Safety, Security and Wellbeing for All Seminar Series

We are pleased to announce the “Safety, Security and Wellbeing for All” Seminar Series hosted by Ulster University and INCORE which will examine the rise of extremist political discourse.

The United Kingdom is experiencing growing political polarisation, with increasingly divisive and exclusionary discourse becoming a prominent feature of public life. In recent years, radical narratives have gained greater prominence in debates about immigration, law and order, human rights, and welfare—issues central to the well-being of society as a whole. This development has, at times, contributed to heightened social tensions and instances of violence.

We believe this is a critical moment that calls for thoughtful engagement from academic, policy, and community actors alike. The challenges posed by extremist politics have implications that extend across society. We must come together to reflect on how we arrived at this juncture, where we might be heading, and how communities and institutions can work collaboratively to safeguard democratic values and social cohesion.

In response, we are launching a public lecture series examining extremist political discourse—its nature, historical evolution in the UK and beyond, its increasing normalisation in public debate, and its broader implications for democracy and social well-being.

Conveners

This series is convened by Dr Luqman Saeed (Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics / International Conflict Research Institute, Ulster University), in collaboration with Professor Brandon Hamber (John Hume and Thomas P. O'Neill Chair in Peace, International Conflict Research Institute, Ulster University) and Professor Élise Féron(Director, International Conflict Research Institute, Ulster University).

Stay tuned for more details on the schedule and speakers!

Aerial view of Kingston upon Hull anti-immigration riot Aug 2024 at The Royal Hotel, Hull

Youth, Peace and Security: Fostering local and global exchange

by Brandon Hamber and Eliz McArdle

In December 2015, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2250 a landmark resolution recognising young people’s positive role in conflict and post-conflict settings. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres commissioned a global study on youth and peacebuilding entitled “The Missing Peace” authored by Graeme Simpson, which was presented to the Security Council and then the UN General Assembly in 20181. The report calls for a move away from a deficit model that sees young people as a threat to security. A key message is the importance of recognising and supporting young people as positive contributors to peace. Building on this report, the UN has continued to promote a Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda.

As a contribution to the YPS agenda, the Ulster University authors of this article initiated the Youth, Peace and Security Leadership Series with partners The John and Pat Hume Foundation, the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), and the global peacebuilding organisation Interpeace. The main aim behind the series is to connect Northern Ireland youth work with the global YPS agenda. The specific objectives are to raise the visibility of the role that young people can and do play in peacebuilding and to build local capacities in terms of YPS and leadership.

Launched in March 2021, four public seminars have taken place so far, with 620 attendees across the events. The series has featured young leaders as speakers from Northern Ireland, Libya, Somalia, former Yugoslavia and Sri Lanka (seminars on YouTube). Graeme Simpson, author of the “The Missing Peace” Report, played a crucial role in identifying the international youth leaders who emerged during the report’s development.

Although the seminar turnout has been heartening, awareness-raising alone is limited as it requires those in positions of power to listen and take young people’s work seriously. For this reason, the seminar series has also utilised a capacity-building component using closed facilitated dialogue between youth workers and local and global peer leaders. The seminar series has effectively coupled the public online seminars with private dialogue sessions.

However, meaningful engagement with and between young people requires time and investment. Before the private dialogues, we worked with individual young leaders to help them plan and prepare to meet other local and global young leaders, focusing on the specific seminar themes (e.g. women and Peacebuilding, methods of youth work). Once ready for the private session, a closed meeting between young people from Northern Ireland and border counties and the global peacebuilders took place.

IFI helped select young people for these private sessions through their various projects. Young people joined from IFI-funded groups, including Cliftonville Community Regeneration Forum (CCRF), Limestone United, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland and Focus Family Resource Centre.

While there was some initial anxiety about being in the spotlight with adult spectators watching, a curated, private and facilitated approach helped to mitigate any concerns and gave space for the participants to voice their opinions. This approach resulted in a rich discussion and helped identify issues that could be taken to the public seminars.

One of the most notable of these private sessions was with the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, who met with 23 young people online for a private session before the public seminar. Prior to meeting the UN Envoy, young people in Northern Ireland and border counties explored the theme of the role of youth in peacebuilding.

In the private session, participants shared perspectives on the leadership acts and actions they undertake and their visions for peace. The UN Envoy helped link their work and the global YPS agenda. The meeting was valuable in discussing strategies for addressing YPS issues and local youth workers and participants said that they felt affirmed by being listened to by the UN Secretary General’s Youth Envoy. The participants then took this learning into the public seminar that followed.

Overall, a considered dialogue ensued in all the private sessions and public events. Global and local considerations were interwoven with a respectful listening and sharing tone. The presence of outsiders with different perspectives was valuable. There is little doubt that the eminence of the global young peacebuilders was important for the local young people. Activism was stimulated by interacting with international YPS advocates.

This type of international sharing was the hallmark of many earlier programmes during the peace process in Northern Ireland and Ireland but has decreased in the last few years. The experience of the YPS Seminar Series suggests it is vital to support this type of work. Northern Ireland and Ireland has much to share and gain from being more centrally keyed into global processes such as the YPS agenda.

This article was first published in Fund Focus, The Newsletter of the International Fund for Ireland, September 2022.

Professor Brandon Hamber is John Hume and Thomas P. O’Neill Chair in Peace based at the International Conflict Research Institute (INCORE) and the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University.

Eliz McArdle is a Lecturer in Community Youth Work at Ulster University and Course Director for the Certificate in Youth Studies with franchised partner, YouthAction Northern Ireland. She is member of the Centre for Youth Research and Dialogue at Ulster University.

Youth, Peace and Security: Psychosocial Support and Societal Transformation

"Youth, Peace and Security:  Psychosocial Support and Societal Transformation" published by Brandon Hamber; Denis Martinez; Marlies Stappers; David Taylor; and Thomas Unger is now available online.

This paper explores the key issue of mental health and psycho-social services (MHPSS), from a youth-specific perspective. Drawing on the assertions and recommendations of the YPS Progress Study, and coupled with the increasing attention to MHPSS within the sustaining peace agenda, this policy brief pays special attention to the role of youth-specific psycho-social services as a vital dimension of transformative youth resilience, essential to both addressing the consequences and prevention of violent conflict.

This is a report commissioned by Interpeace for their Outside the Box: Amplifying youth voices and views on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) policy and practice series.

Download the Report

Watch a Video Summary of the Report

Voices from the Margins: Young men and post-conflict masculinities in Northern Ireland

Brandon Hamber and Conor Murray have published "Voices from the Margins: Young men and post-conflict masculinities in Northern Ireland".

The report points to the gap (noted in the YPS Progress Study’s recommendations) on masculinity and masculine identities as part of the gendered approach to implementing the YPS agenda. This policy brief focuses attention on supporting the development of alternative and positive masculine identities. While the paper draws on lived experiences in Northern Ireland, it derives lessons and recommendations, captures stories, and offers a narrative with wider relevance for other contexts.

This is a report commissioned by Interpeace for their Outside the Box: Amplifying youth voices and views on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) policy and practice series. 

Download the Report

Watch a Video Summary of the Report

Women, Peace and Security Oversight Group

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attended a meeting of the Women, Peace and Security Oversight Group in Dublin discussing Ireland's National Action Plan. I spoke on issues of masculinity and inclusion in women, peace and security agenda. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Conveney, attended for some of the time [Photos from Irish Foreign Ministry Twitter] #wpsireland

BBC Thought for the Day

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

At the moment, the world seems gripped by conflict in Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, and the devastating siege of Gaza. Perhaps because of the overwhelming nature of these events, I recently found myself thinking about something that is both literally and figuratively miles away. Remember Felix Baumgartner’s freefalling from space last year? What I found remarkable about him was his attitude. Despite the seeming madness of his space dive, he claims that as he jumped, all he could think of was returning home to his family alive. 

Family is obviously one of the most vital parts of all our lives. In Gaza, the most heartbreaking thing has been to see families torn apart and grieving due to the violence inflicted on their society. The sad thing is that on the other side, there are no doubt families who think occupation and aggression are necessary to protect their loved ones. Violence against others is often justified as a proactive step to protecting family and community. 

Of course, we all care for our relatives, but the idea of kinship and connection can be twisted, especially by those with power. By evoking concepts like family and community as core social principles, politicians often allow us to feel good about doing self-centred things, like supporting welfare cuts if they do not directly affect us, or, in extreme cases, to justify waging war on others. 

Returning to Felix, standing outside his diminutive space capsule with the world below, one cannot but be struck by how tiny our planet is in the vastness of space. As he says, sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you are. You would think this realisation would make us, as a species, want to be closer, to cooperate more and work together. Yet, perversely, it seems, the more we’re faced with the expanse of the universe and its diversity, the more we take refuge in our families and communities. This might, in the short term, make each of us feel more secure. Yet, paradoxically, the more we retreat from those we see as the “other,” the more we end up fearing them. And fear is the root of many conflicts. 

Safety is ensured, as counterintuitive as it sounds, when we move beyond the boundaries of the small worlds we all inhabit. Genuine security for those we love can only be achieved when we connect with and know others, and that, even if it does not immediately fix all the worldwide conflicts, is a small step we can take each day.

Transcript of the recording of BBC Thought for the Day with Brandon Hamber on 26 August 2014. Recorded at BBC Radio Foyle.

Are we all torturers inside?

When I was flying from Johannesburg to Belfast recently, I was caught out by the new system some airlines have started of weighing bags before you check in. As a result, I was found to be carrying a 24-kg bag. I was subsequently reprimanded by an official, who claimed he was just doing his job and that I had to shed four kilos or pay for the extra weight. I removed two large books and a file from my bag, reducing the weight to 20 kg. I was then told I could carry the books on board in hand luggage. That said, I was lucky compared to the woman in front of me. Her bag weighed 26 kg and, when she pointed out she had no hand luggage, she was told by the same bureaucrat to “make some hand luggage” of precisely 6 kg of weight. She had to run around the airport trying to get a plastic bag so she could carry some of her clothes on to the plane. She then had to deal with other people “just doing their jobs” who refused to give her a large bag unless she made a large purchase. “I am just doing my job” has to be one of the most inane excuses in the world. It is a phrase that I most associate with bureaucracy and, at the risk of being melodramatic, Nazi Germany and other atrocities. Remember the case of the American soldiers who tortured Iraqi prisoners and then took photos of them – they, too, claimed they were just doing their jobs and carrying out orders.

Of course, the annoying airline bureaucrat who enjoyed bossing me and others around cannot be compared a torturer, but the process that led to his unquestioning rule enforcement has, at least to a degree, the same root cause. Like the American marine or ‘grunt’, as they are known, who tortures someone, our friend, the baggage-weighing man, also finds himself at the bottom of a heap of bureaucratic power. No doubt, he was ordered to ensure passengers’ bags do not exceed the weight limit. Whether people do this or not is irrelevant to him personally, but he feels the hand of the rational bureaucratic machine on his shoulders and that his competence will be measured by carrying out instructions. The result is an unwavering and illogical set of actions, because, in this case, extra weight would mean little (other than more profit for the airline), considering the aeroplane was half-full. But why are we, humans, so bad at resisting problematic orders? In the 1960s, Milgram carried out his famous experiment on obedience. He showed that, when people were ordered by an official-looking person to administer shocks to participants in a study (actors, who were not hurt) when they answered questions incorrectly, most people continued to ratchet up the power because they felt they needed to do what they were told. Over 60% of the volunteers obediently administered up to 450 V.

Despite Milgram’s highlighting our weaknesses over 40 years ago, people still carry out orders which are damaging. Soldiers who commit atrocities continue to use it as an unacceptable defence. It seems, as Milgram himself warned, that when individuals merge “into an organisational structure, a new creature replaces autonomous man, unhindered by the limitations of individual morality, freed of human inhibition, mindful only of the sanctions of authority”. But Milgram teaches us more than the fact that people will follow problematic orders when instructed to do so. The real finding Milgram made was that most of us (okay, 65% of us) have a little torturer inside and, given the right conditions, we too might just “do our jobs”, no matter how unpalatable. So I forgive the baggage-weighing man in Johannesburg and his sardonic smile, because, apparently, there but for the grace of God go I.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 7 February 2007 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Airport security: enough to turn one to drink

Recently, when I checked into the newly renamed George Best Belfast City Airport, I was asked if I was carrying any liquids. I found myself gagging as I suppressed a giggle. Attempts at humour in airports these days are enough to leave you sun-tanning in an orange jumpsuit in Guantanamo Bay. Further, my snigger was in bad taste. Not everyone would see the funny side of the question, least of all the footballing legend George Best, who had a serious drink problem. Security these days is, of course, no laughing matter. There are genuine threats. To this end, I do not mind security procedures. But I want them to be logical, make me feel safer and minimise disruption. But, frankly, security officials at some airports seem to be making procedures up as they go along.

When travelling to the US recently with my wife and child, we had to taste six jars of baby food and four baby bottles at Belfast International Airport prior tov departure. Our child’s teething gel was confiscated, his nappy rash lotion, and my wife’s hand cream, presumably a precaution against passengers making a bomb as a desperate measure to cope with a cranky child on a long-haul flight. On the way back, the US authorities let the teething gel, baby food, nappy rash lotion and hand cream through without a word, but refused to allow us to take the sterilised water through in the baby’s bottles. However, they were appeased when we mixed the powered formula into the bottles, although no tasting was required. When my wife explained that we had been able to carry the water through on the way there, the security guard replied: “This is the US”, as if we did not know that. I know that different jurisdictions probably have different rules. But, surely, if someone knew what was going on, there would be uniformity. Could the same security officials who thought there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq be those deciding what is hazardous on aeroplanes? Alternatively, the plan is to make the procedures so confusing that they leave would-be bombers so perplexed that they choose another mode of transport.

I know I should not make light of this important issue, and people have suffered as a result of security failures and misdirected acts of aggression, but questions have to be asked. According to airport authorities, the new security procedures have put an enormous weight on their shoulders, thus creating the mayhem.

The UK government, in turn, asks commuters for patience because it is the nasty terrorists who are the problem, not security officials. They revel in pointing out that the 9/11 attacks preceded the Iraq war. But other airports, such as those in Germany or Spain, countries which do not have troops in Iraq, are not in turmoil.

So there is a dual problem. Firstly, there is the denial in the UK that the Iraq invasion is related to the security situation at airports. Secondly, from my travels through a number of airports, there is ample evidence that suggests that no-one knows what he or she is doing. Cumulatively, this makes me feel a lot more insecure than before.

I understand this is a difficult time. But, as with this entire debacle of this so-called and amorphous ‘war on terror’, something is amiss and this involves ordinary people. Indiscriminate acts of terror against civilians, failure to listen to ordinary people opposed to the Iraq war, bombing civilians in Iraq who bear no relation to the original ‘war on terror’, and now forcing people through chaotic security systems, all add up to the same thing – we mere mortals are cannon fodder. We are caught in the cross-fire between a bunch of men who think they are all-powerful. It really winds me up and now I really need a drink.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 3 November 2006 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.