The Image of Ourselves – by Randall Stephen Hall

With Song, EXPRESS TO NOWHERE.
Recorded circa 1982.

RSH. MUDSI MUNTU. Moodzi Moon Two.
Express to Nowhere. Early 1980s.
Listen to Express to Nowhere by Mudsi Muntu on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/julian-fowler-524759062/express-to-nowhere?ref=clipboard&p=a&c=0&si=53ab41d442cf40b8b297e8c34df69466&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

From 1980 to 1983 or so we got together every Sunday afternoon at the Fowler household in North Belfast, to smoke cigarettes, drink hot sweet coffee, jam musically, and write songs.
We were, and still are: Julian Fowler, Derek McCullough and Stephen Hall. All childhood friends, beginning our careers, (our day jobs), back then.

Now, we are grandparents, well into our sixties (but wonderfully preserved).

In 1980 the album SOWETO came out marking change in South Africa. So we were marking change here in NORN IRON too.

“EXPRESS TO NOWHERE” was talking about two communities, one Protestant, the other Catholic. And although there have been many positive changes SINCE 1998, we are still running on parallel lines.

The fundamentals are still the same. Only 7 percent of our collective community are educated together (integrated education) after 27 years of a fairly positive peace. But we should be doing better, don’t you think?

Sadly though some politicians, even our minister for education has recently held back genuine requests for some new integrated schools, while our collective middle class, both Catholic and Protestant hold back the tide of integrated education like two King Canutes. A very sad state of affairs. In their terms, keeping their educational standards high, yet failing miserably with regard to “integration”. Happy with this twin track approach, Yet both involved in this middle class conspiracy.

It’s a kind of soft separation amongst us. But equally a soft violence to each other, when it has been the working class (can you still use that term?) who always took the blame for all the violence throughout the Troubles.

Where will this twin train ride take us and why should 93 percent of our children still be educated separately from the age of 5 to the age of 18?

It’s a question I cannot answer. A problem, hard to resolve. And while I’m not into conspiracy theories it certainly seems like one to me.

Hidden in plain sight.

www.randallstephenhallsongs
A northern Irish artist
AKA. Dangerous Banana.
Peace, Love and More Cat Food.