Stormont and Other Surprises

Saul, Colin and David in the Assembly Chamber at Stormont

Saul and Dave with Kate from Healing Through Remembering

Stormont image courtesy of Discover Northern Ireland

The day began at Stormont, the Northern Irish Parliament currently in a long recess due to the fallout from a green energy scandal and the resulting feud between the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party, the leading Unionist political party) and Sinn Fein (the leading Nationalist party at the moment). We were served tea and desserts as we sat around in comfy arm chairs and had an almost two hour chat with Colin McGrath, the MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) representing Downpatrick and its surrounding small towns. 

Stormont, an impressive government building in Belfast approached on a long wide driveway flanked by park land on each side, was a target of Nazi planes during World War Two and had to be camouflaged by manure. There is a saying that "Stormont was covered in cow shit, and ever since it's been covered in bullshit."

Colin is a member of the political party SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party), once the leading Nationalist Party, but now very badly damaged by a failure of messaging that has given Sinn Fein most of the credit for many of their triumphs. The SDLP just recently lost all three of their seats at Westminster (the British Parliament), while the abstentionist Sinn Fein gained seats that it will refuse to occupy over there. Some Irish have already accepted a death sentence for the SDLP. But Colin is young and vibrant, and very responsive to the needs of his constituents in the Downpatrick area. Colin convinced us that the SDLP is very much alive, and just needs to get back on track. As a way of sussing out where he is coming from politically, I asked him if he would have voted Sanders or Clinton if he was an American. He said his own political views were more in line with Sanders.

Our host, Donal O'Hagan, had arranged this meeting for us, and we brought his son Naoise (pronounced "Naysha") with us. Naoise was less interested in Northern Irish politics than the rest of us, but he liked the tea and cake, and he was a good sport about the proceedings.

Colin was having none of my belief that the Good Friday Agreement was a master triumph of politics in the 20th Century. From a SDLP perspective, the peace should have happened in 1974, when the SDLP and Ulster Unionists were ready for it, but was hopelessly delayed by Sinn Fein and the DUP, thereby causing twenty-four additional years of carnage and war.  

Colin explained that he is a very locally oriented legislator, and he allowed that he probably--as a practitioner--knows less about politics at large than teachers who study it do. That said, he is a marvelous politician, open and attentive. He was never a lawyer (he actually looked surprised that I might think that he was) and he rose in politics through what the Northern Irish call "youth work" (organizing large government-sponsored afterschool programs for young people that sometimes run from 3 PM to 10 PM five days a week). Youth work is one of the truly positive legacies of the Troubles. He pointed us to the Education Authority website to look at the "widening horizons" curriculum employed by the youth work movement.

In thinking about the larger political scene in the world, Colin suggested that we are living in a time where the world order will fall apart, and we will some day see it as a crucial period in all of the history books.

For the SDLP, Colin says their mission was always to deliver the peace, and now that a peace has descended on the country (unless Brexit and its ripples mess that all up), they are struggling to brand their identity for the Ulster masses.

"The RHI scandal (green power scandal) just arrived at the right time," he says. The parties were already at each other's throats. Colin is now concerned that Stormont may soon be closed down for good. "There's a danger that Sinn Fein owns the Irish language now," he says. Where they go, the Nationalist masses follow. And some of their own are not cautious enough politicians.

So what does the SDLP want now, as the party of communication in this more stratified political world? Four things: Irish language promotion; Irish legacy; marriage equality; and respect. I pressed Colin on what respect means. He said that it means a civil tone toward each other as political parties. The SDLP--whether you love it or hate it, and some do hate it--seems to be the party of political negotiation and communication, in Colin's perception.

Recent SDLP tasks have been pushing of the Equal Marriage bill and authoring a leaflet on the issue of "Fake News" and its effect on democracy. They seem to oppose school "selection" (described in my previous blog posts). In Colin's jurisdiction, the Catholic Church has come out against Selection, but the Catholic Schools still embrace it. "They're saying (to eleven and twelve year olds) you're special. You're chosen. It's a form of child abuse." He smiled and sipped his tea. "I'm despised in the upper echelons of the education system."

While Sinn Fein politicians tend to claim that the 1967-'74 Catholic Civil Rights Movement was a failure, SDLP thinking sees it as a success, but one that was destroyed by outside forces around the time of the government collapse in the mid '70's. The Housing Executive, established in 1973, is for Colin one of the lasting successes of the movement.

"Sinn Fein doesn't want to admit that Civil Rights succeeded, because that wouldn't support their 'blood sacrifice' narrative," said Colin. I felt a desire to get a Sinn Fein politician into the room to see this history from another perspective. But my guess is that Colin might win the debate. He has an open, rational and unpretentious manner that is very convincing.

For more on Colin McGrath:
http://www.sdlp.ie/people/cllr-colin-mcgrath/

We raced from Stormont to Healing Through Remembering, a small but dedicated nonprofit education and outreach organization. Director Kate Turner had a sit down with Dave and me, while Naoise went off to meet his mother in City Centre and Donal went off into a separate room to chat with a lawyer who is the father of one of Donal's top former students, now a burgeoning international human rights worker in his own right.

We have had many invaluable experiences in Ireland, but Kate (Healing Through Remembering) and Alan (WAVE Trauma Centre) may have the most lasting effect of all on our teaching practice in the classroom. Both provided us with primary documents of a greater intimacy and usefulness than we could have found anywhere else in the world. From Alan, it was the volumes of short personal stories and children's art and remembrance. From Cate, we received an entire curriculum binder based on her organization's remarkable exhibition on everyday objects from the Troubles. Included are the philosophy of their pedagogy and process, and full color reproductions of the artifacts (which include a bullet-proof clipboard used by the RUC, milk bottles of the kind used for petrol/sugar bombs, and a lamp made from an old CS canister used for crowd control). The possibility for inquiry-based lessons and empathy work was staggering, as was Kate's generosity at sharing this materials. They were in the process of packing up their office for a move, so we didn't want to keep Kate long, but we all agreed that this was just the beginning of a long and fruitful conversation.

Among the materials not yet boxed in the office, I spotted several copies of the documentary Upstanders, directed by our young friend Sean Pettis of Corrymeela.

For more on Kate's organization:
www.healingthroughremembering.org

In the evening, we headed over to the John Hewitt Pub, a hangout of more liberal Protestants that is named for the Belfast poet and social activist. A band was playing great rock 'n roll and the crowd was cheery and enjoyable if not as raucously celebratory as some of the Catholic music clubs we have gotten used to. Alan McBride seems to come here every Thursday night with his inner circle of friends, including the well known Catholic-raised humanist Northern Irish comedian Tim McGarry and other writers and human rights workers, and it felt good to be invited into the fold.

Legendary punk rock record store owner and music promoter Terri Hooley ambled in, and Alan insisted I go up and talk to him. That exchange was a somewhat awkward, "The Undertones were a good band, but I really have not much else to say to you" kind of a thing, but the rest of the night was very good craic if one can say that about a Protestant establishment.

Alan and I hugged it out and then Dave, Donal and I returned to our rented flat in the University area. University and grammar exam results had just been released, so we were headed home along streets full of celebratory revelry as we stopped by the local Queens University food truck and joked with the top notch comedy team making the munchies, a sort of Laurel and Hardy or Morcambe and Wise of burgers and chips, about the foibles of Belfast and the college crowd.

My heart and mind were full today. Belfast had delivered one of the finest nights of our trip.

Our Thursday night table at John Hewitt Pub in Belfast

Saul and Naoise in the tea room at Stormont