So much of life in the occupied West Bank seems to revolve around the management of boredom. Life under occupation involves dealing with a number of delays to your every day life, whether queueing at a checkpoint or sitting around waiting for the latest closure to be lifted. The sheer tedium of Palestinian life is the only part which an outsider can fully experience. Three years ago I was sitting in a school in the city of Nablus, watching hour after hour tick by, waiting for the latest c...
I heard someone (can't remember who) making a good point about the US presidential debates. The person in question piointed that Bush and Kerry's exchange on the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq had a Freudian undertone. The Democratic nominee took great pleasure in pointing out that "this president's father" assembled a much more impressive cast for his production "Gulf War 1" than the current occupant of the White House had managed for the sequel. Bush 43 bridled at this suggestion th...
Along with most of the planet's population, I am not enthused by John Kerry. He is hardly an exciting politician, not the type whose rhetorical flights of fancy make the heart beat a little faster. What's more, on a ideologicla level, he would not have been my choice as Democratic presidential nominee (I much prefered that angry doctor from Vermont). I have been critical of the man from Boston in the past, largely because I believe he voted for the Iraq war in late 2002 because he thought...
The equation, film plus Northern Ireland, has not usually equalled accuracy. Some of the cinematic offerings on Ulster have been laughably wide of the mark. One notable exception to this trend is the excellent In The Name Of The Father , the story of the Guilford Four who were wrongly imprisoned for a bombing in England in the early 70s. The scene were Daniel Day-Lewis' character is dragged away for the first time by the British army is particularly poignant. "No", protests Pete Poselthwaite...
A few years ago I made the acquaintance of a man who seemed to be insufferably arrogant. On the first few occasions that we met, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, hoping that his haughtiness was just a front which would dissolve once we got to know each other a little better. I can remember the exact moment when I realised that my first, negative impression had unfortunately been spot-on. A few of us had met up for dinner one night. When it came time for the person in question...
A few weeks ago I considered writing a blog asserting, some two months from polling day, that George W Bush was certain to win the US presdential election. I like to make bold predictions. When they don't come off, they make you look like a fool, but when they do, it's a marvellous excuse to be smug. I'm glad though that I was retcicent in this case. After two good debates by Kerry, it has dawned on me that I might just be seing his face on the news every day for the next four years. Pri...
I enjoy reading the work of those with whom I fundamentally disagree. I've just finished Yoram Hazony's "The Struggle for Israel's Soul", an impassioned defense of the tenets of traditional Zionism. I always enjoy Stephen King's articles and the thoughts of Pat Buchanan. I find that reading things from the opposite side of the political spectrum helps to take me out of my intellectuial comfort zone, that it improves my mental rigour to think "why is this worng?" When I picked up a copy of...
The skillful but egotistical footbaler, David Ginola was once asked if he minded that being the target of so much ire from opposing fans. "Not at all", the Frenchman replied, "it's better to be booed than ignored". By the standards of footballing answers, Ginola's remark was positively Chomsky-esque in its profundity. Fair play to him, he had a good point. Ginola was jeered not just because opposition fans hated him but also because they feared him. In a way, the boos were a sign of respect. ...
It's not quite nailed down yet, but it seems that a new agreement may soon be reached between the DUP and Sinn Fein (SF) over the governance of Northern Ireland (NI). There is now much speculation in the north that part of this deal will involve the standing down of the Provisional IRA. If all goes according to plan, the organisation, which in my not-too-distant youth was one of the world's most feared terrorist outfits, will soon be little more than an "old comrades club". The IRA's memb...
I've just returned from a few days in Shanghai, my second of hopefully many trips to China. On my first visit, to Beijing last year, I was bitten by the China bug. Those of you reading this who've visited the country may know what I mean. It's the condition whereby you see a tiny part of China and you want to see a whole lot more. You leave the country thinking about the next occasion when time and money will allow you to return. Thers's something about the size of the country which grips...
It would take a heart of stone not to feel sorry for Lil Bigley, mother of British hostage, Ken, who collapsed after a press conference last week. Like everyone else, I hope that she makes a full recovery and that she will yet see her son alive again. But why is it that I know her name and that of her son? Because, even here in far away Korea, a lot of the media which I digest each day comes from British sources (the best in the world in my humble opinion). Naturally, the British media gi...
Sometimes I wonder just how dunk you have to be before the decision to invade Iraq starts to seem like a good idea. No matter how many times the hawks change their story, regardless of how many ingenuous new justifications they can come up with, they are unable to escape the harsh and obvious reality that their war has been a disaster. But, oh! How they try! As the situation on the ground in Iraq gets worse with each passing month, the justifications of those who initiated this bloody mes...
In Part 1, I spoke of the covenant of 1912, of how most of the northern Protestant community of the time signed up to resist any move which would dilute their membership of the British state. What then did Britishness mean to those who signed on to defend it? At the time, Irish Protestant attachment to the idea of Britishness rested on three great pillars: faith, crown and empire. Ninety-two years later, one fo these pillars has collapsed while the other two rot away, threatening to tumble...
In 1912, with Home Rule for Ireland a real possibility, the vast majority of the country's largest minority group, the Protestants, signed a covenant declaring their implacable opposition to such a policy. Some of those who signed on to resist Irish self-government forsook the luxury of ink, choosing instead to write in their own blood. According to my grandmother, several of my male ancestors chose to make their mark in this manner. Their blood, my blood, is on that covenant. It's one of...
I recently spent a week in Tokyo. Of all the countries I've visited, Japan is the one of which I've had the worst impression before arriving. I've spent the last few years living in two of Japan's former colonies, Taiwan and South Korea, where praise for the Japanese is not exactly abundant. To some extent I understand why Japan's former imperial subjects are not well disposed to the country. The Japanese have not exactly gone out of their way to atone for past wrongs. Japanese school tex...