We are in the middle of our annual summer season in Norneverland . Schools are closed at the end of June in readiness for the sunshine and celebrations to come. I’m sure the school -children in the rest of the UK look on with some jealousy as their own British summertime doesn’t begin until the end of July when they gain their release from class..
Our children must be let off the scholarly leash to be available for the building of the huge towering bonfires. I should say”bone-fires” because in Norneverland these are a different thing entirely to the simple November 5th piles lit to remember Guy Fawkes. .These fires are not the “good” fires of yore but rather the actual bone -burning ones that are lit to cremate past deeds and cleanse the demons from the land.
In some cases makeshift crosses and coffins containing effigies of politicians that have incurred some personal wrath , offerings including flags of various countries and hated spirits are added to the towering pyres , all the better to expunge past, perceived wrongs and fears, to the raging , smoking skies.
There may yet come a time in the very near future, when there’ll be a need to construct such a funeral pyre in the very heart of the capital city of Belfast and burn the entire memory of the place to the blackened ground .Every year the citizens move a little closer to this ideal and their ambition is reflected in the ever-increasing size of the “bone-fire” structures. various micro-tribes compete to build ever bigger structures, all the better to find favour with the gods.There is an obvious correlation between the base width of the build and the actual height that it can attain.The simple mathematics and the law of gravity dictate that the base will have to get wider to attain greater heights.Next year they will aim for 120 feet in height.
If they are to be built any higher in future times, steel foundations and concrete footings will need to be sunk in Royal Avenue. Foundations are everything. They will tower higher than the popish cathedrals and scrape the skies. Obviously this will eventually mean the torching of the entire city , but that is the direction society here is pointing to. Politicians , police authorities and most civic pundits, stand helpless as this cult grows annually.Its obvious conclusion is to abandon first the cities and then the rest of the country to the healing flames ;the entire land laid waste at last. A veritable Year Zero aborning.,
The nebulous leaders of the cult, talk of the “demonisation of a community”. In these “leaders’ “views there is very little wrong with the direction we are going in. Fire and some violence against the police and authorities is seen as a safety valve that needs an annual opening release. Yesterday some of these demonised citizens attacked the police and one of those policemen’s ears was torn off when he was on the receiving end of a large chunk of masonry thrown by an irate attacker.
Part of the cult’s belief is that they are beyond society’s civic laws and should have the right to break any rules imposed on them .That sounds a little like anarchy, I suppose ,but in such a society such a response is only an extension of shouting “Out, demons, out!”
I see in today’s Belfast Telegraph that Mairia Cahill and her daughter had a great time at a bonfire and that she seen nothing untoward with no flags or effigies. Of course her bonfire must have been the only Ireland/GAA/Celtic/PLO flag free bonfire in the entire 6 counties.
When you think about it though the 12th is very “Wicker Man”, immolating the effigies and emblems of your enemies whilst partaking in drunken dancing, howling and the beating of drums and not to mention the spilling of blood. I wonder will we get a good harvest this year?
There’s an interesting documentary on Radio 4 called ‘Fighting To Stay The Same’ which covers loyalism’s decline towards irrelevance. Worth half an hour of anybody’s time –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060zg8d
Quite a pithy quote in there from one loyalist, who likens modern day Loyalism to ‘a dog that’s been badly worried – it doesn’t know what direction to head in and it doesn’t know who to trust.’
Also, if I may quote liberally from a poster called ‘citizen69’ over on S*****r who says –
You won’t force them into doing something by berating them, vilifying them or laughing at their bad grammar & spelling. What is needed is the end of the de-humanizing of the loyalist working class, education, and some real leadership coming forward from within it’s own ranks; both at the community level, and at the political level in the wider unionist family. At the moment the DUP & UUP offer next to none. Where are our political leaders saying that burning flags & tyres are totally unacceptable?
Loyalist politicians are complaining that their people are being demonised.
But by their hate-filled bigoted misbehaviour they are demonising themselves.
They have proved time and again they don’t need any help in the demonising.