The Diffusion and Adaptation of Public Achievement in Northern Ireland †An Activist’s Perspective. :: Politics Political

The Diffusion and Adaptation of unrestricted Achievement in Northern Ireland An Activists PerspectiveAc fill outledgements This report and its presentation was made possible by funding from the European program for Peace and Reconciliation, Measure 4.1, from the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister, Stormont, Belfast. The causation would also like to acknowledge the assistance of his Northern Ireland based and outside(a) colleagues, and the patience beyond reason of his family, Kim, Raffy and Evie.For years I would not let the dark gods of politics and religion possess me. Unlike many of my eon and background, I had made that mythic leap and crossed the Jordan. My Protestant travail background and all its shibboleths would not contain me. I chose to ask questions and not accept ready made answers. We discover our own answers if we have the give to do so and if we are not afraid of the confrontation with ourselves that such(prenominal) a journey might entail.Th ose who cross the Jordan and seek out truth through a different experience from the one they are natural to, ... theirs is the greatest argue. To move from one cultural ethos into another, as I did, and come forth embracing them both demands more of a man than any fortify struggle. For here is the real conflict by which we move into manhood and maturity. For unless we know how to embrace the other we are not men and our nationhood is wilful and adolescent. Those who struggle through turbulent Jordan waters have gone beyond the silklike definitions of politics or religion. The rest remain standing on all bank firing guns at one another. I had had enough of gun-fire, the empty words of hate and redundant ideologies. Brian Keenan An Evil Cradling (p16)IntroductionIn telling the apologue of Public Achievement in Northern Ireland, I want to absorb 3 interweaving narratives personal, organisational and social. The organisational spans the period from May 1998 to the pr esent (November 2003), as does much of the societal - though I will touch on some diachronic and more recent events and developments to illustrate this story. I approach the subject as a participant, a practitioner and one who has invested large chunks of my life in pursuit of more humane, democratic and life-enhancing ways of living in what has been a brutal and stunting place.