Absurd analogies
By Seán Marlow
It has been a week of comparisons, some hilarious, some tragic.
Gerry Adams is looking forward to change but even he must be
amazed at the sight of what had previously been right-wing,
fundamentalist Orangemen proclaiming their support for Gay Pride
marches in London and their opposition to segregation in the
southern USA, apartheid in South Africa and the National Front in
Britain.
Notwithstanding this new-found liberalism (maybe prompted by PR
``experts'' like Ruth Dudley Edwards and Eoghan Harris?), the
reality is slightly different. One of the most vociferous
opponents of gay rights has been Nelson McCausland of the Orange
Order and supporters like Ian Paisley and David McIlveen. Redneck
segregationists in the Deep South of the US awarded Paisley his
``doctorate'' and of course the reason that Portadown is so
segregated is that many Catholics were driven out of previously
mixed areas by Orange supporters, who are now trying to starve
them into submission.
In the 1970s and 1980s Loyalist and Unionist leaders visited
South Africa in defiance of the anti-apartheid boycott and
praised the apartheid state's ``vigorous action against the
terrorists'' of the ANC. And it was to the apartheid regime that
Trimble's Ulster Clubs, Robinson's Ulster Resistance and
British/Loyalist agents like Brian Nelson turned to get weapons
to arm the Loyalist death squads. It's no wonder that the ANC
observer on the Garvaghy Road said that Orange Order claims that
the opposition to their march was ``cultural apartheid'' was
completely out of order and belittles the struggle of the
oppressed people of South Africa against real apartheid. He
astutely observed that in Ireland, as in South Africa, right-wing
opponents of change were trying to derail the peace process.
As for John Taylor's comments that the National Front would not
be allowed to block a march in London, I reckon that the sunshine
in his beloved Turkish partitioned Cyprus is getting to him.
Surely it's the National Front (which supports the Orange Order!)
that insists on marching through areas where they are not wanted
- and who ARE often stopped by courageous anti-Nazi activists.
Taylor further demanded that the British Army should not be used
against the ``civilian population''. I didn't hear him objecting in
1972 when the British Army was used to gun down Civil Rights
marchers in Derry. And, of course, Taylor was Stormont Minister
for Home Affairs in charge of the RUC when that force was used
against the people of Derry in the Battle of the Bogside and
against the people of Hooker Street, Bombay Street and Divis
Flats in August 1969.
I am certainly not advocating that the RUC and British Army be
used in a similar brutal manner against the Orange Order, but can
anyone seriously imagine nationalists being allowed to stage
illegal marches and block roads at will while the RUC stands idly
by?
There were also some less absurd comparisons over the past week.
Last weekend we saw Black Panthers routing an attempted Ku Klux
Klan rally in Jasper, Texas, where a black man, James Byrd, had
been viciously killed by white racists. I was reminded of this
when I saw TV pictures of Orange marchers at Drumcree taunting
Garvaghy residents, shouting ``What about Hamill?'' while one
jumped up and down imitating the killing of Robert Hamill. I
wonder do establishment politicians and journalists in Texas
demand that the black people of Jasper accept a KKK march through
their neighbourhood? Or that Stephen Lawrence's community in
London welcome a march by the National Front after white racists
killed Stephen and racially biased police failed to properly
investigate the murder?
Ironically, on the same day that those same London police sprayed
CS gas in the eyes of black protesters who wanted to get into the
Stephen Lawrence enquiry (and the RUC, who stood by as Robert
Hamill was killed, fired dozens of plastic bullets at
nationalists in Lurgan), a reporter on Sky News was complaining
that French police ``over-reacted'' against English soccer thugs in
St Etienne! When will they ever learn?
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