A “new spirit of global solidarity” similar to that of the civil rights movement is needed to confront current challenges, President Michael D Higgins has said.
Mr Higgins was speaking at an event in Derry to mark the 50th anniversary of the Duke Street march.
On October 5th, 1968 civil rights marchers in Derry were attacked by police wielding sticks and batons, in what is usually regarded as the starting point of the Troubles.
Mr Higgins said that the rights won by the civil rights marchers, and those enshrined in the Belfast Agreement, must be defended.
“We need to defend these rights, indeed extend their social and economic reach, rather than acquiescing to their limitation or loss,” he said.
The President told the capacity crowd in Derry’s Guildhall that “at a time when the old forces of reaction are re-emerging, and when the economic and political dogmas of the past forty years are fraying with every passing day, it is good to recall the emancipatory potential of that year of 1968.
“The utopian vision, and the belief in the capacity of non-violent political movements to achieve transformative change, are required now more than ever,” he said.
They are needed “not only to confront the persistence of racism, inequality and injustice, not only to stand for the dignity and rights of every human being, but also to confront the now great challenges of the coming century.”
To address climate change and ensure sustainable development, the President said, would require “a vindication of old rights and winning of new ones”.
“Above all it will require a new spirit of global solidarity, something like that same spirit and qualities that were demonstrated by the civil rights movement.”
During his speech, the President paid tribute to veteran civil rights campaigners John Hume and Ivan Cooper.
The audience rose to its feet, and clapped and cheered when he presented a civil rights award to Mr Cooper, who was the first chairperson of the civil rights organisation the Derry Citizens’ Action Committee.
“May I add my own thanks to Ivan,” the President said, “for the courage, the leadership and the dedication to the cause of justice – justice in all his forms – that he has demonstrated throughout his life.”
He also acknowledged the contribution of the former SDLP leader and Nobel Laureate John Hume, who he described as the “one man who does so strongly symbolise the efforts to bring peace to our island”.
“Let us recall the vision of John Hume, so rooted in the experience of the civil rights movement,” he said.
“A vision of a shared Ireland, one that recognises the unionist and nationalist traditions, one that is capable of reconciling communities, one that, North and South, preserves human dignity and vindicates and expands fundamental human rights.
“If we remain true to that vision,” he said, “we can not only sustain peace on our island, but can, together, confront the shared challenges of the future with confidence and courage.”
Recalling watching the images of the marchers being attacked 50 years ago, the President said he was particularly pleased to see the presence of many of the organisers and participants in the audience.
“Although rooted in the soil of the North and summoned to confront the structural inequalities within the society of Northern Ireland, the civil rights movement was part of a global struggle for human rights,” he said.
“Across the world 1968 was a moment of emancipation and liberation.”
The civil rights anthem, We Shall Overcome, was performed by the Colmcille Ladies Choir.
On the steps of the Guildhall, Eamonn McCann – one of the original organisers of the Duke Street march – spoke on behalf of People Before Profit.
Anti-abortion campaigners also held a rally as the commemoration march made its way towards Guildhall Square.
Several thousand people also attended a march, organised by Sinn Féin, which took the intended route of the original march.
Speaking in the centre of Derry to those who took part in the march, the Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said that discrimination in 2018 must be opposed as it had been in 1968.
“The battle for equality and civil rights is not history. We will have full civil rights and we will have equality, and we will have a new and united Ireland,” she said.
“We face the future in the sure knowledge that equality will prevail. That we shall overcome.”
