outsidein »

• Thank you, and good-bye

  May 23, 2010 @ 1:50 pm | by Bryan

  The Shona proverb I cite most often is chisingapere chinoshura. It’s often used to console those enduring hardship, or to help people maintain a sense of perspective at the end of some venture. Sadly, the time has come for me to speak that proverb over myself and this blog.

  Outside In has been going for almost two years now. Over that period, I’ve had the immense pleasure and privilege of writing about life in Ireland, as well as commenting on global current affairs. I’ve learnt an incredible amount, and have relished the privilege of discussing, debating and sometimes just fighting with all sorts of people – important public figures, anonymous internet users, and Mark, my housemate. I am grateful to, and humbled by, all those who have taken the time to read the things that I’ve written, those who have gone on to share their own views, and most of all, those who became part of the Outside In community.

  So why stop now? Part of the reason is that I don’t really have much else to say about the underlying debate informing all the issues discussed on this blog. I can’t say precisely what that underlying debate is, but it definitely involves questions around the possibility of making claims for justice and recognition from a position of difference, be that with respect to global poverty, migration or multiculturalism. One of the philosophers I am currently reading, Alasdair MacIntyre, suggests that people within liberal societies have a tendency towards engaging in debate for its own sake, even though there is no hope of resolving those debates. The existence of such debate, he suggests, merely serves to create the impression that various positions are being taken into consideration, when in reality that is not the case; not really. True to my resolution at the beginning of the year, I refuse to Bug Out.

  One could argue that I have just given a reason to carry on blogging. Spending the next two years trying to move beyond debate for its own sake, or trying to understand why MacIntyre’s critique of modern Western society holds so much water would be time well spent. Maybe one day. For now, I’m tired. I have too much else on my plate. There are other questions, other tasks, which for me are currently more pressing.

  So, here ends this particular journey. I leave you in the very able hands of my colleagues, the other Irish Times bloggers. To quote another Shona saying, vakambowonana havashayane, which basically means, ‘till we meet again…’

  Slán.

  Comments (32)

• I still don’t get it

  April 9, 2010 @ 1:19 pm | by Bryan

  I still don’t get it. I understand despondency in a completely dysfunctional system; in a place where deep down, people don’t believe that things can change. Ireland seems to me to be an incredibly democratic place – perhaps too democratic. It’s so democratic that given a conflict between ‘the right thing to do’, and ‘the will (or tyranny) of the majority’, in this country, the majority generally wins hands down and the ‘right thing to do’ is defined, after the fact, as protecting the wishes of the many.

  Does the general apathy then, towards race-based crime, social inequality, or both public and private sector mismanagement, boil down to the fact that the majority just couldn’t be ‘bovvered’ – be that because of a sense of information overload, innate inegalitarianism, distraction by the pursuit of shiny trinkets, or a more-or-less correct sense of the fact that they are largely immune to the afflictions of the few? If that indeed is the case, are things the way they are because the many will them so; a result of collective desire?

  The lessons I’ve learnt blogging here makes me think of society as a particular type of horror film – the type in which at the end, the main character turns out to have been the monster, the one doing the killing, all the while thinking of himself as a victim or potential victim. In Memento, the protagonist, Leonard, comes to terms with this fact and is content to allow himself the luxury of forgetting his crimes and go on thinking of himself as the victim.

  The question, is suppose, is what do you do when the society in which you live is a Leonard? The last time I was in that situation I packed my bags and moved to Ireland. Having found myself in the same situation, I don’t know what I, or anyone else who finds themselves in this situation ought to do. More and more though, I am of the opinion that pointing out what is being actively ignored is an exercise in futility.

  *Apologies to those following the discussion around Taylor’s ‘Sources of the Self’. I’ve travelled and unfortunately left my copy of the book behind. We’ll resume next Thursday.

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• Please help me to understand

  April 6, 2010 @ 11:06 pm | by Bryan

  I’ve been trying to make sense of it, but I can’t. How is it that people here are able to remain so calm?

  A major newspaper, the largest by circulation in the country, in fact, can print an article with the title Africa is giving nothing to anyone – apart from Aids, and while a few eyebrows were raised, and a few organisations tried to take the matter before the courts, the country generally just shrugged its shoulders and carried on as usual.

  A lady gets raped, the rapist is arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a couple of years in prison. Radio phone-in shows are very busy for a day or two afterwards, but generally, the same shoulder shrugging and moving on is the order of the day.

  Drug dealers and gangs go around killing each other and wrecking parts of cities, but that barely seems to reach the collective consciousness. An ‘innocent civilian’ is killed by that same criminal element and for a few days newspapers carry stories about the growing drug epidemic and the need for more policing in poor areas. But for the most part, there’s another collective shoulder shrugging and a getting on with it.

  A young man is stabbed to death in his own neighbourhood for being the wrong colour and for a short while there’s the scurry of activity; activity aimed at keeping everybody calm and assuring us all that the crime was an anomaly – one of those freak accidents that in no way reflect the state of society. Yes, the affected community should remain calm. Those affected should let the authorities deal with the matter. But what about the rest of us? Why are the unaffected so good at shrugging our shoulders and getting on with things? Why do those who are distant enough to be both angry and constructive not act, or speak, or do something other than shrug their shoulders and move on?

  Years, no, decades after the fact, with its power in decline, there is widespread anger at the Catholic Church. Is that just how long it takes to mount a response? Were the unaffected during the years of those atrocities just as able to shrug their shoulders, to keep the peace, not ruffling feathers, just getting on with, as we are today?

  To what end? Maybe I’m just haunted by the ghost of Zimbabwe past, but I’ve seen this same passivity before. I’ve seen what happens to a house so accepting and forgiving of rot. Eventually, it falls apart. Even if it is a house of stone.

  Comments (74)

• Perspective

  February 3, 2010 @ 10:22 am | by Bryan

  I don’t have very much to add today in the way of observations on life, the universe and everything. My wife gave birth to our first child last night, so everything else seems ridiculously trivial in comparison at the moment.

  I’ll share two thoughts though. First, the staff at University Hospital Galway’s maternity section, especially the midwives, are some of the most amazing people I’ve come across. Having been on both sides of the hospital staff – patient divide, I was blown away by their patience, industry and the level of care they were able to provide. It makes you wonder about our social values and the people we chose to pay well, esteem and honour. But that’s a discussion for another day.

  Secondly, if you’re still needing your blog ‘fix’, may I suggest you take a look at Michael McManus’s Bangladeshi times, which I’m really looking forward to following going forward. I’m especially looking forward to seeing how he works out trying to contribute meaningfully without attempting to recreate Ireland in Bangladesh.

  Comments (11)

• Gordon Brown, the people’s champion?

  December 15, 2009 @ 10:42 pm | by Bryan

  

  This is, without a doubt, one of the best magazine covers that I’ve seen in a good while.

  That said, while I agree with the suggestion that Gordon Brown is doing his best to put on a populist suit that reeks of inauthenticity, The Economist carried the idea of ‘class warrior’ too far. They make a strong case for the idea that we largely see the world from our own vantage and are often blind to the perspectives of others. It’s class politics when politicians pander to poorer voters, but not when wealth is transferred from the working classes to the financial sector?

  Still, it’s a brilliant cover. Reminds me of Ali G. How desperate is Gordon Brown, I wonder? Because if he’s really desperate, I reckon taking on the The Economist on tv could shore up the Prime Minister’s standing among working class voters…

  Especially if he called out the paper by name and said, “Is it coz I’s black?”

  Comments (5)

• 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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• Picture of the week

  August 22, 2009 @ 2:55 pm | by Bryan

  

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• Questions about the Ryan Report findings

  June 12, 2009 @ 10:12 am | by Bryan

  

  A child’s shoe displayed during the silent march of solidarity for victims of institutional abuse in Dublin this week. Photograph by Matt Kavanagh.

  An Irish friend who lives in the US sent me an email recently asking my opinion on the revelations from the Ryan report. She had specific questions about redress, and since I know a bit about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation process, my friend wanted to know if I thought that would be a good model here.

  Honestly, this is not a topic I’m comfortable discussing. I don’t have a long history with Ireland. Other than what I’ve read and the odd conversation with taxi drivers, I don’t know much about the pre-Celtic Tiger years. I don’t really understand the church-state-citizenry relationship of that time. And so it isn’t surprising that I don’t understand how the systematic abuse of children in care came to be.

  Mary Condren’s article is insightful. It reminded me of a question that another sociologist asked recently. How could people not have known? Condren writes, Few of us are innocent: we must all now enter the dock.

  I really don’t understand. Hopefully this post will encourage a discussion that clarifies things for all those who, like me, don’t get the full significance of what happened. I would really like to know if, as I think Condren suggests, the spotlight has been cast on the worst perpetrators to the exclusion of the wider societal failings that kept things from being brought to a stop earlier.

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• Happy St Patrick’s

  March 17, 2009 @ 8:30 am | by Bryan

  

  April Coirdonnier (left) and Maribeth Snyder, both from Florida, USA, enjoying the St. Patrick’s Festival in Dublin March 16. Photo: Eric Luke/The Irish Times

  It’s not quite Christmas, or my birthday, but I get a lot of phone and email traffic on St Patrick’s Day. At some stage of the day, I’ll get an email or call from a friend in Australia. Apparently, the day is no small thing in that country. Family members in England and Canada will phone to find out about the celebrations in Galway. I’ve already swapped notes with a good friend in New Mexico on our respective plans for the day. Last but not least, I may get in touch with friends in Zimbabwe who will be wearing green and celebrating the day. Yes, Zimbabwe.

  For a small country, Ireland knows how to cause waves far beyond its borders. Before my friend in Australia discovered the day for himself, he asked me to describe St. Patrick’s Day. The best that I could come up with at the time was to describe it as Ireland’s version of Australia Day – people meet up, eat, drink, wave flags and let the rest of the world takes notice. In retrospect, looking at the global reach of the occasion and its political significance, that may not have been a bad comparison after all.

  Happy St. Patrick’s Day

  .

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• A tragedy on so many levels

  March 7, 2009 @ 5:18 pm | by Bryan

  

  I’m not going to participate in the speculation around this incident. Hopefully there will be an independent inquiry and the either the rumours will be put to rest or the appropriate action will be taken. Suffice it to say that this is the last thing that Zimbabwe needs at the moment.

  My condolences go out to the Tsvangirais and Mrs Tsvangirai’s family.

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