Does the Secretary of State’s decision about Drumcree serve social justice, or victors’ justice?

Gadfly is a political geographer from Belfast with a particular interest in the relationship between democracy and the creation of more sustainable futures.

Northern nationalists and republicans have long aimed to differentiate themselves from unionists through a strong commitment to social, as opposed to legal, justice. These respective commitments have been on clear display throughout the recent disputes at Drumcree. Whilst unionists claim to have stood on the side of law and order, the SDLP reinstated its commitment to civil rights through peaceful protest, and Sinn Féin stood shoulder to shoulder with communities resisting potential state violence in the name of self-determination.

This commitment to social justice has long provided nationalists and republicans with a sense of confidence, that they stand on the ‘right’ side of history. After all, as the modern father of civil rights Martin Luther King once put it, the arc of history always ‘bends towards justice.’ For some, the decision of Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant to ban Orangemen from marching down the Garvaghy road proves this historical rule correct. Social justice, from this perspective, has won the day. Nationalists and republicans are, from this perspective, once again on the right side of history.

But is the Secretary of State’s decision really a victory for social justice? Or is it closer to victors’ justice?

Answering this question properly requires recognising that social justice is a big term which means very little without context. This means that as contextual conditions change, the practical meaning of social justice does too. Like the end of the proverbial rainbow, as we move towards a more just society this goal shifts, and we must adjust our course appropriately. This is why the struggle to realise a more just society is never complete, and why we must continually revise our understandings of what it is, and what it might take to work towards it, on the basis of present political conditions.

In Northern Ireland present political conditions are, of course, markedly different to those which existed in the late 1960s, when the terms ‘civil rights’ and ‘social justice’ first arrived on the province’s streets. Political conditions have also shifted profoundly since the late 1990s, when the last battle over the Garvaghy road occurred. Back then, social housing was still relatively plentiful, emigration was a more significant political issue than immigration, abortion was a very long way from being legal on this island, and climate change – never mind climate justice – had barely been defined.

More specifically, in the past three decades political Unionism has withered, as counterbalanced by the growth of political republicanism, which is now bearing ever richer political fruit. Put in the blunter terms of Northern Ireland’s streets, the IRA may have lost the war, but their political progeny are increasingly winning the peace.

Many hoped that, given their historical commitment to supporting oppressed communities, republicans might display magnanimity with this victory, protecting and respecting minority rights, in the way that past unionist Northern Irish governments often did not. In this regard, early evidence from Michelle O’Neill’s tenure as Northern Irish First Minister was promising. She quickly declared herself a ‘First Minister for all’, whilst standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her unionist counterpart, Emma Little-Pengelly, with whom she worked to resolve the many social issues Northern Ireland currently faces.

But things changed on Sunday the 27th of September. Standing in the rain with protestors blocking the Garvaghy road, Mary Lou McDonald stated that the decision to allow the Orange Order parade was, ‘in fact, primitive treatment of any community in the year 2026. It is intolerable, and it will not be tolerated’, adding that ‘we will not be drawn back into the past.’

There’s a bitter irony to her use of this kind of language, especially for those of us interested in moving towards a future beyond Ireland’s settler-colonial past: this is the kind of language unionists once used to describe the island’s Catholic, Irish communities. This language is, in other words, not actually the language of the future but an echo from the worst of Northern Ireland’s past, where unionists used the state to supress minorities, on the basis that they were primitive and backward, and so could not be tolerated in public life if the province were to progress politically. Is this, in fact, what Sinn Féin really mean when they say they stand on the side of progress towards a more just society?

If so, Sinn Féin are taking the first steps down a path common to many ethno-political movements, who gain power through (post-)colonial nation states; a path which ends with the oppressed becoming oppressors. All ethno-political movements contain this possibility. The first step towards it comes with the arrogance to presume that one always stands on the right side of history, and so won’t fall into this political trap, like so many have before.

None of us will ever have the privilege of knowing whether we stand on the right side of history, and we should never have the arrogance to begin our politics from this presumption. Instead, those of us who want a more just, democratic, and ultimately decolonial Ireland must continually update our political thinking, ensuring it remains relevant to the ever-changing challenges facing the society we’re a part of. Fail to do so, and all too quickly the oppressed may become oppressors, the colonised colonial, and democrats’ demagogues.