When I was a child, we used to have trimmings added to the rosary, prominent among which was a litany to Our Lady. They baffled me then – Gate of Heaven, Morning Star – but looking back they have a sublime poetic quality. Among the bafflers was Ark of the Covenant.
I mention this because another slightly baffling matter has arisen – this time it’s a British Armed Forces Covenant. The Veterans UK and the British Ministry of Defence have announced “ a promise from the nation that those who serve or have served, and their families, are treated fairly.”
Fair enough. British soldiers who’ve been traumatized by the horrific experiences that’ve been thrust upon them by their government are of course entitled to fair treatment. There is a high rate of suicide among former soldiers and it’s reasonable that the British government should put money into supporting bereaved families and providing counselling for those in need.
The catch arises when we consider the case here. In order to access the funds for such support, the Executive have to agree to it. It’s generally accepted that there’s not a cat in hell’s chance of Sinn Féin signing up to any such thing.
I was on Talk Back yesterday participating in a discussion about this matter. I tried to make the point that part of the difficulty here is that the British Army was one of the combatants in our recent Troubles, and so to unlock financial support for its veterans, while families such as the Bloody Sunday families and the Ballymurphy families, victims of the British Army, have yet to receive justice, let alone priority, would be seen as unfair and unacceptable.
The DUP’s Brenda Hale corrected me on this – the British Army were not combatants in the Troubles – they sought to keep the peace. Which will come as a shock to a considerable number of people here.
But the nub of the matter is the contradiction between what the British Armed Forces Covenant says and what will happen. The Covenant says that the soldiers must be treated “fairly”, but in fact the plan is to provide funds for them, while support for civilians touched by suicide and families deeply wounded by actions of the British Army will have no such funds.
Let me repeat a point I stressed during the broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster /Raidio Uladh: I believe maximum help should be made available to affected British army soldiers and to everyone else. The difficulty with the present situation is that an effort is being made to prioritise British Army veterans because they are special, they have “served their country”.
Sad to say, in many cases they haven’t. The invasion of Iraq involved British troops. They were serving the British government who sent them there, even as millions of British citizens protested that they wanted no hand, act or part in the invasion. And while it’s conceivable (just about) that the British Army serves the British people in other circumstances, so too do ambulance drivers, teachers, nurses, doctors – garbage collectors, for God’s sake. The use of this verb “serving” as applicable only to men who are trained to kill and then sent to another country to wound or kill the inhabitants, or be wounded or killed by them, is an odd use of the word.
William Crawley appealed to me during the debate: the funds are there for these veterans, Sinn Féin have the key for the release of funds, why not do it?
Why not indeed. Except that by doing so you’re acquiescing in preferential treatment for the British Army while others here are left to wait. Pace Brenda Hale, prioritising the British Army is something that very many nationalists and republicans would reject as absurd.
The DUP’s Brenda Hale corrected me on this – the British Army were not combatants in the Troubles – they sought to keep the peace. Which will come as a shock to a considerable number of people here.
The DUP again want to rewrite history it would seem that they have a thing called victim syndrome and the rest of us where just malcontents and thugs so in part she might be right that is of course that she refers to her friends in the UVF/UDA/UDR/UFF !!!!!!
” William Crawley appealed to me during the debate: the funds are there for these veterans, Sinn Féin have the key for the release of funds, why not do it? ”
Arlene Foster apparently has put a stop on the Lord Chief Justice, Declan Morgan’s, plan to fast track and speed up, the backlog of victims hearings within, if I recall correctly, 5 years, and, under the flimsy excuse of ” rewriting history “, has thus halted any progress to any furtherance of victims cases……… Will William ask,” Why not do it ,Arlene ? “
The British have a fetish for their armed forces, they have no religious beliefs worth talking about so they have placed their army on a pedestal. Hence the proliferation of poppies from October onward. Newsreaders, weathermen, every programme is fronted by a poppy wearing puppet. Premier League teams have the bloody things printed on their shirts, teams are led onto the pitch by smartly dressed members of the army, navy or air force. Sometimes all three branches are represented. Then there are the minutes silences, heads bowed. The simple fact is the British army WERE combatants during the conflict, they beat people up, they kicked in doors, they shot people with both `live` and rubber/plastic bullets. They colluded with loyalist groups, they stood idly by as loyalists set up roadblocks and checkpoints, they made up fairy tales on the rare occasions they gave `evidence` about their actions, usually they were called Solder A or Soldier B, so don`t let anyone, DUP or otherwise try to paint a different picture of their beloved troops` deeds. The evidence is there to be seen in countless graveyards in the north and on the island as a whole.
same as the loyalist slush fund was supported just last week,the dirty deal at ardoyne a few weeks before,they will get their blood money.
We have been told all our lives how ‘our boys’ are so brave and deserving of all honours bestowed on them.
But when it comes to requiring physical or mental medical help, their bravery seems to go missing – they, and their supporters, think they should get priority.
Should they get this priority it means that your sick child, your elderly parents and everyone in between will have to wait at the back of the queue – second class citizens!
When all these ‘brave’ soldiers were joining the army did they not know or enquire as to what might happen during their service, and how they would be treated, or were they just told that they would have the luxury of killing ‘rebels’ who would never shoot back?
Over the past weeks and months John Kerry and Boris Johnson have been complaining about Russia and Syria bombing Isis-type rebels in the city of Aleppo, and describing their actions as ‘war crimes’ as civilians (we get daily body counts).
But now the US and UK are bombing Mosul in Iraq (population over two million) we haven’t heard of even one civilian suffering from the noise of the constant bombing, never mind mass killing of women and children, are we hearing from Johnson and Kerry about their war crimes?
Not a word – total hypocrisy, or not!
Ah, the Litany, Esteemed Blogmeister, the Litany.
The popularity of the Litany coincided with the era when popular music was just that, and for the right reasons too: it was popular because it was music. One is talking here about the pre-Britney era.
One the songs made popular by (gulp) Johnny Tillotson in the middle of the last century seemed in a curious way to simultaneously echo both the responsorial element of the Litany while, unknowingly at the time, to go half way towards being filched for a future show on BBC Radio Norneveland:
-Talk back trembling lips.
As these things go in threes (and probably grow on trees as well) the third element which pegs it firmly down in the Fabulous Fifties was the name of the song’s composer. Recall that this was the time when milk was delivered to suburban homes in glass bottles: plastic later did to milk what it did to music of the popular ilk.
These were the good old days when the milk bottles in the early morning danced the Glass and Cement Polka on countless Dublin doorsteps courtesy of Dublin Dairies, Mervil and TEK and woke good folk from their suburban slumbers. With the delightful din they made.
To show how well the Litany was integrated into the mores of the time, a director of Dublin Dairies, was, erm, Archbishop J. C. McQuaid, never to be confused with his equally pugnacious namesake. Ever.
The composer of the song in q., who also penned such imperishable classics as ‘Ebony Eyes’ and ‘Ooby Dooby Dooby Doo’ was, of course, , John D. Loudermilk.
-So talk back trembling lips
Shaky legs don’t just stand it
Don’t let her know
She’s getting through to you.
One trusts you were seated in the studio , EB, when confronted by the female of the species in the shape of Brenda Hale of the DUP. If so you were at a notable advantage not permitted to, say, The Donald during the Second Presidential Conversation. Who may be forgiven for his shaky legs propelling him to a prowl when confronted by Madame Pillory Clinton.
Ms. Hale is a new name to The Perkin, one must confess, but on reading her remarks re that milky way of human kindness, the Morning Stars of the BA, found little problem in slotting her into the Litany mode:
-A Vessel of Singular Devotion.
A POST-BRITNEY LITANY
Ye saved us a packet by keeping it ice cold
The house for RCs as their beads they told
B.A: prey for us
B.A.: stay for us
For we’re proposing for ye a House of Gold.
Another example why Volunteers are head and shoulders above paid mercenaries.
If it isn’t British army terrorists whining that they can’t sleep, it’s RUC terrorists claiming their ears are sore. You’d be forgiven for thinking all these ‘gallant servants’ of the crown are only interested in money. Embarrassing stuff. Btw, I thought the poppy appeal thingy they pass of every year was supposed to cater for these boyos? Or do the contributors to that campaign only do so for dead mercenaries? It would cost them less that’s for sure. ‘Help for heroes’, poppy appeals and god knows what else and they still can’t look after their squaddies? Sorry I forgot, these ‘charities’ don’t run themselves you know.