Integrated education is one effective way to work towards a shared future in Northern Ireland, writes Michael Wardlow
Whatever views we may hold on the Belfast Agreement, it is difficult to fault its vision of a shared future as "a normal civic society, where individuals are considered equals, diversity is respected and where violence is an illegitimate means to resolve differences, but where differences are resolved through dialogue in the public sphere".
There is no choice other than a shared future for the people of Ireland. There is, however, abundant choice around how we share this island together.
No personal choice can be absolute and must be considered in the context of this shared future, to ensure that the exercise of our choices contributes to, rather than detracts from the vision.
If we apply this thesis to a Northern Ireland context, can we afford to choose to continue to devise public policy around the default of segregation and parallel living?
Do we continue to choose - albeit by our acquiescence - to allow the public purse to haemorrhage by supporting dual infrastructures which have contributed to an environment in which only 10 per cent of all public housing is mixed and a Belfast which is more segregated today than 10 years ago?
Can we afford morally or indeed financially to continue to choose to divide our children on the basis of religious affiliation, into separate schools before the age of four so that fewer than 10 per cent of them attend schools where more than 10 per cent of the other community are also present?
We cannot continue in a default mode, created around a weak notion of unfettered personal preference - detached from any concept of personal or corporate citizenship or moral accountability. This process has led to the perpetuation of division.
Readers south of the Border may not be aware that from this year, under the new framework for good relations in Northern Ireland called A Shared Future, all government departments will be required to support "sharing over segregation". This document, if carried through as the basis for all government policy, has the potential to support the development of a new way of being together in Northern Ireland.
If government at all levels accepts the principle contained in the framework that "sustained and deeper progress on good relations requires leadership at political, civic and local level" and takes up the ensuing challenge to "set the pace on promoting good relations by leading by example", then we are looking at a new way of doing government here.
Imagine the type of shared future we might enjoy if policy-makers accepted the principle that "adapting public policy simply to cope with community division holds out no prospect of stability or sustainability in the long run", if our political leaders could agree that "separate but equal is not an option" and if all public planning was built upon the foundation that "parallel living is morally unsustainable".
In 1978, two decades before the Belfast Agreement, the Council of Europe suggested that a society's cultural life could be described as rich "if people in the society can communicate with each other, describe their reality and their experiences, voice their feelings, understand one another and thus - in the end - be in a position to respect one another".
How can we develop this richness through learning about and, more importantly, from one another if we are educated apart, live apart, socialise apart and continue to balkanise our society at its core?
In some small way the movement for integrated schools in Northern Ireland has been part of building a more tolerant society and has contributed to that shared future by offering exemplars of reconciliation in practice. It remains a parent-led movement, which began with 28 children in a scout hall in 1981 and now caters for 18,000 pupils in almost 60 schools, yet still is the exception rather than the default for new school development.
It is growing in number, having had to turn down more than 3,000 applicants in the past five years despite a demographic downturn which has resulted in almost 50,000 empty desks elsewhere.
If this bottom-up drive from civic society towards building a shared future can be matched by a top down commitment of strong leadership and direction, then together we will build a secure shared future for our children.
However, if our understanding of "choice" becomes synonymous with the notion of personal preference, it can become self-serving and divisive, as it detaches itself from any concept of personal responsibility and bears the seeds of division and sectarian interest.
This view argues vehemently that unless and until the choice we demand is the one we are offered, we will not consider any accommodation or compromise.
Preference becomes prejudice and any notion of an agreed, shared future is dismissed as unacceptable. What price choice then?
Michael Wardlow is chief executive of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education