Opinion

Féile will not be deterred by outrageous threat

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams with some of the festival team in Belfast. Picture by Féile en Phobail 
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams with some of the festival team in Belfast. Picture by Féile en Phobail  Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams with some of the festival team in Belfast. Picture by Féile en Phobail 

IT is outrageous that any organisation, let alone one bearing the name “republican”, would publicly threaten the staff and management of Féile an Phobail, who organise Ireland’s premier community festival, a short time before the 28th Féile opens its doors (today in fact) for another extravaganza of political debate, music, literature, drama and exhibitions and the ever-present craic.

The threat described as “sinister” by Féile’s director, Kevin Gamble, erroneously claimed that Féile was promoting the police.

This bogus claim is a smokescreen to attack Féile’s popular and long-established free speech platform which has seen a diverse range of opinion expressed including: former British soldiers involved in the war here; former loyalist paramilitaries; the current Chief Constable George Hamilton and a range of unionist and nationalist representatives – all promoting views on the state of Irish politics north and south.

People died in this conflict on the streets of west Belfast, Féile’s home, for national freedom; the right to march, organise and free speech. Féile is carrying on that democratic and life-enhancing tradition.

Kevin Gamble was right to make it clear that the threat will not deter Féile from fulfilling its 28-year-old mission reflected in this year’s clar which aims “to show leadership by creating and enabling a compelling environment for passionate debate and new thinking about Ireland’s future.”

And that sentiment is precisely what is on offer over the next eleven days.

There will be two days of debate covering the colossal loss of Palestinian lives due to Israel’s war of occupation in Palestine and the threat posed by ISIS in the Middle East and beyond will also be debated.

Podemos, the recently formed left wing party, will outline its growth and campaign against the Spanish government’s austerity measures as that country remains in political limbo unable to form a government and is facing yet another election, perhaps a decisive one.

The ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement in the US is the topic for Gary Younge, the award winning author, broadcaster and Guardian editor-at-large, who will speak about it at a time when there is a shocking increase in the number of black people being shot dead by the police.

The centenary of 1916 and the First World War continue to reverberate with several lectures on both while the consequences of partition will be raised at events in the form of questions.

Can the left solve Ireland’s problems? Will the north remain in the EU? Will there be a border poll for Irish unity?

Is the union jack more than a flag and where does it fit into the cultural debate about identity today and tomorrow? Another topic is votes for people in the north in Irish presidential elections.

Huge issues facing the people of Ireland.

So to the issues of truth and justice for the relatives whose loved ones were massacred, whether here – Ballymurphy and Loughinisland – or in Amritsar in the Indian Punjab or Guatamala in Latin America.

And no doubt some or all of these issues will be aired at Féile’s flagship event, ‘West Belfast Talks Back’.

Justice delayed is justice denied and the family and friends of Mary Boyle – Ireland’s youngest (6-years-old) and longest missing person – will tell Mary’s and their moving 40-year-old story.

Memories too of a long ago but nonetheless legendary and brave struggle between Britain’s miners and Maggie Thatcher, when the striking miners tried to keep the pits open and their communities alive will be told by the Orgreave Justice Campaign.

The title of this year’s PJ McGrory Memorial Lecture, ‘The Power of Persistence’, by the formidable and inimitable barrister, Mike Mansfield, could easily have been applied to the many justice campaigns reflected in this year’s clar.

The combined resilience of relatives and lawyers have kept hope alive.

The tension between the power of the state and women’s liberation in terms of women controlling their own bodies and where the state’s boundaries begin and end on issues like pregnancy, termination and genital mutilation will be examined by Dr Samina Dornan, a specialist in maternal foetal medicine at Belfast’s Royal Maternity Hospital.

It is an outstanding clar, almost fifty events. For aficionados or first-timers, the pot-pourri of ideas on offer comes at a time of great potential change not unlike the political melting pot that was Ireland in 1916.