[Archived] A divisive issue....

[Stuart]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Rovermatt" data-cid="1350492" data-time="1355936416"><p>

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I'm not being funny. I genuinely don't understand what you mean.</p></blockquote>

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http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/thin+end+of+the+wedge.html

[Baz]

To me, and I could be wrong here, all the Catholic / Protestant debate will go nowhere. What actual % of people would classify themselves as actually religious, apart from their ancestry. The overall number of people attending church in the UK is ever dwindling, and really only the Muslim community now has a significant % as regular attendees.

The future should be electing MPs based on their moral and ethical beliefs, not on what religious beliefs their ancestors had. Its a long way off in NI, but it should be the future.

[Adam C]

To me, and I could be wrong here, all the Catholic / Protestant debate will go nowhere. What actual % of people would classify themselves as actually religious, apart from their ancestry. The overall number of people attending church in the UK is ever dwindling, and really only the Muslim community now has a significant % as regular attendees.

The future should be electing MPs based on their moral and ethical beliefs, not on what religious beliefs their ancestors had. Its a long way off in NI, but it should be the future.

On the whole, Catholic = Irish Nationalist and Protestant = Loyalist/Unionist. That is a generalisation but holds true in most cases. I seriously doubt if any of the nutters out rioting actually has a strong protestant faith for all their talk of "God and Ulster".

The Alliance party runs here as a cross community political party that is supportive of the union with Britain and committed to tackling the big issues in our society without resorting to all the old crap about flags etc. Sadly they are tiny and are currently being targetted by the thugs in the riots, their local constituency office to me had protesters outside on Xmas day...

Part of the reason we are going through this trouble at the minute is because the big Unionist parties (DUP, UUP) whipped up fervour against Alliance with an inflammatory leaflet drop, aiming to gain voters and the seat in Westminster which is held in Protestant East Belfast by an Alliance MP.

It has to be hoped that this situation will strengthen support for Alliance rather than create more extremists with strongly-held, outdated views. I think that what way this goes will shape the short-term future of this province. If Northern Ireland returns to extremism and god forbid the gun I will be emigrating and I would imagine most people with anything about them will do the same.

[Rovermatt]

Unionism continues to be a hugely immature and petulant political movement. The twin threats of equality and democracy have sent it into the sort of lather we've come to expect when its hegemony is addressed in any way. In turn the mindless thugs of loyalist Norn Irn have needed only a push to come on to the streets and disrupt the country. One can only imagine the (justifiable) police reaction and (loud) unionist bleating if republican youths (inhabiting 8 of the 10 most deprived districts in Northern Ireland) had exercised their own 'right to protest' in a similar way.

I read in last week's Irish News a contribution by the DUP's Ruth Patterson. In what is a largely nationalist publication, she attempted to set out the position of those loyalists who have felt it necessary to embarrass themselves on such an industrial scale. According to the Belfast councillor, the modification or disappearance of institutions such as the RUC, UDR and B Specials, allied with restrictions on loyal order marches (including, presumably, the blatantly sectarian ones) somehow justify the actions we have seen.

Of those things listed (and it is not an exhaustive list of Patterson's grievances) the RUC was the only one with even a hint of cross-community support and even that is now long gone. That loyalists see the watering-down of these specific (essentially sectarian) organisations as somehow being an affront to their entire way of life tells you all you need to know about their collective mindset.

A few weeks ago some local scumbags invaded a council meeting in Carrickfergus, where the unionist-controlled authority does fly the sacred Union Jack all year round. They abused and threatened councillors engaging in the democratic process and reserved particular vitriol for Sean Neeson, calling him a "fenian c***". Mr Neeson then required a police escort to get home.

What struck me about this incident is that Mr Neeson is an Alliance councillor and is not therefore a proponent of any nationalist outlook. He is however a Catholic and it was on this - and on him in particular - that these apparently politically-motivated individuals chose to concentrate their ire. Not that I was ignorant of the reality but it simply reinforces what all this is really about: fenians and their imagined progress at the expense of the loyal Protestant people.

I have friends from staunch unionist backgrounds and I have always had sympathy for, and an understanding of, that political viewpoint. The actions in recent weeks by a small section of the Protestant community, however, have whittled away a not insignificant amount of the kind of empathy I refer to. While all sections of society are rightly appalled, the overt sectarianism and obvious, often violent, resistance to the kind of parity assured by the Good Friday Agreement has done some serious damage to cross-community relations.

[RoyRover]

You've hit the nail on the head Matt. Loyalists see the current situation as 'them fenians getting everything and wer getting nuffin'. In reality it is just further signs of the change of the staus quo that loyalists and unionists have been so accostumed to for so long. Their Britishness isn't being eroded, it's just a case of a more equal society being introduced in the north. The decision to fly the flag on designated days, like most of the rest of Britain, was a democratic decision that loyalists and unionists just can't swallow. Their claims that nationalists and republicans were just taking advantage of their majority over the unionists in City Hall and using the Alliance as the party with the deciding vote is just plain hypocrisy, after decades of doing the very same thing. It just smacks of unionists being all for democracy, just as long as it works in our favour.

The fact is that in Belfast, Catholics out number Protestants by around 160,000 to 140,000. I personally despise Sinn Fein, but they get people out to vote and that is reflected in the make up of the council sitting at City Hall. If unionists and loyalists get out and vote and take back the majority in Belfast City Council, they can put the flag back up. That's how democracy works. But people like the DUP just can't stomach changes to positions that they just took for granted for so long, so threw their toys out of the pram, called for people to protest and when they realised the size of the beast they had unleashed and that they couldn't control it, they were no where to be seen for days.

I also read that article by Ruth Patterson. Using the example of the disbandment of the sectarian B Specials and stopping sectarian marches through nationalist areas just highlights how comfortable certain people were with the way things were in society, that they use such blatantly sectarian organisations and events as a way of illustrating how loyalists and some unionists now see their place in society. Belfast City Hall was a former bastion for unionism and that is no longer the case. As I said before, they see these changes as an erosion of their Britishness, rather than a reflection of a more equal society.

At the same time I'm not ignorant or insenstive to the social deprevation facing many loyalist communites. Education amongs the young is poor, unemployment is high and poverty is widespread. This can all be linked back to the collapse of industry in Belfast, from the shipyards at Harland & Wolff, the rope works at Sirocco and other manufacturing companies. These industries were dominated by the working class Protestant section of society, meaning that education wasn't a priority. Once these industries collapsed, like elsewhere in Britain, these communities were hit particularly hard and they have never really recovered. But as you point out Matt, 8 of the 10 most deprieved areas in the north are in nationalist and republican areas, with the most deprieved area being the hardline republican White Rock area of west Belfast. Work needs to be done in all of these communities to raise the education standards and bring in jobs. To be honest, I think that the flag protest has been used to vent the anger of a lot of people at these issues and unfortunately you have dirt bags, who use it as an excuse to throw stones, burn cars and cause mayhem. To add to the feelings of isolation that loyalists feel, they see themselves being condemned by the very people who they think should be standing with them - middle class Protestants and people from the other parts of Britain.