Thought can transport you to any moment in time in an instant. It is the fastest method of travel that I can imagine. Last night, my mind jumped around in time, from 1994 to 1998 to 2015 and back again. Then I rested on the following.
If you were born in 1998, as some of my current students are, in 2016 they will all come of age and become part of the movers and shakers of the next generation. Northern Ireland will have progressed eighteen years from ’98 and twenty-two from ’94. In 1993-94, Hume and Mallon each carried a note of significance in their pocket, a note that was part of the background to the ceasefire of that year. Molyneaux was talking of ‘quarantines.’ I was studying the history of the Cold War and was amongst those questioning Mallon about what exactly he had in his pocket, amongst the throng of calls in QUB’s Student Union, ‘Show us the Paper!’ Mallon replied, ‘I cannot show you the document.’ We were a typically polite group. The rest is, quite literally, an established part of the historical record. An initial IRA Ceasefire followed and a process that led, via many twists and turns, to 1998 and the furores and debates that surrounded the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement. While my thought can take me in an instant to these pivotal moments, Northern Ireland has now moved a full generation forward.
What destination is my generation leading Northern Ireland to? What legacy are we bequeathing? What future are we bestowing on those who follow? It really concerns me that every single step towards transformation, reconciliation and resolution has been, at times, ‘purposefully’ slow. Even Dr Paisley noted, before his death, that we could never return to what was again. I fully note that the forward dynamic has to be immensely sensitive to all those who were irrevocably and irreparably damaged by the past. Bearing this in mind, those who lead must ‘grasp the nettle’ and plot an agreed forward course.
In 2023, the ‘Good Friday Babies,’ will be considering starting families of their own. What will be different? While we all acknowledge the amazing work that has been done thus far, in politics and in education, there is a long or short road to traverse, depending on the speed of your thought process.