Local politicians need to do more to address the supposed problem of a 'peace dividend that never arrived', writes DAVID ADAMS
ACCORDING TO the smattering of residents, “community representatives” and semi-sympathetic political types who were interviewed on television, the recent serious street disorder in the lower Newtownards Road area of east Belfast sprang from a widespread feeling of alienation among the local working class unionist community.
We were told that societal problems such as high unemployment, low educational achievement and associated poverty and deprivation were not being addressed.
I have no doubt all of this is true. But it is equally true of most other urban working class areas in Northern Ireland and indeed in the rest of Ireland and the UK; which isn’t to downplay in the slightest deprivation in east Belfast – but simply to wonder why similar disturbances aren’t a regular occurrence in cities across Britain and Ireland.
What’s so different about the lower Newtownards Road?
The big difference there, apparently, is that the community is deeply disillusioned because expected benefits from the peace process have not materialised. The perceived nature of these benefits is never explained, so one is left to assume that they would have miraculously solved all of the social problems listed above.
Yet the lower Newtownards Road is not unique in this regard either. There is very little solid evidence anywhere in Northern Ireland of the peace money that flowed into the region after the ceasefires, and certainly none in the vast majority of working-class districts of either persuasion. It disappeared like snow off a ditch and, as a drive through the religious patchwork quilt of north Belfast will testify, left about as much trace.
So was it nothing more than naked sectarianism that drove a unionist mob to attack the equally deprived enclave of Short Strand? No. Although sectarianism obviously played a part, it wasn’t the prime motivation. The communities of the lower Newtownards Road and Short Strand manage to live side-by-side in a relatively peaceful state of mutual antipathy for most of the time. Every so often, however, one or other side serves as a handy target when its opposite number wants to vent anger or draw attention to a grievance.
The most recent catalyst was a power struggle within the UVF, and resentment within that organisation at the activities of the PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team. It is a fair bet that many of those involved in the rioting do not live in or near the lower Newtownards Road. Despite being aware of this, the unionist politicians whom I saw interviewed were still content to peddle the myth that the root cause of the trouble was local residents pushed beyond their limits by the terrible social conditions they have to endure.
What they didn’t attempt to explain was why, as elected politicians for the area, they haven’t done more to ease those conditions. They probably don’t feel any need to do so. The “peace dividend that never arrived” has been cited so often as an excuse for everything that ails unionist communities – including occasional outbreaks of inter- and intra-paramilitary violence – that many of their representatives have actually begun to believe it.
Instead of working night and day on easing social problems, as inner city representatives everywhere else do, some unionist politicians just talk resignedly of the “alienation” that has resulted from their areas being ignored when the peace dividend was divvied up.
Away from the cameras and the microphones, their much darker contention is that most of the money flowed into nationalist districts. This of course only increases resentment and heightens community tensions. The truth is that a lot of the peace money was thrown at a very few, high-profile districts on both sides; another fortune was squandered on a multitude of hare-brained, fancy-titled schemes that sprang up overnight and disappeared just as quickly when the funding began to dry up. And some was pocketed by high-placed paramilitary leaders. Doubtless a tiny proportion did manage to create meaningful jobs and provide vital infrastructure, though I’m at a loss to think of any examples. Thankfully, the media didn’t buy into this hard-done-by story, at least at the outset, and made clear who was behind the violence in east Belfast and what the reasons were. They hadn’t much choice, since the PSNI was adamant about UVF involvement.
However, since the area has quietened down again, articles have begun to appear in some sections of the print media highlighting the extent of deprivation on the lower Newtownards Road and linking this to the riots. These are two separate issues and care should be taken not to conflate them. Doing so partly excuses the inexcusable, reinforces a sense of self-pitying helplessness, heightens resentment, lets politicians and paramilitaries off the hook and signals that violence is a way to gain sympathetic publicity for social problems.
Never mind monetary gain from the peace process, the overriding benefit that has flowed to all of us in equal measure is the peace it has delivered. The sooner politicians make this clear to their constituents, and start doing their jobs in places like east Belfast, the better for everyone.