but we're further political change on the word cannot hold in this 3 part series on the future of northern ireland alex speaks to those who have enabled the peace process and then to members of both political communities after 4 years where northern irish politics were center stage largely because of its impact on the tape to parliament arithmetic of breaks that we're now in a position where it is breaks it which is impacting on the politics of northern ireland the decisive christmas election in the u.k. helped break the assembly deadlock which had paralyzed provinces domestic politics since 2017 and the storm an assembly was he convened within a month of pulling the british politician who had helped broker the deal was publicly funded by the prime minister and then promptly dumped from the cabinet and last month's reshuffle gillian smith held the post of northern irish secretary for a mere 204 days but he packed a great deal into his term of office and so after 3 years frozen in aspic this sam

was back in business emboldened by the success the teacher called an election in the republic only to find the trouble he got bogged down in domestic issues should fade gain credibility from being back in government in the north the subsequent electoral breakthrough means that shin fein are competing for political leadership in both the north out of the sofa violent and on a platform of seeking a border people so what do these developments mean for the future of northern ireland as will become clear the process of brics it unplayed changes taking place in arlington north and south has caused all sorts searching the new thinking among both the nationalist i'm unionists communities now back to alex in belfast. a peace process requires peace makers politicians with the imagination to leap across history but it also has to be understood today i speak to professor duncan murrell nonviolence foremost i could emic on the subject of anti bigotry and reconciliation

between communities. well professor mo welcome to examine sure thank you so much glad to be here. you are probably the most published academic in terms of reconciliation between the communities and northern ireland the need of course of you to expertise to help them to. drive in scotland what how do you get communities to stop distrusting. it's not a simple question and it goes back to so many different dimensions and i suppose actually for us it was trying to find practical ways into that right along the border so i mean everything in northern ireland is affected in some way by this division so you're talking about how to sort the police can you get the politicians to articulate can you then get schools to start to educate people in a different way how do people at local level actually stop just walking past each other but start to run things together and

a lot of our work was really just almost stepping out on to that ice trying to find the practical ways forward on an interface you know in the trade unions in the workplace in schools and it was in many ways an experiment how do you do it i mean and we found quite a lot of different answers for that in different ways you see we who you speak english well i think there's a kind of different levels of we i was in the community relations council and i was a very much involved in trying to support and develop those kind of initiative so we were actually looking for them but we were doing that i suppose on behalf of the whole community and really when you look at the number of actors if you current what politicians have had to contemplate working with people who they associated with well not too fine a point not murder campaigns. systems which they profoundly phoned and just they had to work together the police had to find a way to engage with communities who previously didn't want to know them you had schools trying to bring people together where parents were looking at them saying what are you doing you had interfaces river throwing stones then how do you cut

that down to the way he was actually very broad there's been 20 years of. of trying to find the cracks i think and leave us the space to have that dialogue i don't know yourself your father will very influential in the phone division of the column you look community but the best be in the model of the must be space is taking place in the political arena with politics between communities on lane well how do you find the space where people could harm that dialogue i actually think you're talking about the actual definition of what we mean by the peace process which is when things are really hot i have to say this place is the calm narrower and narrower and narrower they're only the small spaces i think that was their experience and carney that was hard to keep it alive in the middle of what is effectively a war is too strong but nevertheless a mass of conflict where people are or into themselves towards that i think the peace process has all been about answering that question other words we shouldn't be anywhere where we can't have a conversation so politics was

a really key arena and still remains actually one of the more complex arenas because it keeps breaking down under the stress is that you have institutions which are really important cause there carry on the law and people's sense of justice so how do you how do people coalesce around issues of what good policing looks like where that's been the thing and they use that quite often because they've got the big one another one is schools you know we have a whole lot of institutions which are either places where people learn to be adults in one way or another way so how do you use those there are community organizations but also workplaces need to learn to treat people fairly and straight and if that's not happening and people feel intimidated in the workplace so i when you talk about space what i would say is there are opportunities everywhere the question is what's actually available now and keeping that opportunistic kind of approach to these things but also i understand it's comprehensive in the end to the extent is that no . realistic to think of to try. a national straight with

a union strike is that no a totally dramatic oversimplification or does still have the kernel of truth i think you have to be careful to before you walk away too quickly. there is no doubt that things have shifted a bit particularly for some married say for under forty's who've had an experience over the last 20 years of a more open plural society longer simple they travel they are interested in social change the issues like gay marriage or abortion have taken their enthusiasm more than the constitutional issue and they actually resist being pigeonholed back into this but if you ask a question like. you know where does the border go then people start to take a view again and one of the questions we don't know is we'll take a slightly different view because it's asked by blacks than they did before is there new constellations emerging we're in the process now and that's the question

we're asking you know the don't commanded us to go a little to imagination let's say i was lost or unionist. and i was looking at the prospect of a board in the irish sea beaten. by those jobs as i would see it. and i blew fearful of the future. is the rule of of peacemakers conciliatory dialogue needless to reassure meat or is that something really i've got to do myself the process of politics i think the job that i would have in that context is where do i get or provide the context we're on see if conversations can actually happen without there being disasters and i think sometimes people think you know trying to make peace is about avoiding the issues it's not at all actually in a funny strange way it's about going head on into them but then trying to create

the context of them which i can actually face it and begin to address it with the real people i have to address it with so the question you ask where does unionist go no i think i was at a meeting last night where somebody remarked the difficulty is unionism doesn't want to have this conversation because they're frightened that if they start the conversation they'll make it real where we go we're 3 night as are and so on and there is a complex there and up but i think it may be possible to design things where if not unionism but unionists begin to explore the ice at least even to find out what it is they can and can't accept and begin to put conversations in a more complex way but politics in the end will have to deal with this because politics in the end will also shape the situation we're in because of boris johnson's decisions we are in one situation if it had been different 3 months ago we were in a different situation we have to keep changing the context but we have to keep talking about well where do you have the safe place for the real conversations not

for the avoidance but for the real thing and sailors are probably a much easier much less of a leap of the imagination and i wish nationalist politicians apparently winning the border issue in the sense that the border seems to be and you're going to be from brits. perhaps frightened that the loss of the european or the only puts at risk some of the the gun tease from the the good friday agreement so how do i get reassured that the same process for me is never exactly the same no it's not it's a different process because the fears aren't the same even though they're interconnected i would say for hours nationalism as it contemplates in real terms what a new ireland very united ireland or looked like actually at the moment is a big up there because a lot of it has been rhetoric a lot of us have been talk it's been based on a loss that happened a 100 years ago rather than a plan for what's actually real in the european context no and i think for example

some of the issues that are arising are people in the north who have lived through 40 years of conflict and 60 years before that a feeling that they were separated don't have the same experience or the same understanding of this as people who lived outside that and the irish conversation has to begin in a different way so everybody has chairs shifting here and there are bits going to have to rear or interior conversations and it is it possible for politicians of both communities to be fearful similar to mislead so it's not one is obviously losing what is obviously winning that both can actually be looking at the worst side of us and hopefully be if that's possible is it possible to be commuters look at the best side of well i think you're actually describing nearly what we're seeing at this moment which is i think you could track alienation from british politics as it is currently experienced but hasn't yet crystallized into huge

demand for a united ireland so both sides are uncertain about where this goes or and nobody really is certain. and at the other side i think politicians are nervous to give too much shape to this so a lot of this and you asked where the spaces in what the language of know is deliberative conversations separate conversations places where people began to explore this without prejudice to the political outcome because they need to narrow the ground on to what the real issues are and actually explore before politicians take a view but time may not be honest i mean things are happening these decisions about the border will happen within a year that. whatever happens we will be in a changed circumstance and 12 months time and again we have to calibrate that so i want to give you 2 simple answer is that he has a massive opportunity academics have a massive opportunity media has a massive opportunity to begin to explore these things politicians will need to

prepare themselves but we'll have to keep calibrating it to reality and one last question in this when you speak to said group of. not just young people the people under the age of 30 youngish let's call them. you know what are you talking there are many other priorities that society should be looking at the the divides and is that because the they have lived through the troubles or is it because just society is opening up and changing as so many ways and people more learned of having the same influences as elsewhere well i think again it's complicated answers but there are some young people who are still stuck i suppose if that's the right word but still caught in the old stuff and some of there is you admit that but many young people as you say climate change is the issue or the issue is what do we do about relationships when generally even is being discussed all of these

conversations are our life there may be at some level kind of resentment for some of the young people this conversation. coming back on the good friday agreement was meant in some ways to put the old stuff to bed to allow that to flourish brax that's something which hasn't really been driven from the on on it's been driven from outside so there are young people i think her trying to adjust themselves to the fact that a conversation on the table that isn't their conversation but maybe also they'll bring something into their brain solution which says we're not looking for that all types of action for looking to use this is an opportunity to reconfigure what we do and they may have a decisive influence. a

fairly superficial course look at all the little track and there was a news new york at the sun shining star well you should see a cheerful yes thank you feeling i mean it's these football for the 2 of them not only do it is need for bush but i will push for the sugar i mean you know. you're going to see. welcome back i'm speaking to professor duncan model nor my once foremost academic

on the subject of reconciliation between communities. new rules a reconciler let's let's let's call you the. needler. do you sometimes when you're seeing the political to be in the north of ireland. let's not do a names of politicians but do you you see supporters are saying something or doing something or making a list of you say. you have the right on the mark regardless of which passed the or which community do you do you see sometimes the spark or something that you have been waiting to to hear or is the political dialogue still trapped and old slogans i think everybody would say we have seen some really quite remarkable things here you know even those very early images of evolution there are all kinds of americans against the backdrop here these are people saying look our whole brothers not just martin mcguinness brothers. in paisley together i mean

who could ever have predicted that from where we were 20 years before that nobody. when. a young constable was killed in. by a distant group. in about 10 years ago peter robinson went to the service and the g.a.a. carried the coffin of the young policeman those were both symbols to me of how that could happen before ga were whether people here are they are rich cultural association who are long associated with irish nasser's i'm very critical of the police but because one of their members was a new policeman they carried the coffin the 1st minister who by his religious convictions normally wouldn't go into a catholic church went to the funeral may seem like small things but symbolically they were very important for a northerner and i don't think we can quite go back from they're going to do something that mainly people would see when they visited. and in the past they

would come back with a hugely positive impression. of the friend of us that gave us nature of the open heartedness of the people and see if you will how a man can have what i experience be reconciled with the violence that we're seeing in these days on the television screens. a lesson that any society regardless of how friendly and open hearted can descend into into the pit of the abyss oh certainly it is and in some ways you know it the humor is driven by the fact that that's how you cope you know you have to turn it into a joke or the warmth is in some way because people know that matters in the context of a conflict i don't know think of myself as a reconciler in the sense of any of it is think that i think about my interest is where do we get the spaces where those 2 things come together where we can use

people human recognition of each other but actually in this space are prepared to begin to look at what the problems actually are their emotional relationship to them what changes might be possible and that's the trick. question or force one of the 2 societies probably could be close a little on god self scotland and northern ireland blunder for blood borne of a board in the hopes. scotland a serious sectarian problem you provided an invaluable help to the station i led but the success of scottish scottish government's but scottish cited despite see this clearly a difficulty doubled to say that in the sort of violence that we saw in northern ireland i'm interested to get any insight into why scotland pulled back from that period and bring we'll have more on. the senate into the troubles any particular clues in the us with

a couple of thanks i mean obviously sectarianism never defined scotland's political discussion in the same. i mean here the issue of sectarianism can never be fabricated from issues of where does the border go and nationalism of control over politics i don't scotland think terrorism was a significant issue in communities it certainly shape people's experience of immigration it the economy at times was affected by us you have institutions which reflect some of that story and some places of course are the reality is that once the violence starts. you have more groans for resentment then she ever had and in scotland thankfully never in general parts of instant escalated up to that point which was that people had an actual experience that they were under threat in their house or under threat when they were in the street or they wore the wrong color it was an exceptional instant when that happened here i'm afraid it's got a pattern and it has organization and of has a symbol and

a political cause on all sides and that means that it's quite hard to switch off because you can go down the street very quickly and meet people who say sectarianism isn't a theory for me that's what happened to made out it's what happened to my family it's what the reason i can't do this or that and i think in scotland luckily it never quite took. the kind of cancerous form of the disease it is but still it is ease but it hasn't actually quite eaten into the structure and same with if we take a quick. history would have been periods analysis to $1797.00 for example early elated irishman related presbyterians in the north of viable catholics in the in the so for violently save west of our. and then the national question was the oppose wasn't seen as a religious divide the top some of the great figures of irish muscles have been protestants charles to apollo for example as

a protestant what how did the religion become the defining feature of the of the political course where you're absolutely right of course it's a complicated matter there are different phases and forms of this religion and politics mix in different ways and i don't clear the irish politics which is separate from the other places too because every orangeman would also agree that they are involved in a certain form of irish politics. nevertheless you know the long history of britain was a state which was defending a kind of a protestant settlement against catholic powers for a long time that created serious local problems and serious issues in ireland and that has lasted modernized in the 19th century so that unionism and nationalism became especially you became a defense of a certain kind of idea of liberty and freedom and i think that once violence as i said you get into that story people aren't then discussing ideas any more they're

defending themselves against their enemies and once that happens it's not just a question of do i agree with you it's kind of 11th you want that kind of leverage you we have then got a lot of work to get through because it's you know i may even be able to say i can see the value of a united ireland that's be one possible idea. i don't trust you running that's why i'm against it or the other way around i don't find the united kingdom that i'm comfortable but you know something what you did to my family makes it impossible for me to reconcile so we have both a story of different ideas competing but we also have people who are trying to work through what was there for them can get easily picked up in a time of fragility or fear and that always has been our history you mentioned a couple of memorable moments of reconciliation the death of the young policeman and who gathered to feel the brevity of paisley

a must mcgillis together those 1st minister deputy 1st minister of oil and so were you a very close you could look to in the future really gathering for you but look at the not the work is finished but i can see the the sunlight through the clothes. if you're talking a kind of big television event of course you know there removal of the walls in belfast would be. a dramatic moment we still have peace walls between communities here which are still there because the population still feel that if the can down the risk so the removal of those not because some group has left but because they actually want to work through it's obviously always dramatic moment i think as the immigration debate is going on we're one of the places where immigration might actually be a very good thing for us because it would take us out of the local kind of obsession and give us an opportunity to put our history into context that we're part of a wider globe and so sometimes actually the people who have brought the biggest

change have been unexpected people people who've come here from and since the peace process one of the biggest changes was their arrival of people rather than the departure of people from northern ireland and that would be a great symbol you know if you look at the changes that happened in ireland south of the border in the last 30 years i mean island has almost reimagines itself as a country where people might not just leave and sings that song as it were the departure but actually be a place where people will want to come or return to that they've come away from and then change the way in which it operates and i suppose if we could participate and i'm not particularly hung up on where the constitutional border lies but i would say to you if we in the north could begin to participate in that kind of experience that we have rejoined there were other there just obsessed by our piece was that would be a big change and of course the public could no longer be described as a theocratic state clearly sensible sensible ups the the irish state has been

transformed substantially the british state recently i think are and has gone through a huge changes and the changes are to do with. economic success but they're also to do with a feeling that under this for europe in important for them within europe i think for our land it was no longer an obsessional relationship with. history and with england it became a baker story and they were able to kind of talk differently and i think one of the consequence of that was lots of people came back most of new people arrived the political conversation began to change and so the theocratic issue has begun to change so in the last 2 years arland has not just changed the law on emotive moral issues like abortion or gay marriage it has done so by the. that wasn't done by an elite deciding this was time to happen that was done by popular

vote and that's actually i think almost unique across the globe so it does show that change is possible and that under certain circumstances things begin to move and things which were thought of as impossible or very unlikely. even 20 years ago have no happened and finally the 1st model is the european issue. still got somewhere to run in terms of its impact on the north of ireland not post much snow and will be the customs border is going to be look at because that whoops life is going to be the sea thank you more of the you have been a shoo in terms of affecting the mind of the of the people is that some impact still to be felt i think the european issue will run probably for project. you will know as well as i do that the consequences for the constitution of the u.k. are absolutely unsettled so if things happen in scotland they're not sure that that

will be unnoticed here in fact i'm absolutely sure it will have massive consequences the way and way we relate to the rest there were maybe defined by where the border goes and how the border operates. and so i don't want to be too protective because actually i'm not even sure where precisely we are going but i am 100 percent sure that we're still going to be wrestling with the consequences of this conversation for quite a long time as a model thank you very much r m o in the interests of celtic unity i'm going to present you were for a quick score skellig the one stipulation i would have for passing know your friends is only scottish another side of stuff. see if echo corridor of thank you very much. professor duncan morrow is an example of a rare but important breed one of those who have worked to transcend political and community differences and enable the peace 30 years of troubles have been followed

by 20 years of peace and that sometimes fragile but always precious state has held despite a variety of political pressures over the last 2 decades none of these has been will challenge saying that breaks it which has provoked uncertainty in both communities unionists because of the proposed border in the irish sea and nationalists because of the fear of losing the european union guarantor to the good friday agreement in the next issues will listen to the views of unionist and nationalist politicians and to community activists and indicate both new thinking ideas cesspit taking place across both communities to find a way forward for all of the people of northern ireland thank you and.

the washington consensus led by the united states says the liberal world order must be defended at almost all costs said differently the foreign policy blog demands the post cold war you know polar moment be preserved but alas it would seem a multiple of world has already arrived. at.

the headlines this new hospital coronavirus patients is being built on the outskirts of moscow has brought russia brings in strict measures to stop the virus and that made phase of the pandemic our correspondent checks out the situation in the most cases. turn out to a particularly sensitive subject lately toilet paper well. any type of budget any type of skin this clearly enough for everyone in the u.s. several states nine's they are spending primaries to contain the spread of correct virus but the democratic national committee does warn of penalties and in this in the u.k. this claim that she was racially abused on her way to work.