Unity

From Unity, 24 September 2005

Don’t be used

by James Stewart

For ten days the people of Northern Ireland were subjected to intensive violence orchestrated by the loyalist paramilitaries and ignited by the Orange Order’s refusal to accept the decision of the Parades Commission on the rerouting of their Whiterock parade in west Belfast.
     The majority of people here firmly believe that the orgy of violence was planned well before the Orange march took place. After all, there was the launch of the “I Love Ulster” campaign, in which paramilitaries, the Orange Grand Master and an unsuccessful DUP council candidate and other right-wing unionist groupings took part. It was launched by the distribution of the Shankill Mirror throughout large areas of the Six Counties. This issue contained accounts of PIRA atrocities over thirty years of violence but failed to mention atrocities carried out by the UDA, UVF, LVF, and Red Hand Commandos. Its aim was clearly to stir up hate and fear and to use the weapon of sectarianism.
     There was nothing spontaneous about the riots during and after the Whiterock Orange parade: guns, blast and petrol bombs have to be prepared for use.
     The attacks on the police and the British army were murderous, but the Belfast Orange leadership and the paramilitaries had the blatant audacity to blame them, especially the PSNI, for defending themselves.
     This week the UDA leadership had the gall to call for an end to the repression of Protestants by the British army, the police, and the British government.
     After having participated in organising the violence, their rebellion against the forces of law and order is justified, in their eyes, because of the reaction of the British government, the police, and army.
     It is interesting that they and unionist politicians in the DUP and UUP claim that republicans and nationalists have received all the concessions from the British government since the Good Friday Agreement, and that Protestant working-class areas have received none. Of course they don’t spell this out in terms of living standards, housing conditions, health and education services, etc. What they concentrate on is the reformed police force, the removal of British army command posts, the proposed disbandment of the Royal Irish Regiment, and the decision of the Parades Commission on Orange parades.
     In other words, it is a harking back to the old days when a unionist oligarchy controlled all aspects of life in Northern Ireland and didn’t permit nationalist aspirations to be expressed in the democratic process.
     On Tuesday this week the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Peter Hain, told the loyalist paramilitaries: “The choice for loyalist paramilitaries is clear: play the political role that you claim as your motivation or face the rigour of the law as the mafia organisation into which you have degenerated. You will not be allowed to terrorise your own communities.”
     Last week Mr Hain also made it quite clear that the demand to get rid of the Parades Commission from the Orange Order, the DUP, UUP and loyalist paramilitaries will not be met.
     The DUP and UUP appear to be incapable of facing up to political change, of taking up the real issues which face people in the working-class areas they depend on for their votes.
     Instead they wish to continue with the old bigoted platforms which unionists erected in 1920; and of course, as then, the people who are used as cannon fodder are the Protestant section of the working class. And it is their quality of life that suffers in the process.
     The people of the Shankill Road suffered under unionist rule in social deprivation like their counterparts on the Falls Road.

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