its Time To Get Stroppy

Welcome to the first Hot Press of 2012. That greeting may be out of synch with the normal tone of The Message but that’s the way I want it. What you are about to read between the covers of the magazine is, in so many ways, a labour of love on the part of those who put it together that it makes sense to be upbeat. At least for a minute or two!

In any given issue of Hot Press there are well over 100,000 words. All of them have been, to one degree or another, painstakingly thought about, crafted and finished by the guys on the editorial and production team. Every fortnight, the latest new issue of Hot Press is as big as,or bigger than, that other venerable fortnightly rock’n’roll publication, Rolling Stone – a magazine which is operating in a market which is 50 times bigger than Ireland and therefore has a similar multiple of resources at its disposal. It is, by any standards, a remarkable, sustained achievement on the part of the people who are involved as writers, contributors, sub-editors, designers and production operatives.
Sometimes we take for granted those things which are closest to us. But I wanted here to turn that tendency on its head at the start of what promises to be a fascinating year. As I write, Olaf Tyaransen is with Sinéad O’Connor in Hollywood for the launch of the movie Albert Nobbs, which has seen her performance of ‘Lay Your Head Down’ nominated for a Golden Globe and long-listed for an Academy Award. Craig Fitzpatrick is in London talking to comedian and co-author of Jerry Springer - The Opera, Stewart Lee, about his upcoming Irish shows. And Stuart Clark is heading for the airport, bound for Haiti, whence he will report on developments since the catastrophic earthquake that turned the world of every citizen of the small Caribbean country on its head two years ago.
In some ways it is hard to believe that it is twenty four months since the catastrophe in Haiti unfolded. At least 200,000 people died as a result of the ‘quake, though some estimates put the casualty list even higher, at over 300,000. Approximately 1.5 million people were displaced; of these in excess of 500,000 remain in camps, in living conditions that offend against almost every health and safety concern. The crisis persists.
Haiti was already a hugely deprived society. The poorest in the Americas, it was utterly ill-equipped to deal with the natural disaster, which occurred on 12 January, 2010. It is impossible to know just how long it will take for the country to recover but almost certainly it will take not years but decades. The process is ongoing but to even remotely get to a level where ordinary Haitians experience a lifestyle comparable to the one we have in the Republic of Ireland will take a minimum of 20 to 30 years.
The full extent of the damage done and how far relief workers still have to go to restore normality will be revealed in Stuart’s report. In anticipation, two separate but not necessarily unrelated thoughts occur.
On the one hand, that it is a privilege for us to do what we do, reporting to a wonderfully constant and loyal readership about momentous events and brilliant trivialities alike. That people open their doors, give us access, talk to us and trust us to be decent, honourable and honest in how we treat their story or stories is a testament to the quality and integrity of the people that have worked for Hot Press over the years – and, of course, especially of those that are part of the team as we enter 2012. We are enormously grateful for that trust.
On the other hand, there is a more sobering matter. Everything is relative. We in Ireland are in the grip of an economic disaster, which has impacted on the lives of ordinary people to an appalling extent – and the worst ravages of which we have not necessarily seen yet. I do not intend in any way to minimise that. But in so many respects, as a European state with a relatively high standard of living, a democratic political system, free media, tolerance of dissent and a range of consumer choices which is sometimes seen as excessive, we remain among the most privileged societies in the world. When you see what has been happening in Hungary, with the constitution being rewritten to entrench the recently elected Government and to silence opposition, then that becomes all the more
acutely relevant.
To acknowledge this is not to exonerate the Government even to the slightest degree from the responsibility they have to every citizen of the Republic to fight, long and hard, to protect the interests of Irish men, women and children – and especially to protect the elderly, the vulnerable, the deprived and the marginalised from the effects of the madness that has been inflicted on us all.
We’ve said it before but there is no harm in repeating it: it is a monstrous injustice that ordinary Irish people should be saddled with debts incurred by international banks, that recklessly lent money to Irish banks (who in turn lent that money with equal recklessness to property developers). So far, there is scant evidence that any of our key representatives on the international stage have communicated this effectively to our colleagues in Europe.
Well, time is running out. The ‘troika’ of the IMF, the ECB and the EU are insisting on a draconian cost-cutting programme designed to reduce State expenditure to a level that is lower than anticipated tax revenues by an amount sufficient to allow us to pay off the money loaned to the State by them, so that we could pay off those who had already loaned money to the Irish banks.
By nature I am an optimist, but even to someone who sees the world through rose-tinted spectacles it is obvious that this is unsustainable. The longer we persist with the policies that have been pursued to date, the harder it will become to extricate ourselves from the mess. Already, people are on their knees. The number of company closures last year reached record levels. Employment is falling. We are in a downward spiral.
What is needed now is leadership of a kind which demonstrates (a) that the Government is willing to fight tooth and nail on our behalf no matter how much that might upset the EU, international banks or other vested interests; (b) that whatever adjustments are required will be felt by the richest first and that those who are vulnerable will be protected; and (c) that radical initiatives will be supported to create employment, in order to turn the economy around and generate a new sense of optimism about the future.
In many ways, optimism is what this issue of Hot Press is designed to create. In terms of creativity, Ireland is entering the new year in fine shape. There is a phenomenal amount of talent here, in music, film, literature, design, fashion, IT, gaming and the arts. If we can nurture and support this effectively, then the rewards in the long run will be enormous. This issue is a start. We have named 50 Irish acts that you have to hear. Far from having to scrape the bottom of any notional barrel to do this, in truth we have had to omit a number of significant artists who we’d ideally have been able to accommodate. We have also identified those cinematic talents that are destined to shine as the year progresses.
Overall, it is our intention, with this issue, to provide a timely reminder that cuts which affect the essential fabric of what we do in the arts must not be allowed to continue. For example, over the past few days the threat surfaced that the Irish Film Board might become a victim of the cuts. Any decision of this kind would be crazily short-sighted and misguided. In the long run, the loss sustained in terms of prestige, PR and jobs would be far greater than any money which might be saved.
The arts are crucial to Ireland in so many ways. We define ourselves internationally through our cultural output. And we make the country a far more attractive place for companies to locate their European headquarters. But the arts also provide employment, enlightenment, entertainment, and insight, as well as immense pleasure and food for thought, for citizens of the Republic of every age, ethnic background, skin colour and gender.
It would be madness to put all of that at risk. It looks like it’s time for Ireland to get stroppy.