David Porter

David Porter is someone whose passion for peace is a thread that runs throughout a career that has taken him right to the heart of church life.  His own heart for reconciliation and his expression of that within various key roles gives him a lived vantage point from which to offer challenge and insight.  He was Canon for Reconciliation at Coventy Cathedral which has always been a hub for peace, involved in some of the world’s most difficult areas of conflict. Later peace building was very much in David’s focus when he become chief of staff to the Archbishop of Canterbury.  (*important to say this conversation with David was recorded before Justin Welby resigned) But in this episode David shares how he’s faced criticism over some perceptions he’s been too sympathetic with former paramilitaries, gets honest about narratives of prejudice and racism, and spotlights the beautiful peace witnesses that have emerged from many faith communities.

Transcript

0:00:12 - Speaker 1

You're listening to Peace by Peace. 

0:00:14 - Speaker 2

I'm Jude Hill-Mitchell, I'm Sarah Louise Martin, and together we want to create a space for curious conversations about post-conflict challenges and possibilities. 

0:00:23 - Speaker 1

We'll hear from those who press on with the hard graft of peace and find out what challenges they've recycled in their own backstories. 

0:00:30 - Speaker 2

We want to get as real as we can about the things that hold us back and share insights into how we can all play our part in the peace of this place. 

0:00:38 - Speaker 1

Heads up on the format. In each episode, one of us will be in conversation with the guests and then we'll both come back together at the end to get personal and chat our way through what's moved and sparked this? 

0:00:56 - Speaker 3

I have been accused of being too sympathetic to former paramilitaries, both in my relationships with loyalists and Republicans on both sides that I would consider friends now and have kept relationships through sick and thin over the last 30 years plus, and I don't regret that. 

0:01:13 - Speaker 2

Today, our guest is David Porter. David's passion for peace is a thread that runs throughout his career and is integral in many of the key roles he's held. The clue is in his job title Canon for Re. Of the key roles he's held, the clue is in his job title Canon for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral. The cathedral's work for reconciliation saw it get involved in some of the world's most difficult areas of conflict. Later, peacebuilding was very much in David's focus when he became Chief of Staff, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It's important to say this conversation with David was recorded before Justin Welby resigned over safeguarding issues within the Church of England. But in this chat with me, david shares how he's faced criticism over some perceptions that he's been too sympathetic with former paramilitaries and how it's his heart that reconciliation would make its way into our regular political discourse. So let's get into it, and then Jude and I will reflect on what has hit home for us at the end. First of all, how are you? You look cool and autumnal in your nice lumberjack shirt. 

0:02:21 - Speaker 3

That was the idea for today to be autumnal. 

0:02:25 - Speaker 2

David, you were Canon Director for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral and then went on to be the Archbishop of Canterbury's Director for Reconciliation, his Chief of Staff and, most recently, his Strategic Advisor. But before we go any further, I'd love to just rewind a bit. You've been committed to a new narrative for Northern Ireland for all of your working life, and you saw potential where other people saw mess and you worked tirelessly to forge a better tomorrow for the generations coming up behind you. As I said, you've gone on to do incredible things since then. What a life for a wee lad from East Belfast. Can you tell us a little bit about where and when you feel most at home, and what is it about that that makes you feel that? 

0:03:11 - Speaker 3

Sitting in my far side chair in the front living room in my house here in Neaton, just outside of Coventry. 

And why? Because I think since coming over to England 16 years ago there was an emotional wrench from leaving Northern Ireland and leaving family and all the connections I had there and starting, in one sense, a new life of 50. God has been very good to me in that You've just listed all that I've been able to do and be involved in and serve the church, and I suppose in the middle of all of that, what I have learned is home is where you are. At that moment there's no point looking back and there's no point living towards something that may never come about. It is about making yourself at peace and at home where you are. And I've got a nice fireside chair in our living room where I like to sit and have an early morning cup of coffee and read a few books and just chill out, and I just like being at home and I've travelled so much with work over the years that being at home is a very special thing, and also because it brings me home to be with my wife, fran, as well. 

0:04:23 - Speaker 2

As you said, you live in England these days, so what do you do to get a decent soda, farrell, or some wheat and bread? 

0:04:30 - Speaker 3

Every time I'm over in Belfast, which is three or four times a year, I come back with half a suitcase of soda bread and wheat and farrells. My deputy chief of staff was a guy called Stephen Knott of Knott's Bakery, and so he arranged that well, I used to go into Knott's Bakery when I was in Belfast and say, ah, Stephen's boss and I'd come back with a load of sodas from there. If I run out between visits, I need to get them by post. Did he actually host Soda Files here? 

0:04:58 - Speaker 2

That is news to me, because I live in London and it's always a trek. Nothing ever tastes quite the same when it's made here, so my, my nana, makes the most amazing wheaten bread. Flory's wheaten is unbeaten, so, um, that's what I tend to do. And what's the spark behind your passion for change and reconciliation in northern ireland, given given that, um, you've been working on this area for such a long time that has taken you to various other places, what got you into this work in the first place? 

0:05:30 - Speaker 3

Essentially it was out of my convictions about what the Christian message was, about what the good news of Jesus was about. The two things that I suppose came together and sparked that in the direction that it took me was one spending a gap year in Pakistan after my A-levels in the late 70s, which was pretty much after the worst days of the troubles and still at the height and no, looking for peace. But it was stepping outside of the culture and the place and that makes you start thinking about what have you been told, what is the narrative that you've been brought up in? And your world suddenly increases and all of a sudden that leads to a second thing, which is the link between faith and national identity gets broken, and it was both. 

Where I came back from Pakistan, went to theological college, then went back to Belfast and got involved with Frontier Youth Trust in Northern Ireland and they brought a guy called Jim Punton to speak and he was very much into Anabaptist theology and a sort of radical Christian discipleship and I find that quite appealing and it really helped put theological framing on what I had felt through my experience of being a Pakistanian in the theological college in London and to suddenly realize that God was not really interested in whether there was a United Ireland or whether Northern Ireland remained British. 

And at the heart of that I came to see, was the peace witness of the church that we are called to be peacemakers. Blessed are those who are peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God, and even more so that the big challenge is not just loving your neighbor but we're told by Christ to love our enemy. And once you start taking seriously these sort of exhortations of Scripture and the words of Jesus about what would be characteristic of his followers, it totally changes how you want to prove the conflict in Northern Ireland, how you think about your identity and your belonging, and it changes what you think your priority should be the identity and belonging piece is so key, because so much of it is so misplaced and so much of it is driven by fear. 

0:07:55 - Speaker 2

I would love you to, meli, if, if you can speak into that a little bit more, because you have been at the absolute co-phase of that, throughout the troubles, behind the scenes of a lot of the things. And, yeah, what hope can you, can you share with us? Or or what have you learned through that particular journey? 

0:08:12 - Speaker 3

it was interesting you my, my journey on the identity piece and how faith related to being an ulster man and all of that mine was by taking me outside of the land and bringing me back. But what was most encouraging was to discover a group of people who had come to that realization without necessarily leaving Northern Ireland, but through their own convictions, through their own encounters. And while it was a theological college in London, there was a group of Presbyterian ministers at the time of the Carson Trails in the early 1980s they put an advert in the local press for God and His Glory Alone, which was a direct challenge for God and Ulster, which is really very bold. I've still got a copy of that advert and the 14 clergy who signed it. And so, coming back to Northern Ireland, that was a group that I really sought out and began to have links with. 

And certainly when we got involved in thinking about how our faith should be applied in the immediate context after the Anglo-Irish Agreement, that phrase for God and His glory alone over against for God and Ulster became the prophetic voice that we uttered. By the time we issued our big public statement for God and his glory alone in 1988, we had had 20 years of violence since 1968. And the question was we've been praying for peace for 20 years, little sign of it on the horizon. Maybe we had to become the answer to our own prayers and become the peacemakers and to become those who reached out and built the peace. And that was very much what became known as a Coni evangelical contribution in Northern Ireland was about. 

0:09:57 - Speaker 2

Yeah, it's amazing the faithfulness of people to stand where there was so much pressure in another way and that I think that's really telling over time. 

0:10:08 - Speaker 3

So yeah, and it's really difficult because you're you're fighting against 1600 years of Christian history. You know, since Constantine the Christian faith has been linked to the political powers and to the empire and therefore we end up with things for God, king and country, and Hail Mary, queen of the Gaels. Pray for us when God is limited to a particular land, a particular nation, a particular culture and effectively he becomes our God rather than us being his people. And I think that that temptation against God, land and nation is one that the Christian communities everywhere need to struggle against, as we're seeing in the United States at the moment. But we see it wherever you know. We see it in Russia, holy Mother Russia, and the linking of the Russian Orthodox Church with Putin's imperial ambitions. And I believe that is the greatest distortion in Christian history, where we have linked our faiths to our culture and to believe that our land is somehow more blessed and we are God's special people. 

0:11:16 - Speaker 2

God is calling people from every nation and tribe and language. I just want to bring it back to. Northern Ireland. Every family in Northern Ireland has been impacted by our shared history, including my own. Northern Ireland has been impacted by our shared history, including my own. Can you tell us, maybe a story of personal loss or pain that directly fed into that? 

0:11:32 - Speaker 3

I was one of those people who lived close by it and was often impacted. I went to school to Inst in the centre of Belfast there was always lots of bomb scours and so on Got caught up in a number of riots in East Belfast, not personally rioting, but sort of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and going through the Ulster workers' strike and so on. So I've got a lot of experience, and particularly that one could describe as low, traumatising, but nothing direct. I had, you know, my cousin was in the police and so we were always anxious for him, but there was no direct personal pain in our family as a result of the troubles. 

In terms of challenge, I think I remember coming back on leave on holiday from college in London At the time of the Brixton riots and there was a sort of gallery in our family home and, uh, one of the leaders who have been a leader in my bible class at going through your church. 

She was there and we were talking about what it was like living in london with the brixton riots and so on, and in the middle of this she said, said, well, I'd rather be in Belfast with the Catholics than in London with the blacks, and that was like a light bulb moment for me about how a whole narrative of prejudice and stereotyping and physically cultural superiority we probably call it today whiteness built in to a lot of circles in Northern Ireland and I still see some of that today and we certainly see it in the wider community with a reaction to migrants and so on people making their home amongst us both here in Britain and in Northern Ireland. And that was a particularly challenge moment that made me realize that, you know, while we do focus on the troubles and the pain, you know, one of the things I've learned from coming to Coventry and working with the Archbishop is that our experience is transferable because lots of communities in the world share similar experiences when identity and belonging and prejudice is reinforced along religious lines and leads to conflict. 

0:13:51 - Speaker 2

And through the prism of your current work, what do you notice about where we are as a society in terms of peace and reconciliation? 

0:14:00 - Speaker 3

There's a yearning for peace and that has dominated everything because the violence needed to end and we needed space. But we're not and we've sort of set justice aside at one level. But we're not too hot on truth and mercy in our relationships with each other. 

0:14:21 - Speaker 2

Yeah. 

0:14:22 - Speaker 3

And therefore reconciliation is still a rare commodity and, unlike other conflict areas that came to a peace agreement, we still haven't worked out a way of how we deal with the past. I was involved in the Eames Bradley group. I was part of the group that wrote that report the consultative group in the past and I've watched its interests, developments over the years, the Stormont House Agreement and so on. But there is still an unwillingness, I think, at the heart of our political leadership to speak truthfully about the past. And, from a Christian perspective, I think it's difficult to speak truthfully without the past, without having a framework in which mercy and justice relate to each other. You know the scriptures tell us that mercy triumphs over justice and justice should be sought at many levels but it should be accompanied by mercy. And that conversation around forgiveness is a very difficult one to have because one people need to be willing to forgive, but also people need to be willing to be forgiven by acknowledging the harm and the hurt they did. There was never any excuse for violence in Northern Ireland on any side. There was always political options open, however difficult and long the struggle may have been. I don't deny that, that from those from the Catholic nationalist community. That political struggle would have been long because there was a lot of resistance to it in the community that I grew up in and we have done great harm to each other and I think that still reverberates in our community and we still haven't found a way of dealing with it, which I find rather sad, because at one point Northern Ireland had the highest church-going population in the UK and you would have thought that so many people going through our churches receiving the forgiveness of God, that the forgiveness of God in our relationships with each other would have been more evident. We maybe have a peaceful society, but we don't have a reconciled one and we have a politics that is I remember a number of us saying at the time that the danger of the Belfast Agreement and particularly after the St Andrews Agreement and its implementation that brought about the restoration of Stormont back then in 2007, 2006, 2007. 

The challenge was that we'd end up with a shared-out future rather than a shared future. We still haven't really got a shared future. Our politicians can't make decisions about water, about health service, because they know it will cost them votes, about health service because they know it will cost them votes. Big decisions need to be made about the health service, to rationalize it and to more efficiently use the budget, and yet we see that an unreconciled political body is still contesting those issues, both to protect their base and not to build up a better way together. And so that you're both spiritually and relationally and politically. I see that there's a great need for reconciliation to find its way into the discourse of what we're trying to create in our land at this present time. 

0:17:42 - Speaker 2

I think it's really interesting that you've touched on justice, forgiveness and truth and the opportunity that actually those offer in terms of bringing hearts and minds, and that's a big part of my own story. 

My father was a policeman in Northern Ireland and was murdered by the IRA, and a couple couple of years ago I had this crazy encounter with a former IRA terrorist, and it was both one of the most painful and most freeing things that has ever happened to me, and I'm really thankful that I had an amazing mum who was guided by her faith that forgiveness was the only way that we were going to live in in freedom and that that was going to be an opportunity for us to choose life and to choose to keep moving forward. I wonder what do you think on those topics and areas needs to happen in our land, because we have a very murky remembering of the past and I don't that plays into the present and why we're so resistant to so much that's going on. What would you maybe share on those particular topics that you think need to happen to allow us to open the gateway to move forward more holistically and in a more wholehearted way? 

0:19:09 - Speaker 3

well, one of the themes of Coventry Cathedral when I arrived, of its reconciliation ministry in fact it's seen from right back when it began after the second world war is healing the wounds of history. And how do we heal those wounds of history? Well, the first step to that is an honest remembering and a hard telling you. We need to be remember honestly what happened and I've just read recently the book Say Nothing by an American journalist which I see is about to be dramatized in a TV series. But I found the book a bit trunery in many ways because it reminded me of how dark the early 70s and mid-70s were and also the tragedy of what violence did to people's lives, because it very much uh dwells on both the disappeared and the McConville family and the Price sisters and uh Brendan Hughes and how those lives were ruined by their involvement in violence and they became disillusioned people. In some ways. Certainly Brendan, in terms of his disillusionment, was where the Republican movement went and what was it all for? He's no longer with us so his story is more open, but I hear that quite a lot in talking to those who were formerly involved both in Republican and Loyalist paramilitary organizations. What was it all for you know, david Adams has been quite outspoken on that as well, formerly involved with the UDA and their political project and at the end of the day, that is what violence does to you it destroys the perpetrator as much as it harms the victim. And if we are to bring about healing, we need to tell that hard story and be honest with ourselves about it. 

But then the next thing that comes in that I learned from Coventry, or the Coventry reinforced in my thinking. You know, on the walls of the ruins of Coventry Cathedral are simply the words Father forgive. And that was the message of Coventry after the war. And when the Dean was challenged about why I said Father forgive, not Father forgive them, he said no, you know what I've written. I've written it's Father forgive us all, because you know how do we end up here. You know there was a story that brought us to this point. Yes, hitler was culpable for what he did and the rise of Nazism in Germany, but there was a narrative in which that took place, a bigger story which makes us all need to look to God for forgiveness and for mercy. 

0:21:48 - Speaker 2

In my own life, in the living that out, I know that that has brought me the greatest measure of freedom to be able to find purpose and joy and choose life and keep going and knowing that actually I stand on a legacy that has hope at the center of it. And what do you think are some of the current challenges in fostering peace in our wonderful land that we have called home? 

0:22:19 - Speaker 3

I do think it is about how do we recapture a Christian vision of forgiveness, but we also need to recognize that I don't think anybody should be forced to forgive. 

I don't think, you know. 

I think there needs to be space for people to nurture their own forgiveness because their pain is so deep or because they just can't bring themselves to do it, and particularly when people still try to justify their culpability for the violence and hide behind certain narratives, without acknowledging the deep harm that has been done, the deep trauma which is going to be intergenerational. We need a new generation of people to start doing what the Harold Goodes and the Al Reeds and the Ken Mules and Robin Eameses of the past did. We need to start digging those channels of communication and of reconciliation and of forgiveness and of the just bringing to the fore the hard story of the harm that violence has done to our community. And at the heart of that it is looking at our own hit, looking at what is it that animates us in our relationships to others and to the place we call northern ireland there are a lot of people who are quietly walking out their faith and and they're doing that outside the traditional church walls and I wonder I mean, that's a whole topic for today. 

0:23:51 - Speaker 2

I'm not getting into that just now, but I think there is hope there there's a lot of people who have deconstructed their faith and are building that up in a slightly different way, where the the walls of of church have felt too inexpressive or, as a way to, they've become discouraged and probably offended by how church hasn't spoken into certain situations that they feel that they should have, particularly with lots of things that have been going on in the world. So, um, are there any personal blind spots you feel you have when it comes to the process of peace and, if so, what does that look like and how have you tried to broaden your perspective? 

0:24:34 - Speaker 3

I think. Do I have blind spots? Obviously, Do I know them all? No, I think one of the key things one must do is one must always work on one's own self-awareness, but even recognize that when you've done that, there will be things in every situation that you just don't know the vibes you're giving off because you're so unaware. You have been accused of being too sympathetic to former paramilitaries, both in my relationships with loyalists and Republicans Some on both sides that I would consider friends now and have kept relationships with through sick and thin over the last 30 years plus, and I don't regret that. And people would say that I'm too obsessed with the forgiveness narrative over against the justice narrative. There's a correct challenge there because society society needs justice to be seen, to be done, but justice should be restorative in its ultimate. Justice is an act of reconciliation. It's dealing with the harm in ways that are healing. 

0:25:50 - Speaker 2

When you say restorative, what do you mean by that? 

0:25:56 - Speaker 3

If somebody has done their time for the offense they committed in a way that society has deemed that's how you pay your price for the crime that you've done, then they should have be able to restore their relationship into society and find their place in society. And what happened with the, the belfast agreement? Yes, a truncation of that process, but it wasn't. When you're released within two years if you're offended again you'll be brought back in. Michael Stone was brought back in, Others were brought back in. 

So it wasn't out of the normal criminal justice process operates. It was just truncated to help us move forward because the reality was that those, for better or worse, who fought the war as they saw it, were quite integral in bringing the various organisations to the peace table, and how they were dealt with was a big part of how we moved forward. I think the offence has come a bit like the early release in jails in England at the moment to reduce the numbers. The offense has come when those who did benefit from the scheme have basically rubbed it in people's faces, being trampleistic about it, of sort of showing that they hadn't learned their lesson, so to speak, about the futility of violence. So the scheme itself, it was a necessary part of making peace, but it's about how we go forward recognizing those hard truths that I've been talking about. 

0:27:34 - Speaker 2

What do you think needs to happen now? 

0:27:37 - Speaker 3

I think we need to sort out a process for dealing with the past, I think. What does it look like? Well, people used to say of the Belfast Agreement that it was Sunningdale, the Sunningdale Agreement of 74,. For slow learners, I would say that whatever we come up with in the Northern Ireland, it will be Eames Bradley Consultative Group in the past report for sole owners. There is nothing that has been on the table since we issued our report in 2009. That has not been said or hinted at or part of our report. It was really quite a comprehensive piece of work. So what's it going to look like? Well, the Information Recovery and Independent Reconciliation Information Recovery Commission is not far off the mark. Yes, it does the major legal work, alteration in the legislation to make it compliant with our legal obligations internationally. But what it is seeking to do of holding a dual process of investigation and information recovery leading towards reconciliation over a period of time is at the heart of the dynamic of the Eames-Bally report and the heart of the Stormont House Agreement. So I think something that deals with our past needs to be put into practice Now in many senses, before it's too late, before so many people who can share stories and information are no longer with us and before it's too late, because some of the intergenerational hate and resentment is being bedded in the communities because we haven't dealt honestly with the past. 

I can remember in 1972 at the paroling of Stormont, standing on the Upper Newton Horses Road which was lined with lots of nice middle-class Protestant people just down from Stormont buildings, including elders in our church and other Presbyterian churches in the area and senior people in all sorts of ways, as we clapped and applauded ranks and ranks of mass paramilitaries walking up the Stormont to protest the prerogation of Stormont in 1972. So when middle-class Protestant unionism tries to distance itself from loyalist paramilitarism, I just laugh. There was implicit support for the organisation of men in groups that then armed themselves to defend their communities and to defend Ulster, armed themselves to defend their communities and to defend Ulster and going to the William Craig Ravies in Ormow Park and watching all of that and seeing ordinary decent people as they would see themselves being involved in that. And I think that's the second thing that needs to happen. I think middle class Protestantism needs to get a grip on its relationship with loyalist working class communities. 

0:30:39 - Speaker 2

What needs to happen specifically. 

0:30:41 - Speaker 3

I think people need to stop distancing themselves from them. I think that's one of the interesting things that I see in the Catholic, nationalist, republican community there's a coherence across the class divide, whereas in Protestant, unionist, loyalist communities there is a sort of there isn't that same coherence. Part of it's down to Christianity. You know, when you became a Christian where I grew up in East Belfast, you stopped smoking, you stopped drinking, you stopped sleeping around and you became good living and you eventually moved on to the immediate area and became middle class. So there was a salvation uplift and lots of Christian communities in inner east Belfast have distanced themselves, have been commuter communities going in. There are amazing examples, like Mervyn Gibson does in Westbourne Presbyterian, of being really embedded in the community down there, lowering it north road. 

We need to provide leadership, we need to value education in working class, lawless communities. And then a third thing that I think needs to happen now is transition. When does it end for the paramilitary groups and the police need to have the courage for them to transition beyond a troubled mindset of intelligence gathering and if people have committed crimes in relation to drugs and prostitution et cetera, they should be arrested, whatever their claimed affiliations are, to whatever political side or form of paramilitary groups. If they've committed crimes and you have the evidence, arrest them rather than trying to keep something going that is about control and intelligence gathering. The working class, protestant communities in particular need the forces of the state of law and order to liberate them from the heavy hand of lawless paramilitarism and criminality. 

0:32:33 - Speaker 2

Because we know that that's transitioned from paramilitarism linked to the troubles to drugs and coercive control. That is a very real thing, yes, and it's not talked about, but yet we know it exists and happens. You were in the rooms when all of those talks around the Belfast Agreement were happening. You have the inside track. You know the nonsense that went on. You're also deeply aware of the cost to big chunks of community who felt, and still feel, probably, that they had to go more than the extra mile. What is the vision of home you want to see created, going forward? 

0:33:14 - Speaker 3

I want to see a society that is genuinely at peace with itself. I think that's going to take time and I also think it's going to require us to address the big political elephant in the room. The belfast agreement did not resolve the conflict. It it was an agreement, it was not a settlement. 

The fact that Republicans and nationalists have moved the conversation beyond a shared future to a new Ireland, a shared island, which in itself was deeply destabilizing to the unionist loyalist community and I was going to say my worst best moments I think that's deliberate in. I was going to say my worst best moments. I think that's deliberate in some people's part to destabilize. The reality is that I don't think I'll see Northern Ireland in my lifetime, or even yours, because it will not get the consensus that it needs. So we need to find a way of having that conversation about that future. But before that can happen, we need to make Northern Ireland work. We need to be at peace with ourselves and peace with how we're working for each other's benefit, both in economic development, in the provision of services and public services, and there's just not enough energy or hard decision making going into that at the moment that I can see. 

0:34:40 - Speaker 2

Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom, david. It's it's incredible to have the insights that you have, given the experience of all the different areas that you've worked in. You've taken the experience that you've had in Northern Ireland and you have invested that in other conflict areas in the world. So we just want to thank you for your faithfulness to Northern Ireland, to the peace process there, and thank you for your wisdom and insight on what you see that needs to happen for us to have the most flourishing future. 

0:35:11 - Speaker 3

Thank you, it's been great talking to you. Thank you, it's been great talking to you. 

0:35:20 - Speaker 2

So, jude, we've just heard from David Porter, and I thought that was an insightful look at growing up in East Belfast. The theme of peace building continued into the rest of his life, and he did that in various other locations. It would be really helpful to understand what struck you from that conversation most. 

0:35:43 - Speaker 1

I thought it was so interesting to hear that peacemaking perspective from within the church. He used the phrase peace witness churches should be peace witnesses, which I thought was such a great phrase. I was just struck with that idea that people have courage, or need it within church context to stand up and really forge ways with peace. And he really focused in on some churches, association with national identity and how his whole vibe is to break out of that, and I thought that was really interesting. 

He's obviously um somebody who studied that across the globe. He was mentioned in the Russian Orthodox Church, he was mentioned in Trump in the US and those, those uh, some of those toxic ties there and you know, he he was really advocating that that should just not be the vibe from any church and I thought it was so interesting to hear someone who's so embedded within church um basically say like call out, he was calling out prejudice, he was calling out stereotype and whiteness supremacy. I think that's so healthy to hear that called out from a man of the church, um in Northern Ireland circles. So that jumped out and I'm sure that was such a topic for you to kind of really get stuck into with him. 

0:37:02 - Speaker 2

It was so interesting because he really just went for it. 

I think he named some very important things that we don't really often talk about how the church was actually used as a, as a way to reinforce. You know, keep, keep this up, keep this balance up, because you're supporting God and Ulster like that is absolute nonsense and it is the furthest thing from faith than I can actually imagine. So I think it's really important that people like him have taken that stand. I know that a lot of people in community who were faith leaders also took that stand, both quietly and some of the braver ones publicly and more like a lighthouse in a community is what a church is supposed to be, as opposed to reinforcing bad behavior and encouraging and instigating it. And so I think that that leads us to the opportunity that we have today Like what does that look like? 

What could that look like? What should we be doing more of? And how can faith communities be leading in this area, where maybe they have taken a step back because it's felt not as immediate, but yet, from the conversation that we've been having and we're understanding what's going on locally for a lot of different people, the issues are still very much there and yeah, they're just pressed down a bit yeah, that is really powerful in terms of what that looks like now. 

0:38:42 - Speaker 1

And actually where I got moved in the conversation was him quoting the I think it's a quote inscribed on Coventry Cathedral and and it says forgive us, and that was put up. 

I think he said post-war and I thought that was brilliant from him because he was saying all of us, that's all of us, to say forgive us. It's not, oh, those guys over there and you know, all of us taking a look at our own stories, and again, I found that very moving. Um, it's as far removed from judgmentalism as you can get. It's like it's the self-examination piece and what is it about our own stories? Um, yeah, and I suppose that sense from him, um, who, somebody who has journeyed with peacemakers of, I was going to say, of a world, but yeah, because some of some of those that have passed on that he knew and and some who are um, older, in years now, and he's saying you know who are the new generation of peacemakers and where are they coming from, and from within the church and, and way beyond that, in communities as well, and he was really exercised about that, which I loved yeah, he was passionate about people of courage making a stand and continuing to make a stand, and that those voices really matter. 

0:40:00 - Speaker 2

It was so interesting to hear then, what he's gone on to do since then globally. 

0:40:04 - Speaker 1

I think, what I liked as well, because he has that global reference and he's travelled and seen again a lot of post-conflict scenarios, but he obviously has retained his complete heart for for for here, and I loved it. He talked about there's such a yearning for peace, um, but he said reconciliation is a rare commodity and yeah, I just that really struck me um, that that it's his sense of like. Yeah, it took courage back then. It still takes courage. It needs, it needs a lot more courage. And one thing I wanted to chat to you about as well he had a brilliant line. He said we need more honest remembering and hard telling, which I thought was an absolutely standout line. And again, that's easier to ask of other people than it is of ourselves and how this place is narrated. And people can get fixated on how others are narrating this place, but how are we narrating it? How are we honestly remembering within our own own spaces and actually doing some hard telling? That isn't, um, there's warts and all I. 

0:41:12 - Speaker 2

I thought that was beautifully put because it's been very tempting for a lot of people to share their experiences with rose-tinted glasses and that doesn't honour anyone, does it? The honest remembering is difficult because it's actually very painful and it activates a lot of traumatic things for a lot of people. He he talked about, he didn't have anyone immediately close to him that was killed, yeah, in northern ireland, but he will know all people and that's the same of all of us, right, that's, we will know people in our families or extended families or or community that have been deeply impacted. And it's the remembering well, that is, I think, is the key, that's the honoring. 

Um, we do that, we do that in different ways, different people do that in different ways, and that's okay, but, um, it's the honesty of that that I think, is key to Northern Ireland moving forward and moving on. When that's distorted, you know that's not true, that's not truth. How can you move on when there's no foundation of truth underneath that? So that's hugely important and a very significant piece to all of this, I think yeah, and obviously we all probably bring our own automatic sense of distortion. 

0:42:31 - Speaker 1

It was the blind spots that you you asked him about, yeah, but there is a narration war that can go on, a narration PR exercise that can go on, and I suppose I'm interested in that as a journalist where you know you it's having a filter for that and seeing you know beyond that sometimes. But I think where he really brought that home was he was he was bringing it back in terms of looking at the church, um, which I thought was, yeah, just very wise and very powerful. What a good man Just leading on from that self-reflection. Then as well, I was really struck and you don't often hear it said where David was talking about middle-class Protestantism through the Troubles generations and he was saying there was an implicit support. 

0:43:15 - Speaker 2

I actually air punched when he was talking about that because I was like, oh my word, finally somebody actually going ahead and naming the ridiculousness of this. 

0:43:25 - Speaker 1

He said that is to deny, that is laughable, that there was that implicit support for paramilitarism in in quarters, and I just thought that was yeah. Again, that is unusual to hear and he was pretty challenging about it. He was saying that actually middle-class Protestant communities need to get a grip and stop distancing themselves from working-class loyalist communities and that feels very current in terms of, just, you know, some of the disquiet within loyalism and that feeling of left-behindness that some can feel and there's a real challenge in there. 

0:44:03 - Speaker 2

I thought Very powerful, yeah, very powerful and provocative in all the right ways. 

0:44:14 - Speaker 1

You've been listening to Piece by Piece peace. Thanks so much for joining us. Our big hope here is that these would spark conversations in the homes and worlds we live and move in, as, peace by peace, we figure peace out together. We'd love to bring peace by peace out into the wild and host conversations in your community. If you're interested in sponsoring this venture and adventure, then please do get in touch. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page