Divide In Six Counties

[The Grey Blur]

While loyalists rioted in Belfast, nationalists and republican were busy forging ahead with the organizations of amongst other activities the Aisling Awards (£1000 bursaries awarded to deserving people who serve their community to help with higher education expenses), the Daily Ireland/Andersontown News Group which provides 250+ jobs in West Belfast as well as a republican voice in the mainstream news, the Meanscoil: an Irish-language secondary school that recently managed to finally get out of huts and into a proper £20 million building (built with money provided by Martin McGuinness as Education Minister before devolved government collapsed) as well as forging ahead with The Feile, the Cultúrlann and the Palestinian solidarity movement amongst other things.

Whereas the 'Show Of Culture' that the Orangemen had decided to stage degenerated into riots with the end result being injured peelers (Oh no!), 18 arrests and a catholic man near-death.

The Unionist reaction to the riots were predictable;

PUP leader David Ervine asked: “Did the Chief Constable not hear the rumbllngs of discontent from loyalist communities before now?"

- I respect David Ervine beacause he has at least acknowledged the need for Unionists to sit down at the table with Sinn Féin but he is in the wrong here as the PSNI (although you woudn't be sure) are not solely there to assend to Loyalist wishes.

Nelson McCausland, DUP Assembly member and a member of the Orange Order, said: “I think the violence is an expression of a much deeper resentment and anger that exists right across Northern Ireland.
“The key thing is that the government, in other words Peter Hain as Secretary of State, and the Chief Constable and others have failed to listen to the political leadership of the unionist community.”

-I can't believe this bigot has just managed to justify the riots, obviously he is afraid to take a stand against the working class Loyalist (LVF/UFV) who votes him over-whelmingly into power, jeez just grow a backbone and raise the anchor that harbours you to criminal thugs and drug-pushers.

"I'm not condemning anything" said one of Belfast’s most senior Orangemen, Grand Master Dawson Bailie claimed that the Orange Order was not responsible for the weekend trouble.

-one comment on this - :lol:

When asked if the Order condemned the violence, he told the BBC: “As far as I’m concerned the people to blame for that are the Secretary of State, the Chief Constable and the Parades Commission, fairly and squarely.”

Jesus Christ, they don't get tpo provoke innocent catholics by marching down the Springfield Road so they

1)Block roads - it took me fucking ages to get to school - :P

2)Beat unconscious and almost kill a working-class catholic near Short Strand

3)Riot - When it happened in Ardoyne we were hit with rubber bullets, water cannon, got stones, bottles thrown at us, provoked by the police etc. the loyalists do the same (although hilariously an Orangeman did try to attack a peeler with a cerimonial sword) and are simply stone-walled.

4)BLAME IT ON EVERYONE ELSE! - The riots in Ardnoyne were acknowledged as a protest getting out of hand (despite obvious provocation) can't the Loyalist do the same?

I have one final point I have to make - I am not trying to make a distinction between working class catholics and working class protestants I am simply acknowledging hat nationalist are prepared to forge ahead while loyalists seem stuck in the 'kill all taigs' mentality that was suppposed to have ended in 1994.

P.S Did anyone know the Orange Order's ONLY rule?...

...You have to be a protestant!

[slim]

Loyalist mob violence deeply saddens me. They are supposed to be fellow Irishmen and women. They are not decended from the planters as they would like to claim but many of the planters became catholic and natives also became protestant in a time when the tension was a lot calmer (ie. before the 30 years war period). They are the same people as the catholics yet they see themselves as somehow different.

This mentality is wrong and is costing the lives of Irish people.

[Severian]

I think the reaction of the British bourgeois press is interesting. This Guardian column seems pretty typical (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1567684,00.html)

They seem to have suddenly discovered that:
This was what the sceptics always said would happen. Paramilitaries, officially on ceasefire, would break their word - and unleash a wave of devastating violence. Armed to the teeth, these private armies would reach for the gun the moment they did not get their way. And all the promises made by the respectable political parties that stand alongside them would be exposed as worthless lies.

That's what critics of the Northern Ireland peace process always warned would happen. Except the menace they had in mind was the IRA and the republican movement. It was the Provos who had to be disarmed and disbanded, lest they return to their bloody ways.

What the sceptics did not bank on, what few people even mentioned, were the paramilitaries of loyalism. Rare was the cry for the Ulster Volunteer Force to decommission its weapons or for the Ulster Defence Association to declare that its war was over. And yet it was these men, backed by their allies in the Orange Order - not the IRA - who over the weekend turned parts of Belfast into what one loyalist politician described to me yesterday as "Beirut".

This was no surprise to me, and should not have surprised anyone. It was always the nationalist forces who were pushing the peace process forward, and the loyalists who increasingly felt that they were losing out in it.

Concentrating on the silent guns of the IRA, rather than ongoing Loyalist violence, was always a smoke-and-mirrors game. It's just gotten kinda hard to keep playing it.

And of course the British press says there have to be concessions to the grievances of the armed gangs - grievances over perceived unfairness that comes from a sense of entitlement where the slightest loss of privilege is seen as persecution. Their usual line about not giving in to or rewarding terrorism is forgotten.

It is also interesting to see the Loyalist armed gangs attacking the cops...presumably 'cause for once the cops are getting between them and the nationalist neighborhoods they want to attack.

London is saying they'll declare the UVF's ceasefire over (http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1929882005), a belated recognition of reality. What would be the consequences of that move, beyond an end to the release of UVF prisoners? How would it affect the Loyalist parties - esp the DUP?

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 08:01 PM
And of course the British press says there have to be concessions to the grievances of the armed gangs - grievances over perceived unfairness that comes from a sense of entitlement where the slightest loss of privilege is seen as persecution. Their usual line about not giving in to or rewarding terrorism is forgotten.

It is also interesting to see the Loyalist armed gangs attacking the cops...presumably 'cause for once the cops are getting between them and the nationalist neighborhoods they want to attack.

London is saying they'll declare the UVF's ceasefire over (http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1929882005), a belated recognition of reality. What would be the consequences of that move, beyond an end to the release of UVF prisoners? How would it affect the Loyalist parties - esp the DUP?
I don't see much changing as a result of this. The unionists have done this repeatedly and have always been rewarded for it. They brought about a strike in the seventies against power sharing with catholics that succeeded, they formed the original UVF to threaten civil war if Home Rule were introduced, and so on. Lenin wrote about the issue, how the British establishment always bows to their demands: The British Liberals and Ireland (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/12.htm)

[The Grey Blur]

Yes, despite nationalists attempting to re-build and forge ahead through peaceful democratic means the British and West-Brit papers (The Irish Times) constantly attacking the IRA while completely ignoring the fact that Loyalist continue to murder and peddle drugs.

The usual responses of Unionists (for 50 years or so) is to complain that nationalists get what they want through violence but thankfully with the IRA dormant their bogeyman figure is non-exisistent, removing whatever already thin justification there could have been for these riots.

Severian - I'm not sure how the declaration that the UVF ceasefire is over will affect the DUP but I just hope the UVF concentrate on killing other loyalists over drugs and don't re-launch the death squads.

Óglach - I've always been intrigued by how you support the INLA and I have argued with you before over their policies and activities but I am intrested to find out how you decided to support them? Where are you from, did you also support the officials?

[praxis1966]

I couldn't say how it would directly affect the DUP, if at all. We've all seen this before, and they're still the same bunch of assholes.

Anyhow, I whole heartedly agree with Sverian. I actually wrote a blog piece which more or less predicted this several weeks ago on MySpace. (It's actually the second entry in the list.)

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...2D171E578351484 (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=4E1CC615-CF43-4DFD-BAD56AA9882D171E578351484)

[bunk]

They are the same people as the catholics yet they see themselves as somehow different.

Really? In the other thread you claim that there are no Protestant proletarians :lol:

[slim]

Erm...no i dont.

I claim that the catholic working class of northern Ireland were worse off compared to the protestant working class and that the ruling class is dominantly protestant.

[slim]

Anyway, by the same people, i mean Irish.