Prejudice and Pride

Prejudice and Pride –defeated intellectually, prejudice lingers emotionally. 

Pridecan be positive - national pride, ethnic and cultural pride, gay pride.  But it can lead to prejudice, racism, sectarianism, sexism.  Prejudice needs to be seen, not only on the level of emotion, but also in a context of economics, politics, the construction and maintenance of social values, human rights abuse, fears, or vested interests. The themes of prejudice and pride were chosen as a platform at the Irish Peace Centres’ inaugural conference in March, for generating discussion and debate on the positive and negative impact of each, and both, on society.

The theme challenged several of the speakers. Bernadette McAliskey, South Tyrone Empowerment Programme (STEP), provided an incisive, honest and personal account on the theme of The Roots of Prejudice. Duncan Morrow CEO, Community Relations Council (CRC) responded to the theme by establishing a conceptual framework for the discussion and linked it to modern European and global history.

As part of the Story-telling Session, Teya Sepinuck, Film Director of Theatre of Witness, previewed her recent film, “We Carried Your Secrets”. This dramatic and challenging piece raised questions on the validity of story-telling as a peace-building methodology. It questioned whether the form challenged prejudice or reinforced it. Is it possible to truly undertake a peace and conflict evaluation of a method as personal and existential as story-telling? The film provoked much discussion.

Peter Sheridan, Chairman of IPC, commented: “Throughout the conference, listening to contributors, it was evident that there were serious challenges. History, attitudes, structures, real and imagined oppression, shape our views of the society in which we live and which we strive to understand.  The conference very successfully set people thinking, it helped inform and it sought to influence and support debate.”

The international speakers included former combatants Chen Alon from Israel and Nouraddin Shehadah from Palestine who now work together in the Middle East for the peace-building group, Combatants for Peace. Nenad Sebak, working at the Centre for Democracy & Reconciliation in Southeast Europe brought wisdom and insight in summarising the proceedings. The view from the Middle East and the Balkans created a comparative framework to judge the challenges of the local anti-sectarian and anti-racist work. 

The Conference Dinner saw special guest speaker, Peter Tatchell, Human Rights Activistand ‘Campaigner of the Year 2009’ at the Observer Ethical Awards,as he chronicled the long and painful journey of the gay community from criminal illegality in the sixties to relative equality today. We heard that success in challenging prejudice comes at a price. His non-aggressive approach was evident in the humility he displayed throughout his campaign, often in the face of violent abuse.

A critical analysis of the transaction of the entire conference will be published. This will include the thinking that led to the conference and the expectation of the organisers; the speakers’ contributions; the feedback from the round table discussions; the speakers’ subsequent reaction to these; and the analysis of the evaluation forms. The document will be published as part of the Experiential Learning series of papers and widely circulated.

Paddy Logue, Conference Organiserreflected; “The conference advanced the aims of IPC in several ways…. Firstly, the joint organisation of the conference involving all four partners was a master class in consortium working as was the involvement of the partners in actual delivery. Then, the aim of the EU PEACE III programme and of IPC is to challenge sectarianism, racism and all forms of prejudice and the conference theme addressed those challenges. Also, the quality of the discussions, both on a conceptual and emotional basis, will energise the peace sector to make progress towards a society free of prejudice. And finally, part of the IPC remit is to capture and share the learning from its programme of work regionally and internationally and the inclusion of Middle East and Balkans speakers contributed to that.”

The conference was accompanied by Photographic Exhibitions made up of two separate bodies of work - the international Israeli/Palestinian collaboration ‘Beware the Cost of War’ and the locally developed youth project ‘Draw Down the Walls’ – both presented challenging themes around the consequences of conflict and war, and stimulated the discussion around the conference theme ‘Prejudice & Pride’. Roisin McDonough, CEO, Arts Council, opened the conference weekend with a thoughtful reflection on art and conflict, it was a fitting and impressive launch for IPC, the medium being part of the message.