Thursday, April 03, 2008
“self-awareness should surely be a help..”
In the Irish News last week, Jim Gibney took the party line on who’s to blame for anti-social behaviour and criminality in west Belfast. Since then, and with particular reference to the Squinter episode, Tom Kelly has had his say, “Freedom of speech would be a good starting point, including the right to critique the record of the local MP”, and Susan McKay was pointed in her column, “Talk about sackcloth and ashes.” But perhaps the most effective criticism comes from Fionnula O’Connor in the Irish Times today [subs req],
Sinn Féin in Stormont has failed to shine and Martin McGuinness powersharing with Ian Paisley has its drawbacks, not least relegation for Adams. It is a long time since he last looked presidential, and now he has lost face at home. In its own defence, “the West” long ago became self-aggrandising. It is struggling to adjust to the most predictable of outcomes - that an end to war would not deliver prosperity and crime-free streets, no more than in Harriet Harman’s Peckham or Ahern’s Dublin.
Fionnula O’Connor goes on to say
Signing up to support civil policing produced no miracles beyond the spectacle of senior officers sitting down in public meetings with local people. Not at all surprisingly, the PSNI has not defeated “the hoods” any more than IRA beatings, shootings, exiling and the occasional “execution” did.
Some locals always jibbed at Sinn Féin dominance, though not necessarily because they loathed the IRA. It was the new establishment many disliked: agencies fronted by Adams’s supporters, cheerleaders at cultural events not exactly rattling jewellery in the best seats but setting a communal tone, with a backbeat of IRA enforcement.
Most acknowledged the uplift for a formerly downtrodden community, but resented the imposition nonetheless.
The violent deaths of two local men who apparently confronted young hoodlums have pointed up painful reality - perhaps most for ageing republicans aware of their own mortality.
Without the IRA at their backs, some have arrived on the doorsteps of “problem families” to be told where to go, or, worse, asked who they think they are.
It may be that leadership status has to be won afresh in west Belfast. Ranting against inadequate policing lets off steam, but is a diversion, like attacking critics - as Adams may have found out already. “Do nothing of any knee-jerk,” he once idiosyncratically appealed to republicans, at a tense moment for negotiations. But knee-jerk he did when lambasted a fortnight ago by the Squinter column in the Andersonstown News. Squinter is editor Robin Livingstone: the Andytown News has been Pravda to the Sinn Féin Kremlin. Blaming Adams - because he has been an MP for 20 years - for shirking responsibility for local ills might have been a mite skewed, but Squinter the rebel was a revelation.
The rebellion was brief. The next edition carried a stiff Adams objection on the front page and a slavish apology. Squinter’s defiance and the raft of substantially supportive responses - one comparing Sinn Féin unfavourably with Ian Paisley jnr’s lobbying at St Andrews for his “own people” - were wiped from the paper’s website.
Obviously nobody dared tell the Dear Leader what a comedown this was from windy talk about democracy and equality.
He may grudge the limelight to Deputy First Minister Martin. But if you want to stay number one in a collective leadership, self-awareness should surely be a help.
Pete Baker @ 08:16 AM
There would appear to be sustained effort at story creation taking place. Politics in the North is losing its headline grabbing factor and there is a large body of correspondents who rely on it as justification for their positions. While there may be a story buried deep here its being lost or distorted by a burning desire to grab another headline and as a result this is being magnified into something greater than it is. Freedom of speech is one element of journalism the other element is getting copy out and making sure your included in next year’s budget provisions. This story will cycle around for a few more days and then fizzle out.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:07 AMThe Squinter article - and the mostly positive comments it received were previously on the Andytown News website. But they have mysteriously disappeared.
However, nothing disappears forever on the Internet and in the spirit of its ‘Do No Harm’ company motto - Google has cached this very interesting west Belfast debate.
You can read the comments here.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:25 AMCriticism takes many forms and one of those forms is the appearance last night of a placard at Crossmaglen refering to a local Sinn Feiner arrested last week for threats to kill, g.b.h. and weapons offences and who got out on bail.
the placard states
“FREE THE LISBEG ONE”
“UNLICENSED TO KILL”
“PLEASE RELEASE JIM”Humour is a dangerous political tool and parties or groups which the ‘community’ are starting to laugh at need to ‘readjust their thinking’ and tell the ‘dear leader’ the truth for a change.. fionnuala is not far from the mark.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:45 AMGood girl Fionnula
Excellent commentary on the inadequacies of the West Belfast politburo and its chief Gerry Adams.
It was not for nothing that I discovered that he was the Antichrist in Galway all those years ago.
Click on my name and follow links for further information.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:47 AMGerry Adams is reputed to have led the IRA (Provos) in a war against the British imperialist aggressors. A key part of that war was killing local peelers, delegitimising them and taking stern action against anyone who reported child abuse or any other deviationsfrom a sterile middle class existence to them. People who reported serious crimes to the RUC were routinely tortured and killed. Now, the people of West Belfast are being asked to be the peelers’ eyes and ears.
Joe Hendron said Gerry Adams only ever attracted one job to West Belfast: his own.The South’s evolution was very different. Because the Black and Tan was was an intgral part of wider national and international socio religious currents, the South was spared theagony West Belfast is now going through at the hands of their liberators.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:49 AM-
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:56 AM
Nice to see Robin Livingstone, having outed Newton Emerson all those years ago, get a dose of his own medicine. What goes around comes around - censorship included.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 11:18 AMDoes anyone in Mr O’Millionaire’s new New York media sphere know about this?
I’d imagine the Yanks would take a very dim view of a newspaper printing a front page “apology” for a non-libelous opinion piece.Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 11:23 AM“The greatest difference between business in the US and in Belfast is in the culture.
In the US, I’m bowled over by the goodwill and concrete support for the Irish Echo. Of course, anyone entering into a business arrangement with the paper wants to get a commercial return but there’s a constant supportive atmosphere from our readers, advertisers and business partners.
There’s also a clear realisation that newspapers can only publish if they make a profit and therefore, even in promotional events such as the Golden Bridges Awards last October on Wall Street (scheduled for JFK Library, Boston, this 1 October) or the Irish Echo Top 40 Under 40 in New York on 27 February, participants understand and expect that you turn a profit.
Underlying all that is the positive, entrepreneurial attitude to anyone who pushes out the boundaries, tries new ideas, introduces fresh concepts and rejuvenates the (Irish American) scene. People are upbeat and generous in their business relationships.
In Belfast, business clients are much more guarded and reserved, there’s less willingness to applaud endeavour and cheer on people having a go.” .. Romeo and Juliet - from the balcony
Well, Squinter pushed out the boundaries in Belfast - and look what happened to him ;)
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 11:48 AMMiller is the current owner of the “Irish Echo” a weekly for a dwindling audience. Most people in NY media probably never saw it. Miller either has very poor business acumen or money to throw away. The readership is mostly elderly and thus declining. The younger audience, also declining, gets news and information online or in throwaway pub papers. It has two competitors so there is a battle for less and less advertising revenue. The quote from his blog sounds like a pure puff piece.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 12:13 PMI attempted to comment on that blog piece at O’Muilleoir’s yesterday but, true to form, it has yet to appear. I suggested that the difference between the Andersonstown News man’s experiences in New York and Belfast has more to do with the good reputation enjoyed by the history of the Irish Echo prior to the ATN take-over, a reputation not shared by the ATN stable because of events such as the Squinter debacle of this month. Once the ATN Group runs the Irish Echo into the ground as they did the Daily Ireland, I am sure the attitudes between New York and Belfast will come more into line with each other and New York will be just as sceptical as Belfast.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 02:33 PMWill the US government pour money into “Irish Echo” just as the Brits supported Atn with grants.
In the interests of parity when will the Newsletter and Irish News get their fair share?Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 03:21 PMnevin
an earlier draft read ...
‘In Belfast, political clients are much more guarded and reserved, there’s less willingness to accept criticism and people having a go.” ..
Underlying all that is the negative, monolitic attitude to anyone who pushes out the boundaries, tries new ideas, introduces fresh concepts and rejuvenates the (West Belfast) scene. People are downbeat and mean-spirited in their business relationships.
Coriolanus - from the balcony ’Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 03:42 PMWhile there is a wider free speech issue here, I have a hard time having sympathy for Squinter after his cynical touting which lead to Newton Emerson being fired from his original job, as someone mentioned above. I hope he likes the medicine.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 05:16 PM“Stale drink, smoke and a Sacrament”
Which was a bit iffy, is still up.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 08:27 PMGer,
There’s a deal of speculation in your post. To be fair there is also some in Fionnuala’s but she either flags that up, or strongly qualifies it as such.
Free speech is certainly circumscribed by law (as it should be), but it should not be moderated by politicians. Blair had a point about ‘feral media’, but having played a media game, he was not the right man for the message.
What’s most extraordinary about this story is the silence within the MSM until Kelly’s piece, then followed by McKay and now Fionnuala. Each of them are substantial commenters who come from quite separate intellectual spaces.
As a news story, it could be transient. But I’d rather that a clearer understanding about where that critical line between politics and journalism begins and ends is arrived at.
I’ve seen how ministers treat journalists in Nigeria. The fear was loaded all one way. Each should share a little fear when they go to interview.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 09:13 PMBut I’d rather that a clearer understanding about where that critical line between politics and journalism begins and ends is arrived at.
Mick - that is extraordinary. Even by Slugger’s standards given its recent descent, via Pete Baker’s frenzied blogging of late, into unionist op ed, far beyond the Belly Telly, and just stopping short of the Newsletter.
But, to preempt your rebuttal, this is a blog and is, by definition, opinionated.
But how can you, after all these years, start into the ATN’s position, and yet ignore:
a) the PR job Tom Kelly does week in week out for the SDLP
b) to go back beyond last March, the hagiographic depiction of DUP members and their party by Suzanne Breen in the Sunday Tribune, and of republican dissidents in same.
c) Malachi O Doherty’s trumpeting of the Alliance Party - and I should point out that I have a lot of time for Malachi.
d)Ruth Dudley Edwards constant and unremitting championing of the Ulster Unionist party.
There are many other examples, and I’ll leave it open to other Sluggerites to point them up, but for you, now, to suddenly delineate this problem is naive at best and disingenuous at worst.
To come off with something like that, while ignoring all of the above is a sad reflection on this blog’s political nous and perspicacity.
We are grateful for the space to debate - thank you - but a political audit of Slugger’s engagement with the issues might prove revealing, to you if not the contributors you rely on.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 09:37 PM“I’d imagine the Yanks would take a very dim view of a newspaper printing a front page “apology” for a non-libelous opinion piece.”
It would never even enter into our imaginations that such a thing would be done!
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:28 PM“Even by Slugger’s standards given its recent descent, via Pete Baker’s frenzied blogging of late, into unionist op ed, far beyond the Belly Telly, and just stopping short of the Newsletter.”
I tend not to do ‘op ed’, Northsider - check the archive by all means.
And, if I do offer an opinion, I have always attempted to back that opinion up with some evidence.
But, in the absence of evidence for your own argument, I’d remind you of why rational argument is beneficial to all.
Or, to put it another way, “Ranting against inadequate policing lets off steam, but is a diversion, like attacking critics..”
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:40 PMI don’t know why anyone would be surprised that an apology was in the paper. I hope you understand that the criticizing of Sinn Fein is not one of the freedoms you thought
you now had. And that’s the real story. Make comments derogatory about the party and you will have people at your front door or the local pub.I tried to post about an article in the Derry Journal. I was not allowed to because I don’t live in NI. (What is that all about??) You should all be aware of the trouble Brendan Hughes and Anthony McIntyre and others who have asked the hard questions received. What has happened to the core beliefs that everyone was fighting for? Harassment was all they ever got. Equality for the Irish of the six counties is something I wanted for all of you. I’m not seeing it. The walls are still up and if I lived there, I would keep them up. Large groups of loyalist thugs are beating up and killing Catholics. Do you really think the PSNI, (or as I call them..the pissants) are going to help you keep safe? I’m not seeing that. In fact, people talk about tourism for NI . I wouldn’t come over there with less than two big,ugly bodyguards, with fully automatic weapons. I honestly don’t know how you stand it. The war doesn’t seem to be over for Belfast or a lot of other areas in the neighborhood. And you should be doubly ashamed for not keeping your elderly people safe. How many have to die before you get angry???
Thank you for allowing free speech on this site.
Posted by on Apr 04, 2008 @ 03:12 AMLucy
we are angry in sth Armagh and it wasn’t Loyalists or ‘hoods’ who murdered Paul Quinn! 6 months on and no arrests yet! Does anyone in power really give a fiddlers about the Paul Quinns of this world? No! Only a working class lad from a non political family!
Free speech in ‘republicanism’ is like O’Leary’s romantic Ireland, dead and gone, but people must push away at the barriers to reclaim it.Posted by on Apr 04, 2008 @ 09:42 AMPete
And, if I do offer an opinion, I have always attempted to back that opinion up with some evidence.
No Pete, you select evidence, Pete, and by that I assume you mean a quote from someone else you tend to run. Just as which stories you may select to run and from which angle has a significant impact on the tone generated by your pieces.
The current threads on SF’s criticism of the police are a case in point. There is certainly a case that they are using criticism of the police to shield from some of their own inadequacies. But there is a fairly strong case that the PSNI is doing exactly the same thing, particularly as they are ultimately responsible for enforcing the law the last time I checked. But if we look at your posts on the topic, and we can do it serially if you like, we can hazard a guess at which one takes more prominence. Nothing wrong with that per se, but let’s not kid ourselves over bias and skew.
I mean, fair enough you have to defend your public persona, but you don’t actually believe it, do you?
Posted by on Apr 04, 2008 @ 09:57 AMNorthsider,
I’m glad someone was listening.
First, just to get a minor point out of the road. Blogs are not by definition anything other than a clever piece of technology that let people do stuff they could not previously. Content Management for the people, you might say. Sandy Starr, then of Spiked online, argued in November 2004 that there was a widespread desire on the part of the media to see some generic significance in blogs per se. He asked: “why can’t we just wait for blogs to establish their own significance as websites?”
Second, it would be ridiculous to say that comment within journalism doesn’t have a political colouring (or motive). To pick a non NI example of this is Andrew Gilligan’s tenacious campaign against Ken Livingstone. After the fact that the Tories seem to have effectively hidden Boris, Gilligan’s drip of embarassing detail will probably be the t significant factor in a likely Johnson win. Nevertheless, and whatever you think of the man’s approach to journalism (let’s just say that I am not a fan) Gilligan could be safely excluded as a factor if he was not hitting the journalistic mark with these revelations.
In the end, Gilligan is a journalist, not a politician. If he was the latter, I doubt he’d make first base: he’s way too spikey and misanthropic. As such he will not get to decide on motters of power and import. But he should be allowed to comment on them fully, and even hurtfully. Spikey misanthropes will often point out those details that the government would rather we didn’t see.
This is the line I am referring to, and the separation between power and comment is crucial to a free society.
Ken,
I would like to see Mr Baker face much more accute criticism. One of the real avantages of the blog form is the right of reply is immediate and (within legal and some public taste constraint absolute). The trouble is that Pete generally takes much greater pains with the accuracy of his work than his critics do in trying to pull it apart.
For instance, if, as you claim, Pete is being selective about what evidence he presents or does not present, you must have other material in mind that would substantially undermine what he’s said above? If so, let’s hear it? Or is this the old ‘balance’ thing creeping in through the backdoor? On the one, but on the other?
Finally, it seems to have escaped some people’s notice, but Sinn Fein, the DUP et al, for all that they spent years being villified as extremists are now the ones in power. I was gently upbraided recently by a member of the DUP who described my interview on More Four News on the Paisley resignation as being ‘unhelpful’. I had to laugh. I pointed out to him that whilst I will not go out of my way to be unhelpful, it is no part of our jobs here to be purposely helpful to any political party when the heat is on.
That’s not the same as being supportive representative democracy. But as Susan McKay has argued in the past, if the institutions themselves are not robust enough to take the unexpected shocks that naturally arise, the fault lies within the institions, rather than its critics.
Posted by on Apr 04, 2008 @ 12:44 PMMick
For instance, if, as you claim, Pete is being selective about what evidence he presents or does not present, you must have other material in mind that would substantially undermine what he’s said above? If so, let’s hear it? Or is this the old ‘balance’ thing creeping in through the backdoor? On the one, but on the other?
I gave a perfectly adequate example to support my point, and I see no reason why I should have to produce a hundred more on demand. The angle Pete took in that particular case was clear. I’m simply pointing out that other analysis and tone was perfectly possible.
Pete takes a particular line; fair enough and I don’t have any particular requirement for “balance”. But the idea Pete is some paragon of objectivity or his posts are not coloured by his worldview is frankly absurd.
Posted by on Apr 04, 2008 @ 01:18 PMAdequate for whom? You referenced another thread without proffering any evidence for your statement.
The idea that Pete is some sort of paragon of objectivity is a straw man ken. You don’t need to buy into the idea of pristine objectivity to see plainly that some work is more rigorous than others.
“...no reason why I should have to produce a hundred more on demand”
Absolutely. But you raised expectations yourself when you said, “if we look at your posts on the topic, and we can do it serially if you like”.
..........tumbleweed
Posted by on Apr 04, 2008 @ 01:29 PM
