HANGING effigies of public figures from gallows on a bonfire? Knock yourself out, no harm done. Burning the election posters of Sinn Féin, SDLP, Alliance representatives? Work away lads, sure that's small potatoes. Painting massive boards with sectarian slogans with some kind of version of Kill All Taigs? De rigueur. Poison the ground, burn the ground, pollute the air? Sure it's all good fun in the name of culture.
Public safety is a funny concept at this time of year. Ordinarily, breaking into private sites, stealing materials, destroying public furniture, creating a public health emergency or threatening firefighters, public officials and police officers, or creating obscene racist incitement, would result in some kind of action. But in July the 21st century version of “Say Nothing” is “Do nothing”. If we do nothing, then it will all go away, no harm done.
Around 200 people attended the asbestos bonfire. They felt they had won in the face of the attacks on their culture which questioned the dispiritingly dangerous act of building a bonfire on top of asbestos, within spitting distance of a children’s hospital. Because, despite the will of the citizens of this city, the PSNI Chief Constable gave into a perception of a “greater threat”.
What is the threshold for the greater threat? If Sue Pentel had had a few woolly faced types beside her, might she not have been arrested at that Palestine protest in the city centre? Had Mark Sykes, instead of mourning his brother in law, been wearing a balaclava and standing with poison gas, would he have been spared?
For those of us interested in constitutional change, this disparity in interpretation of public safety is an urgent question. What is the PSNI contingency for the border poll to be held without threat? Our democratic right to exercise this choice cannot and must not be threatened by this dual-standard, partial and pathetic approach to public order which adjudicates on “public safety” through Orange lenses.
The Good Friday Agreement gives us the right to exercise our choice to a constitutional preference. That must be held without the threat of violence.
If nationalists and republicans have agreed to pursue their constitutional choice peacefully and through democratic means because of the Good Friday Agreement, then we can expect that those who support the British union will do the same. And we should expect that the same rigour that is brought to armed dissident republican groups, which prevents them from upending the peace agreement, will be brought to armed dissident loyalist groups.
Well, if you believed that loyalism was not connected to the British state, and facilitated by the British state, that would be a completely reasonable expectation.
It is up to the PSNI Chief Constable and the Policing Board to start gaming-in the policing contingencies for a border poll now. And to assure us that there will be an objective and, most of all, effective, policing operation that will ensure that the franchise we will exercise will be free from the threat of violence.
Partition was imposed through threat and murder. It was maintained through threat and murder. It will be ended, and any potential threats to the democratic and peaceful vote that will end partition must be faced down – beginning now. The PSNI has a massive job to do from where they stand today.
