 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Editorial:
Minority Report
Anna Rankin
Comment:
Racism in Ulster: Up-front and Ugly
Ken Newell
From
the Director: Naming Our Sin
David W Porter
Faith
in Ulster: Facing Up to Diversity
Stephen Skuce
Faith
and Practice
Walter Lewis
Interview
with Rose Ozo: Where the Heart Is
Anna Rankin
Craigavon:
Religious Liberty in the Shadow of Drumcree
Small Steps
Tim Foley
Embracing the Stranger
Richard Kerr
Review:
On Eagle's Wing
Ethel White
Review:
Conflict, Controversy and Co-operation
John W Morrow
Review:
The Subversive Manifesto
John Kyle
Review:
L is for Lifestyle
Claire Martin
Review:
It Will Not Be Taken Away From Her
Cary Gibson
Review:
Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance
Paul Rankin
Review:
Two Little Boys
John Gillespie
Review:
Son
David Smith
INTERVIEW: ROSE
OZO
WHERE THE HEART IS
Rose Ozo is from Nigeria and has lived in Belfast for 22 years. She and her husband first came to Northern Ireland in 1982 to do postgraduate studies in Queens, in the fields of Education and Medicine, respectively. Her husband, Oni, is a pathologist in the Antrim Hospital and they have two sons aged 18 and 20. Some years ago Rose became a volunteer member of the Prayer Ministry Team at Restoration Ministries and is now full-time secretary there.
In many ways Rose Ozo has sucessfully integreated with ‘both communities’ in Northern Ireland. Here she describes in vivid terms what it is like being on the receiving end of racism, a regular feature of her life here over the past 22 years, about which she has seldom spoken publicly. Rose describes her decision to give this interview as ‘coming out’.
What was it like
for you leaving Nigeria and coming to Northern Ireland? How did your family
react?
I always say, flippantly most of the time, “I was young and in love”
and I thought I was going for my honeymoon because I had just got married.
I was only going for three years, you see. My family were happy for me
and yet, being the youngest girl, I’m sure it was very difficult
for them to let me go.
What I miss most is the extended family system that we take for granted in Nigeria. Most of the time here I was on my own with the children so I had to be mother, father, grandparents, aunties. My children missed out on that big family experience and on so many family occasions, being here. I have two sisters and three brothers. It is very hard.
I still feel lonely. Especially at Christmas. You wouldn’t like to see my phone bills – they are unbelievable! Thank God for mobile phones and texts. It’s been a very lonely road but in the last two years at least I have been home two times and my family have come to visit me as well.
I would love to go back tomorrow. I come from a very close-knit family. But I don’t know where home is anymore because of my husband and my children and what they are involved in here. My husband is very much settled here with his work. He is very academic and loves the challenge of the research and the opportunities he has here in Northern Ireland. They would be limited in Nigeria for the type of medicine he is practicing. He is a pathologist. He does biopsies, post-mortems, reporting, screening for breast cancer, that kind of thing.
My children have spent most of their lives here – they call themselves the ‘Irish Nigerians.’ If you hear their accents you know that they are definitely Northern Irish.
Apart from missing
your family, what other difficulties have you had to face?
We came here as students and had no plans to stay permanently – we
just got an extension on our visitor’s visas every time. We lived
for nine-and-a-half years in Northern Ireland, then went to New Zealand
for 2 years. When my husband got a job in Saudi Arabia, I decided to come
back to Northern Ireland with my sons so that they could continue on with
their education – we had become part of the community here. I went
to extend my visa and that was the beginning of a lot of problems with
immigration. If I had asked for permanent residency after five years I
would have got it automatically but I didn’t know that, I just did
the six-monthly thing.
I had a terrible, terrible time for about two years with immigration. I remember vividly an incident where I went to the immigration office with my husband and I was explaining to the man that I needed to extend my visa. The official said to me, “It is the likes of you we want out of this country.” I said “Why? I have been here for nine years before we left and I have a house here and I have two children who were born here.”
He said, “You had no right buying a house in Northern Ireland, we want you out.” I have never been so humiliated, so degraded, in my life. It was painful. I said to the man, “What do I do with my children?” He said, “Just leave them and go, get out.” My husband said nothing so we got up and left, just left. I felt so sorry for my husband. So we went out and we had to get in touch with solicitors in London.
By that time I didn’t even realise that I was already in trouble. They were about to deport me and I didn’t even know that! The solicitor that I had sent my papers to in London mishandled the whole thing.
My elder son is a British citizen. Between 1982 and 1985 the law changed so the younger one wasn’t at that stage but he was an Irish citizen. I was paying for my children’s school fees, I was paying my way. I never received one penny from anybody. This immigration officer believed I should leave my children and get out of the country. I put the older one into Methody so at least he would have that stability in his life. I thought if they are going to force me out, then I can take the younger one and go.
The church, parish priest and my friends just rallied round me. Sometimes, when I think about it I get really, really overwhelmed with the love and friendship I received. Until you are in trouble you don’t really know how people value you. A friend of mine just went to the parish priest and said, “We cannot let Rose leave this country.” He got in touch with the MP, Mr Joe Hendron who put my case across. I found out that the best thing was for my husband to come back to Northern Ireland. If he got a job here, it would be fine and then I could stay on his visa.
Having gone through that experience, the love and friendship and the support I received was quite revealing for me. I knew then that I had been accepted as one of them. It was a terrible experience but it was a blessing, a blessing and I salute the people of St Peter’s parish.
Has the church
always had a central place in your life?
I am from the Igboe tribe, from the eastern part of Nigeria and we have
strong connections with the Irish missionaries. My area was the first
place they came to. It is just a matter of accident that the Irish missionaries
came to the eastern part of Nigeria while the British missionaries went
to the western part. Most of the west would be Anglican and most of the
east would be Catholic. So it is not a matter of choosing what denomination
you are. That was how it happened.
My great, great uncle – I can’t remember it is so far back – was the first tribal or traditional chief to accept baptism from the Irish missionaries. Once he did that they were able to convince other tribes that they could accept baptism. So the Catholic Church is rooted in my area. The blessed Tansi, a Cistercian monk who was made a saint last year, comes from my hometown.
My father was one of the first teachers trained by the Irish missionaries – he was a headmaster for 25 years – and I was taught by Irish missionaries since nursery school.
How does church
life in Nigeria compare to church here?
I can never
forget the first service I went to when I came – it lasted fifteen
minutes. I thought, is this a joke or what? I was just warming up! If
you attend Mass in Nigeria it will be at least one hour. I think it is
to do with the cultural differences. We are musical people; we have a
freedom to dance if we want to dance, to express exactly how we are feeling.
I find in the church here people don’t sing. In Nigeria everybody
sings. That would be one of the biggest differences. One of the things
that I miss is the sense of celebration. I think it is amazing how people
can be celebrating standing still, their faces not moving, you know what
I mean? I am so happy, so very happy – you can’t see it on their
faces – I express the happiness on my face.
I think part of the problem is that in the western world people have very comfortable lives. You have water, you have light, you have social services. People in Nigeria or in what are called developing countries are not materially very comfortable but they rely solely on God – totally on God – so spirituality is for real.
Church has a different meaning or definition in Nigeria and it has a different outlook. If you are travelling by transport bus or coach and different people have boarded the bus – you don’t know who is there and what denomination or what religion they are – once the driver starts the engine somebody says, "If nobody is going to start praying, I will pray!” And they pray for a safe journey, and when they get to the other end they thank God for a safe journey. When you witness that you say “That’s church!” realising that you have all the denominations in that place, and Muslims as well, and they will all be part of this praying because they all believe in one God.
You lived through
some of the worst of ‘the Troubles’. How have you experienced
the sectarian divisions here?
I found it difficult to readjust because I had been away from ‘the
Troubles’. We came back in 1992 when the boys were about eight-and-a-half
and six. Until you step out of this situation you don’t realise what
you have been living through. Although in some ways we were protected
from that because we always lived around the University area, I am sure
everyone is affected in one way or the other.
People try so hard to put you in a box – you have to be on one side or the other. This is the first time I have really come out and said, “I am a Catholic.” In that regard, being black or being African actually does help because you don’t fit in.
Somebody said to me, “Rose, ok we’ve established you are black, but are you catholic or protestant?” Somebody really asked me that – or rather, what they actually said was, “What foot do you kick with?” I had never heard that before! I was born a Catholic I married into a Protestant family in Nigeria, part of my family is Catholic and part is Protestant. So I kick with both. I describe myself as someone struggling to be Christian. I can easily worship in any church which professes Christ.
Have you found
it easy to integrate in Northern Ireland?
I made a conscious decision to be part of the community. I got into different
organisations in the church and that helped a lot. You get to know people
when you meet with them in little groups and they get to know you. But
it is very difficult to get into these groups. Northern Ireland is a very
small place and they all know each other – everyday I find there
are more connections. You have to virtually go out of your way to make
friends. If they have each other either through marriage or from school
they don’t bother with an outsider coming in. Not that they are doing
it consciously, but they have been together as a group so they don’t
realise that if you are an outsider you need to get into these little
groups. Once they get to know you they accept you for who you are and
that makes it very easy.
I would say it was easier for the children. Children socialise and integrate easily. Mine are 20 and 18 and they still remain friends with the people they went to nursery school with.
I have also found this to be true in Church. I have to be careful here, it is not a criticism it is just a statement of fact from my observation, but if I would come into the church everyday and leave nobody would speak to me. I don’t know if this is because the Irish people tend to be very reserved, or they don’t know how to approach a stranger.
I had decided right from the beginning that I wasn’t going to be part of the sub-culture of ‘ethnic minority’ – I wanted to be part of the community. I wanted to belong to the two divided communities in Northern Ireland and I think we have managed to do that as a family.
Did you as a family
deliberately seek to build relationships within both communities?
Yes, where
we lived, through the school my children attended – Methodist College
is like a United Nations. In Methody you wouldn’t feel you were different
because there are so many ‘different’ people there and they
are not really in a minority. I wanted them to experience a microcosm
of the world.
But I do have a painful story to tell. My sons are very involved in rugby and my older boy is very good. In his final year he was part of the team who played in the Schools’ Cup at Ravenhill. I think he scored the most tries in that tournament.
I didn’t realise how big rugby is here. I think it is a very rough game! But I always told them to get into sports because I think that is another way of integrating into the community. My children played everything from Gaelic football to tennis, rugby, soccer and athletics. They got to meet people from different backgrounds through all the sports.
I was at the Schools’ Cup final with my husband and friends. During the match we heard that there were disturbances in the stadium. The headmaster was saying, “This is terrible, they are going to stop this match if this doesn’t stop.” We were so involved in the game that we didn’t know what was going on.
Before the game we were having some odd phone calls to the house. I later discovered that a gang of people had actually got prepared and come to Ravenhill just to shout racist abuse at my son. People came to the stadium with bananas and threw them onto the pitch.
After the match my son was weeping. I asked him, “Why are you crying?” He said, “I am just overwhelmed with joy.” Later on my son was telling me he knew. Somebody told him that this was going to happen and he was worried that I would be there. This was one time when he would have been part of the community. I was very proud of him, proud that he did that for his school and for the community that we live in. But just because of the colour of his skin he was treated in that way A week earlier Neil Lennon, playing football for Northern Ireland, was booed so much that they had to withdraw him from the match. He vowed to never play for Northern Ireland again. What happened to him in the form of sectarianism happened to my son a week later in the form of racism. I felt this was so sad.
The Belfast Telegraph carried the story about the cup final1 and of course people can’t handle things like that. All I have heard is that there is no racism in Northern Ireland. Some even twisted it and said, “It’s not racism, they must have found out he was Catholic.”
I think because we ignore the fact that sectarianism and racism are so bad it is difficult for us to acknowledge that these things happen. It happens to my family in one form or another every single week – and I have been here for 22 years.
In what other
ways have you experienced racism here?
In Nigeria naming a child means a lot because we name our children according
to what is happening in our lives. But when my children were at school
we had a teacher who refused to call my son by his name and said, “Why
can’t you have a proper name?” My child was only about five.
He said, “Why won’t she call me by my name? She refuses to call
me by my name.” Now, I can handle a lot of things but when it affects
my children it really breaks me. When a seven-year-old or a five-year-old
comes to me and says, “She wouldn’t call me by my name because
I haven’t got a proper name.” What do I do?
Some things are so subtle, some are so blatant. I feel sorry for my Irish friends because sometimes when I am walking on the street with them, a car will slow down and the people call me every single dirty name they can call me as they drive past… that happens regularly – to me and to my children.
When I said to my boys I was going to give this interview and I asked them “How do you experience racism?” They said “Mum, where do I start?” What about when someone says “Go back to your country”? They say to him, “But I was born here.” Whether you were born here or not, if your skin is black you are not from this country. That is what some people are letting them know. So you work hard to be part of the community but you are reminded regularly you are not really part of this community. The more foreigners we have coming here, the more people feel threatened. I have said to somebody “Hello” and they have said, “It is the likes of you who come here to use our hospitals.”
Working in Restoration Ministries I am sort of cocooned because if people get to know you as a person the colour of your skin doesn’t matter so much because they know that you are a human being and you have removed the label they have for you. I’m sure that applies with sectarianism as well, once you get to know the other person. People know me as Rose. So you go out and you experience racist abuse, but when somebody calls you a friend then you know you are not ‘only black’ here. They experience the person.
Do you think racism
is taken seriously in Northern Ireland?
We went to the anti-racism rally and it was the first time I had been
to a rally. And I actually came away from it feeling sad. I thought not
many people responded to that call. They don’t seem to think it’s
a big problem.
A lot of people are in denial. Racism happens in America and London, not here. One time I was in the company of two of my colleagues and someone mentioned about racism in Northern Ireland. This person said, “Oh, that’s just a one-off incident. There is no racism in Northern Ireland.” And he asked me directly, “You don’t experience racism here, would you?” I could see my two colleagues nodding. I said, “Well, actually I do.” He said, “Are you not just being oversensitive?” And I told him, “No, I don’t think I would call myself oversensitive.”
When my children grew up I decided I would go back to work. I have a degree, I have a diploma in teaching and I have a postgraduate diploma in teaching from Queens. I went from one recruitment agency to another and most of them said to me, “We have no cleaning jobs for you.” After looking through my certificates! “If we find a cleaning job for you we will give you a ring.” Now that is painful.
My husband came out one morning to go to work and just came in and said, “I have to call a taxi.” I said “Why?” He said, “Come and see our car.” There was ‘National Front’ in black spray paint all over the car.
Each time I suffer any racist incident I get so much love in return when people realise what has happened, so when you balance it out it is not too bad. And Northern Ireland is not alone. There is racism in every part of the world including in my own country. We have different tribes so there is racism there as well. But it does happen here.
Do you see a similarity
between sectarianism and racism?
The only difference is that if you are walking down the street no one
would know if you are catholic or protestant or if you are from Dublin
or Poland or Russia. No one will open the window and say to you “Nigger
go back where you came from!” If I walked down the street it is so
obvious – that’s the difference. But if you turn it around,
then I am free to walk down the orange streets or the green streets.
I don’t want to offend anyone but I want to say, “This is what it is like being a black woman in Northern Ireland.”
How do you respond
when you experience racism?
I guess it depends on the space I am in. If I am in a good space I can
handle things better. If I am in a bad space it breaks me.
You see, people assume a lot. Even here in Restoration Ministries I meet people at the door and I have had people say to me, “Oh, you keep this house nice and clean for Ruth,” [Ruth Patterson, Director of Restoration Ministries]. I say, “No I don’t. Ruth lives here and she cleans her own house.” And they say, “But you do a very good job,” Even as I am saying that I am not the resident cleaner here! I find it funny sometimes, and sometimes I find it humiliating and insulting.
Or somebody picking up the phone and hearing your voice and your foreign accent saying, “Is there nobody else there to answer the call, somebody I could talk to?” If you listen carefully, you will understand what I am saying.
What do you think
the different communities in Northern Ireland can do to try and overcome
racist attitudes?
My children
observed something during the Holy Thursday ceremonies. We came out from
the washing of the feet and they said to me “Mum how do they pick
the people who get their feet washed?” I said, “Out of the community.”
They said, “There were no young people there, they are part of the
community. And it would have been nice if they picked one foreign person.”
At that time racism was being highlighted in the media and I said, “Yes,
it would be a statement that we acknowledge you and welcome you as part
of the community.”
Do you think the
church is doing enough to welcome the stranger?
In our church a group of people and the parish priest organised an evening
to welcome all the foreigners in South Belfast, actually at the height
of the publicity about racism back in March. I don’t know what happened,
people are fairly new here and people are shy and I don’t know if
it was how it was organised but not many people came for the evening.
The children from the school had done a fabulous job of Irish dancing,
Irish singing and short dramas but we didn’t have a lot of foreigners
attending. I said to the parish priest, “Please don’t give up
– do this again. We need to send out a message to people.”
I think the churches would like to do something but they don’t know how and they don’t want to be seen to be political. But on a one-to-one they are very supportive.
How can we build
better relationships with others in the community and particularly those
we regard as ‘different’?
In some ways I am an extrovert who will approach people first, I’ll
talk to somebody at the checkout – when they have their name badge
I address them by their name. I really do think that in a community you
not only have to look after one another, you have to respect one another,
no matter how small or where you come from. We need to realise that we
all need each other.
I think that the typical Northern Irish person wouldn’t approach you. The ones who travel, the young ones, are better because they come up to you and ask, “Where are you from?” It is very good to ask these questions.
One of the first experiences I had in 1982 was going into a shop and a young child ran up to me and wanted to touch me! I was stooping down to let this child touch me to feel my skin. The mother just came and pulled the child away. I said, “It’s ok,” but the mother pulled the child away. I felt that was a very destructive thing she did because it was as if you don’t go near people ‘like that’. I think that is a wrong message. If you had let this child feel my skin and ask me I would have answered her and the child would have been more informed.
The mother might
have been afraid of offending you, but the child was just being curious
and had no inhibitions.
Exactly. It would have been a very natural thing – let this child
ask me, “Why is your hand black?” If this white person comes
to my village in Africa where maybe they haven’t seen a lot of white
people, they will be saying, “Is she for real? How can anybody’s
skin be so light?” I think difference should be welcomed, in welcoming
difference we know more. I think we will be enriched by the diversity
of our culture.
I’ll tell you a funny story. My sister-in-law came from Boston to visit us and after a week she said to me, “Do you not have any friends?” I said, “But people have been coming and going here all week!” She said “They are Irish.” I said, “But these are my friends!”
I went to visit her. They live according to their origins in ghettos that are well demarcated, which I found very stifling.
Do your children
still feel they are not welcome here, even though Northern Ireland is
their home?
Yes. Because people are hearing about political asylum seekers everyone
is now labelled a political asylum seeker, whoever you are, even if like
my children you were born here.
The basic needs of any human being are to be loved, to belong and to be able to feed yourself. If I am described as a political asylum seeker or an economic migrant I don’t think there is anything wrong about me trying to better myself. Millions of Irish people left this island because they were hungry and they wanted food, they wanted to better themselves and they wanted a better future for their children. That is quite the natural thing. When I went to Westport last year I went to see the famine ship monument [the National Famine Monument], near Croagh Patrick2. I was standing there and I could feel the shivers down my spine. This is exactly why Mexicans and Cubans are drowning in the sea, this is why people are swimming the channel. This has been happening for centuries – it is not new. Which makes it very sad because it shouldn’t be happening now, should it? We have resources. If they were distributed equally, people shouldn’t have to drown.
I think things will change. I think it is a challenge to Northern Ireland that the people keep coming. I keep saying the world is on the move. We are always moving. How many people are going to travel to different parts of the world on holidays? When you look though the channels on the TV it is all about ‘relocation’ people are relocating, moving from England to Spain or to America.
Travel is very good; it is very enriching. We have been so fortunate in the family that we have lived in the five continents of the world so it has been very good for us. But it is always an ordeal to go through the airport – even before 9/11 and Iraq. You are questioned and searched and always asked to stand aside. Some of them are ok they are just doing their job, but some of them just treat you like a criminal. It’s humiliating – that’s the word I would use – going through the airport, through immigration.
Every culture is rich and we learn from each other. People have said to me, “You cannot understand the Troubles,” but as a child I lived through the Biafran War [1967-1970]3. One million children were killed in that war. I know about the ‘disappeared’. Three of my brothers disappeared and we never got their bodies back. I have been in those shoes. I remember walking with our belongings on our heads for three days and three nights – a refugee in my own country. You cannot compare pain, but no one has the monopoly on pain. Mine was just as real, but life goes on.
It is very difficult when people are in pain. I think that is why I have a heart for this job in Restoration Ministries. I have been wounded. I grew up in a war situation and therefore I have empathy. It was amazing for me to meet one of the mothers of The Disappeared here and to realise that my mother must have felt this way. And I realised how long I had been waiting for my brothers to come back, and they never did.
NOTES:
1 Belfast Telegraph 06 April 2001 ‘Racist
taunts shame at rugby final’ by Smyth Harper. The Belfast Telegraph
online archive is at: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/search/search.jsp
2 The National Famine Monument was unveiled by Mary Robinson,
the President of Ireland at the time, on July 20th 1997. The sculpture
by John Behan depicts a ‘Coffin Ship’ with skeleton bodies and
commemorates the anniversary of the Irish Famine 150 years ago, when the
population declined from 8 million to 4 million. See image on http://www.croagh-patrick.com/natfamine.html
3 For a brief background on the Biafran War, read ‘Biafra:
Thirty years on’ by the BBC’s Nigeria correspondent Barnaby
Philips http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/596712.stm
ROSE OZO was interviewed by Anna Rankin at Restoration Ministries on 21st June, 2004.
 |
||
 |
 |
|