Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Welcome again and I hope it has stopped raining in your neck flood of the woods. What a month or two it has been for precipitation. It has been “Avec nous, le déluge” as opposed to France’s Louis XV and Charles de Gaulle’s “Après moi, le déluge” (“After me, the flood”). Right, that has got talking about the weather out of the way, so on with the rest of the show….

Renaming and shaming

The last issue of Nonviolent News was out of date almost as soon as it was issued and way before the paper edition reached people. There was a news item in the last issue about events at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast and it was ditching the Mitchell part of the name given links between Senator Mitchell and Jeffrey Epstein. In addition a bust of Mitchell was also removed from the front of QUB, the square in front of the old Lanyon building. QUB had gone big on the Mitchell link because of his important role in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998; he was chancellor of the university from 1999 for a decade and Queen’s celebrated their link through the bust and even involvement in a documentary film about him. They are not celebrating the link any more.

It is to Queen’s credit that they have now taken decisive action on this, perhaps helped by the fact the interim director of the former Mitchell Institute is a woman and a lawyer with impeccable human rights credentials, Prof Louise Mallinder. The statement from Queen’s said “While no findings of wrongdoing by Senator Mitchell have been made, the university has concluded that, in light of this material, and mindful of the experiences of victims and survivors, it is no longer appropriate for its institutional spaces and entities to continue to bear his name.” This seems a fair judgement.

It is indeed progress that at least some men are suffering consequences for sexual abuse which destroys lives, sometimes literally as with Virginia Giuffre. If George Mitchell is guilty as charged then he should have the book thrown at him. If not guilty then he suffers from his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and perhaps unwise judgement on his part; but he also had continued contact with Epstein after he had said he had stopped such contact (like Trump, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and others trying to distance themselves from the current international bête noire). Virginia Giuffre did withdraw an accusation against one man she had previously named and if you were on the receiving end of a conveyor belt of men willing to have sex with you, no questions asked, mistaken identity was possible. But it literally destroyed her life. How you deal with uncertainty of identification in such cases is a thorny issue.

However renaming and shaming is not only for sexual crimes. Trinity College Dublin renamed their Berkley Library because of philosopher George Berkley’s involvement in slave-owning and advocacy for slavery. There was a renaming process and the result was it became the Eavan Boland Library after the poet, the first woman to be so honoured in that university with a named building. Eavan Boland was a ground-breaking poet and had a close association with TCD, among other academic institutions; she died in 2020.

If someone is already dead or a monument or artefact is sufficiently old, there is the option of adding a modern inscription or addendum to what is there. This would not have been an option in relation to the George Mitchell bust at Queen’s since he is still alive and the issues concerned are not resolved. In some cases additional labelling may be the best option in that it acknowledges ‘history’ in relation to what was there and why it was put there but points out why they or some aspects might not be celebrated today with what we now know. This was what INNATE did on its photo site in relation to a former Irish ‘peace movement’ figure who, it transpired, violently ruined lives through paedophilia. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/46714717942/in/photolist-2eb298q

There are no easy answers but answers have to be made and judged. There were anti-slavers and anti-slavery ideology was around in George Berkeley’s time but the practice was legal internationally. Awareness of sexual abuse and rape was there as a crime in the past but there was not the same awareness of the way it could, and did, totally destroy lives.

And renaming may not work. Belfast’s City Airport became the “George Best Belfast City Airport” in 2006 in a rebranding rather than than shaming exercise but virtually no one calls it that and even the airport itself, while not dropping the moniker completely, doesn’t necessarily use the name. Tens of thousands turned out for George Best’s funeral in 2005 because, at a time Norn Iron was going down the tubes with the Troubles, his footballing skills had been the only local bright light on the international stage. But apart from making an already perfectly good name, Belfast City Airport, longer, perhaps naming an airport after a wife beater and painfully chronic alcoholic was not a wise move.

One conundrum I have though is why the man previously known as Prince Andrew chose the surname Mountbatten-Windsor when he was being de-princed even if it was a version of the underlying ‘family’ name. He could have become Andrew Smith if he wanted. OK, ‘Dickie’ Lord Mountbatten was King Charles’ much loved great-uncle but the issue is that there is credible evidence he was a relentless child sex abuser (word search if you want the gory details) including in relation to the notorious Kincora House in Belfast. And regarding Kincora there was probably involvement of different wings of British intelligence in using it to blackmail people rather than intervene and save children. That is altogether apart from Mountbatten’s tragically botched organising of the independence of India and its partitioning.

So choosing the name ‘Mountbatten’ as a change from ‘Prince Andrew’ seemed to be a jump from the sex abuse frying pan into a well stoked fire. Mind you, the financial and other indiscretions of the man previously known as ‘Prince’ look like they have been coming home to roost with his arrest in February, and his ex hasn’t done very well in that department either.

Putting the cartoon before the horse

I have been told, and passed on this information before, that cartoons stimulate the same parts of the brain as cocaine. I would think you might need to ask a specialist neurologist – one specialising in looking at cartoons and looking at people who look at cartoons? – for confirmation of this. However I will share with you that part of my daily routine is to look at a few cartoons at https://www.gocomics.com/comics/a-to-z nearly all of which emanate from the US of A which is where that website is based. I won’t share the few that I follow but it does give me a bit of a lift as I am getting into my daily routine. However if you overdose and/or become addicted and start looking at them all then you will never get to your daily routine at all so I restrict my viewing to three or four favourites. I don’t want you to become hooked.

Seriously…….

….pretty much all approaches to, and disciplines in, life can be the subject of humour. Of course caution is needed – and my sense of humour has at times got me into trouble (cringe) – and if you are dealing with fundamental subjects close to people’s heart, such as their religion or beliefs, then great sensitivity is required and awareness of what is culturally acceptable, what is borderline, and what is a definite no-no. I have dropped a piece I had written for this issue, based on a Times of India video, about major problems with the sewage system on board a US aircraft carrier which has been part of Donald Trump’s flotilla to intimidate and/or attack Iran – did he always intend to attack? In any case with current killings by said warship and flotilla on Iran, including the death of school children, the piece now felt cruel rather than amusing, a belittling of the suffering being inflicted, despite the fact it was about the perpetrators – so it was dropped.

There are debates and have been books about Jesus’ sense of humour, and a metaphor like the chances of a camel passing through the eye of a needle sounds on the humorous side to me. Humour often gets left out of official accounts of anything (the Christian bible could be considered such) because the writers want things to look ‘serious’. And yet ancient Irish monks working on important manuscripts made whimsical additions in the margins. If INNATE had the money and the time, which it doesn’t, I would like this publication or at least my column to be stuffed with cartoons.

And that gives me a chance to tell about the cartoon of the guru on the mountaintop. [Again? – Ed] The guru is sitting on the mountaintop, not looking too happy. A couple of acolytes are talking below. One says to the other “What is wrong with the guru?” and gets the response – “He has forgotten the secret of the universe again”….

When it comes to ‘disciplines’ in life, nonviolence and nonviolence training gets a going over at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/46378480811/in/album-72157678685228508 on the INNATE photo site – and you can click on the ‘Humour and satire’ album at that entry if you like for others in the peace field.

Dramas (more so) and comedies about lawyers are ten a euro/pound/dollar and some are excellent, some pretty poor, the usual gamut of quality. But I hadn’t seen a comedy take on mediation and mediators until I stumbled across an Australian Broadcasting Corporation/ABC series….about a lawyer. Helen is a likeable and well-meaning but somewhat hapless lawyer down on her luck when she joins a small law firm dealing mainly in wills and probate. The series is primarily about her and other aspects of her life, though mainly work. But she has a boss, Roz, who gets suspended as a lawyer, develops an interest in mediation and sets up a mediation business sharing the same office. Roz is not too great at the basics of mediation, leading to problems, but then, misinterpreting a conversation with Helen, develops a ‘beat them into submission’ approach to mediation. I don’t think saying that is too much of a spoiler in relation to the series.

The humour there is of course in the contrast between what mediation – medi-a-shun – is meant to be, a collaborative process, and what Roz develops, the exact antithesis. And in recent years a lot of lawyers have got into mediation as well so as not to miss that perceived gravy train. Anyway the series is called after the eponymous surname of the main character, ‘Fisk’ (eponymous is a word I like to show off with in writing though not speaking) and it’s on Netflix at the moment. There are 18 programmes in all over three short series of six episodes each, and Roz becomes a mediator in series 2, episode 2 although her interest is flagged up before that. In the programme, Roz is definitely a law unto herself.

Blinking blinkers

We all have things we see and things we don’t see or don’t want to see. I am personally very good, indeed excellent, at ignoring some things until I have to deal with them. The only thing I learnt in one workshop was the word ‘scotoma’ which, while it can mean a blind spot in your physical vision, was interpreted metaphorically as hidden things we don’t know or see about ourselves. Mind you I was at the concluding session of another workshop where people were asked their learnings from it; “Never to come on one of your workshops again!” was a contribution to this closing round – the programme had been totally inflexible despite repeated requests for change from participants.

But, widening the concept of blinkers, I wanted to talk about a couple of short promotional videos for the arms trade – no, I haven’t gone over to the other side. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1211542574295018 and https://defenceinvestment.campaign.gov.uk/northern-ireland/ Let’s take a look at what the videos include and don’t include. The first point is that both feature young women; this may be because they want to get more women involved in making armaments but presumably it is also to give the work a ‘soft’ look in a way while at the same time promoting it as a career choice. And of course they are talking about the benefit of job creation.

Another thing is that at no point do they talk about making armaments or weaponry components. It is about engineering, at the most ‘defence engineering’. There is no mention of making arms components or weapons that kill people. That would definitely be a no no. So the arms industry gets wrapped in cotton wool as simply an engineering opportunity and good for the community. In other words it is a lie by omission.

But the final point I wanted to make comes from the first video mentioned where the apprentice interviewee makes an absolutely amazing comment which portrays the blinkiest of blinkers, or is it a blindfold? In relation to having a high standard of work they say “You can’t just let one little thing slip by because that one little thing could cost someone their life.” The whole point of arms production work is to potentially deprive people of their life! But the only concern expressed is for those involved with producing and using the ‘product’, and there is no awareness of what it is being used for. It is sad, and sad propaganda.

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Well, that’s my profundities [!!!!!!!!! Are you serious? – Ed] for another month, brighter days are coming meteorologically speaking and with a lot of work and hope perhaps eventually in the world too….

In closing, if you are wanting to hear both sides of the Triple Lock arguments, you can listen to a debate between Niamh Ní Bhríain (Transnational Institute, Neutrality Roadshow) and John O’Brennan, Jean Monnet (i.e. EU-funded) Chair of European Integration at Maynooth University. It’s on Newstalk with Ciara Doherty from early February, go to https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/newstalk-daily/the-triple-lock-what-happens-if-it-goes

That’s me for now, Billy.