Taking dreams from Northern Ireland to Basra

In my youth in Stroke City (as Londonderry/Derry became known by those who resisted being drawn into the sectarian maelstrom), the local brigade of the Provisional IRA was wreaking havoc, killing policemen and soldiers, blowing up businesses.

I remember when no one talked of anything but the bombs. Visits to the walled city centre were never undertaken lightly. I remember my grandfather, a local businessman, ranting about what had become of his birthplace.

According to senior former-IRA men, British spies and other intelligence sources (all of whom I’ve interviewed in a past life), the Provos’ Officer Commanding there was none other than Martin McGuinness, product of the deprived Bogside area of the city.

McGuinness later told me that he remembered my grandfather well, he’d negotiated his IRA Bogside checkpoint so many times.

Today, of course, the man whose only qualification is as a butcher’s assistant is Northern Ireland’s education minister and deputy first minister, having steered Republicans to sign up to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement as Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator. 

In July last year, McGuinness, the insurgent-turned-peacemaker went to Baghdad to help press warring Sunni and Shia insurgent groups to seek reconciliation. The philosophy of his group of mediators was simple: renounce terrorism, renounce factionalism, respect the judiciary.

Yesterday, on the day the Brits pulled out of Iraq, I attended an impressively buzzing business conference in London called Invest Iraq. The quality of the delegates was startling, from Iraqi and British government ministers to high-powered corporate bosses who clearly smell profit in the ashes of Iraq’s six-year conflict.

Within a few minutes of arriving, I’d bumped into Trevor Killen, an advisor to the Basrah Investment Commission (BIC). It was his accent that gave him away… yes, he’d been seconded from Invest NI, the BIC’s Belfast-based equivalent.

“I was working for Invest NI for 25 years,” he told me. “There are differences between Belfast and Basra but… in Northern Ireland, economic regeneration helped pave the way for the peace process – and the same regeneration will do wonders for Basra.” It’s a mistake to wait until everything’s perfect, he told me.

Once the conference is over, Mr Killen’s shepherding a delegation of Iraqis over to Belfast. “I want to show them what’s happened there,” he said. “I mean, 20 years ago, we had a war going on, and look at it now!”

Okay, there weren’t suicide bombers blowing up cement trucks full of explosives all over the place, but for those who lived through it, the Troubles were bad enough. Mr Killen just wants his Iraqi colleagues to start dreaming dreams.

One of those heading over to Belfast will be Dr Haider Ali Fadhel, head of the Basrah Investment Commission, who was already dreaming dreams. “My dream is that Basra will change the economic map of the world because of its strategic location,” he said. “And it’s got lots of oil.”

Being a good Muslim, Dr Haider probably won’t be tempted to sample a pint of our own Black Stuff over there.

But the oil majors are not listed among the 700 foreign investors Norn Iron’s managed to entice. On balance, probably a good thing… there was enough to fight over without that.