Unionists on Belfast City Council – and among that number
we include the Alliance Party – are fond of pontificating about the
need for the St Patrick's Day Carnival in Belfast City Centre to be
"inclusive" before they'll consider voting to fund it. That's a fine
and rousing sentiment – if it were consistent.
But now the Andersonstown News has learnt that the Council is
to spend at least £10,000 on entertaining the RIR and other members of
the British army who have served in Iraq.
Some 475 members of the British armed forces will be served a
slap up meal and treated like kings and queens at a civic dinner to
mark their service in Iraq. Leaving aside for a moment the very
questionable practice of spending money to celebrate a brutal and
bloody conflict that has only just begun – never mind finished – the
question that we pose today is, just how inclusive is that night going
to be?
Does Lord Mayor Tom Ekin – who will be at the top table during
the February 24 event – think that there will be many Belfast
nationalists at the lavish knees-up? Will there be any tricolours
flying beside the union jacks and British battle standards? How many
West Belfast Catholics will there be as the fine food is served and the
wine flows?
The answer, of course, is that there will not be a single
nationalist there; the flags will be unremittingly British; and the
only West Belfast Catholics in attendance will be waiting on tables and
cleaning up afterwards.
We're taking an extremely conservative estimate of how much
this is going to cost us, the taxpayers of this city (Belfast City
Council have come over strangely coy about the exact figures). We've
settled on the sum of £20 per head, although the real figure will
almost certainly be much higher. And yet Belfast City Council has
repeatedly said no to funding of £30,000 for the St Patrick's Day
Carnival – an event that, with some 50-60,000 people in attendance,
will cost the princely sum of 50p per person. And that's not to take
into consideration the large amounts of money that such a throng of
people will pump into the local economy on March 17.
So, to sum up: £10,000 (of our money) for a couple of hundred
British soldiers to eat, drink and be merry in the regal surroundings
of City Hall; but not a single penny for our children and their parents
to celebrate the feast of their patron saint at a carnival on their
very own city streets.
Lord Mayor Tom Ekin has done a first-rate job as First Citizen
of our city. But on this occasion, by having opposed funding for the
Carnival and by supporting this civic dinner, he, his Alliance Party
colleagues and the other unionist parties have delivered a slap in the
face to the nationalist people of West Belfast.
Let's get one thing straight here: if the Lord Mayor wants to
entertain the British army then he has every right to go ahead and do
so – indeed, he has our support because it is a tricky job balancing
the rights and expectations of two diverse communities.
But it is hard to take when it is the case that while Belfast
celebrates the patron saint of Ireland in a spring carnival, City Hall
will do nothing except cast a cold eye.
It is our fervent hope that those who are opposing the St
Patrick's Day Carnival funding, even as they are trying on their
dickybows ahead of entertaining the British army, will think again
between now and next Tuesday's crunch Council meeting.
