Well, George Dubyaforeignlanguagefilm got
back in the same day as I saw the news that all the Arctic
ice may have melted by 2070 (the icecap has shrunk 20% in
30 years and the melt is accelerating). It's going fast, folks.
Who needs Armageddon? We're doing it ourselves and there's
nobody doing it more that the good 'ol folks in the US of
A, slightly over half of whose voters gave Gorge-Bash a Rapturous
response at the polls. But don't forget that it's a country
of two halves - the haves and many have nots, the conservatives
and others for whom the President's views and actions may
be as obnoxious as he is to the majority of the world.
I always like to bring you what is hot,
so, I thought I'd begin with my visit to the "Conflict
- the Irish at war" exhibition at the Ulcer Museum,
I mean Ulster Museum, Belfast. [That exhibition has only been
open the best part of a year - Ed] [Exactly - my comments
come less than a year after the exhibition opened, how hot
can you get - Billy]. So, I packed my muse and went off to
the um...
Conflict - The
Irish at War
This exhibition at the Ulster Museum, Belfast, takes a quick
tour from stone age through Viking, Norman, Planter/Native,
world war and 'Troubles' violence. It is a brave attempt to
get to grips with an age old issue and problem across a huge
time range. And the handsets provide comments from various
citizens (including children) on some of the exhibits which
add a very human and accessible dimension.
But I think my problem begins with the
title. "Conflict - the Irish at war" is an interesting
choice of title and subtitle but one which doesn't do any
favours to overcoming stereotypes about 'the Irish' and a
supposed predilection for violence. The modern approach to
history is not supposed to be just about battles but this
exhibition risks being mainly that. All right, so a bronze
age skeleton showing injuries to the chest and without a head
is, literally, a very human and graphic illustration of violence
a long, long time ago, but what about all the other skeletons
which might show no violence whatsoever? In other words, violence
to one cannot show how other people lived or related to violence.
Don't get me wrong. A nicey nicery interpretation
of Irish history would be futile and pointless. Violence has
been a major factor in Irish history, and this is also reflected
in Irish mythology. But the subtitle 'The Irish at war' does
not even include how Irish people have rejected violence,
sought to work in other ways for change, and even in antiquity
may have rejected violence. In fact they mention three things
that might be considered 'anti-war'; Adamnán's Law,
the anti-recruiting song 'Arthur McBride', and Witness for
Peace and the Peace People in the recent Troubles. A brilliant
starting point could have been the Céide Fields in
north Mayo four or five thousand years ago, showing that there
were people around that long ago who lived peacefully and
cooperatively with no defences (and presumably no attackers)
[see 'Nonviolence - the Irish Experience' quiz on the INNATE
website]. The exhibition claims that "It shows that the
Irish of all traditions and creeds have spent much of their
long history fighting - each other or someone else".
I don't think that case is proven for the time span that the
exhibition tries to be about - from the coming of the first
settlers 10,000 years ago through to the current day. Total
it up.
And it misses the question of what happened
if Ireland did indeed become militarised. Was it the old one
of an escalation to arms, a stone age or bronze age arms race,
where one set of people became militarised and others followed
to try to protect themselves? We cannot know but a bit of
speculation might have been helpful. It also misses the question
of whether this was at the same point as society became patriarchal
rather than matriarchal, if that is what happened (i.e. the
two things moved together and reinforced each other, or one
led to the other). All right, there may not be evidence on
that but I would have liked to see more analysis and speculation
beyond the initial 'clash of hunter gatherers and agriculturalists'
type analysis given. Why did people fight each other using
violence? Power, control, land, wealth, kudos? And why did
other people not do so?
But my problem is not just that it doesn't
really cover those who rejected violence. I feel it doesn't
really cover those who, during the Second World War or the
recent Troubles, for example, just put their heads down and
tried to get on with their lives. Ordinary people tried to
live ordinary lives and often tried to ignore extraordinarily
difficult circumstances. The sub-title means that these may
not necessarily be included - were they 'at war'? They weren't
fighting. If I could extrapolate backwards, there would have
always been people in this category. It may be difficult to
find their stories but it would be a fair assumption that
there were always such people.
I would also argue that even within war
and violent conflict there were examples of humanitarianism
which do not necessarily come out. Take General Sir John Moore
who took back Wexford for the Crown in the 1798 rebellion.
Moore was later celebrated in the Top of the 19th Century
Martial Poetry Pops when Charles Wolfe in 1817 wrote 'The
burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna' about Moore's death
in Spain in 1809. But, I digress, back to 1798 and Moore might
have been expected to at least flog deserters from the yeomanry
who had come back to try sort out their affairs after the
rebellion as they needed to do if they wanted to get on with
their lives. But he didn't flog them. He treated them humanely,
in some cases with short terms of imprisonment and in some
cases he even welcomed them back with a banquet! Maybe the
fact that he was educated on the mainland of Europe gave him
a more humanitarian viewpoint but it is an intriguing gesture
- was he just being magnanimous, generous in victory?
And because war and violence are the focus,
and not the totality of war, violence, rejection of violence
and attempts to deal with issues non-violently or even nonviolently,
there are only the few mentions of a 'rejectionist' approach,
as mentioned above. Adamnán's Law is featured but not
explained so that readers of the blurb would find it difficult
to put it into context. This was a highly significant piece
of what amounted to human rights legislation to protect women,
children and non-combatants in 697. I was interested to learn
that the song Arthur McBride ('and I made a football of his
row-de-dow-dow'....) may date back to the 1840s, I suppose
I had thought of it as an early twentieth century Irish/nationalist
rejection of the British army. It is true that Witness for
Peace and the Peace People were the highest profile peace
groups during the Troubles, and the description is as follows:
"Public outrage at the spiralling sectarian death toll
in the mid-1970s was largely demonstrated by the formation
of two peace movements, each of which enjoyed massive, though
brief, public support. Similar movements in the 1980s and
early 1990s, including cross-border and cross-channel peace
initiatives in the wake of bombs in Enniskillen and Warrington,
were also short-lived...."
But come to think of it, there is no attempt
either to explore similarities in military ideology between
Crown forces and 'republican' rebels, North or South, from
1916 onwards ('republican' in inverted commas because they
weren't all of that persuasion at 1916), or other opposing
forces. Some of the 1916 leaders were pretty militarist even
if in a sacrificial sense. The IRA of the 1970s sought to
win a military 'victory', just as the British government and
army did. Military/militarist ideology is so 'taken for granted'
that there is no critical evaluation of it all.
What should the title of the exhibition
have been? 'Conflict, war and responses to violence in Ireland',
or something similar, would have been better in allowing a
more rounded interpretation, allowing also conflict to have
been understood in the sense of a clash of ideologies as well
as a clash of swords, rifles or bombs. To have ignored the
evolution of constitutional nationalism and a figure like
Daniel O'Connell seems a strange interpretation of conflict
in Ireland in a wider sense, like I said, more an interpretation
of history as battles than anything, though reference to constitutional
nationalism is made in the context of 1798 (when 20,000 -
30,000 people were killed in the rebellion); "The last
quarter of the eighteenth century witnessed a series of constitutional,
political and military developments that would lead to one
of the most serious conflicts ever seen in Ireland, the 1798
rebellion. From this cauldron would emerge the political profile
of modern Ireland; constitutional nationalism; the concept
of the 'armed struggle'; the role of paramilitary armies;
the Orange Order and its Catholic counterparts; bitter sectarian
rivalries; the Union of Great Britain and Ireland and those
who defended or opposed it." It refers to the French
defeat at Ballinamuck, Co Longford, in 1798 as "the last
time an invader fought on Irish soil". - which depends
in whether you considered Britain 'an invader' or had it ceased
to be one, being merely an 'occupier'????
But it did focus on some lesser known battles, e.g. Edward
Bruce's 1315 invasion from Scotland, getting as far south
as Cashel and Limerick but then defeated at Faughart near
Dundalk in 1318. A Polish sword from the 13th century found
in Co Armagh was a fascinating example of the arms trade of
the time. The exhibition says "the Vikings taught the
Irish by example and militarised Irish society". At the
risk of seeming to argue against myself, was Irish society
or parts of it not already militarised? Maybe it became militarised
in a different way. I'm not enough of a historian to accept
or reject that statement. And the idea of Danish Vikings killing
Norwegian Vikings in Dublin, recorded in 851, shows the complexity
of some of this violence. But even the Vikings became traders,
settled, and were integrated.
The exhibition is quite correct in detailing
the military exploits of the Irish abroad, e.g. in the armies
of France, Spain and elsewhere from the 17th century, and
increasingly Britain. By 1850, 40% of the British army was
Irish born or sons of Irish emigrants. With extremely limited
job opportunities this is not surprising, particularly when
you consider that at the time of the Famine, the population
of Ireland was almost half that of Britain (if membership
was even across the islands of Britain and Ireland, "Ireland's
proportion" would have been over 30% anyway). It is also
correct in saying that army life was held in low esteem and
soldiers widely regarded as disreputable. And you can add
to that nationalist rejection of serving the British Crown.
Other points it makes correctly include
the heavy death tolls in the relatively few times when Belfast
did get bombed in the Second World War (in the worst case,
900 in one night), then the presence of 300,000 GIs preparing
for the invasion of mainland Europe, and "the south,
though formally neutral, contributed significantly to Britain's
war effort." Very telling was one black GI's account
of racism experienced in Antrim, unfortunately prescient of
racist violence as a phenomenon and also possibly a substitute
or replacement for sectarian violence in our current era in
Northern Ireland (interestingly, Carrickfergus got written
about positively in the same letter - hold your head up, 1940s
Carrick).
The exhibition ends with a reflection/sitting
area, audio and audio-visual materials (including the moving
Radio Ulster 'Legacy' testimonies from 1999, 2-minute items
on how violence profoundly affected people) and the opportunity
for people to make comments, an opportunity well exercised.
Most who commented had words of praise. Some people from outside
this island wanted more chronology, more 'history'. Some locals
didn't want reminded. Some were grateful of the opportunity
to revisit the terrors of the past. Some welcomed the fact
that it engendered strong feelings (as expressed by comments).
Some felt the way forward was not covered (a rather different
exhibition perhaps). A 'Scottish/English/Indian friend' said
"Well done Belfast! Now you have to deal with your
racism!! Keep up the good work." One person said
it was a "Splendid exhibition. War is a crime inflicted
by politicians on common people." Another (with a name
indicating most likely a Catholic background) said "I
found the exhibition very biased and one-sided. I worry that
the wrong history and facts will be passed to others".
Another indicated the "need for the Irish to grow
up, reject the past and face the 21st century without baggage...."
The exhibition is worth a visit if you're
in that neck of the woods [Belfast's Botanic Gardens hardly
counts as woods! - Ed] [Speaking metaphorically - Billy] [Sure
you're always speaking something - Ed] but for me the
problem with it begins with the title and subtitle. If that
had been differently phrased then we might have had a more
rounded, complex picture of violence and conflict on this
particular island, and one that fitted the stereotypes less
well. It might also help us to see not only the immediate
consequences of violence (which are generally well covered
and illustrated in the exhibition) but also the alternatives
throughout the ages. This might have made it a larger exhibition
because it needed to cover more ground but better a fuller
picture than one which is too narrow in focus and which does
nothing to question the stereotype of the 'fighting Irish'.
And resultantly I don't feel that it is as helpful as it should
be in helping us all to 'move on' beyond the Troubles and
to create a society where support for violence of any kind
is minimal. Because if it's what we have always been doing
(and I don't accept that), what's different now, what indication
is there that we're going to stop at this juncture? And do
we just stop fighting each other and instead move on to support
other people's neo-imperialist wars (as with Irish permission
for US forces to use Shannon airport) and violence elsewhere?
[The exhibition will run at the Ulster
Museum, Belfast, through to spring 2005 and possibly longer]
Water under the
bridge
People in the Republic managed to avoid water charges some
years ago, largely by popular resistance. In Norn Iron water
charges are on the cards, cheapest likely £150, maximum
maybe £750, based like Rates on property value and on
top of existing Rates (or local taxes) I suppose I have been
a bit torn between the green part of me and the socialist/justice
part of me; water is a resource which, while Ireland has a
considerable supply, costs to get from reservoir to tap. Yes,
the water infrastructure needs much work which has to be financed
somehow but undoubtedly this is also a preamble to selling
it off to a private owner and that I find obscene. On the
world level, water privatisation has severely restricted the
access of poor people to water (i.e. they can't afford new,
privatised charges and so they are cut off - and have to resort
to unsafe supplies with severe repercussions regarding their
health and wellbeing) and while this may not happen in Northern
Ireland, the idea that people on benefits should pay 75% of
even the minimum charge - and many would pay more - is obscene.
So my position would be a very definite
no to the water tax. I hope Ulster says no. As a green, I
would favour metering of water if there was a 'free' supply
for the 'average' household and adequate support for those
on low incomes who needed more. There is nothing wrong in
encouraging responsible use of water through metering. There
is everything wrong with a basic human resource being run
for profit and being financed by an inequitable taxation system
(charged per house valuation rather than by ability to pay).
For those who fancy
getting involved in opposing the water tax proposals in the
North, you can choose to be involved through the trade union
campaign, see www.ictuni.org,
or phone NIC ICTU 028 - 90 24 79 40, NIAPN (Northern Ireland
Anti-poverty Network) 90 87 50 10, CAWT (Communities Against
The Water Tax) at 90 87 50 10 or other, local, political groupings,
e.g. 'No To The Water Tax', PO Box 547, Craigavon BT63 5WZ,
ph 0773-2954843, e-mail organise_armaghdown@yahoo.ie
or 'Communities Against The Water Tax', 54 Manor
Street, Belfast BT14 6EA, ph 028 - 90 74 91 47, e-mail cawt@btconnect.com
Be very afraid Yes, Hallowe'en is over for another
year but we have reason to be very afraid. Fear isn't necessarily
the best motivation for change, personal, social or political
but realities and possible realities have to be faced. I am
going to deal with the dreaded 'CC' again (Climate Change).
Most of you will know about the severe repercussions for our
climate if the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic current changes
course or stops. But the Guardian newspaper of 14th October
took a look at twelve places where the devastating effects
of climate change could be felt. What follows is just the
briefest of summaries of eleven of these.
The Sahara itself may benefit from additional
rain, but dust from the Sahara will be flying about the planet
less which may mean big problems for the Atlantic (which with
less plankton may increase global warming further) and even
the Amazon. But the Amazon itself may be threatened by a decrease
in rainfall there. An enormous amount of methane is tied up
in Siberian permafrost and ocean floor sediments; this may
be destabilised and released adding enormously to greenhouse
gases. Melting of the Greenland ice sheet could add up to
7 metres to sea levels. Monsoons in the Indian subcontinent
may be severely affected. If the North Atlantic current stops,
then sea levels can rise one metre and Iceland, Scotland and
Norway drop 10 degrees (presumably Ireland wouldn't be too
far behind). If the Tibetan plateau melts it will stop acting
like a giant mirror and further assist the earth's warming.
The ozone hole may be magnified significantly by global warming
which may lead to considerable increases in skins cancers
and blindness. Ecosystems may be in great trouble around what
are known as salinity valves (between adjacent seas). El Niños
may become both more frequent and severe with massive effect
on food production in Indonesia, the Philippines, south-east
Asia and some of Australia. If the West Antarctic ice sheet
melts, that will be a 6 metre rise in sea levels. Finally,
the effect on the Atlantic circumpolar current may slow the
rise of nutrients, badly affecting marine life.
We live on a fragile plant of amazing complexity
and also sophistication in how it is balanced. That fragility
is going to be tested to its utmost this century. Humanity
may suffer from its own foolishness but as usual it will be
the poor and resource-less who will suffer most but - and
that is the message of the previous paragraph - most people
may suffer significantly one way or another.
Sorry for such a sombre ending but it all
makes sombre reading. You have of course heard of the Mile
High Club but I'm thinking of forming a Feet On The Ground
Club (with no sexual implications!) for those who commit not
to fly by plane and therefore cease to add that very significant
contribution to global warming. Planes? Ban them! And not
just the ones flying US military personnel through Shannon.
Airports? Mothball them! Ryanair? Forget about it. I am, I
regret to say, deadly serious in raising the issue. Learning
to live with less travel may be difficult but until we have
relatively non-polluting means of getting from A to a distant
B then something has to happen. Unless of course we want all
twelve of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse (above) to come riding
by.
Anyway, until we meet again, always look
on the bright side of life, yours,
Billy.
Who
is Billy King? A long, long time ago, in a more
innocent age (just talking about myself you understand),
there were magazines called 'Dawn' and 'Dawn Train'
and I had a back page column in these. Now the Headitor
has asked me to come out from under the carpet to write
a Cyberspace Column 'something people won't be able
to put down' (I hope you're not carrying your monitor
around with you).
Watch this. Cast a cold eye on life, on death, horseman
pass by (because there'll almost certainly be very little
about horses even if someone with a similar name is
found astride them on gable ends around certain parts
of Norn Iron).
