Andersonstown News 9-Oct-97/Pt.1 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Thu, 9 Oct 1997 19:11:41 -0400 (EDT) source: Beananti@aol.com -- EOGHAN CORRY -- BESTSELLERS -- The Fr Des Wilson Column -- Editorial -- Gun law hits the Falls as Kevin finally gets the nod ************************************************ Andersonstown News - Thursday, 9 October 1997 ************************************************ IRA TO BLAME FOR LANSDOWNE ROAD RIOT EOGHAN CORRY BESTSELLERS An unreconstructed piece of unironic men behaving badly lore which delights in recounting violent encounters in pursuit of the beautiful game and celebrates the motives of those who rioted. It includes the Lansdowne Road riot of February 1995 which Ward puts down to the indignity of the IRA calling a ceasefire the previous month (one of many inaccuracies in the book) When one English rioter landed in court he has his bail paid by a generous Irish fan, on condition he return the money. Of course he never did, and Ward seems to laud him for his ingratitude on the grounds that "the money came from IRA funds". This is the mindset of the English hooligan, and Ward tries to defend it, showing how drugs and corporate culture have transferred the game from the first fist-fights on the terraces of the 1960s. Keats by Andrew Morton (Faber and Faber, #20). In the milieu of the early nineteenth century Keats was more than just a poet of nature the product of an intriguingly liberal education in Enfield, Middlesex. Morton shows that he was remarkably acute politically, opposed to the demerits of inherited wealth and the Tory establishment of the time, verging on Republicanism. His short visit to Ireland in 1818 reinforced these feelings. He had sailed to Donaghadee hoping to see the Giant's causeway, but got only as far as Belfast. Although he stayed just 254 hours there he was shocked by the poverty he saw at a time when typhus was about to descend upon the city and wipe out 7000 of the population. It was enough to send him back to Donaghadee. "What a tremendous difficulty is the improvement of the condition of such people. I cannot conceive how a mind with child of philosophy could grasp at possibility, with me it is awesome despair," he wrote. On the way back he recalls a woman being carried on a sedan by two ragged girls, describing her in horrific terms as the "duchess of the dunghill" in a letter. Keats found poetry as well as suffering in his life, but Morton has broken new ground in uncovering just how much of a political animal he was. Mind Invaders by Stewart Home (Serpent's Tail, #9). Among the fascinating zany theories to be found in this unique collection is that Ireland was discovered by North American Iroquois Indians long before St Brendan set out in the opposite direction. An entire conspiracy theory is devoted to the town of Orange in France, where the Roman theatre embodies all the occult features which Palladio tried to revive in his four books on architecture. This is linked to Holland, the Orange Order in the North and the Orange Free State in South Africa, before the author warns us we are in danger of drowning in a sea of Orange reaction. There is also an involved explanation of the story of Florian, later Florithe, Cramer, a refugee from the theological debates of 18th century Holland, who took part in the battle of Antrim. He fled the lowlands because when after the suppression of the Batavian revolution everyone was forced to wear orange. He gathered the Dulse of Folly on Rathlin Island and fed this to the yeomen commander who arraigned him for having nine pikes on his person, thus saving his life. He escaped up Slemish, met Captain Fullerton and was on his way to escape from Derry when he saw a man called Esler being ill-treated in Clogh. He volunteered to be flogged instead of Esler, this was deemed evidence he was a rebel leader, and he was hanged in Ballymena. If you think that was the end of the tale, how Cramer's body was swallowed by a giant salmon, you should see the plan by Decadent Action to bring capitalism to its knees by giant shopping sprees sparking off hyper-inflation or the tract which exposes occult practices by the British Royal Family. This stuff makes one of Enoch Powell's famed "CIA plot to undermine Orange Ulster" conspiracy theories look entirely sane. Come Before Christ and Murder Love by Stewart Home (Serpent's Tail, #9) More occult as Kevin Callan gropes his way trough the occult underworld of modern London with characters like Vanessa, Ness and Isis. He explains the pre-Christian nature of Naomh Brmd at St Bride's church. The dialogue scarcely exists, getting involved in long explanations of Celtic mythology and even the dark passages fail to chill. One comes from this book with a lot of underworld history but no idea of what the characters are like. Cosm Fan Tutti by Michael Dibdin (Faber and Faber, #6) A plot is propped up by coincidence and loose connections but neatly paced might throw you off the notion that Dibdin might be running out of this particular theme. This is the fifth book in the series. The hero Zen, is in disgrace, condemned to the criminologist's chaos that is Naples, sliding around the pizza parlours of this urban nightmare in an attempt to avoid his superiors, his assassins and his would-be seducers. Death comes before duty, but cappuccino comes first. Not a book for those who relish forensic detail. While a Poirot or a Morse might tease out the final revelations, Zen propels them through a revolving door in the manner of a Whitehall farce, with none of the characters turning out to be who they had seemed - to the good guys, not the bad guys, not the women not even Zen himself. Luck triumphs over logic. Asylum by Patrick McGrath (Penguin, #7) McGrath's Clare-born family was the chief psychologist in Broadmoor, so he has a clear idea of the landscape and the mood of his shocking novel in which the wife of the hospital's deputy superintendent embarks on a love affair with one of her patients. The narrator, himself a psychologist, sees tragedy looming. And how emotionally detached is he from the events he is describing with such clinical precision? A novel that leaves you gasping for breath, and the man who redefined Gothic has written a model of the genre here. 1) Branded Man by Catherine Cookson (Corgi, #6) Disfigured man holds key to turn of the century Northumberland mystery. 2) Woman to Woman by Cathy Kelly (Poolbeg, #6) Married man leaves girlfriend pregnant just as wife uncovers affair. 3) Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (HarperCollins, #7) Pulitzer Prize-winning reminiscences of impoverished Limerick childhood. 4) Cradle of Thorns by Josephine Cox (Headline, #4) Woman's relationship with orphan soothes her troubled past. 5) A Little Book of Calm by Paul Wilson (Penguin, #1.99) Pocket-sized guide to help to relax and enjoy life. 6) Evening Class by Maeve Binchy (Orion, #5) Italian lessons transform Dubliners' lives. 7) Her Own Rules by Barbara Taylor Bradford (HarperCollins, #5) Therapy reveals secret past of career woman. 8) Death is Now My Neighbour by Carol Dexter (Pan, #6) 9) Promises, Promises by Patricia Scanlan (Poolbeg, #5) Charmer leaves trail of destruction through four women in extended family. 10) Cause of Death by Patricia Cornwell (Warner, #4) Kay Scarpetta investigates the death of a reporter whose body is found in an icy river. All Quiet on the Hooligan Front: Eight Years that Shook Football by Colin Ward (Headline, #7) ****************************************************** The Fr Des Wilson Column Democrats can stick to their guns Internment law has not been necessary for many years, British administrations having replaced it by laws which make it possible to intern anyway without naming it 'internment'. Mr. de Chastelaine has said again that weapons must be given up or destroyed by citizens' armed groups while negotiations are going on. No democrat need accept this demand. Mr de Chastelaine has so far avoided telling us how precisely he intends to protect Catholics when the next major unionist-organised attack on our houses starts. One is not talking about the attacks on one, two and three families a week which go on always but the highly organised concerted attacks which occur once every 12 years on average and are designed by the British supported secret societies and others to drive Catholics out of certain voting areas and possibly out of the Six Counties. As an army general Mr de Chastelaine must surely have some ideas about this. Is he suggesting that the RUC will protect us? The British army or its locally organised militias? The unionist armed groups ? The Dublin government? The European Community? The United Nations? Since none of them have done it before we can hardly expect them to change the habits of many decades and do it now. And in particular Mr. de Chastelaine can hardly expect us to rely on United Nations troops like those who, when sent to protect people in Africa committed atrocities against the local people instead. Who then is there to protect us when the next onslaught comes? When the rage nourished in Ulster Hall rallies comes to full power and fury? Doubtless Mr de Chastelaine has ideas about this matter. One just regrets that so far he has kept his ideas a secret from us. Is it not time he revealed how he is going to protect us? Surely we should be told so that we can assist in whatever measures there may be for our protection. Or, put it another way - either he tells us precisely how we are to be protected in face of another British unionist onslaught or we request him never again to make statements about anybody giving up weapons. It has been said before and is worth repeating that Irish democrats would willingly help in the abolition of all weapons if they were convinced that both the British administration and its unionist minority supporters in Ireland were finally intent upon giving up both military and political violence against us. It has been said also that one simple measure could bring about an amount of goodwill which could well help towards disarmament. That is, a declaration by the British government, underpinned by internationally enforceable guarantees and sanctions, that they would never attack us again. And the same declaration by its unionist minority supporters in Ireland, similarly guaranteed. No such guarantees have been given and none are promised. In the absence of such guarantees discussion about anybody giving up weapons must be seen as a propaganda device and treated as such. For more than seventy years the British-led, and church-encouraged unionist minority armed its own supporters. That was part one of a seventy-five year anti-peace process. Part two was the total disarming of Catholics. Part three was the attacks mounted regularly against them. British administrations found however that these three strands of policy did not work. But true to the traditions of bureaucrats who keep trying things which do not work but which make them look effective, they have tried it all again. Arms for their supporters brought in from the four corners of the world, that was done again. The attacks on Catholics, that was done again. And the attempt to cut off all opponents of the administration from access to arms, that is still going on. The present demand for decommissioning is strand two of the old anti-peace process in a different form. Mr. de Chastelaine has access to all the information which would explain this to him. If he knows it and disregards it he is acting without due regard for our safety. If he does not know it, he should leave us now. Our future is too important to be allowed to suffer either disregard, incompetence or cruelty. We have had enough of all three under every British administration that ever was. This is a real issue, not a fake issue like the abolition of the internment law as a 'confidence building measure'. Internment law has not been necessary for many years, British administrations having replaced it by laws which make it possible to intern anyway without naming it 'internment'. If we are taken in by such nonsense we are allowing ourselves to be led along the same fake garden path strewn with paper roses that was offered us when the secretary of State kissed people in Royal Avenue. If the administration were serious it would release all those imprisoned by Diplock courts, dissolve the present courts and re- form them, reappoint all judges on the basis of proven merit and political neutrality, and would immediately release Roisin Mc Aliskey and discipline the RUC members responsible for what she has suffered. Until this is done, democrats need to beware of allowing their natural and inbred decency to deceive them into making believe they are dealing with politicians with serious peaceful intent. ******************************************************* Editorial Prisons issue must be speedily resolved Can this conflict be settled as long as hundreds of men and women remain in prison as a result of it? That's the $64,000 question that lies at the very heart of the confidence-building game. The answer, quite plainly, is no. There are those who will disagree strongly with that and will argue that men and women who are currently incarcerated deserve to serve their sentences for what they have done. That argument is not espoused only by the lunatic fringes of the DUP as a fundamentalist Old Testament principle - how much less problematic the issue would be if it were - but by many bereaved and traumatised ordinary families whose only comfort is the thought that those who killed their loved ones are being made to pay for what they have done. It is not to underestimate for one second the further pain that early release would cause for those families when we say that a sweeping and decisive move is required if the current peace is to be underpinned and that move should consist of a swift and orderly release of all political prisoners from jails in Ireland. Time and time again we have argued that in the fragile context in which we find ourselves procrastination is the enemy of peace, that opportunities should be courageously and imaginatively grasped by those in positions of authority. We said it when John Major was making it abundantly clear that he hadn't the feintest intention on moving at all on confidence-building measures. The upshot of that disastrous inertia was the ending of the first IRA cessation. When Major's government was in power, nationalists could only desperately urge him to do something - anything - in the vain hope that he would see the tragic error of his ways. The new Labour administration has shown signs of at least having learned at least some of the lessons from its predecessors' folly and has at times displayed a determination to act speedily even when the old, familiar siren voices were at their loudest. That is not to say that they are doing all they can and should to bring about a state of affairs wherein a return to violence on the part of the various protagonists in this conflict would be unthinkable, if not well-nigh impossible. There could be no firmer commitment on the part of the British Government than a resolute affirmation of its intention to act on the prisoners. The quick release of political prisoners, we would contend, is as important and central to the search for a long-term solution as the much-vaunted Principle of Consent (whatever version of that you care to subscribe to), be those prisoners republicans, loyalists or British Army. As long as families and loved ones continue to make the weary trek to Long Kesh, Maghaberry and Magilligan to visit people who are in jail as a direct result of the failure of succeeding administrations to solve our age-old problems, then the conflict can not be said to have ended and the spectre of violence will continue to hover over us. The issue of prisoners will remain a running sore, a huge impediment to efforts to reach the end of this long and weary road. It would be disastrous if this vital issue were to be put on the long finger, deemed worthy of consideration only when everything else has been settled - because nothing is capable of being settled if that is the agenda. It is as clear as Fair Head on a sunny day that this issue is going to have to be dealt with sooner rather than later, and is there anyone out there with the merest scintilla of political savvy who really thinks that later is better than sooner? The nettle must be grasped immediately. Rather than drip-feeding prison concessions such as incremental reductions in remission or the easing of transfer restrictions, the bold step needs to be taken of announcing that all prisoners are to be released over, say, a six-month time frame that allows public and prisoners alike to come to terms with the idea. Many shadows are cast over the continuing talks at Stormont, but it is our growing conviction that none falls darker than that of the prisoners and that will be increasingly obvious in coming weeks and months. Hard as it might be for some to come to terms with, there is no alternative to meaningful movement on prisoners if we are to have a meaningful setttlement. ******************************************************** Gun law hits the Falls as Kevin finally gets the nod Talk of decommissioning might be on the agenda elsewhere in Belfast this week, but it's a different story for the owner of a popular Falls Road sporting shop. The Tackle Shop on the Falls Road has become the first ever business on the Falls Road to have been granted a licence to sell guns and ammunition. Owner Kevin Brennan admits to having been "slightly shocked" when granted his Registered Firearms Dealer's Licence. "I had never applied for a firearms licence before," a delighted Kevin told the Andersonstown News yesterday, "but I've been doing well here selling fishing equipment for the past three years and I wanted to expand a little by going for something different, especially coming up to wintertime when there is a lull in angling. I applied on spec to the RUC some time ago for a licence and got word recently that my application had been successful." Kevin will initially be selling shotgun cartridges and airgun pellets and after a probationary period, he'll be entitled to sell firearms - shotguns and sporting rifles, because Kevin's only interested in the sporting side of the gun business. "You'd be surprised how very good a market there is out there. A lot of people hide their light under a bushel because of the situation here, and travel to other areas to buy their guns and ammunition. There is a great tradition of hunting by gun in West Belfast even though many people keep quiet about it. Most of them take the 20 minute spin down the motorway to Lough Neagh and hunt wildfowl, others travel down around the border areas where they would mostly hunt rabbits." Kevin underwent a rigorous security check before he got his licence, and his premises too had to get the seal of approval from the RUC - powerful shutters and a high-tech alarm system are just some of the added security he has had to install. "As far as I know, it's the first time such a licence has been granted to anyone in West Belfast. I think the ceasefire helped, but in truth there's no legal reasons to refuse me a licence. The area was crying out for a shop of its own, but no-one had the courage to ask for one. When I first applied at Andersonstown RUC station, there was a stunned silence. I asked if there was anything wrong and the officer asked me to repeat what I had said so other officers could hear it. "It was the same when I went to the suppliers in East Belfast. When I told them where I was from there was the same stunned silence." ******************************************************** continued in Part 2... ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-10.10.97-02:26:14-15060