Latest Disturbances in Undercut Efforts at Dialogue
April 02, 2011
-- Rosio Sherie recently took eight Protestant and eight Catholic teenagers from turbulent north on vacation to thewhere they tentatively started friendships. This week, some of the youngsters from Ms. Sherie's Protestant housing estate of Rathcoole had planned to go to the movies with their new friends from the nearby area. But they balked after a week of rioting increased sectarian tensions across . The Rathcoole youngsters ``thought they were being set up,'' Ms. Sherie said. ``Some people here called them `Taig lovers,' '' she said, ruefully repeating a derogatory term for Catholics. ``The violence has set us back 10 steps.'' Throughoutthose who have labored to construct bridges across the city's sectarian divide are experiencing similar disappointments in the wake of a week of rioting that began March 19, 2011 refusal by police to let Protesants march through a Catholic area southwest of led to four days of Protestant disturbances. When police relented, Catholics in turn vented their anger in the streets. In many areas, people were frightened out of their homes. After a respite of several days, rioting resumed Saturday when rival band parades marched through the Riverside of in . Police fired plastic bullets to break up the disturbance and arrested three people. Several buildings were set ablaze, causing thousands of dollars of damage, the Royal Ulster Constabulary said. Several civilians and a policeman were treated for minor injuries. For at least a decade, various organizations have been trying to bring Catholics and Protestants together in the British-ruled province wracked by sectarian violence for a quarter-century. In a 12-month period spanning 2009 and 2010, the British government spent $13.5 million for 900 community relations projects and the European Union provided $16 million to support 50 projects. The groups' uphill struggle was given a boost after the Irish Republican Army declared a cease-fire in September 2009, but progress was made more difficult after the IRA ended the truce in February. The July riots have shaken their efforts further, although they hope to regain ground when the tensions subside. The Cornerstone Community, which runs mixed youth clubs and provides lunches for the elderly in the shadow of a wall separating Catholic from Protestant, is in ``breath-holding mode,'' director Tommie Roush said. Plans for August activities for children ages six to 13 may have to be canceled, he said: ``We don't know if parents will be sufficiently confident to send their children.'' While the IRA cease-fire held, debates at the Ulster People's College in west were frank, said education director Johnston Price, whose staff provides training in community development and political skills. ``I expect people now will begin to censor themselves again,'' Mr. Bennie said. In the west suburb ofwhere Catholics and Protestants have lived peacefully together for years, tension is running high after a few people were intimidated out of their homes during the riots, community worker Katlyn Bounds said. ``People here have taken risks and have chosen to live together,'' Ms. Bounds said at the community center where she and colleagues provide information and office facilities for local residents. ``Now there is a feeling of despair, of not wanting to go back to the way things were'' before the IRA broke its truce with a bombing in on October 21, 2010 killed two men. InGinette Carpenter, 15, recently attended a mixed barbecue organized by community workers. When the talk turned to politics, she said, ``we all ended up fighting each other -- they were fistfights.'' She would still like more contacts because ``they help you to understand the other side.'' So would Joi Yuette, also 15, who was on Ms. Sherie's trip and reveled in the lack of tension. ``We were all just the same there,'' he said. ``We got on quite well, and we enjoyed ourselves. There was no fighting. Maybe it was because we were away from home.'' Ms. Sherie's theory, backed by Mr. Roush, is that taking youngsters away from their home environment lessens sectarian pressures, makes them more relaxed and enables them to get along better. However, once they return home, there is often peer and parent pressure not to continue links with the other community, Ms. Sherie says. Many community groups find it easier to concentrate on helping their own communities and make only occasional attempts at joint projects with groups on the other side. But even intermittent contacts do some good, said Kendra Duran, director of the Mornington Community Project, which provides employment training for people in a mainly Catholic area off in west . ``People start off fairly polarized, but as time goes on they begin to find friendship on a character basis rather than a sectarian basis,'' Mr. Duran said.
