Feeney Watch - 30.12.04

The final presentation in 2004 from the serial bigot was a rather unspectacular affair.  I didn't expect Bigoted Bri to concentrate on the headline grabbing events of the Yuletide period.  Nothing from him on the Northern Bank robbery, the series of firebombings (mentioned previously) or the refusal of the IRA to disband.  No, instead we have him singing the same old tune about the 'in-built' Unionist bias of the NIO.

As always I feel the need to take the arguments of this cretin apart paragraph by paragraph.  So here goes.

'Over the next couple of days you'll be trying to ignore inane, toe-curling 'end of year messages' from local party leaders.  There'll even be the embarrassing, patronising one from the NIO – allegedly the thoughts of our proconsul, who may or may not be in the north this week. Would anyone notice if he were?'

No Bri, and that's exactly the point.  In societies which are relatively stable and prosperous, the need for visible politicians become unnecessary.  It is prisons which have guards, not children's playgrounds.  Isn't it wonderful that the people of Northern Ireland, content in the continuation of the stable vein provided by Direct Rule, don't require the omnipresence of politicians on their TV screens?

'Not enough though. It's just another way of saying that there has been a massive reduction and then an end to political killing by the IRA. On the other side of the fence there's been a similar reduction: killing Catholics has mainly given way to sporadic internecine murder. That process has taken 10 years.'

As I recall, Feeney was one of the biggest champions of the Belfast Agreement: the same negotiated conclusion empowering the warders of Ulster's prisons to empty them of terrorist filth.  It's no good moaning about a Mafia-style society when the ingredients precipitating its conception formed part of an agreement you were only too willing to champion from the rooftops.

'More than 50 per cent of the nationalist population are under 30.'

We must be back to the Feeney tutorial in demographics.  Remember when he confidently predicted the high water mark for Unionists prior the the last census?  I'm sorry Bri, it is the CATHOLIC population which has a high proportion of people under 30, not the 'nationalist' population.  The Northern Ireland Office has a high proportion of Catholic employees, yet you claim it is a 'Unionist' body.  Thus, there must either be a reasonable proportion of Catholic Unionists, or else the NIO is NOT a Unionist institution.  Which is it?

'The stark truth is that the majority of the unionist electorate voted DUP in November 2003 because they did not want to share power and believed that the DUP was the party which would ensure power-sharing didn't happen.'

Well, at least he's right about something.  Most Unionists, tired of being held to ransom by a party that had murdered people by the thousand, took the reasonable step in saying: 'Thus far and no further.'  I would like to ask Bigoted Bri how he would feel if the parties in the Republic of Ireland felt compelled to share power with parties committed to the constitutional destruction of that state?  Would he like it?  Mind you, when you're on the side of the insurgents I suppose anything is acceptable.

'Meanwhile, six years after the Good Friday Agreement, helicopters still hover over nationalist districts, British soldiers and unionism's native militia patrol country roads, the Human Rights Commission is a shambles, there is no Bill of Rights, the so-called Equality Commission has no way of recording sectarian attacks but instead pretends it's operating in Wolverhampton or Southall in case somebody thinks the north's a divided society. The PSNI refers you to 'Home Office guidelines'.

What does all this signify? That the NIO's pro-union officials and unionist politicians have taken control of the peace process and are using it as a means to prevent change because no change means the north's default position operates: unionism, the opposite of equality.'

This is funny.  Helicopter pilots must have one hell of a good sense of direction, for they apparently never fly their machines one inch over the air space above any given peace line.  Amazing!!!  As for the Army presence, I think I've already covered that adequately in past blogs: the Army patrols the streets of an integral part of the United Kingdom - a constitutional entity ratified by nationalism when the Belfast Agreement was endorsed.  Or was that ratification just another example of nationalist lip service? 

Do other people get sick and tired hearing about the 'poor little starving Catholics and the systematic denial of equality',  or is it only me?  It would be nice if, just for once, nationalists and their cheerleaders ceased regurgitating soundbites designed to get the old 'Oirish' hearts fluttering with ire and actually point out where discrimination exists in today's Northern Ireland.  In truth they could never do that.  Where inequality has ceased to be, nationalists conjure it up in their own imaginations.  For to admit that Northern Ireland is, notwithstanding the attempts by successive Irish generations to destroy it, in the main a success story would be to forsake the finely tuned MOPEry so common in separatist discourse. 

Comments

[Howard]

The powerpoint presentation that you linked to is interesting - and shows that nationalist hope managed to win out over hard factual analysis in the 1990s. It was obvious to intelligent people that there was a lot of hype in the type of comment that one saw - e.g. Jude COllins saying that you would have 45-46% catholic and maybe a minority protestant. He just invented that, I suppose, as he had a nasty little column to write.

More serious when a mainstream British newspaper gets is wrong. I can never take David McKittrick seriously again after his EXTREMELY bad reporting on the census in the lead up to the actual results, in which everything was totally hyped. Basically, McKittrick reported very badly grounded speculation as though it were credible.

It was not, and thus he is not either. I don't even bother with that newspaper, now.

As for Feeney, he is indeed a narrow bigot, and a dangerous bigot at that. I hope the 50% of catholics who are under 30 do not pay too much attention to his tribal bigotry. It is not exactly a positive hopeful or conciliatory position he articulates. It is, in short, shameful, and usually very dishonest, tribal ethnic bigotry.

Rather ugly.

[Mick]

I know the ball not the man rule doesn’t apply here, but the Feeney is a bigot line is a distraction. Andrew’s been consistently accurate on the demographic argument, and is so here again. But from what I know of Feeney personally, I doubt he’s a bigot.

He certainly accuses Unionism of certain negative values, but then again who on this blog is not guilty of the same charge the other way around – it certainly doesn’t make David or Andrew a bigot! He’s an ex SDLP councillor, who in his time has seen some fairly poor behaviour in the chamber from his opponents. He’s political battler of the old school.

But even from a purely nationalist point of view, Feeney is too pessimistic about Unionist intentions vis-à-vis power sharing. And, as Andrew claims, there is no doubt that he pro-actively pushed a line on demography that was almost instantly dispelled on the publication of actual census results.

Like the rest of us, his judgements over time will either add or detract from his reputation.

[Howard]

I think his writing is certainly bigoted.

[Howard]

I was actually shocked and hurt the first time I read Brian Feeney's column. I question how someone who is not bigoted would write such material based around dismissing the moral integrity of an entire community, without ANY effort distinguishing different kinds of unionism. It is the worst sort of oversimplified scapegoatism, and not to be admired.

I have no difficulty in accepting the bigoted elements that have and continue to exist in unionism; indeed I think its important to be accepting blunt and honest about that. But I believe that to write so as though all unionism is somehow diseased, the way he does, week in week out, is extremely questionable.

Strangely, on TV and radio he seems like a different person. But I cannot get away from his writing, which he MUST take responsibility for. I think much of his stuff is really very dishonest, in the sense that it lacks intellectual integrity: he knows he is oversimplifying and being tribal, painting an entire community black, stoking the flames of hate. Thats pretty nasty and irresponsible.

[Madradin Ruad]

I hadn't realised he had been an SDLP councillor Mick - was he of the Hume/Mallon or the Fitt/Devlin school?
He teaches History ? God help us all if he is passing on
what was described below as his "triumphalist nationalism".

Parades - A Socialist View, continued.
Former SDLP councillor Brian Feeney, who now writes a weekly column in the Irish News, is a tribune of this modern brand of triumphalist nationalism. In an article dealing with the rerouting of the Tour of the North parade he advises the Orange Order to go away and march in the Belfast suburbs where protestants have moved and concludes: "They're not going to. For the old men who run the order to accept reality would mean accepting theirs is a community in retreat; that change has happened, that Belfast is now a nationalist city..."

This more strident- and virulently sectarian - nationalism translates into a more determined attitude over parades. In turn it is reinforced by a sense that the marching orders are literally loosing ground. The
Drumcree march has been barred in successive years and the absence of any strategy to get their way has led to significant splits in the Orange Order.

[Mick]

I hear what you are saying Howard, but I take it that you take my point that simply stopping at the b-word, is a distraction. It's something that most of the NI press corps got hung up on over the DUP, and it failed to note its changing relationship with its core support until it took control of Unionism.

Mad, that's the beginning of a very long discourse concerning the future of Irish Nationalism.

[guru maha git]

Andrew writes

The Northern Ireland Office has a high proportion of Catholic employees, yet you claim it is a 'Unionist' body. Thus, there must either be a reasonable proportion of Catholic Unionists, or else the NIO is NOT a Unionist institution. Which is it?

C'mon Andrew get real. So the NIO has a high proportion of Catholic employees? 30 %, 40%, 50% which is it? Why aren't u saying? how does the proportion compare with the wider public sector? Don't know cos u won't say.

In any instance, Andrew back to the mills. The employees were predominantly female, often Catholic, but no one, except those in persistent and dreary denial, would dispute that historically mills in the 'province' were run for the profit the benefit, and served as the basis of privledge, of protestant males.

To expand your field of vision try making the eyeholes in your pillowcases a bit larger.

[Gonzo]

Andrew accuses Feeney of - rightly - being a serial bigot.

How ironic - so is Andrew, as many of his prejudiced rants against the 'Irish' will attest.