A chara, - Proinsias O Drisceoil's article (April 20th), 1996, contained his opinions on cultural expression and its relationship to politics - opinions with which one can either agree or disagree. That, is not however the subject of this response.
On behalf of the West Belfast Festival Committee wish to take tissue with his assertion that our festival has excluded the Protestant section of the West Belfast community from our programme. "This is simply not the case.
The West Belfast Festival is without a doubt predominantly Irish and nationalist. In this it is, no more than an accurate reflection of the West Belfast community itself. Our festival developed as a direct result of the exclusion of our community from the political and cultural life of the six county state. From the beginning we rejected the notion, officially sanctioned and heavily funded, that reconciliation meant pretending that differences do not exist or, in many cases, that Irish nationalism and the Irish culture do not exist.
The West Belfast committee was determined from the start to confront and correct misrepresentations of our community to give open and honest expression, without censorship or distortion, to the wealth of talent hidden, beneath the economic discrimination, the political isolation and the military repression of the West Belfast community. Despite the withholding of funding to our community and the disruption of many events by the RUC and British army, our festival has now grown into the largest on the island.
But just as we were determined from the start to resist attempts to misrepresent our community, we also adamantly opposed the exclusion of any section of our community. We wished our festival to be a celebration of diversity to demonstrate by example that the policies of exclusion and marginalisation are both wrong and counter productive.
The West Belfast Festival acted as an umbrella group with an open door policy, offering our help and support to any group, Within the West Belfast community which wished to participate in the festival.
We made direct approaches to representatives of the Protestant communities to become involved in the festival and to bring to it their own ethos and culture. Ironically we were, at times, accused of cultural imperialism as a result of this outreach.
The Protestant areas centred, on the Shankill do not participate directly in our festival. They organise their own festival and we accept and support totally their right to do so. But the failure or refusal to participate by an area cannot be described as exclusion. This is a clear misrepresentation of the situation. No one is prevented from participation in our festival. Is An tUas O Drisceoil suggesting that we coerce the Protestant areas to participate in our festival? I hardly think so.
But despite the obvious separation, which is an accurate and inevitable reflection of present political realities, the West Belfast Festival has endeavoured to ensure that at each festival held in West Belfast both the unionist and Protestant traditions have been represented. We have invited community and political representatives to discussions and debates as part of the festival and in other less obvious ways have contributed to the debate and dialogue between unionism and nationalism which is central to political agreement and peace.
If Prionsias O Driscoil had contacted the West Belfast Festival office (Belfast 313440, Fax 319150) he would have been given this information. Instead he choose, in an attempt to back up his wilder arguments, to express, as fact, an inaccurate view of our festival. It is this recklessness which we most object to. Responding to such misrepresentations of our community was something which took up much of our time when our festival kicked off in 1988. It is disappointing that nine years on this is still one of our primary tasks. - Is mise,
Feile Director,
Culturlann MhacAdaimo-Fiaich,
Falls Road,
Belfast.