Young people these days...
The theme for this year's 4 Corners Festival was "Our Stories: Towards a Culture of Hope." However, if there is to be any hope for this city, province and
indeed world of ours the weight of that will fall on the shoulders of the
younger generations. And it is a weighty responsibility, because their elders,
of which I am one, have left them a whole
range of challenges.
Globally we have used and abused the world's resources, messed
up the climate and allowed its wealth to be accumulated in the hands of a few mega-rich
tycoons, increasing the gap between rich and poor, pump-priming miscellaneous conflicts, fuelling migration, political and religious extremism and the breakdown of trust in democracy.
In this part of the world we have allowed the political and social capital generated by the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement to be eroded... Politicians have been more interested in electoral maths than the budgetary kind... Reconciliation has been neglected, perhaps because there is little electoral capital in it within a system where being firmly on one side or the other on the constitutional issue is advantageous in the St. Andrews revision of the B/GFA. But it is not just the fault of our political representatives... Post the St. Andrews carve up, the limited numbers of people within churches and other civic voices interested in peace-building and the common good allowed ourselves to be sidelined, and return to concentrating on our "core business", whatever that might be.
And that is particularly evident in this city. Which is one of the reasons why the 4 Corners Festival exists. Every year in the first planning meeting after the festival the first question we ask ourselves is "Does there need to be a festival next year?" I don't see the answer to that being "No" any time in the near future.
As has been traditional in recent years, our festival effectively began with an event for young people at Ulster University, this year a creative writing workshop "Write Purpose: Write Hope" with award-winning writer and peacemaker Sue Divin. In the subsequent festival we have had more participation by young people than in any previous years, including the programmes with our long-standing partners Peace Players and Play it by Ear. Sadly I didn't get to either of those events due to diary conflicts. That was also true of the Saturday morning programme where two youth groups from the lower Falls and Shankill areas worked together to clean up part of the City Cemetery. Sadly, media coverage of that latter event was greeted by predictable cynicism and point-scoring by some on both sides of the community online, but thankfully there seems to have been so-such cynicism on the part of the young participants or the politicians who joined them, getting up early on a cold Saturday morning to work together and learn more about the complex history of this city enshrined in this "Shared and Sacred Space."
Sadly there were no politicians present for the "Celebrating Young Voices – Hopes For The Future" on a rainy Thursday night, where participants from the City of Belfast YMCA's Youth in Government programme, Youthlink and Politics In Action shared their priorities, hopes, fears and visions. If any of these young people find their way into local politics and other positions of influence I would have significantly higher hope for the future than at present. Sadly the event doesn't seem to be on catchup, but I will post a link here if I can find it for any current politicians reading!
What you can watch back is Tyree Patton, the UU Masters Journalism student hosting our evening with "Blue Light's" creators Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson... More on that in due course (when I will post a link), but for now, all I will say is I look forward to seeing her interview public figures for years to come.
But what of our churches. That is another area where my generation and before have left a significant challenge to the few who remain in up-coming generations. We have bequeathed them unsustainable buildings and structures, together with programmes and theologies/spiritualities ill-fitted for the contemporary world. Speaking for my own denomination it was encouraging to read that whilst I was involved with 4 Corners at the weekend, young leaders from across Irish Methodism were engaged in their annual "Overflow" conference. I have never been significantly involved in our connexional youth and children's programme, but every Methodist congregation and minister is currently being encouraged to engage with a wider youth and children's strategy, but if that is to succeed, we cannot adequately do this within a denominational silo... Unless we equip our young people to engage creatively with other sisters and brothers in Christ and the wider world, then we are failing them.
But from what I have seen and heard from young people this past week, they are not likely to fail us...
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