“PROTECTING RIGHTS - LOCALLY, NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY”
Speech by Mark Durkan MLA, SDLP Leader
St. Columb’s Park House, Derry
Friday 25 February 2005
I am very pleased to be here this afternoon and want to thank SDLP Youth for the invitation to address today’s seminar.
I intend to keep my initial remarks short because I believe that hearing what you think on these issues is just as important as telling you what I think.
The SDLP was born of the struggle for civil rights.
In defence of the ideal that all people are created equal and should be treated as such.
In defiance of those who sought to oppress our community, control our people and suppress our rights - not just as citizens - but as human beings as well.
It was on the streets of Derry and in other parts of the North that the first SDLP generation and others rose against injustice, prejudice and deprivation. Marched for fair treatment and equal rights for all. Brought our community out of grievance and into governance. And changed the face of our society for ever - without ever resorting to the brutality of violence.
That was the SDLP’s role then. It is our mission now.
To create a society where the rights of all people are respected unequivocally.
To work for a community where our older people don’t fear hearing a knock on their door and our young people aren’t scared to walk through the city centre at night.
To grow an economy where no young person is forced to leave their hometown in search of work or struggle to make ends meet in the work they get.
To build a country where our people and our communities can live free from fear. Where no one is above the law or gets away with acting as if they are the law. Where every person is guaranteed justice. Where people can not only live their own lives and fulfil their own potential; but are allowed to live to see their children fulfil theirs as well.
That is the Ireland the SDLP is determined to build. It is an Ireland the Good Friday Agreement can deliver.
Nearly seven years ago now, the people of Ireland voted for the Agreement. Yet the democratic mandate we gave to it - a much greater mandate than any political party on this island can command - is still being denied. By political parties who resent the very idea change. And paramilitaries who fail to recognise that their day has long since gone.
I resent it when I hear people say the Good Friday Agreement is dead and gone, because the Agreement remains the democratically expressed will of the people of Ireland and no one has any right to write that fact off. No one will stand stronger by the Agreement than the SDLP, because no one has greater respect for the people than the SDLP. Not because we did more to create the Agreement than anyone else, but because it offers us all our best hopes to achieve most for our generation and generations to come.
Either directly because of the Agreement or arising from the institutions, solid progress has been made on the rights agenda. The Human Rights Commission and Equality Commission are up and running and able to stand up for the rights of all. The Children’s Commissioner is delivering for children and young people with world leading powers. All government policy must now be equality proofed. Radical and rapid change is happening in policing with more to come. A new independent prosecution service is on the way. All very technical terms, I know. But what they add up to is this - greater rights and stronger protections than ever before for the people who need them most.
But we all need more. And those who continue to deny us the Good Friday Agreement are holding positive change back. In truth, those who promised people so much have delivered so little. Those who talk most about “change” and argue loudest for “rights” are responsible for frustrating those very objectives.
They are denying us - not just the democratic institutions of the Assembly, North South Ministerial Council and all-Ireland bodies - but the Bill of Rights and the Charter of Rights as well. Important new and stronger laws on equality are moving at snail’s pace. Resolute action against the flying of sectarian flags is on go slow. The Children’s Fund and the Children’s Strategy - which the SDLP created when we were in government - have been abolished by Direct Rule. And it is the people who are suffering.
That is why we need the Agreement back. To finish the job the people asked us to do. To follow a better way to a better Ireland.
An Ireland where the measure of our patriotism is the distance we are willing to go to keep the unfulfilled promise of the Easter 1916 Proclamation to cherish “all the children of the nation equally”.
Whatever about all the things that cause division and disagreement among us, every political party on this island should unite to keep that promise.
By making it our shared priority to eradicate child poverty in Ireland by 2016 - if not sooner.
By ensuring that no child of Ireland is ever left behind or branded a failure.
Where the “children of Ireland” doesn’t just mean children of Irish parents.
Where no child has to silently suffer bullying or abuse - in the schoolyard or at home.
Where no parent of a child with a disability has to negotiate with or between different services, as though their child is the first with such special needs. And no one with a disability has to endure the indignity of ignorant and intolerant name-calling.
Where society, all its systems and every service says and means “every child is our child” - no matter what their sexuality, their skin colour, or their religion.
Where all children live free, not just from the deprivation of poverty, but from the depravity of prejudice as well.
So that they can grow up with proper respect for all the differences on their island. Not just getting their history from a gable wall, but growing a positive regard for all the different hurts that people have suffered at different hands.
These are the high standards we must set for ourselves and each other - and deliver together.
But it is not just our own shared future or that of our country that concerns us.
We won’t be content to see child poverty eradicated in Ireland by 2016, without seeing the millennium goals to eradicate child poverty and hunger across the world delivered by that time as well.
We aren’t just worried about the one child in three in Irish society that lives below the poverty line; we are worried as well about the millions of children in Africa, Asia and around the world who are born to live only in poverty, disease and war. If indeed they live that long, as I saw for myself when I visited Malawi with Children in Crossfire two years ago.
And we aren’t content just to express our revulsion that the world’s leading powers don’t do more for these people, we want to do more ourselves - as we proved in our response to the tsunami disaster in Asia.
When I was your age, it was the denial of democratic and human rights in South Africa under Apartheid that caused affront. Today it is the new global apartheid. A small minority hold all the power, wealth and resources. Justifying their approach by claiming it is necessary for stability. Delivering so little for those who need most. Failing to tackle the basic underlying problems. ]Failing even to drop the debt for the poorest nations in world, while insisting on spending billions on dropping bombs on innocent people in Iraq.
We care about these things because we know Martin Luther King was right when he said that a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
The SDLP is a small political party in Ireland. But we have big ideals and strong values. We have a vision for a better Ireland and a better world. Where all children are cherished equally, the rights of every human being are respected unequivocally and no one is ever left behind.
