I've been in Belfast a couple days, first time back after several years, and everyone I spoke to is talking about the pace of change. One or two are still pessimistic, on the grounds that differences are so embedded that they could erupt again at any time.
But the evidence of rising population and employment, and a huge amount of new housing going up, testifies to a buzzy confidence, symbolised here by the notorious Divis flats. Once famous for having a British army post on the top, it is now apparently being refurbished and gentrified because there is heavy demand for the flats given the convenience to the city centre. Well, this story may be slightly rumoured-up: I was reassured that local people always get first choice when new housing and apartments come up.
I was lucky enough to have a chat with Patricia O'Neill in the Community Relations Resource Centre, who told me the emerging problem now is racism. "It's easy to go from one ism to another," she said.
Others I spoke to confirmed that racism has 'reared its ugly head,' with asians and east Europeans being subjected to more frequently-reported abuse. Beggars have appeared apparently, a very unfamiliar site in the city.
On the subject of territory, Patricia told me there is increasing demand for homes in mixed communities; immigrants are coming in who have no interest in the sectarianism, and many people who moved away are now returning. From over 90% segregated social housing, there is now expected to be a growing interest in mixed communities.
This is not as clear-cut as one might hope of course, but there's cautious optimism. I gather that catholics will shop on the Shankill Road now and protestants will shop on the Falls, conversations take place over the occasions of trade, but it's still too dangerous to socialise in either case.
I picked up some fascinating literature including a report on the mixed area of Ballynafeigh from the Farset Community Think Tanks Project. It includes this striking anecdote:
There are a number of pubs on the road everybody goes into, and you don't see that in any other community. I would go to the Errigle every week and argue politics - with Catholics and Protestants - we feel we're in an environment where that is possible. The only time there has been trouble was a couple of months ago when one of my friends got a glass shoved in his face. It was not locals but outsiders that started the trouble, and it ended up the locals joined forces against them. There were people injured that night, but it was an amazing thing to see local Catholics and Protestants come together to kick outsiders, who were clearly there to cause trouble, out of the area.
(Living in a mixed community: the experience of Ballynafeigh. Island Publications, 2001)
Meanwhile, mixed housing on its own isn't going to solve everything and there seems little progress on educational desegregation: still only about 5% of children go to integrated schools, I was told.
The peacelines still enforce their jagged distortion, with some sections being 'reduced' shall we say; but in one place at least, being extended in height. Kids with little else to do just throw stones over. I was told that 15 peacelines have been built since the Good Friday agreement, which illustrates awareness of the fragility of peace. This section here runs across a park, with that defiant sense of temporarily-intended permanence that weighs people down.
More soon. I've not been able to check the information I was given and have recorded here (except with others as my conversations moved on) so if there are errors I'd grateful for corrections.
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