By Matthew Leslie
FERMANAGH-BASED writer and campaigner, Emma DeSouza, has chaired an all-women’s online forum to discuss the evolving identities present on the island of Ireland.
A number of speakers were present including award-winning poet, Nandi Jola, Bronagh Hinds who was a founding member of the NI Women’s Coalition and Leanne Abernathy from Women in Loyalism.
DeSouza, who famously fought a lengthy legal battle against the British Home Office to be accepted as an Irish citizen under the Good Friday Agreement, said the event was to discuss the subject of identity and that the restrictive practice of pigeon-holing people into one group – be it Catholic or Protestant – is outdated given the complex make-up of each different individual on the island.
“The event was part of the all-Ireland women’s forum,” said Emma, “which is a peace-building structure led by the National Women’s council which I chair and facilitate.
“The forum actually had a Peace-Building conference here in Fermanagh back in February when the President of Ireland (Michael D. Higgins) attended. This event that’s just gone, was the final public online webinar we hosted.
“The forum was really keen to use this opportunity to talk about a very complex issue which is identity. We hosted an online space which was a story-telling session where we invited women from across the island to discuss the complexity of their own identity.
“Here in Northern Ireland, there is a very strong focus on a binary concept of identity that is still very segregated into two communities. We wanted to use this as an opportunity to highlight the nuances and complexities of dual-identities and multiple identities and the various facets that we all have.
“We brought in women from lots of different backgrounds – we had activists, poets and writers. We had women who would identify as dual Nigerian and Irish, we had unionist speakers and people coming from different backgrounds to share both the differences and commonalities that we have.
“The real strong outcome from that experience was that we’re all quite complicated but also that identity in this place is really diverse, nuanced and changing and that there needs to be more spaces for dialogue so that people can have these conversations so that we can build a greater understanding on an all-island basis.”
Emma added that her successful court case to establish her own Irishness has opened doors to others to be more confident in asserting their own identities and being more at ease with whatever they identify as being.
She continued, “This is really personal for me because I have had that unique experience by having to literally go to the courts. I have had personal feedback from people who have been able to benefit from the changes that came from my case.
“The case was rather challenging because it went on for five years and knowing that there were people who stood to benefit from that and have a huge impact on their own lives made that challenge very much worth it.
“Having completed our first year the Forum will be launching a report in September, complete with a set of ambitious recommendations to improve North-South cooperation and embed women’s voices in peacebuilding. The report will be given to be both the Irish government and NI Assembly.”
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