…it’s been so long since I blogged about politics (or indeed paid any attention to politics) that I have no idea who the secretary of state for Northern Ireland is these days.

Is it still Peter Hain?

Hello.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Last update here was September 2007 and the last one before that was May 2007. So let’s call it a year all in, shall we?

Wow, I miss this blog. It was my first one, and although I’m present and correct on other parts of the Internet, The Levee Breaks was always a special place for me. We talked here. We pondered politics and the deeper issues of life. Sometimes we disagreed and bickered and other times we had a laugh.

But time moves on and we outgrow certain things.

Last June, I finally left the job that was causing me so much anguish. I won’t condemn the entire company, and even though I’d love to out them, I won’t. Northern Ireland’s such a small place, and I’d rather draw a line under that phase of my life and move on. This post is part of the process.

Oh, I could tell you all about it. Suffice to say it was a couple of years of drama that I’d rather forget. I had a friend/colleague whispering rumours and speculation in one ear, while I had a distinct feeling that the company wanted to outsource my job.

As my suspicions were raised, I wasn’t sure who to turn to. I decided to write down everything that was happening, as it happened. Reading over the log is eye opening - there’s evidence that the colleague I mentioned was a trouble-maker who had a history of causing discontent among staff. There’s also evidence that the company was planning to save money by dropping me and outsourcing my job.

This was backed up by the fact that when I finally handed in my notice, there was no attempt to retain my services. And yes, I would have expected that. So I finally had it out with my boss. Denials. And they were happy to crucify the colleague, except I wasn’t entirely convinced they were innocent.

Basically, I could have taken a formal route with the issue and had the situation drag on for ages after. Or I could draw a line in the sand and walk away. So I walked. Every so often I get a surge of resentment, and that’s when I’m tempted to name and shame the company who treated me so badly.

But I won’t. One therapeutic blog post later and I’m feeling so much better. I don’t know if I’ll post here again, but I’ve always loved the ability to post anonymously. There’s a tremendous freedom in that. Maybe.

Is there anyone still out there reading this?

I saw this and thought of you lot…

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? It is because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
~ J. Krishnamurthi

Well, I couldn’t let this week pass without some comment on the restoration of the Assembley.

Is this the beginning of a bright new future for Northern Ireland? That was the burning question yesterday. It’s really too early to tell, but surely the signs are hopeful?

I’m not sure what to make of Ian Paisley in the role of First Minister. Let’s face it, the man made his career out of opposing whoever held this (or equivalent) role in the past. In bringing down just about every ‘moderate’ attempt at peaceful governance, Paisley was the anarchist, the mixer, the organ grinder. He effortlessly roused the passions of paranoid Protestants in bigotted tirades against Catholics/Nationalist or anybody who looked at him squinty.

And now he’s the head honcho?

Over the last few years, The Reverend Paisley has had plenty to say about the IRA and Sinn Fein gaining the trust of the people. Today, Ian Paisley still has a long way to go before he has my trust. Too many stunts, posturing and double-speak from Paisley have left me rightly suspicious of his intentions for this Assembley.

My hope for the future is that Paisley decommissions his bigotted rhetoric the same way the IRA put their weapons away. Is it too vain to hope that he has seen the damage he has done to Northern Ireland and that in this late stage of his career (and life) he wants to finally be a force for change?

I hope so. Peace be with you, people…

I asked a few weeks back about new voices in the Northern Irish blogosphere, and got a less than stunning response. One blogger who left a comment was Hanson, who I’ve seen around comment threads on NI blogs for a while now.

Judging by his blog, Hanson appears to take the stance of an anti-Agreement Unionist, though I won’t hold that against him! His writing is very opinion-based, which I like, and he holds a healthy degree of scepticism for Unionists and Nationalists alike. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m doing a bit of work on a website for someone I know which is hosted with UTV Internet.

I’ve hosted (commercially) with UTV Internet in the past, and I must say I’m not impressed. At all. I placed a call to their support team this evening at 6:30 and it took a full 8 minutes for someone to even answer the phone. When it was eventually answered, it was by a frighteningly unhelpful person who first claimed no knowledge of the problem, passed the buck to another department (but didn’t transfer the call) and then told me the person I needed to speak with was on the other line.

“Fine,” I replied. “please ask him to call me. Your support desk is open until 9:00pm and I’m calling from home, so he should be able to reach me when he’s available.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever seen the Fire Service posters where a child has scrawled “You forgot to check the smoke alarm batteries Daddy?” on a charred wall? What a horrible thought - that as the house was burning down around him, your child was vindictive enough to be heaping blame on you instead of bothering to escape!

Anyway, this leads me to an incident that happened a couple of weeks ago at my in-laws house. As they slept that night, someone set fire to a shed at the back of their house. The fire caught on quickly and spread to the house, filling it with smoke.

Their neighbours noticed the fire and started kicking the front door to alert them, but they didn’t wake up. It was only when the (badly placed) smoke alarms went off that they woke up and scarpered. The Fire Brigade later theorised that they may have already been affected by the smoke fumes - explaining how difficult it was to wake them up.

The Firemen also explained that the fire had almost reached the cavity layer and had it gone that far, the whole house would have been engulfed by flames. Apparently a few minutes later and they wouldn’t have stood a chance. Five minutes from being a headline - 5 people dead, 4 adults and an infant.

Now before you ask, I have an alibi! I was tucked up safely in bed far from the scene of the crime!

A few days after the incident, we were talking about it and it suddenly occurred to me what the unforeseen consequences might have been if the worst had happened. Being among the most immediate family members, we would have been expected to:

• Make funeral arrangements. My first thought was “how the hell would we afford 5 funerals?”
• Mrs L’s 11 year old brother was luckily out of the house on that night. Had the worst happened, we’d have become his full-time carers. There are a couple of immediate thoughts:
  • Is our house big enough? We look after him enough to be able to adjust to living with him, but do we have enough room to share our house permanently?
  • How would we work in commitments to keep up his relationship with his grandparents and other relatives? Particularly on his Father’s side, they’re not people we know very well.
• Other issues like do the in-laws have a will, how to handle their property and stuff like that. We’ve been lucky enough not to have too many deaths in the family and none close enough that we’ve become involved in the arrangements. Who helps out with this sort of thing?

Moving on, the bizarro part of the story is that, two days later the mother-in-law was bitching and moaning about the inconvenience of having to put in a new kitchen and having her house professionally cleaned! Everything is a problem to the mother-in-law, and having escaped with her life and her house more or less intact, she automatically went looking for problems.

Anyway, I’d never thought too hard about how something that happened to extended family would affect us. But obviously there are consequences. Another is that now I’m glad the mother-in-law doesn’t offer to babysit our kids too much, because what if they’d been in the house that night too?

I don’t want to get into the ins and outs of collusion or make too much of a judgement without evidence, as many in Northern Ireland no doubt will or indeed have already done. I am not surprised by the supposed “revelation” of RUC collusion or that certain members of the old Police force colluded with paramilitaries. Nobody can claim that our conflict was in anyway clean, even the terrorists called it a “dirty war”, and so to claim surprise when a dirty little secret is revealed makes little sense outside of political point scoring. I am not attempting to justify the crimes of people in the past or excuse them but to highlight that they were not uniquely evil. Policemen, many of whom came from the communities targeted by Republicans could not have all remained as decent as the majority of rank and file officers did, its just the impossibility of human nature, just like those Catholics in 1969 who watched their homes being burned by Loyalist gangs could not all have remained decent as the majority of Catholics did.

Within the context of our conflict the informants system was tragically going to fall prey to the instances of murder highlighted, however collusion is different from turning a blind eye, in order to collude the officers in question would have had to set up or help organise the murders - which some may well have done - but I don’t possess the evidence. However accepting that terrorists are going to kill and turning a blind eye to those few murders may have prevented greater acts of terrorism. Within the context of the dirty war we cannot see what was necessary from what was morally unjustifiable and plain sectarian murder with regards to the RUC. If evidence suggests otherwise then no one can morally argue against it.

What I will say is I am not surprised by the Republican hypocrites reaction to the whole sordid affair who of course jumped on the moral high ground.

Calling for heads to roll, people to be fired, prosecutions, justice and using the murder of 15 people to excuse or justify the terrorism of Nationalists. In an ideally moral country yes, certainly evidence of murder and collusion should be fairly dealt with, in an ideally moral country paramilitaries who murdered innocent civilians for sectarian reasons would be jailed and serve their full sentences for those crimes…but you see, we don’t live in either an ideal or a moral country, we live in Northern Ireland.

I will agree with Martin McGuinness that ex-RUC members, Special Branch officers, former Chief Constables and the like be imprisoned for acts of supporting or overlooking acts of murder; when Mr McGuinness is put on trial for his crimes, when OTR terrorists are hunted down and locked up. When those who did not serve their full sentences thanks to the GFA are returned to prison or when Mr McGuinness gives up those members of his organisation who were not prosecuted for acts of sectarian murder. Until then Sinn Fein members and supporters have no moral high ground on which to stand to accuse others or hold people to standards of prosecution they themselves feel exempted from because of their ‘political idealism’ or supposed ‘cause’.

If I may indulge my own idealism: we should have an amnesty for all those involved in the 30+ year conflict, if we cannot be consistent with our standards, and should seek to build a better future for all of us and our future generations. I cannot change the dark days of what we allowed to occur in our country, nor do I wish to go on a moralistic revenge trip, rather I’d be happy to remember only so that it spurs us on to never again allow ourselves to return to such a dark place. I don’t believe a South African style “Truth & Reconciliation” commission would be anything more than a sop or a cynical exercise, but perhaps we require something similar, which allows a blanket amnesty for those who partake in it in order that it is firmly placed in the past once and for all, I believe it would be a welcome relief for many…apart from of course most Republicans and most Loyalists.

Right, imagine you were approached by a friend or colleague and asked to recommend a good Northern Irish political blog….

Who would you recommend?

I’ve lamented the state of the Northern Irish blogosphere a while back, and now that I’m starting to get back into the flow of things I’d like to update my reading list. Damien Mulley pulled out a good list of Irish political blogs late last year.

I’d like to see something similar for Northern Ireland specifically. Roll up your sleeves, and help me out with your suggestions in the comments below!

While surfing the Internet I came across a number of Irish-American websites excitedly counting down to ‘Paddy’s Day’. I began thinking about Christmas and its annual countdown and the similarities between it and St. Patrick’s Day. For St. Patrick’s day celebrations have as much to do with a 5th century teetotal Christian fundamentalist, as Christmas has to do with the birth of Christ.

I for one am amused by Paddy’s day. Not least by the sight of “Plastic Paddy’s” everywhere bedecked in green, with leprechaun hats, black thorn sticks, the obligatory pint of Guinness and sometimes an Irish tricolour. Indeed even I, in the past, have been known to join in the festivities of celebrating our “Patron Saint” (minus the hat, stick and tricolour) and from what I can remember I thoroughly enjoyed my indulgement of Paddywhackery culture (for it is anything but authentic Irish culture). But the most amusing thing of all about March 17th or there abouts, is the seriousness with which both our tribes and Irish America take it. Some DUPer will always be waiting in the wings to inform “us Prods” that Saint Patrick “Is ours too, you know”, like somehow we didn’t?!

And the small but dreadfully annoying ‘grumpy Prod brigade’ so disdainful of supposed “Irishness”, however unauthentic, plastic or non-threatening it is, must insist on projecting their misery onto others by demanding parades with no green, no tricolours (mmm…what about the orange bit?), no alcohol, basically no fun for anyone!

Lest I should forget all those “liberal internationalist” Republicans out there, I’m also equally amused by their idea of what an “authentic” St. Patrick’s day is, much like the one mentioned above, only with Celtic shirts, Armalite T-shirts, Toicfaidh Ar La key-rings and various pro-IRA tack! “We’re not alienatin’ anybody, so we’re not” is the cry from rebel whiners when you question their precious sacrosanct expression of “Irishness”, considering they’re supposedly defenders of traditional Irish culture its surprising their clinginess to a decidedly unauthentic display of pure plastic paddyness.

As with most things in Northern Ireland St. Patrick’s day is a means by which to express our ingrained sectarianism and hatreds for one another. I do not believe St. Patrick’s day is something of great importance or significance, to either our culture, identity or conflict, rather it is a non-issue made into a sectarian mud flinging exercise and propaganda battle. Of course I can see the fun side to it and am not a complete dreary sod, I don’t think it should be banned, suppressed or excluded, nor do I believe it has much authenticity or relation to Irishness. After all Irishness defined as a celebration of the Irish Nationalist identity and republican cause, is only a narrow view of what it means for someone to be ‘Irish’. There are the Anglo-Irish, Ulster-Scots, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Atheists, non-indigenous people of various backgrounds and religions. If I am to celebrate my Irishness as I see it, I cannot express it fully in the context of a republican “triumphalist coat trailing exercise”, my symbols of identity, culture, history and heritage are not respected in the context of such a supposed celebration of Irelands ‘Patron Saint’.

Solution? I’m not sure if there is a solution beyond my own idealism. Ideally I’d like to see a celebration in Northern Ireland that was truly inclusive, all embracing, open minded and welcoming. Where not only are tricolours, Gaelic culture and nationalist symbols celebrated, but were all the other strains of Irishness were equitably accounted for and given space. If it were up to me I’d have everybody bring as many flags as they’d like, British, Irish or other. Imagine if you would a sea of red, white & blue; green, white & orange? If you think it would be a colour clash then perhaps you should tell that to Irish-Americans where Paddy’s day parades in the USA are awash with tricolours and stars & stripes. Think about a lively music performance of bodhrans, tin-whistles, fiddles, flutes and bagpipes…and dare I suggest lambegs? If you believe lambeg drums are threatening then you’ve never heard one played well (yes such a thing is possible) and it is regarded amongst ‘Prods’ with the same passion as a bodhran player regards his small but worthy tool.

There is more than one musical tradition in Ireland, one identity, one type of cultural tradition, if inclusiveness is supposedly the bottom line of a multi-cultural society - which Britain and Ireland pride themselves on being - then we should be able to incorporate each others culture into our celebrating St. Patrick’s day and beyond that limited scope as well, by doing so we might be able to strip away the negative sectarian cloud hanging over our various traditions and cultural celebrations. I have no doubt this will NOT happen. Sectarianism appears to be Northern Ireland’s main cultural tradition - and until people are brave enough to truly be inclusive and tolerant - then we’ll forever be going around in circles.

“Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it”