Irish News, May 24, 2005
Hardline triumphalism bodes ill for the streets
by Susan McKay
"Once again, here comes the marching season." The weary comment of a north
Belfast youth worker after a weekend of sectarian attacks and rioting in the
area. Yes, we are entering those scary weeks that herald the cultural
highlight of the unionist year, those fun days for all the family at the
Orange and Black parades.
This year, there are more reasons than usual to be fearful.
One, many of the community workers who know how to deflect a good deal of
the trouble, have either already been laid off or are about to lose their
jobs.
Two, the UDA is in disarray and is, as always, seeking unity by turning its
rage on Catholics.
Three, the DUP is now in control of many of the areas which are particularly
volatile.
So an 11-year-old boy screams in terror as he is showered with broken glass
after loyalists smashed the windows of his Belfast home.
And a grandmother in Co Antrim is woken at four in the morning by the flash
of a petrol bomb, and not for the first time.
Both families are Catholics.
Both live in 'mixed areas' and have praised their good neighbours. The
loyalist paramilitaries who are trying to drive them out have stated they
intend to put an 'Orange line' around protestant areas, expelling Catholics
and making sure no new ones get in.
There have been several such attacks in the past week. The DUP – when pushed
– will condemn them and North Belfast MP, Nigel Dodds, to his credit,
visited one of the Catholic families in the aftermath.
But that won't stop them happening, and the DUP knows it.
What we'll see from Paisley's party in the coming weeks is hard talk and
sash waving about the right of the loyal orders to parade wherever they
choose, whenever they choose and without any obligation to engage in any
kind of negotiation with the Catholics who get in their way.
What's to talk about?
In any case, the DUP "won't talk to terrorists". It won't negotiate with
Sinn Féin about forming a government and it won't talk to them about keeping
peace on the streets in areas where Protestants vote DUP and Catholics vote
Sinn Féin.
The hardline triumphalism of the DUP in the summer after Paisley took over
as the undisputed leader of unionism bodes ill on the streets. Look at
Nelson McCausland's reaction to last weekend's trouble. Catholics started
it, he said. It was their fault. He referred to a "propensity for violence".
The UDA is also in a dangerous state this summer, particularly, it seems, in
north Belfast, with feuds, leadership battles, splits and expulsions going
on, on top of all the usual everyday activities of a major gangster
operation. In such a state, it traditionally lashes out.
Last summer, senior provisional republican figures were shouldered aside by
furious young Catholic rioters in Ardoyne.
The skirmishes of last weekend should act as a warning – there is an urgent
need for dialogue among all the political representatives this year.
The young people, whose reaction to the results of football matches is to go
out and riot, are in a frightening condition of readiness for violence. A
young policewoman could have been killed when youths dragged her from a Land
Rover and smashed a bottle on her head.
Yet youth workers have learned that these sorts of confrontations can often
be diverted. They calculate that around £2,000 will pay for a summer scheme
which will provide outings, drama classes and sporting activities for young
people in interface areas over, for example, the weekend of Drumcree, or the
11th and Twelfth of July.
It isn't a lot of money.
The trouble is, those who fund community work have taken all this for
granted.
If there isn't serious trouble on the streets, they seem to calculate, why
fund community work?
In reality, the absence of trouble usually indicates that a massive amount
of discreet, well-planned and coordinated cross-community work has gone on
for months in advance of the summer.
This year, because of cuts and government ineptitude in the introduction of
new funding sources, there are youth workers who are still working this week
– with young people whose blood is up – even though they don't know if their
organisations can pay them at the end of the month. These are dedicated
people who deserve better.
So do the communities they serve.
The way things are going, people are going to get hurt.
"Once again, here comes the marching season".
