PORTADOWN, a town of 30,000, has 8,000 nationalist/Catholic residents, mostly segregated in its northwest corner. Their eight housing estates adjoin the long and undulating Garvaghy Road. Just beyond this enclave stands Drumcree Church of Ireland parish church. For the greater part of 200 years Orangemen have paraded from that church, along what used to be a country boreen, to Portadown. During the late 1960s, the town expanded along the road towards Drumcree, with new houses along its route being assigned to Catholics. Since the Troubles began, the Garvaghy Road has become predominantly nationalist.
Since then also, Orange parades passing through the area have been given police protection. Nationalist residents now associate Orange parades with heavily armed security personnel, a line of armoured vehicles stretching the length of the road, and, police with Alsatian dogs confining residents to their homes.
What Orangemen present as a peaceful 15 minute walk from church, is seen by the TV camera as "peaceful" only in so far as the opposition is neutralised by a highly militarised police operation. No one on the Garvaghy Road wants this parade.
There are valid reasons for this being so. (a) The parade, and its attendant security operation, is experienced as oppressive. (b) The Orangemen are being facilitated to do something which is not allowed nationalists. (c) There is already an excessive number of Loyal Order and band parades in Portadown - 42 last summer alone. (d) The parade, to celebrate the political victory of Protestant King William over Catholic King James, is antiCatholic in intent and is experienced as sectarian. (e) It expresses a permanent socioeconomic imbalance in the town, where nationalists are four times more likely to be unemployed. (f) It provokes public disorder, and (g) undermines much good cross community work. Indeed, it fosters sectarianism in our young people.
Many are deeply offended by this unbridled and insensitive expression of Ulster Protestant identity in the neighbourhood, given that our right to comparable self expression is severely restricted. We would hold that peaceful opposition to such injustice is in order, morally and legally.
Orangemen resent any suggestion that they reroute. The most commonly cited reasons for not doing so are that: (i) the route is traditional; (ii) there is no intention to offend; (iii) Portadown Orangemen have already compromised; and (iv) it is a celebration of fundamental civil and religious liberties.
However, in response to this: (i) a long tradition does not impart moral or legal rights. (ii) While some Orangemen do not intend to offend nationalists, the parade has caused great resentment. The North review survey of attitudes found that 84 per cent of nationalist residents questioned wanted it rerouted. The less contentious, equidistant return route from Drumcree to Portadown would be a valid alternative. (iii) Orange men have been excluded from parading in Obins Street, which is a relatively minor restriction when compared with the ban on nationalist parades in loyalist areas of Portadown and the town centre. (iv) So we are left with just one justification for this parade. It is an affirmation and proof that full civil and religious liberty in Northern Ireland belong solely to Orangemen simply because they are Ulster Protestants.
Orangemen sincerely believe they represent the true "Christian" tradition on this island. They are called on to "strenuously oppose the fatal errors and doctrines of the Church of Rome", and believe they have a God given mission that they "should by all lawful means, resist the ascendancy of that Church (of Rome), its encroachments, and the extension of power, ever abstaining from all uncharitable words, actions, or sentiments towards Roman Catholics".
The Orange position made sense in preEnlightenment Europe, when it was commonly held that error had no and theology authenticated the To day we hold that liberal democracy, with its fundamental principle of free and equal citizenship, is the best form of government available to us. It has been able to accommodate, on the basis of equality, groups which are otherwise fundamentally divided on moral, philosophical, and religious grounds.
In Northern Ireland, however, we cling to ideologies of romantic nationalism and confessional democracy, such as have led Europe to destruction in the past.
THERE is hope, however. The nationalist community in Portadown is maturing and strives for equal citizenship, committed to using exclusively peaceful means. By their compromise in 1995, their willingness to talk and listen to all shades of opinion, their recent Aisling conference which heard Orange, evangelical, and unionist speakers, and by careful use of language, nationalists have shown themselves to be striving for an inclusive society. In contrast, the intransigence of the Orangemen, the lawlessness of Drumcree 1996, the disrespect shown to nationalist neighbours, clearly diverge from the standards of democracy.
The proximity of Drumcree III begs major questions. Can the Orange Order accept that the liberal democratic state, which treats all its citizens equally under law, is the only morally just order for contemporary Europe? Can they accept that it is possible to have a just and stable society, of free and equal citizens, who hold reasonable but incompatible religious and moral doctrines? In European states today, the good of political self expression of diverse national identities is being preserved. In this context the value of the Orange tradition is also fully affirmed. So, it seems reasonable to ask that they desist from the expression of beliefs which undermine the equal citizenship of Catholics. The question then for them in 1997 is not whether they can walk the Garvaghy Road. Rather is it whether they can walk with equal citizenship. A positive answer would transform our situation.
