For just how much longer must the beleaguered nationalist community in the north be expected to succumb to unwanted loyalist bonfires and being forced to indulge unwelcome, uninvited anti-Catholic Orangemen who have been purposely routed through nationalist areas to display the sectarian power of the ‘conqueror’ over the ‘conquered’?
The new draft parades’ bill which was expected to usher in a more acceptable system of dealing with contentious parades to replace the Parades Commission, has been rejected by the Grand Orange Lodge. The proposed legislative change which has been rejected will now be shelved and the British government appointed Parades Commission, which has also been rejected by the Orange Order, will be reappointed. For the assembly to continue to bow to the bigoted and undemocratic demands of Orange Order bullies is tantamount to permitting the state to be governed according to the principles of sectarian mob rule. Neither the nationalist community nor the rule of law should acquiesce to threats and intimidation, nor should they be subservient to Orange Order demands.
Confederate and Nazi flags adorn streets in Antrim. Israeli flags flown by loyalists from lampposts in Belfast, Nazi flags flown by loyalists in Carrickfergus while other loyalist hoods in Belfast threaten to crucify all Catholics. Like Orwell’s image of the future in 1984 of a jackboot stamping on a human face, forever, loyalists will always be on the side of the jackboot while nationalists will always be on the side of the human face. Councils refuse to take down offensive loyalist paramilitary flags because they fear reprisals. The PSNI refuses to remove Tricolours from loyalist bonfires because the Orange Order says it’s part of their cultural heritage. Yet last August the PSNI did remove a republican bonfire in Belfast.
When former President McAleese tried to point out this trait in loyalism a few years ago saying that some people in Northern Ireland transmitted to their children an irrational hatred of Catholics she was castigated by the media north and south.
The Orange Order has fought a 200-year rearguard action against democracy in Ireland by opposing every progressive reform from the repeal of the anti-Catholic and anti-dissenter penal laws to the Patten Report on the RUC. Any proposal (whether it be the Act of Union, Home Rule or power sharing) which they perceived might weaken loyalist hegemonic domination in Ireland, was vigorously opposed, often with threats of violence, and if the violence and division this island has endured for centuries is to be overcome, bigotry must be challenged, exposed and vigorously opposed at every opportunity, preferably from within.
TOM COOPER
Irish National Congress, Dublin 7
The north has been up in flames long enough
Stormont should legislate laws for prohibiting or restricting the setting of outdoor fires which are extremely dangerous and brazenly sectarian. There seems to be little discussion on the burning of national flags in Northern Ireland, which is arguably worse than flying flags of prohibited organisations, as it smacks at a huge demographic and is crassly sectarian.
Clearly, serious amounts of money are been spent buying new wooden pallets to be burned, not just ones that have been discarded. One is reminded of north America’s south and the burning of crosses by white supremacists to agitate what they did not consider acceptable to them.
The fires are getting bigger and bigger every year. Who knows where it will stop and how many will get hurt. Sectarian fires also pollute the air with very dangerous cancer-causing dioxins from the burning of rubber.
Then there are those who are throwing things into these huge fires that are likely to explode.
Bonfires should be completely banned or seriously curtailed.
If this cannot be agreed then an expensive licence should have to be purchased so the taxpayer can recover the huge cost in clearing it all up after the bigots have gone home and the flames have died down.
Bonfires are a danger and a menace to the community as a whole, with the added overtone of the bigoted release of hatred with a national flag at the top of them and a big cheer when the fire eventually reaches it.
Northern Ireland has been up in flames long enough.
MAURICE FITZGERALD
Shanbally, Co Cork
Loyalist duplicity
I am impressed by the anger of loyalists in Carrickfergus following the appearance of Nazi flags in the town and I am sure anyone who has been to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland or indeed to any of the other death camps run by the Nazis will be full-square behind the Carrickfergus loyalist who stood in front of the cameras to make his views known.
However, while making no comparisons, on scale and the extent of the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis, I found it a little odd to see loyalist paramilitary flags fluttering in the background while the condemnations were being made.
Am I to understand that people outraged with flags linked with the atrocities carried out by Nazis have no problem living with flags commemorating people like the Shankill Butchers (UVF) who are known to have murdered at least 23 innocent people by slitting their throats after exposing them to the most vile torture.
In many towns across the north there are similar loyalist paramilitary flags flying bestowing honour on killer gangs that brought heartache to families through murder and mayhem but the silence on this issue is deafening. Not a word from the so-called political representatives of those organisations that should not exist, not a squeak from the loyal orders or indeed unionist politicians who had palpitations when a Tricolour flew on Stormont for 20 minutes.
The reality is that we still live in a very confused society and it worries me that the duplicity shown by those in Carrickfergus and replicated in other areas doesn’t auger well for the future. The very fact that some people thought it a good idea to put Nazi flags up in Carrickfergus in the first place tells me that there are still some very dangerous people in our midst who, never mind the atrocities of loyalist murder gangs, think Nazism was a good idea.
JOHN DALLAT MLA
SDLP, East Derry
Styling of university problematic
The Irish News’s double feature on St Mary’s, Twickenham was excellent (July 7, 8). However, its styling itself as Catholic is a little problematic.
While it has recently been given university status by the Privy Council one would think that an application for Pontifical status would also be desirable; given that in its origins, the university – such as Oxbridge and St Andrew’s etc –received their teaching and degree granting authority from the Pope. Likewise, while the examples of such luminaries as Dr Francis Campbell and Dr Ruth Kelly are ideal for placing its Catholic ethos on a firm foundation, the inclusion of others, such as Cherie Blair and Mary McAleese would show a conflict, given that both ladies have shown that their views on such moral/dogmatic issues as artificial contraception, women’s ordination and the redefinition of marriage are at odds with the teaching of the Church. Indeed, the latter’s decision to receive Anglican communion in 1997 is one notorious example of active disdain.
St John Paul II ruled that the Church’s inability to ordain women must be binding on all Catholics and to state otherwise, is a contradiction. So, to have such a person(s) teaching at a university, which is anxious in promotion of its
Catholic faith, is a clearly complicated one.
JDP McALLION
Clonoe, Co Tyrone
