[Music] blazing Vehicles satellite yeah we woke up every morning to a news report that was a bombing or a shooting petrol bomb attacks on shops have been condemned as senseless acts of violence there was such an appetite and such a want for people in Northern Ireland to say there's going to be no more 25 years ago a historic deal brought peace to Northern Ireland saving thousands of lives today I hope that the burden of History can at long last start to be lifted from our shoulders I could still see the document in my head when we're speaking you could feel weight collectively lifting from society but a generation later how well is the Good Friday agreement still working peace agreement is not a fairy story you don't get to live happily ever after the security service MI5 today raised the terror threat in Northern Ireland to severe there is this glorification of violence of the violence of the past it's younger people who have decided to take on that trauma for themselves and decided that's our work what needs to be done to preserve the hard one piece the best way to keep the pace is to make sure that people have a job that they have something that they're contributing to that's bigger than them and does the price of Peace have to be bad government there has been this lurching instability storm it is up then it's down for a population that has grown up in peace they want something better and they are the people who are increasingly pushing for change [Music] [Music] Belfast Titanic quarter a tech and tourism hub Blockbuster fantasy Drma Game of Thrones was shot here and attractions like the Titanic Center welcome hundreds of thousands of people every year none of this would have been possible without the Good Friday agreement it was a piece of high politics but actually it has transformed Northern Irish Society it has meant that for instance the architecture is different in Belfast there are lots of glass buildings something which would have been Madness during the troubles because bombs were going off there's more inward investment there are better jobs this has had a practical impact on people's lives in ways that lots of people in Northern Ireland don't necessarily think about so how did the Good Friday agreement achieve this transformation well to understand that you need to go back to 1921. [Music] when the Border was drawn by the British it gave most of Ireland Independence but meant six Northern counties remained part of the UK most people here were Protestants who supported the Union and the system was designed to work in their favor the police were 90 percent Protestant as were most judges and the government was majority rule meaning unionists would always be in control in the 1960s inspired by the American Civil Rights Movement some Catholics began demanding change and the violence they met from loyalists intent on keeping Northern Ireland under unionist control the police and the British army helped spark the 30 years of conflict known as the troubles [Music] the entirety of his existence in Northern Ireland the Catholics had never been allowed any power so the point of the agreement the Friday agreement was to have power sharing so the minority Catholics could participate in government the agreement promised to reform the police overhaul the justice system and create a totally new form of government which meant no Community could dominate another it was an unprecedented achievement Jonathan Powell was the British government's Chief negotiator we were negotiating for three days a night which were at sleep essentially people were getting slightly hysterical the truth was we could have lost it at any period it took another nine years of negotiation to get the institutions up and running and get the agreement fully implemented in the decade after 1998 paramilitaries decommissioned their weapons and the deal protected the delicate issue of identity people here could now choose to be British Irish or both and it was written into the agreement that Northern Ireland's place in the UK would only change if the majority of people here wanted it to the troubles had been going on for so long they appeared intractable something that just was always going to be a problem and was insoluble and the Good Friday agreement transformed that the impact was remarkable at the height of the troubles over 200 people were being killed every year but it is now closer to 20. The Good Friday the Belfast agreement is a symbol of peace still around the world have we finished it absolutely not but in terms of large-scale violence in terms of those images the fact has not people being murdered every day then that's a huge success but there was one event The Architects of the agreement could not have predicted [Applause] when the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016 the status of Northern Ireland became fiercely contentious to avoid a hard border within Ireland prime minister Boris Johnson proposed a trade Border in the Irish sea this angered unionists who saw it as a barrier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK it did add the polarization here because a large part of the unionist community voted to leave a large part of the Nationalist Community voted to remain and and Northern Ireland um it's 56 percent of people voted for Indiana so it was a sense of a loss of identity it was being taken off people and I suspected it will continue to be hard to disentangle that vote from the future prospects of this place like this what Boris Johnson really individually managed to do was get the issue of identity back into politics which is extremely dangerous in Northern Ireland this tensor atmosphere has made it harder to heal the Grievances of the past and some believe the nature of the Good Friday agreement itself means it's impossible to move on we're just going up here to my are we Homestead and negani and Rural County Down samihinen was just 12 years father was killed by the Irish Republican Army the IRA in 1985.
he was alone with him in their remote Farmhouse at the time alone gunman had been hiding behind a wall shot MrHeenan once in the head so I just followed the trail of blood around the side of the barn along here and as I come around the corner my father was lying dead at this point and I just stood over him and I I just looked and I started a sub and cry because I did not know what else to do all I could do then was run down the state and down half a mile down the road to a neighbor's house to raise the alarm no one was ever tried for the murder of Sammy's father and under the terms of the agreement if anyone were to be convicted they would only serve two years that was the earthquake for victims and I feel that we have been suffering the aftershocks ever since the agreement also meant that paramilitary prisoners were released the man coming through the turnstile at the maze is Bernard mcginn Ira sniper and bomb maker even those serving life sentences for attacks during the troubles for Sami this felt like an insult to his father's memory to think victims have felt uh let down and very much betrayed as a consequence and he believes this has led some of the Next Generation to romanticize the conflict we're supposed to be in a year of inclusivity and respect between her two Traditions but sadly today as many young people have a very glorified narrative around the Troubles of our past sectarian violence remains a problem here the UK recently upgraded the threat level in Northern Ireland because of ongoing attacks including the shooting of policeman John Caldwell wearing masks and armed with a gun they fired several shots at him in front of his son Sami has been up day hey totally empathize with them young people when I spoke to him because I could feel the pain and it brought me back when I was a 12 year old boy but this is very different from the violence of the 1980s violence that happens Now does not have political support the reason we had to negotiate with Shin feign in the end was even at the height of the troubles they had genuine support these fractional groups we're dealing with now have no support less than a thousand people would even sympathize what they're doing this is not a political issue that's a criminal issue that needs to be dealt with thanks to the Good Friday agreement many Community groups have been established to try to tackle the problem of sectarianism this is peace players in North Belfast it's really hard to actually talk to someone from a different religion because it's kind of frowned upon to mix I went to a production school and coming here I was a little bit scarred of the integration Society here remains deeply segregated the children at this game go to separate Catholic and Protestant schools like almost all kids in Northern Ireland in fact just nine percent of post-primary pupils attend integrated schools and 90 of social housing is also segregated there's still a lot of conflict between the areas as a Catholic girl walking into places like the schenckel estate is like a really scary thing to do there's a lot of times where you just go into an area and someone catches winds that are they recognize you from the other side and still verbally or physically attack you and it is quite like a really scary thing and there are other more obvious emblems of division like the peace walls that separate Catholic and Protestant communities the barrier still exists the divisions are still there we still have peace lines in Belfast which which are dominating the skyline and keeping our Traditions apart the Good Friday agreement could create lots of opportunities for lots of projects like peace players to be able to happen but also I think there's still a journey to be traveled hello I'm Patrick Lane I'm The Economist Deputy digital editor if you want to read more of our Northern Ireland coverage why not take out a subscription to The Economist you'll receive daily and weekly analysis of global Affairs you can read us online or in the app and you can listen to our audio Edition for the best offer click on the link and now back to the film this isn't just about peace walls though the bigger problem is that since the Good Friday agreement there hasn't been stable government long enough to give people paths out of violence sorcia Eastwood represents Lagan Valley just outside Belfast in the devolved Stormont assembly one thing that I would like to see more of is actually investment in our town jobs for our young people apprenticeships and stuff like that that all sounds really normal but for some reason we can't manage to get it together to actually enable people like me to deliver that for my constituents under the terms of power sharing set up after 1998. unionists and nationalists must govern together and if either side walks away the government collapses it's a bit like Donald Trump and Joe Biden being asked to govern together it is a system of mutual vetoes of almost mutually assured destruction but the ultimate nuclear option here is for one of those big parties to walk away both sides have pulled the system down in the past the assembly has collapsed six times since 1998. leaving Northern Ireland without a government for almost 10 years this time the Democratic unionist party or dup has walked out over post-brexit negotiations we are totally opposed to the protocol as it presently exists we will neither accept it nor will we work it without an assembly we can't do anything and I can see the decisions stacking up day after day after day and looking at it and going this is not right this political paralysis has hit Public Services in 2020 40 of people on National Health Service waiting lists in Northern Ireland have been waiting over a year for an appointment compared with just 0.
