Of Emperors and Fishes.

I have just responded to the request for input to the upcoming review of the CFP (Common Fisheries Policy). This may seem to be an esoteric matter, but hang in, dear reader, and you may see it as archetypal, and of very immediate relevence to our more general concerns. Besides having a very real impact on the lives of small coastal communities such as my own, it sheds light on our day to day struggle to keep our lives together, and other ways in which the overall politics of today affect our lives.

    I realise that even if some minion in the Commission actually gets around to reading it, and even if that minion broadly accepts the truth of it, one can just imagine him saying to himself 'Hum, he may be right, but pushing that kind of stuff up the line is not going to get anywhere'! Yet, especially in times like these, I believe that everyone who can raise their heads above day-to-day tribulations and trivialities must do so, and then try to make the results of their experience heard. Here are the comments which I submitted:-

CFP Review

While I retired as a full-time fishing skipper in 1998, I have remained in close contact with Irish west coast fishing communities, through having lived in three of them. I continue to do so, through the fact that I have a son still actively engaged as a commercial fishing skipper, along with a more general involvement with matters of the Gannets' Way and sailing.

    It was already obvious towards the end of the 20th century that the fishing industry had serious problems, stemming in part from the same kind of factors that have brought about the general biodiversity crisis, and especially from the brake-neck pace of technological development, particularly in the context of hungry capital anxious to facilitate and promote it in the name of Profit and Progress. Evidently our sense of self-restraint and communal responsibility was failing to keep up. In spite of many fine intentions about conservation and subsidiarity, instead of seeking out a different path, the EU responded in the only way it apparently knew how, with an elaborate system of Command and Control, quite beyond the mind-set of an artisanal fisher.

    The results are clear and are not good. All around the coast, the fishing communities are in a state of decline and demoralisation. Ownership of fishing vessels has become only accessible to big companies or the very well-off; and they need the resources to conduct lawfare, because it is frequently impossible to make a living within the law! Our seafood restaurants now mainly get their fish from many miles away, and it is very expensive, despite the fact that here on the Loop Head peninsula for example we are nearly surrounded by the sea. There are precious few young fishermen hereabouts; they have gone away while some have sadly even taken their own lives. The navy and other maritime industries will not find the young recruits that they used to from these communities.

    There are other paths open to us. Somehow a sense of fun and adventure needs to be rediscovered. ‘Small is Beautiful’ and intermediate technologies may be revisited. Here at Gannetsway Marine Services, we want to develop a sail/electric fishing vessel for fishing with hooks or traps, with the propeller charging the batteries when under sail. Every small port around the coast could support a fleet of such craft. The concept of the skipper/owner, which as of now has all but died out, could be resurrected. Fishermen would no longer need to work to pay for diesel fuel for up to half their time, nor would they need to worry about the notions of distant bureaucrats telling them to stop catching this or that species all of a sudden, while tons of good fish get thrown away dead.

    Conservation measures need to reconnect with the fishers, but any real responsibility depends on a sense of ownership. Subsidiarity is a vital principle for any solidarity, yet it has been mainly honoured with neglect. All this is of course part of a wider malaise. As a supporter of the European project, I consider that real solutions need to come as part of a massive change of attitude; otherwise the EU will not survive the erosion, not to say collapse, of its popular support, which is already occurring. Let us hope that this CFP review may be part of a genuine change of heart and of direction. If it is not, it is very doubtful if there will be another chance!

*****

    

    The CFP for sure has failed to deliver good results for Irish fishermen, yet when one comes to consider what they have been doing wrong, and might do better, one has a problem with recommending alternatives other than pulling out. I have to conlude that a better future can only come from a radical paradigm shift,- a change of attitude and approach which is not perhaps so very far apart from that which we are 

witnessing in the USA lately. 

    Let it be remembered that the CFP, like the EU itself, was full of the grandest intentions. I now have considerable difficulty in defending both the one and the other to many, probably most, of the people I meet from day to day. I suspect it would now be the same on the ground in most of the member states, especially in the heartlands of France and Germany, and we have already witnessed Brexit. J.D.Vance was spot on in Munich the other day when he recommended that Europe had better figure out what it really stands for, if it wants to prevail in the forthcoming struggles.

    Can there even be some sense to President Trump's statements about Gaza and Ukraine, let alone relevence to the future of the CFP, and what can Europeans possibly have to glean from them? We are in a weird situation, likened by a wise Spaniard, whom I came across online, to a new variant of The Emperor's New Clothes, in which it is the Emperor himself who is saying,- Can't you see that I'm naked?

    Here in Ireland, the bien pensants, the right-thinking people, are busy wringing their hands, and sadly will probably be among the last to get the message.  Some working people who do after all remain in contact with reality, will remember that if Ireland has one valuable role, it is to act as a bridge between the two sides of the Atlantic. Yet we Irish, who pride ourselves on our ability to relate to other people and to handle big-wigs to boot, know only too well how to keep our mouths shut. 'Say nothing!' may after all be better than 'Tell 'em plenty lies!'

    Today the largest political party in Ireland, Sinn Fein, is going to boycott Washington DC on St Patrick's Day,-  but whatever one thinks of President Trump's habit of making somewhat wild, provocative and over-the-top statements, surely this kind of folly in the grand cause of virtue signalling is hardly sensible either? I recall that in covid times, not content with urging measures to 'ensure maximal access and vaccine uptake', Sinn Fein actually wanted to prolong the lock-down, when at last our Government was bringing it to an end.

    Mention of covid brings me to a matter that is rather more germane to the current crisis of meaning than the CFP, even for myself. We observe how this crisis divides not just America, nor just Europe from America, nor just so many families and communities, but even one Donald J. Trump himself, who in his last presidency boasted about Operation Warp Speed getting out ill-tested vaccines so fast, and in his current presidency appointed Bobby Kennedy as his health czar.  Just tacking with the wind, or a genuine change of heart and policy, Mr President? If so, the world deserves an explanation and an apology! But even Pope Francis flunked his prophetic role, when he urged us all to get the shots. I would humbly suggest that an apology would be good for himself and the whole world, before he goes to meet his Maker! 

    We are in a weird situation, likened by a wise Spaniard whom I came across online, to a new variant of The Emperor's New Clothes, in which it is the Emperor himself who is saying,- Can't you see that I'm naked? But precisely who or what is this naked Emperor? How may we identify and characterise him? We must take care not to be projecting stereotypes onto anyone, but I cannot think of any civilisation without some kind of emperor; we also need a pope who is ready to defy him!

    In this little blog, I can only offer a few suggestions. Firstly, as indications of the old naked emperor's presence, we can look wherever someone is resorting to demonising, cancelling, locking-up, murdering or otherwise attempting to do away with their enemies, other than by engaging with them and seeing if indeed there is any chance of appreciating each other's vestments, or perhaps one might say, respecting each other's investments? But what then happens, when they only seem to do harm, when for instance these investments are in arms, of either the explosive or injected varieties? What happens when the people find that the fruits of them are bitter or downright poisonous? Where do we turn for a more befitting emperor and a more effective pope? Well, a spot of retrospection all round might help! -

                  

Salamanca cathedral.

    

Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad,    

    let the sea and all within it thunder praise,

let the land and all it bears rejoice,

    all the trees of the wood shout for joy

at the presence of the Lord for he comes, 

    he comes to rule the earth.

With justice he will rule the world,

    he will judge the peoples with his truth.

- Psalm 95.