Tag: sinn fein

NI Centenary 2021: Officially the shittest thing anybody has ever celebrated

Well, Congratulations Northern Ireland. We made it to the big 1-0-0. 100 years old. Party Time!

Is this the milestone that gets you invited to Buckingham Palace for a few pints and a scone, or is this the milestone the Queen just sends you an ‘oul shitty letter?

Either way, who knew, I mean seriously holy sh*t. We are the State equivalent of an addict with a life long heroine, coke and alcohol habit slowly destroying ourselves internally – only we’ve combined this with an effortless ability to acquire bomb making materials.

The only question is what do we celebrate first?

I know, I know, it’s obviously that time we beat Spain at football 40 years ago, or maybe that time we beat the English at Windsor Park, when it was still called Windsor Park.

So let’s do something a bit different from the standard 10 Greatest Northern Irish Achievements list. Otherwise I’ll just call this page The News Letter. Let’s do the…

5 Things Not To Mention During The Centenary Celebration 2021:

The Orange Order/Marching Season

Yep, I went there. I can already sense the faint smell of aggressive online abuse coming my way, but hey-ho. Also I know this isn’t only in N. Ireland, but that’s where its focus is, so let’s not be pedantic.

What in the name of holy shit is the Orange Order all about? It’s a lot of marching about in formal dress with drums that are unnecessarily big, and those big awkward looking flags with pictures of events that only your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great Granny and Granda would have been alive for.

It doesn’t exactly scream 21st Century, does it? If it was a bunch of older fellas marching about commemorating a battle from 400 odd years ago, I’d understand a little bit.

But what is the craic with the young ones taking part? It’s like some parallel dimension found only in N. Ireland, where the kids who are in the marching band are the cool ones.

Listen I get the ‘event’ of the whole thing, I really do…

Have it outside in July, it’s gonna be hot(ish) – I’m on board!

Call it a public holiday and give (almost) everyone a day or 2 off work – Don’t mind if I do. Gracias mi Orange amigos.

Make it socially acceptable to get pished in a big field – I’m in!

Have a midnight pre-party where we throw a load of stuff into a big pile and set it off in one giant fire – Yes! Actually, I think we might be best friends soon.

Stand around for hours watching marching bands walking along the road who are dressed like a cross between a soldier and a bus conductor – F*ck it, I’m out.

Come on ffs. Let’s bring it into the modern era! What about a samba band, or a DJ or something? Why not have a celebrity bare knuckled boxing match between King Billy and King James? Give us something to spice it up, please.

Maybe if the local nationalist residents who object to a parade from time to time knew they were going to get a DJ Shadow remix of The Sash, they might be more likely to let the marches pass by.

Aside from the whole weirdness, if a group of band nerds is going to march close to your house early on a saturday morning – Fucking let them.

Go about your day, take the kids to football, sleep away your hangover, go get a fry, or go watch the band nerds.

The day that people stop giving a shit about these parades is the day that all the hangers-on decide to lie in bed instead of traipsing down the road after the parades. When all these loonytoons piss off, then the years ahead will mean the only people parading will be a bunch of old, religious bus conductors that you see once a year.

It also astonishes me how the residents objecting to the marches have an encyclopedic knowledge of Orange/Protestant/Unionist music.

Segregation

Yee-haw, welcome to Jim Crow era U-S-oh, it’s actually Norn Iron. Yep that’s right, in 2021 we are operating a policy of housing and schooling segregation.

We love to keep a good old-style tradition going. So as of right now we have significant areas of housing that are separated between what are dispairingly called ‘catholic areas’ and ‘protestant areas’.

In many, many places (more than before the Good Friday Agreement was signed) we have huge brick or steel ‘Peace Walls’ (laugh out loud moment). We also make use of business parks, abandoned buildings and wastelands of unused space to separate our 2 communities. Enough to bring a tear to the eye, but wait…

WE SEGREGATE OUR CHILDREN TOO! We have Catholic Schools and Protestant schools. Yep, seriously. As the bible famously doesn’t say ‘Our children shalt never meet children not of our kin, lest they be tainted’.

There is a smattering of integrated schools too. These schools only educate around 6 – 7% of our children, despite overwhelming public support to integrate our schools. So most people want integrated education, but it’s not implemented. Welcome to our special brand of NI Democracy.

Even more grotesque is our ‘shared education’ sham where catholic and protestant children share the same school campus (and play areas) but do not freely mix.

So kids in Northern Ireland go to school – in the main – only with children from their own religious background. Then go home to their houses in areas that are almost exclusively filled by people from their own religious background.

Is it any f**king wonder this country is such a shambles?

If those who ran this country genuinely wanted to reconcile the ‘two communities’ (which is an utter nonsense of a phrase) they would aggressively and pro-actively implement an integrated schools and housing policy.

Top Secret Fact: Now whisper this, but it could be suggested that our Politicians don’t want integration, because they depend on division for votes. Sshh! Wink Wink Nudge, say no more.

DUP/Sinn Fein

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls I give you Sinn Fein and the DUP – The two biggest parties in Northern Ireland! (APPLAUSE!)

One of these political parties continue to commemorate those who murdered and killed innocent people for 35ish years, and the other lot support those brought to trial for murder, and want a law passed preventing ex-armed forces members accused of murder to be brought to trial.

Both are particularly loyal to those from ‘their’ side who carried out murders here, but carry a particularly pure form of hatred towards murderers from ‘the other side.’ This is called hypocrisy, friends.

Seriously, these are the 2 biggest parties in the assembly. These people run our government. How does that make you feel inside? I hope you’re angry.

Actually think about it some more.

In one corner we have the Marriage equality hating, gay conversion therapy supporting, Loyalist terrorist ambivalent, the earth is 15 minutes old absolute moonbeams of the D.U.P.

In the other corner we have the ‘socialist’ Let’s rubber stamp civil service redundancies, sell off public land, produce a Catholics v. Protestant election leaflet, refuse to light up city hall for unionist celebration, kingsmill anniversary loaf on the head PR masters of Sinn Fein.

If these 2 parties were written into a film the critics would call it unbelievable. Slapstick. Like a carry on film with lots of sectarianism and populism thrown in.

Well Done Northern Ireland for continuing to vote for these muppets in such consistently high numbers. If voting for them was some sort of piss take then I’m here to tell you the joke is old. Really old.

Murals and Flags

Piggybacking on our Segregated housing section is flags and murals.

Flags are extremely important to many people in Northern Ireland. Do not mess with their 5ft x 3ft piece of coloured cloth. These mass produced items are absolutely precious.

Flags also ensure that it is clear whether your area is a catholic/protestant one, and to signify that no catholic/protestant (delete as applicable) should ever consider living here. Often when new housing areas are built then people will come and fly flags around the area to ‘claim’ it as ‘theirs’. Much the same way dogs piss on trees and claim them.

The agreed etiquette is that they should be on as many lamp posts as possible. Please also note that the next street to yours will take the piss out of you if your street doesn’t have as many flags as theirs.

There was once a quaint little tradition – that may still operate in some areas – that meant if you didn’t have a flag flying from your house then the boys with woolly faces would come round and politely ask you to put one up. If flags weren’t really your thing, then they would ask for a little financial donation to ease their troubled hearts over your anti-patriotic front garden.

Murals. Well, what really can you say about these. Admittedly there are some murals in Northern Ireland showing images of our history. They’re pretty amazing.

But lets be honest, our most famous ones are the ones with balaclavas and guns. Now, Republicans have a tiny flickering light bulb in their head and their most outwardly public murals normally portray their heroes with long flowing hair and a half smile showing the good nature of Republican gunmen. This is good when the tourists come calling. If you want the real AKs and balaclava murals normally you have to travel deeper into housing estates, where they probably think no tourists are likely to end up.

Loyalists on the other hand couldn’t give a flying fiddlers. They’re happy to portray themselves as skeleton-headed gun-toting maniacs for anybody who wants a look.

They try to show their soulful side sometimes – ‘Prepared for Peace. Ready for War’. Reading between the lines though most of us see ‘Prepared for EU Peace Money. Ready to build a criminal enterprise, mainly around drug dealing.

Needless to say the majority of the flags, murals, kerbs painted are insecure territory marking. This is obviously linked to the segregated housing mentioned earlier.

So, how exactly are people allowed to fly flags supporting terrorist organisations? Who was it gave the OK for terrorist organisations to be glorified on the side of a gable end house?

Why is there no talk of removing all this shit? Because… … come on…. you can get it… Yes! That’s it! Because this is Northern Ireland were painting the face of terrorists on the side of houses is the done thing. Of course that is totally 100% normal. Totally.

So yeah, anyway, let’s keep the whole marked out territory thing out of the Centenary discussion.

The Troubles

So I was trying my best to ignore this part, but it turns out that’s impossible. So ignoring the whole bloodshed that took place before our modern day ‘troubles’ – we shouldn’t mention the troubles. It’ll put a real dampener on the 100 year birthday party we’re going to have.

For nearly 30 years, Loyalists, Republicans and the security forces murdered people. Some have more responsibility than others for the deaths but whatever background you were from, you were a legitimate target for somebody. Bloody Sunday, Shankill Bomb, Greysteel, Kingsmill, Collusion, Omagh. Murders.

What has any of it achieved for anyone? What does the sh*te our Politicians still go on about achieve for anyone?

Thousands of people died over which colour of coloured cloth flies over government buildings.

100 year celebration? Celebrating what?

MJS

The Simplicity of Democracy: The Irish Border

Northern Ireland is once again gripped by border mania. The recent poll in relation to the constitutional preferences of people in Northern Ireland provided the predictable outcome of around 50% wanting to remain with the union with Britain, and 42% wanting a United Ireland.

It’s been suggested that Sinn Fein polling extremely well in the North and the South has complicated the situation, in that it would suggest an overwhelming majority across the entire Island would support Irish Unity. That’s not how it works though. The political reality is that Ireland is divided and Northern Ireland is a different entity to the Republic of Ireland.

So, why is that simple point, and the majority of people here supporting to remain within the United Kingdom not enough for our Politicians? Northern Ireland is in the midst of a pandemic, a housing crisis and a Universal credit crisis. That’s before we even mention ongoing sectarianism, and unpunished racist attacks. So why the focus on the border?

Oxygen of Sectarianism

The sad reality is that it doesn’t benefit our politicians to reconcile or compromise with each other. If your identifying feature as a political party is that you are either Unionist or Nationalist then your overarching focus is going to be on the Nationalist/Unionist agenda. If voters focus on other issues then their votes are up for grabs – to any party that can match voter’s views.

Ultimately that is the reason behind the perma-crisis Northern Ireland finds itself in year after year. The leaders of Unionism and Nationalism create an ever present fear of some impending catastrophic constitutional change, when really right now, that is nowhere near on the cards.

Unionism appears as extremely insecure about the Union despite the fact that, at the minute, they have a clear majority in favour of maintaining it. To keep getting their vote out though they need to portray the Union as under threat. This way Unionists will continue to vote for the main unionist parties, even if they disagree with the party’s other policies, like the DUP’s opposition to marriage equality.

Sinn Fein on the other hand bluff along on a potential United Ireland, as if they’re holding four aces and Ireland will be United by Tuesday. Their real cards are a 2, a 7, a Jack and a tesco voucher. Right now, a United Ireland isn’t happening. They need to con their supporters, and those within their movement who gave up ‘the struggle’ for freedom, or there will be plenty of smaller Republican parties willing to take those votes or ‘activists’ off their hands.

This sectarian Them v. Us, Ireland v. Britain, Catholics v. Protestants suits their agenda. It is a manufactured crisis concocted in cahoots between Sinn Fein and the DUP (and played along with others). It is the political equivalent of price fixing. We’ll be your bogeyman, if you’ll be ours.

Accept Democracy

Northern Ireland politics was angry and polarised, before it became fashionable. The relief and joy that should have met the signing of the Good Friday Agreement did not have a chance to take hold. The agreement was under attack as soon as the deal was complete. Those main Unionist/Nationalist leaders quickly realised sectarian division was good for voting patterns.

Taking a step back from the recent, pointless border poll arguments, it is clear that the Good Friday Agreement has always, and still does, clearly set out the situation regarding a United Ireland.

The Secretary of State can call a referendum on a United Ireland if it appears a clear majority would support Irish Unity.

It is democracy at its simplest. When/if most people in N. Ireland want a United Ireland, then the mechanisms will be put in place to allow it to happen. However, instead of accepting this and focusing on resolving the issues that people face every day of their lives, our local politicians approach life like the Border question is the only question.

What next?

Going forward the simplest thing to do is to confidentally accept the principle of consent. Yet this is the least likely thing to happen.

Some might say Nationalists will simply sit contentedly and wait until they outbreed unionism. Their growing demographic will turn the issue into an inevitable sectarian head count. This though would be a rejection of democracy, dressed up as a rejection of sectarianism. I am yet to hear any nationalist say “Me and my partner are going to have a couple more kids, you know, 2 more votes for a United Ireland”.

The mature route now would be for Nationalist/Unionist parties to work effectively to create the best conditions possible for all people in N. Ireland. The ironic thing is that their best chance of winning a future border poll is to work as hard as possible for their (current) political enemies.

Unionism needs to show it is willing to share power, create better lives for everybody in N. Ireland and – let’s be honest – drag some of it’s policies into the 21st Century. If they can do this they can take some of the heat out of the emotion behind the misty-eyed view of a United Ireland. This could be enough to convince moderate or wavering Nationalists to vote for Unionism, if they feel the quality of life within the U.K would be better than within a United Ireland. Giving support to the previously agreed, but not yet implemented, Irish Language Act would be an important first step for a more welcoming form of Unionism.

Sinn Fein’s position is currently the losing one, so they have harder work to complete. In this they have not helped themselves by continuing a narrative of Catholics v. Protestants. It has not slipped everybody’s mind about the Sinn Fein electoral leaflets in North Belfast from a few years back that showed a bar chart of Catholics V Protestants in that electoral area. The blatant sectarianism was astonishing. By the time they had changed the leaflet to Nationalists v. Unionists, they had blamed Royal Mail for the error, before ultimately finding an internal scapegoat after the Royal Mail claim was ridiculed. This shouldn’t really need to be said but memorials and glorification of IRA men – who murdered and bombed protestant civilians (and others) – have to come to an end.

If you would be upset by people celebrating the Paratroopers who murdered innocent people on Bloody Sunday, then you cant think celebrating and commemorating the organisation that carried out the Kingsmill Massacre is acceptable.

Sinn Fein’s problem is that in some ways they are still trying to ride two horses at the same time. They need to come across as concerned and statesmanlike which polls better in the Republic of Ireland, but also revolutionary and on the cusp of ending partition to voters in the North.

It’s simple.

The Good Friday Agreement was agreed by the majority of people in N. Ireland. It was on the basis of an agreed coalition of previously political enemies. Though certainly ingraining a Unionist v Nationalist into the very fabric of the political system was arguably flawed, this is what democracy gave us.

This is therefore what we must work with. The people of Northern Ireland didn’t vote for the agreement thinking it would lead to 20+ years of arguing over the border. The agreement was meant to put the border issue to bed, and it does.

We are a (almost) post conflict society and understandably there will be tension, disagreement and some anger. We all need to realise though, it is ok to disagree. If somebody believes in maintaining the Union with Britain it doesn’t mean they are old style unionist ogres waiting to put catholics in their place.

Just the same as people who want a United Ireland are not protestant-hating Republicans who cant wait to get their own back on Unionists in a United Ireland.

It really is a simple matter of accepting the democratic wishes of the people here. It’s so difficult because Unionism and Nationalism are obsessed by the border. Other issues are just decoration used to give the appearance of proper politics.

Jeffrey Donaldson’s request that DUP, UUP and TUV should take part in electoral pacts show their differences don’t matter. All that matters is the Union with Britain. Personally I can’t see the UUP taking part in this, but stranger things have happened. Parties should beware though – Entering a pact with parties that are anti-marriage equality, and are otherwise backward in their social and political views, then you are validating and condoning that position by joining them. Beware the backlash.

As political parties and as a people we must tear away this obsession with the border. Let’s start by tearing down peace walls, encouraging integrated education, and forget the border for now. Truly, really 100% there are more important things in life.

MJS

The Big Weekly(ish) Round Up

Before I begin, I would just like to say I really do like Northern Ireland. Good People, good pubs, good food, interesting tourist attractions and it’s relatively safe.

However, in the politest way I can put it, it is incredibly frustrating to be stuck in the groundhog day style time warp where everything political in this little country sends everybody to a place that blood pressure monitors can’t reach. The mere mention of the border sets our politicians frothing like rabid dogs. Those good people I mentioned above are actually great people, but do not get them into a discussion on the political situation in Northern Ireland.

I like a good argument as much as anyone, but the utterly pointless, hysterical and uninformed bitterness that passes for debate in this country is pathetic. Northern Ireland’s regular mentions in the ‘worst in the UK’ category in a number of issues (Covid cases, child poverty) should really be the focus of our efforts. In the end it always comes back to that border.

So, first off, whoever decided to commission a poll based on the constitutional preferences (Do you want a United Ireland or stick with the British?) of the people of N. Ireland needs their heads checked. That the results – which could all have been easily predicted and have been incessantly regurgitated since the beginning of time – were reported as groundbreaking news shows that a) it was an incredibly slow local news week and b) showed the hysterical way we jump onto anything border related.

If Lucid Talk had just asked anybody with any sort of passing interest in Northern Ireland Politics they could have guessed in and around these figures for them and saved them both the time and expense of carrying out the Poll. Maybe next time you can give me a shout.

The result was that around 50% want to maintain the Union with Britain and just over 40% want a United Ireland. There was apparently 9% that ‘hadn’t decided yet’ which I find strange to be perfectly honest, and a 0% who would not vote at all – which is even stranger. So Nationalists and Unionists harped on that the 9% belonged to them which vindicated their positions etc etc etc.

Nothing like a good bit of pointless back and forthery about a hypothetical and distant border poll. Seriously, it is so pointless. The border is there, and it is not going anywhere in the near future. The sooner both Nationalist and (the seemingly insecure) unionist politicians get to grips with that, the better.

However, that wasn’t the only poll results that set the cats amongst the pigeons. Lucid Talk also kindly produced a poll on likely voting patterns which saw the DUP dip, and the TUV make 3% point of gains. This would apparently result in a Sinn Fein – UUP – TUV Top 3 in any future Assembly election. I’m not a Unionist, but Doug Beattie’s beard would be the most interesting thing about that entire setup.

Firstly, should the TUV ever gain a significant foothold within our assembly or political life then all of us should emigrate. I mean every one of us in N. Ireland. Just leave these 6 lovely counties as an empty warning to other countries not to be so daft.

The TUV is most famous for 3 reasons – 1. Grumpiness to everything 2. Lack of Diversity and 3. Jim Allister’s big miserable voice.

I really do understand that there is political polarization all around the world right now, but I think Jim Allister playing a leading role in the government would be enough to make the Taliban blush.

The Other Stuff

Beyond the border bickering, the kids are all back at school, so we await with complete and utter fear the next potential round of home schooling. Please get vaccinated if you haven’t already.  Please.

Lagan College also celebrated it’s 40 year anniversary this week. The college is the oldest integrated school in N. Ireland and, at the time, was met with a bucketload of hatred. Those who first attended were given an armed guard by Police. 40 years on though, only 7% of children in N. Ireland attend integrated schools.

There’s a depressing irony in the fact that we are also marking the 20th anniversary of the Holy Cross School ‘dispute’, when primary school kids also required a police escort on their way to school.

I promise the next round up will be happier…

Potentially.