There were 47 PSNI Officers injured yesterday in rioting with mostly loyalist thugs in Carlisle Circus/Denmark Street area. Water cannon were deployed. ONE (!!!) person has been arrested. The police commander for the area has said the violence was orchestrated. But he wont say which organisation was doing the organising. Meanwhile several figures ….ahem closely associated with the Ulster Volunteer Force were photographed in the area.

We could probably join the dots here. There is no specific thread on Slugger O’Toole about this…..it wasnt Republican violence after all and the news reporting last night seemed cursory…even for a Sunday night. This is not of course the “feel good” factor that runs thru what passes for journalism in Norn Iron. No celebrities at MTV Awards to report. No shiny new Titanic Building. No “Royal Visit” and historic handshakes. Just good old fashioned sectarian hatred.

Let me make this clear. I detest the Orange Order and its affiliates. Attempts to portray it as a part of Protestant “culture” are at best only half-true. The vast majority of Norn Irons Protestants do not belong to it. And while it is true that there are good decent traditional Protestants involved….it is a convenient cover for those who just hate Catholics.

In this context, the Orange Order in Tyrone and Alabama is not very different to Confederate apologists in Tennessee and Alabama. Many “confederate” or Ku Klux Klan members might well protest that it is “heritage not hate” but they cannot be blind to the fact that the underbelly of “confederate” heritage is Racism.

Uniquely in Norn Iron we have a compromise…..where our Government is jointly in the control of a right-wing semi fascist party the DUP and Sinn Féin…a left wing, semi-marxist party associated with terrorism. In Western Europe, no compromise would be possible. In Norn Iron there is no alternative to the compromise except of course Violence. On a grand scale. The tragedy is that low level violence is seen as ….acceptable.

As always rioting in North Belfast has revolved around the issue of the “right” of Orange men to march…….and the “rights” of local (Catholic) residents not to be inconvenienced. The catchphrase is that we must have “parity of esteem”. But do racists and their allies deserve “esteem”?

The question of Orange marches has divided already divided communities. Notably in Portadown Orangemen insisted on their “right” to march along Catholic Garvaghy Road and indeed the old RUC “cleared the route” for them. …violently. But during “stand offs” the killing of innocent Catholics including three children in an arson attack in Ballymoney, County Antrim meant that the Portadown Orangemen lost any pretence at a moral high ground. It is around fifteen years since Orangemen marched in the “Catholic” part of Portadown. They never will again.

And likewise Orange stupidity led to the position that the Orangemen will never get down the entire length of the Ormeau Road in (South) Belfast.

Battle is therefore joined in North Belfast. Belfast has a series of arterial roads spreading east, north, west and south from the City Centre. Some of these roads are obviously “Protestant” and “unionist in character. …the Newtownards Road in East Belfast for example. Other roads such as the Falls Road in West Belfast are obviously “Catholic” and republican. But other roads such as the Crumlin Road in North Belfast are a patchwork of “Protestant” and “Catholic” streets. Which makes the job of the Parades Commission who make rulings on the acceptability of parades ……difficult if not impossible.

With the Orange Order having “lost” Garvaghy Road and Ormeau Road…..the battlefield is now the Crumlin Road. Let me be clear. It is a battle I want the Orange Order to lose. Politicians who talk about acceptable compromise and mutual respect are missing the point that there should be no time for facilitating sectarianism. Opposing sectarianism is the proper stance.

For so me years now the focus of the Crumlin Road disturbances has been on the Ardoyne Shops, a Catholic area where the Orangemen from the Upper Crumlin Road have to pass, before joining the (Protestant) Lower Crumlin Road. On 12th July this year, the Parades Commission came up with a novel approach….the Crumlin Road Orangemen had to complete their return journey by 4.30pm. This was actually quite a severe restriction as it meant that they had to leave the “Field” early to make the six mile march.

It was also a trap. Because the sensible thing for the Orangemen to do would have been enjoyed a full day in the “Field” before marching back thru non contested areas and being bussed past the Ardoyne Shops. Predictably they got themselves bussed to the Lower Crumlin Road so that they could exercise their “right” to “march” past the only contested part of the march route.

There have been three parades …….July, August and September…..all resulting in controversy in the area. And a fourth to come at the end of this month. …to commemorate the signing of the Ulster Covenant in 1912, a template perhaps for how the nonsense around a Decade of Centenaries will work out.

In July during the main Orange Parade, a “kick the Pope band” from the Shankill Road (north west Belfast) found themselves halted outside St Patricks Catholic Church in Donegall Street while the head of the parade laid a wreath at Belfast City Hall…thats the acceptable face of Orangeism on the BBC. However thanks to the miracle of “camera phones” and You Tube, the unacceptable face of Orangeism reached a world-wide audience when the offending flute band played some music, generally thought to be “The Famine Song”.

“The Famine Song” is a Glasgow Rangers Football Club (deceased) anthem……which has the same music as “Sloop John B” but includes the line “The Famine is over…….why dont you go home” and is sung to irritate the fans of Glasgow Celtic, many of whom are descendants of Irish migrants from the Famine years.

The explanation……that the “kick the Pope band” had a repetoire of Beach Boys songs is of course risible and hardly meant to be taken seriously……but this is the underbelly of Orange “culture”.

In August a parade organised by a sister organisation took place. The Parades Commission ruled that the offending “kick the Pope” band not march and that all other bands go past St Patricks Church in silence. Of course these rulings were ignored by the bands…….which of course raises questions for them and the Parades Commission for the “Covenant” march.

Yesterdays Republican march in North Belfast enraged local loyalists and I get the feeling that this was the purpose. But loyalists obliged republicans by rioting and at least keeping the tension high.

So……the “Covenant Parade”. Well a lot of “lets get alongerist”, Conflict Resolution, “decade of centenaries involves us all” crap has gone into its planning.

But the Orange Order seems unsure which image it wants to project……Christian gentlemen or merely a “kick the Pope” tendency. Respectable Orangemen have turned a blind eye too often and seemingly a man as sophisticated as Nelson McCausland DUP MLA and Minister for Regional Development has an agenda of his own.

In the light of the flagrant breach of its August ruling, it is surely time for the Parades Commission to say that the Orange Order cannot be trusted to keep to any decision imposed by them. Nor can the Orange Order be seen to cave in to “unreasonable anti Protestant demands of the unaccountable Parades Commission”………frankly the Orange Order and or its followers have got away with blatant sectarian behaviour in July and August but will still consider it a 2-1 victory if there is a “local agreement” between themselves and local residents (and Catholic Church people)……as long as there is no “republican involvement”.

Yet the role of our two major parties…..DUP and Sinn Féin is odd. They are joined at the hip in our Norn Iron Government …..except for the “Marching Season” when they ramp up the rhetoric for their core-support. They cant have it both ways.