Let's Make Europe Great Again!

I am on Sherkin living the good life with Fiona, doing a bit of building and a bit of readin’ and writin’, but there are two things particularly annoying me: the gales that keep on coming, and the thought of those refugees out at night in the bitter weather. Furthermore, is it really the best Europe can manage, to be sending those young men back home, bitter, frustrated, unemployed and disillusioned as far as Europe is concerned, to get into trouble there? As for the gales, they are at least a constant reminder of the threat of climate change hanging over us.

A further dimension to the trouble is the possibility of the EU foundering altogether. I see that David McWilliams, one of the brighter Irish economic commentators, writes that he believes ‘the EU is a legacy project that has lost any real meaning or focus.’  He moreover believes that  in the event of Britain leaving the EU, Ireland will be forced to recognise that ‘Our national interest is a special relationship with the UK; end of story.’(1)

It is a fact that the EU always seems to be doing too little, too late. However, I rather thought legacies were precious things, while it seems that for our bright young man, anything from the past is dubious, even its treasures. This particular legacy came to us of course from the near-death experience of Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Guess who wrote this, just before I was born in 1946:- ‘ It (the remedy for the ills of those times) is to recreate the European fabric, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, safety and freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.‘ The answer is Winston Churchill, (2)

He continued: ‘I am now going to say something that will astonish you. The first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral and cultural leadership of Europe. There can be no revival of Europe without a spiritually great France and a spiritually great Germany. The structure of the United States of Europe will be such as to make the material strength of a single State less important. Small nations will count as much as large ones and gain their honour by a contribution to the common cause.’  ‘Great Britain, the British Commonwealth of Nations, mighty America - and, I trust, Soviet Russia, for then indeed all would be well - must be the friends and sponsors of the new Europe and must champion its right to live. ‘

What one mostly heard about from Irish politicians, when we got around to joining the EEC in 1973, was the billions coming our way in structural funds. No attempt to sell the big picture to the likes of young David McWilliams! Now he seems to think that it was only our right to get all that help building a modern infrastructure and so on. Maybe he is not even happy that today we are making a very small contribution to the Eur3billion going to Turkey to help them cope with the Syrian refugees, and the 700million going to Greece for the same purpose? But maybe indeed this does not add up to ‘real meaning or focus’!

Still his complaint is a trifle odd, in that for all his self-proclaimed radicalism, McWilliams seems to be entirely of the political orthodoxy which proclaims that enlightened self-interest is the only realistic and sound basis for human action, perhaps with a vague pseudo-scientific narrative about evolution and the survival of the fittest behind it. That human beings have been working away at the project of discovering ‘real meaning and focus’ for their lives from the beginning does not apparently occur to him, let alone the notion that there might be something to be learned from their efforts. Religion of course is only to be indulged in in private, if one must.

Well, the results are coming thick and fast, with malaise, anxiety and fragmentation on all sides. There’s much talk of cutting bridges and putting up fences. Strange how the conservatives in both Britain and America are so bitterly divided, having evidently forgotten what it is that they are supposed to be conserving. Of course here in Ireland they have been at odds on the matter since the founding of the Republic. Meanwhile we join Spain in dodging on under auto-pilot. Let’s hope the politicians can at least agree who to put on the wheel before they run on the rocks!

Pity the conservatives gave up learning Latin, I say! Not alone might it have taught them something about the derivation of language, but of our Western civilisation, and helped them to think and speak logically and objectively. Come to think of it, it might help the 'progressive' lot too; with their strange and indeed dangerous notion that you can build anything good without reference to the past!

Curiously enough, one has to admit that the one country that does appear to have made some kind of real contribution to peace in Syria lately is Russia, though at a terrible price. She is a danger and yet another cause of anxiety to Europe. Yet it is hard to believe that the Russians will want to get too heavily involved there by themselves. I cannot see any answer but for Europe to take a leaf or two out of Ancient Rome’s book. Supposing Europe, including the Russians, were to train and arm all those frustrated young men in the context of a sort of foreign legion, and direct them in bringing peace and the rule of law to their countries; and most importantly, follow it up by a kind of Marshall Plan for them?

It has long seemed to me that the sun-drenched deserts have an important role to play, producing solar energy for the greening of Europe. If it could not be delivered direct through superconductors, it could be used to make hydrogen and power our vehicles and houses through fuel cells. If only we could find the will and the bold leadership, a huge amount of danger and anxiety could be lifted in one fell swoop; but where indeed are such old-fashioned qualities to be found?

There's an old moon over Horseshoe Bay this morning!

(1)<http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2016/03/03/the-three-most-pressing-issues-that-will-top-new-governments-to-do-list>

(2)<https://www.coe.int/t/dgal/dit/ilcd/Archives/selection/Churchill/ZurichSpeech_en.asp>

I Vote For Spring!

West from Bunglas, once a happy hunting ground of mine!

Fiona and I just happily found ourselves back in a Donegal cottage, courtesy of Mick McGinley and his son Michael. The grass about Teelin was burnt yellow with sea-salt, the hills sodden and blasted, but then the sun came out. Climbing a knoll beside the road to Bunglas on the morning we left, laid out before us was Donegal Bay at its most magnificent, all calm and shimmering in the spring sunshine. It came with frost in the morning, but how magic a transformation from the sullen grey aspect that it had worn two days before!

Where we stayed, and Mick's herd of Dexter cattle.

We spent long hours recalling bygone days with old fishing mates, and with the 93 year-old mother of a young man who tragically fell off the deck of my boat in 1984, drowning before our eyes. She has also lost her two daughters to cancer since, but she betrays no bitterness in her bright eyes, though she will tell you how the people may have poorer in her young days, but they were happier. However sometimes suffering can nourish faith, which is badly needed in a community like that. It may be surrounded by much natural beauty, but one cannot escape the feeling of being on the sharp end of life there.

The times have not been good to those parts lately. In the 1970s, there were about fifty men in those two parishes of Carrick and Glencolmkille fishing herring, salmon and lobsters in small boats. The main earners, salmon and herring, are completely gone, as indeed have the cod and turbot fisheries that we moved on to. How come? ‘Overfishing’ is the usual answer, but that is a vast over-simplification. The salmon fishery for example has been closed for ten years now, with little sign of improvement in the stock. Hard for salmon to thrive in rivers full of e-coli! Neither have whitefish stocks recovered from a long rest, which we attribute to the fact that the stocks of herring and scad on which they feed have also been decimated.

If you don't believe me, ask Mick McGinley!

‘Bad management’ is nearer the mark, but while a lot of things on land and sea called for management, in the case of herring what measures were taken, too late, were sabotaged with the connivance of corrupt politicians. Cutting a long story short, while the stocks were decimated, the industry both at sea and on land was concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy people. In the latest twist, the factories where many of the fishermen had to find work have been automated, so that only a fraction of the former work-force are required. This development was assisted with large grants of public money. As Mick said, maybe we can’t stop automation, but why should we help pay for it?

It all adds up to a neat illustration to the way in which chunks of the population have been impoverished, individuals and governments alike have been drowned in debt, while huge piles of cash have been accumulated by some, frequently off-shore. These don’t seem to be happy either, since it has got difficult to find worthwhile ways of investing said piles of cash, on account of the dwindling spending power at large, plus the general lack of confidence that such tensions bring about….

One hurries home to vote, on the basis that what one does not use one might lose, and it is no doubt satisfying to vote against those with whom one is currently particularly fed up. It would be more satisfying if any of the politicians seemed capable of helping to change things. I do believe that, like the brave green shoots that are pushing up through the burnt and blasted old grass, a new world is struggling to be born.

On the bus past Ben Bulben.

It is a good thing in a way that the huge institutions no longer provide for safe and secure investments. Now is the time for families and friends to find ways of working together, making a new way of life. Let the young go off to cities, to make some money out of the big beasts and see the way the world wags, but  let them do it in much the same spirit as previous generations went to war. May they find ways of harnessing wealth to their own initiatives, overcoming the alienation that ensues from the worship of money and technology!

Niall's forge.

It will frequently be an uncomfortable and risky business, but that’s the way with creativity. Perhaps that’s why some of us see the abortion issue in Ireland as a pretty good touchstone for the sort of politicians that we really need; ones who will promote rather than impede this awkward new world that is struggling to be born!

Rathlin O'Birne Island, where I saw two fine trawlers reduced to drift-wood.

 Photos courtesy of Fiona.

Election Blues

I'm two days back in Ireland now, still in Dublin. There are lots of lovely people here, but what a comedown in the matter of physical environment! This is not helped by the ubiquitous, though at this stage largely battered, election posters. What is the idea? Is this a beauty contest? Do people actually vote on the basis of the number of times they are confronted with a mug shot of this or that candidate? Or is it simply a matter of upping the hype so that a reasonable number of people can be induced to vote?

Trouble is they are all too busy rushing around, trying to pay for their exorbitantly expensive flat and their new car. Yes, sales of new cars have soared again this year. Why, the M50 is back on the way to being one big car-park! Yippee, aren't we all on the pig's back again? Who cares about politics, really? If one has a bit of spare time, isn't sport much more important?

Personally, I think the posters should be banned. If people have not sufficient interest to look up the record and ideas of the candidates, and even if they must a photo, be it on the internet or in newspapers, then on what basis can we assume that their vote is a matter of any consequence?

Most of the incessant chatter on the radio and tv is equally vacuous, with all that bandying about of statistics and laudable intentions which mean very little. So far I have heard hardly anything about what I consider to be the biggest issue, which is how to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, and fast. I quote from a friend who has just sent me an email about his effort  to do something about it in the UK:-

'For a long time now the default social principle has been to make society as wealthy as possible. We need to change that attitude.   Instead we need to put love and concern for the earth and all the creatures and people in it as our principle inspiration for life.'*  

Good luck to anyone who tries to sell that one to the electorate, though one might have thought that the Heavens had dropped some fairly hefty hints lately!

*See <http://www.climate100.co.uk/>

The Big See-saw, the Bully, and Marmalade.

What with the weather and the general election campaign starting, it was a good time to get out of Ireland. There is something particularly depressing about an election campaign that seems to be mainly a competition to see who can put up the most stupid posters, with barely a real issue or principle in sight and less genuine engagement in debate.

Our Leader Mr Kenny claims of course to have pulled the country round from the brink of economic collapse. Sorry, I don't buy it; we are all part of an admittedly complex world economy, but I'm afraid I see it with the eyes of a child in a playground, looking at a big see-saw. Oil went sky-high, and the oil exporting countries did very well while the importers like Ireland headed for bankruptcy. Oil price collapsed and just now it is the other way round.

There seems also to be a playground bully walloping the see-saw up and down, much to the terror of the wee chiddlers on it. The big question is, how to get off it? Then there is the imperative to do so from the climate change perspective. But who or what is that there bully?

One thing is for sure, bullies like to cover their tracks, while they enjoy terrifying the kids. I think there must be something in it for the War on Terror merchants myself. There remain some awkward unanswered questions about the 9/11 business that got the show on the road. Are we to believe that the brilliant security measures in place are responsible for the fact that America has actually suffered rather little from the terrorists since? All praise to the heroes of security, like the wee man who relieved me of my half-used jar of coconut oil at the airport the other day!

It would be more in their (the Americans’) line methinks to tackle the gun culture, or hey Mr Trump, how about banning automobiles? After all, they kill something approaching 40.000 Americans every single year, and about a million and a quarter world-wide. How about 'bombing the Hell out'a' the motor car factories? But that wouldn't 'make America great again', would it now? But Mr Trump wants to rob her of whatever rags of credibility she still has!

Ah well, here's to life on my own little see-saw, between Ireland and the Guadianaland. But just to prove that I am prepared to do more than give off, on Tuesday 23^rd February at 8pm in the Clarion Hotel, Sligo, I will be with Fiona at a meeting called by the Iona Institute, which will be addressed by Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin on the subject of How should a Catholic think about Politics?

Meanwhile, back with the Anna M on her winter mooring, I am very slowly improving her off-grid capabilities. The solar panels and led lighting installed two years ago have made a huge difference. Now I've just taken the Ebersbacher oil-fired heating unit out of her. It never worked well for long anyway, didn't like the marine environment, and I'm slowly working towards a wood-burning stove. It is needed even here in the winter, what with condensation and chilly nights and damp river air. There's plenty of wood drifting past, but it's a complex business reorganising the saloon for this stove, because the old and also defunct fridge is in the corner that it needs. First move is a new fridge in a locker beside the galley.

Talking of which, and of living off the land, there are any amount of oranges going at a loss round these part at this time of year, and since marmalade is one of the basic necessities of life for me, I had to have a go at making some here. No menu, no scales, no jamming pan, no thermometer, but thanks to Brother Anselm I do have a basic idea of how to make it – the recipe is in his Glenstal Cookbook – and also with compliments  to Jean-Paul, the French cook on Sherkin, a basic attitude that 'You must cook wiz your 'art'.... It turned out fine, fruity and delicious, and this is how I did it:

·         Fill the pressure-cooker full of mostly bitter oranges*, with two sweet ones and a lemon, and water half-way up, and cook under pressure for half an hour.

·         Cool till you can slice them up, separating out the pips. Putting the chopped fruit to one side, return the pips to the juice in the cooker, adding maybe another cup-full of water, and give them ten minutes or more under pressure, before sieving them out and returning the fruit to the juice in the cooker, and adding about a (2kilo) packet and a half of sugar. Our pressure cooker, about a 6 pint one, is at this point about three-quarters full. Maybe a little extra water is required to bring it up there.

·         Boil away, with no lid on the cooker, stirring regularly. It takes a good while, and has to reduce quite considerably. Fiona swears by 'the wrinkle test' – put a bit on a plate and push it with the wooden spoon, and it's ready when it wrinkles. I find I know when it's cooked; it turns a darker colour and starts to stick to the bottom. That makes a good six jars.

*The bitter oranges have somewhat knobbly skins, while the sweet ones are smooth.

A Call to Adventure

I'm back aboard the Anna M in Guadianaland, between Spain and Portugal, and very delighted to be here. With all the talk about a possible Brexit, I am reminded how wonderful it is to be part of a community of nations, able to share all the more fully in the rich diversity of their cultures. Like all things human, the European Union is far from perfect; but what a massive improvement it is on the previous state of affairs! The challenge remains to improve it further, but how people can imagine that it would be better to go back into a nationalist shell rather baffles me.

I have a doleful memory from Ibiza of a drunken boat-load of young Brits roaring out Rule Brittania. I am generally amazed at the indulgence with which people endure such behaviour, and the patience with which they are prepared to distinguish louts from a much more sensitive and kindly majority. However if the British did vote to leave the EU, or even if the vote was close, one would really have to ask some questions.

It is a fact that the EU is rather too large and monolithic a structure for people to relate to with ease, which is why in this blog I celebrate the Gannetsway, the Atlantic region with which I particularly associate. However could it be that, on top of mere insularity, there is more of a hangover from the Protestant reformation at work than one might imagine? Indeed moderns are inclined to underestimate the effect of theology on cultural reflexes, especially their own; one can see this in the stunned reaction to Islamic revivalism. In the case of Protestantism, one sees how the emphasis on individual personal salvation has morphed into the liberal cult of personal autonomy and independence.

On the other hand, there is a lot of mere fear and anxiety at work, with the result of a revival  in nationalism on the Continent too, in France for example. Facing multiple threats, people easily forget that it is a plain and infinitely multi-faceted miracle that the human race has come as far as it has. Maybe God sometimes is inclined to despair of the freedom with which He has endowed us. Maybe Islam has a vocation to remind the West that although His mercy is infinite, His patience has been known to give way to His wrath, as we like to forget, taking Christ's sacrifice for granted.

Certainly we are not worthy of that participation in the divine nature that Christ calls us to; yet this is a time to dare to believe in it. It is a love affair, a dynamic and ongoing relationship and an adventure. It is enabled by the structure of the Trinity and the Incarnation, which is what poor old Mahommed missed. That our relationship with God should be frozen in the words of that prophet from the seventh century is really a sad idea, and it won't work in the modern world; hence an agonising time for all his devotees.

Perhaps it is a chance for all of us to rediscover the wonders of that relationship! And I happen to think sailing the sea is one of the very best images for it....

I write in haste because my computer is down and I must post this from the library in Alcoutim.

Last Post in the Hardy Country

John Hiscox RIP

‘Arr, two teats bain’t enough for ‘e, ‘e gotter ‘ave twelve!’ Recalling John’s warm voice saying that takes me straight back to Somerset; he was the married dairy-man talking about another neighbour, a younger man who worked every hour God gave him with his pigs, after he had done a dairy round in the morning, and to John’s disgust never went out at night. Not that John, and Hilary his wife, didn’t work very hard, rearing five children on the sixty acres owned by a limestone quarry of which he had inherited the tenancy.

A day at the sea-side was all the holiday they got, like the one when we all went down to Weymouth on the train from Frome; Hilary was wearing hot-pants and John bought a top hat bearing the message ‘Down With Hot Pants’. I often used to wander up the lane past his farm browsing our herd of goats on the long acre; later he said to me ‘When I were in a good mood, I would say to myself Why that’s the life! When I were in a bad mood, I would say There goes that darned lazy hippy again!’  He was always up for fun and they were happy days, but there was another dark side to him as well.

I think I got to understand him better one evening when I was helping him with the hay. As the last trailer-load pulled away, he said ‘Come over and have a look at this then!’  You had to go to the very edge of the field to see down into the vast quarry, like a sudden vision of Mordor. ‘A girt cancer eating up the land!’ was John’s comment. It was taking about an acre a year, though admittedly the landlord did find some more land a bit further away to make up for it.

The story that we heard, as the years after we left went by, got darker. Maybe someone will make a novel of it one day, a kind of post-script to the work of Thomas Hardy. Learned commentators of a sociological disposition might chunter on about the final demise of the old Wessex and its family farms. It does seem as if something besides John has passed away.

These days it is fashionable to speak of this person's story and that person's story, of my truth and your truth; yet there remains the hope of some final distillation, in which whatever real goodness, truth and beauty there is in every story will be reconciled, combined and crowned with immortality. If this be so, John's love of his family and of the land will be in there!

Quiet, Desperation and Bliss.

This is a photo of our James, after landing fish in Baltimore in brutal weather a few days ago. His crew these days frequently consists mainly of Egyptians. He says that when it is foggy, one of them will come up to the wheel-house first thing in the morning, to look at the compass so that they can say their prayers facing east. Is this a clue to what gives them the inner resilience to be good fisherman, so far from home and in such an alien climate? Or is it a case of sheer desperation? I do not think the desperation by itself would suffice! I am reminded of the Donegal men with whom I started to fish, who would trace a Sign of the Cross on the water with their boat as they put to sea, and shoot their nets ‘in God’s name’.

Now I am retired, and back in my island home with Fiona; it is very quiet here, the weather is lousy, we have neither radio nor tv nor any electronic racket in the house. We do have the internet and keep ourselves reasonably well informed about this troubled world. There is not much to cheer one up there. It is even more depressing than what has become of the Irish fishing industry. Yet in spite of it all, we find ourselves often in a state that can only be described as blissful!

I generally end each internet session by some little reference to something encouraging. One can always fall back on what the Pope is saying; I am amazed and enthralled by his knack of pointing up the astonishing experience of God’s merciful love, which seems to be erupting in so many hearts even as the turmoil of the world worsens. The rich may be being ‘sent empty away’, to use Our Lady’s words, but just what is it that can fill ‘the poor with good things’?

Surely it is that spring of living water within, that astonishing inner sense of bliss; an extraordinary gift. It is the treasure beyond price, a little seed within us, the one thing needful that unites all people of good will; the experience of God’s love, the assurance that despite all the appearances to the contrary, our lives are not in vain, but will enjoy some scarcely imaginable consummation beyond death. The Gift lights up this world too, making us appreciate what a wonderful place it is, still full of amazing possibilities!

At the same time, it makes us more sensitive to the appalling results of greed, pride, lust and stupidity; and not to put too fine a point on it, it really is odd how much of these appalling results these days centre on just one commodity; oil. Take the fields of doom which particularly get to me; the Sea, the Climate and the Orient.  Leaving climate change aside, by a completely different evidence chain, excessive co2 largely ends up threatening the oceans with acidification, as if over-fishing (powered by oil) and plastic waste (produced from same) were not threatening their once teeming life badly enough.

As for the Orient, pouring all that oil money into the hands of those desert tribes has been catastrophic, compounded by the fact that developed nations recoup some of it by selling them modern weapons. The news that the British sold over a billion pounds’ worth of bombs to those Saudi Wahhabis last year is profoundly disturbing. Just supposing that instead of bombing  and selling bombs, the world agreed to shut down the oil and the arms trades with the Middle East, and concentrate all possible resources on developing the alternatives, would not the prospects for our grandchildren be radically transformed overnight? And why should it not happen?

Erza Mary, the latest grandchild.

Well one way to nourish that little seed of bliss, I have found, is to make sure one gets to nurture it with plenty of silence. This of course is by no means easy, especially in this oil-fired world, but that is one of the main reasons why we have organised our lives the way we have, between our house on Sherkin Island and that old sailing boat; and I just wish family and friends would avail of them more!

Anyone can get in touch to see how they might do so. In particular, coming up, I hope to get the shell of the new sun-room here up in March, then later on to cruise eastwards from the Guadiana in May and June; and then back to Ireland, if the summer is reasonable, to hopefully finish the sun-room and reorder the kitchen, with access out into the sun-room, in July and August. Then it will be time to sail back south again. For anyone who would just like a chance to be quiet, especially if they are gardeners, it would be a great opportunity; we would love to have someone living in the house and tending the garden while we are away in May and June. Any of our old wwoofers hearing me?

Confession of a Catholic Socialist

For a while it looked as though we might leave it to those nice benevolent market forces, and in particular the then soaring price of oil, to push us all into doing what needs to be done to avert the likely scenario of catastrophic global warming. It turns out not to be so. It never was a likely story, for capitalists require us to consume ever more of their products. How can the Gordian knot that ties capitalism with environmental disaster be untied?

Certainly not by some international version of state control; its record is even worse than that of liberal democracies. I have generally lived by the assumption that the best we can do is to hope and work for a spiritual transformation of the world, but I have also been mindful of Marx’s gybe about ‘the opium of the people’. Certainly, there are very many worse drugs than religion about, but it does seem fair comment that an elitist withdrawal into ‘a state of enlightenment’ is a danger for the spiritually minded, though there have been plenty followers of Jesus who have not shied away from his example of bloodied engagement with political reality. As a matter of fact, political power, with no sound spiritual  basis nor robust framework to counter-balance it, has to be one of the most dangerous drugs of all.

A warning sign is when sloganeering and party politics take the place of any real dialogue, so it is encouraging when, on the contrary, a political leader really does seem to focus primarily on issues of justice and truth. The British Labour Party seems to have come up with such a leader, while taking the unusual step of getting in touch with its founding principles. Having spent the last few weeks in England, I profess to be impressed. Here are a few issues on which I agree with him:

• Trident. Obviously the use of nuclear weapons is incompatible with the principles of a ‘just war’, and the argument that they can act as a deterrent while never having to be used seems even less convincing than ever these days . The money could be spent to improve security more effectively in other ways. The example of giving them up would help to strengthen international efforts to rid the world of that particular menace, with a policy of zero tolerance for their deployment.

• Trade unionism. Aside from the fact that if a man cannot withdraw his labour then he is a slave, strong unions are essential for putting manners on the Plutocracy. A degree of public ownership of industry and essential services, though not necessarily by the State, also helps to do so, as do efforts to foster worker participation in the management and ownership of their companies. There is a need to foster the idea of work as both a form of self-expression and of service to others rather than a matter of merely making money, whether for the capitalists or for oneself.

• Austerity. Any organism, from a fish to a nation, does in the long run have to balance its budget: its intakes with its expenditures; but this is no reason to run a country like a grocery shop. In fact the present situation of so much hardship and dependence on credit, contrasted with monstrous amounts of cash slopping around with the plutocrats, points up very serious imbalances. If the policy of austerity ever had any validity, it won’t stand up any more. Let’s just say that if there is belt-tightening to be done, it is no use confining it to the weaker members of society, even if only because at least they spend it rather than gamble with it in casino-style stock markets!
• Europe. Whole-hearted participation in the European project is the only way to achieve any real political traction with regard to issues like climate-change, security, tax evasion and generally holding international capital to account.

I might add that when the plutocrats’ newspapers are so intent on rubbishing Mr Corbyn, I for one am inclined to be interested in him. One does have to recognise that he certainly faces an uphill battle to get elected, but let’s hope that the great British electorate might finally get around to seeing that we all need a change of tack. It is sad to see the widespread political unease wasted on nationalism and the likes of UKIP and  in France the National Front, but things seem more positive to me in Spain and Portugal, for all the untidiness there.

I’m back in Ireland now, where the Labour Party are a crowd of bourgeois socialists obsessed with their Liberal Agenda, as if abortion and euthanasia and the rest of it ever did any good for struggling humanity! Hopefully they’ll get a right kicking in the upcoming election, for getting into bed with Fine Gael, the nearest thing in Ireland to the Tory Party. I note that poor people are not inclined to support that Liberal Agenda, especially when they are not demoralised and understand how it subverts their struggle. I count it just within the realms of possibility that Fianna Fail will eventually rediscover its principles!

The sorry old antagonism of Catholicism and Socialism, in the tradition of the French Revolution and the Spanish Civil War, is really an historical accident whose time has passed. Actually if anyone cares to study Catholic social teaching, which has been steadily developing since Rerum Novarum in 1891, with Sustainability now added to make three Ss with Solidarity and Subsidiarity, I think they will find about the best formulation of a sound socialism that there is; I hope it represents a way of responding to the world whose time has come.

Meanwhile, it will soon be time for me to be thinking of seafaring again! I’m currently cowering from the wind and rain back in Sherkin, but thinking of a spin eastwards as far as Crete in May and June, so let me know in good time if you are interested in participating….

Daffodils at Christmas

As we boarded the turbo-prop plane that took us to Guernsey for Christmas, there beside the door on the fuselage was a notice that informed us that for each passenger it would on take-off inject an average of 10.5 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. This seems an awful lot to me, but evidently it is supposed to be something to be proud of. Anyway we landed on the splendid new runway at Guernsey, which is able to take jets. When they take off one even gets a good whiff of them at our daughter’s house over a mile away; no doubt they deliver plenty more of the dodgy stuff into the atmosphere, but they get the hard-pressed worthies of Guernsey to London ten minutes quicker, and should a chap happen to be making a million a year, time must be rather valuable!

Guernsey is a beautiful island and the weather was a whole lot kinder than in Ireland and the north of England. Going down the sheltered hill into St Peter Port from the south, there were already quite a few daffodils out, before Christmas! There are plenty of sweet and environmentally aware people there, and much talk of ‘a sustainable future’ and so on. Meanwhile there are three cars for every two adults on that small island, many  of them great big gas-guzzlers entirely inappropriate for the narrow roads. No matter, petrol’s not taxed!

‘The States’ is what they call the Government there, duly elected democratically. Funny thing is that any real islander whom I met grumbles about it no end. “How’s it going J….?”  “Fine, still battling the Gestapo!”  He was very fed up about the new marina in St Sampson’s; blokes that used to keep their wee boat on a running mooring there for 70quid a year are now expected to stump up 500 or so for a berth on the pontoons. Another friend mentioned the fancy new police station, court house, gaol, helicopter and flashy cars - “but the policing was much better when you had  a few bobbies doing proper community policing! Some good people get elected, but they don’t seem to be able to change anything. The place is run by the Masons!”

Everyone was complaining about the new Condor ferry ‘Liberation’, which let a lot of people down in the run-up to Christmas because it was not fit to battle the gales. It’s a trimaran but apparently has an awful corkscrewing motion when it gets lively and, like the big catamaran that was withdrawn from the Dun Laoghaire/Holyhead run, has to be regularly inspected by divers for cracks below the waterline. If it does succeed in the end, Condor ferries will reap the profits - but not to worry, the States has underwritten the loan on it. It’s the new whizz form of capitalism that we’ve seen in action so much lately: profits go to the capitalists, liabilities go to the tax-payer.  Bankers love it!

I was asking an old boy about it all, when I fell in with him walking the cliffs. He was one of those lonely old widowers, who made me feel young with his wheezing, but full of stories. He was a few years older than me anyway, and had witnessed the liberation of the island as a small boy. “Well what can you expect, Guernseymen had to scratch a living any way they could. That Saumarez crowd got the best property on the island from Queen Elizabeth I because they were on the ball rescuing a couple of ships laden with gold robbed from the Spaniards, and delivering it to Herself in London.

“The Bailiffs and top men made big money towards the end of the war, exchanging millions of Reichsmarks and gold robbed from Jews (or their corpses) for Pounds Sterling. The Germans actually kept meticulous records, which were taken away by the British after the war, but nothing was heard of it after….”

It’s a proud boast these days that ‘everything is kept within the law’, and lawyers on the island earn a fortune by making sure of it. The place is awash with money that has been kept safely and legally out of the hands of those greedy taxmen. But in spite of that and of all the expenditure on big projects of doubtful benefit, besides the fact that the States are not in debt, I read in the Guernsey Press of ‘a radical new tax plan that would see islanders working until they are 70, an end to family allowances and a cap on how much the States can take in total in taxes and charges.’

Sounds like a Tory Government on steroids! However, according to an old lady from Sark, the battle on that island with the Barclay brothers seems to be winding down. The islanders’ reflexive tactic of wearing them down and frustrating them has apparently reached a point where the Brothers have fallen out and one of them has lost interest. Meanwhile they have four newly refurbished (and empty) hotels on Sark. The Brothers were hoping to bring visitors in from France direct, but this bright idea ran foul of the need for customs officers to supervise it. Not being in the EU evidently does have its disadvantages! To get to Guernsey, that particular retired widow has to stump up the full 30pound fare….

Meanwhile, on the big island to the north, the main battle is warming up. We were quickly reminded of another example of that whizz modern form of capitalism that I mentioned, and its failure, when we took the train from Manchester Airport to Chester; of the three train journeys in Britain that we have made in 2015, this was the second that failed to run smoothly and on time; our connecting train was simply billed as cancelled as we stood on the platform awaiting it! Yet I read that in fact the British Government has spent much the same amount as the French on its railways this year, ‘privatised’ as they may be!

While we were in Guernsey, in memory of Victor Hugo who was exiled there for many years and loved the island, we watched the film of Les Miserables.  It’s fairly true to the original as far as I remember (having read the novel about 50 years ago). It’s a powerful story, but it’s a pity that he muddles the Kingdom of Heaven up with the Revolution, the Democracy or whatnot. One would have thought he had seen enough of the first French Revolution to have learnt that Heaven is always way beyond any such efforts! And yet, neither can it be said that they are completely unrelated; the desire for social justice and the love of truth do sometimes point in the same direction. Indeed, if this Corbyn effort is to get anywhere, it will need all the spiritual energy it can muster; in order to rouse a sufficient majority of the British populace from the torpor of tv, consumerism, cynicism and anxiety, it would help enormously to get that relationship right!

Tra-di-da, and a Happy New Year to ye all!       

Advent Hope, 2015.

Happy Christmas to you all, from Guernsey!

There is such a lot of madness around in the world these days that it’s hard to know how to deal with it. For a poor scribbler like myself, it must be a forlorn hope that my few words can make even the least little contribution to straightening things out. Our minds are all but buried under whole avalanches of words. You may well ask, on what basis do I venture to add yet more, and ask you to read them? I can only tell you that these little pieces come into my head in the early hours, unbidden, and I feel impelled to share them.

What have they got to do with the Gannetsway? Well, Europe is rather too big a mouthful for me. I could not begin to keep track, for instance, of the politics and media of all the countries of Europe, and neither would I have the interest to do so. But, on the other hand, my own country of Ireland, and indeed Great Britain, are too, well, insular by themselves. The essential Gannetsway countries of Ireland, Great Britain, France, Spain and Portugal, taken together with the catholic sea, provide me with a patria, a portal to the universal, which suits me; in my inadequate way, I try to follow what goes on here and use this basis for taking my fixes, my triangulation.

  
Still preoccupied with Islam and Isis, this piece at least ends on a more hopeful note than it begins!

Advent Hope, 2015.

I have previously expressed my dismay at the way in which the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was dispatched in response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre. President Hollande, making scant progress with his economic and social objectives, seems to believe he has to counter the threat from the National Front with rushing about the world, his jour de gloire come round, thumping the drum for all his allies to join in the bombing of Syria.

Not to be outdone, the House of Commons has voted to do so as well. We don’t have to look far for conclusive evidence that their leading men have lost the plot, with the honourable exception of Mr Corbyn and those who voted with him. Both the Foreign Secretary and his Shadow saw fit to compare the battle with Isis with the Hitler War, and actually compared the sending of bombers to Syria with the Battle of Britain! Quite frankly, from the point of view of ‘the Few’ who fought that battle, and as it happens I knew one of them, this can only be described as impertinent. They fought, and many lost their lives, in a desperate battle against a threat of imminent invasion, and it was the invaders who were doing the bombing.

They were battling against the odds, but this Syrian affair is entirely asymmetric. The massively superior resources and technology of the advanced nations are pitted against a few crazed men, whose principal asset is indifference to human life, their own included. This needless to say is not a weapon that bombs can destroy; what they do do is promote the conditions on which that attitude thrives.  The terrorists are left with even less to lose and more hatred of the West. From the point of view of protecting our own populations from terrorist attack, the bombing is likely to be counter-productive. It is the proverbial stick stirring the wasps’ nest.

However, Arabs may already have plenty of understandable reasons for hating us. Beyond the matter of Israel, and divers problems like the fact that the developed world bears the responsibility of slowly cooking them by way of global warming, we exercise a cultural kind of colonialism that strikes at their religion and culture, their very operating system.

At this point Mr Cameron solemnly accuses the likes of Mr Corbyn (and myself) of ‘sympathising with terrorists’.  We are told that they ‘reject our values’; but precisely what are these values that they reject? I noticed a typical western reporter actually citing homosexual marriage in there, along with, it may be inferred, the rest of the ‘progressive’ agenda, such as our ‘rights’ to divorce and abort babies. Having disposed of fidelity, as of the permanent, generative and heterosexual aspects of marriage, we also apparently feel free to dispose of its offspring, and this is all supposed to be a matter of ‘western values’? But these are not values at all; rather they are anti-values. As a result there is in fact an appalling spiritual void at the heart of contemporary culture, that manifests itself in all kinds of self-destructive behaviour, which hardly need to be enumerated.

Real values are such as truth/honesty, justice/mercy, fidelity/peace, sustainability and life itself; and as a matter of fact they may be cherished by people of all faiths and none. However deeply buried, they are present in all human beings, even the Isis crowd; the task of people of good-will is to seek them out, especially in their enemies, and see what can be done to apply them to the horrendous difficulties of actual living. We may then be surprised by the potential for joyous transformation in us all. It is in the struggle to realise true values that friendship is formed and brotherhood discovered.

On the other hand it is painful for anyone to find that some people are intent on sweeping away their version of value. Admittedly, the fact being that breakdowns occur between differing narratives of what is of value, the first thing that anyone in a state of war does is to deprive the other side of their humanity, by denying them any true values, as opposed to our own good selves. In this case, we must first of all get very clear about what our values really are, and then go on to doing our best to appreciate those of our opponents and seeing if it is possible to find common ground.

For my part, I believe that it would help the West’s case no end if we junked the anti-values of the progressive agenda. It is precisely these that give power to Muslim fanatics: they have found our Achilles’ heel and how to prick it. Furthermore, the West’s amnesia about theology complicates the problem of conversing with Muslims no end. The sane way to tackle our problem with them is to begin by renewing and redoubling dialogue with them.  They are the only people who can effectively deal with their own fanatics, as we have to deal with ours.

Perhaps the worst feature of the whole business is that one suspects the likes of President Hollande and Prime Minister Cameron know very well that the reasons they put forward for sending their bombers are bogus. These reasons seem to me to have more to do with prestige and influence and selling arms and not letting the Russians have it all their own way than anything else. There is the risk that the West will be sucked into a war behind the Sunnis, while the Russians and eventually the Chinese fall in with the Shias; the world shambled into the First World War on an equally bizarre basis! I don’t really understand the Shia/Sunni thing, but once one tries to identify the Kingdom of God with any earthly set-up, one is bound to run into this kind of problem.

Let us try to clarify the real issues.  I am no theologian, but just possibly a seaman’s eye is good for spotting the essential ones, rather than submerging them in oceans of words. One such matter of metaphysics has to be the question, ‘what comes first, the acorn or the idea of an oak tree?’ Scientifically and logically, it would seem, it has to be the idea, and how can one account for this but by believing in God? Thus far, we can agree with our Muslim friends; but whereas they may be stuck in the desert with nothing but the idea of fresh green growth to torment their minds, we in Europe have it everywhere under our noses, even if we fail to give it the appreciation it deserves. However, in the very same reciprocal movement, in the same dynamic relationship between God and his creation, during Advent Catholics sing a wonderful old hymn to Our Lady, which includes the incredibly tight Latin words: ‘Tu quae genuisti, natura mirante, tuum sanctum genitorem.’   I make bold to render them inadequately: You who bore, with nature looking on astounded, your own holy creator.

It would seem to be impossible for Muslims to accept the paradoxical mystery of the Incarnation, whereby Almighty God became a humble human being who died on the Cross; however, this difficulty does have its counterpart in the difficulty that Western civilisation has with the absolute and transcendent authority of God.  Perhaps being a seaman also helps me to imagine what effect the desert has on people, the sea being a kind of desert; and surely, whatever else it is, Islam is primarily a religion of the desert; a land where the sun, that most powerful physical image of God, burns in the sky but little grows; it may be contrasted with temperate Europe, where the sun is often obscured by cloud but lots of things do grow upon the land.

We may insist that God in his mercy does not choose to assert His authority by force, and it is not for any human being to do so;  we may reserve the right to resist any such attempt, meeting force with force if necessary. Much closer to the spirit of Jesus it is, in humility and mutual forgiveness, to work hopefully for that realm of truth, peace and justice which some call Islam, some the New Jerusalem or the Kingdom of God!

Joe Aston,   December, 2015.