“All tender and effeminate notions must be stilled by a cold and single-blooded passion.”
In the Belfast Telegraph, Eilis O’Hanlon has written an impressively controlled piece of writing on how Sinn Fein and its wider Republican movement (the organisation formerly known as the IRA) have managed to subordinate the natural bonds of human feeling to the furtherance of ‘the cause’. A dissenting scion of the Cahill family, she begins with her experience of going to her mother’s funeral last Autumn in the literal and metaphorical heart of Republican west Belfast:
Most of those individuals who attended my mother’s wake had heard the same stories and scandals that I had and more besides — because I moved away from republican Belfast physically and psychologically and politically a long time ago, and they stayed right in the heart of it. They knew better than I did the myriad ways in which the authority figures they respected and held up as icons of political virtue had turned a blind eye to appalling abuses — yet they remained true to the republican faith.Including the woman who has now spoken so painfully of what happened to her, who has been keen to stress her continuing loyalty to the republican movement. Knowing all they did, they still bought into the myth of the republican family, even when they could see that the republican family tree was rotten to the core, and when it was clear that certain people in that family tree had a special branch all of their own, where they were protected from the consequences of their worst actions.
They could internalise the things they knew, and then kind of not know them any more, in order not to let anything damage the struggle.
She sees clear roots in the Russian anarchists of an earlier age:
Sergey Nechayev, the 19th century Russian nihilist, who wrote his Catechism of the Revolutionary as a blueprint for the destruction of society, described such a man best: “All the tender and effeminate emotions of kinship, friendship, love, gratitude, and even honour, must be stilled in him by a cold and single-blooded passion.”
As it happens, we know that the bond of kinship does survive, because Adams, as the evidence now seems incontrovertible, treated his brother Liam differently from any other person in west Belfast who had been accused of the abuse of his own child; and he was also prepared to continue to publicly eulogise their father, despite now admitting that the man was a sadistic brute and sexual predator who abused some of his own children.
Even so, Nechayev’s words still ring chillingly true. The only ultimate love is for the revolution; the necessities of struggle transcend all other considerations. Adams could eulogise monsters because the eulogies served a cause which needed to sentimentalise where it came from in order to justify what it was doing. In that way, he was no different from the community he represented. He was the same, only more so
And finally:
Terrorists, like sexual abusers, like doing unspeakable things to human flesh. It’s just that politics gives one side of the same perverted coin a convenient excuse. It’s certainly no coincidence that so many women get turned on by violent men, or that other violent men rally round to hush up their crimes.
Islamic suicide bombers take this diseased sexuality to its ultimate conclusion by turning their very bodies into weapons.
In retrospect, it’s a pity that the IRA’s heroes didn’t have the courage of their convictions to adopt the same methods themselves, because then there would have been fewer of them around to rape women and children, and fewer to cover up for their abusive comrades afterwards.
But then the IRA always were cowards. They didn’t mind who died for the cause, just so long as it wasn’t them. What’s emerging now is only scratching the surface of their vicious collective history.
As the Catholic Church found out before them, once the floodgates open, there’s no closing them again.
We get it Mick. You hate SF/the IRA/republicanism.
A return to the Malachi O’Doherty line of republicans/ terrorists as child abusers.
Perhaps Eilis should also be asked what Malachi refused to answer: does this line of thinking apply to ‘all’ soldiers, or all who may be in conflict?
Would make for an interesting answer.
The rest is just typical O’Hanlon bile, a return to her Sunday Indo form of the 1990s.
She seems to be saying that they should throw the baby out with the dirty bathwater
Guys,
Play the ball, not the man. Is there any reason John you think I should not have posted this article?
Chris/John
Are you seriously saying that when a person takes other human life or uses physical force it has no effect on them. Of course you can braoden it out to include all ‘soldiers’ but that does not negate the argument
“They could internalise the things they knew, and then kind of not know them any more…”
A bit like Eilis writing about North Belfast.
For fairness’ sake, alf posted this link without further comment: http://url.ie/4s1e.
See Slugger’s glossary (http://url.ie/4s1f) for posts on Fair Gaming and Don’t listen to him, he’s a bollix.
These are distraction tactics. I’ll happily sustain critical comment on the article, but everything else goes!
I’m glad you posted it. Its an excellent article.
It was a good article, I was just giving some backgound on o hanlons past writing
Mick, I’m not against the posting of this specific article, but 90% of your output these days seems to be relentless attacks on SF and/or the republican movement.
Eilis is a very articulate woman especially when it concerns her views on Republicanism, too much reading of Sigmund Freud perhaps, but otherwise, what can you say the evidence speaks for itself in regards to the actions of a few. Mistakes were made and those who have never made mistakes, have never tried. Look at the history of the world, no country who has struggled to release itself from colonialism has done so without sacrfice. Indeed the root causes of some the longest struggles in the world are because of colonialism. What are the indigenous natives from those countries who have struggled against it supposed to have done, begged them for freedom.
Mick, I’d say ‘barely controlled’ rather than ‘impressively controlled’, I don’t disagree with the basic thrust of what she says, but as usual the way she says it detracts from the piece. On the plus side she did manage to identify Nechaev as a nihilist and not the ‘anarchist’ you wrongly attributed him to be.
There are no organisation or groupings of people that do not have people within who are involved for the wrong reasons. I believe that this campaign being run by Slugger to blacken all republicans is disgraceful and one sided. Mick I have no problem with you blogging this story but as I have in recent posts question your motives. In a paper at the weekend it was reported that a DUP party officer convicted of sexual abuse has been reinstated to the DUP. Why no campaign against the DUP. Every utterance, comment or snippet on this issue gets a full blog and a rerun of the original issues. Why.
John,
I know where you are coming from, but you’ll find we’ve been poking a fair few others in their sore bits too…
It’s hard to judge where the public interest lies in all of this, and as with the Robbo case, not everything Slugger has received has gone straight out.
Sometimes that is to do with straightforward legal complications, and sometimes it is more to do with ethics. But the case Ms O’Hanlon mentions of one of her relatives is a particularly vexing one that has suffered chronic under reporting (by us as well as the MSM).
It’s been obvious to me that Sinn Fein is not treated by the media in the same way as other parties. I’ve tried to steer a line between the often hysterical treatment they’re given by their critics and the utter silence of the mainstream, respectable media.
But that gap is getting wider and more embarrassing with every twist and bend in the road. Last week was a classic case of how the party was able to take advantage of that deficit in ways no other party on the island could get away with these days.
Not even the church can do it any more. Which reminds me, why are we not having the kind of inquiry into child sex abuse in the church as they have in the Dublin archdiocese?
Souvarine,
Cha ching… that’s one in the box for you… that’s me trying to be too clever for my own good!
Terrorists, like sexual abusers, like doing unspeakable things to human flesh. It’s just that politics gives one side of the same perverted coin a convenient excuse.
Read: Republicans were genetically predisposed to violence and had they been born in a peaceful backwater of the world they would have become murderers. The British had nothing to do with it. They love attacking human flesh, so pedos and Republicans are more or less the same. Which they are obviously, look here’s three (alleged) examples.
It’s certainly no coincidence that so many women get turned on by violent men, or that other violent men rally round to hush up their crimes. Islamic suicide bombers take this diseased sexuality to its ultimate conclusion by turning their very bodies into weapons.
Eh? Now not long ago I read a post by a vehemently anti SF blogger on this site issue a hard attack on the psuedo psychological bullshit of journalists. I joined in at the time. That, above, is an example of the same shite. All those Muslims wanking via suicide bombings eh? I reckon we should drop a few million copies of readers wives and some kleenex on Iraq, all in the name of peace. Utter tripe.
JK,
Why? Because there are many outstanding questions that still have to be answered by the party leader. Not least, why his answers so far have been so partial and incomplete. The most reliable time line on the Liam Adams’ story online is Pete’s thread.
There is a major public interest story here. Full and honest disclosure is the only thing that will kill it dead.
Instead we are asked to believe it took party records rather than the leaders own memory to set things straight, even when we find out the next day it doesn’t.
In the meantime, the questions will keep pilling up… whether we blog them or not.
“utter silence of the mainstream, respectable media.” ?
Like I said before (and Brian Walker too) almost every cough and spit of the Adams story has been covered by the BBC (inc the Today programme), the Bel Tel (inc. two pieces from Suzanne), the Irish News, the Mirror etc.
And furthermore the Adams story wasn’t broken anywhere near a blog – it was on the mainsteam, respectable UTV.
OK so it hasn’t got traction in the London papers – but one assumes this is less to do with a love of the Shinners and more to do with not giving a tinkers cuss about this place.
Chris Donnelly
In that the IRA Executive was granted governmental status by the Second Dail, are we to assume that it was official government policy to turn a blind eye to sexual abuse, or was that just another thing that the members of the Army Council kept to themselves …..
John M
Stand back and look at what they did and what they covered up.
Then just ask yourself, am I ashamed to vote for these people?
And if you are not, ask yourself why you are not. And be honest with yourself.
An Irish Republic is an honourable ideal. A rapist is a rapist and a paedophile is a child abuser. Being a paedophile and a republican don’t balance each other out to create some moral neutrality where it’s all OK
jtwo,
“almost every cough and spit of the Adams story”…
With respect, this is nonsense…
JohnJoe
Ah yes. She’s an outsider. Doesn’t know North Belfast so her views are invalid.
See my post immediately above.
Are you proud to vote for child abusers and their apologists? For people who treat you with such contempt in feeding you lie after lie to cover it up.
Are you so inured to violence that you think that’s ok?
Eh? I Can add a few more examples of “utter silence of the mainstream, respectable media” if you like? Lexis Nexis is full of them
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8471383.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8469293.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8461792.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8458972.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8431807.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8425497.stm
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/why-adams-and-police-must-both-come-clean-on-abuse-allegations-14646866.html
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/adams-faces-calls-for-lsquoopenrsquo-inquiry-into-abuse-claims-14651572.html
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/viewpoint/editors-viewpoint-mr-adams-should-consider-a-break-14651714.html
#
John M
Stand back and look at what they did and what they covered up.
Then just ask yourself, am I ashamed to vote for these people?
And if you are not, ask yourself why you are not. And be honest with yourself.
An Irish Republic is an honourable ideal. A rapist is a rapist and a paedophile is a child abuser. Being a paedophile and a republican don’t balance each other out to create some moral neutrality where it’s all OK
Posted by Cynic2 on Jan 27, 2010 @ 12:13 PM
There are very few parties in the world who are not connected to some sort of cover up of one sort or another. Like I said before mistakes were made by a few individuals. Not everyone in the republican movement were aware of these accusations and the way they were treated. The hysteria aroused by these actions is being highlighted by the same people day and night with repeated multiple blogs, by people who have no connection or do not support Sinn Fein. Your actions highlight your inability to accept that, no matter how much you try to “Expose” Gerry Adams it has no effect on his support base.
jtwo
If theyd on’t follow whaty Slugger says, then it doesn’t count or they have it all wrong. See also P&J devolution
Islamic suicide bombers take this diseased sexuality to its ultimate conclusion by turning their very bodies into weapons.
This is so bad I just can’t dignify the rest of it with comment.
It was a good article, succinct and to the point. The very fact so many apologists are crawling out of the woodwork proves that.
If there is anyone misguided or sick enough to believe the abuse of your own children is a good terrorist tactic, then the apparent glut of informers within the IRA should be enough to show this was not in fact the case. If in spite of the obvious some still believe it, it is my fervent hope that they will soon learn their mistake.
The British government although different, is in one way at least, like the Catholic church it is easy to track down and deal with. It is the fear of the abused that we need to coax into the freedom and light.
“Terrorists, like sexual abusers, like doing unspeakable things to human flesh.
. . .
Islamic suicide bombers take this diseased sexuality to its ultimate conclusion by turning their very bodies into weapons.”
The links she makes in this argument seem to me argument seem tenuous at best, Emotive rather than rational (not necessarily bad in itself), but this is the opposite of “impressively controlled?”
O’Hanlon is more than a little naive in her anti republican rant above . Every war whether it be a civil or uncivil war within a country or between states , subordinates the natural bonds of human feeling to the furtherance of ‘the cause’. Whether it was the British or German governments in World War 2 or the Soviets in their ‘mass rape’ of Berlin in 1945 or the French pieds noir slaughter of Algerians etc etc .
Wars are not fought according to the Queensberry rules . Wars within states such as that within Northern Ireland or in the Spanish Civil War or in Balkan Wars or in present day Iraq are even more likely to be destructive of what O’Hanlon calls the ‘natural bonds ‘ of common humanity .
‘But then the IRA always were cowards. They didn’t mind who died for the cause, just so long as it wasn’t them.’
Complete tripe . Cowards don’t die on hunger strike .
Those ‘republicans ‘ or ‘loyalists’ who are found guilty by the courts of sexual or other abuse should be punished . As for Gerry Adam’s turning the other eye to his brother’s alleged crimes is there any real difference between Adams and the collective leadership of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland or among the great and ‘good’ of establishment ‘unionism ‘ who equally turned more than a blind eye to the activities of undeniably sociopathic loyalist killers ?
They ALL looked the other way. And that includes most ‘journalists’ as well .
The very fact so many apologists are crawling out of the woodwork proves that.
Posted by pippakin on Jan 27, 2010 @ 12:43 PM
How do you work that one out Pip, no one in their right minds believes the actions of a FEW were right, Lessons will be learned, you cannot stigmatise all of Sinn Fein and their supporters because of those mistakes, and the British government … please do Irishmen/women a favour dont try to lecture them about the British, sure they wouldn’t cover up anything .. What about Kincora !
tacapall
Hello! I am not stigmatising all of S/F. In fact I have repeatedly said I dont believe all activists or members were involved.
S/F will implicate themselves if they continue to dodge the questions and refute the allegations, they must suspend all members accused, naming them if required, and then reinstate or not as required. The movement wants to be a real political force now, that can only be achieved if they behave as a real political party should.
It needs to be sorted out in court, then following any or all trials, we turn our full attention on the public service, again, all of the services who might have been expected to deal with this matter in far more effective manner than they evidently have.
Now you know I have called for Kincora to be reopened. It should be investigated along with all the churches and institutions who had such evil power over our children.
jane jeffers,
‘ but this is the opposite of “impressively controlled?”’
Indeed it was anything but ‘controlled’ .I’d go further and suggest it was an emotive and irrational anti IRA /SF/Adams rant and as such will be ignored /discounted by most nationalist and republican voters .
tacapall
By the way I went three days without a cigarette, then I am afraid the call of the flesh triumphed.
Here I am sitting here in a cloud of smoke, not saying anything at all about my own will power, not a word.
Even more importantly and before anyone accuses me – neither am I making any comparisons.
The medium is the (more powerful) message in this case – this is a powerful, not to say brave piece, articulating why someone has changed fundamentally. You could only turn on ‘your own’ in such a sensitive area if you have had experiences, strong beliefs and integrity.
“All the tender and effeminate emotions of kinship, friendship, love, gratitude, and even honour, must be stilled in him by a cold and single-blooded passion.”
The above is just about as silly a statement as I have ever read, I just does not triangulate with real life people. Revolutionaries come from all walks of life, and they express the wealth of human emotions. There is good and bad amongst them.
Wonderful human beings who take injustice, inequality, kinship, friendship, loyalty and honour extremely seriously, and practice what they preach. There are others who are opportunist low lives, who in another life would have been scumbag politicians on a par with many in the UK and Ireland.
Soldiers of all armies use their bodies as a weapons, to suggest it is only islamic terrorists who go in for this, is not only wrong but displays an islamaphobia that should not be allowed on a respectable blog.
Whilst you are entitled to post what you wish and I agree the campaign on Slugger against Adams and Robinson at first equalled out and was in the public interest. However I am not sure this is now the case, as whilst Robinson has not answered any of the outstanding questions he is clearly being ‘groomed’ to return to his Stormont post. Yet Slugger has not blogged on his back door entrance and charade of an excuse for standing down, by not doing so it looks like you are easing his path back into the first ministers chair. (if it is still there
S/F will implicate themselves if they continue to dodge the questions and refute the allegations,
Posted by pippakin on Jan 27, 2010 @ 01:10 PM
How could they do that Pip if they knew nothing about the allegations in the first place, they are as ignorant about the facts as everyone else. As for the cigs, well so you have your own vice, bit like commiting suicide isn’t it. Could I even call you a terrorist.
granni trixie
Totally agree. Ms O’Hanlon writes of betrayal with real, if suppressed emotion.
It should be an abject lesson to all those who think not acknowledging the allegations, not talking about the subject will make it ‘go away’.
It will not, it cannot be allowed to.
tacapall
I take the ‘suicde’ to mean: you wish! Dream on the voice of youth and ideals.
If S/F did not know before, they do now, and they have done very little to dispel suspicion.
Any large party, be they here or in the UK would have dumped the accused by now. If or when they are found not guilty, they would be gloriously reinstated, or not, subject to result in each case.
The risk is the longer they delay the deeper they embroil themslves.
“She seems to be saying that they should throw the baby out with the dirty bathwater ”
What baby?
Jimmy-Sands
If I read the article and indeed others of the recent past correctly the allegation is: Others have already done that, but not until after the children were abused.
“Why did the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and North America, under the leadership of Ian Paisley, Alan Cairns and Frank McClellan, fail to report the sexual abuse of a 13 year old girl by several of its men? Why did they take the shocking decision to blame her for the abuse, and to label her as an “adulteress”, even though she was beneath the age of consent? BBC Spotlight’s ‘Burning Secret’, screened in June 2006, investigates this disturbing story, and features interviews with a Detective from the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit, church leaders Frank McClellan and David Brame and an attempted interview with a reluctant and evasive Ian Paisley.”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4234597940947005116#docid=-435141640418192099
The standard defence now seems to fall back on whataboutery. Kincora, Toronto the recent DUP councillor story, whateveryourehavingyourself. Either than or some trite variant on the old omlette/egg chestnut. Why pick on the provos? Because alone amongst these organisations it prohibited, as a matter of publicly stated policy, any report of criminal offences, however serious, committed by its operatives to the authorities, thereby giving perpetrators a freedom to operate that they may not otherwise have had.
“The British government although different, is in “one way at least, like the Catholic church it is easy to track down and deal with”
One of the problems this Protestant church abuse victim in the US points out is the dearth of records in Protestant churches. Despite the fact that sexual abuse rate seems to be higher there for Protestant churches, it is much harder to assess how it was dealt with because of a lack of the elaborate central filing system maintained in the Catholic Church.
http://stopbaptistpredators.blogspot.com/2009/11/church-records.html
Western Europe became concerned about abuse only sometime in the late 1980s, before then it was universally handled deplorably. Frued sowed the seeds of the highly influential “false memory syndrome” theory that taught abuse victims were not really abused at all but were projecting their own guilt about their own childhood sexuality onto adults. I’d say there is a massive amount to uncover but the threat to reputations makes me very pessimistic that the sort of transparent and comprehensive inquiry needed will ever be instituted.
If, as however unlikely, such an inquiry is established, it needs to be given statutory powers to, for example, seize files etc
Any large party, be they here or in the UK would have dumped the accused by now.
Which accused though? This is an exmaple of mud sticking. AFAIK there have been allegations in the Tribune which vaguely gives enough detail for those in a given community to work out who the alleged perpetrator is. But that is far from enough I would have thought to take the kind of action you suggest, as ‘the accused’ has not yet been accused in any court, would that not be correct?
shane
Totally agree with you. For so long child abusers within these institutions have been protected. As if to open the files of one case is to threaten the institution itself. The result has been this appalling backlog of abuse, which has lead to further abuse when the unprotected and helpless previous victims became abusers.
If full exposure threatens these institutions, tough. It is our first duty and responsibility to protect our children, regardless of race, colour or religion. There is no way it makes sense to shield child abusers in the name of a church or cause.
‘There is no way it makes sense to shield child abusers in the name of a church or cause.’
Nobody is saying it does . The law needs to take it’s course in this matter just as in the matter of Mrs Robinson and the disgraced clerics etc etc .
Neil
Well, I hate to point it out, since I do sympathise with his dilemma (see my tiny, and not very good blog.http//:pippakin-meiow.blogspot.com Item TEN the sins of the fathers). Gerry Adams could do with a holiday whilst the allegations are proven or not in court. Others too, serving or ex activists need to take a break until after the court cases.
Sinn Fein need to distance themselves from these accusations and they need to be as ruthless, though bloodless, in doing this as they have been with all other ‘enemies of the cause’. For the cause has no greater enemy than a child abuser.
The reason Sinn Fein are getting away with this scandal is because no one is surprised. And because no one is surprised it does not make for much news. The people that vote for them know full well that they have done unspeakable things to innocent people and/or supported those who have. Those unspeakable things used to be blowing people to shreds and now the fact that they include abusing children does not really stretch the unspeakability meter that much further. It wouldn’t be that much of a news story if it was discovered that Ian Huntley used to beat his wife.
Sinn Fein voters evidently don’t care. They don’t care that Adams has been shown to have lied about the child abuse either, and that again is not the slightest bit surprising, because voters know full well he has lied about lots of other things, like even being a member of the IRA. It just seems to be accepted that Sinn Fein are liars and monsters, but hey, at least they’re *our* liars and monsters.
Skintown Lad
I dont believe there are many who knowingly shielded a child abuser. I do believe there may have been many who were afraid of the consequences to their own families if they went to the RUC knowing it was against the ‘lore’.
Pippakin – I don’t believe they are many either, such is the way these things are hushed up. But the fact that there may be a few, or even one, who knew about these things and did next to nothing about it, and who still gets votes regardless, betrays the low expectation of the voters as to the morals of their own chosen leaders.
‘lore’.
Posted by pippakin on Jan 27, 2010 @ 02:45 PM
Is that your attempt at an Irish accent Pip, “nice one old chap” Once again these incidents were covered up by a “FEW” for their own selfish reasons – nothing else.
tacapall
Actually, since the rule of law, could hardly be said to have applied in certain areas. I chose the old, the, and I quote: the body of knowledge esp. of a traditional anecdotal etc.
I dont have to ‘pretend’ Irish, just as I dont have to jump to conclusions.
There is more to being Irish than supporting the IRA, or even Sinn Fein.