'Idiocy of managerialism hits Dublin Airport'

The article below is Fintan O’Toole’s column in The Irish Times yesterday.

The piece highlights what happens when management is incompetent.

How 0ften across industry and in the church is management responsible for incompetency and inefficiency?

Invariably it is almost impossible for the 'foot solider’ to stand up and say stop to management

Fintan O’Toole

If you find yourself going quietly mad in a queue at Dublin Airport, do not despair. Your experience is not, as you may be feeling, tortuously absurd and devoid of meaning. It demonstrates, rather, an important fact of life: the idiocy of managerialism.

As you barely shuffle along, fill your time by asking yourself one of the great existential questions: how is it possible that those who run a public service on behalf of the Irish people seem not to understand Irish people at all?

The meltdown at Dublin Airport is not just about bad management. It’s about what happens when technocracy loses touch with common sense, when analytics take the place of knowledge.

If, during the Covid lockdown, you asked any random Irish person what would happen when it was possible to travel freely again, the answer would have been emphatic: there will be a rush for the exits. You knew this. I knew this. Your goldfish knew it. But Dublin Airport Authority, with 13 executives paid more than a quarter of a million euro a year each, didn’t know it.

What we knew and they apparently did not is that the desire to be elsewhere is an essential aspect of Irishness. Wanderlust looms larger in the national psych even than lust itself. You don’t have to look at statistics to realise this, but they reinforce what we already understand about ourselves. Which is that the desire to sojourn off the island has risen relentlessly with prosperity.

Rain-washed rock

In 2016, when the economy was still recovering from the great banking crash, we took 7.4 million trips overseas. In 2017, it was 7.9 million. By 2019, the year before Covid, it was 8.8 million.The equation is simple: more money plus the experience of living on a rain-washed rock plus a diasporic identity equals an unstoppable impulse to travel. The lockdown was thus like forcing a particularly springy Jack down into a very small box. Lift the lid, and it was going to leap out at you.

The reserves of cash built up during the enforced austerity of Covid-19 were always going to flood outwards through the airports. This demand is partly about holidays and our pale-faced craving for the sun. But it’s also about the basic facts of Irish demography – an awful lot of us have families living in other countries.

There are about a million Irish-born people living abroad. There are 650,000 non-Irish nationals living in Ireland.

These are not just figures – they are granddaughters in Sydney, sisters in Poznan, mothers in Lagos, sons in London, grannies in Timisoara. This is the Irish family. It is an institution that requires regular injections of aviation fuel to keep it alive. Anyone whose head was not completely stuck in a haze of the higher eejitry knew that Irish people really, really missed their families during lockdown. Zoom did not dull the craving for contact – it kept the appetite for physical connection keen and fresh. “See you soon” was our common prayer.

The airlines understood this. Aer Lingus, for example, projected as far back as last autumn that it expected to return quickly to 90 per cent of its 2019 level of demand. But the €250,000-a-year experts at the DAA knew otherwise. As the DAA’s chief executive, Dalton Philips, told the Oireachtas transport committee last week, “Every credible ratings agency, analyst and industry body had predicted that, during 2022, traffic levels would remain at less than 70 per cent of 2019 levels.”

We’ve been here before, and with much more serious consequences: every credible ratings agency, analyst and industry body knew in 2007 that the Irish banks were sound as a cathedral bell. What chance did mere common sense have against that shield wall of professional assurance?

It’s that word “credible” that gives the game away. What is credible to overpaid managers is what overpaid agencies and analysts – people just like themselves – tell them. What’s not credible is what everybody else knows to be true – in this case the overwhelmingly obvious reality that, as soon as they could do so, Irish people would start to travel abroad again in large numbers. There would be a huge pent-up demand to see family, to take the kids to Disneyland, to wander in old cities and lie on warm beaches.

How could intelligent professionals, whose sole job is to facilitate international travel from Ireland, not know this? You have to generate a great cloud of unknowing to convince yourself that the “credible” analysts are right and that everything we know about Irish people is incredible.

What is the point of having managers at all if all they do is obey what analysts and “industry bodies” tell them, if they are so lost in groupthink that basic, common sense judgment becomes impossible? It would be easier – and a lot cheaper – to run the airport with an algorithm.

And do we not see yet again in this debacle proof that paying public employees too much money does not buy better management? It buys people who are so out of touch with ordinary Irish realities that they cease to understand even the most basic things about the people they are supposed to serve.

Fanaticism destroys all sensible debate

This week’s Mediahuis/INM Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

Before the massacre at the elementary school in Uvalde I never heard of the place, indeed, the first few times I saw the word in print I could not even pronounce the name of the US city. The name is on all our lips now, we all know about the unspeakable crime that happened there.

 

Within days of the killings, the National Rifle Association (NRA) held its annual meeting in Houston, which is a mere 350 kilometres from Uvalde. 

Former US president Donald Trump spoke at the meeting on the Friday after the Tuesday massacre.

He used Christian imagery and vocabulary. He mentioned Satan and spoke about evil people burning in the fires of hell. Tough talk. No mention of limiting the sale of guns. He wants teachers to carry guns to shoot the baddies.

Subsequent to the murders in Uvalde I heard a man on RTE Radio 1 talk about how divided the US is. He lives in the US and said it is becoming difficult to talk to anyone as the conversation can easily move to politics and people are now so divided it’s best to say nothing.

I have been struck by this divide and there are aspects of the division that I find intriguing.

Of course it’s always dangerous to generalise but what’s happening in there US is puzzling. Those who are in favour of loose gun laws and support the death penalty are most likely opposed to abortion. 

On the other hand, those who are for the tightening of gun laws and opposed to the death penalty are most likely in favour of abortion. Right now that’s the social/political reality and I don’t quite understand it. Wouldn’t you think that someone in favour of the death penalty would support abortion? 

And someone opposed to the death penalty would be opposed to abortion? But that does not seem to be the way it works.

Certainly the fanatics on both sides don’t paint any sort of pleasant or nice picture. Anytime I experience fanaticism in any form or shape I’m reminded of the wisdom of St Thomas Aquinas, who stressed that prudence is the most important of all the virtues. It’s a thought worth remembering in these times when nasty fanaticism is being pushed in front of our noses.

I can’t help but think that the art of communicating with one another is breaking down. We are caught up in some sort of web where we have preconceived ideas on people and ideas and seem unable to talk rationally with those who have different views and opinions than we have.

Observing Donald Trump I keep thinking that he has mastered the art feeding people with hunches. He knows how to inflate the bias or prejudice that might easily lie dormant in many of us. 

In other words, he knows the right buttons to press when people are vulnerable, people who are easily influenced by agenda theories. He is a genius at sowing seeds of suspicion, maybe even lies. He is a demagogue.

Mark Twain said: ‘A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.’

The day the UK decided to stay in the EEC

On June 5, 1975 the citizens of the United Kingdom voted on whether or not to remain in the European Economic Community, as it was then called.

The results were made known the following day, June 6. Sixty-seven per cent of those who voted voted to remain in the EEC.

And on this day, June 6, 1944 Operation Overlord was launched, the Allied invasion of Normandy. The first day of D-Day. Approximately 160,000 Allied troops in 5,000 landing craft crossed the English Channel.

Ukrainian delegation to meet Pope Francis

This from yesterday’s Guardian

Pope Francis said on Saturday he would meet soon with Ukrainian officials to discuss the possibility of a visit to their country.

Francis disclosed the coming meeting in a question-and-answer session with children in one of the Vatican’s main courtyards, Reuters reports.

A Ukrainian boy named Sachar asked him: “Can you come to Ukraine to save all the children who are suffering there now?”

The 85-year-Francis, who has been using a wheelchair because of knee pain, responded that he often thought of Ukrainian children and wanted to visit the country but had to choose the right time.

“It is not easy to make a decision that could do more harm than good to the rest of the world. I have to find the right moment to do it,” he said, according to a Vatican transcript of the event. He did not elaborate.

“Next week I will receive representatives of the Ukrainian government, who will come here to talk, to talk even about an eventual visit of mine there. We’ll see what happens,” Francis said.

Train crash in Germany as new cheap fare is introduced

Four people were killed and at

least 30 injured in a rail crash in Bavaria yesterday. The accident happened between Garmisch Partenkirchen and Munich, which was the  destination of the regional train operated by State owned Deutsche Bahn.

The accident happened just as passengers in Germany were offered a €9 monthly ticket for public transport under new measures introduced to tackle inflation, while petrol prices have been cut by up to 30 cent a litre.

The new fare, which is available from June to August and cannot be used on ICEs - Germany InterCity trains, is valid on local and regional buses, Underground and trains across the country.

The measure is subsidised by €2.5 billion of State funds and has already been snapped up by seven million people.

However, there are fears the cheap ticket will push too many people onto a public transport system that could struggle to cope with sudden surges.

The train involved in yesterday’s crash is said to have been crowded with passengers availing of the new cheap fare.

Pictures that tell how badly an airport is managed

While approximately 1,400 passengers missed their flights last Sunday and thousands more were  subjected to appalling conditions at Dublin Airport, Dalton Philips CEO at the Dublin Airport Authority availed of the airport’s 'platinum service' security line when he flew to Saudi Arabia for business last Saturday night, before the delays arose.

Passengers who pay the €295 for the service get driven to their flight. Mr Philips stressed he used this rarely and did not take it at the weekend to avoid delays, as he did not expect them. He abandoned the trip, where he was scheduled to meet DAA International, which has four operations in the Middle East, once he was told of the problems in Dublin.

Many of the staff who work in security at Dublin Airport earn €14.14 per hour.

The pictures coming from Dublin Airport tell the tale of how the airport is managed.

It is also being reported that the airport is shoddy and dirty.

Gobbledegook from Dalton Philips, CEO at DAA

 This from Miriam Lord in The Irish Times today:

“We had a manual process failure,” explained the outgoing CEO. “What you call a hand-off failure. We cracked that anomaly.” This is the way people who earn about €366,000 a year talk.

Boris Johnson’s conjuring tricks work for a while

Camilla Cavendish writing in the Financial Times Weekend says of Boris Johnson and the Conservative party:

“The conjuring trick has worked for a while. The country is bored of partygate, but will not be easily be won over with reduced energy bills.

"Contrary to appearances, most Tory MPs do still have consciences: now is the time to examine them."

Interview with Lester Piggott after his first Epsom Derby win

This is a link to a short interview with the young Lester Piggott on winning the Epsom Derby on Never Say Die in 1954.

It’s a lovely story and shows an interesting side to the 18-year-old, who was to be come one of the greatest ever flat racing jockeys.

The late Vincent O’Brien on one occasion said that Lester was not just the finest jockey of his generation but most likely one of the best ever.

Note how in the clip he says he did not celebrate after the race, instead went home and took an early night. But in fact what he did do after that great win was to go home and work for his father.

https://youtu.be/OxtX2X0_2RM 

Watching life go by from behind the window

This week’s INM/Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

I had an early morning appointment with my dental hygienist last week.

I arrived shortly before the 8.30am deadline. Maybe I spent 10 to 15 minutes in the waiting room before I was called.

Have you ever noticed if you are taken away from your morning routine and find yourself in unfamiliar surroundings how you are more inclined to observe what’s happening around you?

The dental clinic’s waiting room faces out on to the street which is on a main thoroughfare, approximately three kilometres from Dublin’s O’Connell Bridge.

It’s a busy street, and it was morning commuter rush hour time. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper and people were walking in all directions.

I was sitting at the window, literally watching life go by.

A van had pulled up outside a Spar shop and was making a morning delivery. A large sized man was manipulating a trolley on the ramp of the van. It all looked so easy to do. But I remember once standing on one of those ramps on the back of a van and being scared of my life. This man was doing it with such facility, it all looked so easy. Practice makes perfect.

As he was manipulating the trolley on to the footpath a young woman passed with a boy. He was probably 10 or 11 and I presume the woman was his mother.

Obviously she was bringing him to school. Both of them were laughing as he skipped along, wildly gesticulating with his hands. The two of them were in deep conversation. And as they talked and laughed a young man got off his bicycle and locked it to a lamppost. It was an expensive bicycle and he was making sure a thief would have difficulty trying to steal it. Bicycle locked, off he went about his business.

It was fascinating watching them all live that moment in their daily lives. They were in that magic space of normality, getting on with their lives. And guess what, from my vantage point it looked charming and wonderful. 

Imagine if my window were in Mariupol or Kharkiv, or indeed, anywhere in Ukraine. The glass might be gone from the window frame and I can’t imagine the people I was looking down on would be as relaxed and as oblivious to their surroundings as they were that morning I was observing them.

My 10/15 minute looking down on the street reminded me of aspects of the famous Alfred Hitchcock 1954 film ‘Rear Window'. It is considered by many critics as one of his best films and indeed one of the best films ever made. 

It’s about a professional photographer, who was recovering from a broken leg. Confined to a wheelchair he spends much of his time looking out on to a busy courtyard from his Manhattan window. 

One night he hears a woman screaming. It turns into a mystery murder story.

My morning of observing proved nothing as exciting or as dangerous as the Hitchcock film. But I was fascinated watching people simply getting on with their lives. 

They all looked decent people, indeed, I'd go as far saying, they looked relatively content, indeed happy.

The Guardian’s journalist on the great man

What appears in the Guardian on Lester Piggott.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2022/may/29/lestor-piggott-a-rare-talent-who-left-his-mark-on-an-audience-of-millions-horse-racing?CMP=share_btn_link

Trump, NRA, gun lobbyists and 19 murdered children

Donald Trump was a guest speaker at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting at Houston on Friday.

In his address the former US president referred to Satan and it was his prayer that the perpetrator of the shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, some 450 kilometres away, would roast in hell.

In his speech he used much Christian imagery and vocabulary.

It would seem the majority of those who are in favour of loose gun laws, are in favour of teachers carrying weapons and are in favour of the death penalty, are opposed to abortion.

On the other side, those who are calling for stricter gun laws, who are opposed to teachers carrying guns and are opposed to the death penalty, are calling for women to have the right to seek an abortion.

The Archbishop of San Antonio Gustavo García-Siller has been interviewed on many occasions since the murders in Uvlade. He has spoken with great courage, grace and clarity. He expressly called for tighter rules concerning the purchasing and carrying of guns.

Lester Piggott dies in a Swiss hospital today

Lester Piggott died in Switzerland today. He was 86.

The legendary flat racing jockey was born in 1935 into a famous racing family. He won his first winner at 12.

Piggott won his first Epsom Derby on Never Say Die. It was the first of nine Epsom Derbys he would win. 

Legend has it that after his win on Never Say Die, the 18-year-old young man avoided the celebrations and instead went home and cut his father’s lawn.

He had a long and successful relationship with Irish trainer Vincent O’Brien and always said the best horse he ever rode was Derby winner Sir Ivor, trained by O’Brien.

He was partially deaf and also had a slight speech impediment. It meant people often thought he was rude. But he did often use it to his advantage.

It was joked that he could ride between rails and the paint, so dexterous was he in the saddle.

He was a regular visitor at the Curragh where he had many famous victories. As a result of his links with the Curragh he made many lifelong friends in Ireland, especially in County Kildare.

Tracy Piggott, who worked for RTE, is his daughter.

The world has the gift of throwing up geniuses from time to time. Piggott was one of the those geniuses.

He was a great man and masterclass jockey.

It’s difficult to comprehend that Pioggott is gone.

'We can’t live with people who support Putin’s war'

From yesterday’s Guardian. And these are not the ‘elite’ from Moscow or St Petersburg. These people are from Tomsk in Siberia. And that  tells its own story.

Tomsk is 3,600 kilometres east of Moscow and a two day drive from the capital. It lies north of  Novosibirsk.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/28/tv-chief-who-fled-russia-viktor-muchnik?CMP=share_btn_link

Former Russian TV anchor presenter speaks her mind

Zhanna Agalakova was

interviewed on BBC 2’s Newsnight last evening. It was short but riveting television.

Agalakova was a major player as a journalist on Russia's most watched television station.

She has resigned from her job and has left Russia and may now be living in Paris. The BBC interview took place in Amsterdam.

She spoke about the two worlds, the world of destruction and war that is happening in Ukraine and how it is presented on Russian television as Ukrainian cheering citizens greet Russian soldiers with flowers.

She is not convinced sanctions will work.

Her advice to all Russians is to switch off Russian television and to get their news anywhere but on Russian television.

Zhanna Agalakova said that the malevolence of Putin has spread right across the country, as far as its eastern borders.

Riveting television.

President Vladimir Putin’s rise to power

Catherine Belton joins Dan Snow to discuss the remarkable story of Vladimir Putin's rise to power. 

After working from 2007-2013 as the Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, Catherine's career has offered an exclusive insight into the workings of Putin's Kremlin. Her book 'Putin's People' is packed with interviews with the key inside players, uncovering fascinating details about how Putin subverted Russia’s economy and legal system and extended the Kremlin's reach into the United States and Europe. 

It's a story of billions of dollars being siphoned out of state enterprises, murky networks of operatives and the suppression of independent voices. 

https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=1042631089&i=1000563188277

Former Dominican John O’Keeffe (1945 - 2022) - obituary

The death has occurred of former Dominican, John O’Keeffe. He died in St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin on Tuesday.

John was born in Cork on November 29, 1945. He began his noviciate in St Mary’s, Pope’s Quay, Cork in 1964, making profession in 1965 and was ordained a priest in  July 1971.

Before joining the Dominicans John attended Newbridge College, where he was a boarder. After school he joined the Irish Army, spending a year in the cadette college on the Curragh. It was a close move from Newbridge College to the Army. It was from there that he joined the Dominicans. 

After his priestly ordination he was assigned to St Mary’s Priory, Pope’s Quay, Cork and began his arts degree at University College Cork. While at UCC he was diagnosed with epilepsy. The illness interfered with his studies, which meant John never completed his degree.

It was during his time in Cork that he took leave of absence from the Order, which eventually led to his leaving the Irish Dominicans.

John was highly intelligent, a man of precision and exactitude. If he was a Christian, then he was a Christian with all its consequences and if an atheist, it followed he was the perfect atheist. He could never understand how people could be halfhearted in their faith or in their non-faith. John was in so many respects a perfectionist.

He was an avid reader, his specialities being history and philosopher and he also dabbled in theology. As a result of his lifelong interests he regularly visited the late Frs Henry Peel and Hugh Fenning and Fr Liam Walsh.

John O’Keeffe was quietly spoken, gentle in his disposition. He was to the end a person of total integrity, finding it difficult to understand how people could say one thing and do another.

On leaving the Order he kept up his contact with a number of Dominicans, indeed, he cherished their friendship.

He was a good man, who never did harm to anyone and took a grim view when people were unkind or cruel. John was a man of his word.

A prayer service takes place at 12.30 today at Corrigans’ funeral home in Dublin’s Camden Street. 

Funeral Mass at 1pm on Saturday in St Patrick’s Church, Lower Glanmire Road, Cork followed by cremation at Island Crematorium, Rocky Island, Ringaskiddy.

 May John rest in peace.

Three Belarusian women win prestigious German award

Belarusian pro-democracy activists Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Veronika Zepkalo and Maria Kolesnikova were awarded this year's Charlemagne Prize during a ceremony in Aachen yesterday.

Tsikhanouskaya and Zepkalo are currently living in exile and accepted their awards in person. But  Maria Kolesnikova is serving an 11 year sentence in Belarus, so her award was collected by her sister.

The prize has been awarded since 1950 and is named after Charlemagne, known historically as the 'father of Europe’.  The prize recognises work done in the service of European unification.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock attended the ceremony, praising the three women as the 'bravest women in Europe’.

The three women have become the face of Belarus' opposition movement. Tsikhanouskaya was a political novice and stay-at-home mother of two when her husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski, who had launched a presidential campaign against Lukashenko, was arrested.

She took his place in the presidential election and is widely believed to have won the August 2020 vote, which Lukashenko claimed to win.

In Aachen, Tsikhanouskaya called for European unity in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, accusing both Belarus and Russia of trying to divide the West.

"Without free Belarus there will be a constant threat to Ukraine and to our western neighbours," Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said.

She demanded that Russia withdraw all troops from Belarus. The Belarusian regime is collaborating with Russia, she said, but the people of Belarus support Ukraine with some fighting on the side of Kyiv.

Tsikhanouskaya also dedicated her award to the Belarusian people engaged in a peaceful struggle against tyranny, as well as "every child waiting for their mother or father to be released from prison."

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock spoke at the ceremony, vowing that Germany "will not rest" until Lukashenko's regime ends its repression against the Belarusian people.

"Lukashenko proceeds against his critics with shocking severity", Baerbock said. "In doing so, the Russian and Belarusian regimes are cynically holding in contempt precisely the things for which the three of you are fighting: Peace, freedom, democracy, and human rights.”

Baerbock acknowledged that Europe had been wrong in how it dealt with Lukashenko's regime. "The belief that cooperation is possible to a certain extent even with dictators like Lukashenko may have made us act too hesitantly toward the Belarusian regime," she said.

"For me as German foreign minister, it is clear that in the future we have to look more critically, act more decisively when our values and freedom are being attacked," she added.

The blustering buffoonery of Boris Johnson yesterday

British prime minister Boris Johnson held a press conference yesterday to speak about the Sue Gray ‘Partygate' report, which was critical of the ethos and environment at 10 Downing Street.

Johnson allowed a specific number of questions to be asked and insisted that each journalist ask just one question.

Many questions he did not answer. And not one of the journalists present pushed him to answer questions he refused to answer. It was his usual subterfuge, pretending to stumble, changing the subject and then attempting to behave as one of the lads and trying to be funny. It was a shameful performance from the occupant of 10 Downing Street.

It was almost like the performance of a poor school teacher in the classroom with the attending journalists being the students. No insult to the teaching profession intended.

It was the usual blustering performance by Johnson. The timidity of the journalists was worrying.

‘Ashamed’ Russian diplomat resigns

This is an inspiring story. It appeared in The Irish Times yesterday.

It is always impressive and heartening when someone in the name of truth and justice takes a stand against the prevailing opinion.

Polina Ivanova

comments in statement on social media

A Russian diplomat has resigned in protest at Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, describing himself as “ashamed” of his country in a rare rejection by a government official of president Vladimir Putin’s war aims.

Boris Bondarev, an arms control adviser to the Russian UN mission in Geneva, made the highly critical comments in a statement posted on social media accounts.

“Long overdue, but today I resign from civil service. Enough is enough,” he wrote. “For 20 years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24 of this year,” he said, referring to the date that Russia invaded Ukraine.

Mr Bondarev’s statement, which also criticised Russia’s veteran foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, said the foreign ministry was riven with “lies” and was no longer about diplomacy. Instead, he wrote, “it is all about warmongering, lies and hatred. It serves [the] interests of [the] few”.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Mr Bondarev confirmed he had resigned and said he did not think he could return to Russia for the time being, for fear of repercussions.

“It became obvious that our government was doing the wrong things, absolutely not in the interests of the country or the society, quite the opposite,” he said, speaking by phone. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with that.”

“As a staff member I carry some sort of responsibility for all of this. So I decided that was it,” he said.

He added that he knew of “quite a significant” number of people who had already resigned from jobs in Russian diplomacy but had done so without making any public statements.

Fear of change and of possible repercussions kept many others in their jobs, even if they might disagree with the war, Mr Bondarev said.

Though he felt he had been “putting up with nonsense” at work for some time, Mr Bondarev said he might have stayed in his job had it not been for the invasion, after which he felt it was time “to signal, are you a person or what are you”?

The office of the permanent mission of the Russian Federation to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Writing in his resignation statement, Mr Bondarev said his former boss, Mr Lavrov, had gone from being a “professional and educated intellectual ... held in high esteem, to a person who constantly broadcasts conflicting statements and threatens the world...with nuclear weapons”!

“I studied to be a diplomat and have been a diplomat for 20 years. The ministry has become my home and family. But I simply cannot any longer share in this bloody, witless and absolutely needless ignominy,” he wrote.

Mr Bondarev said the war was also a “crime against the people of Russia, with a bold letter Z crossing out all hopes and prospects for a prosperous free society in our country”. The letter Z, used on Russian military vehicles in Ukraine, has become a nationalist symbol of backing for the invasion. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022

It’s a life-long journey seeking out the truth

This week’s Independent News & Media/Mediahuis Irish weekly newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

A wise man once quipped:‘If you see the other fella’s point of view you are finished.’

It presupposes you have a position on something and should you listen to other people’s views you might change your thinking.

On May 12 Paul Johnston, the British ambassador to Ireland was interviewed on RTE 1’s Prime Time. He was talking about his government’s views on the Northern Ireland Protocol. He was supporting the decisions of prime minister Boris Johnson.

Listening to him set me thinking about the job of an ambassador. With no disrespect to any ambassador, but aren’t they simply the mouthpieces of their governments.

Yuri Filatov, the ambassador of the Russian Federation to Ireland, assured us up until February 24 there would be no invasion of Ukraine. 

When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Putin explained that Russia was obliged to de-nazify  Ukraine and the country had to protect its borders from the advance of Nato. Subsequently Filatov gave us the Putin line. Is that what diplomat do? Do ambassadors have minds of their own?

 

It is said that the majority of the Russian people support Putin’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. If you or I were Russians living in Samara or Novosibirsk would we be supporting Putin?  Most likely we would.  In World War II the majority of Germans supported Hitler. That’s why I’m always nervous when people talk about ‘Nazi Germany’. 

When one uses that term one can easily think it was a small group of Germans who were mad and bad enough to support Hitler. Just as Hitler had the German people behind him, no doubt Putin too has the majority of the Russia people supporting him.

We say they have been brainwashed. Are we brainwashed?

Do any of us think for ourselves? How influenced are we by our surroundings, by what we read and see? 

Are we all marionettes submerged in the prevailing environment, controlled by the powerful?

How do we ever know what is true and honest?

I read an article in the May issue of the free-sheet ‘Alive'. It was attacking the veracity of ‘The New York Times’. It is true that the newspaper’s Berlin correspondent in the 1930s was a Nazi supporter but that does not mean that one can rubbish the history of the newspaper because of one instance of bad judgement.

The ‘Alive’ author based his argument attacking the newspaper on the works of Mark Crispin Miller. I googled Miller to discover that he is an anti-vaxxer, says the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax. And he also claims that Joe Biden stole the 2020 United States presidential election. 

How can we discover what is true?

Running with the hare and hunting with the hounds is a waste of a life. Our lives make sense when we spend our time and energy seeking out truth and goodness. It’s a life-long journey.

German poliitican says Scholz does not want Ukraine to win

Last evening on the Anne Will Show on Germany’s ARD television station, CDU member of the Bundestag and a former Bundeswehrgeneral staff officer, Roderich Kiesewetter sensationally said that he believes that German chancellor Olaf Scholz does not want Ukraine to win the war against Russia.

The three faiths of new Australian prime minister

The three faiths of the new Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese.

 “I was raised with three great faiths: the Catholic Church, the Labor party and South Sydney Football Club.”

Albanese will be sworn in as prime minister-elect today.

Leipzig win the DFB Pokal for the first time

For the first time in its history RB Leipzig won the German Football Association Cup by beating SC Freiburg in a penalty shoot out.

It had many similarities with the FA Cup Final, where the Liverpool Chelsea game also went to a penalty shoot out.

British government tries to shield dangerous MI5 agent

This is from the BBC website. It is a very disturbing story and seems to have more or less disappeared from most new platforms.

A woman who was terrorised and abused by an MI5 agent is taking legal action against the security service. 

Beth, not her real name, has lodged a formal complaint with the watchdog for the intelligence agencies, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). 

On Thursday, a BBC investigation revealed her then partner used his security status to coercively control her.

He also attacked her with a machete and threatened to kill her. 

The Centre for Women's Justice (CWJ) said Beth was asking the IPT to investigate MI5's recruitment and handling of the agent, X, and whether any steps were taken to address the clear risk of harm he posed.

She will also argue that MI5's conduct may have breached her human rights by "enabling X to subject her to serious violence and abuse with impunity".

• MI5 agent used secret status to terrorise girlfriend
• Court ruling allows BBC to tell MI5 agent story

The IPT is an independent, official panel that considers complaints about conduct by or on behalf of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. 

The IPT has the power to consider alleged breaches of human rights by intelligence agencies.

If it ultimately ruled that MI5 failed to take appropriate action to protect Beth from harm, that could impact all the UK's intelligence and security agencies that recruit and task undercover informants. 

In practical terms that could force more detailed assessments of the risks that agents pose. It could potentially mean agencies decide some informants are too dangerous to recruit, no matter the value of the intelligence they may have.

In a recent ground-breaking case against the police, the IPT awarded £230,000 compensation to a woman who had been tricked into a sexual relationship with an undercover officer. 

And so a ruling against MI5 in this case would almost certainly lead to damages for Beth. 

If the IPT decides to examine the complaint, its panel will have to balance human rights considerations with wider questions about why the information provided by X was thought to be operationally vital. 

Behind closed doors, the tribunal would be likely to examine MI5's paperwork and witness evidence about why this agent was important. 

The questions Beth's case raise mean its outcome could become a major moment in the law governing undercover operations.

We are at home with God

The 'Thinking Anew' column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

I can vividly remember being hauled over the coals by a senior priest over his use of the word family.

Talking to young novices he pointed out that they were now part of the family of the congregation they had joined. I disagreed with him,  and counter-argued that the family is a word that is too often misused.

The family is a unique grouping, indeed a most intimate society made up of parents and children.

Yes, we talk about the family of nations, we loosely use terms like “the GAA family”. But the kernel  or root of the word lies in  that place where we find the greatest security, the greatest of love, that place where we can be truly ourselves. 

Of course there are dysfunctional families, broken families, hurting and divided families, but for most people the family is made up of children and parents living most of the time in harmony and love. Modern parlance rightly uses the term the ‘nuclear family’

Homes are places where families live. They are sacrosanct places. Watching our television screens every evening the destruction of family homes across Ukraine tells us something of the abomination and evil that is perpetrated by the aggressor. They are crimes against humanity.

Anytime we use the words family and home we are talking about something powerfully intimate. Our homes, at least for the majority of people, are the places where we can let down our guard, express ourselves for who we are in a manner and way that is not thinkable in any other place or situation. 

We all know the expression ‘street angel, house devil’. We know that the real person and her/his innermost feelings and beliefs are most likely made manifest best of all within the home and family.

It’s the place where reality reigns supreme. And it is also the purest form of community. Everyone has a role to play in the home according to their  circumstances, condition and ability. 

It’s the place where understanding is a given. But like everything on this planet earth of ours, there is no perfect family, never was, never will be. 

Like everything to do with our lives, families can be rough around the edges. But they are special places and demand our loyalty and respect.

 

Everything we say about God is always said in terms of analogy. God’s greatness and perfection make it so that all our words describing God are limited. Any time we use words to speak of God the dissimilarity is greater than the similarity.

As Christians  we believe that the historical person Jesus is God. His words have special significance for us. In tomorrow’s Gospel (John 14: 23 - 29) John quotes Jesus: “If anyone loves me,  he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him.”

There it is. The perfect home is to be found with God in magnificent union where community is to be found in total perfection. I often think of the theological gymnastics used in attempting to explain the Trinity. The Trinity is all about perfect communion. The union of persons is so perfect that it is oneness in God.

Tomorrow’s Gospel has two magic themes. It talks about being at home with God and it also talks, maybe it is better to say, hints at perfect communion in some sort of way well beyond our understanding of sharing in the most intimate of ways with and in the mystery of God.

I am often  mystified why Christian churches underplay the importance of communion, solidarity, the idea that we are in some special way united with one another. 

Communists showed a glimpse of the importance of unity among peoples when they deployed their famous slogan:  ‘Workers of the World Unite’. 

As Christians we too often talk about eucharist and communion with little sense of what those words mean. Does it ever cross our minds communion transcends every aspect of the Christian faith?  

When last did we hear of a row among Christians about our communion infringements? Our homes might well give us a glimpse of what St John is writing about tomorrow. And they should. We are at home with God.

There is not a day in my life when I don’t think of and fondly remember my beloved mother and father.

Oops, the Guardian gets it wrong

It seems the past participle is on its last legs.

The text below is from yesterday’s Guardian

"The four employees who used to work at Schröder’s office, located almost directly opposite the Russian embassy on the Unter den Linden boulevard in Berlin, already resigned of their own accord in early March, after their boss had showed no intention of stepping down from his boardroom roles at Russian oil company Rosneft and pipeline company Nord Stream."

A time for believing, suspecting and knowing everything

"The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything."

- Oscar Wilde

Putin takes another page out of Hitler’s text book

In the last few days it has been reported by western intelligence that President Putin is now micromanaging the war in Ukraine and that his generals are playing second fiddle.

If that be the case he is once again doing exactly what Hitler did.

It so happens on this day in 1942 the Soviet Union began deporting Crimean Tartars to the then Uzbek SSR. It was carried out by Laverenity Beria, head of the feared Soviet secret police. He did it acting on behalf of Stalin.

Nearly 8,000 Crimean Tatars died during the deportation, while tens of thousands perished subsequently due to the harsh exile conditions.