Barack Obama today appealed to young people in Northern Ireland to “knock down walls” keeping communities apart and send a message of peace around the world.
In a speech to 2,000 in Belfast, the US President said the fate of the peace process lay in the people’s hands. “There is more to lose now than there has ever been,” he told students packed into the Waterfront Hall.
“We will need more of you, young people, who imagine the world as it should be, who knock down walls, who knock down barriers, who imagine something different and have the courage to make it happen. Each successive generation creates a new space for peace and tolerance and justice and fairness. It’s about breaking down the divisions that we create in our own minds and our hearts.”
Fifteen years after the Good Friday Agreement put Northern Ireland on the path to peace, Mr Obama said: “There are still wounds that have not been healed and communities where tension and mistrust hangs in the air. The terms of peace may be negotiated by political leaders but the fate of peace is up to each of us.”
The President said that he believed Northern Ireland’s best days lay ahead, suggesting more should be done to end segregation in education and housing. Highlighting how the peace process was seen around the world, he added: “You need to get this right. You are their blueprint to follow. Hope is contagious.”
Mr Obama was speaking after flying in with wife Michelle and daughters Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11. He sparked laughter when referring to young people in cafés and bars in Belfast asking: “What’s the craic?” Mrs Obama also pointed to the power of young people to change the world after being introduced by 16-year-old Hannah Nelson who, in a moving speech, said: “I do not want to live in the past.”
