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Jeremy Clarkson and Oisin Tymon

 

Further to the alleged racist and violent assault by BBC Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson on his Irish producer.

Padraig Reidy, Irish born-journalist in Britain, writes:

…The queer thing about anti-Irish racism (and its partner, anti-Catholicism), is that a hell of a lot of British people are in denial about its existence (trust me, Irish people are not). It was, certainly, worse during the “Troubles”, but there is a mistaken belief that the Troubles was the sole reason for anti-Irish feeling.

In truth, of course, it is a hell of a lot more complicated than that. Ireland was one of the first colonies: justification for all colonisation, then as now, is partly found in the dehumanisation of the conquered.

The Irish, with their distinct laws, customs and language, were not really fit to rule themselves (how often is that sentiment echoed today?); we were not diligent, we were not to be trusted: they were, as Mr Clarkson would allegedly have it, “lazy Irish c**ts”.

Every so often, a well-meaning British liberal friend will either a) declare matily that “we’re all the same” and what the hell was all that fighting about, eh? or b) inquire archly about whether, considering the decades of quasi-theocracy the Irish republic endured, and the apparent corruption of the political system, was the whole independence thing really worth it?

And every time, you remind them: yes. We were a colony. We were stripped of land, language, identity. We were routinely demonised and patronised.

…we were not, and never would be viewed as equals by the British establishment. Every Irish person in Britain knows the little nod, the little wink. More often now it is disguised as affection, or indulgence (“Oh, you funny people” is always implied).

But the undertones are the same: feckless, violent, drunken. And occasionally, someone like Clarkson, who, as better writers than I have pointed out, is simultaneously at the very heart of the Establishment while feigning to rail against it, will let it all spill out, in full vitriol.

And we’re back with an image that easily resonates with Irish people: an English toff assaulting a “lazy” Irish lackey for not doing his bidding. What we hoped we’d be able to leave behind.

Jeremy Clarkson and being “lazy Irish” in Britain (Padraig Reidy Little Atoms)

Any excuse

gaza

An injured Palestinian boy in a Gaza hospital yesterday.

 

Irishwoman Elaine Bradley is working as a human rights activist in Palestine where she sent us this report this morning.

Elaine writes:

Waking up I turn on my laptop to see what has happened in the while I slept. I am almost instantly hit by an image. I can’t make out if it is one body ripped in two, or two bodies, both missing a number of parts.

By the clothes on one, I am guessing it it is a young man – jeans and a belt that my son might wear. The human remains are against a wall in a pool of blood, draped over with blood soaked sheets. The photo is taken in a hospital, and is accompanied by the bizarre scene of the twisted metal of hospital beds in the total wreckage of what was a ward.

My friend who posted this image declares that he has a policy of not posting gruesome photos, a policy that he has now abandoned. Why? Because “This is the hospital that Israel shelled today… But the BBC felt it was better use of our license fee money to have [reporter]  John Simpson show us a broken chandelier in Sderot instead.”

Five  people were killed and 70 injured in this place of healing, where men and women work, dedicating their lives to comfort and to mend other sick and broken human beings. I think of my daughter who is a nurse. Hospitals have special status, special protection under international law, as they should. Bombing a hospital is a war crime.

And yet this is the second hospital that Israel has bombed that I am aware of in the two weeks of this onslaught, where one of the world’s most sophisticated military machines has pitted itself against a locked in, half starved civilian population.

Where are the international community? Where are the guardians of the laws demanding that this stop? Yesterday I saw Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights with the UN on television. It was in Arabic so I didn’t know what she said. I went to the internet and found her statement.

The bit that jumped out and slapped me in the face was where she expressed her “concern”. Concern? I am concerned about things like the size of my phone bill and whether my cat has settled in to her new home. Concern for Gaza, where now over 570 people have been killed, 80% civilians, last count 132 of them children. Over 3,500 people injured and maimed – a 5 year old with her legs amputated, Concerned? What about outraged? Appalled? Horrified?

The UN are concerned and the mask is off. This latest holocaust against Gaza has exposed a world where our media lie, and spin the truth. Where craven politicians will not stand against power – John Kerry saying Israeli is besieged by Hamas- do I laugh or cry? My own government repeating the zombie mantra about Israel’s right to defend itself as they watch women and children buried in the rubble of their own homes.

And all the while Israel continues its colonisation of Palestine, settling jews from Eastern Europe and the Bronx on land that is not theirs, criminalising – labelling as terrorists the rightful owners, to make their misdeeds acceptable to a willing-to-be-appeased-just-give-us-the-right-soundbite global audience.

Say “Hamas” often enough and no one will notice. Exposed is a world where the institutions of human rights and justice offer platitudes but no action and hold yet another emergency meeting, having never implemented the recommendations of the last report, or the one before, as to do so would “jeopardise the peace process” according to the US and Israel. The Fucking Peace Process?

And while the UN frowns a collective bureaucratic, high salaried, important people in suits doing important things frown of concern, a friend of mine is pulling out the stops, navigating Israel’s impenetrable system of closure to get baby formula into Gaza. From the complications, it is as if he were smuggling crack cocaine inside AK47s.

I haven’t had my coffee yet, haven’t woken up. But I swear, that I will turn my rage into action for justice. Israel cannot once again evade accountability for these crimes. And to all the institutions that have collaborated in this gross injustice, by repeating the lies or by looking the other way, you will crumble and fall. The mask is off and people know.

We have seen that in your system human rights are not for everyone, that one life is precious and another is less than insignificant. We have seen that not all children are treasures to be cherished and childhood is not a sacred space for all children. We have seen that in your world it is ok for homes and places of worship and hospitals to become the killing zones, the tombs of innocent people. We have seen how liars and psychopaths with power are bowed down to. But justice will prevail because now we, the people know.

Elaine Bradley.

(AP)

-1-1Should you cycle at night…

Monique Kelleher (above) writes:

I was involved in an incident last night on Mercer Street in Dublin 2. A group of kids had tied rope from pole to pole across the road targeting cars and cyclists. I was cycling past and my neck got caught in the rope causing me to fly off my bike and hit the ground. Luckily I haven’t broken any bones, and have come away with light injuries (above and below) but someone else may not be so lucky. I just want to warn other cyclists and the public that this is happening as I haven’t heard of it before in Dublin.

 

 

-2

He was expecting a light interview on the sofa.

What Michael Martin got this morning, however, was a comprehensive and pretty extraordinary basting by Ireland AM’s Sinead Desmond and Mark Cagney.

Sinead Desmond: “You’re representing a new Fianna Fail, but then I was thinking about two things from your past.  One of them being a – totally legitimate – donation by Owen O’Callaghan that found its way into your wife’s Dublin bank account. That seemed strange to me and had a sniff of the old Fianna Fail.

“And the second thing, in the Mahon Tribunal you were asked if you ever brought Owen O’Callaghan to meet Bertie Ahern and you said no that you would have remembered if such a thing happened. And then you were shown Mr Ahern’s ministerial diary which seemed to recollect a meeting between yourself, Bertie Ahern and Owen O’Callaghan but you said you couldn’t recall it. I’ll give you a chance to explain but both of those incidents smell of the old Fianna Fail that put ourselves in the position we find ourselves in.”

Michael Martin: “I think that’s very unfair because I gave a very comprehensive account to the Tribunal on this…You’ve picked out two things…I gave a very comprehensive account and documentary evidence to the effect in terms of that donation that the money was spent on the party’s electoral operation in that local election. We showed the receipts – we didn’t have the full receipts, but we showed the receipts also the money left very quickly in the month around the General Election itself so every political party got donations at that time and they didn’t have to declare them.

Sinead Desmond: “But it ended up in your wife’s bank account?”

Martin: “My wife and I worked together in terms of the politics at the time. There’s nothing strange about that. We both lived in Dublin for that period and so there was nothing in that. When I say I lived in Dublin I was up here during the week in the Dail. Mary worked in Dublin for that year so there’s nothing wrong with that at all and no one has ever suggested any impropriety or any wrongdoing in terms of that.”

Desmond: “Neither was I.”

Martin: “Yeah (laughs) but when it’s taken out like that in full isolation like that it creates an innuendo and it creates an issue when there was none and in fact all I was ever was asked and every TD was asked at the time was for a list of donations that they received from that gentleman (O’Callaghan).”

“And I gave them full comprehensive information with receipts which I even didn’t have to have at the time but I did and presented what I had at that time and there’s never been a suggestion by anyone that there anything wrong or any impropriety in relation to that”

Desmond: “What about the meeting mentioned in The Mahon Tribunal.”

Martin: “I never had a meeting with Bertie and Owen O’Callaghan.”

Desmond: “It’s all there recorded in his diary.”

Martin: “But it wasn’t you see even the tribunal itself didn’t seem to be going into (pause) I don’t want to be going into this because it’s based on the report (pause) didn’t seem to be too clear about it (pause, dry mouth) never any indication in advance that that was going to be raised (pause) I certainly didn’t…(trails off)”

Watch the full interview here