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Some Thoughts on Transition: A Comparative View of the Peace Processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Paul Arthur
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Extract

‘PEACE PROCESS’ IS A NEW AND FASHIONABLE CONCEPT. THERE are of course great local differences between the Middle Eastern, the South African and the Irish-British peace processes. But there are some remarkable characteristic similarities between them which form a pattern and especially when, as at present, they are seen in their phases of transition. What I present here are a few remarks on the differences and similarities in the phase of transition of the ongoing peace processes in South Africa and in Northern Ireland — differences which geopolitically, demographically, culturally and economically might seem at first sight in some respects rather difficult to compare.

Type
Research Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1995 , pp. 48 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1995

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References

* This article could be read in conjunction with Paul Arthur, ‘The Anglo-Irish Joint Declaration: Towards a Lasting Peace?’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 29, No. 2, Spring 1994, pp. 218–30. Once again I have borrowed from my’ “Reading” Violence: Ireland’ in David E. Apter and Bruce Kapferer (eds), Democracy und Violence, Macmillan, forthcoming.

1 The politicians from the main constitutional parties—Ulster Unionist Party (WP), Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Alliance Party (AP)—were there in a private capacity rather than as accredited representatives.

2 Wyschogrod, Edith, Spirit in Ashes: Hegel, Heidegger and Man-Made Mass Death, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1983, p. 34Google Scholar.

3 ibid., p. 139.

4 Apter, David E. and Sawa, Nagayo, Against the State: Politics and Social Protest in Japan, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1984, pp. 13–14Google Scholar.

5 The Sinn Fein President told a republican gathering in May 1994: ‘If five years ago I had said today we would be waiting for the election of Nelson Mandela as President of a free South Africa, you would have scoffed at me.’

6 Apter, David E., Democracy, Violence and Emancipatory Movements. Notes for a Theory of Inversionary Discousse, Geneva, UNRISD, 1992, p. 23Google Scholar.

7 Adams, Gerry, The Politics of Irish Freedom, Dingle, Brandon Books, 1986, p. 35Google Scholar.

8 MacDonagh, Oliver, States of Mind. A Study of Anglo-Irish Conflict 1780–1980, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1983, p. 13Google Scholar.

9 Moss, David, Italian Political Violence 1969–1988: The Making and Unmaking of Meanings, Geneva, UNRISD, Discussion paper 41, 1993, p. 6Google Scholar.

10 Wright, Frank, Northern Ireland. A Comparative Analysis, Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1987, pp. 130 and 124Google Scholar.

11 Sparks, Allister, Tomorrow is Another Country. The Inside Story of South Africa’s Negotiated Revolution, Sandton, Struik Book Distriburtors, 1994Google Scholar. See, too, Friedman, Steven and Atkinson, Doreen (eds), South Africa Review 7. The Small Miracle: South Africa’s Negotiated Settlement, Johannesburg, Raven Press, 1994Google Scholar.

12 Collingwood, R. G., Speculum Mentis. The Map of Knowledge, London, 1924, p. 236Google Scholar.

13 David Moss, op. cit., p. 7.

14 Moss, David, ‘Analysing Italian Political Violence As A Sequence of Communicative Acts: The Red Brigades 1970–1982’, Social Analysis, 13, 05 1983, p. 85Google Scholar.

15 David Moss, 1993, op. cit., p. 7.