We first went to the Longlands estate where we saw a memorial to Daniel McColgan, the young Catholic postman cruelly shot dead by loyalists last year. The plaque is ascribed to 'DJ Dano – Forever Young' and adorned with neat displays of fresh flowers. Local young people erected the plaque as a tribute to their friend Daniel. This was a short distance from another memorial in the nearby loyalist area to Thomas McDonald, the young man notoriously killed by a car driver.
The sight of both memorials quite close to each other reinforced the impression of mirror image communities. As in loyalist Whitecity, remains of splattered paint and broken glass were evident. One observer wryly observed that they had used the same brand of paint. A nationalist resident claimed that when Whitecity was rebuilt residents demanded no Catholics be housed there – something she couldn't understand.
Nationalists accept that fear prevails in Whitecity but blame loyalists from Rathcoole for making Whitecity people pawns in a wider game. Whitecity rejects this, claiming that republicans have made numerous attacks on them. Yet almost everyone seems to accept that decent people live on 'the other side'.
Residents claim there is little anti-social behaviour among young people in their own areas but accept that there are alcohol-related problems. One man approached a community worker in the street complaining that young nationalists had damaged an empty house in their own area and then tried to intimidate him when he intervened. The community worker promised to try to deal with the issue.
Nationalists were conscious of loyalist allegations about them trying to 'take over' their area. They denied this saying they did not want loyalists to leave but agreed there were long waiting lists and they had little room. Nationalists also complained about the large fence erected at the behest of loyalists. I found it puzzling that a little further along the area wasn't fenced off at all. I began to wonder whether some confrontations were a ritualised means of letting off steam. If one really wants to hurt the other side it would be easier to walk the few yards into the other area.
A visitor asked if it really mattered who was hurting most and whether there had been enough attempts to reach across the divide? Another asked if the loyalist people were not our people too? It was agreed that loyalists were 'our people' but nationalist residents resented the suggestion that Whitecity Protestants were terrified 24 hours a day.
However, a nationalist visitor insisted there were genuine hurts in the Whitecity and that, as the 'bigger brother', they should reach out to them. Another visitor suddenly spoke in fluent Irish, which seemed to shock many residents and visitors. By engaging in this exercise people were entering dialogue with outsiders from both traditions. People suffer in these areas, but from the perspective of each, the other is the aggressor. Outsiders can empathise but the situation can seem futile and self-defeating. Loyalists are not going to go away and neither are nationalists, so mutual accommodation is the only way forward. Perceptions are important and reflect a close intermingling of reality and myth that cannot be completely unscrambled. Perceptions are also reinforced by daily experience. Nationalists have inherited a strong sense of injustice and see the conflict as a struggle to rectify wrongs. Loyalists inherit a sense of victimhood, partly because of their precarious position on this island and what they see as republican/- nationalist expansionism driving them out. These wider perceptions heighten the local sense of siege and impoverishment.
It can be difficult to acknowledge our common frailty but we must resist the temptation to compare the best in our own tradition with the worst in theirs. Our hope is that dialogue will eventually begin in earnest. Given time, new relationships can develop enabling us to appreciate diverse traditions and sensitivities.
The Good Friday Agreement seeks to accommodate and enable us to move beyond sectarianism but the full realisation of this potential may take generations and requires peacemaking at a personal as well as community and society level.
