outsidein

• Bye-bye ‘08

  December 31, 2008 @ 8:00 am | by Bryan

  

  Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

  Bye-bye ’08.

  This may very well be my favorite day of the year. I love the idea of reflecting on the past and preparing for a fresh slate. I guess for me, New Year’s Eve is like a mini ceremony that precedes my absolution from all the things I got wrong over the past 12 months. But more than that, it’s also a time to celebrate the good things that happened.

  On a communal level, 2008 has been an interesting year to say the least. For me, what stands out most vividly are the scenes of post-election violence in Kenya, the Zimbabwean election and then the nightmare that followed, the US presidential elections, and the tanking of the global economy. These events represented different types of conflict and all had something to do with the shape of the future.

  Someone said that evaluated experience is the best teacher. Looking back over the last year, I am struck by the fact that very few things are guaranteed. I think most of us tend to live with the expectation that tomorrow will be the same as today and yesterday. This year has taught me that tomorrow’s shape is up for grabs, and it will be determined by what decisions were taken yesterday, and to a lesser degree, today. For example, the consequences of an unregulated global financial system that is fueled by consumption are growing more visible by the day.

  Normally, I am excited about the prospect of starting a new year. This time, I am a little apprehensive. So far, it seems as though those who run global affairs are determined to change as little as possible. Global finance is going to be run in almost exactly the same way as it was in 2008, international relations do not look like changing any time soon, and most people don’t want to have to deal with anything beyond maintaining their standard of life. And yet, I think the cause of maybe 80% of the major problems in 2008 was a narrow focus on the material needs and wants of individuals as opposed to the common good.

  Whatever happens in 2009, I am very grateful for the privilege of being able to write about it on this blog. I am also grateful to everyone who reads and interacts with the ideas I put up. Thank you.

  Hopefully, ’09 turns out better than we all expect.

  Comments (7)

• History repeating itself

  December 30, 2008 @ 1:42 pm | by Bryan

  

  Palestinian youths throw stones towards Israeli border police officers at Shuafat refugee camp in the West Bank near Jerusalem during a protest over the Israeli offensive in Gaza December 29. Photo: Ammar Awad/REUTERS

  The problem with any conflict, especially a prolonged one, isn’t so much the physical toll, but the social and cultural one. This especially affects young people. Rather than having another generation of well adjusted young people who will one day carry society on their shoulders, a cohort of traumatised people with a different set of values may be produced. Depending on the nature and scale of the conflict, the effects can be devastating.

  Worse than the loss of life in the Gaza strip is the effect it is having on those who survive. Especially the young. Because the same is true of young Israelis who have suffered loss and trauma at the hands of Palestinian militants, both sides are doing everything that is humanly possible to ensure that this conflict goes on, and on, and on.

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• Gaza madness

  December 29, 2008 @ 12:08 pm | by Bryan

  

  A Palestinian family after an Israeli missile strike in the Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, yesterday. Israel’s cabinet has ordered a callup of at least 6,500 reserve soldiers, leading to speculation about a major ground offensive in Gaza. Photograph: Eyad Baba/AP

  Deaglán has an excellent blog post on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I’m not going to rehash his work, but I suggest that you take a look at it here.

  Weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being lectured by an Israeli human rights lawyer and activist. The lecture was supposed to be on torture but we spent a considerable amount of time discussing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. His take on it was that violence begets violence and that no-one was winning. In fact, every rocket fired, every suicide bombing, and every military excursion or assassination only made things worse.

  That type of sentiment can sound a little airy-fairy and out of sync with cold, hard reality, but I think he was completely right. The type of disproportionate aggression that Israel is currently demonstrating takes away from their legitimacy and support in the eyes of international public opinion. It must also infuriate Palestinians and strengthen the case for further conflict and retaliation.

  In the same way, every time Hamas, Fatah or anyone else fires rockets at civilians in Israel, they confirm the notion that they are monsters who need to be stopped. On an international stage, those types of acts lend credence to the bigoted, but growing, belief that Muslims are violent people bent on inflicting terror on others.

  The saddest part of this whole affair for me is that 300 plus people may have been killed because there is an election coming up and some politicians want to prove to the electorate that they can be tough on Hamas. That, and as Deaglán suggests, they rightly figured the rest of the world would be too preoccupied with their Christmas presents to mount a vocal response. Worse, some have suggested that Hamas anticipated and even hoped for this kind of response from Israel - they will probably be in a stronger position when all of this ends in terms of local support and being able to mobilise people against Israel.

  Whatever the truth, the whole affair is sickening.

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• Africa’s problems require an informed and radical response

  @ 8:00 am | by Bryan

  When I was young, my father enjoyed making fun of us, his children. When in an especially good mood, so good that he could look back on hardship and laugh at it, he would tell us about how good we had it. “When I was your age, we would eat meat only at Christmas,” he would claim. “Presents? What are those? When I was young, you were lucky if you got a new pair of shoes for Christmas,” he would say.

  Read the rest of this article.

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• Picture of the week

  December 27, 2008 @ 8:15 am | by Bryan

  

  Past pupils of Belvedere College who are fasting in Dublin city centre December 23, (from left) Aidan Lundy, Padraic Noble, Colm McNally and Eoin Lyons to raise funds for the Peter McVerry Trust, Focus Ireland and Homeagain Society. Photo: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Times

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• Merry Christmas!

  December 24, 2008 @ 8:00 am | by Bryan

  

  A stained-glass window depicting the Nativity scene in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Carrignavar, Co Cork. Photograph: Daragh Mac Sweeney/Provision

  To everyone who has read this blog over the past six months, and to those who have participated in the discussions, thank you. I hope you all have a merry Christmas.

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• A strange sympathy

  December 23, 2008 @ 1:31 pm | by Bryan

  Yeukai Taruvinga, a Zimbabwean refugee living in Britain, has written a thought-provoking article in The Guardian. In it, she points out the disconnect between some of the things that are said about Robert Mugabe, and the way his victims are treated. Although this particular story is about a specific Zimbabwean young woman in the United Kingdom, it is probably true of most asylum seekers the world over … Ireland included. I guess talk really is cheap. In Yeukai’s words:

  When I tell ordinary British people that I came to this country from Zimbabwe to seek asylum because of Robert Mugabe’s government, they are always sympathetic. They see the humanitarian crisis, the old people and children dying of cholera - the UN reported yesterday that there were more than a thousand dead and another 20,000 sufferers. They see on the news night after night what Mugabe is doing to my country. And they see the continuing human rights crisis and how he treats those who oppose him.

  Read the rest of this article.

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• The world in 2008

  December 22, 2008 @ 9:00 am | by Bryan

  

  Wordle of The world this year in this week’s edition of The Economist.

  This week’s edition of The Economist includes a very interesting article titled The world this year. I am a big fan of the Economist. More often than not, I disagree strongly with their analysis, but it is a well written, informative newspaper all the same. For example, in response to the current economic crisis, they advocate a maintenance of the status quo. I think free market economics need critical rethinking and alternative economic theories should be seriously investigated.

  All the same, it is interesting to note the words that are most prominent in their analysis of 2008.

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• Picture of the week

  December 20, 2008 @ 2:10 pm | by Bryan

  

  Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, a reporter with Cairo-based network Al Baghdadia Television, throw a shoe at US president, George W. Bush.

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• Half of a Yellow Sun

  December 18, 2008 @ 4:21 pm | by Bryan

  

  A couple of friends mentioned Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun within a few weeks of each other. They had really good things to say about the novel. I made the mistake of buying the book in the middle of a busy period and I can’t put it down.

  The novel tells a story set in Nigeria’s Biafran war. It is incredibly well written and brings up some very important issues about the formation of modern African states as well as the tensions between tribal identity and national identity in places made up of multiple ethnic groups. For example, one of my favourite dialogues in the book comes from a discussion on pan-Africanism. In Adichie’s words:

  You know, pan-Africanism is fundamentally a European notion … Can’t you see that we are not all alike except to white eyes? … the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe … I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white man came.

  Bear in mind that this scene is set in the 1960s in a newly independent Nigeria. I wonder how far parts of Africa have moved on from this idea. African political instability is the result of numerous factors, but it tends to manifest itself along ethnic lines. That is certainly the case in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan.

  Another fascinating aspect of this book for me is the light it sheds on the Biafran war. Here was an ethnic group that decided to construct a modern day nation state out of their tribe. If you believe that your primary identity is Igbo, not Nigerian, it makes perfect sense to want your own country - in this case, Biafra. Adichie, however, clearly illustrates the economic and political forces that make that sort of action impractical.

  Finally, based on a comment from a previous post on this blog, I have begun to wonder about how much of anti-Lisbon sentiment is based on similar notions of identity. Could it be that for some people, European citizenship is just some Eurocrat’s construct that they don’t buy into, seeing themselves as only Irish?

  Half of a Yellow Sun is an incredible book. If you are trying to decide on what to read next, read this book. And if any of you know Adichie, she is at the top of my list of people I would like to spend an afternoon with. I have a million questions for her.

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• A Thought

  December 17, 2008 @ 2:15 pm | by Bryan

  I was doing some research yesterday and I stumbled on Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi (don’t ask what kind of research that was). In so many ways, the words to this beautiful song highlight the contradictions, and at times, the outright stupidity of modern man playing homo economicus:

   

  They paved paradise/ And put up a parking lot/ With a pink hotel, a boutique/ And a swinging hot spot/ Don’t it always seem to go/ That you dont know what you’ve got/ ‘Till it’s gone/ They paved paradise/ And put up a parking lot

  They took all the trees/ Put ‘em in a tree museum/ And they charged the people/ A dollar and a half just to see ‘em/ Don’t it always seem to go/ That you don’t know what you’ve got/ ‘Till its gone/ They paved paradise/ And put up a parking lot

  Hey farmer farmer/ Put away that d.d.t. now/ Give me spots on my apples/ But leave me the birds and the beesPlease!/ Don’t it always seem to go/ That you don’t know what you’ve got/ ‘Till its gone/ They paved paradise/ And put up a parking lot

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• HSE planning to review A&E services in 2009

  December 16, 2008 @ 1:50 pm | by Bryan

  When Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan, said that the country was living beyond its means, I agreed with him. That being the case, it made perfect sense that there be some painful budget cuts. But I was under the impression that health and education were going to be spared of any reductions to their front-line staff. If anything, both need a serious recruitment drive.

  I guess I was wrong. It now appears that the entire health delivery system is under review and some A&E departments may be sacrificed. Am I the only person who thinks this might not be the smartest idea the government has come up with this year?

  I thought that having patients spend hours on trolleys in A&E departments across the country was something we were going to try to address. Granted, most of that is because of bed shortages in the rest of the hospital. But if you decrease the number of functional A&E departments, surely the numbers on trolleys in those hospitals will just escalate. Won’t that pressure just worsen service delivery in those hospitals? This is the sort of thing that happens, I think, when the person responsible for the Health Ministry is not from the health sector, and worse, they believe that business strategies can be translated seamlessly to health care delivery.

  It’s really easy to sit there and be critical when you aren’t looking at the figures and being told to make cuts. I may have serious differences of opinion with the Health Minister and her team with respect to health policy, but I don’t doubt her intentions and commitment to do the best with what’s available. That said, of all the strategies she has announced that I have disagreed with, this one is near the top of the list.

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• Shoe thrown at Bush

  December 15, 2008 @ 7:00 am | by Bryan

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8GOrc0-Ygg&rel=0

  Whatever you may think of the man, surely throwing shoes at a foreign head of state is just not on? Bush gets a lot of flack (rightly), but I’ll say this for him, he seems to be really good at taking things in his stride.

  By the way, someone needs to warn Barack Obama. The Secret Service may be great at stopping bullets, but they are totally useless when the weapon is a pair of shoes. Notice how there wasn’t a single agent using his body as a human shield?

  Comments (33)

• Picture of the week

  December 13, 2008 @ 8:28 am | by Bryan

  

  A French gendarme looks for clues next to Muslim graves desecrated with Nazi inscriptions and swastikas in Notre Dame de Lorette cemetery in Ablain Saint Nazaire, northern France, December 8th., Photo:Pascal Rossignol /REUTERS

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• Lisbon: take 2

  December 12, 2008 @ 8:45 am | by Bryan

  It comes as no surprise at all that Ireland is going to get another chance at voting for the Lisbon treaty. It was just a matter of time, and everyone knew that this was where things were going.

  This Lisbon thing feels like a personal ‘domestic’ issue. Like when you go to a friends house and find that he and his wife are fighting. My natural inclination is to leave and come back when things have been cleared up. That’s how I feel about Lisbon - it’s none of my business.

  I think that’s because the stakes are so high. On the one hand, there are people who feel that throwing out the treaty is the democratic thing to do since Ireland already voted no and Europe makes this kind of change on the basis of unanimity. And I can understand that perspective.

  Then there are those who see the global economic climate and know that the best way to weather the coming storm is to have as many friends as possible and be on the best possible terms with them as possible. That is a very pragmatic approach too, and one that I again understand and respect.

  It will be interesting to see which way people vote and why. One thing is certain, I don’t think very many people will vote on the contents of the actual treaty. And that, though unavoidable, is a shame.

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• Lessons from Zimbabwe

  December 11, 2008 @ 8:15 am | by Bryan

  I imagine that at this stage, most people are suffering from a form of ‘compassion fatigue’ when it comes to all things Zimbabwe. I totally understand why. But for those who are not there yet, I recently came across what may be the most balanced and insightful analysis into how Zimbabwe ended up in this current crisis. I can’t recommend this article by Mahmood Mamdani, a Professor of Government in the Departments of Anthropology, Political Science and International Affairs at Columbia University, highly enough.

  “It is hard to think of a figure more reviled in the West than Robert Mugabe. Liberal and conservative commentators alike portray him as a brutal dictator, and blame him for Zimbabwe’s descent into hyperinflation and poverty. The seizure of white-owned farms by his black supporters has been depicted as a form of thuggery, and as a cause of the country’s declining production, as if these lands were doomed by black ownership. Sanctions have been imposed, and opposition groups funded with the explicit aim of unseating him…

  Continue reading this article

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• A reminder of our obligation to each other

  December 9, 2008 @ 1:17 pm | by Bryan

  I WONDER how many people know what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is, or what it says. I wonder how many feel that human rights are just some fluffy idea concocted by lefties who live beyond the realms of reality. I’m not just talking about the Scrooges who will publicly cry “Humbug!” at any mention of human rights, but also ordinary folk who would not dare publicise their low estimation of the concept.

  Click here to read the rest of this article.

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• Recycled Food

  @ 9:20 am | by Bryan

  

  Millstream Recycling, Clohamon Mills, Co Carlow, the plant at the centre of the contamination scare, which supplies pig food to farmers

  Recently, one of my closest friends called me a ‘soft socialist.’ I’m not too moved because not too long ago, a colleague called me a ‘right wing extremist’. In fairness, it was at the end of a pretty heated debate. But she is convinced that my views lie way to the right of centre. Hopefully the fact that two people who know me well can have such different views on me and on my own views means that I am capable of being objective.

  The objective person that I am is more than a little surprised about the source of our bacon and sausages. I feel terrible for the farmers who have lost buckets of money since it was announced that Irish pork was contaminated with the dioxin, a potentially carcinogenic toxin. What people may not know is that the source of that toxin was a food recycling plant.

  This is where my surprise and confusion kicks in. Pigs, which become the pork chops, rashers and sausages we eat, are fed recycled food? Who decided that was a good idea? Unless I’m mistaken, that is what contributed to the foot and mouth disease outbreak in Britain a few years ago.

  Remember, I’m not an unhinged ‘leftie’. But I am disgusted at the extent our society goes to make an extra buck. Rather than feeding livestock recycled food, or bits of other livestock, why not feed those animals proper natural food? If that means having the whole system go organic, then why not? If recycling animal feed can lead to contamination with a substance that is routinely tested for, who is to say that there aren’t many other undetected substances that we ingest daily? The sad thing is it all comes down to greed. I’m not talking about the farmers here. Most of them are probably struggling to get by. It’s the whole food industry that is twisted. Raj Patel’s Stuffed and Starved, a brilliant book, paints a depressing picture about the state of that industry.

  I’m not a tree hugging plant lover or anything like that. But maybe one of the great tragedies is that we tend to dismiss people with concerns about things like the food cycle or the environment as tree hugging loonies.

  Recycled food?

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• We all fall down

  December 8, 2008 @ 8:45 am | by Bryan

  Over 600 people have died in Zimbabwe from cholera. Cholera is a waterborne infectious disease which, in this day and age, serves more as an indicator of the total collapse of water and sanitation services than anything else. The country no longer really has clean drinking water. Were that not enough, the quaternary hospitals, the large referral centers, have more or less shut down because they cannot operate under the prevail conditions.

  It’s a tough price to pay to get rid of one group of people. You need to have seen and lived in Zimbabwe 10 years ago to fully understand the extent of the crime against the people the government has committed. And it has all got me thinking about governance and power and democracy, particularly in Africa, but more generally, everywhere.

  As convenient as it may be to cast the country’s troubles all on Robert Mugabe’s shoulders, the reality is much more complicated than that. Even if he were to step down today, there is no guarantee that the person who comes after him will be any better - the prevailing ideology of the ruling party is poisonous. And even if the opposition were to take over, the nation’s culture has changed. People have lived for so long under such difficult conditions many may find it impossible to hold down normal jobs and may be unable to function as productive members of society. With all the goodwill and help in the world, under the best of circumstances, Zimbabwe will have to travel a very long way before it begins to resemble what it was 10 years ago.

  So was it worth it? At some stage, someone must have decided that the only way to bring down the ruling party would be by destroying the country. I thought it, and I was not involved with the opposition. Many people said it out loud. It makes sense, and as unproductive as that logic may seem, it was probably spot on. The question then becomes, was there too much of an emphasis on the Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF? Should, at some stage, the opposition have decided that playing chicken with psychopaths is unwise? Or is this just the price that we had to pay as a nation for freedom? That depends on your idea of freedom.

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• Picture of the week

  December 6, 2008 @ 8:15 am | by Bryan

  

  A homeless man carries a mattress down a street in downtown Santiago, Chile December 2. Photo: Ivan Alvarado/REUTERS

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• Government and cars

  December 5, 2008 @ 12:41 pm | by Bryan

  The current debate in the US about the auto-industry gives an interesting glimpse into the current thinking on the role of government.

  On one hand, the Detroit auto-makers make up about 10% of the US economy and the company bosses feel that they wont survive without a $34 billion bailout from the government. Those who support the bailout say that if Detroit goes down, not only will those directly employed by the car makers be made redundant, the collateral damage will also extend to their suppliers and the rest of the nations economy.

  Those who are opposed to the bailout point out that the market is meant to weed out firms that can’t compete. Some people want that 34 billion to go to small companies working on, or producing, green cars. Basically, this side is sick of big business being able to get government financial assistance just because they are deemed ‘too big to fail.’

  This may sound like a cop-out, but both sides make very valid points and its hard to say what should be done now. What I think needs to be addressed though, is the role of government. If you are a true neoliberal ideologue, government is a necessary evil and it should be kept as small as possible. It should definitely not meddle with the economy and intervene on behalf of struggling firms. If you are on the other end of the ideological spectrum, government only exists to protect the interests of the wealthy and will, by nature, help them out while exploiting the poor. As such, it should be overthrown.

  Personally, I think government is very necessary and should play an active role in many aspects of life - like a referee. I also think the needs of regular people should trump those of business and that the idea of business, by definition, serving the needs of those people is about as real as Santa.

  The question for me then becomes, “How would a ref, biased towards the needs of poor and middle class people deal with the auto-industry?” I think the answer would be make them all consolidate and to partly nationalize them. Having done that, invest heavily in the firms making electric and hybrid cars.

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• The story of stuff

  December 4, 2008 @ 12:00 pm | by Bryan

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUeMVt3stAo&rel=0

  The story of stuff is one of the best demonstrations of the connectedness of people and the consequences of what the economist Thorstein Veblen called conspicuous consumption that I have seen on the internet. I think it’s especially apt in light of the challenges facing all of us going forward.

  Be warned, Annie Leonard talks fast, but she makes an incredible amount of sense. I highly recommend the full video which is about 20 minutes long. To watch it, click here.

  Comments (4)

• Obama, Clinton and Change

  December 3, 2008 @ 11:00 am | by Bryan

  

  President-elect Barack Obama with secretary of state-designate Hillary Clinton as he introduces her at a news conference in Chicage yesterday. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP

  I realise that I’m definitely behind the curve here, but I can’t let this go. It has finally been announced that Hilary Clinton is going to become the next US Secretary of State. And there has surprisingly been much less criticism of this decision than I expected.

  I’ll just come out and say that I think the right person was chosen for the job. She did really well in the primaries, and had she won the party nomination, she would be the president. With that kind of support, I think the noble thing to do is to give Mrs Clinton an important role that she is happy with.

  Having said that, there has been some criticism about the Obama cabinet not representing the change that he spoke about during the campaign. I wonder how long the honeymoon will last before the media begins to do what it does and become more critical of Obama. I guess it’s only right to wait until he actually becomes the president.

  I think the change message was deliberately vague. By deliberately vague I’m not implying anything sinister. Just that Barack Obama is very pragmatic and will do a good job of making the most of the institutions and presidential powers that already exist. He is a law professor, not a radical. So off course it makes sense that he is going to pick his staff based on who he thinks will do the best job, not based on who has the most radical ideas.

  I bet that the Obama administration will be aiming for 8 boring years in which very predictable and deliberate ‘changes’ occur, but nothing too bold. By the time he leaves office, he’ll probably have balanced the budget, kept out of unnecessary wars, and maybe two or three other tangible accomplishments. The rest of his success will come from having fine tuned the country.

  There will be change, but it probably won’t come in the form that some people were expecting.

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• Migrant worker abuse

  @ 8:00 am | by Bryan

  

   

  Minister for Integration, Conor Lenihan, was on television last night defending the government’s record on the protection of migrant workers from exploitative employers. Honestly, I think he came off as someone trying to defend the clearly indefensible. I think he would have been a lot better off just doing a mea culpa and saying that migrant workers have not been a priority but that the government was working on it.

  That would probably have been true and people would have understood and accepted that - especially if the follow up was real. Had there then been evidence that migrant workers’ rights were climbing up the government’s priority ladder, both the minister and the government would have probably won a lot of friends in the migrant communities.

  This is an uncertain time for most people. We are constantly bombarded with warnings of an imminent economic implosion. There is often news of companies failing, employment levels falling, prices rising, and now, it looks like pensions may be in some danger. And as rough as these times are for the local population, things are often worse for migrants.

  Some immigrants worry that the worse things become, the greater the hostility towards them will be. Others fear that if jobs are going to be lost, they will be at the top of the list. Many migrants are not entitled to social security benefits and that just makes things worse. And then there are people who sold everything they had to come to a place like Ireland who would have nothing to go back to if employment dried up here and they were forced to leave.

  That is why so many people are being taken advantage of by their employers. They don’t have a lot of options and sometimes the horrible job is better than not having a job at all. That is why they need a little extra protection at a time like this. Unfortunately, based on last night’s interview, I don’t think very many were reassured.

  Comments (1)

• African dream

  December 2, 2008 @ 10:17 pm | by Bryan

  I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a book for a while. Spending time in a remote village in the middle of Connemara (that has no internet access) with a group of both successful and aspiring writers has really inspired me. That, and I think I’ve gone from just wanting to having hair like Malcolm Gladwell’s to wanting his career as well. So, even though its probably not the wisest thing in the world, I’m going to share a little about my book with you, despite the fact that it is still just an idea.

  I am going to write about the African dream. Normally, when people say ‘Africa’, a deep seated scepticism rises within me. Africa is such a big, diverse place that broad generalisations about the continent or its inhabitants are almost bound to be seriously flawed. So in one respect, there is no such thing as an African dream. Having said that, I think there is a set of aspirations that is common to most people the world over. If you live in most parts of Africa, some of those aspirations translate into a desire to migrate physically as well as socio-economically. That may mean moving from the country to the city, from a rough neighbourhood to a better one, or from one country to another.

  I think that desire to migrate forms the basis of an ‘African dream’ that has not been articulated nearly as well or as formally as the ‘American dream’ for example. There is an interesting way in which people all over the world are the same because they are people, but are different because of cultural and historical reasons. I wonder if anything demonstrates this dichotomy as well as our aspirations? An Irish friend recently remarked to me that he wondered how well native Irish people know or understand the people who now live in their midst.The desire to combat and prevent racism, as well as the drive for integration rightly emphasises our similarities. More and more these days, I also want to celebrate ore differences.

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