18 December 1997 Edition
The entry of Unionists into the real world
By Mary Nelis
Who said there was no progress being made at the Stormont Talks? Those close encounters of another kind appear to be arousing the Ulster Unionist Party from some kind of Rip Van Winkle slumber. Their spokesperson, Dermot Nesbitt, writing in the style of one who has just woken up after 70 years, has discovered that there is a United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and that the British government have not lived up to its commitment on human rights in respect of the North of Ireland.
Any nationalist, fully awake, could have told you that, Dermot. In fact, you may be surprised to learn, that successive British governments, have the unenviable record of the highest number of human rights violations of any western country.
Since 1960, some 20% of the guilty findings of the European Court of Human Rights have been against that government, your government Dermot, in connection with their treatment of Irish nationalists.
However, as Seamus Mallon states, there is quiet progress being made and it is indeed heartening to hear that the Ulster Unionist Party have twigged on to the discovery that human rights protection is at the heart of Parliamentary democracy.
Perhaps that explains that since 1921, under the Unionist regime and its Special Powers legislation, nationalists enjoyed neither democracy nor human rights. In fact, there were those who would argue that Unionism is hardly compatible with democracy. Certainly, words like human rights and democracy have hardly been the rhetoric heard at party conferences or from the platform at Orange demonstrations. Nor did we ever hear the Mother of Parliaments protest against or reprove the regime in the North.
The entire ethos of Unionism, supported by the ruling class, was based on intolerance and bigotry which translated into virulent opposition to the Catholic nationalist community, trapped within the partitioned North. When it comes to extremes, Mr Nesbitt goes back to slumberland, asserting that the problem is somehow aggressive nationalism.
Yet what could be more aggressive than the word of the first Unionist Prime Minister of the partitioned entity of the Six Counties, set up of course without the democratic consent of either the Unionist or Nationalist population.
Sir James Craig, no doubt aware that the foundations for peace and justice are maintained by effective democracy and common understanding, proudly proclaimed, ``I have always said I am an Orangeman first, a politician and a member of Parliament afterwards. All I boast is that we are Protestant Parliament for a Protestant State''.
Mr Nesbitt states that democratic rights and freedoms are being advocated and applied everywhere in modern Europe, except in Northern Ireland. We entirely agree. The experiment by the British government of giving absolute power to the aggressive Unionist regime is not only undemocratic, it has not worked in the past, nor will it in the future.
The philosophy and ethos of the regime was reflected in their ministers and civil servants, whose energies were almost solely directed at rebutting allegations of Catholic nationalist infiltration of the cosy cartel that existed in the various government departments at Stormont.
In 1933, JM Andrews, the Unionist Minister for Labour, stated, ``There has been an allegation made against this government which is untrue, namely that of 31 porters employed at Stormont, 28 are Catholics. I have investigated the matter and I have found that there are 40 Protestant porters and only one is Catholic, and he is temporary''.
Yes, you are correct Mr Nesbitt. Apart from Hitler's Germany, there is no European parallel for the North of Ireland. Is it any wonder that after 50 years of discrimination, sectarianism, abuse of power, the use of the Special Powers Act to silence Nationalist dissent, the torture, murder and imprisonment of Catholics for no other reason than that they were Catholics, we now have a situation where the British government - who stand indicted internationally for their collaboration with such a regime - has clearly stated there must be change. There can be no return to the past.
They based their proposals on the Framework Document, which Nesbitt and the Unionist backwoodsmen describe as unacceptable political blackmail. This now is being used as another precondition to meaningful negotiation. All-Ireland bodies? Never! Nesbitt asserts that there is no precedent anywhere in Europe for the proposals contained in the Framework Document. Yet the document suggests ways in which the British government, to which Unionists give their allegiance, might devise arrangements to implement the commitment to promote co-operation between people at all levels, North and South, as agreed in the joint declaration. Is not the European Community moving along the same lines?
Perhaps the real issue is not the proposals contained in the Framework Document, but the notion that human rights, solidarity, justice and democracy, cannot be accommodated within that entity known as the North of Ireland and that progress has to be advanced in terms of an accommodation with the rest of the people of Ireland. That is what the rest of the world considers to be democratic. People and nations trying to reach out to each other. Alas for hopes of a positive outcome, Mr Nesbitt and his party have nodded off again into the twilight zone of no, nay, never and the rhetoric of confronting government.
Is it any wonder that the slogans appearing on the wall of Belfast proclaim that ``the Orange Order is at last moving into the 20th century while the rest of us move into the 21st''.
The Unionists appear to be suspended between both. Can I suggest by way of progress a Christmas trip to the space station Mir. Observing this little island from a distance may help to focus their minds.
Who said there was no progress being made at the Stormont Talks? Those close encounters of another kind appear to be arousing the Ulster Unionist Party from some kind of Rip Van Winkle slumber. Their spokesperson, Dermot Nesbitt, writing in the style of one who has just woken up after 70 years, has discovered that there is a United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and that the British government have not lived up to its commitment on human rights in respect of the North of Ireland.
Any nationalist, fully awake, could have told you that, Dermot. In fact, you may be surprised to learn, that successive British governments, have the unenviable record of the highest number of human rights violations of any western country.
Since 1960, some 20% of the guilty findings of the European Court of Human Rights have been against that government, your government Dermot, in connection with their treatment of Irish nationalists.
However, as Seamus Mallon states, there is quiet progress being made and it is indeed heartening to hear that the Ulster Unionist Party have twigged on to the discovery that human rights protection is at the heart of Parliamentary democracy.
Perhaps that explains that since 1921, under the Unionist regime and its Special Powers legislation, nationalists enjoyed neither democracy nor human rights. In fact, there were those who would argue that Unionism is hardly compatible with democracy. Certainly, words like human rights and democracy have hardly been the rhetoric heard at party conferences or from the platform at Orange demonstrations. Nor did we ever hear the Mother of Parliaments protest against or reprove the regime in the North.
The entire ethos of Unionism, supported by the ruling class, was based on intolerance and bigotry which translated into virulent opposition to the Catholic nationalist community, trapped within the partitioned North. When it comes to extremes, Mr Nesbitt goes back to slumberland, asserting that the problem is somehow aggressive nationalism.
Yet what could be more aggressive than the word of the first Unionist Prime Minister of the partitioned entity of the Six Counties, set up of course without the democratic consent of either the Unionist or Nationalist population.
Sir James Craig, no doubt aware that the foundations for peace and justice are maintained by effective democracy and common understanding, proudly proclaimed, ``I have always said I am an Orangeman first, a politician and a member of Parliament afterwards. All I boast is that we are Protestant Parliament for a Protestant State''.
Mr Nesbitt states that democratic rights and freedoms are being advocated and applied everywhere in modern Europe, except in Northern Ireland. We entirely agree. The experiment by the British government of giving absolute power to the aggressive Unionist regime is not only undemocratic, it has not worked in the past, nor will it in the future.
The philosophy and ethos of the regime was reflected in their ministers and civil servants, whose energies were almost solely directed at rebutting allegations of Catholic nationalist infiltration of the cosy cartel that existed in the various government departments at Stormont.
In 1933, JM Andrews, the Unionist Minister for Labour, stated, ``There has been an allegation made against this government which is untrue, namely that of 31 porters employed at Stormont, 28 are Catholics. I have investigated the matter and I have found that there are 40 Protestant porters and only one is Catholic, and he is temporary''.
Yes, you are correct Mr Nesbitt. Apart from Hitler's Germany, there is no European parallel for the North of Ireland. Is it any wonder that after 50 years of discrimination, sectarianism, abuse of power, the use of the Special Powers Act to silence Nationalist dissent, the torture, murder and imprisonment of Catholics for no other reason than that they were Catholics, we now have a situation where the British government - who stand indicted internationally for their collaboration with such a regime - has clearly stated there must be change. There can be no return to the past.
They based their proposals on the Framework Document, which Nesbitt and the Unionist backwoodsmen describe as unacceptable political blackmail. This now is being used as another precondition to meaningful negotiation. All-Ireland bodies? Never! Nesbitt asserts that there is no precedent anywhere in Europe for the proposals contained in the Framework Document. Yet the document suggests ways in which the British government, to which Unionists give their allegiance, might devise arrangements to implement the commitment to promote co-operation between people at all levels, North and South, as agreed in the joint declaration. Is not the European Community moving along the same lines?
Perhaps the real issue is not the proposals contained in the Framework Document, but the notion that human rights, solidarity, justice and democracy, cannot be accommodated within that entity known as the North of Ireland and that progress has to be advanced in terms of an accommodation with the rest of the people of Ireland. That is what the rest of the world considers to be democratic. People and nations trying to reach out to each other. Alas for hopes of a positive outcome, Mr Nesbitt and his party have nodded off again into the twilight zone of no, nay, never and the rhetoric of confronting government.
Is it any wonder that the slogans appearing on the wall of Belfast proclaim that ``the Orange Order is at last moving into the 20th century while the rest of us move into the 21st''.
The Unionists appear to be suspended between both. Can I suggest by way of progress a Christmas trip to the space station Mir. Observing this little island from a distance may help to focus their minds.