Jimmy Burns's Blog, page 3

June 1, 2018

Spain:Time for Fresh Thinking

 


 


Whatever the outcome of Spain’s political crisis, one can safely say that the Spanish political class has not covered  itself in glory.


The context and manner of Mr Rayoy’s exit from the Spanish Congress after suffering a motion of no confidence  by a majority of lawmakers was preceded by proven cases of corruption at the highest level of his own party, an abject failure to show statesmanship on the Catalan question, and an inability to listen to or engage with other  parties , including his ad-hoc coalition partner Ciudadanos ,   in the run-up to today’s  vote with any semblance of appreciation of what represented the common good.


Rayoy has conducted his premiership with scarce respect for the opinion polls, let alone the verdict of voters. There has been  a haemorrhaging of support for his party across Spain, showing that his government’s  achievement in pulling Spain back from the brink of economic collapse and a massive  EU bail-out has long since been overshadowed and  superseded by a generalised feeling of deep malaise, with all trust squandered.


Even as he stubbornly clung to power during the debate preceding the vote against him, Rajoy put on a pitiful performance. He showed no sense of contrition for past mistakes and chose instead to defensively insult the opposition socialist leader Pedro Sanchez as an anti-patriot and opportunist , rather than recognising that the motion of no confidence expressed a much broadly  shared  sense of disillusionment , if not outrage with his government and its inability to  engage in meaningful dialogue and compromise.


To the extent that Rajoy’s defeat was preceded by his latest statement of arrogance , and  turned into an act of humiliation,  it was in  stark contrast to the departure of Real Madrid Zinedine Zidane,   a day earlier,  when the French born coach  quit with humility, dignity, and an honourable and honoured track record.


For now,  the political manoeuvrings behind Rajoy’s defeat and immediate outcome raises questions as to what kind of political future Spain faces in the short to medium term. The motion of no confidence was supported by law makers defending their own party and nationalist interests  even if these dovetailed in the moment of voting with a shared desire to put an end to Rajoy and his government for the greater good of a majority.


Among those who voted against Rajoy were Catalan law makers who support independence, the radical left Podemos, and Basque nationalists. As for Pedro Sanchez, if he takes on now the premiership, he lacks sufficient  political legitimacy, with his party hugely diminished since its own years in government which were hardly a paragon of virtue.


This is not to understate the potential historic  importance of today’s vote, the first Spanish prime-minister  since the restoration of democracy to be so brought down in such a devastating  way.


It suggests Spain may have reached a political fin de siècle, with the end of the PP’s and the socialist party’s dominance of the political process, potentially  paving the way for much needed radical reform of  Spain’s constitution and dialogue over Catalonia.


Spain is in urgent need not only of mediation and reconciliation, but of much  greater political transparency and accountability, with a priority being that of  finding  an imaginative consensual  solution to Catalonia  which works in the interest of the region, the country, and Europe.


In the short-term, new elections may be necessary  to get a fresh  measure of Spain’s shifting political landscape and where there are new spaces for compromise or a change of direction. One can only hope that the next vote Spaniards are called to cast will translate into a new and widely respected prime-minister, capable of governing in a way that builds bridges rather than walls, while ensuring the political and economic stability of this important European nation. Spain needs to vote in a a statesman  with integrity-and that’s quite a challenge.


 


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Published on June 01, 2018 05:02

May 7, 2018

Memory, Martyrs and Mission

Rome may be full of enduring Christian relics, many of them well known and repeatedly visited by pilgrims,  but the temporary exhibition currently on show in the  crypt of the Venerable English College is a little publicized gem,  well worth visiting if only for a reminder of the enduring and rich legacy of  English Catholicism and the part played by Jesuits in its defense. But hurry, it send on May 11th, after a short run of less than a month..


 


Entitled ‘Memory, Martyrs, and Mission’, exhibits included a first ever printed biography of St Thomas of Canterbury and a piece of the penitential hair shirt he wore before being murdered- an apt tribute to the memory of the great English archbishop on the 900th anniversary of his birth, and to whom the College’s beautiful chapel is also dedicated.


Inevitably martyrdom is one of the exhibition’s leitmotifs not least that of  the 44 one time residents of the English College who died for their faith. Of the relics  on display perhaps the most striking is that honoring the Jesuit priest Edmund Campion who defied the Reformation in England rather than seek safety in Rome and  was hung, drawn and quartered  in Tyburn. It is the rope that had him pulled on a horse cart, to his brutal execution  and which his friend Father Robert Parsons, a major figure in establishing the 16th century ‘English Mission’ of the Society of Jesus later wore around his waist until his own death from natural causes,  the martyrdom  he avoided by staying  in  Rome forever weighing on his  conscience.


The exhibition illustrates the fascinating story of the  Jesuit network that  survived as well as suffered the persecution of the  English reformation with safe havens set up across continental Northern and South Europe from St Omers to Sanlucar de Barrameda and Seville via Poitoise, Douai, and Valladolid.


The exhibition marks several  historical landmarks for the English College such as the bicentenary of its  re-opening in 1818 after a later persecution. Following the French invasion of Rome the seminarians were forced to leave and were not able to return until after the Napoleonic era and the restitution of papal states..


That many of the exhibits have been temporary loaned by  today’s leading Jesuit boarding school Stonyhurst College  in Lancashire is a testimony to the resilience and richness of the school’s cultural heritage here beautifully displayed in several of the most striking exhibits, for which much thanks must goes to its  hugely talented curator  Jan Graffius.


Of the several stand-out stories  narrated in this exhibition, one of my favorites is that of the remnant of Bonnie  Prince Charlie’s tartan kilt which survived the Battle of Culloden and which today is the pattern of   the girls uniform at Stonyhurst, a school that went belatedly co-ed in recent years.


The other is the  choice made by  the students of the English College who were evacuated   from Rome on the 15th May 1940 and ended up spending the rest of the war continuing  their  priestly studies in St Mary’s, where Stonyhurst today houses its preparatory school.


Then there is  the text accompanying a miniature prayer book belonging to the Rothwell family of Little  Woolton, near Liverpool,which  notes that the donor was an ex-student of the English College and later Bishop of Shrewsbury Ambrose Moriaty. I found it odd that  it omitted to mention-if only as an interesting anecdote- that the surname was used by the author Arthur Conan Doyle –an old Stonyhurst boy-for that of his literary hero’s Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis, the infamous Professor Moriaty.


But that is a minor quibble. I emerged into the Roman sunlight in awe of this original and well-conceived  exhibition marking not just nine centuries since Thomas Becket’s birth, but also the foundation  in 1568 of the  first  English seminary in Douai, Northern France by William Allen.


The English College was founded by Allen as a seminary eleven years later in 1579 in  a building that was originally opened in the mid 14th century  as a hospice for English pilgrims to Rome. The exhibition a fitting tribute to the English College’s a strong identity forged over centuries of witness and mission. Its most  iconic statement , which will remain to  be marveled over, after the exhibition ends, is the  painting in the  chapel, above the crypt,  depicting   a  risen Christ, Jesuit martyrdom, and the pilgrims gate to the Eternal City.


 


Sadly for a few days more only the tastefully lit and delicately laid-out  exhibition, will showcase priceless first editions, photographs, and original documents, as well as relics never see under one roof before.  It is a necessary compilation of some of the most important acts and personalities that defied anti-Catholic persecution.


I emerged from it deeply moved as well as proud of being a Jesuit educated Stonyhurst alumni. I recommend it to not just to any student of English Catholicism but to any active Christian who feels his or her faith or is worth defending, whatever the challenges or risks.


 


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Published on May 07, 2018 23:00

May 5, 2018

Sweet Lemon Grove, Sicily

La Casa di Melo, where we stayed for two nights, was one of several highlights of our Sicilian holiday, along with our visits to Mount Etna, and The  Godfather excursions to medieval  mountain villages.


It is a beautifully renovated family-owned farm house which year round welcomes guests as a  bio-hotel,  run with great charm by its current owners, a youthful married couple called Lorenzo and Chiara.


The hotel retains a distinctive  traditional air, with  antique  furniture  from Chiara’s original family home, dispersed liberally along corridors and rooms, and  a wine cellar containing a selection of the island’s best organic whites and reds. My personal favourites drawn from vineyards stretching from nearby Syracuse to the slopes of Mount Etna were ruby reds that developed exquisite flavour and perfume after a decent time to breathe: The 2011  Nero Ibleo and the  aptly named Hallelujah, a Syrah from 2015.


The  building has been thoughtfully  upgraded with designer  rustic bathrooms, terracotta floors, and firm beds, with walls painted in dark pipe grey ,and ceilings reinforced with newly crafted  wood beams . Each room is named after a citrus fruit, or vegetable, its sign prettily set in colourful ceramic.


This rural idyll  has a Latin  American hacienda  feel about it. On warm days, and there are many in this part of Italy, breakfast and supper is served in candlelight out on  an extensive veranda, shaded by tumbling bougainvillea and jasmine. From there the view takes in an infinity pool, a line of tall palms, lush cultivated fields, and the crouching tiger on the horizon which is Monti Ibiel, the region’s mountain range.


As Lorenzo explained, opening the hotel in 2009 brought a new lease of life to a family estate that had been struggling to survive the challenges of making farming profitable. The inspiration lay in making the deliberate choice to fully embrace the organic market as a new opportunity for the produce that grows naturally in the rich local soil-most notably deliciously sweet blood oranges and huge juicy lemons.


Guests are encouraged to walk freely around the extensive  groves of  organic citris fruit  the farm exports to northern Europe, a particular treat in early Spring when the air is scented with blossom and filled with the chorus of migrating  birds, among them swallows sweeping through, and doing their  bit to keep the insect population under  control.


They can  also savour a wonderful breakfast and evening buffet lovingly prepared with all the organic vegetables and cheeses that the local land can produce.


This a worthwhile Sicilian venture that I strongly recommend.  In its genuine conversion to the  organic cause,  La Casa di Melo is a defiant and  necessary counterpoint to the pollutants of the region’s monstrous petrochemical plant built in the 1960’s – nearer t Catania airport but thankfully nowhere in sight or smell when one stays in the farmhouse.


Surrounded by lush countryside, off the beaten-track,  this bio-hotel is perfectly located  for an extended chill-out and no less worthwhile  local tourism. We drove to the magnificent island town of  Ortiga, with   its ancient Greek ruins, baroque  piazzas , narrow medieval  side streets, and lively food market surrounded by crystalline waters.


After the big earthquake of the late 17th century, much of the  Greek stone  was used in new buildings, while many of the small  Jewish and Arab houses miraculously stod their ground, so that the town retains a distinctly Middle Eastern air about it, with touches of Athens and Lisbon.


Meanwhile those interested in the Second World War will need no reminding that it was here In this region  of Sicily, that the Italians surrendered and the Germans began their retreat from Southern Europe in the Spring of 1943. .


The respectfully kept cemetery for over 1000 English and other Commonwealth soldiers is just outside Syracuse near to where the final battle for the liberation of Sicily was fought. Its neat lines of tombstones showing how young where many of those who died after surviving the Desert War are deeply moving .


Also worth a visit in Ortygia, are the catacomb-like caves turned   underground air-raid shelters during WW2. Today the network of corridors carved deep into the stone, is an  alternative tourist passage from one side of the island to the other, but also stands as an enduring reminder of human resilience and survival.


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Published on May 05, 2018 03:15

April 22, 2018

Homage to Iniesta

 


Few people will lament  Andres Iniesta’s  departure from FC Barcelona as much as Messi.


In a book of personal tributes to Iniesta published last year, that of his Argentine colleague speaks volumes about how integral to Barca’s success the two have been, largely because of the unique personal understanding between them as individuals.


Messi tells how he never feels more comfortable than when knowing Iniesta is playing alongside him, for the players both feel and live for their football, without letting politics intrude, instinctively playing to each other’s strength, picking each other out with their vision and precise, intricate passing, laureates of poetry in motion.


But Messi  also goes on to comment that this understanding extends to the dressing room where both players are  introverted by nature, and yet are in complete touch with the meaning of each others’ silences.


Only Messi in the current Barca squad has had the experience of watching and playing alongside Iniesta from any early age, with both forming part of one the most successful and talented teams in the history of modern football.


Of course there are a million more fans out there who will mourn the passing of the Iniesta era. The huge respect to which he is held was made evident by the standing applause around the stadium he received as he was substituted, from Sevilla fans as well as Barca fans, and the many other Spaniards who were present. For  the reason he is so loved by so many Spaniards, is the huge contribution he has made to the  success of the Spanish national squad in recent years.


The ovation was for me one of the high points of the match, as was the moment when Iniesta – a hugely loyal Barca player but who is not Catalan born- was left by his fellow players to collect the cup from King Felipe, with the cheers finally drowning the whistles, for an instant the politics of division giving way to the shared homage to a legend of the game,.


 


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Published on April 22, 2018 01:26

April 10, 2018

Catalonia & Northern Ireland

 


Twenty years ago today I was among a large assembly of journalists from around the world who had gathered in the  freezing cold of an Easter-tide Belfast to celebrate a magnificent political achievement.


Today I simply reflect on that memory. In the days of  fake news and intense and generally justified popular scepticism with the absence of sound political leadership, I have no hesitation in supporting Tony Blair in his assertion that the peace agreement for Northern Ireland was something that those involved in it should feel justifiably proud of , for it  deserves being looked at as a case study of  how the best solutions are reached at through dialogue and compromise.


Blair is absolutely right in stating  that whatever the present day difficulties of Northern Ireland politics, the shortcomings of the agreement today falls well short of disqualifying the  historic milestone that put an end to one of the most violent and seemingly intractable sectarian conflicts in post-war Europe.


It is worth here noting some of the elements that made the agreement possible. First and foremost it involved a sufficient dose of patience and humility among the main stake holders, and a commitment to step out of the narrow confines of  prejudice to build bridges of understanding and justice rather  maintaining a wall of deafness and intolerance.


The Northern Ireland agreement didn’t happen overnight but was the result of  a carefully mapped out discreet engagement, breaking out of the  straight jacket of nationalist prejudice and partisan politics thanks to the involvement of  third party intermediaries, and the promise that compromise held the key to a more stable and prosperous future that benefited the common good.


Such a promise, one should note, was not lightly given but was underpinned by other key players in the process, among them not just British and Irish political leaders, but the US government led by President Clinton, and a European Union prepared to bring in Northern Ireland out of a dangerous conflict zone that had spiralled out of control , with violence on both sides, and no clear winners.


The  key players, and I mention here  not just Blair, but  his predecessor as prime-minister the conservative John Major, President Clinton, and the Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern , but also the social democrat John Hume , the IRA leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, and the unionists David Trimble and Ian Paisley,  showed between them a real ability to move beyond their own narrow self-interest in favour of the interests of the broader community, both North and South of the Irish border.


In so doing they showed themselves capable , in a specific scenario requiring urgent action, of being  true statesmen, visionary political leaders prepared to defuse enduring antagonisms so as to move forward on the basis of consensus that nonetheless recognised a political reality.


This was that while a majority of people in Northern Ireland wanted to remain part  of the UK, there was a substantial section of the population that regarded themselves as Irish nationalists.


The two governments also agreed, irrespective of the constitutional position of Northern Ireland: the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be founded on the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens, and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities.


I write this from Catalonia, a region of Spain, which seems to be struggling to find a way out of its political impasse, with an absence of statesmanship in Madrid and visionary political leaders in Barcelona  ,but  who could  do well to embrace a spirit of engagement and a sense of common good, through dialogue and compromise.


Factors worth  considering: the Catalan movement for independence might be trying to monopolise international coverage of the issue and once again going for mass demonstrations, (a huge one is expected on Sunday)  but they do not command a clear majority of support among voters in the region, still less in the rest of Spain.


That said their cause has been energised by the tough action taken against its political leaders by the Spanish judiciary, and the less than supportive action by the  German judiciary. A German judge  has released on bail the fugitive former Catalan prime minister  Carlos Puigdemont , judging that his actions against the Spanish state were neither rebellious not seditious, despite violating Spain’s constitution.


In Madrid, the ruling PP government, meanwhile is daily losing support of the electorate  in part because of its alleged corruption and lack of a solution to the Catalan question, beyond imposing direct rule, and letting Spanish judges try and dictate the thrust and pace of Spanish politics, whatever German judges might think.


Catalonia is crying out for true statesmen, for political leaders who are not demagogues, for worthy and respected mediators, and a community that favours consensus not conflict, demanding an agreement as innovative and courageous as the Good Friday agreement was in its time. For without all these elements, the danger is the Catalonia becoming more polarised and potentially violent amidst increasing civil disobedience and the resistance of the  Spanish State.


 


 


 


 


 


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Published on April 10, 2018 03:08

March 19, 2018

Mary Magdalene

This past Sunday the  Catholic church I visited had its images covered in deep purple as is traditional at this time leading up to Easter, its altar monopolised by men.


Coming in from the bustle of London on  St Patrick’s weekend and finding shelter from the aggressive final snow storm of  the Beast from the East, I was drawn into a controlled clerical space, then soothed by plain chant  and incense  and a  measured silence with which I was encouraged to meditate on the mystery of Christ.


Later in the day , after sharing a very secular tea and biscuits with the women in our  family- one daughter plus one daughter and her partner-, I  ventured forth again  with my wife to go and see the film  entitled Mary Magdalene, conscious that while it been given  a rough ride by the critics, it might shed an alternative  light on our search  for God in our midst. Let me report right away that we came away huge encouraged.


The film does not reduce Mary Magdalene to a bit part in a major epic- see Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth- nor caricature her as a mercenary temptress turned sweetheart  as per The Last Temptation   of Christ-but as a central character of the Gospel story, full of contemporary relevance, a courageous woman resisting  the  patriarchal order  of her immediate family , institutionalised  religion  and tribe, and being drawn to  the good news of Jesus.


Like Pasolini ‘s memorable The Gospel According to St Matthew, Mary Magdalene’s  director  Garth Davis has chosen austere Italian landscapes and enduring medieval towns  and villages to replicate the austerity of First-century Judea, a stark stage on which the main protagonist suffers the abuse and discrimination of males before , finding in a more soulful and gentle Jesus than that imagined by Pasolini,  a kindred spirit.


Nowhere in  this film is it suggested that Mary Magdalene is a prostitute.  Instead she is portrayed as an unmarried young Jewish woman with a somewhat mystical air about her but conscious of her rights as a child of a loving God.


Her character is defined by the opening other worldly scene in which she dreams of  her body being drawn down into the sea of Galilee, followed by her real-life ability to carry her sister through a painful labour  simply with her soothing words and look.


The separation between herself  and her immediate surroundings  become  acute when, refusing to accept the arranged orthodox marriage to a male  as decreed by tradition, Mary Magdalene is nearly drowned by her father as he tries to exorcise the demons he and other males allege struggle within her. The brutal scene contrasts with her  subsequent gentle baptism by Jesus, as she is invited by him into his growing community of  followers.It is a coming to a true home.


Soon Mary Magdalene played with an admirable restraint  than never feels distant by the naturally beautiful US actress Rooney Mara, is baptising other women, as they in turn join  Jesus  as a liberator from their social and spiritual  repression, venerating him not just as a miracle worker but as a Messiah, the long expected King of the Jews,  who also talks to them of the need for mercy.


When alone together, usually in an open space  looking out across  a mountains landscape, Mary Magdalene and Jesus , played engagingly with two feet on  the ground but with an inner warmth radiating from his eyes, by Joaquin Phoenix, connect  with each other’s  feelings towards each other, with the world that surrounds them, and a sense of God’s presence.


They bring out the best of each other. Jesus teaches his followers the meaning of reconciliation  through the Lord’s Prayer, while Mary  Magdalene, finding  herself alone with Peter, visits a village that has been pillaged by the  Roman army.


All that is left are the dead and the dying from wounds and starvation. While Peter, fearful of being discovered  and arrested by the authorities,  is in a hurry to move on,Mary Magdalene insists on  fetching water and comforting as may victims as she can, in a scene of huge humanity.


In another scene, Mary Magdalene washes Jesus’s feet, with water not with perfumed oil,   the scene depicted  not as an act of  repentance by a sinner, but as a demonstration of love and respect and solidarity, the transformative water foretold  by John the Baptist.


In a generally balanced review The Catholic weekly  The Tablet’s film critic Anthony Quinn  lamented that the film in its final stages moves too quickly through the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, thus seemingly denying  Christian film buffs yet another full blown filmed version story of the Passion.


I too was disappointed by the truncated Last  Supper. Mary Magdalene is briefly present, but we are not shown the nature of her  participation in the sharing of the body  and body of Christ . Thus the scene  does not in itself challenge the doctrinal reason for denying the ordination of women- that  Jesus instituted the sacrament of ordination at the Last Supper,  only for 12 male apostles. While we see rather less than this number at table, Mary Magdalene’s own crucial contribution to the event remains deliberately  blurred.


And yet  taken as a whole the film leaves one with no doubt that women as personified by Mary Magdalene deserve  equal status as men in the Church, demands that are growing in the current papacy.


Pope Francis has taken an important step towards this very recognition. In July 2016,the Vatican decreed the liturgical celebration honoring St. Mary Magdalene should be elevated from a memorial to a feast, to emphasize  the importance of  this woman “who so loved Christ and was so greatly loved by Christ”  on an equal level with the apostles.


Noting how Mary Magdalene was the first eyewitness to the Risen Christ and the first to announce his resurrection to the apostles, Francis  hailed her as “the Apostle to the Apostles” – a phrase first coined by St. Thomas Aquinas but subsequently ignored for much too long by a male dominated church .


The film has Peter , the man, according to accepted tradition, chosen by Christ  as founding rock of the Church, defensively warning that her increasing presence and importance among the apostles risks weakening it. Judas, meanwhile is similarly  controversially portrayed  as  a sympathetic if inpatient activist for the coming of the new kingdom, who ends up  betraying  Jesus , believing that in so doing he is delivering a new God.


Yet Many Magdalene’s  empathy with the Jesus that is with all tree of them, is emphasized by  a striking image of the  Crucifixion ,   juxtaposed  dramatically with  her own emotional break down, and that of  his mother Mary  sobbing as she  holds her son’s broken and bloodied body in her arms.


Beyond this, the enduring message  is in   the closing scene  when Mary Magdalene sits next to the Risen Christ, her face resonating love and joy , in his presence, the first witness to his resurrection and the heart of the Christian faith.


Don’t be put off by the mainly male critics,  or the unfortunate irony that the film’s distribution in the US is in limbo given  that its main distributor was meant to be  a company owned  by Harvey Weinstein and now facing bankruptcy. If you believe in a living theology, this film is worth seeing.


Leaving the cinema on Sunday night, we were caught in  another snow storm. Through it and the fading largely male drunken cheer of the St Patrick’s celebration emanating  from a nearby pub ,there  seemed to echo the words pronounced days earlier by the former Irish president Mary McAleese at a Why Women Matter conference in Rome:


‘ Down the 2000 year highway of Christian history came the ethereal divine beauty of the nativity, the cruel sacrifice of the crucifixion, the hallelujah of the resurrection and the rallying cry of the great commandment to love one another,” she said.


“But down that same highway came man-made toxins such as misogyny and homophobia to say nothing of anti-Semitism with their legacy of damaged and wasted lives and deeply embedded institutional dysfunction.”


Today, she added  “we challenge Pope Francis to develop a credible strategy for the inclusion of women as equals throughout the church’s root and branch infrastructure, including its decision-making.”


Reflecting  on her words,  I thanked God for  a   beautifully conceived movie that gives a necessary and long overdue voice and central role to a true woman of  Jesus, a mirror held up to the Church in the world, a light amidst the purple, as we head towards Easter, in contemplation and action.


 


 


 


 


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Published on March 19, 2018 12:03

February 24, 2018

A meeting with a Czech ‘friend’

 


 


I am glad I caught the BBC’s John Simpson’s fascinating recollection  this morning of his avoidance of an  attempted honey pot  trap  by the communist Czech intelligence service during  the Cold War. It brought back memories of a somewhat more mundane encounter I had many years later , thankfully devoid of any attempted sexual subversion, and involving  a very different, and genuinely friendly  kind of  spy of the same nationality.


It took place during a weekend conference at Oxford’s  St Antony’s College, attended by an assortment of academics, think-tanks, and a number of  intelligence ‘professionals’  mostly retired on the subject ‘Intelligence Services in a Changing World.’


Early on in the conference I was approached and invited for a drink by one of the British delegates , a Cold War civil service  veteran who had followed my career as a journalist covering a number of interesting scenarios including the   Falklands War and the troubles in Northern Ireland.


He told me there was an unidentified  foreign ‘friend’   attending the conference I would be  interested to meet and who he planned to introduce me to. It was a Saturday.


Early that evening, as  arranged,  I turned up,  at one of Oxford’s more discreet and less popular pubs, and there found my contact with someone I took on first sight, mistakenly as it turned out,  for an archetypal middle-aged Oxford don.


The third man  was short and rotund, dressed in a crumpled tweed suit, and bow tie, and was smoking a pipe. Beneath a mop of overgrown hair, his eyes followed me with an initially quizzical look that soon dissipated with a  welcoming smile as we shook hands.


As the three of us shared a pint in an isolated  snug of the pub, I listened with growing amazement to his  story. It turned out that he  had served as President Václav Havel’s first spy chief  during the  Czech Republic’s emergence as a democratic state after the collapse of the Soviet Union.


Before that, during the later years of the Cold War, he had volunteered as a  member of  Charter 77 , the group of intellectual dissidents in communist-run Czechoslovakia formed in 1977 to help fuel and inspire the reform movement that 12 years later would usher in the democratic era, through what became known as the Velvet Revolution.


His job during those  years  had been working in a small film studio dubbing foreign films into Czech, and he was happy to  have  projector room  used as a  drop-off and distribution  point for dissident propaganda.


It was not, he told me,  a spy’s job  he was doing but the work of one dissident among many so he was surprised the day Havel called him to the presidential office  and told him about his new appointment as the nascent democratic state’s head of intelligence.


So he related: ‘But why me? I have never worked for any intelligence  organization.” I asked Havel. ‘ That’s exactly why, ‘ Havel replied. ‘  I don’t trust anyone in the organization I have inherited from the old regime. I need someone from the outside I can trust to help me carry out a root and branch reform.”


The third man  went  on  to tell me that had he taken  the job and with Havel’s blessing went about reorganizing Czech intelligence with the help, as he told me, from the British after MI6  bid successfully for a training contract (The Germans, French and Americans lost out.)


Our meeting took place in September 1999, a year when  you could still smoke in pubs, and when the subjects at the conference I attended   ranged  from the US’s trusted role as a superpower holding world peace together, and intelligence cooperation with  the ‘new’ diminished Russian secret services, to the ethical conduct  of western  human and signals intelligence gathering, and the containment of nuclear proliferation, and where the threat of international  terrorism was submerged and relegated  amidst a general sense of collective post-Cold-War complacency.


Two years later the Twin Towers in New York were attacked, and the world, not just the spooks, entered a different more unsettling stage than that I  inhabited that genial Autumn evening  when I shared a pint with two ‘friends’ in Oxford. I never saw my Czech third man again.


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


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Published on February 24, 2018 05:00

January 28, 2018

The Post, the FT, and turning 65

As birthday presents go, I couldn’t have asked for a more timely and worthwhile one than a visit to my favourite London cinema the Clapham Picture House, ‘en famille’ to watch The Post.


At one level it was a trip down memory lane , to my rights of passage in journalism, reporting to  newsroom bosses (always male) in  rolled up sleeves, and feeling part of an enterprise that began immersed in  typewriter clatter and reels of telex tape, messenger boys running to deliver urgent copy before proceeding to  Linotype machines, and hot metal-presses, enduring dinosaurs of the industrial age.


No mobiles phones or google searches. When it came to chasing  stories , it was  finding your source preferable over several drinks, a pocket full of coins to feed the pay phone, then cut and paste.


I was 18 , just dreaming of becoming a foreign correspondent , when the military analyst’s Daniel Ellsberg’s   leaked report (“United States – Vietnam Relations 1945- 1967”) was first published by the New York Times, followed by the  Washington Post, showing that the American people had been lied to by successive governments, not being told the truth  of an unwinnable war.


At my Jesuit boarding school , Stonyhurst College, our own anti-Vietnam protest, in solidarity with others that spread from Grovernor Square, via Paris to Chicago, took shape with a successful  ‘school rag’ , raising a Vietcong flag on the roof of the main building.


Seven years later, having survived an interview which grilled me on my CV, showing I had worked for a Catholic newspaper and been active in human rights groups, I was starting out  at the head offices of the Financial Times called  Bracken House where the old printing machines churned out the Pink One in a massive basement over which the printing unions claimed dominion , and  which subeditors had access through  the side-door of an in-house pub on strict condition they didn’t touch the machines.


I watched the vividly  depicted scenes of the metals presses in Spielberg’s The Post thinking of just how much the world of journalism had changed, not just in the way that newspapers are produced but how they go about reporting the  world we live in.


After the film was over, one of my daughters remembered her childhood, and the day she suddenly found herself  with my typewriter and so much copy paper that the following weeks  were  filled up with her and her sister knocking out thankyou messages , and drawing their  favourite  animals. It was the day I wrote my first article on a computer.


From then on my working environment  would transform itself  from a noisy engine room filled with human banter, to a cushioned, almost  anaesthetised call center , a conveyor belt of linked up work stations and distant technologically driven printing works finally shed of all artisanship.


And yet as we know,  Spielberg would have not have rushed out his latest film The  Post  if it had simply been an exercise in nostalgia. The clearest message the film projects is that good newspapers can and should stand up to the  abuse of power, and that “the founding fathers gave the free press the protection  it must have to fulfil its essential role…to serve the governed not the governors.”


The Post is a  contemporary tale, released at a time  when a US president  called Donald Trump rages against fake news and the media being the enemies of the American  people.


I saw the film  a week when as the Washington Post put it  the “the usually decorous “ FT , published a “tabloid style story”  that women hired as hostesses had been groped and propositioned at a charity event.


Unless my memory fails me , in the years I worked for the FT’s investigative unit set up by the legendary Ben Bradleesque Alain Cass (an ex tabloid man),we never asked any female member of our team to dress up as a hostess, wire her up, or throw her into a den of male iniquity.


We broke diligently  researched  stories  that exposed big bank fraud, shady arms deals, the rise and falls of  crooked tycoons like Robert Maxwell , leaving sex, drugs and rock and roll to the Murdoch empire.


But then the FT claimed its  story of  sexual harassment at a  fund raising  dinner at the Dorchester was the most  read in the newspaper’s history so it has evidently met the public interest test, in spades.


Fake news? Surely not. Those attending the dinner were described by  the journalist involved as “a mix of British and foreign businessmen, the odd lord, politicians, oligarchs, property tycoons, film producers, financiers, and chief executives” which I guess is not a bad description of an important segment  of the readership of the FT whose slogan is , as it has been for years, ‘Beyond Fear  of Favour.’


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


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Published on January 28, 2018 06:54

January 16, 2018

The Catalan Conundrum

 


As someone who for personal and professional reasons includes regular visits to Catalonia as part of his year, it is with some  relief that I have managed to experience the region over Christmas and  into the New Year in relative peace, and among friends from a wide political spectrum.


But then those of us familiar with the local scene have grown accustomed to  valleys of relative calm prior to resurgent peaks of crisis, a veritable political helter-skelter which baffles most ordinary mortals struggling to catch up.


Currently we are back in the arena of unpredictability, with Catalans divided as to what kind of regional parliament they want reconstructed.


Politicians are shooting in the dark over terms of reference of  administrative and political control, with no consensus as to who should be the president of the regional government,let alone any certainty as how the judiciary might continue to impose itself. There is a key question mark over when  the Spanish government will lift its exceptional powers of intervention  under Article 155 of the Constitution, and, once lifted, under what circumstances it might re-impose them.


The December results have consolidated the polarization  between two powerful nationalist forces-one pro-unionist, the other pro-independence – each claiming victory of a kind, and very far from finding from showing they can  finding any common ground on any matters of substance.


If we keep to the facts, Ciudadanos came out as the most voted single party. The independence parties got enough votes to give them  the majority of deputies in the Catalan parliament but their overall share of the vote-47 per cent from a more than 80 per cent turn-out – is far from an endorsement for a unilateral declaration of independence.


Whether this leaves any room  for manoever  remains to be seen. There is ongoing and unresolved debate within the independent movement as to whether the outlawed  former president of the Catalan regional government Carlos Puigdemont should be restored to office. .


What is certain is Puigdemont will be   arrested if and when he returns to Spanish soil, and the alternative  of him ruling from his temporary exile in Brussels would not be recognized by the government or unionist parties and also subject to legalistic obstruction.


Which is not say that there are not radical pro-independence supporters who see Puigdemont as their  legitimate president . Many of these supporters relish the prospect of Puigdemont’s  ‘arrest’ refueling international sentiment for their cause on human rights grounds, while also keeping alive the Catalan nationalist ‘cause’ viewed by them as inseparable  and irreconcilable   with the Spanish state.


To call their attitude  irrational and self-deluded may be an understatement .Thankfully there are more pragmatic anti-unionist and Republicans voices who are hoping that Catalonia can take a  necessary first step towards having  its autonomous government restored and  a period of relative stability .


Nontheless I find the idea of a pro-independence  pragmatic government a contradiction in terms –not just because we have Catalan nationalist  politicians who feel under pressure from their grass roots to pursue the cause without compromise, but because the current Spanish government will make every effort-alongside the courts-to block any act of government that can be interpreted as counter to  the  unity of the Spanish state as defined by  the Constitution.


What we now have after the elections, is a more complex and unpredictable political dynamic. Rajoy’s short-termism and lack of statesmanlike vision on Catalan matters  is mirrored by the irrationality of Catalan nationalism as expressed by its current leadership.


The most voted party  Ciudadanos sees no room for compromise or dialogue with the pro-independence movement and is  happy to back continuing emergency powers if  exreme Catalan nationalists once again hijack the Catalan parliament and proceed to vote in measures aimed at breaking with the Spanish state unilaterally.


There is a  worrying repetitive nature to Catalan politics. An expatriate  friend of mine, of no political party,  called it Groundhog politics , with Catalans  entrenched  in their positions and doomed to suffer the consequence over and over again. Catalonia is not  like Scotland , my friend suggested,  it is more like  Northern Ireland before the peace accord -unionist vs republicans, only without the violence-yet.


******


 


Under current electoral law, Catalan politicians are  expected this wednesday (January 17th) to initiate the new regional parliament with the election  of an administrative  political council-charged with approving the legislative programme and regulating the tone of its debate and the scope of policy implementation . The ‘Mesa’ or table, as the council  is called looks,  likely to be dominated again by pro-independence deputies setting a radical tone and spirit in the new parliament. The Catalan parliament has  until the 27th January to confirm in office the new Catalan president .


How Catalan separatists intend  to make use of the majority they achieved at the December 21 elections largely depend on what happens in ongoing talks being held  between Puigdemont and party executives.


Until recently the  talks were focused on agreeing on how  Puigdemont can effectively  become Catalan president again,  maintaining the unity and momentum of the independence movement .


But Puigdemont is under some pressure  within the Catalan nationalists to cede the presidency and go for a soft landing. Thus he is being urged  by his opponents and some Catalan nationalista  to put  aside for now any push towards independence and focus instead on helping restore  the political  and socio-economic stability that a practically insolvent Catalonia desperately needs.


The option that has Puigdemont backing off and backing down has adherents across the pro-impendence community although far from unanimous support. It has in the frame, some believe,  Elsa Artadi, a Catalan born and educated economist  with a postgraduate  degree from Harvard University and experience working for the World Bank .


She is a  close and trusted ally of Puigdemont, credited with having run a very successful campaign for him in Catalonia in the December elections making the party Junts para Catalunya a surprise winner over its main pro-independence rival Esquerra.


While Artadi has  openly declared her strong support for Catalan independence sources across the political divide see her emergence as favoring a potentially less  volatile political landscape in the coming months. Despite her pro-independence sympathies she is credited even by her political opponents for her pragmatism and managements skills which have contributed to ensuring   the peaceful way that the administration of Catalonia has continued during the application of  Article 155 .


Artadi is a protégée of her one-time university professor , and the former Catalan economy Andreu Mas-Colell  who recently called for a Catalan government that had ‘a technical profile without political implications.”


The Puigdemont only option is favored by the more radical elements in the independence movement which continue to try and wag the  tail  and leading the separatist movement.


By contrast Artadi is considered in Catalan political and business circles as  a woman with a strong professional  and campaigning record who would prove a  potentially  strong counterweight to the popularity of the unionist Ines Arrimadas , is neither in jail nor exile or facing prosecution,  and  appeals to younger voters as well as old, with strong support among female voters.


Whether Artadi can alone bring a measure of stability to  Catalonia or indeed wants tow a moderate line if picked by Puigdemont as his successor however remains open to question.


Neutral observers caution against typecasting Artadi as either a moderate or a radical and see her as yet another element contributing to an overall uncertain  and unpredictable  political landscape.


After all ,the Catalan independence movement has developed a tradition in modern times of leaders  handing on to successors who some thought might turn out to be more moderate but ended up proving more radical-as when Pujol handed over to Arturo Mas and Arturo Mas  handed over to Puigdemont.


 


What is clear is that while politicians argue among themselves, Catalonia is decaying economically. This once self-confident and in many ways exemplary region of Spain, has become one of the European Union’s nagging headaches, its push for independence finding no supporters in major European capitals and provoking instead a dramatic withdrawal of investment with a continuing stream of companies moving the legal headquarters elsewhere in Spain,  declining tourist revenues, increasing indebtedness of public finances, and  growing unemployment.


Having travelled in  recent days from Barcelona and the coastal region  to the radical interior , where Catalan republican flags dominate the village and townscapes, I can report that the grass roots of the  independence movement is still being led and supported by people who seem to belong another planet.


They are in  a bubble all of their own making, oblivious and impervious  to the mess they’ve  made of Catalonia . This is matched by a lack of  statesmanship in Madrid so far incapable of compromise, building consensus,  making peace offerings, winning hearts and minds.


In Madrid the PP government remains convinced that it cannot cede to Catalan nationalist  pressure  because to do so would risk the undermining of the state , nor will it negotiate , and has no problem with  the judiciary  continuing to take a tough line against the pro-independence movement. It is a position  unlikely to change as long as Rayoy is prime-minister and for now he intends seeing out his term the next general election in the summer of 2020.


The Ciudadanos strategy appears to be that of using its own reinforced power in opposition to counter all moves within the Catalan parliament towards independence, while reinforcing its hold on national politics with opinion polls showing a significant shift in allegiance by defecting PP supporters who have been impressed by the strong result achieved by Arrimadas in Catalonia.


The rise of Ciudadanos  as a younger party untainted by allegations of corruption suggests nonetheless that more votes stand to be gained from a firmly  unionist policy than any one aimed at making concessions to Catalans independence. This view is shared by Ciudadanos insiders who say the party is quite prepared to support a restoration of Article 155 if the Catalan government proceeds on a  path of disengagement  with the Spanish state.


Nonetheless Ciudadanos is ready to press for of an acceleration of Constitutional  reform   tougher anti-corruption  laws, and improved financing for all regions in Spain including Catalonia while pitching its hopes on making huge strides in next year’s  municipal and European elections as a  platform to gain power in the 2020  general elections.


In the short-term the current likelihood is of growing political unrest in Catalonia with the Spanish government and judiciary continuing to take a  hardline against rebellious Catalan politicians , and the prospect of the Catalan parliament and government being dissolved again in the not too distant future.


 


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Published on January 16, 2018 09:25

January 6, 2018

Messi & Catalonia

So eat your hat all  you illuminated Catalan nationalists   who thought Lionel Messi would be your standard   bearer all the way to independence and beyond.


FC Barcelona had tried its best to keep details on his thoughts on the matter from public scrutiny-but the truth is now out. As reported in the Spanish and Catalan media the Argentine’s latest contract with the club has a specific clause stating that player will be  free to leave the club in the event of Catalan independence having Barca excluded from any major European leageu, including La Liga.


In truth the news is not such a great surrise to those  of us who have followed Messi’s political sympathies over the year.The fact is that politics registers a near zero in Messi’s mindset, that he is almost exclusively dedicated to football, when not playing Playstation, eating Argentine steaks and pasties, and taking some  time off with family and good mates.


When  it comes to Catalan politics, Messi has been notable for his lack of any anecdotal,let alone passionate involvement. Not for him Johan Cruyff’s example of insisting that his first born son be called by a Catalan name, or Pep Guardiola’s emblemic support for the release of Cataln political prisoners, or Pique’s emotional defence of the Catalan  right to vote for self-determination .


Within the Messi family,  one of the main concerns has been that the younger generation should not be compelled to  speak the Catalan language. It was the reason why Messi’s mother chose not to to live in Barcelona but took herself and her daughter back to Rosario in Argentina.


But the underlining consideration  must be that FC Barcelona would become a declining asset were Catalonia to break  away from Spain, and possibly Europe as a result.


Football has few global supershows that can match the El Classico encounters between FC Barcelona  and Real Madrid, and Messi, along wth his main rival Cristiano Ronaldo,  is one of  its superstars. Hence the anticipatory clause. Let the show go on.


 


 


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Published on January 06, 2018 06:30

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