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I
had the terrible misfortune to catch an interview
with local MP Gregory Campbell last week on Channel
9’s “Agenda” programme. The
interviewer, Danny Kelly, played an excellent devil’s
advocate in grilling Mr. Campbell, and pulled some
remarkable answers from the DUP man.
A large part of the interview centred on the thinking
of Campbell, his party and the revival of the Good
Friday Agreement. I have come to fully expect rancid
sectarian drivel from Campbell and his ilk on any
given issue. For this reason I have a sneaking political
admiration for the DUP, in so much as that I know
exactly what they think at any given moment on any
any political topic. It also upsets me because I also
have had first hand reports of the willingness of
Campbell and colleagues like William Hay to provide
excellent constituency support for people of all religions,
in everyday life.
Predictably though, they toe their master's line when
speaking to any public audience unfortunate enough
to listen to them. Nevertheless, the vigour of Campbell’s
historical, or should I say, hysterical political
revisionism, was at once astounding and infuriating.
As ever, Republicanism was held to account for everything
from the fall of Rome to the rise of Communism, and
also of course all the ills of Northern Ireland.
Most
pertinent was Mr. Campbell's’s obviously sincerely
held belief that the GFA has been the genesis for
a lack of “equity” in Northern Ireland,
and since its signing the Protestant and Unionist
section of our society have been the victims of startling
discrimination in employment, education, lack of services
in their areas, housing, the destruction of the RUC,
and so on and so forth.
As usual this was a result of the willingness of London
to sell the Union to Dublin. This no doubt, in Campbell's
mind, will result in the capture of all Protestants
in a sectarian Irish Republic and will see them all
slaughtered in their beds by priests wielding razor
edged Rosaries. This however is a realistic scenario
compared to what followed.
As
a result of his belief that the GFA had generated
such unfathomable inequality for Unionists, the interviewer
dared ask Campbell did he think that half a century
of monolithic Unionist rule and abuse on the Nationalist
population was the reason why we endured thirty years
of war resulting in the GFA that was designed to redress
the inequality suffered by Nationalists and everyone
else?
Mr.
Campbell replied by asking what abuse and inequality
was ever suffered by Catholics or Nationalists?
After being pressurised on this point Campbell reiterated
that he believed that at no point in the history of
Northern Ireland did any Nationalist, Catholic or
Republican suffer any discrimination or abuse. In
fact he said the opposite was true.
Blaming this now on the GFA, he questioned why Nationalists
should be getting jobs in front of Unionists and continued
to complain on these lines on these range of issues.
Now, my instant thoughts and response to this insanity,
I have to admit, did actually reduce me to the same
level of Campbell. After several minutes of rabid
screaming at the television I was at once thankful
that I was at home alone and after this I quickly
scanned through the living room window to check if
any neighbours had witnessed what would have looked
like one of Hitler’s Nuremberg rants minus the
soundtrack.
To
actually give a diatribe in reply to Campbell’s
ridiculous and spurious remarks would be to justify
them with some basis in reality. After considering
what he said I chided myself and derived some comfort
from the fact that he was doing simply what he and
his party do best, create imaginary demons and scaremonger.
The DUP as I said, is admirable to a certain extent.
The predictability of their reactions serves only
to entrench and perpetuate the virulence of their
jaded and unstable rabidity, they are also the reasons
why we can tell what they are going to say or do perhaps
before even they think of it. They are the most hateful
type of party in any so called civilised society,
since they are inextricably harnessed to the narrowest
of “Christian” outlooks primarily constructed
by Ian Paisley to suit his sectarianism and bolster
his self-righteous egoism. The unfortunate aspect
of all this is that this is also why they are so electorally
successful. It is also extremely unfortunate that
people like Campbell, Nigel Dodds and Peter and Iris
Robinson, who in any other arena would be highly able
cabinet officers, are imbued with a spirit of naked
hatred, if not personally, then they are smeared with
the ugly idealism of their leader.
What in fact do the DUP want for Northern Ireland?
Having told their constituents and everyone who wanted
to listen or not that this document was akin to signing
a treaty with the devil or indeed the pope, they set
out their stall to smash it. Whilst they are smashing
it however they have willingly taken their assembly
seats, cooperated with their inherent enemies at cabinet
and committee level and have taken the money that
this highly limited position and even more limited
assembly has to offer. DUP representatives now even
sit in radio and TV studios with Sinn Fein. Simultaneously
they tell us that the GFA cannot work, but they will
be prepared to go back into government with a Sinn
Fein party that have left the IRA behind!!
Campbell’s and the DUP’S notion of “equity”
is as limited as the scope of the GFA.
Based squarely on the Orwellian premise that some
are more equal than others, it looks like he and his
party will be dragged fighting into the eighteenth
century.
It
will take some doing, but people such as Gregory Campbell
do not realise that the British wish to get rid of
the Union is matched only by the Republic’s unwillingness
to make a sincere effort to reunify this island. It
is still evident that the unresolved National question
is the root cause of Northern Irelands problems. Various
unfeasible attempts to pacify the north by force from
the British and Irish governments have failed miserably.
The GFA is the latest in a string of diversions, that
gives us political suppression in the thinly veiled
façade of political consensus. It harnesses
resources that would normally go to boost economic
development, and as a consequence Catholic Protestant,
Unionist, Nationalist, Republican and Loyalist, Man,
Woman and Child are all equal recipients of discrimination
in the very areas that Campbell has placed his own
people. Yet Gregory’s fantasy has no room for
such considerations. When he gazes out the window
of his constituency office in East Narnia, sorry that’s
East Londonderry, what does he actually see?
Will he ever see that in taking part in Stormont he
is doing the dirty work of two governments in administering
political rule to a divided people that will continue
in perpetual division without geographical unity?
The notion of the Israelite in chains as the chosen
comparison for perennially besieged Unionists is,
I’m afraid, as outdated and as unbelievable as
Campbell’s airbrushing of history.
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