R7133 Stages of Genocide 19/04/2004 3:48 PM Page FC1 Genocide Explored Educational issues & challenges R7133 Stages of Genocide 19/04/2004 3:48 PM Page IFC1 This project was designed and delivered by: Daniel Carey, Eoghan Dodd, David Young, Eoin Hanney, Kris O’Neill, Anthony McDermott, Stephen McNeice, Luke Benson, Graeme Horner, Sammy Evitt, Ciaran Hurley, Frank Newman, Dylan Haskins, Dean Thompson, Philip Pinkerton, Johnny Roy, John Morton, David Coleman, Niall Fox, Thomas Larry, Leon Browne, Michael Walsh, Neil O’Rourke, David Finn, Conor Casey and Chris McClelland with support from: Sean Bonner, Mark Tansey, Gerry Duffy, Friday John Johnston, Eileen Ferguson, Jennifer Toda y we neared the en d of the Mura l or Mussen, Valerie Duffy, Jeanne Gallagher, so we thought! But we foun d out that we Sean Daly, Hilda Regan, Mary Byrne, Lizzy rea lly ha d no idea what we were trying to pa int! We ha d words as the ba ckgroun d, Noone, Hugh McDonald and Colm Regan skulls bang, sma ck in the middle, women in Special thanks to Anne Cleary of Aidlink and shrouds near the foregroun d “protecting” a sma ll child, which would be the centra l part Michael Doorly of Concern and, as ever, Ken an d most poignant piece of the mura l. The Brennan and the staff of Genprint. only rea l problem is that man y of us did not rea lise what these images meant. In the en d we decided to go ba ck to the dra wing board an d think aga in about what Saturday we were trying to a ccomplish. In the en d the entire bottom ha lf of the mura l was Now with little less than ha lf the mura l pa inted scra pped in cluding man y of the ba dly over with white pa int, we were forced to come to dra wn skulls. a decision as to what we wanted to do with the rema ining spa ce. A meeting was ca lled in the Later on that da y the Resource Tea m got 80:20 offices. Here a few of us that weren’t together to discuss the la yout of the pa inting gathered to argue out ideas. maga zine. This took the best part of two hours to workout an d la yout. What were Some issues debated: we going to in clude? Where were we going A maths equation - comparing killings in Northern to pla ce certa in articles? How would we * Irelan d to Rwan da.? entice rea ders into the maga zine? How to Ma chetes an d Bullets - Ma chete = killing tool in a llow rea ders to get more knowledge an d * Rwan dan Genocide, Bullet = killing tool in give them an in cite into the truth, eviden ce Northern Irelan d an d horror of genocide in a ll it’s forms. Skulls: moved to the sides? Scra pped a ltogether? There were a ll questions that ha d to be * Ma ps pla ced over them? Fade them out as answered. they tra vel down the mura l? Words: too man y? * Mirror: A mirror pla ced on the mura l in * pla ce of one of the skulls? Bring it home for the person looking at it. Let them see they could very easily be next. The vast ma jority of these ideas were aban doned there an d then for various reasons, most because they weren’t getting the message a cross. The skulls were kept, nobody wanted them gone but they wanted less of them. They took preceden ce over the rea l message. People felt that it looked like an a lbum cover an d it was too cliched. An d so now with some idea as to what was going to ha ppen next, a select a mount of pa inters began work on new skulls to fill in some of the ga p left MEMBERS OF THE EURO MEDITERRANEAN by the old an d fa irly ba d ones. HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORK EDUCATION GROUP MEET WITH MEMBERS OF THE PROJECT TEAM . E Printed on recycled paper R7133 Stages of Genocide 19/04/2004 3:48 PM Page 1 Good matters, right matters. They have the last word. We learn about the Holocaust and other genocides so that we can be more human, more gentle, more caring, more compassionate, valuing every person as being of infinite worth, so precious that we know that such atrocities will never happen again, and that the world will be a more humane place that is hostile to such horrendous occurrences. Archbishop Desmond Tutu 2004 marks the 10th anniversary of the This resource, as well as the wall mural and genocide in Rwanda a genocide that resulted the set of posters that accompany it, explores in the bloody slaughter of more than 800,000 the topic of genocide in a number of Rwandan citizens. For most, it was an horrific contexts: reminder that the crime of genocide still G a group of students and teachers, from occurs in the world today. It’s realities are not two schools – one in East Belfast, the something that is relegated to the past, as other in Bray – exploring the nature and exemplified by the horrors of the Holocaust or context of what happened in Rwanda, the Turkish slayings of hundreds of thousands and Northern Ireland, and elsewhere of Armenians in the early twentieth century. Genocide still occurs and, it seems likely, will G an attempt to understand the nature and re-occur in the future. causes of genocide as well as its geography and history in recent decades For many of us in the Western world, genocide reminds us that killing, on a large G an attempt to answer the basic question scale, is not confined to distant lands and - what can I do to prevent genocide? people but is, as the reality of the Balkans This resource has been written for a number clearly demonstrates, part of our world just as of reasons – to record what we did, to share much as it is part of ‘theirs’. For those of us our work and experiences with others, to living in Ireland, studying the phenomenon of highlight the educational dimension of the genocide is deeply disturbing for a variety of 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide reasons. While the character and scale of and to mark its consequences for those who killing in Northern Ireland (and throughout died as well as for those who survived. the island) has remained limited, many dimensions of our own history remain deeply Finally, we have published this resource to challenging. challenge the often asserted view that young people today don’t care – they do! The reality is that many of the worst genocides have occurred in Europe and at the hands of Europeans. 1 R7133 Stages of Genocide 19/04/2004 3:48 PM Page 2 Genocide Explored This project has involved a wide variety of groups working together over a period of months in the lead up to April, 2004, the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. At an obvious level, we wanted to mark the anniversary and, in some small way, remember those who died in such horrific circumstances. We knew that the anniversary would be reported on TV and throughout the media and we were concerned to ensure that the educational dimension of the anniversary was not forgotten. We were also centrally concerned to ensure that genocide did not remain ‘out there’ – something that happens to unfortunate people elsewhere but couldn’t happen here. We wanted to challenge the idea that Rwandans, Jews and ‘others’ experience genocide (and its various elements) and that, as such, it remains distant and remote from our own lives. We wanted to bring the challenges offered by genocide ‘home’. This challenge was represented by the response of one student who, initially, opted out of the project because he felt that studying the issue would do nothing (he was less polite than this in his description!) to prevent genocide – how could we do anything meaningful or effective? Reflecting on the realities of Rwanda, the Holocaust, Cambodia etc. and their underlying causes, patterns and human consequences in the light of events on this island in recent decades offered a potential answer to this fundamental question. The ‘we’ of this project are the students and teachers of two schools – Orangefield High School in East Belfast and Presentation College, Bray who agreed to come together to paint a wall mural on the theme of genocide (and to produce a supporting education resource and a set of posters). The 2 R7133 Stages of Genocide 19/04/2004 3:48 PM Page 3 Educational issues and challenges schools were supported by 4 non- governmental organisations – Aidlink, Concern, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and 80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World. We chose to produce a wall mural because of the long tradition of such mural painting in Northern Ireland (and because we have been involved in challenging much of their content in recent years). But, most important of all, the ‘we’ of the project are people from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland who come from very different traditions, backgrounds and perspectives – differences that have regularly expressed themselves in significant violence – against each other! The pictures on these pages capture some of our work – the workshops, the debates, the arguments, the painting, the football and the fun! The project is part of a bigger agenda that we have only begun to explore.