Irish Remembering Quilt Comes to Boston, Honors Victims of Conflict

The Remembering Quilt of Relatives for Justice, a nonprofit in Belfast, Ireland, will be on display in Boston for the month of July 2008.

Mark Thompson is the director of Relatives for Justice, a nonprofit in Belfast, Ireland, that provides support for thousands of family members and loved ones of those killed or injured by conflict in Northern Ireland.

Just under 400 persons, most of them Irish Catholic civilians and almost 80 of them children, were killed. However, says Thompson, the British government has not properly acknowledged their status as victims.

Relatives for Justice honors the victims through its Remembering Quilt, in which each 9-inch square represents the life of one of the deceased. The quilt will be on display at the Boston Public Library through the month of July 2008.

Thompson spoke to EthnicNewz.org by phone on June 27, 2008.

Following is part one of the condensed and edited NEWz Interview about the quilt, justice and acknowledgment from the British government.

Why is the Remembering Quilt so important?

The Remembering Quilt (represents) the legacy of people killed (in the conflict with British and Irish in Northern Ireland). It is about memory, the recovery of historical memory, and the ownership of that memory by people adversely affected by the conflict.

Through the quilt, people who were killed become much more than the 10- or 15-second news bulletins that might've aired at the time they were killed.

So the project is important. It's been going for nine years, and we're very privileged to have it at the Boston Public Library.

Would you say the quilt is important to remember the historical context behind the deaths in Northern Ireland?

We embarked upon the Remembering Quilt almost nine years ago, when the peace process was beginning in Northern Ireland.

It was important to remember people who were killed by state forces, who were seen to be not deserving of status of victimhood. That was adding insult to injury and further exacerbating trauma.

So we embarked upon on the quilt project so that families could come together and make a 9-inch squares in memory of their loved ones, sometimes using material of clothing of people who were killed or personal items, but reflecting their lives.

A secondary context that was also important is that the quilt opened up other areas of available support for families of those killed. For example, a family who had spent several weeks over a number of activities to make the square, that family is then introduced to other families who've been through similar experiences, so there's support in the peer group.

How did you come up with the idea of a quilt as the means to remember those who were killed?

I saw the national AIDS quilt in Washington, DC, in the 1980s. Quilting was one of the great American traditions in the aftermath of the Civil War, which brought widows together at a time when we didn't have the clinical or psychological terms of trauma, but the human interaction (such as what quilting provides) healed people.

Relatives for Justice works with which families of the deceased, in making the Remembering Quilt?

In terms of the Irish peace process, our organization works principally with people from the Irish Catholic community. In terms of the conflict, that community suffered disproportionately by killings that were perpetrated by the British military, the police, and by groups that were pro-British groups.

When the peace process began, the people in that particular community weren't given the same level of voice or concern of, for example, those people who had been killed by, say, the IRA (Irish Republican Army, the military arm of Sinn Fein, aiming for union between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland).

During the time of the peace process, the people WE worked with were told that they weren't victims. We needed to address that in a very positive way.

The name of your organization is Relatives for Justice. What is "justice" to you? When is your work done?

Well. for us, justice has never been punitive. Justice is not something that's going to happen in a British court.

We don't want punitive justice to put people in jail because it isn't conducive to moving forward and building peace.

We want transitional justice, in the context of building peace, reconstructing our society, and moving forwards towards reconciliation.

What we want is acknowledgment from the British government and recognition that they acted illegally, that they took lives, that it happened in an environment of political upheaval and violence.

We're looking for a truth commission in Northern Ireland that can address the legacies of the past, and can provide acknowledgment and recognition to many of those families that we support who have never had justice.

There are things that we've done, too, that are wrong, and we need to address the relationships and the hurt and bridge that gap with that community - because if we're going to move effectively forward, we can't have those issues divide us.

If the British government gives you only an apology, and no British are jailed or punished, will you be satisfied?

If they are going to apologize, they have to say what they are going to apologize for.

We want them to acknowledge that they acted illegally, and they armed loyalist (pro-British) paramilitaries, that they provided them with information and safe passage to carry out killings, that they constructed their own judicial system to provide impunity to its soldiers and policemen when they were involved in fatal shootings and planned executions.

How optimistic are you that you'll get this acknowledgment and apology?

Well, at the moment, the British government have appointed a consultative group in Northern Ireland to take the views of all the people who have been affected by the conflict to find the best way forward in terms of dealing with the conflict.

That's a welcome step, but it's in the gift of the British government in terms of what will emerge from that consultation.

What has been your organization's dealings with this consultative group of the British government? And how has the group reacted to you?

We have told the consultative group, as have a number of people, what WE prefer to happen. There are people within other communities that are resistant to that, not the least within the British establishment.

They don't want to recognize to the international world that they acted illegally. So we need to find a way to deal with this.

We're getting towards a dialogue towards what is required.

With people so resistant, what is required to get your desired apology and acknowledgment from the British government?

What is required in my view is the intervention of, say, the United States, which has had had previous positive interventions in the political process in Northern Ireland, iin which Sen. Mitchell was appointed by (then-) Pres. Clinton to chair the talks from which the peace process emerged in 1998, which provided the Good Friday (peace) agreement.

NEXT WEEK: Mark Nelson talks to NEWz about the Good Friday agreement (what it should have contained); the historically-inflammatory Protestant parades in Northern Ireland; a proposed Truth Commission and who should head it (hint: a former U.S. president named Jimmy); and ethnic relations in the U.S.

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