Two events gripped the attention of the world in September 2001. One occurred in Belfast, the other in New York. They were linked by hate.

The first to grab global media notice centered on a 400 yard stretch of road in Belfast. Armoured vehicles and black clad police in riot gear lined the street, forming a corridor through which children and their parents ran a gauntlet of naked hatred.

The children were wee girls and they were on their way to school. For some four year-olds it was their first day to go to school, a day full of promise and a little scariness, a first step away from home and parents, a day of wonderment, excitement, and for their parents a day of anxiety.

In June, before the summer holidays, the girls attending Holy Cross School in the Ardoyne district of Belfast had experienced the first frightening outburst of naked hatred. And those who hated them vowed to blockade their passage when school resumed in September.

Given past experience, the Royal Ulster Constabulary knew that vow would be kept. Hence their presence, hence what followed, hence the daily agony of Ardoyne displayed on the world’s television screens, on radio broadcasts, in the newspapers, and on the Internet.

Rocks, obscenities, threats were hurled at the parents and at the young, frighteningly young girls. They were spat upon.

Through a sense of propriety many television stations cut out the language used, the curses, the obscenities, the threats. At first only sanitized, silent pictures were screened. Words were mouthed, gestures were seen to be made, and stones were hurled and fell, all without sound. But the naked, silent display of hatred spoke and was heard.

Revulsion at what was taking place in Belfast spread from continent to continent. The Internet became the quickest channel for the expression of that revulsion. Shocked people in Sweden, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and a score of other countries sent e-mails to Belfast newspaper offices, expressing their horror and disbelief that what they were witnessing could take place in a backwater of what was once called the British Empire.

But the daily demonstration of hate continued.

Then came the day when one U.S. news anchor in New York made the statement, "Just at the time when we thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. This morning a bomb was thrown as the children made their way to school." Subsequently it was described as a grenade. But, grenade or home-made pipe bomb, the sound of its explosion sent terrified children and their parents running for their lives.

The picture of one little girl in pigtails, alone, in shock, separated from her parents, trying to find her way through the legs of policemen, brought to mind the horror that was Viet Nam, captured so vividly four decades previously in a picture showing a young Vietnamese girl, naked, screaming in pain, as she ran from a napalm explosion.

Less than one week later the world’s attention was riveted on another explosion, or rather series of explosions. Fueled by hatred of the United States of America and what it stands for, terrorists hijacked four civilian airplanes on the morning of September 11, 2001. Three of them, full of aviation fuel, they hurled at buildings in New York and Washington, incinerating themselves and the hapless passengers on board. The fourth plane did not reach its intended target, but all aboard perished when it crashed on Pennsylvania farmland.

The death toll may never be fully known. At this time of writing it stands just under 6,000 killed as a result of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon Building in Washington.

The immensity of the loss of life, the immensity of the damage to world democracy, are only matched by the immensity of the hate that generated the actions of the terrorists and of those who sent them on their mission.

Innocents in America and Ireland are the victims of hate, of naked hatred. They are the victims of those who promote and spread hatred among the peoples of the earth. From Belfast, to New York, to Washington, hate has shown its evil face in this September of 2001.

The little girl in pigtails in Belfast, and four-year old Juliana McCourt of Westford, Massachusetts, were innocent children, helpless when faced with evil. Juliana, whose mother came from Cork, died in her mother’s arms in the attack on the New York Trade Center. The nameless little Belfast girl escaped with her life, but faces lifelong hate from those who inspired the throwing of a bomb as she tried to make her way to school.

In a macabre twist, those harassing the children of Holy Cross School announced they would discontinue their daily demonstrations of hatred for one day, Friday the 14th of September, "as a mark of respect for the victims of the terrorist attacks in America".

They also announced they would resume their "protest" the following Monday.

"Spitting suspended" for a day, they believe, is a mark of respect.

The intrusion of a personal note may give some understanding to those who have expressed disbelief at the events taking place in the Ardoyne.

In the foreword in Irish to "A Home Page with an Irish Flavour" I wrote: "Aiteanna eile a cuimhnighim a raibh mé ar sgoil ab eadh Sligeach…. agus Béal Feirste. Ní raibh gradh mór agam ar an chathair sin."

Translation: "Other places I remember being at school were Sligo…and Belfast. I did not have great love for that city." i.e. Belfast.

It was in the 1930s. The Belfast pogroms were fresh in memory. Because we Catholic boys had to pass a Protestant school on our way to and from our school, we were escorted daily by our parents. Even then stone throwing was not unknown. Ours, I understand, were the last Catholic family living on the Albert Bridge Road and I well remember that on Sunday mornings we walked quietly, without talking, on our way to Mass, lest we waken our neighbours who usually went to their churches at a later hour.

I hasten to add that as a child I was not a victim of physical violence, but the memory of those escorted walks to school have been with me all my life. In this, my 75th year, I broke down and cried when I saw the wee girls of Holy Cross being spat upon as they ran that gauntlet of hate some 67 years later.

Hate - lifelong hate - worldwide hate.

J.W.