IFDS Participant: Northern Ireland
Walls in city neighborhoods in Northern Ireland are full of graffiti
exhorting young boys to take up arms against their religious enemies.
Protestant boys are urged to join the Loyalist Volunteer Force. For
Catholic boys, there's the Irish National Liberation Army. Can peace
really come to such a place?
This testimonial was written by Don Corrigan, Professor
in the School of Communications at Webster University
in Missouri. Professor Corrigan participated in Council’s IFDS
January 1998 program in Northern Ireland. This article
was published in the January 16-22, 1998, edition of
the Webster-Kirkwood Times, as a result
of a meeting with the Mayor of Belfast during the January
seminar (prior to the April
1998 landmark peace accord in the country).
Northern Ireland
Many Americans of Irish descent are closely following
peace talks in Northern Ireland. The peace talks
anticipate the inevitable change coming to this troubled
nation. One indication
of that change is the election last year of Belfast's
first Catholic mayor. Belfast Mayor Alban Maginnis, a nationalist,
has endured
the animosity of Protestant Unionists who fear his
election represents the crumbling of the ancien regime. "Our challenge is to establish
an inclusive political culture that does not threaten others, so
that divisions will wither away," said Maginnis. "It's
my hope that people will one day wake up here, think
to back to the past, and say: What was all that about?"
Maginnis knows that he is in a balancing act. Unionist Protestants
must be shown that their fears about change are unfounded. Nationalist
Catholics must be convinced that his leadership represents real change. "An
important thing about my election is that it has given Catholics a
stake in what goes on in their city," added Maginnis. "They
don't look at me as a nationalist, as an SDLP party member, but as
a Catholic, because that has been their political identification.
Now for the first time, they have a sense of ownership that has never
been here before. There was a time when they want past city hall and
they were likely to curse it. No more."
Mayor Maginnis is a member of the Social Democratic Labor Party (SDLP)
that emerged out of the maelstrom of the 1960's civil rights movement.
Today, the SDLP is looked upon as one of the more centrist political
factions in a collage of political parties.
Sean Farren, chair of SDLP (and Faculty Leader of Council's International
Faculty Development Seminar) is a representative to the peace talks.
His party is interested in a new political structure for Northern
Ireland that assures Protestant Unionists that they are not facing
the apocalypse - an upheaval that will destroy their identity, their
way of life, and their voice in government. At the same time, Farren
said Unionists must finally acknowledge that the Catholic population
has endured injustices and inequities in the past, and much remains
to be achieved. Even today, the likelihood of a Catholic male being
unemployed remains almost three times that of a Protestant male. "There
must be no second-class citizens," said Farren. "No sense
that anyone, or any section of society is excluded from participation
because of one's identity, or the identity, aspirations, and traditions
of one's community."
In trying to further those SDLP aims, Mayor Maginnis has brought
a number of changes to Belfast City Hall. He said many of these changes
are symbolic, but symbolism is a potent force in Northern Ireland.
As Maginnis looks to the future, he is hopeful that the peace talks
will lead to an agreement that carefully balances the needs of both
entities in Northern Ireland. He also suggested that as Northern Ireland
is drawn into the European Community, differences will evaporate.
"We're clearing away wreckage. We're building a new political
culture," insisted Maginnis. For now, Maginnis sees a major portion
of his mayoral role as that of breaking down the walls of separation
and sectarianism – walls that are quite literal in the neighborhoods
of Belfast, Derry, and the other cities of Northern Ireland.