
By Jamie Bryson
There has been much recent debate about Paul Givan’s decision to refuse a wholly unmeritorious application by Bangor Academy for ‘integrated’ status. I was a pupil at the school, and had some of the best times of my life there.
The concept of ‘integration’ all sounds very virtuous (and the application, as I shall try to explain, was nothing more than virtue signalling) but let’s remember what ‘integration’ really means. It would mean that in a school were 3% come from a catholic tradition (and mindful that catholic doesn’t actually always equate to Irish nationalist), the curriculum must embrace that background equally to the majority traditions and identity.
That means that PE would, albeit it slowly but steadily nevertheless, begin adding GAA to the sports to be taught. How long before the history lessons are required to provide a ‘balanced’ view of the good old IRA? And how long before Irish language must form part of the curriculum?
In working class Protestant, Unionist, Loyalist (‘PUL’) communities it has become deeply embedded in the psyche that our identity, culture and history is something of which we ought to be ashamed. That we are inherently bigoted and unless we are reconstructed, we are unworthy of having a place in the ‘new’ Northern Ireland.
Those broadly falling under ‘PUL’ from more affluent or middle class backgrounds are, for the most part, Protestants merely by deed of the religion they were born into without any real affiliation with the church; unionist in only an economic sense (i.e, pro Union so long as that provides the best financial option, without any patriotic, cultural or ideological grounding in regards Northern Ireland’s place in the UK); and absolutely not loyalist in any shape or form.
Therefore, the predominate reflex of such persons is always to self-censor and eschew any manifestations of PUL culture, tradition or identity, much less to ever be seen to be standing up for or embracing any such expressions. Instead, social status’ is attained by atoning for being from the PUL community by adopting an overtly self-critical or in extreme cases self-loathing approach in respect of communal identity. These people believe that by signalling their rejection of their own, this demonstrates how they confound the stereotype, that they are ‘better’ than their communal ‘natives’, namely those from a PUL background who refuse to be reconstructed or to eschew our own identity.
This has been more pronounced over the past twenty-five years as a one-sided pro Irish-nationalist narrative of both victimhood and inevitability of a ‘New Ireland’ (which is simply a United Ireland in the form of wolf coming as a sheep) has become the dominant orthodoxy within the professional class and opinion-forming institutions (media, academia, law, civic society).
It is by this means that in a N Ireland context (the same is true across the world, only the core orthodox narrative alters, it is usually ‘woke’ liberal causes that denote social status) to attain ‘social status’ you must embrace the dominant orthodoxy. If, of course, you are from the PUL community then there is a conditional place for you within this new social elite, but the price to be paid is that you express the ‘right’ views and signal your support for all measures which will ultimately dilute PUL identity and communal cohesion (alongside of course embracing all other socially popular liberal causes).
This phenomenon explains, in part, what is going on at Bangor Academy. There is a movement of for the most part parents from a loose PUL background, but who are middle class and affluent, and whose maintenance of their social status requires them to comply with the aforementioned approach of embracing any and all fashionable steps that will atone for the falsely proclaimed ‘sins’ and ‘wrongness’ of their communal group.
There is no virtue signal of greater social currency (save for embracing a ‘New Ireland’) for a middle-class member who hails from the PUL community than embracing integrated education. The same is of course not true in respect of the catholic or Irish nationalist community; rather that communal identity thrives in embracing their own culture and tradition, and any suggestion they should ever dilute that is itself dismissed as an example of ‘bigotry’. This is true of every aspect of society in NI.
We must have ‘shared space’, but it is only traditionally PUL areas where the sharing must take place and any resistance to this is ‘bigotry’ and ‘sectarianism’. We must have Irish language schools and GAA imposed on traditionally PUL communities, and only ‘sectarian bigots’ would dare object, but never must an Orange lodge walk for even three minutes past a traditionally Irish nationalist area, indeed it is ‘bigotry’ to even suggest that such an expression of PUL culture and history should be tolerated.
And so it is that the PUL community has got itself into a cycle of constant concessions, self censorhip and embracing a ‘guilty Prod’ narrative, meanwhile Irish nationalists shamelessly promote their single-identity traditions, and when working class people from that background reach the professional class there is no requirement to shed this identity (unlike PUL identity which is seen as a mark of Cain) but rather enthusiastic promotion of it is in fact necessary for career advancement.
The second colliding issue in this perfect storm is the strategic direction being taken by the school leadership, or at least the principal. It appears he fundamentally misunderstands the ethos, identity and history of the school. That, alone, is bad enough. But it goes deeper. The approach adopted is, as aforementioned, that social status and advancement in life (including accessing the professional class) comes not from merit or ability (in which everyone has an equal chance) but rather is built upon a foundation of social status, whereby doors will open only for those who have earned their social status by virtue signaling on those issues the opinion-forming elite have determined all those who wish to be deemed ‘enlightened’ must express the ‘right’ view on. And, of course, it is only those who attain that status who can become part of the opinion forming elite, and so the vicious circle continues.
The present Bangor Academy principal confuses upward mobility with social status. Therefore, he is trying to turn the school into a middle-class grammar school not in terms of academic achievement or upon the merits of the ability of each student, but rather upon simply abandoning the school’s own ethos and identity to try and lift Bangor Academy into a different and perceived (amongst the hoity-toity clan anyhow) ‘higher’ social status. A status denoted by ensuring students will play Cricket, Rugby or Hockey rather than ‘soccer’ (a game for the commoners); whereby weekends will be spent not roaming the streets or going to the cinema with friends to watch a ‘rude’ teenage movie and learning how to be streetwise and survive in the world, but rather shall be enjoyed eating strawberrys at the Yacht club; a school in which learning for life and work is replaced with reading the classics; and most of all, a school which will provide the principal with a strong case for an MBE for services not to education (albeit the gong may ultimately fall under that heading), but rather for changing what is subjectively deemed to be an unacceptable ethos and identity into something more palatable; turning a cheese toastie (and by goodness, those cheese toasties at Bangor Academy were something else) into sourdough, if you will.
We have a small grouping of affluent middle class parents (mostly from PUL backgrounds) waxing lyrical about their ‘democratic rights’ and further enhancing their own status amongst the cricket and yacht clubs by posing for a picture in the local paper- in gallant defiance of the sacred principle of ‘integrated education’- with faces like someone has just taken their last avocado or, heaven forbid, their Yoga hall had been double booked by some commoners who play the uncouth sport known as ‘soccer’.
Let us just examine some of their arguments. We will start with the one most easily dismissed, namely that Paul Givan’s decision was ‘unlawful’ (and, it seems, someone will spend a minimum of £50k of either their own or more likely tax-payers money to lose a Judicial Review). This argument would be unlikely to even pass the leave stage; when the legal analysis underpinning the Minister’s decision is properly understood, it is clear it is unimpeachable in public law terms.
The next argument is that it is ‘undemocratic’, because a majority of parents wanted it. The stench of sanctimonious entitlement dripping from every word is odious. A cabal of parents, who pass through in five-year cycles, do not have the right to determine the identity and ethos of the school. They have no more, and no less, right to have a say than past pupils (or their parents) or future pupils. If parents will decide at any snap shot in time, then following the logic of their own argument, a ‘parents referendum’ would have to be held every year to encompass every year’s changing make-up of the school. Therefore the ‘democracy’ argument is playground nonsense. A democratically elected Government Minister taking a decision he is empowered by law to take is democracy in action, not some rigged ‘parents referendum’ in which voting for integration promises the windfall of much social kudos when one stands in the queue to order the morning latte.
There is also, at least judging by the local spectator, much being made of apparent advice from civil servants. Those clinging to this issue appear to fundamentally misunderstand the constitutional and legal underpinning of our democratic society. It is not for civil servants to take such decisions; civil servants offer advice, democratically Ministers decide. That is how it ought to be, otherwise we wouldn’t live in a democracy at law.
But in the course of this virtue signalling strategic battle-plan to change the whole ethos and identity of Bangor Academy, what about the working class kids from housing estates or hard working families in the local area who thrive not in an environment which tries to impose upon them alien values and ‘virtues’, but rather in an environment whereby their own communal values and identity is respected and where they can learn in that environment; an environment whereby you aren’t self-righteously told how to think, what views are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, which ‘values’ must be embraced. But in a place that encourages individuality, and every student to be the best they can be.
In an environment whereby students are told they can reach the highest heights of the professional class, and they don’t have to sacrifice their own identity to join some self-appointed social elite in order to do so. In an environment whereby you can be a working class kid who enjoys football or boxing, who when he is 18 looks forward to going out with mates to the working-men’s club to watch the Horse racing and have a pint rather than going to the Opera, who plays a flute rather than the cello, and who is more likely to be sailing on the Blue sea of Ibrox than docking in Monaco in a Yacht.
The ethos and identity of Bangor Academy, at least when I was there, was always that you should strive to be the best you could be, and you could do so remaining true to your own individuality and communal identity and values. Indeed, that ethos taught young men and women (and yes, I am quite sure the next project will be telling students there is no such thing as two genders) that there was value in not following the latest socially fashionable cause, or virtue signaling for status, but rather your value and contribution as a person came from achievements on your merit.
We were taught by teachers who had life experience, who had spent decades handling working class kids of all abilities, rather than teachers who are made feel like they have to conform to ‘right-think’ and impose those subjectively ‘correct’ views on their students. In today’s society we have to pretend to young children that those born with a penis can, if they decide, be a woman. We have to pretend that a man can, without a womb, become pregnant, and that it is not these concepts which are utterly irrational and in conflict with the most basic elements of human nature, but rather it is those who would dare to say ‘hang on, I am not inverting logic and rationality to endorse that nonsense’ who are the ones in the wrong.
In those more rational days, the wise teachers would have looked not for the student who was front and center championing the latest fashionable social cause, but rather for the student who stood alone in disagreement, and who had the gumption and character to stand apart from the crowd. If recent weeks is anything to go by, Mr Pitts and his merry band of noisy parents see value only in those students who will conform and given the corporate position of the school and principal, any students or parents who disagree must surely be feeling like Bangor Academy is a cold place for them. A place in which their views and values have no place. That is the true sadness in all this.
I hope there are some brave students or parents who will speak out against this populist orthodoxy. In the same way it is ok for catholic schools and Irish identity to celebrate single-identity spaces and learning, it is absolutely fine for there to be schools which service traditionally working class PUL communities, and that is nothing to be ashamed about. Indeed, it should be embraced and until people consciously are brave enough to speak out and swim against the tide (and incur the wrath of the twitterati and the middle class latte drinking liberal elite) then nothing is going to change.