Republican News · Thursday 11 July 2002

Beating the sectarian drum at Drumcree

BY LAURA FRIEL

As a violent confrontation at the barrier ensued, some Orangemen walked away, others took off their sashes before joining in the fray, while others fought still dressed in their full regalia

The fact that members of the Orange Order engaged in violent confrontation at Drumcree comes as no surprise to residents living along the Garvaghy Road or even the wider northern nationalist community.

For the Belfast Newsletter, scenes of Orangemen spitting at PSNI officers, hurling bricks and insults, and cheering each other along was "not in keeping with the high standards the institution wishes to represent" nor "compatible with the godly standards the organisation promotes and expects its members to profess".

But as two recently released International Observer reports into Orange parades during the previous two summers show, violent confrontation is neither an unusual corollary to Orange Order parades nor confined to Drumcree.

"The atmosphere of most parades was tense. The continued antagonism of some parade participants, parade supporters and police seemed designed to incite the nationalist communities, often leaving residents of those communities beleaguered and frightened," write representatives from Irish American lawyers' group, the Brehan Law Society.

While in Belfast, an observer from the International Irish Parades Emergency Committee recorded that "spectators accompanying the parade heckled nationalist residents. The body language of these Orange supporters was aggressive and triumphalist, including pumping fists, jeering and dancing. One man yelled, 'Fuck the Pope'. Parade supporters taunted residents, yelling and gesturing in a threatening manner."

But in a sense, the Parades Commission's code of conduct already says it all. Appendix B refers to the behaviour of parade participants.

"Where the majority population of the vicinity are of a different tradition and in interface areas, behaviour should be respectful. There should be no excessively loud drumming. Participants should refrain from conduct, words, music or behaviour which could reasonably be perceived as intentionally sectarian, provocative, threatening, abusive, insulting or lewd."

The overwhelming majority of annual parades, around 3,000, are Orange Order parades. Furthermore, nationalists have largely adopted a policy of voluntary rerouting away from contentious areas.

Clearly, while the Commissions' rules are couched in general rather than specific terms, they reflect the main preoccupation of the Commission's most contentious decisions, the rerouting of Orange and other Loyal Order parades away from nationalist areas.

The Parades Commission did not arbitrarily pluck the images evoked by these guidelines, of Orange Order parades as sectarian, provocative and aggressive, out of thin air. Rather they reflect problems experience on the ground has identified.

This is not a republican, or even a nationalist, representation of Orange parades but that of an official British government established body.

Presented with such uncomfortable truths, a period of quiet reflection might be considered appropriate. Clearly many Orangemen regard themselves as a primarily religious grouping. The annual march to Drumcree is part of a church parade to a commemorative service marking the loss of life at the Somme.

Surely if this is the main impetus for the parade to Drumcree, marching through the nationalist Garvaghy Road is a mere distraction - a distraction better discarded in the interests of community relations.

But given the Orange Order's persistent preoccupation with parading through nationalist areas and the antics of their members and supporters which accompanies such parades, how can anyone, especially those on the receiving end of Orange contempt, understand the Order as anything other that a charade of pious bigotry and besuited thuggery?

The Orange Order's response to calls for restraint and criticism has not been reflection but further antagonism. If Orangemen feel as if "everyone is against them", it's because they are increasingly defining themselves as against everyone else.

Thus, addressing Orangemen on Drumcree Hill, local Orange Order leader David Burrows lost no opportunity to inflame the sectarian passions of his audience and heighten their sense of grievance. Parades Commission chairperson Tony Holland was pursuing a 'green' agenda and the British Secretary of State, John Reid didn't want to upset his "fellow Celtic supporters" Burrows told Orangemen at Drumcree.

Twenty-four hours earlier, at a rally of Orange supporters in Glasgow, DUP Assembly member Nigel Dodds was already lighting the touch paper.

"First we lost the B Specials, then our Parliament at Stormont, next we lost the UDR and more recently the RUC. Now the Orange Institution is being targeted," said Dodds. "Republicans, with the connivance of the British government, have set about dismantling every institution the British people of Northern Ireland hold dear."

Dodds' sentiments were akin to the White Supremacist's wistful mourning of the passing of Apartheid and were just as inappropriate and inflammatory. Of course Nigel Dodds wasn't at Drumcree to throw the first punch. And David Burrows didn't leap from the platform to lead the charge.

Assurances that the protest would be 'peaceful' and 'dignified', accompanied by the decision of prominent loyalist paramilitaries to stay away, had been reciprocated by those tasked with enforcing the Parades Commission's ruling. The security cordon dividing Orange marchers from the Garvaghy Road had been scaled down.

The characterisation that violence at Drumcree was the work of outsiders, of UDA or LVF supporters rather than members of the Orange Order, was always a myth and by pandering to it the PSNI/RUC was forced to pay the price.

As a violent confrontation at the barrier ensued, some Orangemen walked away, others took off their sashes before joining in the fray, while others fought still dressed in their full regalia. Indeed in some instances parts of the regalia, rolled black umbrellas, were utilised as offensive weapons.

Within a few hours the violence was over but the hypocrisy continued. "It is too easy to forget that the real problem at Drumcree is the intransigence of residents, who seem determined to humiliate the local Orangemen before deigning to even consider the prospect of enduring Orange feet on the Garvaghy Road," read the Newsletter editorial the following day.

After enduring years of sectarian persecution by Orangemen in the name of Drumcree, a request by residents of the Garvaghy Road for face-to-face dialogue with the Orange Order is apparently too humiliating a prospect for Portadown Orangemen to concede.

Even the Newsletter finds such a prospect too much to contemplate, but Catholic residents aside, the editorial advises against the Orange Order's continuing refusal to speak directly to the Parades Commission.

Orangemen "have come to despise the Parades Commission with the same level of passion once reserved for those who speak for the residents", writes the Newsletter, but when it comes to parading through the nationalist Garvaghy Road, the Orange Order have "a compelling case" and this needs to be "argued in the right places, even if that means supping with the enemy".

Meanwhile, speaking from the bedside of an injured PSNI officer, UUP leader and Assembly First Minister David Trimble said: "Those Orangemen who engaged in an attack on the police let themselves down, let the institution down and I hope very much that the leadership of the Orange Order look at this very carefully to see what can be done."

Church of Ireland Primate Robin Eames described the violence as "deplorable" and "completely unacceptable" but continued to fan the flames of the Orange Order's sense of grievance.

"Nothing must be allowed to deter our determination to find a solution which will honour the deeply held views of the two communities involved. Violence can have no place in that solution. A solution is possible and it must emerge soon," said Eames.

Moral leadership requires moral courage. Instead of feeding Orange hopes of reinstating the primacy of their demands, Robin Eames would do better to tell them the truth. Rerouting is a solution. It can be an equable solution.

There is nothing intrinsically 'humiliating' about re routing a parade to facilitate the wishes of local residents. Nationalists don't feel lessened or diminished by rerouting away from predominantly Protestant or loyalist estates and have repeatedly done so on a voluntary basis.

Rerouting allows Orangemen to pay tribute to their dead and honour their faith with dignity while leaving their Catholic neighbours in peace.