Barack, Belfast, And "Torn Down" Walls
There's a temptation to think that as one news crisis erupts another goes away.
Afghanistan took centre stage from Iraq and has now given way to the eternal strains between India and Pakistan. Africa comes and goes. Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats all came and went, too. That's the way of news, but it's not the way of the real world.
In the real world, all these crises erupt and bubble into view, then retreat. Most crises bubble unwatched, but they're usually still there.
In the 1960's and 70's, when Catholics and Protestants were routinely killing each other in Northern Ireland, the story seldom left center stage. By the 1980's attention faded, but the repercussions lived on and in 1998 an agreement brought all sides to the table. Peace was at hand.
In July this year, the man who will take over the White House made a carefully-crafted point about that so-called peace.
"Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace," proclaimed Barack Obama.
See Obama give his Berlin speech:
He went further.
"Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together."
"History," said Obama, "reminds us that walls can be torn down. But the task is never easy."
As he spoke in front of 200,000 Germans, he became the darling of Europe. In Belfast though, they rolled their eyes and charitable politicians were heard to mutter, "not so fast, Mr. President-to-be."
Tearing down walls is never easy, but in Northern Ireland it's proving a monumental task. Old hatreds have merely retreated beneath the surface and old dangers still stalk the streets.
IRA splinter groups are again launching attacks against the police — more now than have been seen in years, according to Northern Ireland's Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde.
An Independent Monitoring Commission which includes former CIA chiefs and former British anti-terror officers says IRA dissident groups are "targeting anyone who cooperates with the police and are even singling out community groups."
But what has largely escaped notice outside Northern Ireland is that it's now a divided state. People are broadly safe from attacks against each other simply because of walls.
Sorry Mr. President-elect, the walls have not come down in Belfast, they have gone up. They're just not called walls anymore, they're an "Interface Project."
The map showing the extent of that "Interface Project" is quite shocking.
But knowing where they are is only part of the story. The Northern Ireland office provides an equally shocking guide to statistics and descriptions of the walls.
And the "interface project" just keeps on growing.
But they divide communities in Belfast just the same as the flimsy old corrugated iron and barbed wire. Some have gates, which are closed at night. In other places there are barriers which the police can close and separate community from community.
One of the most shocking is the wall/fence built this year at Hazelwood Integrated Primary School. Its part of the school perimeter fencing and is approximately 10ft high on three sides and 25ft high along the fourth side, to provide protection to residents of adjacent houses whose homes had previously been attacked by gas bombs thrown from the school grounds.
It cost $200,000 and ironically was in the planning stages just as British Government Ministers were talking about "removing barriers dividing communities in Northern Ireland."
Today the Northern Ireland office will reassuringly tell you that Hazelwood's fence is built in sections, to enable it to be dismantled easily "when the situation warrants."
So that's all right. Except that Hazelwood Integrated Primary is a school success story, integrated, as its name suggests, but now blighted by a security fence.
The walls have become part of life in Belfast. They're institutional and largely accepted. It's the only way the two sides in Belfast stay apart, safely.
In a study called "Reprogramming The Wall" at Studio 2, Sheffield School of Architecture, Paul Bower says people on both sides of the sectarian divide agree on one issue: "They cannot see a future without the wall. It has become ingrained both physically and psychologically."
His short film explores this issue, and his work at the Architecture School explains the details of how it developed.
The Northern Ireland Office is simplistic. It will tell you that local communities, fearful of continuing violence, have themselves demanded many of the walls be built.
Everywhere in Northern Ireland people know about Obama's speech — one man said ruefully: "Remember, in Berlin, it was the people who broke down the wall. In Belfast, it's the people who demand it gets built higher."