Pakistan in the North Atlantic?

John Banville writes,

Surely the systematic cruelty visited upon hundreds of thousands of children incarcerated in state institutions in this country from 1914 to 2000, the period covered by the inquiry, but particularly from 1930 until 1990, would have been prevented if enough right-thinking people had been aware of what was going on? Well, no. Because everyone knew.

If by “knew” he means were aware of the general application of  gross physical, psychological and sexual torment, I can say with certainty that I – born in Galway in 1963 and resident in Ireland for the following 25 or so years – did not know.

I was aware of the existence of industrial schools and my mother, at moments when my siblings and I gravely tried her patience, would threaten to have us sent to one of them, Letterfrack. In so far as I thought about them at all, I imagined them as being a full time  version of the primary school I went to. The savage who ran the place regularly slapped pupils in the face/across the head, or grabbed their ears and twisted hard when they didn’t answer fast enough. I generally escaped the worst of this but I still remember more formal punishments that involved getting caned across the hands with a bamboo switch. Bad enough, but light years away from what went on in the industrial schools.

Loose talk about us all – Banville, me  and everyone else –  “knowing” and the idle comparison he later makes with the Jewish and Armenian genocides tends to dissolve the guilt among the population at large and lessen the share of those directly responsible, every last one of whom was a uniformed agent of the Catholic church, and those indirectly so, the secular authorities who cringed before the crozier and let the religious have their evil and perverted way with huge numbers of children.

As Sean Coleman puts it,

… there was a kind of cultural deference, a national stoop, which meant that what the Church was doing simply wasn’t seriously questioned. The report makes this quite clear: ‘The deferential and submissive attitude of the Department of Education towards the Congregations compromised its ability to carry out its statutory duty of inspection and monitoring of the schools’; ‘The Departments’ Secretary General, at a public hearing, told the Investigation Committee that the Department had shown a “very significant deference” towards the religious Congregations’. In effect, the state ceded its jurisdiction to the Church; indeed, in certain circumstances the Church became the state.

Perhaps now would be a good time to give some renewed thought to exactly what kind of state Ireland has been for a considerable part of its existence. To what extent can it be said to have been democratic during the first 50 years of its existence, when there was practically no limit on the power of the church? Instead of comparing our history in that period to that of Denmark, would we not be better off looking at, say, Pakistan?

The Catholic Church in Ireland: A Vast Criminal Conspiracy

So, there’s yet more evidence that the Irish Catholic Church was up to its oxters in child abuse all the way from the foundation of the state up to the 1980s.  If a secular organization had been found to have committed such horrors it would be well on the way to being closed down and its leaders would be looking at long prison sentences.

You can find the best commentary on the new revelations here, here, here and here. There are even some interesting comments.

Michael Dwyer, Wicklow, Bolivia and Buenos Aires

Some fucking amadán called Charlie Boyle has a post here – at the very heart of Nac&Pop blogging –   in which he condemns La Nación for its treatment of the death in Santa Cruz de la Sierra of three alleged plotters against the life of the president of Bolivia. So far, so good.

Now one of the dead was Irish and was called Michael Dwyer. The genius of a blogger  then goes on to say “Look what Wikipedia has to say about Michael Dwyer.” No, not the one riddled with bullets by the Bolivian cops a few days ago but rather the United Irishman, the hero of the 1798 rebellion who died in Australian exile in 1825. The relevance of the recently deceased neo-Nazi gobshite having had the same name and surname as a notable figure in the struggle for Irish freedom who died 184 years ago isn’t explained. Blogger Boyle does, however, go on to say that “I know from experience what it’s like to have bad Irish ancestors.”

Thank Christ having Irish blood hasn’t made us all as moronically racist as him.

Negotiating Illusions

here

El Criador Goes Too Far

El Criador de Gorilas is a brilliant blog but its pseudonymous author – though right to attack the ignorant ranting of Quintín -  goes too far when he includes Thatcher and Nehru in his list of leaders who served longer than Hugo Chávez has (so far) and who didn’t go on to establish themselves as virtual monarchs.

While it’s true that prime ministers in nations with parliamentary systems based on the British system  exercise a degree of power comparable to that wielded by Chávez, the difference lies in the fact that that power is delegated to them by parliament and what parliament gives, it can  take away. Thatcher, who would just loved to have gone on forever as prime minister,  was removed from office by her own MPs, who saw her continuing in office as lessening their own chance of reelection.

In a presidential system with fixed terms the only way you can rid of the boss is through an impeachment system that requires special majorities and God knows what else besides to work. In Brit-style parliamentary democracies all it needs is a lost confidence or finance bill vote, or a successful heave on the back benches and it’s goodnight Vienna for the sitting prime minister.

Anyone really believe that there’s any chance of Chávez ever being impeached, no matter what he gets caught doing?

Unlike Chávez, Brian Cowen, Gordon Brown and Stephen Harper all have to watch their backs at all times if they want a decent stretch in office and they know not the day nor the hour when their party’s men in gray suits will come to tell them that the game is up.