I was reading an article by Newton Emerson in the Sunday Times where he was asking , I suppose, after much thought and deep concentration , if Sinn Fein really wanted to make any compromise on Orangemen marching . I thought it was a fair enough question. Newton is a bit of a pundit and he has regular gigs in the ST and I am told, also in the Irish News, so some people out there value his thoughts enough to pay him good money to expound them regularly. He seems to know what he is talking about but his analysis reads a bit like a John Le Carré spy novel . He lays out the twists and turns of perceived “leadership” issues concerning both Sinn Féin and the unionist parties. He reckons the whole thing is about control and political manoeuvering within both the republican and unionist camps.
When I read something like this I always begin to wonder where the writer gets the ideas from… .I imagine him or her , much like ourselves pecking away at the keypad, looking out the window at the world. Yes, I know these days with all the various ipads , phones and all the rest , that we can write this stuff anywhere and at any time of day or night. We might be sitting in the park, on a bench, watching children feeding some quacking ducks or maybe sitting on the train hurtling down to the city.
The ideas , though.Where are they coming from ? The way Newton writes it , he sees Sinn Fein’s involvement in the Parades Dispute as part of some Grand Master Plan that pits Sinn Fein against the Dissident republicans for control of the hearts and minds of the disputed marching area. It sounds like they are the kind of masterminds that would only inhabit an old pulpy movie from the 1940s. He then postulates that a similar thing is happening within the unionists and loyalism. Maybe it is. Now I know very little about the disputed area. I fortunately do not live there and I often ask myself, why would anyone want to live there? If I did live there, I would spend a lifetime planning to get myself and my family as far away from it as I possibly could. I would have a long term plan to move away to some other part of the planet and I would be encouraging my children to get away to some other less crazy country and never come back.. . I know that life isn’t as easy as that, of course.
To me there is a childish simplicity to all human behaviour. I don’t see our politicians in any different light than the rest of the people you’d meet milling about on our streets and shops.They may all be fixated on the made-up minutiae of what passes for political shenanigans but they are the same people who walk into Tesco’s and buy their Shreddies and their Ready Brek. Just like everyone else. I haven’t seen much evidence that they are great “thinkers”. When the cameras aren’t on them they’ll be picking that bogey out of their nose or giving their arse a quick secret surreptitious scratch. Just like any other Great Ape, really. Just human apes really .With suits on.
The truth about this disputed march appears to be quite prosaic, really .The people living in the area appear to have been regularly insulted by elements within the marching community who want to walk past their area. It doesn’t really matter if it is a “King’s Highway ” or a public arterial route. The consensus seems to be that there is created a forum on the street where insults are hurled from the marching throng and provocative music is played in an insulting way . That is the certain perception and no amount of walking out on meetings set up to solve that is going to change the perception.It just looks silly.
One man on the radio this morning simply put it that some of the women are even more insulting than their male colleagues. Apparently all sorts of calumnies are exchanged by the fair sex, like vixens with too much to drink. That should really be teased out a bit in case it appears as a sexist rant. Is it true ? Is it simply a confession that this has really nothing at all to do with politics or religion or any Grand Plan about control or leadership issues? Does it simply all hang on the mundane fact that some people cannot behave themselves and shouldn’t really be allowed out in public and that the worst offenders here are sometimes female? Is this an annual chance for women to get out on the streets and vent? Well, anyone who knows anything about relationships or about love and passion already knows that there is very little rational about any of our relationships. It’s why some people continue to live with abusive partners .They’re not all saints out there. Some of them are just plain crackers .There’s really no other way to describe it
Does it mean that the Parades Commission should be looking at the gender of the participants too and making decisions based on that? Do the women egg on the men and do the men then promenade and show off to the women? Do they wind each other up? If the women were not allowed to participate would the whole thing go off without a whimper? Is that a sexist thing to think or is that the reality? Are we allowed to think that?
I suppose it’s worth a thought….
Personally speak I find its usually the women dancing about and yoooo-ing and singing the songs along with the bands but when It comes to Ardoyne I think thats a completely different animal altogether. Ardoyne is such a heavy word these days. When you say ‘Ardoyne’ the first thing that comes to mind is the riots and marching. Surely this shouldn’t be the case.
I mean no disrespect by saying the following neither to Nationalist nor Loyalist but Ardoyne is just another part of North Belfast just like the Malone Road is just a part of South Belfast etc but the fact that every year Loyalists force their culture down the throats of Nationalists who clearly have no desire at all to partake of said culture makes Ardoyne the flash point of all flashpoints. For years Nationalists have been hemmed into their community up there while Loyalists march past jeering and shouting abuse at the caged animals and I can only see this ‘caging’ as another spark waiting to ignite the rioting which inevitably ‘occurs’ (is ‘occurs’ even the right word to use here) every year. Saddly it has its own place in both Loyalist and Nationalist calenders and as you yourself said Jude ” If I did live there, I would spend a lifetime planning to get myself and my family as far away from it as I possibly could.” So why don’t they, why stay at home during a march that is so religiously and politically catastrophic that it causes riots every year. Well the reason is this, Nationalists have rights too, they have the right NOT to have another persons religion forced upon them, they have the right NOT to have another culture forced upon them and just as Loyalists do and have done so publicly, they have the right to protest and demonstrate their disgust and dis-satisfaction of both a religion and culture which has done nothing but oppress and dominate both politics and family life for many many centuries.
Sinn Fein has nothing to do with this. Yes, they may be maneuvering politically but wouldn’t you if you felt the Loyalist and indeed Protestant culture was causing hardship and grief every year. I feel the Ardoyne residents would be happy enough if the Orange men marched past the Ardoyne shops with one band playing hymns (the Orange Order are a religious organisation after all) but as was recently demonstrated they can’t be trusted to do this so why does everyone get down on the Ardoyne residents when in fact its the Loyal Orange Order that is the problem. It has been see they are steering Unionist politics and lets be honest have done so for some time. The Orange Order need to wind their necks in, the politicians need to reeling the Orange Order and Unionist politicians need to grow a set and do what are are paid to do, lead properly without having a religious organisation leading them.
Michael – I didn’t say anything on this blog. The sole author is Harry. Michael – meet Harry. Harry – this is Michael….
My apologies……100 lines, ‘Must pay closer attention to detail’
Michael …it’s that old alter -ego thing again….Jude let’s mine out of the cage now and again …..Many thanks for your well -thought out reply . All of these questions have to be asked if only to separate the chaff from the wheat …the conspiracy theories of the tin -hat brigade from the brute and sometimes very plain , simple , reality on the streets…
There is no battle between SF and the dissidents for the hearts and minds of Ardoyne.Self appointed mouthpiece Dee Fennell put himself up fpr election in the oldpark electoral area a few weeks ago.He failed to get elected and was outpolled by SF by a margin of 5 to 1.However if you were to rely on the “irish news” to make you aware of this fact you’ll be waiting a long time.
Agree with Newton Emerson in the Sunday Times that it is all about control and would add domination – which the OO is afraid of losing
“why would anyone want to live there? If I did live there, I would spend a lifetime planning to get myself and my family as far away from it as I possibly could.”
I have never lived in (the) Ardoyne.
My father often said “Where we live you would never even know the riots/bombings/ 12th was happening” Which was 100% true
Asked him once what he would have done if he had lived in ones
of these areas – he looked at me in scorn and said “I would have got out”
Undoubtedly a lot of people have done so – maybe those with gumption, trades, educational qualifications or whatever – but the ones that remain have the right to live free of sectarian harassment. They are very decent, poor people – I know teachers who work in schools in the area and the poverty is shocking but the majority of people are doing the best they can to feed, clothe and educate the kids and bring up their families in a decent manner. They deserve much better than what they are getting.
I can say the same for east, east, east Belfast
“I haven’t seen much evidence that (our politicians) are great “thinkers”. – Totally agree More’s the pity!
Does it mean that the Parades Commission should be looking at the gender of the participants too and making decisions based on that?
No, the OO is a predominantly male organization. Hence the “control and dominate” issue. The female followers are harridans, a certain amount of showing off and hero-worshipping probably obtains but it is the least of people’s worries
Glad you popped in Ben.
I wouldn’t presume to call anyone names or disparage their background in any way but there are some things that really do need pointing out and thought about .
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A lot of people are genuinely trapped in areas that by history, are now traps for them. They are not living like the majority of people in Northern Ireland . The Troubles affected us all in Northern Ireland but the majority of us lived outside of the eye of the hurricane , if you like.
A lot of people simply watched it on their televisions and played no active part of it .At one point of my life I lived and worked in Belfast briefly, at the very height of the early 1970’s killings and bombings, but I mostly avoided the worst of it by happenstance and made plans to get away from it ..at least for a while.. It was around the same time as some poor woman like Jean McConville disappeared from her home . Those were horrific times in Belfast . It meant dumping my job and going away to further education in England I’m sure many others did too… I did it because I could do it. I know that a lot of others never had those choices.
As for Newton’s ideas ..Well , yes , they do seem to hang together and appear to be as valid as anyone else’s take , but are they just his ideas …like my ideas popping into my head as a possibility ….or has someone told him…on the ground, if you like…that this is exactly what is going on in the area?…Is it for real in other words?
As for the Orange Order being predominantly male in ethos…well here’s the main thrust of the ideas coming up right there .Nobody here lives without the support of female input in some way.The thing is that we are painting womenfolk as mere wee chattels to their menfolk .. Does the Orange Order simply expect their female halves to go along with this or do any of them have modern feminist ideas. of their own.
Are they all just so conservative that they unthinkingly support this never -ending nonsense without questioning it?? If they are supporting this nonsense , they are encouraging it like encouraging a male football team .
Where is modern feminism in any of this ? Is to be a female camp follower of the Orange Order or the the street violence reducing these women to unthinking , unknowing cannon-fodder? To my mind the women are every bit a part of the street problem as those crazy guys who jump up onto the landrovers.In fact their sex is probably fuel for the flame. It’s worth thinking about.