Background
to the
Research
- This paper is a professorial
lecture given by Professor Valerie Morgan at the University of Ulster
on Wednesday, 25th October 1995. It analyses women's roles between 1969
and 1995 in relation to peace making and the development of community
relations in Northern Ireland.
Research
Approach
- Following an account of women's traditional
place in Irish Society, and of the ways in which images of women have
been used in the iconography projected by both communities, a brief
definition of peace and peace making is given, drawing on the work of
a range of feminist writers. The main body of the paper focuses on women's
roles in relation to violence, based on Galtung's triangular model,
with its three elements of physical violence, structural violence and
cultural violence.
Main Findings
Physical Violence
- Women's attitudes to conflict, and responses
to physical violence, have ranged from active support of paramilitaries
to direct campaigning for peace.
- Women's involvement in paramilitary groups
has been mainly at support level - providing safe houses, passing messages
etc. However, they have also transported guns and bombs and have taken
part in major operations.
- Evidence suggests their influence within
paramilitary organisations at the policy level is relatively limited,
and women seem to be particularly peripheral in the Loyalist paramilitary
groups.
- Some of the most high profile, grass roots,
peace initiatives have been led by women and had a majority of women
among their activists.
- During the 1980s, the emphasis for many
women peace activists shifted to lower key community development activities.
- Women's involvement in these areas may
reflect differences both in the structures through which men and women
tend to operate and in their definitions of peace making.
Structural Violence
- In their responses to structural violence,
actions have been limited partially because women's power and influence
in the political and public spheres in Northern Ireland was itself circumscribed.
- Whilst some Unionist and Nationalist women
have campaigned together in response to problems of human rights, these
actions have all too often fuelled cross- community resentment and soured
relations at local level.
- The establishment of the Northern Ireland
Women's Rights Movement in 1975 acted as an 'umbrella' for a wide range
of organisations from both Nationalist and Unionist areas, and helped
women to co-operate over common problems and demands such as the very
low level of nursery school provision, the uneven implementation of
the 1976 Sex Discrimination Order, and legal rights over abortion and
divorce.
- Domestic violence is a major human rights
issue and a key element in structural violence. By the late 1980s, women
across the community were actively campaigning against domestic violence,
and refuge centres and telephone lines had been established in a number
of population centres. Such initiatives may not fit the label of 'peacemaking'
in the usually understood sense, but they did tackle central elements
of gender specific structural violence.
Cultural Violence
- Galtung saw cultural violence as manifesting
itself in areas such as religion, language, arts and ideology. Differences
in these spheres played a major role in sustaining antagonisms, motivating
discrimination against 'the other' community and justifying or excusing
violence.
- Much of the cultural division in Northern
Ireland is in the traditional areas of women's influence such as in
the home, the family and the local community. If women were to be labelled
as 'peacemakers', it was by combating cultural violence that they may
have had the opportunity to be most effective.
- In relation to religion, women often suffered
from the impact of cultural violence as they had very limited influence
on the decision-making structures in any of the major churches, despite
making up the majority of church attenders. At the same time, they were
often very powerful within the family as transmitters of culture.
- Between 1969 and 1995, women frequently
operated through informal or so-called 'track two' channels and there
was considerable growth in the range of such groups and organisations
- for example, groups focusing on charity, leisure and educational interests.
- The impact of all this activity on conflict
reduction and improved community relations is difficult to evaluate
but it seems likely that a number of forces limited its contribution
to cultural peacemaking.
- The most influential organisation in many
women's lives was the church. However, joint activities with members
of other churches, especially across the Catholic/Protestant divide,
were seen as dangerous because it was vital to preserve one's own faith,
and contact could pose a risk to personal salvation.
Conclusions
- To describe women as 'peacemakers' in Northern
Ireland says little of value. It is more accurate to say that women
have been both peacemakers and peace preventers and that the range of
their attitudes and responses has been as wide and varied as that of
men.
- Women may not be peacemakers with a capital
P in any simplistic sense, but they have provided some of the vital
tools which the whole society needs in order to rebuild peace.
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