Them And Us
Anthony McIntyre reflects on the Barry McElduff controversy.
With Barry McElduff having resigned his Westminster seat, jumped or pushed, his departure has brought the curtain down on a long political career.
Regardless of his intentions, when on the anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre he stuck a Kingsmill loaf on his head and pranced about a shop, there was simply too much doubt for the erstwhile West Tyrone MP to get the benefit of it. His denials, even if genuine, butted with an implacable incredulity. For his account to get over the line people had to believe a triple happenstance: it was the anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre; out of all the bread in the shop he chose a Kingsmill brand; that he was a prominent member of a movement, the military wing of which perpetrated the atrocity forty-two years ago.
In trying to understand unionist anger we would do well to consider a scenario in which the Democratic Unionist Party MP Gregory Campbell larked around in a shop on 30th of January with a Bloody Sundae ice cream on his head. Few in the nationalist community would have listened to his protestations that it was all a series of unfortunate coincidences. At the same time unionism overegged the pudding in going after the scalp of Mairtin O'Muilleoir. All O'Muilleoir did was retweet, claiming that he viewed it as “being wholly apolitical and retweeted it on that basis”. Retweets are hardly an endorsement and the urge to curb them seems censorious.
When I first learned of it I thought the safe money had to be on McElduff knowing what he was doing, perhaps prompted by his party leader to do something to “break these bastards”. The more I listened to McElduff’s republican critics, including some from Tyrone, the more doubt grew in my mind. They were adamant that he would never have risked his political career by doing something so outrageous. What preserved him in their estimation was that to consciously do it was so outrageous that only the politically suicidal would have opted for it. Too many of his political critics came to his defence for their perspective to be easily dismissed.
Whatever the motive, it may be postulated that rather than being sectarian in attitude, O'Muilleoir and McElduff are the outworking of a structural sectarianism. People may be sectarian without even knowing it. We can hardy finger point as few of us mange to rise above the ground we stand on. We are so caught up in the atrocities inflicted on our "own" community that we completely overlook what the "other" community sustained. It is not that we know their fate and are indifferent to it, but that we relegate it in terms of emotional and cultural significance. We treat it as something that we simply have no call to remember. It is not war crimes per se that enrage us, just war crimes that happen to our community.
Them and us, as strong as it ever was.
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.
Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
With Barry McElduff having resigned his Westminster seat, jumped or pushed, his departure has brought the curtain down on a long political career.
Regardless of his intentions, when on the anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre he stuck a Kingsmill loaf on his head and pranced about a shop, there was simply too much doubt for the erstwhile West Tyrone MP to get the benefit of it. His denials, even if genuine, butted with an implacable incredulity. For his account to get over the line people had to believe a triple happenstance: it was the anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre; out of all the bread in the shop he chose a Kingsmill brand; that he was a prominent member of a movement, the military wing of which perpetrated the atrocity forty-two years ago.
In trying to understand unionist anger we would do well to consider a scenario in which the Democratic Unionist Party MP Gregory Campbell larked around in a shop on 30th of January with a Bloody Sundae ice cream on his head. Few in the nationalist community would have listened to his protestations that it was all a series of unfortunate coincidences. At the same time unionism overegged the pudding in going after the scalp of Mairtin O'Muilleoir. All O'Muilleoir did was retweet, claiming that he viewed it as “being wholly apolitical and retweeted it on that basis”. Retweets are hardly an endorsement and the urge to curb them seems censorious.
When I first learned of it I thought the safe money had to be on McElduff knowing what he was doing, perhaps prompted by his party leader to do something to “break these bastards”. The more I listened to McElduff’s republican critics, including some from Tyrone, the more doubt grew in my mind. They were adamant that he would never have risked his political career by doing something so outrageous. What preserved him in their estimation was that to consciously do it was so outrageous that only the politically suicidal would have opted for it. Too many of his political critics came to his defence for their perspective to be easily dismissed.
Whatever the motive, it may be postulated that rather than being sectarian in attitude, O'Muilleoir and McElduff are the outworking of a structural sectarianism. People may be sectarian without even knowing it. We can hardy finger point as few of us mange to rise above the ground we stand on. We are so caught up in the atrocities inflicted on our "own" community that we completely overlook what the "other" community sustained. It is not that we know their fate and are indifferent to it, but that we relegate it in terms of emotional and cultural significance. We treat it as something that we simply have no call to remember. It is not war crimes per se that enrage us, just war crimes that happen to our community.
Them and us, as strong as it ever was.
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
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