Clifftonvilleans Boo Ervine?

This post was submitted by CJ, one of our new contributors at The Levee Breaks…

After hearing about the incident in Clifftonvilles match with Glentoran, I was reminded of something about Northern Ireland, and its not that a lot of us can’t get over our respective “dislike” of each other or our political differences enough to even respect the dead; I was reminded that Northern Ireland is the most hypocritical nation in the world.

The reaction of certain Clifftonville fans to the minute silence was disappointing yes, but I had to laugh at the reaction of many who were struck with moral outrage and disgust, many but not all of them Loyalist or Unionist (like myself) the Newsletter summed up the C’ville fans behaviour as “Shameful”. I’m not saying I agree with those C’ville fans but did anybody really expect it to be otherwise? David Ervine was a member of an organization that murdered Catholics (Nationalists), so it would have been more hypocritical I suppose of certain C’ville fans (a majority of whom are Catholic/Nationalist) if they hadn’t reacted the way they did. But also the reaction of “Loyalists” was predictable and of course totally hypocritical, if Gerry Adams had popped his clogs would certain Glen’s fans have reacted any differently? Also I’m probably not defaming C’ville fans when I predict that a portion of its fans are supporters of “political parties” such as Sinn Fein whose members are responsible for the murders of innocent Protestants (Unionists).

Not only was I thinking of the hypocrisy of footie fans, but hypocrisy in the wider context . Take the DUP moral outrage brigade for instance, never too shy to boast about its independence from terrorism or paramilitarism, the DUP behave as though they’re as clean as baby angels in this whole mess. Ian Paisley may be a reverend, but his memory lapses sure to seem as close to lying as he’ll admit to getting, because they seemed to forget about the past connections to groups such as the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV) and Ulster Resistance (UR). Big Ian’s also guilty I’m afraid of sparking the distrust and hatred of many young Protestants towards Catholics in the 1960’s who went on to join paramilitary groups.

Sinn Feiners also never fail to make them selves’ look like the innocent victims, they accuse the Police of being murderers and colluders, as though the IRA were some sort of boy-scout troop. The PSNI are unacceptable to Catholics is a constant rejectionist theme of Republicans, despite the increase in Catholics joining, and if the news is anything to go by a number of Polish people seem to be eager to fill up positions, yet they cannot promote that more Catholics (including those from Ballymurphy, Andersonstown and the Falls) should join? Of course they want their “own” community Police force with influence most likely from IRA volunteers to keep on top of their own ghettos, yet they pretend they couldn’t allow those senior Republicans to cooperate with the PSNI (like some of them haven’t already?).

While the hypocrisy of politics blocks progress towards the continuity of the peace process, those who believe you can’t get more extreme than SF/DUP should beware of those extremists on the fringes of both sides preparing to take the reigns away from Sinn Fein and the DUP; if that happens then any chances of a peaceful future for Northern Ireland goes down the toilet.