A good starting point to reveal our hope

By AM Sunday, September 2, 2012

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Seán MacDiarmada Society Ard Eoin with a polemic against sectarian bigotry, discrimination and heavy handed British policing in North Belfast

On the 12th of July in Ardoyne Alan Lundy acted as a steward for the Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective. Alan Lundy continues to be interned by remand in Maghaberry Prison while as a community Ardoyne continues to suffer a violent backlash for having sought just entitlement to human and civil rights in a peaceful and dignified manner.

As a residents organisation GARC applied for and received the relevant approval from the parades commission and robustly followed its determinations, this adherence was despite the manner of their imposition upon the collective.

Initially, organised Loyalists directed an attack upon the residents collective and they were supported throughout by senior DUP politicians. As a result of GARC having been organised for purely peaceful protest alone, they failed to secure the disturbances they were seeking to criminalise the Ardoyne community and which would then provide Supremacist Fascism with the legitimacy it needs when filling out the following years loyal order applications to trample over a community’s rights.

In response to this failure the British police decided to escalate the Loyalist agenda by wheeling provocation in to Brompton Park in the form of Water Cannon and Plastic bullets, attacking youths indiscriminately as they had begun to disperse.

In the Loyalist attack preceding the British police’s own attempts at inciting a riot Alan Lundy and other GARC stewards ignored the violent provocation rained upon them by armed Loyalists and choose to instead usher their people to safety while simultaneously managing to adhere to the parades commission’s determinations in spite of the vastly extenuating circumstances waging against them. All these acts of resolute commitment which represented the rights of a community with dignity were recorded and are available on social networks for any analysis.

It is important to note that the passive restraint and law abiding dignity displayed by GARC, the residents of Ardoyne and those who compassionately came to support them on the 12th of July was not only “rewarded” by the British police sending in Water Cannon to ratchet up tensions but vindictively followed by weeks of relentless raiding, arrests and internment.

In the weeks before the 12th of July the people of Ardoyne and GARC were demonised in the media. No retractions have been made despite the hours of footage available proving GARC had organised for purely peaceful means of protest. In the weeks following the 12th Ardoyne was placed under a siege of psychological warfare which continues to rip the soul out of every household in the district. Alan Lundy, Ta McWilliams and Michael Gorman were systematically removed from the community via internment by remand in a new campaign of retrograde British vengeance against all coherent opposition to human rights abuses under the auspices of the 2nd Orange Reich.

On Saturday a Loyalist flute band laid siege to St Patrick’s chapel in breach of a parades commission determination to demonstrate to the Parades Commission that under Stormont, Loyalist extremism has more authority than even the Governmental departments controlled by elected ministers. It was neither peaceful nor dignified. It was obtuse and obscene but there have been no repercussions whatsoever just as there have been no repercussions for the armed Loyalists who attempted massacre on a Belfast mountain weeks ago.

A loyalist mob mobilised by the Democratic Unionist Party, directed by leading members of the UDA and UVF, were there to support the bands illegal provocative actions and for their part in the “pageantry” they abused and assaulted the residents of Carrick Hill. The response from the British Police, the same militia who have proven themselves capable of being able to close off the whole of Ardoyne to facilitate a meeting between their commanders and Sinn Féin, or to raid and wreck the homes of single mothers in the district, was reduced to the activities of a ranting clown and a pound shop loud hailer. No water Canon were deployed and as of today the Shankhill road remains internment free.

Ironically it was a member of Sinn Féin in the New Lodge who brought attention to the YCV bands activities on the 12th of July which led to Saturday’s mini pogrom. He filmed the YCV band’s coat trailing at St Patricks on his phone giving several impassioned interviews detailing the horror he felt throughout the following week.

That’s the last we’ve heard from Sinn Féin. Martin McGuinness and Sinn Féin, as republicans are only too aware aren’t backward in coming forward when delegating the title of enemy, if of course it serves a particular purpose, but on this occasion, when self proclaimed enemies of his government bodies and the law he administers go on the rampage against the community that put him and his party in to that Government in the first place, he is silent. And Sinn Féin have went invisible arís.

As a Unionist minister in a British assembly it is the fisherman’s duty to castigate or have castigated these provocateurs in the most public terms possible! Even the Presbyterian Church has shown more teeth in opposition to the activities of the YCV/UVF/DUP collective than Sinn Féin. One of the church’s ministers has said that although recognising the grievances “the flock” may have as regards the commission, as a recognised and legitimate government body it is the duty of the loyal to recognise and to follow the determinations of the Parades Commission!

Where are our alleged mandated representatives? When it came to the internment of Alan Lundy, Gerry Kelly had no issue in voicing his opinion and he immediately informed the Lundy family he wouldn’t give them a breath of support while his partners in government, the DUP, were before the cameras for days demonising Ardoyne’s residents, levelling accusation after allegation against the youth of the community and their parents.

Declan “Guerney” has lauded his parties efforts at unionist engagement. Was the result of it present at Nelson McCausland’s or Nigel Dodd’s hand on the 12th of July in Ardoyne or St Patricks Church on Saturday?

As Alan, Ta, Dykel spend another day in terror while their families, friends and neighbours along with the communities of the New Lodge and Carrick hill spend another night of foreboding under a continued siege let us ask what engagement or peace process exists here. What exists that can be maintained by meekly serving this British supremacy? By wilfully accepting all that leads to what we have endured from the assault on Ardoyne to the siege of St Patrick’s? What is sustained by our continuing to ignore internment, selective extraction, political policing, housing inequality, human rights abuses?

The Orange state not only survived the lost revolution it emerged from the War stronger, more reactionary and more determined than ever and it is now fully supported for the first time since 1920 by the Nationalist party (now Sinn Féin)

The Young Conway Volunteers have not merely demonstrated their position to the Parades Commission, they have displayed the terrifying reality republicans have been coming to terms with for years to the moderate nationalist who have continued to vote for Sinn Féin and the SDLP for the sake of “peace”

Stormont rule guarantees one thing, that is very the same reward it gave to our Grandparents; 2nd class citizenship to the meek nationalist and sub-human status to the Republican prepared to oppose it.

We are in a similar position to those men and women of the 1940’s so looking to the faithful example they left to us in this era is a good starting point to reveal our hope...

Carry on, no matter what odds are against you, Carry on, no matter what the enemy may call you, Carry on, no matter what torments are inflicted on you, The road to freedom is paved with suffering hardship and torture. Carry on my gallant comrades, until that certain day.