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Editorial:
"Know Thyself"
Alwyn Thomson
Comment:
Illiberal Democracy
Alwyn Thomson
From
the Director: Good News People?
David W Porter
Balancing
on the Edge
Tony Davidson
Grateful
to God
David McMillan
Space
& Freedom
David Hewitt
Imaginative
Engagement
Keith Getty
No
longer at ease with this dispensation?
Mike Wardlow
Living
with our deepest differences
Os Guinness
Deep
Questions
Johnston
McMaster
Steady
presence
Cecelia Clegg
No
longer lonely
Joseph Liechty
Something
to give
Ingri Sakaria
Bible
study series: Faith in the future
David
W Porter
Review:
The Elusive Quest, Reconciliation in N I by Norman Porter
Bill
Brown
Review:
Journeying Towards Reconciliation, A Song for Ireland by Ruth Patterson
Lynda
Gould
Review:
Islam in Conflict:Past Present and Future by Peter G Riddell &
Peter Cotterell
Alwyn
Thomson
Review:
The R Option - Building Relationships as a Better Way of Life by
Michael Schluter & David John Lee
Anna
Rankin
Review:
Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman
Glenn
Jordan
Summer
School Poetry
Various
For
God and His Glory Alone:
Study 6: Truth
REVIEW: The Elusive Quest, Reconciliation in Northern Ireland by Norman Porter
Reviewed by Bill Brown
When the manuscript of this book was passed to the publisher its proposed title was a rhetorical question, The Elusive Quest? That question mark, lost or removed in the publishing process, epitomised the book's interrogative and investigative thrust. In one sense its loss doesn't matter, for on every page that questioning thrust is obvious. But, in another sense, the point is of interest in that Norman Porter is interrogating his own title, in effect asking: Is reconciliation really elusive and, if so, why and to what extent? Although he reckons in his introduction that "the reality of Northern Ireland's circumstances is such that reconciliation is likely to prove elusive for some time," his central thesis is that this need not be the case. The very first lines of the book confront us with the audacious assertion that: "Reconciliation matters. And if it mattered enough to enough of us in Northern Ireland then we would have it." This is such a bold and challenging opener, and reconciliation such a prize, that if the author has established his assertion to any degree a reviewer would be justified in calling upon every pastor, politician, teacher, student and public-spirited citizen to study this book. And, as my own opener, without hesitation, I do.
I say "study" because the book bristles with questions and issues. One major question: Is reconciliation a good thing? might seem rather strange, but Porter suspects that "peace without reconciliation" is an idea that resonates for many of us. He asks whether our politicians have sufficiently placed the interests of all our citizens above party, or really tried to find common ground. He touches on the fear and bitterness that stem from division. This leads him to consider counter-responses described as assimilation and prioritisation of difference, neither of which does anything for reconciliation and tend rather to exacerbate our sectarianism. But our differences – never absolute, often concocted and certainly exaggerated – shouldn't be used to screen out possibilities for common ground. The commonality of a reconciled citizenship would far transcend anything envisaged by "single identity" activities or by the parity of esteem principle, which are good only as far as they go. Porter describes these as "a balancing act" – as "weak reconciliation" that juggles with two sets of competing entitlement claims but which leaves the divisions between our "two communities" relatively undisturbed.
"What does reconciliation require?" Porter argues that we must all answer its moral challenge. This can be evaded or ignored if we qualify our responses to it in favour of partisan interests. It can be met if we give priority to reconciliation. But to "prioritise difference," as is typical of our traditional politics, is to perpetuate a divided society and the sectarianism that flows from it. A good society is possible only through good citizens – citizens who take a moral, rather than a self-seeking or instrumental view of politics by exercising civic virtues like forgiveness, magnanimity and reasonableness. Forgiveness is a strong political virtue with healing power. Magnanimity's generosity of spirit creates and builds upon trust. Reasonableness can persuade, yet leave itself open to persuasion. These things therefore must not be privatised. Civic virtue needs a public focus. It can emerge through "fair interactions" at all levels between citizens leading to the discovery that they have more in common than they thought. Rational human beings engaging dialogically with their differences can uncover a commonality that debunks their prejudiced and historically created "misrecognitions" of each other.
Citizen belonging can create "citizen dignity" and become a moral check on the excesses of difference. It can snap us out of sectarian ways of thinking and point us to a common political life based on strong reconciliation – the objective encouraged by the Agreement. Porter analyses the clashing interpretations of the Agreement that still hinder its implementation. "Competing understandings of legitimacy" cause unionists and republicans to contest constitutional and institutional priorities and to overplay their fundamentalist principles. This stirs up the distrust that is central to the current disagreements on decommissioning, disbandment and reform. Porter has much to say to both sides on these things. The issue is not why the politics of the Union or Unity should matter, but "why they should matter most". To give primacy to constitutional principles at every turn results in stalemate, whereas "the genius of the Agreement was to make possible political movement beyond such an impasse". In effect, the old train of exclusive sovereignty politics needs to be shunted into the sidings to let the new train of inclusive citizen belonging through on the main line to a better future.
One reviewer, a politician, is dismissive of the book because, allegedly, its language is "submerged in that of religion". He contends that its moralistic approach "makes high, not to say impossible, demands" upon citizens emerging from thirty years of violence – "qualities of character often conspicuous by their absence: forgiveness, magnanimity and reasonableness". It says a lot about the state of reconciliation here that a top politician should be so anxious to privatise moral/religious and civic virtues and excuse the lack of public reasonableness! Porter in fact deals at length with alienation and bitterness (as he does with all the principles mentioned here), and he recognises that reconciliation is "a hard taskmaster". But this is no reason to dismiss his message, defend partisan positions, or to do the politics of "war by other means". Another reviewer is more constructive, observing that Porter's last book, Rethinking Unionism, "attempted to redefine unionism for the 21st century in a way in which its current leaders had singularly failed to do. The present study, based firmly on moral values, may be thought to occupy the place the churches might have filled".
This is not to say that The Elusive Quest is a religious book. Porter says that religious faith provides no guarantee of sympathy for reconciliation and that "many who boast the purest Christian motives are among those most threatened by the possibility of political reconciliation". Although summarily dismissing fundamentalist claims that reconciliation between man and man is irrelevant or impossible, he doesn't endeavour to develop a theology of reconciliation. His book is set firmly in the political context, but it the moral and civic virtues adduced are entirely compatible with that universal Christian ethic by which ultimately, we must all be judged. No privatisation here! Thus, there is a certain synergy flowing from Norman Porter's belief that conventional political language can be inadequate to meet citizens' deeper needs when dealing with culture-related divisions, and that "borrowing from the language of religion" can enhance this. In deploying that language to such good effect in The Elusive Quest he has given us an enriched political treatise. This should give us cause to wonder what potential impact our politics might have if this were fortified, not just by religious language, but also by publicly practised religious/moral and reconciliatory principles like those contained in the great royal law to love our neighbour as ourselves.
BILL BROWN is from Loughbrickland.
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