Viba Saligrama on Boundaries and Murals: Reflections from Belfast

By: Viba Saligrama

November 23, 2009

My days in Ireland are slowly coming to an end with classes ending next Friday and exams winding down in less than a month. With little time left, I am scrambling to do last minute traveling and see as much of Ireland as possible. Last weekend, I went on a school-organized trip with my "Irish History and Culture" class to Belfast. I guess this does not technically count as traveling within Ireland, but this was not always the case.

Troubles in the northern counties of Ireland can be traced back to the 1600’s during the Ulster Plantation, when English monarch James I gave a lot of land away to Protestants, angering Catholics and inspiring revolts and rebellions for the years to come. Skipping forward 400 years (yes, I know it is a long time) to the era of home rule, we can still see the real seeds of the divide. In 1921, the Government of Ireland Act was passed, formalizing the partition between northern and southern Ireland. The 26 counties of the south would be independent, but the six counties of the north would have their own parliament—Stormont—and be tied to the United Kingdom. The Catholics in the northern counties were very angry about this arrangement as they were often discriminated against by the Protestant-dominated government.

So today, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. It was quite odd to be driving and all of sudden see Union Jack flags and price tags in pounds. Although the city of Belfast has come a long way with modern shopping centers and large museums, the people still have yet to forget their bloody history, and memorials can be found every few blocks or so throughout the city.

As part of our trip, we drove through the less travelled roads of Belfast, the places where conflict still exists, and murals depict the hostility. I did not expect to see such signs of violence in a civilized European country. I had come to assume that post-1990’s, everyone was now living peacefully together, but I was wrong. Our rather odd bus guide with questionable analogies commented, “The Catholics feel like the abused wife, who one day wakes up and her husband tells her 'Let’s be friends now and stop the fighting.' How is it possible for her to believe him despite it being her deepest wish?” So, she becomes disillusioned and continues to seek out the violence."

Looking back through my photos, I tried to Google some of the quotes from murals to learn more about the back story. In the Republican side of the city, there are extreme terrorist murals, but also more humanitarian ones supporting many world causes besides just Irish ones. One mural had the quote, “Everyone has the right to live free from sectarian/racist harassment…: Arkansas 57 & Ardyone 01.” I knew Arkansas 1957 was in reference to the African Little Rock Nine who were deprived of entering the segregated school, but what was Ardyone and why was it happening in 2001?! The story, much overshadowed by the events of 9/11, is a sad one of Catholic school girls facing picketing, riots, and bomb threats as they walked through Loyalist neighborhoods to get to their school. Loyalists claimed the Catholic parents were plotting against them, and so they revolted.

Even in 2009, segregated neighborhoods still exist, and to enter the Protestant neighborhood we literally drove through a small entrance in a wall that had just been made six months ago. What I found even more shocking than murals here were the fences around homes and shops that were built to safeguard themselves from bombings and attacks. Boundaries are being removed, and many Catholics and Protestants do live civilly as neighbors. There is a movement to remove/outlaw the negative murals. The children of Belfast, both Protestant and Catholic, are actually currently working together to paint new murals with positive or neutral messages of hope and Irish pride.

So, it seems the origins of this conflict, and a common trend in religion and politics, is the fight over land. I see it happening in my own birth country, with the fight over Kashmir, and in too many places to count in the Middle East. From my trip to Belfast, I learned that although there has been much progress, old battle wounds are deep and only with continued efforts from future generations will people be able to forgive and live harmoniously.

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