The world sure is in a state of chassis

Conor Cruise O’Brien was prescient when he coined the acronym GUBU when he referring to a political scandal in Ireland during a Haughey government.

Its application goes well beyond the Irish shores. Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre,Unprecedented.

The state of the world at present.

The Trump story continues to evolve. The big cars, the security detail and Trump shouting his mouth off. And while all that is going on the poor, the young, women and men are being slaughtered across the world.

Thirty/40 years ago AI meant Artificial Insemination, today it stands for Artificial Intelligence.

The growth of the far-right.

Climate change.

Too much.

A personal request

I would be grateful if Sean, who made a comment on this blog about the late Paddy Cullen, contact me. Is it possible to have your email address please? Someone has requested it. Of course it will not be published on the blog. Thank you and best wishes. Michael Commane

The wonderful symbolism of Torgau has vanished

On this day, April 25, 1945 a symbolic event happened on the river Elbe in the south east German town of Torgau.

It was here that the United States and Soviet armies met. A picture went around the world of two young men, one wearing a Red Army uniform, the other the fatigues of the United States Army shook hands and embraced.

That poignant moment offered hope to the world. And look at us now. Back fighting, manufacturing shells to maim and kill.

Bertolt Brecht knew about dark times

In the dark times

will there be singing?

Yes, there will also be singing.

About the dark times.

                             - Bertolt Brecht

Age cannot be a reason to dump someone

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

Eir CEO, Oliver Loomes was interviewed on the Business programme on RTÉ Radio 1 last Saturday week. Oliver has been with the company since 2022 and before that had senior jobs with a number of companies including Mars and Diagio Ireland, where he was MD. 

Naturally he spoke about his experiences at the different jobs and his early life. The family moved back to Ireland when he was a child. His father, who was a dentist and had hopes his son would follow in his footsteps, something that never happened. 

He spoke how he had been diagnosed with cancer and how it had changed his outlook on life. He also mentioned the support, love and help he received from so many people, family, friends, work colleagues. Close to the end of the interview he mentioned that his parents, who are now in their 80s, are currently driving around Europe on a motorbike. 

His father driving and his mother the pillion passenger. Good for them and wonderful to hear. It set me thinking about the arguments that are currently making the news about ageism. 

That same day there was a a report in the media of a woman who was refused the student reduced rate to a Dublin gym because of her age, even though she had a student card. She took the case to the WRC and rightly so won her case and collected €3,000. Good for her.

Vladimir Putin is 71, Joe Biden is 81, Xi Jing Ping is 70, Pope Francis is 87 And Micheal D Higgins was 83 on April 18. Why should one’s age be a deciding factor if someone can do the job? If a person can pass a medical examination, which is  required for a specific job why can’t they be given the job if they pass all the requisite requirements irrespective of age? 

People who think otherwise are slaves to an outmoded way of thinking. We have been shouting for many years from the rooftops how enlightened a society we are. So what’s this business about telling someone at a specific age that they are no longer fit to work. It is a shocking insult, degrading too. And constitutionally unsound.

I lived in Berlin before the Wall came tumbling down. The day I saw that Wall collapse I said I would never again listen to someone who says ‘it can’t be done’. Ok, there are the laws of gravity, but outside of that I refuse to accept the status quo. My father worked till he was 82, mother until she was 78.

Of course there is need for a retirement age and that’s for many good reasons, including health and financial aspects, but if someone, who is capable of doing the job and wants to stay working after 65/66 why should they be prohibited?

The country is crying out for workers in many professions and skills, including teachers nurses, GPs, bus and truck drivers. Why can’t a person of any age, who is qualified, fit, capable and wants to, be allowed work at their trade? It is preposterous that they can’t. And it’s such silly thinking.

Mr and Mrs Loomes keep driving that motorbike and good luck to both of you. Your son Oliver said you have been a source of inspiration to him all his life. You sure are to all of us today. Well done. By the way, I drive a Honda 680 Deauville.

Former Dominican Patrick Cullen (1939 - 2024) - an obituary

Patrick Cullen died in Wexford yesterday. 

He was born in

Garryloguh, Screen, County Wexford in 1939. He was ordained a Dominican priest in 1966.

Before joining the Irish Dominicans Paddy studied marine engineering in Cork. On qualifying, his one and only maritime experience was to Malta. He was on the high seas for six weeks but realised he had no sea legs. He was sick every day at sea.

While studying in Cork he regularly cycled home to Garrylough, a journey that he did in six to seven hours.

One can presume Paddy got to know the Dominicans in St Mary’s Pope’s Quay while he was studying in the city

When he joined the Dominican noviciate he was given the name Francis but was known in the Order as Frankie.

Paddy was perceived as a spiritual and devout person. His fellow Dominicans were surprised when he decided to leave the Order and priesthood.

Fadó fadó  Dominican students went on long cycling and walking adventures. On one such occasion Paddy fell off his bicycle as a result of having fainted. It transpired that he had been fasting the previous days. Paddy was recognised as an ascetic.

After priestly ordination he studied astronomy at the Dunsink Observatory at the request of the then provincial, Fr Louis Coffey.

It must have been 1969/1970 when I first met Frankie. He was heading off from Tallaght to Dunsink on his Honda 50. It would be another 50 years before we met again.

I can vividly remember that day in Tallaght. In the few short minutes we were chatting I felt I was in the presence of a special person. It was the briefest of encounters. 

On leaving the Order Paddy studied chemistry at UCD and spent the rest of his working life lecturing in the subject at Kevin Street College. Some time after retiring, the college authorities asked him to come back to lecture on a part time basis, something that he readily did.

During his years as a student at UCD he travelled to the United States to take summer work. On one occasion he went with a number of fellow students. The plan was to work on the buses in Chicago but it so happened that that summer there was a bus strike and Paddy ended up working on the buildings.

All his life Paddy had a great interest in nature. While working in Kevin Street he would regularly be seen in the nearby park feeding the birds and the birds always knew when Paddy was arriving with his food for them. He was known by staff and students, and people in the locality as the Birdman

He used a humane trap to catch mice. On one occasion he called to the local hardware store to enquire where there was any place he could release mice into the wild. The man behind the counter suggested he should let them free on the 46A bus.

It was in 2019 that I met an elderly man. He was looking for his Rosary Beads, which I happened to find for him. I was surprised when he knew something about me. He told me his name was Paddy Cullen. At first it meant nothing to me. Maybe it was a day or so later that someone told me he was Frankie Cullen, who had been a Dominican. The Frankie Cullen, I met 50 years ago on a Monday 50 in Tallaght.

Though his mind was ever so slightly beginning to fail he came alive when he spoke about the Dominicans.  He recalled his time studying astronomy. While he enjoyed the subject he thought it was daft that he had been sent off to study the science. He felt extremely lonely and isolated during those years. He never spoke to me about why he left the Dominicans but if he were given half a chance I got the distinct impression that it would have been his life’s ambition fulfilled to rejoin.

When you have the special grace to meet a genuinely holy person, a gracious and fine human being, you realise it almost instantly. So was my experience with Paddy Francis Cullen.

Paddy's nephew, James Cullen is a priest of the Diocese of Ferns

Paddy is brother of Betty Roche and Stephen and the late Tom and Eamon, and son of the late Tom and Nellie. 

Paddy’s body will be lying in state at Knockeen Nursing Home, Barntown Y35CY80 today, April 22 from 4pm to 6pm. Removal at 6.30pm to St Cyprian's Church, Screen for arrival at 7pm. Funeral Mass tomorrow, Tuesday at midday followed by burial in Curracloe cemetery.

May he rest in peace.

 

Former Dominican priest Paddy Cullen dies

Paddy Cullen died this morning in a nursing home in County Wexford.

Paddy, known in the Dominican Order as Fr Francis Cullen, left the Irish Province and ministry some short few years after priestly ordination.

Paddy was a wonderful human being, holy and ever so clever.

Obituary to follow.

Moments in history that attempted to overthrow dictatorship

Because of what happened on this day in 1989 Tiananmen Square has become a synonym for freedom and reform

It was on April 21, 1989 that over 100,000 students gathered in Tiananmen Square to commemorate reform leader Hu Yaobang.

The demonstrators were confronted by State tanks. The world knows the draconian methods that were used  to silence the demonstrating students.

Also on this day, 44 years earlier, the Soviet Army at Zossen, south of Berlin began the final attack on the HQ of the German High Commane.The end of World War II was days away.

Let’s not forget the church is the reality of the living Jesus

The Thinking Anew column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

Pope Francis will be 88 in December. He was elected pope on March 13, 2013. It’s difficult to believe he has been in the job 11 years. In that time he has done a great deal to give the Catholic Church a new image, a new sense of openness. The moment he compared the church to a field hospital I felt I could listen to this man. Here is someone who lives  in the real world.

After all, wasn’t he a regular user of public transport when he was archbishop in Buenos Aires. I have yet to see  a bishop, archbishop or cardinal on a bus or train in Ireland. For that matter not too many politicians on our buses and trains. This is the pope who washed the feet of Muslims in 2013.

The entrance antiphon in tomorrow’s liturgy reads: “The merciful love of the Lord fills the earth.”(Psalm 33) Aren’t they fabulous words and what a wonderful introduction to the Eucharistic celebration? Two great words, mercy and love, ring out loud and clear. 

In the Gospel (John 10: 11 - 18) Jesus tells his friends: “I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me”. But he assures his listeners that there are others outside their circle who listen to his voice, and he is also their ‘good shepherd’.

Isn’t that exactly the language that Pope Francis has been speaking. I sometimes wonder if we are listening to our Argentinian pope. I say this because I walked into a church during the Easter season to see the following notice writ large at the back of the church, indeed, it was the first thing I saw when I walked in. 

In large red letters it says ‘Silence!’ Then a quotation from the Bible: “My house shall be a House of Prayer”/Luke 19:46/ ‘If you wish to speak, please speak to Me/ Jesus’

My first reaction was one of annoyance. How alienating they were. Imagine walking into a church to be greeted by a warning. The biblical quotation is out of context because the following sentence in the passage from St Luke goes: “But you have turned it into a robbers’ den.”.

It’s a dud  quotation, truncated and  misleading. The sentence about only speaking to Jesus really is nonsense. Since I saw that notice in a church, I have been asking myself what at all would Pope Francis think about it. I’d imagine it’s the last thing he would write or want us to write? Surely, we should be welcoming people into our churches instead of admonishing them with a warning? Threats and warnings can never be the way to win over people.

The good shepherd, who knows his sheep and in turn the sheep who know him, is an exemplar of great warmth, love and trust. People flourish and grow in an environment, where they feel and know they are respected and loved. The medics working in the field hospital, or indeed anywhere, will always do the most effective job of work when they build a positive and close relationship with those they are attempting to heal. 

The same applies in other walks of life.  The teacher who builds up a good relationship with her/his students will always be the best teacher and indeed, the most sought-after teacher. Francis in his 11 years in the papacy, now as he acknowledges  drawing to a close,  has shown us all the importance of bringing people with us through kind words and deeds.

While Pope Francis is obviously an impressive man,  and many bishops support him it does appear there is a deep underlying resistance to follow him with all our hearts and minds. Far too many people seem to be stuck in some sort of time warp or ideology that prevents them from realising that the church is above all else, the reality of the living Jesus who preached mercy and love.

In the Acts of the Apostles (4: 8 -12) reading tomorrow Peter admonishes those who question the kindness of Jesus in curing a cripple.

In his simple unassuming ways, Pope Francis is encouraging us to walk in the footsteps of Christ, respecting humanity, comforting those and showing mercy and love to the marginalised, sick and forgotten.

Another church notice that spells alienation and clericalism

This notice hangs on the sacristy

door of a church in south Dublin in the Archdiocese of Dublin.

It has a similar tone to the notice about keeping silent, which appeared on this blog on April 10.

It says so much about the attitude and mentality of the clerical caste. It is shocking and inexcusable and certainly a notice that Pope Francis would never dare put on a door.

Besides the inappropriateness of the notice it tells a great story about the mindset of all that is wrong in clericalism.

It happens so often that a person wants to walk into the sacristy to talk to the priest before or after the celebration of Mass. And the irony of it, in this specific case, to gain access to the toilets, which were built at great expense, it is on some occasions necessary to walk through the sacristy.

But that is an incidental. Written all over this notice is silly pomposity and clericalism, which Pope Francis has condemned on many occasions.

The arrogance of it, stupidity too. 

Pope Francis pleads for a welcoming church. This is anything but welcoming. At all costs keep everything private. Secrecy is the oxygen that helps so much wrong-doing thrive in the church.

Hugh Grant, John Paul II and Rupert Murdoch

We’ll  never now hear the full story of the sordid ways of Rupert Murdoch. On the other hand don’t we know enough about the man. And it’s understandable why Hugh Grant has done as he has done.

Murdoch was awarded a papal knighthood by Pope John Paul II, who was later canonised.

How can something like that happen or be allowed?

It takes Hugh Grant to tell the truth about Rupert Murdoch, while the Catholic Church honours him.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/18/hugh-grant-rupert-murdoch-court-hacking-reforms?CMP=share_btn_url 

The snoozing president now called Don Snoreleone

Anthony Fauci, the US head doctor who gained international status during the Covid pandemic, was in Dublin to receive the prestigious Stearne Medal for his outstanding contribution to public health.  

In an interview with RTÉ’s Miriam O’Callaghan he refused to be drawn on his opinion of former president Donald Trump. He said his respect was for the office of the president.

However he admitted that it was difficult to work with Trump. He is very worried and concerned about the normalisation of untruth.

It was reported in many US newspapers yesterday that former US president Donald Trump was seen snoozing during his hush money trial taking place at present in New York.

Someone quickly he referred to him as Don Snoreleone. Clever.

And then there’s the other great name in this drama and that is of course Stormy Daniels.

You couldn’t make it up.

Feeling at home in the presence of another person

In a world that is torn by war, famine and hatred it is a moment of grace to meet someone who has that great and wonderful ability of making you feel at home in their presence.

No show, no game, no spoof, no game playing, instead trust and openness and that wonderful quality of graciousness. Add to that, erudition, holiness too, and you realise you are in the presence of a wonderful person. 

It has nothing to do with left or right, conservative or liberal, it’s humanity at its best. Maybe even a moment to get a glimpse of God.

The Tik Tok Taoiseach is a clever nickname

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers.

Michael Commane

Let me stress how fortunate we are in Ireland, in the European Union, to have working democracies in place. I often wonder do we appreciate enough how lucky we are to be able to say and do whatever we wish provided it is within the bounds of the law. I can hear you ask who makes the law, who drew up the Constitution?

Think of the lack of freedom of expression in so many countries around the world. If Russians speak out against the Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine they end up in jail or even worse befalls them.

Freedom in China is significantly limited. Only last week I was reading how censorship covers all aspects of life, including in the world of the arts. All music played at venues must first be approved by the censor. 

Such government behaviour here is unthinkable, at least for the moment. Who ever knows what’s down the road. The world seems to be heading in an ever more right wing  direction in these, the strangest of times.

Democracy always hangs by a thread but it is in a particularly fragile state at present?

Might it be true to say politicians are a breed of their own. It’s certainly a job that requires great energy, dedication too. I can imagine politicians can easily allow their egos to run wild. Then again, that particular trait is not exclusive to politicians.

All these thoughts ran through my head watching Simon Harris address the Fine Gael árd fheis before he was elected Taoiseach the following Tuesday.

There is no doubt he has energy and communication skills that are quite extraordinary. But I still don’t know why I was scratching my head at the end of his árd fheis address. He promised the world to us all. Isn’t that what politicians do? But he did it with such speed and energy. The Tin Tok Taoiseach is a clever nickname.

Almost after every paragraph the adoring membership clapped. On one or two occasions I thought he was even expecting a clap after a single sentence but it didn’t come.

What would happen if someone didn’t clap? And then the moment he was finished there’s the rugby scrum to the platform to hug and thank him.

At least the politicians at their árd fheiseanna have abandoned having their top team sitting behind them on the stage. That always looked phoney. What about the autocues? They were a clever invention. 

Is every moment of such events choreographed, down to the last full stop? Are we meant to know? What role do focus groups play in the world of political parties? 

With all the failings of democracy, it’s the best we have. Give me any day the political party that elects its leaders in an open and transparent manner and then let the people decide in fair elections who they want to be in government.

Wise words from Winston Churchill in 1947: ‘No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

Almost there after the horrific fire five years ago

On this day, April 15, 2019 the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris was destroyed by fire.

It had been planned to have the cathedral reopened for the Olympic Games in the city this summer but that is now not going to happen.

It’s hoped to open the cathedral on later this years on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

The estimated cost of the rebuild is estimated at €850 million. President Emmanuel Macron pledged to have the restored cathedral open within five years.

A Taoiseach who could easily be ‘forever elsewhere'

“Whatever about the Opposition, will the public tolerate a leader, who always seems to have one eye on his follower count, who has the air of being, as the sociologist Sherry Turtle puts it, ‘forever elsewhere”?

The last sentence in Jennifer O’Connell’s column in The Irish Times weekend newspaper. She is talking about Taoiseach Simon Harris.

The ups and downs of Elon Musk’s Tesla cars

So far this year 830 Tesla cars have been sold in Ireland. In all of last year 631 Teslas were sold. It’s difficult to be out and about not to see an Elon Musk vehicle. And they are not cheap. 

Tesla shares are up 800 per cent in the last five years. By the end of last year the carmaker had amassed  $29 billion in cash and cash equivalents. But there is a significant slowdown on sales of the electric vehicle in the US right now And part of the slow down seems to be due to the public behaviour of Elon Musk. He bought Twitter for $44 billion. The share price has fallen 33 per cent so far this year.

The unspeakable wrong done to Sima Misra and her family

Again last evening Channel 4’s main evening news reported on the ongoing scandal at the UK Post Office.

They reported the story of Sima Misra, who was jailed at the behest of the Post Office, wrongfully accused of having stolen money from the post office which she managed.

The day of her jailing she had earlier taken her then 10-year-old child to school. When he went home that evening his mother was in jail.

At the time the boss at the Post Office was David Smith, who gave evidence yesterday at the current inquiry into the scandal.

Channel 4 showed a clip of the hearing, which covered Smith's apology. The programme also interviewed Mr Misra, the husband of Sima Misra.

The contrast between the two men was striking. Mr Smith, looked confident, rich and certainly showed no remorse for the disaster he had brought on Mr Misra’s wife and indeed the entire family. Mr Misra looked and sounded a broken man.

The management class again.

The day Yuri Gagarin left earth

The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin 

became the first person to travel into outer space and perform the first crewed orbital flight, Vostok 1. 

Gagarin was born in Gzhatsk in Russia in 1934. He grew up on a collective farm. Having qualified as a molder he continued his studies in the industrial college in Saratov, while at the same time learning to fly. He joined the Soviet Air Force cadet school, where he graduated in 1957.

Gagarin died in March, 1968 near Moscow.

Today Gzhatsk is called Gagarin.

Putin’s use of an army formed by the Soviet system

 With the war in  Ukraine now in its third year, one must wonder how can the Russians be beaten. Philip Short in his book Putin His Life and Times, published 2022 writes:

" Putin’s emphasis on what he saw as the correct teaching of Russian history, in particular about Russia’s role in World War II reflected the importance he attached to patriotism as an essential part of the ideological glue needed to hold the peoples of post-Communist Russia together.

"Americans with help from the mythmakers of Hollywood, like to believe that the United States aided by the plucky British, played the main role in defeating Hitler’s Germany. Winston Churchill addressing the house of commons in August 1944, was more lucid. "The obvious essential fact, he declared, ‘[is] that it is the Russian armies who have done the main work tearing the guts out of the German army ... No force in the world which could have been called into being ... would have been able to maul and break [the Nazi regime] unless it had been subjected to the terrible slaughter that has fallen to it through through the strength of the Soviet Russian armies.

A most unlikely Pope Francis-style notice

This notice appears inside 

the door of a church.

What’s wrong with talking to another person in a church? Of course there is a time and place for silence, especially in a church. But surely anyone who goes into a church is going in to pray. Is it okay to go in to shelter from the rain? Of course it is. Why should people who serve, speak in a language such as this? It is most off-putting. It’s a symbol of everything a living church should not be.

There is a terrible patronising aspect to this notice. It certainly wouldn’t win a prize for clever communication, indeed, from beginning to end it is alienating. An advertising or PR company wouldn’t touch it. It’s awful

How often have people to sit through poor sermons where they might get far more wisdom and faith speaking to the person sitting beside them?

The Biblical quote is taken completely out of context. The next line in St Luke goes: "But you have turned it into a robbers’ den.”  That notice is fake news, disinformation, misleading and doing a great injustice to the biblical context.

It’s difficult to know what the second words of wisdom mean: ‘If you wish to speak, please speak to me/ Jesus.’ Did Jesus say this? We’d all end up dumb if we took this too seriously.

A church can only succeed if it respects people, listens to them too.

It certainly does not look like a Pope Francis-style notice.

Dictionary definition of an exclamation mark: "It's known informally as a bang of a shriek, is used at the end of a sentence or a short phrase which expresses very strong feeling."

How far more inspiring to walk into a church to be told you are welcome.

And people who do insist in talking loudly will no doubt ignore the notice.

Misuse of religion fools and damages us

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

After the Super Tuesday elections in the US when Donald Trump became the only Republican candidate left standing for the party in the upcoming November election I listened to an hour-long rally he held in Dayton, Ohio.

It was horrific, yes, total horror. A woman with the name Fanni Willis is Georgia’s prosecutor in the state’s election interference case against Donald Trump. At his rally in Dayton Trump made outrageous comments about the woman, making the most vulgar and inappropriate remarks about the woman’s name. I can’t believe what he said.

The hour-long diatribe was a lesson in how to be nasty, how to say vile and outrageous words about people. But what scared me most about his rally was the more extreme his vileness and nastiness was, the more the crowd cheered and screamed in adulation. 

Some days later I listened to a speech Adolf Hitler gave on the seventh anniversary of coming to power on January 30, 1940. I know full well it is totally taboo to compare anyone or any situation to Hitler but the more I hear Trump, the more I think of the German dictator. 

There is another similarity, the nastier Trump gets, the louder are the cries of approval from the crowd and so it was with Hitler. It is all beyond frightening.

How the world has changed. In 1988 Gary Hart’s bid for the US presidency was derailed after journalists reported on one of his affairs. Innocent times indeed.

Trump’s sheer outrageousness gets more outrageous. 

Did you know he is now selling Bibles? I heard him say he has many Bibles at home, and what’s wrong with America today is that it has lost religion. You couldn’t make it up.

The day after the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in a Moscow suburb, where 143 people were killed, Russian president Vladimir Putin was  seen lighting candles and blessing himself in church.

Trump and Putin set me thinking of religion, the good and the bad of it and how it can be misused to ruin and fool people.

I’m worried about the ever-growing influence that right-wing religion is playing in Ireland at present. 

When I see tele evangelist-style preachers coming here from the US to spread the word of God as they see it, I get nervous. I watched one on YouTube last week. I was anything but impressed. It’s that brand of religion that seems to have all the answers. There’s even an aspect of smart-alekyness about it all. They know best and everything in the world is wrong and bad and we are all heading for damnation, that is, unless we listen to them. 

When I was a student we were more interested in the divide between rich and poor and what was happening in Vietnam than in how many candles should be lighting on an altar. The world is a funny old place, religion too. 

Pope Francis has spent his pontificate trying to nudge us in a healthier direction. One senses he knows how divided we are and the need for bridges to be built, for common sense to prevail.

BlackRock Investment warns about looming retirement crisis

Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock Investment, the world’s largest asset manager, has warned that the world is facing a looming ‘retirement crisis’. 

He says there is an urgent rethink required of pensions and working patterns.

He made the warning in his annual letter to the $10tn asset manager’s investors.

His warning makes great sense. Why should people have to retire at any age if they are capable of doing the job?  It’s the perfect example of ‘group think’. The way it was always done and so must it continue. Madness.

A reminder of the suffering of the people of Ukraine

On this day, April 7, 1943 in Terebovlia in western Ukraine Germans ordered 1,100 people of the Jewish faith to strip naked and march through the city to the nearby village of Plebanivka, where they were shot and then buried in ditches. 

And 80 years later the people of Ukraine are suffering again, this time under the Russian jackboot.

It is shocking.

How China has to dance to the tune of the censor

We take our democracy and freedom for granted, indeed we take it as an entitlement.

In The Irish Times yesterday Denis Staunton tells the story of visiting a club, which is the only venue in Beijing where there is no censorship on what is performed. 

He writes: "Every other live venue must submit detailed information about each performance to the local cultural department at least three days in advance. If a performer is from outside China the authorities need to know all the details of the show 20 days beforehand.

The application must include information about everyone involved in the performance, including the musicians and the promoter, and details of all the instruments and equipment to be used. All audiovisual material must be submitted for approval, along with a song list and the lyrics for each song.

If a band wants to perform a cover version of a foreign song, the lyrics must be submitted in the original language and in a Chinese translation. Lyrics should, according to the official guidelines, reflect “the right values” when dealing with life events and feelings.

The censors regularly reject material based on the song lyrics, not just for rock bands but for classical music choirs too. Choirs performing in Beijing avoid performing sacred music of any kind because they know it will not be approved.”

Dennis Staunton asked a friend who was playing at the club that evening why the normal rules did not apply at that venue, he replied: “Because they never have."