Why no UK City of Culture Jubilee Celebration?
01 June 2012
Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“This weekend people across the United Kingdom and indeed much further afield – Queen Elizabeth II is the monarch of more than a dozen Commonwealth nations – will celebrate Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee. People from all backgrounds and age groups will celebrate the HM the Queen’s 60 years of service to her people.
“It is therefore strange that the website of the UK City of Culture 2013 doesn’t make a single mention of the Jubilee.
“Other events in the City this year – such as the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race which will visit Londonderry this July – feature prominently on the website but search for any mention of the Jubilee and one will be met with the message “No results were found”.
“It would appear that Sinn Fein/IRA’s bigoted attempts to “neutralise the UK prefix” as Junior Minister in the Office of the Co-First Ministers Martina Anderson put it has been successful in ensuring that the Jubilee celebrations do not feature as part of the programme in what is supposed to be the UK City of Culture.
“Back in January Anderson outlined the Republican strategy:
"Everyone who is proud of the Irishness of our City, while at the same time respecting the cultural diversity within it, needs to cooperate to ensure that it is portrayed throughout the world as the City of Irish Cultural and historical significance that it is.
"If successful in their objections the small minority opposed to this bid will be self-defeating as without a strong Irish Cultural flavour to the events they will only succeed in allowing our historic Irish City to be portrayed throughout the world as a 'City of U.K. Culture' devoid of Irishness . The only way to neutralise the U.K. prefix - which I doubt if anyone outside of here will take any notice of - is to take ownership of the project by making sure that the events that will make an impact on the world stage are those reflecting the reality that this is an 'Irish City of Culture' regardless of working titles or tags.”
“It is deeply disappointing that Sinn Fein/IRA won the argument to “neutralise the U.K. prefix” at the Executive table. While the Programme for Government mentions the City of Culture a number of times, significantly, it never refers to Londonderry as 'the UK City of Culture'.
“I will be writing to the City of Culture team demanding an explanation as to why they have decided to exclude the Jubilee celebrations from their website.”
