Last Updated on Tuesday, 30 October 2007 05:16 by Jonathan Lacey, Today's Zaman Tuesday, 30 October 2007 05:13
The policeman stopped him and asked: "Are you a Catholic or Protestant?"
To which the man replied, "I am a Muslim".
The policeman then asked, "Are you a 'Catholic Muslim' or a 'Protestant Muslim'"?
The above "joke" serves to illustrate the traditional division in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants. The society has been so pedantically focused on the two separate primordial articulations of identity that it was difficult, until recent years, to think outside of this dual paradigm. It is important to perceive this background upon which the subject of this article, an unlikely actor in peace-building endeavor in Northern Ireland, a Turkic religio-cultural society, namely the Northern Ireland-Tolerance, Educational and Cultural Association (NITECA), acts.
NITECA was initiated in 2004 by a number of Turkish residents living in Northern Ireland. Among its principal goals are to help integrate Turkish people living in Northern Ireland into the host society. They promote a wide range of activities aimed at promoting tolerance and respect for different communities, as well as demonstrating aspects of their own culture. These include conferences celebrating the commonality amongst the Abrahamic religions, subsidized trips to Turkey and a range of other events promoting Turkish culture.
Fethullah Gülen describes organizations like NITECA that promote interfaith dialogue as "peace islands." These "peace islands," he argues, promote "understanding" and "tolerance" and must be designed to encourage "universal human virtues" and draw together those of different beliefs and orientations in a mutually respected milieu.
Following the lead of Gülen and the Writers and Journalists Foundation, NITECA has organized Ramadan dinners (iftars) whereby they invite different faith groups to share a meal together, hosted by NITECA. This dinner has taken place for the last two consecutive years, and the members claim it was a great starting point to get to know different groups in the area. These dinners play host to Catholics, Protestants, Jewish and different Muslim groups, all seated around the same table.
The most explicit promotion of interfaith dialogue by NITECA comes in the form of the interfaith symposiums they organize. In 2006 they held a conference focusing on "Mercy in the Abrahamic Religions," inviting speakers from the Jewish and Christian community in Northern Ireland. In 2007 they organized a symposium, "Fundamentals of Peace," where there were again speakers from the three faiths, who talked about the universal principles of "truthfulness and trustworthiness."
The examples of NITECA'S activities are different from those of the traditional organizations working for dialogue and peace in Northern Ireland in many ways. They are obviously non-indigenous, whilst the vast majority of groups engaged in dialogical practice in Northern Ireland are natives to Ireland. The most important difference, however, is the difference in outlook. Indigenous groups in Northern Ireland act locally and think locally. They work at a grassroots level to try and bring peace to the region. Their thoughts are on peace in their local area and region, and they are unlikely to envision their modest work as having a global impact.
NITECA, on the other hand, engages in an explicit form of what sociologists refer to as glocalization. In a very practical way, members of NITECA act locally and think globally, always positioned delicately and concurrently in the two contexts without incongruence. By thinking globally (in their capacity as NITECA volunteers) they always pay heed to the messages and principles of Gülen and are loosely connected to other Gülen-inspired groups around the world in a global circuit. They largely work in unison with the same aims and objectives, but adapt their dialogical methods to local situations.
Though I maintain that a key element of NITECA's activities include the promotion of a positive image of Islam and Turkey, it is important to note that their events help bring different faith groups together and their presence is conducive to the project of lasting peace in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, their activities may contribute to the formation of an antidote to the growing racialization of migrants and ethnic minorities in post-Good Friday Agreement (GFA) Northern Ireland.
By hosting various functions and inviting different ethnic and faith groups, including Catholics and Protestants, NITECA has acted as a conduit by setting up a platform which may be interpreted with suspicion if initiated by either of the aforementioned Christian groups. In this sense, the neutrality of Islam vis-à-vis the different Christian groups may serve as their strongest asset in promoting their dialogue platforms.
It is difficult to assess the quantitative influence of small, bottom-up organizations working for peace in Northern Ireland. It is only when you see the cumulative affect of all of these organizations that you realize the importance of each small group. NITECA is amongst these associations whose contribution is humble, though noteworthy. In the same light, NITECA is but a small organization inspired by Gülen. Their input to the movement is certainly humble, when added to the hundreds of other Gülen-inspired associations around the world, the cumulative affect is considerable and has helped turn a social movement peculiar to Turkey into a global social movement with peace and tolerance as their avowed core principles.
NITECA can be understood as a "peace island" that may indeed replace the so-called "peace walls" in Northern Ireland. By focusing on the Gülen-inspired NITECA, this article has shown how a group of Muslims have adapted to one of the most difficult situations in Europe (i.e., post-GFA Northern Ireland) and have indeed found their niche in this region on the edge of Europe.
* Jonathan Lacey is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of sociology at Trinity College Dublin and a research assistant with one of Intel's senior ethnographic researchers.
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