There is only one thing people need to know to be successful at negotiating, contends former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, the man who helped forge the peace agreement in Northern Ireland.
"You have to have the willpower to quit when you're ahead, which, of course, requires the wisdom to know when you're ahead," he told the overflow crowd that had gathered in the auditorium of Luce Hall on Oct. 10 to hear him deliver the George Herbert Walker Jr. Lecture in International Studies, sponsored by the Yale Center for International and Area Studies.
To prove that it's not so easy to know when you're ahead, Mitchell related an anecdote about two neighboring farmers, an Englishman and an Irishman, who were arguing over a duck that the former had shot over his farm, but that had fallen on the latter's land. They agreed to settle the matter by giving the duck to whoever could throw his opponent the farthest. The Irishman then picked up the Englishman and hurled him 33 feet into a stone wall.
"The English farmer slowly got to his feet. He was bloody and bruised all over, and thought maybe he'd broken a rib," said Mitchell, "Then he looked at the duck and said, 'Aw, keep it!'"
Mitchell admitted that, when he was first asked by the British and Irish governments to chair the negotiations in Northern Ireland, he feared "the prospect of success was non-existent." The history of "tangled, violent and often bitter relations" between Britain and Ireland stretches back 800 years, he noted. Since the 1960s, thousands of people have been killed or maimed and "tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes," he said.
"When the peace negotiations started, the people of Northern Ireland were so conditioned to conflict, there was an aura of pessimism" about whether peace could ever be achieved, recalled the senator. "For the first year and a half I was there, we made very little progress."
The negotiations involved 10 political parties from Northern Ireland, plus the British and Irish governments. "One measure of the complexity of the situation there is the fact that at no time have all 10 parties sat down in the same room at the same time" because they've refused to do so, said Mitchell. He was often forced to conduct the negotiations "proximity style," where the parties were in separate buildings and he shuttled between them.
Even with separate quarters, emotions often ran high. "There is a kind of brinkmanship to Northern Ireland politics," explained the senator. "The threat of total collapse is a standard part of the political repertoire there." One manifestation of this is "the dramatic walkout," he said. "I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone make a powerful accusatory speech, shake their finger at the other guy, stand up, drop their papers on the desk with a loud thud, and then walk out and slam the door." Yet each of these dramatic exits has to be taken seriously, lest it truly mark the collapse of the negotiations, he noted.
The meetings became even more heated when there was a new outbreak of violence. "I have learned it is not possible conduct genuine negotiations until the killing stopped -- the emotions simply run too high," said Mitchell, noting the parallels between the conflict in Northern Ireland and the recent events in the Middle East.
In 1998, when he announced the historic "Good Friday Agreement," which set North Ireland on the course toward self-government, Mitchell recalled remarking that the accord "makes the achievement of an endurable peace possible" but acknowledging that "there will be many difficult days ahead."
This has certainly proved to be true, said Mitchell, as the "remarkable fragility and remarkable endurance" of the agreement continues to be tested by fresh conflicts in the region. "The animosities of decades, even centuries, don't vanish overnight," he notes. "It will be a long time before there is a lasting peace, and a longer time before there is reconciliation."
Ultimately, the course the peace process will rest with the people of Northern Ireland themselves, said Mitchell, pointing to their "war-weariness" as one factor favoring its success. However, he cautioned, the people of Northern Ireland are still sending their leaders mixed messages.
"On the one hand, they're saying, 'We want this settled peaceably. We do not want to go back to war,'" he noted. "But they're also telling their leaders, 'We want it settled our way.'"
-- By LuAnn Bishop
T H I S
W E E K ' SS T O R I E S
Class of 1954 Gives Yale $70 Million
Wolfe returns to old hunting grounds
George Mitchell: Peace in Northern Ireland is 'remarkably fragile and remarkably enduring'
Study finds key areas of brain smaller in many premature infants
ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS
New initiative to explore issue of patients' adherence
Former Connecticut College official is new associate secretary
Irish poet Seamus Heaney to give reading of his work
Event celebrates the life of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai
Judge 'misread' Microsoft antitrust case, journalist says
'Master classes' help teaching fellows become stars in classroom
McClatchy and Ruff honored for contributions to the arts
Pianist Boris Berman to discuss 'the making of a musician'
Divinity Dean Richard Wood is named president of international educational venture
Yale Parents' Weekend October 20-22, 2000
Experts will discuss new research at annual women's health conference
Events featuring Yale affiliates explore how art, medicine can converge
A day at the beach
April Bernard, award-winning poet and novelist, will read from her new work
ISPS is seeking proposals for new field experiments in the social sciences
Campus Notes
In the News
Yale Scoreboard
Bulletin Home|Visiting on Campus|
Calendar of Events|Bulletin Board
Classified Ads|Search Archives|Production Schedule|Bulletin Staff
Public Affairs Home|News Releases|
E-Mail Us|Yale Home Page
