DUP/SF: Strange Bedfellow’s: Billy Joe

DUP/SF: Strange Bedfellow’s: Billy Joe

If it’s not Parading Issues it’s Educational Bills.  If it’s not Victim’s Rights it’s the MLK shambles. There’s flags, and culture and shared space and Spad’s and spats and all sorts of shenanaigans between the two most powerful political parties in Northern Ireland.  It’s generally a case of -“you say Tomato, I say tomato”-and if we didnt know any better we would think that both parties actually had a dislike for each other.  On the one hand we have a political machine who have powered their way to the top and brushed all nationalist opposition aside in the process.  In the wake of the Hunger Strikes of 1981 and the reconstruction of the Sinn Fein movement that would pave the way to Irish unification in record time it is ironic that this parties current suichan na cumhacta seems to be at BT4 3EX–and with no apparent sign of relocation.
On the other hand we have in many ways another powerful machine who have muscled their way to the pinnacle as far as “unionist” votes go-by hook or by crook.  Along the way they have bulldozed aside the mostly puny opposition and have usurped and cajoled as they went. The only thing that hasnt changed about this party in their forty odd years of existence is their willingness to treat the working class electorate with absolute disdain and disrespect.
Both parties are extremely well matched.  Both have a ruling junta that controls and manipulates the minions and equally have a win at all costs manifesto.  Public opinion is lost on both amidst their arrogant supremacy.  Both are dogmatic in their assertions but with the added proviso that their disciples not only believe–but that they believe what THEY want them to believe.
This poem aptly describes this unholy alliance and goes some way to illustrating their conniving ways.

A Lovely Shade of Khaki.

Vibrant hues—views from two sides—once a million miles apart
Tones garish in their stance—reluctant to depart
Attitudes entrenched—centuries in the making and staining
Those disciples –with discolouration of the heart.

A new alliance—an association with an underlying pact
Defraud the five eighths and withhold from them the facts
Painting pretty portraits with their broad and ample brush
And glossing over a canvas to conceal their filthy tracks.

The Orange—men and women immersed in a self made mix
Of distrust and hatred and disdain for those of a different shade
And Green—equally as disparaging—who treat tradition with contempt,
And feign an interest in anything that is opposition made.

The blend–a tertiary concoction—an unpalatable tone
A dull and tedious tinge manufactured for themselves alone
Dirty brown in colour–mucky in texture—unpleasant to the touch
Repellent to the thinking man who won’t be thrown a bone.

                                                                Beano Niblock 2012