– July 24, 2013Posted in: News & Current Affairs, Opinion

As the summer sun adds to our annual ‘blood boiling’ fest, now more than ever is a time for cool heads and dispassionate analysis of where we are on this long and winding road towards peace, prosperity and political maturity.

Given the gravitas of events surrounding the parades dispute in north Belfast it is hardly surprising that widespread condemnation falls on elements within the PUL community, particularly in relation to the violent attacks on our first responders.

Yet, in moving beyond the traditional political analysis, adapting a more salient evaluative critique of current events may help to discern the chrysalis of a new non-violent era for Loyalist conflict transformation slowly emerging and forming in the cocoon of this current crisis.

To view this transformation it is necessary to move beyond the stereotypical loyalist lens and discern developments through a social capital frame.

Loyalists, having learnt the lessons of conflict transformation, are beginning to employ the tools, technologies and techniques of peacebuilding to shape a new PUL society at the local level.

This ‘grassroots’ transformation now arising, in response to the HET, flags and parades disputes, appears to be bonding ‘grassroots’ loyalists, bridging their internal identity disputes, and linking them to their politicians, local Orange lodges and civil society groups.

In so doing ‘grassroots’ loyalists are slowly beginning to frame a common vision of what a shared cultural future could look like and how they develop a strategic response to the perceived cultural war now being waged by Sinn Fein.

This vision is not shaped on any notion of a ‘Third Protestant Ascendency’ but on the dreams of the Protestant working class, striving to realize their prize promised in the Good Friday Agreement: to address the deep-rooted causes of conflict, eradicate victimhood, poverty, unemployment inequality, cultural and social exclusion and the creation of conditions for further sectarian violence never to erupt again.

However, fifteen years on from the Agreement the promised peace prize has yet to impact in ‘grassroots’ loyalist areas and communities, particularly in north, south, east and west Belfast. Instead of securing a new era, of social and cultural inclusion, the Loyalist community has witnessed their parades systematically attacked.

As a consequence, ‘grassroots’ Loyalists are now slowly reorganizing their social capital to secure their culture.

It is now becoming clear that through new logics, strategies and tactics, ‘grassroots’ loyalists are beginning to ‘return the serve’ in this growing perceived cultural war between the PUL community and ‘others’, this time using non-violence, legislation, the courts and community action, as their preferred tools for acquiring cultural equality and human security.

The street disorders arising from the Parades Commission’s determination preventing the Ligoniel Lodges returning home have been a godsend for the reformers of this new Loyalist programme for social transformation.

The disorder helps progressive loyalists expose the futility of violence in trying to obtain cultural equality. It also helps undermine ‘super prods’ attempts to lead ‘grassroots’ loyalism up yet another hill: only to get less at the pearly gates than St. Andrew gave them last time.

As this non-violent re-construction of social capital slowly re-profiles the PUL community it is inevitable that organised Loyalism will increasingly place constraints and tolerances on their elected politicians, moving them beyond the ‘moving statues’ theory of cultural conflict towards a more salient critique of how social and cultural inclusion is shaped, secured and agreed in a shared out sectarian state.

Socially motivated ‘grassroots’ Loyalism also adds a new inclusive non-violent community action element to forthcoming discussions and negotiations on how a ‘second-generation’ Agenda for Peace will be shaped through the impending Haas initiative.

While current political analysis dismisses ‘grassroots’ loyalists and the Orange Order as only 2% of the population and having little impact on forthcoming negotiations, a more sober realization is that if 1% of the world’s population can own 40% of the world’s wealth what can 2% of socially organised loyalists own?

As Professor Pete Shirlow notes, with the end of Ulster Loyalism greatly exaggerated, if ‘grassroots’ loyalists are to emerge from their ‘sloth-like past’ they will need to ‘create a new form of un-armed political loyalism upon the foundations of key and social justice driven principles’.

Through this current crisis we may just be witnessing this emergence of political loyalism through the building of  ‘’grassroots’ loyalists social capital.

If ’grassroots’ loyalists are to succeed in developing social justice in this emerging form of progressive unionism then it needs to formulate a coherent strategy and tactics with the leadership to deliver cultural equality.

While this emerging ‘grassroots’ loyalist social transformation movement may ultimately fall foul to the fate of other PUL social equality initiatives, thwarted by Ulster Unionist political elites, its gradual growth offers new insights into how progressive unionism will rise to meet other challenges, of poverty, ill-health and multiple deprivation.

Therefore, rather than viewing this current crisis as a stereotypical violent loyalist response to social change, a more cool headed and salient critique may detect the chrysalis of a new non-violent era for the Loyalist community emerging from its ‘sloth-like past’.

If so, in developing this new era of non-violent loyalist social transformation, ‘grassroots’ loyalists might yet provide the vision and leadership to show how a local application of social action and social capital can begin to transform ‘grassroots’ loyalists, from violent defenders to social menders, and in so doing, change utterly, the drive, dynamic and development of our post-conflict peacebuilding society.

If progressive loyalists can keep their head while others around them are losing theirs, to shape a shared vision and provide the local leadership to achieve the non-violent aims and objectives that secure cultural equality, we might yet see a new dawn emerging from the cocoon of our current crisis.

This new dawn, of ‘grassroots’ loyalist social transformation, may then even reform our staid sectarian political economy, to secure the hope of 98 and deliver social and economic well-being for all those most in need, to move us all a little further down this long and winding road towards peace, prosperity and political maturity.

About Sean Brennan

Seán Brennan is a part-time PhD candidate at the Queen’s University Belfast, School of Politics International Studies and Philosophy, researching Ulster Loyalism and the politics of Peacebuilding, Development and Security in Northern Ireland. He is a representative of the community on Belfast City Council’s Good Relations Partnership and has contributed articles for The Other View magazine, Pue’s Occurrences and Conflict Transformation Papers, Volume 9, Ethnicity and Nationalism (2005) and Volume 10, Peace by Piece (2005) and has contributed poems, The Gaza Ghetto (2008) and Belsen by the Sea (2008), for the Palestine Chronicle (16 July 2008). Seán also designs and delivers training in Community Relations, Conflict Resolution and Conflict Transformation and his Peace Building in Interface Communities programme was short-listed for the Times Higher Education Awards (2008).

– July 22, 2013Posted in: Opinion

Many in the educated liberal classes view the Armed Forces with ambivalence.  They are necessary for national security but war is evil and its consequences monstrous.  For working class Loyalists there is no such ambiguity; the Armed forces, that is to say the British Armed Forces, are held in the highest esteem, men and women of courage and conviction who are prepared to lay their lives on the line for our safety and freedom.  Indeed Loyalist families are particularly proud of their young people, predominantly young men, who are serving or have seen active service.

For many young men this is one of the very few employment options open to them, and therein lies a major problem.  Unemployment is particularly damaging to the confidence, morale and self-esteem of young men.  Many have already been given the message by an educational system tailored to the academically able, that they are failures. What now is their purpose in life, what is their role in society?  Have they a place or contribution to make, a responsibility to shoulder?

The responsibility to provide answers should not rest primarily with them.  Those of us who are established in our careers and positions of influence owe it to them to create employment opportunities, affirm their worth and provide role models and friendship.

The recent violence has provoked a further wave of invective towards Loyalists.   Brian John Spencer, in a recent blog on this site, called them ‘backward class, barbarian, curdled by hate, thug merchants, reactionary blockheads, blowhards of the past and street thugs.’ He is not alone in holding these views.  Criticism and condemnation of the violence is justified.  Pejorative labelling does nothing to address the underlying causes, change self perceptions or offer hope of a better future. Indeed it may reinforce negative behaviour.

In an earlier posting Dave Magee wrote persuasively of a crisis in Loyalist masculinity arising from the brutality of 30 years of conflict followed by a social and economic vacuum which offers young men little  in the way of aspiration, opportunity or role models.  It is hardly surprising that some take easily to rioting.  In the words of Bob Dylan ‘when you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose’. Rites of passage such as entering the workforce and learning skills from older men which confer dignity, responsibility and a sense of belonging have largely disappeared.  Is it any wonder young men lack purpose? A bored unemployed underclass is inevitable and drug abuse a frequent consequence offering a cheap chemical high in an otherwise emotionally arid existence.

We owe it to these young men to create the circumstances in which they can develop and use their gifts in constructive and financially remunerative ways and an environment in which confidence, self esteem and self awareness can flourish.

This is essential if we want to give more than lip service to the goal of a just and equal society. Then perhaps some of our most problematic young men, in both communities, will believe that they are important, realise they are talented and discover that kindness and self control are part of being a man.

WHERE IS THE PUL LEADERSHIP

First and foremost Unionist politicos and Belfast County Grand Lodge are just not up to the job. Unionist politicos think that the shinners/provos war is over, they are such naive fools. As for the BCGL they are still stuck in the 19th century.

The bombing, shooting and killing phase of the shinners/provos war maybe suspended for now, as they have moved into a new phase a phase or war that gets them paid by the British to administer British rule, and I can say without fear of contradiction that they are doing a first class shoddy job at administrating British rule here, their new strategy is to divide and rule.

Be under no illusion the shinners/provos are waging a war, and it’s a good war, it’s a war on several fronts. It’s war on the streets, it’s a war at Stormont, it’s a class war and it’s a war in the media.

One of the main aims of this war is to further divide the PUL community along class lines by using parading and schooling. And I have to say they are doing a first class job of it, by using all the complex fronts above as a single strategy.

Unionist politicos are giving the impression that now that we have the Stormont assembly, the Good Friday agreement and the St Andrews agreement, and several polls that say a sizeable majority wish to stay within the UK, we are safe. These polls maybe factually correct, however the facts being played out on the ground and on our TV’s and radios day in and day out is very different.

The reality and the fact is that nothing has changed; the republican/nationalist sectarian war is on-going and intensifying. On Friday night Gerry Kelly in a TV interview claimed that a stretch of the Crumlin road is now exclusively romanist and therefore de facto republican, in essence a no go area for the Protestant Unionist Loyalist community. This claim rather than being rebutted is being given a hint of legitimacy by the parades commission determinations and how the psni police the area or not as the case maybe and its shinner/provo politicos.

Here is where the war is being won and lost, republicans have taken on board the situation on the street and in the polls and have now moved their politics and strategy to a new phase to use the weapons of parades and class to further alienate working class and middle class Unionists. They are back onto the streets but not in the mass civil disturbances of the 60’s and 70’s, but in a subtle and cunning way and drawing in reactionary Unionist Orange thinking, and they are using the psni, parades commission and residents groups as the spearhead in their war against the PUL community.

Unionist and the Orange Order need to wake up and start smelling the rotting smell of decay that is coming from the psni, the parades commission and the shinners/provos. They all need to be seen as the enemy and take nothing they say as genuine or binding.  We need to start using the system to defeat the system, why did they not take this irrational decision on Friday to the courts???? At every turn republicans use the system and the courts!!! Why can’t we??? Is it, it costs too much??? Will what cost the Union!!! Why can’t they have a list of people who are eligible for legal aid and get them to take the issue to the courts, republicans do it all over Northern Ireland, why can’t we???

The shinners/provos have got the psni, parades commission and media eating out of their hands with Ardoyne and Donegall Street and every other contrived flash point as their headline grabbers. And with every flash point we lose more and more support especially middle class support.

Not that the middle class don’t have their problems to with the shinners/provos, in the scraping of the 11+ and the inevitable scrapping of  grammar schools.

Each issue is being portrayed by the shinners/provos as mutually exclusive. We won’t help the middle classes because the shinners/provos have turned them against us, and they are turning their backs on us because of the parade disturbances. We don’t support the Unionist middle classes and they won’t supporting us, very cleaver stuff. The shinners/provos have made us into pariahs for the Unionist middle classes, with contrived continuous parades, bonfires, the blue bag brigade and irrational parades commission determinations and media performances.

Unless all sections of the PUL community come together we are a lost cause, and until the Unionist politicos especially Peter Robinson, wake up and starts smelling the feces that we are wadding in we will drown in it and I fear that day is not that far off.

A classic example of this can be found yesterday, Martin McGuinness was in Ardoyne to listen to the republicans. Where was the leader of Unionism Peter Robinson??? Is he so aloof being first minister that he does not feel the need to meet the working class PUL community on the ground in their heart lands, we are not important enough for the first miniter? Robinson does know where the Shankill, Twaddell Avenue, Woodvale, Crumlin or Ballysillan is? If he is never seen on the ground in his own constituency of East Belfast where he lives there is little or no chance he is ever going to find North Belfast???

Peter Robinson is not the leader that Unionism needs, and the DUP shenanigans at Stormont are an embarrassment, as for the Orange Order, it’s heading for irrelevance and I say that as a former member who left it in exasperation, however I still have the best interests of the Order at heart.

Let me relate a story told to me last week by a colleague. Paisley, had talks with the Tories prior to the signing of the St Andrews agreement. Paisley was aware of Cameron’s likely win at the next election and if there was a tight election result could the Tories relay on the DUP. Paisley was aware of Cameron’s willingness to bring in radical policies. Paisley asked if they form a government at Stormont would they be able to block homosexual marriage. Cameron was given that assurance. Weeks later we had a Stormont assembly. Paisley and the DUP put their own narrow theological religious interests before the greater good of the PUL community. We now have a Stormont assembly working to a shinner and DUP political and theological agendas, not an assembly working for or in the best interests of the majority, but for and to the narrow agenda of the two main parties.

As for the Orange Order I have contacted them with my concerns and ideas, and they are ignored. They are still living in the 19th century let alone the 21st century. They like the Unionist parties are reactionary and not media savvy, therefore letting the republican hoards run rings around them, and with their allies in the media we look prehistoric and obstinate.

The DUP would rather destroy any Unionist opposition than respect their alternative views, just look at the arrogance of the DUP at the Red Sky debacle and on the Maze issue.

The Loyal Orders are by far their own worst enemy that is why the republicans, the parades commission and the psni can run rings around them. They need to review their future strategy and reflect on where they want to be, not in the next few weeks but in decades ahead. And that goes for the DUP, UUP and the other Unionist parties, but that takes strategic thinking and to be honest we don’t have a walking talking thinking leader.

After the parades commission gave the determination for the Crumlin road, that there was to be no return parade. Did they work on the premise that if there is no home parade no one would want to use the Crumlin road to access the greater Ardoyne or Ballysillan???

Gerry Kelly described the area as a 100% catholic in a TV interview, and said (I Para phrase) “that they will not be walking up this road”. All fine and dandy Gerry, the implication being that men, women and children from the PUL who live locally can’t use this road, and they need Gerry’s or the shinners permission to use or make their way home along the Crumlin road???

If there is no parade the psni need to give assurances that those who wish to use or go to their homes in the greater Ardoyne and Ballysillan areas along the Crumlin road, who are on foot will be facilitated.

The parades commission and psni can’t demand that they all return home by 8pm, as they are private individuals going about their lawful business.

As for Kelly, I would suggest that Gerry Kelly’s rhetoric needs to be challenged as he stated that, that part of the Crumlin road is now the de facto, “independent Irish catholic republic of Ardoyne”.

All this has come as news to me as I use this area on an almost daily basis. Is this the shared space and future Kelly and the shinners keep telling me about??? I get the impression that when there is a catholic or nationalist/republican majority the shinners and local populous turn into a mirror image of the things they are charging Unionists and the Orange Order off. Strange how things go around.

Do I now need to ask Gerry’s or the shinners permission to access the area???

I find what Kelly said offensive as I’m sure will those from the PUL community who live and work around this area, and those who want to go home via the Crumlin road on the 12th night or any other time of the year for that matter.

Maybe I should put in a Gerry or shinner 11/1916 to get a determination to see if I can use the Crumlin road???

For Gerry in his, independent Irish catholic republic of Ardoyne. Here is an insight into my use of the now, independent Irish catholic republic of Ardoyne, I go to the car wash, I go to the Credit Union, I go to the library, I go to the chemist and shops, and go up and down the Ardoyne and Crumlin road on an almost daily basis.

Memo to self must Gerry says I must find new car wash, credit union, library, chemist and shops. Must now carry passport to check in at border control when wishing to enter the, independent Irish catholic republic of Ardoyne, on my way to and from home. As this new statelet is not part of the EU yet and as such there is no open border policy yet.

Lastly and more importantly, Gerry is playing to another gallery, he has an electorate to win back and to play up to. GARC have been giving the shinners a hard time in the “independent Irish catholic republic of Ardoyne” and Gerry and the shinners need to win back some credibility.

At every flash point Unionist politicos both MLA’s and MP’s should be there videoing the goings on of republicans and the psni. There should be a dedicated Orange Order or Unionist facebook and youtube page, just like the shinners have. Specifically dedicated to propaganda where eyewitness can give their testimony to counter republican propaganda. As for the Orange Order if they call people to protest they need to be there on the front line, not hiding at the Park Avenue hotel wining and dining.

RANGER 1640

By Dr Dave Magee

University of Aberdeen

15/07/2013

In the past I have described some forms of Loyalist masculinity as ‘the elephant in the peace process’.  We saw that again on the 12th and 13th July, when violence broke out in response to the Parades Commission’s decision to block the return march up the Woodvale Road for certain sections of the Orange Order and bands.  For some, trouble was almost inevitable.  Indeed, Ross Kemp was here from England to capture what happened on film for a TV show.  He won’t have been disappointed.

In this post I want to talk about another type of Loyalist masculinity that does not make for such good headlines, and one that neither Ross Kemp nor Stephen Nolan will be making programmes about anytime soon.

On the 11th night I did a tour of several bonfire sites in communities I am familiar with.  Often, in local communities, many (but not all) of these bonfires are organised by either UDA or UVF aligned groups.  Early in the evening, when I was walking towards a UVF bonfire, a local resident I have known for many years shouted over to me, ‘Make sure you come down to the UDA one later!’  We both laughed at the absurdity of it all.

I won’t name the area, but one of these bonfires was organised jointly by a local UVF ex-prisoners group and a community association.

The main attraction of the night was a local rock tribute act, which went down brilliantly with the couple of hundred local men, women, and children who attended.  There were burgers, beer, and (mostly bad) dancing.  The event was free but there was a collection taken for a charity that works with people who have learning disabilities.  The only hint of trouble was when one guy – he was from out of town and spoke with an English accent – who had too much to drink was told by security to go and take a five minute walk and calm down.  When he returned there were smiles and handshakes.

After the music was over, instead of a bonfire there was a beacon.  This was, simply put, a metal cage shaped like a pyramid and filled with wood pulp.  The organisers explained to me how proud they were that their beacon was eco-friendly.  I mention this because it is unlikely that Stephen Nolan is going to run a show anytime soon on Loyalists who are concerned about the environmental impact of bonfires on their communities.

Given the publicity certain bonfires received in the past week it’s worth noting that there were no statues, no effigies, and no Irish flags to be seen.  The only way you would have known where you were was by a few Union flags and UVF flags scattered around the estate.  However, there was one Irish flag in the area.  If you did want to see it you would have to go to the UVF ex-prisoners community office, where it hangs on the wall, alongside a copy of the 1916 Irish Proclamation.  And it’s not there to throw darts at, it’s part of a history project that is run in the centre.

This, of course, is not the face of Loyalism that is portrayed in the media.  It is progressive, tolerant, and focused on peace.  After the antics of the Orange Order and the rest over the past couple of days they would do well to take notice of the example of these Loyalist ex-prisoners.

So what of the violence seen then on the 12th day?  For those of us who work for peace all the year round, such violence is not just an inconvenience or an embarrassment.  It leaves us with a sick feeling in the pit of our stomach.  It’s like a knife through the heart.

If we can conclude one thing from the history of conflict on this island, it is that violence will get us nowhere.  It is a never ending spiral of pain and destruction.  There are no easy answers to deeply rooted complex problems.  We need community leaders and politicians with courage and creativity.  The question is: ‘Do they have what it takes?’  There is much work to be done.  Perhaps instead of blaming others we can all start by taking a good look at ourselves and ask, ‘What can I do that will make a difference?’

This article first appeared on Monday 15th July on….
www.qub.ac.uk/compromiseafterconflict