Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1125
July 30, 2018
Dissident Republicanism Needs An Iconic Leader
Dump Scotland and bring the Southern Ireland back into a reformed Irish Union. That’s the advice given by controversial commentator, Dr John Coulter, in his Fearless Flying Column today. Dr Coulter also reflects on who within the ranks of the dissident republican community could become the political ambassador who brings all the factions in from the cold.
Scottish Nationalist First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has Britain’s so-called pro-Union stalwarts on the run with her campaign for a second Indy referendum, especially in a post Brexit society.
It’s a win-win strategy for Wee Nicola. Win the independence referendum and Hollywood heart throb Mel Gibson’s Braveheart battle cry ‘Freedom!’ becomes a reality. Win Indy 2 and Scotland will be well placed to re-enter the EU given that it voted Remain in the membership referendum.
The bargaining chip which Wee Nichola can play is to beat the Brexit drum that winning Indy 2 will strengthen Scotland’s hand for an even stronger membership deal with the EU than existed when the Scots were part of the UK in the EU.
If she loses the second vote on full independence, a narrow defeat will put her in a strong position to negotiate even more powers for her Nationalist-controlled Scottish Parliament - could such a scenario with an even more devolved parliament (especially with an SNP majority) allow the Nationalists to have their own private negotiations with the EU in a post Brexit UK?
The North’s Unionist community is gushing with doomsday warnings about the break-up of the UK if Wee Nichola wins an Indy 2 when in reality what they should be talking about is the break-up of Britain.
A sizeable Indy 2 vote means the Welsh demanding more rights for their Assembly, and Londoners urging Westminster to give more cash controls to the capital’s Assembly, too.
Would the North East of England want its own Assembly, along with a devolved structure for Cornwall and Devon? Obviously, Northern Ireland would actually need a working Assembly before if could gain even more devolved powers.
An independent Scotland will not automatically mean a united Ireland, or would it, especially if Scotland could team up with the Republic to form a Celtic Front in the EU? Then again, could a financially strained South afford to take on the running of the North? Not a chance!
For once, Northern Unionists should act with their heads and not their feet. They should quietly tell all Orange Order, loyalist band members, and Rangers supporters in Scotland to support Wee Nicola.
Sounds crazy, but as soon as the vote is announced, Northern Unionists should slap a list of demands for Stormont on Theresa May’s Downing Street desk before she has time to digest the extent of the Indy 2 vote.
The Dail should also stick its oar in, too, with more powers for all the British-Irish and cross-border bodies. For Irish nationalists, a significant Indy 2 showing could mean more powers given the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference, regarded by many as merely a glorified talking shop.
We also need a new Anglo-Irish Treaty to mark the centenary of the original 1920s version negotiated by Michael Collins to bring the South back into the Commonwealth and under the control of the Crown.
King Billy’s Glorious Revolution in the 1690s set up the Protestant Ascendancy which built the Emerald Isle politically and economically.
The collapse of the Celtic Tiger has proven partition hasn’t worked. Do the millions of people in the South want to live in economic squalor and poverty simply to call themselves a Republic?
Political parties on both sides of the border need to use their loaf. Republicans brand the North as the Occupied Six Counties. But Unionists need to view the South as the Occupied Twenty-Six Counties.
The South needs to be encouraged that its future lies in Home Rule within the Commonwealth.
If Paisley senior can compromise his ‘Never, Never, Never’ politics for a power-sharing Executive with the Shinners, then republicans can put the greater good of the Irish people first and rejoin a new Union.
Unionists need to realise that Home Rule no longer means Rome Rule. The pervert priest scandals have obliterated the influence of the Catholic Church.
The island’s largest Protestant denomination, the Church of Ireland, is also fatally split over the issues of gay clerics and civil partnerships, sparking a revival for the rapidly emerging Pentecostal Christian faiths. The same fate could face Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant denomination, the Presbyterians.
Many of these new evangelical churches see this spiritual revival on an all-island basis.
Moves are also afoot to form a new Centre Left movement comprising Fianna Fail and the Ulster Unionists as a radical alternative to the current Sinn Fein/DUP dominated Stormont Executive.
But would a FF/UUP partnership have any more success than the totally disastrous ‘Vote Mike, get Colum’ strategy which virtually knocked the UUP into electoral oblivion?
Alliance, now that it has finally decided it is a genuine Liberal Party, has clearly decided to ‘paddle its own canoe’ politically rather than indulge in make-believe pacts and partnerships with other parties.
Of course, all of this could count for nothing if the dissident republican challenge is not sorted. The trouble is, dissident republicanism needs an iconic leader - it needs its own version of Adams or McGuinness.
In practical terms, Lurgan republican Colin Duffy must use his profile to negotiate a permanent ceasefire and decommissioning from the various dissident terror gangs.
When the history of this era of republicanism is penned, Duffy will either be portrayed as the unluckiest nationalist on the island, or the biggest icon on a par with Michael Collins and Bobby Sands.
Three times inside a decade, Duffy has been cleared of being involved in some of the most heinous terrorist crimes the Troubles have witnessed.
It must always be remembered that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Duffy has now replaced the late INLA boss Dominic ‘Mad Dog’ McGlinchey as the most hated republican in Ireland among loyalists, Unionists and many Protestants – even in some sections of moderate nationalism.
But those who profess to hate Duffy must swallow the bitter medicine that phrases such as ‘even the dogs in the street know …’ are legally worthless and insulting.
If Duffy is Lurgan’s luckless nationalist, his time in prison proves he is merely a convenient scapegoat for a string of atrocities for which he has been acquitted.
But the question could also be posed – is he the great unsung hero of republicanism who is so professional in his legal skills and knowledge, he defeated the British judicial war machine on three occasions to emphasise his innocence in court?
Fuelling this perception is the large dose of luck which runs alongside Duffy. He was beside his long-time republican chum Sam Marshall when he was gunned down in 1990 in Lurgan amid allegations of collusion by the RUC Inner Circle.
Dissident loyalist terror boss Billy ‘King Rat’ Wright once boasted of jogging into Duffy’s republican bolthole to taunt him outside his home.
Although linked to the deaths of some 40 Catholics, nationalists and republicans, King Rat was killed inside the Maze jail before he could organise a murder bid on Duffy.
But Duffy is certainly not the toast of the Shinners. If Duffy is clever, he will milk media frenzy and become the dissidents’ equivalent of Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness.
It was McGuinness, who later formed the Chuckle Brothers routine with firebrand Paisley senior, who brought Sinn Fein in from the political cold and had a major role in Provo decommissioning.
To the dissident republican fraternity, McGuinness was a British agent, a blunt allegation the former Mid Ulster MP and ex-deputy First Minister always persistently denied.
Duffy must set himself up as the unofficial republican ambassador who brings dissident terror gangs to the talks table, into the peace process, and ultimately to disbanding and decommissioning.
If one man now has the personal standing to persuade the Continuity, New and Real IRAs, and Oglaigh na hEireann’s death squads to call a ceasefire, it is Duffy. It is not impossible.
For generations, McGuinness was a hate figure among the DUP.
Yet Paisley ‘trusted’ him enough to form a power-sharing Executive at Stormont with the former Derry IRA boss as his deputy First Minister.
Even the combined dissident gangs do not have the fire or manpower to mount a sustained Provo-style terror war. Duffy should never become another Jim Lynagh, the psychotic, Prod-hating boss of the East Tyrone IRA Brigade shot dead by the SAS at Loughgall.
Nor should Duffy emerge as Dr Death, the veteran terrorist killer Gerard Steenson, killed in an INLA feud.
Duffy must model himself as a Martin Luther King-style diplomat. Collins was murdered in the Irish Civil War; Sands died on hunger strike; McGlinchey senior died in a feud, and global revolutionary hero Che Guevara was executed.
The social network sites may be cluttered with legally inaccurate rantings about Duffy’s court-proven innocence.
Where does Duffy go from here? He has the terrific opportunity for history to rebrand him as the one true republican who brought lasting peace to this island by persuading dissidents that ‘enough is enough’ and politics is the only path to follow.
Surely he will show common sense and not tempt the bad luck of coming before the British courts again?
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter. @JohnAHCoulter
Scottish Nationalist First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has Britain’s so-called pro-Union stalwarts on the run with her campaign for a second Indy referendum, especially in a post Brexit society.
It’s a win-win strategy for Wee Nicola. Win the independence referendum and Hollywood heart throb Mel Gibson’s Braveheart battle cry ‘Freedom!’ becomes a reality. Win Indy 2 and Scotland will be well placed to re-enter the EU given that it voted Remain in the membership referendum.
The bargaining chip which Wee Nichola can play is to beat the Brexit drum that winning Indy 2 will strengthen Scotland’s hand for an even stronger membership deal with the EU than existed when the Scots were part of the UK in the EU.
If she loses the second vote on full independence, a narrow defeat will put her in a strong position to negotiate even more powers for her Nationalist-controlled Scottish Parliament - could such a scenario with an even more devolved parliament (especially with an SNP majority) allow the Nationalists to have their own private negotiations with the EU in a post Brexit UK?
The North’s Unionist community is gushing with doomsday warnings about the break-up of the UK if Wee Nichola wins an Indy 2 when in reality what they should be talking about is the break-up of Britain.
A sizeable Indy 2 vote means the Welsh demanding more rights for their Assembly, and Londoners urging Westminster to give more cash controls to the capital’s Assembly, too.
Would the North East of England want its own Assembly, along with a devolved structure for Cornwall and Devon? Obviously, Northern Ireland would actually need a working Assembly before if could gain even more devolved powers.
An independent Scotland will not automatically mean a united Ireland, or would it, especially if Scotland could team up with the Republic to form a Celtic Front in the EU? Then again, could a financially strained South afford to take on the running of the North? Not a chance!
For once, Northern Unionists should act with their heads and not their feet. They should quietly tell all Orange Order, loyalist band members, and Rangers supporters in Scotland to support Wee Nicola.
Sounds crazy, but as soon as the vote is announced, Northern Unionists should slap a list of demands for Stormont on Theresa May’s Downing Street desk before she has time to digest the extent of the Indy 2 vote.
The Dail should also stick its oar in, too, with more powers for all the British-Irish and cross-border bodies. For Irish nationalists, a significant Indy 2 showing could mean more powers given the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference, regarded by many as merely a glorified talking shop.
We also need a new Anglo-Irish Treaty to mark the centenary of the original 1920s version negotiated by Michael Collins to bring the South back into the Commonwealth and under the control of the Crown.
King Billy’s Glorious Revolution in the 1690s set up the Protestant Ascendancy which built the Emerald Isle politically and economically.
The collapse of the Celtic Tiger has proven partition hasn’t worked. Do the millions of people in the South want to live in economic squalor and poverty simply to call themselves a Republic?
Political parties on both sides of the border need to use their loaf. Republicans brand the North as the Occupied Six Counties. But Unionists need to view the South as the Occupied Twenty-Six Counties.
The South needs to be encouraged that its future lies in Home Rule within the Commonwealth.
If Paisley senior can compromise his ‘Never, Never, Never’ politics for a power-sharing Executive with the Shinners, then republicans can put the greater good of the Irish people first and rejoin a new Union.
Unionists need to realise that Home Rule no longer means Rome Rule. The pervert priest scandals have obliterated the influence of the Catholic Church.
The island’s largest Protestant denomination, the Church of Ireland, is also fatally split over the issues of gay clerics and civil partnerships, sparking a revival for the rapidly emerging Pentecostal Christian faiths. The same fate could face Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant denomination, the Presbyterians.
Many of these new evangelical churches see this spiritual revival on an all-island basis.
Moves are also afoot to form a new Centre Left movement comprising Fianna Fail and the Ulster Unionists as a radical alternative to the current Sinn Fein/DUP dominated Stormont Executive.
But would a FF/UUP partnership have any more success than the totally disastrous ‘Vote Mike, get Colum’ strategy which virtually knocked the UUP into electoral oblivion?
Alliance, now that it has finally decided it is a genuine Liberal Party, has clearly decided to ‘paddle its own canoe’ politically rather than indulge in make-believe pacts and partnerships with other parties.
Of course, all of this could count for nothing if the dissident republican challenge is not sorted. The trouble is, dissident republicanism needs an iconic leader - it needs its own version of Adams or McGuinness.
In practical terms, Lurgan republican Colin Duffy must use his profile to negotiate a permanent ceasefire and decommissioning from the various dissident terror gangs.
When the history of this era of republicanism is penned, Duffy will either be portrayed as the unluckiest nationalist on the island, or the biggest icon on a par with Michael Collins and Bobby Sands.
Three times inside a decade, Duffy has been cleared of being involved in some of the most heinous terrorist crimes the Troubles have witnessed.
It must always be remembered that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Duffy has now replaced the late INLA boss Dominic ‘Mad Dog’ McGlinchey as the most hated republican in Ireland among loyalists, Unionists and many Protestants – even in some sections of moderate nationalism.
But those who profess to hate Duffy must swallow the bitter medicine that phrases such as ‘even the dogs in the street know …’ are legally worthless and insulting.
If Duffy is Lurgan’s luckless nationalist, his time in prison proves he is merely a convenient scapegoat for a string of atrocities for which he has been acquitted.
But the question could also be posed – is he the great unsung hero of republicanism who is so professional in his legal skills and knowledge, he defeated the British judicial war machine on three occasions to emphasise his innocence in court?
Fuelling this perception is the large dose of luck which runs alongside Duffy. He was beside his long-time republican chum Sam Marshall when he was gunned down in 1990 in Lurgan amid allegations of collusion by the RUC Inner Circle.
Dissident loyalist terror boss Billy ‘King Rat’ Wright once boasted of jogging into Duffy’s republican bolthole to taunt him outside his home.
Although linked to the deaths of some 40 Catholics, nationalists and republicans, King Rat was killed inside the Maze jail before he could organise a murder bid on Duffy.
But Duffy is certainly not the toast of the Shinners. If Duffy is clever, he will milk media frenzy and become the dissidents’ equivalent of Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness.
It was McGuinness, who later formed the Chuckle Brothers routine with firebrand Paisley senior, who brought Sinn Fein in from the political cold and had a major role in Provo decommissioning.
To the dissident republican fraternity, McGuinness was a British agent, a blunt allegation the former Mid Ulster MP and ex-deputy First Minister always persistently denied.
Duffy must set himself up as the unofficial republican ambassador who brings dissident terror gangs to the talks table, into the peace process, and ultimately to disbanding and decommissioning.
If one man now has the personal standing to persuade the Continuity, New and Real IRAs, and Oglaigh na hEireann’s death squads to call a ceasefire, it is Duffy. It is not impossible.
For generations, McGuinness was a hate figure among the DUP.
Yet Paisley ‘trusted’ him enough to form a power-sharing Executive at Stormont with the former Derry IRA boss as his deputy First Minister.
Even the combined dissident gangs do not have the fire or manpower to mount a sustained Provo-style terror war. Duffy should never become another Jim Lynagh, the psychotic, Prod-hating boss of the East Tyrone IRA Brigade shot dead by the SAS at Loughgall.
Nor should Duffy emerge as Dr Death, the veteran terrorist killer Gerard Steenson, killed in an INLA feud.
Duffy must model himself as a Martin Luther King-style diplomat. Collins was murdered in the Irish Civil War; Sands died on hunger strike; McGlinchey senior died in a feud, and global revolutionary hero Che Guevara was executed.
The social network sites may be cluttered with legally inaccurate rantings about Duffy’s court-proven innocence.
Where does Duffy go from here? He has the terrific opportunity for history to rebrand him as the one true republican who brought lasting peace to this island by persuading dissidents that ‘enough is enough’ and politics is the only path to follow.
Surely he will show common sense and not tempt the bad luck of coming before the British courts again?
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter. @JohnAHCoulter
July 29, 2018
Idaho Couple Arrested In Child Abuse Case
Lena M looks at a creepy religious culture in Idaho.
Photo Credits: Pinterest
With membership of less than 2,000, the Followers of Christ church has attracted controversy for its practices of faith healing and the alleged shunning of members who violate church doctrine, including those who seek medical care. Church members and at least one politician (Idaho state Senator Lee Heider) have argued that parents should have the right to select whatever methods of healing they deem appropriate for their children; and public policy, which requires use of conventional medicine over faith healing, constitutes a violation of freedom of religion.
Faith healing is going further in the case of Idaho couple where the father sexually abused their daughters and the mother just prayed about it. Actually, her religious beliefs prohibited her from telling the authorities about her husband’s creepy habit.
Idaho Press reports:
According to Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, “anonymity and seclusion” of the Followers of Christ sect in Canyon County undermines law enforcement’s ability to ensure public safety, especially of minors. “That is certainly a concern for law enforcement, for my detectives and myself personally,” Donahue told the Idaho Press.
Sarah Kester told deputies she tried to protect her children by praying for “the demon” to leave Lester and keeping her husband busy with other tasks, according to a press release from the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office. Lester Kester Jr. told detectives on July 11 that he had been consumed by a “bad guy” or a “demon” and admitted to various forms of sexual contact with all four of his daughters until they were approximately 10 to 12 years old.
“The followers kind of believe like Las Vegas. What happens in the families and what happens in the church stays in the church,” Linda Martin, a former church member and vocal advocate against faith healing exemptions, said in a phone interview Saturday. “You do not speak to outsiders about anything in the church or in your home as far as that goes.”
About Atheist Republic
Follow Atheist Republic on Twitter @AtheistRepublic
Photo Credits: PinterestWith membership of less than 2,000, the Followers of Christ church has attracted controversy for its practices of faith healing and the alleged shunning of members who violate church doctrine, including those who seek medical care. Church members and at least one politician (Idaho state Senator Lee Heider) have argued that parents should have the right to select whatever methods of healing they deem appropriate for their children; and public policy, which requires use of conventional medicine over faith healing, constitutes a violation of freedom of religion.
Faith healing is going further in the case of Idaho couple where the father sexually abused their daughters and the mother just prayed about it. Actually, her religious beliefs prohibited her from telling the authorities about her husband’s creepy habit.
Idaho Press reports:
Sarah Kester and her husband, Lester Kester Jr., are affiliated with the Followers of Christ Church. The church, which has a prominent following in Canyon County and in Oregon, faces criticism for refusing medical care for children and adults in favor of faith healing.
After her July 11 arrest, Sarah Kester told deputies from the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office that she didn’t tell police about her husband’s alleged abuse because it was against her belief system to involve agencies such as law enforcement, child protection services, or counseling services into personal or family matters, according to a sheriff’s office press release.
Lester Kester Jr., 48, was charged with four felony counts of lewd conduct with a minor under 16. Sarah Kester, 50, was charged with one felony count of injury to a child on the suspicion that she did not report the abuse.
According to Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, “anonymity and seclusion” of the Followers of Christ sect in Canyon County undermines law enforcement’s ability to ensure public safety, especially of minors. “That is certainly a concern for law enforcement, for my detectives and myself personally,” Donahue told the Idaho Press.
Sarah Kester told deputies she tried to protect her children by praying for “the demon” to leave Lester and keeping her husband busy with other tasks, according to a press release from the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office. Lester Kester Jr. told detectives on July 11 that he had been consumed by a “bad guy” or a “demon” and admitted to various forms of sexual contact with all four of his daughters until they were approximately 10 to 12 years old.
“The followers kind of believe like Las Vegas. What happens in the families and what happens in the church stays in the church,” Linda Martin, a former church member and vocal advocate against faith healing exemptions, said in a phone interview Saturday. “You do not speak to outsiders about anything in the church or in your home as far as that goes.”
About Atheist RepublicFollow Atheist Republic on Twitter @AtheistRepublic
July 28, 2018
Anthony McIntyre Address At Duleek Hungerstrike Monument Anniversary
Via The Transcripts former IRA Volunteer and blanketman now historian, author and political commentator, Anthony McIntyre, addresses the gathering which marked the 10th anniversary of the official unveiling of the Duleek Hungerstrike Monument on Saturday 16 June 2018. The memorial is dedicated to all Republican hunger strikers of the past century and was constructed by and is maintained by Duleek Independent Republicans.16 June 2018
To listen as you read along please click here
Anthony McIntyre
Photo: BBC
Anthony:
Good Evening. I’ve been at this monument a couple of times now. It’s always an emotional experience to think of the life lost that lies behind it. The life lost in the course of working towards setting it up and securing its construction and bringing it to the absolutely beautiful state which it is in today: a proud and fitting tribute to those brave IRA, INLA Volunteers who died over the past century on hunger strikes in British and Irish prisons.
I don’t intend to speak too long tonight – I think you might find the next speaker more interesting – but I do feel and I’m deeply honoured to be here and I’d like to thank the Monument Committee for the sterling work that it has done and often does it in very difficult circumstances. The gathering here is fine, everybody sees everybody else, we’re soup of the day and the time that’s in it but throughout the year there’s a lot of cold soup drank by those people who trudge the streets, go to meetings, give up their free time to make these events possible and they expend the energy which goes into the construction of these most endearing monuments.
Duleek Hungerstrike Monument
When I came over here tonight I was brought over by a woman who, Shirley Matthews, a close friend of mine, who stood on the bridge in Drogheda for the hunger strikers during that traumatic time. When I got here I met a former blanketman, the brother of Patsy O’Hara who died on hunger strike in May 1981 in the H-Blocks – one of the ten Volunteers who died.
When I think back to the blanket protest I never see it as a life lost but as a life lived differently. I met a lot of good people and it's no shame to say that I still go out on the booze with them every year – they come down once a year from Belfast, some of them who I was on the blanket with, and we discuss old times, ‘talk shop’ – a lot of it nonsense but we’re very close. There were great bonds formed during that time which were not formed with other prisoners who were not on the blanket protest.
The blanket protest was a very violent time. There was beatings on a daily basis. We didn’t get beat, individually, every day but somebody got beat every day. There’s was always a problem. There was deep conflict. There was deep hatred. Prison staff were being shot dead on the outside by the IRA and the INLA because of the brutality that they were meting out. And in the Blocks they were coming back at us very, very hard.
Easter 2018
Duleek Hungerstrike Monument
Every day for years, we remained naked, locked up, twenty four seven, three-six-five – it just went on. And we learned all manner of ways of overcoming the tedium. And I suppose that was the greatest soul destroying thing: the tedium. The inability to, it wasn’t the violence as such – it was the tedium, the boredom. And that gave many of us a great intellectual thirst to understand more about the struggle and the opposition and the people we were up against. And it’s almost – I would have loved to come here and say: Victory to the Blanketmen!
But when I look at what’s happening today and I look at people, former Republicans, lining up to be patted on the hand or head by Prince Charles and British royalty I just feel it’s not Victory to the Blanketmen! but Victory to the Banquetmen! – the men and women who can go to banquets and sit and suck quails’ eggs and drink pink gin – and to me it seems absolutely shameful that Republicans are reduced to this.
There’s no sadder sight in the world than to watch a slave kneel down and kiss his chains or to kiss her chains. What I would say is the greatest crime against the Republican hunger strikers, Republican prisoners who protested for political status: It’s not actually what Thatcher did to them because Thatcher couldn’t win over them – couldn’t secure a victory – even though it was pretended that she did but we know from Richard O’Rawe and others that the Republican hunger strikers actually broke the back of Thatcher – the agreement that was reached was actually sabotaged by the leadership of the Provisional Movement.
But the point that I want to make is that what actually undermines and is a slap in the face of every hunger striker and every blanket protester is when you lose your politics. It’s that when you loose the ability to think politically. The 1981 hunger strikes and the previous hunger strikes were always political. And now when we no longer have political activists – but we have a crowd of sheep – who follow blindly and abandon positions daily. Those people – when you lose your politics and stop thinking politically and stop acting politically and stop acting like a political, intelligent human being and behave like a mindless sheep prepared to follow wherever you’re taken – even over the edge of the cliff – that to me has been the greatest insult to Republicanism. And when people leave here today with whatever views they leave I’d only make one appeal whatever path you take is to: Think politically and never, ever follow blindly. Thank you very much.
To listen as you read along please click here
Anthony McIntyrePhoto: BBC
Anthony:
Good Evening. I’ve been at this monument a couple of times now. It’s always an emotional experience to think of the life lost that lies behind it. The life lost in the course of working towards setting it up and securing its construction and bringing it to the absolutely beautiful state which it is in today: a proud and fitting tribute to those brave IRA, INLA Volunteers who died over the past century on hunger strikes in British and Irish prisons.
I don’t intend to speak too long tonight – I think you might find the next speaker more interesting – but I do feel and I’m deeply honoured to be here and I’d like to thank the Monument Committee for the sterling work that it has done and often does it in very difficult circumstances. The gathering here is fine, everybody sees everybody else, we’re soup of the day and the time that’s in it but throughout the year there’s a lot of cold soup drank by those people who trudge the streets, go to meetings, give up their free time to make these events possible and they expend the energy which goes into the construction of these most endearing monuments.
Duleek Hungerstrike Monument When I came over here tonight I was brought over by a woman who, Shirley Matthews, a close friend of mine, who stood on the bridge in Drogheda for the hunger strikers during that traumatic time. When I got here I met a former blanketman, the brother of Patsy O’Hara who died on hunger strike in May 1981 in the H-Blocks – one of the ten Volunteers who died.
When I think back to the blanket protest I never see it as a life lost but as a life lived differently. I met a lot of good people and it's no shame to say that I still go out on the booze with them every year – they come down once a year from Belfast, some of them who I was on the blanket with, and we discuss old times, ‘talk shop’ – a lot of it nonsense but we’re very close. There were great bonds formed during that time which were not formed with other prisoners who were not on the blanket protest.
The blanket protest was a very violent time. There was beatings on a daily basis. We didn’t get beat, individually, every day but somebody got beat every day. There’s was always a problem. There was deep conflict. There was deep hatred. Prison staff were being shot dead on the outside by the IRA and the INLA because of the brutality that they were meting out. And in the Blocks they were coming back at us very, very hard.
Easter 2018Duleek Hungerstrike Monument
Every day for years, we remained naked, locked up, twenty four seven, three-six-five – it just went on. And we learned all manner of ways of overcoming the tedium. And I suppose that was the greatest soul destroying thing: the tedium. The inability to, it wasn’t the violence as such – it was the tedium, the boredom. And that gave many of us a great intellectual thirst to understand more about the struggle and the opposition and the people we were up against. And it’s almost – I would have loved to come here and say: Victory to the Blanketmen!
But when I look at what’s happening today and I look at people, former Republicans, lining up to be patted on the hand or head by Prince Charles and British royalty I just feel it’s not Victory to the Blanketmen! but Victory to the Banquetmen! – the men and women who can go to banquets and sit and suck quails’ eggs and drink pink gin – and to me it seems absolutely shameful that Republicans are reduced to this.
There’s no sadder sight in the world than to watch a slave kneel down and kiss his chains or to kiss her chains. What I would say is the greatest crime against the Republican hunger strikers, Republican prisoners who protested for political status: It’s not actually what Thatcher did to them because Thatcher couldn’t win over them – couldn’t secure a victory – even though it was pretended that she did but we know from Richard O’Rawe and others that the Republican hunger strikers actually broke the back of Thatcher – the agreement that was reached was actually sabotaged by the leadership of the Provisional Movement.
But the point that I want to make is that what actually undermines and is a slap in the face of every hunger striker and every blanket protester is when you lose your politics. It’s that when you loose the ability to think politically. The 1981 hunger strikes and the previous hunger strikes were always political. And now when we no longer have political activists – but we have a crowd of sheep – who follow blindly and abandon positions daily. Those people – when you lose your politics and stop thinking politically and stop acting politically and stop acting like a political, intelligent human being and behave like a mindless sheep prepared to follow wherever you’re taken – even over the edge of the cliff – that to me has been the greatest insult to Republicanism. And when people leave here today with whatever views they leave I’d only make one appeal whatever path you take is to: Think politically and never, ever follow blindly. Thank you very much.
Radio Free Eireann Broadcasting 28 July 2018
Martin Galvin
with details of this weekend's broadcast from
Radio Free Eireann.
Radio Free Eireann will broadcast today, Saturday July 28th.
RFE will interview Joe Barr of Saoradh in Derry about Ian Paisley's 30 day suspension and possible removal from Westminster, the recent upsurge in violence in Derry and Belfast, Saoradh's condemnation of attacks on the homes of former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and party member Bobby Storey or of any Republicans, and his party's reaction to requests for dialogue.
As a new Irish festival begins in Queens, RFE will get the latest details from organizers.
This is a special pledge program where listeners will get a chance to become WBAI Pledge Buddies.
John McDonagh and Martin Galvin co- host.
Radio Free Eireann is heard Saturdays at 12 Noon New York time on wbai 99.5 FM and wbai.org.
It can be heard at wbai.org in Ireland from 5pm to 6pm or anytime after the program concludes on wbai.org/archives.
RFE will interview Joe Barr of Saoradh in Derry about Ian Paisley's 30 day suspension and possible removal from Westminster, the recent upsurge in violence in Derry and Belfast, Saoradh's condemnation of attacks on the homes of former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and party member Bobby Storey or of any Republicans, and his party's reaction to requests for dialogue.
As a new Irish festival begins in Queens, RFE will get the latest details from organizers.
This is a special pledge program where listeners will get a chance to become WBAI Pledge Buddies.
John McDonagh and Martin Galvin co- host.
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July 27, 2018
"Not Enough!"
The Uri Avnery Column looks at the Israeli state's manipulation of the Holocaust.
That is worth a lot. Everyone who wants to clean himself from the stain needs a certificate from the State of Israel. Such a document is worth very much. And the larger the guilt of the applicant, the higher the price of the dispensation.
What does that remind us of?
For Many centuries the Catholic Church sold "dispensations". These were documents issued by the pope and the cardinals, which allowed the recipient to dispense with religious duties or to do things forbidden by the church.
The most notorious case is that of Henry VIII, king of England. The pope gave him a dispensation that allowed him to marry a Spanish princess, even though she had a remote family connection with him, contrary to church law. But when he wanted to divorce her in order to marry the daughter of an English nobleman, the Pope denied him the necessary dispensation. The result was the split between the Catholic Church and the independent Church of England, in which the King (or Queen) acts as a kind of pope.
The trouble was that, in time, the issuing of dispensations became a high-class business, from which the pope and lesser priests became rich. This situation caused the rebellion of Martin Luther and the other reformers, who created independent new churches.
The Leaders of Israel, headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, now act like the pope in former times: they sell Holocaust dispensations.
Netanyahu did not invent the business. He inherited it from his predecessors. It started with David Ben-Gurion, soon after the end of World War II, when he made a deal with the German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Ben-Gurion declared that there is a "New Germany", which is totally kosher, and in return the Germans paid the State of Israel three billion marks as compensation, as well as individual pensions to survivors.
I, too, received a small payment for "lost education", and my parents received a monthly pension which made the rest of their life bearable.
In the eyes of Ben-Gurion, this was a purely economic matter. The new State of Israel had no money, the German compensation helped it to survive the first years.
But behind the deal there was hidden another decision. Israel, as is well-known, is a "Jewish State". The government of Israel wears two crowns: it is the government of a sovereign state and it sees itself as the leader of the world-wide Jewish Diaspora. The ideological assumption is that these two tasks are one and the same.
But that is a fiction. From time to time there arises a matter which shows a divergence between the interests of Israel and those of the Diaspora. On all these occasions, the interests of Israel take precedence.
Such A situation has arisen now.
Binyamin Netanyahu, King of Israel and would-be Emperor of the Jewish people, has signed a joint statement with the Polish government that clears, in effect, the Polish people from all responsibility for the Holocaust. It condemns anti-Semitism and anti-Polishism in the same breath.
The document aroused a storm, centered around two questions: (1) is it correct? And (2) why did Netanyahu sign it?
The second question is easier to answer: Netanyahu feels a profound kinship with the regimes in Eastern Europe, which form a new bloc, headed by Poland, and which also includes Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
All these regimes are extreme rightist, near-totalitarian, anti-refugee. One could call them soft-fascist.
In present-day Europe, all of them are in opposition to the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her allies, who are more or less liberal, welcome refugees, and condemn the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Israeli settlements. Netanyahu believes that his alliance with the European opposition might deter the Merkelists.
Jewish institutions all over the world see this in a completely different light. They remember that these extreme rightist parties are the descendents of the pro-Nazi parties of the Hitler period. For them, Netanyahu's cynicism is a betrayal of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
A FAR more important question is: is the joint statement accurate?
In Israel, Netanyahu's pro-Polish statement is also widely condemned. The hatred of Poland is far deeper than hatred of Germany. It is a long and complicated story.
In pre-Holocaust times, Poland was home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Very few Jews ever ask themselves: Why? How come?
The simple (forgotten) truth is that for centuries, Poland was the most progressive country in Europe. While Jews were persecuted, killed and expelled in most other European countries – including England. France and Germany – they were welcomed by the Polish kings with open arms. One king had a Jewish mistress, noble land-owners used the Jews as managers of their estates, Jews felt protected.
In the course of time, this changed completely. Poles resented the huge minority in their midst, who looked and dressed differently, spoke a different language (Yiddish) and had a different religion. They also resented the economic competition. During long stretches of domination and oppression by Russia and other neighbors, Poles became extremely nationalist, and this nationalism excluded the Jews. Anti-Semitism became a fierce force.
The Jewish answer was a very deep-seated hatred for Poland and everything Polish.
The Nazi invasion of Poland created a very complicated situation. For most Jews after the war it was clear that the Poles had cooperated with the Nazis in exterminating the Jews. It became normal to speak about "the Polish concentration camps".
This made Poles very angry. They recently enacted a law which makes the usage of these and similar expressions a criminal offense.
So when Netanyahu signed a statement clearing Poles of any responsibility for the extermination of the Jews in Poland, it caused a storm of fury in Israel and around the Jewish world.
About A dozen years ago I visited Poland for the first time. It was part of my research for my (Hebrew) book "Lenin Does Not Live Here Anymore", which described the situation in Russia and several other countries immediately after the fall of Communism.
No country surprised me as much as Poland. I learned that during the Nazi occupation there were not one, but two underground organizations that fought the Nazis. Millions of Christian Poles were executed by the Nazis besides the Jews.
(When we returned to Israel, my wife Rachel, who had accompanied me throughout the journey, heard a female shop owner in Tel Aviv speaking Polish. "Did you know that the Germans also killed three million Christian Poles?" she interrupted, still under the influence of what she had heard. "Not enough," the shop owner retorted.)
During the Holocaust, the first reliable information about he extermination camps that reached the Western allies and the Jewish institutions came from the Polish exile government in London. Thousands of Poles were decorated in Israel for helping Jews to survive, often risking their own lives and the lives of their families.
True, many other Poles helped the Germans to kill Jews, as did local people in all the countries of the Nazi occupation. Also, Immediately after the end of the Nazi occupation, there was at least one local pogrom. But there were no Polish "Quislings". Compared with the other occupied peoples, the Poles come out rather well.
So why were the extermination camps located in Poland? Because that's where the bulk of the Jews were living, and because it was easy to bring the Jews from other countries there. But they were not "Polish extermination camps".
There are some exaggerations in the Netanyahu-Poland statement. For example, mentioning anti-Semitism and anti-Polishness – whatever that means – in one sentence. But it certainly does not merit the storm it evoked.
Years Ago I read a short story by an Israel writer. It described the invasion of the Middle East by a Mongolian people, who had an obsessive hatred for the Arabs. The occupiers asked the Jews to help them to exterminate the Arabs, promising all kinds of advantages.
How many did so? What would You have done?
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist.
He writes @ Gush Shalom
That is worth a lot. Everyone who wants to clean himself from the stain needs a certificate from the State of Israel. Such a document is worth very much. And the larger the guilt of the applicant, the higher the price of the dispensation.
What does that remind us of?
For Many centuries the Catholic Church sold "dispensations". These were documents issued by the pope and the cardinals, which allowed the recipient to dispense with religious duties or to do things forbidden by the church.
The most notorious case is that of Henry VIII, king of England. The pope gave him a dispensation that allowed him to marry a Spanish princess, even though she had a remote family connection with him, contrary to church law. But when he wanted to divorce her in order to marry the daughter of an English nobleman, the Pope denied him the necessary dispensation. The result was the split between the Catholic Church and the independent Church of England, in which the King (or Queen) acts as a kind of pope.
The trouble was that, in time, the issuing of dispensations became a high-class business, from which the pope and lesser priests became rich. This situation caused the rebellion of Martin Luther and the other reformers, who created independent new churches.
The Leaders of Israel, headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, now act like the pope in former times: they sell Holocaust dispensations.
Netanyahu did not invent the business. He inherited it from his predecessors. It started with David Ben-Gurion, soon after the end of World War II, when he made a deal with the German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Ben-Gurion declared that there is a "New Germany", which is totally kosher, and in return the Germans paid the State of Israel three billion marks as compensation, as well as individual pensions to survivors.
I, too, received a small payment for "lost education", and my parents received a monthly pension which made the rest of their life bearable.
In the eyes of Ben-Gurion, this was a purely economic matter. The new State of Israel had no money, the German compensation helped it to survive the first years.
But behind the deal there was hidden another decision. Israel, as is well-known, is a "Jewish State". The government of Israel wears two crowns: it is the government of a sovereign state and it sees itself as the leader of the world-wide Jewish Diaspora. The ideological assumption is that these two tasks are one and the same.
But that is a fiction. From time to time there arises a matter which shows a divergence between the interests of Israel and those of the Diaspora. On all these occasions, the interests of Israel take precedence.
Such A situation has arisen now.
Binyamin Netanyahu, King of Israel and would-be Emperor of the Jewish people, has signed a joint statement with the Polish government that clears, in effect, the Polish people from all responsibility for the Holocaust. It condemns anti-Semitism and anti-Polishism in the same breath.
The document aroused a storm, centered around two questions: (1) is it correct? And (2) why did Netanyahu sign it?
The second question is easier to answer: Netanyahu feels a profound kinship with the regimes in Eastern Europe, which form a new bloc, headed by Poland, and which also includes Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
All these regimes are extreme rightist, near-totalitarian, anti-refugee. One could call them soft-fascist.
In present-day Europe, all of them are in opposition to the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her allies, who are more or less liberal, welcome refugees, and condemn the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Israeli settlements. Netanyahu believes that his alliance with the European opposition might deter the Merkelists.
Jewish institutions all over the world see this in a completely different light. They remember that these extreme rightist parties are the descendents of the pro-Nazi parties of the Hitler period. For them, Netanyahu's cynicism is a betrayal of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
A FAR more important question is: is the joint statement accurate?
In Israel, Netanyahu's pro-Polish statement is also widely condemned. The hatred of Poland is far deeper than hatred of Germany. It is a long and complicated story.
In pre-Holocaust times, Poland was home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Very few Jews ever ask themselves: Why? How come?
The simple (forgotten) truth is that for centuries, Poland was the most progressive country in Europe. While Jews were persecuted, killed and expelled in most other European countries – including England. France and Germany – they were welcomed by the Polish kings with open arms. One king had a Jewish mistress, noble land-owners used the Jews as managers of their estates, Jews felt protected.
In the course of time, this changed completely. Poles resented the huge minority in their midst, who looked and dressed differently, spoke a different language (Yiddish) and had a different religion. They also resented the economic competition. During long stretches of domination and oppression by Russia and other neighbors, Poles became extremely nationalist, and this nationalism excluded the Jews. Anti-Semitism became a fierce force.
The Jewish answer was a very deep-seated hatred for Poland and everything Polish.
The Nazi invasion of Poland created a very complicated situation. For most Jews after the war it was clear that the Poles had cooperated with the Nazis in exterminating the Jews. It became normal to speak about "the Polish concentration camps".
This made Poles very angry. They recently enacted a law which makes the usage of these and similar expressions a criminal offense.
So when Netanyahu signed a statement clearing Poles of any responsibility for the extermination of the Jews in Poland, it caused a storm of fury in Israel and around the Jewish world.
About A dozen years ago I visited Poland for the first time. It was part of my research for my (Hebrew) book "Lenin Does Not Live Here Anymore", which described the situation in Russia and several other countries immediately after the fall of Communism.
No country surprised me as much as Poland. I learned that during the Nazi occupation there were not one, but two underground organizations that fought the Nazis. Millions of Christian Poles were executed by the Nazis besides the Jews.
(When we returned to Israel, my wife Rachel, who had accompanied me throughout the journey, heard a female shop owner in Tel Aviv speaking Polish. "Did you know that the Germans also killed three million Christian Poles?" she interrupted, still under the influence of what she had heard. "Not enough," the shop owner retorted.)
During the Holocaust, the first reliable information about he extermination camps that reached the Western allies and the Jewish institutions came from the Polish exile government in London. Thousands of Poles were decorated in Israel for helping Jews to survive, often risking their own lives and the lives of their families.
True, many other Poles helped the Germans to kill Jews, as did local people in all the countries of the Nazi occupation. Also, Immediately after the end of the Nazi occupation, there was at least one local pogrom. But there were no Polish "Quislings". Compared with the other occupied peoples, the Poles come out rather well.
So why were the extermination camps located in Poland? Because that's where the bulk of the Jews were living, and because it was easy to bring the Jews from other countries there. But they were not "Polish extermination camps".
There are some exaggerations in the Netanyahu-Poland statement. For example, mentioning anti-Semitism and anti-Polishness – whatever that means – in one sentence. But it certainly does not merit the storm it evoked.
Years Ago I read a short story by an Israel writer. It described the invasion of the Middle East by a Mongolian people, who had an obsessive hatred for the Arabs. The occupiers asked the Jews to help them to exterminate the Arabs, promising all kinds of advantages.
How many did so? What would You have done?
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist.
He writes @ Gush Shalom
Outrage: The Story Behind The Tawana Brawley Hoax
Christopher Owens reviews a work about an alleged rape in 1980s New York.
This is going to be a tricky review, because the event and the implications deserve as much, even more, discussion.
We all know the quote from Marx about history repeating itself. It manifests itself firstly as tragedy, and secondly as farce. Very true, but George Bernard Shaw's line is much more succinct (and arguably much more nihilistic): "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."
But two incidents from history sit at the front of my thoughts. One is a example of what happens when history is ignored, the other is an event which could happen again in this current climate.
1987 was an important year. Napalm Death released the groundbreaking 'Scum' album (taking hardcore punk and metal into uncharted realms), Derek Jarman released his greatest film, 'The Last of England', and the Provisional IRA suffered not only it's biggest defeat against Crown forces (Loughgall), but also it's (arguably) biggest loss of support (Enniskillen).
It was a year of consolidation (Conservatives winning the UK General Election), a year of protest (the Brașov rebellion in Romania) and a year of germinating steps (Reagan and Gorbachev sign a treaty to eliminate 4% of their nuclear weapons).
And it was a year that we can still learn from.
On 18th November, a discarded match fell under a wooden escalator at Kings Cross station in London. This (quite literally) sparked off a chain of events which culminated in the death of thirty one people in an inferno which gutted the entire station (one of the largest and busiest in London).
With the Grenfell Tower tragedy still fresh in the mind of many, it's easy to look at an event like the Kings Cross fire and compare the two, asking if we have learnt anything from it. It doesn't seem to be the case at all.
Be it 1987 or 2018, local government and big business are truly one and the same, cutting corners and creating cultures where one little incident turns into unmitigated disasters.
And Outrage lays this out, in exquisite and excruciating detail.
On November 28th 1987, 15 year old Tawana Brawley (an African American lady from outside New York City) was found in a garbage bag after being reported missing for four days. She appeared to have gone through horrendous torture, with her jeans burnt at the crotch and racial terms scrawled on her body in charcoal. When she recovered enough to speak, she alleged that one of her abusers was a police officer.
On the face of it, it was impossible not to feel revulsion at what had happened to Brawley, and sympathy for her as a young woman.
The case had caught the attention of the black community, with Reverend Al Sharpton becoming one of her main advisors. A protégé of Jesse Jackson, and former tour manager for James Brown, Sharpton's explosive (and, at times, racist) rhetoric, dynamic speeches and prominent activism quickly made him a prominent media figure.
Before we go any further, we need to introduce some context.
The New York of 1987 was closer to dystopian cult classics like 'The Warriors' and 'The Exterminator' than Woody Allen neurotic romantic comedy fares, with recorded crime at an all time high. As the Cro-Mags once sang "Living in burnt out buildings/Living in the streets... Never know what's coming up ahead/If the beast pulls the trigger could wind up dead."
Racial tensions were a fact of life. We had already seen the well documented cases of Michael Stewart (who died after a beating from police), Bernhard Goetz (known as the 'Subway Vigilante'), Michael Griffith (murdered in Howard Beach) as well as the countless undocumented cases of racial violence and abuse.
Because of this, Sharpton and Brawley's lawyers (Alton H. Maddox Jr and C. Vernon Mason) believed that there was the potential for a cover up by the state, and it's not hard to see why. However, by 1988, they had named two people that he believed had committed the crime. One, conveniently, had committed suicide a few days after the supposed attack. The other was a practising District Attorney. By the end, they had also thrown the Mafia, Klu Klux Klan and the IRA into the mix.
Written by various New York Times journalists who reported the case, it manages to strike a delicate balance in tone by allowing Mason and Maddox's genuine hatred of the system that enslaved the black community for hundreds of years to shine through as part of their motivation. However, the book also shows how the fame and donations also played a huge part as well.
It starts off as one small incident (where a white cop asks the mother and aunt of Tawana to move) in the hospital before all hell breaks loose and the family are demanding that only black police officers deal with the case. The breakdown in communication, which then leads to fabrication and outright lies, is something the readers are left wondering about. Was it deliberate collusion between Tawana and the family? Was it an overprotective aunt who had suffered racism now unleashing her vengeance, or did events overcome them?
So many questions, and with Tawana still sticking to her story after 30 odd years, it looks like we'll never know for definite.
Brawley's case eventually fell apart due to forensic evidence not matching her story (the jeans had been burnt at the crotch and then placed on her, the racial terms appeared to have been written by Brawley) and a grand jury concluded that the whole incident was a hoax designed as a cover story for hanging out with her boyfriend (whom her stepfather disapproved of).
While the case has largely been forgotten about today (although supposedly "Tawana told the truth" can still be seen in graffiti form in parts of New York), it still has implications for 2018, especially with the recent trial of Ulster rugby players still fresh in the memory.
And I have to be thankful that such a book like Outrage exists. What it does is take what, on the surface, seemed a simple case which grew more and more complex as the days went on and detail every single twist and turn to forensic effect. Also, by examining the vast socio-political situation of New York at that time, Outrage becomes an important time capsule, not only in terms of race relations, but also in how the various media outlets facilitated in the expansion of the "mosquito press" for the black community who believed the mainstream media had no interest in what happened to a young black girl (a view that was later validated with the press coverage of the Central Park Five less than a year later).
The Tawana Brawley hoax was a product of it's environment, but it's one that can still happen today. And the way society is heading, I can see it happening again.
In his farewell speech to the American public, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the dangers of the military industrial complex, but he also said that "together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose."
Eisenhower was clearly an optimist, as we are seemingly doomed to the Machiavelli approach to history: "Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results."
Books like Outrage should remain in print indefinitely, to serve as a reminder that we should never be fooled again.
Robert D. McFadden (editor) Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax 1990 Bantam Dell ISBN-13: 978-0553057560
➽ Christopher Owens reviews for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland.Follow Christopher Owens on Twitter @MrOwens212
This is going to be a tricky review, because the event and the implications deserve as much, even more, discussion.
We all know the quote from Marx about history repeating itself. It manifests itself firstly as tragedy, and secondly as farce. Very true, but George Bernard Shaw's line is much more succinct (and arguably much more nihilistic): "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."
But two incidents from history sit at the front of my thoughts. One is a example of what happens when history is ignored, the other is an event which could happen again in this current climate.
1987 was an important year. Napalm Death released the groundbreaking 'Scum' album (taking hardcore punk and metal into uncharted realms), Derek Jarman released his greatest film, 'The Last of England', and the Provisional IRA suffered not only it's biggest defeat against Crown forces (Loughgall), but also it's (arguably) biggest loss of support (Enniskillen).
It was a year of consolidation (Conservatives winning the UK General Election), a year of protest (the Brașov rebellion in Romania) and a year of germinating steps (Reagan and Gorbachev sign a treaty to eliminate 4% of their nuclear weapons).
And it was a year that we can still learn from.
On 18th November, a discarded match fell under a wooden escalator at Kings Cross station in London. This (quite literally) sparked off a chain of events which culminated in the death of thirty one people in an inferno which gutted the entire station (one of the largest and busiest in London).
With the Grenfell Tower tragedy still fresh in the mind of many, it's easy to look at an event like the Kings Cross fire and compare the two, asking if we have learnt anything from it. It doesn't seem to be the case at all.
Be it 1987 or 2018, local government and big business are truly one and the same, cutting corners and creating cultures where one little incident turns into unmitigated disasters.
And Outrage lays this out, in exquisite and excruciating detail.
On November 28th 1987, 15 year old Tawana Brawley (an African American lady from outside New York City) was found in a garbage bag after being reported missing for four days. She appeared to have gone through horrendous torture, with her jeans burnt at the crotch and racial terms scrawled on her body in charcoal. When she recovered enough to speak, she alleged that one of her abusers was a police officer.
On the face of it, it was impossible not to feel revulsion at what had happened to Brawley, and sympathy for her as a young woman.
The case had caught the attention of the black community, with Reverend Al Sharpton becoming one of her main advisors. A protégé of Jesse Jackson, and former tour manager for James Brown, Sharpton's explosive (and, at times, racist) rhetoric, dynamic speeches and prominent activism quickly made him a prominent media figure.
Before we go any further, we need to introduce some context.
The New York of 1987 was closer to dystopian cult classics like 'The Warriors' and 'The Exterminator' than Woody Allen neurotic romantic comedy fares, with recorded crime at an all time high. As the Cro-Mags once sang "Living in burnt out buildings/Living in the streets... Never know what's coming up ahead/If the beast pulls the trigger could wind up dead."
Racial tensions were a fact of life. We had already seen the well documented cases of Michael Stewart (who died after a beating from police), Bernhard Goetz (known as the 'Subway Vigilante'), Michael Griffith (murdered in Howard Beach) as well as the countless undocumented cases of racial violence and abuse.
Because of this, Sharpton and Brawley's lawyers (Alton H. Maddox Jr and C. Vernon Mason) believed that there was the potential for a cover up by the state, and it's not hard to see why. However, by 1988, they had named two people that he believed had committed the crime. One, conveniently, had committed suicide a few days after the supposed attack. The other was a practising District Attorney. By the end, they had also thrown the Mafia, Klu Klux Klan and the IRA into the mix.
Written by various New York Times journalists who reported the case, it manages to strike a delicate balance in tone by allowing Mason and Maddox's genuine hatred of the system that enslaved the black community for hundreds of years to shine through as part of their motivation. However, the book also shows how the fame and donations also played a huge part as well.
It starts off as one small incident (where a white cop asks the mother and aunt of Tawana to move) in the hospital before all hell breaks loose and the family are demanding that only black police officers deal with the case. The breakdown in communication, which then leads to fabrication and outright lies, is something the readers are left wondering about. Was it deliberate collusion between Tawana and the family? Was it an overprotective aunt who had suffered racism now unleashing her vengeance, or did events overcome them?
So many questions, and with Tawana still sticking to her story after 30 odd years, it looks like we'll never know for definite.
Brawley's case eventually fell apart due to forensic evidence not matching her story (the jeans had been burnt at the crotch and then placed on her, the racial terms appeared to have been written by Brawley) and a grand jury concluded that the whole incident was a hoax designed as a cover story for hanging out with her boyfriend (whom her stepfather disapproved of).
While the case has largely been forgotten about today (although supposedly "Tawana told the truth" can still be seen in graffiti form in parts of New York), it still has implications for 2018, especially with the recent trial of Ulster rugby players still fresh in the memory.
And I have to be thankful that such a book like Outrage exists. What it does is take what, on the surface, seemed a simple case which grew more and more complex as the days went on and detail every single twist and turn to forensic effect. Also, by examining the vast socio-political situation of New York at that time, Outrage becomes an important time capsule, not only in terms of race relations, but also in how the various media outlets facilitated in the expansion of the "mosquito press" for the black community who believed the mainstream media had no interest in what happened to a young black girl (a view that was later validated with the press coverage of the Central Park Five less than a year later).
The Tawana Brawley hoax was a product of it's environment, but it's one that can still happen today. And the way society is heading, I can see it happening again.
In his farewell speech to the American public, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the dangers of the military industrial complex, but he also said that "together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose."
Eisenhower was clearly an optimist, as we are seemingly doomed to the Machiavelli approach to history: "Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results."
Books like Outrage should remain in print indefinitely, to serve as a reminder that we should never be fooled again.
Robert D. McFadden (editor) Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax 1990 Bantam Dell ISBN-13: 978-0553057560
➽ Christopher Owens reviews for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland.Follow Christopher Owens on Twitter @MrOwens212
Anthony McIntyre's Blog
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