|
Red Alert
When I was conducting research on women in educational leadership in Afghanistan prior to the second Taliban takeover, which occurred in August 2021, the country had been in the throes of unending violence. It was not unusual to arrive at the airport in Kabul and drive the only road into town where a suicide bombing had happened just the day before.
Blackhawk helicopters were a common sight flying over the city. On more occasions that I can count, I was in places before or after terrorists had detonated improvised explosive devices, killing and wounding both foreign and domestic citizens, in all areas of Kabul, including Embassy Row, the Intercontinental Hotel, and the Serena Hotel, where I stayed during my visits.
One afternoon I was returning from interviewing women leaders and after completing the numerous security checks, I seated myself in the lobby, where I knew I could count on a pot of afternoon tea making a swift appearance. A member of the International Security Assistant Force (ISAF) sat across me and eyed me with curiosity. He stated rather than asked,
You must have your Kevlar vest in that backpack.
I smiled and replied,
Is that a violin in the case by your side?
Of course, it was an M4, not a musical instrument. And perhaps less predictably, I had no Kevlar vest.
As a guest of the Afghan Foreign Ministry, I was both a target of the Taliban and a protected guest of the government. I continually debated whether I was safer in an SUV with tinted windows and bodyguards or in a nondescript taxi that would melt inconspicuously into Kabul traffic.
While my rationale for risking my life to tell Afghan girls’ and women’s stories is another tale unto itself, what is relevant is that through my work in the former Soviet Union during the collapse in the early 1990s and in an array of other conflict- and post-conflict countries where I conduct investigations, I have experienced on a more limited basis what many in the world experience daily—the precarious fragility of everyday life.
It was therefore with a small bit of consternation that I received an alert from the United Kingdom Security Service, also known as MI5, raising the terrorism threat level from "Substantial" to "Severe" in Northern Ireland, where I was headed to present my research last week. The threat level meant that an attack was highly likely.
I reached out to my colleague in Dublin for her thoughts on the warning. Dr. Mary Cunneen suggested that it was more likely I would die in a school shooting in the United States than in Belfast. The killing of three school children and three staff members in Nashville only days before had made international news. We could find no indication from our conference organizers or from any other official outlet that we should change our travel plans.
When we arrived in Belfast, we saw no heightened police presence, no checkpoints, and no suggestion that anything approaching terrorism was imminent. People went about their business. Weddings and proms were a continual presence at our hotel. Pubs were full. All tourist venues were operational. And our Education Studies Association of Ireland conference was a go.
At a dinner one evening, I met a professor from Queen’s University Belfast who explained to me the nature of the alerts. While driving to Belfast through the town of Dumdrum in County Down (population, 1555), Dr. Donna Hazzard found herself at a police checkpoint—something that she said had not happened since “The Troubles” had passed.
The term, The Troubles, broadly speaking, is a euphemism for the 30-year period of sectarian violence from 1968 to 1998 between Protestants and Catholics over British rule. Donna was therefore quite caught off-guard with this stop and the officer’s request for her identification.
Officer: Your ID, please?
Donna: [Donna sighs.] Do you see these nails? [Donna motions towards her freshly painted red fingernails.] I cannot reach into my purse and get my ID without destroying my nail polish.
Officer: I understand. [Officer clearly sympathetic.] No need to show your ID. You can proceed.
That was the sum of Donna’s Red Alert this past week—protecting her new manicure.
Donna further explained that although the stop was amusing, that the Northern Irish are fairly inured to these warnings, given the years of terror they endured. On a far more serious note, she reflected,
Ours is a fragile peace.
I had learned in the previous days about education in Northern Ireland—that fully 94% of their schools are segregated. Catholics go to the Catholic schools and Protestants to the Protestant schools. The remaining 6% attend schools with “shared education”—and these attempts at integration represent a small but growing movement in the country. This notion of peacebuilding and reconciliation through schooling is not without controversy, however.
Irish author Edna O’Brien, wrote,
Irish? In truth I would not want to be anything else. It is a state of mind as well as an actual country. It is being at odds with other nationalities, having quite different philosophy about pleasure, about punishment, about life, and about death. At least it does not leave one pusillanimous.
Each time I visit a new country, I find myself continually in awe of the kindness extended to strangers such as I, and of the sheer complexity I encounter. No soul is simple, but as I left Belfast by train on Sunday afternoon, I found myself musing about another of Edna’s observations on her fellow Irish:
When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.
I’ll consider that a profound insight into many of us, for are we not each a work in progress?
With and for ferocious tenacity,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth C. Orozco Reilly
| 
