The weekend’s marches in the city centre seem to have, by and large, passed off without major incident – which is good.
But simply not having large scale violence attached to an event is not a particularly high bar to set for a city that in two short year’s time will be under the spotlight at the UK City of Culture.
So what would a higher bar look like?
For one thing it would mean that the city centre wouldn’t resemble a ghost town on what would otherwise be a bustling Saturday. We also wouldn’t feel the need to spend a small fortune trying to police the day and dozens of shops wouldn’t choose to pull down the shutters, costing the local economy and generally freaking out tourists.
In fact, it should be just the opposite.
So the real question must be, “what would have to change for these kind of events to become a boon for the city and not a burden?”. What would the Apprentice Boys have to do? What would nationalist communities have to do? What would business and civic leaders have to do? What would the police have to do?
At some point the internal arguments must go past ‘we have a right to do this’ and become ‘what is best for the city?’.
Suggestions, comments, rants and debate below please.
Mark, good questions..
Personally, as someone who lives in the interface area adjacent to the Fountain estate, I for one think that the first thing that has to happen is for people from other parts of the City, whether it be the Bogside or Irish Street, to take a step back from the Parades every year – I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, but I feel that youths from both those areas and both sides of the community make the Parading issue a much bigger security operation and so negative in terms of community relations every year.
In terms of what Nationalist communities have to do, well, as I said, I live metres from the Fountain, and my personal view is simple: as residents, we should be proactively engaging with the Apprentice Boys and other groups from a communtiy perspective, I see the people who live in the Fountain as my neighbours just as much as I do towards from the street across from me.
However, and I make this point delicately, the Apprentice Boys and others need to seriously reconsider how their brethren from further afield treat this City when they are here, and its inhabitants. I have to praise the Governor and his colleagues over the period of the night after the march, not a peep from the Fountain, I’m not sure about other areas. If you’re from Coleraine, Scotland, or wherever, have a bit of respect when you come to our City, ours means belonging to everyone – come, march, celebrate and go home peacefully, there is no need for aggression and bad taste in the presence of residents or anyone else – if you come here and abuse people, your colleagues in the ABOD have to live with the sometimes negative consequences of your actions.
I actually believe that a review of such arrangements would clear up alot of the annoyance of the business community also. At the end of the day, if ‘Joe Doherty’ from down the street messes around on the 12th August, he is approached by the Community Policing teams about his behaviour, if someone comes from Scotland or wherever, its much harder to anticipate what might happen, there is just not the same regard for the surroundings, although of course not all are of that mindset.
Finally, the same review should be made within the PSNI. Granted, they have a duty to draft in people from other parts of the North in order to cope with a large public event, however, do they have to be so useless? I politely asked a Police Officer no more than 500 yards from the Foyle Bridge if the bottom deck was closed to which he shrugged. If there are units drafted in to support the safe fecilitation of the events, then actually support the communities. More of an effort needs to be made to brief Officers and ensure they are not just there to deter trouble, but to assist tourists, communities and those marching.
I also just have to add – I don’t believe anyone has the ‘right’, regardless of who they are, to walk somewhere or demonstrate somewhere if it affects the local residents in a negative fashion, but again, I applaud the ABOD for their strict stewardship of the events.