The Red Mist

A fairly straightforward rant about the nature of Anger coupled with it's relevance to a then-current news story.




Anger.

Anger is a curious and oft ignored motivation. It is also one that has been at the forefront of the British news recently, together with its attendant emotions of anguish and humiliation. The latter two are best evidenced (if you're English) by the eminently satisfying reports in the German media concerning the 5-1 drubbing that was dished out to the national team on Saturday. But I mention this only in passing. If one wants to look at anger in the news, one should look no further than the Ardoyne Road in Belfast.

For the last week there has been some horrifically ugly scenes as parents tried to walk their children to school. This act has angered the residents of Ardoyne Road so much that they have attempted to blockade the route to the school and have hurled everything from abuse to bottles at both parents and children. The police have been accused of heavy handedness by the Ardoyne residents, but truth be known they have acted with that force which was necessary to repel them from the pupils of the Holy Cross school. The only reason it may have appeared excessive is that the fury of the people of Ardoyne is so great, so passionate, that it literally took a small army of baton wielding policemen to batter and force them back.

So what has caused all of this anger? Obviously it cannot be the mere fact that some children are walking through their street to get to school. We are told that the reason is a simple one; Holy Cross school is Catholic. The Ardoyne Road is Protestant. The Protestants don't want Catholic's walking through their street as they "feel intimidated". So intimidated in fact that they have suddenly felt the need to turn out in force and bay like wolves at the moon every weekday morning as the children make their frightened way to school.

There has been much said this week of the barbarity of the Ardoyne residents. Even hardened loyalists have frowned upon their behavior, with some commenting that it makes them ashamed to be Protestant. What strikes me about much of the coverage of the disgraceful scenes this week is the assumption that the anger of the Ardoyne is a choice that was rationally made leading to quite voluntary attendance in the mob every morning. Personally, I'm not so sure. These people are Angry with a capital A, that much is for certain. After all, our society is littered with taboos concerning the ill treatment of children (just look at the storm generated by Brass Eye if one wants an example) and yet these people are turning up five mornings a week with the specific intent of screaming hate filled vitriol at a group of 8 to 11 year olds.

I suspect that if it were put in just those terms to the Ardoyne residents then they would perhaps pause for a little thought. But then again, perhaps not. After all, something has caused this tremendous anger, and I cannot believe that it is simply the fact that some children from one local yet distinct group are walking through an area populated by people belonging to another group who are their traditional opponents to get to school. Good lord if that were the case then the boy from Sunderland who attended my High School in Newcastle would have had to run a gauntlet of fury every morning (which, come to think of it, wouldn't have been so bad as he was a noted and notorious git). So why the extreme anger?

In my experience, one doesn't get the choice about whether to be angry or not. One simply reacts to circumstances. Who among us can say that they have sat down and made a conscious decision to get angry about something? Anger is something primal, and logical thought has no place in its genesis. The most ridiculous things can cause it. We are contemptuous of the Ardoyne residents for their anger at schoolchildren, yet I have in my time been roused to fury by my football team losing, or by my girlfriends constant snoring (the kind that sort of hangs around in the background noise when one is trying to sleep, only to rise to a brief crescendo when one is on the very cusp of unconsciousness; most annoying!). If I were to think rationally about these things, the pointlessness of my anger at them quickly becomes apparent. But who thinks rationally when angry? Anger is something that is essentially beyond our control.

So then, if we accept that the anger of the Ardoyne has as much justification as pretty much any other bout of hostility we can perhaps begin to look a little further into their ire. One thing that should be addressed from the very beginning is the mistaken belief that anger (and in particular anger that excites ones passion to the extent that one can proceed no further without either bellowing with rage and/or smashing up inanimate objects and, regrettably, people) is the sole preserve of the stupid. This is not at all the case and I would go as far as to say that it is stupid of anyone to think that. I don't think I'm being too arrogant by saying that I'm an intelligent person. And yet I've become so angry at times that I have screamed hatred and vitriol at whomever was unfortunate enough to be the target of my hostility. I've quite possibly broken holes in more walls than Tom and Jerry. Happily I have resisted the urge to lash out at people, contenting myself with becoming the scourge of kitchen walls instead. Einstein was not exactly noted for his 100% cool temper. If we were to really get into a debate on this one could point out an angry Jesus throwing the moneylenders from the temple. I'm entirely sure that some of the people in the Ardoyne mob are as intelligent or more so than I am (perhaps not quite at the level of Einstein or Jesus though...). But they're still there and their anger is no different to any of the other members of the mob.

This means that anybody can be held to the mercy of his or her rage. And it is not up to us to decide when it happens either. So are the people of the Ardoyne mere slaves to their spleen? Not entirely; I'm sure you're familiar with the feeling of fighting to keep control of your emotions when faced with something pretty much guaranteed to cause an explosion of rage. It is a strong willed person indeed who, faced with an event that causes one to feel almost unreal anger, manages to choke down their hate and attempt to look at the situation with a balanced view. The intoxicating thing about anger is that, at the time, it seems so completely right that one should react in this way. One is afforded a clarity that is rarely (if ever) in evidence during our normal life. Any and all moral objections are swept away. Whatever pockets of reason remain are ignored entirely. Whatever it is that excites our wrath is given our full and undivided attention. And usually, anger being what it is, we are entirely focused on how best to either destroy or hurt that which has caused us to feel this way. The fact that there could be all manner of justifications for the events that caused us to feel so is entirely irrelevant. The only thing that is of any concern is the anger that it has caused. It is for that reason that the people of the Ardoyne have been spitting bile at the children of Holy Cross. If someone objective can fully understand the causes of their anger (by which I mean truly understand rather than trotting out the usual sectarian spiel) then perhaps we can begin to hope that some of the hate can be lanced and that some semblance of normality can return to the Ardoyne.