Reconciliation should come before a border poll if we are to have an Ireland that is better, not bitter - Tom Kelly

Martin Luther King didn’t just inspire generations of Americans with his non-violent campaign for civil rights, he also inspired many Irish people and civil rights campaigners, most notably the late John Hume.

King wrote: “Resistance and non-violence aren’t good in themselves. There’s another element that must be present in our struggle which makes resistance and non-violence truly meaningful. That element is reconciliation.“

Unfortunately Martin Luther King was taken too soon. As was Robert Kennedy. Hume also expended his health in the quest for a settled reconciliation between the two main traditions in Ireland.

King, Kennedy and Hume fought for legislative frameworks which built in protections, enshrined human rights, respected difference and created space for diversity to thrive.

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In Hume’s case this was achieved through the Good Friday Agreement. It presents a complicated but necessarily clunky framework which, if operated in the spirit of good faith and generosity, had the potential to create that essential unity of hearts and minds in a place riddled with division, sectarianism, suspicion and whataboutery.

Of course, the GFA was let down by the very people meant to be its custodians - successive British and Irish governments and mean-spirited local politicians who prioritised political self-interest above the common good.

The optimistic aspirations for reconciliation as envisioned by the authors of the GFA never materialised. In fact, reconciliation and community relations initiatives were neglected, ignored and underfunded.

The Executive Office played a central role in dismantling the key importance of reconciliation as an important objective of the GFA. They settled for superficial and managed photoshopped imagery.

Superficial reconciliation will, unsurprisingly, result only in superficial healing.

The wider unionist community need to have confidence in the safe space created for them under the GFA. Currently, they feel marginalised, isolated and defensive. Many of their fears are unfounded or imagined.

That said, whilst unionists have no veto over the future trajectory of political events, they are significant key shareholders who can’t be cajoled, coerced or conjured into a new Ireland against their will. A nations of equals is just that - or nothing at all.

Those who argue that reconciliation is not a prerequisite to a border poll are right. It’s not a requirement for the running of a plebiscite but reconciliation is an imperative in managing the lead up to and the fallout of the result, whichever way it goes.

An indecisive win or loss could add to the political temperature in an already scalding sectarian cauldron.

Whilst unionists have no veto over the future trajectory of political events, they are significant key shareholders who can’t be cajoled, coerced or conjured into a new Ireland against their will

Those who believe sectarianism will be wiped out following Irish unity need to remove the green tinted glasses. The economic case for unity is easily made compared to unresolved reconciliation issues.

Northern Ireland/Ireland needs political reconciliation now and not on the never-never. The existence of 34km of so-called peace walls running through Belfast is not an inheritance any new state would want, never mind that 93% of residents living in segregated housing areas.

Success at building reconciliation within the north has the potential to build on the common energy generated, to create a new and shared future.

It’s all too evident in a very politically divided United States, where civil liberty campaigners are discovering that despite hard won rights for minorities and women, that a legislative framework alone isn’t a sufficient protection when majoritarianism sets in.

Democratic freedoms are truly under threat. The truth is that in achieving important civil liberties, particularly during President Lyndon B Johnson’s ’Great Society’, the need for reconciliation amongst deeply divided communities was never addressed. These have now morphed into so-called culture wars.

Ireland is too small a country to repeat these errors. Legislative reunification alone won’t bring about national healing or meaningful reconciliation.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “True reconciliation involves not ignoring the past but in facing the awfulness, the abuses, the hurt and of course, the truth.”

Let’s start a meaningful process of reconciliation in the actual battle to win hearts and minds. The goal is a better Ireland, not a bitter one.