Divided Land is Gaining a Different Hue
In May 1998, Columnist Mike Kelly and Senior Photographer Carmine Galasso traveled to Northern Ireland.
Divided Land is Gaining a Different Hue In May 1998, Columnist Mike Kelly and Senior Photographer Carmine Galasso traveled to Northern Ireland. Check out this story on northjersey.com: https://njersy.co/2tvPeI7
Mike Kelly, Record Columnist, @MikeKellyColumn Published 11:53 p.m. ET June 30, 2017
In May 1998, Columnist Mike Kelly and Senior Photographer Carmine Galasso traveled to Northern Ireland to chronicle the historic peace deal between Protestant unionists and Roman Catholic nationalists that came to be known as the "Good Friday "Peace Accords." They decided to tell this story through the lives of ordinary people, each story written on deadline from Belfast or other spots in Northern Ireland. What follows are the series of reports.
Belfast, Northern Ireland -- His name is as Irish as St. Patrick.
But the man called "Pat," who works from an office where a poster on the door proclaims "the human race is available in a wide range of colors and styles," finds himself on the sidelines of Belfast's religious factionalism.
Patrick Yu is Chinese.
That he happens to be a resident of Northern Ireland hardly matters. Yu shares none of the emotional heritage that has driven Catholics and Protestants to war in Northern Ireland for centuries.
With the bloody fighting known as "the troubles" between ardent Protestant "unionists" and Catholic "nationalists" dominating so much of the history of Northern Ireland, it's easy to forget that distinct and growing segments of this region's 1.5 million people aren't even Irish or Catholic or Protestant.
As Northern Ireland participates in a historic vote today to set in motion a plan to end religious hostilities between Catholics and Protestants, experts who track immigration here also foresee a range of changes as the region becomes more diverse.religious-based politics of Northern Ireland's Protestants and Catholics.
In the most recent census, more than 170,000 people in Northern Ireland roughly 10 percent of the population listed no religious affiliation and an additional 10,000 marked themselves in a variety of other denominations, ranging from Mormons (1,437) to Zoroastrians (10).
Meanwhile, more ethnic groups have moved to Northern Ireland to take advantage of its reasonable cost of living and its robust economy. Today, the ethnic quilt ranges from Jews who came to escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II to Vietnamese who arrived as "boat people" after communists took over their nation in 1975. Other groups include Muslims, Tibetans, Bosnians, Asian Indians, Pakistanis, Palestinians, Africans, and Japanese. Many are Catholic and Protestant, but they are n ot branded with the volatile mix of religious and political anger that governs the lives of Northern Ireland's Catholics and Protestants.
Patrick Yu, 40, was raised a Catholic in his native Hong Kong. But when he came to Belfast four years ago to study law at Queen's University, he admits he hardly recognized his religion. "I still consider myself an outsider," he says.
Femi Olayifada, a 43-year-old, Nigerian-born Pentecostal, who works as a community development consultant in Belfast, is familiar with religious conflict in his homeland. But Northern Ireland's religious divide confounds him.
"In Nigeria, the conflict is between Christians and Muslims," Olayifada said. "Here, it's between Christians who worship the same God."
Belfast-born Ken McGuire is met with questioning looks each time he describes where he worships. "People feel that if you're not a Catholic, then you must be a Protestant," McGuire said. "I'm neither."
McGuire is one of Northern Ireland's 2,121 Jehovah's Witnesses.
Sandra Nihbrogian also attracts looks from Northern Ireland residents, but feels overlooked just the same. Even though she was born here and changed her name (Broghan) to its Gaelic version, Nihbrogian is black the daughter of a white Irish mother and a West Indian father.
"When you look like me, you become visible and invisible at the same time," she said.
"I'm visible because I'm unusual. But I'm invisible because I don't fit into the political future here."
Jamal Oweidah, 30, a Jordanian-born Muslim, finds himself in a similar predicament. He would like to discuss his religious background with his neighbors, but he finds that the factionalism that dominates so much of life and politics in Belfast also tends to stunt meaningful discussions of religion. "I feel like people don't like to talk about religion," Oweidah said. "They avoid it."
Oweidah, a research associate at Queen's University on Belfast's sedate east side, where many streets are home to middle-class Catholics and Protestants living peacefully side-by-side, once made his home on the more contentious west side of Belfast, in a Protestant neighborhood. Moving to that side of town, however, put a damper on his social life.
"My Catholic friends wouldn't visit me," said Oweidah, who adds that Catholics and Protestants near the university aren't afraid of each other.
In a small office near Queen's University, the mid-morning chatter turns to Friday's peace referendum. But this discussion seems worlds apart from those being held across town in the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods where much of the violence of the last 30 years was centered and where so much tension for the referendum is now focused.
At one desk sits a Polish woman. Nearby a Mexican woman settles into a chair alongside an Asian-Indian woman.
The three are visiting the sort of office that is non-existent in Belfast's most violent Protestant and Catholic enclaves a multicultural resource center.
"In Mexico, religion doesn't matter like it does here,' Said Alicia Gaston, 45, who goes on to describe a part of her family's religious background that would place her in danger if she lived on the other side of the city where mixing of religions is frowned upon. "My husband is a Catholic and I am a Protestant."
Polish-born Aleksandra Beeney, 26, said she finds herself adopting bad habits here. "I don't want to be pigeonholed," said Beeney, who lists herself as Catholic, but does not regularly go to church. "After I lived here awhile, I found myself falling into the trap here and starting to filter people based on what religion they belong to."
Read or Share this story: https://njersy.co/2tvPeI7