Perhaps my timing was wrong. Maybe you saw it? I don’t mean the street rioting and racism of a couple of weeks ago, but the location of these riots – and the location of the attack by the Sudanese man. Because where things happen in NEI is an important aspect of understanding those things.
So. Kinnaird Avenue off the Antrim Road is a predominantly Catholic/nationalist area.Ballysillan/Crumlin Road and Sandynowes/Cloughfern/Shore Road/Glengormley are predominantly Protestant/loyalist areas. Which means the stabbing attack occurred in a Catholic/nationalist area and the riots took place in Protestant/loyalist areas.
I don’t recall any TV commentator noting the religious/political identity of either area. Why was that – was it because it was seen as irrelevant? I doubt it. I know, you know, that Protestant working-class areas are dominated by loyalist gangs. Drugs are procured and sold in these areas, and nothing happens that isn’t given a green light by those illegal gangs. By demanding the identity of the house occupants and by burning some homes deemed to house immigrants, the rioting youths were acting with the ‘blessing’ (if that’s not too taig a word) of the loyalist gangs.
So did they give the green light because they empathised with the victim and the area where he was attacked? I doubt it.
It is hard not to conclude that the burning and rioting were tightly controlled by those who control the area.
Final two questions: Why did the police not have a dye in the water, so that those splashed would have had their clothes marked and follow-up arrests would have been simpler and more definite?
The answer to the second question is important: If the rioters had been young nationalists/republicans, would the police have been equally content to contain their activities? Or might they have gone in there and dispersed the crowds with emphatic, physical force?
So many questions, so few answers
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