More Sectarian Shite

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Thursday November 17, 2005 15:47

by James McBarron - WSM - Workers Solidarity

An anarchist take on the loyalist riots

The recent spate of sectarian attacks in villages in Antrim and elsewhere are obviously not a reaction to the IRA as there is no longer anything resembling a war going on. In fact they are a product of the sectarianism deeply embedded in northern society. They're a product of hundreds of years of cynical use of same to maintain the privilge and position of the ruling class.

Once you let the genie out of the bottle it is not so easy to put it back in. The genie of course still has its uses. The recent riots on the Shankill Road and other areas of serious social deprivation in the poorest protestant areas of the north were ostensibly about the right to hold marches in sensitive areas. People in these areas have good reason to riot but over issues that affect them and their Catholic working class fellow citizens as well.
If the riots had been over unemployment, social deprivation or state repression then the ruling class might well be worried. Fortunately for the state and capital the riots were over the right to hold a sectarian march in front of Catholics. The genuine anger and alienation in these areas is again manipulated in a self defeating sectarian direction.

Burning out your Catholic neighbours or fighting the army and police for the right to parade in front of them does nothing to advance the best interests of Protestant workers no more than recent firebombings by the IRA splinter groups help improve the conditions of Catholic working class.

The message that needs to be sent out is that yes the protestant working class are getting a raw deal, but the answer is not to ally yourself with the people and the ideas that have delivered this raw deal. The British state is dispensing with the LVF, UVF and UDA as they are no longer of use to the state. Sectarianism still is though, and it is the enemy of the working class whatever our background. Each power block in the north is now built on an entirely communal basis. Each negotiates with the British and Irish states and each other for its share of power and spoils. The working class loses over and over again. It is in this difficult context that anarchists argue for class politics and workers unity.