The clock keeps ticking

The clock has turned. And just like that, winter looms. The leaves have fallen, gold and red and dry. The first big storm has huffed and puffed, foul and furious, wild and woolly. Roofs have rattled, trees have fallen, torrents have sluiced our channels and streets, floody flouty flows, ankle-deep and muddy. Planes are overturned, ferries held, roads and rails impeded. Hallowe’en has come and gone. The Day of the Dead has been and shrieking spirits have walked the land. We got off lightly.

The clock has turned and, just like that, history repeats. Ancient dread dark forces have been unleashed, again. Imagine. Just a decade ago, smug theorists argued that we had reached the end of history, the victory of liberal economics and capitalism. How wrong they were!
History makes us eat our words. The old order has been replaced by something very much the same. Even as we contemplated the new post-modern, post-historical universe, ancient ghosts were aroused, the earth cracked open and monsters and djinns came gusting out, hot and foul and fuming in foetid fury against Crusaders and capitalists alike.

Three weeks ago it was Bali, last week it was Moscow. At least a hundred and fifty died when the Nord Ost theatre was gassed and stormed by Russian troops after it had been seized by Chechen guerrillas, armed to the teeth and determined to die for their homeland.

The end of history didn’t allow for this kind of thing, nor the resurrection of America’s former colleagues in Al Qaeda, nor the exponential growth in martyrdom as a weapon of war. None of these things make sense to us, but there they are, nonetheless. Then again, 90 years ago who’d have predicted a group of Irish nationalist would-be martyrs taking over the GPO in the centre of Dublin?

Those Irish zealots were suffused with an idea of blood sacrifice, and a belief that red blood, including their own, sinking into the earth would purify and renew Ireland. This view has often been derided by later commentators. But it was entirely consistent with both belief and rhetoric of the time. Their language was little different from much of that used with regard to the Great War, for example.

I suppose it was our mistake to have believed that the rest of the world had learned from the carnage of the 20th century as we in Europe have. But they haven’t. Or perhaps, what they have learned is different to what we have learned.

In Europe, the horrors endured in growing numbers between 1870 and 1945 were the engine behind the European project. In a painstaking and often frustrating and even debilitating process, Europeans have attempted to forge a set of links and structures that will replace confrontation and military might as the basis of political engagement. Even in Ireland, we have slowly learned that war is not the answer.

We can identify many peoples and states who would agree. But of greater significance to our collective peace of mind, regrettably, the majority of the world does not. Across the globe hundreds of millions still believe that war is ultimate arbiter.

Consequently, they seek to stockpile the kind of weapons they think brought world domination to the West, especially nuclear weapons. The global risks are immense, especially since there seems to be little or no appreciation of how all-encompassing weapons of mass destruction actually are, nor of how their use imperils the destroyer as well as the destroyed.

By way of example, apparently no arrangements are in place between India and Pakistan to clarify the real meaning of events on their Kashmiri frontline. Such arrangements were considered essential by the USSR and the West during the Cold war, in case a war began by accident as, in many ways, the Great War of 1914-18 did.

Of course, throughout the world there are many forces who understand and accept the cataclysmic nature of the weaponry they seek or possess, but are prepared to immolate themselves and the rest of us regardless. Such disregard for temporal peace and security is usually informed by religion, and Israel is as good an example as Pakistan...

So where in all this do we place the United States? It is the most powerful political and economic entity the world has ever known. What has it learned from history?

This is an incredibly complex question, and not one that can be answered in a short column like this. There are many Americas, for a start, and some have learned more than others. Many Americans are deeply troubled by the direction their country is taking. But under siege, many crucial questioning voices are submerged. Right now, the dark side reigns.

In all these matters we have to look beyond what we are told. Was the demolition of Afghanistan to do with crushing the Taliban and getting at Al-Qaeda or with clearing the way for an oil pipeline from the oil-rich states to the North?

What is the purpose of the proposed war on Iraq? Is it to overthrow a so-called ‘rogue state’, for the benefit of the world in general and the Iraqi people in particular through the installation of a new, humane and democratic regime? Or is it to do with copper-fastening oil supplies to the West? Just for interest, who stands to gain most and what might their profit be? Not the people, I think.

Yes, it’s true that Saddam is a monster, and that it was right that he should be hustled out of Kuwait. But did some moral or material benefit accrue to the Kuwaiti people? Maybe, but not a lot. And are the Iraqi people better off as a result of the last war? No, their situation is unquestionably far worse.

History hasn’t ended, just another chapter. Little is as it seems and the truth is more elusive than ever. Nobody has exclusive rights to the moral high ground. In the war between greedy bastards and cut-throat bastards, where is neutrality? Without controls or compass points, we have to question everything. The djinns are out of the bottle and they won’t go back.

Meanwhile, back in Ireland, the truth about what was done to children by priests and keeps seeping out, like pus from an ancient and never-healed wound, most recently by Prime Time, and subsequently on radio. But also, we are learning the truth about what was known by the hierarchy and what they did about it, and what they did not.

If the bishops were in ordinary jobs, they would have been fired, or they would have resigned. As it is, I think they may well be open to a raft of legal actions for damages, and good enough for them. But the real crux will concern financial responsibility. There is, as always, a horrible prospect of Irish taxpayers being called upon to cough up. While the institutional Catholic Church owns such vast tracts of land and other property across the country, that would be a travesty. Some histories deserve to end.

The Hog