A senior Stormont civil servant 20 years ago was prompted to advise that when it came to the subject of symbols and anthems that “circumstances are different in Northern Ireland”.
The official, Ken Fraser, dispatched an email in October 2003 to counsel that proposals contained in a consultation document for new UK citizenship ceremonies might not work out as smoothly in Northern Ireland as they would across the Irish Sea in Britain.
He warned that the proposals could damage community and race relations.
Mr Fraser said it was difficult to see how the proposed compulsory ceremony “and the use of symbols and emblems as proposed in the consultation document will promote mutual respect”.
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“UK national symbols and national anthem – which are proposed as an integral part of the ceremony – are associated primarily, if not exclusively, with the unionist community, as is much of the language proposed for the ceremony,” he wrote.
“The proposed use of the union flag ... and national anthem would appear to be at odds with the sustained attempt – by government and others – to remove emblems from the political arena within NI,” he added.
Mr Fraser noted how the proposed ceremony talks of “full membership of the British family”. “This sounds distinctly odd in the NI context where a substantial proportion of existing citizens do not conceive of themselves as forming part of a ‘British family’.”
He said the proposed pledge of giving “my loyalty to the United Kingdom” would not be acceptable to a “significant proportion” of the current citizens of Northern Ireland, a fact that was “explicitly acknowledged” in the 1998 Belfast Agreement.
“It seems unfair and potentially discriminatory to set the bar higher for people who have not been born here [ie to demand something of them that you are not going to demand of those already holding ‘citizenship’],” he said.
“The proposals in the consultation document have the potential to damage community and race relations in NI,” he warned. “In the circumstances, rather than to insist that the proposals apply UK-wide, it might be wiser to accept that circumstances in NI are such that there is more to lose than to gain here.”
Mr Fraser also adverted to how all applicants were required to have sufficient knowledge of “English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic”.
“The exclusion of Irish from this list seems puzzling and would seem difficult to justify,” he said, while adding there also was a case for the inclusion of UIster-Scots in the citizenship ceremony.
His “qualms” were reinforced by the North’s Equality Commission which, also in October 2003, wrote to the Home Office in London to state its concern that the proposals “have been made from a perspective of an English national identity with little attempt to recognise the diversity of cultures within the United Kingdom”.
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