As the Twelfth approaches people in the North, of all religions and none, do not want a repeat of last year's sectarian violence. Already tensions are high at the possibility of a Drumcree 3. Catholic families have been intimidated out of their homes, savage beatings by sectarian gangs are a weekly occurence and Loyalist bigots continue to lay siege to the Catholic church at Harryville in Ballymena.
But a Ballymena Guardian survey of the views of Ballymena people found that the majority oppose such bigotry. Over half those interviewed said that they would 'consider foregoing the marching season to allow old wounds to heal'. One woman told the paper that 'I enjoy watching the marching, if they are just going to march. My son was an Orangeman but he has given up because of all that's going on.'
A shiver ran through the entire working class when Bobby 'Basher' Bates, one of the Shankill Butchers, was shot dead out of fear of a return to the random Loyalist killings of pre-ceasefire days.
But it's not just the Ballymena opinion poll that indicates that the majority of Protestants do not support Orange bigotry against Catholics. At the beginning of June the Orange Order in Portadown sent a letter to each of the 1,500 residents of the mainly Catholic Garvaghy Road. The letter tried to argue that their annual parade from Drumcree church is not anti-Catholic but commemorates the death at the Battle of the Somme of soldiers from both communities. It pledged that the bands would only play hymns common to both Protestants and Catholics and that the parade would take only five minutes to pass any point.
The letter wasn't much. But it is a first admission by the Orange Order that they don't have an automatic right to show their supremacy over Catholics by marching where they want. It was the pressure of ordinary Protestant people, who are increasingly questioning their traditional support for Orangeism, which forced the order to back downa bit.
Across the North over the last year Ian Paisley's supporters in the Democratic Unionist Party have been doing their best to whip up anti-Catholic sectarianism of the kind that led to Robert Hamill being kicked to death by a Loyalist mob in Portadown recently. Paisley has declared that the Orange Order will be 'selling out Protestantism' if it negotiates with residents' groups. But his support is weak. Turnouts for the 'Civil Rights for Protestants' marches, which he predicted would bring 10,000 onto the streets in Ballymena, Larne and Portadown, drew only hundreds.
Some of David Trimble's supporters in the Ulster Unionists run businesses that were devastated by the violence of last summer: They don't want a rerun. But Trimble can't let Paisley be seen as the main defender of the Union, so he is forced to stand with the Orangemen. Tony Blair travelled to Belfast to let us all know that, in fact, he is the key defender of the Union. The unionists were happy to discover he's so firmly on their side.
But not all the Protestants who want to stay in the UK support Orangeism. Socialists have been saying this for some time and, in spite of continuing sectarian violence, the evidence is growing.
Last summer brought a new determination among Catholics, both working class and middle class, that there would be no return to Orange rule. But it also saw a realisation among many Protestant workers that they too did not want a return to Orange rule. The majority of Protestant working people want to live in peace with, and to respect, their Catholic neighbours, workmates and friends. It is pressure from such people that forced the Orange Order to move and seek a compromise to avoid Drumcree 3.
The Orange Order is now split down the middle. At the recent meeting of the Grand Lodge for Northern Ireland, the modernising element was strong enough to reject the Spirit of Drumcree group's stance of no negotiations with residents' groups, although not strong enough to risk suspending or expelling Joel Patton, the hardliners' leader. The local election results confirmed the disgust felt by many Protestant workers for the bigotry of Trimble and Paisley. In some Protestant areas fewer than one in three people voted. Trimble and co blamed unionist 'apathy'. Paisleyites insisted that Protestants didn't vote because they 'know' civil rights for Catholics and moves towards peace automatically means less for Protestants.
In fact the bigotry of the unionist parties put off many Protestants. Where Protestant workers were offered the chance to vote against Orange bigotry, they took it. The independent Labour councillor topped the poll in Newtownabbey, seen as one of the most hardline Loyalist areas. The enthusiasm for the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), where it stood, showed the problem was one of politics, not apathy.
Although firmly within the unionist family, and with Union Jacks daubed all over their literature, the PUP is seen as a break with the 'fur coat brigade' of the older unionist parties. Despite its links with the Loyalist murder gangs of the UVF, it states that it is not anti-Catholic and that it wants peace and a negotiated settlement. Many of its members are community workers living and working in some of the most deprived areas and are respected for their role in the Loyalist ceasefire.
In contrast, right across the North, the DUP lost seats in the local elections. Even in Paisley's home town of Ballymena, the DUP and Official Unionists lost seats. Many Protestant workers say they have never voted because there's no one to vote for. Unwilling to vote for bigoted unionist politicians, Protestant workers are unlikely to vote for Sinn Fein which is clearly part of a pan-Catholic alliance. Indeed, when the SDLP's Joe Hendron got votes from Protestants in the Shankill areas of West Belfast, Sinn Fein condemned this as a kind of cheating. The idea of Sinn Fein itself appealing to Protestant workers to vote for Gerry Adams wasn't even consideredit suits republicans to see all Protestants as 'naturally' part of a unionist block.
While Paisley had apoplexy at the idea of the first nationalist mayor in Belfast's City Hall, people on the street had little problem with the idea. Protestants and Catholics alike welcomed the change and hoped that it would bring some reality to Belfast Council meetings. In recent years, the behaviour of unionist councillors has resembled a Carry On film.
The attitude of many non-voters is in stark contrast to the growing acceptance of the sectarian divide by politicians and community leaders on all sides. The idea that there are two separate peoples in the North, with separate cultures and separate interests, is now widely accepted. The notion that the only peaceful way forward is to keep Protestants and Catholics separate suits the politicians: it does nothing to challenge the system. It is a way of categorising people that no one is allowed to escape: employers, government departments, community groups, all insist: you have to be one or the other. If you refuse to opt for either camp, as do socialists, you will be 'allocated' to the community to which you are 'perceived to belong'.
Every survey of social attitudes shows that the vast majority of people want no part of this apartheid system. People frequently say they would like to live in a mixed area, to send their children to mixed schools, that they value their contact with people of the 'other' religion. Education cuts mean that there are nothing like enough places for all the children whose parents want them in integrated schools. Parents had got together to set up nine new mixed schools which were to open next September; because of cutbacks only two have been given funding.
There is a beacon of hope in the Montupet strike. Workers from Catholic and Protestant backgrounds are standing together against the company's attempts to divide them along sectarian lines. UDA supporters stand on picket lines with former Republican prisoners. There's still tension, but also a resolute refusal to accept the idea that they are two separate peoples with different 'traditions' which divide them. They have seen how similar their lives arelong hours of hard graft for lousy wages, with an ignorant, bullying management.
The ruling class view of 'the two communities' has become so accepted that to argue against it is seen as utopian or as 'denying the cultural traditions of a community'. Working class culture in the North, as elsewhere, is very similar, whatever your religion. We live in the same kind of houses, wear the same kind of clothes, listen to the same music, watch the same films or soap operas. Everywhere the cultural divide is not between workers of different religions but between the haves and the have nots. Between those who spend £50 a head for a meal and those who spend £50 to feed a family for a week. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Northern Ireland, where there are more BMWs per head of population than in any other region of the UK.
The old 'divide and rule' methods that used to benefit the British Empire are now helping multinational employers and Protestant and Catholic businessmen alike. The extent to which the British ruling class still uses sectarianism was seen recently when Tory minister Baroness Denton who was responsible for, among other things, fair employment, was saved from enforced resignation by the election. An inquiry into a case of sectarian discrimination in her private office confirmed allegations against her and revealed that she had been directly responsible for a number of blatant breaches in the equal opportunities code.
At the start of June, Denton appeared on the BBC Hearts and Minds programme and attacked the most senior Catholic in the civil service, Gerry Loughran, by name, claiming that he had given her unreliable advice and that he had suggested that the best way to deal with the allegations of sectarian discrimination was 'to pack her bags and go back to London'. In fact, the inquiry praised Loughran as the only civil servant who had insisted that fair employment procedures be followed to the letter.
If the British ruling class has done much to maintain sectarianism, the British working class has done much to help fight it. The Labour landslide brought real hope here too that Blair will deliver a decent minimum wage and end cuts in health and education. The Montupet strikers have produced a letter calling on Blair to repeal the Tory anti-union laws which threatened to jail them. But the landslide also raised hopes that Blair would face down the unionists and force them to move towards a peace settlement.
The two sets of hopes are not separable. The struggles of workers in Britain for a decent wage and against the cuts resonate throughout the North. Public sector disputes, in the benefits and employment agencies, the post office, the fire service, health and education often bring workers in the North out too. They bring Protestant and Catholic workers together on the picket lines and strengthen the impulse towards class unity.
Working class unity is under constant attack from the poison of the bigots who refuse to sit and talk peace. Loyalism is far from dead and has to be combatted within the Protestant section of the class. It is when workers are in struggle, resisting all efforts to stir up sectarianism, that the strength of class unity can isolate the bigots and put pressure on the politicians to negotiate. Whatever happens around the Twelfth, there remains an overwhelming desire for working class unity and peace.