Tony Blair has recently made a good point about the extremists who call themselves Muslim - those who murder with abandon are not true Muslims at all. He then went on to compare the Islamo-Nazi to the Ulster Protestant who kills Catholics, noting that such folk were certainly not Christian.
"But unfortunately he is still a Protestant bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up to the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it," Blair was quoted in the media.
And there, in the background, jumping up and down in a fury is a Protestant from the Six Counties, pointing an accusing finger at the Catholics who created the IRA. That's character assassination, that is, comparing the Protestants to the murdering thugs of the Taliban.
To be a Protestant is to be a loyalist. After all, the Free Presbyterians firmly believe that the Catholic Pope is the Anti-Christ, and surely there's no bigotry there, to refuse to share power with Anti-Christ disciples. Has Mr. Blair forgotten his history? What of the cries of "Rome Rule" when Home Rule was first discussed in the 1880's? That cannot be bigotry, not when it sounds like so much logical, practical thinking. Better safe than sorry, and if the Catholics would renounce their Pope and be more Protestant, things would be so much easier.
Where's the similarity between a loyalist killer and a Muslim suicide bomber? The thugs who detonated car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan did not sit in the cars that were loaded with explosives. Right there is further proof that Tony Blair has gone too far in his analogy.
As for bigotry, there is no bigotry in marching through Catholic neighborhoods, flags and banners waving and drums beating to celebrate the Protestant defeat of Catholics hundreds of years ago. No bigotry whatsoever in fighting for the rights of Protestants to march wherever they please, when they please to take their march to the front doors of the Catholics. What Tony Blair mistakes for bigotry is nothing more than Ulster Scots culture. How can he compare Protestant loyalist culture to Islamo-Nazism?
How can he compare loyalist thugs to Muslim thugs without mentioning the IRA? That is the comparison that was lacking, and that is the source of the loudest complaints. The loyalists feel that they are under siege, ignored by London and coveted by the Irish Republic. They know that their political culture is thoroughly infused with the religion that Ian Paisley invented to rationalize hatred of Catholics, but who wants to be reminded? Point some fingers over there, at the IRA, Paisley Jr. seems to say, and take the glare of the bigotry spotlight off the DUP and the Protestant loyalists who are driven by religious sectarianism, just like the Muslim extremists.
They're all after the same thing, in the end. They want power.
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