After more than six years living in Belfast, my family and I are
moving home to the US next month. We'll miss this beautiful city
and will forever keep many memories of its generous people.
One memory will be of a smiling Mohammed Houssain, who welcomed
us with deep warmth whenever we ate at a restaurant where he
worked on the Lisburn Road.
He showered us with hospitality, including great conversation and
regular complementary deserts and drinks. Attempts at protest
were futile. His wasn't a generosity that cloaked a hidden
agenda. It was free-flowing and genuine.
Mohammed treated our son Kiyo with particular kindness, spinning
imaginative tales that left the 3-year-old believing that a
portal to a magical hidden kingdom existed behind a decorative
false doorway on one wall.
Another Belfast memory we'll have forever involves the same
gentle man - this time as he appeared on TV last week, tears
streaming down his cheek after the 22nd racist attack on his
home.
The messages of support Mohammed received afterwards proved the
bigots don't represent everyone in Belfast. But that reality
means little to the three Nigerian men intimidated from their
South Belfast home a day later.
After the attack on Mohammed, my son and I visited him to offer
support. While there, his brother Joy told me that he too is
regularly accosted in city center bars because of his race. Joy
said many of his Asian friends also dread walking home at night
after work for fear of being attacked.
Amazingly, although we'd gone to support Mohammed, as I spoke to
Joy, he slipped out un-noticed with my son and bought gifts for
Kiyo and my partner. It was a stunning act of generosity from a
truly remarkable man.
Hate attacks - whether sectarian, homophobic, or racist - reflect
the most warped elements of society. A society such as Northern
Ireland, struggling to heal the scars of decades of intolerance,
can't afford to tolerate the rise of racism.
Scornful sound-bites that the great and good spout after such
attacks are fine. But politicians, community leaders,
paramilitaries, and the police must aggressively drill home to
the mindless thugs behind such attacks that they'll face stiff
sanctions if they persist.
One thing that struck me upon moving to Belfast was how white
society here is. I literally did a double-take one day in 1998
when a black guy walked past me in front of city hall.
By contrast, Boston, a city whiter than many in the U.S., is a
veritable exploding rainbow of ethnic diversity. Chinese and
Vietnamese live alongside Albanians, Moroccans, Jews, Italians
and, of course, Irish.
Perhaps the Native Americans whose land was stolen to build the
first 17th century British, French and Spanish colonies that
lured white people to North America, desired ethnic purity. But
by the time U.S. borders stretched from coast-to-coast, that was
a moot point. All races were flocking to America.
Of course, the harmonious U.S. "melting pot" was always a myth.
From the Irish emigrants who faced signs saying "No dogs or Irish
need apply" at job sites, to the lynchings and discriminatory
segregation laws blacks faced in the South, racism abounded. Many
wealthy US families today owe their wealth to fortunes built on
the backs of black slave labor.
There has been civil rights progress in the US but tensions
remain, as evidenced by episodes like the brutal 1998 murder of
James Byrd. He was a black man in Jasper, Texas who was beaten by
whites, tied to a pick-up truck, and dragged along a road until
his head was ripped off.
But, slowly, racial prejudices are receding in America. Key to
that progress has been changing people's perceptions of each
other. Seeing a new reality can be liberating, and open your mind
to the plight of others.
Visit Rome, Paris, London, New York, or Boston today and you'll
find a world where races mix and interact daily (albeit not
without occasional friction).
And here's a newsflash for the south Belfast bigots who attacked
Mohammed Houssain: as the evolving global economy melds together
cultures as it expands, that irreversible ethnic diversity is
reaching everywhere.
Everywhere.
Get used to it. It's the future.
** To support the battle against racism, the Daily Mirror has
made a donation to Belfast's Anti-Racism Network.
