ANONYMOUS ANOMALY

 

An anomaly is defined as something unusual, surprising.

We  have had  some anomalies recently.

For instance, Mr Rees-Mogg is against Islamophobia in Britain - and yet bore without undue trouble the alliance of the Democratic Unionist Party with the party to which he and many  Roman Catholics belong, no matter about its past history against Catholics in Ireland. 

And , during the Twelfth of July demonstrations we  talk a lot  about the battle of the Boyne that King William won in 1690 but little or nothing about  the Battle of Landen in 1691 which King William lost, or about General Sarsfield who ambushed  an English army near Limerick in 1690 and blew their armour to bits, or about two battles around Athlone  where William won one and lost one  on his way through Ireland.

And , while  we don't expect every Orange march to start with a toast to the Pope who in 1690 sent a band to play and wages to pay to William's soldiers and whose Vatican songsters sang a hymn of triumph and divine thanks for William's victory at the Boyne, we might  perhaps fill in some neglected details of our history. After all if the Catholic Church could give Mrs Margaret Thatcher the highest award a modern  Pope could offer her , why should every Orange march not begin with a toast to the Pope of 1690 who was so generous?  Fair's fair.

Of course, on the other hand, a long time elapsed between the Boyne battle (1690) and the founding of the  Orange Order (1791) and  people forget. Another anomaly.

And , there was surprise at  the remarks a British ambassador made in  his recent frank opinion about  USA politicians and politics . But shouldn't we  all accept that an ambassador's job is to tell the government what exactly he or she observes and thinks while  the job? That is what  an ambassador -  a kind of polite spy in some ways  - is supposed to do.

Not long ago it was only when newspapers revealed it  that we learned anything about what officials say privately to their governments . Nowadays we are finding out much more ourselves by searching archives to see what was really said and done to us. And apart from that there are people who don't believe in  official secrecy when anybody is hurt by it. We are sometimes surprised by what officials say to their governments about us behind our backs; the anomaly is that we talk about freedom of speech and still do not like it when such freedom is revealed between diplomats and their governments. There seems more emphasis on faulting the diplomat who was doing his  job  than on the whistleblower who probably wasn't.

Much of what passes between people at diplomatic  or other official  level is little better than gossip, sometimes at, between, before or after a good meal. Personally and collectively we have all suffered from it. A few anomalies like that recent USA ambassador's may have  a bit of good in them, a kind of useful sting in their tale !

If a foreign  government has  "a very special relationship" with your government but , in your considered opinion, is   "dysfunctional , inept " do you not have a duty to  the  government that  employs you to tell them the truth as you see it ?

You do.

But  you may lose your job if you do.

We get used to anomalies perhaps.

THE OUR FATHER

For Christians the Our Father prayer is the most sacred of all prayers, handed on to them by Jesus Christ.

Now - not for the first time - there is a rumour that the English language version of the prayer may be changed into more everyday and present day English. There is a good argument for this -  we don't talk to our friends with "thy" ,"thee" and "thou art", we use the word "hallowed" very seldom , making a speech for instance about "hallowed ground" where important events have happened, or at Hallowe'en time every year. Nowadays "trespasses" may seem  too gentle a word for offences by the creature against the laws of the Creator. So there is a desire for change.

But on the other hand - there is always an "other hand" - words mean what speaker and spoken-to understand them to mean, so  it matters little what age a particular word  may be, it is what the speaker means by it now that counts.   

Those who pray the Our Father know and trust that their Lord will understand perfectly  what we need even if we never utter a word or use the wrong one and this prayer graciously admits that. Still, some people would feel greatly honoured to be able to talk to their creator with the same ease as they talk to the rest of their friends. After all, Jesus Christ said our  primary human relationship is with a creator and head of family. An old Irish prayer put it, is nearer to you than your own front, or back, door. Many  Irish Christians  still have a custom of praying while going in and out of the house.

So changing the wording of a prayer is not just a matter of feeling more comfortable and up to date.  For Christians it is a matter of relationship. Saint Teresa, a brilliantly wise women of Avila in Spain, went a bit further in this - when she prayed she used to argue,  "Lord, why do you do this or that , for goodness' sake..... ?", arguing in friendship as friends do. And  another saint compared his relationship with the divine to that of a lover sneaking out at night  for a blissful intimate meeting with his beloved. That was St. John of the Cross. Can't get much nearer than that , so sacred familiarity does not always breed contempt, quite the opposite. So why not change the wording of any prayer to more intimate, friendly language?

One day years ago I asked a friend, a Dominican priest, if he was doing anything special these days and he said, Yes, I'm helping to translate the New Testament into more modern English.

"That's great", I said. "One of the things I've longed for is a better translation of the Our Father....."

"Oh", he said. "I don't think we're  going to touch that really ......."

After that we had only a polite conversation about  the project,  avoiding the biggest question of all : Why do Christians ask their Lord not to " lead us into temptation?

 Surely that is a completely unnecessary thing to ask ?

It's really a translation problem. The present English version of the Our Father is a translation from Latin. In the Latin version the word 'temptationem' is used , and there was a time when translators often used the nearest English-shaped  word when translating rather than searching for the deep, and most suitable,  meaning of Latin  which might require a differently-shaped word. In this instance the Latin word has shades of meaning depending on the context in which it is used ; and one other meaning is " trial", or "test" , a test of endurance for example, a trial of strength.  It  would be understandable to ask a Father not to go by rocky roads with road blocks too big for them to remove , get around or over.  But a  Father could well be asked to take a big stumbling block ( for which an old word is "scandal")  away himself , because , as  the Our Father adds, he has the authority, the ability, to move the evil stumbling block and will have everybody's thanks in advance for doing so.

"Let us not be tried (tested) beyond our strength, take the burden on yourself, setting us free to get on our way home......."  

That might be a reasonable version of that part of the Our Father.

But just try putting it into short, concise, English suitable for the concise rhythmic  rest of the prayer.  Most translators are probably unwilling to try it. 

CHANGED TIMES

The  relatively small sounds of disapproval when a  candidate for British Conservative  leadership said he once sniffed cocaine showed  there has been a change of heart and mind somewhere. When an Irish politician also admitted having a sniff or two in his youth that clinched it. Admitting you had dabbled with drugs in your days of youth used to raise eyebrows and lower expectations of a career in politics. And yet......

And yet we had such a friendly , even loving relationship with alcohol, a drug that could make  you pleasantly relaxed, ferociously intense, sloppily fawning and terribly angry  one after the other all in one evening. No matter how many changes of mood alcohol pushed us into in quick and sometimes disastrous succession we seemed to love it dearly. And forgive it a lot. Other drugs got a much  less adoring public.

We Oldies remember the days of innocence when , believe it or not, defence lawyers in Belfast courts often pleaded : " Your worship, my client greatly regrets what happened in this assault but regrettably he was under the influence of drink at the time...." .  Because , surprising but true, magistrates often accepted  this as proof of a  defendant's reduced responsibility. Penalty for being drunk and disorderly reduced or abandoned.  Mid-20th century Belfast respectability was a curious thing.

One magistrate however would have none of this. He made it known that if any such plea were made at his hearings, it would mean increasing the guilt, not excusing it. He was Mr Charles Stewart, popularly and deservedly known affectionately as  Charlie.

No, I did not make this up. Even Belfast had its soft spots. There was a big whiskey store  opposite St Malachy's Church , the whiskey company complained that the church bells upset the whiskey ( don't ask why ) and the church people adjusted the bells accordingly (don't ask how), and , it is said, all was well again.   Mutual respect.

Various accounts have suggested Winston Churchill was fond of a cigar and a drink  quite frequently, there was rum for the sailors sailing in warships , rum for troops about to die. But our tolerance did not  include sniffing  cocaine, however long ago  and light-headedly it was done.  Now it seems a softening of heart has happened , not towards the drugs, but towards those who followed a fashion and actually used them in  their youth.. Experimenting perhaps.

On theatre stages  and film screens our heroes and important villains smoked tobacco and drank a  lot. Theatres handed their audiences printed programmes gratefully acknowledging " cigarettes supplied by.......".  The tobacco factory  supplied Belfast workers with free gifts of  cigarettes every so often. We were indeed a society in a cloud of unknowing but at least  before and after WW2.there was no drug culture as we know it now.

Then  in the nineteen thirties someone invented Benzedrine.

It was meant to relieve depression, to be a temporary help for patients and was used that way. But it was also looked on by some hard-studying students as a  help coming up to "exam swotting"  or " baking" time. It kept you awake during the long night hours as you went over papers and books and indices and things neglected or half forgotten. It did not give you new knowledge  or new information of course but it helped you regain some you had mislaid during a partly wasted year. Especially useful the night before the written exams. Students who used  it had to be cautious though. If they did not sleep but took more of the medicine afterwards they were asking for trouble. It was dangerous. Students who could pride themselves  on  avoiding the demon drink or the glamorous cig. did not always realise the risks.

But the students knew the danger of dependency. Student folklore recommended that after such a night and day of study, and showing off the result of it, at least 24 hours sleep was required. This  gave rise to the black joke in student  magazines about the one who was in a quandary -  nowadays it might be called not a moral, philosophic or scientific quandary but an existential one  :  "I don't know which to do , take a Benzy and go to the hop or take a tablet and go to sleep..." . 

Many students - and lots of others - had been  brought up with a reading diet of adventure stories in which London's Soho was dotted with opium dens run by nasty men from China whose clients, some respected and wealthy from the "Home Counties",  smoked opium. So it was easy to forget  that opium wars were  run by London merchants to take control  of the opium trade. Propaganda given to us as children instilled the lesson , "Heavy drugs, however near at hand are really rather foreign you know."   

We learned to tolerate some things, not others. Burning tobacco and inhaling the smoke did not bring the fire brigade, it was something you did because everybody else seemed to be doing it,  glamorous ladies on film screens  were allowed long cigarette holders and short kisses - the Legion of Decency decided how many seconds a screen kiss could last - but not a screen smoke ! - and the  stars seemed to  head for the drinks cupboard after every  hard day at the office.

Belfast City Corporation was still discussing whether to bring in Prohibition, because " It had been such a success in America"!

There was little student money around. Universities charged fees. Some students had  scholarships, some had hopeful parents or relatives who provided in their wills for  payments of fees for "Nephew..... for as long as he  (there were few women university students until much later) is at university ". This benevolence of relatives led to some students staying as long as possible, and even missing out on an exam or two so as to prolong the benefit. These - and  some students who regularly  failed exams were unkindly known especially among the medical undergraduates as "chronics". It was unkind but  universities kept students who failed because numbers were important where fees were involved. The picture changed after the second World War 2 when partly in order to save government from social upheaval new rules were brought in to extend education, welfare housing and much else, much of which came under attack decades later from high conservative politicians. That attack is  now becoming fiercer.

Scarface and James Cagney films we thought  just couldn't really be true. We never believed  that  drug gang killing would come to our Irish cities and we would one day realise that Belfast was built on dangerous foundations anyway - the docks with their asbestos, the tobacco factory, the match factories with their phosphorous, linen mills full of artificial wetness for the sake of the product whatever about the workers, the rope works where the noise of the machines was so loud and piercing that the women workers lost their hearing and  the way Belfast people talked to each other was shaped  for the rest of their lives.

Now we know better.

Although of course we are now being urged to manufacture more bombers and some universities in the world are researching how much torture is possible for government to inflict  without actually killing a prisoner.........

ELECT OR ELITE?

Recently  an Irish newspaper editorial ended with the words, ...." When  politics fails we must fall back on democracy.....". It was referring to the political chaos resulting from Brexit. 

We Oldies  remember that  within our lifetime the sentence,  "When  politics fails...."   did not end up with ...."we must fall back on democracy.....".   It ended with a word that begins with the letter D right enough but wasn't democracy.  For  millions of our fellow Europeans the choice after politics failed was  trying to democratise family-run Monarchies ( to whom we were graciously allowed to appoint advisors once every few years ) or sliding into a single party Dictatorship. Our Europe was and still is  a slow, unwilling, recent and unsteady convert  to  modern Democracy. 

As Maurice Chevalier might  have sung , "Yes, We Oldies remember it well".

We  should be in mortal fear of losing what democracy we have in Europe. At very least remembering Hilaire Belloc's famous advice to children running into unforeseen and unusual dangers :  "Always keep a hold on Nurse, for fear of  catching something worse".

We have had a lot of elections in the past few years and yet we have had a  lot of national and international chaos too. So it's only natural that  some commentators and voters and even editorial writers might fall into a  certain unhappy train of thought during  election times, a train of thought that goes like this  :

At Election  I

I'll vote for Soanso - right one to get the job done, good candidate, good party....

Next election

I'll never vote for that one again, promised a lot, didn't get....Still vote for the party though ....

Election after that :

I'll vote for that party no more , how did it get so little  done  ..........lazy divils ....this time my vote goes right , left and centre, what difference ?

Next :

Political parties are a waste of money.  Don't want to bother with any of them,  every one of them's  just as bad as the other..........

Next election

No, I'm   not voting any more ....not for any party,  they're all the same , do nothings.   I'm fed up with politics ...politics didn't work here for years , doesn't work now, won't ever, probably never did.....what we need is strong government, not a collection of  parties arguing , all full of people arguing , one strong party that's what we need,  knows what we need without us having to ask again and again , organises the business of government efficiently, doesn't need winning elections to get it . Firm strong government, that's what we need , you known how it is , when politics fails we need . ......what was that bit from the newspaper editorial just last week....when politics fails, it said, what did it say we needed ....Democracy ....but is that  what's coming at us down the line , from America, China, restless Europe ......Trump, moguls , merchants who bring their idea of democracy packaged along with them - pret a manger - instead of letting us work out, stage by painful stage, in our own, slow, ponderous way, our own democracy and what it means ? Democracy created by us through trial and failure as well as trial and success.  The way democracy has to be created and we can make it work.....

For us Oldies, these  can be chilling but at the same time challenging thoughts.  If we despair of our politics and abandon our attempts to democratise  it - not just hope for some heavyweights to come along and control or deform it for us , what can you see coming at us through the chaos ? Some of the politics in America and elsewhere is so  like what happened in Europe all those years ago when millions of people did not for a moment suspect what was going to hit them, when politics would lose its  soul in the hope of gaining the whole world . When the cry ,  " We need strong  government ... "  added the fatal words   "...at all costs "  and millions of marching crowds echoed it through the streets.

Don't let politics  ever again descend into  such a struggle to dominate  each other,  pretending it is democracy.  Politics that does not enrich everyone  can never be democracy. 

So let's make it  a constant effort  to enrich - and then share - each other's  ability to create a world worthy of the world's  dignity and worthy of our own.

Democracy by trial and error, by trial and success. Our trial and error, our trial and success.  We create our own democracy, we don't try to catch whatever is packaged and thrown at us.

 So, goodwill to all candidates, the successful and  the defeated in our elections. We listen and learn from both of you. We need all of you.....

ELECT FOR CHANGE ?

When Alison Bennington  was chosen as an election candidate for Antrim and Newtownabbey Council  there was surprise. When she was elected by a handsome vote there was even more surprise. But it was the surprise that should have been  surprising!  Why should a man or woman not be chosen, or not elected  because he loves a man or she loves a woman?  

Love is the most precious  gift we give  each other. Often in our human history, though,  that reality was disastrously lost, most tragically by religious people . You can trace  almost unbelievable love in  our  history but  often have to lament the irrational loss of it as well.  

There were times when we would not consider for elections people who were  not rich, not white, not owner of enough property, not male, not this , that or the other, the number of ways  we prevented people having a say in running a country, corporation or sports club was impressive. Eventually,  when good  sense was tending to overcome silliness we seemed to be running out of  reasons for excluding fellow citizens from  the right to share our decision-making. Politics, social status, religion, the law, business, money, with all their power and influence could not limit forever such decision-making to elites. In the Borough of Antrim  and Newtownabbey  the recent surprise was that being "gay" did not prevent Alison Bennington from being selected and elected. Another fence down.

In the Bible , the books of the Jewish religious tradition in which Jesus of Nazareth was brought up, there is a fascinating story of two men, two close friends, David and Jonathan.

Jonathan is killed in war. David mourns  him and says:

 How the mighty have fallen
 in the midst of the battle!

Jonathan lies slain upon your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
greatly beloved were you to me;
your love to me was wonderful,
greater than  the love of woman.

What a statement that was of the love  this  man had for another. Whether we take them as  historically accurate or not the words reveal two lives  mysteriously entwined. Could their love for each other have been expressed more strongly? For centuries Christians have kept this outburst worthy of inclusion in their sacred books. 

Another story millions of Christians have accepted into their Bibles is that of Naomi  and Ruth . After suffering many hardships together their time of parting seemed to have come. Socially and financially it seemed best for them to separate. Ruth said No. They had suffered and endured together and now there was something  between them to which  nationality, prosperity, even religion had to give way. She said to Naomi:

"Do not plead with me to abandon you, to turn back from accompanying you; for where you go I shall go, and where you spend the night I shall spend the night. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I shall die, and there is where I shall be buried. May Jehovah do so to me and add to it if anything but death should make a separation between me and you".

Staying together "until death do us part" was not just a matter of status or finance for the women   choosing  a  shared life as strongly as Ruth and Naomi did.

That story - it may have been historical, or one of the tales of  a storyteller rather than history, but in any case it was an  early cultural and religious lesson in " who is my neighbour " whom I love,  a question still disputed in Jesus' time,  hundreds of years after the story was being told  round ancient firesides of the Middle East. That question, answered  by Jesus in His day, is being asked still - whatever  finance may say, or religious severity, or politics the love of woman for woman and man for man often and quietly confronts us too. And wins.

So where did Christians get the idea that man should love woman but  woman must not love woman or man love man ? From the Genesis command,  " human beings should multiply and fill the earth "perhaps, as if it meant that  any loving that did not bring children was not required or welcomed?  From emperors who demanded more than the Creator did , namely that everybody should generate as many soldiers for their armies as their greed required?   Some emperors  admitted as much. 

When Jesus asked for  a refreshment and renewal of people's ideas of how we should live He had no hesitation in saying  things many public speakers in Christian history did not dare to say. He confronted a follower, Peter, with the question , "Peter, do you love me more than  you love these others ?"  And a gospel biographer did not hesitate to write about  "the disciple whom Jesus loved".  He loved them all and the non-disciples as well but with John there was a special bond. At supper the night before Jesus  was executed John had a very special place at the table, not only beside Jesus but at one stage "leaning on His breast...."   Love was for everyone but could have  a special depth for one particular person as well, man  or woman.

Yet religious history struggled for centuries for or against  the idea  that a  man could honourably love a man, a woman honourably  love a woman with dignity, without hurt to either of them or to the community in which they lived.

Christians have been  confronted with this  reality from their beginning.  The County Borough election  in Antrim and Newtownabbey 2019 should  not have surprised them. Neither should a letter of the year 340 a.d.  sent  from a saint, Jerome, to a hermit, Rufinus.

St Jerome was an  irritable Christian,  inclined to fall out with people, friend or foe. Somewhere around the year 340 a.d. he wrote this letter that at first reading seems - let's use the word again - surprising. Jerome was in Antioch, Rufinus, his friend from student days, was in North Africa, near Alexandria. Jerome wrote to him and the beginning of the letter reads: 

Dear Rufinus

" I knew from our Scriptures that God gives us  more than we ask Him for and often grants us things which eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither have they entered into the heart of man, but now, dearest Rufinus, I have had proof of it in my own case. 

I could not believe that just by exchanging letters I would  be allowed to pretend  to myself you were with me in the flesh when I hear you are penetrating the remotest parts of Egypt, visiting the monks and going round God's family on earth. Oh, but if only the Lord Jesus Christ would suddenly transport me to you as Philip was transported to the (Queen of Ethiopia's) courtier and Habakkuk to Daniel, with what a close embrace would I clasp your neck, how fondly would I press kisses upon that mouth which has so often joined with me of old in error or in wisdom. But because I am unworthy that I should so come to you, and because my poor body, weak even when well, has been shattered by frequent illnesses,  I am sending  this letter to meet you instead of coming myself, in the hope that it may bring you hither to me caught in the meshes of love's net ".

This interesting communication from one young man to another is included in "The Letters of St Jerome",  published in 1942 by Fr. James Duff , Professor of Ancient Languages in Maynooth College. Fr. James (Jimmy to us) later became Parish Priest of Castlewellan, Co Down. He was known as an ascetic, strict in his way of life and in what he hoped for in others. The book was used by his students of Latin and in his Introduction to it Fr. Jimmy wrote that  St Jerome at times wrote  "in a style that is highly rhetorical".

Yes, indeed he might well say that. But maybe his  writing is  more reflective of some Christian ideas in Jerome's time than we think.  If a student wrote a letter like this in 1942 he would  probably have been asked to leave. the College.  By Jimmy.

We have an idea of churches and other religious groups  never changing or adjusting their beliefs or their attitudes. But how true is this?  They have changed a lot as time has gone on  and the more change there is the quicker the speed of it may change too. After change there comes reaction -  what we used to refer to as prudish Victorian ideas  gave way to ideas that almost anything goes.  Ideas among religious groups as well as others may go in cycles.

The few examples quoted here from Judeo-Christian history may suggest to us some historical ebb and flow of ideas, even of strict moral ones.

Which suggests that we all - religious groups, political parties, journalists, historians and all - have a lot of homework to do before we put pen to paper to put our fellow citizens in pain about anything as important as loving each other.   

STATE OF INEFFICIENCY

When six counties were carved out of Ireland's north east in the nineteen twenties by the London government political, economic and social arrangements were made to ensure permanent British rule there. London insisted that the area must be held without question as a military base and to control the  economy of Ireland. The area had about one and a half million inhabitants. It had to be not only militarily and economically controlled but governed in such a way as to make it as little of a financial burden to London as possible.

Within the carved out area (six counties out of the historic Ulster nine) there were unionists who, having secured this base which they could rule for the foreseeable future and beyond, were willing to try to develop it  and give those in it a fair deal. However, these were too few and not influential enough to do it.  Forty years later a new generation of such liberal unionists  emerged with the same desire but a similar  lack of influence, such as the Young Unionists of the nineteen sixties and eventually the Alliance Party in the seventies.

Those who did have both  power and influence had different ideas, principally to keep and enlarge their power and control.  During the next decades the carved out area found itself the poorest  part of the British kingdom and  ungovernable. Why?

In their efforts to confine political and economic power firmly in a few hands they had built permanent inefficiency into the political system:

First :

1  One third of the population, the Catholics, they ruled out of future major political decision-making. This left only two  thirds of the area's future intellectual decision-making potential.  

Then :

2  From the  remaining two thirds they ruled out half, that is the women, thus   reducing the future intellectual potential for efficient political decision-making to one third of the population.

Then :

3   From that one third they gave preference to members of the British Army and others chosen for the strength of their  commitment to the Union.

Then :

4   The special status of the Masonic Order came strongly into play, that nothing in the Government of Ireland Act  would alter the rights and privileges of the Masonic Order; and police, who were forbidden by law to be members of secret societies could legally join the Masons .  Other "loyal" societies benefited from more informal agreement of the same kind.

So more than two thirds of the population were excluded from significant political decision-making  and special privileges were given to many of the rest. Thus future  inefficiency was carefully built into the political and economic system.  Failure was  bound to happen, in both government and standard of living. Keeping the system in place by force made natural development  impossible and the carved out area practically ungovernable. In time it found itself among the poorest areas of the United Kingdom.

...............................................................................................................................

Now that talks are to begin in May about reasonable NI government it is interesting to  look at the above  historical arrangements and ask questions:

How much  progress has been made in allowing and developing the potential of women, of Catholics, of everyone? 

How far have we already moved away from those early restrictions on  our people's potential, away from the deliberately inbuilt inefficiency and refusal to recognise the abilities of most of the population?     

Are we at the beginning of a movement towards reasonable government, or already  further along  the road to it than we may think, with  the future (and possible) task of flushing the last deliberately created inefficiency out of our NI system?

What would have happened if London had encouraged what even its King  (George the Fifth) said he wanted, namely development built on shared desire and ability to work for prosperity and peace leading to a fresher and more productive political union?

...........................................................................................................................

Footnote .  During exclusion from significant decision-making in NI  the Catholics were referred to as "The Minority". But they were never a minority. They were a majority in Ireland, a majority of practising Christians in England, majorities in France, Spain, Italy and many other places in the world. They were created  a minority in NE Ireland at much the same time as people of other nationalities and religions in other places were being separated and made into artificial minorities by other imperial powers. For similar reasons as in Ireland.

Curiously, Catholics accepted  this title of "minority" and took to referring to themselves as "The Minority".  A reason was  that some time , especially after World War 2 , there was so much talk about - and apparent sympathy for - unfairly treated minorities in the world that international help could  perhaps be invoked to do something about it in  Ireland.

It didn't work.

 Any anyway women could not refer to themselves as a minority anywhere. 

So the N Ireland situation kept on  getting worse, against a tide of demands for democracy to be painfully achieved only piece by piece.

From time to time a few of the people generally  excluded from the system would be appointed to significant positions. These were often seen as mere "tokens" .  Like the liberal unionists they had not enough numbers or influence to make much difference.

 

 

 

RESURRECTION IN PARIS

The burning of Notre Dame Cathedral was a great pity. But not a total disaster. While the ashes were still red important people came forward to help clear away the rubble and rebuild.

Many sympathisers will have taken down and dusted off their "Guide Book to Paris" for a reminder that Notre Dame has had its many hard times, suffering the indignity of damp walls and decay even while Napoleon proudly crowned himself and Josephine emperor and empress there, seizing the crown from the hands of the Pope to do it.  And how the writer Victor Hugo rescued the building from final decay  by writing his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Notre Dame de Paris has a strange fascination for people - and people have such a love for it - that enabled it to survive for so long.

For us Oldies, the 1939 film in which Charles Laughton gave a heart-breaking and brilliant portrait  of  "the hunchback" was our first rather doubt-filled fascination with Notre Dame.  Those were the days when it was thought improper and frightening that a man with such a figure should dare hope for love or sexual life.  We have come a long and blessed way forward since then, may nobody succeed in dragging us back to it.

For our moment of shared glory watched the Movietone   film of General de Gaulle striding through the crowded cathedral at the end of the German WW2 occupation, striding straight as a ramrod, while snipers inside the cathedral were trying to kill him. Thrilling it was to see him and hear the shots in such a sacred place, even at a distance.

So when eventually we got to Paris ourselves we thought we knew the Cathedral already because of Laughton and Victor Hugo; we did not know about the people sleeping under the bridges who tied  bottles on long string and dangled them in the river to cool their wine. Victor Hugo did his best to give them new life too but wealthy people were less inclined for that. Sort of "Buildings Before Prophets" seemed to be their motto.

Now the latest great restoration will begin, restoring  a national monument that happens to be a place of worship as well - a change from its origins as a place of worship that became a national monument. The people standing in the cold streets while the Cathedral burned was a sad reminder of how sad and inglorious  Notre Dame's history often was.  Saint and soldier Joan of Arc was burned alive and the best Notre Dame de Paris could do for her was to host  a retrial and recognise her as a saint. Church and state doing their best to make their own history bearable.

The interaction of financial experts, church and state officials and the demands of a population who want the old Notre Dame rather than a cold steel substitute for any part of it will be interesting but probably not fully known about in detail until the cathedral is flourishing again, as an historic attraction or a place of living worship, hopefully both.

Who are the wealthy benefactors then? Hardly novelists like Hugo, although they can help to lead the way.  Not, one may hope,  arms manufacturers and their enthusiastic government customers.  Nor destroyers of the  beautiful earth who  hope to supply future  pilgrims with  plastic  bottles. Nor adventurers who have stocked up vast monies awaiting higher interests of a kind far different from that of real lovers of either Notre Dame or her cathedral or the eternally sacred earth  they rest on!

Let's hope, pray and make demands about it.  We're all involved, not just the Parisians !