What
was behind the fierce rioting among disaffected
loyalist communities in Belfast over the weekend
and into this week? Following the re-routing of
an Orange Order parade from a Catholic area, loyalists
clashed with the Police Service of Northern Ireland
in sustained street battles in which petrol bombs,
paint bombs and apparently even a pipe bomb were
lobbed, and live bullets were reportedly fired at
police officers.
They
have been called 'the worst riots in 10 years',
which have 'rattled the peace process'. Northern
Ireland secretary Peter Hain now says the British
government no longer recognises the ceasefires of
two loyalist paramilitary groups - the Ulster Volunteer
Force and the Red Hand Commando - following suspicions
that they may have had a hand in 'orchestrating
the riots' (1).
The
done thing is to blame loyalists hardliners or the
Orange Order. One report reckons that 'loyalist
paramilitaries have cynically taken advantage of
the genuine deep-seated disillusionment in wider
Protestant communities', and transformed it into
'an orgy of violence' (2).
Others claim that sash-wearing Orangemen, some of
whom were apparently seen squaring up to police
officers, rocks in hand, started the riots. Under
the headline 'Orangemen: why they suck', Times columnist
Libby Purves - not previously known for taking a
stand against 'Orange politics' - argued that 'the
religiosity of the [Orange] Lodge is tied up with
filth and firebombs, burnt flesh and bullets' (3).
Of
course, UVF associates and renegade Orangemen may
have joined in the riots, and the riots may look
like Northern Irish history repeating itself. Angry
crowds clashing with a paramilitary police force
while surrounded by burnt-out buses and shattered
glass are familiar scenes in Northern Ireland. But
there is also something new going on here. These
riots were not the result of old 'tribal' loyalist
urges rising up and threatening the peace process.
They were a product of the peace process itself.
In
the past 10 years, political and public life in
Northern Ireland have been entirely reorganised
around the 'politics of identity', around the idea
that it's the state's responsibility to recognise,
respect and protect the 'cultural identities' of
Northern Ireland's two communities. Politics in
Northern Ireland is no longer concerned with grand
visions about who should run society and how they
should do it. Rather it is obsessed - from the very
top, down through every public institution - with
striking a careful balance between two apparently
volatile communities, to ensure that both are accorded
'equal worth' and both have ample opportunities
to air their grievances.
Such
a political process can end up nurturing a sense
of grievance among disaffected communities, and
can easily give rise to violent outbursts if one
community feels it is being disrespected in favour
of the other. In effect, the recent riots were riots
for recognition.
It
is striking that the main complaint made by the
loyalist rioters was that the authorities are doing
too many favours for the 'other side' - that is,
for republicans and nationalists. Despite the fact
that there is high unemployment and widespread social
decay among working-class loyalist communities in
West Belfast and elsewhere, they were not rioting
for a better deal for themselves or even just as
an expression of disgruntlement with their predicament.
Rather, the rioters seemed to be motivated by a
belief that their community is being ignored while
republicans, in their eyes, are being feted.
One
rioter complained that the government is 'ignoring
us' while 'always listening to the republicans and
Catholics'. Even when issues of social deprivation
were raised, it seemed to be in a competitive fashion.
One loyalist resident pointed to the Catholic ghetto
of New Lodge and said, 'They are getting everything
that's going. We are getting nothing. They've got
new doors and new floors' (4).
David Ervine, leader of the Progressive Unionist
Party that grew out of the Ulster Volunteer Force
in the mid-1990s, said the riots were caused by
a 'sense that the Unionist community has been set
aside while the [British] government plays footsie
with the republicans' (5).
Of
course, for a long time there has been no love lost
between working-class loyalists and working-class
republicans in a small and decaying part of Northern
Ireland like West Belfast. But this specific complaint
that the government is 'ignoring us' and loving
'them' - which almost sounds motivated by envy,
or by a child-like temper tantrum - has its origins
in the politics of the peace process. Virtually
every institution in the New Northern Ireland is
built on the premise that the 'two communities'
will never really be able to live in peace, so it
is the state's role to manage relations between
them and to make sure that both feel equally valued
and respected. Or else….
The
idea that politics should be a sectarian balancing
act - or about achieving 'parity of esteem between
communities', as the PC lingo puts it - comes from
the very top down. So those elected to the Northern
Ireland Assembly (when it's up and running, that
is) have to present themselves as an identity more
than a politician, so that the Assembly can ensure
that every decision taken is likely to keep both
communities happy. Assembly rules demand that 'at
their first meeting, members of the Assembly will
register a designation of identity - nationalist,
Unionist or other - for the purpose of measuring
cross-community support'.
Assembly
members make decisions 'not by a simple majority'
as in other democratic parliaments, but on the basis
of what is called 'sufficiency of consensus' - basically
meaning that 'any agreement that was to be put to
the people of Northern Ireland in a referendum would
have the broad agreement of the representatives
of both parts of the community' (6).
Then
there is the Parades Commission, the body that decides
whether parades and marches, especially 'contentious'
ones, can go ahead. The Commission issued a decree
that Saturday's Orange parade through Whiterock
in Belfast had to be moved by '126 paces' so that
it would not pass close to Catholic communities
who said they found the parade offensive (7).
It was this decision that led to the loyalist rioting.
The
Parades Commission, like the Assembly, is also concerned
with trying to create 'parity of esteem' between
communities, by carefully judging whether a certain
parade will offend one cultural identity and also
whether banning that certain parade will offend
the other cultural identity. This official sectarianism
can create a broader sense of grievance and competition
among communities, where they tend to see their
problems, not as social or political ones, but as
stemming from the other side's potential encroachment
on their cultural space. So when the Parades Commission
re-routed the Whiterock Orange parade because it
was an offence to the Catholic community's cultural
identity, what was to stop loyalists from demanding:
'What about our cultural identity?!' The riots were
effectively a more violent version of identity politics,
a cry for the cultural recognition that has become
the staple of politics and life in Northern Ireland.
Throughout
Northern Ireland there are also numerous community
groups - often funded by British or European money
- that encourage people to 'celebrate diversity'
or to 'air their grievances' (8).
There is even a Minister for Victims in Northern
Ireland, who ensures that both communities' losses
and trauma from 25 years of conflict are equally
valued and memorialised - and there is talk of setting
up a Victims' and Survivors' Commission, which will
look into 'appropriate mechanisms' for 'dealing
with the past to the satisfaction of all sections
of the community' (9).
The
recent violence is the product of this divisive
and degraded politics of identity. Having created
a society based on the idea that there are two irreconcilable
communities - whose relations need to be permanently
monitored and managed and where each side must always
be reminded that they are valued as much as the
other lot - the peace process has also nurtured
the potential for angst, disgruntlement and even
violence if one side feels it is left out of the
loop. The politics of identity does not only heighten
sectarianism; it also actively encourages individuals
to see themselves as potential victims with a grievance
that ought to be expressed. No doubt the authorities
would much prefer it if such grievances were expressed
over tea and sympathy with a community worker, rather
than in a riot.
So
those who pin all of the blame for the recent riots
on the Orange Order or loyalist paramilitaries are
missing the point. Even these bodies are now part
of the new politics. The Orange Order presents itself
as a cultural heritage outfit and describes the
re-routing of its parades as an offence to its 'cultural
rights'. And the role of loyalist paramilitaries
in the recent riots suggests that they have changed,
too: where once they were the armed wing of Britain's
domination of Northern Ireland, today they are effectively
the armed wing of loyalist cultural identity. Today
they fire bullets for recognition. And we have the
peace process to thank for that.
(1)
British
government reviewing the status of loyalist ceasefires,
Ireland Online, 12 September 2005
(2)
Riots
hitting working-class Protestants the hardest,
Belfast Newsletter, 13 September 2005
(3)
'Orangemen: why they suck', Libby Purves, The Times
(London), 13 September 2005
(4)
Loyalist
streets in the grip of violence spawned by resentment
and bloody feud, Guardian, 13 September
2005
(5)
UDA
call prompts fall-off in nightly Belfast riots,
Ireland Online, 14 September 2005
(6)
See Hansard,
House of Commons, 21 May 1997
(7)
Ulster
on edge, The Times (London), 13 September
2005
(8)
See Today
it's just pure naked bigotry, by Brendan O'Neill
(9)
Murphy
announces proposals for a Victims' and Survivors'
Commissioner, Northern Ireland Office, 1 March
2005
