Beyond Orange and Green? The awkwardness of negotiating difference in Northern Ireland1

 1. This essay is based on findings from my doctoral research on the politics and policy of cultural diversity in Northern Ireland. This research involved interviews with policy makers, civil servants, minority ethnic representative groups and community groups involved in race relations, multicultural practices and self-defining anti-racists conducted in Belfast, Lisburn and Derry from December 2004 to August 2006. Participant observation was conducted at events such as multicultural celebrations, cultural diversity workshops and anti-racist protest meetings. This essay also draws on some policy analysis and analysis of texts produced by anti-racist groups.

Abstract

Since the Good Friday Agreement (1988) issues of migration, racism and social difference beyond the ‘two traditions’ have become increasingly prominent in Northern Ireland. This paper investigates the difficulty, the ‘awkwardness’, of multiculturalism and anti-racism as models for negotiating these emerging differences in a society historically grounded in sectarian division. It is argued that multicultural practices, which offer opportunities for the recognition of diverse groups and identities, remain structured by on-going sectarian division in the wider society. Texts produced by anti-racist groups in West Belfast show how racialized ‘Others’ are often incorporated within dominant sectarian narratives. Despite this awkwardness, cultural diversity is fundamentally changing Northern Irish society and helping to denaturalise practices grounded in, and reproductive of sectarianism. In conclusion, it is suggested that Northern Ireland needs an inclusive, polyvocal anti-racism which connects all forms of discrimination, including racism and sectarianism.

Keywords:

• Northern Ireland
• sectarianism
• racism
• anti-racism
• multiculturalism
• Belfast

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Jane Jacobs, Brendan Murtagh and Jan Penrose for comments on various elements of this paper.

Notes

 1. This essay is based on findings from my doctoral research on the politics and policy of cultural diversity in Northern Ireland. This research involved interviews with policy makers, civil servants, minority ethnic representative groups and community groups involved in race relations, multicultural practices and self-defining anti-racists conducted in Belfast, Lisburn and Derry from December 2004 to August 2006. Participant observation was conducted at events such as multicultural celebrations, cultural diversity workshops and anti-racist protest meetings. This essay also draws on some policy analysis and analysis of texts produced by anti-racist groups.

 2. Association of Northern Ireland Colleges (ANIC), ‘Darkie’, Equality News, Winter 2005, 4, http://www.femeansbusiness.com/documents/Equality%20News%20Winter%202005.pdf (accessed 13 March 2007). Darkie ran for four shows at Tower Street Theatre, Belfast Institute of Further Education and Higher Education on 2 and 3 November 2005 as part of the annual Queens festival. The play was not reviewed in any popular publications and has not been performed since.

 3. Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism, 3.

 4. Wievorka, ‘Is Multiculturalism the Solution?’, 882.

 5. Detant, ‘The Politics of Anti-racism in Belgium’, 183–215.

 6. Bonnett, Anti-racism, 4.

 7. Anthias and Lloyd, ‘Introduction’, 16.

 8. Bonnett, Anti-racism, 90.

 9. Boal, ‘Belfast’, 690.

10. In the March 2007 Assembly elections the main parties all explicitly included opposition to racism within their manifestos, many for the first time.

11. ANIC, ‘Darkie’, Equality News, Winter 2005, 5.

12. Hainsworth, ‘Politics, Racism and Ethnicity in Northern Ireland’, 33.

13. Bell et al., Migrant Workers in Northern Ireland, 4.

14. In the post-war years the main migration streams into Northern Ireland were from Hong Kong and India, with most migrants settling in Belfast and its surrounding areas. From 2001 a substantial number of Portuguese nationals took up employment in food-processing industries, with significant numbers of migrant workers from Southeast Asia, in particular the Philippines, active in the health care sector. Northern Ireland, as a constituent region of the UK, extended the right to work to citizens of the eight East European states which joined the EU in May 2004. Since then, nationals from these countries, in particular Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia, have moved to Northern Ireland to take up employment. Migrants in Northern Ireland are now increasingly spread out across the region and involved in a wide range of occupations. See Jarman, ‘Diversity, Economy and Policy’, 45–61.

15. Animate is a project based in Dungannon, Co. Tyrone that aims to reduce exploitation of, and prejudice towards, migrant workers, to empower migrant workers and improve service delivery and conditions for migrant workers in the mid-Ulster area. Animate, ‘About’, Animate, http://www.animate-ccd.net/about.htm (accessed 10 December 2007).

16. McVeigh, ‘There's No Racism Because There's No Black People’, 19.

17. Racial incidents reported to the police rose from 185 in 2001–02 to 453 in 2003–04 to 1047 in 2006–07. Police Service of Northern Ireland, Hate Incidents and Crimes 1st April to 31st March, http://www.psni.police.uk/3._hate_incidents_and_crimes-4.pdf (accessed 7 December 2007).

18. Chrisafis, ‘Racist War of the Loyalist Street Gangs: Orchestrated Attacks on Minorities Raise Fears of Ethnic Cleansing’, The Guardian, 10 January 2004, 10, and McHugh, ‘Ulster's Disturbing Descent into Racism’, Belfast Telegraph, 27 June 2006, 7, are examples from international and local media, respectively.

19. BBC News Online, ‘Race Hate on the Rise in NI’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3390249.stm (accessed 17 December 2006).

20. Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM), A Shared Future, 15.

21. Hainsworth, ‘Politics, Racism and Ethnicity in Northern Ireland’, 37.

22. Nash, ‘Equity, Diversity and Interdependence’, 274.

23. Ibid., 275.

24. Little, Democracy and Northern Ireland, 12.

25. Shirlow and Murtagh, Belfast, 1.

26. Lentin, ‘Responding to the Racialisation of Irishness’, 3.1.

27. Bonnett, Anti-racism, 90.

28. Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, 80.

29. Taylor, Sources of the Self, 76.

30. The official name of the settlement reached in April 1998 is the Agreement reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations. As with so much in Northern Ireland, the title of the settlement has become the source of some debate and consternation; here, I refer to it as the Good Friday Agreement and henceforth as the Agreement.

31. Nash, ‘Equity, Diversity and Interdependence’, 273.

32. Singstad Palshaugen, ‘The Northern Ireland Civic Forum’, 153.

33. Graham and Nash, ‘A Shared Future’, 264.

34. OFMDFM, A Shared Future, 5, emphasis added.

35. One example of this recognition is that the Agreement requires that all Members of Local Assembly declare themselves Nationalist, Unionist or Other and bills require at least 60% of one bloc and 40% of the other to be passed.

36. Schaap, ‘Political Reconciliation through a Struggle for Recognition?’, 526.

37. Werbner, ‘Introduction’, 8.

38. The names of all interviewees are pseudonyms.

39. Hall, ‘The Multi-cultural Question’, 214; Troyna, ‘Beyond Multiculturalism’, 310.

40. As well as critiquing culturalism, Sivanandan questions the efficacy of such practices: ‘learning about other people's culture (does not) make the racists less racist’. See Sivanandan, ‘Race, Terror and Civil Society’, 3.

41. Nash, ‘Equity, Diversity and Interdependence’, 279.

42. Lentin and McVeigh, After Optimism?, 151–6; McVeigh and Rolston, ‘From Good Friday to Good Relations’, 12.

43. Lewis, ‘“Racism and Sectarianism”’, 31.

44. Lentin and McVeigh, After Optimism?, 148.

45. Kila are a popular seven-piece band from Dublin playing a fusion of Irish and East European music.

46. Shirlow, ‘“Who Fears to Speak”’, 88.

47. Duffy, ‘Performing Identity within a Multicultural Framework’, 679.

48. Lloyd, Discourses of Anti-racism in France, 4.

49. Lloyd, ‘Anti-racism, Social Movements and Civil Society’, 61.

50. McVeigh, ‘Is There an Irish Anti-racism?’, 215.

51. Gilroy, There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack, 171.

52. The Race Relations (NI) Order 1997 follows closely the provisions of the 1976 Race Relations Act in GB. It outlaws discrimination on grounds of colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origin.

53. Lentin and McVeigh, After Optimism?, 150.

54. Shirlow, ‘“Who Fears to Speak”’, 88.

55. Boal, ‘Territoriality and the Shankill/Falls Divide’, 30–50.

56. This quote is taken from a flyer circulated by WARN at the launch of the anti-racist pubs and clubs campaign in West Belfast in March 2006.

57. Kemp, ‘Labour Migration and Racialisation’, 267.

58. Leavey et al., ‘Older Irish Migrants Living in London’, 770.

59. Sivanandan, ‘Challenging Racism’, 7.

60. West Against Racism Network, ‘Passport: Republic of Conscience’, Belfast, print.com, n.d.

61. Garner, Racism in the Irish Experience, 222.

62. West Against Racism Network, Comhar na Gcomharson, 5, Belfast, print.com, n.d.

63. Ibid., 7. The section on policing was picked up on in the Northern Irish media in February 2005. When it was brought to the attention of the sponsoring department in the Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, funding for the Welcome Pack was withdrawn the following month.

64. Community Restorative Justice (CRJ) is a form of social/community criminal justice that focuses on crimes that can be defined as acts against another individual or a community rather than the state. Although CRJ has been quite a contentious issue in Northern Ireland, such groups have been active on both sides of the West Belfast ‘peaceline’.

65. This quote is taken from a flyer advertising the unveiling of the anti-racist mural that was circulated in November 2005.

66. Gallaher and Shirlow, ‘The Geography of Loyalist Paramilitary Feuding’, 159.

67. Rolston, Drawing Support 2, 5.

68. Goldberg, ‘Racial Europeanization’, 342.

69. Gilroy, ‘The End of Anti-racism’, 252.

70. McVeigh and Rolston, ‘From Good Friday to Good Relations’, 12.

71. Rolston, ‘Legacy of Intolerance: Racism and Unionism in South Belfast’, IRR News, http://www.irr.org.uk/2004/february/ak000008.html (accessed 2 February 2007).

72. Lentin and McVeigh, After Optimism?, 154.

73. Loyalist Commission, Loyalist or Racist? You Can't be Both, Loyalist Commission, Belfast, n.p., n.d.

74. Ibid., emphasis added.

75. OFMDFM, A Shared Future, 3.

76. Dwyer and Crang, ‘Fashioning Ethnicities’, 415.

77. Brewer, ‘Sectarianism and Racism, and their Parallels and Differences’, 257.

78. McVeigh, ‘Is Sectarianism Racism?’, 20.

79. Ibid., 19.

80. Nash, ‘Equity, Diversity and Interdependence’, 274.

81. Community Relations Council, A Good Relations Framework, 5, emphasis added.

82. Lentin and McVeigh, After Optimism?, 159.

83. This phrase is borrowed from Lentin, ‘Responding to the Racialisation of Irishness’, 3.2.

84. Shirlow and Murtagh, Belfast, 171–8.

85. OFMDFM, A Racial Equality Strategy for Northern Ireland, 29.

86. Garner, Racism in the Irish Experience, 223.

87. Ibid., 221.

88. Ibid., 221–4; Murji, ‘Using Racial Stereotypes in Anti-racist Campaigns’, 279.

89. Debra Douglas, ‘Mag Brands Belfast Most Racist City: Der Spiegel Lays Blame on Loyalists’, Belfast Telegraph, 2 March 2005, 5.