Beating Drums Instead Of Burning Crosses, Orange Sashes Instead Of White Hoods

British Nationalism In Ireland - Racism And Sectarianism As The Orange Order Identifies With The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) — British Nationalism In Ireland – Racism And Sectarianism As The Orange Order Identifies With The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) – One Reflection Of British Anti-Irishness

A few readers have contacted me asking why no post on the Ulster Covenant centenary march held in Belfast on Saturday. A fair question, I suppose, but what is there left to be said?

What can one say about a parade held to commemorate the early 20th century armed rebellion by the British ethnic minority on the island of Ireland against the clear and democratic wishes of the majority of the country’s inhabitants for some form of independence, whether limited Home Rule within the so-called United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Dominion Rule within the British Empire or a sovereign Irish Republic separate from both? Over 80-85% of the Irish people desired a new constitutional arrangement with Britain, with far greater autonomy for Ireland. Judging by later electoral results, both national and local, its likely that at least 60% of the population of the island favoured complete independence in the form of a republic. Yet 15-20% of the population, through violence and the threat of violence, attempted to thwart any and all political moves away from a regime of British colonial rule.

And why? Because they regarded themselves as Ireland’s British colonial elite, in their minds the God-given rightful rulers of the island of Ireland. Superior in language, culture, religion and ethnicity. Superior in race. Because they and their ancestors were British, and the natives Irish.

And still it goes on.

Orange Order bands and similar echoing their Lambeg drums down the narrow streets of Ireland proclaiming the superiority, the greatness, of those who follow them. Warning the inferior natives, the lowly indigenous, to bide their place, to bow and scrape and give thanks for the British civilization that permits their continued existence. Beating drums instead of burning crosses, orange sashes instead of white hoods, screaming bandsmen instead of howling lynchmobs.

Stephen Moore, BNP activist, Nick Griffin, BNP leader, and Rev. Robert West at Ulster Covenant centenary parade, North of Ireland, 2012 (Photo: Bangordub)

The truth is self-evident. The heart of Unionist culture, of British culture, in Ireland is poisoned by a triple infection of sectarianism, racism and colonialism. Nick Griffin, the leader of the far right Neo-Nazi British National Party or BNP, knows that all too well which is why he attended the Ulster Covenant “celebrations” at Stormont along with his fellow travellers. His comment on the day came to us via Twitter:

“So Ulster pics have upset my republican stalkers. Tell you what, the bodhran can’t match the lambeg, you Fenian bastards.”

Nick Griffin, British far right BNP leader, and his Fenian Bastards tweet

Meanwhile the supporters of the British murder gangs, the terrorists who began decades of renewed conflict in response to a rising civil rights movement from the “natives” during the mid and late 1960s, had their day too selling UDA, UFF and UVF merchandise to the eager crowds of law-abiding Unionists.