NORTHERN IRELAND

I was shocked to learn from the radio news a few days ago that there have been more troubles in Belfast. I really had hoped that now that the IRA (‘Volunteers of Ireland’ or ‘Ogleagh nach Eirrean’) had decided to pursue an entirely political route, the apparently never-ending waves of violence there were at an end. That is not so.

My thesis is that in Northern Ireland, being the sort of place it is, there are going to be sporadic outbursts of fighting and destruction for any reason and no reason in our times. The reason, as in Bangladesh, is that there are groups of people who quite literally hate each other and who will invent, if necessary, grounds to quarrel.

That is all very strange because this is Europe. In our original homelands, dissentions over religion which spill over into arson and murders are so frequent that journalists over there have jobs filtering out breaking news so that their readers do not get swamped. Europe, by contrast, stopped its religious wars a long time ago. The terrible Thirty Years War of the 17th century was the last major conflagration and it did a great deal of demographic and economic damage. The Gordon Riots of the early 19th century was the last time there were large scale sectarian disturbances over religion in England and they were later immortalised by Charles Dickens in his minor work Barnaby Rudge which featured as the chief character a brain damaged young man who was caught up in the disturbances. Now, in the form of Tony Blair, we have a Roman Catholic prime minister with a Roman Catholic public school background.

Northern Ireland is different. This is a place where Europeans think and behave as their forefathers did centuries ago. This is the only place in the Western world where religious wars take place. It is an anachronism and a time warp.

My first visit to the province was in 1990 when I was working at a statutory institution as a registration clerk when, during a tour of the Republic, I entered Londonderry for a few hours to catch a bus which was to take me back across the border so that I could travel to the Dingle Peninsula.

My second visit, in 1995, when I was with a black taxi computer circuit, lasted for a whole week. It was an eye-opener in many regards.

The first sights that greeted me as I stepped out of Belfast railway station were black London taxis, as I had never seen them before. The luggage compartments were half open, tied up with ropes and crammed with suitcases; they were driven erratically with less than professional standards as would be expected from badge holding London cabbies who had passed ‘The Knowledge’.

Having taken care to stay at a relatively quiet part of town not far from the University district, I ventured next day to West Belfast which had been so much in the news. The Catholic Falls Road was a collection of run-down small shops, many selling memorabilia of the on-going Troubles, and shoddily dressed locals who were tense.

Having crossed the misnamed ‘Peace Line’ between the Falls Road and the Protestant Shanklin Road, things were a bit livelier but not much. The shops bustled and a middle-aged woman told me in a café that I must be “very brave” to live in London. I could have said the same to her with regard to Belfast.

Throughout the Province evidences of sectarian disputes manifested themselves. In Protestant districts the very curbstones were painted red, white and blue in honour of the Union Jack. A wall mural presented a masked gunman dressed totally in black with the ominous words: ‘To the Irish we say this. Ready for Peace. Prepared for War’ emblazoned underneath. In one Catholic district two men were busily painting up one of their own murals on the end wall of a line of terraced houses. One of them told me it was to show a historical picture and the words: ‘History is written by the Winners’ to accompany it.

A feature page in a Bangladeshi newspaper is not the place to discuss Irish history in. Suffice it to say that there are analogies with Swaraj (‘Self-Rule’) in India and with the grievances of the American revolutionaries who decided, at great personal risk, to form a United States of America out of 13 British colonies and to eject the Imperial power.

Suffice it to say that the situation in the Province is in some regards a colonial one. Not for nothing has it been said “Ireland was England’s first colony.” The English first started in Ireland in a big way in 1171 when King Henry II landed there to stop a local warlord, Strongbow, from becoming powerful enough to cut off all ties with England. Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector (possibly a misnomer) was brutal towards the Irish apparently in the belief that the best way to control a dog is to make it obedient to the whip. The Massacre of Drogheda of 11 September, 1649 is remembered with loathing to this day.

During the 19th century when the Irish had approximately 80 members of parliament in Westminster, there were constant clamours for Home Rule (for Ireland) and frequent physical fights in the chamber itself between the Irish MPs and the others.

Chief among the grievances were the absentee English landlords who were alleged to have charged their poverty-stricken Irish tenants ruinous rents, which they then spent and invested in England thereby harming the Irish economy. When Irish people crossed the sea to follow the money, they were greeted by newspaper job advertisements with ‘No Irish need apply’ printed across the bottoms.

Although a Home Rule Bill supporting the Irish Nationalist demand for independence passed its final legislative stage in May 1914, it was not implemented as a result of the outbreak of the First World War. Frustration over this situation led to an armed uprising in Dublin on Easter Sunday, 1916.

By the following day about 2,000 supporters of the rising had taken up strategic positions around the city and nationalist leaders proclaimed Ireland to be a republic. The rising lasted for several days before the leaders surrendered to British forces. A total of fifteen of the nationalist leaders were subsequently executed, and approximately 3,000 were interned.
An Irish Free State was eventually established in 1921 although six counties in the North remained part of the United Kingdom. Controversy over this settlement was the source of civil war on the island, which lasted until a ceasefire was established in 1923. Relations between the Free State (known as Eire from 1936) and the British government remained strained until after the Second World War and arguably to this day.

A peculiar aspect of Northern Ireland's Troubles is seen every summer with the arrival of the Protestant Marching Season. While elsewhere in the world people enjoy and look forward to parades, there they are sources of fear, conflict and violence. Parades are part of the cultural tradition in Ireland and have developed into a form of political expression. The vast majority of Northern Ireland’s nearly 4,000 parades are ‘Unionist’, hence anti-Catholic. Many Unionists see them as means to destroy the fragile peace

In this virtually segregated statelet, Loyalist parades are often routed through Catholic neighbourhoods and many refer back to aspects of the Irish struggle for freedom from Great Britain. The Unionists insist on their right to march wherever they want, whenever they want. It is possibly a demonstration of their dominance in this unique society. The Unionist marches are organized by such groups as: the Loyal Orange Order, the Black Perceptory, the Apprentice Boys and fraternal/religious lodges whose memberships are closed to Catholics. These defenders of the Union with Great Britain argue that their parades are emblematic of their cultural traditions. Their opponents agree but say that it they are traditions of discrimination, oppression and violence against Catholics and that their purposes are both ‘triumphalist’ and intimidating and are not dissimilar to the Ku Klux Klan parading through black communities in the southern USA.

The marching season runs from April through November, but its peak is during the 12th July fortnight, celebrating the victory of Protestant King Billy (‘William of Orange’) over Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1609. Hundreds of thousands on Orangemen and their followers set out to march through every Catholic town, ghetto and enclave throughout the Six Counties. Thousands of Catholics try to stop them in the courts of law and in the streets. The 93 percent Protestant RUC police force and British troops traditionally force the marches through; the force of numbers of the marchers too may intimidate them.

The two most contentious parades are: the one along Garvaghy Road to Drumcree Church, near Portadown and along the Lower Ormeau Road in South Belfast. Both parades are internationally recognized as flashpoints and are attended by human rights monitors. Both are capable of causing Province-wide rioting.

In July 1996, the notorious Drumcree march was banned but the authorities caved in after the Protestants rioted and forced the march through against the residents’ wishes. In 1998, one month after the Good Friday Peace Agreement that march was banned again and rioting resulted again. Over 150 Catholic and ‘mixed’ family (Catholic-Protestant) homes were firebombed and three children were burned to death, trapped in their bedroom. Despite this tragedy the Orangemen marched down the Lower Ormeau Road the very next day, while thousands of Loyalists protested against the assault on their privileges and attacked security forces at Drumcree.

In July 1998, Orangemen started a protest vigil at Drumcree Church, swearing never to be stopped again, while sectarian attacks claimed dozens more Catholic lives. Afterwards, the implementation of the peace agreement got frozen as a result of the refusal of the Unionists to form a government that included Sinn Fein members unless the IRA disarmed first. Suspicious of possible Unionist duplicity, the IRA refused to hand in its weapons.

Those opposed to power sharing with the Catholics would like nothing better than to provoke a breach of the ceasefire and there is no better issue than that of the contentious Orange Order marches.

When 12 July approaches, thousands of non-sectarian residents of Northern Ireland book their holidays to get away from the apparent insanity while others are forced to stay and endure.

As in the case of the ‘Processions’ in Bangladesh which are so often organised by the AL and the BNP and which are accompanied and followed by civil disturbances, the Protestant marches in Northern Ireland are studies in provocation.

Frequently, during these marches, there is a man walking in front with a long stick, which he dexterously twirls around and around, often changing directions and sometimes passing under his legs. During the Orange Order (named after William of Orange) parades the marchers, all male, wear orange sashes over business suits (!), bowler hats and furled umbrellas. Whether or not all that is a celebration of Britishness, I leave to your judgement, gentle reader.

My contention is that in all probability the Troubles will live beyond the disarming of the IRA if that actually happens and that Northern Ireland will remain a part of this country where few Bangladeshis will want to reside or even think about too much on account of certain similarities to the less attractive aspects of their homeland.