Making an Olympic Truce

 

Olympic Rings at Belfast City Hall and Tower Bridge, London 2012

We're sitting here watching event after event on the dozens of free channels BBC added for the Olympics. Belfast has been abuzz since the torch passed through town nearly 2 months ago. On the odd sunny day the lawn in front of the City Hall is covered with spectators and sunbathers watching the games on the big screen. The games have been so exciting and it's particularly enjoyable to watch live in the right time-zone.

 

There have been a few larger scale events with spectacular light shows and fire works, such as the Land of Giant's at the Titanic slipways at the end of June, which featured acrobatics to tell stories from Belfast. The atmosphere was absolutely electric and added nicely to the series of free events taking place across Northern Ireland for 2012 'Our Time Our Place.'

What has been particularly interesting during the London 2012 Festival has been the dedication to the 'Olympic Truce,' a tradition revived from ancient Greece by the International Olympic Committee in 1992 and ratified by the UN in 1993. The integral spirit of friendship and peace during Olympic times has been actualised this year in a number of projects, a few of which I was able to take part in. 

On 21 July at Trafalger Square a series of musicians from Europe played a concert as part of the BT River of Music. Amira from Sarajevo and the 10 man band of musicians from different countries across the Balkans called REKA reflected this idea of the Olympic Truce through the musical mixing of individual musicians and styles from different parts of a deeply divided region. Amira spoke herself about the importance of this band, but it wasn’t until they started to play that I was able to understand how truly beautiful a moment it was. 

 

It was the second time REKA had played together, and it was an absolute delight to experience. The songs were extremely emotive love ballads ranging from joyous wedding tunes to lamentations of loss. It was the universality of these emotions that brought their styles and traditions together across the region and indeed among all those listening to the concert from different parts of the world. It was a concert of transcendence, beyond language and beyond conflict.

On a similar trend, back in Belfast an art installation called 'Ambulatorio' opened at a contentious interface barrier in North Belfast. Colombian artist, Oscar Muñoz, internationalised a local issue of segregation and division by designing a piece of work to highlight 'the commonality of loss and remembrance.' This art piece is part of the larger 'Drawing Down the Walls' project where community groups and artists work together to 'imagine a city without barriers.' 

The exhibit was made up of a jumbled aerial view of North Belfast, laid out under cracked glass and another strong layer of glass for visitors to walk over. This location just off the Crumlin Road was an area which experienced high levels of violence in the 70s and 80s beside the Flax Street Mills, which led to the construction of secured gates and high fences in 1994. 

For over 3 weeks these gates were opened each day for 4 hours to allow residents and visitors to walk through the exhibit. This piece of art transformed a buffer zone of wasted space into a safe and shared cultural space, which connected the experiences from Belfast to other conflicts around the world including the drug-related violence of Colombia that inspired Muñoz's first ever 'Ambulatorio' exhibit. People travelled from different parts of the city to experience this piece of art, drawing attention to the reality of interface division in Belfast for many people who have turned a blind eye to the legacy of segregation in Belfast and to others who are very familiar with interfaces across the city and who are happy to see one more positive story receiving international attention.

The concert at Trafalger Square and the 'Ambulatorio' art exhibit were great successes in the name of the Olympic Truce in that they made real efforts to bring people together in peaceful and constructive ways. In addition to the great competitions, the cultural events, and the general excitement of the 2012 Olympic Games, these special events are a testament to the ongoing efforts to promote change and internationalise important issues of conflict.

 

Keep 'er lit

'Architectural Feat'

Just back in from watching the bonfires burning brightly across the city from a high look out point in East Belfast. When we first arrived the sky was a beautiful blue and pink colour. The first thing we noticed were the fireworks, which seemed to be coming from South Belfast. This year we arrived in the perfect time to watch the bonfires light, one after the other, glowing as far as the eye could see, with. huge cheers of 'YEOOOO' with each new flame. The fires lit one by one until the light blue of the sky was blacked out by smoke and smog.The sky smelled so wonderful, as comforting as a fresh fire in the chimney on a crisp wintry day. 

Some of the other spectators were very impressed by the structural engineering and colour coordinated design of the pallets, ohhing and ahhing that 'tha people tha built this shud be architects!' I'm not sure I'm as dedicated a believer, but  the atmosphere was intoxicating in a way.


I was so excited each time a new bonfire was lit that I almost forgot what was burning and why.

In tradition the bonfires were lit to help guide the Williamite troops into battle. A battle which in today's memory was fought between the Catholics under King James II and the Protestants under King William III, or more endearingly, King Billy. The 12th is the celebration of the Protestant victory. Oftentimes bonfires are placed in contentious areas as a marking of territory and an affirmation of Protestant-Unionist-Loyalist (PUL) presence.

Just as the historical details of these battles have become simplified and re-created to support the important stories and myths perpetuated by both communities, it is very possible to transform the significance of a holiday or memory. While many bonfires are exclusive and can be somewhat intimidating, there are cross-community bonfires where they play Irish music side by side with the familiar flute tunes and all are welcome.

 It's very easy for me to imagine a time when these celebrations will be for everyone. Each event that becomes less politically charged and passes by with less difficulty is a small victory for all people of Northern Ireland.

As we drove back we passed some of the fires, still burning brightly, I couldn't help but think to myself that over time this idea of 'Orangefest' may actual be possible...

View of bonfires burning across East Belfast, 11 July 2012 close to midnight

Happy Orangefest

The bonfires are all neatly stacked and now it's just a waiting game for the sun to go down!

Olympic Rings adorning City Hall and the Orangefest Banner 'Open for shopping and celebration'! 2012 NI Our Time Our Place. 10 July 2012.

 'Sectarianism It hasn't gone away' electoral posters ready to burn on the Cluan Place bonfire in East Belfast. 11 July 2012.

 Titanic Yardmen and the Pitt Park bonfire, Lower Newtownards Road. 5 July 2012.

Titanic Town

This is an amazing time to live in Belfast. The energy brought to this city from the buzz around the Titanic Experience has impacted tourism, community development, and the quality of life for residents. 

It's been a controversial opening. The new centre was £90 million, an extreme budget for an overtaxed economy. The view of many is why celebrate the greatest maritime disaster known to man? Hardland and Wolff operated in a time of high sectarian tension and ingrained and sustained division is synonomous with the shipyards (See plays 'Over the Bridge' and 'Dockers'). The anniversary of the Titanic we all celebrate, 2012, is the same year the Ulster Covenant was signed, a year of torment in the face of Home Rule. But this rhetoric should not define the way Belfast views this great new opportunity for the city. 


 On Sunday the 1st of April we walked alongside 1,000 men, women and children dressed as shipworkers and headed to the docks. Aside from the fact I was ignorantly wearing bright yellow, it was such an amazing feeling to see a Bowel Cancer Awareness campaign generate such civic pride. The celebrations beside Titanic with local musicians, Titanic flavoured Tayto and Titanic branded tea, and a thousand of Belfast's children and grandchildren of shipbuilding created such a force of positive energy for the city.

While waiting for the walk to begin we congregated in Pitt Park on the Lower Newtownards Roads, an interface community with one of the highest levels of social deprivation in all of Belfast. Last June this was a site of some of the most contentious rioting for years and it is the location of the most recent violence of the Troubles in 2002. The backdrop most media outlets chose for the fighting was a re-imaged mural of the Titanic- 'Ship of Dreams,' which always seemed so ironic and potentially damaging to the year of Titanic to come. It has not deterred the thousands of visitors from around the world flocking to Belfast for the opening and centennary. A new installation of Yardmen has been built in this area, attracting dozens of busses and taxis down the Newtownards Road each day.


These types of installations are promoting tourism into new interfaces, not just the Peace Wall at Shankill/Falls. They are opening up opportunities for local businesses, such as the newly renamed 'Titanic Fish and Chips' shop. The Newtownards Road, like the Shankill, was historically a bustling road with thriving businesses. It will take continued regeneration and development of this area for East Belfast to market from its new found Titanic fame, but the cultural legacy of ship-building gives it a framework by which Inner-East Belfast and the Lower Newtownards Road may promote itself.


 Last night there was a Titanic Lightshow. Through light technology the different processes of shipbuilding were projected onto the building telling a story of the life, death, and rebirth of the Titanic. As a free event supported by Belfast City Council, this was a perfect night out for the families of Belfast. If 10 years ago you told someone the docks were going to be a massive tourist attraction and thousands would flock to Albert Quay for an event, I'd like to hear the response. Today, the city is opening up more sections of itself and regenerating the cultural identity of Belfast.

This year, 'Our Time, Our Place' as the marketing campaign goes, has done more than attract tourists. It's taken another step closer to Belfast realising its fullest potentials for cultural, economic, and political regeneration. I moved to this city to study a post-conflict society. What I'm getting is a lesson in building any society. The same buzz that attracted me to Belfast on my first visit 4 years ago still gets me everytime I leave the house and look at Cave Hill or the H&W cranes. Now, I have one more iconic symbol of this city I love so much, and that's the Titanic Belfast.