Marchers, rioters and McDowell share the shame

FOR the second time in a month, our establishment has found itself mouthing absurdities because of its adherence to trendy multiculturalism.

First, President McAleese shamed us all by siding with Saudi fundamentalism against the enlightened Danes. Now Michael McDowell claims that the anti-Orange riot was ‘sectarian’.

Protesting against the Orange Order is sectarian? What kind of topsy-turvy world does McDowell inhabit? The answer is a multi-cultural world, where all beliefs are equal and reason has no privileged place. If the rioters had actually cloaked their anger in the garb of a ‘deeply-held religious belief’ would the tabloids and phone-in radio have felt so free to use the words ‘scum’ and ‘skanger’?

Were these words used about the Drumcree rioters? Of course not, that would break the basic tenet of multiculturalism, that you can’t denigrate ‘deeply-held religious beliefs’, no matter how unpleasant.

I witnessed some of the events in O’Connell St just after trouble started. It was clear that the crowd was being augmented spontaneously, after the initial disturbances were reported on radio. None of the youths I saw drifting toward O’Connell St looked like regular mass-goers, as McDowell’s absurd characterisation would imply.

Rather, untouched by trendy multiculturalist bull, they saw the Love Ulster parade for what it was, a thinly-veiled Orange provocation.

These angry young men opportunistically took this rare chance to be violent and righteous at the same time, the kind of opportunity beloved of angry young men in every time and every place. McDowell, living in his cocooned multicultural fantasy world, has no understanding of this.

Of course the rioters should be ashamed of themselves. But so should those, like McDowell himself, who encouraged the Orangemen to march in Dublin, as if the Orange Order and Jeffrey Donaldson’s DUP were organisations that can claim the same respect as rational democratic organisations.

It was a stupid decision to allow this march, so it is no wonder that McDowell wants no finger-pointing, because the finger of blame points clearly to his own lack of judgement.

Tim O’Halloran

Ferndale Road

Dublin 11