THE annual loyalist hijacking of the old Millwall football chant, ‘No-one likes us, we don’t care’, is currently at full volume and having the desired effect in terms of the perception of unionist culture, and bonfires in particular.
Every year it’s the same: A last-minute attempt to stave off an Eleventh Night conflict.
And annually we have the same hazards facing the working class people – a great deal of them children – who build them and/or gather round them. These hazards are all to familiar and range from the danger of falls from heights, toxic and even carcinogenic smoke from bonfire materials and serious burns from unregulated ignition and falling materials.
But this year a new threat has been added to the mix, a threat so insidious and worrying that it should force everyone involved, from the humblest parent to the most senior public servant, to do everything in their power to make it disappear. But the desperately worrying possibility of bonfire attendees and others not involved in the bonfire being exposed to lethal asbestos fibres has led only to a wearyingly familiar set of responses.
We see paralysis on the part of official agencies and a totally irresponsible mixture of indifference and indignation from those building the bonfires and those who give them political cover.
We’ve been struggling with the issue of the bonfire and the asbestos for some two months now, but this week Northern Ireland Electricity has expressed a further and equal concern about the Westlink bonfire, specifically, the electricity substation that’s on the other side of the bonfire from the asbestos.
It feels almost surreal trying and failing to convince bonfire ‘stakeholders’ of the urgency of this twin problem. If they’re not concerned about bonfire-goers and uninvolved residents sustaining chronic and life-changing asbestos-related illnesses, are they concerned about the lights going out at the RVH and the City, with the catastrophic effect that would have on patient care, from new-born babies to patients struggling for life in the Intensive Care Unit?
But there must be people concerned – common sense tells us that the people of the Donegall Road, their political reps, Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency can’t all be deaf and blind to the massive health and safety red flags being raised ahead of Friday evening. But those failing to act in the face of an immediate threat because of practical and political considerations are contributing every bit as much to this unconscionable state of affairs as those who simply don’t care.
Every year we keep hoping that this addiction to eleventh-hour panics about Eleventh Night crises is going to pass, but not only is it still a feature of our grim summer landscape, the flashpoints seem to grow in number and seriousness every year. The unionist political class lacks the courage to do the right thing, but, depressingly, the courage of officialdom seems to be receding further into the distance with every passing year.
