The question “Can politics remain secular” is rather like asking “Does my bum look big in this?” Whatever the answer, the anxiety of the enquiry is evident. The very asking of this question indicates an unease with the direction of politics; a feeling that a political system predicated on the equality of all, regardless of religion, may give way to a system which favours one set of beliefs over others. Allied to this is a sense that religion will one day supplant economics as the key poli...
I never thought I would see the day that America would need aid from other countries to cope with a domestic disaster. Yet in the wake of hurricane Katrina relief has been offered by dozens of countries: three helicopters by Singapore, 1100 doctors by Cuba, a frigate by the Netherlands. Such was the immensity of the storm and the ineptitude of the response, that the world’s richest country has asked the world for assistance. It seems strange that such a mighty power, one which jealously g...
In times of crisis you get the measure of a person and perhaps, of a country. My overriding impression of the last great American disaster, 9-11, was how it showed up the innate goodness of so many Americans, from the fire fighters who put civic duty above their own survival to the passengers of flight 93 who sacrificed their own lives for the common good. Even the members of Congress, not a group I usually speak of fondly, rose to the occasion that day, with their singing of God Bless Ameri...
As you enter through the grand brass gates of Stormont estate, you are confronted by the statue of Edward Carson. Portrayed in full flow, the father of unionism’s hand is thrust upwards to the heavens, as if imploring the Almighty to come to Ulster’s help. At the base of the statue are small carvings depicting scenes from the Home Rule crisis era. There is Carson et al signing the Covenant at Belfast City Hall in 1912. Being gentlemen, the leaders of unionism made their mark in ink rat...
"When I was twenty I spent the summer on a kibbutz" It takes a while to sink in. It is 2001 and myself and Bob, an ageing English communist, are standing in Bir Zeit, home of the finest university in the Occupied Territories. Given that the pair of us are on a Palestinian solidarity visit, I find Bob’s Zionist youth somewhat surprising. But when he explains his rationale for supporting the Jewish state three decades earlier it all makes sense. Back then Israel, tiny, vulnerable, s...
The film Fahrenheit 9-11 is overlong and lacks narrative drive in parts but it does contain some devastating passages of anti-Bush vitriol. One example is the series of clips showing how the US president tricked his country into war with a web of deception about Iraqi WMDs and links to Bin Laden. In a brilliantly edited section, Bush is shown on the stump in 2002 using the words “Saddam” and “al-Qaida” over and over again. The staccato finally ends and the editor allows the US president...
I very rarely do these link based-blogs but I wanted to share this video with as many people as possible. This is American fundamentalist Pat Robertson calling for the murder of Venezualan president Hugo Chavez: Link Where does one even start with this extraordianry call to jihad against Chavez? Well, I suppose one could reflect on Robertson's breathtaking hypocrisy, that he, supposedly a man of God, is calling for the murder (and let's not use euphemisms) the murder of another human b...
Gerry Adams is fond of predicting that Ireland will be reunited by the year 2016, in time for the centenary celebrations of the Easter Rising. One should be cautious of his words, since he uses the alleged imminence of the end of partition as justification for abandoning so much of his ideological baggage. In any case, the Provos have a rather poor record when it comes to prediction. It was the IRA after all which claimed that Ireland would be “free in 1973” and which proclaimed 1975 to be “t...
The English press critic Roy Greenslade once coined the term “hierarchy of death” to describe the huge difference between British media coverage of different types of violence associated with the Troubles. There were he asserted four groups of victims as far as the media was concerned. Group 1 was made up of English people killed in England, i.e. victims of the IRA’s British bombing campaign. These victims dominated TV news bulletins for days and put a great strain on the Brazilian rainforest...
There is no conflict in the world which generates as much verbal diarrhoea as the Israel/Palestinian one. Biased, blatantly pro-Zionist phrases such as "period of calm", "no partner", and "window of opportunity" masquerade as neutral discourse. In fact these cliches serve to reinforce an Israel-centric view of the conflict. For example, there is a "period of calm" when Palestinians are being killed but when there are casualties on both sides it is a "cycle of violence". Dead Arabs makes f...
When the Israelis offered the PLO control of Gaza during peace negotiations in the early nineties, it is reported that one of the Palestinian delegation quiped: "Great, now what do we get in return?" Even for the Palestinians, Gaza - with its apocalyptic overcrowding, its suicidal birthrate and its epic poverty - is a problem rather than a prize. This is even more so for Israel. Successive governments in Tel Aviv have viewed the Strip as a burden rather than an opportunity. For a state o...
"A lot of it's got to do with age" said Paul Bew during a tutorial on Irish politics some years ago. "Running around shooting people and spending the night in a hedgerow - it's a young man's game. Adams, McGuinness, the lot of them: they're middle-aged now. If nothing else, the peace process is a great advert for the male menopause." As ever Bew was exaggerating slightly for effect, but his words had more than a little truth to them. A quarter century of constant physical danger takes it toll...
"It's only words, and words are all I have" as Ronan Keating once sang. If only real life was as simple as cheesy ballads would suggest. Yesterday's "historic" declaration by the IRA that it is abandoning violence after 35 years of bloodshed is very welcome. As were all those other "historic" declarations about a "total cessation" and "the war" being "over". Fine words indeed, but only words. Given the Provisional movement's long record of duplicity, words mean nothing. Only action, or in...
"Is increasing aid the solution to poverty in Africa" asks this week's online poll in the New Statesman (a sort of Islington chatter sheet). The result: 93%no, 7% yes; suprised me, given that NS readers tend to be of the hand-wringing "oh, isn't it terrible?" tendency. But what struck me more was the paucity of options on offer, with "yes" and "no" being the only alternatives. This is "opinion" polling of the crudest kind. My prefered answer: "I don't know" was not available, as if som...
I knew this would happen. I said this would happen: " Among those milling around Templemore Sports Complex after last Friday evening's count were figures such as Ian Doherty, a leading Derry businessman and long-time associate of Mark Durkan's well-heeled clan. Mr Doherty was one of those who signed Mr Durkan's nomination papers. Nearby stood Ivan Cooper, another prominent figure in Derry's business and political circles. Mr Cooper, a founding member of the SDLP, is well known for his b...