Hall burning and the failure of civil society…
There’s a piece in to today’s Irish News about the police investigation into comments left on Slugger on one of the more recent threads on what increasingly looks like a campaign against property owned by the Orange Order. A spokesman for the Order said: “We are surprised that a website with such a good reputation allowed its space to be used by people supporting and encouraging the attacks and actually singling out a property to be targeted”. It seems to me there are two questions raised by this issue.Slugger has a good reputation because we actively encourage people from all sides of the debate to engage in full muscular political debate. Our bloggers (right across the political piste) tend towards the factual rather than the gossipy. And generally the standard of debate is high compared to similarly popular sites in Britain and the States. Such pluralism has to allow for a considerable discomfort zone.
The only way that kind of freedom can be practically sustained is by not pre-moderating comments. This is a priniciple adopted by individual blogs and large media groups alike. The priniciple is that a comment stays unless there is a specific reason for it to be removed. Commenters are asked to ‘play the ball, and not the man’, which generally helps focus minds on content, and away from personal badinage.
The comment concerned was removed once it had been brought to our attention. The police investigation will no doubt decide what the best way to proceed. It may have been serious, or a badly failed attempt at dark online humour. Either way, it flags up something that seems to have gone unnoticed by some on the wilder shore of the Internet Commentariat. The law is closing in on the licence to say ‘whatever you damned well please’.
As a recent ruling on a Sheffield Wednesday fan site suggests, if some commenters think egregious remarks only put the site owner in jeopardy, they may have to think again.
This is all difficult territory. One of the great things about the net is that it gives a voice to people who otherwise might remain voiceless in the mainstream media. Indeed have no problem with the thought of going to court to defend someone a point of priniciple. But anyone using their annonymity to make scurillous attacks on others should beware that such anonymity is a severely limited commodity in the face of the law.
That said, there is also the issue we were trying to cover under ‘hostile fire’: this campaign against property belonging to the Orange Order and other Loyal Institutions. What’s most disturbing is that is more and more indicative of a low level persecution of a minority population, every bit as disturbing as the targetting of GAA grounds in the 1990s.
At its best Northern Irish civil society (Catholic and Protestant) is impressive in action. Whether it be in the mutual support support mechanisms of Credit Unions, the youth and vigour of sports clubs, the care with which they see one another into and out of life, or the impressive levels of voluntary overseas aid.
But, in the background, there is something nasty going on. Orange Halls, particularly in rural areas, are also centres around which otherwise often isolated Protestant families congregate. In Protestant majority areas, their ecumenism often extends to inclusion of Catholics on the roster of those renting its space.
Certainly this campaign is mostly (with some spectacular exceptions like the near demolition of a hall in Pomeroy) low level, and unlikely to be being encouraged by local majority populations. Sinn Fein councillor Dessie Ward has rightly suggested it is being conducted by people who wish to drag us all back to the past.
But that this ‘campaign’ (that no one will own up to running it doesn’t mean doesn’t exist) has continued virtually unabated for three years now is an indictment, not of the Orange Order, but of the lack of solidarity with those minority Protestant populations.
Whatever the strong feelings many have about the Orange Order; that is nothing short of a disgrace.
Token Dissent,
It is not the rights of “isolated Protestants†that Frankie et al dismiss – that after all would make them bigots. It is just the institutions and social networks that sustain many isolated Protestant communities that they hate. Do you understand?
Interesting comment, as the OO claim to detest Catholicism while never being uncharitable to Catholics.
Do you understand?
The relevant article in the irish News is now up on Nuzhound:
http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/irish_news/arts2007/oct30_Slugger_OToole_hate_content.php.
The number of attacks (which in an number of cases have been slightly more serious than a bit of paint thrown at the door)are up dramatically this year, a year in which (excuse the image) Paisley has jumped into bed with McGuinness, a year in which, generally the “Marching Season” has passed off more peacefully than in the previous decades.
So, why suddenly the upturn in attacks?
Why the specific location of attacks (usually not in contentious or “evenly-mixed” areas, but in areas where protestants form a small minority)?
The brutal truth is that if 50 attacks had been made against protestant church property, instead of the orange halls,in July, we would have had a lot more media involvement from outside the province and probably more concentration on the situation of these vulnerable communities.
Yet the psychological effect on the minority involved is exactly the same, they are being given a direct message/threat which is passing under the radar of the wider society.
tweedledee – you make a fair comparison. The attitude of the OO towards the Catholic Church has undoubtedly contributed to sectarianism. But does this in anyway excuse the mirror image bigotry that is evident in the attacks on Orange Halls, Churches and other property? Surely both mindsets have to be tackled? Furthermore the hatred that many on Slugger direct towards the entire institution of the Order is in itself an act of intolerance that displays an ignorance of the Order and the Protestant community more generally.
I am not a supporter of the OO, and would view its historical role as being often of negative influence. However I would say that in my experience the Order is dominated by decent people who have a positive influence within their community. They may be socially conservative, but that terrible cliché “law-abiding citizens†has an intrinsic truth to it, and ensured that at vital times, such as the early 70s, the OO helped the greater public good. For example the OO worked very hard and were successful in isolating and condemning loyalist paramilitaries during the troubles. Look at the low levels of loyalist activity in Fermanagh where the Orange Order has its’ most influence.
This is not to deny that there are many problems around the OO. They have certainly been far too close to paramilitaries at other times, especially later around Drumcree. Individual members have done terrible things, and the leadership has often been weak, politically short-sighted, and intolerant. All this is true, but the picture is a lot less black and white than many on here present. Is it responsible to call the OO essentially the KKK with sashs, and then stand back and wring your hands when property is attacked and lives endangered?
On all of this I would highly recommend Brian Kennaway’s book ‘The Orange Order – a Tradition Betrayed’. It is a critical account of the Order by an insider.
In respect to Chris Donnelly for the first time ever I actually agree with him completely. When and if registration comes into effect on slugger there will be a dramatic reduction in the number of trolls on this board and sock puppets will vanish. php bbs software has a wide range of handy tools for blocking them, from the simple act of requiring a valid email address to register all to way up to a flat IP ban if drastic measures are required. I doubt the tolls we have here are technosavy enough to get round such measures. The Alliance Youth site uses a php bbs forum and so far it’s been pretty good at keeping out the spam bots and helping me remove a few trolls.
There is an Alliance Party youth site? First I heard
Well then you haven’t been listening too hard then.
Alli Yoof: “I have to admit that the DUP girl was very pretty … Fayre girl you are.
Out of interest, how many years has Ian Parsley been chair of the Alliance Youth? Is there an election for the post and what on earth is youth, younger than 50?
Posted by oneill on Oct 31, 2007 @ 10:23 AM
So, why suddenly the upturn in attacks?
Why the specific location of attacks (usually not in contentious or “evenly-mixed†areas, but in areas where protestants form a small minority)?
The dissidents are starting with young, disaffected troublemakers and shaping them to form part of a much longer term strategy. That’s my rather depressed guess. The people they have are on the lowest rung and are basically causing problems to the whole community. The advantage for the dissidents is that puts them at odds with SF (sell-outs, “constitutional republicans”, SF=PSNI who they hate etc) as well as the OO. Phase one slowly but surely being accomplished.
Yet the psychological effect on the minority involved is exactly the same, they are being given a direct message/threat which is passing under the radar of the wider society.
That’s a real pity. I don’t like the OO, but I can see how the attacks can be seen as a way of scaring Protestants in general.
Posted by Mick Fealty on Oct 30, 2007 @ 11:51 PM
I’ve had my spake up above, so I don’t really want to add much to the second point.
I’m both extremely frustrated and unsurprised by your refusal to answer my direct question, “Whose lack of solidarity? What do you mean here?”. I also refuse to translate and then answer it as JoeCanuck and Frank Sinistra have done. Frank has even gone so far as to answer an imaginary accusation on behalf of us taigs. I presume he has done a poll or something. Perhaps you have.
Mick, spit it out or take it back. Perhaps it’s that I don’t believe Catholics can be sectarian? Perhaps it’s my quiet disgrace? Whatever it is, it seems it’s ” nothing short of a disgrace”. Again.
In the immortal words of Travis Bickle, “Who’re you talkin’ to? Are you talkin’ to me?”
Briso,
It’s less that I’ve been refusing to answer you, more that I have just put in 2 x 18 hour days on the trot and had no time to write anything on Slugger never mind read all the comments.
The LSE defines civil society thus:
It is related to notions of social capital. In short it is not a problem that can be neatly dumped at the door of a single actor (barring the guys who are behind it).
The ‘smart’ nature of this campaign may be one reason why there’s not been an outcry in the communities in which the attacks have taken place at such treatment of a local minority. It’s hard to get a sense that it’s a local problem if the local hall only gets hit once in a three year campaign. That’s another reason why putting it down to local yobs is so plausible at first sight. As you draw outwards it becomes obvious there is something much more systematic involved here.
To clip to an obvious comparitor, the Harryville residents who turned out in support of vigil Mass goers and against the Drumcree protesters did so because there was an obvious challenge to the social bonds of the local community, not because they are more virtuous than civil society in the Catholic majority West.
There is, it seems, a confusion in this discussion between the acts themselves and their victims. I suspect there are many people who could cite reasons why certain parties and institutions were somehow beyond the Pale and therefore not deserving of our collective sympathy when targetted in this way. However, it is the act that is the thing, not the identity of the victim.
Considering the diversifying pressures that the Republic and Britain are under, you don’t need to enter a First they came… defence to understand that some form of pluralism will have to be struggled for if Northern Ireland is to prosper in a world in which change and diversity is the natural condition. If that is to happen, we need to start caring now (rather than later) about the individual fates of people who live outside our own tribal zones.
Louis Feldman on Radio Four last year: “the informal connections we have between us actually have a dollar value to them. You get along better in life depending on the people who know and how much you trust them and they trust you”.
Mick, first of all, sorry for complaining about you not answering and then pissing off for two days!!!
There is really nothing in your answer I disagree with. My problem is that you don’t make it crystal clear who and what you are talking about. Given the amount of time and thought you have put into the original post and the extended answer, it’s obvious you’re not going to answer me the way I want answered, which is only right and proper. If I want to put words in your mouth, I need to spit them out myself.
First of all, please look again at the implication of your final paragraph.
“But that this ‘campaign’ (that no one will own up to running it doesn’t mean doesn’t exist) has continued virtually unabated for three years now is an indictment, not of the Orange Order, but of the lack of solidarity with those minority Protestant populations.
Whatever the strong feelings many have about the Orange Order; that is nothing short of a disgrace.”
I read, “The taigs are a disgrace because they could stop this campaign and they haven’t.” Do you mean this or not? And if so, what do you want, kneecapping? Isn’t it up to the police to find and prosecute these people? Which involves them actually getting off their arses and turning up to these events?
Your extended answer seems to be saying something different, something along the lines that JoeCanuck was postulating. We’re all guilty of a sin of omission for not showing sympathy after the event. In addition, the reference to ‘first they came’ implies we need to do something before they get ‘wiped out’. But what are you expecting? Every time a hall is burned, someone explains how it was used by Catholic groups as well as the order and related groups. Are these people part of civic society? Do they count in any way? After the Bohs fans attacked the bar in the Fountain, various Derry City fans accompanied the Bohs fans to the (self-proclaimed ‘loyalist’) bar who presented the landlord with a cheque and their best wishes. I guess this would fit your idea of ‘civic society’? But what will it change regarding the ongoing campaign? Nothing.
There is some reaching out going on behind the scenes. Some cynical men are reaching out to angry boys with long term plans in mind. And you’re right, the campaign is clever. SF offices and OO halls. No-ones going on protest marches for them…
Token Dissent,
On all of this I would highly recommend Brian Kennaway’s book ‘The Orange Order – a Tradition Betrayed’. It is a critical account of the Order by an insider.
Thanks for the reference. I haven’t read it, but I’ll have a look for it.