Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Attacks in Strabane and Derry…
Another attack has left Craig Memorial Hall badly damage in Strabane. And just up the road in Derry, a Methodist Church has damaged. There’s very little detail on either story, but it would sit in a pattern of the targetting Protestant institutions in large majority Catholic areas…
Mick Fealty @ 06:56 PM
Not like you to pre-empt a debate before full disclosure of details.
The biggest threat to Protestants isn’t such isolated enough yet beginning to accumulate attacks instead it is the economy.
The education system which serves up good results to those who participate in it keenly seems to be driving the skilled youth across the land borders and the North Channel and beyond.
Those who continue to carry out attacks like that are lacking skills that come from an understanding of the current political situation, which is greatly assisted by being able to read so that such individuals could think past the nonsense that is wasteful pursuit towards ethnic-betterment.
Respecting the right to be perceived to be different yet belong to a culture without persecution or one-upmanship is the key.
In terms of Protestant religious buildings being attacked, it would be appropriate to draw the attention onto West Belfast as what chance an Irish traveller kid based on the Glen Road to a decent education in a local west Belfast local?
Nationalist aren’t equality bullet-proof by any means, not least these greasy attacks on religious buildings but seemingly in their own culturallly pure heartlands.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 08:40 PMIt seems to be organised and, I suppose, for every one Protestant church or hall they burn, that’s another five hundred or so votes that stay unionist. So, if there isn’t a political element to them, whoever is gaining by these attacks, it isn’t nationalists. If it is purely sectarian, then it unwittingly serves the same pro-unionist agenda.
What can you say about them that hasn’t been said a thousand times before to no avail?
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 08:40 PMI find all these attacks really bloody frustrating but I don’t know what the answer is. My feeling is always that the people doing this now are those who feel completely cut off and think this is the only way they are notable persons at all.
It’s like a lot of criminal behaviour and people who are always having run ins with the peelers almost seem to need the attention.
It’s not a nationalist thing and attacking catholic churches definitely isn’t a unionist thing, it’s a shared expedition of the brain dead.
I’msure the people doing this were no more than children at easter 1998.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 08:56 PMThere’s very little detail on either story, but it would sit in a pattern of the targetting Protestant institutions in large majority Catholic areas…
Mick
Rather strange theory that, particularly in absence of any detail to substantiate claims. Kinda like a poster suggesting the burning of the Boundary Bar in a catholic area surrounded by a larger protestant area in north Belfast fits the pattern of attacks on Sinn Fein offices in Fermanagh because both could be identified as being nominally catholic/ nationalist.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:19 PMObserver
ALL sectarian attacks are disgusting and should be condemned by all decent people.
Unfortunately, there have been thousands of these attacks over the last 4 decades on BOTH CATHOLIC + PROTESTANT property.
The scumbags that perpetrate such attacks are not exclusive to either the nationalist or “loyalist” community.
[Some text removed - moderator]
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:19 PMObserver, PIRA violence was “bloody sectarianism” but what does that have to do with these attacks? If the attacks are organised, then what is the agenda behind them? The only political entity that gains from them is unionism. So, unless you want to speculate about some element with a covert pro-union agenda, I think you have to discount that they are organised even though they seem to be.
I don’t know if it is even safe to assume that attacks on halls are necessarily sectarian, since vandals are as likely to disrespect catholic property as they are protestant property. Some statistics by Mick would have been helpful.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:23 PM“Rather strange theory”
Yes I wonder were someone could possibly get the idea that there is a pattern of attacks on Orange Halls. Very strange.
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/fifty-orange-halls-attacked-in-three-weeks/
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:26 PMChris, maybe. But we know from figures released by the Orange Order that these attacks have hugely intensified in the last four to five years. I agree that it is difficult to tell whether the targeting has been planned, or part of a wider contagion, or simply a result of a broader social breakdown.
But it is hard to refute the fact that it is happening on a broad scale, in the same way that GAA clubs were being hit in the mid nineties.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:28 PMThe attack in Derry sounds more like the vandalism reported last week on BBC Radio Ulster at a Protestant Church in East Belfast, where local youths seemed to be getting a kick out of harassing elderly members of a local congregation.
More a case for discussing the depressingly low level of respect for others and the Churches in general in our modern society than an opportunity to suggest a grand scheme to attack protestant properties in ‘catholic’ areas, I would have thought.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:29 PM‘FD’
Then it should be presented as a discussion about attacks on Orange Halls, which you correctly observe has been highlighted before, as opposed to cultivating the perception that protestant properties are being systematically targeted across majority catholic areas, which certainly requires some leap.
As I suggested above, it is akin to linking attacks on Sinn Fein offices in Fermanagh with attacks on catholic-owned premises in Whitewell.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:33 PMBilly, they are not different they are actually similar in that they seem to place superiority upon themselves over other cultures and ethnicities, despite the obvious disregard to biological DNA mapping which shows the benefits of breeding outside of close knit circles.
The master race will be one when integration reaches assimilation maximum, not based on the notion on people kicking balls to different rules and different coloured flags supposedly meaning different treatment.
How long must we all put up with this ethnic nonsense when both states are members of the EU with strong protections towards human rights, immigration driven by liberal functioning markets and dare it be mentioned with fairly similar statute and case laws.
When you glance at the peacewalls the most obvious similarity is that both communities tend to copy themselves. One wall, lots of flags, paintwork and depictions. Save that of the colour used, you’re pretty much talking a common response by supposedly really different communities. Yawn.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:33 PMDon’t know about the Derry case, but the Beeb report the Strabane attack quotes the Orange as saying “it had never had any problems in the mainly nationalist area”.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:36 PMCD
“Then it should be presented as a discussion about attacks on Orange Halls,”
Craig Memorial Hall is an Orange Hall.
“it is akin to linking attacks on Sinn Fein offices in Fermanagh with attacks on catholic-owned premises in Whitewell.”
The analogy is a poor attempt to ignore the broader patterns with a suggestion of denial. It isn’t two incidents it is dozens. Further investigation will discover the facts in these particular circumstances but a pattern is out there.
I’ll stop now and go to bed before I go off on one about the PSNI, OFM/DFM, CRC and failure to take low level sectarian attacks seriously.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:44 PMVery brave. Could we strike some medals for this activity?
You’d think when the schools reopened this would stop. I suppose we can only hope they get girlfriends and grow up.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:45 PMMick
the problem with your theory that its a wide spread conspiracy of like minded individuals is that the wider spread the conspiracy the less likely it is to be kept a secret.What you have here is fairly simple Nationalist neighbourhood kids liquored up on too readily available alcahol and like youth every where bored with doing nothing. and since the loyalists insisted that the IRA stopped providing behavioral modification in the neighborhoods the kids they run wild. I would be surprised if any 2 fires were set by the same person or same persons. The only thing that is really happening is that one neighborhood or group heres about one orange hall or church being burnt and the lowest of the brain deads among them think they will become the neighborhood heroes if they do the same thing
Stupidity is contagious and unfortunately it does not respect cultural boundaries as the stupidity coming from your side can attest to
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:47 PMInteresting.
“...the stupidity coming from your side.”
What side would that be Sean?
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:50 PMMick
And if you had a chance to listen to BBC Radio Ulster this morning, you would’ve heard a Sinn Fein councillor in the area confirm what the Order said, express his sorrow that Orange memorabilia was lost and pledge his support- including supporting Council fundraising- to re-build the Hall. At that stage, it wasn’t being confirmed if the fire was being viewed as malicious or not, and I’m not sure if that has been clarified in the interim period.
FD
So attacks on catholic-premises are a poor analogy? Why so?Attacks on Orange Halls are utterly wrong and worthy of condemnation from all political leaders- amongst others. Similarly, I would hope people aren’t going to refrain from acknowledging (and condemning) the similar patterns of attacks can be identified on nominally catholic/ republican properties, be it Churches, GAA Halls or, most frequently in recent years, Republican monuments.
Personally, I would like to see much more done to address low-level sectarianism from the authorities you mention as well as political leaders in local areas.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 09:53 PM“Personally, I would like to see much more done to address low-level sectarianism from the authorities you mention as well as political leaders in local areas.”
In these instances it would be better if the State ‘authorities’ rolled back and delegated out to the voluntary and community people. I suppose with a little liaison from PSNI in terms of co-ordination.
Clearly, being reactive isn’t the key but proactive in moving away from old ethnic agendas.
In Northern Ireland generally if the State could be rolled back in certain areas then all the better.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 10:00 PMChris,
I’ll happily stand corrected on these two incidents. But it seems clear that attacks on Protestant halls outweigh the traffic going the other way, though there a time when the reverse was the case. My own home parish church was razed to the ground in the summer of ‘89.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 10:01 PMI think its just bored kids letting off steam. Its wrong of course to destroy things that others hold dear. But in my mind all churches are based on power and control and suppression and pretence. the more of them that dissappear the better. though I would never advocate willful damage I solely wish that they crumbled into dust due to lack of use.. Dont think this will happen as most people dont like thinking for themselves.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 10:24 PMYou’d think when the schools reopened this would stop. I suppose we can only hope they get girlfriends and grow up.
I wish it were that simple, Seamus. For years, the police have had an apalling record of making arrests and securing convictions on this type of ‘low-level’ sectarian attack (not low-level to the people involved, who see their homes and the places where a large part of their lives are lived destroyed). Because of that we have absolutely no deterrence against this type of attack because the people who do it are well aware that they will almost certainly get away with it.
I’m not convinced that these attacks are mainly carried out by bored teenagers either; there’s a degree of planning and premeditation evident in many of them. I do not buy into the idea that the burning of the Boundary Bar, to speak of an incident that occurred in an area I know, was the work of a few bored teenagers.
Moreover, many of the Orange Halls (and GAA Halls) targeted are in isolated rural areas where attacks could not take place without ready access to motorised transport.
It’s hardly news that some people in this part of the world hate people from the other side of the community enough to attack their property, just for a laugh. If they think they’ll get away with it, they’ll do it. And right now, they are getting away with it.
The interface initiatives and dialogue groups have done some real good, and it must be gutting when months or years of painstaking work is undermined by a thuggish attack, but at the end of the day a law and order problem requires a law and order solution. Lock ‘em up and throw away the key.
I’ll stop now and go to bed before I go off on one about the PSNI, OFM/DFM, CRC and failure to take low level sectarian attacks seriously.
Basically, the NIO decided at some point in the 1990s that isolated minority communities weren’t worth the hassle. For example, after about 1975 there was relatively little ‘pogrom’ activity in North Belfast (again, focusing on an area I know) until about 1995, when all hell broke loose and the police either stood by and did nothing or weren’t given the out of area resources they needed to do anything useful. For example, the long established Catholic population in Graymount, who had survived the Troubles in a Loyalist heartland, were largely intimidated out in the 1996-8 period. Similarly, nothing useful was done to protect vulnerable Catholic families in Torrens in the Summer of 1996, when they were pretty much all intimidated out, but by the 2000s when the tables had turned and Protestants in Torrens were being subject to nightly attacks which ended in them all leaving, the response was, well, to do nothing useful.
I don’t think there’s any prospect of getting any sensible response from the NIO on this issue, but Paisley and McGuinness ought to be taking a lead here. Although policing is outside their formal remit, they do have a clear leadership role in terms of representing Northern Ireland public opinion. And their special advisors, who seem to be unusual in actually being quite capable people, can do a lot by grabbing recalcitrant civil servants by the throat and making them take the issue seriously.
No-one seems willing to tackle the police on bad policing either. This is one area where the police should have had years of practice but are still piss poor in achieving anything. Joyriding is the other obvious issue in this category. In neither case does the PSNI give any sign of regarding the issue as important.
Posted by on Sep 25, 2007 @ 11:07 PMInteresting.
“...the stupidity coming from your side.”
What side would that be Sean?
Posted by Mick Fealty on Sep 25, 2007 @ 11:50
Mick on a previous thread you made it more than clear that you have a side of the divide and which it is. I hesitate to think anyone who has viewed that thread has any question as to which side you are allied. Because as i recall you allowed a loyalist sympathizer to exhort others to violence while bollocking I and other republican sympathizers for being sectarian and rude.
or did I just imagine it all
Sammy
I will stick by my theory its randomn attacks by bored teenagers, information has way of trickling down as well as the relative ingenuity of teenagers for immitation. to use the targets as proof of a conspiracy is of course the most spurious evidence of all. Think about it, is a nationalist area youth and therefor likely a catholic going to burn the church where his mother attends mass or the hall of those who have always tried to oppress them or the church of the enemy.I am not saying these views are mine or even remotely acceptable but surely every one must accept that a catholic is not likely to burn a catholic church when an orange hall is accesable and defenceless
I am more like dawkins I do not accept that organized religion is a good thing but i diverge even with him because I would not definatevly state that there is no higher power i just dont accept there is
Posted by on Sep 26, 2007 @ 12:37 AMMick on a previous thread you made it more than clear that you have a side of the divide and which it is
Mick can answer for himself, but this is shite.
to use the targets as proof of a conspiracy is of course the most spurious evidence of all
I said nothing about a conspiracy. Just that many of these attacks show plenty of organisation (almost certainly by individuals/small groups acting without co-ordination). If you think these are just bored teenagers, you are living in denial. Many of the targets in rural areas are not particularly accessible.
Some Republicans seem to live in denial that our lot can ever be bigots. Sadly, not true.
Posted by on Sep 26, 2007 @ 12:45 AMI have no doubt the attack on the church in Derry was not random. It was attacked because it was a Protestant Church. Just because these same little scumbags stoned the GAA crowd going into Celtic Park, and because they’re terrorising their own areas, doesn’t mean their target of first choice isn’t Protestant. They are a bloody curse on the city and there doesn’t seem to be anything anyone can do about them. For me, the example of the boys on the roof (in Belfast I think) where the vicar had actual pictures of them and the cops did nothing until they apeared on tv, sums up the situation.
As far as the Orange halls go, I’m sure there is an element of orchestration there. I don’t have inside information, but it is too widespread not to be at least partially driven by organised malcontents. Add in copycat effect and you’ve got the current situation. Bloody sad.
Posted by on Sep 26, 2007 @ 06:04 AMSean,
You clearly don’t understand the rules of the site: specifically the difference between political opinion (which I will sustain in all weathers and from all sides) and personal attack (which I will not).
Posted by on Sep 26, 2007 @ 06:45 AM
