They haven't gone away, you know

Can you believe it? There was a West Belfast priest on the local TV evening news yesterday, with important information. Groups of aggressive young people waving and wearing Irish tricolours have begun blocking routes into and out of Belfast, and attacking the police when they ventured near. The priest said that the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA and the INLA had all accepted that  these street protests as well as road blockages should stop  The priest said he greeted this news with relief but nothing was finalised yet. There is no truth to the rumour that Chief Constable Matt Baggott has expressed horror at news of the existence of the three paramilitary groups, regardless of their views on Irish tricolour protest groups, and has called on them to disband immediately or face the consequences.

Shocking stuff, eh? But of course you’ve seen through me - I made up all of that stuff in the first paragraph. This next paragraph, though, is the real deal.

An East Belfast clergyman was on the local TV evening news yesterday with important information. Groups of aggressive young people  waving and wearing Union flags have been blocking routes into and out of Belfast. The clergyman said that the UDA,the UVF and the Red Hand Commando had all accepted that these street protests as well as road blockages should stop. The clergyman said he greeted the news with relief but nothing was finalised yet. There is no truth to the rumour that Chief Constable Matt Baggott has expressed horror at news of the existence  of the three paramilitary groups, regardless of their views on Union flag protest groups, and has called on them to disband immediately or face the consequences.

Tell me I’m not hallucinating:  the UDA, the UVF and the Red Hand Commando were supposed to have decommissioned and disbanded years ago, right? So why is a clergyman - or anyone else - talking about them as though they were a local branch of the Rotary Club? And why is Matt Baggott not expressing his horror at their existence? Answers, please. Because right now I feel as if somebody has begun - that’s right - chipping away at my sanity. 

Stephen Nolan: a show of two halves

"While shivering in my shoes 
I strike a careless pose 
And whistle a happy tune 
And no one ever knows, 
I'm afraid."

Nobody on the Nolan Show last night sang those lines from The King and I, but they matched  with what was going on for much of the TV programme. It didn't look like the unionists in the audience were afraid - quite the reverse in fact. They finger-wagged, they condemned Gerry Kelly as a gunman, they condemned the naming of a children's play park "after an IRA terrorist", they said Alliance had made the biggest mistake of its life and would pay dearly for it, they said they were mad as hell and weren't going to take it any more, they shouted down anyone - particularly Gerry Kelly, when he tried to answer the questions they had asked him.  Jeffrey Donaldson did his best to deflect the wrath of the crowd (not, as Gerry Kelly remarked, a marvelously balanced crowd for a BBC programme) and was largely effective in steering their wrath towards the Alliance Party. Well, to the Alliance Party, and the cost of the Saville Inquiry, and the lack of inquiries for unionists, and Gerry Kelly, and...The targets were so many, what we were left with resembled  a great deal of sound and fury, signifying...no, not nothing. It signified a great deal.

It signified that a portion of the unionist people are bewildered, even scared. It signified that they  have been misled by their politicians. While nationalists and republicans have been persuaded to abandon the notion that Ireland's governance should be determined, not by the Irish people but by the people of the northern state, while they have been persuaded that recognition of their fellow-countrymen's British identity is required  - while these immense hurdles have been faced and overcome by nationalists/republicans,  unionists have been encouraged to think that nothing central has changed or will change.  This is poor leadership to the point of near-insanity. All that bluster and shouting last night made for riveting television, but we're still left with a people who, even when it's pointed out that Belfast City Hall and Belfast itself is chock-a-block with British symbolism, shout their contempt for the speaker and still remain convinced that their Britishness has been ripped from them. Instead of encouraging them to see that this is not so, the DUP and the UUP are encouraging them in this siege mentality. 

That was the first half - a testament to willful blindness. The second half featured ex-GAA star Joe Brolly and the man to whom he  donated a kidney. As it happens, the new kidney was a failure, but that if anything added to Brolly's unassuming charm and sacrifice. The fact is, he did what 90% of us would be hesitant about doing, even for a close relative. The praise that flowed in on the texts and tweets showed that the audience at home know true courage and virtue when they see it. 

What a programme!  Stephen Nolan must already be scratching his head and wondering how he's going to follow that: the worst of our society followed closely by the best. Thank you, Stephen and production team. You may produce stinkers that are embarrassing in their maudlin tone but there was none of that last night. It was public service broadcasting that truly enlightened those still in need of enlightenment.  (And we'll pass lightly over the matter of audience balance.)

Hello darkness, my old friend

Sometimes you read something and you do a double take, go back and check that your eyes saw what you thought your eyes saw. I did that this morning. The Irish Times has a report by Gerry Moriarty headed “McLaughlin accepts ‘status quo’ “. EH? Mitchel McLaughlin, the Sinn Féin party, unionism - just about everybody north and south signed up to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998,  and central to that was acceptance that there’d be no constitutional change in the north until a majority here voted for it.

So why is it news to say that Mitchel McLaughlin accepts the present constitutional status quo? Well, the south’s media have long looked at Sinn Féin with some degree of anxiety. They were the one party that looked as if they might re-awake the slumbering giant of Irish re-unification. They were associated with the IRA and violence in the past, which the south was desperately anxious to keep ‘up there’. And in more recent times, they looked/look as though they might become a significant force in southern Irish politics, upsetting the nicely-balanced  Fianna Fail/Fine Gael apple-cart. 

Anyone with any grasp of recent northern events knows that Sinn Féin accept the present constitutional position in the north, while at the same time working for the achievement of Irish unity by peaceful means. And yet we have today’s story in The Irish Times, to place alongside the shock-horror story of Alex Maskey saying he’d throw stones if his house was attacked with petrol bombs by a hostile mob. We also have the naked sectarian violence of some flag protestors, for whom the sight of Sinn Féin and, in this case the SDLP working democratically for something a teensy bit nearer to parity of esteem, as promised by the GFA, is just too much. “They’re chipping away at our Britishness!” is the cry.  Have the southern media leaped on the nonsense of that and denounced it for the maladjusted slabbering that it is?  Pass.

To the flag men: for God’s sake, guys. If you see the flying of the Union flag 17 times annually as the removal of a vital chip in your Britishness, you should either check with  your local psychiatrist (maybe John Alderdice of the Alliance Party?) or sit down and have a good long talk with yourself about the difference between reality and  paranoid fantasy. 

To the southern media:  it would help if you could find your way to avoid treating the articulation of part of a 15-year-old Agreement  as though it was a startling change in Sinn Féin policy. As they used to say in an old BBC radio  comedy: we already know that, kindly leave the stage.

What to do when your house is attacked

Two comments from the Nolan show minutes ago: “Police struggled to keep rival factions apart” and “Did you feel vulnerable during all this?”  The latter to a pensioner who had stones and petrol bombs aimed at his house. 

I’ll move discreetly past the inanity of that “vulnerable” question and on to the heart of the matter - “Police struggled to keep rival factions apart”. I don’t know how the programme will develop but that notion of two rioting mobs with the cops as piggy-in-the-middle really does have to be nailed. And nailed it was by Alex Maskey on UTV last night. When questioned about stone-throwing from the Short Strand, he replied grimly “If I lived in the Short Strand and my home was being attacked, I’d be out throwing stones too”. I tweeted that and had, among overwhelmingly positive response, one tweet which gleefully suggested that this meant Alasdair MacDonald would have a safe Westminster seat “for ever”. Dear tweeting person,  perhaps you underestimate the intelligence of the South Belfast voters; besides, there are other ways of looking at the world than how you can keep your rear in a Westminster seat. Like how long you can go on living in your home. 

Which brings me to Jim Wilson, a Protestant community worker, I think. He did two good things at least in the last four or five days. The first was confronting the immense intellect that is Willie Frazer at a rally in front of Belfast City Hall. Why that is  a good thing should be self-evident to even the slowest of us. The second is Wilson's concession last night that loyalists had attacked Catholic homes and that he disowned such people entirely. Wilson was out on the ground, as I understand it, trying to keep the peace. Full marks for that and your statement - maith thú, Jim.

 Is there a difference between that and making statements up in Stormont, when you yourself were the instigator of these street scenes? You betcha.  Except unionist politicians take their courage in their hands and tell their constituents that things are changed now - not just the flag, not just power-sharing in Stormont, but everything. And that nationalists/republicans making gains on a number of fronts is not “them ‘uns getting everything”, it’s about them ‘uns finally beginning to get their fair share after almost one hundred years of deprivation. Only when the leadership of the unionist community explains that justice and equality are concepts which everyone should be keen to see put in place will ugly, sectarian street violence such as last night wither on its own twisted branch.

Things that kill

There are those who think that  school sex instruction only encourages teenagers to turn instruction into practice.  There are those who think the same thing about political unrest. Those involved wait for the cameras and then  step into focus and do their violent thing. 

Michael Kelly, writing in The Scotsman last week, takes up a similar theme. He suggests that Catholics in Scotland harping on about anti-Catholicism may in fact encourage it.

“Agonising over sectarianism is going to exaggerate its importance in the list of social problems that we face. Poverty, unemployment, deprivation generally, education and health all demand public resources ahead of relatively minor inconveniences to relatively few individuals”.       

Whether or not you agree with his analysis, there’s an argument to be made that sometimes those things which catch the headlines - blatant discrimination, street violence, maybe even issues like gay marriage or abortion - are deliberately highlighted by politicians and a compliant media in order to distract public attention from less sexy but more deep-rooted problems in our society. Gerry Adams was in the Short Strand yesterday and he said that it was but for the grace of God that no one had so far been killed. He’s right.  But there’s one thing the people of the Short Strand and the flegmen share: poverty. And it’s at least as dangerous as the fleg thugs.

Take a few statistics from Britain. Both men and women in Blackpool die ten years earlier than men and women in Kensington and Chelsea.  Children in poverty suffer similarly: three-year-old whose parents earn less than £10,000 a year are more than twice as likely to suffer from chronic illness than children whose parents bring home over £52,000. Like their parents, infant mortality is 10% higher in poor households than in the average British household.  The Short Strand or  East Belfast may not be as British as Finchley, but I’ll bet the gap between them and the leafier areas of Holywood or Malone is just as great. 

When people are injured or killed in street violence, the rest of us feel shocked, outraged even. Yet we accept that the poor - with their illnesses and earlier deaths - are always with us. No outrage expressed; if anything there's a half-assumption that  the poor have only themselves to blame.

 Maybe that’s why the flegmen keep getting their Britishness mixed up with their deprivation. 

No Poll here (referenda and how to avoid them)

And speaking of Number Ones...This is a first guest post on this site. I'll be interested to read reaction to it and to the idea of using guest posters/bloggers. The description below comes from Sammy himself - JC

 

Sammy McNally is an itinerant Fenian scribbler… and a fictional prod character bestowed upon us by James Young. He has previously written for other blogs such as Keeping an eye on Tzar of Russia, We in the coming days, Three Thousand Versts of loneliness,  and Slugger O’Toole. He describes his politics as republican lite. 

No Poll here (referenda and how to avoid them)

If there is one thing Nationalists, whether Scottish, British or Irish, like even less than those larger, nefarious, noisy, neighbours - who always seem intent on suppressing and subjugating them - it is a referendum(which they are certain to lose).

The leader of the Scottish National party, the canniest of Scotsmen, the man who singlehandedly harnessed the emotion surrounding the Australian directed drama about a 13th century woad-wearing insurgent and used it to deliver himself into power, the man who was thought by many(including yours truly) to be the best political operator in these islands - has a particular dislike for referenda - because poor Alex - has to actually deliver one in Scotland.

As all good Nationalists in these islands should know well, the trick is to be fully behind the principle of a referendum (in public) whilst simultaneously being determined(in private) to avoid holding one. So quite how Alex-the-wise, managed to trip himself up on his own constitutional shoelaces is not clear. It is of course possible that Alex started to believe his own propaganda but it probably more likely that he was labouring under the mistaken impression - that if you make an election promise- then you have to stick to it.

…a basic schoolboy error, as fellow countryman, the estimable George Galloway, might well say.

Down England way, the (otherwise) less promising British nationalist leader, Davey Cameron, had no intention of committing such a howler. As a diligent student of Tory party history (and a Bullingdon Club activist), he would know full well that election promises(like restaurant furniture) are there to be broken.

…and so confident was the Tory leader that he could make a referendum promise and break it, that Davey, even offered his referendum wrapped up in a 'cast iron guarantee' promising to allow the long suffering, plain people of Britain, the chance to throw off the yoke of the perfidious Europeans(and especially those dreadful French).

Meanwhile, across sea in Ireland, the nationalist leader Gerry Adams, fresh himself from (allegedly) leading an insurgency to expel the British overlords, is still demanding a referendum on the removal of the border - in spite of the fact that the 2011 Census results from Northern Ireland showed less that 30% claiming ‘Irish’ as their National identity. Gerry, unlike Alex and Davey, won’t however be making any promises on referenda because he is (luckily for him) unencumbered with the power to actually deliver on one.

…also luckily for Gerry, the one person who has the power to call a referendum on the border is Teresa(the Viceroy) Villiers, herself a Tory who, therefore, fully understands that when a fellow Nationalist in these parts,  stamps his feet and rallies his troops by claiming he dearly wants a referendum, he does of course actually want no such thing - just like Davey, her own leader -  and of course the unfortunate Alex.

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.