New record

The attempted murder charges arising from the Ardoyne riots took something of a bizarre twist.  The individual charged is a Spanish national originally from Barcelona.  A 1000 mile trip to be offended must surely be a new record.

PSNI keep their word

Republican conspiracy theories about the masonry attack during the Ardoyne riots that seriously injured a police officer entered the mainstream when Eamon Mallie blogged about it and persisted with it.  The PSNI was clear on the situation with ACC McCausland stating:

"The individual that dropped the block on Samantha as she was advancing made off across the roof. That individual has been identified. Take it from me he can now sit and worry wherever he is in Northern Ireland. We will be coming for him.”

It appears they have done just that.  An individual has now been charged with the attempted muder of the police officer. 

Perverse logic

I must admit I am not a fan of the Nolan Show.  However, my job means that on occassion I have to listen to it.  As I drove into work this morning it was examining the issue of children who participated or were watching/in close proximity to the recent riots.  It was attempting to ask the reasonable question of where were their parents?

They invited on the Children's Commissioner to discuss the issue.  First it is interesting to note that it has taken 4 days for the CC to say something on this issue.  The statement does rightly focus on parents.  However, her performance on Nolan did not.  The comments of the Commissioner became mono-directional in trying to shift responsibility onto government agencies with platitudes about non-defined processes and with it left to Nolan to raise parents and adults directing the children.  This attitude of non-responsibility does nothing to resolve the situation.

Perhaps instead of paying for perverse logic with times becoming tighter someone may get around to asking not only why we have such a Commissioner but does she really need 23 staff or was their real value in her distributing a free full colour calendar in every Belfast Telegraph late last year.

PS In her statement she made mention of the North Belfast Taskforce spending.  Its spending in Ardoyne has had a consistent youth focus with such a large youth population it has always been a key community issue.  Ardoyne also enjoys greater statutory youth provision than the surrounding communities (IIRC about 6 times more per capita is spent on the youth of Ardoyne with two full-time youth clubs supported and supplemented (commendably) by a strong team of volunteers).  However, it does not provide a solution when many involved didn't come from the area.  It is hard for the North Belfast Taskforce to deal with youth who travelled from Armagh to participate in a riot.

UPDATE Chekov has a couple more examples of this dodgy line of thinking.

The Belfast Riots

The past two nights I've sat on my sofa and looked out my living room window seeing a crowd of young ones gather at the interface at the end of my street.  The expectation was that the republican rioters at Ardoyne were moving up the road to attack the community I live in.  Fortunately this did not occur and the crowd dispersed after about 30 minutes each time.

I used to do youth work in the area and two things a fellow youth worker said always resonate in my head about interface youth.  He'd been involved with paramilitarism and served time in jail with his youth work was a means to do something positive.

The first was on upbringing and morality.  His parents had tried to bring him up with good values and he was a regular attendee at Sunday School.  He described the outcome thus:

"When I was doing everything that I did there was a little voice in the back of mind. It was the voice I got from my parents and sunday school. That little voice kept telling me what I was doing was wrong and eventually helped me get myself sorted. You tell a growing chunk of young ones that something is wrong and they just look at you. I don't think they have that voice."

The second was what the generations that had lived through the Troubles tell the next generation:

"Some of them used to ask me about the Troubles and sometimes I'd tell them. Later I noticed it was the same ones who I had to chase away from interface riots. So I refuse to tell the stories now. I was helping fill their heads with shit."