{"id":2459,"date":"2013-10-09T09:08:30","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T08:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=2459"},"modified":"2013-10-09T09:10:18","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T08:10:18","slug":"the-eradication-of-pul-culture-jim-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=2459","title":{"rendered":"The Eradication of PUL Culture: Jim Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Wilson is a 60 year old community activist from East Belfast.\u00a0 He has been a long time resident in one of the most volatile Interface flashpoints on the Lower Newtownards Road.\u00a0 For many years he has represented that community in an unpaid role and has become a well recognised figure through voicing his opinions on many PUL related issues.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Eradication of PUL Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Long before the “Flags Issue” which began in early December 2012 there had been grumblings from within the PUL community. Grumblings that grew from the realisation that they were gaining less and less from the Good Friday Agreement which of course had been implemented 14 years previously. \u00a0Some of the main areas of contention included a lop sided approach to cold cases from the Historical Enquiries Team, an abundance of other hugely expensive enquiries such as the Saville Inquiry for Bloody Sunday, the uneven implementation of the Parades Commission and a perceived pandering to Sinn Fein in an all out attempt to keep them on the Peace Train. In many respects the venting of frustrations and anger in the wake of the removal of the Union Flag from Belfast City Hall was the culmination of many prior fears–the last straw, so to speak.
\nIf you are a Loyalist today, it seems, and voice an opinion on the reasons behind the malaise within the Protestant working classes is to be a whinger, were scant notice is taken of grievances.
\nFor one who was a vehement \u201cYes\u201d supporter in the protracted lead up to the Good Friday Agreement it saddens me to say that if the same vote were being cast now I fear that I would be much less confident than I was then.\u00a0 To me the most important factor that has came out of the GFA is the undoubted saving of lives and this alone is a great motivating factor for me.\u00a0 Believing that the Yes vote would bring about a new start\u2014an even footing\u2014and equal opportunities for all I gave it my full blessing.\u00a0 I spent many hours persuading those naysayers to do likewise and argued long and hard with countless doubters.\u00a0 Slowly but surely, in the subsequent years my faith has diminished.\u00a0 Pandering to the Sinn Fein agenda by successive British governments the media and remarkably now by the politicised PSNI has only hardened my attitudes towards, what is a pitiful and shameful peace at any cost scenario.
\n\"\"<\/a>This past 10 months has of course been notable for the amount of protests within the PUL communities.\u00a0 But it cannot have happened without logical reasons.\u00a0 The vote on the removal of the Union Jack for instance had been on the cards for many years.\u00a0 It was another aspect of the Sinn Fein led campaign to strip away loyalist culture.\u00a0 This was just one of the tactics being employed to do so.\u00a0 For the past number of years there has been a concerted campaign around the parades to demonise marchers and to control those areas which were always seen as traditional routes.\u00a0 Why for instance has the parade from Ligoniel along the Crumlin Road only become contentious in the past few years\u2014is it a coincidence that it became contentious after the Lower Ormeau and Garvaghy Road parades had been stopped?\u00a0 And why is it only contentious in the evening?\u00a0 The fact is that once the dust has settled on the Ardoyne parade the serial objectors will take their road show to somewhere else.\u00a0 And make wherever that is contentious as well.\u00a0 The inept and totally inadequate Parades Commission have shown too in recent times that they are as much a part of the conspiracy as anyone else.\u00a0 This useless body reward violence time and time again as has been proven this summer.\u00a0 The Loyal Orders and supporters meekly jump through every hoop placed before them but sadly to no avail.\u00a0 The powers that be, have spoken.\u00a0 It is blatantly obvious that all recent decisions by the Parades Commission have been politically manoeuvred\u2014particularly in the case of Ardoyne.\u00a0 But here again there is a bigger picture evolving.\u00a0 All is not rosy in the Republican garden.\u00a0 In some areas Sinn Fein are meeting stiff opposition in the form of the many dissenters and dissidents.\u00a0 The main reason for this is the accusation that Sinn Fein has sold their Republican ideals to administer United Kingdom rule from Stormont.\u00a0 In order to save face in areas just like Ardoyne SF must project a front whereby they are seen to be still fighting for the cause.\u00a0 And they will receive all the assistance they need from their former enemies in order to remain within the peace process.\u00a0 At times this year it has been difficult to distinguish between Sinn Fein and the PSNI\u2014the relationship is very cosy indeed.\u00a0 Add to this the favouritism shown to Nationalist politicians from the assorted media outlets and it becomes clearer why there are so many frustrations within Loyalism.
\n\"\"<\/a>In an article recently to an online journal an eminent\u2014Nationalist-academic-pointed out that the reason behind the Sinn Fein obsession with denuding Loyalism of its culture was because they have realised that they have nothing else left.\u00a0 Their goal of unification is long gone and there is a new realisation within Nationalism here in Northern Ireland that the status quo is a much better option that some forlorn distant \u00a0delusion.
\nSince time immemorial, when all periods of conflict subside and the dust has settled there has to be in old cowboy parlance, goodies and baddies.\u00a0 So, if the whiter than white Sinn Fein can re-write history to show that they were blameless and that they were the oppressed\u2014the \u201cgoodies\u201d–then it stands to reason that the aggressors and the \u201cbaddies\u201d in all of this must have been the Loyalists.
\n\"\"<\/a>Without wishing to sound like a conspiracy theorist, I have to say that many of my thoughts have changed recently and much of what I have witnessed at close hand in the preceding months have hardened my resolve.\u00a0 It is as if there is a concerted drive against all things within the PUL community, and this coming from most sections of the media in tandem with the PSNI, and the majority of the Stormont Assembly led by Sinn Fein.
\nTo be a protestor against all that is going on is almost to be a pariah\u2014they are treated with contempt and disdain and singled out for draconian sentences even for minor offences.\u00a0 Let us not forget that the vast majority of protestors in this past nine months have been totally innocent\u2014have broken no laws\u2014and yet are treated terribly.\u00a0 They have suddenly become the reason for the full malaise that Northern Ireland finds itself in.\u00a0 Tourism has apparently fallen because of them\u2014so too City Centre trading\u2014and a slump in the economy.\u00a0 Not to mention the cost accrued for policing protests etc:\u00a0 Were, incidentally there has been no fatalities and very little damage to the infrastructure\u2014something that cannot be said for the 30 years we had to endure an IRA blitz that caused untold damage to this\u2014and other countries\u2014not just in monetary terms but ultimately in thousands of lives.
\n\"\"<\/a>A big concern for the Unionist community at present is the continuing clamour for enquiries\u2014for Nationalists\u2014despite a reluctance\u2014sorry, refusal\u2014by leading Republicans to accept any blame for their past crimes.\u00a0 The issue of the past\u2014which will prove to be the biggest stumbling block to the pipedream of a Shared Future\u2014is another that it seems is only attributable to the PUL community.\u00a0 From many Republican leaders there is an insistence that all their grievances are answered whilst they remain implacable in even acknowledging their murderous past.\u00a0 In the case of the Bloody Sunday enquiry, now that there was acknowledgment that the victims were innocent bystanders killed by the Army\u2014there is a new cry for prosecutions.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t seeking justice\u2014but revenge.\u00a0 And if the soldiers of the Parachute Regiment are charged with those killings, surely then that opens the door for prosecutions around the killing of Prison Officer Ferris\u2014the disappearance and murder of Jean McConville or the countless atrocities committed by the Derry IRA when our DFM was Commanding Officer.\u00a0 It\u2019s only logical isn\u2019t it?
\nI met a senior politician recently and in the course of the conversation mentioned about police brutality in looking after the Loyalist protests and how I witnessed it at first hand.\u00a0 There was an air of disbelief that again leads me to believe that certain sections of Unionism\u2014working class Loyalism\u2014and now sections of the Orange Order are fighting an increasingly difficult battle on our own.\u00a0 We face discrimination and demonization at every turn.\u00a0 My conclusion is that there is an ulterior motive here and that is to divide and conquer and to overall weaken the already fragile position of Unionism.\u00a0 The importance of what I am saying cannot be overestimated, and unless there is a united front on all of the issues Loyalism\u2014and in many respects Unionism, is doomed.\u00a0 United we stand\u2014divided we fall.<\/p>\n

Jim Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n

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