Flag issue shows some still view Northern Ireland as foreign country
They had to be careful how they phrased any rejection of Frazer’s demand to march, given that he had been making a big issue of how he wanted to exercise his democratic right to do so. Now there would be some who would argue that he had no such right as someone who is insistent that he should be recognised only as a British citizen. He has the right to march in Belfast, Westminster or any other part of Britain that he so chooses, subject to whatever local rules apply, but why should that dispensation apply south of the border?
Well, all sorts of efforts have to be made to accommodate those from Northern Ireland who we might regard as Irish, as well as British, even if they don’t think of themselves as the former. Deny them their “rights” and it gives them the opportunity to complain loudly and long about institutional discrimination, about there not being a genuine inclusiveness despite all such invitations. Stopping them at the border might have been a temptation, but the implications of preventing what they claimed they intended to be a peaceful protest would have been serious and noted internationally.
But with rights come responsibilities too and it was important for the gardaí to emphasise a couple of points about this to Fraser and his friends. The Ulstermen had a responsibility not to provoke a response from people south of the border; unfortunately, as events of Fraser’s Love Ulster march in 2006 proved, there are plenty of southern hoodlums who just love the opportunity to take offence and to use this as a spurious excuse for violent hooliganism. Enough hysteria was being whipped up to suggest that trouble was highly likely and that if it was to be prevented it would require a large Garda presence. There would be great expense in that and a likely considerable loss in trade for Dublin retailers too.
Fraser, as the ringleader of the troupe, had a responsibility too not to recklessly put those people in harm’s way as he sought to make a futile point. His demand that a British Union flag be hung over Leinster House was patently ridiculous; it was notable how as the week past he became more exercised about the alleged failure to properly investigate the murder of Protestants north of the border than the issue of the flag. He wasn’t entirely consistent in his complaints either, or in his approach to participating in or calling off the march: he insisted to me during a live radio interview on Wednesday evening that it would still be going ahead when just about everybody else involved had conceded it wouldn’t and a statement to that effect in his name had been issued.
Fraser has impressed few with his demands or approach, but as interesting was the reaction of many people down south to him. He may not want to be considered Irish but some don’t down here want to seem to want to consider him Irish either. He and his attitudes, just like the rioting loyalists in Belfast who get so upset about flags and other symbols, are just not wanted south of the border.
It is interesting to note how the partitionist mentality has become ensconced in day-to-day Irish attitudes. Revulsion at the atrocities from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s left many southern people disinterested, even if they occasionally became impassioned at injustices inflicted at members of the nationalist community. While they realised the peace process was important many became bored by it. Domestic economic issues took precedence. Whenever they heard of the latest rows in the North some thought it was just those headbangers at it again. Culturally, some people in the south have more in common with Britain than with their fellow Irishmen north of the border. To them the North is more of a foreign country.
There was a bizarre argument recently that illustrated this. The National Dairy Council launched a campaign to persuade people to drink Irish-produced milk. The definition of Irish milk is an interesting one, however. It extended only to milk produced by farmers located south of the border. As it happens milk from the North sold here can be much cheaper than the local supplies and many people buy it, myself included, without compunction. When I mentioned this recently on air I got a flood of text messages telling me that it is unpatriotic to do so. The money I spend is leaving the country, putting (southern) Irish farmers out of business apparently.
As it happens the milk industry on both sides of the border is supported by EU subsidies. Our food producers are highly dependent on exports for their profits, indeed for survival, and could not bear for other countries to take a protectionist position on importing our milk or dairy products. And yet some people would have southern Irish people not drink milk produced in the North on the basis that it is not Irish apparently. It may seem a small trivial example but it emphasises the partitionist mentality that exists.
Some have suggested that demographic trends in the North have made a vote for unification with the Republic very likely in our lifetime. There will be a nationalist majority at some stage. But will that be enough to persuade nationalists that they want to be part of our bankrupt State? And do we in the south really want to contribute to the cost of reunifying the island, especially if, as would most likely be part of any deal, the British start to remove part of its massive economic subsidy to the region? But, more importantly, do southern people really want to accommodate the likes of Willie Fraser?
OF COURSE one Irishman from the North who has suffered no discrimination south of the border in recent years is the leader of Sinn Féin Gerry Adams, now a member of Dáil Eireann representing Louth having been elected in March 2011.
His past — he denies that he was a member of the IRA, let alone one of its most senior commanders at the worst stages of the conflict in the 1970s — does not seem to concern many voters.
What will the public make of his current behaviour? Adams has required serious medical attention twice in the last year. This, normally, would be a private matter, were it not for the fact that Adams had his first operation, for prostate issues, in New York, and his second, for an eye problem, in Belfast. Why not get treated in the country of which he is a public representative? Why go private when his makes such a big issue of recommending public care?
How does a man who claims to surrender the bulk of his TD’s salary so that he lives on the average industrial wage — and makes a big issue of this as all Sinn Féin TDs do — afford to have private medical treatment in New York? It also turns out that his flights were paid for by a group called “Friends of Sinn Féin”. Just imagine the outrage if a minister in this or the last government engaged in such behaviour, allowing unnamed people to pay such bills?
*The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.