11 March 1999 Edition
Where racism and sectarianism meet
Le Fern Lane
Jonathan McIvor, formally of the Metropolitan police, presently of the RUC and undergoing a public relations makeover, provides a perfect illustration of the seamless connection between racism and sectarianism. McIvor, who was singled out for particularly scathing criticism by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, has moved effortlessly from the racist canteen culture of the Met to the sectarian canteen culture of the RUC.
In the aftermath of the Inquiry, however, two further aspects of this racism/sectarianism nexus have emerged which also have significant ramifications for nationalists in the Six Counties.
Firstly, language. The use and misuse of language for political purposes is an old trick of the British and one which was employed to good effect by Sir Paul Condon in the days immediately after the publication of the Inquiry's findings. In response to, now famously, being accused of running a force guilty of `pernicious and institutionalised racism' Condon simply redefined the term. Now, rather than meaning conscious racism which informs and affects the policies and practices of an organisation - which can be held accountable and punished accordingly - it simply means `unconscious or unwitting' racism which is identified as a psychological failing of the individual concerned. This adroit redefinition neatly exonerates the organisation - in this case the Met - whilst simultaneously making it difficult to hold individuals to account since they can claim their actions were `unconscious' and thus beyond their control.
This is precisely the process by which the term `sectarianism' was redefined by those in power in order to fulfil a political agenda; to make it a matter of personal psychology not a governmental policy and thus to get the real culprits off the hook. To you, me and most especially to Catholics living on the so-called `sectarian interfaces' around the Six Counties or to those unfortunate enough to come into contact with the RUC, sectarianism has almost invariably meant Catholics being on the receiving end of institutionalised fundamentalist religious hatred, violence, harassment, crude discrimination, and in being Irish, treated as racially inferior to those who consider themselves to be British. In short, racism by another name.
But as redefined by the British, sectarianism means the two cursed tribes laying into one another in equal measure and generally behaving like ill-disciplined children. Mo Mowlem's claim to have ``knocked heads together'' to get the Good Friday Agreement has been uncontested in respect of it's underlying ideological implications. As is the case with the Metropolitan police, the unsavoury term has been redefined in order to diminish the state's culpability and to mask its deep-seated racist approach to Irish people (it was the British state which, after all, fostered and then indulged the ugly feeling of racial and religious superiority still manifest in Unionists) and to its handling of the conflict.
Secondly, there is still within the British establishment a version of the Victorian notion of the deserving poor (obedient, deferential, willing to work for poverty-line wages) and undeserving poor (disobedient, anarchic, unemployed), an ideology which has been adapted for use as an instrument of judgement against both ethnic minorities in the UK and to Catholics living in the North. The current version relates to the politicised and non-politicised. Doreen and Neville Lawrence, for example, once they were adjudged as having conventional middle-class values, and not, initially at least, being politically radical, they were championed by the establishment and media as deserving victims. Had they been more subversive, unemployed or non-Christian then one suspects that the reaction would have been rather different.
In the same way, the notion of deserving and undeserving Catholics appertains in the Six Counties. Catholics are generally acceptable to Unionists only when they remember their place in the God-given order and do not harbour dangerous ideas about equality or Irish unity. Equally notoriously, the term `innocent Catholic' has been appropriated to mean murdered Catholics who were not involved in politics, or - better still - did not have a political opinion.
Equally depressing is that this ideology has filtered through to wider British public opinion, reaching its apotheosis in the reaction to the execution of Diarmuid O'Neill. It was telling that the police did not feel compelled to `lose' the tape recordings on which an order to ``shoot the fucker'' could be clearly heard. The recording was played in open court without any fear of backlash from either the press or the public. O'Neill was, after all, an IRA man fighting a `sectarian' war and therefore self-evidently undeserving and without any entitlement to due process. In cases where victims of police shootings have not been politically motivated (for example, such as the case of the convicted murderer James Ashley, a notoriously violent gangster recently killed by police as he lay in his bed) then there are virtually always suspensions and criminal charges. It is being a political or politicised victim which ultimately makes one ineligible for redress.
Jonathan McIvor, formally of the Metropolitan police, presently of the RUC and undergoing a public relations makeover, provides a perfect illustration of the seamless connection between racism and sectarianism. McIvor, who was singled out for particularly scathing criticism by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, has moved effortlessly from the racist canteen culture of the Met to the sectarian canteen culture of the RUC.
In the aftermath of the Inquiry, however, two further aspects of this racism/sectarianism nexus have emerged which also have significant ramifications for nationalists in the Six Counties.
Firstly, language. The use and misuse of language for political purposes is an old trick of the British and one which was employed to good effect by Sir Paul Condon in the days immediately after the publication of the Inquiry's findings. In response to, now famously, being accused of running a force guilty of `pernicious and institutionalised racism' Condon simply redefined the term. Now, rather than meaning conscious racism which informs and affects the policies and practices of an organisation - which can be held accountable and punished accordingly - it simply means `unconscious or unwitting' racism which is identified as a psychological failing of the individual concerned. This adroit redefinition neatly exonerates the organisation - in this case the Met - whilst simultaneously making it difficult to hold individuals to account since they can claim their actions were `unconscious' and thus beyond their control.
This is precisely the process by which the term `sectarianism' was redefined by those in power in order to fulfil a political agenda; to make it a matter of personal psychology not a governmental policy and thus to get the real culprits off the hook. To you, me and most especially to Catholics living on the so-called `sectarian interfaces' around the Six Counties or to those unfortunate enough to come into contact with the RUC, sectarianism has almost invariably meant Catholics being on the receiving end of institutionalised fundamentalist religious hatred, violence, harassment, crude discrimination, and in being Irish, treated as racially inferior to those who consider themselves to be British. In short, racism by another name.
But as redefined by the British, sectarianism means the two cursed tribes laying into one another in equal measure and generally behaving like ill-disciplined children. Mo Mowlem's claim to have ``knocked heads together'' to get the Good Friday Agreement has been uncontested in respect of it's underlying ideological implications. As is the case with the Metropolitan police, the unsavoury term has been redefined in order to diminish the state's culpability and to mask its deep-seated racist approach to Irish people (it was the British state which, after all, fostered and then indulged the ugly feeling of racial and religious superiority still manifest in Unionists) and to its handling of the conflict.
Secondly, there is still within the British establishment a version of the Victorian notion of the deserving poor (obedient, deferential, willing to work for poverty-line wages) and undeserving poor (disobedient, anarchic, unemployed), an ideology which has been adapted for use as an instrument of judgement against both ethnic minorities in the UK and to Catholics living in the North. The current version relates to the politicised and non-politicised. Doreen and Neville Lawrence, for example, once they were adjudged as having conventional middle-class values, and not, initially at least, being politically radical, they were championed by the establishment and media as deserving victims. Had they been more subversive, unemployed or non-Christian then one suspects that the reaction would have been rather different.
In the same way, the notion of deserving and undeserving Catholics appertains in the Six Counties. Catholics are generally acceptable to Unionists only when they remember their place in the God-given order and do not harbour dangerous ideas about equality or Irish unity. Equally notoriously, the term `innocent Catholic' has been appropriated to mean murdered Catholics who were not involved in politics, or - better still - did not have a political opinion.
Equally depressing is that this ideology has filtered through to wider British public opinion, reaching its apotheosis in the reaction to the execution of Diarmuid O'Neill. It was telling that the police did not feel compelled to `lose' the tape recordings on which an order to ``shoot the fucker'' could be clearly heard. The recording was played in open court without any fear of backlash from either the press or the public. O'Neill was, after all, an IRA man fighting a `sectarian' war and therefore self-evidently undeserving and without any entitlement to due process. In cases where victims of police shootings have not been politically motivated (for example, such as the case of the convicted murderer James Ashley, a notoriously violent gangster recently killed by police as he lay in his bed) then there are virtually always suspensions and criminal charges. It is being a political or politicised victim which ultimately makes one ineligible for redress.