GOLD Commander, he’s called. That’s the senior PSNI officer tasked with overseeing police operations, such as the one we saw at the weekend when Belfast loyalists invited Dublin fascists up to give them a hand wrecking the place.
We picture the Gold Commander seated at the top of a table with a number of other senior officers in white shirts with epaulettes of varying degrees of magnificence, gaming possibilities, likelihoods and scenarios. But since we’re in the middle of Olympics fortnight it has to be said that the police didn’t win Gold, Silver or even Bronze on the day, rather they trailed in dead last before falling to their knees at the finish line and vomiting on the track.
The stated aim of the protest was to get to the Belfast Islamic Centre on University Road – to what end we weren’t told, although subsequent events suggest that best case scenario was broken windows, worst case a flaming torch through the letterbox. The police succeeded in stopping the racist mob from getting to their target, but after that, as the thugs wandered unhindered through Botanic and the Ormeau, it has to be said that the PSNI’s performance was more Single-Use Plastic than Gold.
There’s an increasing number of shops belonging to Muslim business people in South Belfast, but even so, they are still sufficiently rare to make the protection of them a fairly straightforward affair. In the event, the operation was anything but straightforward and today two retail businesses in the Donegall Road/Sandy Row area lie in smouldering ruins and a cafe in Botanic is counting the cost after they were left totally utterly unprotected by those whose job it is to protect them. More racist protests are planned for the coming days and it is imperative that the policing mistakes of the weekend are not repeated and that Muslims are protected at their place of business; and after doors were kicked in in the Woodvale district on Tuesday night, it’s imperative that they are protected in their homes as well.
Meanwhile, anyone who thinks the problem of racism is confined to loyalist areas of the city is either hiding from the truth or isn’t paying attention. No adults were involved in the latest attack on a Muslim business adjacent to St Paul’s church on Tuesday night, but the shop is clearly being targeted because of the colour of its owner’s skin, and whether the children involved receive that hate from the internet or form their home environments makes no difference to the victims.
And while there is nothing but trauma and distress for the victims of the Falls Road attack, the response of the local community was an inspirational reminder that the vast majority of this community will not let racism gain a foothold on the Falls, or on any other thoroughfare or street. That the violence in Sandy Row and other loyalist areas has staggered on for nights on end is down to a failure of senior community and political reps to face down the mobs. It’s not to late for them to do that now.
