Shibboleth

Ireland and culture shock: de-ossifying invisible boundaries

Despite The Good Friday Agreement of 1998, the euphemistically named “Peacewalls” have continued to grow in Belfast, capital of Northern Ireland. One source suggests from nine such barriers in 1998, there now exists over forty.

Originally introduced as a temporary measure in the face of the first world war, Ireland saw its own military border between North and South become a permanent site of division and bloodshed both geographically and imaginatively. The Border came to dominate international impressions of the country in all its macabre semantics, and Ireland’s main export for several decades was reduced to images of guns and terror. Communities grew more polarized than ever. In order to protect and control the difficult interface areas, barriers began to be erected in the cities. Though now peacetime, it is significant that the Belfast interface barriers are erected with some support of residents in interface areas, as opposed to being erected solely by authorities. Doubtless, there persists enough fear and distrust that to dismantle these barriers, and the security they are felt to provide, seems as yet out of reach. Furthermore, there is a notable lack of accountability or consultation; the authorities responsible for the planning and erection of the barriers are rarely answerable to community concern, and subsequently the procedure for prevention or dismantlement is oblique, drawn out and as yet exceptional.

Ten years of relative peace later and education in Northern Ireland is still largely segregated and many urban areas remain a patchwork of Protestant or Catholic pockets. Shopping-centres may have improved, international chains have finally introduced franchises, and adverts expounding the glories of the region signify welcome change, yet at its heart the walls stand testimony to ingrained reluctance and uncertainty. You can sip a Starbucks or shop in IKEA but you can’t yet live outside religio-politics.

There is no facile comparison between the Berlin Wall and the Belfast walls, however the artificial separation of local peoples and the complicity of government raise age old questions about the nature of such boundaries, imposed or worse, self-imposed; ironically, one such division runs along the grounds of an integrated primary school, which incidentally has a significant intake of Polish children.

Following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the introduction of the Euro and the influx of migrant workers, cities in the South of Ireland began to blossom and diversify, whilst the North struggled to find a resolution to sectarian conflict. Where the 1990’s saw an economic leap forward for the South of Ireland, the North ostensibly remained an outpost of Britain, dependent economically and generating little industry or capital itself. To this day the North hemorrhages young, educated professionals to the south and to Britain, often reluctant to leave but with little yet to stay for. The North is a bruised region with fragile self-esteem, home to stunning countryside, but limited by the humdrum of politics and ‘peacewalls.’

Intensely monocultural and monocular, the gradual movement of European immigrants into the North has in recent years ignited unhappy headlines highlighting the replacement of sectarian violence with race hate. The region has been slow to foster change following damaging decades of hermeneutic tenacity on both sides, and is endemically suspicious. SHIBBOLETH, the play inspired by the idea of a response to the Berlin Wall, gifts the bricks themselves with a voice. Transhistorical and polyglot, the Wall embodies a notion of implacable essentialism, a tribal demand for blood sacrifice and indifference toward a people in the grip of mistrust and blind tradition. The Wall in this context represents No Change. The introduction of a Polish voice in the Belfast of the play challenges the simplicity of their local order and reveals a surprising readiness to evolve, but not without cost. Also given voice in the play are those closest to the sharp edge, the unempowered and underprivileged. The potential for socially constructed norms to shift threatens comfortable ‘truths’ and demonstrates that nothing is ever fixed in stone. For one father amongst the hypermasculine manual workers, this comes in the form of understanding diversity, and the necessity of allowing space to accommodate his son, who refuses to fit the narrow template of masculinity.

The play takes its title from the Hebrew word meaning any distinguishing practice which is indicative of a particular social or regional origin. Linguistically, this is usually exemplified in the pronunciation of a word that is identifiable with a particular group. A linguistic wall, of sorts.

There was surprise in the air at the sudden collapse of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago. Less public and more organic, whether or not the walls in Belfast are too much ossified in the ancient run of people’s mental landscapes to disappear as unexpectedly and totally, remains to be seen.