If
I was a working class Prod, I'd feel like puking
when I see how Unionism has treated us since the
Good Friday Agreement in '98.
Now
that the DUP has become the top dog in Unionism,
the Paisley camp has abandoned working class Protestants.
The
ordinary Prods may have tramped Northern streets
in their thousands in the Carson Trails, and for
paramilitary groups like the Third Force and Ulster
Resistance.
But
with fundamentalist Paisleyism donning the middle
class fur coats once worn by the Ulster Unionist
aristocracy, its clear the message from the DUP
is – the working class can kiss my ass.
How
many working class Prods have ended up in jail because
they were conned by the religious fervour of the
Paisleyite fundamentalists?
Mention
socialism to the DUP and you'll be branded a commie.
How many UVF members and their families have voted
for the DUP, only to find themselves political outcasts.
To
the Paisley camp, the UVF's political movement,
the Progressive Unionists, is no better than one
of communist tyrant Joe Stalin's Soviets.
And
given the vitriolic rhetoric coming from the liberal
middle class UUP over party boss Reg Empey's bid
to bring Loyalism in from the cold, there no room
in Ulster Unionism for working class Prods either.
At
one time, the UUP used to boast about its unionist
labour movement – but that was only a clever
ploy to con working class Prods into voting for
Orange dominated Unionism in their thousands.
In
trying to find a niche for itself somewhere on the
political spectrum, Empey has been attempting to
initiate a series of policies which have earned
him the nickname Red Reg because of their socialist
overtones.
There
is the real danger if working class Protestants
continue to feel increasingly alienated from their
own political parties, they may eat humble pie and
turn to the 'auld enemy', the Shinners, for help
on bread and butter issues.
Former
cop and Orangeman Billy Leonard, now a Sinn Fein
councillor in Coleraine, has already stated about
the number of Prods seeking his help on constituency
matters.
It
may only be a trickle now, but if Unionism doesn't
start looking after the working class Prods, the
concept of Protestant republicanism could become
a significant political force within a decade.
Nonsense,
the Puritan Prods and religious fundamentalists
will cry – just read your Bibles, say a few
prayers and all will be well.
But
such Puritans would rather indulge in the Biblical
Pharisee tactics of hunting the Anti Christ, ridiculing
other Protestant denominations and making moral
judgements on people's lifestyles than following
the true example of Jesus Christ's 'born again'
beliefs and helping those less well off than themselves.
Dumped
by the DUP; shunned by the UUP, and finding the
fringe Loyalist parties ignored, there is also the
danger the identity of working class Loyalism will
be dead and buried within a generation.
Working
class Prods in the present day North are no better
off than the Blacks during apartheid South Africa
– powerless and penniless.
While
republicanism is striding forward into a movement
which could have government ministers in two sovereign
parliaments – Stormont and the Dail –
within a year, working class Protestantism is rapidly
running backwards to the politically meaningless
existence which Northern working class Catholics
found themselves enduring under the Brookeborough
regime from 1946 to 1963.
Ordinary
Catholics have a legion of working class icons to
commemorate, such as James Connolly, Sean Mac Diarmada
and Eamonn Ceannt.
And
who have the Prods managed to scrape up from the
grave? Psycho terrorist Lenny Murphy, the Master
Butcher; British agent and sectarian killer Robin
Jackson, dubbed the Jackal, and LVF maverick Billy
'King Rat' Wright.
But
what working class Prods need is a living political
icon – someone who will mobilise them into
a powerful pressure group based on Patriotic Socialism.
Until
that icon emerges; until working class Protestants
launch their Patriotic Socialist Front, ordinary
rural and urban Loyalists will remain nothing more
than electoral cannon fodder for the Fur Coat Brigade
dominated DUP and UUP.
The
sad thing is, if the PSF became a reality, its biggest
opposition will not come from nationalists or the
republican movement.
The
main opposition will stem from religious Puritans
who will brand such working class Protestants as
Godless communist, and from the snobbish Unionist
Fur Coat Brigade who will dismiss them as uneducated
and uncouth fascists.
Like
it or lump it, this is make or break decade for
the Northern Protestant working class. You task
is simple – organise or go under.
Talking
about organising, everyone should make a point of
seeing director Ken Loach's latest masterpiece,
The Wind That Shakes the Barley, about the
War of Independence and the subsequent Irish Civil
War.
Winner
of the prestigious Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes
Film Festival, it is the most controversial film
ever made about the 20th century Troubles since
the brilliant '97 flick, Resurrection Man.
It
starred Northern-born actor James Nesbitt in a bloody
reconstruction of the Shankill Butcher gang led
by the notorious UVF psycho and Master Butcher Lennie
Murphy.
What's
so gripping about the latest Loach movie is the
way it evokes emotions. The scenes depicting republicans
confronting the Black and Tans stoke up the most
anti-Brit feeling since Mel Gibson's The Patriot.
On
the other hand, the IRA takes a real pasting from
the anti-Treaty forces in the civil war scenes.
Republicans will cringe as their civil war forefathers
are slaughtered at the hands of the Free State Army.
This
flick is devoid of the romanticism of John Wayne's
classic, The Quiet Man. But the anti-English
bitterness seeping out of The Wind is 100
times more intense than the feeling of hatred towards
England fired up in Mel Gibson's mould-breaking
movie, Braveheart.
