Jamie Bryson: Unionists must join the culture fight and challenge nationalist supremacy and imbalanced narrative
It has been understood by political ideologies - usually those trying to engineer significant societal change - for time immemorial that if you control the ‘opinion forming’ institutions such as academia, the media and the legal profession then you can seize control in a way which you could never do via merely winning elections.
That, of course, is important, but in general that comes around every five years.
The impact of the opinion forming institutions lasts much longer, and - unlike democratically elected decision makers - cannot simply be defeated via voting in sufficient numbers to reject the ideas, policies or agendas which have become embedded and ‘credentialled’.
Therefore, taking over, or at least sufficiently exerting influence, in spheres such as academia, media and law, has the impact of being able to shape public policy and societal norms or, on occasions, bend it to your political will.
In America, liberalism learned this lesson far earlier than Conservatives. The universities and legal activism were dominated by those of an overwhelmingly liberal ideology, and the ideas, norms and policies birthed in the universities filtered down a conduit pipe into key decision-making institutions.
Indeed, those who entered the professional class, having come from the liberal incubators of such heavily ideologically skewed learning environments, then themselves influence the professions they had entered - creating a deeply embedded ideological liberal agenda, which quite often was wildly at variance with the views of the democratic majority.
But that didn’t matter, because - as we saw with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump (twice) - the institutions which operate as the organs of the establishment have never believed that the ‘little people’ (those outside the professional class) should ever have any say in determining policy or societal norms.
It was only in the 1980s with the creation of the Federalist Society and other activist groups, that those from a Conservative ideology ‘caught on’, and went to work on rebalancing the institutions, with a specific focus on universities, the legal profession and the judiciary.
It is beyond the scope of this article, but if you get a chance, I would encourage all unionists to take the time to watch a very powerful documentary about the battle for control of the US Supreme Court.
It is called ‘Supreme Revenge - Battle for the Court’ and provides an important insight on how to counter-attack. After 30 years, there is now a Conservative US Supreme Court, with at least four Federalist Society members sitting on it. This would have been unthinkable in the era of the Warren Court.
In a Northern Ireland context, nationalism - particularly post 1998 - has engaged in a long march through the institutions within this part of the United Kingdom.
Whilst unionism viewed the 1998 Agreement as a ‘settlement’ (and the Belfast Agreement was always a fundamental error), nationalism saw it as the start of a process, and went about energising and filtering into the key opinion-forming institutions a new nationalist generation.
The output for example from universities, particularly on cultural and legacy issues, is for the most part heavily skewed towards nationalism.
This was never as evident as in regards Brexit (and the unjust Irish Sea border); the Legacy Act and more recently in respect of cultural issues such as the imposition of Irish language.
This is not necessarily a product of any malice or conscious bias, but rather the output of an eco-system which has become dominated and self-perpetuating the same ideas and nationalist ideology which is being put in.
In the media, particularly the ‘commentariat’, there is a self-evident imbalance favouring nationalism. This helps shape narrative, credential ideas and embed societal norms. The same is true of the legal profession.
This poses a significant challenge for unionism; there is a significant job of work to be done to rebalance these institutions.
It is not going to be easy and it will require a long term strategy, but most importantly it will require energising a new generation of unionist activists who embrace taking part in the ‘culture war’.
There are some who baulk at the language of culture war, but why? A culture war is a battle of ideas and legitimacy.
On what basis, particularly faced with an increasingly aggressive nationalist onslaught (which has had a jamboree through the institutions for more than 25 years), would any unionist not want to join that fight?
And that fight is in the universities, in the media and in the legal arena. That is where unionists must get active, to act with strength and to challenge - at every turn - the increasing nationalist supremacy and imbalanced narrative being normalised, particularly around legacy and culture.
I once thought that this imbalance could be changed by summers or winters of discontent and taking to the streets.
There is a place for such peaceful protest activity, but I now realise that the real battle is the professional class and those arenas. It is time to join the fight.
Jamie Bryson LL.B is a loyalist activist, law graduate and director of policy for Unionist Voice Policy Studies