ABSTRACT
The more significant nonsectarian movements that focus on the city centre are the trade union movement. The trade union movement in Northern Ireland has historically provided an image of working-class unity in distinction to the acrimony propagated by the divisive narratives of ethno nationalism. A fundamental objective of the trade union movements is to make working-class nationalists and unionists see their identity and interests as class based and unified rather than ethnic and competing. Belfast and Beirut city centres were, in different ways, the foci for violent conflict. Bolstered by the development of the car bomb, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) constantly targeted the city centre as it endeavoured to cripple the commercial, financial and symbolic hub of Northern Ireland. The struggle of Beirut's social movements to force the political elites and the wider society to deal with the legacy of the past means that the city centre represents a site of struggle over the nation's identity and socioeconomic inequality.
