The debris lies strewn across streets of my home city
in the aftermath of the Glorious Twelfth Day parades yesterday. Debris indeed;
chunks lifted out of our peace process, as well as our pavements, and thrown at
whoever we can project the blame onto. Facebook is highlighting the dearth of
response from Church leaders and I feel bound to make a tiny contribution.
Where do you begin though? Where will it end we ask? These are initial surmises
and may need longer time to marinate so bare with me!
Maybe the first thing to say is that this is an annual
event. Not just the Twelfth but the rioting. It is of course a sign that for
some we are literally no further forward than we were 323 years ago, which is
an awful indictment on our society. Yet, it has got to be seen for what a good
part of it is; recreational rioting. In the late 90s I remember driving through
the Protestant “Village” area off the Donegal Road on the afternoon after the contentious
parade of that time, Drumcree. Young men sat on walls downcast. Why? Well the
Parades Commission that year had allowed the Parade! The disappointment was
that that had left no reason to throw bricks at the police and set fire to
cars.
Now, it would be easy to go off on one right there.
What kind of thugs are these? What kind of mindset... Let us stop and reflect
on a city that has left its youth looking forward to a summer evening’s riot
for fun and sense of meaning. There are all kinds of issues at the root of our
violent outbursts and we need to be looking at social and spiritual as well as
the tribal and political solutions. As a city, across our divide, we need to
have a look at education and employment and many other contributing factors.
It is also easy to throw verbal abuse at the rioters
with the same venom that they throw bricks. As well as the recreational purpose
it gives, the disturbances also scream at us that working class Protestant communities
are in a very fragile place. At a recent Clonard/Fitzroy Fellowship meeting PUP’s
John Kyle shared with us many of the factors that have caused this community to
feel isolated. Two of those factors, he said, were the seemingly one sided approach
of the parades issue and the demonization of flute bands. For almost a century
Unionist political leaders gave their community a Protestant state for a
Protestant people and now that there needs to be some balancing done to bring justice
across the society, parts of that community feel that they are losing
everything. Whether they are right or wrong, that feeling needs to be addressed
in a sensitive way. How we birth and mature a shared future for all our
citizens needs very careful strategies and visionary discernment. We need to
not demonise and caricature even though the scenes from last night tempt us too
easily to do so. There is a vicious circle at work. The working class Protestant
communities feel isolated and then kick out like a cornered animal in their
frustration which in turn causes more isolation. Lack of political representation
then leaves them feeling that violence is the only voice they have to get
heard.
As a middle class Presbyterian from south Belfast I
need to be asking about my own response? I find it very hard to understand why
the tensions in a divided community should boil down to, and boil up over, a
few hundred yards of road to march a band down. However, though I might not care
for marching, I need to care for those who do. One of the problems for working
class Protestants is that they are now not only divided from the traditional Catholic
enemies but are now also far adrift from their middle class Protestant
neighbours who are appalled at their behaviour. Let us realise that this
isolated community need cared for if they too are going to be part of our hoped
for shared future.
Which brings is to where perhaps I should be venting my
anger; their leaders! At the time of the flags protests, at the turn of the
year, and this marching season which was always going to be more volatile as a
result, we have not seen much in the way of community or political leadership. Speeches
and statements yesterday did little to prevent the violence or lead people in
more constructive ways. Indeed, the enflamed speeches that stoked up, and
almost legitimised the anger, were irresponsible and the statements sent out
later for calm was simply a nonsense and very poor leadership.
Can I also say at this point that I don’t only mean the
leadership on the Unionist side. That same Clonard/Fitzroy Fellowship had a
very constructive evening with Sinn Fein’s Declan Kearney a number of weeks
ago. If Sinn Fein are as keen on reconciliation and a shared future as Declan
suggested, and I have to say I believed his sincerity, then they too will need
to consider carefully the best ways for that equality to happen. There has always
been two sides when we lived in our inequality and there needs to be two sides
when we seek a future of equality. Yet, again yesterday we realised that the
divisions at a political level are still vast. When our leaders at Stormont
cannot negotiate and compromise how can we expect the people on the streets to.
Where are the Churches? That is a question being raised
this morning on social media and it is one that needs to be answered. Professor
John Brewer, heading up the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation
and Social Justice at Queen’s
University, challenged us at one of our Faith on Trial evenings at Fitzroy
recently by suggesting that though there is a prophetic presence from the
Churches in the Northern Irish conflict we lack leadership presence from the
Churches. What he means is that there are quite a few maverick Church men and
women working below the radar to heal the divisions but that the Churches as
entities from the top have made little contribution or sent out visionary alternatives.
Though we in Fitzroy, where I am minister, have built up strong, helpful and
very blessed relationships with Clonard Monastery on the Falls Road and St.
Oliver Plunkett’s in Lenadoon I feel we are impotent to connect with inner city
working class Protestant communities. If
we believe that the Kingdom of God is for the well being of the city, as the Bible
tells us, I need to be asking how can we begin to engage again? Can the
Churches across the divide show a better example of compromise and shared
future than our political leaders?
In whatever area of leadership we are called to it will
take courage. Some might lose votes. Some might be called heretics. As this has
all been happening I have been back studying the Gospels for an autumn/winter
sermon series on John. I have been more acutely aware than ever that the only
way to beat the darkness was for the light to suffer, to give up comfort and
rights and to be prepared to be sacrificed for the good of the world. Jesus has
asked us to follow him into the pain of bringing redemption. He asks us to take
up our cross daily, deny ourselves and follow him into the bringing on earth of
God’s Kingdom. What does that look like in Northern Ireland? It doesn’t sound
anything like yesterday’s speeches. It doesn’t look anything like yesterday’s
events. For many the Churches might actually be a huge part of the problem. As
I caress and collide the newspaper and website pictures and reports of the
Twelfth with the words I have been reading in the Gospels I am more convinced
than ever that a radical reassessment of what Jesus was on about, how he lived,
died and was raised to life, and the life that should enable his followers to
live should not exasperate the problem but should be our only hope and vision.