Northern Ireland is never short of people proposing dubious, daft projects.
The latest is a school of peace journalism in Derry.
Barry Lowe, a London lecturer in New Media Journalism (whatever that is)
hopes to have the £300,000 Centre for Conflict Resolution open by September.
Apparently, it's backed by a host of local politicians, including John Hume.
Staff in the centre will give workshops to foreign journalists and work
with local groups on peace projects.
"The idea we're trying to promote is that journalists can work for peace,"
says Lowe. Well sorry, we can't. A journalist should no more work for peace
than for war. Journalists must be observers and chroniclers of conflict, not
players themselves.
Besides, one person's peace is another person's injustice. Working for
"peace" in Northern Ireland recently meant promoting the Belfast Agreement
at all costs, turning a blind eye to Provo ceasefire breaches, and papering
over the cracks in the Stormont institutions.
It involved journalists accepting Sinn Féin and government lies, and then
lying themselves to their readers and viewers. It meant not asking awkward
questions.
In the 1970s, supporting "peace" in Northern Ireland involved promoting the
agenda of the Peace People, denouncing the paramilitaries, and turning a
blind eye to State violence.
How does Lowe suggest journalists in Iraq support "peace"? Should they
cover up prisoner abuses and American atrocities because peace will arrive
only when the US has a firm grip on the country?
Or should they blaze the injustices in technicolour across the world to
hasten the end of the US military occupation as Iraq's only chance of real
peace. It's all highly subjective.
To suggest peace is an objective goal is intellectual dishonesty, and we
don't need any more of that in Northern Ireland. Let Lowe takes his Centre
somewhere else.
