Janna
King
April
2006
Comparative
Politics
Religious
and Political Cleavages in Northern
Ireland
The conflicts in Northern Ireland
have been about political power (class, land ownership, privilege, religion,
and ethnic differences) and all of this creates a divided populace, which
weakens its national identity. I will
support this argument by first examining the historical events that led to the
conflicts, and then looking at what is being done today. In the 17th century, Northern Ireland, which was Roman Catholic at
the time, was colonized by Protestant settlers from England
and Scotland. This has created problems that last to this
day. The
religious and political cleavages in Northern Ireland create a divided
public, which weakens the country’s national identity and cohesiveness, and in
turn has resulted in violence and war.
Historically,
Catholic Ireland was ruled by Great
Britain from the twelfth century to
1920. In the early 1600’s, hundreds of
thousands of Protestant settlers were offered land to move from England and Scotland
to Ireland. During that time, there were numerous
revolts. There was a lot of mistrust,
anger, and resentment as a result of the colonization of Ireland by Protestant
settlers. After the victory of William
of Orange on July 12, 1690, the Protestant Parliament of Ireland enacted laws
barring Catholics from all offices, land ownership, and schooling.
Centuries of
political and religious battles over whether Ireland
should remain part of Britain
culminated in the Easter Rising on April 24, 1916 when Irish rebels seized
buildings in Dublin,
notably the general post office. About 20,000 British soldiers entered the city
and fired on the rebels. The fighting lasted for five days and the rebels were
forced to surrender. Seventy were sentenced to death and fifteen were executed
(Special Report: Northern
Ireland: a Brief History of the Troubles,
n.d., n.p.). This violence and rebellion
forced Britain to offer Ireland
some “Home Rule,” a limited form of self-government. The Catholics, led by political party Sinn
Féin, wanted only full independence from Britain, while Protestant unionists
feared being ruled by a Catholic majority.
Protestants threatened the secession of Northern
Ireland from Great Britain
into a sovereign state if Britain
didn’t back away from plans to give Ireland Home Rule. The result was a compromise. In 1921, Britain
made southern Ireland
a dominion. The link with Great Britain ended when Ireland
became a republic in 1949. Northern Ireland,
however, has remained a political part of the United Kingdom.
In
1968, civil rights protests by Catholics sparked violent conflicts with
Protestants and led to the occupation of Northern Ireland by British troops
in the early 1970s. The Irish Republican
Army (IRA) mounted a campaign of violence in an effort to force the withdrawal
of British troops and gain Northern Ireland's reunification with Ireland. The Troubles, as they are
called, were caused by escalating incidents between Catholics and Protestants
and included robberies, bombings, assassinations, and terrorism. In Northern Ireland, over 3,500 people
died and over 35,000 were injured between 1968 and 1994 as a result of the
fighting. These conditions decreased
people’s sense of security and freedom was sacrificed in the name of
safety. Nearly 2,000 people were
interned or arrested and held without trial in order to prevent further attacks
on British troops. (Special Report: Northern Ireland:
a Brief History of the Troubles, n.d., n.p.).
On August 9, 1971,
violent protests followed and 17 were killed. On January 30, 1972, British
soldiers shot dead 13 men and injured 14 others during a civil rights march in Derry against internment on what became known as Bloody Sunday.
This increased support for the IRA even more.
In 1972, Northern Ireland's constitution and
parliament were suspended, bringing the province under direct rule by the
British.
In
September 1997, representatives from the United
Kingdom, Northern Ireland,
and the United States were
joined for peace talks in Belfast
by Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, and David
Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist party. On April 10, 1998, the
participants announced that they had settled upon a treaty designed to bring
about lasting peace. Named
after the day it fell on, the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast
Agreement, initiated an assigned administration
in Northern Ireland
and provided the framework for developing a pluralistic society. It called for the creation
of an elected assembly and an executive committee that included both unionists
and nationalists. The agreement was ratified on May 22, 1998, marking the first
all-Ireland election since 1918.
The
election results showed that 94 percent of voters in Ireland
and 71 percent in Northern
Ireland approved the peace treaty (Ireland,
Northern, 2006, p. 6). Political
attitudes have been polarized even more since the GFA. Rather than taking a middle ground in
politics, people are more likely to pick one side or the other, the “Protestant
side” or the “Catholic side” because it directly relates to their
identities. Nonetheless, the GFA is
usually seen as a positive development, bringing peace, economic growth, and
progress. It has led to a higher voter
turnout because it encourages a stronger group loyalty and identity. Of course, these are two separate loyalties
rather than just one national identity.
A huge problem for Northern
Ireland is that it does not have one strong
national identity so there is little patriotism and teamwork to sustain the
government and economy.
As
part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland is subject to British rule and
elects 18 members of Parliament to the House of Commons in London.
As a result of the GFA, a new
coalition government was formed on December 2, 1999, with the British
government formally transferring governing power to the Northern Irish
Parliament. David Trimble, Protestant leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)
and winner of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize, became first minister. The government
has been suspended four times since then; it has remained suspended since
October 14, 2002.
For
regional matters, it has had limited self-government since 1999. The Northern Ireland
Assembly, a 108-member body, was mandated by the GFA. The assembly meets in Belfast, where it has authority to make laws and
decisions regarding domestic issues such as agriculture, education, employment,
social services, and trade. Matters such
as security and policing, justice, international relations, and taxation are
handled by the office of the Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland, a post under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.
To lead the executive committee, the Northern Ireland
Assembly elects a first minister, who is usually the leader of whichever
political party holds a majority of seats in the assembly. In addition, the
members elect 11 other ministers to the committee to head Northern Ireland's various
departments.
About
60 percent of the people of Northern
Ireland are descended from Scottish and
English settlers, many of whose ancestors immigrated as far back as the 17th
century, and most of whom are Protestant. Most of the rest of the population,
making up roughly 40 percent, consists of people who are ethnically Irish and
who are Roman Catholics. The two main areas of
inequities between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland are the level of
employment and type of employment.
Catholics generally tend to be represented in the lower-end of the job
market, with unskilled and lower-paying jobs, like clothing manufacturing and
textiles. Protestants tend to have the
higher-paying skilled jobs, such as shipbuilding and engineering. In the late 1960’s, groups of Catholics and
liberal Protestants formed the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
(NICRA). NICRA set out to address
inequities and to decrease the political and economic disparity between
Catholics and Protestants.
The Catholic and
Protestant communities are largely geographically separate and segregated from
each other. The
physical segregation of the two communities developed partly from a fear of
violence, separate schooling conducted by religious denomination, and families
living close to each other. As a result
of this physical separation, there is often a lack
of daily contact between Catholics and Protestants that has deepened the
distrust between them. Many Protestants
fear a cultural extinction if they are forced into a union with the Republic of Ireland.
They are also afraid of losing their advantages, their position and
power within society. This affects the
government and economy because it creates a wider gap between classes, and
those classes are often segregated by religion and cultural background.
Ideas of identity
and difference are shaped by perceptions of cultural and structural power
(Mitchell, 2003, p. 3). Britain is
becoming increasingly secular, pluralist, inclusive, and multicultural. Understanding the British identity is
difficult for the Scots and Welsh, as well as the Northern Irish, because it
includes different and separate cultures.
In addition, what it means to be British, the qualities and values, are
not laid out plainly. This makes it hard
for there to be a strong sense of patriotism through Great Britain. The increase in travel throughout the United Kingdom
affects British identity as well. For
example, often people from Northern Ireland
consider themselves British, then travel to England
or Scotland
and identify more with being Irish (Mitchell, 2003, p. 8). In the 2001 census, 46 percent of Northern Ireland
was Protestant. Of those Protestants, 75
percent considered themselves unionists while less than one percent said they
were nationalists. Again, 75 percent of
Protestants in Northern Ireland see themselves as British with less than two
percent identifying themselves as Irish.
(Mitchell, 2003, p.6). There is
not even an official flag for Northern
Ireland anymore. The old flag, called “The Red Hand Flag of Ulster,” was too much associated with the
unionists, so now the common flag
for Northern Ireland
is just use the Union Jack, the British flag.
Some Catholics also use the Irish tricolor flag to represent
themselves. Again, this shows the
dichotomy of Northern Irish society.
Protestants in Northern Ireland are becoming more liberal;
however, there is more residential segregation than ever in Belfast and young people have less contact
with those in the other community than before.
There is mutual harmful stereotyping of the two religious
communities. Protestants consider Catholics
dirty, lazy, superstitious, and fatalistic (Townshend, 2004, n.p.). In America, we acknowledge the
differences between Catholics and Protestants but still think of them as
members of the same religious family, Christianity. Northern Ireland views the two
groups as completely unalike and in opposition.
Protestants and Catholics hold different beliefs, views, and
perspectives from each other. Religion
is significant and greatly connected to economy, politics, culture, history,
and more. In Northern
Ireland, only four percent of the population says they
identify with no religion, which is significantly lower than the rest of Britain
(McAllister, 2000, n.p.).
In the United States,
there is a balance of individualism and community. Most people ultimately put themselves first,
but there is also a strong connection between people as a community, and there
is strong patriotism. However, in
Northern Ireland Catholic society (as well as Republic of Ireland
society), there is no such balance; the greater good of the community is always
more important than any one individual.
Individual egos are intolerable and the community is always superior and
has the final word.
This partly explains why political dissent is less common among
Catholics in Northern
Ireland.
Dissenters draw attention to themselves and set themselves apart from
their community. Only after a person
dies can they be held as a model for the community. In contrast, Protestants are raised to think
of themselves as individuals first and foremost. Also, in Catholic parishes you will hear
themes of justice, both economical and social.
However, the most common theme in Protestant churches is liberty,
including freedom of conscience and action.
(McAllister, 2000, n.p.). This
shows how Catholics in society might be more apt to seek justice from the wrongs
that were done to them, while Protestants may be more determined that they have
the freedom to act as they wish. This
leads to a conflicted national identity.
In the summer of
2005, Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA, ordered its members to destroy
their weapons and not engage in any sort of violence anymore. Independent monitors say the IRA has kept its
word. Now the Democratic Unionists (the
Protestant party) must finally acknowledge Sinn Fein's political legitimacy.
For Sinn Fein (the Catholic party), it means helping that process along by
getting the IRA to give up criminal violence.
In general, life
in Northern Ireland
seems to have changed for the better since the GFA in 1998. The terrorism that took so many lives and
stifled economic development has slowed down, and is less rampant, confined
more to fringe extremist groups. The
police force that was once distrusted and anti-Catholic is now reformed. However, one promise of the GFA has not come
true. According to an editorial in the New
York Times (Completing an Irish Peace, 2006, n.p.), “The power-sharing assembly
and cabinet that were intended to be the main vehicles of Northern Irish
self-government have lain dormant, their operations repeatedly suspended by
British governments that feared that distrustful Protestant parties would
refuse to share power with Sinn Fein.” Northern Ireland still does not have a
completely self-autonomous government, and never will until Britain loosens its grip and lets Northern Ireland
control its own politics.
The conflict in Northern Ireland is a result of England
colonizing the country and then treating its natives as second-class citizens,
keeping them separate from the colonizers.
This created two opposing cultures and caused a deep hatred between
them, resulting in war. Government in Northern Ireland
has suffered because of this. Northern Ireland
needs to unite to form a national identity that all its citizens can take pride
in. It is only then that it can begin to
become a stable, successful country in its own right.
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