I cannot claim some of my best friends are Orangemen, though they do walk along my street every 12th of July because they are no longer allowed down the Lower Ormeau Road. I doubt if many of my neighbours on Rugby Road are delighted with the walk past but I don't know of anyone who is especially bothered by the minute or two it takes for this small parade to pass by.
I can say, however, that I have good friends who are members of the Orange Order. It would be difficult to find more generous, public-spirited individuals. One, a police reservist in mid-Ulster during the worst of the Troubles, I regard as bordering on the heroic. Thankfully he is alive and unscathed (except perhaps psychologically), despite the efforts of the Provisional IRA to murder him.
If we lived in normal times, in a less divided society, then the opportunity to walk the full length of the Ormeau Road, as well as other contested routes, would be well worth upholding. But we don't and it isn't. The hierarchy of the Orange Order seems oblivious to the realities of our contemporary history, including changing population patterns.
Shamefully, some years ago it exercised the option of walking the Lower Ormeau, at the height of the Drumcree crisis, despite the overnight murder of the three Quinn children by loyalist arsonists. Only one brave Orangeman, the Reverend William Bingham, spoke out in a response grounded in Christianity and common humanity.
In what way did this, and other instances of inflexibility, benefit the Order? The distinguished writer and historian, Dr Ruth Dudley Edwards, spoke recently of a tendency towards self-harming within unionist circles. The Orange Order seems to exemplify perfectly a condition usually associated with disturbed teenagers.
Of course I accept that nationalist opposition to Orange marches is sometimes spitefully motivated. Some resident groups – not always representative of local populations – have developed passive aggression to a fine art. The Garvaghy Road Residents Association is a case in point.
But why should an organisation with some talent and leadership fall so innocently for every trap that has been set for it by its opponents? The Order ends up presenting itself in the worst possible light by insisting on a small number of contested parades that matter not a damn whether they take place or not, in the process alienating intelligent, younger unionists as well as nationalists.
Historically speaking, orange celebrations and rioting have been closely associated. The violence harms the police and harms the wider community. Strange that an organisation priding itself on civic virtue, in practice offers a platform for actions that are anti-neighbourly, anti-police, anti-Union and anti-patriotic. By failing to adapt to a changing politics, the Order is marching into the dustbin of history.
