New Labour - same Orange state
Once again a British government has acted with duplicity and bad
faith. They have also quite cynically manipulated negotiations
and, when the time came, sent in the sectarian RUC to brutalise
the nationalist community of the Garvaghy Road.
Those are facts which Mo Mowlam is finding it impossible to
refute. Her government played the Orange card because it was
unwilling to confront the dominant bloc in the Six Counties: the
Orange Order, the RUC and the Ulster Unionists. As so often in
the past, the forces of the Unionist state would not face down
Unionists. And the new Labour government acquiesced in that.
Mowlam then had the audacity to say that the decision to force an
Orange march through a nationalist area was taken because of
``intransigence on both sides''. The truth is that the Garvaghy
Road residents were at all times willing to meet with the Orange
Order. Their bravery in standing up to sectarian coat-trailing
has been matched by craven cowardice from the Labour government.
This week nationalists have rightly been angry. That anger should
now become a force for positive change. Demonstrations, rallies
and imaginative forms of protest must show to the world that
inequality still rules OK under British sovereignty in six Irish
counties. And they must show that nationalists are no longer
prepared to tolerate it. These demonstrations must also show that
equality is an all-Ireland issue, and that the international
community has a role to play.
d what of the future role of the British Labour government?
Having failed their first crucial test they must be challenged
effectively on the political front. Do they intend to abdicate
their responsibility and carry on with the unionist agenda they
inherited from John Major? On the evidence of this week that is
their intention.
Their course can only be changed by the determined political
efforts of nationalist Ireland demanding all-inclusive
negotiations, an end to the Orange state, and equality for all
citizens irrespective of their creed. The British government must
be faced with political protest which says that change is
happening and it is inevitable. Massive protest will persuade
them that following the old agenda of domination, triumphalism
and sectarianism will only make that inevitable change more
painful.
The need for discipline
In these harrowing times it is essential always to be mindful of
the source of sectarianism in Ireland. That source is British
rule, partition and the pro-partitionist loyal orders and
unionist parties. Sectarianism in all its forms must be deplored.
Sadly in the past week there have been some isolated examples of
sectarian attacks against Protestants. These should cease
immediately. Not only are they sectarian in themselves but they
shift the focus away from the sources of sectarianism in Ireland,
the very cause of the crisis in which we find ourselves.
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