Summery justice
Ochone, ochone, woe is me, summer is departing, autumn is
here, and worse still the autumn schedules of meetings, and
work, and meetings, and work……I hate this time
of year with a vengeance, until I get into my stride that
is. Then I quite enjoy autumn days of brown and golden leaves
and the cool hitting you as you exit your abode but also the
autumnal sun and the harvest moon. But what makes a summer?
What are the ingredients? BK shares his formula:
1) Anticipation. Usually the
best bit. ‘Where are you going for your holliers?’
Better come up with somewhere cool trendy and hot; if it’s
a holiday in this country, make it sound exotic – “we
may go paragliding off the Cliffs of Moher” (dirty liar)
– if you don’t want to sound pedestrian (though
personally I do enjoy walking so I shouldn’t use that
term as a put down). Meanwhile aims are set for what can be
done when other work has wound down – all those jobs
and clearing up at home, those bits of voluntary or peace
work which never seem to get done during the busy-ness of
normal schedules.
2) Reality. You’re knackered.
You’re too tired to do anything and just revel in not
having to do things. But that means everything gets off to
a bad start and your Schedule is already way behind schedule
almost before the summer has really started.
3) Actual holiday away from home.
The journeys there and back, even if only down the road, are
nerve-wracking – and if going abroad many times worse.
The holiday itself however is great as you float through it
from day to day, relishing the fact you’re only half
sure what day it is and what’s more it doesn’t
matter. But very very soon it’s time to pack up and
return.
4) Recovery time. You need
a holiday after your holiday and work hits you like a tonne
of bricks. And you find yourself doing much staring at the
wall as you wonder what the hell (sic) you’re doing
or are meant to be doing. Meanwhile the sun has been shining
non-stop at home while you languished in a) sun far too hot
to sit out in, or b) the worst weather for twenty years in
the area you were staying.
5) Decoration/DIY/gardening time. All
those tasks about the place demand attention and your partner
extends the list exponentially. By the middle of August you
have 1½ tasks done out of 34¾ (the three-quarters
was painting three out of four walls in a room – the
other one is a different tone and was ¼ of a task done
last year).
6) More time off, during which time
you are expected to do summery things (trips for
yourselves or the children/older generation and so on). This
means you have about an hour and a half left to do the things
you needed three full weeks to accomplish over the summer.
You know now that those tasks you set at the start of the
summer remain substantially undone. And you feel undone as
a result. Trying to get any of them done with busy schedules
restarting is going to be a pain (or a pane if it’s
painting the windows).
7) The final countdown to autumn. Ghastly.
Back to wage slavery. Children/young people (if there are
such in the household) go back to school or college. And back
to square one. Suddenly the summer seems a million years ago.
Too busy to do those tasks now (phew) unless that’s
going to be weekends taken care of until Christmas. Speaking
of which, oh well, they’re planning the office Christmas
do already……
The Twalfth
Though I have viewed many parades, it was some few years since
I had attended ‘the Twelfth’, the Orange parades
of 12th July in Norn Iron celebrating the victory of my reverse
namesake at the Battle of the Boing (so called because it
keeps on going and bouncing, no I jest), I mean Boyne. So
I decided to go and look at the Belfast parade. What would
I make of it this time around? I wasn’t really sure.
It is first of all a great festive occasion.
There are high spirits. A stout woman in her mid forties is
entertaining her friends (possibly mortifying her family)
and anyone within eyesight by pretending to play a plastic
blow-up Union Jack guitar in the middle of the road which
is clear, awaiting the parade. In fact you could catch almost
any garment or accoutrement with a Union Jack of Ulster flag
on it; glittery hats, sun glasses, handbags, wigs, painted
faces, flags as shawls and wraps – and while I have
no direct or even indirect evidence I am positively certain
some were dressed out in their best Union Jack underwear.
I didn’t catch any Union Jack beer around though alcohol
there was plenty – including Harp lager. Where I was,
near the City Hospital, there was the equivalent of two or
three people deep each side of the road; some sit on deck
chairs, some stand, some young children bang on drums, some
sit on walls, some younger men (I am being fairly charitable
about the age of some of them) have their beers stacked up
on a makeshift table. It is not near any interface and everyone
is relaxed, enjoying the magnificent sunshine, chatting, greeting
friends.
The parade appears. First of all comes a ‘Jesus
is Lord’ lorry with a band playing ‘Christian’
music and a desultory few followers walking and waving flags
(one waving flagpole had interwoven red, orange and white
flags together, perhaps of some religious significance, I
don’t know, but the orange in the context made it look
rather suspicious as if proclaiming God was Orange, which
I presume was not the message, but, if the medium is the message
then they should be a bit more careful – and a bit better
organised if they wanted ‘Christianity’ to appear
an exciting option). Then the real procession; colour party,
band, lodge, support vehicle for those unable to walk all
the way (most with their registration numbers covered for
the day that was in it and instead had the registration ‘LOL
1234’ or whatever was the number of that Loyal Orange
Lodge; this was of course illegal but the police were not
objecting - I wonder if the same courtesy would be extended
to that practice in other contexts). Furled flags often made
it impossible to work out if illegal emblems were being carried,
on past experience I would expect some are ‘sneaked
through’. I wondered if I would see any banners with
“The secret of England’s greatness” (this
portrayed Queen Victoria giving a Christian bible to a kneeling
Asian); I saw none, maybe they have all been retired from
active service years ago as an embarrassing relic.
Then the same pattern was repeated, and repeated,
and repeated – though more popular, and younger, bands
had a whole contingent of fellow travellers, girls and teenage
boys, walking alongside, many carrying soft drinks or alcohol.
It took more than an hour and a half to pass not counting
a stop of twenty-five minutes or so. During this stop, the
East Belfast band I was beside gave good value for my no money
by one member playing the flute and others doing some drumming
– most just rested. One band member had his very young
sister (presumably) or other relation climb over his chest
and play with him as he lay in the middle of the road. They
were clearly people feeling at home with themselves and what
they were doing.
If all of Northern Ireland were Protestant the
Twelfth would be a really great occasion, a community event
to end all community events. But it is not. And the fact that
it is a Prods only ceremony, despite being watched in the
past by some Catholics, means it has a tinge of divisiveness
about it. It is a tribal event. Because if it is saying “We
celebrate our Protestant, unionist heritage’ that not
only is a cause of celebration for only one part of the community
but is linking those two causes – Protestantism and
unionism – in a way which can be dangerous and is mirrored
by those who equate Catholicism and nationalism or even republicanism.
The Twelfth is a great spectacle. But it is
also a military-style spectacle. The marching, the bands,
the drawn swords, the uniforms worn by many bands (some look
almost paramilitary – or as near as they can get without
being prosecuted – to dress in ‘paramilitary’
uniform would be illegal, while others emulate First World
War or other military uniforms). And it is, after all, celebrating
a military battle and the victory of one side. My long dead
Orange grandfather would have felt rightly at home once he
adjusted to the glittering paraphernalia; I felt comfortable
about being there but uncomfortable with the message.
It may be difficult to think of so much gaiety
and spectacle as being a sad sight but to me it is. As a peace
and nonviolent activist I am sad to see so much near-military
style. It is sad because it is exclusive. And it is sad because
it is difficult to think how it could become inclusive. But
these are an important part of the Protestant community and
they deserve to be included in any future as much as any other
group of people. But how they can move on from ‘backs
to the wall’ to really being concerned, as their motto
would proclaim, about ‘civil and religious liberty for
all’, is another matter. If they did live up to their
motto then they would be defending the rights of all groups
in Northern Ireland, including Catholics and all those who
are vulnerable and powerless. But that, at the moment, is
a step a hundred miles too far. But, who knows, maybe in a
hundred years it will have evolved to be an inclusive event
and black, white, green, brown and red will be able to be
orange for the day. If that ever happens, look out for Billy
King’s ghost, flagon of cider in hand, slightly inebriated
and toasting King Billy, “To the glorious, pious, and
immortal memory of King William, who gave us an event we could
all celebrate together….”
Vulnerability and security
It’s always good to wander elsewhere and learn what
others are doing. One wandering this summer took me to Ely,
in the flat lands of East Anglia in England for part of a
conference of the English Fellowship of Reconciliation and
Anglican Pacifist Fellowship on Vulnerability and Security.
It’s an interesting area of thought – basically
that invincibility is a myth and vulnerability communicates
your humanity much better to those who might be seen as your
enemies. It also ties in with the concept of ‘human
security’ rather than state, national or military security.
The USA has learnt to its cost (though perhaps not yet really
learnt the lesson at government level) that invincibility
is a myth – whether that is 9/11 or Iraq, and, in a
previous generation, Vietnam. The world has a whole lot of
learning to do, and hopefully out of that learning of our
common humanity can come cooperation.
Part of the discussion was based on a Norwegian
church document, “Vulnerability and Security –
Current challenges in security policy from an ethical and
theological perspective” written by the Commission on
International Affairs in Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical
and International relations, available
in English. This is a progressive document which states
that “Recognition of vulnerability as something fundamentally
human leads to the recognition of the security of others,
of strangers, as my – our joint – responsibility.”
However it doesn’t always leap beyond mainstream Christian
thinking on violence and nonviolence and, for example, makes
the mistaken assumption that ‘humanitarian intervention’
equals ‘military intervention’.
Anyway, there are some things to chew on there
for those who might be interested – and perhaps particularly
relevant in the light of some Christians who want to rewrite
the Just War theory (see e.g. July 2005 edition of the –
UK – Anglican Pacifist Fellowship publication ‘The
Anglican Peacemaker’.) The classical ‘Just War’
theory is itself more honoured in the breach than the observance
within ‘Christian’ countries but would, for example,
have put the Iraq war way out of question – which is
perhaps why Christians Bush and Blair never referred to it.
Interesting, that. Maybe as ‘Christians’ they
thought any war they were going to get involved in was ‘just’.
Which is just appalling.
Fitting ‘Brit’ to Gerry
Fitt
The death of Gerry Fitt, Sunningdale power-sharing ‘tanaiste’
and founder leader of the SDLP (which he left in 1979), marks
the end of another key figure in Northern Ireland during the
Troubles. Despite his early prominent role in the civil rights
movement and in nationalist developments, his implacable opposition
to violence won him virulent enemies among many republicans
and cost him his Westminister parliamentary seat – and
also forced him out of Northern Ireland when the life of himself
and his wife were seriously threatened. Republicans at the
time evidently could not tolerate someone so prominent in
the Catholic/nationalist community being so outspoken against
violence and, while it can be understood in the context of
the times, the hunger strikes, and so on, it is one of the
many blots on republican copy books. Sticks and stones would
break his bones but it was words that had set him up as a
target.
What is also perhaps interesting is the self-fulfilling
prophecy involved. He was disparagingly called ‘Fitt
the Brit’ by republicans who resented his verbal barrages
on IRA violence and the hunger strikes. He was seen to be
doing the British government’s work by republicans when
what he was doing was voicing an alternative nationalist-cum-social-democratic
world view which had a right to be heard. Whether his language
was always chosen to communicate as opposed to condemn is
another question but he was representing an important Northern
Ireland Catholic point of view. It is true that he was probably
more social democrat than nationalist (or even socialist)
but that was only a punishable crime in some circles. Calling
him ‘Fitt the Brit’ was a classic case of dismissal
of a person and their views; as a ‘Brit’ he became
a non-person, he had no right to be involved in Ireland, end
of story. But the self-fulfilling prophecy comes when he subsequently
accepted a lordship to become Lord Fitt; when he no longer
had a place in Northern Ireland he was forced to live elsewhere
– in this case Britain, and accepted a lordship which
would seem strange for a former Northern Ireland socialist.
Who created ‘Lord Fitt’, the nearest symbol of
him really becoming ‘Fitt the Brit’? Why, it looks
like it was more republicans than anyone on the island of
Britain.
Not naïve
Ireland is blessed or cursed, whichever you prefer, with a
range of world development funding agencies including Oxfam,
Concern, Goal, Trócaire, and Christian Aid, plus smaller
specialist ones like Bóthar. Interestingly, the religious
ones, Trócaire and Christian Aid, are also the ones
which I would judge to place a higher emphasis on world justice
including fair trade, meaning not just support for buying
‘fair trade’ items but a fair international trading
system which does not subsidise the rich to dump goods on
the poor. Anyway, you pays your money having made your choice
(and I hope you do support your favourite agency financially
as well as campaigning for justice for the world’s poor).
But following my item in the last issue about
mangled names, thanks to an automatic spell cheek, I thought
I would share a name in one of the above agencies’ offices
– the Dublin office of Christian Aid. Out of a full
time staff there of six people, three (or half of the full-timers
– there are also a few part-timers) are named Niamh;
there’s Niamh Garvey, their policy and advisory officer,
but even more confusingly both Niamh Carty, the senior member
of staff there as Programme Funding Manager, and Niamh Nic
Cárthaigh, communications and media officer. So of
these last two Niamhs. one has their name as gaeilge and one
anglicised to Carty but basically the same surname. So, a
word of advice, if you do have occasion to phone the Dublin
office of Christian Aid, don’t be naïve by just
asking for ‘Niamh’.
Anyway, that’s Colm No. 1 of the autumn
done and dusted. I wish you well for the autumn and hope you
and yours are fit and healthy for the season ahead. See you
in a month, 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).
