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Hate and the State: Northern Ireland, Sectarian Violence and ‘Perpetrator-less Crime’

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Book cover Critical Perspectives on Hate Crime

Part of the book series: Palgrave Hate Studies ((PAHS))

Abstract

As Northern Ireland lurched from one political crisis to another through 2015, there was a foreboding anticipation of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) – painstakingly consolidated from the 1990s onwards – moving relentlessly towards collapse. The ‘Fresh Start’ Agreement of December 2015 managed to stabilise the government and institutions but their long-term survival appears uncertain. The idea that not all was well with ‘post-conflict’ Northern Ireland had been in circulation for some time. The profusion of discourse around hate and hate crime was a key portent of this discontent. Hyperbole around ‘hate’ reached its nadir in February 2007 when the Irish Times reported that Northern Ireland had been identified as the ‘hate capital of western world’.

Police have said the loyalist paramilitary group the UVF has been orchestrating racist attacks in south and east Belfast. ACC Will Kerr told the Policing Board it had contributed to an overall 70% rise in hate crime in Belfast. He said: ‘It has a deeply unpleasant taste of a bit of ethnic cleansing’. Asked about the status of the UVF and UDA ceasefires, Chief Constable Matt Baggott said it was a matter for the government, not him.

(BBC News 2014)

The police are working hard to tackle hate crime throughout Northern Ireland but our success will mostly depend on you.

(PSNI 2015b)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    BBC News 2015. ‘Stormont crisis: How the story unfolded’. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-34176740.

  2. 2.

    BBC News 2015. ‘NI politicians pull back from precipice with “Fresh Start” deal’. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-34852493.

  3. 3.

    Irish Times ‘Study finds NI is the “hate capital of western world”’, 8 February 2007. The text, however, told a more prosaic, story: ‘Almost half of the 1000 people in Northern Ireland questioned in a survey…did not want people of another race, immigrants or homosexuals as their neighbour’.

  4. 4.

    Following the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (2011) and Council of Europe (2011), this analysis recognises sectarianism as a specific form of racism. As CERD suggests: ‘Sectarian discrimination in Northern Ireland and physical attacks against religious minorities and their places of worship attract the provisions of ICERD in the context of “inter-sectionality” between religion and racial discrimination’; as the Advisory Committee suggests: ‘[treating] sectarianism as a distinct issue rather than as a form of racism [is] problematic, as it allows sectarianism to fall outside the scope of accepted anti-discrimination and human rights protection standards’ (Equality Coalition 2014).

  5. 5.

    BBC News 2014. ‘Spotlight on NI legal system’s racist attack blind spot’, 23 September 2014.

  6. 6.

    As per note 5, sectarianism is properly regarded as a specific form of racism – like Islamophobia or antisemitism. Crucially in the context of this paper, sectarianism has involved high levels of interpersonal, intercommunal and institutionalised violence (McKenna 1922; McVeigh 2008). Broadly it involves a dynamic between ‘Protestants’ and ‘Catholics’ predominantly but not exclusively in Northern Ireland where these terms constitute – primarily – ethnic rather than faith labels. For a more comprehensive discussion see Equality Coalition (2014) and Jarman (2012).

  7. 7.

    Lost Lives provides the definitive record of those who died in the conflict – it includes all the deaths referenced or alluded to in this analysis (McKittrick et al. 2004).

  8. 8.

    Generally referred to as, ‘Operation Ballast’, the official title of the report is Statement by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland on her investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Raymond McCord Junior and related matters https://www.policeombudsman.org/PONI/files/74/74915bd7-7342-4705-8299-c90930501f3b.pdf.

  9. 9.

    As a wave of racist violence hit Northern Ireland in 2004, the government minister responsible – Policing and Security Minister Ian Pearson – famously suggested: ‘Racism, like sectarianism, is the product of a destructive and ugly mindset’ (2004).

  10. 10.

    BBC News 2015. ‘Timeline: Arlene Arkinson murder to Robert Howard death’, 5 October 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-34447833.

  11. 11.

    BBC News 2016. ‘Arlene Arkinson: NIO agrees to block murdered schoolgirl’s inquest from accessing secret documents’, 12 February 2016. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-35564196.

  12. 12.

    BBC News 2015. ‘Timeline: Arlene Arkinson murder to Robert Howard death’, 5 October 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-34447833.

  13. 13.

    Stephen Lawrence (14th September 1974 – 22nd April 1993) was a Black British teenager murdered in London in April 1993 at the age of 18. He was attacked and stabbed by a gang of White racists, one of whom called out: ‘what, what nigger?’ The failure of the police in particular and the criminal justice system in general to respond appropriately to this racist murder resulted in a campaign for justice for Stephen Lawrence and, ultimately, led the British Government to institute the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry which resulted in the Macpherson Report (1999).

  14. 14.

    BBC News 2013. ‘Two reviews to investigate Lawrence smear claims’, 24 June 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23026324.

    BBC News 2014. ‘Undercover police “tried to disrupt” Lawrence campaign bid’, 06 March 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26468839.

  15. 15.

    Black and Asian minority ethnic.

  16. 16.

    Institute of Race Relations 2013. ‘Racial Violence since the death of Stephen Lawrence’. http://www.irr.org.uk/news/racial-violence-since-the-death-of-stephen-lawrence/.

  17. 17.

    This is not to suggest that the State ever candidly admitted such practices. But Macpherson did explicitly and incontrovertibly acknowledge ‘collective failure’. Moreover, there was at least some recognition of historical wrongdoing – by way of illustration we might track the career of John Grieve who ended up as a senior officer in the Stephen Lawrence investigation. In 2016 in the interests of ‘lifelong accountability’ he addressed his role as a police officer in the assault of a ‘frail and elderly’ Black couple in the early 1970s. BBC News 2016 ‘How a 1970s policeman changed his mind’, 5 January 2016. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35220929.

  18. 18.

    Disability Motivated Hate Crime; Homophobic Motivated Hate Crime; Racist Motivated Hate Crime; Faith/Religion Motivated Hate Crime; Sectarian Motivated Hate Crime; Transphobic Motivated Hate Crime (PSNI 2014).

  19. 19.

    There is a collection of useful analyses relating to ‘hate crime’ in Northern Ireland at NIACRO ‘Challenge Hate Crime’. http://www.niacro.co.uk/challenge-hate-crime/.

  20. 20.

    Response to a parliamentary question by David Simpson MP (cited in McVeigh 2013).

  21. 21.

    Statutory and voluntary organisations combined in a well-resourced ‘unite against hate’ campaign (2014).

  22. 22.

    As MLAs combined to condemn racist violence in 2014, observers noted their failure to adopt a Race Equality Strategy for Northern Ireland to replace the previous strategy which had ended in 2010. BBC News 2014. ‘MLAs unite to condemn racial attacks’. http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/northern-ireland-27681689.

  23. 23.

    Belfast Telegraph 2015. ‘A race hate crime happens every three hours in Northern Ireland, depressing new PSNI figures reveal’, 12 May 2015. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/a-race-hate-crime-happens-every-three-hours-in-northern-ireland-depressing-new-psni-figures-reveal-31215898.html.

  24. 24.

    BBC News 2013 ‘Pair given life sentences for Michael McIlveen murder’, 11 April 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-22101871.

  25. 25.

    BBC News 2010. Belfast pair given life for the murder of Thomas Devlin, 24 February 2010 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8534623.stm.

  26. 26.

    Belfast Telegraph 2010. ‘Killers of Catholic schoolboy Thomas Devlin jailed’, 12 May 2010.

  27. 27.

    BBC News 2010. Devlin mother slams ‘abysmal’ PPS, 25 February 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8535695.stm.

  28. 28.

    This further problematises any approach to policing racist violence which hinges on the issue of the motivation of the perpetrator. There is a dreadful pathos to this discussion around Stephen Devlin’s murder given its resonance with the murder of Stephen Lawrence – if one of Stephen’s assailants hadn’t said ‘what, what, nigger’ – and if his friend Duwayne Brooks hadn’t survived the attack to testify to this – there would, no doubt, still be an ongoing debate as to whether his murder was ‘really’ racist or not. See BBC News ‘Stephen Lawrence friend recalls attack on teenager’ 17 November 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15769370.

  29. 29.

    BBC News 2017. ‘Stormont crisis: Deadline passes for future of executive’ 16 January 2017 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38630403.

  30. 30.

    Black Lives Matter http://blacklivesmatter.com/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. An Dúchán,, Human Rights and Equality Consultancy, Edinburgh, Scotland

    Robbie McVeigh

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  1. Robbie McVeigh
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Correspondence to Robbie McVeigh .

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Amanda Haynes

  2. School of Law, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Jennifer Schweppe

  3. Department of Applied Social Studies, Maynooth University , Maynooth, Ireland

    Seamus Taylor

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McVeigh, R. (2017). Hate and the State: Northern Ireland, Sectarian Violence and ‘Perpetrator-less Crime’. In: Haynes, A., Schweppe, J., Taylor, S. (eds) Critical Perspectives on Hate Crime. Palgrave Hate Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52667-0_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52667-0_21

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