THE recent violence has reminded us all what is at stake when we allow the dehumanisation of our fellow citizens. When the news and visual imagery of that vicious North Belfast assault emerged, the immediate and quite unique response felt disproportionate to the one-on-one attack.
When a statement from Keir Starmer comes out about a stabbing in North Belfast you can be certain that there is something bigger afoot than concern for a North Belfast man’s welfare. It was, however, an indication of the seriousness with which the Executive and the PSNI viewed the inevitably violent response.
There was no-one who did not predict the violence and coordination of Tuesday night’s rampant racism on the streets. No-one except perhaps the children who could not understand their parents’ fear, why their fathers and mothers told them to stay inside, why their schools sent them home early, or why anyone might hate them.
It is reasonable therefore to ask questions of the PSNI response that saw them standing back while crowds gathered and then quickly people were being targeted and family homes burned out. Reasonable and, sadly, futile. For the PSNI immediately began their narrative of not having enough resources. On Wednesday morning Chief Constable Jon Boutcher could have been asked serious and concerted questions about a watch-and-arrest-later strategy, which operationally facilitated these attacks. Or he could have proactively outlined the arrangements for the now homeless families, or how he would ensure that all children were going to get to school and home from school and manage to do their homework in safety. But instead he stood beside a Secretary of State and started once again to opine about his budget. You would be embarrassed for him, if you thought it would make any difference.
But it was not just the PSNI leadership who were less worried about hospital doctors and nurses shaking at the end of their shifts completely unprotected, fearing their journeys home. The DUP found the sunshine in this cloud to talk about the Irish Sea border!
That the connections of that coordinated violence to loyalism needed to be spelled out is just another indication of the incidental and siloed mindset of many. Collusion may have happened, went the unionist response, in the cases of Castlerock, Loughinisland, Sean Grahams, Pat Finucane, Theresa Clinton, Roseanne Mallon, Kathleen O’Hagan and case after case after case, but collusion was not policy and there were a few rotten apples. Now let's apply that same thinking to last week. Some even had the neck to say pointing out the bloody obvious was sectarian and didn’t help.
You know what doesn’t help? Pretending that we don’t have extreme right-wing leanings, at the very least, in unionism and loyalism that will begin by facilitating, then legitimising, then excusing sectarianism, racism and hate. And then asking for money/funding to end the violence associated with it.
As we endeavour to support families and children who are living with horrific trauma, we have much work ahead to repair and change, but pretence cannot be part of the plan.
