‘Otherness in our Midst’

Culture Migration and Religious Identity: The Place of the Immigrant in the Irish Religious Landscape 

A One-day Symposium entitled ‘Otherness’ in our Midst.  Culture Migration and Religious Identity: The Place of the Immigrant in the Irish Religious Landscape, was hosted by the Irish Centre for Faith and Culture at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, on Thursday 8th May 2008. Sponsored by the Irish Bishops’ Conference, The Maynooth Scholastic Trust, and The Faculty of Theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, the Symposium was timely in the context of an increasing sensitivity to the place of the immigrant in the Irish religious landscape.  The speakers included Dr Martin Mansergh, TD., Dr Donal Murray, Bishop of Limerick, Pastor Anthony Joseph, Senior Pastor and President of Hope and Glory Christian Ministries, and Professor Miroslav Volf from the Yale Centre for Faith and Culture. 

Some of the key issues raised at the Symposium challenged its participants to think again about our interaction with our immigrants.  How do we understand and welcome the ‘other’ in our midst?  How do we adapt to the complex but necessary attitude of allowing the other to be precisely that: ‘the other’ 

An opening address was given by the Director of the Irish Centre for Faith and Culture, Professor Michael A. Conway.  Entitled ‘Beginning with the Other’ Professor Conway’s address led the way with a stimulating and enjoyable philosophy on the subject of ‘doorways’ and whom we welcome or refuse entry.  Referring to the doorways between different cultures, Professor Conway spoke of the two major narratives that have emerged in the twentieth century in relation to migration.  The first is that of cultural integration or assimilation and the second is multi-culturalism.  Built on the premise that the ‘other’ must surrender their ‘otherness’ to become part of the new order, cultural integration, insists that the ‘other’ must become the same.  Multi-culturalism, however, recognizes the ‘other’ as just that: ‘other’ and insists upon total segregation in order to preserve both the ‘other’ and the ‘self.’  Professor Conway suggested that we should not be content with either of these models and suggests that it is time for a new narrative.  To abandon the ‘other’ or leave them at the mercy of these dynamics, says Professor Conway, is to forsake our own Christian tradition. 

Dr Martin Mansergh is the newly appointed Minister of State at the Department of Finance and Junior Minister for the Arts.  His lecture, ‘The Other – Paradigm, Power and Accommodation,’ gave a comprehensive and entertaining account of being the ‘other’ as a member of the Anglican community in the Republic of Ireland.  From a political perspective, Dr Mansergh spoke of the prevailing culture of Northern Ireland, after the civil war, as British, Unionist, and Orange.  ‘Otherness’ was recognized mainly as a threat to be kept down and contained, said Dr Mansergh.  In the rest of the island, those creating the new state worked off an inherited British model, adapted it, and reshaped Irish society south of the border, partly because there was no substantial minority to block or hinder the changes.  There was a certain amount of ambivalence on both sides, suggested Dr Mansergh, with regard to identity and where there was a crossing of boundaries between the majority and minority, particularly in terms of mixed marriages, it was strictly on the terms of the majority.  Tolerance worked reasonably well in the south, said Dr Mansergh, but it involved an acceptance that for all practical purposes Ireland was a Catholic country, even if a certain formal separation of Church and State was written into the Constitution.  Dr Mansergh mentioned that identity and the composition of countries is not static.  Different models of self-understanding succeed in each generation and the Ireland of today, which has accommodated great diversity with substantial migration, has given rise to the term ‘new Irish.’  There is a balance to be struck, said Dr Mansergh, between valuing and cherishing separate identities, but also in identifying common ground, which facilitates accommodation, cooperation, and closer relationships. 

Dr Donal Murray’s address ‘The Other and Beyond’ reflected upon encountering and communicating with the ‘other,’ which becomes an arduous task if we do not firstly recognise the ‘other’ as ‘other’ and secondly, that interaction with others gives us a clearer idea of our own identity.  The idea that I am Irish, said Bishop Murray, only acquires meaning if I know that there are people who are not Irish and when I begin to have some idea of what is distinctive about other nations and their people in terms of their location, culture, language, history, social and, political structures, then my own self-understanding is enriched.  Knowing the ‘other’ is about recognising others, not just in theory, suggested Bishop Murray, but by acknowledging them to be people like myself, which is a fundamental opening of myself to see beyond my limited perspective.  The acceptance and recognition that others are ‘I’s, is the fundamental puncturing of the illusion of moral egocentricity, said Bishop Murray.  It means that I am no longer the centre of the universe.  I can no longer be the source of the meaning of my own life, because that meaning cannot be constructed without reference to the world around me.   

Entitled ‘The Other – the Hurt, the Horror and Hope,’ Pastor Anthony Joseph shared his experience of moving with his family from Nigeria to Ireland.  This made for a very engaging exchange between some of the listeners and Pastor Anthony as they imparted some of their own encounters as the ‘other’ abroad.   

This year the Michael Devlin Lecture as part of this Symposium welcomed Professor Miroslav Volf who delivered his lecture, entitled ‘“The Other,” Violence, and Memory.’   Professor Volf is the Director of the Yale Centre for Faith & Culture and Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School.  A native of Croatia, Professor Volf has forged a theology of forgiveness and non-violence in the face of the horrendous violence experienced in Croatia and Serbia in the 1990s. While he maintains an active interest in many aspects of faith’s relation to culture, his primary work has focused on theological understandings of work, the church, the Trinity, violence, reconciliation and memory.

Professor Volf spoke about the role of memory, identity, and otherness.  Challenging those who attended his lecture to always remember and never forget, Volf noted that reconciliation and forgiveness both require memory, but remembering rightly.  One of the key issues raised by Volf was the question of what it meant to be ‘self,’ to have an identity and how the differences between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ generate boundaries and violence.  Reconciliation, or ‘the cure,’ as Volf referred to it, occurs when the ‘self’ nurtures its own complex sense of identity, and recognizes that the identity of the ‘other’ is also complex, of which the ‘self’ is a part.  Rejection of the ‘other,’ says Volf, is self-hatred.  If the ‘self’ rejects the ‘other’ from one’s own identity (that is, we are we and they are they, whoever we and they may be) then there is no meeting ground for the two groups, and the stranger is perceived as enemy. 

Finally, the Professor of Liturgy, Liam Tracey, gave the response to Professor Volf’s lecture.  Professor Tracey noted that identities are a positive good and by their nature require boundaries.  But identities are also shaped by interchanges between selves, suggested Professor Tracey, and boundaries are not just present, therefore, to keep things out.  They also serve to allow things in.  Others enrich us, even as we remain ourselves, said Professor Tracey, boundaries are porous and identities are not self-enclosed. 

The event also included an art exhibition with the work of Polish artist Natalia Czarnecka and during the evening supper ‘Grace Notes,’ a stringed quartet, entertained those who attended the symposium.

You can view some photos from the symposium below:

(Click on the photo to see an enlarged version)