[msb-alumni] John Hume, 83, Peacemaker in Northern Ireland Who Won Nobel, Dies on August 3, 2020
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2020 16:36:24 -0400
BlankJust as a note, here is a link to an outstanding song about "The
Troubles," and
opposition to American and Canadian citizens who supported the I.R.A., which
essentially echoed Mr. Hume's pleas: by Stan Rogers "The House of Orange":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tsak6tocNc
____
John Hume, 83, Peacemaker in Northern Ireland Who Won Nobel, Dies. By Alan
Cowell.
The politician's campaign for peace was seen as a driving force behind an end
to 25
years of sectarian conflict in the territory.
John Hume, a moderate Roman Catholic politician who was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize
for his dogged and ultimately successful campaign to end decades of bloodshed
in his
native Northern Ireland, died on Monday in the northern city of Derry. He was
83. His
death, at a nursing home, was announced by his family in a statement, which did
not
give the cause, though his wife, Pat Hume, had earlier acknowledged that he was
struggling with dementia.
"It seems particularly apt for these strange and fearful days to remember the
phrase
that gave hope to John and so many of us through dark times: We shall
overcome," his
family said.
Mr. Hume, a former French teacher who was known for a sharp wit but rarely for
rhetorical flourishes, rose from hardscrabble beginnings to become the longtime
leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and a towering figure in the
grinding and oft-thwarted drive to end 25 years of "The Troubles," as Northern
Ireland's strife was known. In his campaign for peace, inspired by the example
of the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he employed a winning combination of public
exhortation against the violence of the Irish Republican Army and secret
diplomacy
with its political leadership, sitting down for talks in his modest rowhouse
over
coffee.
Deftly and persistently he enlisted the White House to help him reach his goal.
His
efforts were recognized when he shared the Nobel with the Protestant leader
David
Trimble in 1998, the year of the Good Friday peace agreement, which crowned his
commitment to ending the unrest that had claimed more than 3,000 lives.
A television poll in the Irish Republic in 2010 proclaimed Mr. Hume "Ireland's
Greatest," ahead of prominent contenders like the rock star Bono. In 2012, Pope
Benedict XVI awarded him a papal knighthood.
Paradoxically, in bringing more radical Roman Catholic figures to the
negotiating
table -- notably Gerry Adams, the head of the I.R.A.'s political wing -- Mr.
Hume
undermined his own party's appeal to voters.
Battling poor health, he resigned in 2001 as leader of the Social Democratic
and
Labour Party, which he had led since 1979, without enjoying the high office
that
might normally reward an architect of historic change.
In 2004, he said he would no longer seek election to the European and British
Parliaments, which he joined in 1979 and 1983, respectively.
In late 2015, his wife, who was also his political manager, told the BBC that
he was
experiencing 'severe difficulties' with dementia.
Throughout a career in Northern Ireland politics, in which finger-pointing and
recrimination amplified a drumbeat of bombings and killings, Mr. Hume stood as
a
voice of reason, counseling against the cycles of bloodshed between the
Protestant
majority and the Roman Catholic minority.
"An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind," he said, attributing the comment to
Dr.
King. He argued instead for dialogue and reconciliation to still the furious
conflict
that pitted the I.R.A. against Protestant paramilitary groups and thousands of
British Army soldiers.
"We have to start spilling our sweat, not our blood," he declared.
In the parlance of Northern Ireland, Mr. Hume was a "nationalist" whose dream
of a
reunited Ireland had no place for the violence embraced by "republicans" like
the
I.R.A., with its armed fighters and networks of financiers, bomb-makers and
sympathizers in the region and in the United States.
Rather, he foresaw a time when Northern Ireland's divide would give way to
peace and
economic self-interest.
Mr. Hume was so concerned about multimillion-dollar funding for the I.R.A. by
Irish
Americans that he traveled frequently to Washington to convince American
leaders,
from President Jimmy Carter onward, that a majority of Northern Irish people
rejected
the I.R.A.'s violent methods.
It was a message that culminated in a more active role in Northern Ireland
adopted by
President Bill Clinton. In one of three of visits to the Clinton White House by
Mr.
Hume, Mr. Clinton lauded him as "Ireland's most tireless champion for civil
rights
and its most eloquent spokesman for peace."
Back home, Mr. Hume had a parallel reputation as a man who did not suffer fools
gladly.
"Question: What is the difference between John Hume and God?" one joke asked.
"Answer: God doesn't think he is John Hume."
Mr. Hume's most dramatic initiative played out in the late 1980s and mid-'90s,
when
he held secret peace talks with Mr. Adams at a rowhouse in Derry, which those
seeking
to retain close ties to Britain refer to as Londonderry. The house itself was
attacked several times over the years by firebombers -- some Protestants,
others
Catholic supporters of the I.R.A. -- a token of the hazards and threats from
both
sides that persisted during the quest for peace.
Mr. Hume was hospitalized several times in the mid-1990's for what he called "a
case
of nerves."
He said the talks, over cups of coffee and glasses of Ballygowan mineral water,
had
begun in the early 1990's, a resumption of discussions dating to 1988.
For many Britons and Northern Irish Protestants, Mr. Adams was a pariah at the
time,
with a reputed history as an I.R.A. commander, a role he has denied.
As president of Sinn Fein -- the political wing of the outlawed I.R.A., which
the
British authorities and many others viewed as a terrorist organization -- Mr.
Adams
was depicted by his critics as no more than a front for the 'hard men' of
violence.
And in talking to him, Mr. Hume risked the accusation that he was treating with
terrorists.
"One was a man of peace and the other a man of war," the correspondent John
Darnton
wrote in The New York Times in 1994.
Mr. Hume's essential achievement was to convince Mr. Adams that if the I.R.A.
renounced violence, Sinn Fein could join peace talks from which it had long
been
excluded, gaining a yearned-for political legitimacy.
The effort was part of a complicated international process. The British
government
had itself been conducting unpublicized back-channel contacts with Sinn Fein.
"Central to the discussions from my point of view was violence," Mr. Hume said.
"I
kept asking for the reason for it. I had said publicly that the I.R.A. had been
discussed as criminals and gangsters. I said I wish they were. If they were, we
could
have gotten rid of them in a fortnight. The problem was they believed in what
they
were saying."
He added: "The whole objective was to bring about a total cessation of
violence. We
eventually agreed on that. Then the question was, How to get there?"
The contacts led to a 'complete cessation of military operations' announced by
the
I.R.A. in 1994 -- a critical steppingstone on the way to the 1998 peace accord,
though an I.R.A. bombing campaign in London in 1996 would shatter the
cease-fire
before it was restored.
Finally, in September 1997, Sinn Fein, representing the I.R.A., and the leaders
of
Protestant parties sat at the same negotiating table for the first time since
1922,
when Ireland was partitioned into an independent Irish Republic in the south
and the
British-run province in the north.
Mr. Hume dismissed widespread suggestions that the I.R.A. had bombed its way to
the
peace table. Without the violence, Mr. Hume argued, Sinn Fein would have been
admitted to the talks years earlier.
But the relationship came with a heavy political cost. In the early 1990's, Mr.
Hume's Social Democratic and Labour Party had controlled about two-thirds of
the
Catholic vote, Sinn Fein one third. By mid-1997 Sinn Fein's share had risen to
about
40 percent.
The trend continued. In the 2011 elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly,
Sinn
Fein won twice as many seats as the S.D.L.P. By helping to give Sinn Fein a
place at
the peace table, Mr. Hume had hurt his own party, and many of its members
resented
him for it.
John Hume was born in Derry on Jan. 18, 1937, the eldest of seven children of
Sam
Hume, a shipyard riveter who lived for many years on state welfare, and Annie
Doherty
Hume.
In a memoir, "John Hume -- Personal Views: Politics, Peace and Reconciliation
in
Ireland," he recalled his father taking him to a Republican meeting in the late
1940s.
"They were all waving flags and stirring up emotion for the united Ireland and
an end
to partition," he wrote. "When my father saw that I was affected, he put his
hand
gently on my shoulder and said, "Son, don't get involved in that stuff," "and I
said,
"Why not, Da?" "He answered simply, "Because you can't eat the flag."
"That was my first lesson in politics, and it has stayed with me to this day."
He won a scholarship to St. Columb's College, a grammar school in Derry for the
small
elite of middle-class Catholic professionals, and studied for the priesthood
before
switching to a degree course in French and history. He taught French in his 20s
and
became a leader in both the civil rights movement and the fledgling credit
union
movement.
In 1960, after three years of courtship, he married Pat Hone, a fellow teacher.
At
one point, alongside their teaching, the couple ran a modest smoked-salmon
business.
He is survived by his wife; their five children, Terese, ? ine, Aidan, John and
Mo;
as well as siblings and grandchildren, the family statement said.
As a rising politician, Mr. Hume was instrumental in preparing the Anglo-Irish
agreement of 1985. The pact gave the Irish Republic, for the first time, a
consultative role in the affairs of the North, but it also guaranteed that no
change
in the territory's political status could be made without the consent of its
Protestant majority.
He remained close to leading political figures in the United States and was an
energetic salesman for the territory, helping to persuade companies to move
there.
When Jean Kennedy Smith, the older sister of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was
appointed
ambassador to the Irish Republic in 1993, Mr. Hume became one of her constant
advisers. She responded by helping to persuade President Clinton to end
American
sanctions against Sinn Fein and to support the inclusion of Mr. Adams and Sinn
Fein
at the peace talks. (Ms. Smith died in June at 92.)
A committed European, Mr. Hume believed that just as Western European borders
were
weakened to encourage trade, so could the border between Northern Ireland and
the
Irish Republic be gradually eliminated as their economies became interdependent.
"I am a teacher," he said. "You keep saying the same things over and over. Then
you
know you're getting through when someone in a pub gives you back your own
words."
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