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Article : Imagining Belfast – My kind of city

Often people ask what kind of city is Belfast now and what can it become? I hope the following article informs and inspires you and will focus your prayers. I am sure you will not the reference to St Patrick and the importance of March 17th! I am grateful to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Ken Newell and Reality Magazine and its editor Fr. Gerard Moloney C.Ss.R for permission to use this.

Imagining Belfast – My kind of city

On August 8th last, at the West Belfast Festival, Rev Ken Newell, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, outlined his hopes and dreams for Belfast, the city of his birth. It is a vision that has relevance for the rest of the country also

I love Belfast. I’ve lived my whole life here apart from one year of study in England, two years of early marriage with Val in Bangor, and four years working as teachers with our church in Timor, Indonesia. Our roots are here; so are our hearts.

However, I have to confess that Belfast frequently drives me crazy. The city and surrounding countryside look beautiful when flying into the International Airport. But looking out the car window on the 15-minute drive back into the city can trigger off a mild depression. How often, in the air and in the car, I’ve thought to myself, “How different Belfast could be if we only...”

Let me, therefore, share with you some of my dreams, some of my ‘if onlys’ for Belfast.

1. Imagine what Belfast would be like if only we could become a city of friends

Growing up on the Shore Road in the 40s and 50s was a very happy experience for me. I had lots of friends - all of them Protestants. That didn’t seem odd at the time. Later I discovered that some neighbours were in mixed-marriages. We loved the Queen and stood as straight as pokers for the singing of the National Anthem at school, in church, or at the end of an Orange march around the area.

Most of our neighbours were Unionists. I was ‘unionist’ before I could spell it. At election time the big lorry arrived bedecked in red, white and blue. The candidate for MP would wave at us, and give the thumbs up sign. We knew how to vote. He only seemed to appear every four years. I wondered if MP meant ‘Missing Person.’

I recall my excitement as the Twelfth drew near. We scoured the area for wood to see who could build the biggest bonfire. I felt pride putting the Union Jack out of our top bedroom window. But there was a shadow side: around the bonfire the older boys taught the younger ones anti-catholic songs. The pope on top of the bonfire got fatter and fatter as we stuffed it full of old shirts and torn socks. We didn’t know any Catholics, but we didn’t like them, or Nationalists or Republicans! They were the enemy, and we had to hold on to what we’d got.

These powerful community rituals planted in us an enemy-consciousness, unchallenged by the church and undented by education. The result was that we lived in an emotionally, culturally, politically, and spiritually separate world.

I was 18 before I developed a real friendship with a Catholic at Queens; I was 25 before I attend a service in a Catholic Church; I was 29 before I formed my first friendship as a Presbyterian Minister with a Catholic priest. All these experiences prepared me for my friendship with Fr Gerry Reynolds of Clonard over the last 21 years. He is a dearly loved friend of my family and congregation. He helps me walk with Christ.

I wonder how similar or different my story is to your own experience. Some in Belfast are trying to make this emotional journey from being strangers to friends. But imagine what Belfast would be like if more and more people were helped to make this journey by their families, churches, schools, community groups and political parties.

We desperately need ‘friendship spaces’ in Belfast where our people can meet in relaxed and non-threatning ways. St Patrick’s Day could be one of them. It should have been declared a public holiday long ago, for St Patrick is one of the few people with whom Protestants and Catholics have a faith attachment. He is a bridge in a divided community, a brother in a broken family. He is British by birth and Irish by choice. Protestants see in him a simple faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour; Catholics see that in him also, as well a love of the ancient and Celtic church. If Patrick can bring us together naturally in celebration at the City Hall, why should we let the flying of flags drive us apart.

The City Hall should be a ‘friendship space,’ a colour-free area, a flag-free zone for just one day in the year. If we flood it with flags, we drive half our citizens away. St Patrick would say to us: “If you want to celebrate my day, remember this: friends are more important than flags.” Imagine what Belfast would be like if only we could become a city of friends.

2. Imagine what Belfast would be like if only we had an additional wheelie bin - for our sectarianism

Keeping Belfast tidy isn’t easy. The job of our city’s cleansing services is to keep the streets clean and to collect the waste we all produce. If you could put all the streets of Belfast into one big street, it would stretch from here to Paris (954kms). Over 100 vehicles are used in this mission, for there are six million wheelie bins in Belfast.

The arrival of the stately blue paper bin was a great advance. But imagine the difference it would make if each of us was given a third bin – for our sectarianism. Belfast is plagued with sectarian graffiti on the walls of our buildings and, more difficult to remove, on the walls of our minds. What do I mean?

When it comes to pinpointing sectarianism, most people think it’s somebody else’s problem. One of the signs of sectarianism is internal blindness to the virus within myself. It was Jesus Christ who said, “Don’t pick on the faults of those around you – unless you want the same treatment. A critical spirit has a way of boomerang-ing. It’s easy to see the smudge on your neighbour’s face and miss the sneer of contempt on your own. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a facecloth to your neighbour” (Matthew 7). Identifying and dumping our own sectarian attitudes is the reason we need a third personalised wheelie bin.

Recently, I put this question to a woman who has analysed sectarianism for decades: “When I look at my face in the mirror and ask, ‘Is there sectarianism in me,’ what should I look for?” Here are some points she provided:

First, look for the question mark in your eyes. Do I really know who I am, so that I can be confident and calm in the presence of people very different from myself. Sectarianism arises from a distorted sense of personal identity which always sees itself as ‘fighting the enemy.’

Second, look for the raised eyebrows. I am surprised that others persist in holding the views they do after I’ve explained to them the ‘right way’ to look at life.

Third, look for the up-turned nose. A sense that ‘I have the truth’ and that my culture, politics and religion are superior to those other sad people.

Fourth, look for the tightness around my mouth. Someone driven by prejudice finds it hard to say anything generous about people they dislike. Appreciation of ‘themin’s’ is no longer an indicator of maturity, but a sign of compromise.

Fifth, look for the tiny ears, now so small they can hardly pick up the other person’s distress. Listening to somebody else’s anxious and painful story is not my strong point. Prejudice kills off feeling for the other person or community and sometimes for oneself.

Sixth, look for the patch over one of your eyes. I look at people who are different from me with one eye shut. There are things about them I dislike; but I never comment on the things about them that are good. Why is it that two people can look at the same piano, and one will notice the black notes first, while the other will notice the white notes first? Beware of the infallibility of the one-eyed man.

Sectarianism does not afflict just one side of the community. Few growing up in Belfast can escape its hardening effect. But thank God it can be treated. For me, personally, exposure to the therapy of Christ on a daily basis lessens its impact and shrinks its influence. It’s time to bin the bigotry. Imagine what Belfast would be like if only we had an additional wheelie bin - for our sectarianism.

3. Imagine what Belfast would be like if only we could become a city of welcomes

Recently, a friend who had just got out of hospital was reading the papers about the upsurge of racist attacks in South Belfast. He felt so angry. “It’s only a matter of time, Ken,” he said, “before somebody gets killed. Some of the Filipino nurses who looked after me in the Royal were the ones chased down the road.”

It was this kind of incident that led The Guardian newspaper to label Belfast ‘The Race-Hate Capital of Europe.’ Sadly, there are chilling statistics to back that up. While racial attacks in England and Wales were running at 12.6 per 1000 of the ethnic population, in Northern Ireland the figure for the same period was 16.4.

Belfast is the epicentre for such incidents, but the virus is spreading. Exploring more deeply into our psyche, Dr Monica McWilliams, citing University of Ulster research, concluded, “People here exhibit as much racism as they do sectarianism.”

Anna Mawah Lo is Belfast Chinese. She told me her story. “I was walking into Belfast one evening at about 5.30 pm when out of the crowds on the pavement four young men appeared, walking directly towards me. They started taunting me and shouting abuse. I manoevered myself to the other side of the pavement to get past them, but within seconds one of them came up behind me and kicked me ferociously on the back of the legs. I stood there, stunned and shaken. There were lots of people around, but nobody came over to ask me how I was. These men then ran across to the other side of the road and continued to hurling abuse. Not a soul said anything to them. The general public just walked on by; they didn’t even bat an eyelid.”

Jamal Iweida, a Palestinian Muslim, came to study at Queen’s in 1995. He writes, “When I first came here there were no problems. Most people were kind. Muslims have been living in Belfast for 100 years and today we are an integral part of the social, educational and economic life. In recent years we have experienced a nastier side to Northern Irish society. Today the one thing I long for is that my children can walk down the street and not be called names or have people set their dogs on them.”

It would be wrong to exaggerate the in-your-face racism in Belfast, but sometimes you can detect a silent racism just under the surface. How should we respond to it?

1. Assess your emotional involvement with the issue: before Haleleni Karanda from Zimbabwe described the hell of racist abuse she had been put through in an estate in East Belfast, I felt emotionally detached from the problem. After hearing her story of windows smashed, doors kicked in and dog’s dirt shovelled in piles onto her doorstep, I changed. If 1 represents ‘no interest’ and 10 represents ‘active concern’ about racism, how would you assess yourself on a scale from 1 to 10?

2. Change your lifestyle: become more socially inclusive. If you rarely have people from different ethnic, religious or cultural backgrounds to your home for a meal, why not adopt a different approach? Open your heart and your home. There is nothing more powerful than your neighbours seeing you enjoy the friendship of people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds.

3. Open up the issue in your church, community group or political party: compile a dossier of racial attacks in your area. Share this material with your friends. Present it to the leaders of your group. Ask them to initiate a positive response in your area.

But racism in Belfast is slowly being challenged. Some of our people are terrific. Some Asian friends of mine moved into new accommodation in East Belfast after being intimidated out of their house somewhere else. Several neighbours knocked on the door to welcome them: “If you need any help, we’re right across the street.” Six months later they remembered that offer. One of the women had forgotten her key and had to wait outside until her friend returned at teatime. While she was standing there, a man came up and started to shout abuse at her. Within seconds several neighbours heard the commotion and came to her rescue. They warned the man that if he didn’t clear off they’d call the police. He headed up the street with his tail between his legs.

I’m so proud of Belfast neighbours like that. The title ‘Race-Hate Capital of Europe’ is so underseved. But we have a battle on our hands to turn this city into a city of welcomes, and when it comes to racism we’re not playing for a draw. Imagine what Belfast would be like if only we could become a city of welcomes.

4. Imagine what Belfast would be like if only we could become a city of peace

Most of us who live in this city have had our lives overshadowed by 30 years of violence. Ours is a city where minds have been scarred forever by horrendous events that have claimed precious lives and wrecked caring families. Many need to find a way to talk about the nightmare they have been though; all of us need to commit ourselves to a new future of peace and cooperation so that no future generation is cursed with conflict.

It has affected us in different ways. On Friday 21 July 1972, I was in Belfast finishing the business necessary to enable our family to leave the next day for Indonesia. That afternoon 20 bombs were detonated in 65 minutes. My car was 150 meters from the Oxford Street Bus Station when the bomb went off. Nine people were killed and 130 maimed. I remember praying in the car: “Lord, why? Should I be leaving Belfast tomorrow when this place is erupting in violence?” Then the thoughts distilled in my mind: “Lord, if and when I come back here, would you help me to do something about it?” Since 1976 I’ve been trying in my own small way, with many others in every walk of life, to make some kind of difference.

Things have changed for the better. At a time when very few believed that a ceasefire was even on the horizon, the sun broke through our Province’s normally cloudy sky. A key moment was the IRA ceasefire in 1994. “It’s over,” was the simple headline in the Belfast Telegraph. Excitement touched our hearts. I remember the moment: 11.00 am on Wednesday, 31 August. I remember the statement: “The IRA have decided as of midnight, 31 August, there will be a complete cessation of military operations. All our units have been instructed accordingly.”

That was a key moment! It unlocked the door to a decade of political movement, increased community peace, and initiatives towards political partnership. Progress has been far from perfect and peace has been marred by other factors, but it has been far better than anything we had tasted for four decades.

Yet these last 10 years have seen people’s hopes for a better future raised and then dashed. At a time when few thought that decommissioning would ever happen, once again the clouds of scepticism parted and several key events took place that have helped us inch towards a violence-free future.

At this present moment, the clouds of scepticism and mistrust are still fairly thick in the minds of many. But I believe that we are on the edge of another key moment: the curtain coming down on physical force Republicanism. I, like so many, would love to read again that hope-filled headline of 1994, “It’s over” with this simple addition: “It’s over for good.”

This would be a key moment, for it will open for us a new future in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, and throughout this island. It will open the hearts of the people in my own community to the growth of trust and to the genuine hope of a better future for our children and grandchildren. It will open the door to a political deal with Unionism that can last, for most of us yearn for the same thing: full, devolved, power-sharing government for the benefit of our long-suffering and patient people.

Like all key moments on the journey to peace, there are complications and difficulties. But they can be overcome when every section of our community realises that it also holds a key to opening doors to the future. There are the issues of loyalist paramilitary activity, the normalisation of our society after 30 years of war, and policing concerns that are still unresolved. But I believe that the leadership and will is there to make it happen. I ask for just one thing: “If it’s over for good” is the declared intention, then let it be said with clarity and followed through in action with conviction and commitment. When this happens - and I believe it will - the sun will again shine through the clouds and a new summer will await our people.

They deserve it; they need it; they pray for it, and they are waiting to embrace it. Imagine what Belfast would be like if only we could become a city of peace.

By kind permission Reality Magazine.

Editor Fr. Gerard Moloney C.Ss.R