“You fascists are bound to lose”

By Colin Robinson General Secretary Progressive Unionist Party of Northern Ireland

The recent spate of racist attacks occurring throughout Northern Ireland, but highlighted by the media in South Belfast in particular, has rightly led to expressions of outrage from a whole range of commentators, elected representatives and sundry human rights agencies and organisations.

Much of the blame for these attacks has been firmly directed against loyalism, so allow me to state bluntly and unequivocally the Progressive Unionist Party’s stance on the issues of race relations and racism.

The PUP has since its inception, been committed to the concept of equality for all. This is reflected in its policy commitment to uphold ‘human rights’. ‘The PUP is committed to the establishment of a just, equitable and pluralist society in Northern Ireland …. The first prerequisite for a just and equitable society is neutrality and the PUP positively upholds the right of each individual regardless of gender, race, colour, religion, political opinion, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, prison record, or forces background, to be treated with equality, dignity and justice in all aspects and spheres of human life.’

From the PUP’s perspective, one of the greatest benefits of Northern Ireland maintaining its constitutional position within the United Kingdom is the continued opportunity for Ulster’s people to belong to a truly diverse and multi-cultural society. Historically, the United Kingdom people were prepared to fight to the last drop of their blood to oppose the race hatred given governmental expression in Nazi Germany.

Britain has always been the destination for those denied their freedom elsewhere, and its multi-cultural credentials have been reinforced down the years through its membership and leadership of the Commonwealth of Nations. The Commonwealth remains one of the greatest expressions of racial diversity under one banner, known to this day. Indeed, it can be argued that the peoples of the British Isles have historically been a mongrel race, their strength reinforced by thousands of years immigration from Europe and beyond!

As true advocates of multi-cultural unionism, the PUP recognises the worth of diversity, and would seek to exercise its influence within loyalism to promote toleration and integration of those who come to our land seeking new opportunities. The party would go so far as to state that true loyalism and racism are incompatible bedfellows.

The party also opposes the dangerously simplistic notion that immigrants to Ulster have come here to steal our houses and our jobs! Often newcomers to Northern Ireland end up being in housing that for years has been provided by the private rented sector, and has traditionally been occupied by migrant sections of the population such as students or young professionals. This is often the case in an area such as South Belfast where local people never opted for such housing anyway. It is often expensive, and sometimes far from adequate in terms of facilities and comfort.

Equally, migrant workers frequently take jobs that the indigenous community are reluctant to perform, such as demanding nursing roles that help to prop up our ailing health service. So much for stealing our jobs: working to the bone in order to keep the rest of us alive would be more to the point!

It should also be noted that racial prejudice and its sometimes violent manifestation is not just limited to the loyalist community. This assertion may shock some people, but nationalists can also behave as racist bigots. I make this claim not to allow Prods with reprehensible attitudes to get off the hook, but to demonstrate that racism is a malaise that affects a great many sections of our society.

Historically Irish Nationalists were responsible for perpetrating one of the worst racist excesses in the history of Ireland – the anti-Semitic Limerick pogroms during the last century. Today in Northern Ireland, racial harassment occurs in places such as Coalisland and West Belfast. These districts are hardly bastions of loyalism!

Indeed the Northern Ireland Housing Executive has recently released statistics that show the numbers of people re-housed due to racial intimidation are almost equal for Protestant and Catholic areas.

Those who try to portray loyalists alone as the exclusive purveyors of race hatred, whatever their agenda in so doing may be, are only succeeding in the deflection of attention from the real issue. That issue is that Northern Ireland, like the rest of the United Kingdom, like the Irish Republic and locations much further afield, has more that its fair share of racists.

Self-proclaimed ‘White Anglo-Saxon Protestants’ (WASPs) are united with ‘White Irish Catholics (WICs) in their hatred of anything or anybody that they do not understand.

The challenge for us all is to work hard throughout all our communities to face down the racists. We must help immigrants become accepted as part of our society, recognised as people who do not threaten us, but from whom we can learn much that will enrich the lives of our communities.

Above all, we have to tell the racists, both Prod and Taig that, in the words of Woodie Guthrie: “You fascists are bound to lose!”

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