* On Wed, Jan 17, 2007 at 07:31:26AM -0500, Richard Lovison said:
> My wife and I (much more my wife than I) were involved with the ICF in
> its early beginnings. I have many fond memories of those days and I
> always wondered if my wife's efforts and those of others in the
> organization helped ease some of the tension and pain in Northern Ireland.
I think they did, and I'll tell you why. There is something of a ghetto
mentality in various inner city parts of Belfast; leading to the younger
kids never knowingly meeting someone from (to use a horrible phrase) "The
Other Side(TM)".
Once upon a time an uncle of mine was a fireman based in west Belfast
serving areas which are predominantly one side or the other. He'd drive
the fire engine, so unless іt was particularly hefty or fierce there
wouldn't be much for him to do while the others did the hard work. During
these periods he'd often have the local kids come up to him and start
asking him about whatever was on their mind. One memorable day he was in
the predominantly nationalist/republican Falls Rd. and a young kid (maybe
10/11 or so?) came up and asked:
"Mister?! Mister!?[0], you do work over on the Shankill[1] don't
y'mister? y'see those prods[2] over there? what are they liek[3]
mister? are they like us?!"
[0] Always very polite here .. every male over 18 is "mister", the women
missus, even if unmarried. ;)
[1] A predominantly protestant area.
[2] protestant. innaccurate term for unionist/loyalist but hey, lets not
get in the way here. ;)
[3] It's phonetically correct, honest.
Anyway, the punchline is that my uncle is prebyterian. But the more
serious upshot of this is that often it was a local belief in the otherside
as bogeymen that brought a lot of it to a head and the ICF helped, at least
in some small part, to break these ideals. There are many other schemes
like it and hopefully they won't be needed much more, or at least not in
originally intended role or form.
all the best,
p.
--
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\ \\ \ I've told you all my secrets, but I lied about my past, / // /
/_//_/ so send me off to bed for ever more ... \_\\_\
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