The entry of Unionists into the real world
By Mary Nelis
Who said there was no progress being made at the Stormont Talks?
Those close encounters of another kind appear to be arousing the
Ulster Unionist Party from some kind of Rip Van Winkle slumber.
Their spokesperson, Dermot Nesbitt, writing in the style of one
who has just woken up after 70 years, has discovered that there
is a United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and that the
British government have not lived up to its commitment on human
rights in respect of the North of Ireland.
y nationalist, fully awake, could have told you that, Dermot.
In fact, you may be surprised to learn, that successive British
governments, have the unenviable record of the highest number of
human rights violations of any western country.
Since 1960, some 20% of the guilty findings of the European Court
of Human Rights have been against that government, your
government Dermot, in connection with their treatment of Irish
nationalists.
However, as Seamus Mallon states, there is quiet progress being
made and it is indeed heartening to hear that the Ulster Unionist
Party have twigged on to the discovery that human rights
protection is at the heart of Parliamentary democracy.
Perhaps that explains that since 1921, under the Unionist regime
and its Special Powers legislation, nationalists enjoyed neither
democracy nor human rights. In fact, there were those who would
argue that Unionism is hardly compatible with democracy.
Certainly, words like human rights and democracy have hardly been
the rhetoric heard at party conferences or from the platform at
Orange demonstrations. Nor did we ever hear the Mother of
Parliaments protest against or reprove the regime in the North.
The entire ethos of Unionism, supported by the ruling class, was
based on intolerance and bigotry which translated into virulent
opposition to the Catholic nationalist community, trapped within
the partitioned North. When it comes to extremes, Mr Nesbitt goes
back to slumberland, asserting that the problem is somehow
aggressive nationalism.
Yet what could be more aggressive than the word of the first
Unionist Prime Minister of the partitioned entity of the Six
Counties, set up of course without the democratic consent of
either the Unionist or Nationalist population.
Sir James Craig, no doubt aware that the foundations for peace
and justice are maintained by effective democracy and common
understanding, proudly proclaimed, ``I have always said I am an
Orangeman first, a politician and a member of Parliament
afterwards. All I boast is that we are Protestant Parliament for
a Protestant State''.
Mr Nesbitt states that democratic rights and freedoms are being
advocated and applied everywhere in modern Europe, except in
Northern Ireland. We entirely agree. The experiment by the
British government of giving absolute power to the aggressive
Unionist regime is not only undemocratic, it has not worked in
the past, nor will it in the future.
The philosophy and ethos of the regime was reflected in their
ministers and civil servants, whose energies were almost solely
directed at rebutting allegations of Catholic nationalist
infiltration of the cosy cartel that existed in the various
government departments at Stormont.
In 1933, JM Andrews, the Unionist Minister for Labour, stated,
``There has been an allegation made against this government which
is untrue, namely that of 31 porters employed at Stormont, 28 are
Catholics. I have investigated the matter and I have found that
there are 40 Protestant porters and only one is Catholic, and he
is temporary''.
Yes, you are correct Mr Nesbitt. Apart from Hitler's Germany,
there is no European parallel for the North of Ireland. Is it any
wonder that after 50 years of discrimination, sectarianism, abuse
of power, the use of the Special Powers Act to silence
Nationalist dissent, the torture, murder and imprisonment of
Catholics for no other reason than that they were Catholics, we
now have a situation where the British government - who stand
indicted internationally for their collaboration with such a
regime - has clearly stated there must be change. There can be no
return to the past.
They based their proposals on the Framework Document, which
Nesbitt and the Unionist backwoodsmen describe as unacceptable
political blackmail. This now is being used as another
precondition to meaningful negotiation. All-Ireland bodies?
Never! Nesbitt asserts that there is no precedent anywhere in
Europe for the proposals contained in the Framework Document. Yet
the document suggests ways in which the British government, to
which Unionists give their allegiance, might devise arrangements
to implement the commitment to promote co-operation between
people at all levels, North and South, as agreed in the joint
declaration. Is not the European Community moving along the same
lines?
Perhaps the real issue is not the proposals contained in the
Framework Document, but the notion that human rights, solidarity,
justice and democracy, cannot be accommodated within that entity
known as the North of Ireland and that progress has to be
advanced in terms of an accommodation with the rest of the people
of Ireland. That is what the rest of the world considers to be
democratic. People and nations trying to reach out to each other.
Alas for hopes of a positive outcome, Mr Nesbitt and his party
have nodded off again into the twilight zone of no, nay, never
and the rhetoric of confronting government.
Is it any wonder that the slogans appearing on the wall of
Belfast proclaim that ``the Orange Order is at last moving into
the 20th century while the rest of us move into the 21st''.
The Unionists appear to be suspended between both. Can I suggest
by way of progress a Christmas trip to the space station Mir.
Observing this little island from a distance may help to focus
their minds.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)