No Resurrection 

By Gabriel Wieland-Fiorello

We are the victims and we are the atrocities

We are the shooters and we are the casualties

Like brothers and sisters, flatmates and neighbours

A line divided, crossed time and time again

Bodies lying in the snow covered streets

Mass graves on dirt covered back roads

The smell of gunpowder and cold steel fills the air

While God slept the Devil crept in

Created this conflict and reveled in it

Pitting us against each other for his enjoyment

Though we wait for God to awaken

Seeing the next sunrise becomes more important

No longer the bystanders to conflict

Despite latitude and longitude our situations aren’t quite different

Brothers and sisters, flatmates and neighbours

Armed to the teeth and ready to strike at one another

A cross divides us, though it is the same shape

For we will find no resurrection

In these divided times there is only insurrection

Rationale

Despite their distance the situations faced by the people of Northern Ireland and the Cleveland Latin American Mission team aren’t so different. Civil war and religion play two huge roles in both stories. Catholicism is in the center of them, with the Catholic CLAM team being killed by the El Salvadoran Government at the time. The CLAM team however was not the only group to be systematically murdered by the government, as it seems it was common for them to commit these atrocities against parties of opposite views during this time^[1]. The people of Northern Ireland were going through a similar time as the minority of Catholics in Northern Ireland had become fed up with the discrimination they faced from the majority Protestant population. This eventually spilled over into conflict, dragged England into it, and lasted for over thirty years^[2]. Many innocent people were caught in the crossfire during both events, religion playing a role in both events is where one can draw a connection. Catholics in both situations faced atrocities against their own human rights, countries were divided and the common citizen was affected the most. To hear their personal survival stories is heartbreaking but it allows one to see how similar these situations can look when compared to one another.

^[1] Death Squads: The Nightmare of El Salvador.” HistoryCollection.co, September 29, 2017. https://historycollection.co/death-squads-came-patrol-el-salvador/.

^[2] Smyth, Marie, and Fay, Marie-Therese, eds. Personal Accounts From Northern Ireland's Troubles : Public Conflict, Private Loss. London: Pluto Press, 2000. Accessed November 20, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central.