Drive down the streets of Belfast today and check out the Indian, Japanese, Chinese and Thai restaurants – all run, my friend Peter told me, by people from their native countries. It’s not uncommon to see a person of ethnic origin scurrying down the street in the city center. On the flight over from London, I did a double take when I noticed a little Indian girl ask the stewardess for water in a proper Northern Irish accent.

The ultimate sectarian city is slowly moving from bi- to multi-.

I first came here eight years ago for a conference called Minorities of Europe, held at the remarkable Corrymeela Community in Ballycastle, an ecumenical Christian community founded in 1965 that has kept alive the possibility of a shared common future between Catholic and Protestant even through the darkest days of the troubles.

There were maybe sixty of us at this conference – South Asian and African ethnic minorities from countries like Britain, and representatives of Eastern European nations relatively new to the European Union. The woman who organized the event had noticed, even then, that a handful of ethnic and religious minorities were starting to settle in Belfast. She thought that these groups offered a unique opportunity to expand the imagination in her city. Perhaps the presence of many would serve to diffuse a conflict dominated by two.

There is a thriving community of Chinese in Northern Ireland (some of them Christian, I imagine, and probably none particularly interested in taking sides in the conflict). One of Belfast’s most successful hoteliers is Indian. There is enough of a Muslim presence to support two separate Muslim organizations. And there is a steady trickle of migrants from Portugal, Poland and Lithuania.

Some folks in Belfast see these groups as targets, not opportunities. I heard from several sources that hate crimes are a major problem.

“We don’t know what to do with people who are different,” my friend Ronnie explained to me, shaking his head.

Ronnie grew up in Northern Ireland, moved to Boston when he was thirty, and drank in the diversity of the North Cambridge neighborhood where he lived. “I just loved it,” he said. “It gave me a whole new perspective on life.”

And when he moved back to Northern Ireland two years ago, to take up a Director’s position at Corrymeela, he brought some of that perspective with him. He runs the Interfaith Youth Core’s global program, the Days of Interfaith Youth Service, out of Corrymeela, precisely because it respects the uniqueness of different faiths, while also highlighting the universals.

Hanging out at a bookstore near Queen’s University, Ronnie told me that the public violence had dramatically eased. “Bombs used to go off so often in this city, that it got to the point where you wouldn’t even raise your head when you heard the blast.”

No doubt the Good Friday Agreement has improved things, but the sectarian tensions still run thick. “Peace walls” – the tallest barbed wire fences I’ve ever seen in my life – separate Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. Ninety-five percent of the schools are segregated – and teachers from different sects are still trained in separate colleges.

“Now the world doesn’t care anymore because there are bigger wars and better terrors …” writes David Park in his luminous new novel about Northern Ireland, The Truth Commissioner.

But we should care. Because little bits of the world are starting to make their way to Belfast. And if this city gets it right, it will be a powerful message to other sectarian conflict zones like the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.

I imagine it was for that reason that the Dalai Lama visited Northern Ireland a few years ago. And when he did, he came to Corrymeela and spoke the following words of hope and prayer: “My spirit is with you, and please carry on your work tirelessly. You can consider me as a member of your Community.”