Let’s start by stating the facts.
Protecting women was the furthest thing from the minds of the marauding rioters intent on conducting a pogrom against those visibly perceived as ‘Others’ in their community, whether it was Ballymena, Larne or Portadown last week.
Social media captured the horrific images of family homes being torched. Women and children were forced to hide in attics and wardrobes from frenzied racist mobs.
Live stream recordings included commentary from laughing girls cheering on those intent on attacking the “dirty foreign scum,” whilst a Facebook account urged people to identify the addresses of ethnic minority families they wanted attacked.
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The racist violence engulfing a number of predominantly loyalist communities across the north of Ireland exposed an ugly and disturbing mindset which has been allowed to fester because it has never been fully acknowledged, never mind addressed.
People of all persuasions were right to be angry at the news of a serious sexual assault against a young girl in Ballymena.
The victim of that assault deserves nothing but sympathy, along with the hundreds of other women across this region who, every year, are victims of similarly despicable acts of sexual violence in a society which remains in denial about the extent of the problem.
The Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG) strategy launched by the Executive last September was prompted because of the culture of misogyny and abuse evident across communities who have long called this place home. If rioting and house burnings were to be triggered by sexual assaults, then these would be occurring on a much more frequent basis.
The facts have a way of proving to be an inconvenience to those who would seek to peddle false narratives. With less than 4% of the north’s population being from an ethnic minority background, we are considerably less diverse than England and Scotland, where the figures are 18% and 13%.
Similarly, attempts to blame rioting on deprivation - see the racist attacks in Sandy Row last summer - ignore the reality that majority Catholic areas predominate the list of most deprived communities across the north of Ireland, yet these areas have yet to see the type of ferocious racist violence and attacks on minority communities.
Read more: TUV MLA says Ballymena riots ‘were always going to happen’
Tellingly, the one-time founder of the DUP, Wallace Thompson, pondered aloud on social media about “how many of those involved in orchestrating and participating in this outrageous racial violence will be on the streets on 12 July proudly proclaiming civil and religious liberty for all”.
There is a pressing need to explore prevalent cultural attitudes within unionism and how its collective political leadership has shaped and sustained perspectives instinctively hostile of ‘Others’, be they Irish and Catholic or from lands further afield.
In April 2023, unionist-dominated Mid and East Antrim councillors voted to reject a £100,000 funding offer from Stormont for asylum seekers and refugees in the council.
Writing at the time, Amnesty NI’s Patrick Corrigan noted how the “funds could have supported the integration and support of asylum seekers in the area”, including language lessons organised by local community groups and churches.
After being forced into a U-turn six months later, the council was left to accept an offer amounting to half of that initially rejected which naturally limited what could be done.
What constitutes integration in Ballymena? Should ethnic minority communities collect wood for loyalist bonfires to demonstrate their desire to belong? Should they be offering to buy the flutes and Lambeg drum for a local loyalist kick the Pope band to better ingratiate themselves with the locals?
Speaking after the initial night of violence last week saw multiple family homes burnt out by a mob, the North Antrim TUV MP, Jim Allister, remarked that, “It would be foolish to deny that there have been rising tensions because a particular part of the town has become dominated by a culture and a people who do not seem to want to integrate and do not integrate”.
In his interview with Stephen Nolan, the TUV leader went further, claiming: “There’s no denying the fact that within that part of Ballymena there has been an over-concentration of Roma community people who do not in the main, or at least sufficient of them, do not seem to want to integrate into society and that has caused tensions in the town.”
What constitutes integration in Ballymena? Does Jim Allister want ethnic minority communities to collect wood for loyalist bonfires to demonstrate their desire to belong?
Should they be offering to buy the flutes and Lambeg drum for a local loyalist kick the Pope band to better ingratiate themselves with the locals? Does refusing to fly a Union Flag from your window amount to rejecting integration and cause tensions in Ballymena?
Read more: John Manley: DUP needs to quit its doublespeak and find some resolve
This particular part of the world was the scene for the appalling sectarian protest by loyalists aimed at stopping Catholics attending Mass at the Church of our Lady in Harryville during the tumultuous period from 1996 to 1999. The Catholic church was closed over a decade ago.
Blaming ‘Others’ for causing tension is a convenient way of avoiding the collective self-reflection unionism has long needed to help it become more at peace with modernity.
Integrating minority groups is a challenge anywhere in the world, just as Irish communities have found over the centuries in America, Scotland and elsewhere.
It’s a two-way process requiring a host community to be open to embracing difference and accommodating those whose lived experiences, religious and cultural practices and even skin colour are different, whilst also expecting new communities to respect legitimate and well established local conventions and customs.
DUP politicians have a track record of indulging those most critical of immigrant communities. This is nothing new, though their status as the lead party of unionism acts at times to moderate public pronouncements.
The electoral rise of a TUV speaking without similar restraints means mainstream unionism faces a critical challenge to push back against that, or continue with a weak message which ultimately is not simply self-defeating but which makes a repeat of the violence of the past week and last summer almost inevitable.
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