Racist scum in N.Ireland
AntiFascist | 10.01.2004 21:35 | Anti-racism
Racist war of the loyalist street gangs
Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent
Saturday January 10, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,11374,1120113,00.html
Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent
Saturday January 10, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,11374,1120113,00.html
Not far from the red, white and blue paving stones, the Ku Klux Klan graffiti and the "Chinks out" notices scratched outside south Belfast Chinese takeaways, Hua Long Lin was at home watching television when a man burst in and smashed a brick into his face. His wife, also in the room, was eight months pregnant. The couple had moved into the terrace two weeks before.
Neighbours expressed regret but one white family told a community worker they couldn't offer a Chinese family friendship in public or they would be "bricked" too.
"It's like Nazi Germany," they explained.
Northern Ireland, which is 99% white, is fast becoming the race-hate capital of Europe. It holds the UK's record for the highest rate of racist attacks: spitting and stoning in the street, human excrement on doorsteps, swastikas on walls, pipe bombs, arson, the ransacking of houses with baseball bats and crow bars, and white supremacist leaflets nailed to front doors.
Over 200 incidents were reported to police in the past nine months, although many victims don't bother complaining any more.
But in the past weeks, fear has deepened. Protestant working-class neighbourhoods are showing a pattern of orchestrated house attacks aimed at "ethnically cleansing" minority groups.
It is happening in streets run by loyalist paramilitaries, where every Chinese takeaway owner already pays protection money and racists have plentiful access to guns. The spectre of Catholics being systematically burnt out of similar areas during the Troubles hangs in the air.
So-called peace walls between Protestant and Catholic communities are graffitied with swastikas and signs that read "keep the streets white".
Both local unionists and Sinn Féin warned this week that someone is likely to be killed or burned alive in their home if the campaign does not stop. But there are no signs of it abating.
The Village in south Belfast is a run-down network of loyalist terraces where unemployment is high, union flags sag from lampposts and almost every family has a link to loyalist paramilitaries.
In post-peace process Northern Ireland, communities like this are more segregated than ever - through choice. Last year, five student houses, home to mixed Protestants and Catholics, were attacked until they were vacated. The siege mentality against "outsiders" is rife.
In the past eight weeks, pregnant Chinese women and new mothers have been forced out of terraces and over a dozen Chinese people have been attacked. The Chinese community, the largest ethnic minority in Northern Ireland, has been in Belfast since the 1960s, but there are rumours that a "quota" on new arrivals is being enforced. Last month, Ugandan and Romanian families were burned out.
Many elderly Chinese people do not now leave their homes after 3pm. The best they can hope for is an egg or ice-cream cone thrown in their face or their shopping bags stolen.
This week, in the shadow of a paramilitary mural, a six-foot plank was hurled through the front window of the home of a Pakistani woman who was eight months pregnant. The spot where she and her brother-in-law had eaten dinner 20 minutes before was sprayed with glass. They had moved into the house 12 hours earlier.
The UVF and the UDA have denied paramilitary involvement but some suggest it could be "rogue elements" within their ranks with far right sympathies. One local newspaper has suggested the attacks began after a Chinese restaurant owner refused to pay protection money.
There has always been a crossover of far right groups with loyalist paramilitarism, while small racist groups are said to respect the loyalists and style themselves as "paramilitary groupies". Combat 18 is written in marker pen near Chinese takeaways in the Village and groups such as the White Nationalist party have penetrated elsewhere, threatening one anti-racist activist.
The British National party recently announced it is to field candidates in Belfast's next council elections to capitalise on feeling against the tiny number of asylum seekers arriving. The party is not thought to have stoked the attacks, although it will capitalise on the aftermath.
One local estate agent said yesterday that he had been visited by a group he thought were paramilitaries telling him not to rent another house to "Chinese, blacks or Asians". Ten of his tenants were forced out last year.
Desmond Birnie, a local Ulster Unionist assembly member, said: "The pattern of these attacks suggests that we are seeing a rerun, albeit on a smaller scale, of the tactics used by the Nazis in the 1930s."
Across Belfast, Sara - not her real name - sat behind closed curtains in her terraced house. Her front window is regularly painted with KKK, "black people out" and "I hate niggers" slogans. A Zimbabwean businesswoman in her 30s, she never opens her curtains to let natural light into the house, as the sight of her in the living room is a provocation to local teenagers. The shouting through her letterbox becomes unbearable.
"Sometimes when I'm in the bedroom, I see an egg hit the window and slide down. The writing on the window is replaced whenever we clean it off. Often I just leave it there. It has happened continually for seven months.
"Initially we wanted to move. We called the police. Then we realised it's happening everywhere in Belfast. There is nowhere to run to," she said.
There are 4,000-5,000 Muslims in Northern Ireland, most born locally, but there is no purpose-built mosque for fear of attacks. The community worships in converted houses it can barely squeeze into.
Last year, planning permission was denied in the Protestant-dominated area surrounding Portadown amid a local campaign warning people that residents would be "kept awake by wailing".
Planning permission has now been granted but the mosque won't be built, as the community is too afraid. In the past eight months at least eight families have been forced from their homes.
One family was shot at through their kitchen window, a number of Muslims were stabbed, one was left in a coma after a beating, others have had legs and noses broken. The community avoids speaking out. Whenever it is quoted in the media, the attacks get worse.
"The imam had to leave Northern Ireland after a gang of 10 smashed his windows and doors in, and told him he should get out," said Jamal Iweida, who runs the Islamic Centre in Belfast. "It's a matter of time before we have a fatal attack.
"The attacks are increasing. I can feel the atmosphere on the street. I have to be prepared to be called names at least once a day. I have a beard so I'm called Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, or I'm told 'Paki go home'."
Duncan Morrow, of the Community Relations Council, said Northern Ireland, traditionally a place of emigration that outsiders avoided for 30 years during the Troubles, now cannot cope with the reality of multiculturalism.
He describes a culture of sectarianism that tolerates violence in young men. Racism has always run alongside it but is only now being noticed.
He said: "We have a lazy toleration of racism in this community. The situation now [in Northern Ireland] is what might have happened in Britain in the 1950s."
Members of the Chinese community talk of children being mercilessly bullied and ostracised, even a Chinese boy who won musician of the year. The political parties are under pressure to formulate some tough anti-racist policies to a community where racial discrimination legislation was only introduced 10 years ago.
But most of all, Belfast waits for the loyalist paramilitary leadership, which controls the working-class communities and young lads who live in fear of punishment beatings, to make a statement or move which shows the attacks will not be tolerated
Neighbours expressed regret but one white family told a community worker they couldn't offer a Chinese family friendship in public or they would be "bricked" too.
"It's like Nazi Germany," they explained.
Northern Ireland, which is 99% white, is fast becoming the race-hate capital of Europe. It holds the UK's record for the highest rate of racist attacks: spitting and stoning in the street, human excrement on doorsteps, swastikas on walls, pipe bombs, arson, the ransacking of houses with baseball bats and crow bars, and white supremacist leaflets nailed to front doors.
Over 200 incidents were reported to police in the past nine months, although many victims don't bother complaining any more.
But in the past weeks, fear has deepened. Protestant working-class neighbourhoods are showing a pattern of orchestrated house attacks aimed at "ethnically cleansing" minority groups.
It is happening in streets run by loyalist paramilitaries, where every Chinese takeaway owner already pays protection money and racists have plentiful access to guns. The spectre of Catholics being systematically burnt out of similar areas during the Troubles hangs in the air.
So-called peace walls between Protestant and Catholic communities are graffitied with swastikas and signs that read "keep the streets white".
Both local unionists and Sinn Féin warned this week that someone is likely to be killed or burned alive in their home if the campaign does not stop. But there are no signs of it abating.
The Village in south Belfast is a run-down network of loyalist terraces where unemployment is high, union flags sag from lampposts and almost every family has a link to loyalist paramilitaries.
In post-peace process Northern Ireland, communities like this are more segregated than ever - through choice. Last year, five student houses, home to mixed Protestants and Catholics, were attacked until they were vacated. The siege mentality against "outsiders" is rife.
In the past eight weeks, pregnant Chinese women and new mothers have been forced out of terraces and over a dozen Chinese people have been attacked. The Chinese community, the largest ethnic minority in Northern Ireland, has been in Belfast since the 1960s, but there are rumours that a "quota" on new arrivals is being enforced. Last month, Ugandan and Romanian families were burned out.
Many elderly Chinese people do not now leave their homes after 3pm. The best they can hope for is an egg or ice-cream cone thrown in their face or their shopping bags stolen.
This week, in the shadow of a paramilitary mural, a six-foot plank was hurled through the front window of the home of a Pakistani woman who was eight months pregnant. The spot where she and her brother-in-law had eaten dinner 20 minutes before was sprayed with glass. They had moved into the house 12 hours earlier.
The UVF and the UDA have denied paramilitary involvement but some suggest it could be "rogue elements" within their ranks with far right sympathies. One local newspaper has suggested the attacks began after a Chinese restaurant owner refused to pay protection money.
There has always been a crossover of far right groups with loyalist paramilitarism, while small racist groups are said to respect the loyalists and style themselves as "paramilitary groupies". Combat 18 is written in marker pen near Chinese takeaways in the Village and groups such as the White Nationalist party have penetrated elsewhere, threatening one anti-racist activist.
The British National party recently announced it is to field candidates in Belfast's next council elections to capitalise on feeling against the tiny number of asylum seekers arriving. The party is not thought to have stoked the attacks, although it will capitalise on the aftermath.
One local estate agent said yesterday that he had been visited by a group he thought were paramilitaries telling him not to rent another house to "Chinese, blacks or Asians". Ten of his tenants were forced out last year.
Desmond Birnie, a local Ulster Unionist assembly member, said: "The pattern of these attacks suggests that we are seeing a rerun, albeit on a smaller scale, of the tactics used by the Nazis in the 1930s."
Across Belfast, Sara - not her real name - sat behind closed curtains in her terraced house. Her front window is regularly painted with KKK, "black people out" and "I hate niggers" slogans. A Zimbabwean businesswoman in her 30s, she never opens her curtains to let natural light into the house, as the sight of her in the living room is a provocation to local teenagers. The shouting through her letterbox becomes unbearable.
"Sometimes when I'm in the bedroom, I see an egg hit the window and slide down. The writing on the window is replaced whenever we clean it off. Often I just leave it there. It has happened continually for seven months.
"Initially we wanted to move. We called the police. Then we realised it's happening everywhere in Belfast. There is nowhere to run to," she said.
There are 4,000-5,000 Muslims in Northern Ireland, most born locally, but there is no purpose-built mosque for fear of attacks. The community worships in converted houses it can barely squeeze into.
Last year, planning permission was denied in the Protestant-dominated area surrounding Portadown amid a local campaign warning people that residents would be "kept awake by wailing".
Planning permission has now been granted but the mosque won't be built, as the community is too afraid. In the past eight months at least eight families have been forced from their homes.
One family was shot at through their kitchen window, a number of Muslims were stabbed, one was left in a coma after a beating, others have had legs and noses broken. The community avoids speaking out. Whenever it is quoted in the media, the attacks get worse.
"The imam had to leave Northern Ireland after a gang of 10 smashed his windows and doors in, and told him he should get out," said Jamal Iweida, who runs the Islamic Centre in Belfast. "It's a matter of time before we have a fatal attack.
"The attacks are increasing. I can feel the atmosphere on the street. I have to be prepared to be called names at least once a day. I have a beard so I'm called Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, or I'm told 'Paki go home'."
Duncan Morrow, of the Community Relations Council, said Northern Ireland, traditionally a place of emigration that outsiders avoided for 30 years during the Troubles, now cannot cope with the reality of multiculturalism.
He describes a culture of sectarianism that tolerates violence in young men. Racism has always run alongside it but is only now being noticed.
He said: "We have a lazy toleration of racism in this community. The situation now [in Northern Ireland] is what might have happened in Britain in the 1950s."
Members of the Chinese community talk of children being mercilessly bullied and ostracised, even a Chinese boy who won musician of the year. The political parties are under pressure to formulate some tough anti-racist policies to a community where racial discrimination legislation was only introduced 10 years ago.
But most of all, Belfast waits for the loyalist paramilitary leadership, which controls the working-class communities and young lads who live in fear of punishment beatings, to make a statement or move which shows the attacks will not be tolerated
AntiFascist
Comments
Hide the following 19 comments
RACIST WORLD
10.01.2004 23:13
H.Siggers
Manipulated
11.01.2004 00:00
Still its important to recall how this heavily invested outpost of imperialism was manipulated by infiltration and control of both sides by military intelligence and all the worst strands of MI6
This is a society damaged by the forces that now seek to push the encroachment of a society resembling Nazi Germany within the mainland and indeed globally
It's time to realise 'the Troubles' have been a toally controlled event as is this residual racism
Do you not think the BNP and Combat 18 are both thoroughly infiltrated and controlled by agents of the state as were all the varieties of the IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries?
dh
No Settlers on Our Land
11.01.2004 05:56
Anti-Zionist
Well said anti-Zionist
11.01.2004 11:09
mc5
Could someone add background for NI migration?
11.01.2004 11:18
ps
Anti-Zionist: oh, you are funny. There is a slight difference between an immigration programme designed to displace the indigenous population such as operated by Tel Aviv and Jakarta (I think that's a fair comparison), and the kind of migration seen elsewhere: people fleeing war, fleeing unemployment or travelling as invited guest workers.
bobby
To Bobby
11.01.2004 21:57
Both have the same effect - the displacement of indigenous populations and the destruction of pre-existing communities and cultures.
PD
Fucking Neanderthals!
11.01.2004 22:17
What the fuck...? Firstly, isn't it possible that the Chinese people that you're on about where born in Northern Ireland? And as for taking over your homes and businesses, I'm sure they pay their tax, etc like everyone else and anyway, Chinese people work very hard, which explains why there are so many Chinese takeaways! Would you like to ban all emigration/imigration? If there was another potatoe famine, would you just sit in your country and starve, or would you jump at the chance of (legally) moving to another, more prosperous country and trying to integrate yourself in to the community? It's what your forefathers did (move to the USA/ Europe) and so why shouldn't some Chinese, if they want to work.
Finally, is it possible that you would be outraged if I said that we should burn out all the paddies from England back to potatoe land?
Me
No tolerance of nazis here
11.01.2004 22:44
The petty minded snobby racist scum who put these ethnic minorities out of their homes were not acting with the consent or on behalf of loyalists. If anything they are acting to the brit government agenda, in terms of discrediting and bringing loyalism into disrepute. Brit mainland nazi scum who use the cover of Northern Irish loyalist organisations/communities to further their own racist brit state funded agendas will be dealt with severely. The UVF are currently interrogating 4 individuals from the Donegall rd/village area of belfast who are suspected of having links with the BNP, White nazi party and Grey wolves if these scumbags are found guilty they will be themselves exiled from Northern Ireland, as these nazis have tried to exile harmless ethnic minorities.
BNP=BIGOTS, NOBODIES& PERVERTS
Hypocrisy Revealed
12.01.2004 01:30
Roger Kimball
roger just set off the alarm on my white supremacist detector
12.01.2004 02:46
ha, like there's only one...
anyway... one is that Arafat has no ties to Palestine at all. He's an Egyptian, he was born in Cairo, raised in Cairo, and the Palestinians are pretty bewildered as to how he actually became leader of the PLO (something to do with a series of assassinations when the PLO was exiled in Lebanon, if I remember rightly)
let's see... what else...
how many chinese families who move to Belfast are armed to the teeth with automatic weapons like settlers? I thought they just went around their daily lives without gunning people down at random, but maybe I'm wrong and they're trying to break the loyalist-republican monopoly on senseless violence and drug peddling.
dammit, I could go on all day poking holes in your nonsense Rodge, but it's too easy.
Killian O'Conner
Here is Your Answer
12.01.2004 03:33
Roger Kimball
KILLIAN SET OFF MY ZIONIST DETECTOR
12.01.2004 04:08
mc5
Palestine was mostly useless desert before the mass influx of Jews
12.01.2004 10:09
Proud Zionist
Reply to above comments
12.01.2004 11:55
1) No-one, to the best of my knowledge, says that Jews have no historic or ancestral links to the region so I've really no idea at all why you're bothering to mention it as if, in itself, you're convincing anyone of anything.
2) You say "Jews have turned Palestine a once impoverished third world country into the thriving industrialised mordern country of Israel with on of the highest living standards in the world!". Partially wrong on two counts. Firstly, the areas of Palestine they took over (rightly or wrongly) are, as you state, now an industrialised modern country. However, the other areas in Palestine, namely Gaza and the West Bank, are not industrialised but have for years been merely a supply of reserve labour for the other (more industrialised) areas. In other words, only certain areas of Palestine are a thriving industrialised country while others have been kept in a subsidiary position by Israel (with the PLO and Palestinian leaders not making things much better). Secondly, the industrialisation of Palestine is also greatly helped by support and a hell of a lot of money from other states, primarily in recent years the USA. To claim it is only Jews who have industrialised Palestine is bogus.
3) However, the argument that there is retrospective justification for Israel's actions based upon increased industrialisation is bizarre and outdated. If we in Britain believed we could industrialise Israel even better than the Israelis could would we have a right to march into Israel? Or would the USA have a right to invade or settle large proportions of its population in Mexico if they reckoned they could industrialise it better? As far as I am aware, there is no argument whatsoever in international law stating one country has the right to another's land if they reckon they can do a better job with it. Of course, I am willing to stand corrected on this point and I look forward to you presenting me with the relevant documentation.
Leam
Jewish rights to steal land
12.01.2004 13:45
470,000 Arabs 24,000 Jews
http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/MAPS/Jewish_Yishuv_settlement_1881_1914.htm
According to Jewish (& Christian) religious texts Jewish culture arose in an area of modern day Iraq NOT Palestine.
http://www.jbuff.com/c041603.htm
http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/hcajsummaries.php3?part=one
http://philologos.org/bpr/files/e004.htm
Jews migrated from IRAQ to PALESTINE C.1800-1500 BC).
"By the 4th millennium B.C. Palestine was inhabited by herders and farmers. It was in the 3d millennium that most of the towns known in historical times came into existence. They became centers of trade for Egyptian and Babylonian goods. During the 2d millennium, Palestine was ruled by the Hyksos and by the Egyptians. Toward the end of this period Moses led the Hebrew people (see Jews) out of Egypt, across the Sinai, and into Palestine.
Around 1200 B.C., the Philistines invaded the southern coastland and established a powerful kingdom (see Philistia). The Hebrews were subject to the Philistines until c.1000 B.C., when an independent Hebrew kingdom was established under Saul, who was succeeded by David and then by Solomon. After the expansionist reign of Solomon (c.950 B.C.), the kingdom broke up into two states, Israel, with its capital at Samaria, and Judah, under the house of David, with its capital at Jerusalem. The two kingdoms were later conquered by expanding Mesopotamian states, Israel by Assyria (c.720 B.C.) and Judah by Babylonia (586 B.C.).
In 539 B.C. the Persians conquered the Babylonians. The Jewish Temple, destroyed by the Babylonians, was rebuilt (516 B.C.). Under Persian rule Palestine enjoyed considerable autonomy. Alexander the Great of Macedon, conquered Palestine in 333 B.C. His successors, the Ptolemies and Seleucids, contested for Palestine. The attempt of the Seleucid Antiochus IV (Antiochus Epiphanes) to impose Hellenism brought a Jewish revolt under the Maccabees, who set up a new Jewish state in 142 B.C. The state lasted until 63 B.C., when Pompey conquered Palestine for Rome.
"
http://www.bartleby.com/65/pa/Palestin.html
Indigenous Palestinians had a history of at least 2200 years before Jews even migrated there from modern day Iraq.
So, we have have a period of around 1500 years when Jews had some influence in Palestine. Jewish "states" account for only a few hundred years of that entire period.
For all intents and purposes Jewish political influence in Palestine ended around 65 BC. That's nearly 2000 years ago.
UP YOURS PROUD ZIONIST!
proud anti-Zionist
fake debates / divide and rule
12.01.2004 13:53
Racism and imperialism are the root problems in Palestine and in Northern Ireland.
fishy gills
NAZIS NOT WELCOME in nothern ireland
12.01.2004 14:13
Roger Cornball, is just some ignorant white supermist culchi backward redneck brit fuk, who has absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the situation in northern ireland, he probably thinks birmingham is the capital city in northern ireland.
The fact remains, whatever flowery rhetoric you which to use to disguise it/excuse it, that a heavily pregnant chinese woman was beaten by 4 cowardly sick wimp nazi male dickheads and put out of her home at Christmas.
There had to be 4 of them, they're so brave, in a situation reminescent of the brutal beating and murder of Ballygomartin protestant women Magaret Bell who was mistaken for a catholic, and stripped by similar brave nazi men, and beaten to death. The men who were responsible for Magaret's brutal murder were subsequently shot by the UVF. I think a similar fate is in order for those cowardly wimp nazis, who beat the chinese woman, put a Ugandan family out of their home in the Donegall Ave, and petrol bombed the house of a pakistani family.
The chinese lady and her husband were overwhelmed by the support, commiserations,kindness and well wishes from the local Donegall rd and also Shankill communities, who sent numerous letters/cards/christmas gifts to them after hearing of their plight at the hands of brutal cowardly nazi wimps.
Thank God for our loyalist/republican paramilitaries who are able to take effective immediate action and execute summary justice on those nazis caught, and will exile/put out of our country those nazis caught, instead of giving them a slap on the wrist and allowing them to continue their activities, as the PSNI would have done.
C.Shoukri
In response to the article Jewish rights to steal land
13.01.2004 10:29
Israel at the time was inhabited by the Cannanites who the Jews conquered. Most of the Cannanites stayed in Israel and converted to Judaism. This happened around 3,000 years ago. The Palestinians are descendents of arabs who emigrated to Israel after Jews were forced out by the Romans. They were not in Israel before the Jews, only the Cannanites were most of whom converted to Judaism and became part of the Jewish nation.
Proud Zionist
Why any of this conflict?
29.01.2004 22:22
Excuse me if I'm wrong but don't Protestant's feel less than happy about a few of the native inhabitants of Ireland excersising their "right" to kill and brutalise them? If thats not the same thing then doesn't it all boil down to we do it because we can? No matter what the arguments of these so called people what they do is to cause misery to other humans and that in itself tell you all you need to know about them whatever their political orientation.
Rhys Coster