I WAS delighted to attend Féile An Phobail’s Carnival Parade last Saturday as it meandered its colourful, inclusive and vibrant way from the Dunville Park to An Spórtlann on Bothar na bhFál. Underage representatives of local GAA clubs, other sporting organisations, community groups and numerous street artistes joined ethnic groups as they danced their way up the road. Led by a battalion of motor bikers and more sedate Lambretta scooterists, Palestinian flags were on display the length of the walk. It was brilliant, noisy, cheerful and uplifting It was also in complete contrast to the behaviour of the fascist and racist gangs who gathered at the City Hall as part of far right demonstrations organised across the ‘Kingdom’ against refugees following the awful events in Southport in England. Events which have no connection with refugees, awful as they were with the terrible deadly attack on school children, but which were seized upon to feed racist hatred through disinformation and false narratives. Thankfully the progressive citizens who gathered to oppose the fascists vastly outnumbered them. They are more representative of the majority of Belfast people than the amadans and ne’er-do-wells who screamed their invective and racist hatred. One concern that I share with many is the approach of the PSNI to effectively stand up to the racists. Businesses were destroyed, citizens threatened and intimidated, a refugee centre attacked and when the fascists attempted to march on the Ormeau Road the PSNI faced the residents who opposed the fascists not the fascists. Well done to Deirdre Hargey, Gerard Rice and the people of that proud district who rose to the challenge and faced down the bigots and racists. Let us be alert to the reality that this type of reactionary right wing thuggery will now be a constant in our lives. Just below the surface perhaps until now it is out in the open these days. We must oppose it without hesitation. It is too dangerous to ignore or dismiss. We need also to be mindful that some deprived working people across Ireland, urban and rural, may resent people coming here from across the world to avail, they fear, of scarce resources. We need to fight for these resources for everyone and we also need to engage with these citizens to remind them that their resentment needs to be directed at the British and Irish establishments and not at the refugees or migrants who make their way to our shores. In other words while being mindful of genuine concerns, we need to be avowedly anti-racist. Belfast is the city which stopped slave ships from doing business here in the past. Led by United Irishmen and women like Mary Ann McCracken and Thomas McCabe, Belfast said No to inequality and the slave trade and Yes to equality and enlightenment. That is the real Belfast and we need to live by these principles today. Those who carried the Coolock Says No banner do not represent the people of Coolock any more than the loyalists who they joined with represent the rest of us. So let us be alert. And let us be active. No pasarán!
