hellison | (no subject)

What a lovely place we live in. Went to get my tea and scone this morning and had a glance at all the papers while I was waiting. All the English papers are full of YAY CRICKET and HURRAH and NATIONAL PRIDE and so on.
Local papers? A toddler who's skull was fractured by a brick thrown by rioters, with added 'things in flames'. Go us.

The carpark where I usually park is generally almost full by about 9.30. This morning, it was almost empty. It could be people are sticking to public transport rather than cars, but given that most of the rush hour trains were cancelled yesterday and teh buses were just as stuck in the Traffic Chaos caused by grannies and gangs of kids sitting in the roads as everyone else.
With a bit of luck it'll rain this afternoon and we can go back to what passes for normality in this place.

The cost of all this is going to be phenomenal tho. The bus company alone are estimating half a million lost. The worst part is that they're mainly destroying their own neighbourhoods; burning out shops run by their neighbours. Someone stole a digger from a building site and used it to wreck and destroy - the site was one of the regeneration projects aimed at the poorer areas aimed at bringing work to the community that destroyed it.

It's easy enough to see why they're angry - the Unionist politicians mostly ignore them (except when they want a good bit of rioting), they have few jobs, few prospects and not much of anything really. Their traditional route was go to school til 15/16 then go get a job in the ship yards, textile or manufacturing industry or similar; those jobs are all but gone now and they have nowhere to go and no-one to turn to. The only successful people they see, the only ones with money and influence who bother with them, are the paramilitaries.

On the other hand the republican communities have politicians (much as it galls me to say anything good about SF) who actively work for them, who are there when they're needed and get things done. There is a much greater tradition of staying on at school, going to university - and then bringing skills back home. The Falls Rd is full of offices of solicitors, accountants and so on. There are the same estates full of joy riders and drop outs, but at least *some* of them get out and they can see that it can work. They have the Feile every year - a community festival that's become huge, with parades, music, drama; east belfast has... the 12th - also parades, music and drama, but of a very different kind.
Obviously its not that black and white, there's success stories and failures on every side, just like everywhere else in the world but while the poorer catholic communities seem to have been pushed forward and blossomed in the peace process, the poorer protestant ones seem to have ignored and left to stew in Davy Ervine's cauldron of discontent while their politicians swan about Westminster and buy big new cars with the Assembly wages they're not earning and trumpet on about Tradition and Rights and Not Giving In to the Evil Enemies and just keep stirring the pot.

Hmm. That got longer than intended.