When I was a volunteer English teacher in Montreal in 2000 and 2001, most of the students were refugees and asylum seekers from some of the world’s more troubled places. Often they had a vocabulary of 10 to 20 words of English.
Most of my classes had a complement of Algerians. As soon as they learned I was from Belfast they took an immediate interest. They first wanted to know if I knew Gerry Adams. I said I didn't know him but I knew of him. I had the impression he was something of a hero to them.
Over coffee they would explain how their people and mine had affinities. Both had suffered from the evils of colonialism. The Irish had had the English; the Algerians, the French. I avoided that subject as I often do. In any event, their English skills weren’t up to that level of debate.
One of my Algerian students, I’ll call him Aziz, though that is not his real name, kept in touch. I’d meet him now and again so he could practise his English.
In this way I was able to follow his progress as he tried to integrate into the world of employment. After 9/11, he told me, job searching became a lot more difficult. Before 9/11 he would get responses to his job applications, after, he didn’t.
Too late
Some years ago Aziz got “that call” about his mother, and he was able to get home before she passed away. But when he got the call about his dad one Saturday morning, it was already too late.
When he called me at about 7.30, he was in tears. He hadn’t expected his dad, who had been ill for some months, to pass away so suddenly. Aziz had planned to visit home in mid February. He thought he would see his dad one last time. He didn’t.
It’s always hard when you get that call, when you are far from home and it’s too late to rush back. It’s harder when you are alone. Aziz is separated. All his family and extended family members are back home in Algeria. I said I’d come over the following day, which was Sunday.
By the time I arrived his dad had already been buried as is the custom in Muslim countries. Everyone, he said, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, friends and neighbours – more than 100 people – had gone to the funeral. Only he wasn’t there. As the eldest son in the family he felt very bad about that.
So I was glad I had gone to see him. At least, he wasn’t alone on the day his dad was buried. When I arrived I knew he had been crying. We talked and talked and when I left that afternoon he was smiling. He said I had had helped him to change his ideas.
Shot dead
Then that evening, on the 10pm news, I learned that six Muslim men had been shot dead at 8pm in a mosque in Québec city. I phoned Aziz right away. He was really shaken. He was glad I had called. I said that it was horrible but he needed to be courageous. It wasn't easy but he had no choice. Life has to go on.
The following day, I remembered that 45 years ago, at the end of January 1972, there had been another shooting, on another Sunday, in my native place. It is now remembered as Bloody Sunday. So maybe, I thought, my Algerian students were right; maybe we do have affinities.
