The price of justice
BY SEAN BRADY
A week and a half after the Orangemen were prevented from
marching down the Garvaghy Road, the splits within unionism and
the Orange Order are wide open and the focus of much debate.
The fundamentally sectarian nature of the Orange Order and those
unionists who are imbued with the philosophy of Orangeism has
been exposed to millions around the world. The unremitting
violence perpetrated against nationalist communities across the
Six Counties which has accompanied the Drumcree stand-off has
flashed the true nature of Orange supremacy to television screens
everywhere..
What has also been exposed is the conditional loyalty of unionism
to the British state, a fact underlined by the nightly television
coverage of bomb and gun attacks against the RUC at Drumcree.
This has always been the underlying reality of `Ulster loyalism'.
Such loyalty is dependent on the British state upholding a system
of first and second-class citizenship in the Six Counties. As
long as Protestants and Unionists are allowed to have advantages
above and beyond what their nationalist neighbours can expect
they will be loyal. If this privilege is in any way threatened,
sections of unionism will engage in open and violent
confrontation against the state.
Divisions within the Church of Ireland are opening up as Drumcree
highlights the contradictions of that Church giving support to an
organisation many of whose members seem bent on maintaining
division and fostering hatred of their neighbours and dragging
the name of Protestantism into the mire.
Many Church of Ireland members, particularly in the 26 Counties
are angry at the manner in which Church of Ireland property such
as the church at Drumcree has been used as a launching pad for
loyalist violence. They are severely critical of the stance of
the Church of Ireland leadership in the face of the Drumcree
situation. The dithering and ambivalence of Church of Ireland
Primate Dr Robin Eames in particular has come in for heavy
criticism and many see his eventual appeal for the Orangemen at
Drumcree to go home as `too little, too late'. Debate is opening
up around the issue of the Church of Ireland, which claims
members across the 32 Counties, being so closely associated in a
formal and symbolic sense with one particular political outlook.
People in the 26 Counties have watched the developing situation
at Drumcree with growing disgust. Opinion towards the Orange
Order and the unionists supporting the Portadown Orangemen has
soured by the day, effectively sidelining Orange apoligists in
the Southern media. But nothing could have prepared anyone for
the horror of the deaths in Ballymoney.
Outrage has accomapanied the Ballymoney murders across Ireland
and the feelings of disgust have intensified as Ian Paisley and
other loyalists claim it had nothing to do with Drumcree.
It appears that in Britain also people have been further
alienated from the North and from unionists in particular by the
events of the past week or so.
Republicans and nationalists need to understand what is happening
within unionism. The British government is now bound by the terms
of the Good Friday Agreement to pursue equality of treatment
within the Six Counties. This means further confrontation with
reactionary Orange unionism, because an equality agenda is
fundamentally at odds with that philosophy. Divisions within the
unionist camp will increasingly crytstallise around the terms of
the Agreement. A section of unionism has decided that the
Agreement and what it represents is a bridge too far. They are
now fighting a rearguard action which is only beginning. Their
strategy may develop in the weeks and months ahead and Jeffrey
Donaldson's call for a new unionist movement is part of that
realignment. As well as political tactics, violence will form a
major part in the strategy of the anti-Agreement unionists. Such
violence is aimed at influencing the British government into
backing down from progress as it has done many times in the past
and at terrorising nationalists into surrendering their demands
for justice.
The anti-agreement unionists must feel they do have advantages in
that many within the crown forces, the civil service, obviously
the Orange order and many other sections of public life in the
Six Counties are sympathetic to them.
Those unionists who have reluctantly supported the Agreement and
are being slowly and, painfully for them, pulled along the road
of change have difficult days ahead and nationalists and
republicans must understand that. However nationalists cannot
allow the equality agenda or the development of all-Ireland
structures to be frozen in time. Progress must be pursued at all
levels.
What will not work is attempts to have things both ways and to
present and package what is happening in a way which distorts the
truth. This is what the Parades Commission did in the trade-off
they practised in relation to their decision on the Orange march
down Belfast's Ormeau Road. Such regressive decisions are just
delaying the day when unionists come to terms with the changing
political landscape around them.
The murders of children in Ballymoney, the pogroms against
isolated nationalist families and the dire threats being issued
on a daily basis are the price ordinary people are being forced
to pay for the rights which people across Western Europe, in
Britain and in the 26 Counties take for granted. It is a price
they should not have to pay. The road to freedom and justice is
paved with danger but it is one which should not be walked by the
nationalist community in the Six Counties alone. All democrats
should stand together in support of the nationalist community's
right to safety and security and in support of political change
so that the events of the past week can be a milestone on the
journey to an Ireland where sectarianism and political violence
is consigned to the past.
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