So the choreography is in place for the Covenant Parade to go past St Patricks Church later this month.
Step 1…….The Loyal Orders apologise to the Priest and parishioners of St Patricks for the bad behaviour of one of their bands on 12th July. Check.
Step 2……The Loyal Orders blame the restrictions imposed on them and their bands for the (worse) behaviour last month. Check.
Step 3…..the parish priest in St Patricks accepts the apology and the “Christian Spirit” which led to it. Check.
Step 4…..Sinn Féin accepts it as a step forward and hopes for dialogue to deal with the upcoming parade. Check.
The Covenant Parade will take place. It will be the third time that the “Loyal Orders” have marched by St Patricks Church. And they behaved badly on the two previous occasions. Offending Catholics may not be the only part of Orange Culture…its just an optional extra. And they have got away with it……because the Covenant parade is an important part of the orchestrated Decade of Centenaries which Conflict Resolutionists have inflicted on us.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
OK, 1 Question, what is the SDLP position on this and I absolutely recognise that you are not in any way a spokesman, I just haven’t heard anything and I may have missed it?
Also, if I may point out, the Orange Order haven’t said a word yet either.
The only proper policy for a socialist, nationalist and republican party is to confine the Orange Order and its apologists to the margins of Civilised Society…..more or less like the English Defence League and the Ku Klux Klan.
There can be no parity of esteem with racists.
There should be none with the Orange Order.
In an unresolved conflict, we are left with this nonsense of facilitating them.
Alas the SDLP policy is about mutual respect and other platitudes.
It may be a “new” NI with titanic and MTV and lady gaga etc. but some things stay the same. Only here can blantly inflammatory behaviour passed off a something cultural, and only really in the last few years I have actually realised the reason behind that – its because it is their culture. The apology is a new thing though, and to a certain extent it IS a forward step. The problem is, as would be expected, it is an apology without any real recognition of any wrong doing and only comes from one of the loyal orders involved. No apology from the see no evil here no evil institution that is the OO, and certainly no apology from the loyalist bands involved, who were at the crux of the issue. The fact that unionist politicians even in this new era of faux getting along, can’t even bring themselves to express any negative opinion what has happened this summer has made things a lot worse, everything is the PCs fault. The whole issue is a tinderbox, and if things went back to the way they once were, a garantee the parades issues will be at the centre of it!
James…..the Loyal Orders are essentially a coalition of “Christian men” who are traditionalists and supremacists.
That is both their strength (numbers) AND their weakness (as they cant isolate the scumbag element).
The seriousness of the situation for them is that they had to issue on apology (for July!!!) and balance it with a dig at the Parades Commission (for August).
If it had just been about July and August, they would probably still have got the Covenant March…..remember that this Decade of Centenaries is an artificial device dreamed up by Conflict Resolutionists to tell us we have ashared “history”.
Therefore for the “shared history” scam of Easter Rising, Somme and related crap to work….the Covenant Parade has to go ahead.
This is an extraordinary situation, if the Carrick Hill residents fail to agree that any parade arrangments fail to deliver ‘respect’* then the Parades Commission would have to impose restrictions and we could be winding the clock back a few decades.
Whatever the attendance at the last residents meeting, presumably the next one will be better attended and they had better keep the date and venue secret (quite difficult to do) or they will be deluged with reporters.
*how in the name of sweet Jaysus did we get by before that word crept into the vernacular from Yankee black youth gang culture?
Some months ago, I wrote here (and I think Mick Fealty linked my article onto Slugger) that it is not really a matter of a Decade of “Centenaries”. We also have a Decade of “Half Centenaries” running alongside…..the murder of John Scullion and Peter Ward in 1966, the O’Neill Years, the CIvil Rights Movement, the official start of the Troubles in 1969……the Falls Curfew,Internment, Ballymurphy, McGurks,Bloody Sunday, Bloody Friday and Claudy will all be “commemorated” as well.
The focus of the Conflict Resolutionists will be to steer a (dishonest) path thru the “Centenaries” and “Half Centenaries”.
Realistically the residents around Carrick Hill…..and modern day Orangemen ….are more interested in recent history than “ancient” history.
Its not about the Covenant in 1912……..realistically its about July 2012…August 2012…September 2012.
I dont think that the Carrick Hill residents position is that strong. They have no veto.
If I was a resident…..my first and only choice would be that I never want to see or hear an Orange march….marginalise them (like the KKK to the fringes of acceptable society).
But the Catholic Church is thinking in terms of “good community relations”
Sinn Féin and indeed SDLP are thinking in “political” terms (the art of the possible).
The Parades Commission would be happy to stay clear of making a determination.
Something to get you thinking……
“In the meantime, let us study things which are no more. It is necessary to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future. This spectre, this past, is given to falsifying its own passport. Let us inform ourselves of the trap. Let us be on our guard. The past has a visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy. Let us denounce the visage and let us tear off the mask.”
Victor Hugo
Its worse than that.
Conflict Resolutionists are creating a new history for us…and we are sleepwalking into it.
FJH,
“I dont think that the Carrick Hill residents position is that strong. They have no veto.”
If there is no local resolution the PC will have to rule – it is difficult to see them not at least saying – no music past St Pats – if they say that and there is – then the OO, Black et al will be back in dog house.
…also if there is no local afreement then there will also probably be a protest against the march and if they play then there may well be trouble.
Sammy,
don’t forget those bands that defied the PC ruling took their cue from two actions. 1. Robbo’s letter to the papers criticising the PC and 2. The RBI leader who theatrically tore up the determination at the start of the march.
BD,
Yes indeed, the DUP and the OO and the Blacks all failed the the BeachBoysTest which I will be adding to Wiki as an expression that signifies if someone is in denial of racial and/or sectarian actions.
I Like it,
” the beachboystest” it’s up there with “Letsgetalongeraism” Brilliant !