Billy King shares his monthly thoughts
Well, it is back again to war, death, environmental destruction on a MAGA scale, and potential world recession thanks to POTUS. I do believe Donald Trump is very keen on getting awards for his (dire) contributions to humanity and human history. I apologise if I don’t have a golden eagle to give him, at golf he probably cheats to get an eagle anyway. However I can proudly announce that the inaugural Billy King Award (First Class) for Sociopathetic Dangerous Eejit is hereby awarded to Donald John Trump.
I was going to substitute the work ‘Chump’ for ‘Trump’ but that did not seem appropriate given his victim count is growing all the time – and he knows what he is doing but is devoid of empathy, it is a concept unknown to him. It is all so sad and so very, very, unnecessary and unwarranted.
On another note, the news section mentions a video on French/NATO warships in Cork. There are lots of things I don’t get but ‘friendly’ visits by warships is beyond me. How is a visit by warships ‘friendly’? They are not designed to be friendly. If you want to be friendly, please send a mobile patisserie or an exhibition of your best contemporary artists. Warships have a different purpose altogether.
Fear and consternation
The more I look at it, the more amazed I am at it as a photo. It was used as the visual for INNATE’s online session entitled “Was nonviolence an option in 1969?” as part of the Imagine! Festival in Belfast. The photo is by (Nonviolent News columnist) Larry Speight and shows two soldiers in Castle Street, Belfast, in autumn 1972. It clearly shows the fear and consternation in their eyes. And we more typically get the fear and consternation in the eyes of civilians, or children, so seeing it in soldiers can be somewhat unusual, maybe even powerful or is it them powerless to cope with the situation they have been dumped in.
www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/18063000674/in/album-72157614893100575
British soldiers were thrown into a situation in the Troubles which, largely speaking, they were not trained or properly trained for, and they were certainly at risk. That in no way excuses military policies and ill treatment by soldiers, nor should it be used as a ‘keep out of jail’ card as veteran and pro-military parties in Britain wish to do. You would expect ‘state-sponsored’ soldiers to act in a more responsible and accountable manner than non-state paramilitaries. But it should raise questions about what these soldiers were tasked to do by their political masters.
Fear and consternation. Bitterness. Hatred. Revenge. All these are words associated with violence and war. But we do well to remember that on all sides in war there are human beings, most of of whom find themselves in situations they would have wished to avoid. Northern Ireland has moved past the Troubles but not yet ‘beyond’. And if this was the result in a little war with a few thousand deaths over thirty years, it is difficult to imagine what it is like when that many are killed in a much more violent situation over a day or a couple of weeks.
War is a crime against humanity.
People with greenhouses shouldn’t throw scones
With an average suburban garden I was wondering whether to get a moderate sized greenhouse both to grow a bit of summer veg and bring on little seedlings, mainly summer flowers but some herbs as well. I was hoping to buy local but in the end I decided just to get a modest (1.8m square) lean-to greenhouse for against a wall only just taller than that – you don’t enter it at all, it is only half a metre deep. And to acquire that I had to go online. Maybe I shouldn’t have been swayed by aesthetics (ascetics?) but I decided a larger, freestanding one would ‘take over’ the space in our back garden. It was all pondered long, and at my age I wondered in the expense was worth it.
As I have written here before, I grow herbs in tubs or window boxes outside, most of the ones we might want at least as far as fresh ones growable here go; parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, chives including an early and later variety, garlic chives, Welsh onions (like a larger chive with stems like scallions), red veined sorrel and a bit of wall rocket, if they counts as herbs, oregano, tarragon, mint. With the greenhouse I hope to grow basil there – to date it has had to be indoors as slugs liked it as much as myself when grown outdoors. Maybe coriander will be an option in the greenhouse, it just went to seed before when I tried it outdoors.
Clearly I have personally gone to seed. Though constructing a kit greenhouse, even a small one, has been a challenge, I hope the rewards will be worth it. I did build a large cloche, the clochasaurus as I called it, from scrap wood years ago, that in due course rotted and fell to bits and that is a Bargain Solution if you fancy doing it. This one is metal, mainly aluminium, and will see me out. It is beside our picnic table so I would hope to have the odd scone there or cup of tea and enjoy watching nature at work. People who have greenhouses shouldn’t throw scones, they should sit down in our beautiful warm weather [What country are you in? – Ed] [Sarcasm seems to pass you by – Billy] to take a break and eat one.
The devil’s buttermilk
I am not the only commentator to note the DUP’s opposition to minimum pricing on alcohol in the North (e.g. John Manley in the Irish News 25/3/26), particularly in relation, and contrast, to their founder’s (who later foundered or was foundered out of the church he founded) opposition to “the devil’s buttermilk” (alcoholic beverages). Not many people drink buttermilk now so the phrase is totally archaic, it even was in Ian Paisley Snr’s time but he had a clever and nifty if often brutal turn of phrase.
Anyway, the DUP stand is totally illogical. Spokespeople for the party point to minimum pricing being only one part of an appropriate response to alcohol abuse but don’t go on to say “but one part is better than none”. They also point to more research being needed whereas research from as close as across the nearest water shows it can have a positive effect. With deaths attributed to alcohol rising in the North surely it would be better to act now and review the matter, if required, at a later time. Minimum Unit Pricing exists in the Republic and in Britain.
Speaking of buttermilk and its origin in the dairy industry, and pollution arising from agriculture including the devastation of Lough Neagh (“Say Neagh to pollution”) it is fascinating that the DUP has also been responsible for the failure to have an independent environmental protection agency in the wee North. Whether in both cases, alcohol and pollution, change is held up by DUP pandering to its supporters plus the farmers’ lobby and the alcohol industry, well, I couldn’t possibly comment but if I did I would say ‘quite possibly yes’. However all the larger parties in Norn Iron backed intensive farming previously so they have company, or did, on that or a closely related issue.
None of this reflects well on Storm-ont’s atrocious reputation in failing to make effective decisions on issues that matter.
Corrymeela 60+
There is only one peace and reconciliation group in the North which predates the Troubles, and still is going strong, and that is Corrymeela, founded 1965. One fact it is also notable for is that ‘the founder’, Ray Davey, and many of the early members and supporters were Presbyterian. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has been in the news for all the wrong reasons of late but there have always been progressives in its ranks though, it would seem, their number has been depleted in recent years.
Ray Davey developed his thinking on community and had a commitment to reconciliation growing from his experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden (including during the bombing) in the Second World War (see e.g. https://innatenonviolence.org/readings/2015_09.shtml ). A community grew around him as Presbyterian chaplain at Queen’s and a slightly ramshackle former holiday centre on a small cliff edge outside dulse and yellowman Ballycastle (Co Antrim) was purchased; cue the old joke about early visitors who were staying there being told they would have to make their own beds….and being handed a hammer, nails and wood.
Anyone who was even of student age in 1965 would be at least around the 80 years old mark now so many of those people involved from those times are, sadly, dying. But Corrymeela has been pro-active in recording and archiving its story and the story of those involved. You can find out about current work at www.corrymeela.org and there will be an exhibition on the Corrymeela story in the vertical gallery in the Linen Hall Library in Belfast running until mid-May (see news section this issue). A publicly accessible archive on Corrymeela can be found at https://corrydocs.028ni.org.uk/index.php/documents but serious researchers would need to get accredited for documents mainly available to Corrymeela members. And a short history of Corrymeela House in Belfast appears in these pages at https://innatenonviolence.org/readings/2014_11.shtml with our photo album on Corrymeela being at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72157654407818544/
Anyway congratulations to Corrymeela on being over 60 years young and all the best for the next 60……I look forward to visiting the exhibition at the Linen Hall Library.
Divis-ion
You’ve heard this one before from me but given the news item in this issue about the exhibition in the former St Comgall’s in Divis Street, Belfast, I’ll repeat it. The reason is the location of the story was outside the school in 1980 in an interaction with a school crossing warden in this inner city Catholic neighbourhood. A group of Buddhist monks (and one nun) came to Ireland on a peace pilgrimage https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/19216126103/in/photolist-vh4EP2 and while their visit in the context of Norn Iron was focussed on reconciliation, more generally they addressed issues of nuclear weapons and uranium mining (which was a possibility in Donegal at the time).
I borrowed a book from the monks at their Belfast meeting, some of the attendees are pictured in the link above, as there was a Hiroshima illustration I wanted to copy it professionally for possible use as a poster. I said I would return it to them the next day when they were doing a walkabout in north-west Belfast. However I couldn’t find them on either side of the divides; I hadn’t allowed for them taking a sandwich break in Woodvale Park which I hadn’t ventured into. Anyway, frustrated at not finding them I was on the (old unreconstructed) Divis Street and stopped to ask a school crossing warden. As Buddhist monks wandering about the place were not that common in Belfast I hastened to add to my enquiry that the monks were dressed in orange robes. Quick as a flash, with dead pan humour and inwardly smiling but with little hint of an outward smile, he replied “It’s the wrong road for orange men!”.
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Meanwhile the issue of the terrible level of femicide has been aired in relation to the North with judgement in the Natalie McNally trial and around the same time the killing of Amy Doherty in Derry. It is not just at the societal or international level that us humans have problems with violence. Most women in our society who are murdered are killed by someone known to them, even their partner as in the Natalie McNally case. We have a long way to travel in relation to violence at all levels of life – and us men in particular have the furthest journey to make.
Well, that’s me for another month, we are now into Summer Time and the brighter half of the year, past the spring equinox. Long brighter evenings beckon even if we cannot say they will be warm or dry. And for another change I wish the world some peace, not very likely, but more likely if we hold to our principles and our struggles for dealing with conflict in a humane manner and not beating the tripe out of other humans and the environment. C u soon, Billy.