Conflict Resolution Explained By A Nazi

Posted on June 6, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

If you thought that “Springtime for Hitler” was too far-fetched…think again. Heath Campbell is 40 years old and a Nazi. He lives in New Jersey and so admires the Third Reich that he has given his children Nazi forenames…such as his little son, Adolf Hitler Campbell. A lot of people in New Jersey dont like this. Indeed getting a birthday cake with “Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler” was impossible.

Mr Campbell recently turned up in Court …he has access difficulties with another child, Heinrich….wearing full Nazi uniform. Asked whether he thought this was a good idea, he has a touching faith in the judges ability to not look on the outside…but to look to the good on the inside.

I am not so sure. A uniform seems to be a fairly public statement of the person that you are…or want to be. Is turning up to an important Court Hearing wearing  Star Trek uniform a good idea? Probably not. And A Nazi uniform certainly appears worse.

Of course this is 2013 and in United States and Heath Campbell has the right to dress in Nazi uniform. He even has the right to offend people. And certainly has the right to be a Scumbag.

But if it was 1943 it would not be quite the same. The Conflict between USA and Nazi Germany ended in 1945…with the total destruction of Nazi Germany. It is this Conflict Resolution that allows the circumstances that however unpleasant Heath Campbell is…he has these rights.

In Norn Iron…no such diversity appears possible. People cannot tolerate Orange parades on the Garvaghy Road or an Irish National Flag at the Ramada Hotel in Belfast in 2013. We have Passivity. Maybe even Peace. But we dont have the situation where Nationalist defeated Unionism or vice versa. We cannot have it both ways.

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@ And # Is All Crap

Posted on June 5, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

I cant believe that I got a comment on a blog I wrote which simply said “Mark Durkan has not tweeted since 2012”. I am indebted to regular commenter “Factual” for pointing this out because it confirms that Mark is a really good politician, because nobody has ever said anything sensible on Twitter or Facebook. Obviously this does not include me.

For the best part of the last decade, the bloggerati have wondered about the effect of Tinternet and “social media” will have on Politics and Elections….well too obviously a big effect and a negative one.

Now let me straight here …I love social media. I am as fond of cute pictures of kittens as the next man. And the day to day life of Keano is as well documented on Facebook….as Kaiser,Mattie, Pepper, Tiger, Scratchy, Taffy, Jack and Sam have all featured on my Timeline.

But nobody should kid themselves that having 1,499 Facebook friends from Norn Irons political parties is political involvement. Nor does having a flame war with 4,276 of your closest Twitted followerers. Its nonsense. Get a grip.

There was a “@” on the keyboard before Facebook and Twitter and it is no substitute for Discussion. And there was a “#” on the keyboard before Facebook and Twitter and it is no substitute for Policy.

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Paddy Wilson RIP

Posted on June 5, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

A declaration…Paddy Wilson was a friend of my father who occasionally visited our house. Elected to the old Stormont Senate in 1969, he was one of the eight founder members of the SDLP a year later.

The last occasion that he visited our house was a few days before the 1973 Council Elections last May. He tried to get me to vote SDLP but I told him that I was boycotting the election…in line with the call by Fr Dennis Faul who felt that people should show support for the internees.

So on Election Day, I went into the polling station and spoiled my vote. Almost immediately I regretted it. As the results came on TV, SDLP were losing out on some vital last seats.

In early June…maybe forty years ago this week….I joined the SDLP. And was involved in canvassing for SDLP for the upcoming Assembly Elections. I dont think Paddy ever knew that I had joined the Party but at the end of June, Paddy was murdered. His throat was slashed and he had multiple wounds. It was a shocking event. And I wont go into details here. If you want to…look it up. If you comment, please be aware that you are commenting on a friend of my family.

A Victim. A SDLP Victim. And of course other political parties have lost people to violence…a number in Sinn Feins case and (for example) Rev Robert Bradford and Edgar Graham (unionists). The point I would make is that when discussing victims this week in Stormont, it might well have been a good idea to mention that SDLP know a thing or two about victims an they know what it was like to be sitting across the negotiating table from one of the men who cut the throat of a party colleague. As it is anti-nationalist and anti-SDLP websites like Slugger O’Toole were allowed to get away with a particular narrative.

If the SDLP has a fault…and GOD knows it has several….is that it pulls its punches or maybe doesnt even know the strength of its punches. It holds back.

The SDLP is extremely careless about its own History. There is a portrait of Paddy Wilson in the upstairs conference room in SDLP Headquarters. But I wonder if the young people in SDLP Youth even know who it is. Actually they had a meeting tonight and might even have been in that room.

They are intelligent young people. I am most certainly NOT blaming them for not knowing. But what I am doing is blaming the SDLP for not telling them. Wouldnt an induction course for new members including youth members be a good idea.

Bizarrely SDLP will be talking to each other about Decade of Centenaries and ignoring the important anniversary upcoming. Bizarrely SDLP talks about victims being ignored and ignores its own most prominent victim.

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So Then One Of Them Shoved A Gun In My Mouth

Posted on June 4, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

One of the strange things about talking about the Troubles is that we get into that “Troubles According To My Da” (Martin Lynch) territory. Ask any man of say sixty-one (which I coincidently am) about the Troubles and we talk about the big events and then we start with the handful of events which we were almost victims…and then we seem to slide into the lighter side of the Troubles.

Take a woman I know. She recently turned fifty. Forty odd years ago, she was outside playing in a West Belfast housing estate and she found an odd looking object which she brought home to show her mammy and daddy. And her Daddy had to get the bomb disposal people because….it was a hand grenade. How we laugh about that everytime she tells the story. I mean it was only a hand grenade and well it hardly kill ya. Maybe blow your hand off. Or blind you. But not actually kill you. Welcome to West Belfast circa 1973.

Low profile victimhood. People talk about Truth Commissions but thàts for “big” things. Little things …comparative little things …got to us all. So when the latest do-gooder in the Conflict Resolution industry says that we must give voice to victims, I want to throw something heavy at the television. For the point is being missed. I first heard that “hand grenade” story thirty years ago. VICTIMS DO NOT NEED VOICES. THE PEOPLE WHO NEVER LISTENED NEED EARS.

In the early 1970s…I had to walk home one night thru sleet and snow and found Larry McCoubrey reading the news. He mentioned my workplace. ” Did you know about that?” asked my mother.

” It WAS me Mammy”. The Official IRA came a calling and one of the Sticky Bastards shoved a gun into my mouth. Forgive the French but he said that he would blow my fucking head off. In 2013 my head is still very much intact.

But here is the really odd thing. It happened about 1pm. I arrived home…walking at 6pm. Nobody said “take the day off”” Can we drive you home” “You should get some counselling”, “you should speak to a lawyer”.

But I did get a Good Cop, Bad Cop interview, make statement, prepare to go to Court….as it happened the Sticky Bastards pleaded guilty and I did not go to court. But it set in chain the procedure that led to my family leaving Belfast. Am I bitter about it? Oh yes…especially about the Official IRA whose greatest achievement in Irish History is to airbrush themselves out of it.

I left that job about six months later. A nervous wreck. And I was unemployed for six months but never signed on or got benefit. Until a few years back I used to get a letter from the National Insurance people to remind me that my insurance contributions are incomplete and I could buy the ones I missed.

Typing this now, it seems hard to explain just how bad things were in 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1974…nobody knew the rules. Or how to get redress and compensation. Few people made complaints to the British Army about harassment or verbal abuse. Nor was there any understod way of seeking compensation for incidents. It was really the late 1970s before people really understood procedures and the lawyers moved in. And when the lawyers moved in and the Army gave over primacy to the RUC, fewer excesses happened.

A few years after I got married…say 1983 or 1984, I was talking to someone about the Sticky Bastards and the gun in the mouth thing….and he gave me a phone number for Criminal Injuries people in Queen Street in Belfast.

So I phoned them.And the lawyer laughed…LAUGHED when I answered the question about when this happened. Ten years ago!! HA HA HA. There were time limits…30 days for “injury”.

Now I dont think this is unique. Small and even medium level victimhood went unrecognised, untreated, unpunished and uncompensated. So essentially, those of us who lived thru that time are a bit cynical of the whole Truth, Victims, Compensation, Reconciliation thing. Simply put…there will be no way that the low level victim who just muddled thru will ever be brought into the Process.

There are victims from those years who will just have to do what they did then. Move on. And some of us might reasonably think that high profile victims did the same.

There are people out there who did well out of the Troubles. Financially. Careers. And as for Victims…some got justice. Some did not get justice. Some got compensation. SSome did not get compensation. Some moved on. Some did not.

The greatDividing Line is not that Victims are or are not “innocent”. The line is that some were treated well and others were not….and that even some did very well.

This should not divide unionist people and nationalist people. Because we all know it is true.You dont have to be a unionist to know that ending up as a Sinn Fein advisor on a Civil Service salary of £90,000 per annum is actuallly quite a good deal compared with the way that some Republican paramilitaries have ended up. And you dont have to be a nationalist to think that severance packages that RUC personnel were given were ridiculous. It should not be partizan.

Sinn Fein cannot speak out on those lines. Nor can any unionist politician. But SDLP CAN and maybe SHOULD.

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If Political Parties Were Football Clubs….

Posted on June 4, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

In 1998, we had a family holiday in North Wales. One day we went up to Manchester. On another day we went to Liverpool…obviously we went to Old Trafford, Anfield and Goodison Park.

The city of Liverpool…I like it. All that Beatles stuff, Albert Dock. Took a bus up to Anfield. It was July and took a walk outside the home of Liverpool FC. To be honest it was a bit unimpressive and in the Club Shop the staff were a bit surly. Its a short walk to Everton….and the staff in the shop were just great. I needed some pretty obscure football programmes and they went across the street to the storeroom and got them for me. And a load of freebies for my sons. Nice.I was almost sorry to be a Manchester United fan because there are not many freebies at Old Trafford.

Now of course that was one day in July 1998. I dont mean to imply Liverpool bad, Everton good. Although of the two I have always preferred Everton. In part because in the 1970s and 1980s Liverpool were just too….ya know….Liverpool.

So the DUP and Sinn Fein….they are Rangers and Celtic. Of the two I prefer Celtic (#2 preference). SDLP are obviously Manchester United. For ten years now there has been little success …a bit like United in the 1970s. Whether SDLP has to endure the “1980s” or goes straight to the “1990s” depends on whether Alasdair McDonnell turns out to be Ron Atkinson or Alex Ferguson.

The Green Party …I cant see them playing football. Its bad for the environment. UUP are clearly Rangers (after liquidation). The McUnionists are shaping up well as Everton…not my team but I like them.

The Alliance Party…..are like Leeds United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelski and….Wimbledon rolled into one. Obnoxious.

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Durkan Tops SDLP Youth Poll

Posted on June 3, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

This is interesting. My friends in SDLP Youth have had a poll on who the Party should select as the candidate in the European Elections next year and have come up with Mark Durkan, former Party Leader and currently the MP for Foyle (Derry).

Interesting on many levels. Clearly the candidate will be one of the sixteen MPs or MLAs sitting at Westminster and/or Stormont.

The serious candidates might be Conall McDevitt and Colum Eastwood, held to be the three front runners. They finished jointly third in the Youth Poll.

It is of course an uphill task for SDLP to take back one of the three seats in Europe. So who exactly is the biggest hitter …vote wise in the SDLP? The priority for SDLP after all is to maximise the vote. So I think SDLP Youth have actually made the right decision here. Mark has a profile across Six Counties.

Conalls’s  strength is Belfast and suburbs while Colum could get more votes west of the Bann. The problem might well be persuading Mark to stand. He may or may not win but I think he would get the votes out. So if he doesnt win there is nothing really lost.

Pessimists might say that if he wins a seat in Europe, it would trigger a bye-election for Westminster. But surely, the SDLP would have nothing to fear from that. Colum Eastwood would take that seat. And that would open the way for Brenda Stevenson at the Assembly. Brenda is the neice of John Hume.

Of course the poll is not binding. But it sets out the SDLP Youth Group stance…….and they are a pretty important group these days. More importantly perhaps, its a sign that the SDLP should maybe get a candidate in place very soon.

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Dr Who And Dr What

Posted on June 3, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

So we are having a new Dr Who. I am not sure that I care but it is one of those ritualistic things that is part of Sci Fi Culture. I am not a great fan of the Doctor but I like popular culture…much under-rated in History. I saw the first ever episode of Coronation Street in 1960 and I saw the first episode of Dr Who in 1963. Just on a Saturday when the world was convulsed or paralysed by an assassination in Dallas, Texas.

There have officially been eleven Dr Who incarnations. Now dont start commenting about Peter Cushing and John Hurt. Or that Richard Hurndall, a lookalike of William Hartnell should be included. We are talking about incarnations, rather than Actors. Increasingly the new Doctor is chosen as an icon.

Yet back in the early years, it was not seen that way. Most young boys (it was always boys) did not realise that their sons and daughters would fixate on the shows glaring inconsistencies. Nobody predicted internet forums and debates about whether William Hartnell was the First Doctor or merely the latest incarnation.

First Doctor….(William Hartnell) was actually a fairly sinister person. Pragmatic rather than Good. And the heroes in the early days were actually the first companions, teachers of Science and History, who were suspicious that the Doctors granddaughter knew too much. The Doctor was a grumpy old bugger and so was Hartnell, his mood not helped by live TV and a growing inability to remember lines. Heis a familiar member of the cast of a lot of post-war British films usually portraying a professional military man such as a platoon sergeant.

Second Doctor….(Patrick Troughton) deliberately more upbeat than the First Doctor. A likeable outlaw. Troughton had been a familiar face on BBC in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Third Doctor….(John Pertwee) the dandy southerner in Edwardian clothes and probably too earth-bound. It was all about Invasions and the Brigadiers and on the plus side Sarah Jane. Pertwee struck me as an Actoooooorrrrr in the grand tradition. Didnt care for him.

Fourth Doctor…. (Tom Baker) still the most iconic and long serving. Eccentric but not quite mad uncle. Baker was a familiar Actooooorrrrr in Soho drinking clubs. Bohemian. Alas he now seems to be a parody of himself.

Fifth Doctor….(Peter Davison) a slightly nervy , not quite macho Doctor. Davison is one of Britains most loved and talented actors. Rarely off TV.

Sixth Doctor…. (Colin Baker) was the uncle that you didnt like. By this stage the old series was losing viewers and well past its sell by date. Colin Baker has not aged well but prior to Dr Who he was oft on TV as the devilishly good looking bad boy. Too smug for my liking.

Seventh Doctor…. (Sylvester McCoy). Dr Who…from Scotland. A shock to viewers who thought the Doctor was Home Counties Man (ie no more than forty miles from London) Played him as eccentric clown, which was in fact what McCoy does best. He was one of Ken Campbells troupe of left-wing satirists. McCoy is forced to carry the can for being the Last Doctor.

Hiatus.

Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)…wasnt he justbinvolved in a one-off to see if a new revival would flyI cant say that he left an impression on me at all.

The New Series.

Ninth Doctor…. (Christopher Eccleston). The Doctor as a gritty but grim Northerner did not work for me. Even though Eccleston is a Manchester United supporter, which is a badge of being brilliant in every possible way. To me the Producers seemed too keen to be dark, almost gothic ..like Michael Keatons Batman is so radically different from Adam West.

Tenth Doctor….(David Tennant) Exactly the right mix for the Doctor. brave but only when absolutely necessary. The right degree of Humour and arguably the first Doctor who was watched by women. Tennant, a brilliant actor but possibly over exposed. A 21st century version of Peter Davison.

Eleventh Doctor ….(Matt Smith) Suffers in comparison to the Tenth Doctor. Too nerdy. And the first since Hartnell to be unknown to me for his TV work.

The New Doctor…..well you re all invited to submit suggestions. Im inclined to go with Adrian Lester or Marc Warren. On previous form we are talking about a man aged 28-40 with a good TV track record. And strong enough to impose a new character. And respectful  of the fans and Dr Who “lore”. Not an actor looking for a stepping stone (as it will be) to better things. Of course the new Doctor might be a Ladyyyyyyyy. And why not indeed?

There is no reason not to cast a woman….or a black actor (indeed that would be very welcome) or gay. Why not? Well the only downside possible is that its all irrelevant and yet would be sold as relevant.

If the choice was mine….I would play on the fact that the Doctor has TWO hearts. And that the incarnation all goes wrong and we get TWO Doctors. Sibling rivals….TWINS!!! Boy and Girl. Actually thats a pretty good idea. And wouldnt it be great if the Twins were….black and white.

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SpAd Alert Post

Posted on June 3, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

Oh dear …another post on the vexed question of Sinn Fein and their “right” to appoint their own Special Advisors to the (taxpayer-funded) civil service OR  the “responsibility” of Sinn Fein not to appoint persons (people who have served fourteen years in prison on a murder conviction) who might reasonably or unreasonably be deemed offensive to some victims OR the duty of a Legislature to impose restrictions on such appoinments.

A thought occurs.

Some twenty years ago John Hume and Gerry Adams became involved in secret talks which might be the beginning of the Peace Process. John Hume went out on a limb, got dogs abuse from unionists and quizzical looks from his own Party. Arguably bringing Sinn Fein into the Peace Process was something which strengthened SF and directly weakened the the SDLP. A rare example of a politician putting COUNTRY before PARTY. But John Hume is quite rightly regarded as the Greatest Irish Person who ever lived (RTE poll 2010).

So when John Hume and Gerry Adams met in a parlour in Clonard Monastery twenty years ago….neither could have foreseen the row about Mary McArdle and Ann Travers. Back then John Hume was thinking of the bigger picture…his detractors in unionism and letsgetalongerism were thinking in terms that were much more narrow.

Back then SDLP was concerned with the “right thing”. It has had unforeseen consequences including SpAds….good and bad consequences. Can we really unpick them now?

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Laird …Story? What Story?

Posted on June 3, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

So the two minute BBC Norn Iron TV News bulletin at 7.58am did not mention Laird Laird.  It is item #3 on the local BBC News teletext service.

Yet at 8am the story (with that of fellow peers Cunningham and McKenzie) is the main story on the BBC ” National” TV News.

How did that happen? I have long said that there is a narrative that local media cravenly support…unremitting good news. Titanic, MTV Awards, City of Culture and Rory McIlroy. And maybe the local editors looked at the story of the UUP peer connected to the Ulster-Scots Agency and the local PR industry (Laird is generally believed to have started Norn Irons first PR company in the 1970s) looked like potentially bad news.

Thats what Norn Iron is all about. Politics, PR and Lobbying.

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Lobbying Companies And Escort Agencies

Posted on June 2, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

A lot of people from the (self-regulated) Lobbying industry have been on the various  TV News channels all day. And I still cant understand what they actually DO and why we need them. And why a Democracy needs them.

When I was doing an A level in Economics and Political Studies 1970, we were taught that before a Bill goes before the British House of Commons, the senior civil servants will often talk to interested groups such as the Ministry of Agriculture will often want to talk to the “Royal” Society for the Protection of Birds”. For some peculiar reason I will never forget that example.

I suppose in 2013, it is all done thru Lobbying Companies and presumably that means that people pay money to these companies…and not withstanding pro bona work…this is a form of hiring a taxi…the passenger decides the destination.

Client….Lobbyist….Politician. The Client pays the Company and whatever happens after that seems a bit….vague. I looked about ten Lobbyist websites tonight and the information seemed a bit vague. In fairness none of them actually said they were corrupt or corrupting. I am of course not familiar with Lobbyists.

Nor am I familiar with Escort Agencies. But from what I have heard….the Client or “John” as he is unfortunately known….pays an Escort Agency ….and what happens after that…..I should point out that all this information comes from watching The Bill and Cagney and Lacey.

So I see a similarity.

Client…Lobbyist…Politician…….and “John”….Pimp…Whore.

Of course no reputable Lobby Firm or Escort Agency would see it this way. According to the lobbyists on TV today, the industry is self -regulating. I suppose Escort Agencies have a code of conduct also.

But with Bankers and Journalists and Politicians, have we not seen the folly of self-regulation?

We must either criminalise Lobbying or de-criminalise Prostitution.

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