2 days ago
Politicians don't want to admit the truth about the Northern Ireland riots
The scenes of violence that have gripped Northern Ireland this week have evoked unwelcome memories of the province's turbulent recent history. But the working-class communities there have found a very different 'grievance' from the one that wreaked devastation on their towns and cities during the Troubles.
In the past, the 'enemy' was defined by Northern Ireland's complex divisions over civil rights, religion and the prospect of a united Ireland. In the last few nights, the target has been the local immigrant population.
Police have come under attack from violent mobs throwing firebombs, bottles and rocks after demonstrations against Roma residents escalated. Cultural tensions were already high, with locals voicing their objections to the influx of Roma into their communities, even before it was reported that a teenage girl from Ballymena had allegedly suffered a sexual assault at the hands of two teenage Roma boys.
The list of complaints is a familiar one: they claim few of the new arrivals speak English and require the support of translators in order to be able to access local services. There are concerns that the Roma people are more likely to be on benefits compared to other ethnic groups. Local women have complained about harassment from groups of Roma men (and women) as they walk to and from their homes. And to complicate matters, no one seems quite sure whether the new arrivals have crossed the border from the Republic of Ireland or are in the UK legally, having arrived in the UK before EU Freedom of Movement was scrapped on December 31, 2020.
Similar tensions over the Roma emerged in areas of Britain during the UK's EU membership, when local, usually poorer, areas of some large cities attracted large numbers of those originating in parts of eastern Europe where the Roma have historically suffered persecution and discrimination. In Glasgow, the Govanhill area in the city's south side gained a reputation as the centre of a new Roma community without much civil upset.
But unlike Glasgow, Northern Ireland has a recent history of civil unrest, not to mention a folk memory of burning resentment against the establishment, that has proved all too easily exploited by racist elements. Roma families, many with young children, have been forced to flee the mobs who have targeted, and on some occasions, destroyed their homes.
Uncomplimentary comparisons have already been made with last year's summer riots that followed the murder of three young girls at a local dance class in Southport. It is tempting now, as it was then, to conclude that this is nothing more than attempts by the 'far-Right' to foment civil disturbance for their own ends. It is more complicated than that.
Do local communities have any right to object to the imposition of alien, or at least unfamiliar, cultures upon them? Is it always irrational and xenophobic to resent someone because of their apparent refusal to learn the language of the country in which they have chosen to live? Is it similarly unreasonable to object to the amount of local authority resources devoted towards easing that problem?
And while it is both dangerous and unjust to make blanket assumptions about any nationality's attitudes to women and sex, it is undeniable that certain cultures have, by western standards, an outdated view of women's roles in society. Until relatively recently, it was decreed by our political masters that we should never cast aspersions on such attitudes and cultures, but such restrictions are no longer taken seriously, not after the grooming gangs scandal, or Kemi Badenoch's warning that not all cultures are equally valid.
An entire community cannot and should not be held accountable for the alleged sexual assault on a teenage girl. But to dismiss local anger as racism, to order people to accept whatever changes are imposed on their communities by their political betters without demur, is simply storing up greater trouble for the future.
