Such acts of violence deserve unequivocal condemnation regardless of who commits them or who the victim may be. However, the public reaction to the incident has also exposed uncomfortable questions about consistency, selective outrage and political convenience.
The issue is not whether violence in North Belfast should be condemned—it absolutely should. The issue is whether our moral standards are applied consistently. If the injury or death of innocent people is wrong, then it should be wrong regardless of nationality, religion, ethnicity or geography.
In the days preceding the attack, many of those Unionist/Loyalist voices now calling for unity and solidarity against violence had been participating in events and demonstrations at Scarva where support was expressed for Israel's military actions in Gaza. Following the North Belfast incident, some of these same political voices used extremely strong and condemnatory language to describe the attack and expressing outrage at what had occurred.
This response highlights a perceived inconsistency, pointing out that many of those expressing such outrage ignores the devastating humanitarian consequences of the conflict and the deaths of thousands of civilians in Gaza, including women and children. Whether one agrees with that criticism or not, there remains an obvious tension when individuals express profound outrage at violence close to home while appearing less concerned by suffering occurring elsewhere.
Adding further complexity to the public debate is the fact that authorities have stated that they have no evidence to treat the North Belfast incident as terrorism related. At the same time, local accounts have alleged that the individuals involved were known to one another and further claimed that the individuals were known locally as suffering from substance abuse - drug addicts. That both allegedly suffered from drug related psychosis and who had apparently fallen out over a dispute of ownership of drugs. It has also been noted that the area where the attack occurred is close to several designated temporary hostels, emergency accommodation sites and supported living complexes. While Kinnaird Avenue itself is general social housing, the broader North Belfast area directly surrounding it features a high concentration of specialised facilities designed to support individuals experiencing homelessness, substance addiction or complex social issues. While this fact alone proves nothing about the circumstances of the attack, it forms part of the wider context within which local speculation has developed. Nevertheless, if such accounts prove to be accurate, they would raise legitimate questions about the speed with which some commentators sought to frame the incident within wider political narratives before all of the facts were known.
The danger in such situations is that public discourse can become driven by emotion and assumption rather than evidence. When people immediately seek to fit events into pre-existing political arguments, there is a risk that the actual circumstances become secondary to the narrative people wish to promote.
Equally revealing is the way certain crimes capture public attention while others quickly disappear from public discussion. Violent attacks only become symbols when society chooses to make them symbols. Countless victims never become rallying points for political campaigns, media outrage or public demonstrations. This naturally raises questions about why some incidents dominate headlines while others fade into obscurity. For example, there was not the same level of public hysteria following the Manchester school stabbings, nor were there widespread demands for immigration checks, deportations or expulsions upon conviction. Whether one agrees with such demands in any particular case is beside the point; the contrast in public and political reactions raises legitimate questions about why similar acts of violence can generate such different responses.
It also raises uncomfortable questions about consistency. Had the circumstances been reversed, would the reaction have been the same? If the victim and perpetrator had been of different racial or ethnic backgrounds, would the same political figures, commentators and campaigners have responded with equal urgency and prominence? Would public debate have taken a different direction? Would figures such as Keir Starmer. Nigel Farage, or Gavin Robinson and others within Unionism, have devoted the same level of attention and condemnation to the incident? These questions cannot be answered with certainty, but their very existence reflects a wider concern that public outrage is not always applied consistently and may, at times, be influenced by the identities of those involved.
The North’s own history provides another uncomfortable comparison. During the Conflict, the actions of the Shankill Butchers remain among the most notorious examples of sectarian brutality. Their victims suffered horrific violence, torture and murder. Yet those crimes rarely feature in contemporary public discourse with the same intensity of outrage that accompanies modern incidents. While the passage of time undoubtedly plays a role, it remains legitimate to ask why some acts of violence become enduring symbols while others are gradually relegated to the background of public memory.
Likewise, many other serious crimes receive far less sustained public attention. Questions are often raised as to why some victims become the focus of widespread political and media discussion while others do not. The answer is rarely straightforward, but it is reasonable to ask whether factors such as political context, public sentiment and media framing influence the prominence given to particular incidents.
The danger of selective outrage is that it undermines credibility. When people condemn violence only when committed by their opponents, or only when the victims belong to a particular group, their outrage begins to look less like a defence of human dignity and more like political tribalism.
If society genuinely wishes to combat hatred, violence and division, then the standard must be universal. The victim's identity should not determine the strength of our condemnation. Nor should the perpetrator's political, religious or cultural background determine whether we speak out.
The challenge facing the North - as it has faced for generations—is not simply condemning violence when it shocks us. It is maintaining the same moral standard when doing so is uncomfortable, politically inconvenient or challenges our own assumptions. Anything less risks turning justice into a matter of preference rather than principle.
A mature society should be capable of condemning violence wherever it occurs, demanding facts before drawing conclusions, and applying the same moral standards to all people. Consistency, rather than convenience, is ultimately the true test of principle.
⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.
Recommended by Brendan Keane.
What I didn’t expect was how directly some of its case studies could be applied to Republicanism — especially to the leadership’s repeated inability, or refusal, to identify touts even when the evidence was staring them in the face.
That does not excuse the fact that certain touts were allowed to operate with apparent impunity, no matter what information came to light.
Gladwell explores why human beings are so poor at detecting lies. In one study, Professor Timothy Levine found that people could identify liars only 54% of the time. Those are decent odds if you fancy your luck on a horse, but hardly the sort of odds on which you’d re-mortgage your house. Other experiments, involving job interviews and orchestra auditions, showed evaluators made better decisions when they did not actually see the candidates.
Gladwell then turns to more striking examples: the CIA’s supposed crème de la crème being made to look like amateurs by internal moles. Top-secret departments were infiltrated for years despite rumours, suspicions and even lie-detector tests. The most embarrassing part is that these spies were not masterful James Bond figures, skilled in deception and cunning. They left trails of breadcrumbs that Hansel and Gretel would have been proud of.
The reason, according to Levine, lies in what he calls Truth Default Theory: human beings are inclined to believe others, even when confronted with signs of dishonesty. There is an evolutionary logic to this. Society cannot function if we treat every stranger as a potential liar. Without some basic level of trust, society would collapse into suspicion and chaos — wonder if this sounds familiar today.
The surprising part is that even when we understand deception in theory, we often hesitate to suspect those close to us. A truth bias overrides the doubts we might otherwise have. Consequently, those who raise suspicions early, therefore, take enormous risks: public humiliation, loss of employment, isolation, and in some cases even death. We still see this today when whistleblowers leak damaging information that society should, in theory, be grateful to know.
But there is one factor Gladwell touches on without, in my view, giving it enough weight: likeability.
A few years ago, one of my neighbours was finally exposed as a paedo after what felt like an eternity of being widely known as a pervert. Yet most people liked him, more or less, provided they ignored the strange, off-the-wall remarks he made regardless of who was present. The American and British spies discussed in Gladwell’s book were often oddballs too. But they were generally liked — until, years later, the truth became impossible to ignore.
And this brings me to the real reason for these thoughts.
I have written several times about the person I consider to be the Brits’ current top Republican tout. I often wondered what a chance encounter with him would feel like, especially after having known him personally for so many years. Then it happened.
What struck me most was the likeability factor. We often imagine touts as rats, monsters, people without conscience. But one reason some of them survive for so long is precisely because they are nice guys! They can be friendly, approachable, easy in company. They can talk like old school friends at a reunion and slip naturally into their surroundings.
That was exactly how my encounter felt, despite everything I know about him and the damage he has inflicted on all of us. No wonder so many Republicans had doubts over the years.
Yet, to return to Gladwell, even the best spies and informers leave breadcrumbs. What they often share is an inability to provide respectable answers for the inconsistencies, contradictions and strange quirks throughout their careers.
At first, that failure is on us. After that, it belongs to those who still refuse to act on the evidence — and especially to those who stand in their corners defending them, when we know that they already know.
That does not excuse the fact that certain touts were allowed to operate with apparent impunity, no matter what information came to light.
Gladwell explores why human beings are so poor at detecting lies. In one study, Professor Timothy Levine found that people could identify liars only 54% of the time. Those are decent odds if you fancy your luck on a horse, but hardly the sort of odds on which you’d re-mortgage your house. Other experiments, involving job interviews and orchestra auditions, showed evaluators made better decisions when they did not actually see the candidates.
Gladwell then turns to more striking examples: the CIA’s supposed crème de la crème being made to look like amateurs by internal moles. Top-secret departments were infiltrated for years despite rumours, suspicions and even lie-detector tests. The most embarrassing part is that these spies were not masterful James Bond figures, skilled in deception and cunning. They left trails of breadcrumbs that Hansel and Gretel would have been proud of.
The reason, according to Levine, lies in what he calls Truth Default Theory: human beings are inclined to believe others, even when confronted with signs of dishonesty. There is an evolutionary logic to this. Society cannot function if we treat every stranger as a potential liar. Without some basic level of trust, society would collapse into suspicion and chaos — wonder if this sounds familiar today.
The surprising part is that even when we understand deception in theory, we often hesitate to suspect those close to us. A truth bias overrides the doubts we might otherwise have. Consequently, those who raise suspicions early, therefore, take enormous risks: public humiliation, loss of employment, isolation, and in some cases even death. We still see this today when whistleblowers leak damaging information that society should, in theory, be grateful to know.
But there is one factor Gladwell touches on without, in my view, giving it enough weight: likeability.
A few years ago, one of my neighbours was finally exposed as a paedo after what felt like an eternity of being widely known as a pervert. Yet most people liked him, more or less, provided they ignored the strange, off-the-wall remarks he made regardless of who was present. The American and British spies discussed in Gladwell’s book were often oddballs too. But they were generally liked — until, years later, the truth became impossible to ignore.
And this brings me to the real reason for these thoughts.
I have written several times about the person I consider to be the Brits’ current top Republican tout. I often wondered what a chance encounter with him would feel like, especially after having known him personally for so many years. Then it happened.
What struck me most was the likeability factor. We often imagine touts as rats, monsters, people without conscience. But one reason some of them survive for so long is precisely because they are nice guys! They can be friendly, approachable, easy in company. They can talk like old school friends at a reunion and slip naturally into their surroundings.
That was exactly how my encounter felt, despite everything I know about him and the damage he has inflicted on all of us. No wonder so many Republicans had doubts over the years.
Yet, to return to Gladwell, even the best spies and informers leave breadcrumbs. What they often share is an inability to provide respectable answers for the inconsistencies, contradictions and strange quirks throughout their careers.
At first, that failure is on us. After that, it belongs to those who still refuse to act on the evidence — and especially to those who stand in their corners defending them, when we know that they already know.
⏩Michael Phillips is a former republican prisoner. Keep up with his work.
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Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
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| Photo: GOL |
De la Espriella is further to the right than Uribe Vélez in everything. He is also more openly violent in his political tendencies and proposals as much as in his private life. The lawyer for the right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers and an advisor to the paramilitaries in Santa Fe, de Ralito and a man who said that ethics have nothing to do with law. Such a person will govern without any ethics, or rather with the ethics of the murderer, the thief, the human rights violator. He will return the country to the 1980s and 1990s when every president pretended that the military killed no one. However, De la Espriella, just like Bukele in El Salvador, sees no need to fake anything, other than empathy.
It will be a more violent and extremist government than any from the past and the international context helps them in that. For decades Colombian social democrats have looked to the USA and Europe to save the country. Some of them even promised us that Obama would save the country. Such stupidity was common amongst the NGOs. There is nothing wrong in denouncing human rights violations in international settings, even before capitalist institutions such as the European Parliament or the US Congress but trusting in them to put an end to such violations when their companies are the beneficiaries, instigators and in many cases the direct agents in massacres is naïve. However, it is true that sometimes the international institutions have helped soften a situation, but never have they put an end to it. To believe that others will save Colombia and not the Colombian people is not just naïve it is dangerous. The international context will favour the worst excesses of De la Espriella should he become president.
The NGOs used to take advantage of the conjuncture and the supposed international commitment to human rights. This commitment was always conditional but there was a consensus that western powers, should, at least, pretend to be worried and sometimes the social democratic forces in Europe took some steps, when they were in power, or forced other political forces to some something minimal. Their willingness to do so, depended on the interests at stake and the implications for themselves. But times have changed. We see a live streamed genocide and they didn’t bat an eyelid. The USA threatens half the world and they remain silent or they support it, such as is the case with Ukraine and Iran. Even more worrying in the case of a victory for the extreme right in Colombia is that in Europe the same governments the human rights NGOs would lobby are in a campaign against all rights to dissent and engage in attacks on their own people.
In Germany the police arrest people for wearing a T-Shirt with the Palestinian flag or a keffiyeh. They violently attack peaceful protests. Germany expels or denies entry to other Europeans who support the Palestinian cause like the former minister for finance in Greece, Yanis Varoufikis. In Britain the police arrest pro-Palestinian activists, amongst them blind people, old people, priests and processes them under anti-terrorist legislation. When some activists began a hunger strike the government remained firm, as De la Espriella would say, and some of them came close to dying. They also charge pro-Palestinian doctors and try to have their medical licences revoked, not for malpractice but because of their political positions. They have reached the point of going after people for the posts on social media and not just over Palestine but also other issues. During the social explosion of 2021 in which the Colombian police murdered 84 people in a short period, the European Union remained fairly quiet and limited itself to calls for calm. Now under a De la Espriella government that represses the opposition they are not going to say much, bearing in mind that human and civil rights are also under threat in Europe.
In the USA, ICE searches houses without a warrant, arrests citizens and migrants without due process and the president does what he feels like. The international setting favours the Bukele, the Milei and the De la Espriella. Colombia’s social democrats have lost the consolation of European and Yankee “support”. They will have to fight and if the youths come out on the streets again, they will have to support them, materially, publicly, explicitly and of course not betray them as Petro did, leaving them to rot in prison. The extreme right has discounted half measures and you can’t fight them with conciliatory half measures.
Some have called out for a supposed centre that never existed in Colombia. It is not that there is no centre in Colombia, just that it is not what they say it is. The nearest thing to a centre in Colombia, is the Historic Pact. In any other country, it would be seen as such being a liberal/social democratic party, with some members more to the left and others more to the right. What it is not, is a socialist party. It says a lot about how right-wing various professional commentators are that they see in the Historic Pact, Fidel Castro entering Havana. One would wish it were so, but unfortunately it is not, nor will it be.
Whether a constituent assembly is convenient now or not, is a legitimate debate, but such an assembly is a right people have. Ask for one or not does not place Cepeda on the left, just like their opposition to an assembly does not place them in the supposed centre, though the right-wing don’t usually like assemblies where people get to make decisions. What they really want is for the HP to go further to the right, forming alliances with the “run of the mill” right like Claudia López, responsible for the murder of 14 youths in the protests against the murder of Javier Ordónez at the hands of the police in 2019. Some point to the ex-presidents as a supposed centre. They are all, without exceptions, implicated in the dirty war and it is depressing that they aim to make us think otherwise and that one has to read, not the manifestos of that “left” in the Congress or the commentators from the supposed centre to know what they did, but rather the communiqués from the period of organisations such as Amnesty International. Sipping good whiskey can affect the memory, apparently. Or maybe De la Espriella is not the only one lacking in empathy. These commentators are as much a part of the problem as the bourgeois press itself. They don’t want the country to change too much, they are living it up.
One of the problems of Petro’s government and also Cepeda’s campaign is a lack of clear left-wing proposals. Petro’s attempts to change the health system in Colombia, lacking a majority, ended up as negotiations with right wing forces in Congress, amongst them the supposed centre the commentators want an alliance with. Petro was lacking in audacity. It was also a negotiated process with the health companies such as the Spanish Keralty Group. A simple proposal, which is also simple to understand is a universal health system. To say to the people that if you come down with something minor we will tend to you to the last moment. If it is serious, likewise. If it is chronic or acute also and your income doesn’t matter as it is a universal system and so it is free.
What if Cepeda wins?
But if on the other hand, the mobilisations following the first round and the efforts the Historic Pact bear fruit and Cepeda wins, the problems won’t go away. The right-wing will simply open up another battle front. One of the first to congratulate De la Espriella was extreme Venezuelan right-winger Corina Machado and he wasted no time in returning the accusation of fraud and asked the USA for help to ensure he victory in the second round. Trump heard his call and declared his support as he has done with many authoritarians around the world. If Cepeda wins, the rabble in the opposition campaign will not hesitate to carry out a campaign similar to the Venezuela right-wing asking for sanctions, pressure and if it comes to it and the moment is ripe - ask for a military strike like in Venezuela. Petro has already laid the groundwork in that sense. He ceded to Trump on many things, narcotised his discourse on the armed conflict and spoke of a dictatorship in Venezuela. The abject cowardice he showed will come back like a boomerang. If Cepeda wins, it cannot be discounted that sooner or later they will talk of a dictatorship.
Following June 21st the fight will require fighting, something Petro never understood. The social democrats will also have to fight even if they manage to hang on to their jobs, which is what concerns many of them, though not them all.
One of the problems of Petro’s government and also Cepeda’s campaign is a lack of clear left-wing proposals. Petro’s attempts to change the health system in Colombia, lacking a majority, ended up as negotiations with right wing forces in Congress, amongst them the supposed centre the commentators want an alliance with. Petro was lacking in audacity. It was also a negotiated process with the health companies such as the Spanish Keralty Group. A simple proposal, which is also simple to understand is a universal health system. To say to the people that if you come down with something minor we will tend to you to the last moment. If it is serious, likewise. If it is chronic or acute also and your income doesn’t matter as it is a universal system and so it is free.
What if Cepeda wins?
But if on the other hand, the mobilisations following the first round and the efforts the Historic Pact bear fruit and Cepeda wins, the problems won’t go away. The right-wing will simply open up another battle front. One of the first to congratulate De la Espriella was extreme Venezuelan right-winger Corina Machado and he wasted no time in returning the accusation of fraud and asked the USA for help to ensure he victory in the second round. Trump heard his call and declared his support as he has done with many authoritarians around the world. If Cepeda wins, the rabble in the opposition campaign will not hesitate to carry out a campaign similar to the Venezuela right-wing asking for sanctions, pressure and if it comes to it and the moment is ripe - ask for a military strike like in Venezuela. Petro has already laid the groundwork in that sense. He ceded to Trump on many things, narcotised his discourse on the armed conflict and spoke of a dictatorship in Venezuela. The abject cowardice he showed will come back like a boomerang. If Cepeda wins, it cannot be discounted that sooner or later they will talk of a dictatorship.
Following June 21st the fight will require fighting, something Petro never understood. The social democrats will also have to fight even if they manage to hang on to their jobs, which is what concerns many of them, though not them all.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
When a knife attack in Belfast sparked riots inflamed by outside "influencers," it exposed an emerging leadership challenge: who manages the bad actors profiting from division? Drawing on new place leadership research this post examines what leading a divided community actually demands.
For anyone who has seen (or even glimpsed) the footage of the recent knife attack in Belfast, Northern Ireland (NI) on Monday, there is something truly horror inducing about what happened on that street. It was grotesque — even in the context of a place with a history of unspeakable brutality through 30 years of civil conflict known as “the Troubles.”
Of course, far more people will now have seen this awful event — thanks to its dissemination on social media by very many people — including Elon Musk. Musk is a billionaire who never encountered a dangerous situation he couldn’t make worse. His voice and many others, largely from outside NI, have been loud in encouraging protests and mass deportations of “migrants.” A lot of these people seemed to have a sketchy understand of where Belfast is, or the constitutional status of NI as part of the United Kingdom, but not part of Great Britain.
Continue @ ILA.
24/02/22 - Eight men (Owen McMahon, four sons and a McMahon employee) were shot dead at their home in Kinnaird Terrace, Belfast. According to survivors, police officers were behind the murders.
08/06/26 - One man (Stephen Ogilvie) was taken to hospital with slash wounds to his back, face and eye injuries after an attack in Kinnaird Avenue, Belfast. According to some reports, his attacker (Hadi Alodid) had briefly served as a police officer in Sudan.
Chilling proof, if needed, that history in this country doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
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Similarly, the subsequent rioting and torching of homes that we’ve seen played out over the last few days is utterly sickening. Seeing families targeted because of their skin colour should be anathema to everyone. There is no excuse for intimidation or pogroms of any kind and the fact that this is the third instance of rioting over immigrants in the North in less than three years is a depressing thought.
A lesser discussed impact of the pogroms is that it allows the political establishment act as the moral authority and ignore the underlying causes and tensions that have led to such nihilistic violence.
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Let’s state the obvious: to the average citizen it feels like this country is at breaking point:
- stagnant wages
- high cost of living
- lack of new housing
- faltering NHS
- a road system which gridlocks if someone sneezes
- petty crime seemingly going unpunished
- hypocritical and unaccountable political system
- withdrawal of communities into individual silos
- a society that no longer believes in itself
These, of course, are not unique to the North. Many countries in the West and the United States are faced with these problems as well.
But when mass immigration, in particular the way it's been handled by the political system, is thrown into the mix; things become explosive. This is because it’s the most obvious example of change in a society like the North which was (and still is) overwhelmingly white. Of course, there has been immigration in the past: Vietnamese, Black British, Nigerian, Sudanese, Kenyan, African, Pakastani, Chinese, Indian, Turkish, Italian, Israeli, Polish, Greeks and Cypriots have all made the North their home and we should be proud of how they have not only become part of the furniture, so to speak, but that many run successful businesses and give back to their respective areas.
However, in recent years, the number of new arrivals has increased dramatically. Once again, this is not a unique situation to this country, but it is the first time demographics have shifted not just visibly but also at great speed. Change will always happen and nowhere is immune. But change that would normally happen over a span of 50 odd years has happened in the space of 10-15 years. If handled incorrectly, the end result can lead to parallel lives, impact on already stretched health and social services, housing and a grave sense of alienation and displacement among people which can be difficult for some to articulate. If ignored by left wing commentators, it gives the far right the equivalent of a penalty kick.
And quite a few commentators from across the political spectrum have been doing that in recent days.
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Let’s look at a few examples, two from the left and two from the right:
Claire Hanna (SDLP):
The violence in North Belfast was horrific, the video will create fear and shock. No good will come of sharing it or of turning on each other in this society, including for the clout of online voices who don’t know or care about us and who offer absolutely nothing for the future.
On the face of it, this seems to be a reasonable request not to share the horrific footage of the attack and it’s certainly true that various terminally online types have been sharing it not only as an example of the “suicide of the West” but also because their nihilistic world view is partially quenched by such sick footage.
However, when you consider that initial news reports suggested that the incident was merely a stabbing, the tweet can also be considered an attempt to stifle discussion and downplay the severity of the attack. Considering trust in both legacy and new media is at an all-time low (who could forget "firey but mostly peaceful protests" in 2020), I don’t think this is an unreasonable conclusion to draw.
Anthony McIntyre:
The person arrested on suspicion of last night's attack is reported by the PSNI to be a Sudanese national. That has kickstarted a surge in anti-immigrant rhetoric from quarters which were much less vociferous when Ian Ogle was knifed to death in Belfast in 2019. Ogle's killers, because they identified as white and British, did not provoke the same rabid outcry that we are familiar with when the attacker is a different colour. The Irish News has reported that 'far-right activist Tommy Robinson and tech billionaire Elon Musk amplified calls for people to take to the streets in response to the incident.'
Obfuscation, pure and simple.
Firstly, Ian Ogle was stabbed in the chest and then stamped on the head by a gang of men. An evil murder undoubtedly, but one that we have (sadly) seen many times. By contrast, Ogilvie was slashed repeatedly, has lost much of his eyesight with some witnesses believing that it was an attempt at beheading. Leaving aside the 50-year-old example of the Shankill Butchers, that is highly unusual for a killing in Belfast.
Secondly, the background of Ogle’s murder involved the East Belfast UVF, long standing grudges and family ties. At the time of writing this piece, we don’t know the full story of what led to Alodid’s actions but I would be surprised if it was as expansive as Ogle’s.
Thirdly, Mackers knows fine rightly that the discussion surrounding this case will inevitably touch on mass immigration, especially now that the Home Office has confirmed that Alodid had entered the UK in 2023 (supposedly via Dublin) and was granted refugee status the same year until 2028. Writing in 2024, Mackers made his views clear:
I'm fine with immigration but not fine with suppressing any opinion that is not fine with it. The government have not yet explained how they are going to make it practical. They do not provide the infrastructure and leave it to the leftoids to label those who ask questions about the infrastructure deficiency as far right and racist. Time out of number I have said to people that if they accuse everybody of being far right they will create a far right much more virulent than it currently is.
Yes, the likes of Elon Musk and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon have inflamed the situation but the implication that ordinary people who feel that the North is spiraling out of control have to be manipulated by such types is what the kids refer to as a cope: for many, the video of the crime confirmed their worst fears. They didn’t need anyone to tell them to be angry.
Now let’s look at the right.
Fergus Mason:
Is anyone actually stupid enough to believe that the family of Stephen Ogilvie, who is currently in a coma with hideous injuries after being attacked by an imported savage, would write a bland statement about the importance of immigration to the hospitality sector? The government's fingerprints are all over this.
Leaving aside the blatant racism, this commentator doesn’t seem to consider the possibility that the Ogilvie family (as well as Stephen) may not be bigots and do genuinely value the importance of immigrants contributing to society, particularly within the NHS.
Disturbingly, it can also be interpreted as an attempt to dehumanise workers who are already facing a rising tide of racist abuse in our aforementioned overstretched society. Such views are abhorrent to the average person.
Paul Golding:
Leaving aside the blatant racism, this commentator doesn’t seem to consider the possibility that the Ogilvie family (as well as Stephen) may not be bigots and do genuinely value the importance of immigrants contributing to society, particularly within the NHS.
Disturbingly, it can also be interpreted as an attempt to dehumanise workers who are already facing a rising tide of racist abuse in our aforementioned overstretched society. Such views are abhorrent to the average person.
Paul Golding:
I hate the IRA, but fair play to those staunch republican for telling the African invader to get the fuck out of Belfast.
Filming a man minding his own business and proceeding to racially abuse him = staunch republican? Fuck away off with that bullshit. The cunt filming that video would have run a mile if he’d been asked to help out the republican movement back in the day.
The reason it’s important to look at both sides is to see how one fails to address some core issues while the other offers a blinkered, hate-filled response to a complex issue. And there’s evidence that the traditional barrier of ‘themmuns and usuns’ that has demarcated the debate on mass immigration along nationalist and unionist lines may not be as sturdy as some think.
Filming a man minding his own business and proceeding to racially abuse him = staunch republican? Fuck away off with that bullshit. The cunt filming that video would have run a mile if he’d been asked to help out the republican movement back in the day.
♞♜♝
The reason it’s important to look at both sides is to see how one fails to address some core issues while the other offers a blinkered, hate-filled response to a complex issue. And there’s evidence that the traditional barrier of ‘themmuns and usuns’ that has demarcated the debate on mass immigration along nationalist and unionist lines may not be as sturdy as some think.
Writing in Unherd, Aris Roussinos noted that there were scenes in North Queen Street and Ardoyne that suggested that it may not be long before nationalist areas have their own migrant riots. If true, this would be a grave inversion of the 1932 Belfast Outdoor Relief Strike (again, history rhyming but not repeating) and would dent the idea of Irish nationalism as a progressive force.
In some ways, globalisation has now given the situation in this country a wedge that has pushed both sides even further apart: nationalism/republicanism (generally) have gone Eurocentric as it allows for a decent facsimile of a united Ireland while unionists/loyalists (generally) have gone in a Brexit style direction as they feel disillusioned with the peace process. Both of these differing stances, combined with a decaying infrastructure, loss of common bond among communities, disconnect between elected representatives and the voters and stagnant wages, has added an extra layer of gunpowder onto a tinderbox which Hadi Alodid inadvertently set off with his evil, frenzied attack.
We live in deeply toxic times and genuine adults need to step up and avert an oncoming crisis.
♞♜♝
Writing in 2011 about the then recent London riots, Kenan Malik correctly diagnosed the malaise and offered up words that we must live by:
Because the right has appropriated the arguments about moral failure, many on the left have rejected moral arguments altogether. The left talks much about the social and economic impact of neo-liberal policies. But little about its moral impact. Such wilful blindness is dangerous. The questions about economic and social poverty, about unemployment and the cuts, are closely related to the questions about moral poverty, about the breakdown of social solidarity and the rise of a nihilistic culture. There can be no challenge to mass unemployment and the imposition of austerity without the restoration of bonds of social solidarity. We cannot, in other words, confront economic poverty if we do not also confront moral poverty. We need to remake our own language of morality, reforge our own moral norms.
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
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