Last month I attended the latest Breathing Spaces conference, part of a series organised by the Irish Peace Centres. Here is the text of a speech I gave at the end of the event.
I would like to begin by thanking the Irish Peace Centres for organising this conference. Not only were the four main speeches both fascinating and entertaining, the round table discussions after each speech left me with a lot to think about in the coming weeks.
Most of the speakers discussed the concept of leadership in Ireland, and what leaders should do to help society cope with the challenges ahead. I feel that this is the wrong way to approach the situation. Ireland has never been short of leaders, the problems we face have been caused, to a large extent, by how people react to leaders. In short, rather than having leaders who respond to, and facilitate, the ideas and wishes of her people, Ireland has instead been burdened by command structures. We have, for too long, been accustomed to the idea that authority figures could, and even worse; should be trusted at all times.
For example, at school I was taught that when considering taking a loan from a bank the correct thing to do was to make an appointment with a local bank manager and follow his or her advice. After all, bank managers are respectable people who understand finance and protect their customers’ best interests. In the aftermath of the collapse of our financial system it is obvious how damaging such advice was. Most Irish people borrowed far too much over the past couple of decades, to support both their lifestyles and their businesses. And rather than bankers trying to put a stop to this carry on, they were in fact encouraging it. Their entire business model was based on overheating the economy dangerously.
Similarly, the problem of sexual abuse in the churches was not, in my opinion, the cause of the collapse in church attendance and religious participation, rather it was a symptom of the same problems that caused the collapse. People were told, for generations, that the place to go for moral leadership was a church, and that Churchmen could, by definition, be trusted at all times. This infantile approach to religion not only allowed the abusers within the churches to go about their evil deeds unchallenged, and not only encouraged church leaders to hide the problem in the first place and deny it afterwards, but was the very cause of the fall-off in religious participation. As long as the communication went in only one direction, from the pulpit to the pew, the churches could learn nothing about society, and were doomed to irrelevance with or without the revelations of the sins of some individuals within the institutions
Furthermore, for churches to reconnect with the people, and for Ireland to avoid losing what Dr Norman Hamilton rightly called the “rich spiritual and intellectual heritage of the churches” the faith communities must avoid falling into the trap of blaming the problem on the people who have left the fold. Calls for a return to traditional moral values can too often sound, to those outside the church like a return to the days of the flock obeying their pastor uncritically. I accept that most of the faithful do not mean to call for such a return, but unless they adapt their style of communication, their message will not be understood.
It was heartening, if surprising for me as a left wing atheist to find myself agreeing so often with Dr Martin and Dr Hamilton. This brought home to me the importance of speaking without using loaded terminology. Both men spoke of the need for people to work deliberately to build a sense of community, and overcome the excessive atomisation of society in the last two decades. I would call this “socialism”, a term which I accept will turn a lot of people off. Yet both men referred to this call in terms of “Christian values” a phrase equally distasteful to many. But all of us can achieve our shared aims if we speak in practical terms, rather than in clichéd soundbites.
And finally I would like to address the question of practicality at conferences like this. I feel there is a risk of the participants attending such events, hearing interesting ideas, and then returning to our communities with nothing more than some pleasant memories. I believe passionately that if intelligent people meet to discuss a problem then they should not part without a plan of action. For example Eleanor Gill spoke of the problem of the fuel subsidy in the Northern Ireland, which is given to all pensioners regardless of their wealth, but fails to pay for the winter heating needs of the poor. Her point seemed to resonate with the room, yet no action was taken. I would suggest that at a meeting such as Breathing Spaces people could agree to return to their communities, whether they be faith communities or otherwise, and organise to pool the fuel subsidies of the richer pensioners and share it with the poorer.
However it would be wrong of me to end with criticism. The conference was excellently organised, and all participants to whom I spoke were intelligent and active people who care deeply about improving Ireland. I salute them all.
