Herman Goring, Orange culture and No Surrender!

Herman Goring is reputed to have said “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver”. The events here since Friday suggest that when the Orange Order hear the word culture coupled with the word ‘No’,  it reaches for anything it can lay its hands on. 

What happened on Friday in Belfast has already been given such repeated and expansive space, it’s hard to step back and disentangle the knee-jerk and glib from the factual and thoughtful. But let’s try.

• The Orange Order leaders pumped up the rioters with talk of “No surrender!” and the terrible injustice of the Parades Commission decision. They  then denied that the vicious rioting which followed had anything to do with their words. To a degree they’re right:  there are some people who don’t need encouragement to attack the PSNI. But the Orange Order’s fiery rhetoric added kerosene rather than cold water to the mixture.  
• Any talk of the Orange culture and heritage is laughable in the face of the vicious, sometimes hysterical attacks on police vehicles and anything else that got in the way of the rioters/Orangemen.
• RTE  television broadcast the words of one young marcher to the silent protestors at Ardoyne: “Youse are second-class citizens - this is our country!”  Oddly, neither the BBC nor the UTV cameras/microphones managed to catch this moment. 
• Which brings us to the live and edited broadcasting of the Twelfth. Walter Love did his usual how-interesting-and-charming  commentary on the live morning programme. The evening programme on UTV  (I didn’t see the BBC counterpart programme) was side-splitting. In the news before the edited highlights of the Twelfth, we had footage of the savagery and vitriol which accompanied the day. Immediately afterwards we had the soothing tones of Paul  Clark    presenting  the Walter-Love-type highlights of happy marching bands and grandas eating ice-cream in the sun. Is there no irony department in UTV? 
• We really shouldn’t be surprised by this latest outbreak of barbarism on the Twelfth. The history of the Twelfth, for at least two centuries now, is littered with the same kind of social upheaval, drunkenness and bigotry that were on display on Friday.  Why has no politician the guts to suggest the obvious: the Orange marches themselves are the problem, not what erupts once the drums start banging.
• Do the Parades Commission decisions have any standing in law?  Because it’s obvious that the Orange Order has decided to simply ignore its determinations. Hymns while passing St Patrick’s Church?  Don’t be daft - a blast of the sash there, men. And march on the spot while you’re doing it. Unwittingly, the Orange Order may have a point: if the Parades Commission doesn’t have any power to see that its rulings are enforced, it really isn’t serving much purpose, is it? 
• Does the brick which struck Nigel Dodds bring him and the DUP closer to or further away from the alienated section of East Belfast? One newspaper report suggested the brick was aimed at Dodds, not the police, because of the contempt the rioters had for his efforts to bring about an end to rioting. He’ll certainly receive some sympathy for putting his head on the line, so to speak, and suffering for his beliefs. Whether that suffering came about because somebody had a bad aim or a very good one may ultimately be seen as irrelevant. 
• My old chum Nelson McCausland was eloquent on the rioting being provoked because loyalists saw republicans being rewarded for their rioting a year ago. Mmm. And of course flying the Union flag on thirteen or whatever number of days annually was another outrage that meant loyalist rioting was ultimately traceable to the Alliance Party. Right?
• Final point:  loyalism is showing all of the characteristics of a community that feels the ground falling away from under its feet. When you suffer that kind of insecurity, you’re likely to say or do anything. 

Daisy speaks out...

Awrigh’ then?

I’m Daisy and  me and my other half, Fred, we live in the East End and I gotta say, this time of year is great, innit?  You hear people on the bus or down the pub moaning on about the weather this and the weather that - too wet, too cold, too miserable. Dunno what they’re talking about. Look at the weather we’s having now - Britain  gets some of the best weather in the world. It’s that warm this week, I got to nip in the house and change my blouse twice a day. My Fred says I sweat more than a Grand National mare. Cheeky bleeder.

Fred’s a member of the KBWA , which means the Keep Britain White Association,  and he loves this time of year, same as me. That’s because the KBWA have their big march around now. Every  13th July,  my Fred gets down his KBWA outfit which is still in its cling-film wrap after me sending it to the cleaners and know what? That KBWA uniform of his, it’s that dazzling white you’d need sunglasses, the glare off it. White shirt, white trousers, white shoes, white tie, white cap.   He really does look a proper treat dressed up, and you should see him and his mates when they’s all together, marching in step with the big drum beating. He don’t say it - my Fred don’t talk that much - but I can tell he’s as proud as Punch when he looks at himself in the mirror and when he steps out down the road. And I’m proud as Punch of him an’ all. 

But times is changed, ain’t they? Used to be, years ago, 13th July were a nice day out - know what I mean? I’d make sandwiches and take the kiddies and everyone would cheer the marchers and we'd meet up with Fred after he’d finished. We’d sit down somewhere nice, park bench maybe or even on the grass, and so would all the other KBWA people and their families, and somebody’d get ice-cream and  maybe a few beers and everyone knew everyone else. It were a proper day out for all the family then. Lovely, it was. 

But not now. Now you got all these people, these immigrants - that’s what we got to call them now, immigrants - all these immigrants coming here and saying we’s racists and they don't like 13th July. . Writing to the paper and demonstrating and even lying on the road to stop Fred and his mates marching past. Makes me proper sick  it does. You’d think it weren’t the Queen’s Highway and they wasn’t entitled to walk along our own Sovereign’s highway whenever and wherever they  want. And then they say this is a free country! What I say is, if you don’t like it, don’t look at it. Stay at home and watch the telly or something. But ain’t no chance of that. Oh no. These immigrants, they’d rather come out and shout stuff at us and say they’re offended and hold up their placards about equality and respect and  every bleeding thing you could think of. 

Equality - there’s a laugh. Shows you how much these people know about our country and the way it works. Shouldn’t be surprised if next thing they’ll be complaining about our Sovereign Majesty the Queen, God bless her, ‘cos she aint, you know, coloured. Same as them. Shows how ignorant they is, my Fred says. Cos it’s written down in our constitution what the Sovereign must always be a white person.  That’s why we respect her so much. And she has to be married to a white person an' all, or the lineage an’ that  sort of thing would b, y’know, polluted, wouldn’t it?

Tell you straight, the whole thing makes my blood boil. And Fred’s. They come here and we give ‘em jobs  (them as is willing to work, which ain’t all, let me tell you) and we give ‘em our NHS and we give ‘em grants and free houses and everything. . And what do we get back? Complaints, that’s what. Moans. And lying in the road and sayin’ we’s not welcome. In their area!

That’s why my Fred joined the KBWA. We love our country. Just breaks our hearts, way these people come in and then turn round and say we’s anti-immigrant. No we’re not. We just want to protect our British culture and our heritage and that. We’d like to make 13th July a festival, sort of, for everybody. If them immigrants is willing to accept that and acknowledge Her Majesty as their sovereign and adopt our customs and culture, then right,  no problem. But  not them.  So what I say is,  if they don’t like it, let ‘em go back where they come from.

Meanwhile, long as they is here, show some respect for Her Majesty, respect for our country, respect for our culture. That’s how it were in the old days - the bands, the marches, the speeches. It was just a proper lovely day out for everyone, kiddies n’ all. Only then these people came along, showed no respect, got everyone riled up, blocked roads. Spoiled everything. Bleedin’ disgrace.

Anyway, I’m just hoping this weather lasts until 13th, cos when it’s sunny on the day it’s just lovely. Although you gotta be prepared, like the boy scouts and that, so maybe I’ll bring my Union flag umbrella with me just in case. Mind you it’s still a proper nice day, 13th, no matter what the weather.  Perfect  it would be, only for them immigrants with their posters and Respect Our Area and blah-de-blah. Tell you one thing: they won’t put me and my Fred or any of his mates off. Not an inch.  We love July 13th more than anything. Except maybe Her Majesty.  Ain’t no amount of protesting scum  going to change that.

Dead letter days - thanks, Vince

On a day when stout blades are adding the finishing touches to their bonfires and supplies of lager and  tricolours are being checked, it seems perverse to raise one’s eyes and look beyond. But  the clips of Vince Cable talking yesterday have driven me to it. If anyone can think of a bigger rip-off than his proposed privatization of the Royal Mail, I’d like to hear about it. 

Despite the dumb title (what has  QE2 have to do with letter-delivery - does she get a temporary job each Christmas?), the Royal Mail is a magical system. Agreed it’s been run down -  I now get my letters around noon, whereas in former years they’d be here around 8.00 a.m. or earlier - but it still delivers throughout the United Kingdom (yes I know, I know, but let it go for now) with everything at a standard rate. That is, a letter sent to Cornwall will cost the same (and should be delivered in a similar time-scale) as one to Coleraine. And that’s where the privatising bastards come in.

Once privatized, three things will happen:  the work-force will be slashed, the pay of workers cut and it’ll cost you more to send a letter to Hull than it will to Fintona. In case they’d have any difficulty getting this iniquitous bill passed, Vince Cable, that fine liberal, will arrange a £2,000 pay-off to postal workers. It’s like giving the condemned man a slap-up feed while the firing squad oil their guns and practice aiming. 

Granted, the destruction of the system as we know it doesn’t affect us as much now, since the internet and texting and mobile phones carry a lot of our communication with each other. But there are still occasions when we all rely on the Post Office to deliver something for us -  a precious parcel, a special letter.  What Cable is planning is symptomatic of the thinking of the present ghastly British government: destroy anything that involves people working together,  give a leg-up to anything that’ll produce competition red in tooth and claw.

But it hasn’t happened yet, so I’ll expect the usual vanful of pressies and fancy cards on my birthday tomorrow. Let me thank you in anticipation - go raibh  cead maith agaibh.

I'm lucky to be alive so don't listen to me

This afternoon the Dail will vote on the abortion bill. I really should keep out of this because I have a vested interest, but maybe if I provide the background of this vested interest it’ll leave a space for comment. 

I was the last of eight children, with a gap of more than three years between me and the second-last sibling. That was because my mother had been told after No 7 that if she had any more children, she’d be seriously endangering her health. Anyway she became pregnant again, I was born and my deeply relieved mother named me after the patron saint of hopeless cases.  Had she lived in a society where the diagnosis of danger to the mother’s health was accepted as grounds for abortion, I wouldn’t be. 

For an expectant mother to ignore all medical advice about dangers to her health would be reckless in the extreme. But my own case points to one essential: any medical prediction has to be made with as many second or third opinions as can be mustered. In other words, to be guided by medical opinion, we need to trust that  medical opinion is reliable - that what it predicts is highly likely to occur. Because doctors do make mistaken diagnoses.

In the south’s abortion bill, the point of debate is the clause which permits abortion where two psychiatrists and an obstetrician agree that the expectant mother is contemplating suicide. I’m not a medical doctor, much less a psychiatrist, but from what I can gather, psychiatrists themselves admit that they are not capable of accurately interpreting a patient’s talk of suicide. My own daughter (about whom I’ve been boasting shamelessly of late) is considering psychiatry as a career path in medicine, but a major factor that might deter her would be the danger that misreading of a patient’s needs might result in the patient taking his or her own life. 

In one respect the south’s abortion bill is a sham. It doesn’t address the problem of the eleven  women who, on average, travel to England every day to have an abortion: threats of suicide by pregnant women form only a tiny proportion of those who seek an abortion. In another respect the bill is anything but a sham: if it legalises abortion for those women who declare thoughts of killing themselves, and that declaration is pronounced valid by two psychiatrists and an obstetrician, it’ll make clear that abortion may be performed in Ireland on thin-ice medical verification. Once that is established, and the media in Ireland continue to present the foetus as not-yet-human (a notion I have never understood), the doors to widely-available legal abortion will certainly have been unlocked. 

But then, as I say, I’m biased. So far, all things considered, I’ve enjoyed being alive. 

The Glorious Twelfth

I wonder how the Twelfth looks to outsiders. I know Mary McAleese, when she was in the Áras, thought of the Orangemen’s day as part of our culture. That’s why she invited unionists down to the Áras,  put on a big spread for them.  Most of us, however, are outsiders. We look in on the Orangeman’s day via the media - mainly television. 

In the good old days (Wha’?), the BBC used to cover the marches and bands in exquisite/excruciating detail. I’ve even heard it said by those who should know that the Grand Master of the Orange Order would be invited by the Controller of the BBC to sit with him (it was always a him then) and watch the bands go by, maybe while enjoying a quality lunch to the sound of their music. 

Nowadays things are different. Television doesn’t go on for hours and hours - maybe around an hour in the morning and a half-hour wrap-up in the evening. It’s not something I circle in my Radio Times, but I can’t recall a TV commentary that presented the marchers and bands and brethren as other than decent folk out having a bit of fun on a colourful, musical day. 

Except, of course, it’s more than that. At considerable expense to the tax-payer, the bands and marchers are there (and on 3,000-4,000 other occasions each year, ach sin sceal eile) to remind themselves and their neighbours that in a battle over 300 years ago, the Protestant tradition in the shape of William of Orange defeated the Catholic tradition in the shape of James II. This, of course, is an honourable expression of Protestant/unionist culture, nothing to do with sticking two fingers up to the taigs - never has been, never will be. Which is why so many Catholics/nationalists look forward to the big day with happy anticipation also.  And why papers like The Irish Times present pictures of the oh-so-high bonfires, taking care to crop out the tricolour perched on top. 

So between TV and the papers, the uninformed outsider comes away from the Twelfth with the vision of a happy people acting out a time-honoured event,  and a vision of those who complain about it as a bunch of trouble-fomenting bigots. Shame, isn’t it?

Enda and Nelson: two men with political headaches

Two big meetings of our public representatives north and south of the border this week.  The topics of concern appear quite different at first glance.

In the south, they’re voting on that abortion bill. It’ll almost certainly pass, since most if not all parties have made it mandatory for the party members to support it. A few from Fine Gael and one from Sinn Féin have peeled off and said they’ll vote against the bill, but that’s not going to make much difference. To their political careers, yes; to the bill’s passage, no.

The bill is so riddled with contradictions it’s hard to know where to start. For one, it’ll have practically no effect on the numbers of women (some eleven every day) travelling to England from Ireland for an abortion. Its core point of controversy is the suicide bit: it will allow a pregnant woman who is thinking of suicide to have an abortion, providing three medics, including two psychiatrists, give the nod. Who will choose the psychiatrists and using what criteria, I wonder? Jury members are rejected if they are known to have particular fixed views on the matter being tried. Will something similar apply to the chosen psychiatrists? 

We’re told by supporters of the bill that no pregnant woman would feign suicidal thoughts in order to have an abortion. How do they know? And for that matter, how accurately can psychiatrists predict that someone is at risk of suicide? And finally, even if they were able to predict suicidal tendencies accurately, is abortion the only possible response? If a mother were to display murderous tendencies towards one of her children, would we solve the matter by killing the child? 

In the north here, our focus will be on Nelson McCausland and the Red Sky affair. By comparison with the south’s life-and-death issues, this seems relatively unimportant, but it still matters. The allegations are that there was some behind-the-scenes string-pulling to make sure Red Sky, a discredited contracting company to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, would get back in the game. McCausland denies all charges; whether he has done so convincingly depends on where you stand. If you stand within the ranks of the DUP, you will argue that a hard-working minister is being framed  with spurious charges intended to damage him and the party. If you are standing outside the DUP, you might think that this is a minister who has failed to be open and impartial in a matter involving public funds. I myself am biased towards my old friend Nelson: the grilling of such a stout kilt-wearer and fluent Ulster-Scots speaker seems to me akin to booing Andy Murray, who beneath all the union flag-waving actually is a Scot as well. 

What links the cases north and south is the distinct possibility of hypocrisy. In the south, Enda Kenny is professing concern for the lives of suicidal women when in fact his government has been stampeded into action which doesn't address the problem highlighted by the sad death of Savida Halappanavar. In the north, Nelson McCausland is professing concern for the welfare of Housing Executive tenants. Whether that’s honest concern or the fumbling gestures of a minister caught with his pants down I’ll leave up to you. 

Five things, post-Red Sky and post-HET

Five things we know, post-Red Sky and post-HET:

 1. The HET  is discredited beyond repair. Was it the Bourbons that remembered everything and learnt nothing? You’d think the HET would have known how important it was to show themselves as even-handed when dealing with ‘security forces’ cases here. Yet it seems patently clear they did nothing of the sort. Old habits die hard.

2.  My old chum Nelson should be rehearsing his final lines for Monday. Assuming, that is, that the DUP don’t plan to brazen it out. If the allegations are true (see what I did there?), Nelson or his adviser has transported his party into a  shit-storm of chicanery. Sad to say, I think the DUP will choose to brazen it out. But just in case, I think dear Nelson should have something memorable ready.  Maybe take a cue from his name-sake and go out with “Kiss me, Hardy”?  I know it doesn't make sense in the present context, but then neither does the handling of the whole Red Sky affair.

3. The HET story is a far bigger one than Nelson and Red Sky,  which shows you how big it is. Both are concerned with the past but Nelson and Red Sky are recent past and merely involve charges of giving a leg-up to contractors.  The HET story takes us right back to the days when any suggestion that the state had one law for its well-armed forces and another for everyone else.   It seems those days haven’t quite gone away, you know.

4.We’d need to make up our minds about how good we are at resolving conflict. On the one hand, we hear tales of Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness (or is it just Martin?) advising other trouble-spots in the world on how to move from war to peace; on the other hand we appear hopeless at dealing with the pain that the past has involved for so many people. 

5.  Anyone who says there should be a hierarchy of victims is either very stupid or very duplicitous. I’m talking here about the families who are left to live with the loss of a loved one, whether that be a British soldier, an RUC man or an IRA volunteer. It’s red herring talk or totally illogical talk to say things like “Yes, but the terrorist had a choice”.  What we’re talking about here is simple: not the dead person but the grieving family. Got that OK? If not, maybe you should just should shut up. Better remain silent and be thought a fool than open your gob and prove it.