I spent a few days in London last week and from that perspective the problems of Northern Ireland seem remote. Yet London always reminds me of home and Percy French's words contrasting "London's Wonderful Sight" with the "Mountains of Mourne", always come to mind. There are many Irish pubs and Piccadilly and Leicester Square have been immortalised in the words It's a Long Way to Tipperary, though Tipperary doesn't seem quite so remote these days.
In a Piccadilly churchyard market I noticed unusual Coptic crosses from Ethiopia. The stall owner said some had been used in Christian worship, while others were replicas. We got talking about connections between Coptic and Celtic Christianity and he told me about modern Irish Christians working in north Africa.
In Westminster Abbey there were further reminders of home, not just the memorial to King Billy but also monuments to Anglo-Irish aristocrats from remote parts of Ireland. Beside the tomb of the Unknown Warrior it dawned on me that he could be from the streets of Belfast.
In the 1960s I stayed near London and found that many people didn't know of Northern Ireland. Today, thanks to the years of conflict, Belfast is much better known. Scottish influence is also widespread with Scottish tartan a common sight. The familiar skirl of the pipes can be heard in Leicester Square while Irish harp music resounds in the underground. Still, most people who throng the streets are not Irish, Scottish, Welsh or English but from many nations across the globe. Everywhere but especially in the museums, there are artefacts and remnants of an imperial past that has helped pave the way for our peculiarly modern world which brings far away places near.
Diverse people mingle together happily and I wondered if this was the world we have been preparing for back home. Perhaps the prospect of traditional ways disappearing frightens people. Pluralism can be beneficial but there is a down side.
The modern world can seem rootless and pointless.
As American sociologist Peter Berger once suggested, the modern world provides a sense of freedom in which people, in an unprecedented way, can fashion their own lives but the result may collide with the insubstantial nature of modern life. Relationships break down; violence escalates, while alienation and lack of meaning persists.
In both parts of Ireland we seem to stand before a new world. Traditional understandings were often gained at the expense of outsiders, whose exclusion sustained our cosy little worlds and provided comfort blankets for our endangered species. Our once apparently stable worlds were born of violence through which 'undesirables' were driven away. That is the perennial human basis for the creation and sustenance of social life.
Today we seek a new world based on inclusive relationships within and without – a venture that can be exciting and potentially liberating but also fraught with danger and difficulty. By including former enemies we alienate former friends and the security of the holy huddle is threatened by a seemingly rootless existence.
In face of an apparently meaningless modern world some become reactionaries resisting change and glorifying a mythical past. Others become revolutionaries who glorify a utopian future, while seeking to overthrow the last vestiges of the old order in favour of their brave new world. Both approaches are based upon excluding those deemed intolerant and who can thus be no longer tolerated. Revolutionaries and reactionaries collude in rejecting an inclusiveness that messes up their neat theories that reduce human beings to commodities.
Reactionary/revolutionary ideals must be tempered by pragmatism, openness and tolerance. We have much to learn from each other and there is no way back to mutual exclusion. There is as much insight and knowledge to be gained from the past as there is from new visions. In the midst of the vast multicultural, multiethnic multitude that throngs the streets of London, many are drawn to ancient wisdom, with young and old crowding into the cathedrals, museums, art galleries and theatres, dimly seeking a deeper understanding of life.
At a time when we, in this part of Ireland, seem ready to turn another corner in our tortured history, we must affirm wisdom in the past while maintaining a vision of a better future and leaving time for others to come on board.
There is no utopia and no ready final solution but together we can find new ways towards a better future in which humanity in all its complexity, ingenuity and hopefulness can blossom and flourish.
