Can ordinary people make a difference?

NICVA Chief Executive Seamus McAleavey considers how citizens can bring about change for the better in society.

The outlook on all fronts has not been good these last few months and we’re not just speaking of the weather. Talk of subprime mortgages has become common parlance. The big two mortgage lenders in the US, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, who between them account for 46 per cent of the US national debt, found themselves in trouble and, government sponsored companies, fell back on the US taxpayer to keep them afloat.

Funny thing about Fanny is that it was started in 1938 – same year as NICVA – by FDR as part of the New Deal to combat the collapse of the US housing market and to replace the loss of private investment with government-backed cheap loans to get the housing market going again. The famous Yogi Berra quote appears apt: “This is like déjà vu all over again.”

Throw in Iraq, Afghanistan, Middle East and Russian oil and gas issues, and China’s insatiable appetite for oil, steel and raw materials generally, and we have global instability, both politically and economically.

Here in our little square inch, things haven’t been going great either. The overinflated housing market stopped dead and the knock-on effects are spreading as the public reigns in its spending. Things haven’t been good at the Northern Ireland Executive with all Ministers talking about the importance of “bread and butter” issues yet there has been a summer stand-off.

So, with ‘everything’ looking so bad do you look at things optimistically or do you take a pessimistic view of the world? Maybe you even think: “There is nothing I or any other ordinary person can do about any of it.” Who could blame you?

Yet the evidence shows us that ordinary people can and do make a difference. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

Thirty years ago people with disabilities were neither seen nor heard. Society then may have sympathised but did not consider it reasonable to spend extra resources on disability access for instance. If a person confined to a wheelchair couldn’t get into a cinema, restaurant, shop or anywhere else, then that was tough. Ordinary people changed that. Disability groups and individuals campaigned and highlighted the problems and they ultimately enlightened and changed public opinion over time. This encouraged politicians to act and people with disabilities nowadays have their basic rights protected by the law and society has seen a cultural shift.

Just over 200 years ago the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act 1807 outlawing the slave trade. Wilberforce led the parliamentary campaign but 25 years of campaigning, mostly led by Quakers, shifted public opinion against the trade and thereby encouraged politicians to ban a horrific but lucrative business. Belfast port incidentally, as most people know, shunned the trade and never took part despite the financial rewards on offer because significant opinion here thought it morally wrong.

Ordinary people make a difference. We are changing our attitudes to energy use too and the drive for energy efficiency was led by ordinary people and has now been accepted by governments and corporations.

The return of devolution in Northern Ireland gives us all a better chance to influence our own destiny. We need to explore the power, ingenuity and the ability to solve difficult problems that exist in the experience of ordinary people here. Our political leaders and the Northern Ireland Assembly have a duty to seek to draw out and nurture the talent that lies in people here.

The Carnegie Trust has established an inquiry into the development of civil society in the UK and Ireland over the next 25 years. We need similar debates locally.

Financially it is going to be very tight for government as well as families here over the next few years. It is all the more important that we have legislators that see they have a critical enabling role in freeing up organisations and individuals to achieve their potential for society as a whole.