Kevin Jenkinson tweetz:
Pupils at [Holy Child] Larkhill Boys’ National School in Dublin in awe of the Apple we won in 1987 after sending in wash powder labels with a slogan!
The panel on last night’s Tonight with Vincent Browne
Last night.
On TV3’s Tonight with Vincent Browne.
The panel was comprised of Syrian lawyer and Dublin restaurant owner Ghandi Mallak, Irish human rights activist and documentary maker Caoimhe Butterly, legal advisor to the Irish Refugee Council Maria Hennessy, and Áine Ní Chonaill, who founded the Immigration Control Platform party in Ennis, Co Clare in 1998.
The panel discussed the war in Syria; the 9 million Syrians who have been displaced – around 5 million within Syria and 4 million who have fled the country; and how, last year, 1.3 million people seeking refuge, not just from Syria, came to Europe, which has a population of 500 million.
A clip from Ms Butterly’s award-winning documentary, The Border, was shown in which two teachers from Aleppo spoke to her from a makeshift refugee camp in Idomeni, on the border of Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, at the beginning of this year.
While introducing it, Ms Butterly said:
“Although this clip focuses on these two Syrian women, these two survivors, I think it’s important also to widen the frame, in terms of migration, out past Syria and not just to exceptionalise the Syrian experience because, horrific as it is, there are people seeking refuge from Congo, from Eritrea, from Afghanistan, from Mali, from multiple other contexts. And conflict is only one one frame with which to view this. There’s also, as you know, climate change and resource grabbing and sectarian persecution, etc. So I think to have a more nuanced understanding of, you know, the determinants of forced migration and to recognise that this is a new reality that the EU has to deal with in a less myopic way and a more human way.”
After the clip, Mr Browne asked Ms Ni Chonaill if, on a humanitarian level, Europe should welcome more refugees – given that countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey have taken the greatest numbers of Syrian refugees and, more importantly, given that Europe had a part of play in the political unrest in some of the countries from which people are fleeing.
During her response, Ms Ni Chonaill said people who left Syria and entered Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey had “already fled the bombs and bullets” and were only moving on for economic reasons.
She said: “Europe has had enough of this.”
From the discussion following this…
Caoimhe Butterly: “I’d just like to respond. I mean, I think for a lot of us who are engaged in refugee solidarity and migrant justice work, or work with the undocumented and with asylum seekers in direct provision, living through the unjust direct provision in Ireland, the xenophobic discourse we’ve just heard, is nothing new to us. I have to say, at this stage, I think we’re all quite used to it, I think to the inhumanity of it, to the complete lack of empathy of it, to the other-ing, and to the selfishness of it ultimately. I think of an approach which prioritises, you know, really excluding those who have every right to seek refuge and lives of dignity in our homes. But, while listening to that, I’m just, I’m back from Calais a couple of days and all I could think of are the families, the women, the men and the children there, of such deep dignity and integrity and bravery, you know, who have risked so much to build lives of safety and I think it’s just a profound shame that this discourse is, you know, given time, that it’s given space…”
Aine Ni Chonaill: “Just listen to that now. What a democracy we live in…”
Butterly: “It’s not about censoring..”
Ni Chonaill: “Those who oppose you must not be heard?”
Butterly: “It’s not about silencing, it’s about widening that window of empathy and actually looking at the consequences of…”
Ni Chonaill: “You just said the discourse shouldn’t take place.”
Butterly: “…of responsibility. No, I think a discussion in which the lives of people who are condemned to death by these policies, at sea and in the backs of airless refrigerated trucks will be continued to be condemned to death by that lack of empathy. I just find it deeply sad and I really wish that those who hold these opinions could go and see, and interact, with these people and listen to their stories.”
Ni Chonaill: “I, particularly since Caoimhe has mentioned Calais, the people in Calais are in a safe country, France, but they have the brazen unadulterated cheek to say, ‘oh that won’t do, it’s got to be Britain. Nowhere else will do us. We’re going to Britain.”
Butterly: “They have families, they come from post-colonial contexts in which they speak English.”
Ni Chonaill: “Oh how, they speak English. ‘Oh I’m not going to go to the trouble to speak French. I’m going to Britain.’ They are in safe country and they have the brazen cheek, backed up by idiots like yourself, to say it’s got to be Britain.”
Maria Hennessy: “They actually have legal rights that aren’t being respected, under the Dublin Regulation, in order to be able to arrive in the UK because they have family members.”
Ni Chonaill: “And they only have to go through the asylum process in France and I’m quite sure that they can communicate with Britain..
Talk over each other
Ni Chonaill: “The right of family reunification is the right of the people in Britain to say ‘I want my relative in Calais to come’, it isn’t actually, I think you being a lawyer, will know that. It isn’t the right of the person in Calais to say ‘I want…'”
Hennessy: “I think you’re confusing now, we’re talking about family reunion under the Dublin Regulation…”
Ni Chonaill: “So am I…”
Hennessy: “…which happens before you’re through an asylum procedure. Well you’re incorrectly quoting it there when you talk about it because…”
Ni Chonaill: “Well I’ll stick to what I’m correct about. They have a brazen cheek to say ‘I’m in France but France won’t do’.”
Hennessy: “They have a right to be reunited with their family members. You have to remember about the principle of family unity within the right to seek asylum with your family members.”
Ni Chonaill: “I consider Britain a decent country and I’m happy for them to do their regulations.”
Vincent Browne: “Do you not feel there’s some obligation on the part of us, as members of the human race, to assist people who are in dire straits, such as the people in Syria, such as the people in parts of Africa, such as the people in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and elsewhere and that we should do our bit to assist those people.”
Ni Chonaill: “No, and on and on and on with your list. And, as Caoimhe said, it was very interesting to listen to her, we must not exceptionalise Syria, neither must we, we must think of all these others ones, including the climate change and she seemed to imply the economic difficulties as well. It is neverending. And the rights you talk about…”
Browne: “I didn’t talk abut rights.”
Ni Chonaill: “No, no, no, sorry…”
Talk over each other
Ni Chonaill: “This right to asylum. Well, really, it’s too much to go into this evening but the Geneva Convention that was set up in 1951 said, and these people know that, it said this applied, I’m putting lay language into it, this applied to, it was a mopping up operation, after world war two, this applied to people displaced after world war two. It applied to nobody else and no other circumstance and in 1967 with the New York protocol, because of the Cold War, and having no idea what was coming down the line in the future, they stupidly expanded it and both of, they never, ever, ever would have signed it, the countries of the west, if they knew what it would mean.”
Browne: “Ok, Maria wants to come in…”
Ni Chonaill: “And there’s an opt-out clause in both of them.”
Browne: “Maria..”
Hennessy: “I just hope you never have to flee conflict..”
Butterly: “I was just thinking the same thing..”
Hennessy: “I really, really hope that you never do because it’s such an inhumane response. I just can’t believe it. It’s truly shocking.”
Ni Chonaill: “Never mind the playing the man, not the ball, stick to the policies..”
Browne: “You’ve been playing the man, you called them stupid a few minutes ago.”
Hennessy: “Okay, so we have our international legal framework within the Geneva Convention, as correct, you referred to the 1967 protocol as well. We’re also part of a Common European Asylum System. And, as part of the Common European Asylum System, we’ve signed up to a number of obligations under the charter of human rights…”
Ni Chonaill: “Which my organisation opposed precisely for this reason…”
Hennessy: “Well, we’re a member of the European Union, we’re part of the Common European Asylum System. Ireland is one of the main, when we talk about the Dublin Regulation, it’s always been signed under the Irish presidency of the Council of the European Union…”
Ni Chonaill: “So what..”
Hennessy: “So we have opted into that Common European Asylum System, it is grounded in international human rights..”
Ni Chonaill: “We have done all these foolish things, yes..”
Hennessy: “…in many ways, but not in all ways. And you just really need to look at the right to asylum being really being guaranteed in practice as well as in law. And I just really hope that you never are in the situation where you have to flee your home.”
Ni Chonaill: “The Geneva Convention should have never been interfered with. It should have been what it said, purely as a mopping up operation after world war two. And both of those things, the convention and the New York protocol have an opt-out clause. Of course the EU would be a different kettle of fish but any country that signed up, as we did in, I think it was [19]54 whatever, every country can give a 12 months’ notice and withdraw from it and if we’d any cop on, that’s what all the countries of the west would be doing.”
Butterly: “Who is we? What constituency do you represent? I mean, really, who is we? Because I would say that there is a deep core of empathy and humanity and compassion in Ireland and I’ve seen that on so many expressions, from the grassroots up and I really hope that, that you can bear witness to some of that, whether it’s on the ground in camps or face to face with people who are prioritising empathy. We can go into policy but I think the core of this is having the basic humanity and decency to see people in times of need and to do the right thing by them.”
Ni Chonaill: “There will be no end to times of need. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea. And on and on and on.”
Watch back in full here
Tiny Hand
at
Donald Trump’s handwriting recreated as a useable font by Buzzfeed graphic designer Mark Davis.
FREE DOWNLOAD: Tiny Hand Will Be Your New Comic Sans (Buzzfeed)
Blue Crew
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Buzz O’Neill Maxwell tweetz:
Looks like they’re not going on strike here, but still picking up lots of cash! (Phoenix , Arizona)
MORE to folly
This afternoon.
Grantham Street Dublin 2.
Stop stinging everyone so.
SWARM!
Thanks Maccers
Further to an earlier post this morning in which the victims of convicted and jailed paedophile Bill Kenneally responded to claims Kenneally made, through an intermediary, to The Irish Times in an article supported by the Mary Raftery Journalism Fund…
Tonight.
On RTÉ One at 10.15pm.
Journalist Mick Peelo will present a Would You Believe documentary called Beyond Redemption?
An explanatory piece about the documentary on RTÉ’s website states:
“…this special, investigative Would You Believe? documentary lifts the lid on Ireland’s sex offenders to discover a number of unpalatable truths: most are not paedophiles, most are never caught or convicted and almost 40% of them are children under 18; most sexual abuse happens within families and is kept secret.”
“Demonising the few sex offenders who are convicted is understandable, perhaps, but takes the focus away from the majority, who continue to operate undetected. In fact, it endangers rather than protects our children and our society.”
“Like it or not, a more humane approach to sex offenders actually reduces further victims.”
In the documentary, Mr Peelo goes to Arbour Hill Prison where he talks to the prison’s Governor Liam Dowling and psychologist Dr Emma Regan about the prison’s sex offenders’ treatment programme. He also meets and interview sex offenders and people who work with them.
In addition, he travels to Canada where, over 20 years ago, a mennonite community took in a paedophile called Charles Taylor in which he took part in a Circle of Support.
RTÉ explains:
“This Christian community built a Circle of Support and Accountability around a man the public had good reason to regard as a dangerous, serial predator, so that he wouldn’t reoffend. For the rest of his life, Taylor never did and those Circles of Support continue to help other offenders to re-build their lives in safety in a community setting.”
These “circles of support” are operating in Ireland, too.
In an article in today’s Irish Times, court reporter Conor Gallagher reported:
Nearly 50 people have volunteered to support and monitor convicted sex offenders in the community, as part of a Probation Service programme which has substantially reduced reoffending in other countries.
The Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) programme, which was launched in Dublin last year, is designed to reintegrate medium to high-risk sex offenders into the community by including them in an informal social support circle of volunteers.
The model originated in a Canadian Mennonite community and has since been successful in Europe.
Studies suggest there has been a 70 per cent reduction in sexual reoffending by those who go through the programme.
…Last year, 45 volunteers were selected following a public recruitment campaign. Individual offenders were put in a group of between four and six volunteers.
… The programme is funded by the Probation Service, at a cost of €71,000 a year, but is run by PACE, an offender rehabilitation organisation headed by Lisa Cuthbert.
Further to this, on this morning’s Today with Seán O’Rourke on RTE One, Mr Peelo discussed his documentary.
Also present to discuss is was Cormac Walsh, who was abused by Michael Byrne, a former teacher and brass band leader, from Templerainey, Arklow, Co Wicklow, and former Toronto police officer Wendy Leaver, who is an advocate of the Circles of Support programme.
Mr Walsh and Ms Leaver – a retired detective of the Toronto Police Services and worked in its Sex Crimes Unit for 20 years – also feature in tonight’s documentary.
From the discussion on the Sean O’Rourke Show…
Sean O’Rourke: “Mick Peelo, can you first outline to us: how did this programme come about and when was that question first posed? Could the way we currently treat sex offenders be doing more harm than good?”
Mick Peelo: “Well, Would You Believe? is celebrating 25 years of making documentaries on RTE and I’ve been working on it for 24 of those 25 years. I’ve been privileged enough to do that. And I suppose in that I’ve made some of the most harrowing and difficult programmes about sexual abuse. But this one, this particular one tonight, is probably the most difficult I’ve ever had to make but, for me, it’s one of the most important. I suppose because it raises hard-hitting questions about offenders of sexual abuse. In a way, I suppose, it makes us sit back and think about how do we treat sex offenders and is the way we treat sex offenders demonising them, isolating them, having a negative impact. And, I suppose, I’ve been hearing back from, over the years, from people working with sex offenders, people who sexually harm, that ‘yes, you in the media are one, a serious problem’ is what they’re saying to me, so, basically, I suppose, I listen to that and listen to sex offenders and ask those questions.”
Poet, sound-artist and film-maker Robin Parmar sat down to watch Adam Curtis’ BBC documentary HyperNormalisation after all the hype.
How did that go?
Well…
Throughout the film he repeats absolutes like “all” and “every”, without support or justification. For example, in the Soviet Union in the 1980s “no-one believed in anything, or had any vision of the future” This is an essentially stupid statement that cannot possibly be true. It betrays Curtis as unwilling to allow his viewer the freedom to consider any reading of a situation, outside his own narrow view.
This attitude is in place from the outset of the film. “No-one has any vision of a different or a better kind of future” he states categorically. Er, “no-one”? Curtis is simply ignorant of the many thinkers from the 1970s until today, who proposed Green, anarchist, communitarian, or other alternatives to state power (a phrase I believe that Curtis never utters)….
It is telling that the film quotes not a single philosopher or political theorist, leaving us in an intellectual vacuum to be filled only by Curtis and his measured inflexible tones….
This is meant to reassure us. But such certitude and absolutist statements are suspect from the beginning, as they replace any deeper or broader understanding…
…I have belaboured this point since it’s symptomatic of Curtis’ approach. He creates a fictional totalising narrative in order to “make sense” of the apparent chaos of today’s society. He essentially uses the same techniques that the film pretends to critique. It’s theatre with himself as the protagonist, a documentary dictator if you will…
“…Patti Smith is singled out for derision, typified as “a new kind of individual radical”. Apparently Curtis is unaware of the antecedents, even though he might have studied the likes of Rimbaud when getting his humanities degree.
Curtis refuses the challenge of placing Smith within the context of rock music, photography (Mapplethorpe), the gallery scene, sexual expression, or, well, anything really. Instead he claims that people like her didn’t try to change anything but instead “turned to art and music as a means of expressing their criticism of society…
…This documentary is a cautionary tale, and Curtis offers no solutions. Those that lie directly under his nose are lost in his hyperopia. Instead, he repeats tired fears that were already played out in the last millennium.”
Gulp.
FIGHT!
The BBC Echo Chamber (Robin Parmar, Theatre of Noise)
Pic: BBC
Yesterday, with a Family pass to Tayto Park’s After Dark VIP experience TONIGHT to giveaway, we asked you to recall your most frightening crisp-related experience..
You answered in your singles.
Runners up:
SB: “My scariest crisp-related experience to date involved doing the tour of the factory at Tayto Park and realising that Tayto and King crisps are both made by the same people!!! And let’s not even mention Hunky Dorys and all the rest.”
IrishStu: “I accidentally ate a green one and almost died.”
Toe Up: “My scariest crisp related experience to date involved watching a particularly tense episode of Home & Away (Alf was about to go nuclear on some flaming mongrels), There I was engrossed in the show when my flatmate snuck up behind me with an empty crisp packet that he had inflated and he burst it beside my ear. I jumped about a foot off the couch with the shock and had a ringing in my ear for the rest of the episode. I’ve never been able to watch Home & Away since, mainly because it’s a pile of poo.”
Papi: “When they go sideways and in between [teeth] and actually get stuck. True story.”
Hank: “My scariest Crisp-related experience to date involved taking a relaxing bath with Quentin.”
But there could only be one winner.
Damien wins the VIP pass for this monstrous snack0fueled nightmare:
‘My scariest crisp-related experience to date involved my late mother making crisp sandwiches for me for my lunch when I was in primary school, when lunchtime came I was so looking forward to my crisp sandwich but the crisps were soggy as she added them to the buttered bread that morning, I was devastated.”
Damien and his family will experience the House of Horrors, night ride the Cu Chulainn Coaster, Air Race, Rotator, Windstar and endeavor the terrifying 5D Horror Movie,
Thanks alNOMNOMNOM
Yesterday: Things That Go Crunch In The Night
Thanks Ian Collins
Ho Thuy Tien waterpark, just outside the city of Hue, between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh.
Abandoned before opening for reasons never quite clarified – its existence denied by some travel agencies – the waterpark has become something of a cult destination for tourists, as nature slowly reclaims its territory.
Twelve years after completion, the park sits empty, except, perhaps, for a family of crocodiles rumoured to live there.