THE IRISH TIMES 12 Thursday,August 10,2017 Opinion&Analysis Where possible, instead of getting undermined faith in the rule of law. Divis, where masked youths torched an between crowds, police lines are set up This is the context in which rioting office building. Again, police sat back and Newton some distance away from crowds –ideally broke out across Belfast on Monday, after watched. The masks will be achallenge to more than astone’s throw. Trouble is then the city council removed material from a future prosecutions. left to burn itself out. The change has number of republican bonfire sites. By the end of the night, residents and happened fitfully under three very The removals were ordered by Sinn community representatives were accus- Emerson different chief constables, making it as Féin, with SDLP and Alliance support, via ing the PSNI of cowardice. However, much of an evolution as astrategy. Do these republican aresolution whose timing affects only this precedent suggests that if officers had summer’s republican bonfires. Unionists physically intervened, the same people Raceriots communities have to were unimpressed by this act of communi- would have condemned them for The first of those chief constables, Sir endure the same lengthy ty leadership –some loyalists concocted a heavy-handedness. Hugh Orde, feared the courts would not lesson as loyalists, conspiracy theory in which Sinn Féin is Do these republican communities have match softer policing with tougher justice. ‘‘ deliberately provoking bonfire trouble to endure the same lengthy lesson as The new rules of rioting He often cited the 2001 race riots in via the same hands-off this year, with loyalist bonfires the real loyalists, via the same hands-off policing Oldham and Bradford and how they were policing tactics? target thereafter. tactics? At one level this would be unneces- swiftly followed by hundreds of sentences sary, as Sinn Féin dominates the affected in Northern Ireland in the four- to five-year range. Implausible areas and is fully behind the PSNI. Howev- Custodial sentences for rioting were vocal in warning young people of the The theory is implausible, but like the er, if youths in these areas are no longer virtually unheard of in Northern Ireland consequences of their actions. Loyalist rioting it has been fuelled by the sight of listening to Sinn Féin, who else would pass until adecade ago, while cases still bands and hangers-on are no longer the PSNI apparently doing nothing. the lesson on? In Divis in particular, n1886, recalling ariot in Portadown, For the standard youthful disturbance, routinely take ayear to come to trial. prepared to push through contentious Officers protected workers removing long-running antisocial behaviour journalist Frankfort Moore observed: however –including youths sent out by The 2011 London riots underscored this Orange parades –acritical factor in the the material but then they sat in armoured suggests the young people involved have “Every boy and girl in the crowd their elders –the rules have been fixed comparison, with emergency court resolution of parading issues generally. Land Rovers and watched, in broad lost all fear of the courts. Iunderstood the art thoroughly.” since time immemorial. sessions through the night and the That is not to say everything is rosy. The daylight, as adolescents set cars alight. It seems the boys and girls are playing a Both sides would pile up cobblestones Since its establishment in 2001, the evictions of young rioters’ families. PSNI’s aversion to sparking riots has One commuter later escorted to his new game and fresh rules will be required. for ammunition, square off to each other Police Service of Northern Ireland has But slowlythe message sank in. Prosecu- involved ablatant surrender to paramili- burned-out vehicle was informed by The PSNI could assuage concerns over until the police arrived, then throw been trying to change these rules. Its tions increased, sentences lengthened and taries on unlawful flags, murals, memori- officers that they could not say what had this if it was more forthright about its everything at the constabulary. officers no longer offer themselves up as would-be rioters noticed. Most street als and anything else whose removal happened. This suggests arrests will not thinking –ithas always been coy about the Moore was making acynical contrast the target, excuse and catalyst for vio- disturbances over the past decade have might be “provocative”. Arefusal to tackle follow the lack of arrests at the scene. shift to its current approach. with “grown-up” rioting in Belfast that lence. Arrests during riots by snatch been loyalist by nature or design. For the dangerous loyalist bonfires, mostly That evening, trouble spread from the Before the PSNI spends another day year, when more sophisticated tactics cost squads have been replaced with high-tech past five years, loyalist organisations and presided over by small groups of children, Markets area of Belfast to other inner-city watching Belfast ablaze, could it at least 30 lives. evidence gathering to bring charges later. representatives have become increasingly has made the PSNI alaughing stock and republican neighbourhoods, most notably explain its own art thoroughly? Brexit’s parallels with the 1917 Irish Convention mently opposed by unionists. The power to erect customs barriers was regarded as one of the essential marks of independence. Bruton commented on the irony of the fact that, 100 years later, it is the bulk of unionists Stephen who want to leave the customs union and free trade area of Collins the European Union, regard- less of the economic cost, while Opinion nationalist Ireland is almost unanimous in its desire to Free trade versus ensure free trade continues. customs barriers Reversalofpositions This reversal of positions was amajor question reflects the fact that the South acentury ago now has avibrant economy based on free trade while Northern Ireland has suffered aserious economic decline and icture the scene. A is totally reliant on subsidies gathering of civic from the British exchequer. society leaders from all Mansergh also reflected on Pparts of Ireland, and a this reversal of positions over few leading politicians, the course of the century. He attempting to find away to suggested that the most preserve an island without plausible ground for unionist borders in arapidly changing opposition to Irish independ- world. ence of whatever variety was The vexed question of the nationalist demand for customs duties and tariffs is fiscal autonomy and in particu- one of the big issues. Dominat- lar the control of customs. ing everything is the fundamen- He told his audience he had tal incompatibility of national- recently come across a1939 ist and unionist hardliners, letter from Church of Ireland frustrating the efforts of bishop John MacNeice to his moderates on both sides to father which was highly critical find an accommodation. of alecture in Belfast by Frank It is simply wrong to call a To make things more Pakenham. MacNeice agreed difficult, Sinn Féin boycotts that, in time, the Border should the attempt to find acompro- go but he pointed to the mise while northern unionists devastating impact on the do everything they can to North’s economy of adopting sabotage the prospect of an the protectionist regime in all-encompassing agreement. force in the South. fertilised ovum ahuman The issues and attitudes If positions on free trade may sound familiar but all this have been reversed over the happened acentury ago in century, the basic divide summer 1917, when the Irish between nationalists and Convention met in Trinity unionists has persisted the selection of hair or eye colour, sport- consent,” he said. ■ “A sperm is not ahuman being, an College Dublin. It was a regardless of economic ing ability or behavioural traits.” It is simply wrong to describe aferti- ovum is not ahuman being. Together last-ditch effort to find agree- She continued: “It is no longer in the lised ovum as ahuman being. Afertilised they do not make up ahuman being. ment for some form of Irish The power to realm of science fiction to imagine a ovum is not ahuman being,it is abiologi- They become an embryo with avery self-government on a32-coun- Gattaca-type society focused on genetic cal reaction. It has no head, no heart, no risky future” ty basis that would avoid erect customs cleansing. We need to be worried spine, no consciousness. It is acollection violence and partition. barriers was about the possibility of this new age of of biological elements which is no more a Afascinating symposium to “regarded as one of eugenics.” human being than my leg, my arm, any of really, seriously believe the embryo has mark the centenary of the Patsy McGarry So, seeming to ignore the positives, she my organs, even my toe nails. such unique moral status, why is such convention took place in the essential marks felt the Oregon study could signal a It may someday become ahuman being, regular “disposal” of so many ritually Trinity College recently. of independence Opinion reinvigoration of eugenic-type ideas but it is not ahuman being. ignored? Indeed it is not so long ago in The Irish Convention was discredited since the Nazi era. Quite a Asperm is not ahuman being, an ovum Ireland, as elsewhere, that miscarriages the last throw of the dice for Until 1869, the Catholic Church leap. She did not stop there. is not ahuman being. Together they do were disposed of as waste. Irish Party leader John self-interest. For every step There was, she said, with these new not make up ahuman being. They become And it is not correct for Bishop Doran to Redmond, who just three years forward, there always seems to did not believe removal of a developments, an “ethical concern that an embryo with avery risky future.