Alistair Little grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, was recruited into the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force at the age of 15, and drawn into a cycle of violence. When he was 17 Alistair shot a man dead; he was arrested, found guilty, and detained (because of his age) ‘during the Secretary of State’s pleasure’. He was released on licence 12 years later.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary at first attempted to recruit him as an informer, but he refused to be drawn back into the continuing violence. He was reimprisoned for another year.
But meanwhile he had been befriended by people who believed in him, and after his final release and a very tough time coping with life outside prison, of which he had no adult experience, he became involved in conflict transformation, and has travelled to strifetorn places all over the world with his own special input of experience and the telling of his story. The BBC television award-winning drama of the story, called Five Minutes of Heaven starring Liam Neeson and James Nesbit, was shown on BBC2 on Sunday April 5th 2009.
I found the story exciting, moving and deeply inspiring. It has been very ably put together as a book by Ruth Scott (an Anglican Priest with SOF sympathies), but the story is Alistair’s own, and I could hear what impact hearing him in person must have. It is a story of shattering involvement in events, and of intelligence and integrity in working through the implications. The pain, guilt and sorrow are there, and the anger and the seductive pull of violence, and the inner conflict. Alistair’s story is one of wounding and being wounded, and this is what makes it such a potent source of healing.
He is not – he says – interested in the politics of it all, but with the experience of growing up in a society where people defined themselves not by what they had in common but by what set them apart; where the other was the enemy and the enemy was less than human, which justified hatred and any violence they thought necessary to defend their way of life. As a teenager he was seduced by a sense of justice and a culture of violence into hatred, and he now also experiences being a victim of the same dehumanising because of his past. The paramilitaries, he says, were significant players in the violence, but they were not the only cause. It is much easier to condemn violence than to understand why it happens.
He calls what he is now doing ‘conflict transformation’. It is not ‘conflict resolution’, or ‘reconciliation’, or ‘forgiveness’. These may come, but first each must be able to tell their story without reserve or contradiction, and they must know that their story has been heard. Then they may be ready to hear the story of the enemy they have regarded as less than human.
Conflict is a part of human nature. It is what makes people work – and fight – for justice. Conflict is there inside each of us, and between ourselves and others. It can be used creatively, not only destructively. (I was reminded of Gandhi’s insistence that non-violence is not passive.) Religion plays a minor role in the telling of the story. In Northern Ireland the hatred was between Catholics and Protestants but the baggage was historical and cultural; Alistair was brought up in a Christian (Protestant) family, and he did not learn violence from them; he learnt it on the streets. He regarded himself as a Christian during his time in prison, but remained an angry, bitter man with a violent temper. Those who befriended him before and after his release were religious people of various sorts (even, eventually, Catholics). It is they who enabled him to use his experience so creatively. I found myself thinking how religion is both part of the human problem and part of the solution, and that the test lies in a deep respect for the humanity of others.
This book is not just about Northern Ireland, but about the whole issue of violence between the peoples of the world. The victim’s story, and the perpetrator’s story, and the story of the bystanders who kept their heads down and appeared to take no part, must all be heard. They share a common humanity and are involved in a shared history in which the issues of justice, conflict, hatred, pain and the longing for peace must be transformed by a simple and desperately difficult process – listening to each other.
David Paterson is a former Chair and then Secretary to the Board of SOF Trustees. He is the convener of the Oxford SOF local group.
Reviewing Give a Boy a Gun by Alistair Liddle with Ruth Scott, Darton, Longman and Todd (London 2009) Pbk. 224 pages. £12.95. ISBN 978-0-232-52763-6.