In Belfast, rioting youth have been involved in street-fighting with the police every day since early this month. The rioters have used every trick in the book - from mobile road blocks to guerilla-like attacks against "Catholic" neighbourhoods - and every possible missile, including petrol bombs. So far, there have been 150 arrests, 100 police injured and probably even more injured among the rioters.

Sectarian overbidding

This resurgence of street-rioting has been blamed by the media on a resolution voted for on December 3rd, 2012, by Belfast City Council, to fly the British flag over Belfast's town hall on 18 designated days only, instead of flying it all year round, as was the case so far.

One can only wonder, however, why there would be such huge aggro over a decision which is just reducing Belfast's crazy level of municipal flag-waving to what is actually the rule across Britain.

In fact, those who made a big issue of this vote, even before it took place, were the very same unionist parties whose politicians are now falling over themselves to condemn the "violence of the rioters". It was these parties which, in the run-up to the vote, flooded Belfast with leaflets denouncing an attempt to pull Northern Ireland away from Britain by stealth! No less! As if Britain's stranglehold over Northern Ireland depended on the number of Union Jacks flying there!

But never mind. From the unionist parties' point of view, there was logic in this madness. Having lost ground among their traditional "Protestant" electorate to the non-sectarian right-wing Alliance party, they wanted to revamp their profile. And what's the best way of doing this, if not a big dose of scare-mongering to encourage "Protestant" voters to believe that they are somehow under threat and need the unionist parties to "defend" them?

Except that the established unionist parties are not the only forces to canvass the support of the "Protestant" constituency. So do the far-right, loyalist paramilitary groups, whose influence has dwindled even more over the past years. And these groups have been quick to turn the political fireworks launched by the unionist parties to their own advantage.

In this respect, the footage of the riots shown on TV says it all. The spokesmen of the Northern Ireland police may well blame "uncontrolled youth", but those who were stewarding the rioters were definitely not young - they were middle-age "heavies" of the kind who typically form the core of the loyalist groups' shock troops!

The crisis feeds sectarian tensions

However, the fact that thousands of youth should feel they have a stake in draping themselves in the flag, fighting the police and attacking "Catholic" estates, says something about the so-called "peace process" and the institutions it has created.

It says something about the fact that the sectarian divisions haven't disappeared. They have been entrenched by institutions in which most parties have a vested interest in whipping up the sectarian fears of their respective constituencies.

Above all, most of these youth came from the poorest working class areas of East and North Belfast. These are also the areas which have been the most affected by the factory closures and slump in construction due to the crisis - areas where the rate of youth unemployment is even higher than the 21% average across Northern Ireland.

In the days of the so-called "Troubles", sectarian tensions fed on the social dereliction and chronic poverty of Northern Ireland, and were whipped up by unionist and loyalist forces aiming to shore up Britain's domination over this part of Ireland.

What has changed today? Most of the weapons may have been decommissioned - although not those of the British army. But the capitalist system and its economic crisis ensure that the social injustices on which sectarian tensions fed in the past, remain just as rife today.

And what other perspective do the rioters have? The "peace protest" held in Belfast on Sunday 13th was led by the same unionists who triggered this flag-waving - and who, together with the Sinn Fein and Alliance party politicians who were also there, failed to put up any serious resistance to the austerity measures imposed on the poorest in Northern Ireland, last October. What sort of future can these parties offer these rioting youth?

When the youth, the future of our society, find nothing else to do than to bang their heads on a brick wall, blaming them is no use. It is the system which has produced them which is sick, not the youth! And it is the system which needs replacing!