Author: Jaden Steinbock

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Jaden’s Reflection (after the course)

This trip has been more influential in my life than I could have predicted. While I came in excited to learn more about peace and justice, to strengthen my confidence in the field, and to explore a new place and its culture, this trip and this experience did far more than just that. As an Integrated Educational Studies major, I did not anticipate seeing a connection to my future career while studying the conflict, but was proven wrong day after day. The most pivotal academic highlight of this trip was visiting Lagan College, the first integrated school in Northern Ireland. This visit opened my eyes to the needs of young people in areas impacted by crises. Lagan does incredible work for bridging gaps in the community and providing a space where youth feel comfortable expressing themselves and exploring or questioning what they have been socially taught. Nearly every day after our visit to Lagan, the topic of education and the challenges of youth today were broached by our speakers. 

At New Gate Arts and Cultural Center, Brian, the CEO, spoke about the origins of the center, coming from a clear need in the youth in their communities.

Caitlin at the Free Derry Museum, who spoke about integrated education in Derry, said that students and their parents make the choice between culture and integration, as most integrated schools in Derry neglect culture, while most segregated schools teach a biased education.

At the Holywell Center in Derry, Maureen Hetherington explained the need for young people to understand each other’s stories, which does not happen in segregated environments.

Finally, when we spoke to Daniel McCrossan, a member of the SDLP party, he spoke about the need for integrated education, saying that all schools are still not treated equally and that parents should have an ensured choice on where their kids go to school. 

These highlights were both academic and personal for me, as my connection with education goes further than my chosen major. Education has always been a personal passion of mine that I am lucky enough to spend my time studying, so hearing about the importance of a quality, well-rounded, and desegregated education almost daily filled me with a bittersweet feeling of hope but dissatisfaction for the current status of Northern Ireland’s system. 

My biggest challenge during this trip was the emotional whiplash that came with every day. Each speaker or visit we experienced had its own emotionality, some positive and some negative, that made me unsure of how to feel regarding the state of peace in Northern Ireland today. While attempting to be optimistic about how much the region has changed, how peace has technically been achieved, and how a lot of the places we visited are doing incredible work to support these communities, I found it challenging to remain positive. This surprised me as I did not expect to feel so connected to a place and a community of people that I had no previous links to. I believe that the most illuminating thing that I learned over the course of the trip, as most of our speakers shared, is that peace is not a state, but a constant process. This has influenced my future career as I see myself exploring the links between education and the continuous creation of peace in areas of former (but really, ongoing) crises. I am extremely grateful to have had this opportunity that has truly changed my outlook and has widened my perspective on my future and the complicated world we live in.

Here are some photos of me from our trip

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Day 6: Derry/Londonderry – Dealing with the Past (Part 3)

Part 3: Free Derry Museum

Lastly, we visited the Free Derry Museum, which outlines Derry’s history in The Troubles, specifically highlighting Bloody Sunday when a British soldier opened fire on a peaceful anti-internment protest. The exhibit brought about themes of framing, both applicable to communications and peace and justice studies, as the British claimed that the protestors were violent gunmen, only to admit the truth in 2010. This also reflected the withholding of information by the British government, as we also saw at the Pat Finucane Centre in the cases that they encounter. The British are seen as framing this conflict in specific ways that undercut the violence and wrongdoings they inflicted upon people during this time. Framing is a powerful tool in both fields as it can encourage beliefs and biases that can be based on untrue or incomplete information. As Smith and Petty explain about framing in communications, “the extent to which messages are elaborated can be increased by employing message framing that is unexpected… a negative frame will induce greater processing when people expect positive framing, and vice versa” (1996, p. 267). This supports that the British government’s initial framing of Bloody Sunday may have limited public scrutiny until decades later, when the truth was finally revealed. As Benford and Snow note regarding framing in peace studies, “social movements are not viewed merely as carriers of extant ideas and meanings… Rather, movement actors are viewed as signifying agents actively engaged in the production and maintenance of meaning for constituents, antagonists, and bystanders or observers” (2000, p. 613). The Free Derry Museum, in this sense, acts as a counter-framing institution; it restores agency to the people of Derry, whose stories were once suppressed and bulldozed by Britain. 

Learn more about The Free Derry Museum: https://museumoffreederry.org/ 

At the museum, we had the honor of speaking with Caitlin Askin of the Bloody Sunday Trust about her experience as a first- and second-generation child of conflict in Derry. She spoke mainly about the transgenerational trauma that exists in Derry and how a lack of conversation leads to never reconciling with the horrors that the conflict created for this community. She said that the culture of “saying nothing” causes children to have to educate themselves as their parents do not deal with the traumas they have experienced as a result of The Troubles. Kids are left with unanswered questions and passed-down biases and beliefs. This is echoed in research which found that “the children of survivors interviewed expressed that their parents’ attempts to shield them from the conflict and from the parents’ experience of it were not successful. These children knew that something was happening with their parents, but did not know what” (Hanna et al., 2012, p. 73). Caitlin feels that while addressing the past must be done in order to move forward within communities, the reproduction of issues is an international challenge, as similar conflicts exist in other parts of the world, too. The report supports this view, noting that “the socio-psychological processes that have been implicated in the transmission of ‘trauma’ from one generation to the next are equally likely to apply in the Northern Ireland context as in any other conflict situation where the research has taken place” (Hanna et al., 2012, p. 21). If discussion, reconciliation, restorative justice, and peacebuilding can exist within Northern Ireland, the rest of the world may be better off for it as well. 

Learn more about Catitlin and the Bloody Sunday Trust: https://museumoffreederry.org/bloody-sunday-trust/ 

References

Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611–639. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.611

Hanna, D., Dempster, M., Dyer, K., Lyons, E., & Devaney, L. (2012). Young people’s transgenerational issues in Northern Ireland. Commission for Victims and Survivors. https://www.cvsni.org

Smith, S. M., & Petty, R. E. (1996). Message framing and persuasion: A message processing analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(3), 257–268. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167296223004

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Day 6: Derry/Londonderry – Dealing with the Past (Part 2)

Part 2: The Pat Finucane Centre

Our second host was the Pat Finucane Centre, “a non-party political, anti-sectarian human rights group advocating a non-violent resolution of the conflict on the island of Ireland” (Home, n.d.) We met Paul O’Connor, who spoke to us about the advocacy support the center provides for families whose relatives were harmed during The Troubles. He shared multiple cases with us, like 15-year-old Paul Whitter, who was shot by a rubber bullet in 1981. The file regarding this case had been closed by the Government Minister until 2058, but upon public pushback, it was opened to reveal that the bullets and guns fired by police and military during the conflict were faulty. He explained that families like Whitter’s do not come to the Pat Finucane Centre for compensation or justice, but more for information and official recognition by the legal system. As Zehr writes, “Victims need answers to questions they have about the offense—why it happened and what has happened since. They need real information, not speculation or the legally constrained information that comes from a trial or plea agreement” (Zehr, 2002, p. 22). This acknowledgement, though, as Mr. O’Connor made clear, requires information to be shared, a challenge that the centre encounters more often than not. Public Interest Immunity allows the British government to redact information without question, often leaving out vital information for families to understand what occurred, and The Legacy Bill has posed new challenges as it limits new cases from being opened. Zehr writes that “restorative justice requires, at minimum, that we address victims’ harms and needs, hold offenders accountable to put right those harms, and involve victims, offenders, and communities in this process” (Zehr, 2002, p. 40). The conversation with Mr. O’Connor demonstrated that reconciliation must include acknowledgement of the past and that justice is about dignity that can only be achieved through truth. 

 

Learn more the Pat Finucane Centre: https://www.patfinucanecentre.org/
Learn more about Public Interest Immunity: https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/legal/guidance/public-interest-immunity
Learn more about The Legacy Bill: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66648806#:~:text=Brandon%20Lewis%20said%20the%20legislation,on%20to%20families%20and%20victims%22. 

 

References

BBC News. (2023, September 5). What is the Northern Ireland Legacy Bill? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66648806

Home. (n.d.). Pat Finucane Centre. https://www.patfinucanecentre.org/

LexisNexis. (n.d.). Justice and Security Act 2013 (c. 18). https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/legal/legislation/uk-parliament-acts/justice-and-security-act-2013-c18

Zehr, H. (2002). The little book of restorative justice (Revised and updated ed.). Good Books.

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Day 6: Derry/Londonderry – Dealing with the Past (Part 1)

Part 1: New Gate Arts and Cultural Center

Today we woke up in Derry and had the privilege of visiting three different organizations, all of which spoke to us about their work and the personal experiences of the individuals who hosted us.

We began the day at New Gate Arts and Cultural Center, where we met three self-described loyalists who were a part of the origins of the organization and remain active today. Brian, the CEO, explained that the center came from grassroots loyalist activism in the community of Derry. He described that loyalists here felt isolated and unwelcome in their republican majority communities. Even after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, segregation and social exclusion persisted, especially among young people. In these communities, bands became a haven for youth to create connections and express themselves. This sparked the beginnings of the center.

Learn more about the New Gate Arts and Cultural Center: https://www.newgatearts.com/ 

Photos from https://www.newgatearts.com/about 

The most striking conversation that took place at the center was about the lack of support the protestant community felt after the Good Friday Agreement. While most reconciliation conversations on our trip have focused on justice for republicans, this was the first from a loyalist perspective. Brad explained that the loyalist community in Derry realized that the British government would not provide them with the necessary resources to rebuild their communities. Even though loyalist communities had committed their lives, and some of them lost, to the cause, they felt abandoned by the British government to rebuild on their own. Howard Zehr writes in Restorative Justice that “[w]hether we have victimized or have been victimized, the journey from brokenness and isolation to transcendence and belonging requires us to re-narrate our stories so that they are no longer just about shame and humiliation but ultimately about dignity and triumph” (2002, p. 35). The community turned to NGOs, non-governmental organizations, and private fundraising to provide sources, like the New Gate Arts and Cultural Center, to do their own reconciliation.

The center uses art as a way of reaching people and responding to a need, as music is so popular in this community. Band members look out for each other’s mental health and well-being and build bridges between different identities through a common connection. Older band members can mentor to younger ones, passing down history and legacy. By speaking about these issues, band members mitigate passing down trauma, a theme that became more prevalent as the day went on. As one therapist in a study on intergenerational trauma in Northern Ireland recounted, “I had a client recently who was an ex-paramilitary in his 60s saying that he was out with a few of his ex-comrades and they all realised after discussing it that they had all been experiencing the same symptoms but they just hadn’t been talking to each other about it … and that was very powerful for him to realise he wasn’t just mad or weak” (Day & Shloim, 2021, p. 9). Community spaces like New Gate foster connections that can break cycles of silence and shame.

 

References

About, New Gate Arts & Culture Centre, Londonderry. (2023). Newgatearts. https://www.newgatearts.com/about

Day, N., & Shloim, N. (2021). Therapists’ experiences of working with the intergenerational impact of Troubles-related trauma. Psychotherapy and Politics International, 19(2), e1585. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppi.1585

Zehr, H. (2014). The little book of restorative justice (Revised and updated ed.). Good Books.

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Jaden Steinbock – First Blog Post: Introduction

Hi! My name is Jaden, and I am an incoming senior at Chapman University. I am in my final year studying Integrated Educational Studies as well as Peace and Justice Studies. I was drawn to this course after my prior experience studying abroad in the United Kingdom last spring. Even though I did not spend much time in Ireland, The Troubles is consistently discussed in the culture of the whole UK. Additionally, I am excited to get practical, hands-on experience to apply to my Peace and Justice Studies course back at Chapman next year. I am intrigued to learn more about the history of the conflict, how it really began, the different opinions and perspectives on all sides, and how Ireland exists peacefully (or non-peacefully) today with The Troubles as the background of its society. I think I will be challenged to continue revising my own opinions, beliefs, and understandings of the conflict. Educationally, I oftentimes find something that resonates with me and hold strong to that, rarely changing my views. This will be an exercise in flexibility for me, as I am sure, and I hope, that my understanding will change due to the experiences I am having and the people I am meeting in Ireland. I look forward to practicing this skill and expanding my knowledge of the world around me. I also love to travel, so I am excited to explore a new place and culture as well!