Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Everybody has memories of when they first met John Hume. As his colleague in the Party of European Socialists, he is particularly welcome from the perspective of the Labour Party. It is difficult to follow what has already been said. The issue about which John Hume spoke today and which strikes me most as still so relevant is that we know his extraordinary commitment against violence. What many of us have probably not taken on board, however, is something that came towards the end of his address, namely, his huge commitment to the creative power of non-violent struggle as distinct from simply saying violence is wrong. That is why my eternal memory is of John Hume sitting on a street in Derry on the day of internment drenched in British Army dye when he told people, even in the face of that type of provocation, that the way to resist was the way of non-violence. In the teeth of the most appalling provocation, he said to the people he led that non-violence was the way.

It is, therefore, particularly appropriate that he quoted Martin Luther King. A fascinating fact is that one of last Sunday's British newspapers disclosed that when young people in Britain were quietly asked who their heroes were — everybody expected it to be the long list of celebrities with whom young people are obsessed — number one was Martin Luther King, number two was Gandhi and number three was Nelson Mandela. It said much about what people really want out of politics and politicians. In many ways, John Hume's career is the epitome of that. It is the epitome of moments of great prominence but those moments are based on the dull tedium of democratic politics where one cannot make the grand gestures and where one must work at persuading people, including middle ranking and senior civil servants who persuade junior Ministers who persuade senior Ministers.

John Hume's career is one of great achievement based on two convictions, namely, that politics works and is worth working at and that where conflict exists, the only real resolution is that based on non-violence, which is not the same as accepting injustice; it is the way one uses to eliminate injustice. For many of my generation who grew to maturity during the Troubles in Northern Ireland and beyond maturity into semi-senility, John Hume is the inspiring figure of somebody who believed in another way of remedying injustice other than the "romantic" way of violence. For that, a whole generation of Irish people should thank him.