Thursday, August 9, 2007

How To Eradicate Bigotry:Lesson 1. Sack Feeney!

The Irish News' Editorial today cries that "Bigotry is Hard to Eradicate."

It could make a significant contribution to the battle by sacking it's very own in-house ("doncha just hate the Orangies") bigot, Brian Feeney.

From his column today:

There are exceptions like Bushmills where, instead of having the flags confined to the more rundown areas, the entire miserable, cheerless town is transformed into your typical loyalist enclave with flags and emblems everywhere and placards of alleged unionist luminaries screwed to lampposts. What an uplifting sight for the tour buses coming in to visit the distillery – a glimpse of the full flower of genuine loyalist culture. You can only wonder what the guides say to explain the whole tasteless display.

Imagine the outcry from sectarian hypocrites like Feeney, if someone like Alex Kane came out and told us the *truth* about "Entire miserable, cheerless town”s"...like, let’s say, Newry or Strabane; towns with a long history of "genuine republican culture".

Then, of course, slapping on the dodgy metaphors like melting peanut butter, Feeney slabbers on:

Yet a place like Bushmills is a perfect illustration of the fate of unionism.
The whole flag culture in unionism signifies a lack of confidence, a crisis of identity, an absence of vision for the future.


And this week’s attacks on isolated Protestant communities and sportsmen signifies, once again, the simmering bigotry and intolerance which lurks just below the surface of Irish nationalism.

Fair comment?
No, it’s exactly the same kind of racist/sectarian wide-brush labelling of a whole community, that you see used regularly on different targets in papers like the Daily Mail.

Maybe that’s were Brian sees his journalistic career heading, pandering to a different set of prejudices with weekly rants about Roma, asylum-seekers and single mums rather than the Hun.
He’d fit in pretty well, I reckon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was reading the Irish News on that day and thoughht the hypocrisy of it. That got on my nerves ... as O'Neill outlined in his article, the endless rants about Roma and also Travellers continues. I work here in west Belfast and the total denial of the racism that goes on here is pathetic, more or less saying it is in protestant areas ... Rubbish!!!! I know of people and seen for myself the abuse, racist attacks on businesse, people being turned away from services and all because they are from a different background. Will the Irish News report on it? of course not as racism doesnt exist in West Belfast or republican areas (my arse, as Christy Moore would say about the denial).

Irish Traveller .. Glen Rd, W. Belfast

O'Neill said...

Irish Traveller,
I was reading the Anderstown news today, an article about the "local community" fighting to dtop the deportation of a Nigerian family. Great stuff and not, I'm sure by accident, great PR for the 100% anti-racist, anti-sectarian "local community". Do a search on "Travellers" though in the Andie Town news website and you can a long litany of articles (and letters) repeating of all kind of accusations against the local Travellers community. Any "anti-racist" action there by the "local community"-noen that I can see.