French Perverts and Irish Bastards

Today represents my last day in my current job as I leave for pastures new on Monday (well, a new department anyway). As I'm going to be getting trained how to actually do my new job for a few weeks, I shall be scaling down the frequency of these rants for a while. I hope to be able to at least manage 1 per week although it all depends on time available.

Still, what a day to go out on. Yesterday was a momentous day for France. A day that will add rich texture to the proud history of this mighty nation, a day that will long be spoken of in reverential and awed terms. It was the day that rural incest and inbreeding was brought up to date for the 21st century. I am referring to the 62-year-old (!) French woman who became pregnant through IVF treatment in America. Nothing too unusual in that these days. What sets it apart from the other stories of decrepit new mothers is the identity of the sperm donor; it was her brother. Brother, Sister and child live with their elderly mother in a large house in rural France. It is also rumoured that the only reason that they had the child was in order to secure the inheritance of their mothers’ house and (apparently considerable) fortune for the direct bloodline rather than allow it to go to some distant cousins.

As I have already admitted in a previous rant, I am a colossal pervert. However, this story doesn't so much make my flesh crawl as make it complete a 100m sprint in less than 9 seconds; what they have done is grim beyond all belief. The long held stereotype of the country bumpkin introducing you to his wife and sister when only 1 woman is standing there has been reinforced in spades by this hi-tech perversity. Moreover the doctor who performed the treatment, far from being angry at her duplicity (she lied about whose sperm it was) has gone on camera to say that he would do it again! Jesus Christ!! I can see how the gene pool ends up turning into a puddle in the more remote areas of the world (where family trees look like disease ridden stumps) such as Kentucky, Siberia, South Shields etc. But to give people the option of inbreeding via a test tube seems quite extravagantly awful. Trust the French to come up with it...

But fun though it is to bait the French with their incestuous ways and inability to pronounce the word "this" without sounding like a character from 'Allo Allo, I must move on to other things a little closer to home. Specifically to a conflict that, just as it seemed to be on the verge of resolution, has flared up again seemingly inexplicably. Naturally, I refer to Northern Ireland and the riots of the previous 2 nights. Gangs of loyalist and republican youths have been attempting to stone and petrol bomb each other with some determination. Thanks to the efforts of the police however, the only real injuries have been officers trying to keep the two factions apart, a task that it would appear that they have thus far succeeded in.

For the sake of the peace process, this is a good thing. Left wing though I am, it pains me to hear of a police being injured in the line of duty (although not as much as it pains the poor bugger who gets hit by a petrol bomb) so it has to be for a damn good reason in order to cause me to believe that it is for the best. In this case, it has so far managed to prevent either side in Northern Ireland claiming that the other has committed a heinous crime which must be avenged (i.e. one side does something bad that is excused by a previous awful act committed by the other side. In turn, the something bad excuses an atrocity in retaliation for it, and so on until everybody in Ireland is dead...). As neither republican nor loyalist have caused any major damage to each other, they cannot really complain of oppression from the other side (yes, yes; I'm being naive again because we all know both sides will continue to bitterly complain about their respective treatment at the hands of the other).

As both sides have demagogues of pretty much equal ferocity and bigotry, it is of vital importance that we keep their excuses to vent bile and hatred to an absolute minimum. On the loyalist side (technically the side that the British government have been backing all these years, and predominantly Protestant) we have the Rev. Ian Paisley, and a more godawful bigot one cannot hope to find. This is a man who, upon the visit of the Pope to Ireland, stood in the background bellowing "I denounce you as the Antichrist!" (which even I thought was a bit much...) until he was removed. And this is the man claiming to be the voice of his people (as opposed to whose people I wonder...?) and worse still, the man who is supposed to be on "our" side. I'd rather stand side by side with Dr. Harold Shipman than that horrendous cluster of evil that goes under the description of a man. That bastard has never once denounced the violence by Protestants against Catholics, nor has he even made the pretense of opening dialogue with them (presumably he thinks they're too busy offering worship to the antichrist...). This man must not, repeat *not*, be allowed to become the mouthpiece of the loyalist community or we can look forward to many more years of violence and despair.

On the republican side, we no longer have a single spokesperson. The duties are taken up as a collective by Sinn Fein (amongst others; they are not the sole representative of the Catholic community by any means, but they are the ones who represent those most willing to resort to violence). Their most public figures are Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Both of them were considered to be terrorists until recently and the public treated their words with contempt and derision. And yet nowadays they speak with honeyed reassurances and they talk reason and sense. Yet this men are meant to be the voice of the IRA who are (rightly in my opinion) despised as terrorists and criminals. Why is it that they are the ones who are making most of the peaceful overtures (procrastinating over weapons notwithstanding)? Why is it that the loyalists side who have suffered under the terror of the IRA for 20 years are the ones least willing to compromise?

Could it be because, whichever way you look at it, the Catholic (a generalisation as they are not all Catholics but let's stick with it for now) population of Northern Ireland have been discriminated against in favour of the Protestant (ditto) population since the word go. Whether in be in terms of jobs, benefits, or quality of life, the Protestants have long since held the upper hand. A compromise would mean losing some of this advantage, and the likes of Ian Paisley (Snr and Jnr since the old bugger has spawned a clone) will fight bitterly against this. Unfortunately, the main lesson that has been learned from the British occupation has been the sneering attitude toward the "natives" and the belief that because they are allied with the occupying power, they are better than those who are not.

The fact that trouble has started so early is a truly ominous and distressing omen. Marching season will soon be on us, and the Orangemen will insist on once more forcibly reminding the Catholic population of Northern Ireland that their "side" was victorious over the Papists at the Battle of the Boyne. Who were led by King James II. In 1690. Now I may just be being a little picky here, but it strikes me that perhaps after 300+ years, the Orange Order might just have let it go. But no, they insist on reminded everyone of a division that existed in history, and by doing this they only serve to keep that division in place. It would be the equivalent of a march from Sunderland through to Newcastle City centre to commemorate a football victory from 100 years ago. It doesn't matter any more, and times have moved on, but if the denizens of Newcastle were reminded of this year after year, there would be anger there, and each march would ensure it was kept simmering. Good things are being achieved by the peace process and this is the nearest that Ireland has been to peace since Henry II invaded almost a thousand years ago (well, in the 11 hundreds anyway). I hope that the people of Ireland learn from the hatred and horror of that great weight of history, and find themselves more inclined to bring it to an end so that a new and peaceful chapter in their history can be written. It would be a travesty if that same history remains the gulf between the 2 opposing sides. In either case, as long as the Paisley clan are sidelined and ignored, I suppose I shall glean some satisfaction from that.