I DON’T know if it’s just that this is a profoundly depressing time of the year, but I can’t feel even remotely optimistic about the prospect of the ongoing talks process which, at the time of writing, seems to be swimming in porridge.
Maybe it’s because it’s equally hard to feel joy at the possibility of restarting Stormont with the same personnel, the same mindsets and, as the RHI inquiry displayed, the same woefully inept senior civil servants bolstering the dysfunctional government.
One of the main stumbling blocks for the DUP is apparently the introduction of a stand-alone Irish language act because in our crazed 'us and themmuns' political system, one side can’t be seen to get one over on the other.
“When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver” is often wrongly attributed to the Nazi leader Herman Goering when it was actually a character from a German play. But I feel pretty much the same when I hear the word being bandied around as a so-called 'balance' to language legislation.
I didn’t realise how much I now want an Irish language act until I heard enlightened people like Mervyn Gibson and Jim Allister drone on about how it will lead to the de-Britishising of Northern Ireland. You’d think the plan was to herd the whole place into a compulsory Gaeltacht from which there’d be no escape; Arlene Foster would have to be referred to as the 'bean an tí' instead of first minister, while Gregory Campbell would end up in one of those Chinese style re-education camps until he’d stopped currying his yoghurt.
Was there a widespread de-Brtishing in Scotland and Wales when they passed their language legislation or did I miss something? It’s important to remember that the ILA is supported not solely by Sinn Féin, but also the Alliance party, SDLP, Greens and People Before Profit. It doesn’t threaten anyone who has no interest in it. If that simple truth can’t be grasped by unionists then I seriously wonder what hope there is for shared government here.
Before I sound too completely negative, though, there was a rare moment on Twitter which lifted the gloom. The UUP MLA Doug Beattie tweeted that January 4 would be a hard day for the Reavey and O’Dowd families and the Kingsmills familes. There was a wave of gratitude in response and one person tweeted a quote from Seamus Heaney’s Nobel speech.
He described the massacre when gunmen lined the workers up and demanded they declare their religion. One man, fearing his Catholic colleague would be singled out by what they thought were loyalists, squeezed his hand as if to say they would not betray him. But the Catholic was let go and the gunmen mowed down his 10 Protestant workmates. Heaney said the future of Ireland lay not in the gunfire, but in the hand squeeze.
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THE horrific story of the 19-year-old English girl given a suspended sentence by a Cypriot court for “public mischief” after she withdrew her complaint of gang rape, has already had serious consequences beyond the impact on the victim herself.
She was treated appallingly by the police and judiciary in Cyprus. She only retracted her accusation against a group of Israeli youths after being questioned for eight hours alone and without a lawyer present.
Despite clear medical evidence of injuries, the judge accepted the youths’ claim that she had consented to group sex, believing in some porn world where women like that sort of thing. Then, to add insult to injury, she ends up in the dock.
The case has brought a wave of criticism of the Cypriot authorities, but more worryingly, rape crisis organisations have warned the publicity surrounding the affair will deter many rape victims from coming forward.
I’m sure it was just a coincidence that Cyprus has recently signed a multi-billion-pound gas pipeline deal with Israel.
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A QUICK dander round the block last weekend made me realise I am part of a dying breed of people who keep their Christmas tree up until after the Epiphany.
I think the Magi have had a bum deal. Off they set, “a cold coming… at the worst time of year for such a journey,” as TS Eliot wrote, only to find that everything has been packed away in the roof space by all those people who put up their decorations in November and got tired looking at them by January.
Give the Wise Men a break. We could do with them up on the Hill.
