Riots highlight hopelessness fostered by political unionism

AS LAST week’s events in the North played out, the more patently clear it became that the violence had next to nothing to do with Brexit/the NI protocol or the Bobby Storey funeral, and everything to do with the nihilism and hopelessness cultivated by political unionism selling everything as a loss to loyalism over decades.

Removing the protocol and arresting members of Sinn Féin would barely act as a sticking plaster and only quell agitation until the next existential, synthesised ‘crisis’.

Brexit is merely the latest trigger, within a sea of longstanding insecurities and an ingrained siege-mentality culture. Imagine the impact of a parent continually telling a child they’re losing, that other children are winning, that everyone is against them.

It would undoubtedly create mass emotional instability, pessimism, and unhappiness. This is what we’re seeing conveyed at a societal level by political leaders, and the ramifications of this are playing out in front of our very eyes.

The practice of whipping up a voting base every four to five years, citing the spectre of Sinn Féin and a United Ireland, is founded on irresponsible short-termism. It may be a vote winner in an election cycle, however it only exacerbates long-term issues and does nothing to prepare and support people for shifts in demographic change, movement of tectonic political plates, and potential constitutional amendments.

It’s undoubtedly time for some honesty, introspection, tackling of root causes, and ditching of the blame/zero-sum-game culture. Sadly, somehow, in 2021 there’s no positive vision for education, expression, employment, or worldly potential, only insular suspicion, doom and gloom. Name and address with editor