All we are as people is a collection of stories — those we are toldii89ph, those told about us, those we tell to ourselves and others. They explain our identity and express our values, and they’ve long shaped societies — Sparta as a culture of warriors, America as the land of the free and so on. But when several conflicting stories are being told, they can also limit us, delude us and divide us. Too often they suit only the teller, not the audience.
I am a professional storyteller, and the stories I’m particularly concerned about are the ones that distract us and divide us about climate change — the fierce I’m-right-and-you’re-wrong of it all — given the stakes.
I grew up in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, a land of natural-born storytellers — both the kind who entertain and the kind that break our hearts. An invisible line cuts Ireland, my island home, in two. North of that line, the particular story around which we’ve built our divided identity is the perception of an enemy who lives just across the street — Catholic nationalists who identify as Irish, and Protestant loyalists who identify as British — whom we must constantly resist. If our enemy believes that something is right, it must, by definition, be wrong.
For years now, and not just since Oct. 7, 2023, Catholic areas of Northern Ireland have flown the flag of Palestine in solidarity with what was once a similar plight of occupation and oppression. And whenever they do, Protestant areas inevitably respond by flying the star of David, not so much out of any particular alignment with Zionism as with the idea that your enemy’s enemy is your friend.
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In government, this has (for most of the past century) been represented at the extremes by Sinn Fein, the political party of Irish nationalism, and the D.U.P., the Protestant political party that stands for British loyalism. The fact that they continue to get voted in as the two majority parties, even though neither has much track record of workable solutions for the broader population, shows that we remain as divided as ever.
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