The Other View

Four years ago the PUP was the only unionist party to give 100% support to the Good-Friday agreement. With Hugh Smyth, David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson leading the way we wore our hearts on our sleeves and sold the deal to a sceptical constituency. Our arguments were based on the assertion that in a new era all sections of society would benefit from the ‘peace process’. And strange though it may seem now, when the referendum result was declared the Progressive Unionist Party celebrated. How times have changed!

Nowadays the PUP would be hard pushed to get the deal endorsed by its membership never mind a wider constituency. Quite simply belief in the agreement has collapsed. Why this has happened is easily answered. How it can be remedied is a much more complex problem.

The reason why the loyalist community is now at best indifferent and at worst implacably opposed to the accord is linked to the current process of manufacturing history. With so called republicans looking to justify their thirty year assault on the loyalist and unionist people and the ‘nothing to do with us’ brigade in the UUP and DUP eager to distance themselves from the ‘troubles’, loyalists have become society’s whipping boys. Portrayed as neanderthal thugs, loyalist communities are easy prey for those who lack the courage to be honest. Even as the GFA disintegrates around us the myth-making continues.

By far the most persistently propagated myth is that which seeks to hold the paramilitaries solely responsible for both the troubles and our present difficulties. Despite the fact that it took a political deal to end the conflict, established politicians and their compliant partners in the media seek to rewrite history. Forget the fact that political turmoil gave birth to, and fuelled, paramilitarism. Disregard the social and religious sectarianisms, which created the political turmoil. And ignore anyone who suggests that the political class es in Belfast, Dublin and London were to blame. Well I beg to differ and I’ll explain why.

Before offering my analysis I would make it clear that this is no justification of violence. I agreed with David Ervine when he described the ‘troubles’ as a ‘dirty little war’ and alongside my party colleagues seek to remove violence from our society. It may actually surprise you to know that the loyalist community as a whole is committed to ending violence. Then again if that got out we may have to introduce honesty into the so-called ‘peace process’ and that would never do.

Getting back to my analysis, I’ll start with Belfast. These days the established unionist parties and their media allies like nothing more than to hype up the ‘thugs, murderers and terrorist’ analysis of paramilitarism. In their world Northern Ireland was a paradise plunged into turmoil by the ‘nasty people’. They ignore the fact that their predecessors sowed the seeds of conflict by consistently blocking democratic progress in Northern Ireland. Nationalists like to portray this as the sectarian state. Loyalists know it was to prevent the rise of a labour party within the unionist population. History proves my point.

In 1929 frightened by the rise of small socialist groups the Unionist Party abolished proportional representation in Stormont elections. Thus the population remained enslaved to sectarian division. At the time the official Unionist Party chief whip made the party’s position quite clear when he said "there is no room in Ulster for diversities of opinion and the people have got to learn sooner or later." Such comments were not meant for nationalists.

During the 1930’s when Protestants and Catholics were united in hunger and poverty the unionist elite used violence to heighten sectarian tension. Saving whose bacon?

And in the 60’s both the DUP and UUP were making strident speeches denouncing the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association as an IRA led plot to overthrow the union. The tragedy for the loyalist community is that so many believed them. Is it not rich today to hear the same voices condemn the people who answered the call to ‘liquidate the enemy’. It will be interesting to see how many of those who cried ‘save the RUC’ are willing to stand by the RUC if the going gets tough. If past record is anything to go by expect the established unionist parties to go for the ‘we condemn the actions of a few bad apples’ routine. Always remember it’s nothing to do with them.

Least guilty is London. It is understandable that successive governments have had bigger fish to fry than Northern Ireland. But that cannot fully explain why London was so detached from a part of the ‘united’ kingdom. If it had not been so would the Civil Rights movement ever have had cause to form? I think not. A true test of London today is New Labours level of commitment to working with loyalist communities to alleviate poverty and social sectarianism.

And then there is Dublin. These days the Celtic tiger roars, the football team performs heroics and the political elite claim credit for their role in ‘the north’. No one wants to talk about the sectarian nature of Irish nationalism or the institutionalised discrimination it maintains to this day. Nor should we mention the role of successive Irish governments in fostering and sustaining the PIRA campaign in Northern Ireland. To do so would be to expose the state to be the fraud it is.

Like Sinn Fein the Irish political elite delude themselves when they pass ethnic nationalism off as Irish republicanism. They actually claim that the 26 county state was founded on the principles of Irish republicanism. This assertion is rubbish and the facts prove it.

When it claimed the differences between the peoples of this island were ‘carefully fostered by an alien nation’ the 1916 proclamation set the trend by refusing to recognise that protestants were a people with a right to their own history and culture. From such flawed thinking de Valera and his neo-fascist sidekicks devised a constitution which institutionalised sectarianism in the 26 counties and sought a form of Lebensraum over the territory, culture and identity of the loyalist people. The PIRA campaign against the loyalist and unionist people was the natural extension of de Valera’s constitution.

For loyalists the very idea that there can be equality for catholic, protestant and dissenter in a single identity state is laughable. What the delusion does do though, is justify the violent attempts to assimilate the loyalist and unionist people into a foreign culture. Ironically this is portrayed as a struggle against imperialism. In truth the imperialism was Irish and the survivors are the loyalist and unionist people.

At the present time stock markets around the world have been in turmoil. The root cause is the erosion of trust brought about by the dishonesty at Enron and WorldCom. Just like our so-called ‘peace process’ leaders sought to use their media outlets to manufacture illusions of the truth. And just like our so-called ‘peace process’ when trust evaporates everyone loses. If we are to avoid the collapse, honesty must be brought into the process.

At present Gerry Adams was not in the IRA and the government’s main media outlets propagate the myth that the conflict was and is civil society versus paramilitarism. We have no chance.

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