Welcome one and all
Hello again after the 'summer' break (didn't the Headitor try to persuade the WRI Triennial that it wasn't really a summer in Ireland as, uniquely in the Northern hemisphere, the Irish summer begins towards Christmas...) An especial welcome to those who joined the e-mail subscription list at the WRI Triennial in Dublin at the start of August - hope you enjoy the ride. And of course you have visited the new improved, no-ads, word search facility empowered, INNATE website at www.innatenonviolence.org??? If you're not reading the e-mail edition then that's where you are now! To be honest I was trying out the search facility and it seemed to come up with more than I was asking but it's there and may help you locate that Nonviolent News reference you can't find. Though there's lots more on the website than Nonviolent News. So check it out. What is also fascinating is to check out the numbers of visitors. The new website was only just up a short while before 'the Twelfth' and no one visited on that day! What were yous doing? Marching? On the other hand two successive days recently showed visitor numbers at 96 and 82 respectively....no, that's not typical and must have followed a nice review somewhere but at least the welcome mat is out. So if you're human (or alien) come into the parlour (parler? -Ed), there's a welcome there for you, if your name is Timothy or Patricia or anything else, so long as you come from the universe there's a welcome on the mouse mat.

Anne Frank speaking
During a family visit to Amsterdam and the Netherlands we had Rembrandts, Vermeers and van Goghs coming out our ears (very funny - Ed). Also saw King Billy at the Boyne in the Rijksmuseum, like the North's gable walls it showed him on a white steed (mistakenly I believe). While usually considered a 'must see' in Amsterdam, the Anne Frank house and museum entailed standing in line (a useful tip was to go at 6pm or later which still left plenty of time but after the main crowds had gone). Anne Frank is one of the iconographic images of Europe in the 20th century, and certainly of the Second World War. Would the story of this Jewish girl forced into hiding, danger and eventually deportation and death communicate directly, or would it simply remain at arms length as an image already subsumed into popular history? I felt the message very directly. Maybe I had some guilt at participating so directly in someone's suffering and occasional joy - at no cost to myself - but the simple and thoughtful words she expressed communicated powerfully, especially so in the environment they were created, as did her father's desperate search after liberation for his children.

The quote which I found most useful, displayed in the museum and the little pamphlet given to visitors, was from Primo Levi in 1986; "One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did but whose faces have remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is better that way; if we were capable of taking in all the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live."

There is much more to the Anne Frank story than anything I allude to here, and to the story of her story (how her story was treated by her father and by the world). An interesting attempt by the museum to feed into current debates on discrimination and rights came in a video area (at the end of the museum visit) where visitors could vote, either for freedom of speech or against discrimination. The video cases given were well explored but I usually felt it impossible to vote in a simple 'yes/no' way to the way the questions were framed. The explorations were good, as I say, but I felt life does not usually present as simple or stark choices as given in the questions posed.

Where the country is flat and not your bicycle tyre
There we were joining the Flat Earth Society on a bicycle tour of part of the Netherlands (no, it wasn't really the Flat Earth Society but the Society for Cycling on Flat Earth). What did you do on your holidays? Discuss in not more than 1,000 words. Seriously though, it illustrated just how far we have to go if we want to encourage cycling as a real option. The Netherlands may have the advantage of flatness which Ireland does not have, but surely in this era of global warming the aim in Ireland should be to have the majority of local journeys up to 3 - 4 miles (6 kms) to be done by bicycle, and a substantial minority of those up to 8 - 10 miles. I would apply this to all from the age of 10 - 65. I am not joking. The ecological revolution will only come riding on a bicycle (or a tricycle or rickshaw tricycle, bicycle trailer or whatever). There is no reason why this cannot become a goal over a period of say twenty years. What we have at the moment seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic (a suitable metaphor given the melting of glacial ice).

So I am suggesting serious rearrangement to give bicycles priority. Along with public transport for those who cannot or will not, for a variety of reasons, take to 2 or 3 wheels. Motor assisted bicycles can be very much part of the package and make it realistic for those who live in hillier parts. It's not masochism. It's common sense. And that's a long way from a dotted line on the side of the road (where cars can still park making dangerous weaving in and out a necessity) because the authorities want motor traffic in one lane rather than two.

Agonising and organising
I wrote previously about the stages of organising an event, any old event (BK in NN88). Now I should write about organising a big international event. Any similarity to the Ware Persister's Interational Triennial having happened in Ireland is purely intentional.

The Definitive Guide to the Stages an International Event Organiser Passes Through;

1. Blissful day dreams of happy international visitors bestowing praise on your head for the best event they have ever attended.

2. Fundraising starts on an upbeat note.

3. Feeling that there's lots and lots of time to do the lots and lots of things needing doing.

4. Realisation that there is a hell of a lot to do and not a hell of a lot of people to do it.

5. Attempts to involve people locally; it's too early, they say.

6. Realisation that any one of the dozen things you have to do would take twice the waking hours that you have before the Big International Event takes place.

7. Time flashes by seemingly defying the laws of science as currently understood.

8. Realisation that everything you planned to do is impossible so further 'prioritisation' (slashing) is necessary.

9. Working out how many people are booking is difficult because numbers are inflated with people who simply want to get into the country to stay.

10. Fundraising is going badly; prospects of re-mortgaging house if organisation is not to go bankrupt.

11. Attempts to involve people locally; it's too late, they say.

12. Desperate attempts to get Things Done late rather than never.

13 The big day dawns. No chasm opens up and swallows you.

14. Fortress Europe means some people wanting to attend the conference are denied visas and cannot attend.

15. After a false quiet period, running around like a blue arsed fly is the daily order.

16. The session which you consider your biggest disaster (in not being what was carefully planned) is one of the ones that enthuses people most.

17. Some repetitive nightmares are enacted before your eyes. A late request for equipment - none of which in working order is available - has you desperately searching for adjustable spanners and hexagonal keys to liberate security locked equipment that you know does work, twenty minutes after the session that requires it has started.

18. You are considered the fount of wisdom on local topics but you don't even know a good local pub, or where to find alcohol at 12.30 a.m. when supplies have run out.

19. The end arrives. A certain amount has been achieved, a lot more has not. But you have survived and at this stage that is the only thing you care about. And you have only 11,423 things to do to follow up afterwards.

20. The financial report shows your bankruptcy fears were misplaced - bankruptcy won't arrive for at least another couple of years.

21. Since you are now experienced in such matters, a colleague insists that you assist with their Big International Event taking place next year...[return to No.1]

More rubbish
Wandered up the Cave Hill in Belfast there recently, up to MacArt's Fort, a beautiful day it was too though a bit hazy in the distance - so Scotland and the Mournes were only a slight shadow and Strangford Lough wasn't that clear. But I got to thinking on the way down about all the flat land at sea level, drained or reclaimed over the years. Then I got to think about global warming and rising sea levels. And then I got to think about plans for rubbish incineration plants around Ireland to create carcinogens to make people ill with cancer. Then I thought - well, maybe all the rubbish we can create will be needed to build up low-lying land and help create sea barriers. Am I joking? Well, many's a true word was spoken in jest and while in favour of drastically reducing waste through major recycling, if global warming goes the way it is we may be grateful for every bit of anything that we can add around the coast to bolster sea defences and raise up low-lying land. I'm afraid that I don't think I am joking. Just think of Bangladesh, average height above sea level is something like 2 metres I think. And just think about a 2 metre rise in sea level. Crazy what humanity is doing, and criminal that those in power who can do something substantial about it just bury their heads in the rubbish heap. Unfortunately I'll be revisiting these topics again and again. And it's something which the Johannesburg summit has not done anything substantial to solve let alone remedy.

Hail and fare wet
Well, are you back into your autumn routine yet? Didn't the summer just fly by, like most summers, that's what summers do. The weather in August was a bit better, well, it couldn't have been worse than June and July. See you again next month by which time the heating will be going back on and the dark winter evenings will be starting to beckon (Ed - Do winter evenings beckon? Can they?) (Billy - I don't know but they're certainly beyond your beckon call). So what new are you going to do this autumn? Pick up that evening course guide and do something strange and different!? Or set your own goals - remember you're only young/middle aged/old once. See you soon, your comrade in unarmed struggle, 

Billy.