Don’t know if this has made the news beyond these islands.
On Monday Belfast city councillors voted for the restriction of flying the union jack on City Hall to certain designated days. These designated days are the days it flies on other public buildings in Northern Ireland. Hitherto it flew every day over the building. This decision was a compromise, brokered by the non-sectarian Alliance Party, between the nationalist councillors desire for no union jack at all and unionist councillors wanting the status quo maintained.
Since the motion was passed Alliance Party councillors have been threatened, their homes targeted, and there have been various protest rallies by unionists/loyalists unhappy with the vote. It has spilled out into some violence, although thankfully nobody has been killed. A few police have been injured however. The protests and violence have coincided with a visit to Belfast of Hillary Clinton. The protests continue and have likely interrupted Christmas trade for Belfast stores. An Irish tricolour was burned at today’s protests by some masked youths.
So are flags and other such ethno-political that important? Is this something, if you were an NI unionist, that would make you go out and protest? Are there similar flag shenanigans in other countries? Do the protesters have a point?
I think the protests DO have a kernel of truth within them. What was wrong with the existing flag? I’d definitely be suspicious that this is part of a chipping-away process where the endgame is to clear all visible traces of the unionist community.
There are similar flag shenanigans in Quebec, but with less overt protest since there is simply not enough left of an opposing community left in Quebec to offer resistance.
I don’t believe the situations are really analogous. In Quebec the majority community of the province is seeking to remove the flag of the federal state, which the minority community identifies with. Here, the flag-defenders are from the majority community. And whatever about their symbols, it’s pretty clear at this point that they’re not going anywhere.
And that’s what makes this protest so ridiculous. There’s less chance of Irish reunification now than at any time in the past half-century, probably; the real question now is how nationalists are to be accommodated within the British state. Loyalist reactions like this, to even the slightest compromise, only tell them that they won’t be. Which will make dissident republicans the main beneficiaries of these events.
True, but in both cases you have an established flag which is getting targeted. And in both cases, the aggrieved communities represent an anti-British, historically Catholic faction within the overall country (or federation)
I’m rather skeptical that overall loyalist reactions are being portrayed in a fair and nuanced way. First, it’s no minor thing to tell ANY group of people to take their flag down, so it strikes me as a bit odd to treat it as an insignificant concession.
Second, I’m not aware that unionists/loyalists ever receive positive credit for anything anyways, on the contrary it seems to be a sport for their opponents to portray them in the most dismissive possible way.
LC Strawhouse be clear though that they weren’t told to remove their flag, only that the flag would be flown in line with other government buildings. So the union jack will still be seen over City Hall, just not perpetually.
Thanks for the clarification. However, I understand the flag has always flown perpetually over Belfast City Hall so this is a change in routine and a major symbolic gesture. In that context, I’d still see it a “cheeky” measure that has no functional purpose other than a feather-in-the-cap for nationalists. If the roles were reversed, this would be akin to unionists banning the sale of Wolfe Tones CDs except on Sundays.
I’d take it more seriously if they reduced the flag display AND made meaningful concessions to loyalists at the same time, e.g., allowed a few more Orange parades or something.
PS - I’d always capitalized “Union Jack”, is that not how it’s done?
And if unionists were in the majority on the city council they could vote for stuff like restrictions on the sale of Wolfe Tone CDs, although I sincerely doubt restricting sales of an item are in the council’s purview. It’s democracy in action but apparently democracy isn’t good enough for some people.
Fair enough, point taken, but I personally expect my city council to do things like maintain the streets and protect waterways, not get involved in symbolic short-term point-scoring that creates enemies. Using democracy in this way is a two-edged sword because one can never truly predict what kind of demographic twists and turns might happen in the future.
Oh I agree with you, the amount of bolloxology in terms of ultimately meaningless point scoring in NI politics is awful. As regards demographics though, all indicators short and longer term point to Belfast becoming a solid majority nationalist city in the near future.
Not nearly as serious as in NI. Shenanigans< which implies mild mischief, seems to be a good word to describe some of the stuff in America.
There have been various protests in the US and around the world where US flags have been burned. In response, legislative actions to outlaw flag burning have been undertaken. Generally they’ve been shot down as a restriction on political speech.
A number of Southern states still use the stars and bars (Confederate flag) as at least a part of their state flags. Over the years various attempts have been made to move away from the racist slave holding implications of the confederate flag. Mostly, these have been unsuccessful. Many (white) southerners still proudly display their stars and bars.
And there the similarities end. The differences are much more significant.
You might have picked a better picture to illustrate your point. I think you’ll find it difficult to persuade anyone that unionists are being unfairly portrayed for pissing on a Catholic Church their march passed by.
Another ridiculous analogy. City Hall is a public building, the seat of local government and a major symbol of the city. It is not a privately-owned business with its own clientele who can always take their money elsewhere. If you were talking about sales of Wolfe Tone CDs from the City Hall shop you might have a point.
A few more? There are already hundreds of Orange Parades in the North every year. The problem is *where *they march, not that they march at all.
As for the flag move being a “major symbolic gesture”, the problem is that every concession to nationalism seems to be seen by loyalists as a major symbolic gesture. It’s that “no surrender” mentality again. Loyalism has real trouble accepting that this is a peace process, it’s an attempt to resolve a conflict which took thousands of lives and where emotion still runs very deep, and both sides have to accept compromises. Republicans certainly have; look at McGuinness shaking hands with the Queen, which is about as major a symbolic gesture as symbolic gestures go. Bringing City Hall in line with other public buildings, which fly the flag only on certain days per year, is hardly in the same league. Loyalists get little sympathy because they don’t know how to choose their battles - they just turn everything into a sign of the impending unionist apocalypse.
I’m sure they could have found a few more representative photos to depict a day-long event of 30,000 people. The photos were carefully chosen for maximum comic/slanderous effect (typical.)
I was trying to say that it was a city ordinance that was simply designed to give the finger to a specific community. If they really wanted to get rid of it, why not do it the proper way by having a dialogue beforehand and offering a concession or two of their own (it doesn’t have to be about Orange parades, that was just an example)
In what place on earth would taking the flag off the central place of government NOT be considered a major symbolic gesture? We’re not talking about painting a kerb. And it’s not as if they were flying a UVF flag or something. I would like to ask what was wrong with the flag.
They didn’t start this particular fight, and are you saying that loyalists have done nothing positive or respectful? That reminds me of the article I linked above about loyalist contributions being written out of history.
Time will tell; I’ll just point out that nationalism is not an inherited trait, and I hear that some of the cool kids like Rory McIlroy are identifying themselves in unexpected ways, no matter which community they come from.
I’ll add one other thing, which is that the Republican sacrifice of shaking hands with the Queen is utterly overwhelmed by the Unionist sacrifice to accept this man within NI’s government.
Well to a large extent your culture* is* inherited, and its nationalist culture that’s becoming the majority in the city. I’ve no doubt there are some Catholics who vote unionist and Protestants who vote for nationalist/republican parties but up until now they’ve been a minority in either community. It’s likely a positive thing but it’s not a game changer as regards the demographics. IIRC McIlroy had an atypical upbringing, went to a mixed school, most of his peers were from the other community etc.
In fairness there were dozens of generic photos of the marches that day but of course a newspaper is going to highlight the troublemakers, it sells papers after all.
Yes. The only people I know of who fly that one are those that want to fly a Confederate flag but suspect that they’ll be misinterpreted or harassed for using the one everyone knows (actually the Second Navy Jack).
