25 years of Good Friday agreement

When then British Prime Minister Tony Blair signed the Good Friday agreement with then Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, on April 10, 1998 to end a quarter-century of violence, distrust and hostility between Catholics and Protestants, the success of the peace deal depended on the cooperation of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the armed wing of the Sinn Fein, the Catholic party, led at the time by Gerry Adams. And it was said that Blair did not dare shake hands with Adams in public because of the violence that scarred Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s. The Protestants, who formed the majority in Northern Ireland, and who wanted to remain with Britain, had to accept the difficult part of allowing consultations with Ireland, with its Catholic majority. The man who worked behind the scenes for nearly two years was the American senator, George Mitchell, who was appointed by then US President Bill Clinton to work out the peace deal.

The Catholic-Protestant divide has not fully disappeared, but the violence and hatred has in the last quarter century. Both sides are more focused on economic well-being, and the Good Friday agreement, with its open borders with Ireland and Britain, has made peace a reality. When trouble broke out in the late 1960s and simmered and exploded in the 1970s and 1980s, including an attempt to assassinate then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and the fast-unto-death of the IRA prisoners in the Maze prison, it seemed that peace would never come to Northern Ireland. But peace was worked out, and more importantly peace has worked, and it has benefited both the Catholics and the Protestants in Northern Ireland.

At the time of the 1998 agreement, the Catholics were in a minority in Northern Ireland and the Protestants were in a majority. But today, Catholics are in a majority, and the Protestants a minority. But the numbers do not seem to cause any anxiety on either side as it would have at an earlier time. Media reports seem to suggest that young Catholics and Protestants mix with each other and their sectarian identity and its troublesome history does not seem to come in the way. Though the Catholics are in a majority in Northern Ireland, they are not insisting that Northern Ireland should be reunited with Ireland. They seem to accept the historical fact that Northern Ireland is a Protestant, British enclave.

What is of great concern in Northern Ireland and in Britain is the status of Northern Ireland in the wake of Britain’s exit from the European Union. Ireland is part of the EU, and Northern Ireland cannot remain a place with special economic status, with its open trade borders with Ireland and Britain. British policy-makers are working hard to get at a reasonable solution. The fact that economic status has become the top issue on the agenda in this former hotbed of Catholic-Protestant rivalry shows how much things have changed.

It would be necessary to consider whether the Good Friday agreement can serve as a model of peace in other conflict situations like Israel-Palestine. Both Palestinians and Israelis are likely to argue that there is nothing common between the Catholic-Protestant troubles of Northern Ireland and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And they would be right in saying so. What is of relevance is whether despite irreconcilable viewpoints, is it possible to make a peace deal and make it work too? The Oslo Accords of 1994, which predate the Good Friday agreement of 1998, do provide a framework for peace and co-existence. But Israel, because it is overwhelming military power, has consistently refused to implement the Oslo Accords. In the Good Friday agreement, both sides, Catholics and Protestants, made the peace deal workable. This is a lesson for Israel, and its prime supporter, the United States, to consider.