By Bernie McAdam
LAST SATURDAY’S anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant riot in south Belfast has been followed by racist attacks and clashes with the police on every subsequent night. At the weekend the far right’s intended target was Belfast Islamic Centre but the police were able to block a potential assault on the building. However, they had no plan to deal with the subsequent rampage through Botanic Avenue, a multiethnic area, where shops and businesses were firebombed with impunity. The overwhelmingly loyalist character of the hate mob was shown as they tried to attack a nationalist area on the Lower Ormeau Road but at least here they were repelled by the residents.
Earlier on Saturday an antiracist mobilisation of several hundred had gathered outside Belfast City Hall to oppose the far right march to the Islamic Centre. As the anti-migrant mob grew, they launched fireworks and eggs at the Unite Against Racism demonstration before they headed off.
A flier for the racist ‘crusade’ had already called on people to bring their ‘Christian flags and banners’ as well as Union and Irish flags! The media really homed in on the Irish tricolours alongside the Union flags but it was clear that some Dublin fascists, with their ‘Coolock Says No’ banner, had tried to link the far right attacks on refugee centres in the Republic with the UK riots.
The media also reported on the welcome the Dublin fascists received from the UDA in their drinking dens that night but not so from Jamie Bryson, linked to the UVF, who urged caution on unionists/loyalists appearing with Irish tricolours who ‘need to be careful with that’! As for the ‘Coolock Says No’ crew, they arrived back in Dublin, quickly organised an anti-migrant protest outside the Garda Headquarters only to be harangued and attacked by locals with cries of ‘there’s no loyalists here’!
Unfortunately, ‘Northern Ireland’ already has a sectarian culture entirely compatible with the recent rise in racist victimisation. The Six County entity was born as a sectarian anti-Catholic and anti-Irish statelet which has institutionalised discrimination as well as spawned systematic attacks and pogroms on Catholic/nationalist areas. Bigotry and hate is now being directed towards ethnic minorities.
Therefore, it is no surprise that loyalist areas tend to be in the frontline of targeting migrants and Black people. This is not exclusively so, as the recent ‘Irish Only’ graffiti sprayed on a home in Ballykelly, Derry was not in a loyalist area. Similarly, the disgraceful attack on a Falls Road supermarket which has now closed down. But the spate of attacks in the Village area of south Belfast have been ongoing for years, from the erection of Nazi flags outside a Mosque to forcing families to move. Similarly in Larne where petrol bombs, racist graffiti and gun threats have been used in a number of ‘racially motivated’ (PSNI) attacks. It is also clearly the case that loyalist paramilitaries are coordinating the attacks. Even the PSNI have now acknowledged that there is ‘no doubt’ about the links of such groups to the recent riots.
The urgent need is for a working class antiracist movement that can challenge the anti-migrant narrative and blames capitalism and imperialism as the real enemy of workers. Such a movement will not be built by the present crop of trade union leaders just content to make weak calls to desist from hatred as with the NIC-ICTU statement which fails to propose any action. Neither can we rely on the police to protect communities from attack as was shown on Saturday. The time has come to organise self-defence, we need militant antifascist mobilisations that can defend our communities from attack and drive the far right off the streets.
