Stubbornness is a valuable attribute to possess. Success in any field is almost impossible without a willingness to persevere through difficult times. Our progress as a species from hunter-gatherers to astronauts would not have been possible if we gave up at the first sign of difficulty. But stubbornness is far from completely positive. It may very often be necessary, but it can also be destructive. Too much stubbornness leads to bitterness and hatred.
Martin Luther King encpsulated this in the 1960s when he told his people's oppressors:
"We will match your capacity to inflict pain with our capacity to endure it, and we will still love you."
With these words, he recognised that stubbornness was an important element in the civil rights struggle. Young Africn-Americans wouldn't have the vote today if their parents and grandparents had given up and gone home the first time a hose was turned on them. Clearly determination was an important factor in the eventual success of the movement. But with the words "and we will still love you" King also acknowledged that stubbornness sometimes leads to bitterness.
Martin Luther King is an interesting figure when considered from an Irish viewpoint. On the one hand, his policies inspired the formation of the civil rights movement in Northern ireland in the late 1960s, which aimed to bring full economic and political rights to the state's Catholic population. Even to this day, the SDLP, the heir to this movement, sings "We Shall Overcome" at its party conference.
Yet, at the same time as being an inspirational figure for northern Catholics, King was of course a Protestant, and not just any old Protestant, but a minister who was named after the founder of Protestantism. He acted from a strong sense of morality which was rooted in the Reformation.
Both Protestants and Catholics in Ireland have lived by the first part of King's maxim while ignoring the second. Both have shown a remarkable capacity to meet pain with stoicism but neither have displayed much willingness to love those against whom they struggle.
For both religious/political groups in Ireland, stubbornness has been a watchword. For unionists, it is inherent in their slogans "no surrender", "not an inch" and "what we have, we hold". Unionism is based on the idea of eternal vigilance and undying hostility to Irish nationalism. For unionists, it was this steadfastness which saved them during times of crisis. The people of Derry who refused to surrender to King James in 1689 were stubborn, as were those who signed the Covenant in 1912 - many doing so in blood rather than ink.
Stubbornness is also an important element within nationalism/republicanism. In this case, it is not stubbornly holding on to land or power, but rather a stubbornness of spirit, a refusal to yield to British rule. Republican mythology draws deeply on a sense of eternal struggle against perfidious Albion. "Ireland unfree will never be at peace" goes one slogan "Tiocfaidh ar la" (our day will come) promises another. An organistaion like the IRA which coins the phrase "long war strategy" is clearly not lacking in bloody-mindedness.
Bloddy-mindedness, which has led to so much pain, can also help stop the suffering. If both sides recognise that the other is just as determined as they are, if they acknowledge that neither side can lose and neither can win, then lasting peace becomes possible.