Today marks the high point of unionist culture, or rather, that’s what it used to be. The Twelfth was the day when unionism displayed who it was and what its essence was.
It was a demonstration of political power, presence and consequence. That was at a time when every minister in the toytown colonial administration was (or if he wasn’t, he’d better join) a member of the Orange Order. Many marched in the parade. So too, did some members of the landed gentry like the earl of Erne who often provided figureheads for the order.
None of this applies any more. Business and commerce have fled the order, wouldn’t be seen dead marching behind bands hired by the tiny membership of lodges whose drums are festooned with the paraphrenia of loyalist terrorist groups.
The order has no power. Its ageing membership is a fraction of what it was fifty years ago. Many marchers can’t manage the distance of their parades. Instead of a manifestation of the power of unionism ‘the Twalf’ is Exhibit A of what has happened to unionism.
Middle-class unionists have left the scene. For years they have had no political party they can support. Look at the turnout in unionist constituencies last week and indeed for decades past.
Helped by the disgraceful support of the NIO and British security forces during the Troubles, the UDA in particular was able to dominate unionist districts and entrench their position. They took over Orange lodges, causing respectable figures to leave.
It is the UDA and, to a lesser extent in places like the Shankill and east Belfast, the UVF who organise the Twalf. They control the sites of bonfires. They take over and destroy public land and do untold damage to public property and the environment. They provide the muscle to intimidate council officials and steal thousands of pallets to build horribly dangerous towering infernos.
The Twalf is now the manifestation of what is generally called loyalist ‘culture’, not unionism and certainly not Protestantism; most of the protagonists never darken the door of a church. It’s a demonstration of aggressive, provocative ethno-nationalism, bonfires draped with Irish flags and pictures of Sinn Féin politicians and the occasional Alliance figure, all the people and symbols these poor benighted loyalists are told to fear.
The Twelfth is now the manifestation of what is generally called loyalist ‘culture’, not unionism and certainly not Protestantism; most of the protagonists never darken the door of a church
Now here’s the thing. The fact that these wild, lawless characters are allowed to get away with illegal, insurrectionist activity on a widespread basis shows what’s wrong with unionism. There is no political leadership.
On the contrary, the language and activities of some DUP politicians positively encourage the misbehaviour. Stupidly they’re afraid they’ll lose the votes of the loyalist yahoos cavorting around bonfires and hollering from footpaths as bands thump past. Stupidly, because the evidence shows not only do most of those not vote for the DUP; they don’t vote for anyone. The failure to condemn the reprehensible carry on means condoning it.
The really serious aspect is that what passes for unionist political leadership is the failure to support the PSNI in cracking down on the people who organise the illegal activity.
Instead, unionist politicians go along with the lie that they are ‘community leaders’ whereas in many cases they have driven legitimate community workers away, leaving them in the grip of the drug dealing gangsters who have been destroying unionist communities since the 1980s.
Stormont has also connived at this nonsense, setting up a useless Independent Reporting Commission on progress to end paramilitaries, an expensive waste of time which keeps recommending ridiculous stuff like better housing and benefit take up. Seven years after it was set up there are more gangsters.
There’s only one way to end gangsterism and save unionist districts from further decline and desolation and that’s to beef up the PSNI Paramilitary Crime Task Force, follow the money and jail the leaders. It’s the only way to save urban unionism from its failed political leaders.
