Hate still on the march at Scotland’s walks of shame
AS A kid in Ayrshire, I was ordered inside when I ran to the gate to watch the Orange Walk.
It was a mesmerising spectacle, the twirl of the baton in the air, the men in sashes and bowler hats and the flutes playing the Sash.
For those raised Catholic, the performance was the posturing of bigots and a symbol of hatred.
Not so long ago, the Orange Walk would stop outside the chapels, the drums growing ever more thunderous, to drown out the mass inside.
It is intolerable that in 2019, Scotland’s ignominy continues to be paraded, with hundreds of marches across Scotland each year.
This Saturday, an Orange march will pass St Alphonsus in Glasgow, where Parish priest Canon Tom White was assaulted.
Last Saturday, the march walked past St Mary’s Church in Glasgow, surrounded by riot vans and police officers in unmarked cars and on horseback.
When Glasgow City Council re-routed an Easter Sunday Orange Walk away from St Mary’s and St Alphonsus, it was cancelled by organisers in protest.
The truth is, there was no incentive to continue with the march without the incentive of menace.
I am an atheist and a harsh critic of the institution of the Catholic Church but defend wholly the rights of its followers to worship without intimidation.
Yet, as progressive thinkers, we rarely react so vociferously to the persecution of Catholics, as we do to that of Jews or Muslims. On Saturday, protesters stood silently outside as the march went by, reported as “without incident” – but that ignores the malignant intent of the hatred which paraded past the chapel door.
Onlookers clapped enthusiastically when the march reached the chapel and just before it had turned the corner, the band had been playing sectarian music.
They had played the tune of the Beach Boys’ Sloop John B, which was in 2009, deemed in by a court to be racist when the lyrics were supplanted with the anti-Irish Famine Song.
They may not have been sung out loud but the lyrics, “The famine’s over, why don’t you go home?” must have resounded in the minds of the Catholics familiar with the tune. Police Scotland didn’t object to last Saturday’s march and haven’t yet to the coming one but they can cite cause if they believe there is potential for anti- social behaviour.
And if they didn’t think there was cause, why does there have to be such a large and costly police presence at marches.
For many of us, trying to manoeuvre through the traffic and navigate our city and who despise prejudice, antisocial is exactly what an orange walk is.
The council says it needs the police objection to reroute the march but according to its own guidelines, a procession should have as “little negative impact as possible” on communities and the “presumption is that processions will avoid residential areas”. St Alphonsus and St Mary’s are surrounded by residents and Glasgow City Council has an moral obligation to reduce the negative impact on Catholics and the rest of us and permanently reroute orange marches away from Catholic Churches.
More than 60 per cent of marches in Glasgow are by the Orange order and they are spread throughout the year, not just summer.
No one is denying them their right to march but there are fewer than 60 streets in Glasgow with a chapel on them, which leaves 2500 potential routes for the Orange order to choose from.
If the Orange order was as it purports to be, not founded on being anti-Catholic, it would voluntarily reroute its marches.
And yet, the band plays on.