Let me be honest: I’d never heard of Jim Sands before this morning. Jim, apparently, is a former Ulster Unionist Party candidate and a not particularly successful one: when he stood for office he got 38 votes. But Jim is in the news because the way he figures it, there couldn’t be enough tricolours on the Eleventh night bonfires. This, Jim states, is a peaceful way for young people who can’t vote to express their feelings. And in a classic case of presenting an issue in terms of false alternatives, he demands: “Is it not better burning their posters rather than their constituency offices?”
I remember years and years ago, when Bill and Hillary Clinton first came to Ireland, Hillary was glad-handing people corralled behind a pavement barrier. One male Dub pumped her hand and asked a question which you could tell left Bill’s wife a bit puzzled: “Are there any more at home like you?” The same question might be asked of Jim Sands: are there many of you in existence?
The sad answer to that is, Yes. If there weren’t, UUP MP Danny .Kinahan wouldn’t have had his photograph taken in front of a bonfire topped by a tricolour; our new Minister for Culture Paul Givan wouldn’t be shown grinning and thrusting a burning brand into a mountainous Eleventh night bonfire. There are clearly lots like Jim Sands out there, which I think we all suspected; what’s depressing is that no unionist politician seems prepared to stand up and say “Enough is enough. We are a self-respecting party and we call for, we demand an end of this barbaric practice of burning posters of election opponents, burning the Irish flag, burning religious icons. If you insist on carrying on like that, you’re doing it in the teeth of our loud opposition”.
What are the chances of that happening? Rien, nada, seans ar bith, below zero.
Why do these people do these things? Because they see it as a way of showing their defiance of the growth in nationalist/republican numbers and strength. Traditionally when faced with a challenge, the possibility of some gain by nationalists/republicans, unionism has turned to violence. I suppose we should be grateful, like Jim, that they’re not burning down constituency offices. Although, just so you’re maybe a wee bit clearer on the matter, Jim, it doesn’t have to be burnt flags or burnt offices – there are a whole range of other options. Like staying at home and watching telly. Like getting in some cans and getting drunk. Like treating people who’ve different political views from your own with respect. Yes I know, Virginia. But as Heaney said, sometimes we get lucky and the stars align, sometimes hope and history rhyme; and sooner or later people like Jim must see who is using them and who is offering them a better tomorrow.
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& further to your points Jude, why is this behaviour/culture/hatred allowed to continue in a part of the UK. (at least that is what they continually tell us) & why does Enda & others in the republic turn a blind eye & a deaf ear to the insults to the national flag, effigies of the Pope, statues of Mary & Nationalists in general. Is this carry on not incitement to hatred, destruction of property acceptable in the year 2016.
Hatred of Catholics is still rampant in the north of Ireland because as you suggest there are no leaders on the unionist/orange side prepared to shout ‘stop’- but then unionism has always thrived on bigotry, sectarianism and hatred just like white supremacists in the USA..It is part of the culture. Some will protest that they are not bigots and some will engage in whataboutery. The law enforcers have a role to play in putting an end to this bigotry around the Twalth every year The unionist politicians who promote this bigotry should also be held to account. Bigotry and racism will not be stopped unless strong laws against it are in place and enforced.
All the strong laws in the world will make no difference in NI as long as we are lumbered with the 70% unionist/Protestant PSNI, who owe their allegiance to the loyalist parties, reinforced by the fact that they live in what they consider to be safe unionist areas.
But they also know that if they acted against unionism the safety of their homes and families would be at risk.
I can see where he is coming from and it is a position of honesty over duplicity.
To be attacking people in working class communities for behaving how they were and in many ways still are encouraged by their political leadership, is attacking the symptom but feeding the root cause of this illness in our society.
Until the leadership if unionism are made to acknowledge the wrongs of their past never mind the present, they will maintain their supremacist attitude and why shouldn’t they, if they are allowed to get away with it.
I have yet to hear someone prove to me that unionism is not a sliding scale of bigotry, while evidence such as this continuously drip feeds out and is far too often ignored.
To the right you have flag waving, flag burning and blatant bigotry which would be a larger minority than would be admitted to.
In the middle, there is political bigotry which may rear its head each summer or on special occasions but overall is moderate and is their core vote.
To the left, there is the element who support partition and profess to be liberal, but will still oppose even talking about the political unification of Ireland, even if it included a union with Britain and therefore show themselves to be incapable of compromise and quite happy to stand with the hard line elements above when it suits them.
Sooner or later their true colours come out and you will get your eyes opened.
As they say, it is the quiet ones you need to watch.
Young people expressing their feelings …eh?!!!
Where do they get those kinds of feelings in the first place? What do they know about the people of the Republic of Ireland that has them burning those flags? What have these people done to them since they were born a few years ago in the side -streets of Belfast or any other small town?What’s been rankling their little heads when they build their bonfires and stick a flag or a poster of someone they barely know on the top of it? Are they so politically au fait and astute that they’ve already made enemies of an entire race or even some random politician? Where would any young person get an idea like that? Why aren’t they at home , or playing football….or out having a laugh with their friends?
Culture …smulcher!! Politicians exploiting indoctrinated youngsters, more like.
These guys are politicians. Hungry, power-seeking creatures of sometimes dubious morality who will stoop so low as to limbo-dance under any available good-sense.
It would usually be enough to slobber over any proffered baby to prove how cuddly and wholesome you were and worthy enough of collecting some dumb-ass’s vote. …Not here, where “culture” means anything but “cultured”.Here we have a loose tradition of annually flauting as many social laws as we can on one night of the year just like the women used to dress up as men and men dressed as women on stage in Shakespeare’s day…
To turn the world upside down is to allow the building of enormous pagan -pyres, the burning of your neighbour’s symbols , invoke racism ,drink alcohol illegally , burn carcinogens such as rubber tyres and pallets and destroy the atmosphere , the ozone ,the environment and the occasional homestead…while being glad- handed and officiated over by your local political representative. In doing so to have public approval for your criminal law-breaking and to encourage each coming generation to understand that the law is only a mess of pottage to be cherry-picked when you feel like it…..and all at the public’s expense.Your money will be squandered on protecting and cleaning -up after this specious spectacle , while grinning fools of politicians cheer you on and explain to all who care to listen that it is a “cultural pusuit ” of equal validity as a Tosca opera,a Pulizer prize-winning novel, or a painting by Van Gogh.
Traditionally when faced with a challenge, the possibility of some gain by nationalists/republicans, unionism has turned to violence.
That jibe would be understandable if it was applied to both communities. Republicans like Unionists have always relied on violence to get their aims fulfilled or did you forget the troubles Jude?
Robert, the undeniable fact remains, that it was unionism who started the violence.
When you start a conflict, don’t be surprised when you end up at war and it was everyone who suffered the consequences of unionism deciding to turn to violence.
There will be no forgetting the troubles or that unionism started them.
“Robert, the undeniable fact remains, that it was unionism who started the violence.
When you start a conflict, don’t be surprised when you end up at war and it was everyone who suffered the consequences of unionism deciding to turn to violence.
There will be no forgetting the troubles or that unionism started them.”
Always beware the person with the simplistic analysis that points the finger of blame in one direction only. They’re usually either stupid or wicked.
“Always beware the person with the simplistic analysis that points the finger of blame in one direction only. They’re usually either stupid or wicked.”
Says the person who calls the troubles a PIRA terror campaign.
You should be on a stage MT. You are a comedian
There’s nothing like reaching out the hand of friendship and reconciliation by not burning down your neighbours home/office.
And “only” burning their national flag/election posters.
We truely are blessed.
One would have thought, Esteemed Blogmeister, that It was not yet too late for a complaint (formal) to be lodged (at the highest level) about the night (pyromaniacal ) of the Eleventh.
Call it the Eleventh hour at Number Ten.
Alas, this would not appear to have been the case, yesterday. Certainly, there is no such account in the ultimate paper of record, of such a complaint being lodged, to wit, The Unionist Times. And if it is not recorded in that upright, uptight organ of report , then, in the wise words of the Roger Miller classic, ‘God didn’t make little green apples and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summer time’.
Now, normally when the citizens of one jurisdiction turn the ritual burning of the flag of a neigbhouring jurisdiction into a cornerstone of their, erm, culture then it is six to five that the Prime Minister of the j. whose flag is on the hot end of the bonfire, will raise it during his next encounter with his counterpart of he second part. That would be the Prime Minister of the j. whose culturally aware citizenry have morphed the torching of a particular flag into a street art form, no less.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister of the first part would seem to have been at sixes and sevens in Number Ten where this hot political potato of the Eleventh (aka The Conflagration of the Flags) was concerned. Cool dude Kenny (for it is he !). instead, opted to sing dumb,
Which ought not to have taken the folk in the North for whom he is the (gulp) Guarantor completely by surprise. After all he was but their Guarantor at Number Ten and – shucks ! – not Cary Cooper at High Noon. Besides, the signs (ominous) of their being about to be forsaken were already there, darlings.
Just ask the folks in the South, for whom he is also the (gasp) Guarantor. Forty two – that’s Number Ten multiplied by four with two added- years after a series of bombings which blew the malaises out of Dublin and Monaghan (with human, architectural and legislative legacies) there has never been as much as a whimper of complaint simpered to the Imperial source.
Throwing the baby out of the diplomatic pram is reserved, oddly enough, for a child-free entity like, erm, the fanatical Vatican, home of male mannequins.
The M.S.M. has also opted to sing dumb on the Great Silence. That would be the Main Stream Media on Liffeyside.
Coincidentally, not, most of the Underwriters of the Guarantor are drawn from this fertile source. By Underwriters one means the scriptwriters, thought processors, image moulders, spin doctors, that sort of thingy. Now, a pedant might complain that a Guarantor and an Underwriter are synonymous with each other, but that is plainly ludicrous in this instance.
Tantamount to suggesting that Prime Minister EK is ok with the idea of actually writing his own scripts, processing his own thoughts, moulding his own image and even (gasp) doctoring his own spin or even (gulp) spinning his own doctor.
Now while it would be equally ludicrous to suggest that in his case T.D. really does mean Tailor’s Dummy nonetheless God really does make little green apples and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.
And yes an Underwriter is an altogether totally different animal to a Guarantor much as it is plain for those of us unlucky to be versed in the dark arts of economics to recognize that, yes, Tax Avoidance belongs in a different enclosure to Tax Evasion.
Simple as.
So full of s and h are the press releases penned by the Underwriters that it’s arguable they are to be heard chorusing together the words of a sunlit and happier (s and h) time as once envisaged in the imperishable verse of Percy French:
-I was over in London quite lately
I gave King Edward a call;
Says the butler : ‘He’s out, he isn’t about
An’ I don’t see his hat in the hall’.
Sub-Prime Minister EK can consider himself one lucky branch manager he found the boss in yesterday.
After all , yesersday was Shoesday, oops, Tuesday. But that’s a log for a another day’s blog, perhaps.
The Orange order is an anti Catholic organisation and it is a waste of time appealing to people like Sands to refrain from their pagan rituals.Might as well ask a Jihadi to stop hating the west.
Wow. Another piece about bonfires and tricolours.
Interesting how much more you guys get obsessed about this compared to, say, nationalist terror. There wasn’t a single blog on this site about the last dissident murder, for example, or anything condemning nationalist terror parades (other than to compare them to the Boys’ Brigade).
Let’s just say, MT that if republicans, Irish nationalists, Jews, Muslims …or any other damned group (including “dissidents whatevers” )….start trying to tell me that burning your neighbours flags, or effigies of politicians, on huge towering bonfires, is some good and benign thing to do as this particular politician has…..that I’d have the very same response as I have here . It’s ridiculous!! It’s no way for a sane society or a sane person to behave and it’s breaking a whole bunch of laws. How can you talk about upholding law and order as a political representative when you condone lawbreaking?…No…it doesn’t make a damned bit of sense. It ‘s that simple.In a normal society , the man would have a job.
It’s also costing us all a lot of money ; it’s causing social hurt and anger and it ‘s patently teaching each generation that they can break the law with impunity. It also shows that behind the facade that there is social indoctrination masquerading as a cultural event .Hate crimes with bells on, really. How could anyone condone it ?
…and that goes for your other “terror parades” too, MT.
That should be ..”the man would have a job selling that one”.
“Let’s just say, MT that if republicans, Irish nationalists, Jews, Muslims …or any other damned group (including “dissidents whatevers” )….start trying to tell me that burning your neighbours flags, or effigies of politicians, on huge towering bonfires, is some good and benign thing to do as this particular politician has…..that I’d have the very same response as I have here . It’s ridiculous!! It’s no way for a sane society or a sane person to behave and it’s breaking a whole bunch of laws. How can you talk about upholding law and order as a political representative when you condone lawbreaking?…No…it doesn’t make a damned bit of sense. It ‘s that simple.In a normal society , the man would have a job.
It’s also costing us all a lot of money ; it’s causing social hurt and anger and it ‘s patently teaching each generation that they can break the law with impunity. It also shows that behind the facade that there is social indoctrination masquerading as a cultural event .Hate crimes with bells on, really. How could anyone condone it ?
…and that goes for your other “terror parades” too, MT.”
Seems like you’ve missed the point big time.
The point wasn’t that burning flags was a reasonable thing to do, it was to point out that the people on this blog get much more upset about it than they do the burning of humans.
I don’t think so, MT.We are a bunch of individuals commenting and writing here, with many diverse viewpoints… and I , personally do get upset about burning humans too.Just add it to your list.
“I don’t think so, MT.We are a bunch of individuals commenting and writing here, with many diverse viewpoints… and I , personally do get upset about burning humans too.Just add it to your list.”
That’s good but the evidence here does not support that. There have been endless blogs and postings about bonfires and not even one about the recent murder of Adrian Ismay, for example. The pro-terror Easter parades also passed without condemnation here.
Why don’t you write a blog on this yourself MT.
If Jude is prepared to accommodate my own ramblings I am sure he would accommodate yours also.
I think the murder of Adrian Ismay was deplorable and those responsible are an anathema to our society.
I would love to read your own thoughts on what concerns you and perhaps it would broaden our opinions of one another.
Because no-one comments on a specific murder doesn’t necessarily mean that the murder is supported by anyone here.It’s not the same thing at all. A small percentage of people commit murder or violence right across any society. They are a minority everywhere.They have their own weird and wonderful reasons for that behaviour which some of us can’t quite fathom. Even if it is from hatred, it is a behavioural aberrance and it’s not the norm. Maybe we could open up a discussion on why people think that killing people is a good thing , eh?
It’s like the drive to kill at lot of holidaymakers in Nice by driving a lorry into them. The guy who did that is a mass-murderer so how can any level-headed person make excuses for it or condone it ,other than to imagine there was some level of indoctrination. mental illness or the person may have been a sociopath.The idea that you can solve complex social problems by hitting them with a club is…..bloody stupid. What could any person hope to gain for any kind of cause by doing that , for instance and what difference would it make to him when he’s good and dead, anyway? Just a lot of dust in the ground. That’s warped and unreasoned thinking right there.We’ve seen plenty of that kind of mad martyrdom here too.We have among our own citizens sentimental death-cultists who revere their dead heroes annually …and that’s on both sides of the divide here. Are they any different from these jihadists?
Killing people solves nothing at all.
Bonfires on the other hand have become ridiculous and are a ready target for slight and humour simply because they break everyintelligent, social law. They are actually something we could fix without resorting to the mental hospitals.They could be controlled and their size reduced , for example or there could be one big one in an enclosed are which was scrutinised and regulated a bit better .It’s a matter of scale, I suppose. If anything ,they promote division in an already fraught society and that is the position I would take. I don’t want to hear a lot of claptrap about “culture” when it is patently barbaric , unformed ,uninformed and feckless behaviour. How else could anyone with a brain , describe it?It’s the kind of thing unsupervised children get up to when they are unsupervised. This is not some one -off beautiful , celebratory firework display once annually, we are talking about, which would be a much better idea . This is a dangerous practice that can offer society very little.
“Because no-one comments on a specific murder doesn’t necessarily mean that the murder is supported by anyone here.It’s not the same thing at all.”
But a dozen blogs on bonfires and none on dissident murder does indicate that people are more exercised by bonfires than murders. And we do know that many contributors here supported murder in the past.
That should say “Interesting how much more you guys get *upset* about this compared to, say, nationalist terror”.
It would appear that The Equality Commission’s draft publication Key Inequalities in Education and the indicator for Improving Air Quality contained in The Draft Programme for Government 2016 – 2021 are not burning issues for some elected representatives. Perhaps Blackadder was right, the Renaissance was something that happened to other people.
Extinction Burst anyone….. ?
What worries me is that this guy Sands is supposedly a member of a school Board of Governors. This guys views are in my opinion tantamount to incitement to hatred.
This guy should not be allowed to sit on the stage during school prize giving as he is no role model for children.
This guy’s views that it is ok for children to be involved in activities which are in effect criminal acts and I would go further and saying encouraging children to be involved in criminal acts should automatically preclude this individual from serving on a school board of governors or any roll which involves children in an organisation which receives public money in any form.
Stringent efforts should be taken to establish which school governors this guy serves on then the Board and Department need to be alerted to the publics concerns about the welfare of our children that this guy poses while he remains in post.
This man needs to immediately suspended buy the chair of Governors pending any mitigation he wishes to produce in his own defence.
If we all did more to make sure bigotry at every level on both sides was met with such consequences pointis, I think we would be in a much better place.
But it has to be a top down approach, starting with the political leaders in Stormont such as Gregory Campbell who should not be receiving public money for his wages, through councils, employers and so on with the working class celebrating bonfires much much further down the chain of attack.