ATTACKS on police at the Broadway roundabout this week did not happen out of the blue. Rather they were the culmination of another Twelfth week marked by recrimination and division.
Young people from both sides of the Balls on the Falls are not gathering at night seeking confrontation because they are inherently bad – they are doing so because they are drenched in the tension and ill-feeling which is the hallmark of a yearly ‘celebration’ which is in fact an attempt to assert superiority. But in the year 2024, when unionism is no longer in charge of their first city, when a republican First Minister heads up the Stormont Executive and after a painful election for the DUP, the Twelfth shenanigans are not so much a statement of superiority as an elegy for times past – a roar of frustration at the loss of control and domination.
The huge piece of public art that is the Balls on the Falls sits at the very heart of the city and every day is passed by some 100,000 motorists on their way to and from work. The installation is not in the middle of the Village; it is not in the middle of Iveagh. It is on an island in the middle of the North’s busiest motorway and is easily monitored and policed by the statutory authorities. And yet year after year it is festooned with loyalist flags and emblems (including the flag of Israel this year) while year after year police stand by and watch.
And while those flags go up youths from the other side of the road look on, wondering why it is that they, like their parents before them, are expected to stand and watch while loyalists are given the run of the place. Little wonder, then, that the Broadway roundabout is an annual tinderbox – little wonder that once again this year it is the scene of violence and confrontation.
And yet it need not be so if the PSNI was to take the required steps to ensure that such a intensely busy area – the dictionary definition of a shared space – was to be kept free of symbols of division, supremacy and hate. Here is a perfect chance to set down a marker, to make a statement that it is not a case of anything goes, at least in a space of such unrivalled prominence in the city.
We fully understand that the police cannot be expected to go mob-handed into a loyalist estate, or even into a peaceline area, during the marching season to take down offensive flags and symbols. We acknowledge that there are many instances of inflammatory displays on lampposts and bonfires where proactive intervention by the police would end up making a bad situation immeasurably worse. But where the rule of law can be imposed with little or no public order consequence, the law should be upheld.
Preventing the city’s largest and most prominent piece of public art being turned into a tribute to loyalist killer gangs is one such example. The Broadway roundabout is not an area that can be dominated or held by loyalist thugs or by the young people they employ to do their dirty work. It is a public space that can and should be claimed back for all.
