Hello, hello, from Belfast; this is Alexis. This morning was quite an eventful one. It began for many of us bright and early, as a group of us (Katie, Emily, John, Nina, and me) awoke at 6:30 for a morning run. We were so proud of ourselves after 25 minutes, at an incredibly admirable pace I might add, that we decided we deserved a morning coffee at Starbucks. This was the first instance of anti-American tourism that we experienced. Katie asked the wonderfully kind lady behind the counter “Do you have iced coffee?” to which she replied, “No, we don’t serve immigrant coffee.” That’s some quality customer service right there. (It is also important to note that we later found out they do in fact serve iced coffee.) Needless to say, we will still be returning, as it is the only coffee shop that is open at 7 in the morning; apparently, the people of Northern Ireland don’t get coffee on the way to work.
We ate breakfast next, some of us across the street in the conveniently-located campus breakfast place and some of us in the dorms. We headed out to the Student Union to grab a cup of coffee and walked to the Irish Studies building to begin our classes. Our first professor was Dr. Peter Martin. He was a bit jaded at first in my opinion, but as the class went on, he began to become what I assume is his charismatic normal self. He informed us that his father was actually born just south of Akron (Green?? Didn’t ask…), but he later immigrated to Dublin, Ireland. He began his class with a brief history of Ireland, which ended up serving as a great cumulative review of the history Ms. Duarte taught us back at the WJ. The first thing I noticed is the fact that European paper (A4) is longer than ours, making it inconvenient for our American binders and triggering my slight OCD. However, there is quite clearly a more important realization. His bias toward certain events made it clear within the first few minutes that he was Protestant, an incredibly unusual occurrence since the Republic of Ireland includes an overwhelmingly Catholic. It is interesting to note that Dr. Martin focuses on Irish Catholicism, despite his Protestant practices. It was a new experience for us to experience firsthand a man who has lived through many of these events and to hear him express his Irish roots in his own words.
He explained to us the importance of sports and culture in Northern Ireland, with writers such as Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel, Brian Ward, and C.S. Lewis, actors such as Kenneth Branagh, Liam Neeson, and Stephen Rea, and sports such as football (soccer), hurling, Gaelic Football (similar to handball), rugby, and motor sports. It is interesting to note that much of the Irish music is the same as America. During my time here thus far, I have heard Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, the Eagles, many 1970s disco songs (unfortunately), and the Temptations. Apparently in addition to American music, Northern Ireland is famous for its emo (pronounced E-M-O) music as well as its punk music, serving as a way for young people to not associate with either side of the Protestant/Catholic conflict and to express themselves in whatever way they please.
My favorite quote from Dr. Martin was “If we stop believing that Protestantism is better than Catholicism, less enlightened, then what do we believe?” The city of Belfast is based upon the fact that there is a rivalry. Without this rivalry, a similar enemy for many people, the people have nothing, and they don’t know what to do with themselves. I found it interesting as well that he was completely unaffected by the Troubles, a thirty-year period of various bombings and terrorist attacks by all sides in the conflict: the British police, the IRA (Irish Republican Army, a primarily Catholic military group responsible for the majority of the bombings), and Loyalist paramilitaries, who want to keep Northern Ireland in the UK (unionist) and are generally Protestant. Since he lived in Dublin at the time, the Troubles in Derry/Londonderry (Catholics call it Derry while Protestants call it Londonderry) seemed far away. Vince related these tragedies to September 11, 2001 in America. However, most Americans felt as if they knew those killed on a personal level, bringing the country together in a time of crisis. Lastly, he challenged us to ask “Who are the victims?” For example, if an IRA man imprisoned for bombing a local market is killed by a member of one of the dead’s family, who is the victim? Obviously, you can tell I really enjoyed what this man had to say.
After a short break, and for Katie and me a sprint to the Student Union for assorted fruits, we were entertained for an additional hour and a half by Dr. Dominic Bryan. He is an enthusiastic Englishman, with Catholic roots, which is rare, seeing as England is overwhelmingly Protestant. We had quite an odd mixture of religions and places today. He began to talk about how the conflict in Ireland is no different from conflicts in America; in fact, he claimed that Ireland has considerably less conflict than America. In America, ethnic minorities are jailed much more often. There are higher crime rates and greater economic inequality. However, the two conflicts don’t appear to be similar since Northern Ireland is experiencing a specific type of conflict, “an ethnic conflict with ethno-national overtones,” in Dr. Bryan’s words. Dr. Bryan next went into a brief history of the rise of population and politics in Northern Ireland; Belfast in particular. He ended by saying that Belfast is in many ways a changing city – more democratic, divided, and expensive. University, their word for college, sometimes serves as the first time a Protestant talks to a Catholic, and vice versa.
After classes, we went straight to lunch, which is where I believe Sami picks it up. Belfast is wonderful so far, filled with lots of learning, as I’m sure at least my parents will appreciate, but also fun. Miss you Mom, Dad, TJ, Todd (and Killian and Foster too)! Talk to you all soon.
Our afternoon correspondent is Sami Rose:
Regretfully, Dr. Dominic Bryan of the Irish Studies Institute at Queens could not give us our Belfast tour because of the birth of his fifth child, Penny. His colleague, Liam Kelly, kindly stepped in and provided the necessary commentary for the tour. He was born and grew up in Manchester, England and, although a tour guide from the area would have been a blessing to hear from, his perspective on the area was appreciated. We boarded the bus hurriedly in front of the Irish Studies building and began to connect the dots of our studies with actual places and parts of the town.
Liam talked about a concept called “telling.” The idea is that everyone on the streets of Belfast always can pinpoint exactly who the person next to them is within a matter of minutes. As our lecturer earlier, Peter Martin, said, “There are eighty ways to tell whether someone is Protestant or Catholic. The eighty-first is to ask them whether they are Protestant or Catholic.” Names, houses, T-shirts, sports club clothing, and even which side of the street people walk on are all indicators of their beliefs and identity. Liam even mentioned a journalist friend of his who came to Belfast, and even he was participating in the “telling” tradition. To an outsider, labeling people as one religion over another may seem to have little significance, but when sectarianism has defined a country for so long, you can only trust those who are like you.
Flags fly proudly everywhere in the Protestant community because tomorrow officially begins the marching season. On the twelfth of July, a march and ceremony are held in memory of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. On the first of July, a smaller celebration, popularly known as the “mini twelfth,” is held to honor those Protestants lost in World War I at the Battle of the Somme.
Even within communities, though, divisions are still current and growing. Each section of the Protestant community partakes in the events of marching season, and they compete to see who has the biggest fire. The competition is so important and rooted in their identity that Protestants torch the content of other Protestants’ bonfire material so that there is no competition. We saw a group sitting on top of pallets to protect them from being burned or stolen. This is a local demonstration of the siege mentality that some Protestants have.
We drove past murals painted both in Catholic and Protestant areas. Some had messages such as “You burn our homes, we build a nation” and other slogans that showed the victimized feelings of Catholics. The Bobby Sands mural was another significant piece. It features a smiling Bobby with the words, “Everyone, Republican or otherwise has their own role to play… our revenge will be the laughter of our children.” In the Catholic area there were also Gaelic phrases and messages displayed, while in the Protestant area, Gaelic would be seen as a foreign language with no connection to Northern Ireland. We thanked Liam after the tour and, with typical Irish hospitality, he assured us that we were very welcome.
Splitting into small groups on the expanse of lawn in front of Queens, we began to digest some of the images of the day. Questions arose such as will the peace wall ever come down? Are the walls preservers of peace or a way of ignoring the issues? Do they promote peace or fear?
After reflection we split again based on food preferences and headed off to find dinner. Some traveled to the French Café Sandwich store, others to Oodles, a popular noodle place down the street, and others traveled to an Italian restaurant where the girls quite fancied the waiter. Feeling nourished, we all met up again at the dorm for class time at 20:00. A story from the first part of Maya Angelou’s autobiography served as the inspiration for a found poem. Themes of shame, struggle for identity, and dreams were discussed.
These same themes can relate also to the people of Northern Ireland. Because of the distinct emphases on labeling yourself as a certain religion or political group, there may be some people stuck in a label where they feel alienated. A land divided between an island and a crown, Catholics and Protestants, nationalists and Unionists, republicans and loyalists, the divisions continue throughout everyday situations in Belfast. Among them they have no intention of letting go of an identity; the Irish are a stubborn people. But until they can either drive the others out or let each other stay, the peace walls will continue to grow taller until the division becomes too heated to stop with painted cement. The situation remains unsolved because of the complexity of it. The way people live is nearly an impossible thing to change. As Peter Martin said this morning, “You can’t just stop being someone. Because then you would have to become someone else.”
No comments:
Post a Comment