To coincide with Community Relations week April 1st -7th 2004 SCOPE magazine commissioned articles from across the community & voluntary sector. But what do young people think about how we, the older generation, choose to address the conflict and divisions in society and the legacy we bequeath to them. Four young members of Children's Express, an inclusive youth media project, give their personal views.
| So we are in some endless waltz, a circle of actions and reactions. |
In the Middle Without a Voice
Having been born in Belfast and spent most of my life here I have always felt that Belfast is my home. Yet I don't fit into either of the two tribal identities we are pressured into accepting, Protestant or Catholic, Republican or Unionist. The media and 'the powers that be' attempt to categorize every individual in Northern Ireland into either one of these two boxes. But that's the problem: we are all individuals, not just a reductive statistic. Northern Ireland is made up of a variety of different types of people and a greater variety of cultural and community identities than these two and it is time that this was accepted. The presumption that everyone is either 'one' or the 'other' should be rethought in the narrow minds in which this orthodoxy originated.
Due to the theory that you are either 'one or the other' people who do not associate themselves with either side are left in the middle, without a voice. It is easy to feel as if you are not recognised in a divided society that is interested in 'hearing from both sides' as an attempt at community relations, without realising that they have left out a large section of our society. I am neither Catholic nor Protestant but this does not mean that I should be less valued within society than those who conform to the stereotypes.
Having lived in London for seven years of my childhood, where people in the street avoid eye-contact at all costs and become wary if you smile at them, it made me appreciate the general friendliness of people in Northern Ireland. I feel a part of the community but somehow pushed to the outer edges because of being of no religious persuasion. It is difficult to be part of a community that is so preoccupied with sectarianism that it fails to recognise and appreciate people of different religions or of no religion.
Not believing in a God should not and must not make an individual any less represented in a community to which they belong. It is a big problem but can be addressed if people broadened their perspective and succeeded in recognising that a label cannot and should not be placed on people. Labels as to people's religious persuasion are allotted just because of the area in which a person lives or the school that they attend.
A person should be counted as a person before they are counted for what they happen to believe in.
Sarah Montague, 17
Football: the New Religion
'I'm going to Windsor Park tonight' is a comment that raises eyebrows in a different way than it did at the height of 'the Troubles.' Not simply because we hadn't scored in two years - although that was a factor - but because many in the nationalist community here support only the "Holy Trinity" of football, namely Glasgow Celtic, Manchester United and the Republic of Ireland. Football is arguably the one sport that mirrors the deep-seated sectarian divisions in our society.
There are exceptions to this rule. Take myself, for example, for despite being an avid fan of both Manchester United and the Republic of Ireland, I 'let the side down' by not supporting Celtic. (I have never really understood the mentality of those who support an English team and one of the Old Firm- what do they do when the two teams play each other?) I may further shock you by admitting that I do not conform either to the third rule within the nationalist psyche - no nationalist goes to Windsor Park to support Northern Ireland.
Many nationalists do not go to Windsor Park because they see it as a 'cold house' from which they are culturally excluded. (Similar to the GAA for members of the unionist community.) It is also a ground that reminds them of Celtic players being booed whilst playing for Northern Ireland, a truly ridiculous situation. Although this did make Windsor Park at times uncomfortable we should remember that the booing was done by a minority and similar unsporting booing of Rangers players has taken place at Lansdowne Road when the Republic was playing.
My own experience of Windsor Park has been fine, although slightly blemished last year by the half-time cheer that reverberated around the ground on hearing the news that the Republic were being beaten. I support both international sides on this island and I fervently support the case for an All-Ireland football team. In a match between the two I would support Northern Ireland. While steps have been taken by Michael Boyd, the Community Relations Officer of the IFA to address the sectarian chanting and to make Windsor Park a more family friendly venue at international games it will be some time before soccer can shrug off the shroud of sectarianism that seems to affect the game locally. However, as football is the new religion, should we be that surprised to see how much it is infected by the sectarianism in our own society?
John Monaghan, 17
Symbols of Polarity
Born and living in North Belfast, the centre of 'the troubles', going to school in East Belfast, surrounded by Protestants, related to Catholics, being only half-Irish and a Muslim, I wouldn't describe myself as your average Northern Ireland citizen.
You can't tell a person's religion by looking them in the face, yet this community has grown to recognise and create its own symbols that distinguish the two polarities - Catholic from Protestant. Address, name, school, football team… every time I meet new people the subject eventually turns to these and very discreetly they ask, hesitantly, "What club do you support?" or "What school do you go to?" Innocent questions it may seem, but nevertheless questions that can immediately break the ice, or create certain degrees of hostility.
Few expect the clashing replies that come from someone who doesn't fit into a category, and because my answers might contradict one another, this can cause momentary confusion, but when others realise I'm neither Catholic nor Protestant, they don't particularly care.
On one hand, they don't hold the resentment that some would give the opposite side, because a section of the people in Northern Ireland don't really look beyond their opposite for a moral dispute, or too deeply into religions other than those two that define the local conflict.
Sometimes this is good, and sometimes its bad. I'm not the opposite one, so I can fit in either way - but then I'm completely different at the same time. If I'm with people passionate about their beliefs and because I can never fully share that passion or oppose it, the fact that I have opinion worth hearing is sometimes overlooked.
On the other hand, I've found that some people here tolerate their own clan, and them alone. Yet anyone who lives in Northern Ireland is part of this community, and so, willingly or not, part of the dispute, and entitled to have a say in it - a detail that some people might not always recognise.
There is no distinction between Catholics and Protestants, only the distinction that they themselves make. Wrapped up in each other some don't realise that there can be other important confrontations going on elsewhere. This can be a fatal misjudgement because I think people need to agitate for what they really believe in and want, namely a peaceful community, whatever religion its constituents are.
Mevlüde Akay, 16
Unwanted Inheritance
Initially I grew up ignorant of the differences and divisions in the population of Belfast. I had no political-religious barriers to break through. Everyone looked the same. As I grew older I slowly began to recognise and realise the negative traits and bigotry that adults were passing on to children. Consequently, the peace process is a bigger shambles than my last attempt at making lasagne. It's a charcoaled Failure!
Three years ago I accepted an invitation to join a youth project and made the best friends I've ever had. These friends became like family but I quickly discovered that one (society deemed) important point I had previously missed: they weren't Protestant like me. When you fill in forms nowadays religion and ethnicity are one-line questions but to politicians and paramilitaries they're an eight page essay.
I've found out the answer. In one word I can sum up the one problem that's made all our peace efforts futile. The word is: Inheritance. Look back now and there's no doubt that something you saw or heard in the past influences your present. I was bullied in primary school and this made me less compromising with other people for a time. However, I eventually realised this was my mistake and that I shouldn't hurt anyone else for it, least of all those I care about.
Yet everyday I go to school with people who would attempt to stone me to death for my belief that religion doesn't matter and that I have friendships with Catholics or Muslims. Matters of fact, some of my best friends are black - so no doubt now I'm on another target list of racists as well as bigots. Reality check! If I mentioned in the street or to my student peers that my last girlfriend was catholic, not only would I lose most of my student fan-base, I'd have to check behind my back every other minute.
Due to what our parents generation believed in, i.e. "Kill all Taigs" or "F*** all prods", the flags, the marches, the separate housing and the murders - "the troubles" keep going. As a society we are blind to carrying these burdens, this inheritance, this legacy that does more harm to us than to anyone else.
I asked you earlier if you wanted to know what the main problem was, and the trouble with that is that too few people do. So we are in some endless waltz, a circle of actions and reactions.
The truth is you don't care enough about your children to stop putting them through the horrors of your past. But some of us don't want to inherit your legacy.
We're making discoveries all on our own. Maybe one day, it will all be over. Until then I'm gonna stick by my friends and rebel against society's community divisions.
Anonymous Protestant, West Belfast
About the team
This article was written by the Belfast Bureau members as above. It was published in Scope magazine.
