Declan Kearney is Sinn Féin’s national chairperson
[Brief disclaimer: this is indeed not strictly speaking a guest blog – the piece below appeared in An Phoblacht earlier this week. But I think its argument merits consideration. – Jude]
NUMEROUS Eleventh Night bonfires across the North are now bywords for sectarian hate crime – pure and simple.
Despite the efforts to rebrand the Twelfth celebrations overall as ‘Orangefest’ – and as inclusive and cultural events – a real question arises as to whether and when what has come to be known as the Twelfth can and will become free from the actuality and connotations of sectarian and racist hatred.
This is a question and challenge for society as a whole.
That answer can be provided when those in positions of political, religious, cultural and community leaderships take action to confront such sectarian and offensive behaviour.
Several unionist areas have shown that can be done. This is to be acknowledged and commended.
However, an unambiguous zero tolerance must be shown against sectarian mind-sets and actions by all sections of our community and towards every form of sectarian hatred – regardless of the source – because, ultimately, our society as a whole and quality of life is damaged and undermined.
The deep-rooted levels of sectarianism in Northern society were graphically in evidence during the last fortnight.
Disgraceful attacks by bigots on Orange halls in Counties Antrim and Armagh were obviously carried out in the run-up to the annual Twelfth parades in order to incite sectarian tensions. Those responsible sought to provoke a reaction, trying to push us all into a sectarian race to the bottom of permanent confrontation.
Separately, in some unionist areas, Nazi, Confederate and Zionist flags were erected alongside others associated with unionist paramilitary groups.
Elsewhere, unionist flags were again erected in mixed community areas as a clear attempt to intimidate citizens from different cultural, political, ethnic and religious backgrounds.
The Twelfth this year was overshadowed by two situations. The first is the violence on the Woodvale Road in defiance of the Parades Commission’s determination to restrict the evening Orange march.
The second is the use of bonfires once more as sectarian pyres to burn republican political and Catholic religious effigies, Sinn Féin and other parties’ election posters, Irish flags and Gaelic cultural emblems.
These activities are obscene. No excuse or mitigation is possible.
The suggestion used by some publicly that it’s better that posters instead of politicians are being burned is absolutely indefensible.
It is time for robust anti-sectarian and incitement to hatred legislation.
Sectarianism needs to be stamped out and the bigots wedded to sectarian violence and vandalism dealt with by effective legislation, the police and the courts.
But still more is needed.
Commemorations and remembrance have become causes, excuses and justification for division and confrontation.
That will only stop when an inclusive and ‘Uncomfortable Conversation’ takes place in the North involving all sides on what an agreed culture of commemoration and remembrance should look like, and the centrality of mutual respect, parity of esteem and equality to that.
Mind-sets and behaviour have to change.
There is an urgent need across society in the North (and also in the South) to get to a point where all sides acknowledge and treat with due respect our diverse cultural and political differences and divergent historic and more recent narratives of political conflict.
The participation by Sinn Féin politicians at the Royal British Legion’s ceremony of remembrance at Islandbridge in Dublin this year was a conscious contribution to the process of developing increased understanding and tolerance.
None of us have anything to fear from the exercise of mutual respect and in fact much to learn from each other and our differing political and cultural traditions.
Reconciliation, healing and a shared future is the only way forward. It is time for that agenda to have primacy, particularly in the North.
Forming a coalition for reconciliation from within all sections of society and taking that agenda forward would be an important start.
I look foward to Kearney’s piece after the 15th August hatefest bonfires. I’m sure he’ll tell us all about the Unionist posters, Union flags etc being burned on Republican bonfires. Perhaps he could also tell us about Adam’s congratulations to the self-styled Sinn Fein/IRA ‘residents groups’ for their work in opposing legal parades and how it just didn’t happen, it was organised The remarks were recorded by a RTE Journalist at a Sinn Fein/IRA meeting in the Republic back in the mid 90s. The terrorists had to have another outlet for their aggression, seeing they’d allegedly given up the bomb and bullet, so the OO became the ‘trojan horse to break the bastards’.
Is Declan for real? Where has he spent his last forty or fifty years? I think he actually believes that a body of unionism exists here that is willing to compromise. His lofty rhetoric sounds good and is what is expected from an outreaching politician but he must realize that these bigots are the front line troops for the rest who tacitly support them. Some people can conceal their bigotry better than others but it’s there. If he thinks that the RUC/PSNI, which Sinn Féin Nua has so warmly clasped to their breast, will prosecute these new laws that he would like to see enacted then he is living in Tír na nÓg. They -as a British police force – are part of the problem, not part of the solution. My reading of the situation is that we continue with our bigotry simmering beneath the surface, with regular open periods of hatred until one side outbreeds, outguns or outbuys the other. Who do you think is more realistic, Declan or me?
A well -thought out analysis of the situation in Norneverland.I could easily agree with all of it .
What would satisfy most thinking people would be the enforcement of hate-legislation across the board. The problem is that there appears to be no agreement about this.There is an acknowledgement that in certain circles they feel it is their very right to hate and they’ll be damned if any policeman or court of law will make them do otherwise. Well we see that all the time .
There is an anarchist aspect to many here..a disrespect for authority and ultimately a disregard for Big Government .They’ve always felt it is irrelevant to their lives anyway. That’s probably right across the divisions and many politicians sit on their hands or their condemnation is always partial.
Take bonfires as the ultimate example.In crowded urban settings there is is still the persistence to build bigger and bigger fire -hazards each year. No one polices the building of them.It’s a fact .Neither the pallet suppliers nor the tyre suppliers are policed. It should start right there but it doesn’t. If the source was cut off by legislation , there would be smaller bonfires. The authorities are loathe to tackle any of it because they are afraid of getting into a ruck and hurting “community relations”. Basically they are pandering to an anti-social agenda by doing this and that threatens the rest of us.
The problem with setting up out-reach groups is that they will not be attended by anyone who will want to make the radical changes needed. Oh, they’ll talk alright .They’ll talk for months …they’ll talk for years…they’ll talk until it’s this time next year and we’ll all be repeating this same conversation. We know what is needed but nobody wants to do it .There is a preference to let anarchy rule .It suits the agenda of some of our politicians.
We have always had a triumvirate operating in NI – the OO, the government and the police, and while Sinn Fein are in government, they have no influence over the bigoted DUP.
The Westminster government has always supported the trio, as is evident by the words and actions of each SOS – so the DUP know that whatever rioting their followers do, Westminster will never take a stand against them.
Over the years SF have been making conciliatory gestures which have never been reciprocated, so why do Sinn Fein persist? They should not make any more gestures as a matter of principle, and make it clear to the unionists that if there is to be any progress, they will have to make the next move.
The way Poppy Day has been used by unionists for years against their nationalist neighbours, and the sight of Sinn Fein openly supporting the British Legion, and therefore the British government, is a bad tactical mistake.
You cannot make friends of people who don’t want to be friends, and who only want to use and abuse you!
I have some sympathy with your argument, Sherdy. The only thing is: what’s the alternative course of action to striving for reconciliation? Saying ‘OK, that’s it’ leaves us where?
But Jude, if you don’t get any reciprocation after several gestures from one side, you will never get reconciliation. It takes two to tango, and there’s not much point in dancing on your own.
Then when we are in complete stasis it will be up to London and Dublin to step in.
One-sided gestures just develop into total surrender.
Perhaps reconciliation would be a fraction easier if Sf accepted that very few unionists are willing to accept anything at face value from SF I also suspect very very few unionists want to have anything more than a working relationship with SF which is very understandable.
What annoys me is that Republicans don’t live up to their so called beliefs in Republicanism and that’s why its hard to trust them.
The suggestion, or insinuation that there is some sort of equivalence between isolated instances of paint being thrown at KKK lodge meeting haunts, and a sustained Sectarian frenzy of intimidation and Hate crime of the mist insidious and prevalent kind in the north, is laughable. I don’t think for a second the Loyal lodges should be attacked physically, but I think the Organizations should be proscribed, which would lead to them eventually withering anyway.
It is very generous spirited of Declan proposing such a cross conciliatory understanding and outreach….One simple question should be put to Declan,- “Who are you putting these proposals to?”. Afrikaners in the Orange Order remain impervious to argument and reason, and disdainful of any law that may encroach on such a Supremacy the so avariciously covet.
Such noble sentiments may see nods aplenty from many in the Capital or elsewhere in the 26 who are not up to scratch with the mire on the ground north of the DMZ, I can’t think of anywhere the beleaguered nationalist community in the north-eastern six, in response to such hollow, lofty rhetoric, where it would receive else, but a slow handclap.
On a similar(ish) note, this is quite a good read on why bonfires are getting bigger and flags more plentiful –
https://politicaljunkieireland.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/why-northern-irish-bonfires-are-getting-bigger/
I also have a lot of sympathy with Sherdy’s argument here, and I think a lot of people are left scratching their heads at all the concessions to Orange Order from Sinn Fein. But if we remove our emotional reactions to the symbolic gestures the OO has really been given no practical concessions, they seem to be in decline and and have a terrible public image. You can see the despair on the faces of loyalists bigots. Sinn Fein has moved on to recognise the Monarch as a foreign head of state and extends a ‘cordial’ stately welcome. Nations which have their problems still have protocol for heads of State to meet. The symbolism of this is difficult for many (including myself) but on a practical level this creates bigger problems for loyalists, even the one they are ‘loyal’ to is meeting Sinn Fein. When Ireland is finally re-united we need think about our relationship with our closest neighbours Scotland, Wales then England. Once the injustices of history have been put right we will have to finally forgive England and build the Ireland that has been talked about for centuries.
I also see a lot of bias in policing and the justice system, I can name a few things that make me angry where the law has protected the rights of people like Gregory Campbell to trample on the memory of innocent Catholics and prosecutes someone for a flippant response to his bile on facebook. The constant harassment of dissident republicans while loyalist killers freely go about their illegal business and intimidation in their communities,and I could go on. But again I also realise if nationalist wash their hands of the legal system and the police it will slide further into the dark sectarian shadows in which it once lived.
It is everyone’s job to starve the sectarian bigots of all the oxygen that feeds their hatred. Unfortunately the dissident republican campaign is the biggest threat to removing this oxygen. Whatever their motives the continued armed struggle gives many loyalists a reason to exist and spew their hatred. We can give up go back to armed struggle and cause another 30 years of sacrifice and misery and for the chance chance of more negotiation or we can continue to let natural order be restored where everyone on the island will feel like they have more in common with each other than a group of Eton educated MPs no no connection to reality.
And finally, you don’t have to make friends with your enemies but we should show them at least the respect we would like to get back. If they don’t reciprocate then they are exposed to everyone for the idiots they are. I know all of this sounds good in theory the hard part is getting out and doing it. Imagine some day there will be a big welcoming sign outside a Catholic Church for the Orange Order with lots of Catholics wanting to see them pass by, on that day the bigoted loyalists won’t want to turn up. The priest might even invite them in to sign some hymns and have a cup of tea with the parishioners. When unionists have nothing to fear they will feel Irish eventually.
Good points, Emmet – although I think you’re a bit harsh with your vision of inviting them in only to let them sign. Wouldn’t it be better to let them sing??????
A bit harsh, Jude, as the man who never made a mistake never made anything.
We all need allowances made now and then.
Sherdy – I say so many harsh things and this damned system doesn’t show the link to the post you’re referring to. What did I say?
That’s a novel idea, I just have to shift the n slightly. Sorry that was a typo.
While we don’t have the OO down here in the Free Southern Stateen to drop their dOO dOO over the RCs on the Twelfth of July the fact is, there is no need for them.
Not while we have the purchased press and the bought broadcasting media to carry out that sectarian agenda for them. The only difference is that while the OO in Norneverland tend to compress their Romophobia into one Big Blazing Bonanza of Bonfired-up Bigotry things are ordered differently South of the Black Sow’s Dyke.
Here and hereabouts, a more low-key and long term war of attrition is waged. Neither the date, the Twelfth nor the month, July are of particular importance: everyday is Romophobia day. Year on year, it’s open season on Red Sox and his Romanists, 24/7, 52/1.
Thus, with the noisy exception of a handful of turbulent pet priests, all other RC clerics, whether brothers, priests, monsignors, canons, bishops, archbishops, cardinals and the Pope himself, are given the clothes-peg-on-the-nose treatment and reduced to the rock-bottom generic status of: Fr. P.D. O’Foyle.
The technical term is: tarring every last man jack of them with the same brush. Which can be any colour, provided it’s affordable and black.
We are, don’t you see, not so much religious anymore as spiritual, as we do like to be saying to ourselves. In what The Unionist Times does like to be calling: ‘The National Conversation’.
The pet turbulent priests have all been ‘silenced’, of course: which means they are never off the FSS airwaves,giving us a regular earful of their fearful experiences, having been morphed from The Confession Box 3 to The Chatter Box 3. Their names are etched in our psyches: Iggie the Augie, Flannel-tongued Flannery and, of course, Fr.Brian.
A similar kind of heart-warming welcome was on the mat of the Morning Ireland studio this very morning, the Papal Flag ship programme of KTP on RTE Radio 1.
The guest was the Spokesman for the Islamic Community in the FSS, the occasion was the Feast of Eid-al-Fitr and the tone was one of sweetness and Turkish delight.
This Feast marks the end of the holy season of Ramadan, and is the equivalent of the Papist season of Lent. But that is where all similarities end: the end of Lent in the FSS is treated with increasingly harsh demands for the opening of the pubs on Good Dryday.
Or, as they say in leprechaun: is Eireannaigh muid: buail isteach na tabhairni
Whereas the right to bear arms in enshrined in the constitution of the USA it is surely only a matter of tiempo before the equivalent right to be appear legless on G-Day will be enshrined in the c. of the Republic of the Neverending Referenda..
In Muslim countries it is customary for the Sons of the Prophet to rise up before sunrise on the feast of Eid-al-Fitr and in keeping with the tradition of Muhammad to clean the teeth with a toothbrush, to shower before prayers, to put on new clothes (or the best available – the cleanest dirty thobe with Friday morning coming down) and to apply perfume.
It is also the custom of chocolate shops to give customers who purchase a selection of candies a free crystal candy dish with their purchase.
There was a distinct whiff of chocolate and perfume off this particular Morning Ireland interview this morning, and not just confined to one side of the microphone. And whatever about the presence of bars of chocolate nougat questions there was a noticeable absence of the bars of the Chatanooga Shoo-Shoo Shootist being whistled by the interviewer, even tentatively.
There was also noticeable a particular avoidance of another Ramadan custom, related not so much to the end of the season as to the end of each day during the season. Anyone who has spent time in an Islamic country will know better than to venture out in the thirty minutes before Sundown. Even mad d’s and Englishmen know this.
For this is when the ravenous taximen begin to turn for home, their motor vehicles fuelled by images of the slap up meal of kus kus which awaits their rumbling stomachs on the dining room table.
Fast doesn’t even begin to describe their rate of knots.
Curiously enough this is an Islamic tradition which is very much in evidence in the questions of the Morning Irelanders whenever a doomed spokesman for the Romanists in on the block, oops, in the studio.
The FSS is not knows as the Cahilliphate for nought.
In answer to the original question.
NO.
When unionists have nothing to fear they will feel Irish eventually.
Emmet when will you and your fellow Republicans learn that we are British by choice? Perhaps when you understand that then we will be able to move on
Neill, what have Unionists to fear that stops their feeling Irish? Genuine question.
As an Irish Republican, I accept that you feel and see yourself as British. While I don’t accept British rule here, I accept there are British people in Ireland. And they must be accommodated. Sinn Féin accept that, despite what you may say.
Trust me, Neill, we are able to move on. We are waiting on the British people here to accept that.
neill – people living in ireland can choose to be british if they want, if they feel happier within that particular mindset.
They can no longer continue and justify blatant sectarian bigotry.
Unfortunately for all of us the DUP, OO, Loyalists etc seem unable to separate out the 2 concepts.
I know that Unionists choose to be British. Feeling Irish and choosing to be British aren’t the same.
I went to university with several Unionists who felt British for the first few months of university, eventually they realised that what they thought was ‘British’ wasn’t actually British. This was so obvious now that they were living in Britain- they felt Irish. The scousers did a good job at understanding us but the rest of England had no idea. The scousers understood our humour but the other people on our course just didn’t get our dry sense of humour, they couldn’t understand our spelling/pronunciation of place names. They looked at us funny when we decided to go out for our first night out despite the place being in ‘lock-down’ with riot police everywhere. When there was a bomb scare on our campus (suspected National Front) we were the students who stood at the back of the building while everyone else stood ot the police cordon watching the bomb disposal officer.The funniest incident was when the most bitter Orangeman (we eventually became friends) was asked by an Italian girl was he English or Scottish, he said ‘no ,no I am Irish’. I stepped in and he looked really embarrassed, I was dying to out him but I couldn’t get the chance. When we eventually did make friends he asked me not to tell anyone what he said, if people back home knew they would ‘beat him around the place’
When Loyalist go abroad what type of bars do they gravitate towards? Irish.
My argument is that unionists choose to be British for several reasons (maybe they feel/know their own community turning on them, they don’t know what it means but think it will give them some sort of favouritism from London, peer pressure or they are afraid of what Irish means). This is the important part Neill so please read carefully- When republicans/nationalists remove the fear for unionists they will feel Irish eventually. The next step would naturally be admitting they feel Irish and ultimately they might choose to feel Irish if all the other barriers are removed from within the Unionist community (i.e sectarianism). I am not a fascist Neill I would never force anyone to move anywhere or to force a choose of nationality on anyone.
Neill please read what I write more carefully, you keep misinterpreting what I am saying. Is it because you think I have fascist tenancies? I think you bring the same preconceived notion to your analysis of republicanism in general.
Emmet. You are absolutely right in what you’ve said. Any of us who have had the opportunity to see a little further than this little parochial place knows that. I’ve always said it .If you are born on this island landmass, whether in the north, south, east or west, you have been born in the island of Ireland and are naturally enough …an Irishman. It is simply what you are . After that you can claim to be anything else you like .A Welshman born in Wales is a Welshman. He may also claim to be part of “Britain” or part of a British Isles but he is Welsh . You can argue , of course, that a Belfast man is not the same as a Derry man …not the same as a Cork man or a Dublin man. It doesn’t make a lot of difference though and there should be no real fear in it.
Certainly a so called sense of Britishness in Norneverland is not the same thing as a sense of Britishness anywhere in England , Scotland or Wales. Go there to live for a while and they’ll tell you right away, Neill….You’ll be jokingly “Paddy” this and “Paddy” that anywhere beyond Liverpool , where as you pointed out, Emmet , they are close enough to know the score…but only just…!
We could go round in circles all day today and tomorrow and the day after with ‘you said, he said, I didn’t say ……’ arguments. Truth is no side is entirely blameless.
The only blameless people are innocent victims, whether it was Bloody Sunday or Kingsmills or Loughlinisland.
Until all of us, and especially political leaders, develop the capacity to break this mobian loop of recrimination, progress, if there is any, will be very slow indeed.
There remains a justifiable perception that SF still haven’t the earned the respect of the Unionist population. Referring to us as “bastards” or at times manufacturing parade disputes is not going to help anyone, nor is the disrespect shown by some Unionists towards the Irish language etc.
We desperately need someone to hit control-alt-delete urgently, we need to restart and reset relations between the two tribes. It probably won’t be entirely possible in my lifetime or yours but we need to start somewhere.
My biggest reservation is the absence of justice for the many innocent victims, it might prove too high a price to pay!
I agree with a fair bit of what you say, Andy – but I don’t like the sub-text which seems to suggest ‘One lot’s as bad as the other’. This simply isn’t the case. So SF spend 17 years making overtures of reconciliation and GA on one occasion refers to unionist hard-liners as ‘bastards’, therefore it’s all back to zero? I don’t think so. If I had a shilling for every time I’ve been called a bastard, I’d be very rich and have no friends…
It want just remarks by Adams. We had McGuinness describe Provos in L’derry as “heroes” who created “a Republican stronghold”.
These are same heroes who targeted and slaughtered entirely innocent civilians, not soldiers, not police, not prison officers or politicians.
Then we have Gerry Kelly saying he would do it all again – seriously, what kind of outreach is that?
Up until 1987 Adams was offering re-patriation of Unionists to GB as a solution.
So; SF have endorsed the shooting and bombing of innocent civilians, they have suggested, relatively recently, that Unionists should move away from their birthplace with compensation, they have manufactured residents groups to oppose Orange Order parades. And despite signing the GFA, they refuse to acknowledge the principle terms contained in it, namely that Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom.
Do you really think Unionists are wrong to be suspicious of their motivation?
You would be wrong Jude Sf have a lot more apologising to do before any unionist accepts reconciliation from them remember how they tried to bomb and kill us into a united Ireland so don’t act surprised if unionists tell sf to stick their reconciliation attempts up their bangle.
Ah well neill – if you persist in seeing the history of the past 100 years as ‘it was the IRA wot dun it’, there’s nothing I nor anyone else can do to change you. If you can’t see that the state in which you live came about by threat of massive violence, if you can’t see it was maintained in a condition of gerrymander and discrimination for 50 years, if you can’t accept that it wasn’t simply republicans who engaged in violent acts but unionists too, and that pain and hurt was shared on all sides, not just the unionist side, if you can’t accept that nationalism/republicanism made a massive concession when they agreed that a minority of the Irish people should be allowed to decide the shape of the future of Ireland – if you can see none of those things, and turn away from ever even considering them, then I can see how some republicans despair.
What cause justifies walking into a church on a Sunday evening and spraying the congregation with automatic gunfire?
What cause justifies lining up a bus load of Protestant workmen and machine gunning them to death?
What cause justifies shooting Joanne Mathers in the head simply because she was collecting census forms?
The list goes on and on and on.
The truth is that the IRA were sectarian and ruthless savages (as were Loyalist paramilitaries) hell bent on nothing more than murder and mayhem.
And before we get into Whataboutery, Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy were equally abhorrent, we can only hope that the families get some form of justice, but I doubt it.
Made a massive concession complete rot nationalists and republicans finally accepted that the people of Northern Ireland will decide what happens so you accepted reality some concession.
Yes unionist were unfair however when Unionists ran Northern Ireland how many Catholics and Protestants were killed if you wanted to point your finger at the most blood thirsty people in Northern Ireland don’t look past the republican movement
McMahon family, neill? Peter Ward?
Might take you a little longer to name IRA victims….
The IRA were actually the one armed group who didn`t shoot people simply because they were Catholic…..
Of course that makes it alright then Another Jude!