OPINION/Colm KeenaIn November1995, a Kenyan journalist taking part in the Paris-based Journalistes en Europe programme - a course for journalists around the world which aims to promote knowledge of Europe - came to Dublin to research a few stories. Her name was Sheila. She contacted me because I was a former participant in the programme.
One of the topics she wanted to cover was social exclusion and poverty and as there had just been a riot in Cherry Orchard in west Dublin, we went there to talk to some residents and community activists. The idea of visiting the area with a black African journalist appealed to me.
We went out in the early afternoon and got off the bus at the top of a suburban road close to a corner, beyond which there was a large open green. Newly built solid brick houses with small front gardens lined the road around the green.
Sheila sat over mugs of tea in the local community centre and discussed the area and its problems with some local women. They told her about the lack of a local school, unemployment, so-called joy-riding, the riot and the remorse which many of those who had been involved were feeling. (A young local boy had been hit in the face by a petrol bomb thrown by one of the rioters.) Dublin Corporation workers were wary about entering the estate in case they were attacked. After the riot a skip was hired and the Corporation gave shovels and sweeping brushes to some of the local youths. Perhaps something good would come of the violence.
It was beginning to get dark when we were leaving. Outside the centre, a young teenager went past on his horse. He stared at Sheila. She waved her hand and he stopped his horse. She explained who she was and asked if she could take a photograph. Having agreed, he sat up straight and proud on his horse and Sheila went to work with her automatic.
Being confronted by a camera-wielding African woman journalist was obviously a significant event for the youngster. He seemed as surprised by her presence in Cherry Orchard as he would have been if she'd been from the moon. The unlikely encounter cheered all three of us.
Across the way, at the corner of the green, was the yellow skip. A fire burnt inside, the orange flames distinct in the fading light. The young man went off on his horse, stopped at a house, tied the horse to a front gate and went inside. There were a number of youths gathered around the skip and Sheila suggested we talk to them. We both wondered how they would react. We need not have worried. Sheila explained who she was and they were all soon involved in a discussion about Cherry Orchard, its problems, and the reasons for the riot.
Sheila scribbled in her notebook as the youths recited a litany of complaints. After a few minutes one of them raised the topic which hung in the air. "I suppose you think this place is great compared to how people live in your country," he said. Sheila agreed and the youth quickly butted in. "The thing is," he said, "it's all relative."
On the way back on the bus people stared. Sheila didn't mind the children staring, it was obvious people in Dublin rarely saw a black person, but she was a little peeved with the adults. I'd been to Kenya once on holiday. We discussed Dublin, Paris, and Nairobi. Sheila reported on fashion for her Nairobi newspaper and was struck by the way people with good jobs went to work in casual clothes in Paris and Dublin. This wouldn't happen in Nairobi, she said. People who had good jobs dressed well. She had seen women in Paris go to work wearing ski pants. Ski pants! The "ladies" in Nairobi would be shocked when she told them.
A nu,ber of journalists visited Dublin from the Journalistes en Europe course in the early 1990s, and the majority of them were black. A black journalist from the US who came two years before Sheila was amazed there was a western European capital where you could walk around all day without seeing a black or coloured face.
Patrick, a journalist from Cameroon who stayed in my apartment, interviewed Rev Ian Paisley in Belfast and queried him about the complex identity issues faced by his \ "tribe". We had a good chat one evening when he explained to me the complexities of the extended family in Africa, and the way individuals who did well were expected to support their less fortunate cousins. Failure to do so could lead to social exclusion.
Zarina, a journalist from Zimbabwe, attended a hare coursing event in Listowel, Co Kerry. Some local anti-coursing activists "snuck" her in. She said people had difficulty keeping their eyes on the hare.
In 1996, Paul Durcan published his book-long poem, Christmas Day, in which the character, Frank, lamented the fact that although he had sat in Bewley's cafe for 30 years, he never saw a black woman come through the door.
In 2003, you have to do a bit of work to make sense of the passage. Bewley's is staffed now by young people from all over the world, including Africa. In a shop before Christmas a Spanish woman, speaking in heavily accented English, turned to me in exasperation to complain about the level of English comprehension of the Chinese woman serving behind the counter. Isn't it wonderful?