Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1205
June 25, 2017
A Christian Disorder
Anthony McIntyre
writes on the phenomenon of Christian arrogance as evidenced in one response to the death of
Dr Ann Louise Gilligan.
When people take to telling me that they are Christian, with the implied suggestion that I should think more highly of them for it, a "give a wide berth" alert flashes across my mind. Much like we cross the road to avoid the sandwich board fool proclaiming the end of the world is upon us while simultaneously entreating us to repent of our sins. When the path to salvation lies in listening to prancing clowns waving bibles, I am beyond redemption.
A while back I was confronted by a youngish man in Dublin's O'Connell Street blathering on about Jesus, sinners and Hell, while trying to thrust leaflets into the hands of passers-by. I asked him his age - 19. I then suggested to him he should be off boozing and enjoying a good ride rather than bothering Saturday shoppers. You would have thought by the look on his face he had just encountered the devil.
It is not Christianity alone that seems sinister to me: any belief system grounded in irrationality, in which people equipped with the power of reason their god supposedly gave them are expected to abandon it and defer to everything that stands in contrast to reason solely on the basis of faith, seems off the wall. H. L. Mencken concisely but insightfully defined faith "as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."
Not all Christians prefer hubris to humility. Many of them seem guided in their daily lives more by the theology of liberation and not that of domination. They are not the preaching type. More in the vein of Helder Camara than Joseph Ratzinger, they never make it beyond the archbishopric to those lofty heights where Cardinal sinners exercise a monopoly.
Still, the Orwellian character of much Christian posturing, is hard to deny. In Nineteen Eighty Four the Ministry of Love practiced hate. There is something of that to be found among the Christians.
Following the death of Dr Ann Louise Gilligan, spouse of Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone, words of condolence were ostensibly offered via email by Professor Ciarán Ó Coigligh. The learned professor started out not as he meant to go on but with a velvet touch gentle touch to ease the way for the sharpened steel he intended to thrust into the grieving heart of Zappone:
With the obligatory pleasantries out of the way he proceeded to the real point of his letter.
This he described as a "Catholic Christian response to same-sex attraction, informed by the latest research in the area." Which made me think that society would be much healthier were it able to overcome and shed itself of the Catholic Christian disorder.
Ó Coigligh referred to his "great sadness to me when Anne Louise told me that she had outgrown her Christian Faith" and then proceeded to rant about the sadness caused him by Katherine Zappone giving:
ever-more strident voice to calls for the liberalisation of legislation allowing the murder of an infant in the womb as a response to threatened suicide. What alleviation from grief Zappone is supposed to find in that is something that perhaps only a warped Christian doctrine could explain. Reading Ó Coiglighg, I - as I so often do when confronted with arrant pious pomposity - returned to Mencken:
He will even create people with disorders so that his followers can impose their order on them.
When people take to telling me that they are Christian, with the implied suggestion that I should think more highly of them for it, a "give a wide berth" alert flashes across my mind. Much like we cross the road to avoid the sandwich board fool proclaiming the end of the world is upon us while simultaneously entreating us to repent of our sins. When the path to salvation lies in listening to prancing clowns waving bibles, I am beyond redemption. A while back I was confronted by a youngish man in Dublin's O'Connell Street blathering on about Jesus, sinners and Hell, while trying to thrust leaflets into the hands of passers-by. I asked him his age - 19. I then suggested to him he should be off boozing and enjoying a good ride rather than bothering Saturday shoppers. You would have thought by the look on his face he had just encountered the devil.
It is not Christianity alone that seems sinister to me: any belief system grounded in irrationality, in which people equipped with the power of reason their god supposedly gave them are expected to abandon it and defer to everything that stands in contrast to reason solely on the basis of faith, seems off the wall. H. L. Mencken concisely but insightfully defined faith "as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."
Not all Christians prefer hubris to humility. Many of them seem guided in their daily lives more by the theology of liberation and not that of domination. They are not the preaching type. More in the vein of Helder Camara than Joseph Ratzinger, they never make it beyond the archbishopric to those lofty heights where Cardinal sinners exercise a monopoly.
Still, the Orwellian character of much Christian posturing, is hard to deny. In Nineteen Eighty Four the Ministry of Love practiced hate. There is something of that to be found among the Christians.
Following the death of Dr Ann Louise Gilligan, spouse of Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone, words of condolence were ostensibly offered via email by Professor Ciarán Ó Coigligh. The learned professor started out not as he meant to go on but with a velvet touch gentle touch to ease the way for the sharpened steel he intended to thrust into the grieving heart of Zappone:
May the Lord have mercy on the soul of my late good friend and former colleague of almost forty years, Anne Louise Gilligan, and may she rest in peace. It was a privilege to work with Anne Louise and our mutual friend Katherine Zappone over the years on many projects supportive of poor urban and rural students.
With the obligatory pleasantries out of the way he proceeded to the real point of his letter.
same-sex attraction is a disorder that can be overcome and affected individuals restored to orderly sexual orientation; that people are robbed of their human dignity by being defined solely in terms of sexual attraction and grouped under the hideous acronym LGBT; and that a (sexual) relationship between two women or between two men cannot be conjugal, cannot be consummated, and cannot constitute marriage.
This he described as a "Catholic Christian response to same-sex attraction, informed by the latest research in the area." Which made me think that society would be much healthier were it able to overcome and shed itself of the Catholic Christian disorder.
Ó Coigligh referred to his "great sadness to me when Anne Louise told me that she had outgrown her Christian Faith" and then proceeded to rant about the sadness caused him by Katherine Zappone giving:
ever-more strident voice to calls for the liberalisation of legislation allowing the murder of an infant in the womb as a response to threatened suicide. What alleviation from grief Zappone is supposed to find in that is something that perhaps only a warped Christian doctrine could explain. Reading Ó Coiglighg, I - as I so often do when confronted with arrant pious pomposity - returned to Mencken:
God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters.
He will even create people with disorders so that his followers can impose their order on them.
New Job Vacancy - Expert On Exorcism
Mick Hall
@
Organized Rage
feels that:
By getting into bed with the DUP Theresa May would do well to appoint an expert on exorcism to her new cabinet.
DUP voters cheer an Orange Order march as its members parade through Carrickfergus at the weekend
With the Tory minority Government led by Theresa May entering into what is a coalition in all but name, the initials DUP have been one of the top topics googled in the UK. Which is in itself somewhat shocking as it means despite three decades of bloody war in the recent past most folk in England and Wales seem pretty oblivious of political events in the north of Ireland.
It would not be an understatement to claim the DUP was at the heart of the troubles during those years. Their sectarian politics were one of the main reasons why the bloody conflagration which shook NI for decades lasted so long..
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a right-wing sectarian unionist political party founded in 1971 by Dr Ian Paisley as the six counties began to implode into open warfare. It's membership are the types who supported European fascism in the 1930s especially bar the Catholic religion the, Spanish Falange.
It was founded as a political spin off from Ian Paisley senior's Protestant Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. Smaller than the main Unionist Party it's growth was due to Paisley's intransigence, hardline ranting and pathological hatred of the Irish state south of the border. During most of the Troubles the DUP opposed all attempts to resolve the conflict by sharing power with the nationalist and mainly catholic population.
Although it now condemns all paramilitaries, in the 1980s after they forged links with the SA apartheid regime, they attempted to set up their own armed group Ulster Resistance. This failed because the well established loyalist organisations like the UVF and UDA out gunned them, and due to informers in their ranks and having the same aims as the various intelligence agencies who operated in NI. Paisley and his advisers eventually realised this and wisely stood Ulster Resistance down after it was ridiculed within loyalist circles. From then on the DUP concentrated on politics and provocative sectarian marches, often organised by their members within the Orange Order. It has to be said the they understood their core voters well and became astute operators.
Although in recent years they have built a relationship with the current UDA leader Jackie McDonald. Once a close henchman of a notorious south Belfast UDA boss he was one of the most feared gunmen in the north and a man who is still able to order the destruction of a human being.
The Loyalist Communities Council, which represents loyalist paramilitary groups including the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando, publicly endorsed three DUP candidates in the 2017 general election, Nigel Dodds, Gavin Robinson and Emma Little-Pengelly. Before this loyalists mainly supported the Progressive Unionist Party, especially in Belfast.
Its worth noting the overwhelming majority of the DUP leadership genuinely believe their god created the world in seven days, hence they don't do politics on a Sunday. Their beliefs are based on a literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative and rejection of the scientific theory of evolution. Like all creationists they make prickly bedfellows for unbelievers, and the prime minister will not get all her own way. They will see her in this light. She will not be on the bus to the next life as she believes in a different type of god so they owe her no special favours.
I once had a long conversation in a street café in Portugal with a couple from the north: the man is now within the DUP leadership group. He talked enthusiastically about the NHS and the welfare state, he even had a good word to say about the nationalist community in the north. Yet when he went to the toilet, his wife turned and said to me don't believe a word of it - under the surface you find a Paisleyite bigot. This was long before the Chuckle Brothers appeared on the scene yet the memory has always stayed with me.
If you add in the DUP's hatred of LGBT people and their views on abortion, some might say May is getting into bed with the devil, and she would do well to appoint an expert on exorcism to her new cabinet.
A new paramilitary mural on the route of the above mentioned Orange Order march.
By getting into bed with the DUP Theresa May would do well to appoint an expert on exorcism to her new cabinet.
DUP voters cheer an Orange Order march as its members parade through Carrickfergus at the weekendWith the Tory minority Government led by Theresa May entering into what is a coalition in all but name, the initials DUP have been one of the top topics googled in the UK. Which is in itself somewhat shocking as it means despite three decades of bloody war in the recent past most folk in England and Wales seem pretty oblivious of political events in the north of Ireland.
It would not be an understatement to claim the DUP was at the heart of the troubles during those years. Their sectarian politics were one of the main reasons why the bloody conflagration which shook NI for decades lasted so long..
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a right-wing sectarian unionist political party founded in 1971 by Dr Ian Paisley as the six counties began to implode into open warfare. It's membership are the types who supported European fascism in the 1930s especially bar the Catholic religion the, Spanish Falange.
It was founded as a political spin off from Ian Paisley senior's Protestant Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. Smaller than the main Unionist Party it's growth was due to Paisley's intransigence, hardline ranting and pathological hatred of the Irish state south of the border. During most of the Troubles the DUP opposed all attempts to resolve the conflict by sharing power with the nationalist and mainly catholic population.
Although it now condemns all paramilitaries, in the 1980s after they forged links with the SA apartheid regime, they attempted to set up their own armed group Ulster Resistance. This failed because the well established loyalist organisations like the UVF and UDA out gunned them, and due to informers in their ranks and having the same aims as the various intelligence agencies who operated in NI. Paisley and his advisers eventually realised this and wisely stood Ulster Resistance down after it was ridiculed within loyalist circles. From then on the DUP concentrated on politics and provocative sectarian marches, often organised by their members within the Orange Order. It has to be said the they understood their core voters well and became astute operators.
Although in recent years they have built a relationship with the current UDA leader Jackie McDonald. Once a close henchman of a notorious south Belfast UDA boss he was one of the most feared gunmen in the north and a man who is still able to order the destruction of a human being.
The Loyalist Communities Council, which represents loyalist paramilitary groups including the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando, publicly endorsed three DUP candidates in the 2017 general election, Nigel Dodds, Gavin Robinson and Emma Little-Pengelly. Before this loyalists mainly supported the Progressive Unionist Party, especially in Belfast.
Its worth noting the overwhelming majority of the DUP leadership genuinely believe their god created the world in seven days, hence they don't do politics on a Sunday. Their beliefs are based on a literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative and rejection of the scientific theory of evolution. Like all creationists they make prickly bedfellows for unbelievers, and the prime minister will not get all her own way. They will see her in this light. She will not be on the bus to the next life as she believes in a different type of god so they owe her no special favours.
I once had a long conversation in a street café in Portugal with a couple from the north: the man is now within the DUP leadership group. He talked enthusiastically about the NHS and the welfare state, he even had a good word to say about the nationalist community in the north. Yet when he went to the toilet, his wife turned and said to me don't believe a word of it - under the surface you find a Paisleyite bigot. This was long before the Chuckle Brothers appeared on the scene yet the memory has always stayed with me.
If you add in the DUP's hatred of LGBT people and their views on abortion, some might say May is getting into bed with the devil, and she would do well to appoint an expert on exorcism to her new cabinet.
A new paramilitary mural on the route of the above mentioned Orange Order march.
Pakistan Sentenced A Man To Death for Blasphemy On Facebook
From
Atheist Republic
, a piece from
Lena M
about the Pakistani state sentencing a person to death over the ridiculous pseudo crime, blasphemy. 
Photo Credits: Orissa Post
The Pakistan Penal Code prohibits blasphemy against any recognized religion, providing penalties ranging from a fine to death. Since 1990, 62 people have been murdered as a result of blasphemy allegations. While other countries are rejecting the archaic blasphemy law, Pakistan toughens penalties for blasphemy making Raza the first person sentenced to death for such a ‘crime’ on social media.
Anti-Terrorism Court in Pakistan sentenced 30-year-old Taimoor Raza to death for offending religious sensibilities, marking the first time the government will kill someone for blasphemy. Raza was arrested last year after a debate about Islam on Facebook with a man who turned out to be a counter-terrorism agent. Authorities from Pakistan have asked Twitter and Facebook to help identify users sharing blasphemous material and it’s a new battleground in their fight against blasphemy.
Human rights defenders have expressed concern that the country’s blasphemy laws provide a tool for people to carry out personal vendettas, particularly because nobody is ever punished for making false accusations. “Such sentences will embolden those who want to wrongly frame people,” Saroop Ijaz, a lawyer with Human Rights Watchin Pakistan said, noting with concern that Saturday’s sentence was handed down by an anti-terrorism court, not a regular court. “The confusion between national security and religion is very alarming,” he added.
Raza’s brother, Waseem Abbas, said the family was “poor but literate,” and belonged to Pakistan’s minority Shia Muslim community. “My brother indulged in a sectarian debate on Facebook with a person, who we later come to know, was a [counter-terrorism department] official with the name of Muhammad Usman,” he said.
According to Raza’s defense attorney, Raza’s client had been charged with two unrelated sections of the law to ensure the maximum penalty. Raza was initially charged under section 298A, which punishes for derogatory remarks about other religious personalities for up to two years. Later he was charged under section 295C of the penal code, related to “derogatory acts against Prophet Muhammad.”
Besides Raza, several others are already on death row for alleged blasphemy in public. Among them is Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted in 2010 after a row with two Muslim women in a village in Punjab. Four people were sentenced to death for blasphemy last year, according to the HRCP. In the age of freedom of speech and belief it is unacceptable for any government to punish people who say what they really think.
Photo Credits: Orissa Post The Pakistan Penal Code prohibits blasphemy against any recognized religion, providing penalties ranging from a fine to death. Since 1990, 62 people have been murdered as a result of blasphemy allegations. While other countries are rejecting the archaic blasphemy law, Pakistan toughens penalties for blasphemy making Raza the first person sentenced to death for such a ‘crime’ on social media.
Anti-Terrorism Court in Pakistan sentenced 30-year-old Taimoor Raza to death for offending religious sensibilities, marking the first time the government will kill someone for blasphemy. Raza was arrested last year after a debate about Islam on Facebook with a man who turned out to be a counter-terrorism agent. Authorities from Pakistan have asked Twitter and Facebook to help identify users sharing blasphemous material and it’s a new battleground in their fight against blasphemy.
Human rights defenders have expressed concern that the country’s blasphemy laws provide a tool for people to carry out personal vendettas, particularly because nobody is ever punished for making false accusations. “Such sentences will embolden those who want to wrongly frame people,” Saroop Ijaz, a lawyer with Human Rights Watchin Pakistan said, noting with concern that Saturday’s sentence was handed down by an anti-terrorism court, not a regular court. “The confusion between national security and religion is very alarming,” he added.
Raza’s brother, Waseem Abbas, said the family was “poor but literate,” and belonged to Pakistan’s minority Shia Muslim community. “My brother indulged in a sectarian debate on Facebook with a person, who we later come to know, was a [counter-terrorism department] official with the name of Muhammad Usman,” he said.
According to Raza’s defense attorney, Raza’s client had been charged with two unrelated sections of the law to ensure the maximum penalty. Raza was initially charged under section 298A, which punishes for derogatory remarks about other religious personalities for up to two years. Later he was charged under section 295C of the penal code, related to “derogatory acts against Prophet Muhammad.”
Besides Raza, several others are already on death row for alleged blasphemy in public. Among them is Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted in 2010 after a row with two Muslim women in a village in Punjab. Four people were sentenced to death for blasphemy last year, according to the HRCP. In the age of freedom of speech and belief it is unacceptable for any government to punish people who say what they really think.
June 24, 2017
Running Gauntlet Of Scews
Via
The Transcripts
, Radio Free Eireann's
Martin Galvin
speaks to
Paul McGlinchey
via telephone from Bellaghy, Co. Doire on 17 June 2017 about Paul’s new book,
Truth Will Out,
a memoir of his life and times as an Irish Republican political prisoner.
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
New York City
listen on the internet: wbai.org Saturdays Noon EST
Audio Player
(begins time stamp ~ 18:32)
Martin: Yes, and with us on the line we finally have Paul McGlinchey in Bellaghy. Paul, welcome to Radio Free Éireann.
Paul: Hello.
Martin: Yeah, Paul?
Paul: Yes. Hello, Martin!
Martin: Yes, we were having some trouble getting through to you – we got your voice mail and I have an old tape – they actually played The Wild Colonial Boy – which was not a song that I had intended to play during this programme. Alright, we finally got you. We’re on the line with Paul McGlinchey.
Paul, we had spoken on the commemoration for George McBrearty last month. You told me about the new book that you’ve written. I’ve read it. I told you we’d have you on at our earliest possible convenience so that people in the United States could hear about it. Welcome to Radio Free Éireann. And to start off I should say that you’re from one of the most prominent Republican families in the area, Bellaghy – it’s a very well-known Republican area – your brother, Dominic, from there – Francis Hughes, other great Republicans came from that area including – I happened to run into one of the people who was an Irish political deportee, Robbie McErlean, who I see around my neighbourhood all the time – I asked him if he knew you and he mentioned well he got to know you when you were up on charges in jail in the court together. But how did you happen to write this book, Truth Will Out. How did you come about to write it?
Paul: Well I had this idea – how the book came about it actually started out – my brother, Dominic, had just been shot dead and after a few weeks I started thinking of my own mortality and I thought to myself if I should die as a young man I would like my weans to know where their father came from and how he made made the choices in life that he did – that made him join the IRA and end up in prison. So I wrote it for my children that if I should die a young man, in action or in jail, that when they grew up they would have a record of my life story and how I made the decisions I did in life and how I come about to join the IRA and end up in prison and whatnot.
Martin: And how does it come about that you took these notes which you had prepared and decided now that you would publish it in a book form?
Philomena Gallagher with Paul McGlinchey (centre) Book Launch Ex-Pop in Doire
Paul: Well I wrote it down on A4 sheets in Portlaoise Prison. And there was a writers group come into the prison, to the Republican prisoners, to do an educational course with them. And I happened to get talking to one of the women that was giving one of the courses. And she asked me did I ever think about writing a book and I told her I wrote this manuscript for my children and she asked me: Could she read it? And I told her she could. So I photocopied it for her and I gave her a copy. And then she asked me could she edit and and do the corrections and all in it and I told her she could. And then she encouraged me to publish it back then. And I didn’t want to publish it back then and it lay gathering dust for over twenty-two years. And then a letter arrived to Bellaghy addressed to ‘Paul McGlinchey – Bellaghy’ and my brother got it and gave it to me. And she told me that she felt that my story should be told, that it was part of history and it would be a sin to lose it so I gave her the okay to go ahead and publish it especially when I’d been diagnosed with cancer. And my weans encouraged me to publish it as well…
Martin: …Alright, Paul…
Paul: …they thought it would be a sin for that to be lost.
Martin: Paul, alright – you published the book. It’s entitled Truth Will Out. And I happen to read it very quickly and there are a number of things that I just want to go over very briefly: First all of you mention you were fighting, what you were fighting for, when you decided to join the IRA. People now say that this was a war for equality or for equal citizenship or something of that nature. When you joined the IRA in the early ’70’s what was it that you were fighting for? What was it that you and other IRA Volunteers were told the war was about?
Paul: Well as I understood it, as I understood it then – Yes, we were fighting for equality for every citizen as envisioned in the Irish Proclamation delivered by Padraig Pearse on Easter Monday a hundred and one years ago on the steps of the GPO – not the equality envisioned by successive Tory governments and Arlene Foster’s DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) and the various British governments and Unionist party leaders before them who still want to treat us as second-class citizens. People volunteered their lives for three generations and wanted to help us to achieve Padraig Pearse’s Ireland of Equals – free from British and Unionist control – not to administer British rule in the British Occupied Six Counties of Ireland as was negotiated by Ian Paisley’s DUP in the form of the St. Andrews Agreement.
Martin: Alright. Paul, just one of the things that struck me in the book you talk about your brother. Now, he was called ‘Mad Dog’ by the British – he was given a nickname – to talk about that he was only a militarist but in the book you talk about how he started off by going simply to civil rights demonstrations and trying to get equality that way. And you talk about how the turning point in your life in making you decide to take up armed struggle – you thought that one of the turning points was what happened in internment – and you talked about all of the discrimination. What was it like growing up in The North of Ireland – what was some of the reasons why people decided you couldn’t get civil rights out of a British government that you would have to fight to remove the British government in order to get justice and equality?
Paul McGlinchey in The Cages at Long Kesh
Paul: Well when I was young – when I was a young fella growing up I wasn’t politicised at all and I didn’t see any difference really between me and my Protestant neighbours. It was only when I witnessed the civil rights march that was re-routed around Bellaghy that I started seeing that there was a difference and I seen the way my Protestant neighbours from the town of Bellaghy and the outskirts of Bellaghy was treating the civil rights marchers that I realised there was a difference. And then I started following the news and all after that. And then I woke up early one Monday morning to our door, found our door been (inaudible) and having torches shone into our faces in bed and guns pointed at us by blackened faces of British Army soldiers. And basically from then onwards I had a deep-seated hatred for the British Army – not the British people – the British Army and the British government and I couldn’t wait to join the IRA to drive them out of my country.
Martin: Okay. When you were eighteen you were sentenced in a Diplock court. Now what this meant was – in March 1st 1976 Irish Republicans had special category – or the British words for political status – and they were allowed to wear their own clothes, they were allowed to – they were treated as prisoners of war – like from a prisoner of war camp. They said from March 1st 1976, the British government then said, everybody, from now on, we’re going to say that ‘you’re all criminals’ so that we can go to America and places like that and say we don’t have any political prisoners, special category prisoners, people interned without trial, people arrested, held as political prisoners – these are all criminals. Kieran Nugent was the first Republican who said if you want me to wear a criminal uniform you’re going to have to nail it to me. I think you were second or you were one of the first Irish Republican prisoners – what was it that made you and Kieran Nugent and Bobby Sands and Francis Hughes and so many others so determined never to wear a criminal uniform no matter what the British did to force you to accept it?
Paul: Well from my own perspective, the way I looked at it was that I was an Irish freedom fighter, I wasn’t a criminal, and there was no way that I was going to allowed the British government to treat me as a criminal.
So when I was sentenced and was taken down to Long Kesh and handed a uniform and asked what size boots I wore I told them I wasn’t wearing a uniform. So I was then threw into the back of a van and marched up onto the H-Blocks and threw into a cell and all I had was a blanket – I didn’t know at that time that there was even a blanket protest – it was just something deep within myself that told me that I was not going to wear a prison uniform. I wasn’t a criminal. I was a political prisoner. And I wrapped myself in the blanket and then I hear them rapping the wall to discover that there was a another POW in the next cell to me – who was Kieran Nugent.
Martin: Alright. And Kieran was one of the first people who came out to the United States after his release to try and build support – support that would grow into rallies and demonstrations, protests all across the United States, as they did all around the world, in response, to support you and the other political prisoners particularly during the first and second hunger strike. Now you talk in the book about being in prison near Francis Hughes, who was a great singer, near some other prisoners who would go on hunger strike – what actually, what was some of the things that the British did to force you and other prisoners to wear a criminal uniform, to dress up the Irish struggle as just a criminal enterprise and which ultimately resulted in two hunger strikes by Irish Republican prisoners against that brutal treatment?
Paul: At the very start when there was only a very few of us in number, like at the very start on the protest like, we were in wings where other prisoners were wearing the uniform and it was only much later as the numbers built up that there was enough blanketmen to fill a full wing. But at the start what they used to try and break us was just, you know, beatings – on a constant and daily basis and they used to try and find excuses to make you – to find excuses to beat you and in my case they used to try and get me to call them ‘sir’. And I never called my father sir in my life. And I refused to call them sir. So every time I refused to call them sir they got stuck into me and beating me black and blue basically – on a daily basis two or three times and mainly, the main reason, why I believe they picked on me at that time – my brother Dominic’s name was never off the radio – he was getting blamed for everything that was happening in The North at that time.
Martin: Okay, now…
Paul: …That was just you know at the very start and then later on the prison protest progressed – they brought in the mirror searches and the wing shifts you know and they used to beat us down over the top of the mirrors and do all sorts of degrading acts on us and they used to beat us during the wing shifts where we had to run a gauntlet of screws standing there with their batons – you know, beating us as hard as they could. You know, it was horrendous! You were living in fear all the time – so you were.
Martin: Now, how important – or did you know about all the support that was there, not only across Ireland, but particularly in the United States where there were demonstrations each and every day during the first and second hunger strikes, where there were large numbers of people who came out. (When Prince Charles, for example, was here thirty thousand people protested at Lincoln Center.) Would you and the other political prisoners know of what was happening in support of you and the other blanketmen and the other hunger strikers? And how important was this support to you?
Paul: Yeah well what people will have to understand is that for the first three and a half years while I was on the protest I had absolutely no contact whatsoever with the outside world – all I had was one letter a month which was heavily censored. And it was only later when we made the decision to wear the uniform only for visitation purposes that we started to get word to the outside what was happening and started getting word back in – you know, about the support that was gathering on the outside for us – that we realised how much support that we did have on the outside and it was great for morale to know what was going on in the United States and elsewhere throughout the world and at home.
Martin: Okay. Now, this week you were also in the news because you’ve mentioned you have cancer and you have a law suit based on the fact that cancer – you believe it was caused by some of the substances that the British used on the prisoners during the time that you were imprisoned – and that that’s what caused this cancer. I know Aiden Carlin; he’s brought the suit. What is that case about? What is that case all about?
Paul: Well basically how it all came about: When I was first diagnosed with cancer I started finding out about a large number of blanketmen that had died from cancer in their early fifties and others that were getting diagnosed with it. And as far as I’m aware, now from what I’ve been told there’s over a third of us has either died or been diagnosed with cancer in their early fifties, and during the protest on two occasions at night the screws just opened the cell doors and threw buckets of pure chemicals into our cells on top of us and we had to smash the windows to get breathing because we were spitting and choking and our eyes were burning and everything else. Then the chemicals that was used on the walls, to clean the walls – the screws had to wear protective suits and masks and whatnot while they were cleaning those cells – so we want to know: What was in those chemicals? We want to know: Were we used as guinea pigs? Did the screws put stuff in our food? And who authorised all this? For it didn’t come from the prison governor it had to come from the government. So we want answers. We deserve answers. We need to know.
Martin: Okay. How – is there a website or some other way to contact you about getting the book, Truth Will Out?
Paul: Yes, you can contact me on my website, Paul McGlinchey. Or you can contact me by email at pmcglinchey123 at outlook dot com. (That’s all in small letters.)
Martin: Alright. That’s (Martin spells out the email address.) And what is that ‘at’?
Paul: 123 at outlook dot com.
Martin: Okay, that’s pmcglinchey123 at outlook dot com.
Paul: Yes, that’s right.
Martin: Contact Paul if you want – we’ve only just scratched the surface but he talks about what was happening as hunger strikers were dying, what happened at the end of the first hunger strike, what happened as hunger strikers died, what it was like to go through that and what sustained – all the beatings, all the brutality – and what sustained you and other Irish Republican prisoners to withstand that, to win the hunger strike because at the end of it the world – Margaret Thatcher wanted to make you a criminal. She wanted to criminalise the struggle against British rule and in the end, in the United States, across Ireland and around the world people recognised that you and Bobby Sands and all of the blanketmen were political prisoners, that you were not criminals. Alright, Paul, good luck to you with the lawsuit. We hopefully will get some updates from you.
The book is Truth Will Out. It’s pmcglinchey123 at outlook dot com. Get the information. He also has a Facebook page. And this is just one of a number of books that have come out recently that we want to profile and just – this is a period that should not be forgotten – the importance of the hunger strike, the importance of people like Paul McGlinchey who were on the blanket protest – what they had to go through to stop the British from branding them as criminals. Thank you, Paul, and thank you. We’re going to have you again at Radio Free Éireann and good luck with the book.
Paul: Thank you very much, Martin, and I wish like to thank the people of America for the support that they’ve given us in the past.
(ends time stamp ~ 34:52)
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
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listen on the internet: wbai.org Saturdays Noon EST
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(begins time stamp ~ 18:32)
Martin: Yes, and with us on the line we finally have Paul McGlinchey in Bellaghy. Paul, welcome to Radio Free Éireann.
Paul: Hello.
Martin: Yeah, Paul?
Paul: Yes. Hello, Martin!
Martin: Yes, we were having some trouble getting through to you – we got your voice mail and I have an old tape – they actually played The Wild Colonial Boy – which was not a song that I had intended to play during this programme. Alright, we finally got you. We’re on the line with Paul McGlinchey.
Paul, we had spoken on the commemoration for George McBrearty last month. You told me about the new book that you’ve written. I’ve read it. I told you we’d have you on at our earliest possible convenience so that people in the United States could hear about it. Welcome to Radio Free Éireann. And to start off I should say that you’re from one of the most prominent Republican families in the area, Bellaghy – it’s a very well-known Republican area – your brother, Dominic, from there – Francis Hughes, other great Republicans came from that area including – I happened to run into one of the people who was an Irish political deportee, Robbie McErlean, who I see around my neighbourhood all the time – I asked him if he knew you and he mentioned well he got to know you when you were up on charges in jail in the court together. But how did you happen to write this book, Truth Will Out. How did you come about to write it?
Paul: Well I had this idea – how the book came about it actually started out – my brother, Dominic, had just been shot dead and after a few weeks I started thinking of my own mortality and I thought to myself if I should die as a young man I would like my weans to know where their father came from and how he made made the choices in life that he did – that made him join the IRA and end up in prison. So I wrote it for my children that if I should die a young man, in action or in jail, that when they grew up they would have a record of my life story and how I made the decisions I did in life and how I come about to join the IRA and end up in prison and whatnot.
Martin: And how does it come about that you took these notes which you had prepared and decided now that you would publish it in a book form?
Philomena Gallagher with Paul McGlinchey (centre) Book Launch Ex-Pop in DoirePaul: Well I wrote it down on A4 sheets in Portlaoise Prison. And there was a writers group come into the prison, to the Republican prisoners, to do an educational course with them. And I happened to get talking to one of the women that was giving one of the courses. And she asked me did I ever think about writing a book and I told her I wrote this manuscript for my children and she asked me: Could she read it? And I told her she could. So I photocopied it for her and I gave her a copy. And then she asked me could she edit and and do the corrections and all in it and I told her she could. And then she encouraged me to publish it back then. And I didn’t want to publish it back then and it lay gathering dust for over twenty-two years. And then a letter arrived to Bellaghy addressed to ‘Paul McGlinchey – Bellaghy’ and my brother got it and gave it to me. And she told me that she felt that my story should be told, that it was part of history and it would be a sin to lose it so I gave her the okay to go ahead and publish it especially when I’d been diagnosed with cancer. And my weans encouraged me to publish it as well…
Martin: …Alright, Paul…
Paul: …they thought it would be a sin for that to be lost.
Martin: Paul, alright – you published the book. It’s entitled Truth Will Out. And I happen to read it very quickly and there are a number of things that I just want to go over very briefly: First all of you mention you were fighting, what you were fighting for, when you decided to join the IRA. People now say that this was a war for equality or for equal citizenship or something of that nature. When you joined the IRA in the early ’70’s what was it that you were fighting for? What was it that you and other IRA Volunteers were told the war was about?
Paul: Well as I understood it, as I understood it then – Yes, we were fighting for equality for every citizen as envisioned in the Irish Proclamation delivered by Padraig Pearse on Easter Monday a hundred and one years ago on the steps of the GPO – not the equality envisioned by successive Tory governments and Arlene Foster’s DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) and the various British governments and Unionist party leaders before them who still want to treat us as second-class citizens. People volunteered their lives for three generations and wanted to help us to achieve Padraig Pearse’s Ireland of Equals – free from British and Unionist control – not to administer British rule in the British Occupied Six Counties of Ireland as was negotiated by Ian Paisley’s DUP in the form of the St. Andrews Agreement.
Martin: Alright. Paul, just one of the things that struck me in the book you talk about your brother. Now, he was called ‘Mad Dog’ by the British – he was given a nickname – to talk about that he was only a militarist but in the book you talk about how he started off by going simply to civil rights demonstrations and trying to get equality that way. And you talk about how the turning point in your life in making you decide to take up armed struggle – you thought that one of the turning points was what happened in internment – and you talked about all of the discrimination. What was it like growing up in The North of Ireland – what was some of the reasons why people decided you couldn’t get civil rights out of a British government that you would have to fight to remove the British government in order to get justice and equality?
Paul McGlinchey in The Cages at Long Kesh
Paul: Well when I was young – when I was a young fella growing up I wasn’t politicised at all and I didn’t see any difference really between me and my Protestant neighbours. It was only when I witnessed the civil rights march that was re-routed around Bellaghy that I started seeing that there was a difference and I seen the way my Protestant neighbours from the town of Bellaghy and the outskirts of Bellaghy was treating the civil rights marchers that I realised there was a difference. And then I started following the news and all after that. And then I woke up early one Monday morning to our door, found our door been (inaudible) and having torches shone into our faces in bed and guns pointed at us by blackened faces of British Army soldiers. And basically from then onwards I had a deep-seated hatred for the British Army – not the British people – the British Army and the British government and I couldn’t wait to join the IRA to drive them out of my country.
Martin: Okay. When you were eighteen you were sentenced in a Diplock court. Now what this meant was – in March 1st 1976 Irish Republicans had special category – or the British words for political status – and they were allowed to wear their own clothes, they were allowed to – they were treated as prisoners of war – like from a prisoner of war camp. They said from March 1st 1976, the British government then said, everybody, from now on, we’re going to say that ‘you’re all criminals’ so that we can go to America and places like that and say we don’t have any political prisoners, special category prisoners, people interned without trial, people arrested, held as political prisoners – these are all criminals. Kieran Nugent was the first Republican who said if you want me to wear a criminal uniform you’re going to have to nail it to me. I think you were second or you were one of the first Irish Republican prisoners – what was it that made you and Kieran Nugent and Bobby Sands and Francis Hughes and so many others so determined never to wear a criminal uniform no matter what the British did to force you to accept it?
Paul: Well from my own perspective, the way I looked at it was that I was an Irish freedom fighter, I wasn’t a criminal, and there was no way that I was going to allowed the British government to treat me as a criminal.
So when I was sentenced and was taken down to Long Kesh and handed a uniform and asked what size boots I wore I told them I wasn’t wearing a uniform. So I was then threw into the back of a van and marched up onto the H-Blocks and threw into a cell and all I had was a blanket – I didn’t know at that time that there was even a blanket protest – it was just something deep within myself that told me that I was not going to wear a prison uniform. I wasn’t a criminal. I was a political prisoner. And I wrapped myself in the blanket and then I hear them rapping the wall to discover that there was a another POW in the next cell to me – who was Kieran Nugent.Martin: Alright. And Kieran was one of the first people who came out to the United States after his release to try and build support – support that would grow into rallies and demonstrations, protests all across the United States, as they did all around the world, in response, to support you and the other political prisoners particularly during the first and second hunger strike. Now you talk in the book about being in prison near Francis Hughes, who was a great singer, near some other prisoners who would go on hunger strike – what actually, what was some of the things that the British did to force you and other prisoners to wear a criminal uniform, to dress up the Irish struggle as just a criminal enterprise and which ultimately resulted in two hunger strikes by Irish Republican prisoners against that brutal treatment?
Paul: At the very start when there was only a very few of us in number, like at the very start on the protest like, we were in wings where other prisoners were wearing the uniform and it was only much later as the numbers built up that there was enough blanketmen to fill a full wing. But at the start what they used to try and break us was just, you know, beatings – on a constant and daily basis and they used to try and find excuses to make you – to find excuses to beat you and in my case they used to try and get me to call them ‘sir’. And I never called my father sir in my life. And I refused to call them sir. So every time I refused to call them sir they got stuck into me and beating me black and blue basically – on a daily basis two or three times and mainly, the main reason, why I believe they picked on me at that time – my brother Dominic’s name was never off the radio – he was getting blamed for everything that was happening in The North at that time.
Martin: Okay, now…
Paul: …That was just you know at the very start and then later on the prison protest progressed – they brought in the mirror searches and the wing shifts you know and they used to beat us down over the top of the mirrors and do all sorts of degrading acts on us and they used to beat us during the wing shifts where we had to run a gauntlet of screws standing there with their batons – you know, beating us as hard as they could. You know, it was horrendous! You were living in fear all the time – so you were.
Martin: Now, how important – or did you know about all the support that was there, not only across Ireland, but particularly in the United States where there were demonstrations each and every day during the first and second hunger strikes, where there were large numbers of people who came out. (When Prince Charles, for example, was here thirty thousand people protested at Lincoln Center.) Would you and the other political prisoners know of what was happening in support of you and the other blanketmen and the other hunger strikers? And how important was this support to you?
Paul: Yeah well what people will have to understand is that for the first three and a half years while I was on the protest I had absolutely no contact whatsoever with the outside world – all I had was one letter a month which was heavily censored. And it was only later when we made the decision to wear the uniform only for visitation purposes that we started to get word to the outside what was happening and started getting word back in – you know, about the support that was gathering on the outside for us – that we realised how much support that we did have on the outside and it was great for morale to know what was going on in the United States and elsewhere throughout the world and at home.
Martin: Okay. Now, this week you were also in the news because you’ve mentioned you have cancer and you have a law suit based on the fact that cancer – you believe it was caused by some of the substances that the British used on the prisoners during the time that you were imprisoned – and that that’s what caused this cancer. I know Aiden Carlin; he’s brought the suit. What is that case about? What is that case all about?
Paul: Well basically how it all came about: When I was first diagnosed with cancer I started finding out about a large number of blanketmen that had died from cancer in their early fifties and others that were getting diagnosed with it. And as far as I’m aware, now from what I’ve been told there’s over a third of us has either died or been diagnosed with cancer in their early fifties, and during the protest on two occasions at night the screws just opened the cell doors and threw buckets of pure chemicals into our cells on top of us and we had to smash the windows to get breathing because we were spitting and choking and our eyes were burning and everything else. Then the chemicals that was used on the walls, to clean the walls – the screws had to wear protective suits and masks and whatnot while they were cleaning those cells – so we want to know: What was in those chemicals? We want to know: Were we used as guinea pigs? Did the screws put stuff in our food? And who authorised all this? For it didn’t come from the prison governor it had to come from the government. So we want answers. We deserve answers. We need to know.
Martin: Okay. How – is there a website or some other way to contact you about getting the book, Truth Will Out?
Paul: Yes, you can contact me on my website, Paul McGlinchey. Or you can contact me by email at pmcglinchey123 at outlook dot com. (That’s all in small letters.)
Martin: Alright. That’s (Martin spells out the email address.) And what is that ‘at’?
Paul: 123 at outlook dot com.
Martin: Okay, that’s pmcglinchey123 at outlook dot com.
Paul: Yes, that’s right.
Martin: Contact Paul if you want – we’ve only just scratched the surface but he talks about what was happening as hunger strikers were dying, what happened at the end of the first hunger strike, what happened as hunger strikers died, what it was like to go through that and what sustained – all the beatings, all the brutality – and what sustained you and other Irish Republican prisoners to withstand that, to win the hunger strike because at the end of it the world – Margaret Thatcher wanted to make you a criminal. She wanted to criminalise the struggle against British rule and in the end, in the United States, across Ireland and around the world people recognised that you and Bobby Sands and all of the blanketmen were political prisoners, that you were not criminals. Alright, Paul, good luck to you with the lawsuit. We hopefully will get some updates from you.
The book is Truth Will Out. It’s pmcglinchey123 at outlook dot com. Get the information. He also has a Facebook page. And this is just one of a number of books that have come out recently that we want to profile and just – this is a period that should not be forgotten – the importance of the hunger strike, the importance of people like Paul McGlinchey who were on the blanket protest – what they had to go through to stop the British from branding them as criminals. Thank you, Paul, and thank you. We’re going to have you again at Radio Free Éireann and good luck with the book.
Paul: Thank you very much, Martin, and I wish like to thank the people of America for the support that they’ve given us in the past.
(ends time stamp ~ 34:52)
Radio Free Eireann Broadcasting 24 June 2017
Martin Galvin
with details of this weekend's broadcast from
Radio Free Eireann.
Derry Councillor and former political prisoner Gary Donnelly will discuss the continuing imprisonment without charges of Tony Taylor now, 471 days, under procedures termed Internment- by-License.
Liam Sutcliffe ,who fifty years ago famously blew up Nelson's Pillar, a huge symbol of British imperialism in the heart of Dublin, in an event celebrated in hit songs, stage and store displays, will give us the inside story.
Go To Radio Free Eireann web site RFE123.ORG for written transcripts of recent headline making interviews with author, former political prisoner and analyst Richard O'Rawe on the DUP's price to keep Theresa May as British Prime Minister and with another former H-Block political prisoner Paul McGlinchey on his new book Truth Will Out.
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.
Check our website rfe123.org.
Derry Councillor and former political prisoner Gary Donnelly will discuss the continuing imprisonment without charges of Tony Taylor now, 471 days, under procedures termed Internment- by-License.
Liam Sutcliffe ,who fifty years ago famously blew up Nelson's Pillar, a huge symbol of British imperialism in the heart of Dublin, in an event celebrated in hit songs, stage and store displays, will give us the inside story.
Go To Radio Free Eireann web site RFE123.ORG for written transcripts of recent headline making interviews with author, former political prisoner and analyst Richard O'Rawe on the DUP's price to keep Theresa May as British Prime Minister and with another former H-Block political prisoner Paul McGlinchey on his new book Truth Will Out.
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.
Check our website rfe123.org.
June 23, 2017
Threat or Fret?
Anthony McIntyre
is not persuaded that a substantial threat to the peace process is likely to emerge from any Tory-DUP pact.
SOSSave Our Stormont
The old alarmist mast of the peace process being endangered (again) has this week been hoist one more time, in the hope that it might lay another golden egg before it is finally flogged to death. One for the road ... the endless road ... to peace. There is hardly anything new in this. Gerry Adams has taken to reiterating what he has asserted since the peace process began such a long time ago: that there is a threat to it.
Nothing Sinn Fein is prone to fretting over more than this. But this time the party cannot be accused of being Ourselves Also. The new Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Dail (“foreign” helps ensure those black northerners that it really is a place apart), Simon Coveney too has swallowed the peace process poppers and is now singing from the same hymn sheet.
Although Adams in seeking to keep the political tension on the simmer - as omnipresent a feature of his political career as honesty has been an omniabsent - has said it might undermine the Good Friday Agreement, the suggestion has been rubbished by Mark Durkan, who is said to be "encyclopaedic" on that Agreement.
If there is any credence to the claim of a genuine crisis as distinct from the multitude of ersatz ones that have preceded the latest, it must overcome the question posed by Pete Trumbore a few days ago: from whom?
At worst, there is some potential for instability. There is no threat to the peace, just the process which churns out gravy in the same copious amounts that Willy Wonka's factory churned out chocolate. The peace will survive. The process is no longer a necessary condition of peace, but a cloak of legitimacy whose bearer can always hope for a brownie point to fall their way.
What is it that the Tory Party has done that makes it such a risk to the peace process, other than take leaf out of the SF handbook for forming coalitions? The supposed gap between Sinn Fein and the DUP when they merged forces to subcontract on behalf of the British in the North was vast compared to what it is between the DUP and the Tories. And If Sinn Fein can join hands with the DUP, why not the Tories?
Adams described it as a coalition of chaos. Not all that different from the coalition of crisis his party is more at ease with in the North, where some crisis or other is invariably waved as a stick at the peace process. The peace process works something like a protection racket where those offering the service hint at its withholding if citizens don’t cough up and meet the requisite demands.
Sinn Fein’s very long nose is out of joint at the promiscuity of the DUP, behaving like a “gangster’s moll”, jumping from one seedy bed to another. Whatever the outcome, no one will be charged with a breach of the peace.
SOSSave Our Stormont
The old alarmist mast of the peace process being endangered (again) has this week been hoist one more time, in the hope that it might lay another golden egg before it is finally flogged to death. One for the road ... the endless road ... to peace. There is hardly anything new in this. Gerry Adams has taken to reiterating what he has asserted since the peace process began such a long time ago: that there is a threat to it.
Nothing Sinn Fein is prone to fretting over more than this. But this time the party cannot be accused of being Ourselves Also. The new Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Dail (“foreign” helps ensure those black northerners that it really is a place apart), Simon Coveney too has swallowed the peace process poppers and is now singing from the same hymn sheet.
Although Adams in seeking to keep the political tension on the simmer - as omnipresent a feature of his political career as honesty has been an omniabsent - has said it might undermine the Good Friday Agreement, the suggestion has been rubbished by Mark Durkan, who is said to be "encyclopaedic" on that Agreement.
If there is any credence to the claim of a genuine crisis as distinct from the multitude of ersatz ones that have preceded the latest, it must overcome the question posed by Pete Trumbore a few days ago: from whom?
At worst, there is some potential for instability. There is no threat to the peace, just the process which churns out gravy in the same copious amounts that Willy Wonka's factory churned out chocolate. The peace will survive. The process is no longer a necessary condition of peace, but a cloak of legitimacy whose bearer can always hope for a brownie point to fall their way.
What is it that the Tory Party has done that makes it such a risk to the peace process, other than take leaf out of the SF handbook for forming coalitions? The supposed gap between Sinn Fein and the DUP when they merged forces to subcontract on behalf of the British in the North was vast compared to what it is between the DUP and the Tories. And If Sinn Fein can join hands with the DUP, why not the Tories?
Adams described it as a coalition of chaos. Not all that different from the coalition of crisis his party is more at ease with in the North, where some crisis or other is invariably waved as a stick at the peace process. The peace process works something like a protection racket where those offering the service hint at its withholding if citizens don’t cough up and meet the requisite demands.
Sinn Fein’s very long nose is out of joint at the promiscuity of the DUP, behaving like a “gangster’s moll”, jumping from one seedy bed to another. Whatever the outcome, no one will be charged with a breach of the peace.
The DUP’s Extremist Links Make It Unfit To Join A Conservative Alliance
From Democratic Audit UK James Hughes examines the potential DUP-Tory pact.
James Hughes
is Chair in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. This post represents the views of the author and not those of Democratic Audit.
Arlene Foster at a Remembrance Day service in 2013. Photo: Northern Ireland Office via a CC BY 2.0 licence
The discussions between the Conservative Party and the DUP to break the deadlock of a hung parliament have drawn attention to a number of flaws in the 1998 Belfast Agreement. A Tory-DUP alliance has the potential to seriously damage a number of important UK national interests: the peace agreement in Northern Ireland, relations with the Irish Republic in conditions of Brexit, commitments to progressive values and human rights, and the struggle against violent and non-violent extremism.
Northern Ireland’s peace was made from the extremes. The Belfast Agreement was unstable from the outset mainly because the DUP, as the populist extreme of Unionism led by Ian Paisley, was the only major party in Northern Ireland to refuse to sign up to it. Between 1998 and 2007 the power-sharing institutions were suspended on four occasions by the UK government, including for the whole period between October 2002-June 2007. At this time the DUP engaged in extremist outbidding tactics against the moderate Ulster Unionist Party. Some stability only ensued after the St Andrew’s Agreement of November 2006, which saw the DUP commit themselves to the restoration of power-sharing institutions.
By general consensus, the bicephalous DUP-Sinn Fein executive led by Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness worked cooperatively and effectively, despite their deep ideological differences, and the cooperation continued under Paisley’s successor Peter Robinson. The transition in late 2015 to a new DUP leadership under Arlene Foster has seen the return to more polarised politics leading to the breakdown of the Executive. Whereas the old leaders were the makers of the conflict, and peace came from their willingness to compromise, many of the new leaders are the children of the conflict – and the polarisation produced by the recent general election reflects the fundamental differences that persist in Northern Irish politics. The need to bridge this divide is what makes UK and Irish government impartiality so critical.
What will be the impact on the peace in Northern Ireland?
The Belfast Agreement was an international agreement, with the UK and Irish governments acting as co-guarantors. Both governments legislated for a special constitutional status of conditional sovereignty for Northern Ireland: dependent on the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland (as expressed in a referendum) (Agreement 2.1). The governments’ positions are not “neutral”. That word does not figure in the Agreement. The Agreement states that whichever government exercises sovereignty over Northern it must do so with “rigorous impartiality” (Agreement 2.1.v) on a wide range of issues: diverse identities and traditions, human rights, freedom from discrimination, and parity of esteem.
The commitment of the previous Tory government under Theresa May to “rigorous impartiality” was already seen as suspect, in particular on “legacy issues” from the conflict, and efforts to insulate state agents from prosecution. An alliance with the DUP magnifies the claim that the British government cannot act with rigorous impartiality in adhering to the Agreement and in brokering the negotiations to restore the power-sharing institutions. The same charge would apply if one of the main Irish political parties attempted to form a government through an alliance with Sinn Fein.
Relations with the Republic of Ireland
One of the paradoxes of the Belfast Agreement is that it expects “rigorous impartiality” from governments that have strong ideological positions. May and many Conservatives are explicit about their ideological Unionism. Nationalism has also been rehabilitated in the Irish Republic, where all of the main parties, previously repelled by hardline Northern nationalism, are now advocating for a United Ireland.
The question of the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic is one of the three EU conditions to be agreed prior to the negotiations on Brexit. The Belfast Agreement created special North-South institutions to deal with common policy areas (and EU-related funding) and special arrangements for joint citizenship, and it rendered the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland porous and irrelevant. Transparent borders are common in the Schengen Area, but the concept is challenging for die-hard Unionists.
Even a soft Brexit will make managing the social and economic interdependencies between North and South more difficult. The DUP is opposed, at least formally, to a hard Brexit that would see a reimposition of strong border controls. However, the symbolism of a distinct border is important for the DUP, and in particular for its base, and the opposite is true for nationalists. The rational outcome would be for a continuation of the special status that Northern Ireland already has under the Agreement. A Tory-DUP alliance may complicate negotiations on this.
No single country has a veto on Brexit, but the Irish can make things very challenging for the British, and vice versa.
The DUP and human rights
The DUP was founded by Ian Paisley in 1971 on policies of anti-Catholic sectarianism, opposing civil rights for Catholics, demonising reformist Unionists, and provoking civil disorder and encouraging Loyalist paramilitarism. In his later life, in a mea culpa, Paisley acknowledged his major destructive contribution to the conflict. Many of his party colleagues, who form the current leadership, proffer no apologies for DUP extremism past or present.
The current DUP leadership under Arlene Foster presided over the collapse of the power-sharing institutions in January 2017, seemingly unable to replicate the spirit of compromise achieved by the previous leadership. Even moderate nationalists, such as former SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell, have charged Foster with reverting to crude sectarianism. The DUP “don’t want a taig (derogatory term for Catholics) about the place”, he declared in late 2015..
The social values of the DUP are “extremist” in a UK or Ireland context. The founding ethos of the party was set by Paisley’s religious fundamentalist “Free Presbyterianism”. Large numbers of its members, and many of its voters believe in Creationism and regard the Pope as the Antichrist. Since the late 1970s the UK parliament has legislated for the reform of human rights for women on abortion, and equal rights for gays, and more recently including same sex marriage. A similar process of social reform has occurred in the Irish Republic since the 1990s. The social conservatism of the DUP is today out of step with the other main parties in Northern Ireland, and at Westminster.
The DUP has used a power established by the Belfast Agreement, the “petition of concern”, to block any legislative reform on these social values in the Northern Ireland Assembly. In addition to several financial corruption scandals the party has also been embroiled in numerous anti-migrant racism and Islamophobic episodes. Notably, in 2014 the then party leader Peter Robinson made disparaging remarks about Muslims and defended a Free Presbyterian pastor, James McConnell, who denounced Islam as “heathen”, “satanic” and “a doctrine spawned in hell” .
The struggle against extremism
No one questions the strong relationship historically between Sinn Fein and the IRA. Theresa May seems to be overlooking the similar strong relationship between the DUP and Loyalist paramilitarism. The DUP’s founder Paisley was careful to incite and condone Loyalist violence. However, at certain key moments the DUP collaborated openly and directly with Loyalist paramilitaries, for example, during the Ulster Workers’ Strike in 1974, in mass protests in 1977, and again in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985.
In 1986 the DUP formed its own terrorist organisation, Ulster Resistance, which became part of the combined loyalist paramilitary command, and co-organised illegal arms shipments. Current MP Sammy Wilson chaired the opening meeting of Ulster Resistance, and current MP Emma Little-Pengelly’s father was convicted of arms smuggling for Ulster Resistance.
May has been a leading advocate of strengthening the UK Prevent Strategy against violent and non-violent extremism that conflicts with “British values”. In making a deal with the DUP she not only endangers UK national interests, but is also further damaging the credibility of government policy on violent and non-violent extremism.
Arlene Foster at a Remembrance Day service in 2013. Photo: Northern Ireland Office via a CC BY 2.0 licenceThe discussions between the Conservative Party and the DUP to break the deadlock of a hung parliament have drawn attention to a number of flaws in the 1998 Belfast Agreement. A Tory-DUP alliance has the potential to seriously damage a number of important UK national interests: the peace agreement in Northern Ireland, relations with the Irish Republic in conditions of Brexit, commitments to progressive values and human rights, and the struggle against violent and non-violent extremism.
Northern Ireland’s peace was made from the extremes. The Belfast Agreement was unstable from the outset mainly because the DUP, as the populist extreme of Unionism led by Ian Paisley, was the only major party in Northern Ireland to refuse to sign up to it. Between 1998 and 2007 the power-sharing institutions were suspended on four occasions by the UK government, including for the whole period between October 2002-June 2007. At this time the DUP engaged in extremist outbidding tactics against the moderate Ulster Unionist Party. Some stability only ensued after the St Andrew’s Agreement of November 2006, which saw the DUP commit themselves to the restoration of power-sharing institutions.
By general consensus, the bicephalous DUP-Sinn Fein executive led by Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness worked cooperatively and effectively, despite their deep ideological differences, and the cooperation continued under Paisley’s successor Peter Robinson. The transition in late 2015 to a new DUP leadership under Arlene Foster has seen the return to more polarised politics leading to the breakdown of the Executive. Whereas the old leaders were the makers of the conflict, and peace came from their willingness to compromise, many of the new leaders are the children of the conflict – and the polarisation produced by the recent general election reflects the fundamental differences that persist in Northern Irish politics. The need to bridge this divide is what makes UK and Irish government impartiality so critical.
What will be the impact on the peace in Northern Ireland?
The Belfast Agreement was an international agreement, with the UK and Irish governments acting as co-guarantors. Both governments legislated for a special constitutional status of conditional sovereignty for Northern Ireland: dependent on the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland (as expressed in a referendum) (Agreement 2.1). The governments’ positions are not “neutral”. That word does not figure in the Agreement. The Agreement states that whichever government exercises sovereignty over Northern it must do so with “rigorous impartiality” (Agreement 2.1.v) on a wide range of issues: diverse identities and traditions, human rights, freedom from discrimination, and parity of esteem.
The commitment of the previous Tory government under Theresa May to “rigorous impartiality” was already seen as suspect, in particular on “legacy issues” from the conflict, and efforts to insulate state agents from prosecution. An alliance with the DUP magnifies the claim that the British government cannot act with rigorous impartiality in adhering to the Agreement and in brokering the negotiations to restore the power-sharing institutions. The same charge would apply if one of the main Irish political parties attempted to form a government through an alliance with Sinn Fein.
Relations with the Republic of Ireland
One of the paradoxes of the Belfast Agreement is that it expects “rigorous impartiality” from governments that have strong ideological positions. May and many Conservatives are explicit about their ideological Unionism. Nationalism has also been rehabilitated in the Irish Republic, where all of the main parties, previously repelled by hardline Northern nationalism, are now advocating for a United Ireland.
The question of the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic is one of the three EU conditions to be agreed prior to the negotiations on Brexit. The Belfast Agreement created special North-South institutions to deal with common policy areas (and EU-related funding) and special arrangements for joint citizenship, and it rendered the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland porous and irrelevant. Transparent borders are common in the Schengen Area, but the concept is challenging for die-hard Unionists.
Even a soft Brexit will make managing the social and economic interdependencies between North and South more difficult. The DUP is opposed, at least formally, to a hard Brexit that would see a reimposition of strong border controls. However, the symbolism of a distinct border is important for the DUP, and in particular for its base, and the opposite is true for nationalists. The rational outcome would be for a continuation of the special status that Northern Ireland already has under the Agreement. A Tory-DUP alliance may complicate negotiations on this.
No single country has a veto on Brexit, but the Irish can make things very challenging for the British, and vice versa.
The DUP and human rights
The DUP was founded by Ian Paisley in 1971 on policies of anti-Catholic sectarianism, opposing civil rights for Catholics, demonising reformist Unionists, and provoking civil disorder and encouraging Loyalist paramilitarism. In his later life, in a mea culpa, Paisley acknowledged his major destructive contribution to the conflict. Many of his party colleagues, who form the current leadership, proffer no apologies for DUP extremism past or present.
The current DUP leadership under Arlene Foster presided over the collapse of the power-sharing institutions in January 2017, seemingly unable to replicate the spirit of compromise achieved by the previous leadership. Even moderate nationalists, such as former SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell, have charged Foster with reverting to crude sectarianism. The DUP “don’t want a taig (derogatory term for Catholics) about the place”, he declared in late 2015..
The social values of the DUP are “extremist” in a UK or Ireland context. The founding ethos of the party was set by Paisley’s religious fundamentalist “Free Presbyterianism”. Large numbers of its members, and many of its voters believe in Creationism and regard the Pope as the Antichrist. Since the late 1970s the UK parliament has legislated for the reform of human rights for women on abortion, and equal rights for gays, and more recently including same sex marriage. A similar process of social reform has occurred in the Irish Republic since the 1990s. The social conservatism of the DUP is today out of step with the other main parties in Northern Ireland, and at Westminster.
The DUP has used a power established by the Belfast Agreement, the “petition of concern”, to block any legislative reform on these social values in the Northern Ireland Assembly. In addition to several financial corruption scandals the party has also been embroiled in numerous anti-migrant racism and Islamophobic episodes. Notably, in 2014 the then party leader Peter Robinson made disparaging remarks about Muslims and defended a Free Presbyterian pastor, James McConnell, who denounced Islam as “heathen”, “satanic” and “a doctrine spawned in hell” .
The struggle against extremism
No one questions the strong relationship historically between Sinn Fein and the IRA. Theresa May seems to be overlooking the similar strong relationship between the DUP and Loyalist paramilitarism. The DUP’s founder Paisley was careful to incite and condone Loyalist violence. However, at certain key moments the DUP collaborated openly and directly with Loyalist paramilitaries, for example, during the Ulster Workers’ Strike in 1974, in mass protests in 1977, and again in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985.
In 1986 the DUP formed its own terrorist organisation, Ulster Resistance, which became part of the combined loyalist paramilitary command, and co-organised illegal arms shipments. Current MP Sammy Wilson chaired the opening meeting of Ulster Resistance, and current MP Emma Little-Pengelly’s father was convicted of arms smuggling for Ulster Resistance.
May has been a leading advocate of strengthening the UK Prevent Strategy against violent and non-violent extremism that conflicts with “British values”. In making a deal with the DUP she not only endangers UK national interests, but is also further damaging the credibility of government policy on violent and non-violent extremism.
June 22, 2017
Scap
From
Brocaire Books
, an April piece by
Matt Treacy
written just after the Panorama documentary on
Freddie Scappaticci/Stakeknife
.
Stakeknife
There was an old griffito on Derry walls back in the 80s:
“I knew Raymond Gilmore. Thank fuck he didn’t know me.”
Gilmore being a supergrass who was responsible for locking up most of leading members of Derry Brigade. Most of them.
I would imagine there are quite a lot of people saying the same thing about Freddie.
It is hard to know the truth about all these things but if even part of what Panorama and others have alleged about him is true, then it changes the entire picture of what happened during the northern conflict.
I knew informers. Denis stayed in my house. I liked the chap. I knew others who most likely got me caught. I bear them no malice. God only knows what made them betray their friends.
Scappaticci is in different league. It is one thing to break under interrogation and give up names. To coldly murder other people to ensure you have enough money for the bookies and the pub. Well…
Nor does it say much for those who protected him.
Noticeable absence of kitten loving equality warriors tonight.
May God have mercy on us all that we were part of this.
StakeknifeThere was an old griffito on Derry walls back in the 80s:
“I knew Raymond Gilmore. Thank fuck he didn’t know me.”
Gilmore being a supergrass who was responsible for locking up most of leading members of Derry Brigade. Most of them.
I would imagine there are quite a lot of people saying the same thing about Freddie.
It is hard to know the truth about all these things but if even part of what Panorama and others have alleged about him is true, then it changes the entire picture of what happened during the northern conflict.
I knew informers. Denis stayed in my house. I liked the chap. I knew others who most likely got me caught. I bear them no malice. God only knows what made them betray their friends.
Scappaticci is in different league. It is one thing to break under interrogation and give up names. To coldly murder other people to ensure you have enough money for the bookies and the pub. Well…
Nor does it say much for those who protected him.
Noticeable absence of kitten loving equality warriors tonight.
May God have mercy on us all that we were part of this.
Whoso Confesseth and Forsaketh
The
Uri Avnery Column
ruminates on the city of Jerusalem.
In The tumult of the last few days, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the "unification" of Jerusalem, one of the articles stated that "even peace-activist Uri Avnery" voted in the Knesset for the unification of the city.
That is true. I have tried to set out the circumstances in my autobiography, "Optimistic". But not everyone has read the book and it has so far appeared only in Hebrew.
Therefore I shall try to explain again that curious vote. Explain, not justify.
On Tuesday, June 27, 1967, two weeks after the 6-day war, I did not get up. I had the flu, and Rachel, my wife, had given me a lot of medicines. Suddenly they called me from the Knesset and told me that the chamber had just started a debate on the unification of Jerusalem, which had not appeared on the agenda.
I jumped out of bed and drove like hell from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, some 65 kilometers. Upon arriving I was told that the list of speakers had already been closed. But the Speaker, Kadish Luz, famous for his fairness, added me to the list.
I had just a few minutes to think. My parliamentary assistant, Amnon Zichroni, advised me to vote against, or at least to abstain. There was no time to consult with the leading members of my party, "Haolam Hazeh – New Force". I made the decision on the spot, and the decision was to vote in favor.
That was mainly an instinctive reaction. It came from the bottom of my soul. After the amazing triumph, which had came after three weeks of gathering anxiety, the huge victory in just six days looked like a miracle. The Jewish population, in all its parts, was in ecstasy. This mood crossed all dividing lines.
East Jerusalem was the center of the mass ecstasy. It was like a Tsunami. Masses flowed to the Western Wall, which had been unapproachable for 19 years. Both the pious and non-believers were intoxicated.
I felt that a political movement, which intends to win the masses for a new outlook, cannot in such a moment stand outside the people. Faced with such a storm, it cannot stay aloof.
I myself was not unaffected by the emotional storm. I loved Jerusalem. Before the partition of the country during the 1948 war, in which Jerusalem was divided, I had often wandered through the alleys of the Arab parts of the town. After that war, I longed for the Old City in an almost physical way. When the Knesset was in session, I often used to reside in the King David hotel that overlooks the Old City, and I remember many nights when I stood at the open window and listened to far-away dogs breaking the silence beyond the wall – and longing.
But besides the emotion, there was also a logical consideration.
Already in 1949, on the morrow of the war during which Israel was founded, I started to campaign for the "Two State Solution" – the setting up of an independent State of Palestine side by side with the State of Israel, as two equal states in the framework of a federation.
In 1957, after the Sinai War, I published - together with Natan Yellin-Mor, the former leader of the Lehi underground (a.k.a. the Stern Group), the writer Boaz Evron and others - a document called "the Hebrew Manifesto", of which I am proud even today. At the time, East Jerusalem and the West Bank were part of the kingdom of Jordan. Inter alia the document said:
"21. All of Eretz Israel (Palestine) is the homeland of its two nations – the Hebrew one, which has attained its independence in the framework of the State of Israel, and the Arab-Palestinian one, which has not yet achieved independence. The State of Israel will offer political and material assistance to the liberation movement of the Palestinian nation…which strives to establish a free Palestinian state, which will be a partner of the State of Israel…
"22. (There will be set up) a federation of the parts of Eretz-Israel (Palestine), which will safeguard the independence of all the states which are parts of it."
According to this plan, Jerusalem should have become a united city, the capital of Israel, the capital of Palestine and the capital of the federation.
At the time, that looked like a remote vision. But after the 1967 war the vision suddenly became real. The Jordanian regime was vanquished. Nobody seriously believed that the world would allow Israel to keep the territories it had just conquered. It seemed clear that we would be compelled to give them back, as we did after the war before that, the Sinai War of 1956.
I was convinced that this situation would give us the historic opportunity to realize our vision. For that to happen, we had first to prevent the return of the territories to Jordan. The unification of the two parts of Jerusalem looked to me like the logical first step. The more so since in the proposed law, the words "annexation" or "unification" did not appear. It said only that Israeli law would apply there.
All this passed through my mind in the few minutes I had. I approached the rostrum and said: "It is not a secret that I and my colleagues strive for the unification of the country in a federation of the State of Israel and a Palestinian state that will come into being in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a federation whose capital will be united Jerusalem as a part of the State of Israel."
The last words were, of course, an error. I should have said: "as a part of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine".
The Reasons for this vote were logical, at least in part, but the entire vote looked to me, in retrospect, like a very serious mistake. After a short time, I apologized for it in public. I have repeated this apology many times.
Within a short time it became quite clear that the State of Israel did not dream of allowing the Palestinians to establish a state of their own, and even less to divide sovereignty over Jerusalem. Today it is clear that from the first day – still under the Labor Party, led by Levy Eshkol – there was the intention of keeping these territories forever, or as long as possible.
11 years earlier, after the Sinai War, David Ben-Gurion had submitted to the parallel ultimatums of Dwight Eisenhower and Nikolai Bulganin, the heads of state of the USA and the Soviet Union. 105 hours after declaring the "Third Israeli Kingdom:", Ben-Gurion announced in a broken voice on the radio that he would give back all the conquered territories.
It was incredible that the weakling Eshkol would succeed where the great Ben-Gurion had failed, and hold on to the conquered territories. But contrary to all expectations, there was no pressure at all to give back anything. The occupation continues to this very day.
Therefore, the question did not even arise: whether to return the territories to the Kingdom of Jordan or turn them into the State of Palestine.
By the way, in those days, when the glory of our generals reached the skies, there were among them some who supported openly or secretly the idea of establishing a Palestinian state side by side with Israel. The most outspoken of these was General Israel Tal, the renowned tank commander. I tried very hard to convince him to assume the leadership of the peace camp, but he preferred to devote his efforts to building the Merkava tank.
Years later I tried to convince General Ezer Weizman, the former Air Force commander and the real victor of the 1967 war. His nationalist convictions changed and approached those of our group. But he preferred to become the President of Israel.
Even Ariel Sharon toyed for some years with these ideas. He preferred a Palestinian state to giving the territories back to Jordan. He told me that in the 50s, when he was still serving in the army, he had proposed to the General Staff to support the Palestinians against the Jordanian regime. He proposed this in secret, while I was demanding it in public.
But all this theorizing could not stand up to the reality: the occupation deepened from day to day. The readiness to give up all the occupied territories, even in ideal circumstances, dwindled more and more.
And on the other side?
I had many conversations with the admired (by me, too) leader of the Arab population in East Jerusalem, Faissal al-Husseini. The idea of a united Jerusalem, capital of two states, attracted him, too. We drew up together an appeal in this spirit. We talked about this, of course, with Yasser Arafat, and he fully agreed – but was not ready to confirm this in public.
Two Weeks after the Knesset vote, I published in my weekly magazine, Haolam Hazeh, another plan, under the headline "A basic, fair and practical solution". The first paragraph read: "There will be created a federation of Eretz-Israel (Palestine) which will include the State of Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the capital of which will be Greater Jerusalem."
This plan was signed by an amazing 64 well-known Israeli personalities, including writer Dan Ben-Amotz, humorist Uri Zohar, peace-pilot Abie Nathan, publisher Amikan Gurevich, sculptor Yigal Tomarkin, painter Dani Karavan, Nathan Yellin-Mor, captain Nimrod Eshel, film-maker Alex Massis, writer Boaz Evron, journalist Heda Boshes, art-custodian Yona Fisher and the famous educator Ernst Simon, the close friend of the already dead Martin Buber.
This document, like all the former plans, included the aim of creating a regional framework, like the European Union which was then in the making.
(By the way, lately a new fashion has been spreading in several circles: a new ideal solution to the conflict: the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian federation and a "regional solution". I assume that many of the new advocates of this solution were not yet born when these documents were published. If so, I have to disappoint them: all these ideas were voiced already a long time ago. This should not discourage them. May they be blessed.)
In The recent publications it was also mentioned that I proposed adopting the song "Jerusalem of Gold" as the national anthem of Israel.
Naomi Shemer wrote this beautiful song for a Jerusalem contest, when nobody yet dreamed about the 1967 Six-day War.
I intensely dislike the present national anthem, "Hatikvah" ("the Hope"). The text is about the life of the Jews in the Diaspora and the melody seems to be taken from a Romanian folk-song. Not to mention the fact that more than 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. (Perhaps we should learn from Canada, which long ago changed its British anthem and flag out of respect for its 20% French-speaking citizens.)
I decided to propose Shemer's song to the Knesset as the national anthem. After the 1967 war it had already become the rage of the masses. I submitted a bill accordingly.
That was, of course, a dubious proposal. Shemer did not mention in her song that there were Arabs in Jerusalem. The words have a strong nationalist flavor. But I thought that after the idea of a new anthem was accepted, we could rectify the text.
The Knesset Speaker, Luz, was ready to accept the bill and put it on the agenda only if Naomi Shemer agreed. I made an appointment with her and we had a pleasant talk in a café. She did not agree outright, but allowed me to state that she did not object.
Throughout the conversation I had the feeling that there was an unexplained reluctance on her side. I remembered this years later, when it was disclosed that the rousing melody was not really composed by her, but was a Basque folk song. I felt rather sorry for her.
To Sum up: the vote of the "peace activist Uri Avnery" for the "unification" of Jerusalem was a huge mistake. I am taking this opportunity to apologize for it again.
I request for the application of the Biblical verse (Proverbs 28.13): "But whoso confesseth and forsaketh shall have mercy".
In The tumult of the last few days, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the "unification" of Jerusalem, one of the articles stated that "even peace-activist Uri Avnery" voted in the Knesset for the unification of the city.
That is true. I have tried to set out the circumstances in my autobiography, "Optimistic". But not everyone has read the book and it has so far appeared only in Hebrew.
Therefore I shall try to explain again that curious vote. Explain, not justify.
On Tuesday, June 27, 1967, two weeks after the 6-day war, I did not get up. I had the flu, and Rachel, my wife, had given me a lot of medicines. Suddenly they called me from the Knesset and told me that the chamber had just started a debate on the unification of Jerusalem, which had not appeared on the agenda.
I jumped out of bed and drove like hell from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, some 65 kilometers. Upon arriving I was told that the list of speakers had already been closed. But the Speaker, Kadish Luz, famous for his fairness, added me to the list.
I had just a few minutes to think. My parliamentary assistant, Amnon Zichroni, advised me to vote against, or at least to abstain. There was no time to consult with the leading members of my party, "Haolam Hazeh – New Force". I made the decision on the spot, and the decision was to vote in favor.
That was mainly an instinctive reaction. It came from the bottom of my soul. After the amazing triumph, which had came after three weeks of gathering anxiety, the huge victory in just six days looked like a miracle. The Jewish population, in all its parts, was in ecstasy. This mood crossed all dividing lines.
East Jerusalem was the center of the mass ecstasy. It was like a Tsunami. Masses flowed to the Western Wall, which had been unapproachable for 19 years. Both the pious and non-believers were intoxicated.
I felt that a political movement, which intends to win the masses for a new outlook, cannot in such a moment stand outside the people. Faced with such a storm, it cannot stay aloof.
I myself was not unaffected by the emotional storm. I loved Jerusalem. Before the partition of the country during the 1948 war, in which Jerusalem was divided, I had often wandered through the alleys of the Arab parts of the town. After that war, I longed for the Old City in an almost physical way. When the Knesset was in session, I often used to reside in the King David hotel that overlooks the Old City, and I remember many nights when I stood at the open window and listened to far-away dogs breaking the silence beyond the wall – and longing.
But besides the emotion, there was also a logical consideration.
Already in 1949, on the morrow of the war during which Israel was founded, I started to campaign for the "Two State Solution" – the setting up of an independent State of Palestine side by side with the State of Israel, as two equal states in the framework of a federation.
In 1957, after the Sinai War, I published - together with Natan Yellin-Mor, the former leader of the Lehi underground (a.k.a. the Stern Group), the writer Boaz Evron and others - a document called "the Hebrew Manifesto", of which I am proud even today. At the time, East Jerusalem and the West Bank were part of the kingdom of Jordan. Inter alia the document said:
"21. All of Eretz Israel (Palestine) is the homeland of its two nations – the Hebrew one, which has attained its independence in the framework of the State of Israel, and the Arab-Palestinian one, which has not yet achieved independence. The State of Israel will offer political and material assistance to the liberation movement of the Palestinian nation…which strives to establish a free Palestinian state, which will be a partner of the State of Israel…
"22. (There will be set up) a federation of the parts of Eretz-Israel (Palestine), which will safeguard the independence of all the states which are parts of it."
According to this plan, Jerusalem should have become a united city, the capital of Israel, the capital of Palestine and the capital of the federation.
At the time, that looked like a remote vision. But after the 1967 war the vision suddenly became real. The Jordanian regime was vanquished. Nobody seriously believed that the world would allow Israel to keep the territories it had just conquered. It seemed clear that we would be compelled to give them back, as we did after the war before that, the Sinai War of 1956.
I was convinced that this situation would give us the historic opportunity to realize our vision. For that to happen, we had first to prevent the return of the territories to Jordan. The unification of the two parts of Jerusalem looked to me like the logical first step. The more so since in the proposed law, the words "annexation" or "unification" did not appear. It said only that Israeli law would apply there.
All this passed through my mind in the few minutes I had. I approached the rostrum and said: "It is not a secret that I and my colleagues strive for the unification of the country in a federation of the State of Israel and a Palestinian state that will come into being in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a federation whose capital will be united Jerusalem as a part of the State of Israel."
The last words were, of course, an error. I should have said: "as a part of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine".
The Reasons for this vote were logical, at least in part, but the entire vote looked to me, in retrospect, like a very serious mistake. After a short time, I apologized for it in public. I have repeated this apology many times.
Within a short time it became quite clear that the State of Israel did not dream of allowing the Palestinians to establish a state of their own, and even less to divide sovereignty over Jerusalem. Today it is clear that from the first day – still under the Labor Party, led by Levy Eshkol – there was the intention of keeping these territories forever, or as long as possible.
11 years earlier, after the Sinai War, David Ben-Gurion had submitted to the parallel ultimatums of Dwight Eisenhower and Nikolai Bulganin, the heads of state of the USA and the Soviet Union. 105 hours after declaring the "Third Israeli Kingdom:", Ben-Gurion announced in a broken voice on the radio that he would give back all the conquered territories.
It was incredible that the weakling Eshkol would succeed where the great Ben-Gurion had failed, and hold on to the conquered territories. But contrary to all expectations, there was no pressure at all to give back anything. The occupation continues to this very day.
Therefore, the question did not even arise: whether to return the territories to the Kingdom of Jordan or turn them into the State of Palestine.
By the way, in those days, when the glory of our generals reached the skies, there were among them some who supported openly or secretly the idea of establishing a Palestinian state side by side with Israel. The most outspoken of these was General Israel Tal, the renowned tank commander. I tried very hard to convince him to assume the leadership of the peace camp, but he preferred to devote his efforts to building the Merkava tank.
Years later I tried to convince General Ezer Weizman, the former Air Force commander and the real victor of the 1967 war. His nationalist convictions changed and approached those of our group. But he preferred to become the President of Israel.
Even Ariel Sharon toyed for some years with these ideas. He preferred a Palestinian state to giving the territories back to Jordan. He told me that in the 50s, when he was still serving in the army, he had proposed to the General Staff to support the Palestinians against the Jordanian regime. He proposed this in secret, while I was demanding it in public.
But all this theorizing could not stand up to the reality: the occupation deepened from day to day. The readiness to give up all the occupied territories, even in ideal circumstances, dwindled more and more.
And on the other side?
I had many conversations with the admired (by me, too) leader of the Arab population in East Jerusalem, Faissal al-Husseini. The idea of a united Jerusalem, capital of two states, attracted him, too. We drew up together an appeal in this spirit. We talked about this, of course, with Yasser Arafat, and he fully agreed – but was not ready to confirm this in public.
Two Weeks after the Knesset vote, I published in my weekly magazine, Haolam Hazeh, another plan, under the headline "A basic, fair and practical solution". The first paragraph read: "There will be created a federation of Eretz-Israel (Palestine) which will include the State of Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the capital of which will be Greater Jerusalem."
This plan was signed by an amazing 64 well-known Israeli personalities, including writer Dan Ben-Amotz, humorist Uri Zohar, peace-pilot Abie Nathan, publisher Amikan Gurevich, sculptor Yigal Tomarkin, painter Dani Karavan, Nathan Yellin-Mor, captain Nimrod Eshel, film-maker Alex Massis, writer Boaz Evron, journalist Heda Boshes, art-custodian Yona Fisher and the famous educator Ernst Simon, the close friend of the already dead Martin Buber.
This document, like all the former plans, included the aim of creating a regional framework, like the European Union which was then in the making.
(By the way, lately a new fashion has been spreading in several circles: a new ideal solution to the conflict: the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian federation and a "regional solution". I assume that many of the new advocates of this solution were not yet born when these documents were published. If so, I have to disappoint them: all these ideas were voiced already a long time ago. This should not discourage them. May they be blessed.)
In The recent publications it was also mentioned that I proposed adopting the song "Jerusalem of Gold" as the national anthem of Israel.
Naomi Shemer wrote this beautiful song for a Jerusalem contest, when nobody yet dreamed about the 1967 Six-day War.
I intensely dislike the present national anthem, "Hatikvah" ("the Hope"). The text is about the life of the Jews in the Diaspora and the melody seems to be taken from a Romanian folk-song. Not to mention the fact that more than 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. (Perhaps we should learn from Canada, which long ago changed its British anthem and flag out of respect for its 20% French-speaking citizens.)
I decided to propose Shemer's song to the Knesset as the national anthem. After the 1967 war it had already become the rage of the masses. I submitted a bill accordingly.
That was, of course, a dubious proposal. Shemer did not mention in her song that there were Arabs in Jerusalem. The words have a strong nationalist flavor. But I thought that after the idea of a new anthem was accepted, we could rectify the text.
The Knesset Speaker, Luz, was ready to accept the bill and put it on the agenda only if Naomi Shemer agreed. I made an appointment with her and we had a pleasant talk in a café. She did not agree outright, but allowed me to state that she did not object.
Throughout the conversation I had the feeling that there was an unexplained reluctance on her side. I remembered this years later, when it was disclosed that the rousing melody was not really composed by her, but was a Basque folk song. I felt rather sorry for her.
To Sum up: the vote of the "peace activist Uri Avnery" for the "unification" of Jerusalem was a huge mistake. I am taking this opportunity to apologize for it again.
I request for the application of the Biblical verse (Proverbs 28.13): "But whoso confesseth and forsaketh shall have mercy".
A Feeling Of Persecution That Runs Deep
From
People And Nature
Al Mikey
writes about the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire.
Friday June 16th. A lot of really raw anger and hurt, it’s hard to convey the emotions. When I got out of the tube, every 10-15 metres there’s random groups discussing what happened, who they knew, latest updates, and audiences gather. The streets had around 300-400 locals there. An ice cream van was giving out free ice creams (compliments from a local estate agent apparently). All along the street were hundreds of photos of people missing (I counted around 60 different people) a lot of children, whole families.
The residents are a real mixture, a lot of Middle Eastern Arabs, Muslims, North Africans, but also white working class, a lot of women and children in school uniform. There’s nothing segregated about it. Everyone is out and talking with each other. Must be 100 nationalities and ethnicities. Also school teachers saying hello to their pupils (the cleaner from my friend’s daughter’s school is missing, she lived at Grenfell Tower).
A lot of tired and emotional people. Each time I stop to listen to someone else recounting their story, it’s done in such a deep and articulate way like only tragedies can produce.
Whilst this is happening on the street level, each time you look up is the block, enormous, blackened – reminded me of an alien ship hovering over the neighbourhood. It’s something that cannot be covered up, you can’t ignore it. Each time you look up it’s there, reminding you what has happened. That is perhaps the most shocking thing.
The talk I hear is that this was done on purpose to get rid of them from the area, for the rich to buy up the land – there’s a recurring motif that they are unwanted and excluded, and this fire fits in with that narrative. One young mother with her 10 year old daughter says “they want us dead in Palestine and in Syria but they are not gonna kill us here”. There is a lot of that – a general feeling of persecution and oppression that runs really deep. They feel their whole life-being extinguished, destroyed. That’s where the anger is, the same utter despair that exists in any “slum” in any city in any country.
There’s an uneasy sense from mothers with teenage boys that they don’t want trouble, though many seem angry enough for it. They want and welcome support, for once they are in the spotlight and stage, and the older generations understand struggle, they know the meaning of colonialism and exploitation, this is what is being spoken about.
I don’t know what can emerge as an effective response. As people make plans and strategise, it’s important to remember, like in any moment of rupture, those affected develop super-human qualities of awareness, of sense of purpose, of collectivity. It may take longer, and people may be frustrated with it, but a political (re)awakening is being produced in the shadows of Grenfell Tower, that for once I’m certain.
■ Collective rage, collective care
■ Grenfell support page
■ Grenfell Action Group
■ Radical Housing Network
Messages left near Grenfell Tower
Friday June 16th. A lot of really raw anger and hurt, it’s hard to convey the emotions. When I got out of the tube, every 10-15 metres there’s random groups discussing what happened, who they knew, latest updates, and audiences gather. The streets had around 300-400 locals there. An ice cream van was giving out free ice creams (compliments from a local estate agent apparently). All along the street were hundreds of photos of people missing (I counted around 60 different people) a lot of children, whole families.
The residents are a real mixture, a lot of Middle Eastern Arabs, Muslims, North Africans, but also white working class, a lot of women and children in school uniform. There’s nothing segregated about it. Everyone is out and talking with each other. Must be 100 nationalities and ethnicities. Also school teachers saying hello to their pupils (the cleaner from my friend’s daughter’s school is missing, she lived at Grenfell Tower).
A lot of tired and emotional people. Each time I stop to listen to someone else recounting their story, it’s done in such a deep and articulate way like only tragedies can produce.
Whilst this is happening on the street level, each time you look up is the block, enormous, blackened – reminded me of an alien ship hovering over the neighbourhood. It’s something that cannot be covered up, you can’t ignore it. Each time you look up it’s there, reminding you what has happened. That is perhaps the most shocking thing.
The talk I hear is that this was done on purpose to get rid of them from the area, for the rich to buy up the land – there’s a recurring motif that they are unwanted and excluded, and this fire fits in with that narrative. One young mother with her 10 year old daughter says “they want us dead in Palestine and in Syria but they are not gonna kill us here”. There is a lot of that – a general feeling of persecution and oppression that runs really deep. They feel their whole life-being extinguished, destroyed. That’s where the anger is, the same utter despair that exists in any “slum” in any city in any country.
There’s an uneasy sense from mothers with teenage boys that they don’t want trouble, though many seem angry enough for it. They want and welcome support, for once they are in the spotlight and stage, and the older generations understand struggle, they know the meaning of colonialism and exploitation, this is what is being spoken about.
I don’t know what can emerge as an effective response. As people make plans and strategise, it’s important to remember, like in any moment of rupture, those affected develop super-human qualities of awareness, of sense of purpose, of collectivity. It may take longer, and people may be frustrated with it, but a political (re)awakening is being produced in the shadows of Grenfell Tower, that for once I’m certain.
■ Collective rage, collective care
■ Grenfell support page
■ Grenfell Action Group
■ Radical Housing Network
Messages left near Grenfell Tower
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