Past Imperfect Present Tense: equality and the Northern Irish

conflictEithne McLaughlin The Queen’s

University of Belfast

Introduction

• Context The path to here

• Can the case be viewed as a majority – minority relations? (inter-group) issue? Like ethnicity in other societies

• What has been/should be the public administration [the public administration response to inequalities & inequities& intergroup conflict ]?

The path to Here

• Equality & social inclusion in Ireland Project (EU funded project

• Equality & social inclusion = equity

• Equality of opportunity + basal equality of condition = fair equality of opportunity

•

European equality policy developments

• Moving to ‘single equality approach

• Led by UK & NI (Irish conflict & UK devolution)

• Generic nondiscrimination law

• Single enforcement authority

• Introduction of positive equality duties

The Social Politics Of Recognition

• Importance of group identities and systemic discrimination (exclusion)

• Requirement for policy response in terms of both individual and group characteristics, memberships & circumstances

Governmental single equality approach

• Duties on public bodies to promote equality of opportunity and give due regard to good relations between persons of different genders, ages, marital status, with/without dependants, different beliefs, ethnicity, sexuality

• Nongovernmental concerns• Divide & rule potential implicit hierarchies of

deservingness,• The cindarella concern espec re disability

The Cindrella Concern

• In NI context all lose out to dominance &

• Hypersensitivity of equality & HR political/religious belief (in)equalities

• Social political concerns may always lose out to which ever intergroup issue is dominant local electoral political issues?

Is disability different?

• quantum or essence ?

• A bit not enough to justify separatist position & lose the possibility of benefiting through levelling up

The policy response to disability: Needs or rights?

• Are the interests of disabled people best met by policy systems based on a minority of one

• OR

• A systems/group/rights response

The HR Equality ‘tradition’

• Fair/same treatment & protection of individual from irrational prejudice of others to their group membership

• Artifical divide of individuals’ personal & group characteristics

• The universal equality question = how much/far should majorities/the dominant be expected to change their institutions, systems culture in order to accommodate/include minorities ‘The Other’

• Individualist & posthoc ignores ‘the past within the present’

Social Welfare/public Policy response

• Biomedical & social professions’ responses to impairment & chronic illhealth

• Individualistic moral paternalism• Locate dysfunction of disability within the

individual’s impairment • Disability movement locate it within the

responses of human systems & social practices to impairment (social environmental model of disability)

Needs or Rights

• Need = high professional power via gatekeeping/discretion/labelling

• Disability = a minority of One?• Underdevelopment of social economic & cultural

rights international law & practice• Reality of multiple & contingent identities• difficult to draft generic multidomain rights• Individual rights do not solve intergroup • Allocation decisions

Three Distinctive Disability policy needs

• Self esteem, personal & health care (organism survival)

• Group esteem/value, culture, participation & representation (the politics of recognition) ‘Nothing about Us Without Us’

• Market rejection & failure

• Quanum difference

Construction of a disability equality strategy/audit or review

• Consult local DM on relative salience of each of the three needs within their specific context – priority framework for change, review & action

• Debrief/ delearn cultural definitions of disability held by practictioners & decision-makers

• Move away from minority of One while holding to high quality

Equality Strategy cont.

• Systemic response to disability embedded in/broadcast by institutional , structures & habitual practices

Forms of discrimination, violence & abuse

• Direct intentional harm, disadvantage abuse of individual because of their presumed group membership

• Indirect harm by product of application of apparently neutral, universal norms, rules provisions ignoring difference when you shouldn’t

• [institutional]• Systemic = whole society structural & cultural

Toward a Theory of Systemic Discrimination & Equality/Equity

• Whole society & whole person understanding of (in) equality, privilege, oppression, & resistance to change

• Integrated theory of human development & progress/learning

• Culturalist analysis of public policy & governance

• Critical social theory of maintenance of relations of (in)equality & oppression

Integrated theory of human development/learning & progress

• Meaningless & contingent nature of separations & mystiques of personal, social, economic, political development

Equality & conflict: the case of Northern Ireland

• Eithne McLaughlin The Queen’s University of Belfast

Specificities & Generalities

• Northern Ireland an example of ‘Ethno-national conflict ? Quebec-Canada parallels; Arcadian overtones

• Israel -Palestine?• North-south Cyprus?• Basque Spain?• Kashmir • Narcissism of minor difference?• Nationalism, ethnicity land & group attachments as forms

of ancestor worship?/ rigidities

• Long low level conflict 3,600 killed, 50,000 injured pop. 2 million over 30 years 50/50 state and paramilitary perpetration of interpersonal violence

Extant ethno-national inequalities

• Growing catholic/protestant female employment inequalities

• Reduced catholic underrepresentation in employment espec. senior levels public & private sector

Equality,Conflict & Politics of Northern Ireland

• Irish Nationalists ethno-national ‘civil’ conflict ‘The troubles’ area subcomponent of the long war for self-determination & freedom from British rule the plantation 16th century

• pre 1994 political goal was Irish unity regardless of consent of Unionists; post 1994 with consent of unionists;

• To Scotch-Irish Unionists & Loyalists conflict began in 1969 when republican terrorists took up violence to achieve their political aim of destruction of Northern Ireland

•

Ontological (in)security

• Absence of consensus on nature, duration, causes & solutions to conflict & division

• Ontological insecurity provides a commonality of repressive practices of state repression & apparent intractability of the problem

Nationalist Perspective on equality & conflict

• Equality equity and justice between groups is as necessary as that between individuals if the conditions for sustainable democracy are to be met

• Absence of these pre 1972

Unionist perspective on equality & conflict

• What’s equality got to do with it?• Inequality & exclusion of nationalists pre 1972 was

justifiable necessary response to ontological insecurity & threat of extinction

• Security policy >individual and group rights• The ‘Disloyal Other’/serpent within the breast• Majoritarianism + one party rule natural outcomes of

parliamentary democracy • No acceptance of validity of the universal equality

question how far should majority change in order to include minorities [tolerate, assimilate?]

Outcomes

• By 1970• Systemic discrimination had resulted in

Nationalist minority (40%) socioeconomic disadvantage, limited political representation & civil rights

• Limited equality, identity, & social political discourses & action

• Hypersensitivity of equality, equity & HR issues

hypersensitivity

• Inequality/inequity was/ was not the cause of politically motivated violence

• ‘They were in the wrong’ for resorting to violence ‘They were in the wrong’ for denying our human rights;

• [‘The Blame Game’]• Intergenerational responsibilities for the ‘sins of the

fathers’?• Recognition of & redress for past injustice = preferential

treatment threatens; good relations anti HR • ‘Get Over it’ the past is the past

The 1998 good Friday agreement

• Negotiated settlement: 3 main components

• Equality & h