NEWTON'S OPTIC:THERE IS considerable anger here in Belfast after a fact-finding visit from the Limerick Regeneration Agencies. Mostly this is because there is always considerable anger here in Belfast. But it is also partly due to media coverage of the trip, writes NEWTON EMERSON
According to newspaper reports, the visitors hailed Belfast as “an example of how to transform from conflict into a more peaceful society”. The chief executive of the anti-gang quango even said: “Limerick can learn a lot from the North.”
How very true. The first thing Limerick needs to learn from “the North” is that it has no business portraying itself as somehow worse than Belfast.
There are strict protocols for this sort of thing and we expect all our visitors to obey them. Representatives from other cities may compare their problems to ours and may even note that Belfast has improved “on the surface”. But they must then add that the peace process has “passed working-class communities by” before regretfully concluding that “sectarianism is worse than ever”.
Media coverage of such visits should proceed from a paramilitary mural to a waterfront development and contain the following words in the following order: historic, apartments, cappuccino and hatred. Anyone unsure of the precise wording of these ceremonies can pick up a phrasebook from the Tourist Information Centre.
The second thing Limerick needs to learn is that it must not suggest Belfast’s problems are “criminal”. All Belfast’s problems are political. Several popular songs and weight-loss programmes have been dedicated to this very point. Other cities may have problems with crime and gangs but in Belfast these things are only symptoms, as we expect even visitors from Limerick to make clear.
It is true that some of our problems have been blamed on policing but that is precisely because they were not criminal. A leaflet explaining this is available from the Sinn Féin Advice Centre.
Two widely reported statements have caused particular disquiet on either side of the peace walls which Limerick rather tellingly lacks.
The visitors claimed that Belfast has “problems with teenagers, but would not have the problem with young children that there is in the Limerick estates”.
This is an appalling slur on the young children and indeed the estates of our city. Belfast has by far the most ill-bred urchins and “disadvantaged” housing in the western world and it is a direct attack on our identity, culture and funding to suggest otherwise.
The visitors also observed that Belfast is “big on victim support”. This is because everyone in Belfast is a victim, including the perpetrators. Years of work went into developing this philosophy. Can Limerick say the same? Northern Ireland has four victims commissioners just so that nobody can claim to be victimised by not having a commissioner. How many victims commissioners does Munster have?
But perhaps this is all beside the point. The Limerick Regeneration Agencies recently stopped talking to criminal gangs, proving that there is no comparison between our two situations. In Belfast, the criminal gangs became the regeneration agencies. All we ask from those coming to observe our regretfully unsuccessful success is an acknowledgment that Belfast’s problems are the most unique, terrible and fascinating to afflict any city on the face of the earth.
Hopefully, our next visitors from Limerick will show us a little more consideration.