Feel the “Christian love”
14 July 2009 by Stardust
A militant Catholic enclave hurled gasoline bombs, fireworks and other makeshift weapons at police in Northern Ireland on Monday in an attempt to block a parade by the Orange Order, Northern Ireland’s major Protestant brotherhood.
Belfast Catholics riot over Protestant parade
Gerry Kelly, a minister in that 2-year-old coalition from the major Catholic-backed party Sinn Fein, said the dissidents were pursuing an “anti-peace process and sectarian agenda” that seeks to stoke tensions with the Protestant majority and torpedo power-sharing.
More than 1,000 Orangemen and their accompanying bandsmen eventually did march down the main road past Ardoyne to the beat of a lone drum — but only after riot police fought an hourlong street battle backed by a surveillance helicopter and three massive mobile water cannons.
At one point, masked Catholic rioters on store rooftops directed a deluge of Molotov cocktails, bricks and golf balls on riot police below. The officers were protected with flame-retardant suits, helmets and shields.
Later, as the water-cannon gunners sought to take rioters’ legs out from under them, Catholics wearing scarves over their faces took cover behind low brick walls and post boxes. They threw rocks, bricks, bottles and even planks of wood that bounced harmlessly off the armored sides and metal-grilled windows of the water-cannon vehicles.
The Ardoyne Catholics’ showdown with police continued long after the Orangemen had passed by.
Police said a gunman fired at least one live round at police lines but missed. Rioters also stole three vehicles, set them on fire — and pushed two of them toward police lines. Officers in reply fired at least 18 British-style plastic bullets. The blunt-nosed cylinders are designed to pummel rioters without penetrating flesh.
A senior Belfast policeman, Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay, condemned the anti-Orange rioters as offering “the worst possible face of Northern Ireland — a face of bigotry, sectarianism and intolerance.”
This all seems like such childish feuding . . .
Northern Ireland’s “Twelfth” holiday typically raises community tensions to their highest point of the year as British Protestants celebrate centuries-old victories over Irish Catholics.
The often elderly, conservatively dressed Orangemen are accompanied by so-called “kick the pope” bands whose hard-faced, tattooed members play an odd mix of Gospel and sectarian tunes on shrill flutes and deafening drums.
Monday’s parades were preceded by a string of overnight attacks northwest of Belfast that damaged two Orange halls and two Protestant homes, one of them gutted by fire. Catholic youths cheered the blaze and jeered the home owners, a couple who vowed to leave behind their Catholic neighbors after 32 years.
Catholics daubed the Orange lodge in the village of Rasharkin with slogans praising IRA dissidents, then pelted Orangemen as they marched from the lodge. Two Protestants were hit in the head with rocks before police stepped in. Three officers were wounded as the Catholics threw several Molotov cocktails. One rioter was arrested.
Ahhh, just feel the love of Gawd.
Full story
14 July 2009, on 1:41 pm
“This all seems like such childish feuding . . . ”
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Yes, Stardust; that’s because (as we atheists all know) Religions are, indeed, ALL childish…DANGEROUSLY childish.
Stemming from the fact that they’re also all dependent on childhood, child abusive brainwashing.
There’ll never be lasting Peace in this World until every last fucking religion gets exposed for what they are…completely bullshit, extremely and utterly dangerous, obviously man-made, terribly humongous and longtime ancient rooted…LIES.
In fact…one of mankind’s greatest talents, I’d say…
LYING.
[What!...We're full of shit?...actually LITERALLY, biologically speaking...we ARE...when you think about it. And that means ALL of us...? Walking sceptic tanks? "Tanks alot" Sorry! (as usual...Not!)
I saw the Yahoo News article on this; and kind of thought you might pick up on it.
This stuff reminds me of my half Irish, Catholic background. My mom came to the US from the South of Ireland…the predominantly Catholic area…in the late 1920s; and as a kid I remember quite a bit of the Protestant/Catholic animosity occasionally being expressed even by her. Religion is such a strange bunch of dangerous crap; and the oh-so-common compartmentalization of it lingers in some…make that MOST…people’s lives throughout their entire lifetime.
Until children stop being brainwashed by their parents with all the associated fear and guilt, especially, with the Xtian and Muslim,vicious and horrendous, “Eternal Hellfire” garbage; these stories will continue to crop up; no matter what wishful thinking, or perennial downplaying of the source of the problem, occurs.
In other words…the “True Believers”, of all ilk…those, in essence, ultimate “enablers” all over the World…just DON’T…CAN’T…and/or WON’T get it!
14 July 2009, on 3:47 pm
Sadly in this country this sort of thing is very common in Northern Ireland and Scotland. I agree religion plays it’s stupid part, but this conflict has moved well beyond religion into realms of the deeply stupid hitherto thought impossible.
Oh well. At least they spend more time beating each other up than they spend killing soldiers, policeman, and civilians. A step in the right direction, you could say. Just wish someone would tell them God doesn’t exist and thus the whole historical basis for their stupidity is quite disturbingly pointless. But the person who told them that would probably quickly lose their kneecaps. Jesus would be proud.
14 July 2009, on 6:15 pm
I agree religion plays it’s stupid part, but this conflict has moved well beyond religion into realms of the deeply stupid hitherto thought impossible.
I always say if you take the different sects of Christianity and put them all into a big arena, they would all end up killing each other. But if it isn’t religion, it would probably be something else.
15 July 2009, on 9:58 am
It’s quite a complex issue – my impression is that the current wave of violence is actually more about schisms within the Catholic republican movement rather than anything else. Sinn Fein and the former IRA have relinquished armed struggle and gained a significant measure of political clout as a result, but there are a number of small splinter groups trying to re-ignite the conflict in order to improve their own standing within the movement. Its’ the Iron Law of Institutions in action.
Mind you, the Orangemen are a bunch of deliberately provocative bigoted bastards too…
14 August 2009, on 10:08 am
This conflict is not and has never been about religion. Its about ethnicity and colonisation, coupled with discrimination. It’s just that one ethnicity happens to be Catholic and another happens to be Protestant that this is a very handy way to term the conflict. Nowadays, the lingering segregation of society helps to perpetuate misunderstanding.
15 August 2009, on 12:03 am
Sadhbh, the conflict is indeed much to do with religion in this instance. Not all, but a lot. It is also about politics, it is also about who wants the upper hand and who feels they have the most “correct” and “superior” beliefs and entitlement to have control. The point of this post is that religion divides, it does nothing to bring people together. Even those who think they have the best religious intentions are divisive in thinking that their beliefs are the only true beliefs that everyone else on the planet should also follow.