I WAS intrigued to see the UVF being represented at a 'cross-community' event in Belfast this week. And we’re talking here not about the 1912, top hats, waxed moustaches and tweed jackets UVF; we’re talking here about the bad murals, good coke, sledgehammers and AK47s UVF.
I should point out here that the UVF was not represented in person. It was represented by the Shankill Star Flute Band, who have the name of their favourite Taig-slayer on their uniforms – on their tunics and caps, to be precise.
I’m sick telling people that I don’t care who or what a community wants to commemorate and/or celebrate, so long as it’s wanted in the place that the commemoration/celebration is taking place. If the Shankill and the Woodvale want to close for one day a year to remember a UVF killer let them go right ahead and do it. But let’s not hear any more oul’ nonsense from the people who play the flutes or beat the drums or enjoy a drink on the pavement as the bands pass; let’s not hear them go off on one about an IRA commemoration; and let’s not let them insert their hero into a cross-community event where half the people present think he was a murderous sectarian thug.
DRUM ROLL: A band tribute to UDA men Rab Carson and John Gregg
But the loyalist bands and their supporters are not the worst when it comes to hypocrisy around loyalist bands. The worst are those whose double-standards are fed to us daily on the TV, on the radio, in the newspapers and on the online news sites. The worst are those media outlets who in the summer give us timetables of when and where the UVF- and UDA-supporting bands are going to be playing; who publish and broadcast joyous celebrations of the bands' dapper days out in hour-long specials and colourful pull-out supplements. The worst are those media outlets who in the next breath regale us with tabloid tales of the UVF/UDA’s drug-dealing and violence; of their coercive control and their brutal intimidation.
My apologies, but none of the 90 per cent unionist media has the right to lecture me or anybody else about paramilitary violence. They can write their self-satisfied criticisms of republicans and loyalists in balaclavas, past and present, but all I do is laugh at them. They can pen their endless smug screeds about the scourge of paramilitaries, but they only make me snort in derision. They can invite as many talking heads into the studio as they want to deplore paramilitary violence, but I only shake my head in a mixture of disgust and admiration at their sheer gall.
There they are, look, walking past the camera in that hour-long TV special on the Twelfth of July – that band with the smiling UDA brigadier on their drums and on their tunics. There they are, but we’ll only be told that they’re well turned out and the hymn they’re playing dates from the 18th century.
There they are, look, on page six of the 12-page colour extravaganza in the paper – that band who celebrate the UVF bloke who sprayed this bar or blew up that one. There they are, but all we'll be told about them is they’re eating ice-creams because it was hot or they’re lying down at the Field because they’re tired.
There may be some – perhaps even many – who read about the latest UDA outrage on page 3 of a paper, then turn to see a UDA band on page 3 of the parades supplement and think nothing about it. I’m not one of them. I think a paper that sees such a band as a fitting addition to its breezy feature pages renders itself comical when it morphs to disapproval of the same paramilitary group on its editorial pages.
And there may be some who watch a report of another UVF crime on the teatime news, then tune into the happy-clappy evening Twelfth round-up featuring UVF bands who are on YouTube prancing up and down the Shankill. I’m not one of those either. I think a broadcaster who sees such bands as part of the joyous marching season fabric in its light programming renders itself ridiculous when its news and current affairs presenters attempt to mount that high white horse and dismiss the people the bands exist to promote as thugs.
It's not as if this can’t be put right tomorrow if there was a simple acknowledgment within the local Fourth Estate that post-Medieval anti-Catholicism is a difficult enough sell to readers, viewers and listeners without throwing in paramilitarism. The problem bands – a problem for Papists, that is – are a minority and are well known, as they’re not shy about advertising online their appreciation of Loyal Ulster patriots who took the fight to the IRA by shooting and blowing up Catholics. I could supply a pretty exhaustive list of UVF- and UDA-associated bands even without doing that simple YouTube search.
And having identified the problem bands, all that remains is a simple commitment to stop pretending during the marching season that these bands are the Von Trapps in milkman outfits. In other words, the unionist media should afford the same amount of positive coverage to UDA- and UVF-friendly bands as they do to IRA- or INLA-friendly bands; that is to say, none.
The Orange Order has absolutely no compunction about inviting the Loyal Rising Sons of Lenny Murphy’s Crazier Cousin along on the Twelfth, but media outlets can and should decide that such outfits shouldn’t be on TV after Masterchef or in the same part of the paper as the horoscope and the crossword.
