Generation Peace: A Missed Opportunity?

In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was implemented with a silent promise that the lives of the next generation would not be hostage to the conflict of the past. Twenty years on, the opposing narratives which gave rise to thirty years of fear, violence, and death are continuously foisted upon our children from the age of four or five. Despite the Good Friday Agreement’s statement that integrated education should be facilitated to encourage a culture of tolerance and reconciliation, every September 1st we set our children up in opposition. Through segregated education, the lines of many Protestant and Catholic childhoods move parallelly, the consequence being that 51% of our population have few or no meaningful relationships with a member of the other side of the community. With the effects of segregation resonating far beyond the confines of school corridors, is it any wonder why our Executive so often comes to impasse? From earliest memory we are divided along ethno-national lines with roots so deep that as adults we cannot fathom lifting a toe off the party line to reach for compromise.

I predate the Good Friday Agreement by five months. I have never seen soldiers on the streets. I cannot remember checkpoints at the border nor security gates in the city centre. I have been spared the sight of tanks and rubber bullets, and to me, barb wire fences recall nothing but snagged jeans on summer days; my childhood friends and I taking short cuts across farmers’ fields. The Northern Ireland of my generation’s youth is both a world away from that of those before and also disappointingly similar. The barrier between communities should have begun to dismantle following the Good Friday Agreement. Instead, segregated education serves to reinforce the walls; the recipients of a hard-won peace having not been afforded the tools to overcome the legacy of conflict.

Education underpins everything. Our political system stutters because those we have elected were not taught to empathise or work together. Across Northern Ireland, there are people who have never met, voices which have not been heard, opinions which have not been considered because for fourteen years we are systematically separated from those on the other side of the community. Our universities are not segregated along the same lines but for some this will be too late. In politics classrooms I witnessed the start of the next fifty years and it looked frighteningly similar to the last. At eighteen, green and orange voices enter into meaningful conversations for the first time. The voices of those who do not fit neatly into either category are often silenced and pushed aside by the deafening sound of recycled arguments we have heard time and time again. If it is a vicious cycle then we are urging it to keep spinning when we should be hitting the brakes. To keep our children separate is to reinforce our divisions, put a halt to progress, and delay peace. This is before we even consider economic consequences such as budget cuts and stretched resources. For more on this refer to Colm Murray-Cavanagh’s article in this issue.

There is however hope that this cycle can change. Recent data by the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey found that 61% of participants would prefer their children attended a non-segregated school whilst a 2018 poll commissioned by the Integrated Education Fund found that 67.2% of respondents would support their local school becoming integrated. Away from the hypothetical there is also support in practice, evidenced by the consistent oversubscription of integrated schools. Despite this support, 93% of school children in Northern Ireland are in segregated education. With the same Integrated Education Fund poll finding that 65.6% of respondents believe politicians have done little to nothing to facilitate or encourage integrated education, it is up to the people of Northern Ireland to have their voices heard, to force politicians to take a step forward.

The next fifty years will necessitate great political debates. From climate change, to equality, to economic recovery and the legacy of a pandemic, the toughest conversations in Northern Irish politics are still to come. Will they continue to be overshadowed by ethno-national conflict, by green and orange voices, by those who cannot work together? We most move away from the tradition of segregating our children and remove fuel from the fire of ethno-national division. We must strive to create generations of empathetic, understanding, dedicated individuals who can see beyond the constitutional question and grasp at a future which is better for all. The opportunity which was missed in my generation will not be the last presented to us. I hope we take the next.