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Editorial
Alwyn Thomson
Comment:
Failed Politics?
Norman Hamilton
From
the Director: Words and Deeds
David W Porter
Loyalism
and Me
Philip Rankin
Real
Life
David Campton
Policing
Matters
Sam Pollock
The
Crisis Within
Eddie
Kinner
Loyalism
- The Issues
Mervyn Gibson
Scapegoating
Billy Mitchell
Review...Beyond
Retribution
Stephen Graham
Down
to Basics
Malachy
O'Doherty
Faith
in the Future
David
W Porter
For
God and His Glory Alone:
Study 1: Love
LOYALISM AND ME
Loyalist.
Scum. Violent. Evil. Mad. Bastards...
Me.
Hard to be thought
of in that way. Difficult to often have people unwilling to even talk
with me. Simply by assumption, which may or may not be true, and association,
I don't deserve a place or a space.
I've always known
I was Protestant, a Loyalist. Always.
No one ever told me I was. When others in my family had to ask what they
were, I already knew. Born middle class, private education, big fancy
house in North Down. I don't ever remember being 'brought up' anything
in particular. I was given the safe space to grow and to become who I
was. I was always taught to challenge everything, to try to find out why
and take nothing for granted.
Mix that 'safe' middle
class world with the Shankill Road, the Ravenhill Road, the Braniel, Linfield
FC, band parades, burning buses, soldiers and police, shootings, stories,
attacking Catholics, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, bombs.
My life changed dramatically
at ten years of age when my
whole family, one after another and all in different places,
became Christians. Although I still have a faith in God and
believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, I most certainly
would not call myself a 'Christian' now. I couldn't stomach church for
a start. And anyway, I'm a Loyalist and everyone knows Loyalists can't
be Christians.
But what is a Loyalist
then, if not a murderer, violent, a bastard...? Well we.re people for
a start, something often missed among the mad-dogs, jackals and king rats.
While I could say what Loyalism is for me, I certainly can't define it
in some fancy way that suits people, which tells them exactly what every
Loyalist is loyal to. I think that Loyalism has grown and evolved in a
way that many other identifications in Northern Ireland have not, now
encompassing a wide range of people and ideals. It's just as likely for
one Loyalist to express loyalty to Queen and country, while another wills
an independent Northern Ireland.
Although there are
a number of reasons why I would define
myself as Loyalist, one of the most important is that I find it the most
honest place in the world for me to be. An honest, but very often a hard
place to be.
It's painful to live
in a world of apparent contradiction and
conflict. While I believe completely in equality for everyone, I have
to say that I am prejudiced. I.m honest enough, with myself and others,
to admit that this prejudice is part of who I am. Pretty much every time
I see a Republic of Ireland flag I feel uneasy. Every time I see a Celtic
shirt or hear the name Ciaran, I label people. And when I see Gerry Adams
and Martin McGuinness, among others, I want to throw something in their
general direction, and much more besides.
Even as a person
who has grown up his whole life in the
'Troubles', it's not easy to wake up in the morning and feel
uncomfortable with how I think and feel. Have you ever woken up and known
you hate people, known you could hurt people? Known that you want to hurt
people and that within you is the possibility to take life. Known you
are angry, frustrated and angry? Ever woken up and just wished life would
stop, even just for a day? Among my friends from the Loyalist community
my turmoil is both acknowledged and understood.
But I am also challenged.
In my experience Loyalists are
aware of their actions, feelings and thoughts in a way that begins to
ask the question 'Why?' and to begin to deal with the cause. When I am
among other Loyalists we may openly and honestly challenge each other's
thoughts and feelings but almost never in a way that is judgmental.
This however has
not been my experience with Christians or in the Church. Christians have
for too long wanted to be among the 'great and the good', the middle classes
doing Church their way and continually distancing themselves from those
that don't 'fit'. Too often Christians have made me feel judged, inferior,
that somehow it is 'wrong' to think and feel the way I do. Instead of
trying to consider the reasons for and causes of who I am, I simply feel
criticised and judged by Christians for the manifestations of living in
Northern Ireland. I may be honest and open about the
person Northern Ireland has made me, but the Church and
Christians respond with condemnation and distance themselves from people
like me, a sinner.
I find such a response
odd when I consider it alongside the
life of Jesus. I often wonder how many of Jesus' disciples were Zealots,
the paramilitaries of the day? Murderer, scum, violent, bigot, sectarian,
heartless, in the same way that these terms are readily applied to Loyalists,
I think they would have been applied to Jesus' closest companions and
followers, and probably also to Saul, the religious fanatic who went around
stoning anyone who
disagreed with him.
Jesus spent much
of his time with the excluded, something that he did not have to do. Why
not be associated with the Pharisees or even the conquering Romans, after
all they were just as much sinners as anyone else? I think Jesus was with
the thieves, prostitutes and paramilitaries because he was most
comfortable with people who were honest about their sin and who struggled
with it. Jesus may have been sinless but I have no doubt that he struggled
alongside the sinner. Jesus engaged with people who knew they sinned,
developing relationships with them and supporting them through life.
I think if Jesus
was alive today you might find a Loyalist or two among his closest friends.
I could just see him heading into Churches in Northern Ireland and throwing
over tables, kicking anything and everyone that got in his way. Jesus
is often portrayed as the peacemaker, who is all love and sweetness and
light, but I find it much easier to identify with the Jesus who was angry
and publicly challenged the establishment of the day... more Che
Guevara than Gandhi in my opinion...
As a Loyalist I feel
confident in admitting that things are not always black and white and
that I am not always 'comfortable' with my inner self. Sadly the Church
never gave me that space or confidence to deal with that reality. I'm
passionate, perhaps even angry, and being Loyalist gives me the opportunity
to live with it. With my Loyalist friends I can be myself. I can be open
to challenge and questions but I am never made to feel inferior.
In my experience,
Christians living in Northern Ireland struggle with the same anger and
pain that I struggle with but, more often than not, these struggles are
kept below the surface in an effort to be 'nice'. That means not admitting
to the struggles of living in Northern Ireland, the sectarianism, the
'them and us' mentality.
I long for the day
when everyone in Northern Ireland,
Catholic and Protestant, working class, middle class and upper class,
young and old, male and female, has a place and a space here. Equally
and safely. I hope some day we may all call ourselves Northern Irish and
be proud of it.
But it's not easy
to just forget 27 years of 'them and us'.
Maybe I'm not able or ready to just yet. I, along with many others, am
still on that journey. I will push myself and stretch myself, engage with
anybody - and have done. But, for now, it's still them and me - in lots
of ways.
Unionist and me.
Nationalist and me. Republican and me.
Female and me. Old and me. Middle class and me. Working class and me.
Christian and me.
Sometimes even Loyalist and me.
Philip Rankin works in conflict-management and community and youth work. He is currently engaged in research on young people's attitudes to spirituality based at Sarum College, Salisbury.
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