My Response to Mr. Hopper

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My apologies this response is a bit late but better to destroy non-factual and ridiculous arguments later than never!

So in a response to Ruth Dudley Edwards absurd blog there arrived this supporting beauty posted on January 28th. I honestly didn’t think anything could beat Richard Humphries article in the Irish Independent but Mr. Hopper’s does.

To defeat his argument entirely and to save you from absolute boredom, I (and you dear reader) need not go past the title. [I did venture past the title and decided nothing in it was worth responding to as it did not make Ireland any more or less unique than any other country in the world. I let the facts speak for themselves in a few lines time] For Mr. Hopper to begin as he did with such an inaccurate statement in the title - “ancient hatreds” – was ridiculous. What ancient hatreds sir? There was a so-called ‘pogrom’ in Limerick in 1904 and from the research I conducted I found nothing of serious note. A boycott against Jewish business organised by a young Redemptionist Catholic priest [crazy warning number 1] by the name of John Creagh  which unfortunately forced the Jewish population from their homes in Limerick where many fled to Cork and they were welcomed into peoples own homes. That in itself was a blessing. Have you been to Limerick?* It was a embarrassing and disgusting period in Catholic Limerick history, not Irish history. Irish Protestants in Limerick supported the Jewish people in Limerick, Corkonians welcomed them into their homes when the Jewish people decided they (understandably) had to leave Limerick.

To quote from a letter sent to the Jerusalem Post by a retired History teacher, Leonard Hurley, I give you a small timeline of Irish Jewish relations:

“Daniel O’Connell, the “Liberator,” was responsible for the Catholic emancipation in 1829, but Honig failed to mention that he rejected anti-Semitism and in 1846, in the House of Commons, helped repeal the law, De Judaismo, which discriminated against Jews. O’Connell stated: “Ireland has claims on your ancient race, it is the only country that I know of unsullied by any one act of persecution against the Jews.”

Our [Mr. Hurley’s] church is called the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Church, and buried on the grounds is Msgr. Hugh O’Flaherty. O’Flaherty was given the title Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government for the work he did in saving many Jews in Rome during the war.

Many other Irish historical figures, including Michael Davitt and John Redmond, rejected anti-Semitism. Redmond stated: “Race hatred is at best an unreasoning passion.”

Both Dublin and Cork have had Jewish lord mayors, and all political parties, including the present government, have Jews in senior positions.

Of course, you will find anti- Semitism in Ireland, but you will also find anti-Irish sentiment if you look for it in other countries.

But the claim that Ireland has a history of anti-Semitism is based on one disgraceful episode and therefore is factually incorrect.

I suggest that Honig visit the subject again and this time focus on the positive.”

Lastly I will add one more point: You’ll notice Mr Hurley said definitively that what happened in Limerick was a pogrom. I personally said ‘so-called’ pogrom in my paragraph above because in 2010 “the new Israeli ambassador, Boaz Modai, speaking at the Jewish cemetery in Castletroy said: "I think it [the ‘pogrom’] is a bit over-portrayed, meaning that, usually if you look up the word pogrom it is used in relation to slaughter and being killed. This is what happened in many other places in Europe, but this is not what happened here. There was a kind of a boycott against Jewish merchandise for a while, but that's not a pogrom. That's something that is, unfortunately, a bad mark for the history of this city, but I don't think it is something anyone should pay more attention to than it deserves."

So Mr. Hopper, Ms. Dudley Edwards, Mr. Humphries and anyone thinking they made any argument of sense, desist from your attempts to stir shit due to some silly, silly peoples unfounded garbling and ill informed writing. I am all for reasoned debate about proper issues in regard to Israel and Ireland and actual anti-Semitism but your articles about my country and its people were totally inaccurate and your smears laughable.

*Limerick people reading this – I jest! Don’t do anything mad now

An open letter to Taoiseach Enda Kenny

Dear Mr Kenny,

You stated in a recent interview that you are personally against abortion and you said the following: “I think that this issue [abortion] is not of priority for government now.” Well Mr Kenny – you were not elected for your personally held beliefs or opinions. You were elected to govern this country for the benefit of all citizens. That involves doing what is best for the people in this country whether your opinion deems it moral or not.

And let me tell you something about opinion. I was once of the opinion that abortion was inherently wrong. Due in no small part to what I heard from the Catholic Church I thought anyone that even thought of doing it, was in a way evil. For me to remember that now, to think that I even thought that makes me ashamed. Why? It wasn’t until someone close to me had to make that choice. Then it hit me: who the hell am I to even attempt to force my opinion on someone regarding a choice they have made in regard to their own body?

You know what I decided to be angry about from that day on? Firstly I was angry at myself for allowing myself believe that. Then I became angry about men in a corrupt institution and the fact they had made me even think that. I was angry at those who like telling others what to do with their own bodies. I became angry at the fact that Irish women have to leave their own country, they have to leave supportive families, friends and services behind to go abroad to have abortions. I am angry that women are not free to choose what it is they wish to do with their bodies.

What century are we living in Mr Kenny? You know what also angers me? That the organisation behind this ‘moral’ crusade is the institution of the Catholic Church and their ideological ‘supporters’. You know – that’s the institution who for years covered up the rape and abuse of children.

You know – children. The beings who in the Church’s warped opinion have a right to life in the womb, but once born the very same beings were the ones that priests could rape, molest and abuse for decades and their superiors excused them for doing it. They moved them and shielded them from the law of the State. Some morals to live by! But then – nothing surprises me about the backwardness, immorality and evil of the Catholic Church.

I believe regarding the abused children, the Church and the State of Ireland, you once said: “But thankfully for them [the children], and for us [the people], this is not Rome. Nor is it industrial-school or Magdalene Ireland, where the swish of a soutane smothered conscience and humanity and the swing of a thurible ruled the Irish-Catholic world. This is the 'Republic' of Ireland 2011. A Republic of laws.....of rights and responsibilities....of proper civic order..... where the delinquency and arrogance of a particular version..... of a particular kind of 'morality'..... will no longer be tolerated or ignored.”

Why are you still allowing this criminal institution and its arrogance dictate what choices you make? Why are you are still tolerating “a particular kind of morality” when it comes to women and their choices regarding their bodies? Why Mr Kenny?

I do not call into question your own personally held beliefs Mr Kenny, but you are the Taoiseach of this country. You govern a people with many, many differently held beliefs. You govern many, many different cultures and you were elected to make decisions based on the legal constitution of this country. As you said yourself – this is a Republic of laws. I remind you that since 1992 a woman has had the right to an abortion in this country, yet successive governments, including yours, have refused to legislate.

“What”? I hear you ask.

I know Taoiseach. This is a country of “rights and responsibilities, of proper civic order” and yet 31-year-old Savita Praveen Halappanavar died in Galway because “a particular kind of ‘morality’” still runs through our political discourse and culture.

Shame on you and your government for allowing this to continue and shame on you for not having the decency and courage to sort out this shambolic mess that the women of this country find themselves in when it comes to decisions about their bodies. It took the rape of a fourteen year old in 1992 to get the Supreme Court to act. A woman has now needlessly died. What will make legislating for the X case a priority for your government Taoiseach? Another rape? Another death?

Or will it take a particular type of ‘moral guidance’ about women and their bodies from a man in a hat and a frock to make you legislate?

The eyes of the world are currently on us as a nation in regard to Savita’s tragic death. The ball is in your court Taoiseach. Be a leader. Legislate for the X case and move us beyond a particularly twisted form of morality.

Sincerely

Legalise Prostitution

Two blog posts in two days! Wow! I’m back on the writing train baby! After my little ramble yesterday about football, I’m back today with something a bit more topical for Ireland. There’s a public consultation which ends in a few weeks and there's been lots of talk here in Ireland currently regarding prostitution and whether or not we should follow Sweden’s path of criminalising the purchasing of sex. I for one am firmly against the idea. I have to admit, I was on the fence a few months back but I wrote an essay (Should Prostitution Be Legalised) for my course that opened my eyes in a big way. Sweden it seems, has never fully investigated the impact their laws have had on prostitutes, or as I prefer to call them - sex workers.  It does however like to throw about stats ‘proving’ that they’ve curtailed prostitution in their country. All well and good I hear you say; but it’s far from the truth. In 2004, prior to implementing Sweden’s exported moral law, a report by the Norwegian justice ministry “cited evidence of an ‘increased fear of attack’ among Swedish prostitutes, who found it harder to assess their clients because transactions had to be agreed hastily or on the telephone.” Even in 2001, (*note* this link will open a PDF) the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) expressed concern that “the Swedish legislation may have rendered prostitutes more vulnerable, and asked the Swedish Government to evaluate the effects of the law.” 

 (image found on http://www.nerditorial.com/newsandopinion/the-ultimate-catch-22-prostitution-laws-in-contemporary-britain.html)

NGOs like Ruhama in Ireland who want the Swedish model implemented – (Please note that Ruhama are the main opposition to sex worker rights being established in Ireland and are also a powerful religious anti-sex work organisation. Ruhama is a joint initiative of the Good Shepherd Sisters and Our Lady of Charity Sisters, who have been caring for Ireland’s ‘fallen women’ since 1848 and 1853 respectively) - argue that another deterrent of this style of anti-prostitution law is that it would curtail the trafficking of women. On their website they say that prostitutes tend to be women who “were trafficked into prostitution in Ireland but a significant number were trafficked or prostituted into other countries but escaped to Ireland. Now while living here, they have sourced Ruhama for help.” ‘In Whose Name?’ – the largest study of migrant sex workers in the UK to date raised a few issues. It argued that there is a climate of fear being created amongst sex workers due to increasing police activity that is driven by “hype and misinformation promoted by NGOs who are ideologically opposed to commercial sex.” This claim is backed by the ‘Turn Off the Blue Light’ campaign in Ireland: “There is currently a “Turn Off the Red Light” (TORL) campaign being run by an alliance of organisations. They say they want to end prostitution and sex trafficking and ‘the solution’ is to criminalise the purchasers of sex. We believe the real agenda is to have their own ideology on sex work enacted as law.” The Metro focused on the same ‘In Whose Name’ study and reported “the majority of sex workers who were asked in a study say they prefer working in the sex industry to menial jobs where they are less likely to achieve such a good standard of living.”

Legalising prostitution would offer an honest, societal government driven support system for the sex workers. Not an ideologically, moral, religious driven propaganda machine, but an actual support service to these workers. No system is going to achieve perfection. What you want is a system that protects the people that are going to be involved. Ultimately, they’re the ones that suffer. People have to decide whether they want prostitution to be visible, or if they’d prefer the menace of invisibility. One would hope that society could allocate the resources to take the menace out of it full stop. Legalisation and regulation can mean discreetness and safety.

What has Mahon told us?

On Thursday here in Ireland, a small report was released called the Mahon Report. Now I’m not going to go into what it was or what it investigated, enough has been written about that. What I’m going to comment on is what I feel it says about us as a nation, the implications and I’m going to hypothisise on if things have and will change. The following strongly worded paragraph sums up the national psyche in my view:

“The general apathy on the part of the public towards that corruption meant that there was insufficient pressure from the public to compel their representatives to take firm action to curtail or eliminate it” is a most damming statement. Mahon attempts to allow some public wiggle room by saying that “this apathy may in turn have been attributable to a lack of understanding regarding the corrosive and destructive nature of corruption” but in my view, it’s more down to the lack of actual caring. Talk to most people on the street today and they’re fine complaining about the issue, but ask them what they’re prepared to do about it and you get an awkward stare as they try and find their excuse as to why they don’t have time to do anything or you get the age old ‘question’ – “sure what can we do about it? They’re all the same.” Unfortunately in one sense, that annoying cliché is slightly true in Ireland. But as a small island nation, we could look to Iceland for inspiration.  Terrible regulation and the banks ruined their economy. They’ve voted in a completely new style of government. So change can come, but people must really want it.

Another case in point for me would be the treatment of the ‘Occupy’ movement. These were people who took to the streets to fight the injustice people complained about on the radio airwaves, on the news, to the papers, to friends/family/neighbours. If you disagree with them – fine. But the hatred that was being thrown at them towards the end of their days in both Dublin and Cork was excessive. They did more to try and fight the injustices put upon us by the banks and successive governments than most people will do in a lifetime. They were willing to make a stand and when I hear and heard people saying they were unemployed, hippies, freaks etc., it bugged the bejaysus out of me. People do realise it takes many different types of people to make a society yeah? And that some will make different choices to others? Choosing to make a stand against the unfair capitalist society we currently live in was extremely admirable. Why do others feel the need to be such dicks and talk down the people who did this?

The Mahon Report will change little unfortunately. People immediately complained about the cost of it (without acknowledging that it brought in more money to that state than the state spent) and the people implicated in it of course denied everything. Vincent Browne succinctly sums it up when he says that “corruption never gets punished here because there is no will to do so. And ex-ministers found to have been corrupt will keep their pensions until their dying day.”  If there was real national will, that would translate to political will as people would be onto their elected representatives to change the system.  The evidence here of course is the fact that Michael Martin backed Bertie to the hilt, defending his ‘integrity’ and his ‘truthfulness’ during the last years of the Mahon Tribunal. The same Michael Martin now wanting to expel Bertie from the Fianna Fáil party for his behaviour.

An interesting way to question and look at this whole political malaise and societal disinterest would be to ask a philosophical question: Have the Irish People as a whole been turned completely ‘Docile’? Is it too controversial to ask if our ‘discipline’ by the British so severe that we’re now a politically docile people with only the few willing to challenge authority or fight? Or has time now elapsed enough to point the finger squarely at we, the Irish nation, have we just slipped into docility? Too few care, too many don’t. When the power rests with the few to make changes for the uninterested many, can the many honestly complain when things like the banking crisis occur?