Stand-Up to Racism | Defending Neutrality | Pat Finucane - End the Delay

 

Stand-Up to Racism

In 1972 Catholic families – who had endured three years of sustained sectarian attacks on their homes – fled Annalee St in North Belfast. Last month - fifty-three years later - Catholic homes in Annalee St. were again the target of sectarian attack and families were forced to flee. In the last fortnight we have also witnessed the firebombing of homes in Ballymena, the Larne Leisure Centre and racist attacks in other parts of the North.

The images of homes in flames in Ballymena reminded me of similar scenes I first witnessed in Belfast in August 1969. The film footage of that period is of streets ablaze, frightened families hurriedly stacking furniture on lorries or carrying their most precious possessions on their backs. Then it was the racism and sectarianism of the apartheid unionist state attacking nationalist and republican families, killing residents, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing thousands to become refugees in our own city.

Regrettably, the same sectarian and racist fundamentalism that motivated those attacks still exists today among some in our society who campaign against housing for Catholics, hang effigies of political leaders on bonfires and use violent rhetoric to promote hate crime against immigrants and those they define as ‘others’. That is those who are of a different religion or colour, or sexual orientation. 

Racism and sectarianism manifest themselves in different ways. Sometimes it is official discrimination through public policy or the presentation of offensive stereotypes against those being targeted, including minority ethnic groups, like travellers and non-nationals,like migrant workers, refugees and asylum seekers. Hate crime also manifests itself in racial abuse, threatening behaviour, incitement to hatred, attacks on family homes and on businesses.

Hate crime cannot be tolerated. It must be opposed without hesitation. As a society we have to take a determined stand against racism, hate crime and sectarianism. Some people suffering as a result of government policies are open to manipulation by right wing elements. They themselves may not be ideologically racist or right wing but by now all of us must know how dangerous it is to acquiesce to those who are. We must take a stand against the policies which create inequality. That means facing down the governments in London or Dublin. Or others in the Assembly in Belfast. We must face down the racists. 

That requires community solidarity. People of good will standing together and embracing those who are being attacked. It also needs the police and the courts responding quickly and resolutely to hate crime. That means arresting those responsible and bringing them speedily before the courts.

Diversity is a strength not a weakness. Republicans reject bias and discrimination and racism. We reject bigotry and cultural supremacy. If the decades of one party rule and of conflict in the North have taught anything it must be that there can be no second class citizens in our society.

The island of Ireland is no longer just a place of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter; of traveller and settled people. Ireland is now home to people from every region of the world. We have become a place to which people immigrate. This new cultural diversification has the potential to enrich the cultural life of our nation and to become part of the economic engine for growth.

In front of Belfast City Hall there is a statue to a great Belfast woman – Mary Ann McCracken. She and others stopped slave ships from doing business in Belfast in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. They said NO to inequality and YES to equality and enlightenment. That is the real Belfast and we need to live by those principles today.

 

Defending Neutrality

The Israeli rogue state has set the world on a dangerous course. Its deadly assault on Iran, allied to its violent actions in Lebanon and Syria and its genocidal war on the Palestinian people, has cast a huge shadow over the Middle East. As its military forces continue to kill scores of Palestinians daily in Gaza and its war planes attack Iran the Israeli military imposed a complete siege on the west Bank. Over a thousand military checkpoints which provide Israel with absolute control over the occupied west Bank, were completely closed imposing a siege on the Palestinian towns, villages and isolated farms of that region.

As the world focusses on the exchanges between Israel and Iran the Zionists’ genocidal and ethnic cleansing strategy against the Palestinian people is escalating. Those western states that have refused to challenge Israel’s murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians or stand-by international law, are now defending Israel’s attack on Iran using the same unacceptable excuse that Israel has the right to defend itself.

It is in this heightened political and humanitarian crisis, with the real likelihood of an intensifying war in the Middle East, that the Irish government want to end Ireland’s long standing policy of neutrality. The FF/FG government want Irish men and women to be placed under the control of those same international governments that are currently aiding Israel and/or defending its actions. This is not acceptable.

Under the government’s proposed new legislation - the General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025 – the Triple Lock will be removed. Under existing law Irish troops cannot be sent overseas without the agreement of the Dáil, the government and the United Nations. The government wants to remove the UN requirement.

At the weekend several thousand people took to the streets of Dublin to oppose the scrapping of the Triple Lock. As Mary Lou McDonald said: “No way. Not on your life. We will fight this tooth and nail.”

If the Irish government is convinced that it has the support of the Irish people to make this fundamental change then they should put it to the people in a referendum. Let the people have their say.

I am confident that the majority of the people of Ireland value neutrality. It reflects our history and our own struggle against colonisation and oppression, and for freedom. Neutrality has ensured that the Irish state is widely respected as a defender and proponent of peace, human rights, and international justice. Paraphrasing James Connolly Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou told the crowd on Saturday: “In Ireland, we don’t bow to kings, we don’t bow to Kaisers, and we certainly won’t bow to a dangerous militarisation agenda driven by power, greed and war.”

 

Pat Finucane - End the Delay

It has been ten months since the British Secretary of State Hilary Benn first announced that he was setting up an independent inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane under the 2005 Inquiries Act. Last week he appointed Sir Gary Hickinbottom as the Chair of the Inquiry. Hickinbottom has been given responsibility for investigating one of the most high profile examples of state collusion between loyalist death squads and British state agents and agencies during the decades of conflict.

As well as Hickinbottom, former Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan and international human rights lawyer Francesca Del Mese have been appointed as assessors to the inquiry. Their role is to advise the Chair but they will not be involved in any final report.

It has been a long difficult road for Geraldine Finucane and her family to secure this Inquiry. Twenty-four years ago the British and Irish governments agreed at Weston Park to establish public inquiries into a number of troubles-related cases. Canadian Judge Peter Cory recommended inquiries into the deaths of: Rosemary Nelson, Robert Hamill, Billy Wright, and Patrick Finucane and also into the deaths of RUC officers Bob Buchanan and Harry Breen.

All of these inquiries took place except that of Pat Finucane. In the years since successive British governments have used a variety of legal devices to avoid holding a public Inquiry, including the establishment in 2011 of a review of what had happened – led by Sir Desmond de Silva QC. He concluded that he was “in no doubt that agents of the State were involved in carrying out serious violations of human rights up to and including murder.”

But still the British government prevaricated. The Finucane family was forced to take their case to the British Supreme Court which found that all the previous investigations had been insufficient. In 2022 the High Court in Belfast quashed a decision by the then British Secretary of State that he would not hold an inquiry pending the outcome of continuing investigations.

So, the Inquiry has now been announced. The Chair and assessors have been named. But we still do not know when or where the inquiry will take place. This foot dragging is not acceptable. It is now vital that the inquiry begins its work quickly. The time for delay is over. And lest we forget the family of Sean Brown continue to be denied their right to an enquiry by the same Government which now appears reluctantly and belatedly to be giving the Finucane family what they had to campaign decades for.