Why we need to change and not just talk about it

A General Election brings much talk of "change". Most of it - especially in Northern Ireland - is only talk. But Platform for Change seeks to promote real change.

Platform is a non-party, cross-party forum for everyone who wants this society to develop "a positive political agenda" rather than "endlessly replay arguments linked to the Troubles".

The launch of Platform for Change, in late February, was well-timed. The Hillsborough Agreement had just replayed the peace process as farce. There was widespread public impatience. Of course, the cries of "get on with it" were prompted by economic concerns, by the education mess and other policy delays.

But perhaps something deeper was also stirring - the same thing that led this newspaper, last week, to headline the "vision" vacuum. Admittedly, as the novelist David Park said in February, many people who "rushed to vent their disgust" had voted for those politicians, and "will probably repeat their folly at the next electoral opportunity".

If Hillsborough was groundhog day, is groundhog day the inevitable condition of Northern Irish politics? Is Platform for Change simply another version of the Alliance Party, pigs might fly, "middle-class liberalism"?

At least that's better than middle-class illiberalism. And supporters of the Platform (as of Alliance) come from all classes. The long tradition of working-class effort to create a life beyond Orange and Green was highlighted by the revival of Over the Bridge, Sam Thompson's play about sectarianism in the shipyards.

This was the play's 50th anniversary. The shipyards are no more. Aspects of the play remain fixed in 1960. But its politics are still bang up to date. In fact, Platform for Change stakes out the only ground on which "A Shared Future" can be built. The paradox of the Belfast Agreement was that extremes had to meet. It's no surprise that unionism and nationalism, as fronted by the DUP/ Sinn Fein, have put little new social or political architecture in place. Certainly, they have not collaborated to dismantle structural sectarianism.

We are all thankful for peace. But where the peace process does not become social and political progress, bubbles of violence will persist.

Our politicians advertise themselves to the world as peacemakers. Gerry Adams recently lectured ETA on "dialogue" - as if dialogue here were over instead of just beginning.

Why are urgent dialogues not taking place within the Executive and in the often-wasted space of Stormont? Why can't a Shared Future be written? Why can't a truly shared North start to take shape?

One reason is the politics of "aspiration". The Belfast Agreement enshrined two incompatible political objectives. To aspire can be to live in the future rather than create it. Aspirational politics underlie unionist doubt about power-sharing and nationalist doubt as to whether sharing the North advances a united Ireland. Aspiration prevents the Executive from speaking collectively for Northern Ireland.

Many people have worked to raise consciousness of Northern Ireland's historical and cultural complexity. Yet some politicians still reduce all our complexities to simplistic culture war: to Orange parades (or Ulster Scots) versus the Irish language. Meanwhile, we lack a gallery to house the Ulster Museum's collection of modern Irish and British art, including magnificent work by Ulster artists.

Such a gallery would powerfully symbolise a shared future.

Edna Longley is a Professor Emerita at Queen’s University, Belfast. See www.platformforchange.net