Now and then

It's as well we can't see the future, or that we can't see the present from the future. The dangers springing from the first are obvious, since few of us would like to know the day we're going to be fired from our job or let down in love, much less the day we're going to die. The dangers of the second showed after a brief scan of today's Irish News. That paper is stuffed with selections from official documents, hitherto kept secret, about official reaction to the events of 1979. For example, the British Foreign Office told Thatcher that Charlie Haughey had hardline republican views (wrong) and that his name was pronounced 'Hockey' (wrong again). It also revealed that in 1979, John Hume suggested the use of internment (again) as a way of stemming successful attacks by the IRA (the killing of eighteen British soldiers at Warrenpoint, the killing of Mountbatten in Donegal). The British brushed his proposal aside, not because they had moral objections to putting people in prison without a trial but because they didn't think Hume had thought the matter through. What, I wonder, would have been the reaction of the Irish people in 1979, if they could have somehow propelled themselves to the present day and looked back, to discover that the leader of nationalism in the North was urging the locking up of nationalists and republicans without trial?

Mary at Christmas

I've been listening to Joe Duffy's 'Liveline' on RTÉ Radio One. All this week Joe's show is based in Áras an Uachtaráin, with President Mary McAleese leading the charge to try and awake optimism among all those Irish people who are suffering seriously from the recession. Now I'll yield to no one in my admiration for Mary the Second. I've met her and in fact worked with her on a TV programme about Queen's University, when she worked there. She's highly intelligent, highly articulate and, as far as I could tell, highly moral in all her dealings, including how she treats every single person she encounters. And I think it's a very good idea to try to ignite a positive mood in the twenty-six counties: if you think you can't do anything to improve your situation, you won't. But (you knew there was a But coming, didn't you?) it's got to have a practical edge, otherwise it may plunge people even more deeply into despair. When I was listening to the programme, the most notable speaker was a young guy from the North who had found himself going blind and responded by training for and eventually going to the South Pole. This was held up as a model for the rest of the population, especially those in a state of economic distress . If he can pick his life up and make progress, so can you.

Good intentions but I kept putting myself in the shoes of some poor punter who's lost his job and is sinking under the weight of it all. Would he be saying to himself "Fantastic - since hearing that blind guy, I'm inspired to go out there and get me a job!" Or is he more likely to say "What the ****'s that guy going to the South Pole got to do with me trying to get a job for which there are 500 other applicants?" Alas, I suspect the latter. Motivational sessions are fine but only if they end in some practical advice or provide an example of good practice IN A SITUATION RESEMBLING YOUR OWN. Surely a smart woman like Mary knows that?

That said, as they say, she has a lovely speaking voice.

Suzanne (and Nick) take you down

Caught up in the sobbing despair of this year's Christmas travel and the financial apocalypse that our politicians have allowed to happen in 2009, it's easy to forget we have reasons to rejoice in our blessings. One example: the quality of the press, both in Britain and in Ireland. Despite the temptation to be caught up in public controversies, they maintain a steely objectivity, never stoop to sweeping judgement or personal abuse, always cover and analyse controversy with a calm presentation of facts.

Take today's 'Observer', for instance, where Nick Cohen covers the Liam Adams case and related matters. Not for Mr Cohen the easy jibe: 'Irish nationalism cannot break from the dire illusions of the past'; [Gerry Adams's] unexpected baring of a soul few suspected he possessed'; 'Keeping child abuse private has all but destroyed Irish Catholicism';'[Gerry] Adams ... was at the top of a movement that killed children'; 'the south [of Ireland] doesn't want the north'.

You may be tempted to say 'Ah, but that's a British newspaper. You'd never get that calm presentation of facts in an Irish newspaper'. Oh no? Well here's Suzanne Breen in an article in today's 'Sunday Tribune':

'Gerry Adams' [sic] position as Sinn Féin president has been made untenable by revelations of the lies he has told'; 'he [Gerry Adams' drove his vulnerable niece to Donegal to confront her father who was living there. They sat down to tea and Mikado biscuits'; 'Why didn't the Sinn Féin president swiftly distance himself from his brother and his spiralling public profile as a youth worker?''Gerry Adams' [sic] disturbingly inadequate response to his brother's suspected abuse makes him politically toxic, he is stripped of all credibility and moral authority'.

Now I'm not claiming that this quality of detachment can be maintained all the time. In the last paragraph of her full-page article, Ms Breen briefly stumbles: 'Of course, he [Gerry Adams] shouldn't be held responsible for his brother'. But with the exception of that tiny splash, you can see from the examples I've given how dry-footed and objective Suzanne stays .

I'm not saying the British and Irish press are perfect. Some people say their coverage of the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy had too much bandwagon condemnation and not enough analysis, but of course that's a filthy lie. The truth is, British and Irish journalism has a forensic, facts-based brilliance that's the envy of Europe. You see it in its treatment of the Catholic Church, its treatment of Irish culture, its treatment of Irish nationalism. You see it particularly when it's faced with a story that has links, however tenuous, to Irish republicanism. When that happens, the Irish and British press know exactly what to do.

Peace on earth and pass the ammunition

I usually manage to avoid QE2's Christmas Day message to Her country and Her Commonwealth, but this year I came into the living-room and there it was, on, before I'd time to grab the zapper and zap it over to The Incredibles or whatever rubbish movie was playing on another channel. For a full ten seconds I stood goggling as the mother of all the Windsors told me about the importance of supporting 'our troops', and clips of British soldiers in desert-type gear paraded or patrolled or made soldierly synchronised movements.

It's hard to think of area where more double-think goes on than that relating to armies and soldiers. If I had a son in an army - which mercifully I haven't - I wouldn't be proud of him, I'd be worried. Worried all day and all night that he'd be sent far from home, into somebody else's country, to become the object of the hatred of the local people, who would (odd creatures) have the belief that their country shouldn't be occupied by trained killers from hundreds or even thousands of miles away, and who might try to translate that hatred into killing my son. If I was asked, I wouldn't say I was 'proud of the job he's doing', and if he were - God forbid - killed, I hope I wouldn't come out with an obscene lie and say that 'he died doing what he loved'.

You'll get British people, or people who think of themselves as British, who are at great pains to explain to you the distinction between the wisdom of a particular campaign waged by Britain, and the pride they feel in their 'boys' and the debt they owe them, as they wage that campaign. Not being a Daily Mail reader myself, I can't get my brain to do the back-flips required for accommodating that one. Soldiers are trained to do two things. They're trained to kill and they're trained to threaten to kill. That's why they carry guns. Even were the campaign a just one, how could any parent look at a son who was once small and smiling, and feel proud that he had now become big and trained to mete out death? And were the campaign unjust - Iraq, Afghanistan or Ireland - the double futility and perversity of a son's death must be near to overwhelming. Except, of course, you let the Daily Mail do your thinking for you.

Yes, I know. It's Christmas Day. I should have more to do than be tappy-tapping on about QE2 and her nationwide message. Just as QE2 should have more to do than come on TV to commend trained killers for their 'work', on any day of the year, but particularly on this day that celebrates the Prince of Peace.

Low and lower

As I write it's Christmas Eve and I'm reluctant to intertwine the arrival of the saviour of the world with the stinky world of journalism, but there are a couple of examples of how stories should NOT be reported that cry out to heaven for comment.

Stinky Story 1: The Irish Times a day or two ago had an article which, in keeping with that paper's anti-republican stance, tries very hard to link the secret world of child sexual abuse with the secret world of IRA operations during the Troubles. The implication is that the same sort of thought process goes into both areas of activity and the same sort of thinkers work well in both. Since the article doesn't tell me that the writer is a qualified psychiatrist/psychologist, I'm not going to conclude, as some might, that his article shows him to be a complete idiot. I'll settle for guessing he's a half-wit.

Stinky Story 2: This one's from yesterday's Daily Mail. Ah yes, the Daily Mail, the comfort blanket for all those who enjoy slippping into a nice warm prejudice at some point in the day. "Revealed - The full chilling story of how Gerry Adams lied to protect his paedophile brother - and helped him work with children". Got that? None of this rubbish about being innocent until proven guilty - 'paedophile brother'. And the bit about 'helped him work with children' - you know, helped the paedophile in his pursuit of prey.

Maybe there's a new dawn coming when journalism of this sort will be used in media classes to show students how NOT to go about covering a story. But if we look at the Irish media's treatment of the Murphy Report and now the Liam Adams case, you can see that such a dawn may be a long time coming. Christmas, mercifully, will come with tomorrow's dawn, which means we're all safe for at least twenty-four hours. Nollaig shona duit...

The Great Whore of Babylon

I was on BBC Radio Ulster on ‘Sunday Sequence’ two days ago, discussing the Murphy Report and the fall-out thereof. The man discussing it with me was Wallace Thompson, who is secretary to the Evangelical Protestant Society, and who has issued a statement saying there needs to be a thorough-going investigation of the Catholic Church in the North, including the statement ‘If anyone in any other walk of life was involved in the sorts of crimes committed by priests and nuns, he or she would find no hiding place’. You got that ‘crimes committed by priests and nuns', did you? Not some priests and nuns – just plain priests and nuns. They’re all at it and all of the time, probably.

Wallace was very straightforward on the programme – the Roman Catholic Church was/is rotten to the core. I found myself getting a bit peeved with his universal condemnation, which I shouldn’t have, and I suggested that Protestant churches should equally be scrutinized, which I’m glad I did. From there on things got a bit tetchy and William Crawley cut us off after a few brief minutes. Some people I’ve spoken to said they thought he did so because Wallace and I might come to blows (no chance – Wallace is younger than me). Others - myself included – figured that RTE’s Joe Little had chuntered on in far too much detail earlier in the programme and so they had to cut back on what time they could give to us.

Because I’m a lazy bugger, I didn’t check the website of the Evangelical Protestant Society prior to the radio discussion. If I had, I’d have spotted a few straws in the wind re the Evangelical Protestant Society's views on Catholicism.

‘Rev. John McDonald, B.D. declares, "For a succession of fifty Popes not one pious or virtuous man sat in the pontifical chair. A system which has acknowledged and honoured such men to be each in turn its head, and still honours them, has fairly earned for itself the title 'Man of Sin'." Yet the ‘Man of Sin’ poses as ‘His Holiness’, an attribute which belongs to God alone, and he describes the Popish ‘synagogue of Satan’ as ‘the Church’.’

‘The spirit of Antichrist was in the world in Paul's day. “Even now", wrote John, "are there many anti-christs ..." (1 John 2:18). But when Paul wrote, the Antichrist had not been “revealed”. We hold that there are many forces in the world to-day which are diametrically opposed to Christianity, but that the Papacy is the Antichrist of Scripture.’

The message is clear. Wallace and his co-congregationalists will not be inviting Pope Benedict to address their Ladies’ Knitting Circle this year and ecumenism is a moral bog to be avoided if you value your immortal soul.

It might have been helpful if BBC Radio Ulster listeners had been clued into the EPS position vis-à-vis Rome before Wallace was allowed to launch his offensive offensive. (No, that’s not a misprint.) On the other hand, I had more positive feedback from that six- or seven-minute radio discussion than I’ve had for some time. For which small mercy thank you very much, Mr Thompson.

The family way

And so the Gerry Adams/ child sexual abuse saga rumbles on, gathering muck on its wheels. Today’s Irish News comes hard on the heels of Saturday’s Irish Times with a front-page story on Mr Adams’s (of COURSE they mispunctuated it as ‘Adams’ ‘ - what do you think they are, literate?) father’s abuse of his family – in Gerry’s words, ‘physical, emotional, mental and sexual’ and a four-page spread inside. The story also led on the RTE news last night and, I\m told, Channel 4 news as well. So why did Gerry Adams come out with these revelations about his father, and was he right to do so?

He came out with them, I suspect, because he was under media pressure from the case of his niece Áine, who claims that her father, Gerry’s brother, sexually abused her as a child. The media fell on this story like the proverbial ravening wolves, and clearly in some instances at least did their damnedest to somehow discredit Gerry Adams as well as his brother. It may be that Gerry, who can be a consummate media performer, decided to use the story of his father’s abuse as a spectacular addition to the Adams-and-child-abuse story, so increasing the chances that the media would respond to it in a way that’d show him in a favourable light. Certainly last night's RTE interview evoked sympathy for the Sinn Fein president and his siblings, and their efforts to cope with a father who appears to have been a destructive force.

But that second question: was Mr Adams right to reveal so much unfavourable information about his father? In terms of political self-defence, you could argue he was. Unfortunately, however effective this story proves for public perception of the Sinn Fein president, it also encourages the media in the belief that the private life of politicians here (or anywhere else) is legitimate prey for reporters.

Why should it be? Only if the politician is, say, a stout proponent in his political life of family values and then turns out to be someone who shows contempt for family values in his personal life, would his private life be of concern. We elect politicians because we believe they will be effective public representatives – that is, good at their job. Likewise with brain surgeons, dentists, accountants, plumbers, rat-catchers: we hire them because we believe they will be effective at the job they do, give us value for money. I have never in my life checked on the private life, sexual or otherwise, of my doctor, dentist, accountant, etc. In God’s name, why should I? I’m not looking for a boy scout or a saint to tend my teeth – I want a professional, and what he (or she) does the rest of the time I really don’t care.

Probing into the private life of politicians can be great fun and may even be what a lot of people prefer to the tedious examination of party policies, but that doesn’t make it right. So even though this story will probably end in greater public sympathy for Gerry Adams, he still shouldn’t have aired it.