Game is over for the Orange Order

themrhubarbs

Game is over for the Orange Order

Published: July 21 2010 01:35 | Last updated: July 21 2010 02:44

From Mr Robin Currie.

Sir, It was last Friday that I realised that the game is finally up for the Orange Order as we know it. It happened during a “water cooler” conversation with a work colleague about the news stories covering the rioting in Ardoyne.

I should explain a little. I’m a Protestant from east Belfast and have been living in the US for the last 25 years. I work for one of those peculiarly Washington institutions, a “think-tank”, a place where scholars study politics and government policy. The think-tank in question, the American Enterprise Institute, is a conservative one, and the colleague in question an economist. But these facts are not significant. The significant part is the conversation.

“I see there’s trouble in Belfast again,” he said.

“Yes,” I told him. “It’s the Marching Season.”

“I can’t believe that’s still going on,” he replied. “Why those Orangemen make a point of marching through neighbourhoods where they’re not welcome so they can ‘stick it’ to the Catholics, I’ll never know.”

That’s when I felt the temperature rise, just a bit. And I took a deep breath. I thought about explaining that there had been a recent upsurge in activity by dissident republicans, that outsiders had been coming in to stoke up trouble, that Sinn Féin – Sinn Féin! – had been trying to keep a lid on things. About the use of children as young as nine as a buffer, about the violence being orchestrated by a group of just a dozen or so ringleaders, and with gunmen in the background, about the notion of “recreational rioting”, residents’ opposition to the rioters, and riots in areas where there had been no Orange parades at all. About the marches being historic routes, typically Orange Hall to church, through neighbourhoods and along roads that may have once been Protestant but now were Catholic, about religious liberty and constitutional rights. About the fact that these were disturbances (unique in the world?) in which police officers seemed to be suffering all the casualties.

Then I exhaled. What’s the point? I asked myself. There was none. To the world, it looks like a Ku Klux Klan march through an African-American neighbourhood, designed to do nothing more than provoke. No one is going to look any deeper than that – not even a well-educated academic at a “hawkish” policy organisation.

Some Orangemen will say “so what?” (The order is famously dismissive of PR, caring little what London, Dublin, Washington or Brussels thinks.) But from the outside looking in, this doesn’t help the Union. It can’t go on. The cause is getting weaker every year. That’s the “so what?”. I’m just saying.

Robin Currie,

Arlington, VA, US

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dfcdc87a-9453-11df-be4d-00144feab49a.html

Big Mouth

themrhubarbs wrote: »

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dfcdc87a-9453-11df-be4d-00144feab49a.html

Eh....eh....eh....eh....eh...........The IRA are scumbags (Feel better now everyone phew got stuck for words for a second!!)

Einhard

Big Mouth wrote: »

Eh....eh....eh....eh....eh...........The IRA are scumbags (Feel better now everyone phew got stuck for words for a second!!)

You said it. As are the UDA and any outfit deliberately targetting civilians for murder. Feels good to get it off your chest eh?

maccored

Einhard wrote: »

You said it. As are the UDA and any outfit deliberately targetting civilians for murder. Feels good to get it off your chest eh?

you are oif course including the british army in that considering what they done on bloody sunday? yes, of course you are.

T runner

themrhubarbs wrote: »

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dfcdc87a-9453-11df-be4d-00144feab49a.html

He forgot to mention that as well as objecting to the rioters that residents actually objected to the parades.

He also failed to answer his colleagues question, as to why they wanted to march that route. The ku Klux Klan could equally make the historic route, civil liberties argument while ignoring the inherent racism of that organistation.

He is saying that the fact that the OO are an anti-catholic organisation, in this instance marching through a catholic area is irrelevant or atleast he does not address this in his letter.

You also note he equates the existancxe of Orange marches to the strenght of the Union. Segregation/sectarianism in NI = a strong case for Union with Britain. If you have ethnic segregation in Ireland you can argue (badly) for a political border to reflect on a larger scale that division.

Cuddlesworth

maccored wrote: »

you are oif course including the british army in that considering what they done on bloody sunday? yes, of course you are.

And that guy who stole your pencil in class twenty years ago. We will never forget!













Because that might actually help.

Wolfe Tone

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

And that guy who stole your pencil in class twenty years ago. We will never forget!


Because that might actually help.

I am disgusted that you would treat the deaths of innocent civil rights marchers as such a trivial thing. Perhaps if everything was not covered up the truth would not just now be coming out, 30 years on.


The way that letter is written he makes it sound like the residents had no objection to the marches at all, that it was simply all outsiders.


And, OP, its bad form to come along and just drop a letter in and say nothing about it.

Einhard

maccored wrote: »

you are oif course including the british army in that considering what they done on bloody sunday? yes, of course you are.

Yes I am.

maccored

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

And that guy who stole your pencil in class twenty years ago. We will never forget!
Because that might actually help.

no offense, but what kind of post ist hat? what guy took my pencil case? i dont remember - or was it you??

Point is, the british army were as bad as anyone when it comes to killing innocent people. lets not forget that, nor try to hide it with such a rubbish reply.

maccored

Einhard wrote: »

Yes I am.

good to hear it.