THERE are many reasons to decry the loyalist racists whose recent actions have left a stain on our city.
But among the most pertinent is that they are acting against the economic self-interest of the communities they claim to represent.
How so? Well, let's follow the money.
Retail units in the most beleaguered areas of loyalist Belfast lie empty because in these districts paramilitaries continue to rule supreme - some 30 years after the ceasefire bells rang out.
These abandoned shops add to the atmosphere of dereliction and abandonment in the loyalist heartlands.
The solution of course is dictated by the market. Rents fall to rock-bottom rates, but even then, because paramilitaries predominate, units are still not let.
Who then has the courage and the drive to take on retail units in areas which are in the economic doldrums? Who else but the immigrant entrepreneur, of course.
Often bringing skills from their home country and keen to make a mark in their adopted land, the ambitious immigrant will not baulk at the punishing hours and financial hardship of running a small start-up.
This should not come as a surprise. In much of the western world, the enterprising immigrant is the engine of the economy. In Canada, a phenomenal 34 per cent of all entrepreneurs – the life blood of any economy – are immigrants. In the US, the figure is at a show-stopping 24 per cent, but there it's the companies the 'American Newcomers' set up which are remarkable — think Tesla, Google and Covid vaccine manufacturer Moderna.
One would think then that the loyalists of Belfast would welcome these enterprising immigrants with open arms. After all, they can bring vibrancy, footfall and a taste of the exotic to areas which are, in terms of commercial activity, on their knees. Often, they also bring back to our main streets the butcher's and the fruit and veg stores which have been decimated by the big multinational supermarkets.
Instead, the loyalist bullies make the immigrant small business owner the scapegoat for their communities' economic and social woes. The upshot: eastern supermarkets, a Kurdish barber's and even a Greek bistro burnt out or attacked.
All of which only leads the "local people" they claim to represent further into the economic wilderness.
Ignorance is bliss may be a credo of a certain strain of loyalism, but it has never been the belief of the majority of the people of Belfast.
That's why, in communities which strive to move positively forward, the immigrant entrepreneur is made welcome as a catalyst for economic uplift and social transformation.
So even as we oppose racism with our feet and voices – as we did when the Middle East Market on the Falls was targeted – let's also ensure that we support, with our wallets, the newcomer small businesses across Belfast which are very much a part of the revitalisation of our neighbourhoods.
