outsidein

• Why are we marching?

  November 6, 2009 @ 4:40 pm | by Bryan

  

  Clockwise from top left, the routes and starting times of the protest marches in Galway, Dublin and Cork.

  I’m not sure how I feel about today’s planned marches. I’m a huge supporter of deliberative forms of governance. I also strongly believe in the right of people to protest and publicly register their collective sense of anger. But I have little time for meaningless gestures, and I fear today’s protests fall into that category.

  About 15 years ago Zimbabwe was a flawed, but generally prosperous country that looked like it had a bright future. Somewhere along the line, several big issues came up which polarised the nation. Instead of engaging in a deliberative process, both sides adopted a confrontational approach. National challenges were cast as consequences of the incompetence or callousness of one side or the other, leading to further polarisation and more aggressive confrontation. Fast foreward 15 years, and what was once a prosperous country now resembles a frail invalid who may never return to her previous state of health.

  People have all sorts of ideas about what went wrong in Zimbabwe, some of which have more merit than others. Whatever the other reasons, had the main protagonists actually engaged with each other, had they not gone down the easy road of confrontation but had tried to work things out, the country would, at the very least, be far healthier than it is today.

  That’s Zimbabwe. What has that to do with demonstrations across Ireland? I think the same principles apply. Why are people protesting? If you were to give the gathering in Dublin or Galway a magic wand, or better still the authority of the cabinet, what would they do with the power? Are these protests simply an expression of anger, or is there a substantive underlying demand? I’m all for simple displays of anger, but then what? Do the protesters want a general election to be held in order to elect new leadership? Is the fall of the present government the aim? Do they support a specific set of economic policy recommendations? If so, have all the consequences been thought out and debated?

  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the protesters and organisers are the bad guys, or that the cabinet are the unappreciated good guys, any more than I think Zimbabwe’s government had an open door policy 15 years ago. But shouting across the room at the person who is ignoring you probably isn’t going to get them to take a serious look at your recommendations. In fact, the more time and energy are invested into shouting and ignoring, the less that goes towards thought, deliberation and problem solving.

  I don’t understand - maybe it;s just human nature. People, in both their private and public spheres, don’t like to address things directly. We’re broke, and resources that are there are distributed unevenly. Rather than debating how those resources should be distributed, how benefits and burdens should be shared, and what distributional outcomes political, economic, social and legal process should lead to, we fight over specific cases like NAMA, or Brendan Drumm’s pay. NAMA was a bad idea, Drumm shouldn’t have got that bonus, but both are inconsequential when compared to the need to deliberatively establish a national vision, and a plan by which to get there.

  If I could pass one law, it might be that every high school student be made to watch Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, and then to write an essay entitled On the futility of Buggin’ Out.

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• Of crucifixes and rights

  November 4, 2009 @ 1:24 pm | by Bryan

  The European Court of Human Rights has decided that having crucifixes up all over the place in Italian schools denies some people their rights. In the Court’s words, “The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions.”

  Hmmmm…… Where to begin? This verdict makes a strong case for cultural relativism.

  Very broadly speaking, human rights can be viewed in two ways. Universalists believe that rights are universal standards that should apply to all people, in all settings, regardless of the cultural context. Cultural relativists, while not necessarily denying the existence of absolute moral standards (or acknowledging them in some cases), believe that those standards are socially and culturally construed, so that the fundamental rights in one place will not necessarily be the same as those in another.

  So take the issue of religious pluralism, a value I hold to. If you sit on the bench of the European Court of Human Rights you probably believe that the right to choose one’s own religion, or none at all, is a fundamental human right that trumps even the Italians’ proclivity for putting up crucifixes all over the place. If you’re Ayatollah Khamenei on the other hand, while you may also find crucifixes on classroom walls objectionable, it’s probably not because of a shared belief with a judge on the European Human Rights Court. I’m guessing the Supreme Leader, and many ordinary Iranians, would have a view on religious freedom that would make many universalist vomit. The thing is, I would identify myself as a weak relativist.

  Do I really want to align myself with Ayatollah Khamenei? Not if I can help it. But if we really hold to the right to self-determination, that has to include the right for people in other cultural contexts to consensually uphold values we disagree with. While this particular case may be more about the interpretation of rights rather than what the fundamental rights are themselves, it still highlights the merit of the cultural relativist argument. Italy should be able to work out its own value system based on the prevailing culture as well we the history of the country - ideally through a mass deliberative process. If when all is said and done the Italians still want t have crucifixes in schools, so be it.

  The idea of a court in Strasbourg interpreting the foundational values and their application in Italy is troubling. It’s not quite as troubling as the insistence that the whole world’s foundational values be based on a document that was put together by a handful of people in 1948. But it’s troubling all the same.

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• Halloween in Belfast

  November 2, 2009 @ 2:13 pm | by Bryan

  

  A fire juggling stiltwalker in the Colours Street Theatre Halloween parade in Galway city centre, October 31st. Photo:Joe O’Shaughnessy.

  Halloween in Belfast was for me, a night full of contradictions.

  According to Wikipedia (yes yes, I know it’s not the most reliable source of knowledge), Halloween is the offspring of pagan and Christian traditions. On the Christian side of the family, Halloween falls on the eve of All Saints Day, on which Christians in heaven are remembered. The next day in the Catholic calendar is All Souls Day, when the focus is on those still waiting to enter. On the pagan side, it is linked to Samhain, a Celtic festival that marked the end of the harvest; the end of the lighter half of the year and the beginning of the darker half.

  I find that history strangely comforting because looking around on Saturday night, I was struck by how many opposing things I thought I saw lying side-by-side. The first was the idea of dressing up as all sorts of spooky things in a country whose two main communities identify themselves as Catholic and Protestant. Maybe it’s because folks there actually believe in things like witchcraft and evil spirits, but you’d be hard pressed to find members of the African Christian community dressed as Beetlejuice. The two things, Beetlejuice and Christianity, are thought to be diametrically opposed.

  And then there were the fireworks. Have you ever thought you should be very afraid but then pretend to be unfazed because everyone around you is going about business as usual? That’s how the fireworks that I could hear but not see made me feel. The fact that there was the occasional siren in the background - not to mention police on foot patrol (in their bullet-proof vests) and standing besides vehicles that looked like they’d just returned from Basra Province - none of that helped. It was only made worse by the fact that no-one else took notice. Not only did they not take notice, they were happily lined up in their witch, ghost and Frankenstein costumes, patiently waiting to get into clubs.

  I suppose Halloween was odd for me because I kept seeing the wrong thing. When I looked at the guy dressed as a vampire, I saw the response his costume would have evoked in rural Zimbabwe, or the Vatican for that matter. The fireworks, the sirens, the police…

  My grandmother had some furniture ruined during Zimbabwe’s independence war. When I was young, I kept trying to get her to tell me what had happened and to talk about the past. She didn’t want to do that, she wanted to live in the present and focus on the future.

  I suppose a morbid fascination with the past is an outsiders prerogative. The owners of that past tend to prefer to leave it there.

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• Get rich, or die trying?

  October 29, 2009 @ 12:03 pm | by Bryan

  I had an interesting conversation in a Belfast classroom last night. A debate over which leads to a better society, individualism or something more communitarian, led to the question of national purpose.

  A self-identified Brit (who I think comes from somewhere in Northern Ireland) claimed that what separated the Britain of the past from other nations, like America or the Republic of Ireland, was that it used to have a sense of national purpose. A sense which, according to this individual, immigration has unfortunately undermined (I think that purpose was the expansion of empire, of which inward migration from acquired territories is a natural consequence, but that’s another debate).

  Do most nations have a sense of purpose? Is there a collective vision that the modern nation state subscribes to? Would that even be a good thing? In response to those questions, someone from Limerick claimed that Ireland did indeed have a collective purpose, he just couldn’t say exactly what that was.

  Another Irishman jumped in at that point. The nation’s collective purpose over the last few years, claimed Cillian, was, “Get rich, or die trying.”

  50-cent would have been proud.

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• Good news?

  October 28, 2009 @ 1:01 pm | by Bryan

  Today’s Irish Times poll asks the question, “Should cuts in social welfare be introduced in the forthcoming Budget?” Thus far, a surprising 62% believe that they should. Does that result reflect the socio-economic standing of the average Irish Times reader, online poll respondent, or the prevailing mood in the country?

  I’m surprised because I assume that few people in today’s job market are completely confident that they will have their current job this time next year; or that should they be made redundant, they will easily get alternative employment. That being the case, it seems reasonable to assume that even those who are currently employed are sympathetic to the plight of the jobless. Not only that, people who are currently employed could think of tax as a form of insurance against the loss of earnings that would follow future unemployment.

  So, if the employed are paying contributions towards the national safety net, and if there is a realistic chance that those same contributors will need that safety net in the not too distant future, why do 62% want to see a reduction in welfare benefits? Is there a national consensus on the desirability of income inequality? Does Ireland generally hold that the poor should be x% poorer than the person on the average industrial wage, so that if the average wage is falling, the income of a family on the dole should fall proportionately? I’m struggling to come up with rational explanations for the poll result. Surely in this economic environment hardly anyone believes that most people who are out of work find themselves in that position through idleness, do they? If it doesn’t serve the medium-term interests of the employed, and definitely not those of the unemployed, why do we want to see the dole payments reduced?

  A simple answer might be that we all agree that the payments are too high and the country can’t afford to maintain the social welfare budget. But that assumes (providing the poll reflects the national sentiment) that 62% of people in Ireland would voluntary opt for a smaller social welfare payment than is enjoyed today, should they be made redundant tomorrow. I doubt that’s the case.

  Maybe this poll is a cause for celebration. I can only assume it means that job security is much greater than I imagined. The only way that result makes sense to me is if the the bulk of that 62% doesn’t really think they’ll need to go on the dole tomorrow, or any time in the near future.

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• The war crimes trial gimmick

  October 27, 2009 @ 12:15 pm | by Bryan

  

  Radovan Karadzic supporters drink and play gusle, a traditional instrument, in a bar in New Belgrade, Serbia, yesterday. Photographs: Amel Emric, Srdjan Ilic/AP.

  Former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, brought proceedings in the Hague to a standstill yesterday. He decided not to attend the opening of his genocide trial, claiming that he was unprepared. Karadzic is representing himself and the trial couldn’t go on without defence counsel. Big anticlimax.

  But maybe that’s the problem. These big war crime trials bear a striking resemblance to what I can only imagine medieval public executions looked like. I’m not sure how much they have to do with justice as opposed to public retribution. It’s as though the ‘international community’ needs to demonstrate, as visually as possible, that ‘international justice’ really exists and really works, and that - to quote a former US president who had a way with words - ‘evildoers’ really get their comeuppance in the end. I’m not sure.

  I don’t like Karadzic and what he represents. I think the people responsible for acts like Srebrenica make an incredibly strong case for capital punishment. At the very least, they should be tried quickly and if found guilty, locked away somewhere for good. But I also think that the likes of Karadzic, Slobodan Miloševic before him, and Saddam Hussein are right when they say that these genocide trials are gimmicky public spectacles rather than genuine attempts at delivering justice. Were justice the real aim, Karadzic apprehension would not have been the result of a political settlement nor would the massacre of thousands be attributed to just a handful of suitable villains. Also, assuming that justice is blind, the criteria for who counts as a war criminal would be less selective and less dependent on political considerations.

  Still, Case No. IT-95-5/18-PT will eventually get underway. If he doesn’t inconveniently die during the process (like Milosevic), Karadzic will almost certainly be found guilty of something serious - crimes against humanity, violations of the laws of war, something. Some will celebrate the decision as a mark of progress. Others will hold their former leader up as a martyr. The news cycle will roll on. But I’m not sure very much substantive justice will have been done.

  Maybe this is why the African Union don’t want the International Criminal Court getting involved with the situation in Sudan or Uganda.

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• The role of the mainstream in curbing the extreme

  October 22, 2009 @ 10:29 am | by Bryan

  According to David Adams, the focus on whether the BBC should host the far right British National Party’s (BNP) Nick Griffin, is neither here nor there. Leaders of mainstream political parties need to confront the BNP head on and tackle issues from which they have previously shied away. Issues like immigration reform.

  Gary Younge takes this line of thinking even further. He claims that we have New Labour to thank for Griffin’s scheduled appearance this evening. As far as Younge is concerned:

  Economically, its neoliberal policies have resulted in growing insecurity, rising unemployment, child poverty and inequality that have alienated the poor and made the middle class feel vulnerable. Politically, its lies over the war, stewardship of the expenses scandal and internal bickering have produced widespread cynicism with our political culture. The ramifications of its role in the war on terror in general, and Iraq in particular, were to elevate fear of a racialised “other” to a matter of life and death at home … Meanwhile New Labour’s race-baiting rhetoric gave the state’s imprimatur to the notion that Britain’s racial problems were not caused by racism but the existence of non-white, non-Christian and non-British people … Having inflated racism’s political currency, New Labour vacated the electoral market so that others with a more ostentatious style might more freely spend it. Once they had made these ideas respectable it was only a matter of time before a party reached a position where it too would earn sufficient respectability to appear on prime time. (More…)

  The problems highlighted by Adams also apply to Ireland. Presumably in order to avoid any slip ups that could see one labelled a racist, Ireland’s mainstream political establishment has kept as far as possible from meaningful debate on immigration and race. What Ireland has had, to its credit, is a variety of non-racist social and political groups which represent the interests of the indigenous poor and middle classes. Maybe that is why there isn’t an Irish BNP.

  Then again, it could also have to do with the fact that the non-white segment of the Irish population does not yet feel entirely secure. Once properly ‘integrated’ and with a sense of entitlement to a just slice of the national pie, who knows? A sufficiently large segment of the indigenous population might feel sufficiently threatened by some of their fellow citizens to give rise to a BNP-like entity.

  In any case, how Britain responds to Griffin and those like him will be instructive.

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• Trying to see beyond my ghetto

  October 21, 2009 @ 11:50 am | by Bryan

  

  Malone Road, in the vicinity of Queen’s University Belfast. Photograph: Bryan Mukandi.

  Integration. I don’t think I’d heard that word as frequently as when I first moved to Ireland. ‘Integration’ seemed to be the word around which the country’s entire strategy on immigration, and a growing multiculturalism, would hinge. But for all that the word was thrown around, I don’t think anyone really knew what it meant, or how one goes about integrating. I suppose the civil servants who plucked it out of a dictionary - or more likely some other country’s policy paper - I suppose they decided the immigrants would figure it out.

  I’m having to figure out how to integrate all over again. Being an ‘international student’ at Queen’s (a category that officially includes citizens of the Republic of Ireland) is an interesting experience. It only takes days to be ‘integrated’ into the university community. It seems as though the area surrounding the university was purpose built for students. So without much effort, you can be part of a vibrant community that is predominantly populated by other students. It all leads, I think, to a very posh version of the ghettoisation that Irish policy-makers sought to avoid by promoting ‘integration’.

  I’m sure there are plenty of local students with dual citizenship. They get to be part of the posh ‘ghetto’ as well as living in the real world of Northern Ireland, posh or otherwise. For the average international student, that is seldom the case. Yesterday, someone suggested that I go on a Belfast bus tour if I want to see the ‘real Belfast’. My response was that I don’t like doing the tourist thing and would prefer to learn about the city and its inhabitants as they really are. At which point, a local guy told me that the closest I would get to knowing the city beyond ‘the ghetto’ would be the bus tour.

  Because of what is probably a sense of inadequacy, I don’t think of myself as a journalist. Having said that, I have the privilege of writing for a fantastic newspaper. And I spend most of my time in Belfast. It seems to me that the logical thing would therefore be to engage with the city and learn more about it than the tidbits tour operators serve to tourists.

  Here’s the question, how do I do that? How does one integrate into a place like Belfast where it’s infinitely easier to stay in one’s own ghetto? And if it’s a really posh ghetto, is it even worth trying?

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• Behind a veil of ignorance

  October 20, 2009 @ 12:22 pm | by Bryan

  John Rawls, an American philosopher, came up with an interesting way of thinking about justice in the early 1970s. While I was initially sceptical of Rawls’ approach, comments on this blog have forced me to rethink my position.

  It seems as though most of us struggle to separate justice from self-interest (see for example comments on Puzzled). According to Rawls, the way to determine what a just society would look like would be to engage in a small mental exercise. Imagine that you were placed ‘behind a veil of ignorance’. Behind this veil, you have no idea what your station in life is, what social standing you hold, your job title, how much you earn, or for that matter, how much anyone else earns. Now imagine being asked to come up with the rules for how society will be ordered. You don’t know where you’ll fit in to the social structure you’ve proposed once the veil of ignorance is removed, so you have a big incentive to ensure that even if you end up at the bottom of this new structure, life is, at the very least, bearable.

  Ralws’ thinking was what should come first in the construction of a just society, are some fundamental rights, followed by basic, ‘fair’ societal rules. By nature most of us tend towards social arrangements that benefit us the most, even if they are not particularly just or moral. For that reason, he proposed that we try to think of how we might structure society if our position in it wasn’t guaranteed. His conclusion, in his hard to read but incredibly valuable book, A Theory of Justice, was that we would opt for an egalitarian society in which inequality would only be tolerated if it was to the benefit of the least well off.

  One of the challenges of living in a ‘post-religious’ society is that there is no universal moral code you can fall back on to make your arguments. Were this Iran, we could settle our differences on the basis of our various interpretations of the Qur’an. Were we living in an Ireland of the past, the Bible or the Pope’s last Easter message might carry similar weight. But in our present situation, if the ideas of Rawls and others on justice, which basically ask us to put other things before self interest - if these don’t sway us, then what are we left with? A society in which what is right is determined by the desires of those with the greatest economic and political power?

  I was in a lecture yesterday in which a political scientist said, “We who live in OECD countries are the world’s aristocrats.” In terms of global economic and political power, I think he was right. Since none of us is able to really go behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance, and since justice has an annoying propensity for taking from the most well off to give to those with the least, perhaps it is little wonder self-interest trumps justice. Even on harmless blogs such as this.

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• Let’s all join the BNP?

  October 16, 2009 @ 12:57 pm | by Bryan

  

  British National Party leader Nick Griffin.

  Great news! Progress, tolerance and all of that. It looks like the British National Party (BNP) will finally start accepting non-whites! It makes perfect sense. What could be more convincing than a black guy or Asian woman telling other racial minorities that they are wrecking the lives of decent, hard working Anglo-Saxons and Celts, and that said minorities should leave Britain? Nick Griffin must be kicking himself for not coming up with the idea.

  Seriously though, that the BNP have been forced to remove their racial restrictions to party membership is good for progress. Granted, the first non-whites who join may have to tolerate all manner of verbal abuse. Personally, rational or not, I would be worried about a party zealot following me home and leaving me a welcome to the club gift, like a burning cross. But despite those challenges, I can only imagine that there will be no shortage of people previously excluded from the BNP, who will choose to join the group and ‘change it from the inside’.

  A multicultural BNP can only be less venomous than today’s version of the party. The worst elements of the group will leave when faced with prospect of sitting down with those they perceive to be the source of their troubles. And who knows, in time, the party may change beyond recognition, if it doesn’t shrivel up and die.

  Welcome to the mainstream BNP.

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