Animal Lightweight
Rosa Luxemburg once wrote that anyone who steps needlessly on a worm on the road to revolution has committed a crime. But even she might be dismayed by how daft the British media sometimes go about animals.
Eamonn McCann, 16 Apr 1997
Rosa Luxemburg once wrote that anyone who steps needlessly on a worm on the road to revolution has committed a crime. But even she might be dismayed by how daft the British media sometimes go about animals.
The Grand National hysteria brought back memories of Sefton. You ll remember Sefton, the horse which survived an IRA bomb attack on bandsmen at Hyde Park and instantly became a celebrity. Nobody outside their own family circles can now remember the names of the human beings blown to bits in that attack, but the storm of publicity which surrounded Sefton was such as to ensure he ll never be completely forgotten.
During Sefton s convalescence, tens of thousands of get-well cards and bunches of flowers were delivered to his stable. When he had recovered sufficiently, he was interviewed on ITN. Sefton s handler stroked his charge s shining flank as he told the journalist what a brave and true-Brit soldier this horse really was. Sefton would be back on parade soon enough. No way would he be intimidated from his national duty by cowardly terrorists. Not Sefton.
One thing, though: Sefton hadn t uttered a single sound since the bomb-blast. Nary a cough, snort, whinny, neigh nor ululation.
Upon receipt of this information, the journalist held the mike out at arms length to Sefton s head and kept it there for long enough so the nation could hear Sefton not making a sound. The ITN man then himself looked silently into the camera for meaningful seconds before saying: Somehow this sums up how so many people feel.
Myself, I felt gutted that Sefton couldn t speak, so the interviewer might have asked him, as they do, Well, Sefton, what do you feel now about the people who did this?
Sefton might have answered: They re fucking animals. .
Then there was Moby, the sperm whale who fetched up in the Firth of Forth the week before the National and who finally floundered on mud flats on a Monday morning. The Mirror reported Moby s funeral , which took place after a full post-mortem .
BBC reports of Moby s demise were couched in those hushed tones of gentle sadness which the corporation normally reserves for ancient actors or music-hall turns that nobody under the age of 90 has ever heard of. Rescue workers were deeply moved. Some local people said it was akin to personal bereavement. Small children stood in tears. That sort of malarkey.
I have nothing against whales. Most folk think softly of whales. They re enormous, and also they are entirely harmless to humans. So, when it was copped on that whale species were on the edge of extinction it was automatic to understand that we d be hugely deprived if whales were let die. Roaming the oceans, they became a symbol of concern for the global environment. My position on whales is unassailable.
Mind you, whales weren t so cuddly when Dopey Dick spent a week frolicking in the Foyle. Dopey was a big hit back in November 77.
He d dandered up the river and in under Craigavon Bridge before he was spotted and curled through the water, seeming to revel in the mass acclamation. Whole schools filed into the town to line the banks of the river, and thousands flooded in from all over the North West to get a glimpse of the impressive spectacle.
There were galleries of more than 5,000 some days, roaring approval of Dopey s dare-devil manoeuvres.
For a whole week Dopey showed no inclination to leave. Some said that his radar equipment had gone wonky because of all the Brit radio traffic in the vicinity. Others reckoned he was afraid to run the gauntlet again of the security nets under the bridge designed to deter attacks on naval vessels. Dopey was recognised as a class of political prisoner.
Then there was the fact that coming up to Xmas, Derry people well knew the pain of separation from loved ones caused by circumstances arising from Brit domination. So Finbar Doherty phrased it, anyway.
But just as suddenly as he d arrived, Dopey disappeared, making a dash for freedom and the wild Atlantic. The Journal reported a deep sadness in the city.
I mention all this so as to acknowledge that it isn t just the Brits who go doolally about dumb animals. Personally, I never believed that Dopey had a political motivation. I think he d just been trying to get up the river to Strabane to visit his cousins, the Sharkeys.
It s all sewn up for Mary Robinson, if I m to believe what I read in the Dublin papers. Apparently, there s only one other candidate for the post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a Ms. Sonia Picado-Sotela, Costa Rican ambassador to the US and she s been dealt a significant blow by Dick Spring s success in getting the Mexican Government to back Robinson.
None of the reports that I ve read has dealt with the differences between Robinson and Picado-Sotela on human rights policy. None has explained what changes in UN human rights activity the selection of either woman might presage. Human rights issues simply don t figure in this business.
Nowhere do I detect unease at the support Robinson is apparently now receiving from a government, Mexico s, which is in office as a result of electoral fraud, which is tottering under the weight of its own drug-zonked corruption, and which, in the province of Chiapas and elsewhere, has a record on human rights which deprives it of moral entitlement to speak on human rights anywhere else.
None of this is mentioned because, it s implied, the only proper role for Irish people in this is to root for Robinson because . . . well, because she s Irish. Crude, mindless nationalism.
And still not a mention, of course, of Robinson s own murky background in the sinister Trilateral Commission.
Personally, I m backing Sonia Picado-Sotela. Lovely name, and I know nothing against her. n
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