There is clearly the particular relevance that this war has for people who live on this island: many nationalists and unionists volunteered (remember that there was no conscription throughout Ireland) and fought at times side by side. There is also of course the iconic status of the Easter Rising for nationalists and republicans and the equally iconic status of the Somme for unionists.

Understanding the at times collective near obsession with the First World War throughout GB and Ireland is complicated. The ongoing years and the now so few people left who remember anything about it; let alone the (maybe only two) very few remaining who fought: Harry Patch and Henry Allingham might make people think it would fade from memory only to be remembered by historians professional or amateur and the armed forces. However, this has not happened and interest in the First World War has remained high.

I have heard it suggested that this is in part because it was a war which we, looking back, cannot understand. The rise of Hitler etc. and the Second World War can be understood but why the First World War broke out is so extremely complex. Obviously many of you will be able to explain the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and indeed the nature of the rivalries between the imperial powers. Whilst factually this may explain the road to war it seems inadequate to explain the cataclysm which was to follow. The pictures of people so delighted and cheering the announcement of war, many of whom were to die in it also seems so bizarre and unfathomable to us now. This ambiguity as to why we went to war and the feeling that all those young men on both sides lost their lives for so little reason may well both fascinate us and make us feel in some way if not guilty, at least uneasy.

Added to that is the sheer scale of the then UK’s losses (almost one million) to which must be added the losses of the other nations of the empire. The numbers of mainly young men who died and were wounded on both sides is truly staggering. The apparently needless and ineffectual nature of many of those deaths is also important. The apparent pointlessness of many of the attacks during which men holding rifles charged (or walked) towards lines of barbed wire and machine guns is quite horrifying.

These factors together may help explain the dreadful iconic status that the war had and still retains. I have heard the reaction to it compared to, (for British and Irish people) a combination of the American reactions to the American Civil War (in terms of causalities) and the Vietnam War (in terms of people’s ambiguity regarding the reasons for fighting it).

An additional peculiarly British and Protestant analysis I have heard and read is that as Protestants are not meant to pray for the dead and indeed personal salvation requires personally accepting Christ. As such we fear that many of these young men went to a lost eternity and there is nothing at all we can now do for them. In this context the war memorials become altars, those laying the wreaths the priests, the wreaths become the sacrifice and we feel that we are almost allowed to pray for the souls of those who died. This analysis may well have had significant relevance in the immediate aftermath of the war.

Whatever the truth of the above this dreadful war almost one hundred years ago is of great significance even today.

In closing I want to mention one hero of that war whom I hope all can honour for his courage. He is William McFadzean. On the morning of the 1st of July 1916 he was in a trench when a box of grenades was spilled and the pins came out of two. McFadzean threw himself on top of the grenades and was killed but due to his heroic and selfless actions only one of his comrades was injured. Finally a mention that Dr. Paisley has been to lay a wreath at the grave of William Redmond killed at the Battle of Messines.

Many traditional Christians (including fairly fundamentalist types like myself) become very uncomfortable when this issue is mentioned. It tends to summon up images of people making claims of the ability to heal / having been healed, though it is worth noting that Mr. Sullivan seems very keen to ascribe credit to God and not to himself. Of course sceptics and atheists will dismiss such things but for Christians (especially fundamentalists) to do so seems odd: after all if one believes in the literal truth of the bible there are multiple episodes of people being healed and indeed raised from the dead by our Lord but also by assorted other persons in both the Old and New Testament.

A current Presbyterian minister who has been involved in Divine healing Rev. Stephen Williamson has also counselled caution over one recent claim of a man coming back from the dead and others have also warned of “possible deception.”

The Presbyterian Church has had a Divine Healing Committee (Presbyterians have committees for everything) and for many years its convener was one of our local ministers. I remember him talking about this issue and being very insistent that he had seen people healed but being even more insistent that he had no healing “gifts.” He would pray for people and indeed was willing to place his hands on them if they requested it but always denied any “gift” or power and, rightly or wrongly, studiously avoided publicity. The Reformed Presbyterian Church takes what is technically called a “dispensationalist” position and believes that gifts such as healing have ceased basing this on this passage from 1st Corinthians 13 v. 8 “Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” The Independent Methodists have a relatively similar line to the Presbyterians. I am uncertain regarding the Roman Catholic position on these issues but it appears not vastly different to that of the mainstream Protestant denominations. I believe that at Lourdes for example there is always a doctor present in an attempt to establish the veracity of any episodes of miraculous healing. Most of the mainstream churches are extremely cautious about anyone saying that they have been given any healing gifts.

As well as the problem of deception noted above there is also the problem that some illnesses are self limiting and may get better themselves after a time: these include things like ME, other diseases are inherently episodic in their nature like epilepsy and yet others are what is technically called “remitting / relapsing.” In all these cases an improvement, which was ascribed to miraculous means, could actually be simply part of the natural progression of the illness. Even a small number of cancers and some forms of heart disease do occasionally show spontaneous remission. Equally, however, believers would argue that these cases are examples of Divine Healing; in addition there are a number of cases which medical science has been unable to explain. To Christians this is seen as an example of Divine Healing whilst to atheists it would simply be a phenomenon which has not yet, but may well one day be found to have a rational explanation. I suppose it is really a matter of belief.

From Republican Sinn Fein:

Martin McGuinness’ claims that those opposed to English rule in Ireland wish to force the Provos’ former military wing back onto a military footing are laughable, said a spokesperson for Republican Sinn Féin.

“Republicans have no desire to see the Provisionals resume hostilities, as these would undoubtedly be conducted against those who have remained faithful to the Republican ideal. The Provos retained their military capacity through the adoption of the RUC as their armed wing. There is absolutely no useful purpose for the continued existence of the so-called ‘Provisional Army Council’, said RSF Director of Publicity, Richard Walsh.

“We already know that statements purporting to emanate from that body in fact originated from 10, Downing Street. They exist merely as a counter-revolutionary force.”

It has become an accepted fact amongst politicos that chuckling helped end Paisley’s tenure as First Minister; as such to suggest that it was a potentially good idea seems barmy. Much more sensible to ascribe it to Paisley’s foolishness and self importance or maybe somehow imply that it is an example of him becoming demented, the fact that he is a man with absolutely no other sign of such a thing being conveniently ignored. Alternatively (and I have done this) one could ascribe it to Paisley’s known personal friendliness, which is widely documented and can probably be vouched for a surprising number and range of people in Northern Ireland possibly including some sluggerites.

To try to see a political reason behind chuckling one might do worse than go back to the days when Trimble was First and Mallon Deputy First Minister. Clearly Trimble had many problems: he had a party of which only about 60% backed him, he had Republicans failing to decommission, he faced pressure to back track on every stand he took by the government, he had the DUP gaining momentum and he was not a man noted for interpersonal skills. However, his constant look of almost pain at what was happening was often seen to show that he knew he was being out manoeuvred and defeated. Many within unionism felt that he (and in the process unionists in general) were losing and that the inexorable decline towards a united Ireland continued with Trimble merely helping to manage rather than arrest let alone reverse this process. Trimble did little in his speeches or interviews to suggest that he felt he had won but also (and maybe most relevant to the chuckling that was to come) his body language was extremely poor. I know I have mentioned it recently but he did always remind me of the defeated Shylock “Send the deed after me, And I will sign it” (Merchant of Venice IV, i).

Paisley in marked contrast to Trimble is a master of public speaking, a true orator; anyone who doubts me should go along to the Martyr’s. Even now in his old age he can speak brilliantly and he understands the nuances of language and actions. The fact that Paisley (to my analysis) had sold out his principles to almost a greater extent than Trimble simply made the need for an act the more vital.

As such I submit that Paisley’s chuckling was all about the perception he wished to put on the deal. It was an attempt to say, whatever about the U turns, that actually through him “The Big Man” unionism had truly defeated its enemy; that so complete was his victory that he could smile and chuckle with McGuinness. He may have felt that it showed that he Paisley could pose for friendly photos the way one might with a muzzled and caged crocodile. Not for Paisley the look of pain and the voices off saying that he was failing to sell the agreement to his own people.

Of course if that was Paisley’s idea it shows that not for the first time he miscalculated. He may have felt that such was his popularity amongst unionists, especially the fundamentalist wing of the DUP that he could sell the deal U turns and all. His errors were two fold: he was mistaken in thinking that people had enough belief in him to overlook the U turns. Secondly he forgot just how reviled Martin McGuinness was and is within many unionist circles and how apparent friendship with that man would be far too much for many ordinary unionists who blamed McGuinness and his ilk for the many times they had walked behind the coffins of friends and relatives. This was not helped by Paisley’s tendency betimes to adopt a different position and like Trimble admit that all in the unionist garden was not that rosy and claim that plan B stalked outside the hedges.

The dichotomy between the victorious and magnanimous Paisley and the man who was forced to compromise was a fatal flaw in the chuckling strategy. Whether of course this Janus-headed approach was any worse than Trimble’s Shylockian one is of course debatable: both ultimately failed.

What Robinson’s approach will be is interesting: it is still developing but seems to be an attempt to combine the irritation and distain of Trimble with the studied victorious-ness of Paisley. That will be a hard act to pull off.

To finish by referring to Shakespeare (I know it annoys some of you): if Trimble was King Richard II, a rather weak and vacillating individual, could Paisley have been Henry IV described in my copy’s introduction as “A usurper himself, Henry IV has no ground on which to base his authority over the rebels who were once his allies. The only basis of his power is victory on the battlefield. In each part this is achieved by means of a trick.” To continue my analogy does Robinson see himself as Henry V the great ruler who defeats the French. He might do but personally I am rather doubtful he is.

The job of a criminal court is simple: to decide whether the accused is guilty, or not guilty. Given the history of miscarriages of justice in the context of Northern Ireland it is preferable that there should be no danger of an unsafe conviction. Resistance to strong public opinion, one way or the other, is another commendable trait from a judge, who under the Diplock system does not have the restraining power of a jury to contend with.

But it leaves the relatives as far from justice as they were the night Mr McCartney was killed in a side street beside McGennis’ pub in late January 2005.

What we know for sure is that a man was killed after a ruck inside the pub. That the bar was packed with people from Sinn Fein and the IRA (some of whom lied about their presence there, but later had to retract). That the IRA conducted an ‘inquiry’ that found three unnamed volunteers guilty and later made the sisters an offer to shot them. It may also have expelled a unquantified number of others. But nothing about the process except its final judgement has been subject to external scrutiny.

Sinn Fein invited all the sisters and McCartney’s girlfriend to its annual conference that year. Gerry Adams, party President addressed the knotty problem of the IRA and it’s position viz a viz the legal system: “I do not believe that the IRA can be wished away, or ridiculed or embarrassed or demonised or repressed out of existence.” Catherine McCartney records more of the same speech in her eloquent retelling of her sister’s story Walls of Silence:

His murder was dreadful, not only because of the way he died and not only because it robbed his family of a father, a parter, a brother, a son. His murder was dreadful because it is alleged that republicans were involved in it. That makes this a huge issue for us.

Even at the time, the sisters were not so sure. Not least since Adams went on to qualify these remarks a few moments later by underwriting the extra legal political purposes of the IRA:

“We know what a crime is both in the moral and legal sense, and our view is the same as the majority of people. We know that breaking the law is a crime. But we refuse to criminalise those who break the law in pursuit of legitimate political objectives.”

Indeed most of the complications around this case were political. From the start Sinn Fein was desperate to remove the police from the equation. It’s first official statement came in the form of an attack on the follow up operation by the police from former Lord Mayor of Belfast Alex Maskey. The following day he attacked rival politicians for suggesting that:

...republicans are in some way covering up the events of Sunday night and orchestrating the recent trouble on the streets of the Markets. These allegations are clearly untrue and without foundation. There is no cover up and no orchestration of street violence. That is why none of these individuals have been able to produce one scrap of evidence to back up their claims.

It was the first of a series of attempts to draw a line in the sand which failed as more evidence came to light. Politically the timing of the killing was bad. The IRA’s denials over the Northern Bank gone largely unbelieved. And McCartney’s murder had come not long after the breakdown of a comprehensive agreement that might have enabled the party to recognise of the police.

So on the night of the 31st January 2005 the whole Republican movement, Sinn Fein as well as the IRA were still (politically) on the wrong side of the rule of law.

In the end, despite a huge number of pious messages from both the IRA and Sinn Fein, the only witnesses to take the stand were two survivors of the attack, and a woman driver (Witness ‘C’) who was simply passing by. Witnesses A and B refused to take the stand, because even the anonymity being offered by the court was not enough to make them feel safe enough to testify.

No one - neither current or former members - from the Republican movement (including the defendants) took the witness stand.

Martin McGuinness yesterday told the Politics Show that there would likely be more developments in this case. The sisters are convinced there won’t be. Witnesses have been scared off, evidence disposed of. Short of a fulsome confession by the killer himself (highly unlikely), the sisters are much closer to the truth than the Deputy First Minister.

Robert McCartney’s murder was short, brutal and entirely without any political cause. It may not have been politicially inspired, but it caused Sinn Fein huge political embarrassment. It also pointed to a wider problem within so-called republican communities. At the time, Brendan O’Neill writing in Spiked Online observed:

In an attempt to rein the crisis in, Adams seems willing even to upset his colleagues in the IRA by taking a hard line over criminality and the McCartney murder. But where he and the IRA might succeed in resolving the McCartney affair and appeasing the grieving McCartney family, they can do little to stem the wider moral disintegration of republican communities in Northern Ireland. The McCartney murder acted as a catalyst for a deeper malaise within post-republican republican communities.

That moral disintegration has continued since.  Now even people firmly lodged within the ‘green zone’ of Mr McGuinness’s own movement are becoming the victims. Three men in the last few months have been killed in Belfast and Derry, the latest being 23 year old Emmet Sheils. The grief of his father and mother is as palpable as that of the sisters.

Martin McGuinness has told the killers that they don’t have a mandate for what they are doing. That they have come to a fork in the road, and it is now time to decide whether they are for a peaceful future, or not. But there is no reference to McGuinness’s own journey from gunman to junior statesman.

From the beginning, the peace process was a behaviorist project. It was never as interested in genuine changes of hearts and minds, as it was in outward behaviours. Moral conciousness and other forms introspection were of little interest - and possibly of little practical use - to a society conditioned to profoundly self harming behaviour.

The murder of Robert McCartney, along with Sinn Fein’s and the IRA’s subsequent attempts to cover up the truth of what went on that night (although there are still some who believe there was no such ‘cover up’), marked an end to the convenience of that conceit. But it hasn’t brought an end to the suffering of families in Sinn Fein’s own political heartland.

The peace process ultimately took away the IRA’s weapon of choice. Now it is the victim of a feral society its own unchecked and brutalist approach to ‘policing’ helped create. The wider movement, now led by a party determined on peace needs to find a way of acquiring new habits of mind to go with its new political status.

But as Aristotle has noted, it is often difficult for an individual to become virtuous if he or she has not acquired the habit of acting virtuously. The same may be said for political parties. Sinn Fein, reconciled at long last to a peaceful pursuit of its long term goal of a United Ireland, has, it seems, still to learn the power of the virtuous act.

And that may yet prove the movement’s long term undoing.

And the NASA article ends by noting the expected frequency of such events..

[Don] Yeomans and his colleagues at JPL’s Near-Earth Object Office are tasked with plotting the orbits of present-day comets and asteroids that cross Earth’s path, and could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

Yeomans estimates that, on average, a Tunguska-sized asteroid will enter Earth’s atmosphere once every 300 years. On this 100th anniversary of the Tunguska event, does that mean we have 200 years of largely meteor-free skies?

“Not necessarily,” said Yeomans. “The 300 years between Tunguska-sized events is an average based on our best science. I think about Tunguska all the time from a scientific point of view, but the thought of a another Tunguska does not keep me up at night.”

“Mr Mugabe has a sweet tongue but sour actions,” Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the MDC, told the BBC. “But when all is said and done, there has to be dialogue about a transitional period that would lead to a free and fair election. The politicians of this country need to set aside their egos and think of the future of this country. We need to put a full stop on our people’s suffering,” he said.

Mugabe himself has gone to the meeting of the Africa Union, whose monitors condemned the election, as did the Southern African Development Community’s. A number of possible scenarios have been postulated.
The actions of the South African government are critical and the very likely new South African president Jacob Zuma seems to be willing to adopt a harder line than Thabo Mbeki.
SADC whose chief mediator is Mbeki has its origins in the anti apartheid struggle. There is of course another historic parallel between South Africa’s role now and its role in the end of Rhodesia. The end of Ian Smith’s Rhodesian regime was largely brought about by, if not economic sanctions, economic unhelpfulness masterminded by South African PM Voster and his withdrawal of South African ground troops and military aircraft, which up until that time had helped the Rhodesians. Smith was extremely popular amongst white South Africans and Voster of course ran a more racist and discriminatory regime than Smith. As such continuing to assist Smith would have seemed more likely. However, Voster felt that pressurising Smith would reduce pressure on him from other African states and also please the Western powers.

It will be interesting to see whether the South African government will play the same part with Mugabe as Apartheid South Africa did with Rhodesia.

“It is a matter of public record that in recent weeks I have discussed these important matters with the Deputy First Minister at some length and I also met and indicated to other party leaders that I want to examine these issues with them as well,” said Mr Robinson. “I expect I need hardly say that agreement on a way forward has not yet been reached but, for myself, while I cannot be certain, I am not gloomy about the prospects of reaching an agreement which could command the confidence of everyone.

“I am committed and willing to intensify discussions with the Deputy First Minister and others in the period ahead to test the possibilities. I will not attempt to characterise anyone else’s position but I can say that there is a growing understanding of all the concerns that attend this debate, including those I have articulated, and a serious engagement is under way on how to resolve those concerns.

“I need not tell this audience that when dealing with such sensitive matters we must at all times remember we are dealing with the safety, security and well-being of everyone who lives here.

“We will tread carefully and only proceed when the community has the confidence to make progress. But at the same time we recognise that we have a responsibility to exert ourselves in order to identify safe structures which can create the conditions where this confidence will exist.” [emphasis added]

That’s a neat piece of political alchemy.  Roughly translated, it could mean: “Let’s, maybe, have policing and justice, in order to help build confidence where it is needed rather than wait till doomsday before that confidence arrives”. Their difficulty may lie in finding the political ‘fall guy’ party willing to take the strain for two parties at the top who have thus far been unable to agree on a way forward.

The detail is sparse and highly enigmatic, but the change in tone and import is unmistakable. Even if it has that same old ring of choreography so familiar from the old Peace Process? days.

Note the sentence in the Times piece:

“The UK has reduced its nuclear weapons capability significantly over the past 20 years. It disposed of its freefall and tactical nuclear weapons and has achieved a big reduction of the number of warheads used by the Trident system to the minimum believed to be compatible with the retention of a nuclear deterrent. If we are able to enter into a period of significant multilateral disarmament Britain, along with France and other existing nuclear powers, will need to consider what further contribution it might be able to make to help to achieve the common objective.”

Does this imply the UK should think again over renewing Trident which only passed the Commons in March last year in the dying days of Blair with Conservative support, despite Brown’s specific backing?

Yet again, it might only mean support for Brown’s vague pledge for Britain to look again at its nuclear stockpile in order to boost new efforts to contain nuclear proliferation, as stated in his national security statement earlier this year. 

But why bother to write the kind of joint article that attracts attention, when Brown has already promised to take that course?

And why wait for over a year to make their move, since Kissinger et al pronounced? Tell us more please, Gang of Four. 

The best option for Scottish Labour is to argue for enhanced powers for the Holyrood Parliament, says noted commentator Iain McWhirter.

Furthermore, Rentoul referred to the obstacles in the path to independence, including almost certainly not one, but two referendums, the first on independence on principle, the second, on the final proposals which have to be agreed with Westminster, which among other things would bring the Westminster subsidy to an end.

The case is made by Robert Hazell of the University of London’s Constitution Unit

(Declaration of interest: I’m an honorary fellow of the Unit) 

Even so, does the trend of events and opinion bring Scottish independence that bit nearer? Undoubtedly the force is with the SNP. Yet today, Salmond’s minority government for all their self confidence are blocked by a solid unionist majority in the Parliament. Unless the pro-union parties turn to jelly, Salmond cannot even win a parliamentary vote to call a referendum, much less win a referendum itself in 2010, the year the First Minister says he wants to call it - even with the momentum gained if the SNP become the largest Scottish party in the next Westminster general election expected in spring of that year. You can see what Salmond is up to. He is using the independence argument to create momentum and chip away at Labour. In his heart he may not even want an early referendum;  the prospect of one spooks and divides Labour and is too useful a weapon to give up easily.

As Alexander’s fall partly shows, Salmond’s referendum tactics have proved a brilliant success. She had no answer to Salmond’s tour de force in office. She seized on the one major topic over which she thought she, as the head of the largest unionist party in a Parliament with an overall unionist majority, held the initiative -on the choice between Union or independence by referendum.  By law, only the Scottish government can move the Bill for a referendum. She believed she would call Salmond’s bluff by forcing him to bring in a referendum Bill his minority SNP government would be sure to lose. Instead, she fell into Salmond’s trap. She split the party by making the referendum Labour’s immediate cause, while Salmon refused to budge from his 2010 date. She did this when there was no need to do so and when most of her party - including Gordon Brown - vehemently opposed it. It is that basic tactical blunder, as much as the error of failing to declare a small invalid donation, that was the cause of her downfall. Salmon had called Alexander’s bluff, rather than vice versa.

In two years’ time, the balance of a devolved UK may change if a Conservative government is elected, with the SNP the largest party in Scotland.
A Conservative England and a nationalist Scotland would be left staring at each other for a while. Who knows what would happen: but one scenario is that an referendum on Scottish independence would be much more viable after 5 May 2011. That is the set date for the next Holyrood election, which the SNP on trend could win outright. But as the polls consistently show, there is no guarantee they would win a referendum on outright independence.

The Herald spells out this morning of what’s immediately at stake.

All parties including the SNP are waking up to the realisation that although Scots may vote in three years’ time for an SNP majority government, they consistently oppose outright independence, while favouring more powers for the Holyrood Parliament.

In the end, Salmond and co. may be only too happy to settle for something like a federal solution - an outcome which would make waves all over the UK including NI, though well short of the epochal conclusion of an end to the Union.  In the short term - next month - Gordon Brown seems ready to stake his future on an absorbing game of the highest stakes.

At Westminster, Labour’s golden couple Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, both Brown babes and cabinet members in their 30s, are mired in an expenses row over claiming second-home expenses for their London residence. And Conservative chairman Caroline Spellman seems on the brink of quitting over disputed claims that her nanny was paid out of the public purse for doing some secretarial work. While to cap it all in the same piece in the Mail, journalist Peter Oborne accuses Tory Industry spokesman Alan Duncan of “receiving significant sums of money” from an oil trading company. Duncan denies the claim and told the BBC this morning he was going to sue.

Update  Wendy Alexander’s resignation statement may win her some sympathy. She’s won some already from a surprising quarter, influential Conservative blogger Iain Dale.  But the grief piles on for Scottish Labour. Behind the stated cause of yet another resignation, of a Scottish MP this time,  it’s the Sun wot sticks its neck out.

A neat distinction is made by Alice Miles in the Times between the open use of CCTV   and secret snooping. The public don’t mind the former but loathe the latter, it seems.
RIPA applies to NI of course and there are lots of web entries about the rules for its use; but I can’t find any claims like those above. Do tell, if you’ve been subject to the snooper’s charter specifically under RIPA.

John Waters continues

The Eucharist is, exactly as it was 80 or 800 or 2,000 years ago, and will remain in 80 years’ time, the celebration of the mystery-made-flesh, an event that happened once in history but continues as a presence, moment-to-moment, announcing the hope beyond hope that keeps us alive.

Would it not be interesting if we were to approach this 50th Eucharistic Congress with such a concept in mind? What if, rather than anticipating some peripheral and underwhelming gathering of a declining institution - with which most of us have had a brittle relationship - we were to consider it an opportunity to establish a more fundamental engagement with our own humanity?

We live in a time when, captivated by our own cleverness, or out of a clinging to a reduced concept of reason, or enraged at an institution riddled with human weakness, or filled with desire for a freedom that still eludes us, we have ensured that we can no longer access in mainstream culture the nutrients most essential to our survival.

As a result, our bodies move around with a deceptive nonchalance while our spirits struggle for breath. This is not a victory over the Catholic Church, but over ourselves, over our children and their children, denying us all access to the hope that, ultimately, is the essence of our existence.

If we choose to see the event in four years’ time as the huddling of a dishevelled and dwindling group of partisans engaged in arcane rituals that once engaged our more simple ancestors, we will be turning our cynicism and disillusionment upon ourselves.

There are a couple of quick points to make about the article and the elements of arguments it contains.  Mostly that those elements have been fleshed out elsewhere, by others.

I’m not going to dwell on the supernatural belief in the “mystery-made-flesh”.  It’s his belief and he’s entitled to it.  Whether my absence of belief in that particular supernatural tale makes me “less human” I can’t tell from behind my “veils of prejudice”.

The criticism of “mainstream culture” echoes then-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s observation of “a growing hesitation in public debate to refer to religion, the churches, issues of faith and belief” - itself an echo of Tony Blair’s eagerness to “do god” after leaving office. 

As I’ve mentioned previously, “Here, of course, politicians are less reticent about such things while in office..”

Mr Waters has, of course, criticised the media on religious matters before.

Then there is the “hope beyond hope”..

It should come as no surprise that this was the subject of an encyclical by Pope Benedict XVI - “‘SPE SALVI facti sumus’ - in hope we were saved”

This is what I had to say on that encyclical at the time

Benedict points the finger of blame for, among other things, the French Revolution, Marxism and the Russian Revolution at “the foundations of the modern age” which “appear with particular clarity in the thoughts of Francis Bacon [added link]” - and, in particular, Bacon’s ‘New Instrument for Rational Thinking’ - Novum Organum, published in 1620.

And I pointed to Bacon’s clarity of thought.

But perhaps the criticism of Bacon is also down to some of his other thoughts.. and their clarity.

“Idols of the cave have their origin in the individual nature of each man’s mind and body; and also his education, way of life and chance events.  This category is varied and complex, and we shall enumerate the cases in which there is the greatest danger and which do most to spoil the calrity of the understanding.

Men fall in love with particular pieces of knowledge and thoughts: either because they believe themselves to be their authors and inventors; or because they have put a great deal of labour into them, and have got very used to them.  If such men betake themselves to philosophy and universal speculation, they distort and corrupt them to suit their prior fancies.”

The criticism of Bacon, at least for Benedict, is because he marks the point at which humanity started to embrace the “reduced concept of reason” John Waters complains about.

Benedict’s solution is the same one presented by John Waters - and given Waters’ wordy belated birthday tribute to Emperor Constantine Pope Benedict XVI in the Irish Times, previously noted here, that should be no surprise.

And what I said then still stands, and it’s why John Waters article is an ideological distraction -

He’s right, in a way, that Benedict seeks an “integrated concept of reason” - Benedict has appealed to a “greater form of reason” previously.  But, as I’ve pointed out before, the re-equating, or re-entwining, of religion and science that Benedict actually seeks is not an Enlightenment, it’s an Un-Enlightenment.  Knowledge is power, indeed.

And the Un-Enlightenment isn’t just being promoted within religion..

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is, on the face of it, a sensible piece of legislation defending people from stalkers. But when it was drafted, several of us warned that it failed to distinguish between genuine harassment and legitimate protest. Harassment includes “alarming the person or causing the person distress”, which could mean almost anything: you can alarm someone, for example, by telling them that pulverised fly ash contains mercury. It requires a “course of conduct” to be pursued, but this means nothing more than doing something twice. If you take two pictures of workers felling trees, that counts. Conduct also includes speech.

Worse still, the legislation was the first of several “behaviour acts” which blur the distinction between civil and criminal offences. The victim of the course of conduct may take a civil claim to the high court. On the basis of far less evidence than a criminal case requires, the court can grant an injunction against the defendant. If the defendant then breaks that injunction - by continuing to talk to the people he is seeking to dissuade, or to march or picket or protest - he then commits a criminal offence, carrying up to five years’ imprisonment.

We warned that the legislation had the makings of a new sedition law. No one took us seriously. But the first three people to be arrested under the act were peaceful protesters. Since then it has been used repeatedly to stifle what should be legitimate dissent.

Even more fascinating (and damning) is this rebuttal from the law firm which advised Parliament on the framing of the law, that they have in any way acted unethically in since utilising the act’s provisions to protect its clients:

“Our involvement in the harassment act concerned the drafting and introduction of a private member’s bill against stalking in 1996. Our aim was to assist in bringing in legislation to prohibit stalking. Our aim was defeated by parliament, which determined and decided to outlaw harassment.

“Various jurisprudential concepts from the stalking bill were incorporated into the act, but it was drafted in far wider terms. At the time we advised those we assisted in the parliamentary process that the law against harassment was far more outreaching than our original intention. We are fully entitled to use existing legislation to seek to protect our clients’ interests and there is no conflict of interest.” [emphasis added].

So one of the final parliamentary acts of the last Tory government appears to have developed considerable ‘political’ bite. Even as far as putting a nasty bite on bloggers. The question has to be: who’s next?

Update

The Times reports that the lynching of the two army cooks at the Death on the Rock funerals in 1988, was the first in the line of cases involving anonymous evidence that gave rise to the Lords’ ruling and the emergency legislation

He also provides a timeline with Murray’s version of what happened. The critical point, from journalist’s or blogger’s point of view is that the PSNI have responded to a complaint against writing on the Internet under the law of criminal harassment. Indeed, Murray claims to have been arrested twice: first on 2nd July and then again on 27th September last year.

I cannot and do not wish to speak to the veracity of Murray’s claims against the individuals named on his website. Free speech is rightly moderated by a civil code that gives both sides the opportunity to put their case before a court of law.

There is certainly a case for the involvement of the police if a blogger, or one of their commenters implies physical threats against a specific individual. But I’ve been through Murray’s blog and have not been able to find any evidence of such; which might explain why no charges appear to have been preferred.

If Malachi is right, the use of police power of arrest appears to have been used directly against a citizen for criticising several public figures on the Internet. That’s a development that should worry more than just the citizens of Belfast.