A much publicised recent poll has sent shock waves through almost every community but Nationalism and Republicanism. I really don’t know what people thought the outcome was going to be considering the experiences of nationalists throughout the conflict here in Ireland. From the forces of so-called ‘law and order’ police force marching up the Falls Road backing up Loyalists burning street after street of Nationalist homes, to the British army standing by while it fell to the IRA to protect St. Matthews chapel in the Short Strand against hundreds of Loyalists baying for blood, any right-minded person could legitimately see why 7 out of 10 Nationalists in the poll saw the armed rebellion as necessary.
What you may not have noticed if you haven’t been watching closely, is the ‘independent’ media’s response to the poll. Instead of asking why nationalists continue to feel this way so long after the GFA and fragile peace, the media have gone on the rampage calling the statistics in the poll an affront to victims of the ‘Troubles’. What has come to the fore is how the media and indeed Unionism and Loyalism see and portray the Nationalist community. The narrative coming through, it seems, is that in Ireland Nationalists were the only section of society with an alternative to violence while Loyalists and the British military infrastructure could do as they please, hindered in their murderous actions by nothing, with talking being the last thing on their minds.
The narrative of – “There was an alternative to IRA violence” somewhat falls flat on its face when we look at the first Sinn Fein Councillor to be elected to Belfast City Hall since the 1920s in the form of Alex Maskey. As soon as Alex Maskey walked into the chamber the Unionist Councillors stood up and walked out. This was the man elected as the voice of his constituents, their voice, their person to speak for them, to talk…the alternative! And yet Unionists wanted nothing to do with it. At that stage, Sinn Fein was being jeered at by Unionists, baited one could say to join mainstream politics, to do away with the bomb and bullet, and bring peace to the North. Once that happened, Unionists didn’t want them there because it gave Nationalists a legitimate voice in the chambers which were once the sole domain of Unionism. One could say they were caught off guard by Sinn Fein actually taking part in politics.
What the media and indeed some so-called ‘independent’ opinion piece writers are refusing to open up, is the debate about anyone other than the IRA and Nationalism and where their alternative to violence lay. The Unionist administration at Stormont, the B-Specials, the RUC, the British army, the SAS, the Parachute regiment, Loyalist paramilitaries, and the UDR…apparently none of them had an alternative to violence. You see, dear reader, this is what I mean by the holier-than-thou attitude of many toward Irish Nationalists, Republicans, and indeed Northern Irish Catholics to an extent. That holier-than-thou attitude can be felt most pronounced in the South of our dear land where the establishment and those hanging onto their coat tails all but renounced their claim to those of us in the North who held dear our claim to Irish nationality and all that entails. While we were fighting for our very lives in the North, the Irish government may as well have been siding with the British.
Obviously, the ground-shaking poll comes on the heels of a very productive and successful Feile an Phobail. What has become very apparent in the aftermath is that Loyalists and Unionists are permitted, and very openly permitted to offend and insult any denomination or culture they please yet songs that have been sung for generations by Nationalists and Republicans, in homes, bars, and on street corners are not acceptable to be sung, in the eyes of some, by 10,000 Nationalists in a concert, away from bonfires, danger and health, and safety hazards. It’s almost as if Nationalists aren’t allowed to have a culture similar to Loyalists who quite openly celebrate the Famine and being up to their knees in fenian blood. You would think by this stage the Loyalist and Unionist community would know ‘Go on home British soldiers, go on home’ is literally what Irish Nationalism and Republicanism are all about. Feile an Phobail was not held on the Shankill Road, it wasn’t held in Orangefield or in the Waterside area of Derry, it was held in a strong Nationalist and Republican community.
What Unionists fear…is that Nationalist and Republican community is so strong and proud that they refuse to let their history go, refuse to let it be rewritten, and continue to sing loud and proud. Well done Feile an Phobail. Well done West Belfast
Very well stated This is what myself and lot’s of other people have been saying for year’s. The Unionist mainstream and their cohort’s have stated, many time’s, that they can march on the “Queen’s Highway” whenever and wherever they want. Do they agree then that the Nationalist Community can ALSO march “whenever and wherever” THEY want to march. I don’t think so. These people think that we are second-class Citizen’s whose only purpose is to do whatever they want us to do. They should grow up and recognise that ALL of us are equal’s and maybe, just maybe, they will realise that they are just as important as the people who they’ve looked down on for over generations. We will see what happens in the near future.
Thankfully their Days are Numbered and they’re Petrified because they see it Staring right at them. The Protestant/Loyalist People have Never had a Real leader just Illbred Catholic loathing Bigots, No one to blame for their Idiocy but their Illiterate Selves..