On Friday, the city of Derry, Northern Ireland was put on high security alert by the Real IRA while the people of France were still brewing over the death of what is thought to be the first French police officer to be killed by the ETA. I was in the Basque Country – geographically and ideologically in the middle of both of these incidents – sitting in a cafe, wondering, “What the h*ll is peace?”
I arrived in Northern Ireland at the cheeky age of 19, literally overflowing with that trademark American optimism, ready to study peace and conflict. I thought I could fix everything in just over 18 weeks. Four years later, I showed up on the doorstep of Bilbao, still in searching for that golden perspective, the answer to that elusive question, “Why can’t we all just get along?”
Northern Ireland had been rough for me. The conflict is over, but the people still walk around with tense shoulders and balled fists. Words carry a lot of weight and the history, God the history is heavy. You can’t go anywhere without being reminded. You can’t go anywhere without being expected to remember what was.
I’m not sure if it’s just the change in language and its proximity to a sunnier coast, but the Basque Country has a lighter feel to it. The people are definitely nationalist, but the Basques don’t appear to be as quick to draw the gun. This has been a strange realization for me – given that Northern Ireland is most frequently hailed as the success story of peace, while the Basque Country continues to suffer under the poor publicity of ETA.
Friday’s actions are proof that the IRA and ETA are still active nuisances in Ireland and Spain and every time they make the news, there is a collective groan from the people in the streets. They mutter, “Why can’t we just have peace?” Yet I would like to argue – that they do.
Most people consider the United States to be one of the safest countries in the world, but if you take a look beneath the surface, we are a country with just as many conflicts as Northern Ireland or the Basque Country. The difference is - we don’t all rally under the same name. Ours is not an nationalist cause as much as it is many different ideological ones. We don’t have bombs exploding on a monthly basis either, but I would contribute this absence to the fact that we have twice as many resources to pursue these trouble-makers and too many luxuries to distract the potential others from taking aggressive political actions.
Ireland and Spain might be a bit too hard on themselves or the rest of us – a bit too hard on them. Often times, in politics, we expect our leaders to produce perfect scenarios when even where we live, these perfect scenarios do not exist. We can’t expect ETA or the IRA to completely go away anymore than we can expect religious zealots, the KKK, or neo-Nazis to totally disappear. It just isn’t realistic. So when the paper hits the stands with yet another story of “bombing attack” “ETA believed to be at play” – we should not get frustrated. Because the reality is, if you pick up that newspaper and turn to any average Basque person in the street and remark, “This is ridiculous. This kind of violence” – they’re going to wholeheartedly agree with you.
And to me, that’s peace.
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