Belfast!

Hello Friends and Family!

I’m back!

I’m terribly sorry for the blog hiatus. I had my nose to the grindstone in the weeks leading up to Spring Break so that I could put down my research for a couple of weeks with a clear conscience. Then, over Spring Break I went on a whirlwind ‘holiday’ involving Ireland, legends of giants, former IRA leaders, folk music, Dublin, ‘Pemberly,’ castles, caves, London, and dad/mom/Patrick...

I think I’ll break this up into several more manageable chunks, starting with the Marshall Scholarship visit to Belfast.

Boring perquisite details leading up to adventure:

Once a year, the Marshall Scholarship Commission organises and funds a visit to one of the other countries within the United Kingdom (remember that England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are all considered separate countries). Last year the group went to Scotland, so this time we hopped over the Irish Channel for Northern Ireland (and the Republic of Ireland). The commission managed to put together an impressive itinerary for us this year with a number of fun/touristy activities mixed in with some more serious briefings on the political climate of the island.

Getting to the adventure part:

My flight out to Belfast was on Saturday, March 28^th, but (oh, what agony!) it wasn’t until the evening. So, I spent the morning packing my bags and cleaning my flat to the music of U2, The Cranberries, and the soundtrack to the movie Once. Trying to understand the lyrics to Zombie kept my mind off how slowly the clock was ticking.

I caught the afternoon train out from Sheffield and watched the quiltwork pastures and sun-spotted moors of the Peak District rush by while Bono sang Beautiful Day. At the Manchester airport, I met up with another scholar, Rachel, who was also flying out that night. The flight was non-eventful and was so short that the captain gave his ‘welcome to FlyBe’ and his ‘we are now descending into Belfast’ announcements at the same time (well... maybe not, but it felt about that short).

When we finally got out of the airport in Belfast, it was too dark to see much and the city was muted by the night, so my first glimpse of the Emerald Island was a bit anti-climactic. Plenty of reminders of the city’s turbulent recent history were visible, however, even in the short taxi ride from the airport. The Europa Hotel loomed over the city centre (the most bombed hotel, and possibly building, in the world). Directly next to our hotel (NOT the Europa), was a unionist wall mural.

For most people, the first thing that comes to mind when they think about Northern Ireland and Belfast is the Troubles. I’ll try to give the cliff notes summary of the Troubles here (as it was explained to us), but it’s quite a convoluted story, so I’ll be leaving out some of the details.

Northern Ireland was in conflict for the past 40 years, but the roots of the conflict were planted centuries earlier as various English kings tried, with various degrees of success, to conquer Ireland. Eventually, William III (late 1600’s) and his successors gained a foothold on the island and brought all Ireland under British rule. To protect their investment, the predominately Protestant British rulers developed large plantations and passed laws preventing Catholics (mostly the native Irish) from owning land – needless to say, that didn’t do much to help Anglo-Irish relations. But amazingly, with the exception of several armed insurrections, all was relatively quiet for several hundred years, until the great potato famine.

The Great Famine of 1845 brought severe hardships on Irish farmers, with nearly 1 million dying of hunger or famine-related diseases. As more and more crops failed, landlords began mercilessly evicting their tenants. This prompted the formation of various campaigns for tenants’ rights, which eventually morphed into demands for full independence from Great Britain. The Easter Rising of 1916, a brief but bloody rebellion, was a loud demand for Irish ‘Home Rule.’ Not all the Irish were in agreement, though. Six counties in the industrial north (the region of Ulster, predominantly a Protestant area) wanted to remain part of the UK. After five years of an unofficial war against the militias that were forming all across the island, Great Britain agreed to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which granted independence to the south while keeping Northern Ireland as a part of the UK. This was meant to appease both sides, but the result was a civil war in the south, and a grossly unjust society in the north where more than ever before the Catholic minority were treated as second-class citizens.

A rocky period of ‘peace’ ensued, but by the ‘60s, tensions had strained to the point where Northern Ireland was a timebomb primed to explode. That trigger came in 1969 in the town of London-Derry when demonstrations turned violent, causing the UK to send military troops to restore order– but I’ll save the fullstory for when I talk about Derry, since we also got to visit it. At any rate, by the ‘70s, the Troubles were in full swing, and there was no turning back after Bloody Sunday in 1972, when 13 violent demonstrators were shot dead by British soldiers in Derry. Over the next 30 years, Northern Ireland was plagued by bombings and shootings as various Republican (i.e. the IRA) and Unionist militias fought each other, the police, and the UK military (and often themselves in internal battles for power).

Essentially, on one side were the ‘Catholics,’ or Republicans. They felt marginalized and wanted to see the whole island of Ireland united as a single nation. Their big political parties are currently Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic Labour Party. On the other side were the ‘Protestants,’ Unionists. They support the UK, and want to keep Northern Ireland as part of the Union. Their big parties are the Democratic Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist Party.

I put Catholic and Protestant in quotes because as one of our briefers said, “the conflict is really a sectarian one that has been framed in religious terms.” I was told the story of one Jewish man who was living in Belfast during the Troubles. As he was walking down the street one day, a group of masked and armed militants stopped the man and demanded, “Are you Catholic or Protestant?”

“Neither,” the man replied, “I’m a Jew.”

Somehow dumbfounded by that rebuttal, the masked men stood there quietly for a second. Eventually, one managed to regain his composure, “Well... are you... a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?”

That was about the limit of their understanding of the differences between the Catholic and Protestant faiths. Anyway...

A shaky peace was again established (noticing a trend?) after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which granted a certain amount of self-governance to Northern Ireland – however the peace process began to break down yet again, as did the local government, so the UK once again stepped in to impose direct rule. Finally, in 2005 the IRA (which by then had “out-terrorized the other terrorists”) announced that it was officially disarming. Self-governance could be given another try.

The new government, Northern Ireland Assembly, has only been operating since May 2007, so it is still getting up and running. They have a clearly defined delegation of power from Westminster, but has a fair amount of independence and autonomy on local matters, which has appeased the majority of the population. International matters like defence, immigration, import/export tariffs, etc, are all still decided by Westminster, but local matters like health, education, and housing are now all decided by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The overall goal at this stage of the peace process is to build trust and confidence in this new government.

The government’s structure is essentially a coalition/power-sharing one, where both the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister must come to agreement before ANY official decision can be made. The First Minister, Rt Hon Peter Robinson, is from the majority party, the Democratic Unionist Party. The minority party, Sinn Fein, always gets the Deputy First Minister office, in this case, Mr. Martin McGuinness. The arrangement is for joint rule, and the difference between first and deputy first minister is in name only – both have the same power, in the sense that they must come to an agreement on every decision and that they can veto each other. That may seem cumbersome, but considering that Northern Ireland has been in conflict practically for the past century, it's a bold step in the right direction.

Previously, Great Britain had imposed direct rule over Northern Ireland, with British politicians in Westminster governing from afar. Needless to say, the angered both sides, but especially the Republicans. Eventually, as the new government proves itself, it will receive more autonomy and more power for Westminster, such as authority over local prisons, criminal law, etc (similar to Scotland, which has considerable autonomy).

That pretty much brings us up to date. The city of Belfast has healed considerably over the past several years, but you don’t have to look very hard to see the scars and to notice the festering wounds still there.

There are still separate school systems for Catholics and Protestants. Only ten percent of the children attend integrated schools. Attempts at bussing haven’t worked.

We took a driving tour through several of the sectarian neighbourhoods (90% of communities in Belfast are exclusively Catholic or Protestant). You can tell if it is a Unionists neighbourhood if the curb-stones are painted red, white and blue. If they are painted green, white, and gold, you are in a Republican area. If you see the Union Jack, you are in a Unionists neighbourhood. If you see the Irish flag, you are in a Republican area. If you see pro-Israel signs, you are in a Unionists neighbourhood. If you see pro-Palestine signs, you are in a Republican area. If you see symbols of the Scottish rugby team, you are in a Unionists neighbourhood. If you see symbols of the Irish rugby team, you are in a Republican area. Unionists say “Northern Ireland.” Republicans say, “The North of Ireland.” And the list goes on, getting more and more subtle...

Notice the painted curb-stones.

The Peace Wall between the Republican and Unionist parts of town.

That day, we saw the police out en-masse as there were several hijackings and bomb-threats. Later that evening, ‘dissident Republicans’ rioted in one area. You have probably heard about the killings of the two soldiers and the policeman about four weeks ago by groups calling themselves the Real-IRA and the Continuance-IRA. I expect there will always be the hard-liners who just refuse to quit.

I don’t mean to paint too bleak a picture, though, because overall things are looking up. The people seemed generally happy and hopeful. The city has been in a boom, with lots of new construction going up. Tourists are coming back in hordes. The new government has held up under some stiff pressures. Lots of people and organizations are getting involved in trying to bring the two communities together.

We had a number of briefings at the Parliament Building with various officials about all sorts of things (racial equality and relations, the economy, the new government, etc), but the coolest thing was that that we got to have a special question and answer session with Robinson and McGuinness.

Overall they sounded very hopeful for the future of Northern Ireland. They both pointed to the challenges of the past several weeks as proof of the progress that had been made. Instead of slipping back into violence after the murder of the two soldiers and the policeman – as would have happened in the past – people at every level and on both sides spoke out against the killings. They said their nation had ‘transformed’ even over the past 4 years. The men responsible for the murders were turned over to the police by their own neighbours, which would never have happened even just 4 years ago. In one sense it was very encouraging, but at the same time, you still got the very clear sense that this was all still very, very fragile. You couldn’t help but get the impression that everyone was walking on eggshells, carefully measuring and metering every word.

We were talking amongst ourselves afterword about how it is often only when the politicians and leaders are tired of the violence that it finally ends. Often, it seems, the common people grow weary of war in their streets long before their leaders do. That was the case in Northern Ireland, at least. The common people, though roused into passion at first, quickly realised that bombings, drive-by shootings, and hostage-takings were not accomplishing anything. It took nearly 30 years, though, for their leaders to come to the same conclusions. It was only when the IRA and the others realised that they couldn’t possibly win though violence that they agreed to take a political approach. McGuinness was one of the top leaders of the IRA during the height of the Troubles and was once even caught with 250kg of bomb-making material in his car, but now he’s a ‘respectable’ politician, who openly tells his followers that acts of violence are futile. It’s interesting, and I’m not entirely sure what to make of it.

While we were there, we also got to tour the parliament building, which was as classy and impressive as that of any European government – embroidered Irish Linen on the walls, mahogany columns, silk and leather chairs, 24k gold chandeliers. The building was used from 1932 to 197 for the Irish Senate, although the senate dissolved when the Troubles began. Interestingly, during WWII the building was used by the Royal Air Force, and because of that, was a target of high importance to the German bombers. To disguise the massive white-sandstone and marble structure, the Irish mixed cow-pies with tar and painted the entire building with the strong-smelling mixture. They knew, as do I, that cow-pies are very difficult to spot at night... It took seven years to scrape it off after the war.

Our British escorts were telling us afterword that it was truly amazing that Robinson and McGuinness were actually in same room. They’ve spent the last 30 years as sworn enemies, but now they share the power of their country. Two years ago, they had never even spoken to each other. The peace process from Northern Ireland is considered a model for others. On several occasions, delegations for Northern Ireland have gone over to Iraq. Obviously, there is not a one-to-one correspondence, but there are certainly lessons to be learned.

I think the overriding lesson that I took away from Belfast is that life is frail; our time in Northern Ireland was a healthy reminder of just how fragile our civilization is. I’ve recently come across a social theory that says that every country in the world is only “three days to anarchy;” that it only takes three days to completely strip the veneer of civilisation from a nation. After visiting Belfast, I’d have to say that there is probably more truth to that theory than many people would like to admit.

I tend to get drawn into the error of thinking that progress is inevitable, that time always brings change for the better. I know it isn’t true, but over time the fallacy slips in unnoticed.

Being confronted with a broken society, however, casts light on where that fatal error of modernism has crept into my thinking. Belfast is a reminder of just how powerless we are to save ourselves. Even with all the technology, sociologists, and medical advancements of the 21^st century, our world is still a broken place, our societies still break down, and we still haven’t found a way to fix ourselves. We need someone to rescue us from ourselves.

Isaiah 42:1-4

"Here is my servant, whom I uphold,

my chosen one in whom I delight;

I will put my Spirit on him

and he will bring justice to the nations.

He will not shout or cry out,

or raise his voice in the streets.

A bruised reed he will not break,

and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.

In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;

he will not falter or be discouraged

till he establishes justice on earth.

In his law the islands will put their hope."

The Emerald Island would do well to put their hope in Jesus and his law.

Well, this is only the beginning of our Ireland adventures! We also managed to get out to the coast, and up to London-Derry, and down to Enniskillen and Dublin. I’ll try to progressively put up on those stories (and our subsequent England adventures) over the next several weeks.

Cheers!

Will

P.S. I forgot to transfer my pictures to my USB Drive. I'll put them up tomorrow. Sorry!