The Roma who fled from Belfast face a worse fate back in Romania, journalists following up the story conclude. The Times’ David Sharrock finds them back in poverty-striken Batar and asks:
Just how terrified must the Roma families in Belfast have been to choose this over their imperfect lives in Northern Ireland? Florin Fekete returned on Monday with his wife and two sons. “There is no work here. Life in Belfast was good, we had really good times but I could not risk my family’s lives. I asked some of the ones who were attacking us, ‘What do you have against us?’.“The reply was, ‘We hate you because you are gypsies’. But even though I am afraid, I want to go back. Is it safe now, do you think?
Aida Edemariam of the Guardian can’t actually find any returning Roma, but Belfast’s reputation has arrived before them.
What’s going on in Ireland now?” asked a young man, intently, when we were at Vadul Crisului. “Can we go back to Ireland?” He has tickets to fly to Dublin next month. “Is it safe?” Are you going to Belfast? “No, no, no, not Belfast.” It’s a veritable chorus from the people surrounding him. What do they know about the attacks? Only what they saw on television. And what did they think of that? “We’re afraid to go to Ireland.” They’ve had problems in Italy and Spain, they say, but nothing as bad as Belfast. Why Belfast, do they think? Maybe it’s the spirit there. Maybe people are more violent. I don’t know I’m guessing.
Petru Clej reports for the BBC from western Romania on the reception they can expect.
But if Romanian journalists displayed sympathy, some of their readers voiced prejudices against the Roma minority - under the anonymity of the internet. Many objected to the Belfast migrants being called Romanians, and others congratulated those who intimidated the immigrants into leaving Belfast.
“The Irish have won a battle; the Romanians have lost. Congratulations, they did the cleaning,” reads one website posting.
Or did he mean “cleansing”?
.
A conclusion from Dimitrina Petrova, Executive director, Equal Rights Trust.
I was struck by two things. First, as anyone involved in equality law work would agree, Northern Ireland has been a success story: and yet, it is striking how superficial this success has been. The second is the very fact that a large group of Roma families are leaving a western city in which they had sought refuge. This is something new. In over 15 years of working with Roma communities across Europe, I have never witnessed a community willingly returning to eastern Europe, even in the face of sustained prejudice, violence and discrimination.
David Cameron’s article in the Belfast Telegraph underscores the Conservative and Unionist intention to stand in all 18 Westminster constituencies ( I can’t stand that damned, near-obscene acronym). Despite Ed Curran’s injunction not to lose any sleep over TUV, the hasty end of double jobbing and other little problems, this must throw unionist political calculations into the melting pot. Reg may be basing his confidence on the shifting sands of the Eurovote but it’s hard not to believe that Cameron’s tactical pitch is simply to leave no avenue of political advantage unexplored in case forming the next government comes down to a couple of seats. And that’s a tall order, in North Down and South Belfast for different reasons. Yet in his article Cameron raises his sights beyond mere tactical advantage. He proclaims that the Conservatives are the party of the Union once again. This is a new departure, after generations of treating Ulster Unionists as the embarrassing mad relatives they hardly knew.
Conservatives are now the only party with representation in every region of the United Kingdom. That is the first time in over a generation that any national political party can make that claim.
Cameron is taking a calculated risk by failing to make the usual obeisance to British Irish partnership and powersharing. Nationalism and the Republic rate not a mention, and he boldly refers to the “ constitutional issue as “settled.” So this is no watery cross community pitch. It reads like the beginning of a long battle for unionism, leaving the wider community interests to be dealt with later.
The constitutional issue was settled in 1998 when referendums in the North and South gave |the current arrangements |resounding endorsement…Northern Ireland now has the opportunity to re-enter the mainstream of national politics. That is what the Conservatives and Unionists offer.
If the offer is rejected at the polls, what then? Well, Cameron can say he will have done his best. Would he then leave Reg high and dry to face down the cry of unionist splitter alone, or hunker down for the long haul to create a new, looser form of UK unionism? He probably doesn’t know himself. But as we’ve seen, many Ulster Unionists are wary of the Tory toff who plays the Ulster card.
Cameron displays a similar pragmatism towards Scotland where his hope of winning seats is hardly much greater. He has promised to “respect” the devolution settlement even in the hands of the SNP government and has come out in cautious support for the Calman report’s recommendations for more tax and spending powers for Holyrood. Commentator Iain McWhirter doubts if Calman will actually be implemented, but it too, may have its tactical uses.
More likely Calman will be the starting point for negotiations between Alex Salmond and an incoming Conservative government under David Cameron. Eager to address the West Lothian question and under pressure from English Tories to curb spending in Scotland, Cameron might well consider full tax autonomy for Holyrood in exchange for the abolition of Barnett and a reduction in the number of Scottish MPs. And he can use the arguments supplied by a Labour-inspired committee. So, as well as making an honest person of the Scottish parliament, Calman could be the spark that leads to a constitutional transformation in Westminster.
Matthew Parris reckons nowhere is quite like Belfast in terms of it’s sheer social solidarity. In fact we’re so solid with one another that Belfast is the most well catered for city in terms of local swimming pools because back in the seventies and early eighties when many of them were built it was physically dangerous for people to turn up at the wrong pool in the wrong place. I remember a mate with unmistakeably Irish fore and surnames having his name called out in Holywood Road social services offices who decided it was healthier not get up and sign on when two of his neighbours in the queue muttered to one another “let’s jump the fenian b******* when he leaves…” Nowhere that is but places like Blackpool out of season (via Nuzhound):
In a Blackpool taxi some years ago I asked the driver if the town was a nice place to live, even out of season.
“Fantastic!” he said. “Especially out of season. So friendly. For example, a black man came to live here and bought a local pub. Well, our community wasn’t having that; not here; not a black. So word got round among friends and neighbours to boycott the business. Soon nobody drank there. The black man went bankrupt and left. Yes - really good community spirit here in Blackpool.”
“He would like the company to emphasise that its software helps to protect people (whether through having good air traffic controls systems or in radar work etc), not kill people. In addition, he suggested that in describing the work in a public arena reference should be made to government contracts, rather than MoD contracts, since the latter can be emotive. He undertook to update his colleagues, including Mark Durkan, on the meetings and he would work behind the scenes to get support for the company.
“The company were content with the outcome of the meeting and advised John Hume that they would be moving forward with gaining certification to undertake additional government (MoD) work. They undertook to keep in touch with John Hume’s office…by providing updates.”
Hume disputes the obvious implications of Pearson’s internal report… In fact the paper carries a lengthy rebuttal:
“The memo obtained by the Sentinel was not an agreed minute of a briefing which was provided by Invest NI in respect of Raytheon in 2003 and the SDLP does not accept its contents as an accurate reflection of the meeting.
“John Hume as the then MP did not indicate that he was content with Raytheon exploring defence options for Derry and in no way advised Invest NI or the company to present any such activities in any particular way. In fact, the briefing was provided as John had made clear that he would not support development of products that were not designed to protect people.
“While John and Mark Durkan did not discuss this particular meeting, their discussions about Raytheon around that time adhered to the party stance and there was no question of any SDLP representative working either behind the scenes or publicly for a change in approach to Raytheon. The party has at all times maintained exactly the same stance on this matter in public and in private, as the public would expect. In fact, Mark Durkan as party leader and councillors discussed this issue when it came to council and they reinforced the party’s consistent position.
“That position was and remains that the welcome expressed by council when Raytheon came to the city was contingent on civilian applications being its work, and that if that changed then the welcome position would change. At any further meetings with Raytheon the party also made clear its position in respect of development of systems in Derry which were not designed for civilian use.”
If the golden rule of government intervention is only to move in where there is market failure then, the pulling of funding from Foinse by Foras is a disastrous policy decision. Particularly when it leaves many of us not understanding clearly what the inscrutable cross border body actually does do for its money. iGaeilge was one of the first to report the news last night, and carries a quote from Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, noting the tragedy of the situation. The burden of carrying news as Gaeilge will fall to a handful of projects that continue to press on like Beo.ie, Gaelport, Inside Ireland, and more dynamic, news based blogging like An Druma Mor. But it is also going to require some lift from Irish civil society too.
He may be a “a 70-year-old smiling public man” but Michael Longley exudes the lyrical joy in nature, the birds and flowers of Mayo and anything else in creation. His classical learning inspired him to give the troubles an elegaic quality few can match.
1
Put in mind of his own father and moved to tears
Achilles took him by the hand and pushed the old king
Gently away, but Priam curled up at his feet and
Wept with him until their sadness filled the building.
2
Taking Hector’s corpse into his own hands Achilles
Made sure it was washed and, for the old king’s sake,
Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carry
Wrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.
3
When they had eaten together, it pleased them both
To stare at each other’s beauty as lovers might,
Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking still
And full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:
4
‘I get down on my knees and do what must be done
And kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son.’
Longley is also known for his very graphic war-imagry.
In ‘Wounds’, he again uses his father’s memories to portray the horror and the futility of war and bigotry.
He describes a young soldier, still only a child, who goes into battle for the last time (at the Somme), and his last words are a screamed declaration of his bigotry and his hatred;
“Going over the top with ‘Fuck the Pope!’
‘No Surrender!’: a boy about to die,
Screaming ‘Give ‘em one for the Shankill!’ “
There is a sense of both disgust and shame at such a waste of life, and a sense of pity for someone so ignorant that they die for what they hate, as opposed to giving their life defending what they love.
The horror of war is brought home with the descriptions of the dead;
“A landscape of dead buttocks”
“Three teenage soldiers, bellies full of
Bullets and Irish beer, their flies undone”
He describes a burial;
“A packet of Woodbines I throw in,
A lucifer, the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Paralysed as heavy guns put out
The night-light in a nursery forever”
Slugger was seven years old earlier this month. Perhaps not right from the beginning but from pretty early on, the debate about how newspapers were being displaced from their poll position as disseminators of the public mind has been a small but significant part of the Slugger output. That’s one reason why I get asked to speak on this and other related subjects in Dublin and London as well as Belfast. But it is the states as ever which is at the sharp end of the technological and economic disruption, and with some of the country’s biggest news institutions hanging over an economic cliff Jeff Jarvis chooses his moment to deliver a stinging missive on the collective follies of the newspaper industry:
Having not taken advantage of the last two decades to reinvent the news business, you’re not going to manage a rescue in two months, before the creditors come calling. That was your worst hail Mary: stoking up on debt and hoping to milk these cows for years to come.
Mad cash-cow disease, that’s what too many of you had. Your other desperate moves: suddenly fantasizing that you can fix everything by going behind a wall (to tell with Google and its billions of readers!) and charging us because you think we “should” pay. Since when is a business plan built on “should?” I haven’t seen a sensible P&L justifying this dream from any of you. If you have one, please stand up show us now….. I thought so.
Other desperation moves: fantasies of white knights from foundations buying you and letting you stay just the way you are…. government subsidies (do we even have to discuss the danger?)…. switching to not-for-profit, as if that suddenly takes away the need to sustain the business still… misguided, self-righteousness thinking that Google or cable companies owe you money, as if you have a God-given right to the revenue and customers you lost….. No, none of this will save newspapers and in your subconscious, at least, you know it. You know the truth.
It goes right to the heart of what’s going to happen here, and pretty shortly. The high and easily get-at-able revenues of the old days are gone. Cultivating networks and relationships with an articulate and Intelligent Commons. Who has the humility, social intelligence (and the reserves) to start from the ground up all over again, will have the means to sustain themselves into the future.
The BBC ‘s director general Mark Thompson must be joking.
“Defending the £6 million pay package to Ross and other stars, Mr Thompson said that “disclosure of this kind is likely to lead, not to better value for money” but “fresh upward pressure on pay”, saying that Graham Norton or Anne Robinson or others could not be described as “public decision-makers or public officers of the BBC”.
Still, this is one silly gamey statement in a pretty unapologetic defence of the BBC way of doing things. Now that bankers and politicians have taken so much heat, the BBC can afford to go late and go public with its top persons’ expenses. They don’t look so bad, after all. My impression is that few people care very much about the BBC’s occasional extravagances, with so much else going on.
Contrary to what the Times insinuates, we know full well that the cost of “talent” will reduce by between 25% and 40%. Will those ridiculous top salaries for executives follow? That’s the one to watch. Slightly unreasonably, Mike White in the Guardian sees the black hand of Murdoch behind the Times’ criticism. (His own paper is just as critical). Murdoch has to face his own pressures. In a bid to increase competition, the regulator Ofcom is trying to force the Murdoch-controlled Sky to share its premium movie and sports channels with others. What others, since the collapse of Setanta? I always thought it rough that people had to pay two subscriptions to watch some football. Top soccer is one slice of the media where the market rules, whatever the regulator may wish for.. The test of the market is whether another competitor can take on Sky.
While reading on the election of German MEP Lothar Bisky as new President of the GUE/NGL group in the European Parliament, he replaces the retiring Francis Wurtz, I happened to look at the group’s MEP page. I was surprised, as I hadn’t heard about it but now realise it was mentioned in the Irish Times, but delighted to see Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins has joined Sinn Féin in that group.
I missed order of business in Dail as a live blog, but it looks like it would have made compelling viewing. This is what a real legislative parliamentary body can do, just by being sheer bloody-minded… Oh yeah, you’d need an Opposition for that…
We are reverting to something like the hubbub of three hundred years ago, when countless noisy pamphlets and broadsheets (‘news-papers’) and other forms of written material jostled for position. Gradually that led to consolidation as some people bought the expensive kit to let them distribute on a national scale.
But now the point is that mass distribution is mainly free. And competition as always is driving down prices, in this case towards zero. The Commentariat’s days as an elite getting paid for what they do are numbered. For better or worse, and no doubt both.
This gets to the heart of the real change being wrought, as Charles says for good or for ill, by the Internet. That change is ruthless, and when it gets to critical mass has the capacity to disconnect those companies and organisations who have not begun to find new ways to find new disaggregated audiences. Or have left it too long on the back burner as something they once wanted get around to doing.
“Our measurements imply that besides table salt, the grains also contain carbonates like soda. Both components are in concentrations that match the predicted composition of an Enceladus ocean,” Postberg said. “The carbonates also provide a slightly alkaline pH value. If the liquid source is an ocean, it could provide a suitable environment on Enceladus for the formation of life precursors when coupled with the heat measured near the moon’s south pole and the organic compounds found within the plumes.”
And here’s the associated Jet Propulsion Laboratory video. AddsBBC report.And Some of the older links don’t work due to a redesign of the Cassini [JPL] website. Here’s a key press release from March 2008.
I’ve been thinking about knitting recently. It seems a good image for what those of us in the Centre for Cross Border Studies, Cooperation Ireland and other North-South ‘reconciliation’ bodies are trying to do: knitting damaged relationships between people and communities on this island back together again. Knitting is an activity usually done by women: it is slow, painstaking, meticulous, unglamorous and utterly unthreatening. When done well it produces articles of great beauty, which are at the same time useful, warm and comfortable. And more often than not it is done to produce gifts for people - husbands, children and other family members - whom the knitter loves.
The Centre continues to work away quietly and steadily at its knitting, like an old granny in the corner of the parlour. It undertakes practical cross-border research, training, networking and information provision for teachers and health employees and civil servants and people moving across the border to live and work. Some of the initiatives we think are most important and innovative - for example, training public officials in North-South cooperation or bringing children together to learn about the dangers of racism and sectarianism - are always in danger of disappearing with the expiry of EU funding and the failure of cash-starved governments to step in and fill the gap.
But after 10 years we have become used to living on our wits and moving on to new areas - new knitting patterns, if you like. In 2009 we are moving into five areas, three of them extensions of existing work and two brand new. The EU INTERREG IVA programme has funded the Centre to undertake research, information and training projects during the period 2009-2011 in cross-border mobility information, spatial planning, hospital services and impact assessment, along with reviving the cross-border regional economy.
The cross-border mobility information project is an extension of the acclaimed Border People public information website (www.borderpeople.info) , which provides practical information on things like taxation, social security, job seeking, qualifications, health, education, housing and banking for people moving across the border to live, work, study or retire. People living in border areas may have seen our publicity campaign last summer with its motif of question marks in the form of footsteps. A new campaign, with a signposting motif, will start in Enniskillen, Letterkenny and Bundoran (on buses and bus shelters) next month, and will run in various border region towns until Christmas 2011.
The CroSPlaN (Cross-border Spatial Planning and training Network) is being led by our sister organisation, the International Centre for Local and Regional Development (ICLRD). It will train local councillors, officials, business and community leaders in the border region to deal with the new planning powers being returned to them under the reform of public administration in the North, and help them work with their colleagues in the South to use the new non-statutory cross-border planning framework which is currently waiting for final approval from the Northern Ireland Executive.
We are also undertaking a research project - in partnership with the Institute of Public Health in Ireland - to explore what hospital services in the border region might look like if you ignored the border and provided those services on the basis purely of the health needs of the region’s population, the availability of hospital beds and specialities, and the transport network. The start of this study has been held back for a few months because of the departure of the Centre’s versatile and knowledgeable research manager (and health specialist), Patricia Clarke, who, after more than nine years in Armagh, has moved to a senior job in the Health Research Board in Dublin. We wish her well - she will be a hard act to follow.
The final two areas are new ones for the Centre. In the autumn we will be starting a big study (in collaboration with InterTradeIreland) on how the economy of the cross-border region - from Derry and Letterkenny at one end to Newry and Dundalk at the other, and all the largely rural bits in between - might be revived in this new era of peace but also of prolonged economic recession. The study will look in particular at the roles of cross-border shopping (and how the crazy, seesawing distortions caused by currency and price differentials might be offset in some way), micro-enterprises (firms with less than 10 employees) and tourism in developing a region that is almost certainly never going to find another major multinational company to put its people to work in large numbers again.
Finally we are going to attempt to put together a ‘pilot impact assessment toolkit’ which (we hope) will for the first time help politicians, civil servants and others to measure the impact and cost-effectiveness of cross-border cooperation in Ireland. This project - one of the first of its kind anywhere in Europe - will use techniques developed in health and environmental impact assessment to understand this complex process. This project will begin in the middle of next year.
So there you have it: the Centre’s knitting programme for the next two and a half years. Here’s hoping that we can produce some things that are, if not beautiful, at least useful in helping to find new and practical ways in which governments and people in the two Irish jurisdictions can learn to work together for mutual benefit.
Directors welcomed the fiscal measures already taken, including significant and politically difficult cuts in public sector wages, and the authorities’ ambitious medium-term fiscal consolidation plans. The emergence of a large structural fiscal deficit—following the reassessment of the underlying balance—the rising public debt, and the fiscal burden from financial support to banks will require a sustained adjustment effort over several years. Directors stressed that the composition of consolidation efforts would be important in laying the foundation for a return to robust growth. They generally concurred that the focus should be on expenditure reduction, possibly including a further reduction of the public sector wage bill. A few Directors, while recognizing that fiscal consolidation is an imperative, cautioned that consolidation should not undermine efforts to arrest the economic downturn.
Seamus Heaney has lent his electronic presence to the Ireland for Europe campaign, an assembly of notables who aren’t leaving it to the politicians this time. The move to give the campaign a wider platform seems to have paid off. Tim Garton Ash the foreign affairs academic and commentator picked up on the launch event in Dublin at the weekend for a Guardian comment piece. A video reading of Heaney reading out his poem Beacons at Bealtime (a May festival) was shown, to lift the sights in the debate. It was written for the Phoenix Park ceremony to commemorate the enlarged EU of 27 during the Irish Presidency in 2004.
Uisce: water. And fionn: the water’s clear.
But dip and find this Gaelic water Greek:
A phoenix flames upon fionn uisce here….
We can see how “Phoenix” as in Park refers to clear water, not the mythical bird. For Heaney, the two meanings link up to express the common European heritage and make “new meanings..
“Move lips, move minds and make new meanings flare.”
Garton Ash displays modern British sensitivity towards the Irish campaign.
Irish voters have a very understandable allergy to being bullied by the rest of Europe into giving the “right” answer. So we, their fellow Europeans, have to be careful what we say and how we say it – perhaps especially if we speak with a British accent.
I wonder how the knock-on effect of a making a UK referendum more likely will figure in the Irish debate?
The greatest battleship ever built was the Japanese Yamato. She was the largest, had the largest guns and was the most heavily armoured. She was sent on a suicide mission (called operation Ten-Go) to attack the Americans on Okinawa in April 1945. However, she was repeatedly attacked by American carrier borne aircraft and over a period of two hours she was sunk by numerous torpedo and bomb hits. It was the inevitable end of the finest example of a once overwhelmingly powerful military machine which technology had rendered obsolete.
It appears that Dr. Paisley may feel that he has at least one election left in him: both the BBC and the News Letter are carrying the story that Dr. Paisley is thinking of running again for North Antrim in the next Westminster elections. Paisley earlier suggested that Jim Allister would be “very welcome to come and get a hiding in North Antrim.” Jim Allister seems unmoved stating “I look forward to the verdict of the people of North Antrim on the chuckle routine and the record of their absentee Westminster representative.”
The question is whether Paisley has one more victory left in him or is he fated like the Yamato to be perused to destruction, military technology having passed the battleship by.
“We have a peace process and a political process that are working well, Now the third process, reconcilation.” Ever so gingerly, and leaving a black slick behind him as is his oleaginous style, Shaun Woodward has just launched a 14 week consultation on the Consultative Group on the Past. A bit like the Assembly structure, you may chose to tick the boxes with predictable answers to the Group’s questions in a big glossy NI Office book and /or give your extended views in “Other”. Why so late after Eames/Bradley’s disastrous unveiling in January? Well, there was the firestorm over recognition payments, the Massereene murders, Easter, the purdah leading up to the Euros- and there you have it – why not slap bang in the middle of the marching season?
UpdateThe Bel Tel reports : ”Secretary of State Shaun Woodward wants people in favour of the widely-criticised £12,000 recognition payment plan to write to him arguing the case for it to go ahead.” This is perfectly accurate. But he also said later: “short of banging my head on the table to make it clear, it isn’t going to happen.” This is the voice of true leadership from Gordon Brown’s latest consigliere. He might also have spelt out that the Assembly will have to find up to £100 million out of the block grant plus whatever they get for J&P, for a Legacy Commission ( or whatever they’ll call it). If that’s what he meant, that is. Woodward appears to have left the whole Dealing with the Past agenda up in the air - or entirely to the Assembly, which is much the same. What’s the betting he’ll park the whole thing in October? Briefings and strong public voices urgently needed. Meanwhile, why isn’t this being reported on the BBC website?
Woodward doesn’t want to dictate the responses you understand, but after talkiing “informally” to the local parties he does offer guidelines
so tactfully you can barely follow him.
Just to repeat, “the one recommendation out of 31” – he didn’t even dare name it – is out, as far as he ‘s concerned. Next question, an amnesty? “ That’s not a word I’d use.”
The Chief Constable is to produce a “short interim report” on the Historic Enquiries Team ( “exemplary work”) by September presumably to assess whether to merge it into - something else. But what?
“Justice is beyond price” he intoned, “ but cost is a factor. A Saville type inquiry is out – for Iraq and for Dealing with the Past. You mightn’t call it a “Legacy” commission or even a “Truth and Reconciliation”commission. “Not a Big Bang” ( not the most fortunate phrase), “ it could be staged.” He seems to be leaning towards one of the lesser suggestions, the one for a reconciliation forum . “I’d like to hear the Finucane family’s views on that” ( I wouldn’t get yourself too excited about that one Shaun). On Eames/Bradley’s mooted cost of reconciliation/legacy, £100 million; “Where’s that to come from?” he asked, I presume rhetorically.
One of the big issues is get agreement is on the definition of victim. “That will be up to the Assembly,” he told the Commons NI Committee. Great, so Shaun’s ducking that one, in fact he seems to be ducking everything except the cost parameters. Why? Because “ we hope we can reach agreement on the final stage of devolution in the coming months”. (So the buck passes over completely then and with it, what hope of agreement you may ask?) “Very helpful” was the definition of Alan McBride , whose wife and father-in-law were killed in the1993 Shankill bombing. No hierarchy of victims and no moral equivalence.
Indeed I have often acknowledged, in my own case of losing my wife in the Shankill bomb, that the mother of the bomber Thomas Begley hurts much like myself. In fact, it could be argued that her pain is more acute, due to the fact that she not only lost a son but that she also has to live with the knowledge that her son killed nine other people. That being the case I believe Mrs Begley should receive all the help society can give her to help her deal with her tragedy; but I have always stopped short of suggesting that that should be monetary in nature.
“Will anything happen?” sighed Kat Hooey in a tone expecting the answer No. But getting the inevitable “Yes, its got to.” from Woodward. But what? I’ll be probably be gone anyway, he actually did suggest.
That this House regrets that many police forces fail to recognise the importance of a journalist’s right to protect his or her sources; believes that the protection of confidential sources is internationally recognised as one of the basic principles of press freedom and attempts to force journalists to disclose information to the security services undermine the confidence and candour with which sources will talk to journalists and damages the ability of the press to hold people in positions of power to account; and therefore calls on the Government to issue guidance to police forces across the UK to remind them of the need to respect press freedom.
On last night’s Stormont Today, basement dwellers Jim Fitzpatrick and Mark Devenport discussed the NI Assembly’s agreed new code of conduct for MLAs. Hansard record of the debate here. Below the fold, after a blast of righteous indignation from an Ian Paisley Jnr selectively quoting from Interim Commissioner Tom Frawley’s report on his use of public funds, the Chairman of the NI Assembly Committee on Standards and Privileges, the SDLP’s Carmel Hanna, explains the new measures. And, on the potential “can of worms” of regulating MLAs speech outside the Assembly chamber, she claims that the new clause “may come into play if somebody makes extremely, extremely, aggressive and abusive, or indeed insulting remarks”. Hmm.. that won’t necessarily be required before anyone makes a complaint. And I’d be more re-assured if there was greater evidence of MLAs on that particular committee being prepared to leave their party political affliations outside the room.
Tonight sees the launch of a long awaited book, ‘Towards Inclusion: Protestants and the Irish Language’ by Lurgan man (agus fíorGhael!) Dr. Ian Malcolm. It will be launched in the Canada Room, Q.U.B, tonight at 6:00 pm. It is a book that I have longed looked forward to reading, I hope to review it on Slugger before too long.
Ian is well known (and very useful!) in the Irish language media as he represents the unionist view.
The following is the product description from Amazon, I assume it is from the cover.
In Northern Ireland the Irish language has the power to enrage and enthral. For some, Irish is the expression of a cherished culture, but its close association with nationalism and republicanism means that Protestants and unionists rarely see it in a positive light. History reveals that this was not always the case. For centuries, Protestants engaged with Irish on their own terms, sometimes for academic reasons but often because it was their everyday language and an integral part of their lives. ‘Towards Inclusion’ considers these fascinating historical perspectives, as well as covering the role of the Irish language in Northern Ireland’s more recent past. But the main body of the book is based on Malcolm’s extensive and detailed research into the attitudes of young Protestants towards the Irish language, carried out through questionnaires and focus groups. Some of the students had attended a Gael-Linn language enrichment course, but the rest had little or no exposure to Irish. The results of this research are both striking and surprising, and will provoke fresh debate on the role of the Irish language in Northern Ireland today. In the twenty-first century can Irish become the intellectual property of all, regardless of political stance or religion?
I myself have taught Irish and related subjects in a number of Protestant schools and it was always an interesting an positive experience. I was alway concious however that all the kids were volunteers and that those with very negative views towards Irish were high;y unlikely ever to attend such a class.
The thing which interested all the kids in all schools was their own surnames and their meanings, they were often quite thrilled to learn what their names mean, though I must admitt that some English surnames had me quite stumped!
Listening to the coverage of the attacks against the Romanians over the past few days, there seems to have been 2 points of view. On the one hand, blame is being apportioned to the ‘extremists’, to the small handful, to the very few intolerant people who live in every society. However, there has been a very steady stream of callers to radio shows on both sides of the border who make their very rational arguments that while they may not agree with violent methods, they certainly agree that ‘they’ don’t belong here.
The Equality Commission published a survey today confirming that our attitudes are hardening, and it’s not just Travellers, Roma or those from outside our spectrum of acceptable white people. ‘More than one in five people (23%) say they would mind a gay, lesbian or bisexual person living next door, compared to 14% three years ago. The same number (23%) say they would have the same problem with a migrant worker. Almost one-in-six of those surveyed (16%) said they would not want a person with mental ill-health as a neighbour. In comparison, 6% felt the same about those with a physical disability. Having a neighbour of a different religion was a difficulty for only 6% of respondents.
Bob Collins said ‘The findings suggest a hardening of views towards some people and also the complexities around those views. For example, in a similar survey in 2005, we asked about attitudes towards disabled people generally and received fairly positive responses. In this survey we have probed more deeply and found that those with mental ill-health were viewed more negatively than other groups of disabled people. Attitudes became more intense as the respondents considered closer social contact with the groups in question. So, in attitudes towards many groups, more people would mind having them as an in-law, than would mind having them as a neighbour or a work colleague. The most negative attitudes were expressed towards Travellers. A substantial minority also responded negatively towards gay, lesbian or bisexual people and towards migrant workers.
Perhaps it is a sign of our economic times that we become more protective of our borders and there is a herd instinct to be mindful of ourselves first. Irish people are renowned for helping others across the globe in times of hardship, but it certainly seem that we prefer if they stay where they are to get that bit of help.
More worrying of course are the views against other sections of society who don’t fit our idea of the norm. It must be at times like this that we turn to our leadership for example on tolerance and acceptance. That includes tolerance of the Gay, Lesbian and Bi-sexuals and an acceptance of their sexuality. I was a little surprised at the attitude towards those with disability or mental health problems. That more than anything else would appear to signal a loss of tolerance that is very worrying indeed.
Religious tolerance is improving, but what have we lost along the way?
