From Conflict to Peace: Reflecting on the Leadership of John Hume in Northern Ireland
In this post, author Joanne Murphy reflects on the life and legacy of John Hume, the topic of her article, “Leadership, liminality, and ‘wicked’ conflicts: John Hume and the untangling of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’,” published in Leadership.
When in 1998, the historic Belfast / Good Friday Agreement marked the end of the 30-year violent Northern Ireland conflict often referred to as the ‘Troubles’, many commentators regarded it as the culmination of the life’s work of one man: John Hume. Hume was seen by many as a man of peace, but for others he was a trojan horse for violent Irish nationalism. This paper explores these contradictions through the lens of liminality and argues that central to Hume’s ability to create change in an environment of conflict was his own ‘inbetweenness’: a leader of nationalism, but not a nationalist, a believer in non-violence, who engaged actively with men of violence, an MP elected to a British parliament, who worked hand in hand with the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.
Within his long political career, it is possible to identify five leadership approaches that Hume adopted to shift the conflict out of violence and lay the foundations for peace. The first of these was an early, holistic reframing of the problem from a conceptualization of ‘two tribes’ to understanding of ‘three strands’ – interconnected relationships between Britain and Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and within Northern Ireland itself, that allowed for a better problem analysis and an unlocking of entrenched positions.
The second was a radical expansion of conflict ‘stakeholders’: drawing in first the Irish government and the Irish political establishment, and then Washington and Brussels to transform the ‘Troubles’ from a localized tragedy to an international concern. The third was the opening of linguistic and conceptual space for change. ‘Humespeak’ may have been derided as stale and irritating but only after it was almost universally adopted by those who had attacked and condemned it initially.
The fourth approach was a consistent propensity to ‘practice disruption’ and change the ‘rules of the ‘game’. He achieved this by thinking differently and often courting controversy. The reimagining what Irish ‘unity’ meant, holding out for an inclusive talks process despite the pressures of the establishment and, most impactfully, tipping nationalism in disarray through his ongoing dialogue with Gerry Adams.
Perhaps Hume’s fifth and last approach is the most significant. Above all others, he understood that real change would require an acceptance of sacrifice and the loss of so much, that was so dear to so many. He understood this ideologically in his articles in the Irish Times in 1964 when he articulated a new and radical acceptance of the reality of partition and the principle of consent, and he knew it again in the 1990’s during his dialogue with republicans that attracted so much personal opprobrium and attack. He also understood it when it became clear that bringing republicans in from the cold would enormously weaken the position of his own political party and his colleagues in a new, more peaceful dispensation. But he did it anyway.
All of these approaches were underlined by a set of enduring beliefs. That what was important was people not territory, that identity was an accident of birth, and that you can’t eat a flag. Of course, Hume did not act on his own, but it is difficult to disentangle him from decision making in the places that mattered, in the times that mattered. All processes need pathfinders – leaders who make, break and give sense to the people around them. Hume was one such pathfinder, illuminating the way from the past to a better future.
