Wednesday 24 June 2009

McGuinness's easy moral victory

At the annual Sinn Féin Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown on Sunday 21 June Martin McGuinness made a plea to the Orange Order:

"The days of republicans stretching ourselves and our communities to maintain calm in the face of sectarian provocation cannot last forever. It is now time for the issue of contested parades to be dealt with once and for all. That means the Orange Order making its contribution to peace. It means a declaration from the Orange Order that, in future, it will no longer seek to force parades through Catholic areas and risk bringing violence on to our streets."

Predictably, the Orange Order responded in knee-jerk style, saying that McGuinness's comments were "a disappointing attack on the Protestant community. For years, Sinn Fein policy has been to make life as difficult as possible for parade organisers. They have totally failed to understand that parading is an integral part of the Protestant culture."

Unionist politicians weighed in on the Orange Order's side too:

The DUP said that "the comments by Martin McGuinness are an abdication of leadership by Sinn Fein on the parades issue".

The TUV saw "the comments made by Joint First Minister Martin McGuiness in respect of Orange Order Parades as inflammatory, provocative and extremely misguided" and "amount to little more than a cloaked threat against the outcome and safety of parades involving law abiding men, women and children taking part in lawful public processions to and from Christian Worship".

(The UUP officially made no statement.)

While all of this is depressingly predictable, within Northern Ireland at least, on the wider stage it represents a significant and subtle victory for Sinn Féin.

The London Independent newspaper, one of the very few non-Irish papers to carry the story, started their report as follows:

"The Orange Order was today challenged to make a contribution to the peace process by stopping attempts to march through Catholic areas. Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said that while the IRA, loyalists, political parties and governments have made significant steps forward over 15 years, the Orange Order has refused to budge."

The immediate impression given is that McGuinness requested to Orange Order to 'contribute to peace' but the Order churlishly 'refused to budge'.

But the icing on the cake for Sinn Féin, and the factor that swung the story strongly in their favour, were the attacks on the Roma people in south Belfast that dominated reporting of Northern Ireland over the weekend. Martin McGuinness came out strongly to condemn the attacks, and was widely reported in both print and broadcast media. His was the 'official' voice of Northern Ireland seen on the BBC's main television news (beamed worldwide on BBC World), and he stood in direct opposition to the racism and thuggery of the attackers.

After several days in the spotlight McGuinness has emerged as a caring anti-racist mature politician. No mention was made of his IRA past, as if that is ancient history.

His appeal to the Orange Order will be seen in that light – a genuine request by a caring mature anti-sectarian politician to an organisation that is 'refusing to budge'. The easy conflation of the position of the Orange Order – a flag-waving group of reactionaries – with that of the south Belfast racists – reportedly linked to another group of flag-waving reactionaries (Combat 18) – has left McGuinness with an easy moral victory.

The Orange Order can snarl and huff about how nobody appreciates their traditions, but the damage has been done and world opinion, in so far as it notices or cares, will have moved another notch or two away from supporting them. The Orange Order failed to understand the media importance of the events in Belfast, and how they were providing Martin McGuinness with a worldwide audience. Instead of responding imaginatively and intelligently, the Orange Order attacked the man who was standing up to racism, and thereby placed themselves in the camp of the racists.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The OO seems to think that because their marches are "traditional" they are somehow fine. Do these people fail to recognise that the KKK has long held "traditions" as well; but in the 21st century this type of behaviour is unacceptable?

Protestant only marches for Protetant areas. Fine. Not very nice, but acceptable.

Trying to force them down Catholic areas is sectarianism at its ugliest. The funny thing is how so many OO members think that whatever they want should be automatically the law, like the good old days. They cannot accept nationalists right to say
"f-off up your own areas."

Anonymous said...

But really WHY are those Roma people there? What right do they have to be in Ulster anyways?

Anonymous said...

Ulster = Ireland = EU = Freedom of movement.

Its what we signed up for.

MPG .....

Anonymous said...

Except OO = KKK and their ilk like the Nazi party who need to be consigned to history and only remembered for the bigots that they are. The lessons of history are important!

MPG .....

Nordie Northsider said...

That's all well and good, Horseman, but the Orange Order couldn't give a toss about international opinion. In fact a little bit of 'persecution' is good for business. Watch them circle the wagons.

Horseman said...

Nordie Northsider

That's very true, but it is to their detriment that they ignore the opinions of people outside Northern Ireland. They act as if NI is sealed off from the outside world (an orange North Korea), but the reality is that NI is governed largely by people from outside - Guardian-reading London liberals, Irish Times-reading Dublin liberals, CNN-watching US senators, Brussels bureaucrats, and so on. All of these people see and read the reports in the international media, and have no inate sympathy with the OO. As their opinions subtly shift towards a position of dislike and opposition the OO can only suffer. Any similarities between the OO and the BNP/Combat18/UKIP/etc can only be detrimental to the OO. Remember, for instance, that the head of the Parades Commission is usually an english liberal, the Chief Constable of the PSNI will probably also be english, the secreatary of state (if it isn't the dreadful Trimble) will be english, etc, etc, etc.

Personally, of course, I'm delighted to see the OO shoot itself in the foot. But I'm amazed at how stupid they are.

hoboroad said...

I wonder how strong a presence the real KKK has in the North of Ireland?I have read in newspapers it has members in North Antrim and East Derry has anybody else heard of any members in there areas?

hoboroad said...

I see people in Bangor are complaining about to many Loyalist flags.

Watcher said...

Anonymous said:

"Except OO = KKK and their ilk like the Nazi party who need to be consigned to history and only remembered for the bigots that they are. The lessons of history are important!

MPG ....."

Didn't Irish Republicans align themselves with The Nazis, whilst Loyalists fought them?

Retard.

Watcher said...

Nordie Northsider said:

"That's very true, but it is to their detriment that they ignore the opinions of people outside Northern Ireland. They act as if NI is sealed off from the outside world (an orange North Korea), but the reality is that NI is governed largely by people from outside - Guardian-reading London liberals, Irish Times-reading Dublin liberals, CNN-watching US senators, Brussels bureaucrats, and so on. All of these people see and read the reports in the international media, and have no inate sympathy with the OO. As their opinions subtly shift towards a position of dislike and opposition the OO can only suffer. Any similarities between the OO and the BNP/Combat18/UKIP/etc can only be detrimental to the OO. Remember, for instance, that the head of the Parades Commission is usually an english liberal, the Chief Constable of the PSNI will probably also be english, the secreatary of state (if it isn't the dreadful Trimble) will be english, etc, etc, etc."

Hilarious!!! Some of the best yet! Dublin liberals, US senators - I'd love to know how such illustrious types govern "NI"?

You seem to prefer Englishmen to Ulstermen (your 'fellow Irish' I'd have thought?) - fascinating...

and deeply amusing.

Watcher said...

Hoboroad said:

"I wonder how strong a presence the real KKK has in the North of Ireland?I have read in newspapers it has members in North Antrim and East Derry has anybody else heard of any members in there areas?"

Ever consider joining yourself Hobo? I hear they take Catholics these days - even Irish ones...