Trying to see beyond my ghetto

Malone Road, in the vicinity of Queen’s University Belfast. Photograph: Bryan Mukandi.

Integration. I don’t think I’d heard that word as frequently as when I first moved to Ireland. ‘Integration’ seemed to be the word around which the country’s entire strategy on immigration, and a growing multiculturalism, would hinge. But for all that the word was thrown around, I don’t think anyone really knew what it meant, or how one goes about integrating. I suppose the civil servants who plucked it out of a dictionary - or more likely some other country’s policy paper - I suppose they decided the immigrants would figure it out.

I’m having to figure out how to integrate all over again. Being an ‘international student’ at Queen’s (a category that officially includes citizens of the Republic of Ireland) is an interesting experience. It only takes days to be ‘integrated’ into the university community. It seems as though the area surrounding the university was purpose built for students. So without much effort, you can be part of a vibrant community that is predominantly populated by other students. It all leads, I think, to a very posh version of the ghettoisation that Irish policy-makers sought to avoid by promoting ‘integration’.

I’m sure there are plenty of local students with dual citizenship. They get to be part of the posh ‘ghetto’ as well as living in the real world of Northern Ireland, posh or otherwise. For the average international student, that is seldom the case. Yesterday, someone suggested that I go on a Belfast bus tour if I want to see the ‘real Belfast’. My response was that I don’t like doing the tourist thing and would prefer to learn about the city and its inhabitants as they really are. At which point, a local guy told me that the closest I would get to knowing the city beyond ‘the ghetto’ would be the bus tour.

Because of what is probably a sense of inadequacy, I don’t think of myself as a journalist. Having said that, I have the privilege of writing for a fantastic newspaper. And I spend most of my time in Belfast. It seems to me that the logical thing would therefore be to engage with the city and learn more about it than the tidbits tour operators serve to tourists.

Here’s the question, how do I do that? How does one integrate into a place like Belfast where it’s infinitely easier to stay in one’s own ghetto? And if it’s a really posh ghetto, is it even worth trying?