War & Peace

The HOLIDAY seems like ages ago. I know I promised some funny stories but in some ways, that time has passed. However, I will delve into the old memory banks and tell you one or two anyway. But first a non-funny story. Oh dear, I do seem to have a black view of things!!

Derry, to the residents of the Republic of Ireland and Londonderry to the residents of Northern Ireland, (to the point that the signs that had Londonderry had the London graffitied out near the border), was an interesting experience. This was the city with the bogside, the tiny area of streets no more than a couple of blocks where immeasurable violence and multiple-murders had taken place. The pictures of some of these confrontations had been beamed into our lounges through the television news stories of the time.

It is a walled city, with an amazing walk around the top of the walls giving you a bird’s-eye-view of the city. There are the murals and memorials to those who have died for the cause.

The four of us walked around the city, through the bogside and looked at the murals as we went. Typical tourists you might say. What is not so easy to describe is what it felt like.

It was a real mixture of emotions. The city itself was lively enough. We were there at the end of the business day, and there was, I guess you could call it a traffic jam, around the central square. Cars were banked up, horns were tooting and people were yelling at each other. I must say that no where else had we heard one toot of a car horn. No matter what the obstacle was on the road, a tractor, road works or a confused tourist, there was not one solitary beep heard, prior to our reaching Northern Ireland. It almost felt like Auckland on a typical day.

At a deeper level, I felt a terrible sense of helplessness and sorrow. Sorrow at all the loss of lives, at the boxed way of thinking that keeps people, groups of people categorized and segregated. Yes, it may be by choice but I am not convinced that is really the case. These young men and women who were motivated to do battle with fellow countrymen/women were not born with hatred in their hearts. That had to be cultivated by the society in which they lived; by their families and the wider community. They are no different to the misguided suicide bombers who took Shelley’s life, along with her fellow travelers. I did not see anything that could justify such inhumanity to each other. To hate to the point of wanting to kill, to achieve what?

The murals are magnificent in the artistic sense, in an emotional sense I felt each one of them like a slap in the face, or a punch in the guts. Yes they are a representative truth of events that are not in dispute, but what are they actually contributing to creating a new way of living? To me, they were stark somber reminders of man’s inhumanity to man, a holding in place if you like, of the hurt, the wrongdoing. Unforgiving, immovable. There was no light coming in, no hint of a coming together. They seemed to me to hold the barricades at a place that hopefully does not exist anymore. I saw them as a barrier to moving on. I felt despairing and helpless. I wished I could scream out, look at what you have got and get on with it. Get on with making a better place for everyone no matter their creed, beliefs or politics.

Ireland is a beautiful country with much to be enjoyed. The difference between the Republic and Northern Ireland was stark and was both visual and emotional.
The rolling hills with the stone fences and little narrow roads, the people with the lilting voices and way of speaking that took you up and down the vocal scale typified the Republic. The warm pubs, the storytelling, the brilliant religious oaths (or was it praying I wasn’t’ quite sure – you know the thing, Jesus Mary & Joseph, Holy Mother of God with suitably dramatic facial expressions accompanying these cries) all adding colour to this experience.

Northern Ireland by comparison had better roads, motorways in parts, bigger cities but an overriding austereness that I just couldn’t shake. The accent could best be described as flat, monotonal, utterings. No ups, no downs, just a continuous stream of words all at the same pitch with hardly a breath taken in a sentence. Like talking out the side of your mouth with your jaw wired together at the same time. We did ask for directions a couple of times, said thankyou, but were none the wiser for the exchange.

There was a grayness to the buildings and the countryside, was much more structured and ordered, gone were the rambling hillsides with shacks and tumbledown buildings. I missed the rolling hills and the stone fences.

I have no right, as such a casual observer to make any comment on a country so divided, for so long, by so many for so many reasons. I know that peace moves are on the way, the IRA and the UDA having formed a peace agreement. I know that there are groups of people doing amazing things to advance the country into a peaceful co-habitation of souls. I also know this is still a long way off. There are years of conditioned responses to the “others”; they being whoever you are not! There are the usual convolutions of power, politics and greed.

I got to see the town where my Dad was born, the hot spots of Derry and Belfast too. I saw the despair and felt the history in my heart. I wish for such a beautiful country, that the good people in it do find a true way to make a peaceful future. I think for that to happen, some letting go of the past must occur.

Holding onto the ugly hurts and wrongdoings doesn’t seem to me like a way forward. It is a fragile peace at present with hope of more peace to come.

My wish is for a truly peaceful land, a way of living that reflects the beauty of that land and the true wish of every person to live in peace. The last mural is also a sign of hope.

Arohanui

KG