THE Orange Order, you’ll have noticed, had its main but by no means only spasm of marching last Saturday. It’s an organisation that attracts many opinions, but one thing most of us would agree on this year: the thick-headedness of releasing toxins into the air from that bonfire in South Belfast was a defiant act of spectacular self-harm.
The Grand Master urged people to go to it and enjoy their evening. That’s not quite “Drink the Kool-Aid and enjoy it” but it’s in the same category: this action will likely damage your health, but sure do it anyway.
The whole question of the asbestos bonfire was given extended attention on Raidio Uladh’s TalkBack last week. Presenter William Crawley stressed with some regret that there were just two of the Eleventh Night bonfires that were getting attention, while in fact there were hundreds of other bonfires which could be attended in perfect safety.
I found myself nodding in agreement, and then I saw Vincent Kearney on RTÉ talking about the bonfires. He reminded us all that while the Moygashel anti-immigrant bonfire drew all the attention, there were lots and lots of bonfires decorated with many other things – Kill All Catholics (KAC), Kill All Taigs (KAT), posters of nationalist or republican politicians. The fact is, the South Belfast bonfire may have released poisons into the air, but an awful lot of other bonfires expressing hatred of individuals, the Catholic faith and the Irish flag released their own kind of poison into the air.
There are many nationalists and republicans who are happy to accommodate Orange marches provided they’re held in areas where they’re welcome. Some will point to the peaceful Orange marches in places like Donegal, which give offence to nobody and allow those of a British identity to express their culture. This optimistic picture of venom-free Orange marches is an illusion
Let’s take a parallel. No, not the GAA, Virginia. The GAA welcomes all to its ranks – Protestant, Catholic, men, women, all races as well. That’s hardly a mirror image of the Orange Order. No, a more fitting comparison would be with the Ku Klux Klan.
At one time the Klan showed what it thought of black people by stringing them up on trees when the opportunity presented itself. Those days are gone, but you may be sure there are no black people admitted to the KKK ranks and it still makes no secret of its detestation of people with non-white skins.
So too the Orange Order. It came into being at the end of the eighteenth century after a sectarian clash that left over 30 Catholics dead. Violence marked Orange marches throughout the following centuries, with the British government banning the Order at one point. And in recent decades we’ve had the sickening death by fire of the three little Quinn boys in Ballymoney
But that’s all history now, Orangemen will tell you. We are simply expressing our time-honoured tradition on the Eleventh and Twelfth of July.
Nice try, guys, but the facts remain. The Orange Order doesn’t allow any Catholic to join, any woman to join, anyone married to a Catholic to join, anyone attending a Catholic service to join. It urges its members to oppose in every way the idolatry of the Catholic Church. An organisation with such sectarian rulings has no place in the twenty-first century.
If you remain unconvinced, think how you’d react if the KKK said it wasn’t into hanging blacks anymore, but it still would not have any black people in its ranks and would continue to detest people with black skin. Would you say, “Ah, well, we welcome this more peaceful version of racial bigotry. March away, boys.”?
The Orange Order, by its nature, its history, its rules, is sectarian. Such institutions have no place in our society. We should be open to the expression of unionist identity, but not to a part of it which is at its core unashamedly bigoted.
