The Northern Ireland legacy Bill. Wow.

A metric for critical thinking on policy matters.

The King, Charles III, is Head of The British State.

Occupying Government of The United Kingdom Power are the current Conservative Majority. They can do whatever they like. To all intents and purposes, they and their sponsors are a hyper-dominant influence on the machinery of State.

They exercise a dominant control of the Legislature.

 Untouchable. Johnson jumped ship before he was planked. A tactical move. 

No scandal can now impede the canoe this State and it's Government are furiously paddling us all up shit creek. 'Refugees in small boats are criminals, it's an invasion'. So they claim. And it is a lie. We all know this. They will never admit - to publicly admit to deliberate harm causation, to be held accountable is to cede power, and that they will never, ever do. Brace yourselves. For more deliberate cruelty.

Oh, yes, this week the memories associated with Windrush Generation of Immigrants to England, 75 years ago. 'Hostile Environment' has a history, a continuity. 

Deliberate Cruelty.

There's a pattern emerging.

The Northern Ireland legacy Bill reveals this too.

#mindblown  

Deliberate cruelty. Prove me wrong. Please.

Update : Guardian 20/12/23 reports that the Irish Government launching legal action to challenge the imposition of the NIT Bill.-- 
 "Ireland is to initiate a legal challenge against the UK government’s legislation to deal with the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

Ireland’s deputy premier, Micheál Martin, said the interstate case would argue that the provisions of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 were incompatible with the UK’s obligations under the European convention on human rights.

The act received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims’ organisations in Northern Ireland and the Irish government.

Aspects of the law include a limited form of immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences for those who cooperate with the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).

 The new act will also halt future civil cases and legacy inquests.

A number of Troubles victims and family members are supporting a legal challenge against aspects of the act at Belfast high court.

Martin said: “This decision was taken after much thought and careful consideration. I regret that we find ourselves in a position where such a choice had to be made.

“However, the decision by the British government not to proceed with the 2014 Stormont House agreement and instead pursue legislation unilaterally, without effective engagement with the legitimate concerns that we, and many others, raised left us with few options.

“The British government removed the political option, and has left us only this legal avenue.”

Details of the NIT Bill :  Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

I had no idea.

Buried in my own little rabbit hole. I had no idea. So I peeked out into another rabbit hole. I learned a lot.

On Thursday I view two documentaries on The Troubles, the civil war in Northern Ireland that Wass maintained for 30 years and more. 

I was looking for video of Patrick Kielty, who has been selected as the new presenter for RTE flagship Saturday Night Light Entertainment Talk Show, The Late Late Show. He's a stand up comedian by trade, and well respected for his work in maintaining a healing space among the divided of Northern Ireland. His father was shot dead when he was a teenager.

He is a Survivor, he is one of the real lived experience of this social experience people, this subject in the real.

He made a documentary 'My dad, The Peace Deal, and Me' which drew the threads of on his own experience, and through meeting others, listening to their version of events, on all sides, calm in spite of disagreements. Honest, moving.

So many people suffered so much avoidable harm.

The second film I watched was the story of Father Alex Reid, who created a flow of communication between the warring parties, a vital effort in bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

So many people suffered so much avoidable harm.

So many people: How does one count the impact across an entire population, who will need full support to recover over time, from the continuing multi-generational cycle of trauma, and who deserve it. No question. So many generous ordinary persons, citizens, families, communities who want a healthy resolution. Impeded by a State that is opposed to that. Clearly.

The Lords debate on recent Govt. Amendments to this Bill is interesting, it can be read here.  Tinkering with the engine, adjusting some of the fairing, but the engine is a dirty, polluting harmful thing.

The Irish Foreign Office published a letter by Micheál Martin, which requests, in clear language, that the British Government cease work on the NITLARB.

Amnesty International had this to say about it.

"What does the NI Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill mean?

Over decades, there has been a piecemeal approach to dealing with the past. Many victims are still waiting for justice. The UK Government is now betraying those victims by permanently removing any chance of truth, justice and accountability. The Bill protects perpetrators and means that if they give an account of conflict related events best to their knowledge and belief, that they will be given immunity from prosecution.
For example, if they confess to murdering someone during the Troubles conflict, they will be given impunity. 
What is wrong with the NI Troubles Bill exactly then?
Put simply, A LOT. If the Bill comes into place, it will:
- Give impunity to murderers, and those responsible for torture- Block victims from accessing justice via legal action- Be a significant interference in the justice system - Breach the Good Friday Agreement- Go against existing agreements between the UK and Irish Governments and NI Political Parties on legacy- Create a two-tier justice system in the UK- Fail to deliver human rights compliant investigations- Set a deeply concerning international precedent - signalling to other States that they too can ignore their human rights obligations.
~

In short, there has been an imperfect and tortoiseian paced State and Civil Society healing and recovery process underway across the Northern Ireland population, for decades. Civic organisations, Community Voluntary networks, health care provision, stability in education, building on proven process, driven by Survivors presenting the evidence of what works to bring recovery, peace, stability of relationships, community. It's not a rapid process. It could and really should be strengthened and accelerated.. how long must people harmed in the last 40 years remain short of justice, accountability and reparations. Is there a plan to delay as older survivors pass on? Is it that dark?

The State is not hearing, the State refusing to see the evidence, and the State is never mentioning this body of work, lived experience in post war resolution of harms caused cannot pass the three monkey gate.

The British Government is well beyond dragging it's heels, on upholding the Human Rights of the citizens of Northern Ireland, The United Kingdom and those of Irish citizens who have been adversely harmed by war violence. Citizens, who in good faith, who seek not revenge but justice, accountability, closure, resolution, towards a renewed social solidarity in line with the understanding, born of the lived experience, a body of evidence of how to live well, together. 

This is nothing a democratic State should fear or impede.

But it does.

The implementation of work to repair, in the aftermath of a protracted state of war and daily violence, is always a matter of learning more through direct lived experience. The solutions are found in the intentions of the Survivors, in meeting the un-met needs of the Survivor population, a demographic who wish sincerely to end the cycles of violence in their own lifetimes. 

Accountability for harms caused is part of that process. It has to be. Evidence, justice, accountability and prevention, for decent human beings harmed during decades of violence, all of it avoidable. Peace is more than the absence of War.

For this British State, the approach, this dynamic is all ends with the eventual inevitable passing of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill.

70 Plus Majority. They can do what they like.

And their proposal?

No more public criminal liability for those who caused harm, disabling and murdering, wounding and terrorising, especially if the purported defendants were working for the British State - their confession will be archived, they will receive immunity from prosecution. Their Crimes will be noted. Survivors will be 'compensated'. 

Survivors can add their stories, and record the impacts upon their lives of the harms they endured: 'impact statements'  to the national archive. Thus the impact is duly recorded, filed and archived. That way the Survivor population can contribute to and write their history, bringing to light the complexity of the situation.  Presumably to lead to greater understanding, that would prevent future outbreaks of political violence. Make NI Safe Again!

Guardian Article on Irish Government legal challenge to the NIT Bill.

It's a kind of weird 'show and tell' vs 'show and tell' where the criminals are the winners, and so too are the survivors - except it's not that - it is an attack on the entire Survivor Population adversely afflicted by British State Militarised Politicised Violence."

We're ALL Winners?

Nobody wins in war.

Peace is more than the absence of War.

Honesty all 'round. Honesty is the best policy!

Fine.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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1916, 2016, Terrorism and Murder.

1916, 2016, Terrorism and Murder.

I was ‘raised’ to believe that the British Empire was cruel and vicious in it’s treatment of the Irish. The Fight for Irish Freedom!

Stories of oppression were caricatured, and there was only image, polemic, emotion perhaps yet no real feeling, no empathy for the poor as poor people; Ireland in the 1970s was not a good pace to be poor. It was pitiless. In a very Catholic and bank friendly way.

I was also ‘taught’ to think of the British Empire was a good influence on the World and all it’s peoples. Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation.

The British Empire, and all empires are at the core of Human Progress. I passed all my exams.

I was ‘schooled’ in the History of Kings, Queens, Princes, Wars, Winners and Losers and ‘learned’ to ‘celebrate’ their ‘achievements’ an to duly ‘appreciate’ their‘ legacy’

The reality of the lives of those who suffered at their hands was a rare footnote.

Most often their bit part in History was to perform as ‘stout yeomanry’ who fought ‘great battles’ or ‘simple’ folk, who toiled on the land, ‘protected’ by their Lords.

Great movies of great battles with great speeches by well  known celebrity actors, the historical drama, the almost documentary retelling of the myth is the most seductive manner possible. Heroes kissing their female conquests in between bloody battles, often still covered in the dirt of war; the woman soothes the warrior, she does not scold him.

There were a few bad apples, of course.

Just a few.   

People like Spartacus and Robin Hood sorted them out, put them in their place, if only for a brief moment. This underpinned the sense that justice exists, with the subtext that seeking it is futile and lethal alongside the inevitability of Power and Rulers, War and Taxes.

All of this guaranteed by God.

As if it was all ‘normal’ human behaviour.

This is what I was led to believe.

I was ‘radicalised’.

I don’t believe any of it.

It’s all propaganda.

It’s shit.

1916 was a shit thing to do, a shit thing to be involved in.

In consequence many more shit things were done,  guerrilla war,  independence war, civil war, economic war, religious war…

leading directly to the Dictatorship of Church and State in Ireland, a cabal that for 80 years masqueraded as beacon of Democracy on the International ‘stage’, all the whle managing the incarceration hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in religious and state care, where they were subjected to unfathomable, protracted, horrific physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse, which was covered up by people who were not the perpetrators, who were ‘in loco parentis’ and this double breach of trust is still being ‘managed’ by Church and State in Ireland ….

That’s a shit thing to have done, to be still doing. And it’s not like the current set-up has made an effort – what accountability exists, does so because it’s all been driven by Survivors coming forwards and fighting with all their might against a hesitant, obstructive state and resistant deceitful Church. T

1916! The Banks!

1916! The Tyrrelstown evictions!

1916! The Magdalene Launderies!

1916! Mothers and Babies Homes!

1916! Catholic Baby Trafficking!

1916! Enda Kenny!

1916! Charlie Haughey!

Yeah, Right!

1916! LGBT Rights! ????

They don’t go together. Those rights were attained by peace, by struggle yes, but not by the gun. This supercedes 1916 in every way possible,  and they are a maturation of the political process amongst the grass roots of society, and the most effective way in which to challenge and confront oppressions.

They were a recognition of humanity that has been dealt with openly, honestly and with all due remorse and shame for the previous institutionalised marginalisation and bigotry, and a desire in people for human  justice, justice, justice!

1916, 1922, 2016…… look around you, my Irish brothers and sisters. What do you see?

Be honest and fearless, and kind. Be very kind, indeed.

All the men with guns are terrorists, they are murderers. The legal definitions are irrelevant to human flesh and bone, to the reality of that kind of violence, on all ‘sides’.

I will not glorify it. I will not justify it.

I will subject it to a substantial critique based on the evidence, the outcomes.

Tom Clarke, the 'leader' of 1916 was driven by revenge, religion and ideology, not by love. He was a 'radicaliser', he was a 'mentor', a manipulator and he was a 'jihadist' teacher. He was a Wahhabist. Religion as justification for murder. Funding for militia. Training Camps. Those who want to can justify anything, defend the indefensible.

Understand 1916 in the context of 'The Troubles'.

The NI Civil Rights Movement that was about poverty; institutional discrimination and deliberate impoverishment. It was not about Republicanism vs Unionsim. That was injected into the shituation to undermine the Civil Rights narrative. Collusion. Secret undercover 'operatives' working for the British Security State, an all the militia, escalated the violence and the narrative changed. And they have maintained that pretense for decades. A movement of integrity that is seeking Civil Rights is more of a threat to Power than any violent militia.

The irony of the times, the 1916/2016 mirroring shows that whilst the people are growing in awareness, the rulers are becoming ever more blatant about their position, and their media parrots these lies and false narratives because they cannot acknowledge that growing awareness, as it's emergence after centuries of delusion exposes their primary insecurities, which being narcissistic in nature they take very, very personally  and deep within their reactionary violence their souls are charged with fear.

Selfish fear. Lethal fear.

Power has one directive : to retain, enhance and project that power. Everything it does submits to these necessities.  Everything it does can be understood through this paradigm. The Bully, the Institution. They are the same thing, at different degrees.

Bullies replacing bullies is not Freedom.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

What would Jesus Draw?

I would never have thought that being stranded in the centre of London, late in hours, by a Bus Strike, could be such a potent opportunity for reflection on matters topical.

As I traveled in the bus, I was thinking about ordinary folk in France, Iraq, Gaza, New York, Woolwich, in villages towns and cities around this Earth, when war comes knocking in the door.I meant knocking in. It is like that.

Wherever violence has been inflicted upon innocent civilians by warring parties, all sides irrespective of their ‘legitimacy’ will equally seek to justify that violence. At the beginning, throughout and at the end, and in their relative hagiographies/ History’s, and constantly re-enforced by their mainstream narratives, their myths. Our violence is 'good'. Theirs is 'bad'.

That act of violence from the perspective of the ordinary folk victimised in such atrocious manner. In the immediacy of that horror. Is always bad, very, very bad. and of course it is ignored. If it is mentioned, it is glossed over and an apology is issued. Sometimes compensation - shut your mouth money - is offered. Justice, never.

I considered the bus I was traveling in. What would we all feel if an explosive went off, or the bus was raked with bullets, attacking random innocents? I tried imagining the cascades of feelings, the terror, the fear, the confusion, the loss of hope, the panic, the shock that each and every person would in different ways be going through. And the pain. Utter horror. I shuddered as the bus rode on.

For each person, for every civilian harmed by violence the act is more than terrifying, it is physically horrifying, burning deep, deep into their very souls, their sense of self. To be so tortured and to see others in the same state, is for many, understandably an experience of utter helplessness. Hopelessness.

My thoughts were interrupted. The lights flicker,

The bus stops. We are at Oxford circus. The driver calls out “Last Stop! Last Stop” and flickers the lights. They go off. It’s 2.45am. I had left the event at 2.30am.

I thought “Great the journey is going well.”

“though it is late and I really need to get back home to get some sleep to be up, ready for some work at 10am…”

I walked around the corner to catch my second bus, for a 40 minute ride to where my home is.

I checked the time table and TFL on my phone. The timetable says the bus route is running. Bus in 18 minutes. Cool.

I fell back to my previous explorations of the meanings of that lived experience for those who go through it, and the consequences for their lives, and their relationships, and how it’s just not a part of the mainstream narrative on war and peace.

A huge part of the reality of both the Charlie Hebdo shootings and Falluja, of Nigeria and Boko Haram, of Chile in 1979, WWI and WWII and ….  and so on… the official history is littered with ‘great victories’, our broken lives are only of sentimental value, as ‘sacrifices’ for this cause, that flag, ‘our’ faith…

That my readers is a lot of trauma…..

Haven’t we had enough. already?

This is the appalling truth : the mainstream narrative reflexively, intentionally dilutes, sentimentalises, and compartmentalises the meaning of the lived experience of those who go through war-like violence inflicted upon them intentionally, arbitrarily simply because the violence was introduced as part of some politically driven  power struggle and that is the permitted narrative. People can side with one or the other – the meaning of the lived experience is taboo.

I noticed that my thinking was eating up the time… There was three of us at the bus stop, a few people walking in the street, frequent buses yet never the one I needed. I checked the time. It was 4pm.

“Oh dear!...”

Looks like this route is a strike route… I began to think on other options. Tube at 5.45am?  Walk to Trafalgar Square, Bus to Heathrow, Bus to home - two, possibly more hours?

I was looking at the street, imagining what it might be like to have a bomb go off or a shooting, seeing the debris, the damaged bodies, bits of bodies, people moving in shock. I shuddered. Horrible feeling.

Yuk!

How could anyone, anyone at all think on that and FEEL it’s meanings and not shudder, not wish to withdraw , not wish to prevent it, and how could anyone inflict THAT on innocent people?

The mainstream narrative, what some call ‘straight psycho-social reality’, ensures that what is understood by an ‘informed’ public, rather than the reality, populates and dominates all public discourse. Government routinely signals that it is un-moved by either protest or reasoned dissent. The violence continues on all sides.

The official Charlie Hebdo narrative ignores the meaning of the lived experience of one set of abused people, those who just happen to be born in  and live under the rule or ‘governance’ of their official enemies, and ignores the meaning of the lived experience those who just happen to be born in and live under the rule of oppressive regimes who are their allies. Gaza and Saudi Arabia.

This is 100% unacceptable. It is professional amoral brutal hypocrisy at every degree.

Under Rome, Reconciliation was process to 're consilo' - to bring back into the home, to return to the family of Rome (the abuser).

Vanquished Rebel Leaders would go through a ritual, where they would be publicly forgiven, welcomed back with a ritual embrace, and then ritually strangled. By the leaders suffering this, and new roman aligned leaders appointed from within the rebel community, no further reprisals would be taken against that community and the taxes would of course increase. An Heroic Sacrifice. Victor and Victim. These are the vernacular of Power. The Roman Empire was a business.

Same words, different meaning in the lived experience.

The hypocrisy of the language of power. Of ignoring the meaning of the lived experience of those upon whom such extremes of violence are inflicted. Of manipulating the lives of the dead, maimed, wound as part of a mainstream narrative,which is sectarian - "our power is good, theirs is obviously bad." when all power exercised in this way is equally amoral.

Our dead, maimed and wounded are ‘victims’, ‘sacrificed’, ‘heroes’, they are identified, given a back story. Their dead, maimed and wounded are ‘collateral damage’; they remain largely without identity. If their identity is used, it most often by Charities, seeking funding to apply expensive though most often useful sticking plasters to a sea of life threatening injuries and situations, caused largely by power psychology.

The only thing that’s true in the narrative is that there are dead, maimed and wounded everywhere. What that actually means, in each and every case, is besides the point.

The cruelty of this dominate narrative is horrific. Truly inhumane. Not healthy, at all.

The thread of violence is what weaves the Emperors clothes. You have to pretend that thread is something other than what it is, and that it shines, and exudes power and glory. That is the mainstream narrative.

By mainstream I include the news media, and I include as part of it all that core psychology of Power as a psycho-social narrative that has lived meaning.

The Naked Bully.

Not the naked ape.

The Bully. Learned behaviour.

And all the bully can think of is how to manipulate the lives of those who died, who were maimed, wounded and traumatised or who witnessed what took place in a small office in Paris, in ways that will enhance his or her power.

On all sides, they all do it.

The bully culture. 

There’s a man at the bus stopping acting strangely. He’s heaving these massive sighs, moving erratically, subdued shouts, dancing like a boxer.

“What time is it, and where is that bus?”

I gave up, and walked to the tube station. It was 5.15. The station doors open at 5.30, and at least I will be warm. 

The newspaper headlines are sickening. They miss the point. I read them only to understand how they are doing what they are doing, how people might be influenced by that and what is the best response to rebut all that?

I got home eventually for 7.55am. Yeah. Not a 40 minute ride. One line delayed as over night work over ran. Another held back for ages due to a ‘signal failure’.

Signal failure. That’s what the prevailing Official narrative on war, terror and reality is.

A massive signal failure.

An easy one to fix.

If one tells the truth without fear or favour. What would Jesus draw?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Syria, the failure of the Institution of The State. Does it have to be this way?

The system of States, Nation States as we know them,  as legislative entities, as ratifiers of International Treaties and as maintainers of both The Law and The Peace are abject failures. They make Laws yet they refuse to obey them, or ensure they are obeyed. They do no preventative work. It's a charade.

What is happening in Syria is so clearly immoral, illegal, horrific on all sides.

And it's getting worse.

However as 'it' - the actions of gun-men and of statesmen and biased 'reporting' - is politically motivated..

That makes a difference. It's justified.

Struggle for liberation. Defence of The State.

And the statesman and pundits will proclaim that one side is proven to be far more immoral than the other (which is the subtext that sells the war) and that's all that anyone needs to know or think about the matter.

No negotiation is what that means.

The rest is just business.

The idiot Statesmen, the absurd 'civil servants' send in the Israeli's on airstrikes, arm the rebels, and 'win' the war only in terms of ousting the legal and constitutional Administration, - the Objective - and again, the gun men will take over civil control, with 'democracy' no-where in sight, other than this kind of violence harms all of Syrian's people. It is nothing less than collective punishment by both sides, by all gun-men.

Change of gunmen. Privatise the gun-men. Job done. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Egypt. Same old, same old. There IS a pattern here.

This pattern suggest strongly that the current paradigm and actions of Governance are failures, because all of this is avoidable, preventable .... once might be accidental...
 

That fact that some aspects of Governance does do *some* good, in *some* places does not mitigate the impact, with regard to these patterns, which are continuing, upon lovely ordinary citizens, families, villages, etc etc who are  living where the gun-men are engaged in live fire street war with a State Army.

Imagine that kind of violence outside on your street? I shudder to imagine, to think on that. And I cannot turn from it and ignore it. It is more truth about Syria for me than anything written about it, or on the public record, or in Academia....

I feel that the Political State is a failure, and I am only saying this because it needs to be said. It is the way it is, and it is sad.

And please understand that it's not about the State, it's about that FAILURE. The impact.

It's even more about the lives of all those who die violently, who are injured and otherwise traumatised in these patterns, these cycles. The objective is that no such experience could be considered under any circumstance within the State system.

That's the only sane and honest objective. That then would determine how peace is approached.

The State infrastructure could of course be used for ensuring peace through negotiations, which is not impossible, if they are genuinely transparent, and include full participation of the people as a collective, local and national. A dream, perhaps?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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