The first thing we saw of Northern Ireland, just a few minutes after the English coastline faded from view, was the emerald waters of the Irish Sea. Then land appeared – green plains and hills checkered with brown fields and red houses.

In Belfast, the first thing you see are the closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. Then barbed wire appears, with reinforced walls and 25-foot-high fences built as “peace lines.” Even though this year, in fact, last Friday as I am writing this, marked the 10-year anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the police still patrol three or four to a car and never leave the base without body armor.

Northern Ireland is still reeling from the Troubles, a three-decade long violent struggle between Catholic Irish nationalists and Protestant Unionists to determine their national identity. The rift was caused in 1921, when the British government partitioned six of the nine counties of Ulster, located, as one might expect, on the northern part of the island, into Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom. The rest of the island became an independent state which is now the Republic of Ireland. Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, saw some of the worst violence of the troubles – one-third of the deaths in the Troubles occurred in North Belfast alone.

To be sure, the waterfront and city center show signs of pulling themselves out of the decades of violence and insecurity. Brand new apartment complexes, labeled “yuppie flats” by local graffiti, are under construction all across the area, and the huge Odyssey recreation and commerce center shows that money is finally being invested to build structures other than barricades.

For many parts in the west and north of the city, however, progress has been slow in coming. Nationalist areas are still overcrowded and underemployed, and loyalist areas still live behind the “no-man’s land” of derelict housing. Kids from both communities turn to alcohol and anti-social behavior at a younger age – and always the CCTV cameras are watching.

The problems facing Belfast are not altogether unfamiliar ones. Though some of the graffiti remains clearly sectarian, much of it now consists of gang call signs and imagery. Youth violence in the city is likely caused as much by poverty and social disadvantage as sectarianism. Even the ever-present cameras seem the likely evolution of our current national security strategy. Surveillance and anti-terror legislation threaten to turn us into a nation of suspects, where our phones and e-mails are monitored by the government just as the streets in Belfast are monitored 24 hours a day by the police.

Northern Ireland is a place with much inherent beauty, and in Belfast important and exciting work is being done at the ground level to combat universal social problems. The United States has had, and still has, a part in solving these problems, but also a responsibility to learn from the lessons of Northern Ireland. The importance of money being used for youth provision in buildings like the Odyssey center is high, but equally important is combating sectarianism and poverty among children so that they can safely and affordably utilize such resources. Providing new housing and jobs is of course critical to the peace process, but equally so is ensuring that development occurs comprehensively and responsibly, and ensuring that all children have access to an education which could prepare them for those jobs.

There are parts of Belfast which could very easily be what we’d like to think of as the “bad parts” of Indianapolis. Many of the problems are the same, and so, many of the solutions may not be too different from one another as well. The eyes of the world are still on Belfast, watching how it will pull itself from the refuse of the Troubles. If and when it manages to do so, it will be an example cities with deep-rooted problems would be irresponsible to follow.


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