Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Condescending, patronising – and unjust

Those who know the first, the very first, thing about dealing with the past know about how patronising and counter-productive is the advice of telling people who have suffered that it is ‘time to move on’; it can even be violent or totally excusing violence because it is in essence saying that at that stage ‘it doesn’t matter’ and “you don’t matter”. Effectively this is what British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been telling the people of Northern Ireland though he couched it in different language; “We don’t want to deny anybody justice but what we do want is to heal, bring people together in a process of understanding of what happened but also to say to the people that it time but given that it wouldn’t enable people to get at the truth for Northern Ireland to move on”.

This was him talking to the BBC about his government’s ‘legacy’/amnesty proposals. But given that it is unlikely to enable people to get at the truth of what happened to their loved ones, in fact closing down processes, it was a lie to say “”We need to find a way of allowing people to reach an understanding of what happened and allowing families to reach closure while at the same time drawing a line.”

CAJ director Brian Gormally summarises (in the October 2021 issue of their newsletter Just News https://caj.org.uk/) that the British Government ‘Command Paper’ “proposes a sweeping and unconditional amnesty which would end all legacy-related ‘judicial activity’ (i.e. current and future legacy prosecutions, inquests, and civil actions) as well as all police and Office of the Police Ombudsman investigations. The paper also suggests the establishment of a new Information Recovery Body and various proposals for developing oral history and memorialisation initiatives.” How the latter would work without without the deleted functions, well, your guess is as good as mine, and given the current British government’s direction and the lack of necessary powers to be held by any information recovery body.

There was a fairly comprehensive agreement in 2014 on dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, the Stormont House Agreement, which was accepted across the board but has never been implemented. Again, Britain waives the rules; the Stormont House Agreement was fully multilateral, current British proposals are unilateral. It is clear, in that the British government is acting against the wishes of all substantial parties in both parts of Ireland, that it is acting only in its own narrow interests to promote an English nationalist agenda and protect the state from the truth of what its agents got up to in the little war in Northern Ireland. Unanimity in the whole of Ireland on Northern Irish issues is rare and to go against such agreement beggars belief..

I try not to use labelling language about people, [Really? – Ed] but in this instance I am prepared to make an exception, and it happens to be true. When it comes to this issue, Boris Johnson is a condescending and patronising dissembler (he purports to be acting in the interest of the people of Northern Ireland when it is clear he is not)….I am tempted to add the noun that he is a ‘Git’, which as well as being a computer system is a slang word of British origin indicating a contemptible and disagreeable person. Having introduced that word I will simply say he is too agreeable in that he agreed – in an internationally binding agreement – to the Northern Ireland Protocol to get his version of Brexit across the line with no intention of implementing it. He needs to git a bit of sense.

I Woke up this morning…….

Conscientisation is not a particularly pretty word but it is a useful one, representing the process of becoming politically aware. It can happen in a million different ways, not least becoming aware of the contradictions between what the powerful (at any level) say or proclaim and what they actually do. In recent years, much conscientisation has come about because of the ecological crisis; young people – and many oldies – see the complete mess us older people have made of the world’s eco-system and want a future that is not horrible beyond words. They also see the trotting out of seemingly eco-supportive words with a stunning lack of action.

Of course the hope is also that, once conscientised regarding one issue or area of life, people go on to be critical thinkers in everything. Thus someone who becomes aware of the need for radical change on green issues may develop an awareness of inequality at home and abroad – poor people everywhere, who have done much less than the rich to cause the crisis, are the ones suffering or likely to suffer by far the most. Thus wider political change is necessary, and the politically aware person can become convinced of a whole raft of issues in relation to ecology, equality, justice and peace. ‘Conscientisation’ as a term tends not to be used for people who become politically right wing for a variety of reasons, not least because it could be said it represents a movement away from justice and peace, though you could use the simpler term ‘politicised’; ‘radicalised’ tends to be used for violent jihadist Muslims but that can be stereotyping.

It is also a matter of joining the dots. Us ‘peace’ activists cannot exist in a bubble. The military are major polluters, as is the arms industry, and the arms industry is a major cause of poverty and inequality because money squandered on armaments is not available for adequate health care or social support. Despite western efforts to make armies welcoming to women, it is clear that the military and military style thinking are a bastion of machismo and male violence, at an inter-personal level as well as an international one (and this applies to the Irish army as recent reports indicate). In many countries the role of the army is as much internal repression as any possible international involvement. Everything connects.

But the empire strikes back. One of the ways it does so is by ridiculing alternatives. Thus political awareness and action becomes pejoratively ‘woke’ or ‘cancel culture’, crude but sometimes effective labelling to put down those who are politically aware. This right wing labelling is an old tactic, to dismiss ideas and the people who hold them out of hand rather than do a serious analysis of what is possible; get the man (sic) and not the ball. It is often a highly effective tactic because it portrays ‘our’ enemies in a very negative light, thus reinforcing ‘our’ viewpoint.

One counter-tactic is to adopt and reframe the right-wing rhetoric. Thus the gay movement reclaimed ‘queer’ (a word which also has a particular alternative currency in the English language in Ireland, as ‘quare’, meaning different or even exciting but not indicating necessarily negativity). Thus I can proclaim myself proud to be ‘woke’. After all, if you are not ‘awake’ you are ‘asleep’ and that means totally ignorant of what is going on. Of course the right wing rhetoric implies false consciousness and an attempt to be progressive in a stupid and negative way. But if you are not attempting to be critical of the powers that be then you become simply another fellow traveller for unbridled capitalism, militarism, ecocide and the rich and powerful who would like people to be naive little quiet consumers and shut up.

‘Cancel culture’ is another aspect of right wing labelling, implying that those seeking change are trying to ‘cancel’ people’s reality and culture. This is another real nonsense. Of course there should be a meaningful debate about statues of slave traders or buildings associated with repressive figures from the past. But things are always changing and if culture doesn’t evolve it dies. As well as imperialist and war monuments at Belfast City Hall, some figures are simply dignitaries from the time the City Hall was built at the very start of the 20th century; they are totally irrelevant to today and their only slight relevance is to say “These are the kind of people that the city fathers (sic) of the time sought to commemorate”. There is now, thankfully, a somewhat serious attempt to address the issue of who is represented there.

Statues can often be controversial and always have been. Republicans took matters into their own hands in Dublin in blowing up Nelson’s Pillar in 1966. Previously the central Dublin statue of King Billy was removed in 1929 (it had frequently been attacked and had been badly damaged in an explosion).

And sometimes statuary makes no great sense. In Birr, Co Offaly, ‘Cumberland Square’ (now Emmet Square, named after the republican Protestant Robert Emmet) had a statue on a column of the Duke of Cumberland, ‘the butcher of Culloden’ (the battle was in 1746 with a bloody aftermath following the English victory); he had no connection with the town or indeed Ireland but the statue was erected at the behest of the local ascendancy immediately after Culloden. This statue was taken down, for ‘safety reasons’ in 1915, interestingly pre-independence, and it may have been more to placate Scottish soldiers stationed in Birr (Crinkle/Crinkill barracks) than Irish nationalists! There was a debate later about replacing him, e.g. with the local St Brendan. However, and probably thankfully, nothing was agreed – also the sandstone column might not be up to supporting a new figure – and so the town retains a pleasantly imposing candlestick column with nothing on top. The story of its evolution is part of the story of the town – and Ireland.

The right wing idea that those seeking change are trying to ‘cancel’ history and reality is usually the opposite of the truth. Those seeking change are almost universally recognising the realities of today, actually remembering and examining what happened in the past, and challenging outdated ideological notions and rose tinted views, as well as wanting to foment a debate about the issues, not to simply say “You can’t have that”. Whether statues with an unpleasant past remain in situ but are updated with appropriate commentary on accompanying notices or guide books, or are pulled down and exhibited in some museum, again with appropriate commentary, is a matter for debate. An attachment to memorabilia of the US Confederacy or British or French imperialism, for example, should be openly challenged and not celebrated but how this is done should generally be through a consultative process – though of course direct action is an option for those who wish.

There is the related area of whether ‘apologies’ for past misdeeds are meaningful and have any meaning beyond saying “Let’s get our current relations recalibrated”. This raises all sorts of questions about judging the past by the standards of today. We are bound to do it to some extent but we also need an understanding of why people did something and how they thought about things. A key here is how other people saw things, and what actions they took. For example, the fact that the Sultan of Turkey had to be persuaded by the British to donate less for famine relief than Queen Victoria (because it would make her look bad) spells out volumes about how England regarded Ireland in the mid-19th century.

Ireland has its own shibboleths on both sides of the historical nationalist/unionist divide, and these continue to be a bugbear in Norn Iron; the way memorialisation of paramilitary deaths takes place tends to be very divisive, not least in marking territory. However the events associated with the ‘Decade of Centenaries’ (from the 1912 gun running through to the Civil War) have at least started a serious educational process to examine the events of a century ago a bit more dispassionately and look at the hurt and violence inflicted by all sides, whoever was in our view ‘right’ – if anyone. If this has been possible after a century or so then maybe by 2121 we will have got it sorted.

I don’t know if The West is A-Woke but being awake/woke is necessary north, south, east and west. Don’t buy a pig in a poke – be a woke…..or as that old badge or sticker said “Be alert – this country needs lerts”.

Stitched up

How do we make sense of violence and injustice? The scale can be so vast that we turn off because our minds can’t make sense of the level of suffering. Certainly we need critical analysis which can unwrap the secretive loops which the violent and powerful wrap around themselves and their deeds.

One excellent source of such analysis is New Internationalist magazine which takes an honest and critical look at the world and the important issues. The recent issue is on food, such a basic necessity that we in the rich world take for granted. But our ‘for granted’ may be depriving others. One story there is on how small fish are caught off the coast of Africa to feed, as fish meal, to northern hemisphere fish farms for salmon etc. Thus African fishers are finding the going much, much tougher and yields much lower because the fish they want to catch are used to produce a luxury food item, salmon, for people in the rich world. This is an appalling travesty and just one small example of what happens.

Another way, of making sense of things, which I wanted to deal with here, is of course through individual stories. These communicate directly to us. Stories can be told in many different ways. One of those ways, particularly used by women, has been through textiles and arpilleras [three-dimensional appliquéd tapestries which were originally produced in Chile]. And one story that attracted my attention recently was a Zimbabwean one told through an arpillera and a poem. It is entitled “For Paul, Disappeared 8 February 2012 “ and appears on the Conflict Textiles website at https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/search-quilts2/fulltextiles1/?id=429

Paul Chizuzu, a human rights defender for decades went missing on 8th February 2012 during the Mugabe era. Some years later the arpillera depicted in this entry was made by a colleague of his who said “It is ironic that we work with families of the disappeared, and then experienced first-hand the shock and despair of losing someone we cared about so deeply.” The maker of this arpillera, Shari Appel, had also previously written a poem about Paul Chizuzu:

“A pebble does not sink without a ripple

A branch does not break and fall without a sound

A mouse in the jaws of a cat squeaks and struggles

A bird in flight drops one feather to the ground.

A heart in despair sighs, and leaves a whisper
A body in pain sheds blood upon the stone
A friend will follow signs until she finds you
I will never leave you, hidden, alone.”

This is very moving and to see the arpillera and more information, go to the link above.

The divil you know

I wanted to quote the best satirical comment I have seen on recent events in relation to the Norn Iron Protycol, and EU and UK statements about it. Former British government advisor-in-chief Dominic Cummings said (and this was reiterated by what Ian Paisley MP quoted Boris Johnson as telling him) that the British government never intended to implement parts of an international treaty it didn’t like. What I reproduce below came in a thread comment in the British Guardian, following a column from political sketch writer and satirist John Crace https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/13/frost-and-johnson-test-sefcovics-mr-nice-guy-act-to-destruction : This piece is is by ‘Hoofitoff’:

“Regina v Haddock

A curious case was heard at Westminster Magistrates Court on Tuesday last.

Mr Albert “Frozen” Haddock was charged with stealing a chicken from a branch of Aldi, having attempted to leave the supermarket without paying the price clearly stated on the label.

Mr Haddock claimed that the price was an “invitation to treat” but since nobody there would negotiate a different price, he could set his own reasonable price, particularly as he was in a hurry to conclude the purchase and return home by 5pm in order to be able to say that he had “got the shopping done.”

The prosecution alleged that he entered the supermarket but never had any intention of paying. Mr Haddock denied that this was the case; however he added that this behaviour was not at all unusual and that many people entered shops with no intention of paying.

He also claimed that he acted in a “specific and limited way” as he was happy to pay for the potatoes and carrots, but wished to re-negotiate the deal on the chicken.

Finally, he claimed that not having a chicken was causing distress to people in the community – specifically his family at 48, Gallipoli Road. It was the will of these people that they should have whatever they wanted, but because of the purist and inflexible position of the supermarket with regard to the price, the family were losing confidence in the system.

When asked by Mr Justice Swallow if he really thought that this approach could succeed, Mr Haddock explained that he was merely following the example of the British government with regard to negotiations, agreements and the rule of law.

The case was adjourned indefinitely.”

Anemone

We were trying to identify a flower in our garden, it is almost finished flowering now. We didn’t succeed in identifying it beyond being an anemone of which there are many, many different varieties. But it reminded me of the English comedian Kenneth Williams’ famous interjection as Julius Caesar in the 1964 Carry On Cleo film: “Infamy! Infamy! They have all got it infamy!”. This connection came about since the case of trying to identify the anemone had made me think of the late, great Frank Kelly and his ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’. In this, the character played by Kelly, Gobnait O’Lúnasa and his mother are driven totally demented by the misplaced generosity of his lady love, Nuala; he says to her, “You are making anemone of me!” (well, almost those words). You can easily find Kelly’s ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ online – it was actually a record selling hit ‘a long time ago’….worth digging out, particularly coming up to the Christmas season.

However it is important to try to avoid making anemone of anyone. As those who know anything about nonviolence will understand, while you should try to avoid making anemone of anyone, if you do then you should try to turn them into a friend……

–

Sin é (or recognising the political party leading in the polls in both parts of this island, “Sinn Féin é”). I will return at the start of December when Christmas is nearly upon us, (whatever that holiday period will be like this time….) the year is certainly winding on before winding up. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other, Billy.

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

The universe – and nonviolence

The last time I was paying tribute to the wonders of the universe, and did link it a bit to nonviolence, but I wanted to go further here. [More mystical musings? – Ed]

There are two ends of the spectrum that we can marvel at in the universe. The scale of an endless universe, or universes beyond our universe, is so beyond our understanding, our reckoning, that we cannot grasp it. But equally beyond our comprehension is the number of micro-organisms that are in a handful of garden soil. Both on the macro and micro levels, the universe if full of vibrancy and life.

And when I say the universe is full of life, I take that as quite obvious. The maths and what we know about the bits of the universe humans have learnt about clearly indicate that there is lots of life out there beyond the shores and relative sureties of Earth. Obviously we don’t know what kind of life, and much of it may be microbial, but the maths would also tend to indicate we are not only not alone but there may be many life forms both less and more advanced than we are.

I don’t want to get into the whole debate about UFOs, and if intelligent beings from outside are monitoring us (what a disappointment for them we must be….) their technology must be such, by reason of the distance they have come, that they can do it without us noticing if they want to. Who knows. But my point is that we are part of a massive web of life, and we are learning to our cost on this earth that we are not above nature. Nonviolence to our planet is not only nonviolence towards the rest of life but the only survival strategy we have.

However nonviolence towards our fellow human beings everywhere is a part of it that many have not grasped as they pursue violent acquisition, repression and private and national greed. We are clearly all linked as human beings. National and ethnic labels may be important in some ways but they are accretions which, on a wider scale, are unimportant. As both the climate crisis and Covid-19 show, humanity sinks or swims together – and in relation to Covid it looks, unfortunately, that in terms of sharing and cooperation we have been rather floundering. The same conclusion applies to refugee issues – and in particular rich world responses.

As I also said last time, it doesn’t matter what your religious or philosophical beliefs are, the wonder of the universe is shared by us all, and open to interpretation by us all. And there is much that we still don’t understand about our own planet. There is much we don’t understand about the human being, how our brains function for example, but what we should be able to do is stand in awe at the marvel of being alive, of being human, and what we humans can do.

Of course there are those with a dark view of human nature, and for all of us considering the nature of human nature I would certainly recommend Rutger Bregman’s ‘Humankind’, reviewed in these pages at https://innatenonviolence.org/readings/2020_07.shtml Armies have to be trained to kill, and even when trained to do so, soldiers would usually prefer not to do so.

There are many things I don’t know and will never know. But I do know that nonviolence and non-killing (to use a term often used by Máiread Maguire) is one of the secrets of the universe. Not doing so is playing at being a god.

Credit…

…where credit is due. The Catholic bishops often get a bashing today, and in my opinion it is sometimes well deserved (and I wouldn’t exclude Prod bishops from the same), but one thing which I would credit the Northern Catholic bishops with is their opposition to the “11+” system of transfer, or its equivalents, from primary to secondary school.

Donal McKeown, Bishop of Derry, recently came out against the Northern grammar schools’ proposed single test for transfer. He said https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-58663414 it appeared to be “setting in concrete the fragmentation” of decision-making in Northern Ireland’s education system, questioned whether it should be the grammar schools making the running on this as opposed to politicians, and “He described the transfer test as a “fake exam which claims to measure intelligence but really is only a competition for those who are best prepared”“ It is the latter point I would like to elucidate.

It is quite some years ago now but I had occasion to interview the principal of the Catholic girls’ secondary school in a fair sized town in Norn Iron. She informed me that girls who failed the 11+ exam and came to her school but five years later did well in GCSEs would automatically, no matter what their career choice, decide to go the Catholic girls’ grammar school because until they got the grammar school uniform on at 16 they did not feel they had regained the self image they had lost at 11. For children, and a majority of children at that, at age 11 to be told, in any way, that they have ‘failed’ is simply violent, and I use that term carefully and deliberately.

Of course there are all sorts of issues involved. Transfer to secondary school can be done on a class (i.e. rich/poor, not classroom) basis even without any kind of transfer test, and the involvement of class certainly happens in the Republic too though without the stigma associated with the Northern 11+ or equivalent. In Norn Iron the long term failure to sort the whole matter out has been a reflection of the political system’s failure to take decisions on some essential matters. And the high level of low achievement among Northern Ireland school students (along with, conversely, a relatively high level of high achievers) is a scandal which blights lives and contributes to the malaise in which Northern Ireland exists. The North needs a different system.

So well done to Donal McKeown who is a long term advocate for justice – and, incidentally, formerly an activist with Pax Christi.

Subnormal behaviour on submarines

What in the world (sic) are the USA and UK doing selling nuclear submarines to Australia? China may be flexing its muscles in the South China Sea but it hasn’t been a country busy militarily occupying others apart from its reprehensible ongoing repression and colonialism in the likes of Tibet and Xinjiang. Talk about escalation…..

I can have no sympathy for France in feeling it was done the dirty by Australia reneging on its deal to buy ‘conventional’ subs from them. The arms trade is a dirty and underhand business at the best of times so you can expect the worst.

Selling nuclear submarines to a non-nuclear power may not be nuclear weapons proliferation but it is certainly military escalation. I feel sad that there is another sphere of military escalation in the world.

Tunnel vision

“So let’s build a really long and hugely expensive tunnel through one of the biggest munition and radioactive dumps that exist – what could go wrong?”

The tunnel between Norn Iron and Scotland which B Johnson proposed is dead in the water (pun intended) in terms of financial cost. Putting any kind of tunnel through the Beaufort Dyke in the middle of the Irish Sea, both due to its depth, unexploded munitions, toxic chemicals and radioactivity, (see e.g. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/beaufort-dyke-reveals-its-deadly-secrets-1.86927 ) would have been an absolute nightmare. Johnson’s kite flying on the issue was, I presume, mainly to demonstrate his commitment to the continuation of a united ‘United Kingdom’ (and a somewhat pathetic and ineffective sop to unionists) though his more practical policies have been effectively ripping that up. While any practical inter-country links should be welcomed this one is not a runner or even a swimmer.

As you presumably already know, Johnson is big on grand theatrical flourishes but very poor on detail (he is not even very good at lying given that successful liars do so in a way that makes detection difficult or at least difficult to expose) and he should have realised from the start that the cost would be astronomical. Though in another way you could say, like D Trump, Johnson is a ‘good’ liar in that truth is not what you expect from him. There has been no full survey of the potential but £20 billion was mentioned whereas in my non-engineered mind I would say you could probably multiply that by a factor of two or three, even if it was optimised as a combination of tunnel and bridge (the latter making weather related closure more likely).

The British-French Channel Tunnel proved difficult to fund and sustain in terms of cost. And yet Britain is an island of nearly 60 million people. Ireland is an island of less than 7 million. While the minimum distance between Ireland and Scotland is 12 or so miles/20 km, the ‘best’ route across the Irish sea (e.g. Larne – Portpatrick) could be almost double that, perhaps rather less than the British-French tunnel (50 km long) but potentially with much higher costs because of the Beaufort Dyke.

As other commentators have said, it anyone wanted to seriously improve Norn Iron-Scottish links, they could look at the connectivity of Cairnryan to elsewhere in Britain – the road network is appalling and there has been no direct train link since the ferries at the bottom of the garden moved from Stranraer. Incidentally, those who know the area around Cairnryan will know of the ubiquity of ‘Irish’ language names in the area, reflecting the Irish cultural heritage of the area from many centuries ago.

Patriarchy

I haven’t written on violence and patriarchy for some time which is probably remiss of me since the link between the two is a key to decreasing violence of all sorts and at all levels – interpersonal, societal and international. I am always amazed that society doesn’t take this issue seriously – that is, the socialisation of boys and young men to accept violent behaviour of some kinds as both normal and positive. Considerable attention is needed to the issue to try to remedy it but all we get is an occasional and oblique reference or action. Of course many societies are now also trying to inculcate acceptance of armed force into women as well, and make their armies gender-neutral (a next to impossible task I would argue).

Where does violence come from? There are many factors including greed, insecurity, enjoyment of bullying and dominance (because it in some way makes the aggressor feel better – but possibly also worse in other ways), as well as misplaced notions of self importance by countries or individuals. But socialisation and peer pressure are a key element.

A study from Duke University in the USA emphasises the importance of peer pressure, particularly in relation to younger men. https://alumni.duke.edu/magazine/articles/study-explores-anger-violence-and-masculinity Adam Stanaland sought to discern “how anger and violent thought correlate to whether men’s sense of masculinity comes from within or is in response to social pressure. Men in the latter category, Stanaland’s study indicates, tend to be younger and to have more fragile senses of masculinity. In short, they think they have more to prove, which they express through anger and aggression.”

“In the end, the studies found that men in their late thirties and younger were more likely to conform to masculine norms because of external pressure and were more likely to behave aggressively if they felt their manhood was threatened.”

Part of his conclusion is that “presenting gender-diverse examples of men, women, and non-binary people and explicitly addressing harmful norms can help boys become less fragile, less aggressive men.“ His conclusions are perhaps nothing new but it is certainly not all gloom and misogynist doom in that it is clear education and exploration of masculinity, along with proper support, can have a real influence in bringing men to a better place than machismo.

But the first stop on this road is acknowledging the problem. Society doesn’t seem to want to do that yet. As stated at the start, this has implications at all levels, from so-called domestic violence (inter-personal relationship violence) through to warfare.

As to how you can create the conditions for serious work on male violence and an acceptance that it is a real and present danger, well, trying continually to create awareness and conscientisation on the issue is part of it. And the lack of awareness and focus on the issue is itself an argument for the existence of patriarchy.

–

We’re well into the autumn now and winter beckons. As I continually say, every season has it advantages and disadvantages, but getting yourself warm and cosy at home in the winter time, with your feet up, literally and/or metaphorically, has a lot to recommend it. A brisk walk, or a run if you are so inclined, in the cool of autumn with the beauty of golden leaves tumbling is a great tonic for anyone for can get out and about. Until I see you again in a month, take care of each other, Billy.

Wandering and wondering around the universe

I don’t know if you are into astronomy and astrophysics but the discoveries which seem to keep coming are mind boggling. If you keep an eye on the news or are on mailing lists for new discoveries, as I am, there are constantly astonishing things and new learning to take your breath away: light captured being bent by black holes, a white dwarf star travelling out of our galaxy at two million miles an hour, the capturing of an image of a supernova, wandering planets and black holes (the mass of a black hole may be many million times that of our sun), not to mention the discoveries that await about planets and their moons within our own solar system.

The search for exoplanets (ones outside our solar system) with the signatures of life (most likely microbial) has extended to types of planet different to our own Earth. However there is a huge amount we don’t know about even our own solar system, e.g. whether there is a ninth planet (after the demotion of Pluto) and whether there is microbial life on Mars or the moons of other planets.

Partly because our solar system is in the middle of it, there is much we don’t know about our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Its visible diameter is 200,000 light years or more. It may contain 400 billion stars. And there may be a couple of trillion galaxies in the universe. You do the maths. Most stars have planets. And is there a universe of universes?

Of course there is wonder at the simple time and space involved; learning about objects in space where the light we see was emitted thousands of years ago, or in some cases very considerably more, with the hope to be able to learn more about light emitting from not long after the Big Bang (an event estimated to be 13.8 billion years ago). How about looking in some detail at a system eleven billion light years away? It is being done.

All of this is part of the amazing universe we live in and it doesn’t matter whether you are atheist, theist, pantheist or agnostic, it is all amazing. Whatever your beliefs or philosophy it is hard to get your head around the reality of the universe – of which we actually understand quite little. The universe in its vastness, diversity and scale is a challenge to us all to try to understand.

Meanwhile back on Earth, billionaire businessmen like Branson and Bezos justify their commercial flights to ‘inner space’ (for upwards of half a million dollars you get a short period of weightlessness and you see the curve of the Earth) by the inspiration it gives. Rubbish. This space tourism, for no scientific purpose, must use more than a lifetime’s per capita helping of fossil fuels in just a few minutes. It is a black hole of their own making. As such they should be banned immediately – along of course with, for the same reason, a lot of military manoeuvres which in scale are far more damaging. And at the moment military carbon emissions aren’t even counted in a country’s total.

Helping to destroy the one Earth we have and share is a crime against humanity and should be treated as such however much it might be dressed up in flowery language and it being a different experience for the rich and gullible. If said billionaires seriously wanted to provide inspiration they could do this through education including film about the beauty, knowledge and mystery about the universe (though of course the space flights involved are ego trips more than space trips for both participants and organisers).

Cue the song ‘From a distance’, written by Julie Gold and sung by many including notably Nanci Griffith who sadly died recently (she had great affection for Ireland despite no Irish roots; for her Irish related songs look out for Christmas on Grafton Street and It’s a hard life). Apart from the allegation that God is watching us from a distance – unlikely to please either atheists or Christian theologians who wouldn’t go for the ‘distance’ bit – it is somewhat of a peace anthem through some might consider it a bit schmaltzy (a word of German and Yiddish origin, indicating overly sentimental): “From a distance you look like my friend / Even though we are at war. / From a distance I just cannot comprehend / What all this fighting is for.” It is easily found online.

Our sense of wonder at the universe and at the nature of our Earth should extend to a sense of wonder at human life, and the uniqueness and preciousness or sacredness (in religious terminology) of it. Destroying our world? Killing human beings? Totally nonsensical. We human beings have a lot to learn. There may well be a Planet B but it is likely many thousand or million light years away.

Black, white, and Browne

It was the very start of indoor dining in the Republic, at the end of the hot weather in July but before the resumption of ‘normal’ Irish summer weather, and we were walking around Lough Eske in south Co Donegal, a few hours trek mainly on the circular road around the lake. We booked to have lunch at Lough Eske Castle Hotel en route, and very pleasant it was too. As we were getting ready to leave we noticed some photos on the stairs to the downstairs bar which had been renamed after Fr Frank Browne, the most famous photographer of the Titanic.

Thinking that it might display a dozen or two of his well known pictures, we hesitated and then went down. The bar was closed but the lights were on. It is an amazing collection of well over two hundred of his photos from the first half of the twentieth century mainly of Ireland and Irish people at work and play; the walls are filled with photos. He was a fantastic photographer and must have been a natural with people as well, not least in making friends on the first Titanic voyage from Southampton to Cobh (Queenstown in Cork as it then was) with rich US Americans who offered to pay his passage to the States. Asking permission, Fr Browne received the famous telegram that saved his life, from his superior – “Get off that ship – Provincial” – he joked that it was the only time religious obedience saved someone’s life.

The bar is filled with excellent photographic prints of Irish life of the time including a barefoot girl in winter, a couple of gents waiting for the pub to open after the ‘holy hour’ closure in the middle of the day, people at work and play in countryside and town, and some great photos of children. His work for the Jesuits involved travelling around Ireland so most corners of the country are covered in his photographic work. When the trunk of his photos was discovered in a Jesuit house a couple of decades after his death with 42,000 negatives, many had never been developed. His Titanic photos had earned him free film for life from Kodak – but he didn’t necessarily have the money to develop the photos he took, and any photographic fees he earned went to his religious order.

If you are into photography or recent Irish history it is well worth a visit for the price of a pint (which seemed reasonable to me) or a coffee and scone. It is perhaps ironic to name a bar after him given that he never took photos inside pubs so presumably did not frequent them but ignore that and visit if you get the chance – if you manage to visit when the bar itself is closed you can probably have the whole exhibition to yourself. When the bar is serving then clambering over people to see a photo might not be appreciated at the best of times but in the Covid era is impossible to do. Don’t forget your vaccination cert either to get in if current guidelines require it.

It was a brilliant surprise on our walking route around Lough Eske and is an amazing permanent exhibition. We will go again.

Maus

I have written before about bandes dessinées, and I proclaim this (‘illustrated strips’) is a more appropriate term in French than the English – the terms cartoons, comics or even graphic novels don’t seem to be appropriate (they may not be novels). In the case of the latter, graphic as an adjective has different meanings including detailed and explicit with possibly harrowing detail. But that would be appropriate for a classic of the genre, Art Spiegelman’s ‘Maus’, published three decades ago.

I bought a copy of ‘Maus’ (300 pages, Penguin) some time back but set it aside to read when I had the time and concentration (and it is a book which does require some of this) and I read it this summer. The Wall Street Journal is quoted on the back cover as saying it is “The most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust”; I could not possibly say if that is true but it is certainly both affective (creating emotion) and successful in telling its story, the survival of Polish Jew Vladek Spiegelman, the father of Art, the author and creator of the book.

The Holocaust/Shoah was such an apocalyptic event that it is difficult to do it justice in any narration. Art Spiegelman’s methodology is simply brilliant however in doing it through two main innovative mechanisms; portraying different groups as different animals (Jews as mice, Nazis as cats etc), and interweaving the story of his father in later life as Art works to get his survival story from him. The animals artifice and the juxtaposition of an elderly (and often stubborn and awkward) survivor and his previous existence as a young man intent on living make for a remarkable and thought-provoking work which will stay with you.

Another amazing aspect of the book is the stages- and strategies – which Vladek and his wife Anja had to go through to survive. They tumbled from one frying pan into the fire, to revert to another frying pan and another fire, and so on before eventually ending up in Auschwitz and being separated. At any one of these points they could have succumbed. At the end of the war neither knew whether the other had survived. They were then reunited until Anja killed herself in 1968; her mental health had never been good but going through the Holocaust would have incredibly difficult to process for anyone.

If someone should say that bandes dessinées cannot be serious works of art and political or historical commentary (some people may still do so despite the genre’s evolution over the last couple of decades in the English speaking world – the genre is more accepted in France and Belgium) this book is a major refutation of that argument. Maus is an important work of historical recall in the struggle against the dehumanisation of supposed enemies, and in remembering this terrible period in European history.

It seems appropriate to end this mention of Maus on an affective note which comes from the very end of the book. The final frame (or penultimate one if you take into account a final illustrative and informative flourish) shows the elderly Vladek, ill and tired, in bed, having finished telling his son Art the end of his survival story and reunification with Anja. In telling Art that he is tired from talking he calls him Richieu, the name of Vladek and Anja’s first son who died – was killed – as a young child in the Holocaust. If that does not bring a tear to your eye or a lump in your throat then possibly nothing will.

Pop

It was recently announced that the population of the area occupied by the Republic is just over 5 million, a couple of million more than at the start of the 1960s at which point the population of the 26 counties stopped going down (from the time of the Famine). With the North being around 1.9 million that takes us to almost 7 million on the island, only a bit over a million less than the population in 1846 at the start of the Famine; another couple of decades and it will likely catch up with that – two hundred years later, a unique demographic profile.

The population of Dublin is over 1.4 million. The scattered habitation pattern in the countryside in Ireland stretches back at least 5,000 years, to the Céide Fields of north Mayo, but in terms of the cost of infrastructure and ecology, urban can be much better (it depends on the nature of the urban and there is a huge task in retrofitting housing to implement the greening of Ireland). But if the move out from large urban/city areas under Covid breathes new life into towns and villages in the countryside that can also be a Good Thing for the country as a whole.

Obviously inward migration has played a role as well as natural population growth – and this has been an important cultural factor too. While family size has decreased it hasn’t done so in the same way as other relatively prosperous societies; maybe Irish people just like having children despite the huge cost of child care and rearing. And that is a nice and positive thought to hold on to…..even if it does raise questions about asset and resource use with an increasing population and increased numbers of older people.

Letter of the month

It is only occasionally that I pick a ‘Letter of the month’ so maybe it is a ‘Letter of the season’ or ‘Letter of the year’ but anyway….. You might not think every last detail is the same but still, here is a letter from Brendan Lyons in the Irish Times of 19/8/21: ““A war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, has been acquired. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.” Rev GR Gleig writing in 1843 on the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839-42.”

–

Well, here we are at autumn again, not quite a normal autumn with Covid but not quite like last year either. Every season and time of year has its plus and minus points but there is still time to enjoy some September warmth, I hope, before you have to start generating your own. I hope things go gently for you anyhow, whatever you are up to, and I will see you again in a month’s time, Billy. 

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

The truth about The Twelfth

If you have ever attended Twelfth of July parades in Norn Iron you will know what a great occasion it is for those involved. The sun doesn’t always shine but it often does (for weather it certainly beats St Patrick’s Day in March…) and there is a combination of solemnity and carnival atmosphere. Old friends greet each other. Families come together. At a large parade (in normal, non-Covid years) like the one in Belfast, people coming as spectacle-watchers stake out their place beforehand. Children play around. Young men get to strut their stuff and show off to their friends, male and female. Old men ditto. Young people, friends of band members, walk along to accompany their band friends, laden with bags of beverages. A good time is had by all – and more than a few sore heads that day (after the Eleventh night) or afterwards, and perhaps sore feet.

And this of course comes after the Eleventh night itself when the competition to have the biggest, best bonfire – built by young males – is as hot as the resultant blaze. Who doesn’t love a good bonfire? And these aren’t just any bonfires, they are Protestant/Loyalist Northern Ireland bonfires, some so ginormous they risk setting alight to anything in the nearby vicinity (in one area in 2021 a fire station is at risk!!!!). The bonfire is a great spectacle, lit as dark is approaching, and pallets burning like the blazes and lighting the way to the stars.

‘Orangefest’ has been the rebranding of the whole Twelfth of July package. But there are a number of problems. The sides in 1690 may have been multinational, but in celebrating the victory of King William, King Billy supported by the Pope, is is actually celebrating the victory in battle of one side in Northern Ireland (Protestants and unionists) over ‘the other’ (Catholic and nationalist). That is why it resonates today. That is not just a historical event from some hundreds of years ago but an event ‘now’. It is a celebration of ‘my’ victory over ‘you’, and your debasement.

There is no possible way that the celebration of this event can be made neutral in the Northern Ireland context. The Orange mythology may be that King Billy’s victory established ‘civil and religious liberty’ for all but that is a complete lie. Yes, if James had won the boot would have been on the other foot and it would have been Protestants discriminated against, possibly even worse than Catholics continued to be discriminated against, but that is not what happened. And at the time it wasn’t even civil and religious liberty for all Protestants – but Catholics were treated much more severely than Protestant dissenters.

And from a nonviolent perspective the militarism on display in Twelfth parades is both unfortunate and, if you permit yourself to look at it critically, a bit both blood curdling and oppressive. Military uniforms, military formations, celebrations of past wars and battles, marching music. Is this what Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist culture is all about? It looks a bit to me like inculcation of the cult of militarism and military sacrifice, preparing people to be the cannon fodder of the 21^st century or, in the era of military drones, survivors when others are killed. Parades also mark territory; where we go is ‘ours’ (even when an area is very mixed); this is about dominance, not sharing. That is before we even get into the conservative ‘Orange card’ nature of Orangeism.

Then there is the whole issue of flegs and emblems, a year round issue but particularly one in the summer, associated with the Twelfth. One person’s display of identity and allegiance is frequently another person’s intimidation. Marking territory in a divided society is naturally divisive. And remembrance of people killed and murdered is frequently done in a way which is also divisive, by all sides. The report on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition (FICT), a long time in the making has been with Stormont for a year and will not see the light of day until the NI Executive has dealt with it, and when that will be is uncertain. But the matter should be expedited and the report published as soon as possible after the Marching Season (Norn Iron’s fifth season, as in the words of Colum Sands’ song on the topic).

There is much that can be celebrated about Britishness and British culture or cultures. Many British social and political movements have been in the vanguard of progressive thought and change. There is also a huge amount of British culture – music, drama, other arts – which can be celebrated. The best of ‘British values’ are second to none. And none, or extremely little, of this would be divisive if celebrated. You have to recognise the Twelfth as a major cultural and political phenomenon but unfortunately the Twelfth of July is stuck in a divisive time warp. Of course many Prods want nothing to do with it but the attempt to rebrand the Twelfth and make it more inclusive is on a hiding to nothing. The basis of the Twelfth is division and ‘victory over’ others. There is no way this can become inclusive. (full stop)

There are of course many other aspects of the situation which I am not going into here. The feeling of having their backs to the wall is a real issue for many Protestants in the North; this feeds into their sense of betrayal and danger – and with a British prime minister like Boris Johnson continually lying to them it is a sense which is readily reinforced. The DUP miscalculating their strategy so badly has added to the angst. And old habits and beliefs die hard. Prejudice and intolerance are not the preserve of some Northern Protestants, that goes with the territory being divided, but there are particular manifestations of it on different sides (including middle class liberal prejudice, I would add)..

The Twelfth of July is a great spectacle. Unfortunately it is a divisive and exclusionary spectacle and if it represents ‘Protestant and unionist’ culture – one argument used for it – that also does not instil either admiration or respect beyond the fact that a lot of people have expended a lot of effort, time and money in it, colourful and quaint as it may be. And in a way, you cannot not be impressed in some form, it is bound to make an impression on you, whatever that is. It speaks to the converted. It says something entirely different to the unconverted who look beyond the spectacle to the meaning behind it.

The colourful nature of grey

There is probably no greater insult than to call something, or someone, ‘old and grey’. The expression ‘a grey day’ summons up images of the worst of Irish weather, at any time of year, when dampness and cloudiness congeal into a feeling that everything is dull and lifeless. Grey may be a favoured decorative colour for walls and tiles at the moment but planners often permit grey superstructures on buildings which were ugly even before this superstructure was placed there, a sort of ghostly and unwelcome presence on top.

But, I am here to defend grey. Without grey days, would you enjoy sunshine so much? [Eh, yes, probably – Ed]

On a foggy or misty day in the countryside you can peer into the distance and imagine Tír na nÓg is just there, only slightly beyond reach, and let your imagination take over. Reality is no longer visible so you can rearrange everything to your satisfaction.

Looking at distant mountain ranges on a grey day you can savour the variety of greys, whether ‘fifty shades of grey’ or more.

And, particularly in a summer misty twilight, at dawn or evening dusk, there can be a period which is neither ‘light’ nor ‘dark’, neither day nor night, it is, in a sense, another realm entirely. This is not necessarily a scary twilight but certainly a mysterious one, again one where you can unleash your imagination.

The anatomy of grey, grey’s anatomy, can be a fascinating pursuit. In an Irish summer you may have plenty of opportunity to do so……. In summary though, you might conclude that that an overall assessment of the colour grey is……well, a bit grey……

Courgettes

Probably nothing gives me so much pleasure in the garden as the first courgettes coming on stream in early summer. Planting at the right time in the right sized pots, planting out at the right time in composted soil, protecting from the wind (and any possible frost) and slugs and snails when small, and removing the cloche covering at the right time, all play a role in getting the courgettes to produce. By a mixture of good luck and good management I got it just right this year and was rewarded with the first courgettes a week before the end of June.

Over the summer we will certainly have a go at a large number of courgette recipes. And if one or two grow too large to use as courgettes, well, they can grow on as marrows, to marrow is another day, and after decorating the kitchen for a time they will serve as a reminder of summer in the autumn or winter until eventually they succumb to being served in a stew or casserole. Courgettes are not of course the veg with the most distinguished taste but they are pleasant and versatile.

I’m not going to give you any full courgette recipes here but favourites include a courgette bake with two layers of sauteed courgette with another layer of tomato and onion in between, with breadcrumbs on top, and grated courgettes in savoury gram flower pancakes with rosemary (courgettes can go in cake too to make it moist). Sauted courgette as a plain veg of course appears frequently. They can also be parboiled and used in salads And in warm weather they produce at a very rapid rate which means there are ones to give away, and that is always good too.

Midsummer

When is midsummer? The so-called ‘longest day’, ‘day’ in this phase being ‘day’ as in ‘daylight’ as opposed to ‘night’? In which case it is now downhill all the way… Or somewhere in July and August based on a period of warmer weather? To be pedantic, in places with daylight saving, where the clock goes forward an hour in spring and back an hour coming into winter, the longest ‘day’, with 25 hours, is the day the clock changes in autumn.

Of course meteorological and common understandings do not naturally agree. Folk traditions are another thing again; St Brigid’s Day on 1^st February may traditionally mark the start of spring in Ireland but it’s usually very much winter. And the four seasons in a day nature of Irish weather does not make for easy delineations of seasons. Climate change/heating also muddies the waters (figuratively and literally with more flooding).

We are now past ‘the longest day’ on 21st/22nd June and the cycle inexorably continues. The rain is warmer in an Irish summer and it all helps the garden or window box to grow, though it has been quite dry recently.

I wish you a summery summer and not a summary one, and I hope you get a good break from routine to relax. See you in September,

– Billy

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Those Quakers

The review in the last issue on Quaker international conciliation got me thinking of a relatable story (I’ll relate it to you and you can then see if you relate to it). It’s not about conciliation, I’m not sure what you’d call it, possibly direct action peacemaking. Veteran English Quaker activist Will Warren https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/12087132733/in/photolist-S1Cce9-z6Xhhv-z4DBQs-jq6Hse came to live and work for peace in Derry in the early years of the recent Troubles. The story was about that he could stop a riot by walking right into the middle of it, perhaps nobody wanting to harm this venerable Quaker. However the late great English peace activist Howard Clark told the story of visiting Will in Derry when he, Will, decided to do just that, walk into a riot, accompanied by Howard. Howard said it made absolutely no difference to the riot and he was never as scared in his life……you might say he was positively quaking…..in this case there was a Will but no way.

Past peace activism

Isn’t that an amazing entry in the INNATE Flickr/photo site of the 1839 anti-recruiting leaflet? https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/51178285766/in/dateposted/ If there is one thing we learn about the past, surely it is that people were just like us even if their circumstances were very different. It is difficult to imagine yourself into 1839 Dublin and the context in which this was produced [But there go, or went, the Quakers again – Ed] and arguing from a pragmatic basis against joining the military was, is, probably quite effective.

The cat-’o-nine-tails may not exist for soldiers any more but I have personally witnessed offending squaddies being exhaustion-punished – not pleasant. And “orders is orders” is not a good place to be either, nor being moved about the place on someone else’s whim. That is altogether aside from the jobs soldiers are tasked to do. I do think the peace movement could do more on the anti-recruitment front.

Not pootering about

Clearly new DUP leader Edwin Poots doesn’t believe in footering or even pootering about the place. He had his campaign for the leadership ready to go and launched within a day of Arlene Foster announcing she was hanging up her First Minister boots. And all in the year when he had already had a cancer operation. Clearly he wasn’t born yesterday even if he does believe the earth is only a few thousand years old.

Poots’ ‘young earth’ creationist views have received a lot of comment. Me, I am with the Dalai Lama when he said in relation to his Buddhist beliefs that if science proved Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism would have to change. I take that instruction in relation to my own religious/philosophical/political beliefs. But looking at it ‘from outside’, how is Poots’ creationist views any different to, say, someone who believes in horoscopes (horrorscopes?) – and there are plenty of them – and that planets and stars directly influence our lives aside from being part of the fabric of the cosmos we inhabit?

Anyway, we will see how pragmatic Edwin Poots is in his new role soon enough, his problem is not in expressing opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol but in finding an alternative that everyone is willing to go with.. Unless of course Britain gives the EU an even more Frost-y reception and unilaterally dumps more of it – and you wouldn’t put that past them. Personally I reckon if Britain showed the maximum cooperation they might get the same back again so that much of the red tape could disappear. But the EU needs to pull out the stops too if they don’t want to be back at Ground Zero of no agreement. But you have to laugh at Lord Frost criticising the EU for disturbing the Good Friday Agreement when it was Brexit that first did just that, at least putting a rocket under the general status quo, and a hard Brexit leading to hard questions and hard resolutions

But a final word on Poots. ‘Blessed are those who expect little for they shall not be disappointed’ might be an appropriate saying. But sometimes the ‘strong’, seemingly intransigent leader (think Poots’ predecessor and party founder Ian Paisley) can take people places that someone without that reputation couldn’t. But that is the exception, unfortunately, and Ian Paisley only changed over to the bright side in the twilight of his career.. A Belfast Telegraph poll showed most DUP voters would have preferred Jeffrey Donaldson, and with the DUP on 16% and the Sinners on 25%, plus ructions in the party, there is a mighty big hill to climb before the Assembly election next year for the DUP to retain the position of First Minister through being the largest party. And we thus might have to see what existential angst a Sinn Féin First Minister in the North would inflict on loyalists. And in the, perhaps unlikely but not impossible, scenario of Alliance coming second in the polls (not designated as unionist or nationalist under the GFA assembly arrangements) what does that do to democracy if then the third largest party actually take the spoils of Deputy First Minister?

A united Ireland – in NATO?

There are a thousand and one questions to be answered about the future of this island irrespective of whether the border stays (and where would we be without it – as Kevin McAleer has put it, it’s the best border in the world, it unites the whole country…). If Northern Ireland remains part of the UK but ‘unionists’ of a traditional sort are no longer in a majority, what does that mean? For politics in the North, for North-South cooperation, for unionist self-esteem and self perceptions? Or indeed for ‘nationalists’ who don’t actually vote for a united Ireland? There are lots of intriguing questions, aside altogether from current Brexit and NI Protocol issues

However I am not sure how many who are not staunch and conservative unionists would agree with the News Letter’s opinion of 4/5/21 that “Far from being a failure on its centenary, Northern Ireland has been a resounding success” – which it was, ahem, somewhat short in detailing; the best it could do is “Support for things such as our magnificent sporting teams — notably the Northern Ireland Women’s team recently — and our ambassadors and achievers and business leaders and famous faces will not go away. Nor for the towns and countryside and the local spirit that make the place — which is why growing numbers of people identify as Northern Irish.” The last point is certainly true though, and if justice and equality became the hallmarks of Norn Iron then a united Ireland could be a hard sell

And what are the people of the Republic willing to forgo to bring about a united Ireland? Are they willing to bear higher taxes to support the North in the style to which it has been accustomed? A relatively recent poll raised questions about that issue. And how do you compare standards of living and wellbeing given different welfare and healthcare systems? Though in the longevity stakes it looks like those south-and-west of the border are doing relatively well compared to those north-and-east of it. “Irish reunification would cause a financial shock in the Republic, requiring either a major hike in taxes or a significant reduction in public spending, according to Trinity College Dublin economist John FitzGerald” said The Irish Times on 4/5/21 – though others have dissected current subsidies to the North and not come to as stark a conclusion.

A free at point of delivery healthcare system is still almost a complete chimera in the Republic while in the North the NHS remains extremely popular despite all the cuts and queues associated with it. On many levels of welfare the Republic has for some time overtaken the UK system but supporting another couple of million in the North raises all those questions of affordability and sustainability. Like I say, there are a thousand and one questions and very few answers or potential answers as yet.

However a letter in The Irish Times raised another issue which is at the back of some of our minds [I don’t know what is at the back of your mind but I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near it…..Ed] On 7/5/21 they published a letter from a retired colonel (presumably in the Irish army)- asking would people in the North be prepared “to leave the security and protection afforded by Nato membership, to join up with an underfunded, militarily neutral Ireland? Conversely, would the people in the South join Nato as the price for a united Ireland?” Leaving aside the distinctly biassed language the questions are phrased in, these are good questions.

But let’s rephrase the questions with a peace orientation. Are people prepared to sell out and join the US and European military empire? Are they prepared to leave the security and protection of being a neutral country to join a rich-world war and war-making machine which wastes huge resources in the process, could drag Ireland into wars it wants nothing to do with, and when there are all sorts of pressing needs to be met? And are people in the North that paranoid that they insist on the whole island of Ireland being in such a military machine? The answer, my friends, is blowing in your hands. [Is this an oblique reference to Dob Bylan and his 80^th ‘bidet’? – Ed] [Well guessed – “how many times must the cannonballs fly / before they’re forever banned”, “and how many deaths will it take till he knows / That too many people have died?”]

–

Well, June is upon us but certainly it has not been anything like summer until very recently. April was dry, May wet, and neither warm like last year. But whatever about the weather I hope the political temperature doesn’t shoot up too much in the North over the July-ing Season. However I hope you are able to get out and about into the countryside or parkside when you can – the effervescent green in the foliage of May or June, with the sun shining on it and through it, makes you very glad to be alive. We have been monitoring nesting swans along the Belfast-Lisburn Lagan canal to see the emergent cygnet-ture tunes, and you can’t beat the emergence of new life for a sense of joie de vivre. Or indeed the vibrant blue flash of a kingfisher. See you soon, Billy.

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Hello there, good to see you visiting this part of the world’s ‘social’ media, although you can also get antisocial media. In relation to another current phenomenon, the Zoom call, I previously advised anyone worn out by Zoom calls to join a specialist group – meeting on Zoom of course. More recently I advised a colleague complaining about said calls to get fit for them by doing Zoom-ba. [I wasn’t going to say you couldn’t make it up but clearly you just did – Ed]

Well, spring is springing by, I am always sad when the last of the daffodils/narcissi disappear from flowering (there can be ten days or more difference between us Nordies and where our haughty culture is at and those further south in the Free State – we will never forsake the freezing wasteland of Norn Iron for the land of milk and honey in an Irish Republic). Obviously snowdrops and crocuses are earlier but daffodils/narcissi are around for a while and their departure announce that the first call of spring is gone….

Mind you we do have honesty growing (and as I have told you before, honesty is the best policy) and that provides an explosion of mauve and white, I have both colours, when the daffodils have just been dead-headed.- they are great because they seem to come from nowhere to dominate the show for another little while. And April was a very dry month, if cool often enough, and lived up to being on average the driest month of the year in Ireland.

Press on

I have written before about how everyone is artistic – although some don’t realise it [and your name doesn’t have to be Art]. There are many, many ways that you can express your artistry about the home. One of the art forms that I use is making cards and pictures with pressed flowers. That’s deadly boring say some – Princess Grace of Monaco (formerly actress Grace Kelly) was into making dried/pressed flower pictures and I vaguely remember reading someone’s review of an exhibition she had and it indicated it was boring boring boring, the most deadly boring thing in the world.

It can be if you let it – though what I see of Princess Grace’s pressed flower pictures online are very competent pieces of art, and the review above probably said more about the reviewer than the reviewee. But if anyone uses what they have in small and innovative ways then it can be both beautiful and meaningful. Mainly I make pressed flower cards and a homemade card can be really appreciated. You can slip a pressed flower in with a note to someone. You can do ‘vases’ of flowers on card. You can do something really simple or something quite intricate. It is also a very inexpensive art form and it does not require ‘high art’ skills.

For pressing and drying flowers you can buy a flower press which has wingnuts to screw the whole thing down. I use what is not available any more but you could still search one out – a big old phone directory but any book with fairly absorbent (not glossy) paper will do (put more books on top to weight it down). You will have to experiment with what flowers and leaves you have access to that will ‘work’ in being pressed and dried. Gorse/furze/whins/aiteann has lovely yellow flowers – but when pressed they dry grey and horrible, for a negative example. Smaller flowers can work better than bigger but while you would not try to dry a whole tulip you can easily dry a tulip petal by itself. You will learn as you go along.

How long you need to leave leaves and flowers being pressed will vary – autumn leaves I might ‘leaf’ until the spring because there aren’t so many flowers to pick in the winter (though wilting Christmas cacti flowers can do well), others maybe for a couple of months. Many wild flowers and leaves will press. When they are dry I put them together in a folder on different loose A4 sheets of paper so I can easily look through.

You can buy ready-sized cards, if doing cards, in paper and art shops or, obviously, online, or you can cut your own. An A4 sheet of paper or card cut into two at the vertical half way will fold to make an A6 size card which is usually about right; a small paper guillotine is handy for getting edges straight and fast for cutting. One of the more successful pictures I have done is arranging pressed golden ferns which have not yet uncoiled onto ink marbled paper.

For sticking pressed flowers down I use PVA glue but you can experiment. Unless you are using something very strong like a muscular leaf you would not be able to use ‘hard’ glue sticks because the glue may rip the flower apart. I place the pressed flower onto kitchen roll, upside down to the way I want it to go, and then use a very small paintbrush to coat it lightly with glue. When stuck onto your card you can then use more, clean, kitchen roll to mop up any extraneous glue. I usually place something flat and relatively heavy onto a finished piece just for a minute or two to make sure everything is adhered – but don’t leave it on too long or the glue can stick to your object and pull your creation apart when you lift it.

I could go on and on with more info but that is enough. Even if you don’t get to making pictures or arrangements of dried flowers, and you are ‘pressed’ for time, you can make a pretty and evocative souvenir of somewhere just by slipping a flower into an absorbent book and leaving it, maybe with other books on top to weight it down.

May a thousand flowers bloom in your creations.

Using nuclear missiles to counter cyber attacks

No one is born with weird and violent ideas but some people adopt them readily because of how they see the world.. Take the UK government’s recent ‘defence’ review. This judged that Trident nuclear missiles could be used against cyber attacks. Yes, yes, we know cyber attacks can be extremely serious and could close down all sorts of systems necessary for society and its health and service sectors to operate. But nuking a country because some autocrat/plutocrat/dictator in power decided to launch a cyber attack on another country is, shall we say, a tad too revengeful for our liking. It is also completely stupid for so many reasons; killing innocent civilians, engendering revenge, lowering the threshold for nuclear war, being disproportionate….the list goes on. Nuclear weapons are also illegal in international law and those perpetrating such an act could be found guilty of crimes against humanity. And depending on what country was involved, or who its friends are, it is totally MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).

The phrase about sledgehammers and nuts comes to mind but taking a sledgehammer to a nut would be extremely logical and moderate compared to this.

But that is what is coming from our nearest neighbours. See https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/16/defence-review-uk-could-use-trident-to-counter-cyber-attack

Don’t forget your shovel

Staying with the same offshore European island, Britain, this piece is about Irish workers there and partly the Irish navvy who built the motorways and before that many of the railways and probably even some of the canals. And of course Irish nurses were a backbone of the British health system. The best known modern song about the Irish navvy is “Don’t forget your shovel” – “if you want to go to work”, which was Christy Moore’s first real hit (you can easily find it on YouTube). The song was originally written by Christie Hennessy though the other Christy adapted it a bit and certainly made it his own. It reflected a time when Irish migrants were pulling themselves up by their own working bootstraps.

Times have certainly changed in a couple of generations. The rightly much disparaged recent report on racism and racial disadvantage in Britain, by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (disparaged because it looks like it set out to give the answer the Tory government wanted), revealed that three ethnic groups earned more than the white British; Chinese migrants earned 23% more, Indians 15% more….and white Irish earned a whopping 41% more than white British. Of course there are exceptions to every rule (Irish Travellers being one) but the Irish there are now an ethnic elite as much as an ethnic minority. So “Don’t forget your shovelful of money if you want to go to work….”

Polls apart

Plenty regarding Norn Iron for you to get yer teeth into in recent opinion polls, one commissioned by the BBC, another by Queen’s University, and a third in the Belfast Telegraph. You can look up the main results (links below), I am just going to comment on a couple of features here. Norn Ironers are often accused of having heads in the sand but on some things sense shone through: in the BBC/Spotlight poll, 76% of those interviewed in the North agreed that violence could return. 55% of people in the North thought it would still be in the UK in 10 years time but 59% expected it to be linked with the Republic within 25 years. We don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow but in terms of looking at the current situation and extrapolating from current trends, that is probably a fairly good assessment, it is probably as good an assessment as you could get.

Interestingly, 45% in the BBC poll thought NI’s centenary should not be celebrated with only 40% saying it should – though how people interpret ‘celebration’ is open to interpretation (more were in favour of a neutral marking of the centenary). I am not going to go into the prospects for a united Ireland here except to say it’s all to play for, whatever your political views on the North, and all figures have to be treated with caution. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-56777985 https://www.qub.ac.uk/News/Allnews/featured-research/OpinionPanelpollunderlinesconcernsofimpactofNorthernIrelandProtocol.html and https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/the-centenary/centenary-poll-44-in-northern-ireland-want-referendum-but-would-not-accept-higher-taxes-to-fund-reunification-40375678.html

Nothing barren at the Burren

Great – and beautiful – couple of programme on RTE recently on the Burren in Co Clare (“The Burren: Heart of Stone”, you may find it on the RTE player). The first programme took us through the seasons, and the counterintuitive grazing pattern which sustains the wonderful plants growing in the cracks in the limestone paving; the cattle are taken up to the high ground in the winter where eating the grass allows other plants, such as gentians and orchids, to flourish and flower in the summer. This pattern of grazing – moving to higher ground in winter – is a pattern contrary to almost anywhere else. The Burren is really and truly unique.

The second programme looked at human interaction with the Burren. It is, as you may know, a human-created landscape insofar as the denuding of the rock was occasioned by human activity. Fascinatingly, the first hunter-gatherers in Ireland after the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, were dark skinned, blue eyed people; when farmers came about 6,000 years ago there was some inter-breeding but there is no trace of these hunter-gatherers in our DNA today, the programme informed us.

There was some astounding new information, to me anyhow, about the last Ice Age though; the fact that this information didn’t feature in what I saw of media coverage of the programmes I presume was to do with its interpretive nature. An expert on bones (Dr Ruth Carden of UCD) stated that there was evidence of human presence 18,000 – 33,000 years ago through butchery cuts on animals bones (reindeer) which indicated they had been cut by humans. Other animals around at that time would have included hares, red fox, wolves, brown bears, woolly mammoths, giant deer and reindeer. The end of the ice age and the shifting of glaciers profoundly affected the landscape, searing away evidence of any humans, yet here was someone showing a clear argument for human presence, from animal bones preserved in Burren caves, way way back into the Ice Age. Pretty amazing. It really was Hibernia (the land of winter, and perpetual winter) then but humans were there. Respect – and perspective.- not to mention wonder.

So we ourselves really are Johnny/Jeanie-come-latelys. All those mythical tales of different groups of people coming to this land, the Fir Bolg, Tuatha Dé Danann, and so on may actually reflect a certain reality about successive wanderers and settlers on this westernmost tip of Europe, as we fall into the Atlantic. And we were a part of mainland Europe before the ‘bridge’ to Britain disappeared (rather earlier than the Britain-to-now-mainland-Europe link was washed away) [So you’re not talking about Brexit here then?! – Ed]– which explains why Britain has rather more native mammals than Ireland since they had more time to migrate from the ‘mainland’.

–

Well, that’s my tour around for now, or should I say my shoverful. This year you may or may not get the vacation you want but I certainly hope you get the vaccination you want. See you soon, Billy.

BILLY KING: RITES AGAIN

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts [and the worst puns in town – Ed]

Well hello again, and welcome to you, April is usually the driest month in Ireland so it is (I hope this year too) a great time to be out and about. And if you are out and about, literally or metaphorically, I do hope you understand that the shortest distance between two points is the way that you want to go – and not a straight line, unless of course you decide that a straight line is the way you want to go. Going in a straight line, on anything, can be tedious; going in the way you want to go can be effortless and joyful. May a thousand crooked lines blossom.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a country, part of an island, that was divided. And in the smaller part of that country there was further division between people. They could not agree and they could not agree to disagree, so they often killed each other, or forced people to flee from their homes, or did other horrible things to each other. Even when the killing stopped there was still pain and disagreement, and the people suffered because no way forward could be agreed on many things which needed agreement to proceed. The people In Control, at the top, added to the problems and indeed some had been involved in the fighting and killing.

When the killing had stopped inside this place, weapons of war were still made, and some of the people In Control gave more money to build new and more efficient weapons of war so other people could be killed elsewhere in the world, and so those In Control could go to war when they wanted. They called this peace. It was not peace. It was a shocking insult to anyone who respects peace and what has to be done for peace. It was really war. But, as we all know, war is peace, and money and jobs, no matter how terrible their product, are all that matters. This is what is positive in life. We should roll over and accept it.

Weapons of mass distraction

Things have certainly changed massively in a few decades in how news and views are disseminated. Social media means you can get news ‘out there’ even when the established ‘mass’ media ignore you – though the concomitant danger is when people only pay attention to the social media they agree with and ignore everything else. In this latter situation we arrive, as in the USA, at people in the same place living in parallel universes. [Sure Norn Iron has had parallel galaxies for hundreds of years – Ed]

However my comments on social media are a preface to asking some questions about the mass media in relation to a couple of recent peace actions in Belfast. The mass media still have inordinate influence. Both actions, deliberately (because of Covid), were small actions by a few people. The first took place at PSNI headquarters in Belfast on 22^nd January 2021 when the TPNW/Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons kicked in to international law; see https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/50862311953/in/dateposted/ The second was St Patrick protesting about military drone production at Spirit AeroSystems on 17^th March 2021 (as mentioned in a news items in this issue); see https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/51046065166/in/dateposted/

Press releases went out to ‘all’ the media, including broadcast. Five photographers turned up at the nuclear disarmament event. News items subsequently appeared in “The Irish News” and the “Andersonstown News”; this seemed to fit the Norn Iron stereotype of criticism of the British state only appearing in CNR/Catholic, Nationalist, Republican outlets but you would think that an issue of such political import as the UK acting illegally in international law (and totally ignoring said law) would be newsworthy for ‘everyone’ irrespective of national allegiance [What would make you think that? – Ed]. Obviously there was a good bit of theatricality in both, as in street theatre, particularly in the event with St Patrick – though St Patrick did issue a statement partly based or modelled on his ‘Confession’.

In the case of St Patrick making an appearance to drive out military drones and missiles, two photographers appeared (it was St Patrick’s Day) but we are not aware of any mass media coverage. The lack of coverage of the latter is particularly interesting as a) With Covid there were no other St Patricks about, b) Ditto Covid, the only ‘St Patrick’s Day issue’ in Norn Iron really around was whether there would be wild Covid-regulation-ignoring parties and rioting in the student Holyland(s) area of Belfast, c) Given the transferred imagery of St Patrick driving out drones rather than snakes, it did seem visually interesting. (and both events got a fair bit of social media attention, the first one ‘going almost viral’ in a couple of countries far from here).

So why did the mass media not bite? Was it they considered that a) Neither issue was of any importance or interest to readers/viewers/listeners and/or it just slipped through the net (which is the same thing), b) It was only a few peaceniks doing their thing harmlessly and they could be ignored – there was no drama and no violence involved, or c) In relation to Spirit AeroSystems (and Thales missile production which was also mentioned) there were jobs involved (550 at Thales) and ‘East Belfast’ jobs at that so that could not be questioned or raised as an issue, or d) Some unknown reason(s) understood only by the media workers concerned.

Answers on a postcard please, or an e-mail will do (seriously, comments to innate@ntlworld.com if you feel like speculating). If I was choosing, my money would be on the jobs but I be wary of conspiracy theories – though, as they say, just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you.

Near death can make you value life for everyone

Near death experiences can make you value life – not just your own life but others as well. There is a brief reference to this in an article looking at one man’s attempts to grapple with the phenomenon of near death experiences: Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson said that after their experience ““They see a purpose in life they didn’t see before. I don’t know of anything else that powerful.” When the writer of the article, Alex Moshakis, asked for an example, Greyson said “ “I’ve spoken to people who were policemen,” he says, “or career military officers, who couldn’t go back to their jobs, couldn’t stand the idea of violence.” I ask why. He says, “The idea of hurting someone becomes abhorrent to them.” He shrugs. “They end up going into helping professions. They become teachers, or healthcare workers, or social workers.” “

Very interesting. Near death experiences can of course be explained in a number of different ways, and the release of endorphins as we go on the voyage and passage to death may explain a lot and I am not going to get into possible spiritual ramifications of it all in this space. And I’m afraid it is highly unlikely I will be able to comment to you when I eventually get there. However, if the near death experience gets at the core of our being in some way, stripping away all the other layers of socialisation and environment, Greyson’s description actually puts nonviolence at the centre of our existence. In other words, nonviolence is deeply, deeply innate in us. And that is also pretty good when you are involved with an organisation named INNATE. See https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/07/the-space-between-life-and-death

The current Norn Iron situation in one sentence

A friend in another country, extremely well up on conflict, international affairs and nonviolence, asked me for my take on the current situation in Northern Ireland. I wrote over a page and a half or so in response. After he had come back again, saying he was always amazed at the complexity of conflicts, I wrote back with my partial summary of a summary, referring to Brexit: “Most Prods/unionists backed/bet on the wrong horse and are now complaining about the result – but they don’t deserve to lose their shirts”.

So there you have it. I hope you understand that this is not a nuanced (!) summary but a serious light-hearted attempt to put the current situation in Northern Ireland into a metaphorical one-sentence nutshell.

Spell chuck

The perils of the spell check going unchecked is something I detailed quite some time ago when I mentioned how, in an official Catholic Church press release, the now retired archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin (a lovely man incidentally, may he have a long and happy working retirement) became Dairymaid Martin and bishop Colm O’Reilly became Calm O’Reilly. It got a bit more unintentionally derogatory and political recently when my spell check questioned ‘Irishness’ and gave the following alternatives for it; bearishness, whorishness and feverishness. ‘Britishness’ brought up no question and no alternatives offered whatsoever, and ‘Frenchness’ gave just ‘Frenchless’ and ‘Frenchisms’. Yes, I know we live on a small island but that spiel cheek could do batter.

Cy-CLING etiquette

The legal requirement to have a bell on your bicycle presumably dates back to the era before motor traffic was as dense as it is today. These days, in busy traffic, a bicycle bell is about as much use as an umbrella in a strong storm. Unless you are going to, as the British investigative journalist Duncan Campbell did years ago, instal a transatlantic yacht fog horn on your bike, you couldn’t make a sound impression on someone enveloped in what amounts to a big and insulated tin box (be that car or lorry). Maybe there is a gap in the commercial market to be filled here.

But in the era of lockdown and cycling along greenways and through parks, what about bells this weather? What bellwether indication could be given? Well, in such situations a bell is a necessary piece of equipment ar an rothar; for safety’s sake you may need to quickly advise a pedestrian or cyclist that you are behind them.

But is it considerate or inconsiderate to do this routinely where the passing space is limited? Because there is as yet no established common practice, different pedestrians, or indeed cyclists, may take it differently; some will appreciate the warning that there is something coming up and past them, while others may feel, “there go those arrogant cyclists again, ringing their bells as if they own the place”. You can startle people by ringing the bell and you can startle people by not ringing it.

A judgement is necessary and it is difficult to get it right all the time. If I ring a bell and someone then moves over, or, if it is a dog owner and they make an effort to control their dog, I will certainly bid them a greeting and thank you – they deserve it, and it also indicates that the bell ringing was not a hostile act but a friendly notice or warning.

Perhaps as cycling continues to grow in popularity, the ringing of a bike bell will become, as maybe it once was, a routine act of giving notice of your presence. However I have written before about practising considerate cycling which means making allowances for sudden movements by pedestrians, or others, and taking care not to frighten anyone, as much as possible. And ringing a bicycle bell still doesn’t give you ‘right of way’, care is still needed, and some pedestrians may be deaf or with earphones installed (not always a wise move, if you are going to use headphones out and about I suggest you make it singular – one ear in and one ear out, for safety’s sake) and not hear even the loudest and most persistent bell.

But, if you haven’t had your bike out over the winter then it’s time to give it a check and have it back on the road. You don’t need to give us a bell when you do.

Showering the frog

‘Showering the frog’ sounds like it might be a euphemism for some aspect of personal care and cleanliness, but recently I did, deliberately, shower ‘our’ frog. When I say ‘our’ frog, I am not claiming proprietary rights, it is a frog which happens to be resident in our suburban garden and it is very much its own being. And I was mentioning it rather recently [You must have a frog stuck in your throat, it was only last issue – Ed], I am not sure it is the only frog around as I saw a smaller, juvenile, one last autumn.

Anyway, I was working away on the back of our house, repairing a concrete plinth or trim which exists at the bottom of the brick wall of the house, going down to the ground. At one point where there is a vent to provide underfloor ventilation there was a part of this which was ‘boast’, loose, so I had to take the whole vent off. As I did so there was a small flurry of building dust and dirt, some of it extending over the thick clump of montbretia beside it (Montbretia – the late summer, orange flowering plant which has indigenised itself in Ireland’s ditches). Then I noticed something very dusty and dirty, around 10 cm long, moving. It took a few seconds to realise it was ‘our’ frog which presumably had been in the montbretia. Worried that it might attempt to jump into the hole where the vent had been and be stuck in there, I replaced the vent as best I could.

I know frog’s skin can be sensitive and I thought anyway it might not take to a covering of building dust. So I ran off to get the watering can and it was still there when I returned half a minute later: I gave the frog a shower to clean off the dirt. Maybe it felt better for the shower, I don’t know, but it soon hopped into the nearby sage bush and I didn’t attempt to follow it after that – I still had a wall and vent to repair.

However I can now add ‘showering a frog’ to my list of life experiences. It beats washing your hare any day, and more appropriate.

–

Well, here we are in April and hoping for to an easing in Covid controls when and as that proves possible – and brighter days, literally and metaphorically. It will be holidaying ‘at home’ again this year but there is still plenty to choose from, and remember Ireland has an interior as well as lots of coastal places worth exploring. Not that we should not celebrate our coastline, and this is a small enough island that you can combine coast and inland activities if you want. Everyone has their favourite spot or spots, and even somewhere like Dingle and Kerry, following the departure of a certain dolphin to the Great Seabed or Beyond, still has lots of non-Fungieable assets. [It’s Easter time and I am getting hot and cross about your puns – Ed]

Wherever you go, when you can go, just take care – of yourself and others. Until I see you again, Billy.