January 26, 2004 Loyalists Turn to New Targets
by Paul Donovan, The Irish World

(PAUL DONOVAN looks at the links between sectarianism and the recent upsurge of racism in Northern Ireland)

Racism against ethnic minorities is on the increase in Northern Ireland to such a degree that it is now being nicknamed the racist capital of Europe. Chinese, Romanian and Ugandan families have all been burnt out of their Belfast homes over recent months. Muslims have also been attacked.

The attacks are being committed by loyalist paramilitaries in Protestant working class areas but why is it happening now? The number of people settling in Northern Ireland from the ethnic minorities has increased over recent years but communities like the Chinese have been in residence for many decades.

During the years of the war such ethnic minority groups seem to have been largely left alone. Duncan Morrow, of the Community Relations Council, has said there is "a lazy toleration of racism in this community. The situation now [in Northern Ireland] is what might have happened in Britain in the 1950s."

There is no doubt some truth in this view but to get to the root of the problem a closer look needs to be taken into the loyalist communities. Despite still being in the majority and represented by the largest number of members in the Northern Ireland Assembly there is a perception among Loyalists that they are under siege. Such thinking of course makes little sense to Catholics who merely see some power sharing with their own community and wonder why the loyalists should feel under siege. For the loyalists of course not being in total charge with the Catholics fulfilling the role of second class citizens amounts to a substantial change in the power indices of the north.

The siege mentality has been responsible for much of the arbitrary violence handed out to the Catholic community since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. Though little reported there has been a low intensity war being conducted toward the Catholics ever since the GFA was signed. Pipe bombs, shootings and stopping young children going to school have all been part of this war. Whenever there was what was perceived as a major movement forward in the peace process a subsequent violent reaction resulted against the Catholics from the loyalists.

Not everyone among the Protestant community of course is part of this violent approach. Many loyalist paramilitaries have given up the gun and are fully engaged in trying to make the peace process work. However, the more extreme elements have never accepted the GFA and still believe they have to defend their areas. Arbitrarily attacking Catholics was seen as the best way to do that. At first glance the attacks on the ethnic minority groups almost seem like a throwback to the days of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s. At that time Catholics were being burnt out as loyalist mobs sought to drive them from their areas. As Paul O'Connor of the Pat Finucane Centre has stated the present attacks on ethnic minorities should be seen in the context of a broadening of the violent approach of loyalists. However, there are other forces at play. For years now there have been close links between loyalist groups and the far right in the remainder of Britain. Groups like the fascist BNP and Combat 18 have made common cause with some loyalist groups. The BNP recently announced that it would be organising in the north of Ireland, no doubt to capitalise on the hotbed of racism that is already simmering there. So no doubt the growing fascist influence among loyalist groups when added to the self perceived siege mentality has played an important part in fermenting racial violence. Another consideration of course is the open racism whipped up against asylum seekers by many in the British media. Asylum seekers have settled in Northern Ireland and those same racist newspapers find a ready home there. The racist bile directed at asylum seekers in Britain has no doubt increased the level of racist violence here so why should things be any different across the water? It is though strange how wherever racial intolerance or religious bigotry are on show that the Orange Order never seems far away. The extent to which the Orange Order operates in Britain is something of which many people seem unaware. There are Orange Lodges in Portsmouth, Bedford, Chester, Lewes and Liverpool. It is curious that there should be an Orange Lodge in Lewes where the annual ceremony of burning an effigy of the Pope takes place. There have been no direct links drawn between the Orange Lodge and the anti-Catholic ceremony each year but it does seem rather coincidental that the two elements should come so close together. The Orange Lodges in Liverpool can hardly be said to have fostered religious harmony in that part of the world either. The presence of the Orange Order wherever it appears seems to denote a certain backward looking culture. A visit to Lewes in east Sussex on 5 November each year is possibly the closest that anyone is likely to get to going back 400 years. The same religious intolerance is being displayed as happened centuries ago. The event is dismissed as a harmless bit of fun with the burning of an effigy of Pope Paul V and general ridicule of the Catholic Church. But it will be interesting to see how the revellers react this year when Irish Catholic Joe O'Keefe arrives with his supporters to make a peaceful protest. Will they be greeted in a peaceful way or as one particularly vicious letter to Mr O'Keefe suggested "put on the bonfire" themselves. It is easy to be tolerant when the other side doesn't show up. The activities in Lewes are the closest thing in Britain to the annual march to Drumcree Church in Northern Ireland. The same intolerant religious attitude is on display at both venues while the dress and behaviour appear to come from a bygone age. The march to Drumcree and then back through the Catholic Garvaghy Road is about domination over a minority. The reaction to Mr O'Keefe next November will denote whether the ceremony in Lewes is about the same thing.

The racism being shown to ethnic minorities in Northern Ireland and parts of Britain is basically the same thing - the desire of a large group to stamp what it believes is its authority over another. What the need to exercise dominance at every available opportunity really betrays is insecurity. The Loyalists were happy as long as the Catholics stayed in their places and did not step out of line. The moment they did it was time to adopt violent means to put them back in place. Such an approach continued for 30 years of conflict and is ongoing today with the low intensity violence directed toward the Catholic community. Attacks on ethnic minorities are the other side of the same coin. Northern Ireland desperately needs the skills of the ethnic minority community but the most insecure in the society feel their positions threatened by incomers. When the threat can be so easily manipulated it makes ready ground for fascists to prosper which is also happening to some degree in Britain.

The commonality between the workings of the Orange Order, the activities of loyalist groups in Protestant working class areas in Northern Ireland and certain right wing elements in Britain are undeniable. The challenge is to confront the insecurities that such bodies feed on and so move to a multi-racial and religiously tolerant society.