Nurturing Unionist Stupidity
A few weeks ago, a taxi driver told me a story. One of his neighbours took off his shoes and socks and walked twelve miles on a cold night to a hospital…where he was detained as being a person at risk.
Thats sad of course…but the good news is that he won his “tribunal” and had his Disability Living Allowance restored to him.
The taxi driver thought there was a connexion..
Perhaps we only thought this kinda thing happened in fiction. After all Captain Edmund Blackadder tried to use that old Sudan trick…wear our underpants on your head, stick two pencils up your nostrils and say “Wibble”.
So Willie Frazer goes to court dressed as Abu Hamza, the Islamist preacher…the man with the eye patch and hook for a hand. His alleged point is that he is being treated worse than an Islamist extremist. The “good law” which he supports was not designed for a “Protestant from Norn Iron”. He is offended.
Perhaps he should have said “Wibble”.
He…and the broader “Civil Rights Camp” loyalists are of course an embarrassment to Unionism. Should Nationalists care? Well seemingly “liberal” unionists seem to think that we should care.
They suggest that Willie Frazer, in particular is a man who has suffered a lot and may be unstable and even “fragile”.
They want us to believe that the Fleggers …subject of much humour…are in fact untypical of Unionism and that they are at best a sideshow. Nothing to do with the great battle of ideas between Unionism and Nationalism.
This is of course nonsense. Unionism has never been shy about using the unacceptable face of extreme loyalism. The “liberals” are at heart no different. After all didnt one of the leading apologists for so-called liberal unionism use the vilest of words to describe the SDLP.
The Unionist stance that we should not judge Unionism by the standards of behaviour and discourse of the lowest element in unionism is bad enough…but to claim a bye ball…a pass for Frazer and his cohorts on the grounds of unproven “fragility” seems risible.
Certainly most Nationalists cant stop laughing at Unionism.
But rather like a football team playing its fiercest rival cant be expected to worry that the opposing left back has an injury problem and sportingly decide not to expose the weakness….then it is not for Nationalists to do the sporting thing and avoid attacking Unionism at its weakest point…Willie Frazer, Jamie Bryson and the rest of them.
I am not qualified to say whether any individual should be in Court or “up a tree in Purdysburn” (as the politically incorrect Belfast folks would say)…but nor is any liberal unionist qualified to say.
As Frazer is a very public advocate for Unionism and is not restrained from public statement, then he is fair game.
Liberal Unionism is not so much concerned with Frazers fragility but with the realisation that the underbelly of Unionism is exposed. And that mainstream Unionism is exposed.
Shrill cries from the apologists for “liberal” unionism to leave their Willie alone (in a manner of speaking) cuts no ice.
Rather like “liberals” in the American Republican Party complain that the media concentrate too much on extreme conservatives who are outspokenly Islamaphobic, homophobic, sexist and racist…its fair to say that excessive GOP tolerance of tea-party extremists …has had consequences.
Likewise Unionist tolerance of aspects of Loyalist Culture has consequences for Unionism and they should not be allowed to distance themselves from the Fleggers.
The Greeks would probably have a word for this. I see that several members of the quasi-fascist New Dawn Movement, inluding members of the Greek Parliament have been rounded up by the Greek police. A response to levels of violence and civil unrest there…seemingly organised by the Far Right.
Has there been a swoop on Far Right politicians in Norn Iron in recent months? Is David Ford the Alliance Minister for Justice planning one with Chief Constable Baggot?
Have we no credible response to street violence? Other than pussy-footing around with Far Right street thugs because they must be facilitated and made to feel “included” because they are so uncertain of their “identity”?
Meanwhile a woman is recovering from gunshot wounds in East Belfast. The newspapers hint that it is a “domestic” incident not unrelated to a previous relationship with a local thug.
To what levels do we really have to be dragged for the so called Common Good of the Peace Process?
"We in coming days may be" 
A number of unionist politicians use Willie Frazer when it suits them – Danny Kennedy and Jeffrey Donaldson to name but two. Happy to offer support if Willie is highlighting the past misdeeds of republicans but quiet as mice when he calls on loyalists to block roads and confront the police.
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A wee picture here of Danny Kennedy and Nigel Dodds at yesterday’s UVF parade on the Shankill
http://presseye.com/media/yrkzZHRJFh0Fqvok5hT51Q..a?wosid=2B2cVHMVuTaccSBMxa4Iw0&woinst=5&ts=GFVus4BrzFeq4s5E_oyIqQ..a
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Without launching into whataboutery…
If we take the traditional approach that Unionism and Nationalism are two sides of the one coin (I don’t, btw, but then you probably already know that!), then it would be very easy to abhor the SDLP due to their association with dissidents. After all, just because they are liberal nationalists doesn’t excuse their pussy-footing around the extremes of their community. And, after all, Nats are so much better at putting back into their communities from whence they came when they become doctors, solicitors or accountants so there is that sense of togetherness.
It’s very easy to have a dig at Willie Frazer. Perhaps you’ve noticed my silence on him and any ‘fragility’ of mind? He’s had terrible pain and suffering inflicted on him, directly and indirectly. Just like, for example, Gerry Kelly. It’s much better to judge people by what they are doing, or not doing, rather than just saying, “He’s a wee bit nutty, it must be because of what happened to him.”
I actually think Willie has played a blinder; his gallery is not anyone on here. It is, simply put, loyalists. Now he has appealed to them, he has been willing to take the rap, he has pulled off a publicity coup that I knew was coming for at least two weeks before his appearance and I’m sure others were the same – and he followed through.
Now contrast that with the main political parties, or even the dressy-uppy PUP. Imagine the difference of having somebody who isn’t telling porkies, isn’t paying his family for work and isn’t in government with terrorists, ex-terrorists or their representatives makes to a “straightforward” (try not to be unkind and say stupid, thick or anything else) loyalist.
BTW, I mentioned Gerry Kelly there. Just heard him on Nolan saying that return parades were a nonsense. Dodds pulled him on it, as it’s just another example of denigrating Orange culture. Not particularly newsworthy, but certainly fresh in my mind.
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The thing is the people Willie Frazer and co. are appealing to are themselves “terrorists”, so where is the qualitative difference beyond the Unionist belief that British paramilitaries are “good” and Irish paramilitaries are “bad”?
Furthermore the SDLP may have lobbied on behalf of Irish political prisoners, some imprisoned in legally dubious circumstance, some held in increasingly inhumane conditions, but that is the job of elected political representatives.
There is a world of difference between this and the DUP and UUP effectively using British terrorist factions as political muscle on the streets of Ireland, something we have witnessed over the last year. The DUP, UUP, PUP and Orange Order are to the UDA-UFF and UVF what Golden Dawn are to the Neo-Nazis street gangs of Greece.
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Did Gerry Kelly ask Dodds what he was doing at the UVF bash on Saturday?
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I’ve been away and off the Internet for the past few days so have missed all of this and am playing catch up via a variety of websites and online social media. I must say Carrickally, you’re the first person I’ve come across who believes that Wee Willlie has “played a blinder”. Granted, I don’t tend to visit the corners of the Internet where loyalists lurk, but it appeared to me that the overwhelming narrative to the public reaction was one of incredulousness followed by howls of laughter.
You are correct in your assertion that his support is made up solely of loyalists, but can this buffoonish carry on really be considered to be good for loyalism? I guess if you believe the Wildean ‘There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about…’ maxim then perhaps it is. I really find it difficult to see how you can put a positive spin on these events, but I guess maybe you feel that you have to. I can’t help but think that if his loyalist supporters haven’t already deserted him in droves, then perhaps their sanity should be called into question too.
But then I guess we always knew they weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, eh?
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There would be no need for Historians if we could all agree that in any conflict one side is as bad as the other.
The notion that in World War Two the British and Americans were as bad as the Germans and Japanese is plainly risible. Even when Dresden and Hiroshima are factored in.
The notion that the IRA…a paramilitary organisation that occasionally descended into barbarism and sectarianism …is the same as the UVF or UDA, squalid sectarian supremacists who occasionally targetted someone “legitimate” is also risible. And increasingly the British Army and RUC are revealed as occasionally nasty pieces of work.
What matters most in Historic Terms is the reasoning.
What Republicanism sought to do in the lead up to the First World War was much more creditworthy than anything the UVF tried to do.
Yet we have moderate unionists clinging to the folk memory in a way that moderate nationalists dont.
Presumably the reason the SDLP feel ill at ease is a sensitivity to unionist feelings? But that very OVER sensitivity has facilitated mainstream and moderate unionists…who show no such sensitivity from to claim some kind of normality and superiority for their tradition.
I’m not really sure where the SDLP jibe in a previous post comes from.
Is it about funerals of Dissidents?
Two years ago I attended the funeral of a “dissident” an old neighbour…my attendance implied no support. Nor did my attendance at funerals of republican paramilitaries or two RUC members in the 1970s imply support. Nor have I ever had any “moral” objection to attending any kind of funeral, wedding or carol service in any kind of church.
Or was it a jibe at “prisoners”. I have form in this regard also. Driving round RUC stations witha SDLP MLA while a crying mother sat in the back of the car. All to locate wee Paddy.
And a week later Ive sat in the front room of the same MLAs house…when the crying mother was on a picket line of republicans picketing his house. Negotiating safe passage thru them was not something Id care to repeat.
So the current generation of SDLP MLAs wont get a lot of thanks for visiting dissident prisoners and speaking up for better conditions. It just seems the right thing to do.
Civil Rights. Not the travesty of supremacists quoting Martin Luther King at Twaddell Avenue.
Denigrating this Loyalist Culture?
Yes….right on the money, there.
Id denigrate it….all the way to the gutter and sewer it belongs.
Just like the Ku Klux Klan.
Just like the National Front.
Just like the Broederband.
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Which aspects of loyalist culture are you talking about denigrating? Parades, music, shouting “yeee-o!”
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See, this is the part that gets me. I’ve asked the question before but to no avail.
What is this loyalist culture? Does it differ from how most Unionists view culture?
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Ceannaire, the core of loyalist culture to me involves parades and music. Now, you can clearly have music without parades (contests, battle of the bands, concerts, band practice etc) but you can’t have parades without music.
Beyond that, and probably because we live in a Western world, there then enters and overlap with more widely recognised cultural mores; popular music, literature, theatre, movies etc. Or more likely, leisure activities such as sports and socialising (substitute that for bookies and boking on many occasions).
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Carrickally, its to your credit that you’re the first person I’ve seen on the Internet to ever give a straightforward answer to that question. Also, its heartening to see that ‘hanging Union flags from street lighting’ and ‘painting kerbstones red white and blue’ didn’t form part of that answer, although perhaps they come under ‘leisure activites’.
I would be interested to know what ‘popular music, literature, theatre, movies etc’ you consider to be loyalist in nature. This strikes me a slightly odd conceit, but if you care to name a few examples I am happy to be proven wrong.
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Its only half true too say that Loyalist Culture (sic) is about parades and bands? Among other things that it is about is where they parade and the music they play. The only “liberal” who got Orangeism right was comedian Frankie Boyle. On Mock the Week, there was an item about a chimpanzee escaping from Belfast Zoo. Boyle wanted it caught before it put on a bowler hat, joined the Orange Order and passed itself off as a normal member of Society.
Unkind? Of course …but fairly typically of the opinion that might be held by any Guardian reading “liberal”….in Britain.
Over here, Tim McGarry and Jake O’Kane would not dare to say that. They might pass themselves off as sophisticated “liberal letsgetalongerists” but they could not hope to make that joke and be invited back on BBC Norn Iron….for here we must have BALANCE….at the expense of Truth….whether its in News, pseudo news like Stephen Nolan or Entertainment.
We must not rock the boat to support the false God of Conflict Resolution.
Is Frankie Boyles joke offensive as well as unkind.
Yes and frankly it should people.
Faced with the risible concept of loyalist “culture” of the kind demonstrated at Twaddel Avenue….the only acceptable position for decent people is to be gratuitously offensive.
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Probably the only time Frankie Boyle and decent people have appeared in the same sentence, so worthy of an A for effort there, FJH.
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Oh I make no claim that Frankie Boyle is “decen”. His reference to Mrs Windsors most intimate area is hardly anything I would condone. I merely make the point that Boyle is of liberal point of view.
What I can claim …is my own sense of Decency 😉
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“The onus is now upon nationalism to show leadership and to respond positively to this genuine attempt to reach accommodation. They must face down the elements in their community who wish to drag Northern Ireland back.”
When you read comments like this from Peter Robinson you have to wonder is he taking the piss.
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Fear Feirsteach,
One of the most stunning examples of lack of self awareness and Irony deficiency I have ever heard!
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Irish Unity @IrishUnity 2m
A new Irish Passport is available from October 3rd featuring a 32 County map of Ireland (border free) pic.twitter.com/uUJYp3EW8R
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The island-nation of Ireland, as it should be, as it is… 🙂
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It’s a bit like one of those maps that shows Greater Serbia!
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I think you may find the ethnic cleansing was carried out over a somewhat longer period and by some different characters
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Just to add that the first Irish postage stamp featured a map of Ireland. And Stamps have also featured Dunluce Castle, Harry Ferguson the tractor man…and those famous Norn Iron motorcycle brothers, Joey and Robert Dunlop.
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I’m curious what your thoughts are on a comment/observation I made 9 months ago on Jude Collins blog …is it valid, have I been proven wrong in any way?
http://judecollinsjournalist.blogspot.ca/2013/01/they-havent-gone-away-you-know.html#comment-form
2nd comment (the long one).
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RJC
“Carrickally, its to your credit that you’re the first person I’ve seen on the Internet to ever give a straightforward answer to that question. Also, its heartening to see that ‘hanging Union flags from street lighting’ and ‘painting kerbstones red white and blue’ didn’t form part of that answer, although perhaps they come under ‘leisure activites’.
I would be interested to know what ‘popular music, literature, theatre, movies etc’ you consider to be loyalist in nature. This strikes me a slightly odd conceit, but if you care to name a few examples I am happy to be proven wrong.”
Sorry, just in from putting up the fleg on the lamppost and paint the kerbs red and white. Cleetus used up all the blue on his doors. Actually, I was at band practice, so close enough!
The popular music etc was a comment about Western overarching culture; the one that affects us all and that we can’t really get away from, even if you don’t like all of it. A bit like those who complain against the pervasive influence of English in France.
“But then I guess we always knew they weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, eh?” You know what they say about democracy, the idiot and the genius? If we (I’m going to include myself here because I’m as equally guilty of prejudice) look down on those of a lower intellect then we just end up as bad as the chattering classes who think that everything’s terrible and do sod-all squared about it.
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Carrickally, I was being deliberately facetious with that last sentence and it was not intended as some sort of sneering, chattering classes type opinion. I meant it more as a reflection on how loyalists tend to be viewed by the majority of those in NI but I appreciate that things can get lost in translation when making the journey from my befuddled brain to the screens of others. And you’re right with that last paragraph.
Its the bits above it that I don’t agree with 🙂
I don’t really understand how you can argue that loyalist culture exists beyond the (in my view incredibly unpleasant) marching and music. This notion that some form of loyalist culture also exists in some sort of ‘Western overarching culture’ is simply untrue. I can think of no examples of such a thing, and given that you failed to provide answers to my original question then can I presume that neither can you?
The problem here might be that ‘loyalist culture’ seeks to define itself as ‘That which exists on the island of Ireland but is most definitely NOT Irish’. There is no corresponding ‘Nationalist/Republican’ culture as this falls under the broader church of Irish culture which arguably takes in everything from The Book of Kells to Jedward.
I think even the most hard-nosed No Surrenderist would be hard pressed to argue that loyalist/unionist/Orange culture has anywhere near as much to offer as Irish culture. I am of the belief that Irish culture is possibly the greatest gift that this small island has given the world and I would obviously include those born in the North such as Flann O’Brien, Seamus Heaney et al in this.
The notion of the undermining of loyalist culture seems to be very much a part of the current problems that loyalism and unionism are facing. What is loyalist culture? Is it British culture? Does it differ from Unionist culture? From Orange culture? What about Ulster-Scots culture?
As you seem to be the only person on the entire Internet prepared to answer the ‘What is this loyalist culture?’ question, then I hereby appoint you chief global cultural spokesperson for the Loyal Orders. Its a big job. Don’t fuck it up 😉
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“Don’t fuck it up” I condone, I will not condemn, I condone…!
My point, again the distance from my brain to your screen is part of the problem, is that Orange culture is undoubtably a sub-culture. It exists as a small segment of Western culture and incorporates many elements of others around it, while influencing very few itself.
For example, the inclusion of a certain musical style is influenced by (directly) British military and civil bands of the 19th century. Think the the Royal Marines band mixed with a colliery brass band from Nottinghamshire. Incidentally, many of the judges at contests I’ve been involved in have been mainland brass men, indicating a big of cross-over. When it comes to the music played, of course there are British marches such as Galanthia, Colonel Bogey, Moore Street. This is also coupled with the influence of British patriotic music such as Rule Britannia, God Bless the Prince of Wales and Men of Harlech.
I’ve mentioned in previous threads the acceptance of wider musical influences, be they European and American military such as Prussian Glory, Mars der Medici or Divided They Fought or more popular/mainstream such as the Pirates of the Carribean march (check out Pride of Balliran at the Belfast Tattoo).
All of this indicates that Orange culture does not necessarily exist in a perfect vacuum and so obtains outside influences from Western culture. Indeed, the parading tradition itself can probably be traced back to religious festivals in medieval European history, another branch of which is the Catholic parades you see in Spain with the massive, shoulder-borne floats and plenty of incense.
Ceannaire, you say “just marching and music” and to me, I agree wholly. That’s what sets Orange culture apart. Can you give me examples of another sub-culture (and include Irish Gaelic if you will) that has a wide scope of modern day aspects that can be more than what I’ve suggested? RJC mentioned (I’m sure with tongue firmly in cheek through gritted teeth) Jedward as Irish culture. I’m afraid to me that’s nothing but a manifestation of pop culture with two people who just happen to be from Dublin. They could equally as easily have been Glaswegian or Romanian (remember the Cheeky Girls?) and so are a shining example of the overarching Western culture in which we all float.
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Ha, yes I was being a bit silly with the Jedward comment. Mainstream popular culture is fairly debased at the moment (I blame Simon Cowell) but scratch the surface and you will find a whole heap of it. This is part of the beauty of the Internet – we can utterly ignore whatever crap ITV/Sony/Warners are trying to sell us, and did a little deeper from the comfort of our own homes.
If you’re looking for current examples of living Irish culture (I think that is what you are getting at in your final paragraph) then off the top of my head I would suggest…
Fionn Regan, Lisa O’Neill, Girls Names and Adrian Crowley in the popular music department. Julian Gough in literature, and I will probably need to have a think and some more coffee before I can suggest others in the realms of theatre, poetry and the rest. To me these people and the work they create embody a living Irish culture – after all culture is not something that just stands still but is in a constant state of flux in so far as it reflects and questions the era in which it was created.
Even if Irish culture is not your thing, there is a whole world of wonderful stuff out there which will endure for much longer than Cowell’s latest 15 minute wonder or the cast of The Only Way is Essex.
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Carrickally, I really do appreciate your reply. And it is true, you are the first that I know who has at least graced me with an answer that didn’t involve expletives or reference to tatties and getting the boat (?) to Dublin.
Anyway, along with marching/parades and music you mentioned a ‘Western overarching culture’. Is this not a bit of a generalisation and slightly disingenuous on your part, instead of saying “Well, it’s just marching and music.”?
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Just a quick point there Carrickally, Men of Harlech is in no way a British patriotic song. It’s about fighting the English in the cause of Welsh Independance, ’tis the tramp of Saxon foemen’ etc, to quote the English translation.
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Yes GnaBB, you’re right in that it is pro-Welsh and anti-English. It’s on the same level as GSTQ (rebellious Scots to crush) or Croppies Lie Down (We soldiers of Erin) – a little bit of in-fighting seems to get appropriated soon enough. Just what for the Irish National Anthem and Flower of Scotland to join the British pantheon of tunes!
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Interesting that you mention “Croppies lie down”. That particular song and phrase has served to remind nationalists of the supremacist nature of Loyalism as well as their contradictory nature.
“We’ll fight for our country, our King and his crown,
And make all the traitors and croppies lie down.
Down, down, croppies lie down.”
It has energised Nationalists I imagine more than made them lie down anywhere.
I’m thankful those days are gone and gone forever. It is unfortunate that some within Unionism are yet to recognise the fact. (I’m not including you in that Carrickally due to you achieving more in the cause of Unionism than some I could mention)
My favourite verse is:
“Oh, croppies ye’d better be quiet and still
Ye shan’t have your liberty, do what ye will
As long as salt water is formed in the deep
A foot on the necks of the croppy we’ll keep
And drink, as in bumpers past troubles we drown,
A health to the lads that made croppies lie down
Down, down, croppies lie down.”
Speaking of which, where is Fear Fearstach?
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RJC, I agree with you about Cowell’s culture; unfortunately that’s the dominant form of public entertainment (could it be classed as culture? Maybe in fifty years it will have been?), along the lines of opera in the seventeenth and eighteenth century as the dominant form of mass entertainment in London and Paris.
As to the people you’ve mentioned, I’m going to have to do a bit of youtubing so ignore my, er, ignorance. Are they not part of a wider transatlantic movement? Likewise in literature, what is Julian Gough doing that is different from, say Irvine Welsh? I’ve heard a radio version of his henhouse story and it is wickedly funny and satirical but very much in the tradition of (dare I say it) British humour.
And don’t think I’m trying to do down Irish culture, only place the examples you give as part of a wider movement.
What is markedly different about other cultures? Thinking of, say Pakistan, Qawalli is very different from a lot of music around the world. Think of India or China and the structures of music are markedly different from what we’re used to here. That’s what I’m trying to “get at” when I’m talking about Orange culture being represented by musical styles and parading; and I’ve said before, which are very much interlinked, even if you can sit down to play the music, it’s best listened to on the street. As an example, my band can, and I say this without a big head, perform a march like Children’s Love easily because that is what we’re used to, we recognise the syntax and shades of it even if we haven’t looked at the music for a year. It takes us a couple of weeks of pretty intense practising to get a grip on Vaughn Williams, or even John Williams.
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RJC, just thought a wee bit more on this: “Carrickally, its to your credit that you’re the first person I’ve seen on the Internet to ever give a straightforward answer to that question. Also, its heartening to see that ‘hanging Union flags from street lighting’ and ‘painting kerbstones red white and blue’ didn’t form part of that answer, although perhaps they come under ‘leisure activites’.
I live in an area that would be reasonably well to do. Driveways, detached houses and a paucity of lingering loiterers, I’m sure you recognise the suburban stereotype. Yet in our street, I’d be one of the few houses that doesn’t, during the summer, have a flag on the house or garage. Instead, I grow Orange lillies and on the eleventh attach them to the wee light out the front of the house. It ties me in with the old tradition of decorating the doors in the Earl of Meath’s Liberty in Dublin in the early eighteenth century or the floral arches of County Armagh in the early nineteenth.
The only flag that’s ever been up in our house is the kids’ Glentoran one from their bedroom window and I used to have a wee African-American one in the garden, simply due to the colours.
When I was younger, my parents put an Ulster Flag up on their house but age has wearied them and the years condemned. My brothers would put flags up on their houses.
I wonder if, when flags legislation is drawn up after the Haass talks (you heard it here first!), will private property be festooned in flags because it will be taken down from street lighting and furniture?
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The question we should ask is how long can the Executive survive? The situation with unionist parties giving cover to parmailitaries is beyond farcical. If it was the other way round the unionist parties would have walked a long time ago.
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Cough, splutter, cough. Any strange murders round Louth or Donegal to report on, FF? How about the Castlederg situation? Any SF MLAs convicted of terrorist activity? Did you really put your brain in gear before the fingers started a-walkin’ on the keyboard?
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Is that whataboutery mixed with make-believe, Ally? Cos it sure as hell reads like it!
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I agree completely with FF on this one. Nationalist politicians, including SF have condemned completely and without reservation current paramilitary activity. DUP politicians are aligning themselves with the UVF
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A few comments on Fitjames’ posting
1.”He…and the broader “Civil Rights Camp” loyalists are of course an embarrassment to Unionism.”
Theyr’e not really embarrassing to unionists, that’s not accurate as a lot of political unionism and unionists generally have joined in. For the rest of those of us who are British, Northern Irish and pro-union we think they are buck ejits, not very educated, being used and abused, and we’re angry that they are helping take the country down a backward step. Or maybe some of us have switched off and are too busy to even think let alone challenge this nonsense. Pissed off, exasperated ,maybe, but I’m not embarrassed as it’s not representative of me and I know a lot of people of Catholic background understand that.
2.”They (lib unionists) suggest that Willie Frazer, in particular is a man who has suffered a lot and may be unstable and even “fragile”.
This genuinely surprises me – what liberal unionists have actually said this for I haven’t heard any unionists liberal or otherwise say this. I posted something referring to this on a previous topic on this blog because I do wonder about his psychiatric stability, genuinely haven’t heard anyone else say it except for a few pals do tell?
3.”Unionism has never been shy about using the unacceptable face of extreme loyalism. The “liberals” are at heart no different. After all didnt one of the leading apologists for so-called liberal unionism use the vilest of words to describe the SDLP.”
I generally agree with your first sentence here and the flags dispute was just history’s latest example. But what I don’t understand is which liberals ‘are no different at heart’ and what was the vile words and situation used to describe a sdlp member??
4.”but to claim a bye ball…a pass for Frazer and his cohorts on the grounds of unproven “fragility” seems risible.”
Again, who is claiming a pass,I have hardly heard anybody?? I would like to point out that any racist or sectarian things Frazer come out with should be challenged. However, it is only my observation, his behaviour seems to becoming more and more bizarre especially when his history added to it, I felt that a lot of the laughing at him in a nasty way and at times goading was kind of crossing a line. Yes, we don’t know what his health is really like, and sure challenge him on one hand, but there should also be a certain standard in so doing.
5.”Certainly most Nationalists cant stop laughing at Unionism.”
Go ahead, a lot of Northern Irish pro-union people do likewise. Or have switched off from NI politics long ago.
6.”But rather like a football team playing its fiercest rival cant be expected to worry that the opposing left back has an injury problem and sportingly decide not to expose the weakness….then it is not for Nationalists to do the sporting thing and avoid attacking Unionism at its weakest point…Willie Frazer, Jamie Bryson and the rest of them.
Your analogy is a poor one. If Frazer had a physical illness eg a leg missing then I doubt nationalist or unionist commentators would refer to it, its not relevant. But mental ill-health, even if merely suspected, is different, and it should not then be ‘open season’ on that individual. Yeah, challenge, but there should be limits. By the same token feel free to challenge Bryson, have any unionist polticians told you not to challenge Bryson by reason of ‘fragility’ the same way you claim they have done Frazer?
7. ‘Perhaps we only thought this kinda thing happened in fiction.’ in referring to the man who went miles without shoes.
This sort of stuff and is sadly more common than you’d think.
8.IRA…a paramilitary organisation that occasionally descended into barbarism”, Jees, occasionally? How many kneecaps got smashed, how many teenagers were beaten with hurley bats or sticks with nails in them, how many people were sadistically tortured, how many exiled, how many girls were tarred and feathered. Occasionally? Barbarism was at the IRA’s core.
Ok, that’ll have to do. And I know any fragility of mind at this point is speculative, but still.
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The bottom line is that “liberal unionists” are unionist and Frazer isa. Unionist. They want the same thing. …a United Kingdom. I dont. Frazer is an asset.
Frazers “fragility” has been speculated about on another message board and suggested that nationalists should lay off him.
The vile word was that the C Word was used to describe the SDLP…?By a so called liberal unionist.
The Football analogy. Fair one I think. Obviously no physical injury…surely thats obvious. But if Frazers liberal unionist teammates are anxious about his well being then they should maybe signal to the bench to get him off the field. That seems a better option than appealing to the Nationalist team to keep away from him.
You may not like Willie Frazer but when push comes to shove youre on the same Team….distinguished by a Red, White and Blue colour scheme.
You may not like the IRA either. I could give you a much longer list of atrocity than some things you mention. I did after all live in West Belfast in the 1970s.
But let me make this extremely clear….the war they waged (with dishonourable exceptions) was. Helluva different one than the UVF/UDA waged.
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So is a dissident republican who murders a Catholic police officer the same as a SDLP member because they want the same thing..a United Ireland. I don’t see them as the same thing. If I was interested in some point scoring I might tar them all with the same brush but its not being fair or accurate, I think for a lot of people of both P and C background they don’t see things in such black and white terms no more
Who was the liberal unionist who used the C word to describe the sdlp and what was the situation?
I’m a Brit pro-union but I’m really not on the same team as Frazer. You can try to tar me with his or Bryson’s brush but it ain’t true. I or my ilk really have no control over him he is a free citizen to do as he pleases within the constraints of the law. If liberal pro-union people like NI21 could get him off the field then they would. He is not on their team.
I used the physical injury thing as a hypothetical example to show that different rules apply between physical and mental ill-health.
I hatred the loyalist paramilitaries growing up, Then I couldn’t stand their thuggery and naked intimidation and was scared witless of them. I still despise the hold they have on communities and I attribute a lot of the breaking down of and ongoing harming of unionist working class communities to them-I guess that makes their cloud have a silver lining in repubilcans eyes? But to say the IRA acted with merely ‘dishonourable exceptions’ is somewhat minimizing.
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Ps I thought the way you were talking on your original post that some unionist politician had come out and said that Frazer should be left alone because of his fragility, not some posters on an internet forum! Now that really would have been newsworthy and would have sparked a debate. But a few posts?
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No FF, it’s “howaboutery,” a much more refined form 🙂 Some might even say cultured…
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Hey Bangordub, any chance of a good old number crunching thread?
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Indeed Feckitt ! 😉
Looking at the proposed new councils, especially Belfast
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Brilliant, Do you know when the provisional reccommendations are made final?
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Not yet Feckitt,
(And I it feels odd typing that 😉 ), I’d welcome any news or info in that regard?
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According to the district area electoral commissioners website,The current review of District Electoral Areas commenced on 21st January 2013, and is expected to be complete within one year.
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