The men behind the peace
Kelly, Mary Pat
REPORT ON NORTHERN IRELAND THE MEN BEHIND THE PEACE HUME TO GORE TO CLINTON Among journalists and academics who specialize in Northern Ireland it has been unfashionable to believe in a...
...He has saved the future...
...It's quite clear that the president and vice-president have a very powerful and strong relationship...
...Hume, a member of the British and European Parliaments, is the leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party which represents the majority of Catholic nationalists in the North and has been dedicated to a nonviolent solution to the troubles...
...When I returned home I felt that I had a duty to give back to those who weren't as lucky as I was...
...Only with its cessation have they come to realize how drastically it deformed their lives...
...I believe that whatever you've done with what you've been given goes on one side of the scale of justice and whatever you've done wrong goes on the other...
...But their humanity comes through because, given that they are the leaders of the most powerful nation in the world, they are willing to use that power constructively and effectively in situations like ours to save human life and create human rights...
...I grew up in poverty...
...MARY pat Kelly Mary Pat Kelly is a writer and filmmaker...
...I was one of the lucky ones...
...The only thing my mother could write was her name...
...Clinton that the motto of my mother's people, the Cassidys, is: "You can bend me but your can never break me...
...He's very easy to talk to...
...But President Clinton was different...
...He refused to despair...
...If you're reared in your bare feet, you'll never get pneumonia in the snow...
...And that accident of birth, whether it's race, nationality, or creed, should never be the source of hatred or conflict...
...Because no matter what your intelligence level, you've learned an act of genius: You've learned to speak...
...I sat down and thought it through, and I decided if after twenty-five years and 20,000 troops that if I could save even one life by talking to one man I would do it...
...She never really went to school...
...And what we have in common is that the vice-president, when he was at Harvard, was at Dunster House...
...Hume's decision to deal with Adams was attacked from all sides...
...We sat down and talked for most of an hour...
...Of course I thanked him very warmly for putting Ireland at the top of his agenda...
...But if it balances up, you've lived a good life...
...On September 20, Hume was in Washington to meet VicePresident Al Gore and National Security Advisor Anthony Lake...
...I think the United States is lucky to have two such intelligent men and two such caring people...
...President Bill Clinton joined their meeting for about an hour...
...I noticed that when I meet most of them they listen to you diplomatically and thank you for coming and say they'll think about what you've talked about...
...He had stood so staunchly against vio4. lence for so many years, how could he talk to Adams while the IRA's armed campaign continued...
...I find that very interesting in a man with so many problems...
...He shakes my hand and thanks me for what I've done...
...That's a good political philosophy...
...I have never believed in flag waving...
...John Hume: I've always said people's whole lives are shaped before you leave your mother's knee...
...That essentially has been my driving force...
...I've always believed that the basic right of all is the right to existence, bread on your table and a roof over your head, and that it's an accident of birth: what you're born and where you' re born...
...Adams is head of Sinn Fein, the political party allied to the provisional IRA, which has not...
...This goes with a kind of pride in being knowledgeable about the globe's oldest and most intractable problem...
...In other words, it's what you get used to...
...While we were meeting the door opened and in walks the president of the United States...
...I interviewed him following his White House meeting...
...It was a very encouraging meeting with Vice-Prcsident Al Gore, who has always had an interest in the Irish situation...
...If he never got another vote he would stay this course...
...Since interviewing Hume, reports from Northern Ireland indicate that now that people have experienced a taste of peace, they will refuse to allow violence to return...
...Her most recent film is Home Away from Home: Yanks in Ireland...
...I reminded Mr...
...John Hume has saved more than one life...
...That shapes your thoughts for the rest of your life...
...Hume has played in promoting peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland...
...REPORT ON NORTHERN IRELAND THE MEN BEHIND THE PEACE HUME TO GORE TO CLINTON Among journalists and academics who specialize in Northern Ireland it has been unfashionable to believe in a solution to "the troubles...
...and when I had a fellowship at Harvard in '76,1 lived at Dunster House, too...
...Afterwards the White House issued a press statement acknowledging Hume's efforts: "President Clinton underscored his deep admiration for the role Mr...
...For Hume the meeting affirmed the principle that shaped his life: do the right thing and eventually people will listen...
...Watching Hume—as I have through years of high hopes and fearful setbacks (see, "A Different Kind of Politics," December 14, 1984)—he seemed a man transformed...
...I thank the president for all he has done, for offering assistance to both governments and for encouraging them to reach agreements, and also for his role in the peace process...
...Here is part of what he said...
...The president and vice-president commended, in particular, his role in pressing for an end to the violence in Northern Ireland...
...Yet some of the wisest sayings of my life came from her...
...John," she says, "always remember, the bottle is half full, not half empty...
...Peace was worth the chance—saving one human life...
...Thus last winter incredulity and skepticism greeted the news that John Hume and Gerry Adams had agreed on a declaration of principles establishing a framework for relationships between the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland and between Great Britain and Ireland, a framework that could lead to peace...
...He's a very highly intelligent man, unlike a lot of people in positions like him...
...All I knew was unemployment in our house...
...5...
...Their caring is shown to me by the fact that a problem like the Irish problem doesn't have to be on their agenda...
...He shows that he understands what the problem is because he asks very intelligent questions, showing that he has looked at it and studied it...
...And it is all tempered by a laudable reluctance to raise false hopes...
...1 knew him in the days when he was a senator...
...I think that in politics it helps if you have a historical background because you take the long view and you realize that things are judged more in the longterm than in the short-term in real politics...
...He had transcended politics...
...I passed exams and got scholarships and got an education...
Vol. 121 • October 1994 • No. 18
