely to succeed.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Northern Ireland After the Good Friday Agreement"
by .
Copyright © 2002 Mike Morrissey and Marie Smyth.
Excerpted by permission of Pluto Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.