Doing something for nothing
I have started digging the last sector of the garden. Progress is being slightly impaired by Ghin who insists on using whatever tool i am working with at the moment. Changkul, rake, pitchfork - whatever. He also stands in the freshly dug bits preventing me from getting on with things and then whenever i lay another stone/brick, he'll 'hammer' it - which consists of taking a hammer and literally hammering the new stone/brick. It's ain't happening with any speed in any case, but soon, very soon, i will have laid the last bit of garden.
It was very beautiful yesterday evening. Raining has been on and off all day long and i was forced to take a half day on account of having to collect Oisin from school. Peter was in London and so - i had to get Oisin from school. The school itself looked so fantastic. There's an incredible atmosphere there now. People coming and going and being busy - parents fetching and sending the kids. I seem to have picked up from being so tired. It looks like it was a phase i was going through. I'm back now, doing the routines, feeling on top of things, and awake when i'm awake. It is a relief.
I'm currently not reading very much at all.
The biiiig news is that the loyalists have decommissioned. The UVF, i should say. This is not to say that life is much better now - because as they put it down, others take it up. There will always be a demand in society for narcotics, smuggled cigarettes, hookers and other such like things, so there will always be people who go about doing what they do. But politically at least it does mean that there's a step in the right direction.
I've seen the coverage about the Romanians for the first time tonight as well. What can i say? As i watched them being harried out of their homes and watched scenes from a previous riot, it reminded me of watching a documentary on war. Which was the violent part in us needed expression in some of those who do inflict violence - and this was an easy target. Any excuse to lash out at something - to wage war, to cause fear, to see suffering and pain in another's eyes. And it didn't matter who it was - that they were Romanian was just a cover up. Someone would have had to be at the end of the mob's stick. This time it was them. It's not personal.
And of course we go about disowning parts of ourselves which we don't like. Martin McGuinness condemning the actions of the BNP supporters. But the frightening truth is that they, like pedophiles, corrupt politicians, unethical financiers, pornographers, and the list goes on are a continuum of everything that we are. As long as we take an attitude of condemnation and not compassion we are going to end up making one person the aggressor and the other the victim. We are then at war with ourselves - and what good is that? So i found myself in the odd position of agreeing with Stephen Nolan when he said how do we expect the people to get along with each other when politicians set such bad examples themselves.
What the Romanians are doing are really paying for the sins of our politicians - and not just from their childish behaviour. People in some of the poorest places have been ignored since the start of the peace process as the rest of society got on with getting on. In these estates, they lost their reason for being. No longer active Republican or Loyalist, they began to drift. And they began to be forgotten. Around them, they saw others getting rich. As the naughties went on, the gap between rich and poor became wider and wider. They learnt to see themselves a victims too. And sometimes, it is tiring being a victim. So much anger...so much anger. What is there when society keeps telling me am nothing? I cannot be a nothing.
And so, i will be a something then. I will be a something by making someone else a nothing.
People who have been oppressed know how best to oppress others. We see it all the time. Be it bride burning, Zionism, child abuse. The abused make perfect abusers. If someone is abusing someone else, you can be sure they were abused too.
It's hard to see it, but when the abuser abuses, it is a cry for help, for attention. They want to be caught. Their neurosis has excarnated itself and the person can no longer contain it. Trapped, possessed, the person is saying, please help me. Stop me. Stop me. And what does society do? It either ignores it - or it tries to kill it. Great response.
I'm not a bleeding heart liberal. I am saying though that condemnation is not a helpful response. Neither is condoning it. What i am saying is that the people who did this are asking for help - and perhaps, just this once, we should try and help them too.
It was very beautiful yesterday evening. Raining has been on and off all day long and i was forced to take a half day on account of having to collect Oisin from school. Peter was in London and so - i had to get Oisin from school. The school itself looked so fantastic. There's an incredible atmosphere there now. People coming and going and being busy - parents fetching and sending the kids. I seem to have picked up from being so tired. It looks like it was a phase i was going through. I'm back now, doing the routines, feeling on top of things, and awake when i'm awake. It is a relief.
I'm currently not reading very much at all.
The biiiig news is that the loyalists have decommissioned. The UVF, i should say. This is not to say that life is much better now - because as they put it down, others take it up. There will always be a demand in society for narcotics, smuggled cigarettes, hookers and other such like things, so there will always be people who go about doing what they do. But politically at least it does mean that there's a step in the right direction.
I've seen the coverage about the Romanians for the first time tonight as well. What can i say? As i watched them being harried out of their homes and watched scenes from a previous riot, it reminded me of watching a documentary on war. Which was the violent part in us needed expression in some of those who do inflict violence - and this was an easy target. Any excuse to lash out at something - to wage war, to cause fear, to see suffering and pain in another's eyes. And it didn't matter who it was - that they were Romanian was just a cover up. Someone would have had to be at the end of the mob's stick. This time it was them. It's not personal.
And of course we go about disowning parts of ourselves which we don't like. Martin McGuinness condemning the actions of the BNP supporters. But the frightening truth is that they, like pedophiles, corrupt politicians, unethical financiers, pornographers, and the list goes on are a continuum of everything that we are. As long as we take an attitude of condemnation and not compassion we are going to end up making one person the aggressor and the other the victim. We are then at war with ourselves - and what good is that? So i found myself in the odd position of agreeing with Stephen Nolan when he said how do we expect the people to get along with each other when politicians set such bad examples themselves.
What the Romanians are doing are really paying for the sins of our politicians - and not just from their childish behaviour. People in some of the poorest places have been ignored since the start of the peace process as the rest of society got on with getting on. In these estates, they lost their reason for being. No longer active Republican or Loyalist, they began to drift. And they began to be forgotten. Around them, they saw others getting rich. As the naughties went on, the gap between rich and poor became wider and wider. They learnt to see themselves a victims too. And sometimes, it is tiring being a victim. So much anger...so much anger. What is there when society keeps telling me am nothing? I cannot be a nothing.
And so, i will be a something then. I will be a something by making someone else a nothing.
People who have been oppressed know how best to oppress others. We see it all the time. Be it bride burning, Zionism, child abuse. The abused make perfect abusers. If someone is abusing someone else, you can be sure they were abused too.
It's hard to see it, but when the abuser abuses, it is a cry for help, for attention. They want to be caught. Their neurosis has excarnated itself and the person can no longer contain it. Trapped, possessed, the person is saying, please help me. Stop me. Stop me. And what does society do? It either ignores it - or it tries to kill it. Great response.
I'm not a bleeding heart liberal. I am saying though that condemnation is not a helpful response. Neither is condoning it. What i am saying is that the people who did this are asking for help - and perhaps, just this once, we should try and help them too.
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