Tomorrow Will Be Better Than Today, But…
In response to Dancing Elephants prompt 4 of 52
Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles asked “What is your favorite quote?”
My favorite quote suggests a way to think about the world and its possibilities.
Northern Ireland
I’ve traveled to Derry, Northern Ireland five times with college students to study the Peace and Reconciliation process between Catholic and Protestant Communities.
A peace agreement was signed in 1998 that ended the armed conflict phase. One part of that agreement required the Catholic Irish Republican Army (IRA) to disarm.
The President of the Methodist Church in Northern Ireland, The Reverend Harold Goode, was one of two independent witnesses to the decommissioning. The other was Father Alec Reid, a catholic priest.
Reverend Goode was born in 1937 and so lived through the worst of Northern Ireland’s Troubles. He spoke to each of my student groups. On the first occasion, I asked him to evaluate progress in Northern Ireland since 1998.
He said:
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being worst and 10 being best, from where Northern Ireland was during the worst of the Troubles, we are an 8. From where we want to be as a fully reconciled society, we are at a 3.
Tomorrow will be better
This is my favorite quote because it gives me two vectors to think about the world.
One is the possibility of progress.
Northern Ireland is better today than it was yesterday, before 1998.
In the Hands Across the Divide Sculpture pictured above, which sits in a busy roundabout in Derry, two figures representing the communities in conflict are reaching out to each other.
This reaching out, Reverend Goode’s 8 on the 10-point scale, symbolizes the decades-long work of community organizations and political elites trying to move Northern Ireland in the direction of a “fully reconciled society.”
In Northern Ireland, from the perspective of before, tomorrow was better.
But
Catholics and Protestants still mostly segregate in schools, pubs, sports, politics, and neighborhoods.
This is the second vector: the difficulty of progress.
It’s not easy to change people or societies.
Hatred and distrust die hard.
Because:
Some don’t want to change.
Some win by encouraging hatred and distrust.
Take another look at the Hands sculpture.
The hands are reaching out but not quite touching.
This symbolizes Reverend Goode’s 3 and the difficulty of progress toward reconciliation.
America
The first time Reverend Goode spoke to my students was January 2009. Two days before his talk we had watched, dewy-eyed, the inauguration of Barack Obama. And observed in Derry public buses with President Obama’s face.
I asked my students to apply Goode’s vector approach to America regarding racial reconciliation.
We talked about how far America had come since the days of slavery and Jim Crow. Obama’s image as America’s President represented progress. A leap forward toward reconciliation.
Out-stretched hands
But
Blacks and whites still mostly segregate: in schools, bars, neighborhoods, marriage, and politics.
Even in college cafeterias.
Some don’t want to change
Some win by encouraging hatred and distrust.
Not quite touching
Like Northern Ireland, America has come a long way from where it was.
Progress built upon the work of many, over decades.
Community groups and elites.
Hard earned and not guaranteed.
Because resistance is fierce.
My second favorite quote is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
The arc is pointed in the right direction: toward a better world for more.
But it is long because there is something inside humans that make it hard for us to live with others who are different.
In Northern Ireland the particular is religion; in America it is race.
The universal is difference.
Today 8 and 3.
Maybe tomorrow 9 and 4.
