The sad truth is that we all choose to ignore the truth!

Due to my need for a break, this piece was written several weeks ago. Since then, such is the way of the world, there may well have been a major terrorist attack in a country near us.
And there may not have been.
As we become older we see bigger pictures, and truths gradually reveal themselves to us.
A realisation dawns that we are all complicit in lies of such enormous proportion that it becomes wearying to write them down.
As Greek tragic dramatist Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC) pointed out, "In war, truth is the first casualty."
Sometimes you just have to stick your head above the parapet and spell out some truth, so that it doesn't die a death.
We all know that the US bombing and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan is not going to defeat Al Qaeda.
We all know that the Taliban will probably prevail, however undesirable that may be. We all know that the so-called 'Coalition' will fail where the Soviet Union failed before. We all know that Afghanistan is not a country that any foreign power can occupy and impose its own peace upon.
We all know that democratic government set up in Afghanistan is no more a viable or realistic representation of the people's wishes than is the similar puppet government in Iraq.
We all know that Saddam Hussein had no links with Al Qaeda. They distrusted each other.
We all know that, as a result of the wars being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, Al Qaeda is now growing in numbers every day.
We all know that neither war was really a retaliation for 9/11. We all know that Bush was going to do it anyway.
We all know that hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and injuries remain uncounted by Coalition forces, and that the untold suffering imposed upon local civilian populations will serve only to recruit more dissent directed against the occupying forces.
We all know all these things, and we all moan about George Bush, but by our silence we tacitly allow these wars to happen.
And they do, but not because they seek to liberate subjugated populations; not because by superimposing the Western ideal of democracy onto Arab and Asian cultures we will improve the lives of indigenous peoples.
But because western society thrives on two conditions beyond all others.
For our governments to rule us 'successfully', we must have enemies, and we must fear them.
In order to write this piece, I went on the internet to find out how many people had died in recent terrorist attacks in western Europe.
All I found was site after site raving on about the growth of Islamic terrorism; how we should be afraid of Islamic terrorists; how Islamism is destroying our way of life.
It is?
Not mine.
When I was a boy, terrorists were white, real and unavoidable. The IRA bombed the hell out of my home town. Nowadays, too many supposed Islamist attacks are filed under 'Imminent' and 'Alleged'.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world was starting to look peaceful, so new enemies had to be invested in.
At this point conspiracy theorists might have something to say, and I will neither sit here and rubbish their theories, nor claim that their ideas are correct.
All I can do is say what I know. What we all know:
That ever since the end of the Cold War, the US and its allies have been investing heavily in future enemies.
They have bombed and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. They have accused the Iranians of State Terrorism and threatened their nuclear programme with military action. They have antagonised the Syrians, the Lebanese and the Somalians.
In fact, Somalia shows perfectly how American foreign policy succeeds in recruiting for Al Qaeda
Over the last ten years, Somalia has offered what looked like an ideal breeding ground for Islamic terrorism. A weak government sits alongside a traditional Islamic (or good old-fashioned 'Muslim') nation with a glut of religious organisations from which Jihadis might grow.
But they didn't, because the people wanted peace.
So the Americans, working with the Ethiopian army, chased suspected Jihadis into the southern tip of Somalia, and then sent in AC 130 helicopter gunships, which proceeded to wipe off the face of the planet all the villages and any signs of life in the area.
As a British soldier put it, having perfected the military equivalent of drift-netting, they 'kill everything that moves, and then see who you have got left afterwards.'
Sure enough, after this and many other airborne attacks, a terrified population runs to Al Qaeda to protect them from the deliverers of death from the skies.
We all know that we don't want to see innocent people die. We all know that there are dark evil people out there who happily kill murder and maim innocent people for political religious and economic gain.
We know that sometimes these killers come in the form of terrorists, and sometimes in the form of governments.
What we have to decide, each and every one of us, is where we draw our own personal lines over the old maxim, 'One man's Terrorist is another man's Freedom Fighter.'
Anyone who fights an American is now described as a terrorist. Might not the 'insurgents' of Iraq just be Iraqis fighting an occupying power?
We know that Nelson Mandela is today an heroic liberator, just as we know he used to be perceived as a mad terrorist.
We know that Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams used to be terrorist bombers, just as today we see them as peacemakers. We know that General Musharraf of Pakistan and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia preside over brutal and repressive regimes. But they are not our enemies because they do what America tells them to do.
We know that we are fed a diet of lies, and yet we choose to swallow, because it is easier to eat the convenience foods of hate that to forage, cook and serve up a little truth of our own.
We know, because we are intelligent people, that when we are told to hate certain people, our crime is to obey, because then we don't have to understand them.
Yes, some people just kill for the hell of it.
But usually, people kill because they are already in hell, and are looking for a way out.

Double Vision

Caricatures Ireland

It feels so good to be back home, despite the Salthill Warshow!

Gee it's good to be back home! Traumatic times are hard enough to deal with at home, but trying to operate during them whilst being away for weeks on end really takes its toll.
Anyway, now I am home, and it's time to run around like a mad thing and try to catch up with the life I have been missing.
Time is of the essence when I return from England, because for a few days I'm so knackered, on so many different levels, that there are only a couple of hours in which I can function.
In my absence, the Snapper has done a splendid job of keeping our seedlings alive, and my first job is to get out the back, to tend and tie and water and feed our plantlets.
I'm not blind to the significance of this: thrust my fingers into the soil; get mud under my fingernails; splash water around and generally interact with the earth and the Earth, the real nature of what is home to me.
Next up is a long self-indulgent soak in a lovely hot bath. Personally I find other people's bathrooms - and their loos, for that matter - are never quite as good as your own. Last week I wrote about the luxurious life I lived in my sister's house, but even her huge bath and monochrome minimalist hoo-haa bathroom cannot compare to the feel of my average Salthill space.
Ahhh... now a flick of the radio, catch up with what's going on in Ireland...
'... claimed that he had been falsely accused of being molested by priests when he was a boy...'
Ahh, yes, back in Ireland. Nothing has changed, but just what exactly did the newsreader mean by '...being accused of being abused'?
Maybe I just heard it wrong, and maybe I didn't. Don't care, 'cos I am home, and long may I stay.
England has its plus-points, but I am happy to be back in a country where strangers smile at each other, and even chuck in the odd 'howya' when they pass walking.
Despite being a native-born Londoner, I now have to de-Irish-ise myself over there, because if you happen to cast a smiling eye towards anyone at all, you will be greeted with a verbal or physical reaction that translates as
'Wot va fuck do you fink you're lookin' at?',
which it is vital to completely ignore. The required and often desired response would be along the lines of 'Don't know, it ain't got a bloody label on it!' or 'You tell me mate, my dog died years ago, so I didn't expect to see its arsehole again.'
Any and all of the above will precipitate a fight, whilst the gentle Wesht of Ireland 'Howya!' threatens only to be followed by 'Moity morning!' or somesuch harmless nonsense.
Just as Americans are infinitely more likeable on their home soil, so too the Irish are certainly at their best when their feet are firmly planted on Irish ground.
Put it another way; for some reason, the Irish are a pain in the arse to fly with.
To be fair, I'm not talking about all the Irish here, just my 'Anns'.
For those new colyoomistas among you, my 'Anns' represent certain members of the female population aged 45 and up, who, I presume, have never enjoyed an orgasm.
Such sexual deprivation is the only reason I can come up with for them being so permanently pent-up and furious. With deep inhalations of breath snorted through flared furious nostrils, they chorus as one
'And another thing... and another thing... and another thing!', all 'things' being reasons to be verra verra angry.
I have learned to deal with them simply by dehumanising them all into a single prototype, called 'Ann D'Another-Thing'.
Anyway, put an 'Ann' from the Wesht into any airport in the world, and she becomes agitated beyond all reason.
At this juncture I have to confess that I am not allergic to a queue, and when boarding a plane with open seating, I prefer to avoid the scrummage endured by the last few on board.
Hence I will try to be as near as I can to where the queue for boarding might start. What I absolutely will not do is join my 'Anns' and their red-faced white-shirted tired-eyed hubbies in a queue for a plane that has not even arrived yet.
What in god's name is the point of queuing for something that is still 33,000 feet up and quite possibly flying over Norway?
Why do these Irish women get so worked up about flying? I accept that for some of them it might be a new and exciting experience, but the majority, I am sure, have flown many times before, yet they squabble and push and give out and snort and flare their nostrils as if there were only one seat on the plane, and imminent death awaited those who did not make it.
These women have lived their lives in an Ireland that barely exists any more. I should be more patient and appreciative of the fine people they are.
Right, sure, yeh, but I'm not. They drive me crazy with their yabbering impatience and pumped-up sense of self-importance.
Hang on a mo. If you put it like that, don't they sound just a tad like me?

****

Talking of the Irish and their relationship with planes, this Sunday sees the return of my own personal bête noir, the Salthill Airshow.
Every year at this time my home town becomes packed to the gills. The local shops and restaurants make a fortune. Families have a great day out. The Airshow is really good for business.
But so is war.
War is great for business. In fact, since the end of the Cold War, the military-industrial complex has had to work overtime to keep alive the need for the planet's most expensive, effective and profitable product ranges.
By Oooh-ing and Aaah-ing at the flying death machines, you will be doing nothing more than giving your approval to the waging of war; saying that you don't object to limbless children dying of radiation poisoning on distant desert floors; admitting that global famine and illiteracy are fine as long as the powers-that-be can waste trillions upon trillions of the world's major currencies on the pretty flying machines, and their beautiful payload of cluster bombs and depleted uranium.
cadley1@eircom.net

Ireland has problems, but Britain is going bonkers!

Back in London, the city of my birth, to celebrate my much-loved Mum's 78th birthday, I'm aware that while Ireland may have problems, England is one step away from going totally bezonkers.
Ever since arriving in Ireland in 1992, I have held up British multiculturalism as something to which the Irish should aspire, but now it all seems to be going horribly wrong.
It is pointless to compare British and Irish attitudes to immigration, because the experience of the two peoples is so different.
While the British seem now to be stumbling and threatening to fall, after a long and mostly successful journey through immigration, integration and acceptance, the Irish are just stepping off the boat.
Most of the racism and bigotry expelled from Irish minds and mouths comes from ignorance born of a complete lack of experience. Good Irish people with healthy minds and wholesome hearts suddenly come out with the most abysmal drivel, and I know that they don't realise how bigoted they sound.
'That foreign person did that differently to us!' they say. 'I'm not sure if I like that. Shouldn't they at least try to be the same as us, if they want to live over here?'
Gentle Irish souls who consider themselves to be intelligent, liberal and informed are now, for the very first time, face to face with a tiny minority of people who do things their own way. All of a sudden theory is out the window. Intellectually you know what is and is not acceptable, but experientially you've never seen the like of it before.
The future of Irish society will be won and lost over the battle between two words: At the moment, when an Irish person says 'integrate', what they really mean is 'assimilate'.
Should 'assimilate' win ownership of the Irish psyche, there is a long hard struggle ahead for all of us
If, however, the Irish cop on, see beyond their fear of change, and come to understand the massive and manifold benefits of integration, life will be a lot richer, happier, less fearful.
These two words do not merely represent a semantic choice. The difference between expecting assimilation and enjoying integration is that between ignorance and wisdom.
In Britain these days there is much fear.
When I were t'lad, you had yer occasional riot on long summer heatwave evenings, but down at street level, we all got on well and enjoyed our differences. You knew you were a Londoner when you were supping a pint of Real Ale, eating Jamaican goat curry while listening to Monsoon play Indian bhangra - English pop fusion music.
All wasn't right with the world, but it was more than alright that most of the world lived in my street.
But chip away at something for long enough, and eventually you will whittle it down to form whatever shape you want. After decades of assault from Thatcher, Major and Blair, the open minds, inquiring eyes and accepting hearts of the British have finally mutated into hate-filled fear-ridden monstrosities who believe the Daily Mail.
For Blair's legacy to appear meaningful, the 'War on Terror' has to be perpetuated. Just as Irish communities were once under threat, Muslims in England now live with a burgeoning fear, resentment and anger.
As one alleged terrorist attack after another is nipped in the bud by Scotland Yard, before coming to fruition, there's more reason to invade and tear open Muslim homes and arrest Muslim people en masse without charge.
In an essentially secular country that has defended its citizens' pluralism and freedom of worship better than almost any other on Earth, there was recently mass hysteria about women who choose to wear veils.
At the same time, on Celebrity Big Brother, a housemate suggested that Shilpa should "Fuck off home!"
There are no three words that cut so sharp deep and straight to the bloody heart of racism. Speaking with a broad Scouse accent, the same lass moaned:
"She carn' ivven spee kenglish proppah hennyweh!"
Here's a recipe for hate: Add a dash of invisible 'Islamist' bomb to a dollop of Big Brother bollocks, season with hysterical veil bigotry, and mix well with suspicion and fear of your neighbours.
Bake at high heat, and when it catches fire, our civil liberties get burned again.
Bigotry, racism and the inevitable ensuing wars rob us of our most basic human right: The right to live without fear.
Governments play with civil liberties, reducing our freedoms as they will, but we are guilty too. We allow fear to poison our thoughts, words and actions.
We deny ourselves a fear-free life by choosing suspicion and bigotry.
Fear is ready for me as I step off the plane at Luton Airport.
Having passed through customs, I pop over to the World News shop in the Arrivals Hall.
Grabbing a bottle of water, I head for the woman at the cash register, who sits on a chair inside a semicircular counter, with ciggies lined up behind her, sweets all around her, you know the kind of way.
"Can you stand over here?"
At first I don't even realise she is talking to me, because the other side of her counter looks identical to this one.
"Can you stand over HERE sir, PLEASE!"
Oh boy. Welcome back to Britain. My long-dormant yet ever-belligerent London buds are reactivating.
"Why? What difference does it make?"
"I am a very nervous person, and once I was threatened by a customer who stood that side, so I never serve from that side any more."
"You spend your whole working life afraid? That's terrible. You should change your job!"
"I love my job, but always feel frightened here."
"Well you should get over it then."
"I'll never get over it!"
"Well no, you won't! Not if you keep saying that!"
As we inevitably care more for ourselves and less for our neighbours, so they gradually become more easy to distrust, and eventually hate and fear.
The sad truth is that eventually fear will win.
Shame, because all we have to do to avoid that is trust each other and enjoy our differences.
England is becoming America, and Ireland will become England (sorry!).
The European ideal of society looking after its own will perish in the pursuit of individual wealth.
Until then, the west of Ireland is my home because here humanity lingers yet, and while I expect only the inevitable, I can at least appreciate what is now good.
cadley1@eircom.net
http://doubledoublevision.blogspot.com