The past days and weeks have marked the 25^th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, a key moment in the long and ongoing peace journey.  That journey, a journey of nothing less than radical change, involves communities not just in Northern Ireland but on the whole island of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain. 

It is also a project that is by no means complete.

First off, it is vitally important to remember the human cost associated with the years immediately preceding the peace process. 

From the start of the ‘Troubles’ (a wonderful Irish euphemism) until 1998, more than 3,500 people were killed, and an estimated 50,000 injured.  In the years since the Agreement, there have been about 164 security-related deaths.

The peace process was hard won by so many and should be carefully nurtured rather than undermined.

The peace process once again reminds us of the underlying historical truth of the assertion that England’s ‘Irish’ problem is also Ireland’s ‘English’ problem, as so graphically illustrated by Brexit.  The latter, while now visibly damaging for Britain, has been overwhelmingly negative for Ireland, both North and South.

While attempting to divine applicable ‘lessons’ from the peace process is an often-overplayed agenda, there are a number of observations that have broader relevance for change, including here in Malta.

The first observation is obvious and involves the central role and quality of leadership across society as a whole and not just among the political class.  The willingness of that leadership to face reality with its associated ‘hard’ decisions, its capacity for a broader vision beyond sectional interest, its perseverance and energy and ultimately its basic honesty in reading the social and political landscape is fundamental.

Without it, little or no progress can be achieved.  

Secondly, while the majority of local and international focus is usually on the dominant political leadership, the change agenda is ultimately shaped, even determined from the bottom-up, rather than from the top-down.  Without a sufficient cohort or threshold of public awareness and engagement matched by growing public judgement, effective change is again unlikely.   

Thirdly, a broad range of actors advocating and organising for change from various quarters and backgrounds is necessary, even pivotal.  The change agenda cannot simply be driven by those whose interests and agendas generated the need to change in the first instance.

The increasing involvement of civil society structures, churches, the women’s movement, engaged trade unions, cultural organisations etc., is needed if change is to be meaningful and gain traction across society.  The engagement of ‘new’ (or reconfigured) actors and movements outside the control of the dominant political forces provides another key catalyst for change.

In the case of Northern Ireland, one such movement was that of women coalescing and organising around a host of local ‘bread and butter’ issues routinely across community divides and outside of the core political agenda. 

A British soldier drags a Catholic protester during the "Bloody Sunday" killings of January 30, 1972. Photo: AFP

That broad women’s movement (paralleled by similar initiatives and groupings across church and faith groups, within trade unions, ‘peace people’, youth and cultural groups etc.), propelled the change agenda on the back of the apparently mundane and often the very local. 

While often considered tangential or even irrelevant to the core political agenda, the ‘mundane’ in the peace process included organising creches, mother and toddler groups, pensioner lunches, cookery events, beauty sessions, dancing, education, reconciliation and many other events and projects that helped break down walls that divided communities.   In the words of many, the walls through which "women walked but too many men didn’t see."

Women were also centrally involved in the ‘heavy lifting’ associated with the peace process and the changes it demanded – challenging violence, the brutality of paramilitaries and the army, victim support (across all communities and groups), advocacy, peace building per se and, of course, education.

The women’s agenda in Northern Ireland was routinely opposed (often with considerable hostility), ridiculed and even vilified.

Despite this, to paraphrase the words of US Senator George Mitchell (so centrally involved in moulding and delivering the Agreement), such groups, agendas and projects made what was routinely deemed ‘impossible’ actually ‘possible’. 

The various incarnations and coalitions that made up the women’s movement also illustrate another key observation - women needed to be centrally involved and the dominant voices could not solely comprise those of men.  In Northern Ireland, the women’s movement was not simply positive but also dynamic and powerfully energised the momentum for change.

Two final observations are directly relevant (to the Northern Ireland context specifically and also more universally).  The human rights agenda animated not just the original civil rights movement and its progenitors, but also the actual struggle that led to the peace process, the Belfast Agreement itself and its aftermath. 

For example, the debates, disagreements, and ultimate compromises required to establish the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (and its parallel in the Republic and elsewhere) highlight this dimension's importance and added value in any change process.

Finally, the close interrogation, modification and even rejection of inherited politics, cultural norms and political visions is crucial (and frequently painful for many) while the rejection of a slavish adherence to received political philosophies and practices forms an important change ‘yeast’. 

25 years on, the Northern Ireland peace process emphatically reminds us not just what needs to end, but also what needs to begin.