From Unity, 30 January 2010

Taking a look at life

Always the marching men

by Raymond O’Connell

Once again we are witnessing an unseemly squabble taking place at Hillsborough Castle. It is possible that some kind of deal will be struck, a kind of fig leaf for a failing administration.
     However, this will not resolve the more long-term fact that the DUP cannot break the habit of its entire lifetime and its raison d’être and move away one jot from its sectarian roots.
     Into this debacle the Ulster Unionists and their Tory bedfellows have jumped with both feet. Their pathetic attempt to concoct some kind of pact between Peter Robinson, who appears to have completely overcome his recent trauma, and Sir Reg humour-bypass Empey, to keep St Martin the Ecumenist from becoming First Minister, has been correctly diagnosed as back-room sectarianism of the old school.
     It is also a timely reminder to the Catholic prospective Tory candidates, who thought they had signed up to a new brand of Cameron all-inclusive conservatism, that their historic role as a tiny token minority in unionism is just as alive today as it has ever been. They are indeed expendable.
     Even if the present talks fail and we were to have an election, the pact worked, and Jim Allister lost his traditional unionist voice, the same issues will remain to be addressed.
     Such a scenario would also mean, of course, that the much-quoted person in the street who is “talking common sense” about the “politicians getting on with it,” wanting someone to “bang their heads together,” has opted for the status quo when given an opportunity to vote for “completely different” players.
     Would anyone place even a modest wager, let alone their life savings, on a significantly different result?
     When it comes to the “sticking point” of parades it seems beyond comprehending that the DUP would scupper the possibility of a deal to protect the right to march where you are not wanted because you have done it for years.
     Of course behind this is the more fundamental sticking point of sectarianism, which the marching orders epitomise, and the need to silence “the Voice” by playing the old songs and the “banging of Orange drums.”
     Apparently the aim of a Lambeg drum competition is for one drummer to impose his rhythm on his opponent. Not a bad metaphor for life here and perhaps not too dissimilar to Don McClean’s “American Pie”:
               
               “. . . The players tried to take the field;
               The marching men refused to yield.
               Do you recall what was revealed
               The day the music died.”

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