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I welcome the reply to my letter by Joe Reid – ‘Yes, unionists were the villains in a state founded on inequality and fear’ (March 27).
I have always believed that if you are going to sell something (a product or an idea), you first research your target audience and try to adjust your selling strategy to their particular interests, desires and fears.
The analogy of a secondary school teacher who needs to encourage primary school pupils to choose to come to his school might be useful here. If he simply says something like, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be bullied or picked on, you will be treated exactly the same as all the other children’, will that be good enough? I think not.
When we welcome new pupils from primary to our secondary schools we literally spend weeks telling the pupils how delighted we are that they will be joining us as equals, that we are looking forward to working with them over the next five to seven years. We tell them we will work to make sure their time with us is successful and happy. We work very hard to build a school where all feel they belong.
I do not think the school I worked in is unique in behaving like this when a stressful transition between schools is required.
If we were in the process of trying to welcome a new minority into a country, is there something I could learn from this approach? Would building a New Ireland, a successful and unified country, require a similar level of generosity? If we want to attract unionists to Irish unity, try thinking of unionists as the prodigal sons to be welcomed home, not as a people to be tolerated.
Such generosity might be undeserved, but it would cost little and have major benefits.
Anyone who genuinely desires a successful Irish unity must know that there are two obstacles: winning a border poll and then ensuring the new state works well.
In a tight border poll, the perception of unionists being generously welcomed might reduce the likelihood of unionists voting ‘No’, and more importantly reducing the possibility of some nationalists, who fear disruption and chaos, failing to vote ‘Yes’.
Secondly, such generosity could dramatically reduce the likelihood of turmoil and division after unity.
Undeserved or not, if you want unity, it is a good strategy.
Arnold Carton, Belfast BT6
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