in spiked, June 27, 2013

Why art-school toffs never got Black Sabbath

Sabbath 'trod water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry’, and they were all the better for it.

in Standpoint, July/August 2013

No French Please 

In the Catholic Herald, June 14, 2013

It's going to take 30 years to heal Northern Ireland

That's the claim of an optimistic new book about life after the Troubles, says Patrick West

Northern Ireland, The Reluctant Peace

By Feargal Cochrane

Yale, £25

"At least the IRA gave warnings!" So yelled a Dubliner at anti-American demonstrators who were marching against the invasion of Iraq. This was on Grafton Street ten years ago, but I still remember the outburst for two reasons. First of all, the man used the past tense when referring to the IRA. Secondly, he echoed a sentiment - not uncommon in Britain - that at least the IRA had a coherent aim and could be reasoned with, and that they sought primarily the destruction of property, not people. Suicidal nihilists they were not.

I got a similar, perverse sense of nostalgia upon seeing a new book about "The Troubles". Publications such as this were a constant feature of the 1980s and 1990s. This was the age when people looked out for suspicious-looking packages, not suspicious-looking people, when we were alert to evacuation procedures, not maniacs with machetes. This was an era when the British government was secretly negotiating with the terrorists - an unthinkable act today.

Northern Ireland, The Reluctant Peace is, however, a stark reminder that there was little, if anything, noble about the "war" waged by republican and loyalist terrorists over a forty year period, or the sometimes appalling behaviour of the Crown forces. 

We are reminded of this in often harrowing detail. Consider the firebombing of the La Mon Hotel in 1978, in which sugar was deliberately added to the device so that the ensuing fireball would stick to anything with which it came into contact. The victims were literally burned alive, and the heat was so intense that it caused some bodies to shrivel to the degree that adults were initially mistaken for children. Before this was "Bloody Friday" on July 21, 1972, when the Provisional IRA exploded nineteen bombs throughout Belfast. Seldom-aired television footage shows firemen literally shovelling charred body parts into plastic bags. 

That atrocity was revenge for Bloody Sunday, when thirteen demonstrators were shot dead by the Parachute Regiment on January 30, 1972. Long before Guantanamo Bay, it's worth recalling British torture techniques: hooding, sleep and food deprivation, repetitive questioning, subjugation to white noise. These incidents were symptomatic of British indifference, even callousness, towards a nominal part of the UK. This attitude was encapsulated by Reginald Maudling, who visited the province for the first time in 1970 as Home Secretary. His parting words were: "what a bloody awful country."

Re-reading these events can be distressing (there are many passages too shocking for a family newspaper), but that's the strength of Northern Ireland, A Reluctant Peace. It makes you feel the anguish and anger of those involved. And sometimes there's a role for empathy in history. Consider the episode of a British soldier maliciously smashing a statuette of the Virgin Mary in someone's West Belfast home. Who's to say that in that position, or witnessing your elderly father beaten up and humiliated by a British soldier, you wouldn't have joined the IRA?

So how come, after all this, we can now talk of the Troubles in the past tense? There are several factors. First of all, we can thank two somewhat forgotten figures: John Major and David Trimble. The former was unusual in that British Prime Ministers aren't normally interested in Ireland, and the latter helped to make moderate Unionism acceptable. Both devoted much energy and took great risks to bring about the Good Friday Agreement. Secondly the emergence of Islamism caused many Irish-Americans to re-assess terrorism, a set of people who now have "intellectual difficulty in supporting the 'good terrorism' of the IRA, yet condemning the 'bad terrorism' of Al Qaeda." For the IRA, American cash and political good-will both evaporated after 9/11.

Most of all, however, the IRA was defeated. It was defeated by British infiltration and Loyalist terrorism. It's a hideous truth to acknowledge, but Loyalist campaigns of random sectarian murder in the late-1980s and early-1990s proved too much for Catholics to bear, which is why the IRA ceasefire of 1994 was welcomed with such joyous relief in the Falls Road, Ardoyne and Anderstown. This is why Loyalist organisations have since descended into gangsterism rather than resumed murdering Catholics. They feel they have won. This is also why it's business as usual for Republican dissidents: they feel that Sinn Fein has become a Partitionist organisation. Which it has.

Despite the fifteen years of relative peace, Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society. The 2001 census showed that two-thirds of Catholics and three-quarters of Protestants live in areas 90 per cent of the same religion. Cochrane recognises the persistence of sectarianism, but he contends that the healing process just needs more time. "The violent conflict raged for at least thirty years, and it is going to take that long (as a minimum) for a post-conflict society to emerge". He's optimistic, citing a 2007 survey which asked people whether the Northern Ireland assembly should focus on "constitutional" or "policy" issues. Only 12 per cent opted for the former, while 65 per cent of people said that the latter should have a priority. More interestingly, when people were asked whether they regarded themselves as "unionist", "nationalist" or "neither" the responses were 26 per cent, 24 per cent and 40 per cent, with the "neither" option being chosen by nearly half of those under the age of 45.

Northern Ireland: The Reluctant Peace is an accomplished work, although I don't share its optimism. People fib on surveys, and the book doesn't mention the greatest, unintended threat to Northern Ireland: Scottish nationalism. It's often remarked that Loyalists have an identity crisis, but only with Scotland's secession from the UK will Ulster Unionism face its final downfall. With no Britain, what then for the only people in these islands who use "British" as a label of ethnicity? A new and strange sort of "troubles" await.

CatholicHerald.co.uk

in spiked, June 5, 2013

In praise of American English

Stop being sniffy about this language that uses words like diaper and can’t pronounce aluminium; it's the new Latin.

Italian translation 6: May 30, 2013

Turkey, The crusade against alcohol

The risk of a drift towards authoritarianism

The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has managed in record time to approve a law in the Ankara parliament that severely restricts the sale of alcohol. In practice, it will now be forbidden to drink alcohol near mosques or schools, bottles will be hidden in films and soap operas, alcohol advertising will disappear, and its sale will be forbidden in shops from 10pm to 6am. Furthermore, products will come with explicit health warnings and shop owners will be forced to remove incriminating drinks from shop windows.

The consumption of alcohol, in sum, will become almost impossible, considering that in Turkey there are at least 93,000 mosques, of which 3,000 are in Istanbul alone. Erdogan, a devout Muslim, has defended this move, saying that the provision owed not to religious motivation but to the desire to set a good example to young people. "We don't want a generation that drinks all day and night", he said. And yet, the country isn't noted for its alcohol problem, and it consumes far less than the West.

For those that have always warned that AKP has sought Islamification of the secular Turkey as sought by Ataturk, this law on alcohol is the smoking gun. Yesterday, the opposition left the parliament room in protest. But there's more: in the face of this move towards authoritarianism, even secular liberal intellectuals, who had hailed the rise of Erdogan as a force for democracy in the face of the all-too-powerful military, are having a re-think. Yesterday, Mehves Evin, a well-known secularist in newspaper circles in the country and leader-writer for the newspaper Milliyet, called this law "despotic", comparable to the McCarthyism as seen in the United States in the 1940s. "I always thought Erdogan was a pragmatic man," he stated, "and that he never would have worked to implement such oppressive measures. But I was wrong". He's not the only one thinking that.

Monica Ricci Sargentini

Corriere della Sera, 25 March 2013

Translated by Patrick West 30 March 2013

in spiked, April 25, 2013

When pop wore its art on its sleeve

With the gradual disappearance of album art, we are losing far more than a few memorable images.

in The Catholic Herald, April 19, 2013

Come on, you saints

Patrick West on why so many priests love the beautiful game

One of the great comic devices of the television comedy Father Ted was

having Ardal O'Hanlon's Fr Dougal wear a Republic of Ireland football shirt

in bed. Good comedy is often based on incongruity - a horse walks into a

bar: "why the long face?" - and whereas there's a common perception that

priests are responsible, kindly and serious types, football conversely

brings to mind stereotypes that are more aggressive or frivolous. To connect

things that belong in opposing mental categories is funny in both senses.

Putting priests and football together makes us smile. Hence the graffiti

legend: "Jesus Saves ­ but Keegan scores on the rebound."

This was why much of the media thought it a wheeze to report that Pope

Francis is a card-carrying fan of the Argentinian football club San Lorenzo.

The Sun certainly did so with a gallery of photographs of him holding aloft

a replica shirt and club flag. That newspaper also had a striking headline

after Pope Francis's election: "The New Hand of God", a reference to

Maradona's fist, which put England out of the 1986 World Cup. And it's the

reason why one of the most celebrated Father Ted episodes is the one about a

match.

When you think about it, football and faith is not really an unlikely

association. At the beginning of the 20th century, a Buenos Aires priest

named Lorenzo Massa, who was concerned about children playing football near

tram tracks, told the boys that they could instead play in the church's

backyard - as long as they went to Mass on Sundays. A football club was

eventually established in 1908, and although he initially refused the

honour, Lorenzo finally accepted the proposal to name it after him.

San Lorenzo team's nickname, "the Saints", is the same as Southampton FC's.

The English clubwas founded by members of the St Mary's Church of England

Young Men's Association ­ a reminder of how sport and muscular Christianity

were intertwined in Britain. The Northampton Saints rugby union team was

established in 1880 by a vicar for this reason, and in Ireland the clergy

were at the forefront in the creation of the Gaelic Athletic Association. So

while it might appear odd to many atheists when American Football players

kneel to praise God, or southern European footballers cross themselves

before games (by my logic, asking God to make the other team lose), it's

only superficially irrational.

In 2009, a priest in Manchester who reads the scores after the Saturday

evening Mass was quoted saying he asked worshippers to pray for Manchester

United victories. But Fr Paddy McMahon, of St John's in Chorlton, hastened

to add: "...and Manchester City, but then they really need it! It's a bit of

fun." (His prayers came true: City won the league last season). You'd have

to be rather dim to take his exhortations literally, and Fr McMahon

explained that "talking about football at the end of Mass means people leave

with a smile on their faces". The spectacle of a group of people seen

leaving a church smiling: what a fantastic advert for the Church.

Indeed, some have used football deliberately this way. In 2006 Fr David Cain

of St Barnabas, Nottingham, established a "World Cup chapel" to coincide

with a poster recruitment campaign for the priesthood. Fr Cain was also

asked about partisanship and its potentially divisive nature. "Although,

understandably many people will be fiercely cheering on their own nation,"

he said, "sport generally, and football in particular, can provide a great

bridge in promoting harmony between nations despite differences that exist

in race, religion or politics."

Like religion, football teaches you life lessons. It instills discipline,

hard work, self-control and self-respect. It makes you value leadership and

the virtues of co-operation, and to realise that there are some situations

you can't change and some you can. This is why Christians of the 19th

century were so keen on football. It's true that money has ruined the game

in recent years, but that's because footballers have become spoilt. The

sport remains inherently a good thing.

These are some of the reasons why in 2007 the Vatican established its own

domestic competition, the Clericus Cup. It was the creation of Cardinal

Tarcisio Bertone, a fervent Juventus fan and a football commentator in a

country beset by corruption in politics and sport itself. It was devised

consciously as a way of setting a good example.

The relationship between football and the Church in Italy has always been a

close one. As an expert on Italy, Paddy Agnew puts it: "Ninety-six percent

of Italians are nominal Catholics, but the same 96 per cent are committed

football fans." Most children play their first game at church-run youth

clubs, and a lot of priests remain players. For them, the Clericus Cup can

serve as a reminder in humility. Players must do community service if they

are issued a yellow or red card. A player given a blue card is sent to a

"sin bin" for five minutes of contemplation ­ perhaps even to ask for

absolution.

As the captain of the British team, Tony Preston, reflected after losing to

a team of Croatian priests in the 2008 semi-finals: "The whole idea, not to

get too heavy, is the idea of sport bringing the finer qualities out of

humanity, like humility in victory and gracious in defeat ­ we've got a bit

of experience in that." Sport and religion can be an ideal combination. As

in life, football teaches you that you win some, you lose some. Apparently,

however, football has no agreed patron saint. A fine choice would naturally

be St Mirren.

Patrick West is author of Beating Them at Their Own Game: How The Irish

Conquered English Soccer (Liberties Press, 2006)