A Narrative of Love conversation hosted by Dr Scherto Gill
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Lord Alderdice draws on his experience as Leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland and his central role in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to explore what love actually looks like in political practice. He reflects on a fundamental insight that guided the peace process: that new political structures cannot create better communal relationships; rather, it is only by first addressing the disturbed historical relationships between people and communities that new structures can emerge which genuinely serve them.
The conversation probes the moral complexity of peacemaking: the sense that reaching agreement may feel like a betrayal of those who suffered, while failing to reach it betrays future generations. Lord Alderdice reflects on how genuine political leadership requires humility, a willingness to engage with everyone as human beings beyond their political positions, and a sense of belonging to a larger community of generations — those who came before and those who will follow.
He also speaks to the place of silence in public life, recounting how a proposal for two minutes of silence at the opening of the new Northern Ireland Assembly was agreed and continues to this day — a small but significant act of creating space for reflection within institutions built on conflict.
The conversation closes on the limits of measurement in understanding well-being, and the importance of empathy, imagination and relationship as the deepest resources available to those who govern.
This is one of eleven conversations in the A Narrative of Love series, hosted by Dr Scherto Gill in preparation for the 5th Spirit of Humanity Forum, June 2021. The series was sponsored by the Pureland Foundation and the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace (GHFP).