West hand-wringing in face of human suffering
Posted By: December 23, 2016
“After Eames-Bradley (2009) and Richard Haass (Christmas/New Year 2013) came the Stormont House Agreement, published on this day two years ago, which promised among other things to establish bodies that would deliver on historical investigations and information retrieval.
The agonising wait for those who would wish to benefit is an affront to human decency.”
Martin O’Brien. Irish News (Belfast).Friday, December 23, 2016
It’s difficult to feel overly festive this Christmas. Forget about the “cash for ash” scandal and the political crisis around it for a moment.
Instead, contemplate the interminable scenes of suffering little children and their wailing parents in the ruins of Aleppo, a jewel of the Ottoman Empire that captivated Shakespeare, and second city of Syria.
Add the frightened eyes and weary voices of citizen journalists telling it as it is from a hell hole where it is too dangerous for news organizations to send reporters.
And the mounting dread that soon we’ll find out about unspeakable war crimes – revisiting for example Srebrenica 1995 –and one is suddenly grateful to be living in Belfast, second city of Ireland.
Grateful, yes, but angry at the west’s impotence and or unwillingness – after the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan – to do anything more than wring its hands at the human consequences of a civil war that is really a proxy international conflict with Russia, Iran and others supporting the Syrian regime and Turkey, US, and the UK among others to varying degrees siding with the divided Syrian opposition.
Think too this Christmas of all the other areas in Syria not mentioned in news bulletins but whose suffering is part of an unimaginable horror in which over nearly five years up to 450,000 people have been killed, 7.6 million have been internally displaced and 4.8 million forced to flee a country that had a pre-war population of about 22 million.
And while we prepare the turkey and chill the Prosecco spare a thought for one more deeply troubled place (out of countless others) around the globe.
Yemen (population c.25m), sitting like a crossroads between Africa, the Middle East and Asia, was the subject of Clare Balding’s DEC appeal last week.
A civil war has been raging there for almost two years in which up to 10,000 people have died, three million have been displaced, a famine has taken hold and seven million people don’t know when they can expect their next meal.
Sadly, it is pointless just now to think about how people in Syria and Yemen might take practical steps to promote healing because their wars are not letting up.
But here going on for 20 years after the Good Friday Agreement we are, thank God, in an infinitely better place in terms of contending with our past.
However, the failure of the British government, the DUP and Sinn Féin to reach a decent level of agreement on legacy is quite deplorable because it compounds the pain of victims and survivors.
Their collective intransigence means many prospective beneficiaries from among the community of victims and survivors have already passed away.
And you could be forgiven for thinking that the British government and the governing parties in Stormont have a common interest in rolling over as few stones as possible when it comes to dealing with the past.
They point their fingers at one another.
Sinn Féin blames Britain. The DUP blame Sinn Féin.
Britain, represented by the secretary of state, walks away from it, at least for now.
But the past won’t go away; it impacts the present and shapes our approach to the future.
We are pummelled by it daily in our news bulletins and newspapers, most recently by the injudicious criticism of the Director of Public Prosecutions by a Conservative MP and word of the impending prosecution of two soldiers for an alleged murder in 1972. “Cash for ash” will only further delay a resolution.
Some years ago I received a ticking off in the BBC for supposedly devoting too much attention to the past in my programme-making, and I am glad now that I ignored the admonition.
Last week BBC Northern Ireland ran a good series of features that made a notable contribution to enhancing our understanding of the legacy issues, and I expect there will be much more such programs in the future.
After Eames-Bradley (2009) and Richard Haass (Christmas/New Year 2013) came the Stormont House Agreement, published on this day two years ago, which promised among other things to establish bodies that would deliver on historical investigations and information retrieval.
The agonizing wait for those who would wish to benefit is an affront to human decency.
Our suffering sisters and brothers in Syria and Yemen are still in the throes of terrible war. If and when their future leaders come to us asking for advice on legacy issues one hopes that we’ll have an uplifting story to tell them.
The agonising wait for those who would wish to benefit is an affront to human decency.”
Martin O’Brien. Irish News (Belfast).Friday, December 23, 2016
It’s difficult to feel overly festive this Christmas. Forget about the “cash for ash” scandal and the political crisis around it for a moment.
Instead, contemplate the interminable scenes of suffering little children and their wailing parents in the ruins of Aleppo, a jewel of the Ottoman Empire that captivated Shakespeare, and second city of Syria.
Add the frightened eyes and weary voices of citizen journalists telling it as it is from a hell hole where it is too dangerous for news organizations to send reporters.
And the mounting dread that soon we’ll find out about unspeakable war crimes – revisiting for example Srebrenica 1995 –and one is suddenly grateful to be living in Belfast, second city of Ireland.
Grateful, yes, but angry at the west’s impotence and or unwillingness – after the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan – to do anything more than wring its hands at the human consequences of a civil war that is really a proxy international conflict with Russia, Iran and others supporting the Syrian regime and Turkey, US, and the UK among others to varying degrees siding with the divided Syrian opposition.
Think too this Christmas of all the other areas in Syria not mentioned in news bulletins but whose suffering is part of an unimaginable horror in which over nearly five years up to 450,000 people have been killed, 7.6 million have been internally displaced and 4.8 million forced to flee a country that had a pre-war population of about 22 million.
And while we prepare the turkey and chill the Prosecco spare a thought for one more deeply troubled place (out of countless others) around the globe.
Yemen (population c.25m), sitting like a crossroads between Africa, the Middle East and Asia, was the subject of Clare Balding’s DEC appeal last week.
A civil war has been raging there for almost two years in which up to 10,000 people have died, three million have been displaced, a famine has taken hold and seven million people don’t know when they can expect their next meal.
Sadly, it is pointless just now to think about how people in Syria and Yemen might take practical steps to promote healing because their wars are not letting up.
But here going on for 20 years after the Good Friday Agreement we are, thank God, in an infinitely better place in terms of contending with our past.
However, the failure of the British government, the DUP and Sinn Féin to reach a decent level of agreement on legacy is quite deplorable because it compounds the pain of victims and survivors.
Their collective intransigence means many prospective beneficiaries from among the community of victims and survivors have already passed away.
And you could be forgiven for thinking that the British government and the governing parties in Stormont have a common interest in rolling over as few stones as possible when it comes to dealing with the past.
They point their fingers at one another.
Sinn Féin blames Britain. The DUP blame Sinn Féin.
Britain, represented by the secretary of state, walks away from it, at least for now.
But the past won’t go away; it impacts the present and shapes our approach to the future.
We are pummelled by it daily in our news bulletins and newspapers, most recently by the injudicious criticism of the Director of Public Prosecutions by a Conservative MP and word of the impending prosecution of two soldiers for an alleged murder in 1972. “Cash for ash” will only further delay a resolution.
Some years ago I received a ticking off in the BBC for supposedly devoting too much attention to the past in my programme-making, and I am glad now that I ignored the admonition.
Last week BBC Northern Ireland ran a good series of features that made a notable contribution to enhancing our understanding of the legacy issues, and I expect there will be much more such programs in the future.
After Eames-Bradley (2009) and Richard Haass (Christmas/New Year 2013) came the Stormont House Agreement, published on this day two years ago, which promised among other things to establish bodies that would deliver on historical investigations and information retrieval.
The agonizing wait for those who would wish to benefit is an affront to human decency.
Our suffering sisters and brothers in Syria and Yemen are still in the throes of terrible war. If and when their future leaders come to us asking for advice on legacy issues one hopes that we’ll have an uplifting story to tell them.
