On recent developments re: The Irish Residential Schools Abuse story

On recent developments re: The Irish Residential Schools Abuse story, Statuary Funds, Cover-ups and a few words to the incoming Irish Government

To whom it may concern.

There are many problems that we as Survivors face, problems are individual and collective.

This means that there are individual solutions and collective solutions. It's not an either/or situation.

These problems are the after effects of the abuse we suffered, which are physical and psychological trauma.

The effects of not having been able to tell others, be they family, friends or support services about our experiences. Loneliness, isolation, fear.

The effects of denial or mitigation or dismissive-ness of our community when we do speak out. Anger, fear, isolation, paranoia.

The effects of holding our wounded-ness for so long, that we develop secondary psychological problems.

The effects of being unable to hold long term relationships, jobs and careers.

The effects of not being able to trust others.

The effects of knowing that the abuse was and is being covered up, the story and history being 'managed' to protect both Church and State and other bodies who held and hold responsibility.

The effects of knowing that abuse is still common, that others are being abused, even to this day, and that the roots of the abuse are not being addressed, and in spite of evidence and plenty of very good scientific understanding (out of which healthful practices have emerged to prevent further abuse) the media and State and Church still avoid promoting these learning’s.

None of these will be resolved by money alone.

They will be resolved by providing adequate support for:

Telling the truth : open forums to tell our stories, open forums to examine who abused, who cover-ed up and why they covered up; criminal prosecutions for all abusers, and detailed inquiries into the actions of all those who covered up, for whatever reason, so that the dynamics of cover-up are understood, so that 'good' people who cover-up understand the impacts of their actions and understand that they must not cover-up.

Providing for our health : by providing best possible health care, best possible community interaction and understanding of the issues and dynamics of abuse.

Providing for our sustenance : Pensions separate from all other benefits are a useful idea.

Prevention: This is REALLY important. Apart from child protection legislation with real teeth, there needs to be a wider understanding of the dynamics of abuse, within families, and within all situations where adults have responsibility and power over children. Schools, care systems, sports training, etc etc.....

There also needs to be a wider understanding of the dynamics of intergenerational trauma patterning, which is how adverse behaviour patterns are passed from generation to generation in spite of peoples best efforts as they 'cope' with the effects (above) of abuse without proper support or understanding.

For all of this there needs to be State Funding of appropriate organisations (led by Survivors, informed by Survivors) PLUS awards to individual Survivors, not as compensation or reparation, but as offers of genuine support, to nurture Survivors for what remains of our lives.

These are my thoughts on this at this time.

Finally let me say this : we have seen how two prominent Survivors, from different perspectives, have in the very recent past, engaged in public disputes that have revealed unresolved behaviour patterns : That one of these Survivors should label and judge other Survivors in adverse ways (from a position of being one who offers 'care' ) speaks of the profound misunderstandings that still dominate the discourse, speaks of the ways in which wounded people can re-wound others, and can be manipulated or 'triggered' by those who perceicve that they have the 'most to lose' in all of this - The State and The Church.

That ANYONE sees it thus - that they have something to lose - speaks volumes of the psychology of the inadequate responses to the abuse story.

There is still so much to do in all of this.

Kindest regards

Corneilius Crowley

London

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

My Single Issue Obsession - The Facts.

Here are the facts. It's NOT all doom and gloom. Some seriously good work is being done in understandtng the dynamics of abuse relationships, the intergenerational and cyclical effects of PTSD, with an eye to prevention, (founded upon proven practice, biology and science) as many are concerned that thus far, the vast maority of abuse remains, in relative terms, a largely misunderstood by the general populace, and is still very much a hidden, denied and masked reality.

However...... truth beckons.

One out of every four people in Ireland  will have experienced a serious sexual assault or serious abuse during their childhoods.

This pattern is replicated across the entire developed world. No Child Left Behind rings hollow and echoes down through History.

Informal networks of organised, self protecting abusers exist in EVERY area concerning children – sport, drama, education, scouting, state care, psychiatry, psychology, health, religion.

Governments and Churches have created, funded and operated  well documented systems, that purported to ’care’ for children, and other vulnerable people, yet have seriously abused the majority in their care. These are called Residential School Systems. Social Services Care Homes. Juvenile Offender Prisons. Schools. Care Homes for the Elderly. Psychiatric Units. Orphanages.

The history of childhood ‘rearing’ texts is littered proffering ‘good advice’ that is on the face of it abusive. This literature is known as Poisonous Pedagogy.

Rather than empathy, manipulative techniques of control are espoused as best practice for parents, teachers, and others responsible for the care of children. Behaviour Modification techniques. Ritalin. Seroxat. The DSM.

These same organisations, Religious and Secular, launch wars, trade in arms, people and in drugs, send mercenaries to do their bidding, employ manipulative strategies against all their perceived enemies, in particular the whistle blowers, and are corrupt to the hilt.

The adverse effects of Industry on the habitat are also part of this abuse picture. To deny the ‘external costs’ of Industry to both people and the habitat is abusive.

Green-washing is an example of the manipulative means by which those who abuse the environment portray themselves as saviours. The best paid lawyers in the world are those who defend the Corporations who pollute, who bribe officials whose role is defined by a duty of care to those they purport to serve.

Foot-washing in Churches follows this same pattern.

Meaningless gestures, empty words.

Any Survivor who dares to speak the truth is a whistle blower. Bradley Manning.  Colm O’Gorman. Paddy Doyle. Noam Chomsky. Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks. David Shayler. Julian Assange. Kevin Annett. Ward Churchill. Russel Means. Howard Zinn.

All Survivors are treated as potential enemies, as a potential threat to the status quo. Why is it thus?

Not only by those who abused them, but by others in positions of responsibility and power, who feel threatened by the disclosures.

The Philadelphia Grand Jury Report. The Ryan Report. The Ferns Report. The Murphy Report. The as yet unpublished Cloyne Report.  The Forde Inquiry.

The many documentaries on the Residential School systems designed by Governments and run by clergy for Indigenous or Aboriginal Children. The Forgotten Australians. Hidden From History.

The Canary Effect. Deliver Us from Evil.

The Murphy Inquiry into Irish Swimming and similar reports into UK Sports. 

I have omitted more than I have excluded here.

This list is only the tip of the iceberg. 4 Dioceses reports exist in Ireland’s investigations into criminal child abuses in 26 Dioceses.

There are reports due from Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, the UK. Work has started on similar investigations in Africa, South America and Asia.

The Chilcott Inquiry. The 5 Inquiries into UK Government decision making regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. These all follow the same pattern of half truths, denials and white washing.

How many scandals in various arena’s have blown up in the past 40 years where people who were abused went public and those who had official responsibility, who were often colleagues in work of the accused, refused to accept the truth of these public statements, who hid the facts of specific accusations, allegations and actual reported crimes, investigations and trials from the people and constituencies they served?

How many more will it take before the pattern now absolutely clear to anyone who reviews the data is made clear to the general public, and is tackled by those good people within Governance, Policing, Health Care, Education and Religion in areas concerned with the well-fare and care of children, in meaningful and effective manner, leading not only to the prosecution of abusers and those who covered up, but also and importantly to educational campaigns, founded on solid scientific understanding and proven practice, to prevent more abuse, to break the intergenerational cycles of abuse?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Letter to media re: release of chapter 9 of The Murphy Report.

To the Editor,

The release of Chapter 19 of The Murphy Report is a reminder to everyone concerned with the welfare of all our children. 

It is a reminder that is well overdue, a reminder that cries out for Justice for all those children who over the years, have been sexually assaulted, brutally beaten, humiliated, bullied and psychologically tortured by clergy and by lay-persons in Church and State Residential Institutions entrusted with their 'care'. Justice.

It is a reminder that there are many, many adults today who bear the scars of these crimes, whose lives have been absolutely undermined by the toxic effects of these Adverse Childhood Expereinces, who have lived with shame, pain, confusion, fear, lonliness, psychological and physiological breakdowns, addiction, family breakdown and more, many of whom have been held responsible by Society for those symptoms, for the unbroken cycles of abuse that have disfigured their lives.

How many times have Surviviors been told to 'pull your socks' up by well-meaning, insistent yet impatient and ultimately un-empathetic helpers?  Charity is all well and good, yet if Society does not directly address the roots of the problem, the problem persists.

Survivors suffer still, many decades after the initial trauma.

The long drawn out process of breaking through the resistance of State and Church to achieve a full disclosure and accountability, resolution and closure for what went on - the endemic brutal and extreme mistreatment of children - for so long that in cannot be called 'accidental' on any level, is part of what I see as a wider pattern of fear. Cowardice.

These crimes would have remained masked and obscured were it not for those Survivors who first confronted their own fear, to bring charges against their abusers, often in the face of resistance from family, community, the State and of course the Church itself.

Who has the most to fear?

Is it the Irish State? Is it the Vatican? Is it those perpetrators as yet un-named? Is it Irish Society?

Or is it the Survivors?

As a survivor I fear that Irish Society does not really 'get it', is still largely in denial - we know, yet we do not allow ourselves to feel the full impact of the truth - and Irish Society is even still unwilling to address the matter openly, because it is not simply the story of Survivors of Church and State abuses of children - it is the story of how Irish Society relates to children, and the failure to place the welfare of children above the preceived interests of adults, of State and Church Institutions and of matters financial.

This is also a matter of Power Relationships.

The greatest natural disparity of power is that between an parent and an infant. That disparity is mirrrored in the disparity of Power between Governance and those who are Governed. Even in a democracy.

This Christmas, think of the new born, think of the future you are building for that child, for all children.

Think of the variance between the idealised birth in a manger in Nazereth, of a childhood that has not been recorded in the Gospel, which remains shrouded in mystery, and then think on and feel the reality of so many children, across the world, who suffered so terribly for so many years at the hands of Church and State and how that too has been shrouded in secrecy.

Ireland's story is part of an international pattern. As Indigenous Aboriginal Residential School survivors will affirm in Canada, Australia, North America, South America, Africa and Asia.

How many years must Survivors beg and cajole and litigate and struggle for Justice?

How many more reports will be conducted? How many surviuvors have died whilst these investigastions have been carried out, and ho wmany more will pass before the truth is made public, before justice is served and real change with regard to the welfare and status of children has a foundation that is solid and is made visible by the actions of Society?

What would Jesus do?



Kindest regards

Corneilius Crowley

London

THE MURPHY REPORT : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Report

IRISH RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SYSTEMS : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_to_Inquire_into_Child_Abuse

MAGDALENE LAUNDERIES (WORLDWIDE) :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum

CANADIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SYSTEM : http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org

AUSTRALIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SYSTEM : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generation

GERMAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SYSTEM : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-admits-enslaving-and-abusing-a-generation-of-children-2159589.html

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe