Franklin Lamb from Tehran with a piece on the worrying situation in Syria. It initially featured in Counterpunch on 27 August 2013.
Prince Bandar and the Zionist Lobby
Prince Bandar and the Zionist Lobby
It is not that the chapel is mute about matters that prick its interest. It has shown Olympian sprinting skills when it comes to racing off to complain about something that has offended the editor. Seemingly it is a chapel that worships at the altar of the management.
Immediately upon my ban from the NUJ by its bombastic Ethics Council a journalist from the paper rang me for my thoughts which didn’t really amount to much other than I would hardly notice the suspension. My reasoning was simple. When a union, steered by a leadership not inoculated against the back seat driving folly of the Ethics Council, buckles to Leveson’s demand for state regulation of the press, I very much subscribe to the view, ‘if the National Union of Journalists won't defend journalism, what's the point of it?’
And so it was in this vein that I told the Irish News that I considered the ban an act of censorship, which the paper both sought and endorsed. I also expressed the view that the ban was comparable to being denied membership of the igloo builders of the Sahara. Perhaps, I reckoned, there were as many building igloos in the desert, as there are people in the Ethics Council protecting journalism from state regulation. The paper did quote me fairly enough. It didn’t carry all I said but media never does, nor can it be expected to. And as it didn’t manipulate what I said out of context I had few grounds for complaint, or none that I was prepared to bring before those upstanding ethical denizens of the Ethics Council.
I did, however, happen to find out later that despite the sweet talk from the Irish News on the phone a member of the paper’s NUJ chapel was, on the day following its reporting of my suspension, tattling to the Ethics Council. It was wrongly alleged that I was making ‘frankly libellous comments about the members of the Ethics Committee’ on this blog. I say Sarah, old girl, the rotter is scurrilous, and frankly my dear he doesn’t give a damn.
Dearie me and my oh my, heaven save us from the profanity of an independent thought. What that had to do with the chapel I am not quite sure. That it was so eager to write ‘Dear Sarah’ letters came as no surprise to me. I wasn’t even disappointed with it. As Nietzsche knew so well, those born to crawl will never fly. The kiss-up kick-down ethic seems to have considerable purchase within that particular chapel of the NUJ. In any event there is nothing that I said about the Ethics Council that I could not stand over. I have said it since its farcical hearing in Belfast and will continue to say it. The Ethics Council is a bastion of journalistic wankerdom. And what?
I neither know nor care if the ‘Dear Sarah’ letter writer’s behaviour was particularly unethical, even if I suspect it had an underhand tone to it. It did strike me that the denunciation was made in the hope of causing me even more trouble than the writer hoped I was already in. If this archer of unsteady hand and dubious aim thought they were going to send an arrow through the heart of my appeal, how disappointed they must have been when the result came through. But that’s journalistic collegiality for you.
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As the reader can see - which the letter writer does not want you to see - is the claim that I was not behaving towards Allison Morris as the paper thought I should. And the point is? I no more have to respect Allison Morris than she has to respect me. Unlike the supine NUJ chapel at the Irish News, I don’t happen to think that is some sort of journalistic crime for which a member of the union should be sanctioned. Then again my views on ethics and those of the people at the Irish News would seem to be radically different and now seem to clash frequently enough. While I have a consistent ‘put up with’ attitude to its views they seem to take a ‘shut up’ response to mine. Not a very rewarding experience trying to shut me up.
One of the complaints is that I published Allison Morris’s ‘confidential’ complaint to the committee (just as I am doing here with the chapel’s ‘confidential’ letter to the same committee). So, what the chapel wanted was secret evidence that the public would not have access to, old style Soviet anonymous denunciation. The concept of secret evidence is enough to send most journalists' noses twitching. Not the UDM type lot who populate the Irish News chapel!
The chapel of course praised the committee for the professional work it did in finding against me. Now, there are many things I am prepared to accuse the Ethics Council of but professionalism does not figure among them.
Not only has the Irish News chapel prostrated itself before the Ethics Council it has also exhibited bovine conformity to what it thinks the editor/bishop wants, leading me to suspect that the virus of co-option has been cause for rejoicing rather than resisting. Just as under a regime of old style corporatism, the chapel has been co-opted into the church of the management. These supposed NUJ colleagues at the paper for reasons yet to be plausibly explained wanted to see me done over at a time when I was immersed in fighting what was one of the biggest source protection cases in recent years — in order to what? Spare the feelings of the person who arguably set the whole thing in motion?
If so, it is a chapel in the wrong church.
May this fireside warmth exude from this book to extend a heartfelt and hearth welcome from my Irish fireside to your fireside, wherever your fire is aglow - Sean Mac Eachaidh
The author is a good friend who lives in Belfast, so it is not that often that we get to see him these days. When we lived up North he would call at our home, often late in the evening when there was a lull in his work schedule, armed with 2 litres of milk, a hint that a cup of tea would not go unrewarded. The reward was an hour or two of his chat as he talked and reminisced.
A natural story teller it seemed just about right that he would produce a book titled A Guide to the Silence of the Irish Other World. In the language of the hearth he refers to the influence of his 'daddy' and 'mammy' without the slightest trace of self consciousness: an innocence of style that makes his writing all the more authentic.
Being a tour guide the author is au fait with the lay of the land and would seem to know more about its less accessible parts than anyone else I am aware of, apart perhaps from IRA quartermasters and its unit the Unknowns responsible for many of the disappearances of people that occurred during its failed campaign.
Normally not the type of book I would pick up, I enjoyed this one. That would not make me a particularly objective reviewer, it invariably being difficult to be detached about the creativity of friends.
Sean writes in that homely way that is his nature. His ‘wee book’ and his 'wee part of Ireland' all endear the reader to the author. It doesn’t work for all who try to wax folksy when all they are doing in the most transparent of manners is to add oomph to a sales pitch. The style succeeds here because here is substance to it and the author has that knack of sounding believable.
When he talks about sitting at fires and the centrality of the fire to the Irish home and family life, no great effort is expended in visualising the scene. He speaks of his family with love and its toleration of him for many years visiting 'the lesser known places of Ireland to seek out another fairy ring, fairy tree, standing stone or sacred well.'
Throughout his life people have prompted him to write a book about the Ireland that he has seen. And he speaks about the support of his anam cairde (soul friends) who 'without prejudice or censorship' encouraged him. Now he has, in a combination of text and graphics, shared it with us.
While he hits out at the violence of bombs and bullets he also points an accusatory finger towards the violent suppression of self expression. 'I am not aware of anyone who has died from talking.' True. Although I would hazard a guess and say that after hearing Nelson McCausland talking people have died from listening. Censorship never writes, merely obliterates and Sean's roaming mind and sense of natural inquisitiveness would have died like the caged lark Bobby Sands wrote about, were the censors to envelop him with their blotters and erasers.
He writes that if stones could only talk 'how much more would be revealed.' In some societies stones are used to stop people from talking, raining down on their heads catapulted in molten anger from the righteous hands of the men from god. Sean seeks to find words in stones other than ‘verbotten.’
Nelson McCausland, one of those men of god, would take enormous offence at the description in this book of the Giants Causeway being around 60 million years old. The Caleb Foundation would beg to differ, insisting that its estimation of around 6 thousand years be given equal status with the scientific information. A real fairy tale.
Sean takes a 'herstory' approach to the book, fed up with the history as seen through the eyes of men. Her story or his story, Sean's story casts a cynical eye over the claims of the great and the good when he reminds his readership that we are in 'another Irish era of post conflict.'
I love his response to the question how should the people of Derry feel about their city being called Londonderry?: 'The same way that people in London would feel if their city was prefixed by the term Derry to make their city DerryLondon.'
He talks of the magical silent Irish other world. I accept the licence with which he writes even though I don't buy into religion or magic, failing to detect any appreciable difference, other than the fact that magicians know it is a con. No culture can afford to overlook its myths and legends. And in this book the legend of Oisin is repeated alongside that of King Lir's children. When the author refers to the parting pales of Ireland which are said to possess a veil like portal separating the passageway between earthly Ireland the otherworldly Ireland, the sense of legend pulsates. And when he talks about the leprechauns the smile on his face registers instantly and vividly. It is a work of sacred fairy trees which even the most sceptical would recoil from cutting down.
Nor does his dismissal of postmodern cynicism upset me. I see postmodernism as a useful deconstructive hammer rather than a trowel, something that takes apart rather puts together, but a necessary harbinger of the new. I love the challenge posed by postmodern scepticism. And in an odd sort of way postmodernism might well allow for the magical structure alluded to in this work to be on a par with other structures.
Sean hopes that the work will complement the tours he so often guides which are for the most part restricted to the North of the country which gives the book a Northern focus. It is offered to the reader through a green lens which the author to his credit makes no attempt to disguise.
And for the inhabitants of West Belfast this is something I don't think I had heard before but which caught my eye - Amcomri Street is an acronym for the American Committee for Relief in Ireland.
Branch by branch of the magical tree the author draws his readers to the top from which the view of the otherworld he writes about is majestic. Many people thinking of visiting Ireland and going on one of the many tours referred to here will discover in this book another little magical twinkling path just waiting to be treaded.
The author is a good friend who lives in Belfast, so it is not that often that we get to see him these days. When we lived up North he would call at our home, often late in the evening when there was a lull in his work schedule, armed with 2 litres of milk, a hint that a cup of tea would not go unrewarded. The reward was an hour or two of his chat as he talked and reminisced.A natural story teller it seemed just about right that he would produce a book titled A Guide to the Silence of the Irish Other World. In the language of the hearth he refers to the influence of his 'daddy' and 'mammy' without the slightest trace of self consciousness: an innocence of style that makes his writing all the more authentic.
Being a tour guide the author is au fait with the lay of the land and would seem to know more about its less accessible parts than anyone else I am aware of, apart perhaps from IRA quartermasters and its unit the Unknowns responsible for many of the disappearances of people that occurred during its failed campaign.
Normally not the type of book I would pick up, I enjoyed this one. That would not make me a particularly objective reviewer, it invariably being difficult to be detached about the creativity of friends.
Sean writes in that homely way that is his nature. His ‘wee book’ and his 'wee part of Ireland' all endear the reader to the author. It doesn’t work for all who try to wax folksy when all they are doing in the most transparent of manners is to add oomph to a sales pitch. The style succeeds here because here is substance to it and the author has that knack of sounding believable.
When he talks about sitting at fires and the centrality of the fire to the Irish home and family life, no great effort is expended in visualising the scene. He speaks of his family with love and its toleration of him for many years visiting 'the lesser known places of Ireland to seek out another fairy ring, fairy tree, standing stone or sacred well.'
Throughout his life people have prompted him to write a book about the Ireland that he has seen. And he speaks about the support of his anam cairde (soul friends) who 'without prejudice or censorship' encouraged him. Now he has, in a combination of text and graphics, shared it with us.
While he hits out at the violence of bombs and bullets he also points an accusatory finger towards the violent suppression of self expression. 'I am not aware of anyone who has died from talking.' True. Although I would hazard a guess and say that after hearing Nelson McCausland talking people have died from listening. Censorship never writes, merely obliterates and Sean's roaming mind and sense of natural inquisitiveness would have died like the caged lark Bobby Sands wrote about, were the censors to envelop him with their blotters and erasers.
He writes that if stones could only talk 'how much more would be revealed.' In some societies stones are used to stop people from talking, raining down on their heads catapulted in molten anger from the righteous hands of the men from god. Sean seeks to find words in stones other than ‘verbotten.’
Nelson McCausland, one of those men of god, would take enormous offence at the description in this book of the Giants Causeway being around 60 million years old. The Caleb Foundation would beg to differ, insisting that its estimation of around 6 thousand years be given equal status with the scientific information. A real fairy tale.
Sean takes a 'herstory' approach to the book, fed up with the history as seen through the eyes of men. Her story or his story, Sean's story casts a cynical eye over the claims of the great and the good when he reminds his readership that we are in 'another Irish era of post conflict.'
I love his response to the question how should the people of Derry feel about their city being called Londonderry?: 'The same way that people in London would feel if their city was prefixed by the term Derry to make their city DerryLondon.'
He talks of the magical silent Irish other world. I accept the licence with which he writes even though I don't buy into religion or magic, failing to detect any appreciable difference, other than the fact that magicians know it is a con. No culture can afford to overlook its myths and legends. And in this book the legend of Oisin is repeated alongside that of King Lir's children. When the author refers to the parting pales of Ireland which are said to possess a veil like portal separating the passageway between earthly Ireland the otherworldly Ireland, the sense of legend pulsates. And when he talks about the leprechauns the smile on his face registers instantly and vividly. It is a work of sacred fairy trees which even the most sceptical would recoil from cutting down.
Nor does his dismissal of postmodern cynicism upset me. I see postmodernism as a useful deconstructive hammer rather than a trowel, something that takes apart rather puts together, but a necessary harbinger of the new. I love the challenge posed by postmodern scepticism. And in an odd sort of way postmodernism might well allow for the magical structure alluded to in this work to be on a par with other structures.
Sean hopes that the work will complement the tours he so often guides which are for the most part restricted to the North of the country which gives the book a Northern focus. It is offered to the reader through a green lens which the author to his credit makes no attempt to disguise.
And for the inhabitants of West Belfast this is something I don't think I had heard before but which caught my eye - Amcomri Street is an acronym for the American Committee for Relief in Ireland.
Branch by branch of the magical tree the author draws his readers to the top from which the view of the otherworld he writes about is majestic. Many people thinking of visiting Ireland and going on one of the many tours referred to here will discover in this book another little magical twinkling path just waiting to be treaded.
Guest writer Sean Matthews, An Irish anarchist living in Melbourne, Australia gives his perspective on the 'asylum seeker' debate there leading up to the forthcoming elections. He argues Irish workers should be standing in solidarity with the most marginalised and dispossessed in this society.
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