Slugger O'Toole

Latest posts from Brian Walker (see all)

Brian Walker has posted 1,481 times (11 in the last month).

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Brian Walker has commented 943 times (22 in the last month).

1. Comment on The PUL Community and the Peace Process: An Audit
   on 21 May 2013 at 5:57 pm

   Thanks are due to Alan for all his sterling work in covering the conference and other events. It may have been overshadowed by the closed meetings in Cardiff but it deserved more attention than it received by the jaded mainstream media. I for one rely on this relatively uncut material such as this to update my by ancient knowledge and keep in touch by my fingernails. My comments are often based on guesswork and it’s depressing in a way to see how often I still manage to hit the mark.

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2. Comment on The PUL Community and the Peace Process: An Audit
   on 21 May 2013 at 11:47 am

   There is nothing wrong – it may even be valuable – to keep going over this territory. It will be interesting to see if Alan or the conference itself comes up with action points.

   But it seems that this conference has once again aired the same old complaints with the same old protestations of good faith. No mea culpa among those present, just pin it all on the other guys who aren’t attending. There’s little or no recognition of any improvements and no one takes any responsibility for what goes wrong.

   Isn’t it striking how poor communication is in such a wee place? A great fuss was made about John Hume connecting up with the Provos and the good services of Brendan Duddy although they all lived literally a half a mile apart.

   Communication between loyalism and the DUP broke down decades ago over Paisley playing the Grand Old Duke of York, as loyalists saw it, or as others believe, his own chronic indiscipline and playing to the gallery. It’s high time those contacts were rebuilt and if the unionist forum can help, so be it. Hutchinson may lament once again that his vicious paramilitaries were used by the mainstream unionist parties and that they were never as politically important as the IRA but he’s right, there’s no point in demonising or dismissing them; they still possess some negative power and perhaps even some representative value -not that the conference seems to have explored that theme.

   The role of the public intellectual? To question the orthodoxies of the crowd, to come up with new ideas, to widen the debate. What was discussed about the future? New ideas for participation in economic development ? Building links and early warning systems across the divide? Did any of them say, this is what I can do to help?

   Reading this, am I the only one to think this meeting could have taken place in 1993, give or take the odd topical reference? Or have I missed something?

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3. Comment on “Republicans should remember that the third colour in the Irish flag is Orange…”
   on 20 May 2013 at 8:15 pm

   Are we getting too hung up on the absurdities of positioning and not paying enough attention to solutions?

   I only ask as I struggle to concentrate on the latest twists. I don’t pretend the understand what’s really going on. Is there any way of differentiating between genuine concerns and posturing? Is it the closer to elected politicians the greater the posturing?

   Is the time coming when the GFA guarantors, the two governments begin to blow the whistle, in particular the British government still responsible for “national security” and raise the parades and peace on the streets to this level and convenes a major negotiation to try to shame them into a deal?

   What many people don’t realise is that much of the sharp end of policing and justice still hasn’t been transferred to Stormont under the national security category..

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4. Comment on Fionola Meredith: Can what has been divided by language also be brought together by it?
   on 20 May 2013 at 11:19 am

   All good stuff.. but a couple of contingent arguments are needed. The vulgar politics can’t be entirely ignored, then and now.

   As you know better than I do , Mick, Douglas Hyde was an idealistic cultural figure who dreamt of “ de Anglicanisation” and Catholic –Protestant reconciliation through the Irish language. Unrealistic as it seems today, de-Anglicanisation had its own logic:

   “Why should we wish to make Ireland more Celtic than it is — why should we de-Anglicise it at all? I answer because the Irish race is at present in a most anomalous position, imitating England and yet apparently hating it.”

   But the language movement and much of the whole Revival was quickly adopted as reinforcement for the revolutionary cause. Hyde stood apart from – above perhaps? -the revolutionary politics of his time. As far as I know he had little or no engagement with northern Protestantism/ unionism.

   Despite his eminence, Hyde the son of a CoI rector sometimes fell victim to nationalist bigotry, in common with many of his co-religionists, as when the Catholic Truth Society accused him wrongly of favouring divorce when the stood for the senate and he consequently lost.

   Even as the totemic first President he was not invulnerable to attack. For attending a soccer international against Poland the new President was expelled from the GAA for breaching their ( then) ban on “ foreign games.”

   De –anglicanisation was impossible then and impossible today – and of course unsought. But the taint of Irish- Irish triumphalism still hangs over it today. The contemporary Sinn Fein has had some success in grabbling the language agenda in the north to help differentiate it from the SDLP. Belatedly perhaps the southern parties woke up to this and now counterattack as a matter of course

   Hyde’s experience is of its own time and is not a cautionary tale for today. But you can see why it can excite rather bogus displays of unionist paranoia.

   Irish language supporters would do well to look outside Ireland to Scotland and Wales, where the Celtic languages are supported by government and the community is at ease with the element of nationalist politics involved. That, surely, is the ideal for today.

   “
   .

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5. Comment on Challenges for Protestants in “Dealing with the Past”
   on 20 May 2013 at 10:15 am

   This reads like a lot of conferences which resemble the problem they’re discussing – an interesting ramble through the past without any particular structure or outcome. Perhaps the quotations fail to do it justice.

   A radically different agenda is urgently needed to make the difference to people’s lives. It is highly questionable whether we need to get the past out of the way first in some unknown fashion before we move on and deal with the future. The issues and skills needed for development are different.

   New solutions won’t come from obsessing about the past or simple class analysis

   We need less description, more analysis. More forward looking, open and carefully constructed ideas for economic development with economists, business people and civil servants including planners in dialogue with representatives of the people. In NI “economic” too often means rattling the begging bowl and a complete absence of enterprise.

   Does anybody have the faintest idea on what basis housing and commerce and industry are zoned? Have local people ever been involved in creating arguments for local inward investment? Can a concentrated effort be made to rebuild the inner city?

   There is too much indulgent Northern Irish particularlism in so many conferences. .Outside comparators are needed. What was learned from the English summer riots of 2011? How do the French cope with the underclass of the banlieus of Paris? How are the inner cities of Detroit and Baltimore being rebuilt?

   The obsession with particular brands of history is becoming the enemy of the future. The attempts to make self justifying narratives water tight against criticism are doomed to failure. History in the guise of dealing with the past is becoming the opium of the elites as well as the masses.

   “Dealing with the past” through “ remembering “ is valuable when former paramilitaries who had been through the fire saw the light. They are either dead or dying out. Otherwise “ history” slips too easily into bar room loyalism or republicanism.

   Partnerships need to be created between government and local people. Northern Ireland has the scale and intimacy to make this happen. A whole structure of “community” ( often paramilitary) power was created during the Troubles, subsidised by government. Could we not build something better today?

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6. Comment on Has the Protestant Working Class lost out in the Peace Process?
   on 20 May 2013 at 9:03 am

   nevin. Too stuck in a negative rut again!. Why not use all that intelligence to explore and improve solutions?

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7. Comment on Has the Protestant Working Class lost out in the Peace Process?
   on 19 May 2013 at 8:43 pm

   Add to the list, loss of core industry, depopulation and loss of a sense of community, all inner city vices. Plus buckets of self pity and patronising commentators. All this arid analysis only produces PhDs. In the real world we can expect no comprehensive, macro-political solution.

   Much of working class Belfast is moribund. Why not think of something practical?

   In the early 80s the Housing Executive carried out a near-milltary semi-secret operation to flit part of Catholic East Belfast to the new estate of Poleglass. Surely we can do better than that today. With the splitting up of the NIHE why not set up a virtual planning exercise?

   Form a Housing Association in partnership with government or council of mixed youngish membership, located in inner city brownfield sites such as the old Sirocco works site or the gaping holes between the Woodstock and Beersbridge roads. Zone in a little light industry. What would be the response? Mixed or segregated? How would they keep the crypto-paramilitaries out? By pricing or policing? This is the sort of project that should attract real energy enterprise and and engagement ,not obsessively chewing over the horrible politics.

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8. Comment on Has the Protestant Working Class lost out in the Peace Process?
   on 19 May 2013 at 2:23 pm

   C’mon it’s surely not so difficult to understand. We can agree can’t we that nationalism/republicanism made relative gains while unionism/ loyalism made relative losses in the sense that the post- 1998 State was no longer “ their “ State? So the perception of the loyalist working class losing out is surely real enough.

   There’s a host of reasons for it. The collapse of monolithic unionism that appeared to include them, followed by unionism and State elements in turns conniving with and repudiating loyalist violence “in defence of the State.”

   Remember too that the loyalist paramilitaries as well as the IRA were defeated, ground to a halt , whatever term you prefer, so the hard liners or the most paranoid are still bruised by that.

   The difference was that IRA leadership won enough political support to take office while loyalists didn’t.
   Paisley had preserved the illusion of a people united against the overthrow of the State if divided on the methods. He would argue this forestalled far worse loyalist violence He exploited their sense of betrayal and victimhood for decades, right up to the point of abruptly accepting powersharing almost without explanation. No wonder loyalists are badly confused.

   None of this nor academic class analyses helps much now. If you’re talking about what to do next it’s not enough surely to argue – however rightly in my view – that the sense of loyalist loss is just part of the old deluded zero sum game that Catholic gains were won at Protestant expense.

   Unionism as a whole has to find a way to embrace the settlement more warmly. Survival would be a good reason, a more content community another. To be fair most of the elements are present, only that they are so often drowned out by the beat of the sectarian drum and intra- community rivalry. More confusion is the inevitable result.

   SF are ahead of unionism strategically, however much they are mistrusted . One can see why Robinson is so frustrated at unionist fragmentation when he observes SF’s self confidence. But he seemed to lose touch at the height of Swish Family Robinson. His own defeat showed that DUP support could be fragile, a point surprisingly often overlooked.

   Loathe though I am to admit it there seems to be no one in unionism in government to match Paisley’s gift for grass roots grafting and appeal in the old days of endless opposition.

   The immediate urgent need is for a deal on parades. No one seems very optimistic that they’ll do better than squeak through day by day.

   Leadership is lacking. The DUP despite its comfortable majority follows more than it leads. The elephant in the room is the rise of Catholic numbers which will have to be honestly and responsibly faced by both sides. Endless nitpicking and prevarication only increase frustration all round. The elements of a strategy are available but they will have to adopted and sold to the people.

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9. Comment on Drama shows best how much Northern Ireland has changed
   on 16 May 2013 at 10:06 am

   DoppiaVu,

   Yes the BBC had few problems from nationalists because of the “British” label. It came up more from unionists when they claimed they weren’t getting a fair hearing. That’s not to say nationalists didn’t complain too, just that they may have had different expectations.

   But there’s no doubt that Catholics/nationalists were under represented in BBCNI up to the mid 1970s in staffing and output, as Cathcart explains and something of an institutional bias against them beyond the limits of a small informal quota.

   It also took a big expansion of airtime and funding to begin to do justice all round. For a place of its size NI is now very well served. But no doubt some will dispute this as usual! .

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10. Comment on Drama shows best how much Northern Ireland has changed
    on 15 May 2013 at 5:20 pm

    From a Good Guardian piece

    “In its recent manifesto for independence, Your Scotland, Your Future, the SNP suggests the BBC would continue in Scotland, but under Scottish control:

    BBC Scotland’s services would continue with the same staff and assets, but with a management that would be charged with responsibility for reflecting Scottish life, culture and interests. [But] it wouldn’t operate in a vacuum – far from it, in fact.

    We will be able to access programmes from around the globe, just as we do now, including the BBC, ITV and the many cable and satellite channels, meaning Scottish viewers will continue to receive popular programmes such as EastEnders, the X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. These programmes are all available in Ireland, for example.

    But this raises numerous questions: how would the BBC take on a new role in an independent Scotland? Could it be split up and its Scottish assets given straight over to a new Scottish broadcasting service? How would it be funded? What about Scotland’s share of UK-level BBC assets and programming outside Scotland? What would happen to the BBC’s local coverage and its website? How would Scottish audiences see all the BBC’s channels and programmes, such as Strictly, or BBC3, or the Today programme, not made in Scotland?

    The Scottish government’s current policy is to set up a wholly new Scottish public service broadcaster.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/feb/29/how-would-the-bbc-be-divided-if-scotland-became-independent

    In other words, total muddle. But all three S,W and NI devolved UK institutions are in my view likely to get some oversight over their own broadcasts

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