D. Paul Tuthill
Host Institution: University of Ulster - Jordanstown -- United Kingdom
Home Institution:
Period: Spring 2001


My ISEP Study Abroad Experience

Northern Ireland is burning again. On CNN last night, the images beamed from over 5,000 miles away told a tale that is unfamiliar to most that live in the United States, or the rest of the world for that matter. Through the flames and haze of the violence being played out on TV, police and soldiers clashed with protesters hurling pipe bombs, beakers of acid and sectarian abuses. After 30 seconds or so the rest of the CNN viewers moved onto a commercial advertising the newest toothpaste technology. I could only turn off the TV and remember where I had been a month before….
	Belfast is like nowhere I have ever seen. I have visited most of the western United States and many states back on the East Coast, as well as several cities in the British Isles. All of these places had things in common: bustling businesses, frantic cars and citizens set in their own schedules that crowd the streets and make the community hum. Even in other countries, the people behave similarly. Everybody has somewhere to be and everybody has lived this day before. The people in Belfast seem to live out their days with so much more on their minds than catching a bus or buying groceries. The citizens seem to live in a daze, as if the menial tasks they accomplish today make no difference in deciding their ultimate destiny. A parade celebrating the Protestant paramilitary group the 'Ulster Volunteer Force' or UVF.
Protestant or Catholic? That description is before everyone in Northern Ireland and is a label that will determine their fate, not their faith. What we in the United States consider religious freedom is considered to be the cause of the political volatility that plagues Northern Ireland. Protestants are distrustful of Catholics and vice versa because of centuries of violent conflict between the two. Since religious affiliation is not apparent on the outside, the people are distrustful of all strangers until they know their community background. Armored vehicle used by the police to quell riots.
	In nowhere I have ever been before have I been regarded with as much suspicion as I walked to school or to the store or to browse around the city. Everyone that I met seemed to have the same prayer on their lips as I passed by, that it wouldn’t happen here and it wouldn’t finish now. As I walked by the elderly men walking their dogs on a deserted spring evening, their faces would tense and they would look at me with a combination of a snarl and a plea. "Don’t try it," their eyes would say. "Please don’t try it." Red, white and blue signifies a Protestant neighborhood. The mural is for the UDA, or Ulster Defense Association, a Protestant paramilitary group.
In every society, there are troublemakers, thugs and criminals. The difference in Northern Ireland is that the victims of their crimes are not other criminals or targets of opportunity. The victims are so random and senseless that it defies logic. Young families have bombs thrown through their windows just because of which community they come from. In some seasons there are nightly beatings and stabbings of people that were targeted simply for being born on the wrong side of the proverbial tracks. Perhaps the most appalling symptom of this syndrome is the sense of apathy with which the entire community reacts to these deeds. They know that the same thing will happen tomorrow. A building used as a meeting place for paramilitaries. On the wall is a plaque commemorating their fallen comrades. The picture is crooked because the neighborhood was a bit seedy and I was in a hurry.
	Since I have a fair amount of Irish ancestry, I didn't look any different to the Northern Irish aside from being a few centimeters taller. No one knew that I was American until I opened my mouth. Northern Ireland may be one of the only places in the world where learning that someone is a foreigner comes as a relief, not a disappointment. So many people that had eyed me carefully when I was silent would open their world to me and confide in the American things that they hadn’t told their closest friends. So many people had so much to say, yet couldn’t speak what was on their mind for fear of reprisal. Me by a flag (white with a red cross) that signifies the entrance into a militant protestant area. Read: 'Catholics stay out.'
Belfast is rooted in violence, consumed by violence and fated violence. It is a city where living has been suspended in the name of fighting that has gone on for hundreds of years. Not a day goes by when the misery that has surrounded these people is not fully evident. From the graffiti on the walls promising swift and brutal victory over enemies to the sun parched flags which exhaustively mark the territory, the people have no choice but to remember. Some of the more tasteful graffiti.
	With luck, someday the anger will subside into tolerance and the fear will be replaced with calm. The road to peace has been rocky and will continue to be elusive, especially with the current uncertainty of the Good Friday Peace Agreement. Hopefully, when I return to Belfast in a few years time I will see smiles where I saw distrust and goodwill where I saw hate. Hopefully the faded flags of the paramilitaries will have long since been taken down and will be replaced with one flag that all of the people can celebrate. Me (in the green shirt) with my roommates (from Italy and Poland) playing the high-stakes Italian card game Scopa.
Beach overlooking Belfast Lough at Jordanstown.