After the morning in the library, I arrived back at the Elms (where we are staying) in time to accompany the profs (we've swapped out John Day for both Dr. John Spencer of the Religious Studies Dept. and Dr. Andreas Sobisch, Director of the Center for Global Studies) to meet up with the famous folk singer, Tommy Sands, who is hoping to come to John Carroll this next year. Tommy Sands is a well-known folk singer who also works towards peace & reconciliation -- he's good buds with Pete Seeger, if that helps give you some sense of him. Here are two youtube clips of him (the woman with him is his daughter I believe - we met her just for a second): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc9CM_qmf58&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVlIV9dqVXA We met him at Belfast Cathedral where he is doing a free concert tonight and moved swiftly to Jim Hewitt's pub down the street. He told some great stories and said two things that stuck out to me: "People don't have to shake hands if they can sing a song together" (this was in reference to a story about Gerry Adams and Jeffrey Donaldson -- more on him later) and "Here in Northern Ireland we have a problem for every solution, and now I think we might have a few solutions for some of the problems." He and Raymond also had an interesting discussion about identifying as Northern Irish or as a Belfast man rather than as Irish or British, which may end up applying to some of my research/writing -- we'll see. If he ends up coming to Cleveland, I'd love to bring some students to see him!
Yesterday morning, due to rain, we had to postpone our trip to Milltown Cemetery -- we'll be going on Monday instead. But we went to the Ulster Museum instead. A really nice museum with a mix of dinosaurs and paintings and the like. In the afternoon we met with Bill Shaw over at the 174 Trust (http://www.174trust.org/v3/index.php). Bill Shaw grew up a working class Protestant on Sandy Row, and says he didn't meet (as in truly meet and regularly interact with) a Catholic until he was 17, when he became friends with a man he worked with named Sean. Bill now works through 174 Trust to try to get kids to make those connections earlier. He told us at about 26 he had an evangelical conversion experience (he became a minister) and decided to work at a church in a Catholic area, which allowed his kids to have mixed friends in the 80s. About his congregation, he said "Because I was challenged, I felt I was called to challenge them." He spoke of stirring things up a bit when he gave a sermon about the Good Samaritan and substituted Gerry Adams and company in as the "bad guys" of the parable. On May 1, 1998 -- three weeks after the Good Friday Agreement), Bill Shaw started working at 174 Trust. Here are a couple of passages lifted from their website:
"Established in 1982 by a group of concerned Christians (including members of two local churches - Duncairn Presbyterian and Antrim Road Baptist), the Trust purchased premises at 174 Antrim Road. The Trust incorporated the address into its name since the physical location became the nucleus of work dedicated to tackling many of the problems confronting the local community.
The Trust soon opened the Salt Shaker Cafe and began addressing the real needs of those living in a materially and socially disadvantaged area. Our mission is to effect change in North Belfast by social action and community development so that North Belfast would become a place of co-operation, prosperity and hope."
"The 174 Trust is a non-denominational Christian organisation that facilitates a variety of essential community projects in North Belfast. Located in the New Lodge community, the Trust offers opportunities and assistance to people of all ages. The 174 Trust is committed to a process of community development based on building relationships with local people, working together to identify and meet local needs.
Our value base - the heart of our work and witness - is the proclamation of the kingdom of God through demonstrating Christ's values in action."
Basically, as he said, the community tells the Trust what the needs of the community are, rather than the other way around, and the Trust offers its facilities in any way it can. There is a pre-school there, there are AA meetings daily, there is a youth group/soccer league of sorts, etc. It's a non-denominational outfit, but he talked about how suspicious the neighbors were when he first arrived and how his own perceptions were altered by the regular presence of a particular nun. Now, he says he is a Christian, but doesn't seem to identify himself as a Protestant minister anymore -- I couldn't quite tell. The place is doing great work, which is becoming a theme of the trip -- places and people who are slowly but surely doing things at the community level to encourage peace.
I've been particularly disturbed by two statistics while we've been here -- both of which were discussed at 174 Trust. There is an incredibly high suicide rate among males aged 16-24 (the age of combatants during the Troubles) and many also drop out of school not being able to read or write. I've heard more than one man say that when he left school he could not read or write and it took some outside organization to teach him how. Bill Shaw also told us that drug use skyrocketed after the Troubles because the paramilitaries actually used to keep drugs out of the neighborhoods. One surprising thing (for me at least) has been the link between these things and the (scary as it is) sense of identity that young men used to get (or in some cases still get) from being a part of the paramilitary organizations. Again, one big difference I've learned is the lack of emphasis on education for the loyalist communities versus the Republican ones. The Republican community knew the only way it could get employment was through betterment through education while the loyalist communities could always count on there being dock and factory jobs for them...now, with the recession, those jobs no longer exist.
After meeting with Bill Shaw, we hurried back to Elms where we met with a member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Right Honourable Jeffrey Donaldson, MP, DUP Privy Councillor. Apparently the last time some of the professors met with him here, he was much more hard-edged on his politics, and they were delightfully shocked at how much he has "moderated" his position and strategies. He did still say he is a member of the Orange Order though, but he was once a member of the Ulster Defense Regiment. Donaldson said a lot of really wise things, I thought, and I was struck by how much he emphasized that everyone now is doing what they can to make things as good and stable as possible for the benefit of the next generation. He actually said "it's a settlement for the next generation...whatever the next generation decides to do I can't say." He basically said that there is a need to build on common ground (a desire for peace, to end conflict, and remove violence), rather than focusing on differences; more or less "we've agreed to disagree," which is actually a step forward. One of the things he marked as common ground is a common humanity, noting "grief and pain are something that we share." This, he said, is what helped moderate his view. He talked about how in war you have to dehumanize your enemy, so then part of the peace & reconciliation process is about re-humanizing others. He also spoke of the need to accept that people can't go back in time and change who they are or what they've done but that you can make sure that people make positive contributions to society as they are now. Part of this also relies on the need to admit collective failure; that you can't come down fully on one side in terms of who's to blame. One of the main stumbling blocks within the peace process, he said, is that "we haven't figured out how to deal with the legacy of the past." There are 3,000 unsolved murders, but in regards to a truth-telling mission, he remarked "you can't guarantee the truth," adding "Are we going to get justice for all the people? No, we're not. We're just not and that's the reality." I was really enthralled (though I haven't yet decided if I'm convinced...I'm really not sure) by his philosophy on dealing with re-opening cases and seeking truth-telling justice for victims. He said, "If you pick the scab and open up the wound again will that bring more healing or will the wound get infected?" He told us that he'd seen families come out on the other side of a re-investigation even more wounded than before, but I can't help but think that the scab analogy he used is a big part of what contributes to the culture of silence that, I believe, is debilitating for people and a source of further trauma. When we talked a bit more about this as a group, it was noted that the process of telling is beneficial for the victims but maybe not forward motion for the perpetrator...I just don't know. Regardless, Donaldson said that he thinks individual truth-telling justice of the kind we discussed can hold back society from progression and is incredibly financially costly. He's certainly right about the finances, and Eavan Boland has some great poems that seem to question whether or not the act of "remembering" is cathartic or a sort of frozen trauma. For example, he said the money would perhaps be better spent on programs that show the young people of Belfast and the North that there are positive things for them in the community, encouraging them to stay here and thrive. He did also remark that "peace can't just be the absence of violence...we need to educate the next generation about the consequences of failing to find a way to live together peacefully...We want to get to a place where even if you are offended by something [*we were talking about the parades*], you turn the other cheek because that's called tolerance." All in all a very interesting guy who seemed both down-to-earth and practical...both of which seemed to surprise those who met him a few years back as I said.
One thing that still makes me ponder on a daily basis even as we hear about all of this progress, and which one of the undergrad guys keeps bringing up, is the notion that the Republicans haven't yet achieved their goal (one united Ireland), while it makes perfect sense for the Loyalists to be comfortable with the way things are now since the status-quo is essentially their goal (remaining a part of Britain). We have talked with several members of both sides, and while ALL of them are happy with the peace (i.e. end to violence) that now exists and with the move, essentially, to dialogue, when you talk with the Republicans, they still say -- for the most part -- "I'm Irish," "This is Ireland," "when we have a united Ireland," etc.. I was surprised (sort of) to learn that nationalists are allowed to carry and travel with Irish passports while unionists carry and travel with British ones. There is also no Northern Irish flag...just the Irish flag and the U.K. flag...They may not be fighting, and they may (thank God!) be able to now work together and enter into dialogue civilly even on the government level, yet it is clear that there is still a division and that one side (at least) is still waiting "to win" for lack of a better term...or that they at the very least aren't yet fully satisfied. It's not clear how this is all going to pan out in future years -- some people we've met say there will be a united Ireland in their lifetime, some say in their children's lifetime, some say never -- but the peace, the state of non-violence perhaps, is in the hands of the next generation, and from what I've seen people are working hard to breed tolerance among its members.
Sidenote: had lunch with Andreas this afternoon and had a good talk about the art of and the importance of organizing educational international trips for students at both the high school and college level.
Below are some pictures from Thursday when we went to the Antrim Coast.
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| Note: "barely 10,000"...barely! |
Thanks for the photos! Beautiful coastline, wish we had some of that water here!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Dad