Sectarianism in Northern Ireland
Sectarianism refers to the complex of problems that arise as an effect, whether close or distant, of the destructive mingling of religion and politics. The characteristics of sectarianism listed below point towards how society can challenge sectarianism.
(1) Nothing raises the emotional tension in a room quite the way that mentioning sectarianism does, especially in a mixed group of Protestants and Catholics. For the most part, therefore, sectarianism is not discussed, and when the word is used, it is often among our own, talking about them, or, if in public, it is hurled as a harsh accusation.
We must create situations and approaches in which sectarianism can be analysed and discussed in a positive, hopeful, and fruitful way.
(2) At the heart of sectarianism is a distorted and destructive way of dealing with difference.
We need to learn to see difference in general as a richness and not a threat, and to deal constructively with all difference even difference that we find difficult and obnoxious. The latter is the crucial challenge: can we deal constructively even with types of difference difficult for us to stomach?
(3) Sectarianism involves a blaming mechanism, whereby each person can identify people who exhibit sectarianism of a more blatant and destructive nature than anything he or she is involved in, so those people out there are identified as the real sectarian problem, and no one ever takes responsibility.
The challenge is to move from a culture of blame, which sectarianism both generates and feeds on, to a culture of taking responsibility. This will involve learning to recognise and address the ways in which we are complicit in and responsible for sectarianism not because ours is the worst form of sectarianism, but simply because it is ours, and therefore the one kind we can do something about.
(4) The sectarian system works most smoothly and effectively when it is largely hidden from view, accepted as normality, and simply assumed to be the way things have been, will be, and must be.
The power of sectarianism to perpetuate itself lies in part in the sense of hopelessness it creates. Thus even the simplest ways of exposing the sectarian system to scrutiny can be liberating and rewarding for those involved.
