Obama's Ulster fans live separately but play together
By B.C. | BELFAST
FOR all its travails, Northern Ireland is still innocent enough to be excited by a visit from the world's most powerful man, especially when he seems to epitomise the removal of obstacles that once seemed impossible to shift. The youngsters who heard him speak in Belfast yesterday loved his suggestion that their progress in overcoming inter-religious division might offer inspiration to conflict zones across the rest of the world. They also appreciated the way he brought in his own story as an example of barriers (in this case, racial) overcome: in a previous American generation, he pointed out, "somebody who looked like me often had a hard time casting a ballot, much less being on a ballot."
First America, then Northern Ireland, then the world, he seemed to imply, suggesting that inter-communal hostilities could be transcended in a benign chain reaction. Well, if the aim is an end to unfair discrimination between different types of citizen, then the president may have a point. Civil-rights campaigners in Northern Ireland were inspired by their counterparts in the American South. But even when all members of their society have the same legal entitlements, their life-chances can be affected by intractable factors like segregated housing markets.
And in both Northern Ireland and the United States, the segregation of housing remains deeply entrenched. In the United States, according to a long-term study published last year, whites on the move still head for mainly white neighbourhoods and blacks for mainly black ones. And as The Economist has reported, Northern Ireland's neighbourhoods are becoming a little more integrated in religious terms, but only slowly. Sometimes special factors are at work; all-Protestant areas can see an influx of Poles who show up on the census as Catholics but are not part of the conflict. Inter-marriage between Catholics and Protestants is on the rise but still very much the exception.
Last month, Northern Ireland's administration, in which historically Protestant and historically Catholic parties share power, floated a programme for an inter-communal "shared future" whose goals seem pathetically modest for a place where the guns have largely been silent for almost two decades. The aims would include removing the "peace barriers" that physically separate Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods by the year 2023; and a programme of inter-communal summer camps and sports events, presumably as a way to get round the fact that most children still attend schools where one religion or the other prevails.
But Mr Obama and his audience know very well that young people are hard to control. They may live in separate neighbourhoods and go to different schools, but they like the same entertainment, and enjoy the same stimulants. Religious adherence (whether active or nominal) is certainly much higher than it is in England, but young people's life-styles and choices are as experimental and free-wheeling as they are in the decadent island to the east. In both Belfast and Derry-Londonderry, about half the live births take place "out of wedlock", to use an expression that is now very old-fashioned; that is a higher rate than in London.
In a nice use of a local word meaning chatter, news or banter, the President described Northern Ireland as a place where "students lounge at cafes, asking each other, 'what's the craic?'" Sometimes, it seems, these interactions go beyond the stage of craic and the participants don't always remember to ask each other's religion.
