Back in 1979/80 I had an American girlfriend who I was taking to see Stirling when an Orange march (it was some kind of national Orange event) came through town. She had not the first idea what it was about, but she felt terrified and threatened and ended up in tears, despite being a Presbyterian from Illinois. I tell you that story because it is difficult to get over to people who have not experienced it, just how nasty the atmosphere of an Orange march is. The aggressive rattle of the drums, the fierce posturing and apoplectic faces of the participants, the plain enactment of an aggressive territorial possession ritual, and of course the drunken and swaggering followers walking on the pavements forcing people off them or into the shops.
The great John Stuart Mill made the point in On Liberty that it was a perfectly legitimate point of view to express that corn merchants were thieves who made fortunes out of the starving and misery of the poor. But to use precisely the same words shouted to a howling mob bearing torches, outside a corn merchants’ house in the middle of the night, was not legitimate. Even the apostle of liberty held that freedom of speech could not be absolute but must be linked to context and intent.
That Mill’s observation is followed in practice is well illustrated by the Northern Irish practice of restricting Orange marches away from Catholic areas and churches. But the whole question of Orange manifestations raises difficult questions of how to tolerate the intolerant and to deal with mass threat. There is not a simple right or wrong answer.
But what I do know is that it is very wrong indeed that in Scotland in 2015, I had to warn Nadira this morning to be extremely careful as she set off to go to Queens Street station and then on to a meeting in Glasgow Film City in Govan.
As to the legal position, Orange displays are very plainly illegal under the Public Order Act 1936. This has not been repealed or contradicted by subsequent legislation and it does apply to Scotland. It is not otiose – it has been used against striking miners and against Irish Republicans.
Section 1 (I)
Subject as hereinafter provided, any person
who in any public place or at any public meeting wears
uniform signifying his association with any political
organisation or with, the promotion of any political
object shall be guilty of an offence :
The Orange Order registered as a participant in the referendum campaign. It is therefore by definition an avowedly political organisation.
Without any need to get in to the fact it is the only remaining effective part of Scottish Labour and Gordon Matheson’s sole resource on the ground.
If section 1 is not enough for you, and you would have to be a dedicated sophist to claim it does not apply, let me refer you to Section 2b which bans “the display of physical force in promoting any political object”. No reasonable person who has ever seen an Orange march can deny that is precisely what it is. (I do not use their lying term of walk designed precisely to obscure this truth).
Whether Orange street events should be allowed is a difficult question. Whether they are illegal is an entirely different question. They are illegal, and the fact the law is not enforced takes us back again to the subject of the institutional corruption of the Scottish legal establishment. I guarantee you that if I suggested we walk down Sauchiehall Street all wearing black berets in support of independence, we would be in the pokey PDQ.
Anyway, my knowledge of Northern Ireland comes largely from Graham Norton. So anyone who comes across the Orangemen in Glasgow today, I suggest that you, if you are male, scream out at one:
“Oh Wow! Look at you! You look just Gorgeous! And Orange is SO your colour!!! I had no idea you could be so dominant. I can think of things we could do with that umbrella/flute/drumstick/furry cockade. Anyway I shan’t bother you now in front of your charming butch friends, but we really must do it again sometime. (Mime “phone me”).
If you are female, you can play too, but better use a lower voice and say this:
“Oh wow! You look great. I am so glad I ran into you again. Honestly, I have been wanting to see you to say please don’t worry, it happens to a lot of men. Especially your age. Maybe it would help you if you wore your uniform?”
Go on, hug an Orangeman.
Craig…….on a serious note…..thought Graham Norton was from the South of the Emerald Isle?
Clydebank
hush you’ll spoil my invisibly constructed segue. There is craft in this writing you know, it’s not nearly as effortless as it looks 🙂
Instead of hug or squeeze might I suggest lance, as you would a boil or similar infection
As a Catholic I have no objections to the Orange Order celebrating their “culture” to each their own,what I cannot stand is the blind hatred the downright in your face bitterness on dis-play.They cannot/will not tolerate or even discuss or debate the relevant issues,it is a one way street unfortunately.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3112992/Hounded-SNP-hate-mob-weeks-lonely-death-Charles-Kennedy-endured-vile-campaign-bullying-abuse-separatist-fanatics-deeply-wounded-vulnerable-man.html
Vronsky. Your right about poverty and Orangeism going hand in hand. Was at the funeral of an Orangeman , the mourners were in Tesco suits if they were lucky. Faces out of the jail. There was a sadness to it all. Something of the lost sheep in them.
re: Graham Norton: he IS from ‘the south’ like me, although with my name I can lay claim to be from Co. Donegal which is in Ulster, to the NORTH of ‘the north’ but in ‘the south’. Look at a map.
As to identity, Graham who is 100% Irish, was condemned in his youth to be a double outsider — a gay Protestant, no less! Protestant=English in those unenelightened times, and as for gay! Listen to the ‘Rev’ Ian Paisley on sodomites! (from his Who Do You Think You Are? programme).
And Orangemen? Surely it’s time to turn them into a sort of Ulster-Scots Mardi Gras — a colourful tourist attraction?
Woops, just noticed been spelling my name as Clydebank………should have been Clydebuilt……. Suppose it’s a bit like Cameron forgetting which team he supports.
There is an indy-supporters uniform. Pink beret and pink sunglasses, as sported by https://twitter.com/angrysalmond/ 🙂
Last time I saw an Orange Order march I ended up surprising myself by how moved I was. It felt doomed and pointless and – as someone says above, lost. People who, in other circumstances, would be brutally used as cannon fodder. Respectable poverty and dislocation and obedience, and no joy. Very sad. I genuinely wanted to hug a few. The march passed off peacefully, by the way.
Seemingly going to piss on their parade. Oooh what a shame,never mind.
“Even the apostle of liberty held that freedom of speech could not be absolute but must be linked to context and intent…”
The ‘apostle of liberty’ indeed.
Mill, as you recently mentioned, actually worked for the East India Company in a highly political role, which is to say that he was an active participant in the despotic suppression of liberty among Indians. A practicing ideologist of colonial exploitation of the rawest kind.
Talking of context….
“Becky Cohen
6 Jun, 2015 – 11:24 am
I actually challenged someone whom I mistakenly thought was a far-right orange sash-wearing skinhead who was picking on my left-wing, gay Irish Catholic friend once. I actually got my head kicked in though, because he turned out to be a Buddhist monk with a black belt in Kung Fu:)”
LOL Becky very monk-ey-ish behaviour.
I take it you know the etymology of the word buddha. Anyway buddhism is very fashionable these days, as a lot of lost young (and sometimes old) people turn away from Christianity.
‘Mary
6 Jun, 2015 – 11:45 am
Assuming that the death of Charles Kennedy brought the subject to the fore, the Scottish Parliament have a debate on ‘Scotland’s Relationship to Alcohol’.
…
I watched some of the debate on the Parliament channel Freeview 131.’
______________
Barely a dozen comments deep (excluding Craig’s replies), into the thread and the Orange Woman interjects and diverts. Yet again.
” I watched some of the debate on the Parliament channel Freeview 131.”
So what?
Behave yourself, woman
By the way, Edinburgh today is being blessed with a Fenian march, so don’t go near the city centre as the roads are blocked to allow it to pass.
The woman who organised the petition to halt sectarian marches in Glasgow has received death threats from supporters of the unionist Orange Order.
They’ve threatened to kill her and her family and even her boss at work.
The O/O are loyal supporters to the monarchy,and their violent neanderthal like acolytes have already caused riots in George Square, days after the referendum.
The iconic picture of the young girl having the saltire wrenched from her hands,whilst she lay on the ground by unionist thugs loyal to the queen singing Rule Britannia,will remain with me for a long time.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/orangefest-petition-organiser-receives-online-death-threats.3795
A excellent article from Henry Whittaker
Indeed, the decision of Glasgow council to permit the Orange Order to take over George Square today is wrong and is only going to fan the flames of bigotry.
Let those who march and parade in their Orange sashes in praise of their hero King Billy, to celebrate the great Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne, know this: William of Orange was not fighting for the Protestant cause.
He was an ally of Pope Innocent XI and his successor Pope Alexander VIII in their struggle against Louis XIV of France under the Treaty of Augsburg.
In fact half of his army and military equipment was financed by the Catholic Church.The Boyne victory was celebrated as a great Catholic victory and a Te Deum was sung in St Peter’s in Rome, and in the Catholic cathedrals of Vienna, Madrid and Brussels.
The whole of Catholic Europe, except France, rejoiced in William of Orange’s victory. As for those Irish Protestants who fought on William’s side, how did he reward them?
He forbade them from practising their Presbyterian religion and ordered them to pay tithes to the Anglican Church of Ireland, the Irish version of the Church of England.
This caused such despair among the Presbyterians that they left Ireland in droves and migrated to the USA.Thereafter the Presbyterians dropped their bigotry towards Irish Catholicism and when the first Catholic Church was built in Belfast it was Protestants who supplied most of the money to build it: about half the congregation at the first mass were Protestants.
In the United Irishmen’s rebellion of 1798 Catholics and Protestants fought side by side for Ireland’s independence.
This terrified the British ruling class, and William Pitt the Younger gave the Governor of Ireland the order to split up the Protestants and Catholics no matter what the cost.
The Governor, Brigadier General Knox, replied: “Simple, I will use the Orange Order to create division”. Thereafter the Orange Order was used as a tool of the British ruling class to divide and weaken the working class.”
Alan Campbell.
Re Charles Kennedy,the national press have tried and failed miserably,to blame Mr Kennedy’s passing on the SNP.
My only surprise is that the unionist press hasn’t blamed the SNP for the death of John Smith,Robin Cook,Margaret Thatcher,global warming,or even WWII.
The referendum taught a lot of Scots,to take the unionist press with a huge pinch of salt.
Turn out for the Orangepest not looking too good.
“The cry was no attenders.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/OrangeFest?src=hash
Mind your own business ‘Villager’. Are you assuming the role of Resident Invigilator of this blog from Habbabkuk?
George Square web cam live,updated every 20 seconds.
Not a lot of folk at Orangepest.
https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2983
PS My post on the Scottish Parliament debate on Scotland and Alcohol was ON topic. Craig mentioned ‘drunken and swaggering followers’.
Craig also said earlier that he might post on the subject of alcohol dependence.
Keep up,
PPS Why use the epithet Orange Woman to address me? Your point is?
“That Mill’s observation is followed in practice is well illustrated by the Northern Irish practice of restricting Orange marches away from Catholic areas and churches.”
That had to be fought for, over many years, with in earlier years local protestors battened off the streets by the Orange Police Force.
Things are better today but there are still problems, flashpoints and an inability to accept that many don’t want these clowns marching through their area.
Orangeism represents the rather degraded remnant of the transfer of central banking from Amsterdam to London in 1694.
Yes. Most of these Orange supporters don’t seem to have benefited much from that transfer, other than still tenaciously holding to what were very useful bigotries from those days.
The London in Londonderry comes from that time too, when the City of London awarded Derry the glorious privilege of appending to itself the name of the soon to be great city of London, for its part in not surrendering during the Siege of Derry, 1689.
“God save the Queen!”
and, of course.
“Fuck the Pope!”
Why did you not elaborate on this particular point? England has been subject to foreigners rule from early on, first it was the Dutch houses that decided who should rule England. Then it was the turn of Germans, whom have since moved in an made a pretty comfortable living on benefits.
Talk about illegal immigrants coming and taking over, and everyone thinks of the pissant Afghani/Iraqi/Libyan/African and no one ever entertains the idea of the Habsburgs!
Funny part is, the “English” then publicly proclaim their loyalty to the benefit scroungers and go about marching and banging on their drums. Unsurprisingly the zionist supremacists have twigged on to this tradition and they are busy cultivating the EDL to go along and fly the zionistani flag in every march they go to prove their loyalty and state their disgust of Muslims.
‘Re Charles Kennedy,the national press have tried and failed miserably,to blame Mr Kennedy’s passing on the SNP.
My only surprise is that the unionist press hasn’t blamed the SNP for the death of John Smith,Robin Cook,Margaret Thatcher,global warming,or even WWII.’
Ros- are you implying that the Mail invented the quotations attributed therein to Conn O’Neill, Candy Piercy and Carole Macdonald (his partner)? Come out with it man (ref the last but one tread) and stop fart-arseing about.
BTW I was saddened to read in the same article the Kennedy was looking forward to a stint in the Lords as a life peer, where he intended to join ‘the great and good’ and speak in support of our continued membership of the ramshackle EU.
Why doesn’t the UK authorities ban them on Section I in Northern Ireland?
Brian Powell
Interestingly the Act at section 10 (ii) specifically excludes Northern Ireland, in order not to ban Orange marches there, but at Section 8 specifically includes Scotland.
“Why doesn’t the UK authorities ban them on Section I in Northern Ireland?”
Better to let them die out through indifference, than create martyrs and reinvigorate them.
Well. They do ban individual marches when necessary. It isn’t considered the best way of dealing with things.
They’d much prefer the Orange Order saw sense.
Anyway. NI has even had the CFR over to try and sort issues like flags and marches and whatnot.
To little avail.
“Ros- are you implying that the Mail invented the quotations attributed therein to Conn O’Neill, Candy Piercy and Carole Macdonald (his partner)? Come out with it man (ref the last but one tread) and stop fart-arseing about.”
___________________________
OldMark.
I’m implying Charles Kennedy died,due to a alcohol related condition.
As for Conn O’Neil,the article assumes Mr Kennedys bins were tipped over by as the Daily Mail calls them nasty Cybernats.
With regards to abuse on Twitter or Facebook or any social media,SNP MSP’s and MP’s have suffered similar or worse over the past two and a half years.
Infact the unionist press over the same period mocked and derided the SNP relentlessly,so for the Daily Mail to act holier than thou,is hypocritical to say the least.
Read this OldMark.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-scum-of-the-earth/