‘Ils n’ont rien appris, ni rien oublié,’ the French statesman Tallyrand famously remarked about the Bourbons.
‘They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.’
It’s about as perfect a remark to describe the behaviour of unionists following the recent court decision about the Parades Commission as you can get.
A quick recap: The High Court found that the Commission had erred in how it agreed a decision to block an application from the Orange Order to march along the overwhelmingly nationalist Garvaghy Road – scenes of infamous unionist-inspired violence and mayhem back in late the 1990s.
Important to note this pernickety ruling against the commission is only about the way they arrived at their decision to block the march; not the decision to block the march itself.
The commissioners’ fault appears to boil down to using WhatsApp to discuss the Orange Order’s application, rather than writing their views on scrolls of parchment, or whatever.
A minor infraction, one would assume, given the commission has blocked every similar application since 1998.
Anyway, cue buckets of gloopy insincerity from the usual cast of unionist politicians.
In a typically verbose ten-paragraph statement Jon Burrows the new (unelected) leader of the Ulster Unionists claimed that the court’s ‘withering’ judgement mattered because the commission can restrict ‘fundamental freedoms’ including ‘freedom of expression, assembly and religion.’
Obviously, none of those are threatened by banning sectarian parades from places where they are not wanted. And for the record, the Orange Order is not a religious organisation – it’s a fraternal body.
But what was true then is true now; the local community doesn’t want a sectarian hate march traipsing past their front windows. Also true, depressingly, that loyalists who previously murdered Catholics 28 years ago in their bloodlust to do so continue to press their case.
Refighting the past. Settling scores. Proving they are still cock of the walk. Desperate stuff.
What will happen now is that very little will happen now. The local Orange Order will again apply to march down Garvaghy Road – as it always do. And the Parades Commission will reject it – as they always do. There will be no going back to the bad old days.
It hasn’t stopped a unionist feeding frenzy, demanding the resignation of the six commissioners. At the time of writing, one has stood down but the others seem determined to stay put. Good for them. Obviously, this is really about undermining the very existence of the Parades Commission.
Unionism is incapable of building a shared future in a divided society – we already know that. The real issue is that they are not even capable of building a future for their own people. All too often left idle, ignorant and in the clutches of loyalist gangs, selling them drugs or forcing them into debt. Little wonder their failing political leaders prefer to wallow in the past.
Yet it’s as plain as a pikestaff that the procedural infraction by the commission does not amount to victory for the be-sashed legions itching to lord it over their Catholic neighbours and cause as much trouble as they can. The only marching they will experience is being led up the metaphorical hill. Only to be marched down it again.
No, this is about stoking trouble. Whipping up the base. Releasing the furies. Banging the Drumcree, so to speak; with the unionist parties currently wrestling each other in a pit of effluent to see who emerges the winner in their grisly game of one-upmanship ahead of next May’s elections.
It underlines unionist determination to prove Einstein wrong in his conviction that repeating the same experiment over and over and expecting a different result each time is the very definition of madness.
Indeed, there was a time when Ulster Unionism was directed by the exulted, lawyerly mind of Edward Carson, or even in recent times a distinguished legal academic like David Trimble. Now it makes do with Jamie Bryson and his hollow claim that this ruling represents a ‘seismic victory.’
There should be two significant effects from the unseemly reaction to this judgement. The first is that respectable unionist opinion needs to speak up and make clear that renewed tension at Drumcree has no merit and that zealots who think it has will not be getting their votes. Run-of-the-mill Protestants who weary of this casual extremism should vote Alliance or Green rather than reward blatant sectarianism.
The second is that everyone who does not reside in the lacuna of hardline Orange politics should take a reality check. Nothing is going to change in this place. Orangeism’s blood-soaked lunatic fringe, depleted and despised though it may be, will linger and seek to poison the well until their final breath.
Let’s just think past this place.
‘Ils n’ont rien appris, ni rien oublié,’ the French statesman Tallyrand famously remarked about the Bourbons.
‘They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.’
It’s about as perfect a remark to describe the behaviour of unionists following the recent court decision about the Parades Commission as you can get.
A quick recap: The High Court found that the Commission had erred in how it agreed a decision to block an application from the Orange Order to march along the overwhelmingly nationalist Garvaghy Road – scenes of infamous unionist-inspired violence and mayhem back in late the 1990s.
Important to note this pernickety ruling against the commission is only about the way they arrived at their decision to block the march; not the decision to block the march itself.
The commissioners’ fault appears to boil down to using WhatsApp to discuss the Orange Order’s application, rather than writing their views on scrolls of parchment, or whatever.
A minor infraction, one would assume, given the commission has blocked every similar application since 1998.
Anyway, cue buckets of gloopy insincerity from the usual cast of unionist politicians.
In a typically verbose ten-paragraph statement Jon Burrows the new (unelected) leader of the Ulster Unionists claimed that the court’s ‘withering’ judgement mattered because the commission can restrict ‘fundamental freedoms’ including ‘freedom of expression, assembly and religion.’
Obviously, none of those are threatened by banning sectarian parades from places where they are not wanted. And for the record, the Orange Order is not a religious organisation – it’s a fraternal body.
But what was true then is true now; the local community doesn’t want a sectarian hate march traipsing past their front windows. Also true, depressingly, that loyalists who previously murdered Catholics 28 years ago in their bloodlust to do so continue to press their case.
Refighting the past. Settling scores. Proving they are still cock of the walk. Desperate stuff.
What will happen now is that very little will happen now. The local Orange Order will again apply to march down Garvaghy Road – as it always do. And the Parades Commission will reject it – as they always do. There will be no going back to the bad old days.
It hasn’t stopped a unionist feeding frenzy, demanding the resignation of the six commissioners. At the time of writing, one has stood down but the others seem determined to stay put. Good for them. Obviously, this is really about undermining the very existence of the Parades Commission.
Unionism is incapable of building a shared future in a divided society – we already know that. The real issue is that they are not even capable of building a future for their own people. All too often left idle, ignorant and in the clutches of loyalist gangs, selling them drugs or forcing them into debt. Little wonder their failing political leaders prefer to wallow in the past.
Yet it’s as plain as a pikestaff that the procedural infraction by the commission does not amount to victory for the be-sashed legions itching to lord it over their Catholic neighbours and cause as much trouble as they can. The only marching they will experience is being led up the metaphorical hill. Only to be marched down it again.
No, this is about stoking trouble. Whipping up the base. Releasing the furies. Banging the Drumcree, so to speak; with the unionist parties currently wrestling each other in a pit of effluent to see who emerges the winner in their grisly game of one-upmanship ahead of next May’s elections.
It underlines unionist determination to prove Einstein wrong in his conviction that repeating the same experiment over and over and expecting a different result each time is the very definition of madness.
Indeed, there was a time when Ulster Unionism was directed by the exulted, lawyerly mind of Edward Carson, or even in recent times a distinguished legal academic like David Trimble. Now it makes do with Jamie Bryson and his hollow claim that this ruling represents a ‘seismic victory.’
There should be two significant effects from the unseemly reaction to this judgement. The first is that respectable unionist opinion needs to speak up and make clear that renewed tension at Drumcree has no merit and that zealots who think it has will not be getting their votes. Run-of-the-mill Protestants who weary of this casual extremism should vote Alliance or Green rather than reward blatant sectarianism.
The second is that everyone who does not reside in the lacuna of hardline Orange politics should take a reality check. Nothing is going to change in this place. Orangeism’s blood-soaked lunatic fringe, depleted and despised though it may be, will linger and seek to poison the well until their final breath.
Let’s just think past this place.