“There are countries so underdeveloped today that the gift of independence is like the gift of a razor to a child” – Lord Beaverbrook.
Yesterday I came across the above quotation in a panel discussion on Canadian TV , filmed in the late 1950s. It featured Brendan Behan who not surprisingly rejected Beaverbrook’s smug assertion. Less surprisingly an Englishman on the panel thought it was a very sensible dictum.
But then the English are very good at seeing themselves above the kind of primitive behaviour they happily attribute to other people. Lord West, a former chief of British intelligence declared the other day that while British agents may have been present at “the odd case” of torture carried out by CIA officers, it’d be a waste of time to launch a full public enquiry. The British government has made clear that British agents from now on “must not be involved at all or even around when this is going on”. Monkey see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Meanwhile the Irish government has decided to refer the case of the ‘hooded men’ back to the European Court of Human Rights, to revise its 1978 judgement that the British Army then used inhuman and degrading treatment on Irishmen in the north. The Irish government want the Court to declare the actions torture. If you read the description of what went on, and compare it with the treatment meted out by the CIA, you’ll find considerable overlap. Sorry, Virginia. You ask if the Irish government are therefore the good guys, unlike the nasty British and Americans? Well, let me put it like this: No.
In December 2005, the then Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern was asked about CIA rendition planes (yes, Virginia, that’s planes taking hooded prisoners from the Middle East to Guantanamo Bay where they can be tortured) which were alleged to be stopping off at Shannon airport. Ahern declared “If anyone has any evidence of any of these flights please give me a call and I will have it immediately investigated”. So Amnesty International produced flight logs showing that six rendition planes used by the CIA had made some fifty landings at Shannon airport. And the Irish government then did what? Right. Nothing.
If it wasn’t so ghastly it’d be risible. The British government says it never really had anything to do with American torture, which it had. The American government denies that water-boarding and other cruel techniques are torture, which they patently are. The British government says it never tortured Irish prisoners, including the ‘hooded men’, which they patently did. And the Irish government lied and continues to lie about rendition CIA flights through Shannon on their way to Guantanamo Bay for extended torture sessions.
And pi-lease, pleeeease don’t tell me that Enda Kenny wasn’t in charge back then. Enda Kenny has been in the Dail since 1975 – as near to forty years as dammit. But has he spoken out about the hooded men or, more recently, about the Shannon rendition flights? Uh-uh. This reference of the ‘hooded men’ case to the European Court of Human Rights is a stunt to pass himself off as someone who has serious concern for British crimes against Irish people in the north. Mercifully, the Irish people appear to be at last awakening from their long slumber. Let’s hope they take as their theme song that golden oldie from The Who: ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.
Let’s hope they take as their theme song that golden oldie from The Who: ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.
Really? Unless I am very much mistaken the elections polls suggest SF are about to enter government and as we are very much aware have had a less than perfect track record on torture and human rights so i suspect the Irish population wont follow the Who`s famous advice.
Not to be confused with the British forces who were always cleaner than clean- at least if you go by the number who were charged, let alone convicted.
Good old fashioned whataboutery dont you just love it!
I always like to check both sides of the coin to see if it’s funny money…Btw, you may have noticed that the IRA have gone away. Unlike the British government, the American government, the Enda government or Guantamamo…
All of these govts have been voted in by their electorate Jude its called Democracy something SF has only become a recent convert to….
As for the IRA going away well of course they have afterall nobody is freer than a dead man…
How pithily you put it, Neill. And of course this particular state was carved out at the point of a pea-shooter, which is always a comforting background thought.
whenever I read or hear a Unionist pontificating about democracy a little bit of vomit rises up my gullet
what in heavens name would unionism know about democracy
They only want ‘democracy” when it suits them a al gerry mandered voting constituencies, false borders etc.
And Neill ,The British had and have a moral and legal duty to protect every citizen under it’s jurisdiction….unlike the now defunct IRA , the British , unfortunately , are legally responsible for our welfare !…..Quite a difference
Many states have popped up through the point of a pea-shooter Jude however I am sure you knew that already we are no different to them at all.
Equally I am sure you will be celebrating and admiring the brave men of 1916 down at the GPO in Dublin come Easter 2016 afterall they didnt try to carve out a state with violence did they?
Anyway I am still concerned you have not invited me out for some lunch before Christmas you never know we might have more in common than our political leaders!
I’m afraid you’re going to have to check your wee history book, neill. This little stateen came about through part of the UK rebelling against the, um, UK because it refused to accept the parliamentary decision of the UK and said it would use any means to, um, stay in the UK. (As the psychiatrists said of B Fawlty: enough there for a whole conference).
As to lunch – if you were prepared to provide one of sufficient quality in a house of good repute, I’d consider it. After you’ve removed your mask, of course…
They threathened to rebell but not a shot was fired no violence committed indeed nothing at all the Great War inronically intervened…
So your saying you are an expensive date then? : )
Yes indeed neill – they just put a gun to the head of their own government and yelled ‘Don’t dare kick us out!’ Talk about tough love.
As to dates – I always prefer mine to wear as little as possible from the neck up anyway…
And the “great war” they enthuse about involved the torture and murder of millions!
Being 6000 miles away in Cape Town, I’m saddened that someone so close (closed?) to things like neill apparently does not know his Irish history, and the cause-and-effect science involved.
Fresh from killing 26000 Boer women and children in concentration camps they invented, the Brits were still at at a many-hundreds-of-years war of violence and exploitation of the Irish people both north and south when conscription reared again its ugly canon-fodder-gobbling head and with other provocation like lockouts and blacklisting caused the Rising.
Then, not accepting the democracy achieved new power in Ireland, it replaced police serving “the crown” with a weird lot of assassins in an attempt to overthrow the new government home rule was not going to deliver to trigger a War of Independence.
Not satisfied with that, they blackmailed the form of “independent” they insisted on in a “Treaty” that provoked civil war.
Thank goodness that is all past in the south, though the injury to organs in the north-east have still to heal from the gangrene of sectarianism.
Sorry, didn’t mean to start an Irish history lesson from Africa …
I hope you feel better after that little rant i hope your knowledge of the history of South Africa is better than your knowledge of Ireland
Obviously Republicans followed and bettered our example then didnt they?
As for dates…..
There’s a turkey shoot thingy in golf called the Race to Dubai. Right now, there’s a t.s.t. going down between Nornveverland and Gibraltar, if one is to judge by the cut of the P.M.’s gib, i.e., Decameron’s departure in a hissy fit from Belfast at a rate of Reggies.
To see which of the final two-ball will be the last British colony standing on European soil. At the mo, it looks odds on that Norneverland will lose (or, rather win) the Race to Dublin.
Mention of monkeys in the title of today’s blog is a reminder that Norneverland and Gibraltar used to have more than a waning colonial status in common: whereas the Primate of All Gibraltar is the Barbary Ape, ditto in Nornverland was A.P.E. That would be Arm Phoblacht Eireann. But, of course, they’ve now gone away, you know.
Decameron is not normally known for his hissy fit high tailings but then, being in such proximity to HIss Highness, Edna K, contagion is always a poss. Which is doubly unfortunate, considering the junior partner,Enda K is but an M.A.(in Moral Authority studies) while Decameron, the senior p., is a Ph.D. (Hons) in Holier than Thou Studies.
To glance at the illustrations in the latter’s doctoral thesis is like taking a gawk at a map of the Sundown Golf Circuit for the Empah Cup. It includes ten courses, from South Africa to Aden to Malaysia to Amritsar to Cyprus to Iraq to India to Eireland to Kenya to Bangladesh.
Golf being a great game for the old jargon (think Mulligan for the fresh air shot, the Adolf Hitler for two shots in the bunker, Afraid of the Dark for the ball that won’t drop into the hole,the Fried Egg for the ball that is half buried in the soft sand etc etc), the different courses on this particular circuit and the peculiarities of each are sometimes referred to in the slang of the clubhouse, chaps..
From ‘hot pepper embedded in the eyes’ to ‘squeezing of the genitalia, aka, the Kerry Handshake’ to ‘flogging with whips embedded in the eyeballs’ to ‘chemical warfare’ to ‘poisoning the wells’ to ‘drawing straight lines in maps followed by mass transfer of population’ to ‘castrating with pliers and sodomised by guards’ to, yes, ‘Trevelyan’s corn’.
With regard to the last mentioned one is still given some inkling as to the difficulty involved on this particular course by tuning in to ‘The F’s of Athenry’. Perkie’s inner music snob still goes down on his knees at bedside at nightime to pray an estate of houses, even an estate of ghost houses, will soon be built on these Fields, with or without permission. And the sooner the b.
This was all done in the name of King/Queen and Country. Which factoid, and it gives Perkie’s inner prude no satisfaction at all to say this, while not excusing for one nanosecond the dark deeds carried out on their orders and in their name, can nonetheless go some distance at least in sprinkling some stardust of understanding on matters. As follows:
The Royals had a thingy about, erm, consanguinity. You know, first cousin twice removed weds second cousin once removed sort of thing. In agricultural terms, there was a deal of inbreeding in outhouses done down through the ages. Sort of shuffling in the hayloft. And there being no shortage of outhouses in their various establishments, from Palace to Mansion to Big House, this glut of sheds lent itself somewhat to clandestinity, rather.
While the God help us from Mayo has no such out, as it were, it is only meet and just to see whence his M.A. in Moral Authority studies emerged. The B-word being in vogue in recent time, perhaps it is well to take a B-word at, random. from Enda K’s lexicon of the high moral ground.
B for Ballyseedy, for example. On March 6, 1923 nine Republican prisoners were Crossley Tendered out from the former B.A. Barracks in Tralee to the townland of Ballyseedy where they were at the further tender merices of the Free Southern Stateen forces. After being tied up in a circle around a mine which had been thoughtfully buried in the ground, each terrorist was offered a cigarette.
It wasn’t lung cancer which did for them, rough hew the narrative though the Sunday Independent Cult may.
Seedy, is right. Actually, Seedy is wrong, the original leprechaun being ‘Sioda’ for ‘Silk’. Perhaps this seedy townland ought to be twinned with the stream which flows below the Donegal Town to Killybegs Road. Known as ‘Oily River’ it is a mangled version of the original ‘Abha Alainn’ (Beautiful river).
The mangling being the tribute paid by the M.A. to the Ph. D.
Waging war on torture
Why is it that when it comes to austerity there is always money to manufacture arms and wage war? John Locke in his letter ‘Concerning Toleration’ (1689) stated that “a state that tortures is always a state of hypocrites.”
The Jallianwala Bagh/Amritsar massacre in 1919 resulted in the deaths of 370 non-violent protesters and 1200 wounded. The facts of the Hola Scandal in Kenya (1959) were covered up and many official documents concerning the sodomization and castration of men were intentionally destroyed and “the gift of independence is like giving a razor to a child?” There is no record of the numbers of people who lost their lives in Kenya as a result of torture, sexual abuse and starvation. Torturers in modern democracies have perfected techniques, water- boarding and sleep deprivation, that are physically painful but do not leave marks.
It remains a fact of life that many people in the north of Ireland were subjected to systematic physical brutality. It is evident that the ability to “turn a blind eye” remains a prerequisite for the imperial master. Many innocent people were interned in Long Kesh,a system that was conceived in the halcyon days of the British Empire. Locke’s words are as relevant today as they were in 1689.
neill – have you forgotten that little incident of the Curragh Mutiny when men and officers were seduced from their allegiances?
Hope you and jude enjoy your lunch together!
My point is quite simple Unionists threathened a revolution but didnt follow through so to speak.
What major superpower has not used torture its not a pleasant fact but a fact nonetheless it is a fact an intriguing question is if Ireland had been an independent nation would they have had a foreign empire?
“My point is quite simple Unionists threathened a revolution but didnt follow through so to speak”
That statement is so mistaken, Neill, so to speak
Please read Andrew Boyd’s “Republicanism and Loyalty in Ireland” to have an historically documented account of what Loyalists did in the period which included consorting with the kaiser on the eve of WWI.
You might also like to have a look at some posts on my blog to see what they did after Partition .
They revolted against subsequent UK government legislation (one man, one vote) and are still revolting with their refusals to implement the 1967 Abortion Act and later legislation on gay rights etc. In fact, they are permanently revolting, so to speak!
Reality is when it comes to Unionism and especially Loyalism their not loyal to the British Crown at all or to the British Government (and certainly not to democracy and equality), their only Loyal to themselves and history clearly shows it. No ifs or buts, that’s the reality.