Madam, - Newton Emerson's column of August 6th, headed "Welcome to west Belfast, global capital of exaggeration", was hardly satirical.
He writes that Féile an Phobail is described by its organisers as "Europe's largest community festival". In fact in our official programme, published on July 10th, our director, Sean Paul O'Hare, describes Féile an Phobail as "the largest community festival in Ireland and one of the largest in Europe."
Ours is indeed the largest community festival in Ireland, a concept your columnist fails to comprehend. All our discussions, debates and lectures are free, as are 90 per cent of our events, sports days, street parties, excursions, etc. For comedy and music we keep our ticket prices accessible to working-class people and thus Mr Emerson cannot fairly compare us to the more corporate Belfast Festival (formerly "Queen's") which is not community-based and whose ticket prices are three to four times what we charge. Nor do we claim to be "Edinburgh" or "Notting Hill".
Having begun in a snide vein Mr Emerson continues: "It is difficult to see how the organisers can describe the West Belfast Festival as having a strong international theme. . .[It] is about as international as a Falls Road bus ride. . . Why not take an international trip across the Border yourself, and see the largest chip on Europe's shoulder?"
The theme of this year's Féile carnival parade was "Language and Culture". Participating in our International Food and Craft Fayre were representatives from South Korea, India, El Salvador, Argentina, Brazil, Africa, Sri Lanka, France and Catalonia. Playing at our international night were Havana Son with musicians from Cuba, Argentina, Spain and Italy; and Max Pashm, a collective of UK-based Jewish, Greek and Balkan musicians. The Zanpantzar band from the Basque village of Iturem participated in street events.
Among our free film screenings were What About Me? by James Catto and Duncan Bridgeman, on the musical connection between the peoples of the world; Nömadak TX, which dealt with the music of native peoples in India, the Arctic Circle, Mongolia, Algeria and the Saharan Desert; and Invisibles, produced by Médecins Sans Frontières, which dealt with the Chagas disease in Bolivia and sleeping sickness in the Central African Republic. Our exhibitions included Children of Conflict by Michael Kienitz (US), which covered wars in Afghanistan, El Salvador and Lebanon.
We had music workshops with Marty Nsiah from Ghana and Vicente Ziritt from Venezuela, and a juggling workshop on Poi Poi (a Maori form of juggling)
Our Samba Summer Soccer School had coaches from Sao Paolo and Rio in Brazil.
Speakers at our debates and discussions included Gillian Slovo (South Africa), Ghada Karmi (Palestine), Tom Hayden (US), Shirvin Zeinalzadeh (Iran) and Jihad Makdissi (Syria). Lectures were also given on the health systems of Cuba and Scotland.
Thousands of our programmes were sought by international visitors to the city. For them we provided six different types of tours - among them, the Black Mountain walk, a joint tour of the Falls and Shankill roads, a tour of political murals (including the international wall on the Falls), and a lecture tour of the Jewish Cemetery in the city centre hosted by Belfast's mayor Tom Hartley.
Your columnist has slandered a festival which set out 20 years ago to represent and serve a community that was being demonised in the media and by the British establishment. The ignorance displayed in his column suggests that he did not even bother to read our programme. If he actually did, then when you cross the Border the begrudger you are likely to run into with the biggest chip on his shoulder would be none other than Newton Emerson. - Yours, etc,
DANNY MORRISON,
Chairperson, Féile an Phobail,
Falls Road,
Belfast.