I'm weary of prejudice
FOR decades a key publicity plank of Irish nationalism has been to act the "Mope" (Most oppressed people ever). It has been a successful tactic as the story has been swallowed internationally by a broad swathe of the politically correct liberal left.
The Mope myth is reason that smug agitprop comedians feel entitled to make the kind of offensive remarks about Ulster unionists, that had they been made about any other ethnic grouping would have caused uproar.
It is why documentary makers visiting Northern Ireland seem capable of only seeing one side of the story, thus rendering their output little better than propaganda. Believing that all unionists are subhuman violent bigots, the human rights industry frets about the welfare of republican terrorists while turning a blind eye to the thousands that they killed or maimed and dippy Californian girls weep into their organic skinny lattes at the fate of the little Irish babies that the British Army continue to this day to throw under tank tracks. And so it goes on.
Like many of the unionist persuasion I occasionally get a little weary of being the subject of this prejudice, ignorance and insult. But for the most part we are inured and simply shrug our shoulders, change the channel and get on with what it was we were doing. Just as we did when it emerged this week that last November Sean FitzPatrick the disgraced chairman of the Anglo Irish Bank declared "no ****ing Protestant" was going to take over his bank.
Happily, outside of Radio 4 and the Irish American ghettos the "all unionists are bad" line is wearing thin. The knee-jerk instinct to point at the nearest unionist and bawl "sectarian" in response to every sleight, real or imagined, no longer has any real credibility. It would be ridiculous to suggest that sectarianism no longer exists in Northern Ireland, but it is equally absurd to claim it is a one-way street and the sole cause of every single issue on which people who happen to come from different sections of our society disagree.
It is a tactic that has had its day, now it comes off, at best, as political desperation or a sign that the accuser is unwilling, or unable, to move on. At worst it exposes the sectarian prejudices in those making the accusations.
The envy of the world
ONE of the TV news channels has been gripping the nation’s heartstrings over the last couple of weeks with the story of a small girl suffering from terminal cancer whose parents need to raise half a million pounds to pay for life-saving treatment in America.
The human tragedy of the tale notwithstanding, one thing that strikes me about this story is how quickly all the earnest drivel about the NHS being the “envy of the world” and the imagined evils of the American healthcare system fall away when a blast of reality hits home.
Secondly, might not the desperate parents be advised to look towards Libya? Cancer care in the North African country seems to be second to none.
Take the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who planted the bomb on Pan Am flight 103 that murdered 270 people when it exploded over Lockerbie in 1988.
Megrahi was sent home to his family and a hero’s welcome in August after it was decreed, in an expert medical report, that under NHS care he had only three months to live due to advanced prostate cancer. However under the care of Libyan doctors he has outlived expectations, his condition has stabilised and he is walking and talking with the best of them.
Macavity’s not there!
WHERE’S Gordon? The Prime Minister has done another of his Macavity acts, as he does every time the going gets a bit tough. However that is not to say that he has not been a busy little bee.
Behind the scenes he has been burning the midnight oil, beavering away on a big PR campaign to boast of economic brilliance and attacking the Tories for their economic policy. The only problem is that the campaign was due to go live last week on the back of news the UK had pulled out of recession. Only the figures showed otherwise and Gordon has to live with the ignominy that Britain’s economic woes are demonstrably and significantly worse that pretty much anywhere else; so much for his claim that “Britain was uniquely well-placed to withstand the global slump.”
The immediate future is not too rosy either as increasingly we are seeing signs of the second dip of the recession and it is becoming apparent that Labour has simply temporarily patched over the most visible problems with incredible quantities of borrowed money that taxpayers will have to pay back, thus prolonging the economic agony and has completely failed to even make a start at fixing the fundamentals.
Maybe if the Prime Minister spent more time studying the economic cycle and not the news-spin cycle, we might not be in quite such mess.
The Wednesday quiz
Which of the following statements is correct?
The Lisbon Treaty is such an insignificant piece of EU administrative housekeeping that the British people do not need to be consulted.
The Lisbon Treaty is such a momentous change in the way that we are governed that we need someone of the stature of Tony Blair to do get the job.
Answers on the back of a 50 note to Tony Blair Associates Ltd.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 6 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 6 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
