Community TV
Congratulations to Belfast community station NvTv on starting
to stream their programmes live on the web. Northern Visions
/ or NvTv (not "Envy TV" which is what you get with
so many stations!) was previously only available within a
few miles of Belfast city centre but now can be seen anywhere
in the world. All you need (if you don't already have it)
is to download RealPlayer to watch it on your computer. Go
to http://www.nvtv.co.uk/
and follow the link there. For those in fairly-central Belfast
who want it on terrestrial TV, tune in your television set
to Channel 62, or Frequency 799.276MHz. Dave and Marlyn who
are among those who work there were part of a previous communications
revolution back in the 70s [before my time - Ed] [Dirty liar,
you were probably already over the hill then - Billy] when
they ran the Print Workshop, helping community and political
groups in Belfast and further afield get into print at the
height of the Troubles. Now that NVTV is on line there are
literally 'no boundaries' if you have broadband internet access.
Mind you, the local Belfast print media seemed reluctant to
give the station any publicity - I know, because I have asked
for them to give NvTv listings.
Green machines
Now that global warming is established as a reality, some
things are goin' to have to change round here. One is built
in obsolescence. Instead, what we need is 'built out obsolescence'.
What do I mean? I mean machines and equipment of all kinds
which are built to last, and which have easily replaceable
parts (some as slot-in-and-out cassettes). At the moment if
your CD player ceases to read CDs, what do you do? To get
it fixed would probably cost more in £/€ than the
CD player itself cost originally, so you will probably throw
it away and buy a new one which is a nonsense in terms of
resources.
Of course legislation will be required to ensure
firms build and sell equipment which has built out obsolescence.
They should be required, depending on the type of equipment
involved, to sell parts for a set period of time - say thirty
years in the case of a CD player. Governments could also subsidise,
directly or indirectly, repair services (e.g. by removing
taxation from equipment repair).
There are of course considerations in terms
of increased fuel efficiency for some equipment which may
entail 'new' equipment being a better buy for the environment
than 'old' equipment being refurbished. These considerations
should be taken into account according to the nature of the
equipment and any fuel saving, and the resultant taxation
policy. Much equipment now does not need improved in terms
of its performance but the system we have is incredibly wasteful
and will have to change in any move to build a green, sustainable
and survivable future.
Long Kesh, long walk
What can you say about a visit to Long Kesh/Maze prison? It
is difficult to know where to start. I was there recently
being given the tour (organised by OFMDFM/Office of the First
Minister and Deputy First Minister, or more accurately ONFMNDFM
with 'N' for 'No'). The name of Long Kesh/Maze itself always
reminds me of Windscale being renamed Sellafield - so bad
they named it twice. Ground is already been cleared for a
big Norn Iron sports stadium on one large part of the site,
presuming this is where the stadium gets located (and not
in Belfast), and the RUAS/Royal Ulster Agricultural Society
may relocate from Kings Hall, Belfast, to another part of
the massive site, and all will be altered. It is now six years
since the prison closed. What will be preserved of the prison
is one H block, the prison hospital, the command centre, and
one 'cage' (from the internment era, 1971) which will be moved
close to the other prison buildings being preserved. But the
context will change utterly. Now, it is the abomination of
desolation, the remnants of a prison or a prison camp with
an even more haunting presence because it has almost no locks,
certainly no inmates, no jailors, and yet an overwhelming
aura of Northern Ireland as it has been in the Troubles. Today
it is empty of people, certainly, but of feelings, emotions,
anguish, and, also hope, no, not empty of these things.
If those walls of corrugated iron, and that
razor wire, could speak, it would have stories to tell - of
humanity as well as cruelty, of bravery and bravado, of hope
and hopelessness, of division and unity. Prisoners and ex-prisoners
have been key to the changes which have been taking place
in Northern Ireland over the last couple of decades. The first
steps of the peace process, that ongoing stumble towards cooperation,
began at the time of the hunger strikes, a time when it would
be hard to say Catholic and Protestant people in Northern
Ireland were ever more divided.
In the H Blocks today, with little in the way
of any furnishings left, our eyes turn to the small items
that indicate humans lived or worked here; a sock tied to
a grating on a skylight, the address and postcode of "HMP
Maze" written in marker on a command centre monitor unit,
and, most movingly of all, coloured stones or a small dried
up posy of roses left on window sills, presumably by family
members quite recently, in the prison hospital (where the
hunger strikers would have been moved after 21 days and where
ten hunger strikers died). A piece of tinsel in the command
centre looks rather incongruous. We see the room where hunger
strike negotiations would have taken place, and the room where
Bobby Sands died. In one room in H4 the ghostly image of a
mural of Ireland comes through the overlay of paint, thanks
to damp; is that a dove hovering over Northern Ireland on
the mural? If not, then perhaps it should be.
There are those who think Long Kesh/The Maze
is a Provo shrine. It certainly has a particular resonance
for people from a republican background but republican prisoners
who were there may have a whole range of emotions - feelings
of hardness and cruel treatment at the time of the blanket
protest and hunger strikes, but also of much more relaxed
regimes later on. However this place is not just of significance
for republicans. Loyalists were here in their myriads too,
and prison officers. All in Northern Ireland were affected
by what went on here and in relation to here. If it should
be a shrine to anything, let it be to the humanity which has
led us out of a searingly dreadful abyss.
How the proposed international conflict transformation
centre there would operate in practice, and how it would relate
to either the population at large or more specialist communities
(republican, loyalist, human rights, peace and conflict),
I'm not sure (though see page 8 of www.ofmdfmni.gov.uk/masterplansummary.pdf
and this
among other comments). And the context would feel quite different
with the demolition of the main part of the H Blocks. But
if you were aiming to have a symbolic place to base a conflict
transformation centre then it would be difficult to think
of a more appropriate spot. The medium, or in this case location,
would be a very definite part of the message. That doesn't
mean that it would work in practice and it would have to be
done in cooperation with a variety of other institutions in
the field or it would be difficult for it to work and would
be likely to flounder after a short while. Hopefully all this
is being taken into account in planning....?
- - - - - - - -
The February edition of Nonviolent News
is where we make our annual Adolf Awards for 'conspicuous
disservice to peace' (the IgNobels of the peace world). So
please make all nominations to the INNATE address, marked
for yours truly, by 29th January. This is your opportunity
to get your stinking cap on and make sure your least favourite
politician, personality or organisation gets their true reward.
Remember, vote early, vote often! And my judgement will be
final (bribes in any negotiable currency welcome) [you can't
say that - Ed] [I just did, are you going to censor me? -
Billy]. [Better to let you discredit yourself - Ed] [It was
financial credit, not discredit I was looking for! - Billy].
So, until February, see you at the non-star studded awards
ceremony - Billy King
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).
