Post Three (but Really, Post Two)

So, here I am, in Vagabonds, putting off writing inquiry emails to organizations in Israel. So I thought I'd write the political/academic entry (Post Two/Post Three) now.

Just so you know, I wanted to put some pictures in this post, but for some reason Blogger wouldn't let me. I'll try to put them in another post, and let you know where in this post they were supposed to appear.

Since I last wrote an update on this part of the trip, I met with people from the following organizations:
- Beyond Skin, which aims to address racism, sectarianism and prejudice (of all sorts) through music (especially) and art.
- the NI Human Rights Commission, an independent statutory body which promotes awareness of the importance of human rights in NI, reviews existing laws and practices and advises the government
- the Divided Cities Project, a research project of Queen's University that focuses on Belfast and Jerusalem
- the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA), an umbrella consulting and advocacy organization for voluntary organizations.
- a group of Catholic and Protestant women from North Belfast who have a joint group and are learning about Irish and UK history
- Community Dialogue, which brings groups together to engage in dialogue, and helps train mediators and members of the community to engage in dialogue work.
- Public Achievement, which engages groups of kids in different kinds of community work, not necessarily directly involved with the Troubles.
- the Falls Community Council, a community center on Falls Road, the center of one of the most Catholic/Republican neighborhoods in Belfast, which provides tons of surfaces, and is involved in cross community dialogue.
- the Regional Training Unit, which provides leadership training for school administrators, principals and teachers.

Hannah (who came to visit from Dublin yay!) and I also went on a tour of Falls Road with an Republican ex-prisoner from an organization called Coiste, which I'm trying to find out more about and hopefully interview.

Whewf. So that's a lot of organizations, and I have at least 8 more interviews between now and Friday when I head back to Dublin.

I'm not going to go through each interview individually, because it would take wayy too long. But I want to offer up a few of my general observations and thoughts about some of the things I've learned. If you're interested in a specific organization, definitely ask me if you'd like.

Let me preface all of this by saying that the most important thing I've learned from my interviews and from staying here in Belfast is how much more work and research I need to do. All my questions have prompted more questions. But didn't Plato or someone say that the wiser you are, the more you know you don't know? Hopefully my confusion means I'm wise.

A few words about Belfast: One of the major goals of this trip was not only to have interviews and gain a better understanding of the conflict and resolution through that, but to walk around and get a feel for the actual status of the city. I've been able to do that to some extent, but certainly not fully. Belfast is really small, which I appreciate, because it means that I've seen large parts of it (I think, anyway). I do know that I haven't spent nearly enough time in North and West Belfast, which was where the vast majority of the actual violence took place, and where the community is most divided. When you walk around the center of the city, is almost impossible to tell that you're walking among a divided society – there are no real signs at all. In fact, it looks like a little London or Dublin or Edinburgh, though a bit less grand.

However, despite its accessible size, I still do not feel like I have managed to get a feel for things. This is possibly an unfair comparison, but when you walk around Israel, you're reminded of the conflict all the time. This is certainly true in the West Bank, where the Wall, checkpoints and nationalist graffiti dominate the landscape. But in Jerusalem, and even in Tel Aviv, bag checks at the entrances of restaurants, teenage soldiers roaming the streets, and visible differences in people (their dress, the language they speak, the color of their skin, etc.) remind you that that's a society that is troubled, or at the very least, made up of different kinds of people who hold different opinions and beliefs. Here, everyone's white. Everyone speaks English. Heck, everyone's Christian. And, of course, let's not forget that this is a post-conflict society, while Israel-Palestine is still in the midst of its troubles.

But because of the homogeneity, it's sometimes quite hard to feel the kind of tension that is being described to me by many of the people I've met with. Of course, there are areas, like on Falls Road or Shankill Road (on the other side of the Peace Lines from Falls, and a strongly Protestant neighborhood) where it's very obvious what side of the tracks you're on. But it's very hard for an outsider to know that across one street or another you've changed neighborhoods completely. Lots of kids here, apparently, grow up knowing to not walk past a particular lamppost after dark. Interface areas can literally be street by street, with no visible barrier. I actually have started to get better at noticing the tell-tale signs of where I am. Obvious ones are flags (Irish vs. the Union Jack), murals, political posters and ads, graffiti, use of the Irish language on street signs or storefronts, etc. Less obvious ones are any mention or use of the colors orange (Protestant Loyalist) or green (Catholic Republican), different color mailboxes (on Falls Road, the typical red mailboxes you see in London, and all over the rest of Belfast, are painted green), even the font that's used on storefronts.

(Insert picture here, where I was going to tell you to find three examples indicating a Catholic Republican neighborhood. A bit of homework...)

The more discrete expression of differences here, plus some of the things I've heard and read in interviews and articles, lead to some interesting conclusions and questions. David Russell from the Human Rights Commission raised the great point that the goal here is very unclear – is it tolerance and coexistence? Or is it understanding and integration? Is it good enough to have peace, in the most obvious sense of the word, that is, the absence of overt violence? Or should there be exploration and confrontation of the issues, a discussion of history? One of Community Dialogue's main points on their website supporting the need for active dialogue is that in Northern Ireland there's a saying, “whatever you say, say nothing.” Many people have described the situation here to me as a “benign apartheid,” and as “happily divided.” In short, it seems that even though society is still significantly divided, since the barricades and checkpoints have been disabled, it's become quietly divided. And people seem to be fine with this. They're not really airing their dirty laundry – not to outsiders, and not really to each other.

This is a huge difference between the situation here and in Israel-Palestine. Not only is it almost impossible, by the make up of the population and the nature of the conflict, to forget that the society is divided. But Israelis and Palestinians are notoriously outspoken. Four Jews, five opinions, after all. I'm beginning to think that this kind of coexistence is perhaps less possible in Israel than it is here. It might might (I'm thinking out-loud here) be that either they address their issues and really get along, or that they don't at all. I'm not sure an in-between is possible. Maybe.

It's also important to note, that although it seems a large sector of the population feels that as long as things are peaceful, things are OK, the people in the community relations sector (ie the sector I'm studying), do not feel that way. Thank God. Most of them have said that the goal is real integration and acceptance, though this form of coexistence is certainly an improvement on the situation as it stood 15 years ago.

Further, this afternoon in my interview with Tony Macauley, who owns a consulting firm with many clients in the community relations sector, he said that it's easy and comfortable for the majority of the population to remain separated and not engage in dialogue. It's the interface neighborhoods (that is, those that are right up next to each other, often divided by Peace Walls), that experience the segregation most directly. And it's in these communities where the most work is being done. Ms. Claire Hackett from the Falls Community Council said to me yesterday that “the people who are least effected need to have the most contact.” This is kind of a radical idea, I think, but one that I may agree with. Many of the organizations I've looked at deal with sectors of society that have been directly involved in the conflict up to this point – ex-combatants and prisoners, bereaved family members, kids who live in interface areas, etc. But maybe for radical change, the people more unaffected need to be engaged in contact and dialogue. This is what I call the self-selection problem. No one seems to know how to fix it, especially since you really can't force people to engage in dialogue. It kind of defeats the purpose.

Unfortunately, besides these insights, I've not really been able to get a straight answer out of anyone about what kinds of groups and techniques work best, overall. I do get a sense that most of them think that some incorporation of “contact theory,” that is, just being around other people of the other side, and discussion of issues, is the most effective. Even if both of those things aren't incorporated into each program, there are at least programs of each type that serve the same communities, it seems. Mr. Macauley actually drew me a diagram with a sort of hierarchy of the efficacy (and the inverse abundance) of types of organizations, with only-Catholic or only-Protestant organizations being the most prevalent and perhaps the least effective, and truly collaborative organizations as the most scarce and perhaps most effective.

No matter who the interviewee is, I tend to ask a lot of the same questions. One has been the “what's the goal?” question, and another is the self-selection question. Others are:

-- Do you need to engage in intra-community work (what some people call “single-identity” work), before you can engage in inter-community work?

This question came out of the fact that here in Belfast there are two organizations, named Coiste and EPIC, both of which are ex-prisoner groups (for Republican and Loyalists, respectively). Though I unfortunately haven't been able to meet with either of them, it's my understanding that they each provide services for their constituencies and serve as sort of advocacy organizations for them as well. However, they also engage in cross-community dialogue, actually, with each other. In Israel, one of the most famous dialogue organizations is called Combatants for Peace, whose sole purpose is to engage ex-combatants from both sides in dialogue. I'm just interested in the difference.

The general answer to the question has been: sort of. There definitely should be intra-community work, and it's very important. But it's not necessarily needed before inter-community work, though in some situations it should be, It can be conducted side-by-side. It is definitely sometimes helpful to have single-identity organizations bring people to the table, because often they're already respected and trusted in the community for the other services they provide (for example, the Falls Community Council which is involved in great cross-community projects, also provides drug and alcohol abuse services, and has a really great oral history project for the community).

Many people find the term “single-identity” really unhelpful, positing that no person has only one identity, and the more people define themselves with a single identity, the more divisive that definition is. However, I do get the sense from people, and feel myself, that it's really important for people to feel connected to their own communities, histories, traditions, families, etc. That's actually a provision in the UN Convention on Human Rights, that people have the right to be brought up in their culture. That's obviously really important here. Talking to that group of women in North Belfast, I asked them if they send their kids to integrated schools or separate Catholic and Protestant schools. They said that they send their kids to separate schools because its important for them that their kids are brought up in the traditions they were brought up in. The trick is figuring out a way to get people to feel pride in their identity, without militarism or violence being a part of that identity. Without defining themselves as not the other side, and with an understanding and respect for others' identities. Easier said than done.

-- Is it considered successful if an individual identifies themselves as Northern Irish as opposed to Irish or British? Does this mean that they've achieved a non-sectarian, integrated identity? Or does this not signify anything and/or is it disrespectful of the right for individuals to feel pride in their identities in a peaceful way?

I think this is an interesting question. No one really has been able to talk to me about it, unfortunately. Oh well.

-- To what extent can or should the Northern Irish conflict (or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for that matter) be explored through a broader human rights lens versus a conflict-specific lens. That is, is it helpful to frame Catholic-Protestant relations here in the same context as Catholic Northern Irish – Polish immigrant to Northern Ireland relations? Or in the same context as Hutu-Tutsi relations? Or black and white Americans?

I've met with a bunch of more umbrella, human rightsty organizations on this trip, and this is a good question for them. One really interesting thing I've learned is that many Catholic Republicans talk about the major issues in Northern Ireland as human rights issues, whereas the Protestant Loyalist community has been avoiding the term, because they feel they're being hit over the head with it. I think this has a big hand in the sense of solidarity of the Catholic Republicans seem to have with other “oppressed” peoples (note, I'm using quotations to not piss some people off). This is obvious as you walk along Falls Road and see the murals (insert four pictures...)

In general, though, I haven't been able to get a good answer to this question, either. It's really complex, and I think it's really interesting. Are human rights abuses human rights abuses, the world over? Is teaching people to be respectful of all cultures enough if it encompasses the other culture in a conflict? Not sure. Definitely something to explore further.

So the interviews have been really interesting. I'm still not sure what I want to focus on, but the thing I keep coming back to is the education system. Integrated education is still really interesting to me – the training of teachers, why there's no stronger curriculum, how to get the government to care more about it, how to get more kids into the system, how to make them stronger schools academically, etc.

I'm also interested in the curriculum in the separated schools, especially the teaching of history and religion, and in the brand new “Learning for Living” curriculum, which encompasses among other things, to my understanding, employability and human rights education. I also want to learn a lot more about informal education that supplements the separated schools, and programs (like that collaborative exchange I mentioned in a previous post) that engage kids that go to separated schools in contact and dialogue during the school day. I want to know more about how to get parents involved in teaching reconciliation and acceptance to their kids after they get home from school, or at least how to get them to not teach the opposite.

I really think the education system is going to be the focus of my paper, in the end. I just need to make sure that it's OK that I write a senior essay that's an expansion of a previous paper (though it will be super different), and that I meet with the right people and organizations in Israel to have the right kind of information. This post is getting really ridiculously long (4 pages in a word document. Yikes), so I want to just leave you with a few interesting tidbits about education that I've picked up from various people:

-- The UK government is compelled by the EU Convention on Human Rights, to fund all non-state schools if it supports any non-state school. Meaning, because it funds Catholic in addition to State (Protestant) schools in Northern Ireland, it also has to fund integrated schools. They, apparently, have made the qualifications for integrated schools to be eligible for funding less stringent than for other schools, but still. Turns out they're not as progressive as I thought they were.
-- Apparently both churches (but more prominently the Catholic church) discourage parents from sending their kids to integrated schools. Anecdotally, Catholic teachers who have taught at integrated schools have a harder time getting jobs at Catholic schools later.
-- If I understand it correctly, the school system is the only place where employment discrimination based on religion is allowed (besides the police force, and that's special).
In the human rights curriculum, which has to be taught in all schools (including the integrated schools), it's pretty easy to not talk about Northern Ireland at all.
-- There are two major teacher training colleges – one for Protestants and one for Catholics. Obviously, this means that if they teach at integrated schools they won't really know how to handle contentious situations.

In any case, it seems as though things are not as hunky-dory here as I thought they were. Super interesting. I've also heard loads of good things, so let's not get down on the education system here. I also have to remember that there are other things that education needs to be concerned with (ie math and reading), so I can't really, in good faith, say that coexistence values should be their very first priority, even though it is mine.

So, I will hopefully write one more post on the political/academic side of the Northern Ireland part of my trip before I go. A last thoughts before I go post, with more about comparisons between here and Israel.

Thank you so much for reading. There's so much to say! Please do let me know if you have any questions or comments on anything I've written. They are more than welcome.

Until next time,
Sarah