Five questions from last night

When I was a teenage boarder in St Columb’s in Derry, I used hold my breath on a Saturday night as my (illegal) crystal set ( attached to metal bed-post and under-mattress bed-springs) played the hits and told me what was Number One that week. Maybe that’s what’s motivating the flaggers: last night they were Number One item on practically every TV channel l- BBC One, BBC News 24,  RTÉ, Sky. Well done, guys. You’re famous. 

But I have a number of questions that baffle me:

1. Could the PSNI have seen to it that the City Hall demonstrators went home to East Belfast without going near, much less directly past the Short Strand? After all, every year  over 3,000 marches ensure that the rest of us must wait/take a detour while the loyal sons of Ulster remember that battle more than 300 years ago. 
2. What kind of reporting describes demonstrations as ‘peaceful’ when they are in fact blocking roads? Or has the law against such actions been changed when I wasn’t paying attention?
3. Let’s imagine for a moment Parity of Arrogance. Flag protestors from the Short Strand, outraged that the parity of esteem promised by the GFA has not been delivered,  decide to block off roads and wave Irish tricolours. How long would it be before the PSNI cleared the road? How often would the media report such events as ‘peaceful’?
4. When will the media accept and report that both-flags-or-none  is a reasonable position to take in a society that is hoping for a shared future? And when will they note that republicans actually made a concession when they voted for flying the Union flag on 17 occasions?
5. What unionist leader will be honest enough to tell his/her followers that the times, they are a-changin’? With Belfast a city 49% nationalist, 42% unionist; with the school-going population showing Protestant numbers lagging far behind Catholic numbers; with the Protestant population generally having a  more-elderly profile than that of Catholics -  it’s not a question of if change comes, it’s a question of how change will come. I’m for peaceful, managed change that shows equal respect (and equal means equal) for both traditions, rather than trying to contain the contradictions of yesteryear until they explode and the jagged debris damages us all. 

Why Rory plays golf (and who for)

It’s been said of the game of golf that it’s a good walk ruined but I think that’s being too soft on it. It’s a game where you play against others but nothing you do can affect their play - unlike football, soccer, rugby, tennis hurling,  handball and lots of other sensible games.  I don’t say there aren’t good people who play golf but I do say I can easily see why the Olympics Committee has so far resisted any temptation it may have felt to include golf on the list of Olympic games. So far. Word is, we can expect to see golf climb aboard in the next Games in 2016.

But let me not be blind to golf's one big plus: it can make you seriously rich. Rory McIlroy knows that. Now that his hair and his ears have arrived at a vague agreement with his nose, he’s earning so much, it’s a joke to even talk about it.  How much? Well, the word is his net worth as of now is about $20 million. And as he’s tipped to sign up with Nike to display their wares soon, he should guarantee himself over $22 million  a year for the next ten years. 

When you’re making that kind of money by playing a dumb game, there’s no way you’re going to allow yourself to be shackled by ANYTHING from making lots and lots more money. Least of all politics. And yet if we’re to believe what we read, that’s what’s on the cards for Rory. 

Remember the brouhaha there was when he said he felt more British than Irish? Well apparently he sort of mis -spoke when he said that. Because now he says he’s agonising about whether to declare himself as a British player in the 2016 Olympics, or whether to declare himself Irish, or whether to solve the problem (he says it’s a problem, because he knows somebody’s going to be offended) by not playing in the Olympics at all. 

EH?  He’s set to earn over $22 million a year over the next ten years, he’s sitting on $20 million already, and he’s worried that he might offend somebody by declaring for Britain or Ireland? Wish I had his worries. 

Let’s lay aside the niceties, Rory, shall we? I don’t believe you give a monkey’s. When you’re as good at golf as you are (I never thought I’d write ‘good’ and ‘golf’ in the same sentence) and more important, earning what you’re earning and going to earn,  the sensibilities of some really stupid people back on the tiny pimple of an island from which you emanate matters less than a tomtit breaking wind at dawn. 

 I know there are people biting their nails about whether the union jack or the tricolour is draped around those 23-year-old shoulders. If it’s contrary to their own loyalties, they’ll get all annoyed. Listen, guys. Beyond death and taxes, there are few certainties in life. But there is one you can rely on, and that is,  what will motivate Rory to adopt one flag or another or neither. And that is? All together now: MONEY. Right in one. You think he’s going to take a step that he thinks will maybe shrink those massive earnings? Pu-lease.

Nobody should care. What kind of loyalty, commitment is influenced because some rich little Holywood-boy-next-door decides he kicks with the other foot, as it were?    Why should somebody who spends all day in the world of golf be seen as some sort of role model for the rest of us?  He’s a golfer, for God’s sake. A brilliant golfer. Without a political idea in his head. Not a philosopher. Not a spiritual guide. Or a political one. So when he makes these announcements, keep in mind that he's really talking about money. His money.   

The saddest part of all, though, is not that Rory is motivated by money and what will help keep his sponsor and bank manager happy. Sadder, far sadder is the fact that there are people out there who will feel IN SOME WAY LET DOWN by Rory’s decision. Let us now offer a decade of the rosary for these poor lost souls.

Shared future or unionist huddle?

Well, Peter Robinson and Mike Nesbitt may believe in a shared future but they definitely don’t believe in a shared forum. That’s strictly unionist - no taigs need apply. Which is odd, really, because you'd think that violence in response to a democratic decision should be the concern of everyone. If you’re an inner-city trader or restaurateur,  it doesn’t matter whether you’re unionist or republican - you still lose. Businesses go bust on a purely non-sectarian basis. 

Of course Mike Nesbitt has explained why the unionist forum had to be for unionists only: it’s so unionism can get its act together. Once that’s achieved, what used to be referred as ‘the minority’ (to wit, nationalists/republicans) can become involved. Which makes one thing clear: that Mike is more concerned with the state of unionism than he is with the state of Belfast.

What did the unionist forum discuss?  I’ve no idea. But I’ll bet £100  that no plans were made to explain to the flag protestors that actually Belfast is overflowing with unionist symbols and iconography - the streets, the bridges, the buildings again and again cry out “We are British!”.  The creation and carrying out of such plans would have been indeed worthwhile.  If all they  did yesterday was go into a unionist huddle to work out wheezes that’ll please the flag protestors, Peter Robinson can kiss a shared future (and Catholics voting for the DUP) goodbye. The First Minister crowing that it was “the most representative group in the unionist community to meet in half a century” says it all.   

Alasdair Milne is dead; Thatcher's spirit lives on

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality”  - that was T S Eliot’s judgement on us.  Had he been around in the 1980s to witness the huff-and-puff about the BBC NI programme Real Lives, he would have nodded in recognition. Alasdair Milne, who has just died and was director-general of the BBC at the time,  pushed for the programme’s  airing and was in the end successful. But he paid the price with his job a short time later: Maggie Thatcher didn’t like people who supplied the IRA with “the oxygen of publicity”.

For younger readers, the controversial Real Lives programme featured Martin McGuinness and Gregory Campbell. It sought to show both men as human beings, with families behind their differing political stances. Nobody minded this being done with Gregory but Martin McGuinness was another matter. I  remember being around the BBC in Belfast at the time and hearing one producer comment with some distaste the absurdity of a programme with the title Real LIves  featuring McGuinness. But most BBC people wanted the programme aired, probably on grounds of professional self-respect than political sympathy. Unfortunately the people at the top - the BBC Board of Governors - were agin it.

Why so? Well, they didn’t want McGuinness to be shown as anything other than a ruthless terrorist. In an effort to have the programme aired, the BBC  NI Controller at the time suggested it should go out but with periodic clips of bombs going off. You get the idea: there was a danger the audience might be lulled into some identification with McGuinness, so give ‘em a bit of shock therapy at intervals.  In the end this daft idea was shelved and many weeks later than originally intended, the programme went out. It was a good programme. Not world-changing but good.

However, the controversy highlighted for me what many of us tend to forget: Thatcher was right. If you keep people off the airwaves or present them in a particular manner, you control them. Hence the famous BBC (and RTÉ) gagging ban, which allowed the words of Sinn Féin people to be heard only if spoken by an actor. To allow people to think of McGuinness as a man with a wife and family would be to blunt the contempt for him in the public mind that the BBC and  other ‘respectable’ media of the time believed was necessary. 

Alasdair Milne is dead but  the thinking of those opposed to him hasn’t gone away, you know. 

O Happy Day, O Happy Flagpole...

‘O Happy Day!’  Is that the song unionists will have on their lips today? Especially the flag protestor unionists? You might expect so, because today the Union flag will be raised over City Hall once again. It’s to mark the birthday of  Katie Middleton,  former commoner, now the Duchess of Cambridge. It’ll go up on 17 or is it 18 other days in the year, including the queen’s two birthdays (don’t ask.)  Anyway, the sight that so many unionist hearts have hungered after will be available - is available - all day long today. The question now is, will it really be greeted as a happy day? Will the glass be half-full or half-empty?

Half-full, if they look on the bright  side and see their flag, the flag of their country, fluttering proudly over the heads of shoppers, dole-collectors, beggars and beauticians. And, of course, taigs. Half-empty, if they look on the dark side and keep reminding themselves that as dusk falls, the flag will be lowered again and won’t appear until another important date on the calendar, like the birthday of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.  In other words, will unionists rejoice in the flag going up or seethe as the flag is brought down again? 

I suspect it’ll hurt more than heal, tantalise more than reduce tension. IA bit like somebody who’s gone off cigarettes or drink for Lent, being periodically offered a few puffs or swallows, only to have the desired fag or glass snatched away again. The wound created by the realisation that Belfast is now a city with a nationalist majority may be helped heal as the flag goes up, but it may also itch and bleed as the flag is lowered some twelve hours later. 

Maybe some comfort will be derived if they recall the words of Enoch Powell (who was, after alll, a stout unionist MP for a time) when he opined that “all political careers end in failure”. That’s how life is. Or they could take a wider, more historic view of power and its ultimate futility, by remembering Shelley’s great lines in ‘Ozymandias’. You’ll remember how the traveller has come on”two vast and trunkless legs of stone” in the desert with an inscription written beneath:

“ ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away”.

So am I suggesting a comparison between the Ozymandias statue and that of Queen Victoria in front of Belfast City Hall? Pass. 

Turn your radio on and hear some wisdom. Maybe.

Sometimes your reputation can mean people assume you’re talking rubbish, and even when you talk good sense it’s still seen as rubbish. It works the other way too: develop a reputation for thoughtfulness and you can get away with superficial tripe.

There was an instance of it on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning. They decided they’d not just report the street protests here, they’d do a little analysis of them. So since I often listen to Radio 4 in the morning, I turned up the volume. Did I hear thoughtfulness? Clear thinking? Getting to the heart of the matter? Nope.

What I got was Newton Emerson and somebody else - Máire Hendron, I think - but certainly no nationalist or republican voice. Newton and Máire going on about the disenfranchised working class of East Belfast and other areas, who feel they’re not being represented, and how the DUP was fearful they’d slip from their sphere of influence. Nothing to quarrel with there, except that it didn’t answer the central question: why are these flag protests happening and are they justified?

They’re happening because the DUP with a little help from the UUP issued leaflets calling people onto the streets. The whole scheme then backfired and instead of the Alliance Party suffering from the protests, the DUP looks like it’s the one getting it in the neck. But we’re still left with the why  of the protests.

The why is because unionism in Belfast is having to break a habit that is at least one hundred years old. They have to stop seeing the city as theirs and begin to see the city as everyone’s - including those pesky taigs that are treacherous, nasty and worship statues. The fact is, the DUP’s testy reaction to Sinn Féin councillor Jim McVeigh’s comment on poor unionist leadership goes to the heart of it. The leadership of unionism should have and even at this late stage must begin to prepare its people for change. Take the flag thing. On Wednesday, some royal or other has a birthday. So, the Union flag will fly over City Hall. Will a flag fly on any day to mark someone whom nationalists/republicans respect/revere? Don’t be silly - absolutely no chance. So it’s that vast imbalance that unionist leaders must accept themselves and then educate their electorate in.  Because if you block people from their fair share in power-sharing and representation, whether in their human representatives or their representation ithrough icons, you’re simply building up pressure that will one day explode.

I bet dissident republicans have a ring-faced fund for lighting holy candles that these street protests continue, because they are-the gift that keeps on giving. Don’t worry, lads. No sign of abatement yet. The candles are working. 

And I expected more of BBC Radio 4. More fool, me.

A brief chat about tit-for-tatters

Q: You actually seen some of these flag demonstrators/rioters in action?

A: No, but I’ve read reports about their actions - and the response of politicians. And of course there are the telly reports. 

Q: So the media are keeping you posted on what’s happening?

A: Yep.

Q: And what to make of it.

A: Yep.

Q: Example, please.

A: Well, last night on RTÉ News there were clips of rioters pelting the cops and Tommie Gorman came on at the end with a sum-up commentary.

Q: That’s interesting. What’d he say?

A: Well I don’t recall the exact wording but I think he talked about ‘two tribes’ and about how there was a lack of sensitivity on either side. 

Q: Is that a fact. And what was your response?

A: How d’you mean?

Q: Did you accept the report in its entirety?

A: But of course. Why? Are  you suggesting someone in RTÉ is telling lies?

Q: No, no, no. It’s just I'm a bit uneasy with that part about the two tribes and the lack of sensitivity on both sides.

A:  Sure isn’t he right? One side’s as bad as the other.

Q: So assuming the two sides you refer to are the unionists/loyalists and the republicans/nationalists, they’re equally guilty of creating this particular mess?

A: Well yes. The republicans/nationalist (plus Alliance, of course) tore the flag down and the unionists/loyalists responded.

Q: So a democratic decision by Belfast City Council to fly the flag on 17 specific occasions each year, including the queen’s birthday,  is equivalent to burning cars, stoning police, issuing death threats?

A: Well, no, but...

Q: But what?

A: But -  Oh my God,  I’ve just realised I’m late for an appointment at my local Brain salon.

Q: Are you getting much done?

A: Ah no - just a brain wash and blow dry.

Q: Sounds fun. 

A: It is. And it’s so much easier than hurting your head thinking for yourself.