Beating the sectarian drum at Drumcree

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday July 11, 2002 11:08 by McMean

The fact that members of the Orange Order engaged in violent confrontation at Drumcree comes as no surprise to residents living along the Garvaghy Road or even the wider northern nationalist community.

For the Belfast Newsletter scenes of Orangemen spitting at PSNI
officers, hurling bricks and insults, and cheering each other
along was "not in keeping with the high standards the institution
wishes to represent" nor "compatible with the godly standards the
organisation promotes and expects its members to profess."

But as two recently released International Observer reports into
Orange parades during the previous two summers shows, violent
confrontation is neither an unusual corollary to Orange Order
parades nor confined to Drumcree.

"The atmosphere of most parades was tense. The continued
antagonism of some parade participants, parade supporters and
police seemed designed to incite the nationalist communities,
often leaving residents of those communities beleaguered and
frightened," writes representatives from the Irish American
lawyers group, the Brehan Law Society.

While in Belfast an observer from the International Irish Parades
Emergency Committee recorded "spectators accompanying the parade
heckled nationalist residents. The body language of these Orange
supporters was aggressive and triumphalist, including pumping
fists, jeering and dancing. One man yelled, "Fuck the Pope."
Parade supporters taunted residents, yelling and gesturing in a
threatening manner."

But in a sense the Parades Commission's code of conduct already
says it all. Appendix B refers to the behaviour of parade
participants.

"Where the majority population of the vicinity are of a different
tradition and in interface areas, behaviour should be respectful.
There should be no excessively loud drumming. Participants should
refrain from conduct, words, music or behaviour which could
reasonably be perceived as intentionally sectarian, provocative,
threatening, abusive, insulting or lewd."

The overwhelming majority of annual parades, around 3,000, are
Orange Order parades. Furthermore nationalists have largely
adopted a policy of voluntary re routing away from contentious
areas.

Clearly while the Commissions' rules are couched in general
rather than specific terms, they reflect the main pre occupation
of the Commission most contentious decisions, the re routing of
Orange and other Loyal Order parades away from nationalist areas.

The Parades Commission did not arbitrarily pluck the images
evoked by these guidelines, of Orange Order parades as sectarian,
provocative and aggressive, out of thin air. Rather they reflect
problems experience on the ground has identified.

This is not a Republican, or even a nationalist, representation
of Orange parades but that of an official British government
established body.

Presented with such uncomfortable truths, a period of quiet
reflection might be considered appropriate. Clearly many
Orangemen regard themselves as a primarily religious grouping.
The annual march to Drumcree is part of a church parade to a
commemorative service marking the loss of life at the Somme.

Surely if this is the main impetus for the parade to Drumcree,
marching through the nationalist Garvaghy Road is a mere
distraction. A distraction better discarded in the interests of
community relations.

But given the Orange Order's persistent preoccupation with
parading through nationalist areas and the antics of their
members and supporters which accompanies such parades, how can
anyone, especially those on the receiving end of Orange contempt,
understand the Order as anything other that a charade of pious
bigotry and be suited thuggery?

However the Orange Order's response to calls for restraint and
criticism has not been reflection but further antagonism. If
Orangemen feel as if "everyone is against them" it's because they
are increasingly defining themselves as against everyone else.

Thus addressing Orangemen on Drumcree Hill, local Orange Order
leader David Burrows lost no opportunity to inflame the sectarian
passions of his audience and heighten their sense of grievance.

The Parades Commission chairperson Tony Holland was pursuing a
'green' agenda and the British Secretary of State, John Reid
didn't want to upset his "fellow Celtic supporters" Burrows told
Orangemen at Drumcree.

24 hours earlier at a rally of Orange supporters in Glasgow, DUP
Assembly member Nigel Dodds was already lighting the touch paper.

"First we lost the B Specials, then our Parliament at Stormont,
next we lost the UDR and more recently the RUC. Now the Orange
Institution is being targeted," said Dodds, "Republicans, with
the connivance of the British government, have set about
dismantling every institution the British people of Northern
Ireland hold dear."

Dodds sentiments were akin to the White Supremacist's wistful
mourning of the passing of Apartheid and just as inappropriate
and inflammatory. Of course Nigel Dodds wasn't at Drumcree to
throw the first punch. And David Burrows didn't leap from the
platform to lead the charge.

Assurances that the protest would be 'peaceful' and 'dignified'
accompanied by the decision of prominent loyalist paramilitaries
to stay away had been reciprocated by those tasked with enforcing
the Parades Commissions ruling. The security cordon dividing
Orange marchers from the Garvaghy Road had been scaled down.

The characterisation that violence at Drumcree was the work of
outsiders, the UDA or the LVF, supporters rather than members of
the Orange Order, was always a myth and by pandering to it the
PSNI/RUC was forced to pay the price.

As a violent confrontation at the barrier ensued, some Orangemen
walked away, others took off their sashes before joining in the
fray, while others fought still dressed in their full regalia.
Indeed in some instances parts of the regalia, rolled black
umbrellas, were utilised as offensive weapons.

Within a few hours the violence was over but the hypocrisy
continued. "It is too easy to forget that the real problem at
Drumcree is the intransigence of residents, who seem determined
to humiliate the local Orangemen before deigning to even consider
the prospect of enduring Orange feet on the Garvaghy Road," read
the Newsletter editorial the following day.

After enduring years of sectarian persecution by Orangemen in the
name of Drumcree, a request by residents of the Garvaghy Road for
face-to-face dialogue with the Orange Order is apparently too
humiliating a prospect for Portadown Orangemen to concede.

Even the Newsletter finds such a prospect too much to contemplate
but Catholic residents aside, the editorial advises against the
Orange Order's continuing refusal to speak directly to the
Parades Commission.

Orangemen "have come to despise the Parades Commission with the
same level of passion once reserved for those who speak for the
residents," writes the Newsletter, but when it comes to parading
through the nationalist Garvaghy Road, the Orange Order have "a
compelling case" and this needs to be "argued in the right
places, even if that means supping with the enemy."

Meanwhile, speaking from the bedside of an injured PSNI officer,
UUP leader and Assembly First Minister David Trimble said, "those
Orangemen who engaged in an attack on the police let themselves
down, let the institution down and I hope very much that the
leadership of the Orange Order look at this very carefully to see
what can be done."

Church of Ireland Primate Robin Eames described the violence as
'deplorable' and 'completely unacceptable" but continued to fan
the flames of the Orange Order's sense of grievance.

"Nothing must be allowed to deter our determination to find a
solution which will honour the deeply held views of the two
communities involved. Violence can have no place in that
solution. A solution is possible and it must emerge soon," said
Eames.

Moral leadership requires moral courage. Instead of feeding
Orange hopes of reinstating the primacy of their demands, Robin
Eames would do better to tell them the truth. Re routing is a
solution. It can be an equable solution.

There is nothing intrinsically 'humiliating' about re-routing a
parade to facilitate the wishes of local residents. Nationalists
don't feel lessened or diminished by re routing away from
predominantly Protestant or Loyalist estates and have repeatedly
done so on a voluntary basis.

Re-routing allows Orangemen to pay tribute to their dead and
honour their faith with dignity while leaving their Catholic
neighbours in peace.