Opinion

Jake O'Kane: While those involved in Michaela song have apologised, I suspect their regret is due more to having been exposed than genuine contrition

If you succeed in stripping a person of their humanity you open the door for unimaginable cruelty and genocide. It’s much easier to torture or kill someone you view as a rat or cockroach than a human being who is your equal

Queen Elizabeth has carried out her duties 'with great diligence', says Jake O'Kane. Picture by Buckingham Palace/Studio Canal/BBC Studios/Heyday Films.
Queen Elizabeth has carried out her duties 'with great diligence', says Jake O'Kane. Picture by Buckingham Palace/Studio Canal/BBC Studios/Heyday Films. Queen Elizabeth has carried out her duties 'with great diligence', says Jake O'Kane. Picture by Buckingham Palace/Studio Canal/BBC Studios/Heyday Films.

EVERY week I receive a mountain of online communications via email or social media. The vast majority are benign, videos of everything from cats playing piano to local charity events.

Occasionally however I'm sent material which leaves me in a moral dilemma. This happened when I was sent a video of the singing in an Orange Hall of a disgusting song about the murder of Michaela McAreavey.

As possibly one of the first people sent the video, I couldn't work out what was being sung. Once I worked that out, my confusion was replaced by incomprehension as to why anyone would write such a vile song, then sing it, then upload that online.

I hesitated reposting it not due to any concern for the idiots involved, but because I realised the pain the clip would cause to both the Harte and McAreavey families and didn't want to be in anyway complicit.

Of course, I was naïve, the clip immediately went viral and was rightly condemned by every right-thinking person. While those involved have apologised, I suspect their regret is due more to having been exposed than any genuine contrition.

Sadly, this wasn't the only outburst of naked sectarianism and idiocy during the week.

Take a moment and read the following three statements and see if you can identify anything which connects them.

"It's necessary to exterminate them like rats, once and for all. In Germany, thank God, we've already taken care of that. I hope the world will follow this example."

"These people are cockroaches; they should go back to Ethiopia. Anyone whose neck you do not cut is the one who will cut your neck."

"There's only one way to deal with rats. It's not to feed them, it's not to give them a house, it's not to give them a feel-good factor of power. The only way... is to go in with the rifle and the grenade and get rid of them, every last one including the young upstarts."

The first was written by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in his diary in 1945, following the murder of six million people in Hitler's extermination camps.

The second was written by senior Hutu politician Leon Mugesera in 1992 ahead of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi minority in Rwanda. One million Tutsi were subsequently murdered in only 100 days, many slaughtered at the side of roads by machete-wielding Hutu gangs.

The third was posted online this week by controversial Armagh pastor, Barrie Halliday.

What all three have in common is the dehumanisation of perceived enemies by portraying them as vermin. For if you succeed in stripping a person of their humanity you open the door for unimaginable cruelty and genocide. It's much easier to torture or kill someone you view as a rat or cockroach than a human being who is your equal.

While Pastor Halliday comes across as a pathetic little man, standing in a farmyard vomiting sectarian hatred via a badly produced video, we ignore at our peril his hateful rhetoric. He stands in direct lineage with Goebbels, Mugesera and other hate preachers such as al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Halliday attempted to excuse his comments, saying they were never intended to be seen beyond a small group of fellow loyalists. In other words, it's OK to be a sectarian bigot so long as it's among fellow bigots.

Indeed, if Halliday were an Islamic mullah rather than Christian pastor I wonder would he remain at liberty? Thankfully, at present, his evident desperation for attention makes him more a figure of ridicule and parody than the self-appointed prophet of doom he deludedly believes himself to be.

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MY questioning of the mania surrounding the Diamond Jubilee celebrations led to many unionists suggesting 'my mask of impartiality had slipped' and my 'hidden Republican tendencies' had been revealed.

And they'd have been right if they had spelled 'Republican' with a small rather than capital 'R'. For I am indeed a republican as defined in the Cambridge dictionary as, "a supporter of government by elected representatives of the people rather than government by a king or queen".

I'm also capable of distinguishing between the person and role. Queen Elizabeth is without doubt an impressive individual who has carried out her duties with great diligence.

But that in the 21st century we're still revering aristocracy over meritocracy is both anachronistic and demeaning to those whose achievements aren't confined to an accident of birth. And as for Prince Andrew catching Covid - away on...