Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict
Introduction:
Structural inequality between identity groups often makes
conflicts virtually irresolvable. Mari Fitzduff, the former Executive Director of
Irish conflict resolution organization INCORE, and now a professor and the
Director of the MA Conflict and Coexistence Programme at Brandeis
University, talks about policies of inclusion in Northern Ireland that have led to progress towards peace.
This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Inclusion Policies
Mari Fitzduff
Professor and Director of the MA Conflict and Coexistence Programme at Brandeis
University
We've now got a new law in place, which I am incredibly proud of. It is not just
equality. We dealt with equality quite early on, we started that in the 70s and
80s and kept reviewing it and reviewing it and seeing why it was working, not
working. By and large, it is now. We now have addressed pretty
well every issue of inequality. There's only two left and one is long term
unemployed because Catholics don't join security forces and there's a real
bugger there, and some of the higher echelons of management. Even as I speak I
know those are being whittled away so quickly, it's unbelievable. Catholics are
now in fact in the majority in the law, in the majority in the universities, in
law, in medicine, etc. Whereas before they would have been very much excluded
from it.
If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say "No" to war. For one does not create human society on mounds of corpses. -- Louis Lecoin, French pacifist leader
Featured Links Organizations Making Noteworthy Contributions to Efforts to Promote More Constructive Conflict Human Rights Watch An international human rights organization based in the United States, Human Rights Watch investigates human rights abuses worldwide and works to put an end to them.
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Nobel Peace Prize Winners
Kim Dae-jung Former President of South Korea, and 2000 Nobel Peace Laureate
The Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base Project Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Co-Directors and Editors c/o Conflict Information Consortium(Formerly Conflict Research Consortium), University of Colorado Campus Box 580, Boulder, CO 80309 Phone: (303) 492-1635; Fax: (303) 492-2154; Contact
