Longkesh Inside Out

Julie -Anne is a member of the Progressive Unionist Party and a councillor for the Oldpark Ward in North Belfast

One of the major local headlines last week was that British Prime Minister David Cameron and Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny had “cleared their diaries” to lend their support to the inter-party talks at Stormont. It seems that no Stormont talks are complete without a crisis intervention from a Prime Minister, President, or some other person of note. We all remember Sir Reg Empey receiving his phone call from Hilary Clinton in 2010 over the crisis around the devolution of justice powers, and when this didn’t work, former US President George was tempted out of retirement to make another transatlantic telephone intervention by calling David Cameron. One wonders whether the crises are real crises at all, or just an opportunity for our publicity hungry politicians to have global leaders run after them, chalking up another anecdote for future reminiscence. One can hear Sir Reg remarking, “Did I ever tell you about the time David Cameron AND Hilary Clinton AND George Bush chased after me?” to which an eager researcher will respond, “No way!”

While our politicians are concocting ever more elaborate crises to get world leaders running after them (Will they really be happy that only David Cameron and Enda Kenny are in a panic and that President Obama isn’t warming up the White House phone in anticipation?), the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s autumn statement was setting the context for increased austerity, with The Guardian headline stating, “Osborne moves to cut spending to 1930s levels in dramatic autumn statement.” Inevitably, this will affect the poor the most, and just as some overzealous evangelical preachers blamed the debaucheries of the poor in Sri Lanka and New Orleans for the devastation caused by natural disasters, so the poor are blamed for the current economic crisis – it’s caused by immigrants, lazy people on benefits, the idle and feckless. It’s nothing to do with greedy bankers and speculators bringing down the world economy. Bankers and speculators have been bailed out and seemingly learned nothing – while the poor and vulnerable are left to pick up the pieces, increasingly relying on food banks and charity to get by. While the stock markets approach apparently record levels, the poor are begrudged an extra bedroom in their homes.

I sometimes wonder how world leaders achieve the seemingly remarkable and get our politicians to reach agreement – do they dance, do they sing, or prostrate themselves like prophets in the Old Testament and cry out and beg. Perhaps it’s all three, or just maybe the decisions our politicians have to make aren’t that hard at all and they just like to see a little cabaret. As I write this, David Cameron is probably picking his tunes – will he sing The Smiths? Deciding on his costume – a hat or a tiara? Will he do a duet with Enda Kenny? I’m sure it must be nerve wracking. He’ll want to get the performance just right. If it takes a song and a dance to get someone to listen, then maybe I should prepare something for his arrival. Perhaps I can convince him that the poor aren’t idle, feckless and undeserving after all. Just maybe George Osborne’s budget statement is his own version of a political crisis in Northern Ireland, it’s not really that bad, and with the right song and dance everything will be ok. It’s worth a try.

I wonder what music will work best? Perhaps I could start with a line from Pink, “Dear Mr Prime Minister, come take a walk with me. Let’s just pretend we’re just two people and you’re not better than me.” Then I could maybe break into Tracy Chapman (“Here in Subcity, life is hard”) or some Gil Scott-Heron (‘You never dig sharing, always had to have the most”). Perhaps not, this will just depress him. Maybe I’m no good at show business. I’ll take him on a walking tour of the Shankill Road and ask him – “Do you really think these children, older people and hard-working families struggling to make ends meet are the cause of all our economic woes. Do you really think they are less deserving that the wealthy and multi-national corporations?” I’d also ask him to tell Ian Duncan Smith to stop using the language of social justice to mask his sustained efforts to reduce the living standards of the poor and to make their lives worse – “being poorer is good for you – it makes you appreciate things more.”

If I did take him along Belfast’s Shankill Road, what would he see – social deprivation, educational under-attainment, isolated and vulnerable pensioners, unemployment and physical dereliction? I could introduce him to my friend Joe Bloggs, a single man living in a small flat who can’t afford to heat his house in the winter; or there is Mrs Smith who took the bus to the bargain store to buy a canvas to hide the damp on her walls that a private landlord wouldn’t repair. Mrs Smith’s daughter wants to be a doctor when she grows up – the closest she’s come to achieving her dream is being a community care worker on a zero hours contract for £6.31 an hour. Mr Jones is an electrician by trade, but he needs surgery on his knee and is working through pain. The NHS is supposed to be sending him to private care but the funds have dried up and his knee is getting worse. He can’t understand why the private clinic is operating out of the local NHS hospital. Surely the TTIP agreement hasn’t led to the NHS being sold off just yet? I think Mr Cameron will have had enough by then, “Take me home, this is more depressing than The Smiths. Can we please avoid the war veterans sleeping rough, I don’t think I can take another look.”

I doubt he would reflect much on his walk through Shankill as he is taken on the journey to Stormont, it’s much easier to sing for our politicians at Stormont than it is to stand up to the wealthy and say the poor aren’t to blame after all. It’s also easier for our politicians to exacerbate fake crises of their own making, sling some mud at each other, then settle down for a good old cabaret courtesy of the British and Irish Governments. A few songs, a few dances, a stand-up comic and some good wine, everything is ok and they are all getting on again. “I didn’t really mean it when I asked if you could put curry in my yoghurt” and “Our leader was only joking when he called you all bastards.” However, while the behind the scenes chumminess resumes, greased up by a good old sing-a-long chorus, the poor are still the poor – whether they live in Shankill or Falls – and they are still left wondering who is going to come and sing and dance for them and do something to make their lives better. “Did I ever tell you about the time…………..?”

This article first appeared on sluggerotoole

Gerry’s the Trojan one … Shinners’ best strategy

(John Coulter, Irish Daily Star)

Sinn Féin must continue with its policy of using Trojan Horses if it is to become the Irish king-maker by the centenary of the Rising in 2016.

In ancient mythology, the Trojan Horse was the cunning plan which the Greeks used to break into the heavily defended city of Troy and capture it from the inside.

Unionists really have their Orange knickers in a real twist over Shinner boss Gerry Adams’ comments on the use of equality as a political Trojan Horse to achieve the party’s final goal.

This is no big secret. What is surprising is that Unionism and the British have, time after time, allowed Sinn Féin to give them a whole stable of Trojan Horses since the late 1960s.

Basically, Unionists fall for the republican Trojan Horse at every jump! Their jibes at Adams’ so-called republican mask slipping is a pathetic attempt to defect attention away from the reality that the Shinners have been duping Unionists for decades.

Look at what republicans have achieved using the Trojan Horse tactic.

After the disastrous IRA Border campaign of 1956-62, republicans infiltrated the Civil Rights Movement to give the Provos a terror springboard across the whole of the North and not just the border counties.

Republicans persuaded the Brits to scrap the B Specials militia, the Ulster Defence Regiment, the RUC, and axe the original Stormont Parliament, effectively leaving Unionists powerless.

The backbone of Unionist rule in the North for generations was the Protestant Marching Orders, especially the Orange.

That Trojan Horse was the network of republican-dominated nationalist residents’ groups objecting to traditional parades.

That succeeded – as at Drumcree – in driving a wedge between the Orders and the Protestant middle class who abhorred the violence now associated with such contentious marches.

Now a second Trojan Horse has been delivered to the Unionist stable – objecting to loyalist band parades, such as Rasharkin in Co Antrim.

The aim of this ploy is to drive another wedge between working class Protestants, and the police and Parades Commission.

The ultimate aim of the Sinn Féin stable of Trojan Horses is not about securing equality for republicans, but about isolating Unionism politically, socially and culturally.

The worst thing Sinn Féin can do is to abandon the concept of using political Trojan Horses now that Unionists have worked out how republicans have always stayed several steps ahead of them for decades.

In the Republic, Sinn Féin must use the Trojan Horse of its anti-austerity stance to convince voters the party should be a coalition partner in the next Dail.

And in the North, it must continue to encourage more draft-dodgers into its ranks. These are young republicans who have never served an apprenticeship in the IRA.

This Trojan Horse enabled Sinn Féin to heavily eat into the SDLP’s traditional middle class Catholic vote.

But yet another Trojan Horse is needed here – to ensure middle class nationalists do not abandon the Stoops completely and set up a new moderate party.

Yet more Trojan Horses which the Shinners need to urgently create are one to combat the threat from the dissident republican movement, given the dire warnings coming from the police.

Sinn Féin can take a giant leap towards Irish unity if it ditches abstentionism at Westminster and becomes part of a coalition Government with Labour boss Ed Miliband.

This Trojan Horse is used to fool republican hardliners within Sinn Féin ranks that the party has not joined the British Establishment, but taking Commons seats is part of a clever plan.

As for Trojan Horses from Unionism, there’s no chance. Unionism’s stable is full of blind donkeys ready for the political knackers yard!

December 9, 2014________________

This article appeared in the December 8, 2014 edition of the Irish Daily Star.

One law for the rich another for the poor?

   I am not surprised in any measure about the revelations of Kiernan Conway that the Provos had contacts and assistance from inside the Garda in the 1970s and even later.  I not surprised about help going to the Provos  from the politicians or businessmen. I was puzzled by the reference to him as a barrister.  Reading the articles in the press it says he came from an upper middle class family in south Dublin. But it clearly says that he was jailed in the Crumlin Road prison after being caught by the army in Londonderry.  He even went on hunger strike for political status.

“The ex-IRA intelligence officer turned Dublin barrister”

So how does someone with such a conviction walk in the hallowed halls of justice?  As an ex paramilitary prisoner one thing that has dogged me since my release is the constant discrimination shown in job selection procedures and interviews.  Maybe it’s OK to get a Diplock conviction then move south and there’s no problem?  Did the legal eagles down there vet his application to the bar? Or maybe it’s more a class thing?  Maybe Conway’s family and friends moved in the right circles that could get things sorted? No harm in sliding him in if you were also turning a blind eye to the slaughter that was going on in Belfast and the border?

But what of working class loyalist men and women who decided to stand up in the ‘70s? Maybe our ideas then about collusion between the Irish government and the Provos were correct?  And in some ways thank heavens we stood up for what was right.  But ordinary loyalists have struggled to get good jobs to look after their families upon release from prison and long after they had left their organisation.  Some of the discrimination I encountered was from middle and upper class unionists.

And not only loyalist ex-prisoners. I have followed the case of two ex-republicans who wanted to work in a homeless place in west Belfast. Bottom line. They cant.  So if you are from the Shankill or the Falls i.e. working class, and not upper middle class, you cannot, and never will be,  a barrister or such like.  After such a revelation is it any wonder that ordinary loyalists do not, and will not, go into a United Ireland? What sort of life awaits us there?

Working class Prod and Diplock court sentenced.

Fifty questions for Irish Republicans

1. Do you disagree with the media practice of referring to Republicans who oppose the peace process as dissidents, a reference which cleanly divorces them from pro-peace Republicans, given that this courtesy is not extended to pro-peace Loyalists?
2. Is Sinn Fein’s desire to slash corporation tax, arguably to the cost of public services, a betrayal of James Connolly?
3. With the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) acknowledging the British identity of those within our communities who cherish it is Brits out still an appropriate slogan?
4. Many Irish Republicans supported the Scottish Yes campaign.  Is this an acknowledgement that two states can be a peaceful solution upon One Island?
5. Can you think of a campaign you’d like Loyalists and Republicans to undertake together?
6. Do the differing attitudes toward Loyalist culture in the Republic of Ireland (where opposition to orange parades is almost unheard of) and Northern Ireland (were many Loyalists understand it to be cultural within Republicanism) deepen partition?
7. Is ringing the bell to start trading at the New York Stock Exchange consistent with a Socialist Republic?
8. To what degree do the reasons cited by dissident Republicans for splitting from main stream Republicanism differ from the reasons cited by the Provisional IRA (PIRA) for doing so in the 1970’s?
9. Re-read question 5…  Can you name another?
10. Should trustees of a building/organisation to which rent is being paid from the public purse be aware of such transactions?
11.  If Irish Republicans oppose hierarchy of victimhood why don’t they campaign on behalf of PIRA victims too?
12. Why did the PIRA not accept power-sharing in the 1970’s given that its format was very similar to our power-sharing arrangement today?
13. How much consideration was given within the Catholic/Nationalist/Republican community to the effect the Belfast City Hall flag removal would have upon w/c Protestant areas before that action was undertaken?
14. Does the Republican understanding of a shared future refer to a future shared between Catholics, Protestants and other faiths, or between Nationalist, Unionist and other ideologies?
15. Any theories as to why so few Ulster Protestants have been recruited to the Irish Republican cause in Northern Ireland?
16. During the conflict as Irish Republicanism battled what it considered British oppression of the Irish people, what steps did it take to combat the now clear oppression which was perpetrated upon the Irish people by the Church (via laundry prisons for young women and clerical child abuse)?
17. With almost unanimous agreement that the Irish language should not be politicised, does it belong in the manifesto of any political party?
18. Does Irish Republicanism advocate separation of church and state?  If so, given the special position De Valera gave to one religious faith above all others, when did that policy change?
19. What things would you, as a Republican, like to see happen in Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist areas which aren’t happening at the moment?
20. Why have SF agreed to implement the austerity plan of the Conservative party?
21. Do you believe Loyalism has a right to exist?
22. Do you believe Loyalism has a right to practice its parading tradition?
23. Do you believe Loyalism has a right to practice its parading tradition in areas which are not Protestant?
24. Do you support segregated living as two separate communities?
25. Why are some Republicans still engaged in armed struggle?
26. To what extent do currently violent Republicans (known in the media as dissidents) influence the policies of Sinn Fein?
27. With Scotland coming within six per-cent of leaving the UK without a bullet fired, a bomb planted or a prisoner self-starved, has any reconsideration been cast upon Irish Republicanism’s past tactics?
28. Why is partition a blight of Ireland but a goal in Spain?
29. Are the Irish people who fought in the two world wars less Irish than those who didn’t?
30. Was De Valera correct to refuse Churchill’s offer of Irish re-unification in exchange for Ireland’s official recruitment against Nazism?
31. Is it credible for a party to be anti-austerity in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) whilst implementing austerity in Northern Ireland?
32. Did the Enniskillen bomb benefit Ireland?  If so, how?
33. Any theories as to why the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) focused their enquiries overwhelmingly on ex-Loyalist paramilitaries and anti-SF Republicans but very rarely on PIRA paramilitaries?
34. With the EU bringing together states through trade and dialogue doesn’t this render the 32 county state arguments obsolete?
35. Would a SF government in the ROI withdraw Ireland from the EU, or set in motion the referendum to do so?
36. Was the conflict here a legitimate war, or a terrorist campaign?  If the former, why complain when your enemy fired back?  If the latter, why support terrorism?
37. Why didn’t the PIRA apologise to all innocent victims at the calling of its ceasefire, as Loyalists did?
38. Loyalist protesters were recently fired upon by police using rubber bullets.  Is it fair to say that Republican protest at their use is not as vociferous as was the case in past generations when the same tactics were deployed against protesting members of the Catholic/Nationalist/Republican section of the community?
39. If South Africa and India (to name two) can rejoin the commonwealth why not Ireland?  Would it not be the ultimate olive branch to the British section of the community in Ulster?
40. If you could change one thing (just the one mind) about Loyalism, what would it be?
41. Would the Parades Commission be legal in the Republic of Ireland?  (see article 40.6.1.ii of the Irish constitution)
42. If you could change anything about Irish Republicanism, what would it be?
43. Is mocking the pronunciation of certain words by another working class section of the community consistent with the Socialist Republic?
44. Is it wrong to say that Sinn Fein’s opposition to super-grass trials is much weaker today that the targets of the tactic are usually Loyalists, than it was in the 1980’s, when the targets were often Republicans?
45. If Northern Ireland is an occupation then presumably as a Unionist I must be a collaborator of some sort.  In the event of the Republican Ideal of a thirty-two county sovereign Island state, how would my charge sheet read?
46. Considering the petition of concern facility at Stormont, what are the chances of legislating for a united Ireland referendum?
47. Is the creation of companies for the purpose of acquiring invoices to draw expense claims from the public purse in keeping with a Socialist Republic?
48. Will the re-emerging tactics of bombing banks, shooting policemen etc benefit Ireland?  If so, how?
49. Why did Sinn Fein capitulate to the DUP on the recent budget?
50. I don’t mean to embarrass the guy, but on the several occasions I have met and conversed with Connor Maskey I found him to be genuinely engaging and progressive.  Have you ever engaged with a Loyalist were the exchange became hopeful rather than adversarial?

Some Unionists may find this list tame or lacking in venom, as some Republicans may find some of the questions cheap and predictable, yet picking a row is not their purpose.  Some of the questions came from frustrations I sense within the Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist section of our community and others were born solely of my own curiosity.

Dialogue is never a bad thing.

William Ennis is a Progressive Unionist activist/East Belfast