gravity

I spent a couple hours talking with Jim McLaughlin this afternoon. Jim is the person managing the CPR (Consolidating Positive Relationships) Project, part of the European Union-funded Peace Initiative Programming. He works in an office next door, which is a building the Koram Centre is renting, but has intentions to buy and expand into. I always love the conversations with Jim. He is always teaching me another piece of little-known Irish history. He’s incredibly politically minded and aware. But, when he talks about this stuff, it’s not from a deep emotional place, like when Jeff talks about the subjects. 

He comes across with a perspective that’s mixed with matter-of-factness, awe, and curiosity, like “Wow, this happened, did you know? It’s incredible.” When Jeff talks you know he has a big personal stake. There’s no hiding it. Jeff is from Strabane, Northern Ireland. Jim is from County Donegal, in the Republic. Jim has a personal stake too, but it’s different –Although he grew up close enough to the border, and was harassed when trying to cross the border, and the Troubles left a mark on his upbringing, there is a great difference.

 

Most people claim that Strabane was the most bombed town during the Troubles. It’s not disputed that it had one of the most, if not the most, disproportionate share of bombings per capita. Just like the suicide rate – there have been 5 since Christmas, but if you look at this rate proportional to the population – for example, in a city with a population of a million people, the suicide rate would be 333. That would be considered an epidemic. Last night my housemate told me about a popular television program on BBC 4 that films couples property shopping in the UK going around with the hosts as experts/ guides. They did several programs on the 10 worst places to live, and Strabane was named 3^rd worst on that list just 2 years ago. The town invited the show’s producers to Strabane, but they never accepted the invitation. Since then, it worked its way off of the top 10 list.

 

I asked Jim more questions about the CPR Project so I could get a better understanding of how all the pieces I’ve heard about fit together. We talked a lot about the impact of the Troubles, in terms of the groups they are working with and a couple severe cases that came through, like one man who spent almost 18 years barely leaving his house, who is just now going through a training program to be trained as a lorrie driver. Aside from the high suicide rate here, there’s also the common depression and anxiety, alcoholism and drug addiction, domestic violence and child neglect, personal detachment and avoidance, with more than its share of severe cases like this young man.

 

 Most of these people will say they don’t personally know anyone who was a victim. But, everyone who lived here during the violence are victims.  A lot of people think that only those who die are victims; that only those who are brutally attacked are victims; that those who are specifically targeted are victims. Unfortunately, there is a stigma attached to being called or thought of as a victim. It’s disempowering instead of being something that offers permission to grieve and a reason to heal; instead of offering an answer as to the origin of their problems to, thus removing the locus of guilt from inside. And being called a survivor implies individual courage and having gone through a great ordeal, but people who lived here had to normalize what they were living through. Maybe we need a new word that doesn’t have such a harsh or imposing allusion. Besides being a victim/ survivor of the troubles, trauma has been compounded by secondary trauma or compounded trauma from – alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, child and elder abuse, detached or irritable or angry parents neglecting children, and then there are families who have been living on benefits for generations and children who don’t have good role models or aspiration to live any differently. According to Marina, Strabane has one of the highest rates of incest, physical, mental, and sexual abuse.

 Strabane has a history of economic deprivation. Northern Ireland is in a process of devolution – although it will take a few more years, they are supposed to decrease the district councils from 26 to 12. Strabane will be one of the downsized districts and will fall in with the district of Derry or Omagh. Jim talked about seeing negative changes and fragmentation in local culture after multi-national companies moved to small towns. Many people are concerned with the breakdown of the traditional family system and the birth of a dissociated generation, which is a much newer phenomena here than in the states. Marina and Jeff both point to the loss of values in a rising consumerist / materialistic culture.

This isn’t the first time I’m recognizing these things, but it’s the first time I’ve really felt upset about it. This week I feel like I’m suddenly being bombarded with how dismal Strabane is. Right now I just feel such sorrow and heartbreak for this place and the people here. I feel quite overwhelmed by it right now as I write. I was just up in Ballycastle yesterday. It is a beautiful town on the north coast– Tourist-ready with beautiful streets; with colorfully painted signs and shutters; the seashore with gorgeous view, more sunlight, more sky, more glens or “mountains.” There were three school girls at the bus stop when Mary Anne dropped me off. They immediately started “chatting me up” and asked me what part of America I was from. No one in Strabane will do that even if given a ripe opportunity (besides the people I’m working with directly as part of Koram business). Everyone is friendly and wonderful and open, but not anywhere near to assertive like these school girls. They may be curious, but they don’t behave like they are; they don’t express themselves. They react to, instead of act upon. I knew the landscape would be more beautiful, but I had no idea that it would feel so different being in the north.