Peace came to Belfast, and it can come here, too

    Growing up on a farm 15 miles from Belfast in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, Stewart Young had a standing argument each morning with his brother about whose turn it was to check under the family car for a bomb.
    As the son of a Presbyterian policeman during “The Troubles” between Catholics and Protestants, Young understood early on what it was like to be marginalized and how an abnormal situation could become so normal.
    When he began studying at the University of Ulster to become a certified youth counselor, Young got some cheery advice one day from one of his sociology professors.
    “He said, ‘There are three groups in Northern Ireland – the Protestants, the Catholics, and the police and their families, because everybody hates them,’” Young said. “There was an element of truth in that because even though I grew up Protestant in the Presbyterian church, there was still a distance my father had to keep from the rest of the Protestant community because those people sometimes came into conflict with the police. It was a very tricky balance.”
    Tricky is a delicate word for Young’s crazy reality. Belfast in the 1970s – with its “peace” line drawn between the Falls Road (Catholics) and neighboring Shankill Road (Protestants) – was less a city than a war zone.
    “When I grew up there were no restaurants in Belfast because people really didn’t go out at night and congregate in public spaces,” Young said. “They were afraid.”
    Young is 39 now, and he lives in New Orleans after spending years working with youth involved in sectarian and political violence in Northern Ireland and then as a youth counselor trying to quell gang violence among the Crips and the Bloods in South Central Los Angeles.
    It’s safe to say that as director of youth services for Catholic Charities’ Café Hope in Marrero – where he mentors teens and young adults, many of whom have lived their lives surrounded by violence without the benefit of a father – Young has seen it all.
    He has lived in New Orleans for two years, and the broken record keeps skipping and repeating: nothing will ever change … nothing will ever change. All Young has to do is point to the tiny flashpoint on the map – to Belfast – where the world as he once knew it has changed within a generation.
    “That is in the very forefront of my mind right now because what people said 25 years ago in Belfast is what people are saying currently about New Orleans, with its murder rate and the criminality,” Young said. “Obviously, the example of Northern Ireland is that it can change. I firmly believe in the capacity of a community to change, but it takes the people to have that vision. The biggest thing we have to tackle is apathy. You can do something – absolutely. You can help someone with schoolwork. You can volunteer in a community center.”
    The political will to end violence in Northern Ireland galvanized in 1987 over a particularly heinous act – the murder of 11 Protestants in a bombing in Enniskillen. The father of one of the victims, 20-year-old nurse Marie Wilson, had the spiritual courage to reach out to the IRA despite being castigated by his own people for being “soft.”
    The politicians, finally, caught up with a man whose courageous act of forgiveness changed the course of history.
    The same thing has to happen in New Orleans, Young says. Young people who grow up knowing little other than violence and drugs need a reason to show up for work and to deal with conflict appropriately.
    Young’s mentoring program at Café Hope involves adults working one-on-one with the teens for one year, a commitment that is sacred.
    “We tell them that they’ve got somebody there if they need them,” Young said. “They don’t need us on our agenda or time line – they need us on their time line. Young people have heard that so many times and don’t believe it. The only time they’re really going to start believing it is when they reach out and we’re here.”
    In Belfast, restaurants are flourishing, and there’s an annual festival in the cathedral district that draws thousands of visitors.
    “Belfast is now one of the most thriving cultures in Europe,” Young said.
    Young is returning to Northern Ireland next month to see his mother, and he can’t wait to turn on the television.
    “I used to turn on the TV every night and hear about the latest bomb going off or the latest shooting,” Young said. “Just to be able to turn on the TV and hear them talking about trash collection or the mundane things will be very refreshing. Those are the things politicians should be arguing about.”
    Could you imagine the 10 o’clock news in New Orleans without a murder report? Could you imagine a boy who every morning peered under his car for a bomb taking his mom to dinner at the John Hewitt restaurant in the heart of Belfast?
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].