A photo showing a shadowy profile of a child standing behind a window with a bullet hole in it is one of the many reminders of the violence in Northern Ireland.

This was the back drop as Dr. Eugune McLaughlin addressed about 10 students on the conflict in Northern Ireland Thursday in Eggers Hall.

Dennis Romano, a professor in the History Department, introduced McLaughlin, noting his research is based on peacemaking and police relationships with the community.

The picture was used to show the ‘culture of war and conflict’ that has griped many Northern Ireland neighborhoods for years, said McLaughlin, a senior lecturer in criminology and social policy at Open University in England,

The lecture entitled ‘An Unloved Peace: The Challenge Facing Peacemakers in Northern Ireland,” discussed the problems that are facing the Good Friday Peace Accord reached in 1998.

‘The peace process is seen as a model of its kind, but for some reason it is unloved by the people,” McLaughlin said ‘The issue is the concentration on building a political infrastructure and not taking into account sectarianism,’ which is the sectioning off of the various groups in Northern Ireland to avoid involvemnt with other groups.

McLaughlin, who has also taught at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Manchester, believes that there is still violence in Northern Ireland because so many people in the country once believed that the violence would have no end and are finding a certain level of violence acceptable.

He said some of the main reasons for peace are the release of political prisoners, setting up a victim’s commission, decommissioning arms, a new criminal justice system and a commission on human rights.

‘Both communities were able to walk out of the negotiations and say ‘we won,’ “ McLaughlin said.

Another reason for success McLaughlin said is that after Sept. 11 the Irish Republican Army had begun to receive a cold attitude from the world as the debate began over the word terrorist and had toned down activity.

‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, ‘McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin cited other reasons for the people’s hatred of the agreement, such as the belief that this agreement may be as good as it gets for Northern Ireland, its view as a fraud to many, and the sectarianism in many schools throughout Northern Ireland.

‘There is a need to produce a new generation where issues of political sovereignty will become insignificant because of globalization,” said McLaughlin, who cited a new generation of paramilitaries as a problem.

Paramilitaries have the motto, ‘Prepared for peace but ready for war,’ and believe that this current peace is simply an inter-war period that will be followed by more violence in the future said McLaughlin.

Sectarianism runs deep, recent violence must be confronted and not ignored and there is a need for reconciliation by both sides, said McLaughlin.

‘The hard work is not over,’ McLaughlin said. ‘There is still a need for peacemakers because this society must confront what it did to itself for thirty years.’

McLaughlin thinks it’s important for college students to know the history of the conflict and what has happened since the signing of the Good Friday Peace Accord.

Amy Wolfe, a first year masters student in international relations, said the lecture was very interesting

“It is fascinating because I spent a year in Belfast and it was good to hear the theoretical background to my personal experiences,’ she said.

Published on September 19, 2002 at 12:00 pm