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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Pat Kenny Show. With Timber Living Log Cabins. Saturday and Sunday from 10am. On Newstalk. Conversation that counts.
Now, following the stabbing incident in Belfast and the subsequent disorder and far-right mobilisation we've seen on the streets, including here in Dublin, questions are being raised about how violence is amplified and turned into these political flashpoints.
To help us, I suppose, understand the dynamics at play from a culture of violence to online escalation, I'm joined now by Gemma McSherry, who's a writer who's previously worked with Amnesty and The Guardian. Gemma, lovely to have you here on the programme. I suppose you grew up in Northern Ireland yourself.
I'm interested in what you saw or what you absorbed as a young person around violence and identity that you think we might see playing out in the riots we've seen in Belfast over the last couple of days.
Yes, that's right. I grew up in Ute Nards, which is a bit of a loyalist stronghold in the north.
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Chapter 2: What events led to the recent riots in Belfast?
And there is a culture there of violence that a lot of the people here out in the streets now are being brought up in and they don't know anything else other than it. To give you an example, when I would walk home from school, I would see, you know, murals on the walls, which are sometimes now a bit of a sort of thing that people go and see as tourists in Belfast.
But what those murals depict is violence. And they send a message to the people in this area that violence is the only way to kind of be a big man, to feel important. And these people are growing up in a culture where violence is completely and utterly normalised. A lot of the people going out in the street are kids as well.
And a lot of these kids are being groomed into this culture of violence now. from a very, very young age.
You say for these Belfast boys, this is in your article, this is the title, violence is a rite of passage. What do you mean by that?
Yeah, so like I say, this culture is very much based around violence as domination.
And especially in these sorts of estates where these boys are being brought up, the way to express yourself, the way to sort of feel like you are important, feel like you matter, is to take part in what this violence is and what it has always been, which is ultimately, you know, loyalist dominance that we've seen for generations in the North.
And it is a difficult point for loyalists, but it is worth pointing out that most of the major riot and public order incidents that have attracted significant attention in Northern Ireland in recent years have originated in or been concentrated in loyalist areas and have involved substantial loyalist participation. But I do think it's important not to overgeneralise because...
both loyalist and republican areas, contain a wide range of views and experiences. And I am conscious too, Gemma, that we've seen similar outbreaks of disorder in Dublin in recent years involving very different communities. Does that suggest that we do, though, need to be careful about explaining this, you know, purely through local history or community culture?
Is there something else that could be driving it?
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Chapter 3: How does Gemma McSherry's background influence her perspective on violence?
And by that, I mean the way that people are groomed into violence. They are groomed into going out into the street and they are sort of now given permission to be openly racist, to be openly violent in the street in the same way that we have seen in the north for a very long time.
How much influence, in your opinion Gemma, do loyalist paramilitary structures still have over what's happening on the ground in these communities?
I think they have a lot of influence, especially when it comes to the policing response. So if you look at some of the videos, you will see that, you know, cars are being set on fire in the street. You'll see men patrolling the streets. There's not a great deal of police presence there. Also, it's important to note that this was happening exactly this week last year in the north. So...
There were gangs going around in East Belfast in particular, stopping people, stopping men of colour in particular, asking them for their ID documents. And that was happening exactly this week last year. This is riot season. It's the start of riot season. It's the start of marching season. And the paramilitaries,
know that they sort of have almost a mandate, in a sense, from the police to get away with a certain level of violence, as we've seen, you know, every single year that this comes around.
What was interesting in Belfast over the last couple of days was they're supposed to look at the organisation. behind these protests to see all of these individuals dressed in similar clothing, all wearing masks, none of them using phones, all very conscious of not, I suppose, recording anything that could be used as evidence. Does that concern you?
Yes, absolutely. I mean, the way that social media is sort of bringing people together. And like you say, this is coming now from different sides.
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Chapter 4: What role does a culture of violence play in radicalization?
You know, in the north, historically, this type of racist violence has generally just been lower list. But like you say, we are now seeing people from across the sectarian divide coming out on the streets and taking part in this. And a lot of that is to do with social media. People are being taught holistically. how to be better at being violent.
They are being taught through social media how to organise these gangs and how to go out and make sure that they aren't being caught in what they're doing. And that is very, very scary. And that is an escalation of the type of violence that we've been seeing for years.
Is there a difficulty, though, Gemma, that within these loyalist communities that there is real deprivation, there's a real lack of opportunity for a lot of these young people? There is a higher level of migrant communities in these loyalist areas.
There's a higher degrees of these houses of multiple occupancies, which became such a target within these loyalist areas and that those are factors, too, that are at play here.
Completely. And deprivation is a tool of control within these communities, especially with regards to our unionist politicians in the north. Our politicians have kept these people and kept these areas deprived for so, so long. A lot of these people and I, you know, a lot of my family have been I've spent a lot of time in these lawless council states in my childhood. There was no swing parks.
There was no places to play even football matches in some of them. But what there was was areas to have bonfires. So these communities are very, very deprived. We've also seen in the north that, you know, Catholics or people from Catholic backgrounds now are doing much better in terms of education, in terms of building wealth. So... So deprivation is at the heart of all of this.
It's at the heart of why these people want to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves, bigger than the communities that they grew up in.
So what has happened then to the investment in Northern Ireland that is seeing sort of Catholic communities, you say, growing in wealth and having greater prospects than those loyalist communities? How has that happened?
I think it's down to the politicians, the unionist politicians. And I mean, look, I'm not saying that any of these politicians are doing a particularly great job in the North, but the unionist politicians have always ran on a sort of hate-fuelled agenda. And they know fine rightly that these boys in particular are going to buy into that agenda because it gives them something to belong to.
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