“What we have learned is that hearts and minds are fluid. And they do change”
No better man than Malachi O’Doherty for a sweet and powerful valedictory for a very long and sometimes politically tough Peace Process™ era, and the programme that brought us some of the most memorable commentary of that era…
And in the process he also praises the decency, for the most part, of politicians who are now battling manfully to get things done…
Ní Bheidh a Leithéid Arís Ann…
Tags: Hearts and Minds, Malachi O'Doherty, normal politics, Peace Process
Topic: Government, Politics, Society and Culture
Region: Northern Ireland
Topic: Government, Politics, Society and Culture
Region: Northern Ireland
Mick
Apologies in advance for going completely off-topic, but I do find it irritating when I open a post whose title is in English only to find that the text switches to a foreign language that I don’t understand.
You don’t like The Wasteland then?
Try Google Translate, if you can be bothered…
In case you can’t, it’s a famous line from Flann O’Brien’s satirical novel which sends up the arch Gaels, The Poor Mouth.
It just translates as “we’ll never see its like again…”
Ok so because of this I’ve just had to spend the last 40 minutes reading up on who this Flann O’Brien was. Not a bad way to spend 40 minutes, to be fair, and I’ll keep an eye out for his writing in future. Although I notice that one of his pet targets was the Irish language lobby, so there’s a bit of irony for you.
Anyway, don’t do it again.
We Gaeilgeoirs (well, some of us anyway) do do irony you know!!
Though in this case, there was no irony intended… Malachi was once the toughest critic of the Peace Process, and as he notes looking back on all that passion, it is hard to see what on earth it was all about. That it seems that much of what people said about politics back at the start was, stupid.
It maybe does look stupid now, but remember that we were much closer to the violence back then. People had strong feelings, understandably so. The further away from the violence we get, the less polarized our opinions are.
I’m not a great fan of Blair, but I did always think that his strategy was to simply make the violence stop (whatever the cost) in the hope that people would eventually start to behave in a more rational way.
DoppiaVu
I’m delighted to reassure you that the text above, which so offended your eyes, is not ‘foreign’.
So pleased that you have now heard of Flann O’Brien. You seem like you could do with a bit of cultural nourishment…
Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan) – born in Strabane.
Stay classy Billy…
I bought a copy of ‘The Best of Myles’ about forty years ago and dip into it from time to time. I must say Brian made a better fist of describing politicians/bloggers/commenters than poor Malachi
:
The ignorant self-opinionated sod-minded suet-brained ham-faced mealy-mouthed streptococcus-ridden gang of natural gobdaws
“What we have learned is that hearts and minds are fluid. And they do change”
Peace and violence have ebbed and flowed in these parts for centuries upon centuries – and are likely to continue to do so.
“Peace and violence have ebbed and flowed in these parts for centuries upon centuries – and are likely to continue to do so.”
I do not agree. It is only during instability that one gets conflict. The world is a much better place now than even 50 years ago. The end of the nation state as we knew it has already occurred in Europe. Russia and the USA are in conflict only on what is the best way to deal with a issue in the middle east not on how to blow up the world. Tomorrow is looking to be a great place to live.