Suicide Is Painless

Posted on January 6, 2012 by fitzjameshorse

Apologies for the Headline……”Suicide Is Painless”. It is the theme song from the 1970 movie “M.A.S.H”. And of course I am being ironic because Suicide is extremely painful for those that are left behind.

Over forty years ago, my sisters best friend (then aged 12 or 13) committed suicide. Or did she? It was so taboo circa 1967 that nobody really mentioned it. She went into her bedroom and had an accident in the closet. And at the age of 15 or so, I queried this with my parents who told me I should not speculate.

The thing is…….at school we were told that Suicide is the ultimate “sin”, the ultimate denial of the Love of God. Judas Iscariot had after all hanged himself. I think back then people were dishonest (for the best of reasons) about Suicide. Kindly coroners concluded that the overdoses were accidental thus facilitaing burial by kindly priests in consecrated ground. All to spare the feelings of guilt ridden and grieving families.

In truth, in modern times I have never heard of a case of a burial in church grounds being denied. Near my parents grave, is the lovingly tended grave of two brothers who committed suicide (some years apart) and there are other graves in the churchyard.

Historically, burial has been denied but Compassion has always trumped the Letter of Church Law.

There is the anecdote about a local Church of Ireland churchyard about one hundred years ago. I first heard it from a barber who was cutting my fathers hair……..Seemingly during a wedding ceremony in the Church, a man (a former boyfriend of the would be bride) came into the Church with a shotgun and killed the groom, before turning the shotgun on himself. Two dead. “What happened to the bride, she must have been devastated” my father asked the barber………..”Well actually she married another man”.

But the point of this anecdote is that suicide-murderer was a popular young man from a respected family…..and the congregation approached the Minister who agreed to a compromise burial, where he was actually buried at an angle where most of his body was on consecrated ground but his head was outside. An Irish solution for an Irish problem.

Suicide is a serious issue. And I reckon that the notion of the one unforgivable sin….is or was……in itself ….a deterrment to suicide.

Of course we live in more enlightened times. We readily accept the proviso “while the balance of his/her mind was disturbed”. So nobody is…..or should be ….judgemental. Statistics show that Britain and Ireland are as “honest” about the deaths by suicide as the Scandanavians and the statistics are shocking. Most nights, “local television runs suicide awareness ads”

But there seems to be an urban myth that Suicides happen in clusters. A few years ago, tabloid journalists descended on the Welsh town of Bridgend because it was rumoured that there was a secret sub-culture of suicide pacts which had led to an increase in deaths. In fact, the Truth was much less sensational. A statistical blip.

Yet rumours persisted of suicide pacts between strangers being arranged on social network sites. Again it seems that the reality is that there are isolated incidents.

A few months ago, I wondered in another blog if the present financial climate would actually lead to an increase in suicides……or murder-suicides, where hard-pressed parents take the lives of their own children before killing themselves. Sadly I think there is emerging evidence.

In Birmingham, a man and his mentally ill wife were so desperate, they killed themselves. More depressing is taht in the space of a month a man in Leicestershire shot his family dead before killing himself. Likewise a man in Yorkshire stabbed his family to death before killing himself and just a few days ago, a man in Northumberland shot and killed his family before killing himself.

All of these incidents were reported in detail on British National News but so far, nobody seems to have detected that these can no longer be called isolated incidents. And might well be a tip of an iceberg.

 

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“Downfall”….Movie On Hitler’s Last Days In The Bunker

Posted on January 6, 2012 by fitzjameshorse

We have all seen movies which tell the story of the last days of Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. RTE recently showed the 2004 movie “Downfall”. I taped it to watch it at my leisure. It is based largely on the memoirs of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s private secretaries and perhaps the most interesting thing about the movie is that it is German.

It was controversial, especially in Germany but it was thought inappropriate to “allow” the Germans to make a movie about their own History. It would incite young Nazis or re-live the pain.

Could the Germans make a movie which could show Adolf Hitler as a three dimensional person? A human being as well as a monster? Could an Austrian actor called Bruno Ganz out-perform Alec Guinness and Anthony Hopkins as Hitler?

Simply…yes. Ganz is actually Austrian and although the movie was in German (English subtitles) according to the reviews I read, Bruno Ganz nailed Hitler’s speech………..Hitler was after all an Austrian who spoke with an Austrian accent. Hitler was of course a human being…..he did not have two horns and a tail……..and so were Josef and Magda Goebbels who emerge (if anything as more evil than Hitler). They did after all murder their own children in the bunker.

We fail to understand Adolf Hitler if we dismiss him as a “monster” who was inhuman. He was actually a human being who was a “monster”. And that after all is even more scary. That he had the charisma, charm even to seduce and corrupt a nation is his legacy.

The movie would necessarily at times…..invite us to feel sorry for those who waited their inevitable fate in the bunker……..and at those times Hitler would launch into a tirade to remind us of the monstrous nature of the Nazi regime. If the reminders of the fate of Jews was not enough, then the hatred and vitriol that Hitler reserved for his own German army and people…….”cowards”, “traitors”, “unworthy of their destiny”…was more than enough. The scenes of street fighting, the boy soldiers, the wandering gangs of Nazis lynching the old men who would not fight, the old and wounded and mentally disturbed left alone in deserted hospitals and medical personnel that operated or stood by their patients in other hospitals, the drunken orgy taking place upstairs in the Chancellory Building………..and of course we know retrospectively the orgy of pillage, rape and destruction visted on the German civilians by the Russians.

So the movie showed us scenes of German and Nazi cowardice. And German ……and Nazi …….heroism. Should that be a problem? I don’t think so. We readily accept the heroism of “good” men…..”our boys”………and we cant accept that “evil” men can be heroic……….they are after all not “good” men….so the actions of Nazis (or Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan?) must be ridiculed as “fanaticism”.

Thus the reality of impending defeat in the bunker affected people in different ways. Hitler committed suicide with Eva Braun. Goebbels and his wife murder their children and commit suicide themselves. Others get drunk, commit suicide, resolve to fight on to victory, or glorious defeat, others simply desert and attempt to break out of the bunker. The group in which Traudl Junge (disguised as a German soldier) finds herself makes it to safety. Another group, they witness being killed.

As the movie ends it features photographs of the main characters and details their fate after the war. Some got to live in relative anonymity. Others were not so lucky….died in Russian labour camps, released as late as 1956, to live “normal” lives until their deaths in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Frau Junge herself was still alive when the movie was made and perhaps the last words fittingly were an interview with her.

The official post-war verdict was that she was a youthful follower of Adolf Hitler. And for many years she allowed herself to accept that. Until she saw a monument to a young Germanwoman, who had been killed by the Nazis and as the young woman was born in the same year, she realised that she DID have a choice.

Interestingly many of the folks in the Bunker had “suicide pills” and certainly an interesting sub text was the thought……..”what would I do…….fight on, try to live or bite on the cyanide capsule.

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Romney, Santorum …….And The Rest.

Posted on January 5, 2012 by fitzjameshorse

The depressing thing about listening to (not just American) conservatives….is just how often the word “Freedom” is used, abused and misused in any conversation.

It is a simple historica fact that Freedom and Rights are things that have to be dragged from the clenched fists of ….conservatives….the rights of workers, the rights of women, the rights of slaves, the rights of migrants, the rights of refugees.

Simply put……”Freedom is merely privelege extended unless enjoyed by all”.

Not my words…..but the lyrics of the Communist hymn “The Internazionale”. Ironic.

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The City Hall Belfast

Posted on January 5, 2012 by fitzjameshorse

In Belfast today. Took these photographs of City Hall. I note the Christmas lights are still there (4th January 2012).

 

The front of the City Belfast. The “east” door with its controversial (!!) Christmas Greeting in Gaelic.

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“I’m A Stranger Here Myself” (Belfast)

Posted on January 5, 2012 by fitzjameshorse
I was in Belfast today. I am almost 60 years old. I lived in Belfast from 1952 to 1979. I have never lived more than 40 miles from my city. I have always worked there. Over the past two years, my visits to Belfast are less frequent. And it seems, each time I visit the City………there is something new. I am a stranger in my own city. The tourists who wander around the City are seeing things for the first time. So am I.
 Royal Avenue, Belfast.
I am not nostalgic for Belfast slums, like the one in which I spent the first seventeen years of my life. Nor am I nostalgic for bombed out buildings and the whiff of tear gas in the air in the 1970s.
But I recall living about 30 minutes walk from the City Centre and going there in with my paternal granny and my lovely Auntie Sheila every Thursday to Woolworths in the (circa 1956) and getting my pancake in the Maple Leaf Cafe in High Street.
And I recall going with my father (circa 1962) and listening to him telling me that the United Irishmen took their rebellios oaths in the alleyways off Ann Street, that Henry Joy McCracken their leader was hanged in Cornmarket and we would say a prayer in St Marys Catholic Church in Chapel Lane, a gift to the Catholics of Belfast from the Presbyterian Community in the 1780s and tea in the Continetal Cafe in Castle Street. And I recall going into Harrisons Record Store (circa 1971) in Castle Street and having coke and a hamburger with Teresa accross the street in Victors.
That’s how it is. Woolworths, the Maple Leaf, the Continental, Harrisons and Victors are all gone.
St Mary’s is still there.
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The Iron(?) Lady

Posted on January 4, 2012 by fitzjameshorse

It goes without saying that I detested Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister. Not merely because of her general anti-Irishness and her behavior during the 1981 Hunger Strikes…although History will show that her actions did not have the long term effect that she wished.

I detest her because she was a divisive figure who shamefully went into Downing Street quoting St Francis of Assisi. British Politics after World War II was actually a competition between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party…..For over three decades , the Conservatives were often trusted with the “mixed” economy which Labour had created. Manifestos were created around the Conservatives management skills……to build more hospitals for Britains National Health Service, or “state” schools, to build more council houses and to manage “nationalised” industries such as the British Rail, British Coal, British Steel.

In 1979 and until her resignation…betrayed by her own colleagues……Thatcher ruthlessly waged class war on the British working class, privatising the rail industry, crushing trade unions, facilitating the conversion of friendly society building societies into privatised banks, selling off council houses etc.

As her defenders say she rolled back the socialism…….and the power of the state. But she did so at the expense of decency…..memorably claiming that “there is no such thing as Society”. She remains a poster girl for Conservatism…..and while most people will claim that she went too far politically……..most of the current generation of thirty something politicians in the modern Tory Party are enthusiastic supporters. Even when it is not the right climate politically to claim to be her heir, David Cameron was heavily influenced by her.

She changed Britain……for the worse. Creating a country based on greed and self……and as there is so much decency in the British character………she demeaned the nation she appeared to love. Created a nastier, more powerful country.

She is a totally revolting person. She left Downing Street tearfully in 1990. And she is now 86 years old……frail and making few public appearances, she is known to suffer Dementia. Not a fate that I would wish on my worst enemy. And Thatcher IS my worst enemy.

On reflection, it is not the Hunger Strikes of 1981 or the War over the Malvinas (Falklands) , or even the war waged on coal miners and others that makes me hate Margaret Thatcher. I hate her because she is really the only person in the world, who I actually hate. And that is a betrayal of the values taught to me at home, in church, at school. In teaching me to HATE (her), Margaret Thatcher demeaned……….ME. And I cant forgive her for that.

The balance of probability is that Thatcher will die over the next few years. With Politics …it is all about Timing!. Winston Churchill (1965……I remember his funeral on TV) was the last British Prime Minister to be given a State Funeral…….with the full pageantry and pomp of the British State……and it is known that this honour will be given to Thatcher. And that will be a timely boost for David Cameron, if it takes place in the run up to an election.

I suspect many people will think Thatcher deserves a State Funeral……many people will resent it. But that is Thatcher…….divisive in death as she is in life.

But by proxy, she is in the News tonight. A new movie opened in London tonight…………”The Iron Lady”………..Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher. Seemingly the movie is shown in flashback sequences with Thatcher shown as she is now………physically and mentally frail….and there is some discomfort that this is intrusive and exploitative.

I really am not sure. The woman was evil. We dont worry about dramatic portrayals of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot. Of course the difference is that these people are already dead. And yes………I am not entirely happy that the frailty and vulnerability of a demented old lady is shown on screen….for entertainment.

But thats the difference between Margaret Thatcher and me. I am capable of the higher emotions, including ………sympathy. Margaret Thatcher had no redeeming features.

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RTE “Would You Believe?”

Posted on January 4, 2012 by fitzjameshorse

Some weeks ago I blogged about Mick Peelo’s RTE documentary on the problems facing the Catholic Church in Ireland. I recorded the second of the two-part series and have only just had a chance to see it.

Essentially Peelo was looking at two aspects of modern Catholicism……Sacraments and Education. I don’t know why I was surprised that most Catholics who do not attend Church actually want their children to be baptised. The interviews with priests and parents seemed to show that they themselves are confused.

From the point of view of the Church itself, the baptismal promise made by all parents to bring their children up as Catholics is evidence enough of a commitment to so do….and that the parents are to be congratulated for this. Yet this would have been unacceptable a mere thirty years ago. Likewise, the commitment of (non-attending) parents to have their children take First Communion seems strange. It cannot be entirely dismissed as a social convention. The underlying theme….though not necessarily overtly stated was that despite its faults …..Catholicism hands down a set of decent values which the parents (mostly) share.

For budgetary reasons….as well as a nod to “modernity” the Catholic Church in the Republic of Ireland is anxious to give up much of its role in Education. For budgetary reasons, the Irish Government cannot afford to take on the role.

As Ireland becomes more secular, there is a growth of “non faith” schools, especially in Dublin. Yet a surprising number of this lost (?) generation seem to want Catholic education for their own children. Again the reasoning seems to relate to a belief in most Catholic values while wanting an arms length relationship with the Church itself.

It is possibly a pity that Mick Peelo did not look at “church” marriage or “church” funerals. There is perhaps an inconsistent but understandable relunctance of lapsed Catholics to fully break with the only Church they know. And also a relunctance of the Catholic Church to burn all bridges with their wandering flock by insisting on a more “active” faith.

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Stephen Lawrence (Victim Of Racism)…Resting In Peace…At Last

Posted on January 4, 2012 by fitzjameshorse

The conviction of Gary Dobson and David Norris (for the murder of Stephen Lawrence at a London bus stop in 1993) is welcome news. “Justice Delayed” of course but its a comforting thought that tomorrow they are likely to be sentenced to maybe twenty years in prison tomorrow……yet if they had been convicted say a year after Mr Lawrence’s murder, they would probably be out of prison now.

Now Gary Dobson (36) and David Norris (35) are unlikely to be released until they are old men in their late 50s. Thats a long time to reflect on their heinous crime of stabbing…along with others…Stephen Lawrence a black man to death on a London street.

In some ways the killing of Stephen Lawrence seems short time ago. It is one of those crimes which will will never fade from the memory. The reaction of London police……….slow to investigate…and investigating badly…….probably changed British Society. The murder of a black youth by several white youths was of course always regarded as a heinous crime…but seemingly the police…….and the broader public ….regarded it as an occupational hazard of living in inner city London. Except the crime happened in the leafier suburban part of West London. The black victim Stephen Lawrence was a decent young man and many people (white as well as black) identified with his grieving and articulate parents. And all decent white people would have been revolted at the five arrogant, spoiled young white men who the Police could not bring to Justice.

Secretly recorded footage of the five suspects and the disgusting, foul mouthed racism and their arrogant demeanour at a subsequent Public Inquiry into the murder and police investigation alienated them from all decent white people.

I think it was a turning point in Race Relations. It was not about White versus Black. It was Good versus Evil. Private prosecutions mounted by the Lawrence Family had little effect, except to a lead to a radical change in the British Law……and abolishing (in certain circumstances) the convention of Double Jeopardy. It is now possible to try a suspect for a crime for which he has been already deemed “Not Guilty”.

New developments in DNA Forensics has allowed Dobson and Norris to be re-tried and while it is correct to criticise the Police for their original investigation, credit is due for their second investigation which has led to the conviction of Dobson and Norris. The reality is of course that other people should have sat alongside them in the dock.

The trial changed public perception of racially motivated crime and led to the Police re-thinking their own attitude. The Police were stung by criticism at the Inquiry that the force was “institutionally racist”……..that perceptions and prejudice was so deeply part of policing culture……that even the police themselves were blind to it. And I think this is a fair point. The old Norn Iron police force ….the discredited “Royal” Ulster Constabulary was institutionally sectarian that it was ineffective. Which is why the consignment of  the RUC to the waste paper bin of History is welcome.

It allowed a new Police “service” (PSNI) to emerge which is shorn not just of that baggage but the brutish, “laddish” canteen culture which made women officers uncomfortable.

I thin the phrase “institutional racism” is a constant reminder that we can in an unthinking way adopt a form of casual stereotyping even while trying to maintain an anti-racist attitude. The best of us struggle with the “new” language of Diversity because it is constantly evolving.

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The Olympics And Norn Iron

Posted on January 3, 2012 by fitzjameshorse

Norn Iron of course do not have a Team at the London (or indeed any other Olympics) because Norn Iron does not actually exist.

The National Olympic Committe for “Great Britain and Norhern Ireland” is made up of several Sports Federations which do not actually have a presence in Norn Iron. In Olympic terms Norn Iron is a kinda Demilitarized Zone.

Although “Ireland” in Olympic terms means the Republic of Ireland, it is actually called “Ireland” and most Sports Federations which make up the Olympic Council of Ireland organise on a 32-county (ie the “Republic” and Norn Iron). For example, the Irish Amateur Boxing Association organises on an all-Ireland basis and Irish teams are chosen from all over the island.

Some like Athletics Ireland organise primarily in the Republic. And “Northern Ireland Athletics” a component part of the British Athletics governing body organises in the North. There are several clubs, primarily in “Catholic” areas of the North which are loosely connected to Athletics Ireland.

There are other factors at work. Firstly, all people born in Norn Iron are eligible to compete for “Ireland”…..or “Great Britain and Northern Ireland” but a factor is that it is naturally more difficult to make the British team than the Irish team……just like it would normally be more difficult to represent the United States than Dominican Republic….. ….the sheer number of sports persons in USA (population 310 million) is more than the number of sports persons in Dominican Republic (population 10 million). And of course the pool of talent in Britian (population 60 million) is deeper than the pool of talent in Ireland (population 6 million).

The Olympics only happen every four years. For a month they are intensely high profile……especially in 2012 if you happen to live in Britain or Ireland. But mostly they are low profile.

Football has a higher profile. It is an all year round thing. Intensive. And occasionally the focus of angry debate. Many (unionist) supporters of Norn Iron’s football team question the right of nationalist players to opt to play for the Republic of Ireland.

But take the sport of (Field Hockey). As Olympic hosts……the Mens and Womens Hockey teams of “Great Britain and Northern Ireland”will be at the Olympic Games in London. These teams will include players from (mostly) England with some Scottish and Welsh players. Theoretically there might be some players from Norn Iron but on this occasion it is not likely.

In March 2011…….the Irish (Field) Hockey teams will be competing in Qualifying tornaments (Women in Belgium…….Men in Ireland) and the winning teams in these tournaments (six teams compete) will go to London.

The history and legacy of Field Hockey is interesting. It is a “garrison game” associated with late 19th century “Britishness” and although played by both (exclusive) Catholic schools in the Republic…..it is a (almost) totally associated with Unionism in the North.

The make-up of the squads who will seek to qualify is interesting. About one third of both squads are Ulstermen and Ulsterwomen and almost certainly “unionist” in outlook. Logically the folks who agonise about Nationalists opting to play Football for the Republic should be agonising about their fellow unionists opting to play Hockey for “the Republic”. Logically they should be playing for the team which has “Northern Ireland” in the title.

Hypocrisy.

Of course Football is THE World Game. In a way that (Field) Hockey or Baseball will never be.

Nationality……or Sporting Eligibility……..is basically “an Irish solution to an Irish problem”. And these compromises dont really stand much scrutiny.

Consider  a fictional case of…….I choose a sport at “random”………Table Tennis.

Consider how many excellent Table Tennis players there are in China. It is more than likely that the best Irish Table Tennis player (there are no international class players in Ireland) would not be in the Top 1000 in China. If the 900th ranked Chinese Table Tennis lady in China migrated to the “United Kingdom” and went to work as a doctor in Belfast (part of the “United Kingdom”) and married a Belfast guy who is not a big supporter of Nationalist rights……….lets assume that our “Chinese” player is now the 20th best Table Tennis player in “Great Britain and Northern Ireland” …..it is not likely that she would make the British Olympic Team……..but as the best player in Ireland (where Table Tennis is organised on a 32 county basis), she would probably get thru a Qualifying Tournament.

 

 

 

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New Years Honours Round Up

Posted on January 3, 2012 by fitzjameshorse

First of all, I should point out that a few days ago, I was “predicting” Honours unaware that the embargo had already been lifted and BBC News and Sky News were already announcing that Ronnie Corbett (the comedian) had been awarded a CBE to go alongside the OBE which he already holds. (To a Royal Watcher, this might actually be significant!)…..but this is much less than the knighthood which I predicted.

No Knighthood yet for David Beckham……might be more appropriate in the (summer) Birthday Honours….close to the Olympic Games.

Locally ….Golfers …Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke were given the MBE. With the proviso that I don’t like all this …….these awards are actually deserved.

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