From Summergangs Lane, Gainsborough to Pennsylvania Avenue, DC
A few years ago, I used to be politically correct for a living - which is to say, I worked to help a council implement something called the Equality Standard for Local Government. It was, at best, an ambitious plan, and after a couple of years of realising the sheer scale of organisational, societal, political and economic limitations on the work, I shuffled off to do something different. (I'm a bit bad at staying anywhere very long...)
One of the problems with passing legislation designed to make people tolerant and fair is that life is fundamentally neither of these things. Frequently, the best way to reach elusive things like "peace" "inclusion" "integration" and "cohesion" is to identify a shared goal that both parties can aspire to and work towards. Hence, Northern Ireland (which will no doubt figure in other ramblings about seals, men and how to get through university without getting into debt)is perhaps, arguably, working towards a shared and sustainable peace precisely because all parties involved recognise the goal of wealth, employment and economic prosperity.
Last night, I went to a seminar at one of the local Universities (we've got two in Lincoln, bizarrely enough...) organised by their Centre for Social Justice. http://www.bishopg.ac.uk/?_id=10371
The seminar dealt with issues in educational opportunities for travellers, presented by local representatives from the community. It was great, thought provoking, necessary - great to hear voices, attitudes, perspectives on the world which I don't necessarily know, share or understand.
And while much of the debate in the room after the seminar sought to affirm, reach out, agree and understand, to find some common ground, it occured to me that so much of our social thinking on peace is concerned with the outcome, with the creation of a solution. But peace is never a fixed state, because there is no such thing as a finite contentment. The different needs of a settled community and a travelling community will never meet in the middle, and nor should we seek for them to do so.
And therefore our aim, whether through educational seminars, government legislation, social initiatives, organisational strategy or inauguration speeches, can be no more than the creating of staging posts along the way towards an elusive peace - and the confidence to acknowledge that we will never arrive, but simply progress... What we should do is set out our goals for peace - whether personal, national or international. Write them down. Find people who share them, and more importantly, find people who don't share them. Talk about them. Refine them. Measure your progress and the progress of your elected representatives against them. Then make a new set...
Frank.
One of the problems with passing legislation designed to make people tolerant and fair is that life is fundamentally neither of these things. Frequently, the best way to reach elusive things like "peace" "inclusion" "integration" and "cohesion" is to identify a shared goal that both parties can aspire to and work towards. Hence, Northern Ireland (which will no doubt figure in other ramblings about seals, men and how to get through university without getting into debt)is perhaps, arguably, working towards a shared and sustainable peace precisely because all parties involved recognise the goal of wealth, employment and economic prosperity.
Last night, I went to a seminar at one of the local Universities (we've got two in Lincoln, bizarrely enough...) organised by their Centre for Social Justice. http://www.bishopg.ac.uk/?_id=10371
The seminar dealt with issues in educational opportunities for travellers, presented by local representatives from the community. It was great, thought provoking, necessary - great to hear voices, attitudes, perspectives on the world which I don't necessarily know, share or understand.
And while much of the debate in the room after the seminar sought to affirm, reach out, agree and understand, to find some common ground, it occured to me that so much of our social thinking on peace is concerned with the outcome, with the creation of a solution. But peace is never a fixed state, because there is no such thing as a finite contentment. The different needs of a settled community and a travelling community will never meet in the middle, and nor should we seek for them to do so.
And therefore our aim, whether through educational seminars, government legislation, social initiatives, organisational strategy or inauguration speeches, can be no more than the creating of staging posts along the way towards an elusive peace - and the confidence to acknowledge that we will never arrive, but simply progress... What we should do is set out our goals for peace - whether personal, national or international. Write them down. Find people who share them, and more importantly, find people who don't share them. Talk about them. Refine them. Measure your progress and the progress of your elected representatives against them. Then make a new set...
Frank.