Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 562-579)

MR TREVOR RINGLAND AND DR CHRIS GIBSON OBE

22 FEBRUARY 2005

  Q562 Chairman: Thank you very much for coming to help us. Perhaps we can start with a simple question which may be a very complex one. What is the main objective of the One Small Step Campaign?

  Mr Ringland: The main objective is to try and promote a shared future in Northern Ireland, not one where we end up working against each other but one where we end up working together for our mutual benefit, saying to people that it really is up to each and every one of us to play our role in trying to create this and take personal responsibility in our own lives to try to do something, no matter how small it is, to reach out and build a relationship or contribute in some way towards that objective of building a shared future. It is also about challenging our leaders and saying, "It is for you to lead us to that shared future that we all want". If we are going to do anything that would be a tribute to the past and the tragedy and suffering here, it is to try and ensure that it does not happen again. It is also about highlighting a large group of people. On Monday morning you may wake up to the radio in Belfast and listen to Radio Ulster and hear about one petrol bomb that went through one window in Northern Ireland. What you do not hear is that over the weekend thousands of people were involved in mixing socially in church, in sport, or in many other different ways, so it is also about highlighting an awful lot of work that goes on here that is not recognised and seen for what it is but is giving people an opportunity for saying that these things are happening. It is up to each one of us also to start contributing to that. If everybody takes one small step it can make a difference. Part of one of the steps was something that we helped to organised at May Street Presbyterian Church which you may have been made aware of. It really came out of a conversation where, as the Chairman of One Small Step, I was invited to a Gaelic Association dinner in Ballycastle. It was their centenary dinner. I am from a Unionist background but also a sporting background, so I was invited to it and I went to it and I ended up sitting beside a person called Harry Boyle, who was one of the photographers there. I was talking to Harry and his family. It was a very good evening. Harry told me the story as I sat beside him where he said that his brother had been killed during the Troubles, so I pressed him a bit further. What happened was that Harry was 16 at the time and his elder brother, as you have perhaps seen from the documentation, had found a cache of weapons in a cemetery in Dunloy. He had told his father. His father had then told the police and the police had then told the army and the army had then staked it out. Harry's brother, like any young fellow, had gone back to have another look at the weapons and in doing that the army shot him. Harry was 16. He had just lost his elder brother. As Harry then went on, he told me how it had affected him and the fact that a lot of people then started to work away at him. In many ways people were saying to him, "Harry, we can help you do something about this". He said he hated Unionists, he hated Protestants, he hated the police, he hated the army and this hatred was building up. His father recognised this and very wisely grabbed him before he did anything too serious and sent him off to the United States. Harry went to the United States, initially for two months but stayed for eighteen months. It broke the cycle. Otherwise Harry could well have been another statistic in Northern Ireland. I just thought it was a very important story. May Street Presbyterian Church had been trying to get involved in various work in the community and the opportunity arose whereby they were interested in putting something together as a church where they worked with other churches that they already had links with on a cross-community basis and a cross-religion basis. We put a night together when people came and told their stories to an audience that was receptive to them doing that. It was not about somebody telling the truth; it was just a person telling their story and their version of the truth. We had, I think, two of the most important stories of the Troubles there. One was Harry's and the other was Alan McBride who lost his wife in the Shankill bomb. Alan, as you may or may not know, said, "I do not to detract from the actions of the people who committed that act but what I also blame was the current sectarian society that created their mindsets". Chris was there that night as well and it brought home to me the importance of people getting the opportunity to tell stories. Harry had never told his story before and it was important to him that people had heard that story about his hurt and his loss, but at the same time everyone was learning from Harry telling that story and we were all a lot wiser after that event. There was also Michael McGoldrick whose son was shot dead by Loyalists who told his story with grace and set an example to us all. There was a very moving story by Sean Hughes, a policeman, who was shot in 1970, spent three years in a coma and is still extremely disabled and was just about able to tell his story. He spent another two years coming out of the coma and is still in the home where he has been since 1970 but yet told his story without any bitterness. Sir Kenneth Bloomfield was there that night as well. It brought out a lot of emotions in others.

  Dr Gibson: I would echo what Trevor has said. We live our lives through conversation. We are having one this morning, although it is a bit one-sided.

  Q563 Chairman: No; we have come to listen.

  Dr Gibson: Listening is part of that, is it not? We have seen it in action as Trevor has very eloquently described. If people hear others' stories it is one of the ways of alleviating their own pain but it also enlightens the listener who may not have seen it from that angle at all. It is part of the process of reconciliation that will need to take place after the conflict that has been and—I was about to say gone but has not; it is still very much apparent. We need means of communication to try to lower that. Conversation and story telling are very Irish things. We believe that story telling is one of the ways of doing that. I might just reflect back to the commencement of One Small Step. Story telling is only one part of that. The people who sat round the dinner table one night talked about what we might do as individuals. It is an individualistic exercise, each person in this place needs to take their own step based upon their own experiences to try and bridge the gap, but they cannot do that alone. Each of us was Chairman of an organisation. I happen to be Chairman of the Civic Forum which is currently in suspension but at that stage it was alive and active and that was one of the objectives of the Civic Forum, to try to create safe space, to have those discussions albeit, for only too short a period. The idea of having a space in which those discussions could take place was important. Each of us as Chairs of the Sports Council, the Arts Council, the various voluntary organisations, were the people around that table that night, and said, "We could get that to happen in our organisations and if we all did this through a network the impact on individuals would be quite wide and it would create an atmosphere of dialogue and discussion and if we could do that between people who maybe have not even thought of talking to each other, never mind meeting each other and having a serious discussion about real issues which impact upon each of them and which are not considered to be safe to have, then that would be a good thing to do". That was 18 months to two years ago. That of course has developed into the movement. It is not an organisation; it is a movement of individuals. There is a media campaign which is currently running, costing some £120,000. It will run for a month and will encourage people through the medium of television and posters to think about this at an individual level to take their own step.

  Q564 Chairman: Who has funded that?

  Dr Gibson: We have collected £120,000 together as a group. It has been done through the Community Relations Council although we collected the money and we are doing it with their assistance.

  Q565 Chairman: Have you had any government money?

  Dr Gibson: We have, yes. We have been to see the Secretary of State and he has generously supported us. He told us we could not do it all with government money, that we needed self-help too.

  Q566 Mark Tami: You have talked about story telling and the importance of that, but that is very much dealing with the past. How do you think it is important to encourage people to focus on the future and, if so, what can you do to help or encourage that?

  Dr Gibson: Taking One Small Step is about taking it towards the future. Why would you do that? Because, as Trevor said, it is about a shared future. That is the only future to be seen in Northern Ireland, I believe. If we live as two tribes, or maybe even more than that because other people are coming to join us now from outside and we have got a racist issue now to deal with as well, then this is not going to be a happy, profitable or pleasant place to live in. It is about a shared future.

  Q567 Mark Tami: People will also have a different view of the past.

  Dr Gibson: Absolutely.

  Q568 Mark Tami: How do you try to counter that?

  Mr Ringland: You do not adopt the ostrich approach to it. There is an awful lot of tragedy out there, an awful lot of hurt, and so you have to deal with it. Some people in particular need an opportunity to at least express to others what they have suffered. That can be done in a number of ways but story telling is a very simple way and it is a way of telling their story to a receptive audience and also getting the opportunity to listen to others. There are people who are victims and who are held back by their past but there are other people who are driven forward by that past towards that shared community. Which are you going to have as the driving force? Is it those who are held back or those who are trying to say, "We need to build a better future". If you listened to Alan McBride, if you listen to Harry Boyle, if you listen to Michael McGoldrick and if you even listen to Sean Hughes, what they are trying to say is, "This is what happened to us but we want to build a better future". When you listen to Donna McGillian, who was at the launch of One Small Step, she sustained serious injury in the Omagh bomb. You might remember her. She is badly scarred and her husband Gary was very badly injured as well. Donna describes herself as a survivor, not a victim. There is an awful lot of hurt out there and people will find their own level of how they deal with it. Some people might take time to come to that and some people might not want to deal with it. You are not asking them to get involved in reconciliation. You are not saying, "You have to sign up to reconciliation".

  Q569 Mark Tami: Should reconciliation be victim centred?

  Dr Gibson: No. A lot of things need reconciling here other than about victims. Victimhood is a badge that people wear and it is a terribly comfortable badge to wear. That we have to get across, that that dialogue needs to take place where people feel that they are fitting in. I can see that happening to the people that Trevor spoke about. They were able to tell their story and there were people in the audience who went up to them afterwards who would not otherwise have done it and that surely is building the future. What would scare me rigid, and I can say this with a lawyer sitting beside me, would be to have a legalistic, forum-based set piece drama that people could come in and out of and grandstand it. That is not reconciliation. Quiet conversations between people who can open up and say what they really think in their innermost selves—

  Q570 Mark Tami: So you would not see a formal structure?

  Dr Gibson: No, but that is a personal view.

  Q571 Chairman: Would you share that, Mr Ringland?

  Mr Ringland: Yes, I would not advise to a formal structure but what I would agree to is a template where you set down certain criteria that have to be met in any meetings that take place, that there has to be a cross-community element to it in the meetings.

  Q572 Mark Tami: Would that process not just be based on those who have suffered or the perpetrators but on the whole of Northern Ireland society? Would you see it as wide as that?

  Mr Ringland: I think you set up the template and you create a number of situations where examples of it are given and then I think it will find its own life to some extent.

  Dr Gibson: Sectarianism is just as objectionable whether it is somebody with a bottle in their hand standing in the road fighting a neighbour or even the next street or somebody in a polite drawing room up the Malone Road, which is the classy bit. We need to create a dialogue in all those circumstances where people start to say, "Do I really need that? Is that a good way to go forward?". I take your point: it is about a going forward position, not a going backwards position. I come from a business background and you could never exist, never mind make money, if you were always thinking about the past.

  Q573 Chairman: A number of people have said to us during the course of this inquiry that there would be no point in having even informal groups if all of the perpetrators did not take part, which means all the paramilitaries and, some would say, also the organs of the British state. Do you have a view about that?

  Mr Ringland: I doubt if you will ever be able to create a structure whereby you will get everybody to come together and tell the truth. It will never happen. I think that is why you have to look at what it is people want and find some way where people can say to others what has happened to them and them tell the story. One of the problems is that there are a number of high profile inquiries and there is a feeling out there by an awful lot of other people that what happened to them has been ignored. It is as important as the high profile inquiries but there is a lack of attention there. To a lawyer truth is a very difficult concept. Justice is something that is down to evidence and even then it can be a very difficult concept. Reconciliation is something for the individual. I cannot say to somebody, "You should reconcile yourself with your neighbour who has done something terrible to you". It is for them to find it in themselves. You will never get an inclusive inquiry which involves everybody. There are those who will try and ensure that it does not happen. They might say they want it to happen but the last thing they want is a forum in any shape or form. If we want to try and ensure that we do not repeat the last 30 years we also have to learn from the past. One of the problems we have now is that our children do not understand what went on in the past and they do not have a way of getting that information. You can see warning signs starting to appear where we are in danger of repeating the past, which is very sad.

  Q574 Mr Luke: Thank you for explaining the circumstances surrounding the May Street event. Are you intending to repeat that? The Scots, like the Irish, are great story tellers. At the end of the day some people expect instant healing out of story telling and you do not always get that. What steps do you think we should take next?

  Mr Ringland: Are we going to repeat it? As a group we are not going to repeat it because that is not what we are about. We are looking for and encouraging others to repeat it in their own environment, and there are a number of groups who are doing that and have been doing it in the past.

  Q575 Mr Luke: Obviously, we have a big inquiry on which we will not get through before the general election. We are looking at the whole issue of peace and reconciliation and we have only got a short time to go on with this but we really want to know what other steps you think would be the initial stages along that road.

  Mr Ringland: A lot of work has already been done on this, whether it be elsewhere or her, as to how best to create a story telling forum. The key thing to all of that work is that you make it happen. We can put it out to consultation, we can draw up all sorts of proposals but the key thing is that the template is already there. It has been worked on by a lot of people but what it needs is for somebody to say, "This has to happen". That could be done very quickly. It could be done using a relatively small number of people to fine-tune it and make sure it is effective, and it can then be put out in its package and launched as something which people can take up and use in their own particular circumstances, whether it be in churches or in community groups or whatever. The key thing is that if somebody says, "Yes, let us do this, let us draw it up", it can be very quickly done by a relatively small group of people which is probably the best way to do it. It does not need to go out to consultation because it has all been looked at before.

  Dr Gibson: It is about a template of best practice. It is about doing it in a universal way, not as a set piece. I had not intended saying this but I will say it. My name is Gibson. My cousin, Lord Justice Gibson, and his wife Cecily were blown apart on the border. I am, if you like, the second division of the family. They are not my direct family. There have been dialogues about investigating that particular incident and you will be well aware of what the family's views were on that. I do not think from my perspective from inside the family that it would help our grieving process one iota to open that up. We are a robust family and have come to terms with that ourselves in our own way. That is one set of individuals' perspective on it. To quote the Chairman, it is not necessary for everyone to have that opportunity. Loads of people have the capacity to deal with that in their own way and I think that should be respected and allowed for. That is not to say that we should not form a basis for others who need another process to tackle that, which is why I think you need a very wide spanning set of profiles, set of practices and set of methodologies which many people can adopt which gets support in a way that allows that to spiral itself out and you do not try to design this monstrosity and set it up and dictate to everyone how they will come in and out of it, because, I tell you, the grandstanding will have to be seen to be believed.

  Q576 Chairman: That is one of the reasons we are doing this. If one were to go down that road or something approaching it, how can the government help? Do you think this is something which should be done quite separately from anything to do with national or local government? Should we get it back again or do you think there is an input aside from money?

  Dr Gibson: That is my money as a taxpayer.

  Q577 Chairman: Let us take that as a given.

  Dr Gibson: Leadership is also one of the prerogatives of political figures. The shared future is something that I believe any administration here, be it a ruled administration or an Assembly-based administration and governance, ought to promote. We cannot have any government of any shape or form promoting anything other than a shared future on a basis that everyone can participate in. That has been clear to us from 1998 with a document which everyone worked hard for, called the Good Friday Agreement, which forms the basis, as I understand it, for the current government's main thrust and I believe should form any administration's basis. That is not to say we cannot re-interpret it, we cannot ensure that we get best practice involved. To me the shared future is the only basis for it but we could see more proactive promotion of that by the agencies of the state.

  Mr Ringland: And keep politicians out.

  Dr Gibson: We need you for legislative purposes, not otherwise.

  Q578 Mr Pound: Most of us know the campaign Living Life Without Barriers. For the record can you either give us a synopsis of the aims and some indication of the response you have had or, if you prefer, let us have a report if you are doing an analysis of it?

  Mr Ringland: There will be an analysis done at the end of it so we will be prepared to share that with you once it has been done. It is early days yet.

  Q579 Mr Pound: What is the preliminary feeling?

  Mr Ringland: The preliminary feeling is that the profile is getting greater. People are starting to understand what the concept is about. It is very difficult to know what impact you are having. What you are saying to people is that it is about getting on with your neighbour. There is a political crisis here but there is not a crisis on the streets. It used to be that if there was a political crisis there was a crisis on the streets. People are gradually coming to terms with things. Relationships are changing on this island east-west as well as north-south. We are starting to rediscover things that we had forgotten about. I was at the West Belfast Festival where I was invited to listen to a discussion with Geoffrey Donaldson in a question-time scenario, and there was maturity of debate in that people were prepared to sit and listen but there was also a threat in that the PSNI had to be there and, when the organisers stood up and apologised for the PSNI being in the room because they had to be there, out of 800-odd people one person walked out and the rest accepted it. You can see things happening in society. What we do need is leadership and to know where the leadership in our society is taking us. That is at many different levels—politicians, churches, community group leaders. We have had councils signing up to support One Small Step, and that has been the whole council right across the political spectrum. As to what impact we are having in our campaign, we are doing an evaluation on it but it is raising its profile and people are understanding what it is about.


 
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