A Terrible Beauty Is Worn

Admin at 1:38 pm March 29, 2016

Imelda May during last night’s Centenary show wearing a Grace Cuff by Maria Parsons of new jewellery brand Terrible Beauty

You may have spotted Imelda May’s alluringly ornate wrist clasp last night on the telly?

Charmaine Kenny at The Irish Workshop, writes:

When you think of Irish jewellery that is inspired by something intrinsically Irish, images of Celtic swirls, St. Brigid crosses and harp emblems probably spring to mind. But we’ve discovered a jewellery collection that is Irish to the core yet about as far removed from such clichés as you can get. Introducing Terrible Beauty, a new Irish jewellery brand – the work of award winning jewelry designer Maria Parsons.

Maria’s first collection under the Terrible Beauty brand is inspired by the events of 1916, and each of the three series in the collection are named after women of the Rising – Constance Markievicz, Grace Gifford and Maud Gonne.

One of Maria’s grandfathers worked in the GPO in 1916, while the other worked in Boland’s Mill – so this collection is close to Maria’s heart. We were excited to spot on last night’s Centenary programme that Imelda May (above) is a fan of Terrible Beauty’s Grace Cuff too.

Terrible Beauty (The Irish Workshop)

Irish-made stuff to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie marked ‘Irish-made stuff’

Meanwhile, On Liffey Street

Admin at 12:52 pm March 29, 2016

This afternoon.

Garry McNulty writes:

Sad day on Liffey Street, Dublin 1, today.

Anyone?

The Epicurean Foodhall (Facebook)

The Irish Times’ Easter Rising

Admin at 12:43 pm March 29, 2016

I notice that The Irish Times Saturday edition cost me an extra 20 cent at my local newsagent. An Easter rising indeed!

Norman Lowther,
Raheny,
Dublin 5.

Anyone?

Commemorating The Rising (Irish Times letters page)

Reach Out To Muslims

Admin at 12:42 pm March 29, 2016

From top: Chair Of The Irish Muslim Peace and Intergration Council Shaykh Dr Umar Al Qadri addressing an Anti-racism rally at the GPO last year; Dr Julien Mercille

It’s time reach out to Muslims in constructive and peaceful ways to counteract ISIS propaganda.

Dr Julien Mercille writes:

And here we go again. Another terrorist attack on Europe claimed by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), on Brussels this time. This post explains the strategy that ISIS employs and two types of reactions in the media and commentary.

The first, and dominant, response puts oil on the fire. It is xenophobic and Islamophobic. And in fact, it plays into the hands of ISIS because it is exactly what the terrorists want: a divided people.

The second type of response, in a minority unfortunately, is to react by rejecting the black and white view that ISIS seeks to propagate and to reach out to Muslims.

The strategy employed by ISIS is simple:

1. Create chaos where there is calm (for example, by hitting unsuspecting targets in cities like Paris and Brussels).

2. Use vicious methods to polarise populations. Most Muslims live happily in secular societies. They live in what ISIS calls the “grey zone”. The objective is to drive them toward extremism either by attracting them through displays of power or by instilling fear in them or by scaring non-Muslims into taking revenge on them: in short, the “grey zone” needs to be transformed into a black and white world of “Good” versus “Evil”.

We can react in two ways to ISIS attacks and propaganda: either we support their Machiavellian plans, or we counteract them.

The first option is to fall into their trap and put more oil on the fire and thereby help ISIS spread chaos and boost their recruiting drive.

That’s what politicians like Donald Trump are doing by claiming that there is some sort of divide between the “fanatical Muslim world” and the “reasonable Western world”.

In the wake of the Brussels bombings, Trump said: “I would close up our borders” to prevent dangerous Muslims from getting into the US. Previously, after the Paris attacks, he had called for a temporary ban on all Muslims who wish to enter the US. He also promised to use waterboarding and even go beyond that when interrogating terrorists.

Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister who was a strong ally of George W. Bush in the invasion of Iraq, is also of that mindset.

He wrote an article this weekend in which he declared that. “We are at war with Islamist extremism” and need to be, “preparing for a conflict that is longer than anything we have seen in modern times”.

Because what we face are extremist Muslims of which there are, “many millions… across the globe”.

Blair says that we need to be ready to send Western military troops on the ground in the Middle East. In short, we must “rediscover our muscularity”.

And we must also use our allies.

But who are they?

Blair says: “Saudi Arabia is our ally” and “Israel is also our ally”.

The fact that Israel and Saudi Arabia are two extremist forces spreading chaos in the Middle East is irrelevant for Blair.

In Ireland, some commentators seem also to have fallen into ISIS’s trap.

For example, Carol Hunt, who is running for the Seanad for the NUI panel, wrote in the Sunday Independent that we shouldn’t be scared of criticising Islam and all its problems.

After all, we have “to protect Western values” of openness and plurality against the bad Muslims. She asks suggestively: “Can we be unambiguous in our belief that some cultures are indeed superior to others”?

And: “Can we admit that a culture which espouses universal human rights is indeed superior to one which treats some individuals as lesser beings because of gender, sexual orientation or religious belief?”

In short, Western culture is superior to Muslim culture.

However, this assertion works only if you remove the part that there is a big culture of militarism in the West in which a lot of people are cheering on their militaries to invade other countries; and if you remove the fact that Western governments don’t care about “universal human rights”; etc.

But there is a second option: reach out to Muslims in constructive and peaceful ways to counteract ISIS propaganda.

For example, Juan Cole, the professor of history who specialises in religion and Islam, wrote an excellent piece in which he made the following remarks on how to react to the tragedy in Brussels:

1. “Stop suggesting that there is something wrong with Muslims that they keep producing terrorists. All the major world faiths produce violent people. In the Rwanda genocide of the 1990s, Christian Hutus murdered between 500,000 and 1 million other people, and the Christian churches were deeply involved in enabling this slaughter.”

2. “Muslims are a sixth of humankind and hail from all sorts of backgrounds, ethnicities, and languages. There are 40 million Chinese Muslims. There are 23 million Russian ones. Ethiopian Muslims and Senegalese Muslims have little in common despite being African, and neither has much in common with Bangladeshi Muslims. To tag all of them with the actions of some violent Brussels slum-dwellers of North African heritage is weird. It is exactly like assuming that all American Christians want to kill Tutsis, just because Hutu Christians did.”

3. “Show your Muslim neighbour some love. ISIS does these horrible things to get people of Christian heritage to be beastly to the Muslims in their midst, spreading hatred and anger and a sense of victimization. ISIS is hoping to use *you* to drive other Muslims into their arms. They want to make you a recruitment officer. They want you to hate and they want you to fear. There is only one way to combat this tactic of sharpening contradictions. Refuse to hate and refuse to be afraid. Bend over backwards to be nice to Muslims.”

So we must choose: Do we want to be on the side of ISIS by supporting Islamophobia and throwing oil on the fire?

Or are we ready not to fall into their trap and reject their ridiculous black and white view of the world?

Julien Mercille specialises in US foreign policy and terrorism and is a lecturer at University College Dublin. Follow him on Twitter: @JulienMercille

To The Pitchfork

Admin at 11:43 am March 29, 2016

You may recall a post regarding an article on music website Pitchfork (above) in relation to Ireland’s rap scene and, specifically, how the children of African migrants and asylum seekers in Ireland have ‘legitimatised’ the scene.

Further to this…

Derek Hopper writes:

Love it or loathe it – and as many people loathe it as love it – Pitchfork is the millennial generation’s MTV. The hipster’s bible of all things musical, it reaches millions of fans every month and is so influential that its rating system has even been the subject of an hilarious hatchet-job by those masters of satire The Onion (“Pitchfork gives music 6.8”).

That’s why it was so troubling for me to read their article about up-and-coming Dublin hip-hop acts who just so happen to comprise young black men.

The headline read “Meet the African Immigrants Who Are Legitimizing Ireland’s Hip-Hop Scene”.

Legitimizing Ireland’s hip-hop scene.

Not “contributing to” or “improving”, both of which would have been fine and probably true. No, apparently they’re “legitimizing” it.

That’s the first problem. How exactly are Irish people of Nigerian (i.e. a country in Africa some five thousand miles from The Bronx) parentage “legitimizing” the Irish hip-hop scene?

Hip-hop’s exact origins are the subject of some debate but everyone accepts that it is an American art form, just like jazz or the blues. And the vast majority will agree that it has been predominantly an African- American music. Not African. Not black. But African-American.

Pitchfork’s article was no doubt well-intentioned, but it betrays a troubling ignorance of black America in its failure to distinguish between black people in the United States and black people in Africa and elsewhere.

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time someone has conflated “African-American” with “African”. The legendary drummer Art Blakey and many other jazz musicians had to regularly contend with this blunder too, when white critics sought an absurd and patronising link between jazz and the “natural rhythm” of the dark continent’s noble savages.

Blakey stated, “No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa”. Sorry Pitchfork and sorry Dublin rappers, but it’s the same thing with hip- hop.

What is it that makes hip-hop “legitimate”?

If it’s poverty then these guys are in the wrong place, because they left actual hardship back in Nigeria. Many will acknowledge that much of modern hip-hop is founded upon a sense of victimhood.

If your mom was a crack-whore and your dad abandoned you as a toddler and your brother was shot by a racist cop and you grew up in the Baltimore projects it means you’re genuine. You’re street.

But Ireland has a humane welfare state. The cops don’t shoot black people. Lame, I know, but cops in Ireland don’t even carry guns. When you’re poor in Ireland you get free healthcare and free education.

So where’s the edge going to come from if you want to be the Irish Kendrick Lamar? You don’t sell records rapping about the injustice of water charges.

The article goes on to talk about “entrenched racism” in Ireland and in the same breath mentions the country’s skyrocketing Nigerian population.

As a white man I’m not going to say black people in Ireland don’t experience racism from time to time, but don’t insult my intelligence and the reputation of the Irish people by suggesting that Africans are immigrating to a country that treats them like garbage. That’s not how humans operate.

Forgive me also for finding rather dramatic Dah Jevu’s burning of a KKK-style mask, which they say is symbolic of their rejection of Irish racism.

The average joe in the street may be forgiven for thinking the Klan were simply a bunch of assorted white racists who took pleasure in lynching black folk, but hip-hop heads can’t be given carte blanche, especially when they’re putting the KKK and Ireland in the same postcode.

If they want to spit political venom they have a responsibility to read their history books, and if they did that they’d quickly learn that the Klan were no friends of the Catholic Irish. History is rarely as black and white as the narrative in people’s heads.

It seems that Pitchfork wants to define hip-hop not as a uniquely African-American music and an art-form born of the black experience in the United States, but as something centred on the melanin content of a person’s skin.

Hip-hop’s origins are in 1970s New York, yet many of the “New Irish” – whose roots are in African countries like Nigeria and Zimbabwe – are being viewed as bona fide producers of hip-hop music because they happen to look like black people in America.

This is ridiculous. It is also racist: it posits the existence of a single, global “black people” of uniform experience while totally ignoring the specifically African-American reasons for hip-hop’s efflorescence at a particular time and place.

This new generation of Irish hip-hop acts may be black, and they may be talented, but the truth is they have no more legitimacy than the white Irish rappers who came before them.

Previously: Decent Irish Rappers

From the Outside In: Meet the African Immigrants Who Are Legitimizing Ireland’s Hip-Hop Scene (Dean Van Nguyen, Pitchfork)