True Security
I got home Sunday night from a four day conference in North Ireland on the subject of "True Security." True security being human security, that is when everyone has the resources they need, and their human rights protected, so we're all less inclined to get hot and bothered and use guns. (Please consider any flippancy a coping mechanism.)
Talking about this subject in the context of N. Ireland, with a visit to inner-city Belfast, where barbedwire and Peace Walls are still the order of the day, where all the social problems rampant in low-income communities are on the rise, and where there are still giant murals letting you know whose territory you are entering still cover buildings ever block or two, gives the topic immediacy.
I think I found the Peace Walls particularly shocking because I hadn't heard anything about them, and in fact they've been built since the Good Friday agreement. Apparently they've been requested by both sides and they make everyone feel more secure. They are built at interfaces (ie places where Catholic communities and Protestant communities touch) to stop a quick run into enemy territory. There is of course no way of measuring how much the walls have helped to stop violence, and how much it is the tenor of the times.
A number of people who had visited Belfast even five years ago say that the tension has decreased incredibly.
It was interesting to hear from several middle class folk about how the Troubles never touched them directly. Violence is indeed linked to economic and educational issues. That said, we were also told that the number of people who died in N. Ireland as a direct result of the troubles in the last forty years is the same percentage of the population as if a disaster the size of 9/11 hit the USA once every six weeks. For forty years.
9/11 every six weeks for forty years.
I guess that was the biggest thing I take away from my little visit, is just how the media doesn't really care about N. Ireland anymore, because no one (Thank God) is bleeding in the streets. But the damage is well past done, and the society is a long way from healed.
I found hope (strangely) in that a lot of people feel that the violence finally stopped because those leading it got tired. They started the Troubles. Then they became fathers. Then they became grandfathers. And then they realized, we haven't succeeded in building the society we wanted, and in fact, it's not even a bit better. I mean, there's part of me that would rather think it was the work of peace activists that paid off (and I'm still inclined to think they helped things along in their little ways) but ultimately those using violence came to the point of realizing it DOESN'T WORK.
In general the folk we talked to simultaneously hold a lot of hope for the future, and see the present government as quite simply impossible.
I still advocate believing six impossible things before breakfast.
N. Ireland is gorgeous, incidentally. Above the estates and Peace Walls you can still see the rich green hills, and if you're lucky enough to get to the shore, it's every childhood fairy story come true.
Talking about this subject in the context of N. Ireland, with a visit to inner-city Belfast, where barbedwire and Peace Walls are still the order of the day, where all the social problems rampant in low-income communities are on the rise, and where there are still giant murals letting you know whose territory you are entering still cover buildings ever block or two, gives the topic immediacy.
I think I found the Peace Walls particularly shocking because I hadn't heard anything about them, and in fact they've been built since the Good Friday agreement. Apparently they've been requested by both sides and they make everyone feel more secure. They are built at interfaces (ie places where Catholic communities and Protestant communities touch) to stop a quick run into enemy territory. There is of course no way of measuring how much the walls have helped to stop violence, and how much it is the tenor of the times.
A number of people who had visited Belfast even five years ago say that the tension has decreased incredibly.
It was interesting to hear from several middle class folk about how the Troubles never touched them directly. Violence is indeed linked to economic and educational issues. That said, we were also told that the number of people who died in N. Ireland as a direct result of the troubles in the last forty years is the same percentage of the population as if a disaster the size of 9/11 hit the USA once every six weeks. For forty years.
9/11 every six weeks for forty years.
I guess that was the biggest thing I take away from my little visit, is just how the media doesn't really care about N. Ireland anymore, because no one (Thank God) is bleeding in the streets. But the damage is well past done, and the society is a long way from healed.
I found hope (strangely) in that a lot of people feel that the violence finally stopped because those leading it got tired. They started the Troubles. Then they became fathers. Then they became grandfathers. And then they realized, we haven't succeeded in building the society we wanted, and in fact, it's not even a bit better. I mean, there's part of me that would rather think it was the work of peace activists that paid off (and I'm still inclined to think they helped things along in their little ways) but ultimately those using violence came to the point of realizing it DOESN'T WORK.
In general the folk we talked to simultaneously hold a lot of hope for the future, and see the present government as quite simply impossible.
I still advocate believing six impossible things before breakfast.
N. Ireland is gorgeous, incidentally. Above the estates and Peace Walls you can still see the rich green hills, and if you're lucky enough to get to the shore, it's every childhood fairy story come true.
posted by dm at 11:39 PM
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