“I can’t see anything”

At the Guardian’s Comment is Free Glenn Patterson picks out a telling scene from this week’s Spotlight’s archive footage of Martin Meehan to illustrate his point – “we are still being asked to believe not what we see but what we are told we should see.” – in relation to the killing of Paul Quinn and, I’d suggest, some other events.

Spotlight included footage from earlier programmes in which Meehan had appeared. In one, filmed on the assembly election campaign trail in South Antrim, he was asked by presenter Kevin Magee to account for a device taped to a lamppost beneath an Irish flag, apparently to discourage the flag’s removal. Meehan put on his glasses, leaned forward. “I can’t see anything,” he said. You were sure he was going to smile. He didn’t.

Also from the CiF post

Back on Tuesday night’s Spotlight, meanwhile, Kevin Magee was helpfully pointing out to Martin Meehan the two wires protruding from the package taped to the lamppost. Meehan squinted up at it a while longer and shook his head. “Your eyesight must be better than mine, Kevin,” he deadpanned.

The disturbing thought is that in the all-new Northern Ireland we are still being asked to believe not what we see but what we are told we should see.

But then, as Catherine McCartney said in the Linen Hall Library, it often seems that saving “the process” is more important than saving a life. Except that there is no process any more, only power and two parties very keen to hold on it, with two governments content to let them.

Although, “the damage to our society and our democracy may already be irreparable..”


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