Gerry Adams Speaks at University of San Diego’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice

By Carolyn Hall McMahon 

Tuesday, July 10, 1 - 3 p.m., IPJ Theatre

Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd in the intimate Manchester Conference Center, MP Gerry Adams of the Northern Ireland Assembly and president of the controversial Sinn Féin Party encouraged efforts to promote dialogue and diplomacy as tools for effective conflict resolution. Mr. Adams spoke under the auspices of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice (IPJ) during an American tour sponsored by Friends of Sinn Féin.

The man whom Charles Reilly, resident fellow at IPJ and adjunct professor at the University of San Diego, introduced as “needing no introduction,” delivered his presentation with warmth and humor. Without assuming a deep familiarity with conflict and peace processes on the audience’s part, MP Adams provided a succinct layman’s explanation of Northern Ireland’s complicated past. He characterized his country as having been an apartheid state, suffering decades of low-intensity warfare, as British-supported Protestant loyalists battled Catholic republicans for power. Years of patient, behind-the-scenes groundwork starting in the 1980s eventually culminated in the Good Friday (or Belfast) Agreement of 1998, lauded by the international community as a key step in ending the conflict. But Adams called the agreement “a journey, not a destination,” and asserted his firm view that Northern Irish citizens have the right to govern themselves in an autonomous state.

Still, the willingness of Sinn Féin to participate in the negotiations was crucial, and it was much to Adams’s credit that the party renounced the use of violence and the IRA renewed its cease-fire in 1997. A brief window for peace was opened with Adams’ visit to the United States in 1994; and in the years before and after, he earned credibility for Sinn Féin, transforming it “from a political pariah to a mainstream party,” in the words of U.S. Senator George Mitchell, as quoted by Reilly.

Adams’ tone was one of hope. He spoke with optimism of the recent joining of conservative Protestant Ian Paisley with Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness “as equals” in the National Assembly. Adams articulated several recommendations for bringing about peace and justice. He stressed the “centrality of dialogue,” the importance of dispelling predetermined outcomes and the necessity of including all possible issues and participants in discussion. Adams also noted the importance of including international actors in the peacebuilding process.

“Conflicts don’t have to be,” he concluded, “conflicts are made by human beings, mostly men, and can be resolved.”

As IPJ interim director Dee Aker predicted in her opening remarks, the afternoon was a “real opportunity to learn” from the advice of this internationally celebrated peace-maker.

Carolyn Hall McMahon, IPJ Summer Intern, is a senior at the University of California, Berkeley. She will graduate in May 2008 with a B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies and minors in French and History of Art.