Fighting Sectarianism With One Eye Closed.

When the subject of Sectarianism, or religious bigotry is aired in Glasgow, rarely, if ever does the subject of segregated schooling come under any level of scrutiny, despite those at the sharp end of such Projects as Sense over Sectarianism, or Nil By Mouth recounting their experiences of segregated education as a contributory factor towards Sectarianism

Alison Logan (Sense over Sectarianism)

"When I was a child I went to Craigbank Secondary School, as it was then, and the Catholic school Bellarmine was close by and there was always tension. "Part of that was territorial, but a lot of it was about 'we're us and they're them'. It was that Catholic/Protestant divide.”

Helen Miller (Nil By Mouth), 2003

“NIL BY MOUTH has stepped up its fight against bigotry in Scotland by appointing its first co-ordinator, Northern Ireland-born Helen Miller, who understands the issues only too well. SHEILA HAMILTON reports…..

….For most of her childhood, Helen, too, accepted the status quo. She was born and brought up in Coleraine, County Derry, and was 15 before she got to know young people from the same town who were from "the other side".

"It was segregated schools, segregated buses, segregated youth clubs," she shrugged. "You go to church and all the youth clubs are linked to that church and you never met any children from the other community."

The real shame is that sinister forces forced a position shift from Miller a year later in November 2004, following an interview on BBC Radio Scotland with NbM Trustee Peter McLean, who formerly worked for Celtic Football Club, wrote for the Catholic Herald and worked as spokesman for Cardinal Winning at Glasgow’s Archdiocese.

“With regards to your comments on the joint campus issue in North Lanarkshire, Nil by Mouth strongly support the principle of joint campus schools. We believe that joint campus schools can help to address the separation that currently exists in some communities. Joint campus schools give children from different religious and cultural backgrounds the opportunity to mix together and in a country where we have a diversity of faiths and a tradition of denominational schools, joint campus schools offer a way forward where religious diversity can be maintained in an inclusive and respectful environment.

Since joint campus schools are a relatively new phenomenon in Scotland Nil by Mouth recognise that there will be problems in the early stages as has been evident in North Lanarkshire. However, joint campus schools are going ahead in North Lanarkshire and this is something that Nil by Mouth view as positive. As the programme develops and teachers, children and parents settle into the new system they may decided to make changes in staff rooms, gates etc but for now the local authority appears to have consulted and negotiated a compromise to implement change the joint campus programme as sensitively as possible.”

Remember, that this is the “joint campus” in my previous post, where the RC Church fought against any shared aspect that would have resulted in children of different faiths actually talking to each other.

Quite what prompted the shift one will never know, but the untainted quote straight from her experiences compared with a policy of segregation cloaked under “joint” branding is radically different. I wonder why.

DJM