Reconciling Divided States: Peace Processes in Ireland and Korea by Dong Jin Kim & David Mitchell

Author:Dong Jin Kim & David Mitchell [Kim, Dong Jin & Mitchell, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367515300
Google: _l-OzgEACAAJ
Goodreads: 58689314
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2022-01-15T13:11:41+00:00

Reconciliation work: Designing new patterns of relationships among different people

Relationships of mutual antagonism can make the task of meeting together and securing new relationships across diverse identity lines difficult. We were fortunate that some of our founder members had experiences outside Northern Ireland that opened us all up to a wider world. Within the founding community there were: women who, as medical doctors, had pioneered medical services for women and families in so-called developing societies; members who had lived through the Second World War in prisoner of war camps; members of the trade union movement in times of high unemployment and some who had been involved in business from a social responsibility background. All had been exposed to the wider ecumenical movement and some had visited reconciliation centres in Holland, Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, and Scotland such as de Dreiberg, Bad Boll, Rattvik, Taize, Agape and Iona; and others had met people such as Winfried Maechler who had been with Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church in Germany, and Roger Schutz and Tullio Vinay, the leaders of Taize and Agape, who had sheltered Jewish people during the Second World War.

As we faced into the conflict in Northern Ireland from 1968, we grew together more as a community and our practice grew in partnership with people who had direct experiences of our conflict becoming community members or partners with us. Some members and supporters had, and have, distinct experiences that challenge us about the reconciliation task. Some of our members have been the families of victims of the conflict; some have been part of the violent actions and have turned from that; some have experienced deep inequality in living here; some have become engaged in standing with the new migrant citizen base here in giving support, health, and legal advice; and some have lived or worked in other conflict areas such as Zimbabwe; Sri Lanka; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Palestine; and Sudan. Essentially Corrymeela, as a centre owned by a diverse group for the common good sought to be a space in which new programmes and actions could be modelled and developed.

Corrymeela assisted people and groups to meet for hard and difficult encounters about many sensitive issues such as housing (Darby, 1974), religious beliefs (See Faith and Politics group 1980–2002, Corrymeela), violence between traditions, the control of education, schooling and models of political co-operation. Such actions challenged the demeaning of trust building work by some observers. It developed a rationale for reconciliation work in contested societies and situated the task of trust building in a wider European context, drawing on foundation work on ethnic frontiers by Frank Wright (1987). Corrymeela developed and supported the development of new ways of meeting together (Shriver, 1995), new forms of ‘mutual understanding’ work with schools that addressed sensitive issues and new forms of community relations work with young people.

We have learned that while changes in the law and political agreements rightly establish base lines of compliance, they alone are not enough. We also need citizens, organizations, and

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