Ordinary language philosophy - or what I said in Copenhagen
The author speaking at the Pontoppidan Society AGM in Copenhagen
A number of
Cic Saor aficionados have been in touch to ask how I got on when giving my talk in Copenhagen (see
Cic Saor below -
http://www.fadooda.com/index.php?itemid=515) and I will now oblige them with a report back. Readers will recall that I spoke about Danish writer Henrik Pontoppidan, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Superman III.
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What I'm going to say in Copenhagen
I recently completed the translation of what is considered to be Danish author Henrik Pontoppidan’s most important book –
Lykke Per, which in my translation is called “A Fortunate Man”.
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Where Christ is concerned. I’m with the “heretic” Dostoevsky – a thought for Easter
Dostoevsky (Nov. 1821 – Feb. 1881) - man cannot live by reason alone
The great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky once said that if it were proven beyond doubt that Jesus of Nazareth had simply been an ordinary mortal, he would still opt for Christ and his message of love, humility and forgiveness. His message that not even the most base and foul human being is beyond redemption. That only love and faith in humanity and not rational argument can drive out our demons.
Likewise, I have no idea whether the miraculous resurrection of Christ’s dead body, which Christians celebrate at this time of year, actually took place. My upbringing and faith tells me it did and my human powers of reason tell me that this is simply impossible. But I’m still with Dostoevsky where Christ is concerned. More than anything, the reason why I find such resonance in Dostoevsky’s fierce commitment to Jesus’s life and legacy is because of three novels written by him –
Crime and Punishment,
The Brothers Karamazov and
Demons.
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The shocking intolerance of alleged radicals to religious belief is the path to the KZ Camps, the Gulag and Pol Pot's Year Zero
“Religion has been the cause of more wars ...” is a refrain that you will hear in most countries in Western Europe and in general historical terms it is probably true. However, in the 20th Century, the regimes that prosecuted by the far the worst, indeed inhuman and bestial, atrocities were atheist regimes.
The ideology of the Nazi governments in Greater Germany and Central Europe not only despised Jews but also the Roma and the "weedling" message of Christianity. They sought to build a new Reich on the basis of a mythical Germanic Blood and Honour narrative. The Stalinist Russian regime, meanwhile, that ran the show trials, gulags and concentration camps, in “Soviet” Russia was of course based on an anti religious philosophy that in Stalin’s time saw many religious leaders executed and the building of new churches banned. More recently the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea killed and starved millions of people (many of them buried alive) in the name of an atheist state that was to be purged of religious and bourgeois elements and history begun again from Year Zero. The Chinese government now accepts that Mao’s atheist cultural purges were a similar “mistake”.
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The media must be held to account for its championing of discredited FRU spook Ian Hurst (Martin Ingram)
Ian Hurst on FRU "active service" in County Fermanagh
From 1999 onwards the media, both in the UK and Ireland, have used former low ranking FRU spook Ian Hurst as a kind of British Intelligence Guru, who was not only frequently and extensively quoted on “top secret” British army matters but also as an expert on the IRA. This would be laughable, but for the fact that the consequences have been so serious. Quite apart from the threat to the peace process that resulted from Hurst’s spurious evidence, the lives of leading Sinn Féin members were threatened on the same basis. Take for example Hurst’s allegation that the life of West Belfast pensioner Francisco Notorantonio was sacrificed to save British spy Fred Scappaticci. This story is pure bunkum but led to serious friction within the republican movement, not to speak of the added trauma for the Notorantonio family. (According to the MOD, Hurst was not even in Ireland when Francisco was murdered in October 1987 and the De Silva Report has confirmed that he has never served with the FRU in Belfast.)
No explanation has ever been produced, and no apology offered, as to why or how this bogus Scappaticci story gained such currency.
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In the name of love, Carol Ann Duffy desecrates a dying anti fascist
Carol Ann Duffy - Establishment Poet of Choice
In the run up today’s Valentine Day, the Guardian’s Book Club published a promo for Carol Ann Duffy’s new collection of “Love Poems”. Here she tells us that - the “love poem has formed a considerable part of my own work, like that of any number of poets before me”.
The article can be read here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/08/carol-ann-duffy-book-club
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More factually incorrect Unionist propaganda from David Adams and the Irish Times
Today's
Irish Times (our alleged "Paper of Record" on this island) carries an extraordinary article by David Adams, which has the headline - "Bringing loyalists in from the cold", and which accuses Northern Politicians (ie moderate or non Unionist politicians in particular) of "sleepwalking" their way through the Peace Process.
David Adams - a former close associate of UFF commander Ray Smallwoods
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De Silva - Ian Hurst's credibility demolished - How did we end up all staring at a parrot instead of investigating British Intelligence’s dirty war?
With the De Silva report, Ian Hurst reaches the end of the credibility road – what about his media backers?
Tucked away in chapter 21 of the De Silva report into the murder of Pat Finucane is this devastating statement regarding Ian Hurst’s testimony:
"I do not attach any weight to his allegations with respect to the FRU and the murder of Mr Finucane."
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Christmas homage to Copenhagen
I am abroad early in
København,
gateway to ancient Baltic waters
her hallowed streets waiting for winter
quiet and wreathed in mist
mazing me through cobbled lanes and canals
the dark red hush of brick at the university
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Chapter 15 of the De Silva Report has destroyed the final spook infiltration myth - and tells us why these stories were put into circulation
The author - more than just a Troubled face
Having worked for BBC Northern Ireland from the late 1980s through to 1994 as a journalist and film maker, mostly for the much respected
Spotlight programme, I saw certain Troubles related stories begin to appear in the late 1990s that made me sit back, scratch my head and say – that doesn’t sound right, does not match my experience, or is not what I was told by the IRA, loyalists or the security forces.
At first I just shrugged my shoulders and got on with a film making and writing career that had no connection with the Troubles. So for example, I wrote and directed a six part music series for TG4
Abair Amhráin and a series on architecture called
Nation Building, both of which were well received. My television series on Ireland’s historical ties with Europe made for RTÉ in the 90s (
The Gap In The Mountain) gained for me the great accolade of being awarded the European Journalist of the Year Award in 1997.
All the above is simply to demonstrate that I have not spent my journalistic and film making life obsessing about the Troubles.
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Is De Silva aware that the same spook gang murdered celebrity comedian Patrick Kielty's father a year earlier?
No overarching conspiracy?
A young Patrick Kielty on right of picture, carrying his father's coffin
I know nothing about the political beliefs of celebrity comedian Patrick Kielty (if indeed he has any), but I admire him for one thing and that is if you look at the above picture of a young man burying his father in tragic and terrifying circumstances, you have to say that Kielty has faced into the worst possible adversity and risen above it with honesty and dignity, and he seeks no vengeance. The very opposite values displayed by the politicians, spooks and security force chiefs who created the macabre murder paradigm that wiped out Jack Kielty, Patrick Kielty’s father.
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Pat Finucane – The British should declare that it was war - a very dirty war
The big group picture in this article shows the main contingent of what was the British Army’s Force Research Unit. In the middle you can see the commander of the FRU - Gordon Kerr.
Close up of FRU commander Gordon Kerr
At the time this unit targeted Pat Finucane, Kerr held the rank of colonel. Standing right above him in the group picture below is almost certainly Margaret Walshaw who held the rank of sergeant when she worked with Brian Nelson to effect the murder of Pat Finucane. There can be no doubt that the British authorities were pleased with the FRU’s performance because Colonel Kerr, after spending some time in Iraq, was promoted to Brigadier and given a prestige posting to Beijing. Margaret Walshaw, meanwhile was promoted to Captain just at the moment when members of the Pro British death squads she had been “assisting" so assiduously were being thrown into the slammer because of the Stevens Inquiry – will loyalist killers ever learn? Moreover both Walshaw and Kerr were given major awards by the Queen of England - MBE and and OBE respectively.
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De Silva – Sinn Féin leader Alex Maskey also targeted – Spook Good Friday Agreement Hoax further exposed.
Human Rights lawyer Pat Finucane - murdered in front of his family in 1989
If we read closely enough between the lines, the forthcoming De Silva Report into the state sponsored murder of Pat Finucane – see here -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20492994 will show that the British Cabinet under Margaret Thatcher (via its Joint Intelligence Committee) clearly approved a non attributable assassination campaign, which was meant to wipe out not only the leadership of Sinn Féin but also prominent advocates for Irish unity and civil rights such as Pat Finucane who were described as “fellow travellers” by the heads of the RUC.
News headlines yesterday told us that Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams received a letter from Sir Desmond de Silva QC advising him that his MI5-vetted report will also refer to a murder plot against Adams as well. Meanwhile, another prominent Sinn Féin figure (former Lord Mayor of Belfast Alex Maskey) has received a similar letter from De Silva saying that covert British forces in the North of Ireland also conspired with pro British death squads to murder him too.
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The Guardian's Henry McDonald founders on the rocks of liberal Unionism
A couple of days ago, Henry McDonald did a brilliant article about the victims of clerical and school related child abuse who are natives of my parish in Gaoth Dobhair. At last, this author said, Henry has jettisoned his blatant pro Unionist bias and has started concentrating on what he is expected to do as the Guardian's Ireland correspondent - provide us with the very best of informed and balanced comment about what's happening in the whole island of Ireland (this is the Guardian after all - a newspaper that's in my family for three generations).
Henry McDonald, I thought, had turned a new reporting leaf, but I thought too soon.
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14 thousand genuine visits to this site in November 2012 - Why?
A léitheoirí, comrádaithe is cairde - dear readers, comrades and friends
(The author outside the Irish embassy in Rome this year)
Irish author admits he is happy and not in crisis - don't tell Anne Enwright!
An amazing number of people reading Cic Saor/Free Kick
The Wizard of Oz people who throw shapes in the hypertext background of this site - like weird disc jockeys at their PC stations, speaking in a strange language full of bits and gigs,their eyes bathed in code (and who only seem to come fully alive in the dark, silky ether of night) tell me that 14 thousand real people visited this site in the month of November just passed.
I find this staggering.
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The day my youngest son came into the world - An lá a tháinig mo mhac is óige ar an tSaol - 18-11-2002
0420 and she taps me on the shoulder
a tap no God could make
drilling through my synapses
my sternum and coccyx
my epigenetic codex
a gap there is a gap
absence of low thump
the regular knocks
my backbone has been divining
for these past nine months
taxi by the time my eyes are awake
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Peace Process - time for the "Irish" to wake up and smell the Fair Trade coffee
A chomradaithe is cairde/comrades and friends - being suddenly presented with a chance to fly to Copenhagen (in an airplane) I found myself yesterday 30.000 feet up in the atmosphere and sending emails to people via my phone as I was on a plane that provides WiFi . Today I am posting this Cic Saor blog, again via phone - whilst attending a book-fair - please excuse, dear reader's, a middle aged man's euphoria at being alive for such a moment.
Now on to the matter in hand.
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The Smithwick Tribunal descends into pure farce
RUC officers Breen and Buchanan assassinated in 1989
With an initial deadline of November 2011, the Irish government has given the Smithwick Tribunal yet another extension to its report deadline, which has now been set as July 2013. The reasons for this deadline extension represent an effective change in the Tribunal’s initial remit. In other words, it is not now primarily investigating the police officers it was originally asked to investigate, and it is, to my mind, surprising that no journalist or media outlet has questioned this startling
volte-face.
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What are politicians and philosophers for if they don’t mean what they say?
My mates mean what they say
When I was much younger and beginning to take a real interest in political protest and calls for social change, I attended a meeting in the centre of Manchester about the fight against a resurgent fascism and the need for socialism. But I made the unfortunate mistake of bringing along my best mates who, understandably as it transpired, swore that they would never go to a socialist meeting with me ever again. Now these were lads I grew up with, fought street battles alongside and would trust with my life. They only went to the meeting because they knew I wanted them to go. Still today, if I rang any of them and said I was in trouble they would drop everything and come. They are ordinary/extraordinary people. I will return to this word “ordinary”.
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Why every Irish person should know about English footballer Kevin Beattie
I vaguely remember former Ipswich Town FC footballer Kevin Beattie as being quite a good footballer. A brave and skilful defender in fact. However, since doing research for this blog article I now understand that his peers described him as one of the greatest soccer players of his generation. By all accounts, the only thing that stopped him going on to be ranked amongst the world’s greats was his serial attraction to injuries. But one thing that everybody says about Beattie is that he was an honest professional on the field of play who never hid from the fray. Off the pitch, meanwhile, he regularly appeared at charity functions and children’s hospitals and was hailed wherever he went. Cic Saor readers have to bear in mind that this was before the bloated wage packets, WAGs, Porsches and price-of-a-house hair transplants that footballers in the Premier leagues receive nowadays, very often for a much inferior product.
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Colm Tóibín ’s Imperial Gloss on the Irish Famine
Colm Tóibín ’s Imperial Gloss on the Irish Famine
Before I go on to criticise Colm Tóibín , I should stress that I believe his writing can sometimes reach the heights of great literature. His book on Henry James (
The Master, Picador, 2004) is indeed masterful and brings alive that great American storyteller like no other thing I have read on the author. In fact, it is so good that, whilst at a wedding in Rome recently, I sought out the
Hotel d'Inghilterra, where Henry James stayed whilst playing his part in the Anglo American literary scene in that magnificent city; a scene that Tóibín describes evocatively and with great insight. Along with its literary ambience, the old world chic and ornate decoration in the hotel makes a visit a must for anyone who is in Rome.
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Irish barstaff victims of new Danish slave trade
Understandably – the non Danish speaking or understanding world would have missed the shocking report that I noticed yesterday, whilst browsing on-line Danish news and current affairs sites. The headline read - "Irske bartendere ofre for menneskehandel" (Irish barstaff victims of trade in people trafficking). The article had been posted on the authoritative Danish investigative blog site “
Rokoko Posten” and can be read or viewed here -
http://rokokoposten.dk/2012/04/17/irske-bartendere-ofre-for-menneskehandel/
Below I have translated the article for the benefit of readers to show just what happens to a lot of our young people who have been forced to leave our shores for no other reason than the rapacious ravages of capitalism in crisis. It serves as a warning that even an ostensibly pro Irish (indeed almost obsessively and neurotically pro Irish) country like allegedly civilised Denmark can quickly become a place of nightmares and oppression for the unwary Irish immigrant.
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Henry McDonald drags the Guardian down to tabloid level once again
The paucity of analysis in Henry McDonald’s coverage of those Irish republicans who still want to pursue an armed struggle is truly
shocking in a newspaper with the gravitas and imprimatur of the Guardian. It is comic book stuff.
In a lurid report in September 2010, McDonald carried a warning from the Real IRA that it was going to resume its campaign on what McDonald
calls the "mainland" by attacking banks and the capitalist infrastructure of “Britain's colonial and capitalist system”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/14/real-ira-targets-banks-bankers
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The DUP and an abject Irish media
In the last week we have had Peter Robinson of the DUP calling for Martin McGuinness to be investigated for his alleged activities (officially acknowledged to have been minimal) on the day of the Bloody Sunday massacre and now we have DUP MP Nigel Dodds calling on the IRA members involved in the Bloody Friday atrocity to put their hands up and admit what they did. See this report from RTÉ
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0720/call-for-bloody-friday-attackers-to-come-clean.html
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Sinn Fein’s “Disconnect” Problem
Pass Law South Africa
My grandfather Tommy Larkin (trócaire Dé ar a anam) always told me to remember one central thing about what happened to Irish people who became trapped within the six partitioned counties of Ireland in 1921/1922. What happened was the Special Powers Act. Tommy then pointed out that leaders of the racist one party state in South Africa simply shrugged their shoulders and smiled whenever their regime was criticised by English politicians - we would, they said, replace our whole Apartheid structure for just one clause of your Northern Ireland Special Powers Act.
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