Showing posts with label hungerstrikers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hungerstrikers. Show all posts

Thursday, May 08, 2008

'Elephant's' memory

Ah, how interesting to re-read this after 27 years (you may click to enlarge): the Irish Times - and the Irish Press which I was too lazy to scan. Loads of words filling pages.

However, it's the crying 'elephant' - what a metapher! - I'd never forget. It's telling more than millions of words. A few more though: Bobby Sands was 27 when he died. And now was the 27th anniversary of his death.
Mitchel McLaughlin was 35 when Sands died, Gerry Adams 32, Martin McGuinness 30. They are 62 now respectively 59 and 58.

Not that I don't wish these gentlemen well. But I find interesting that - to my knowledge - nobody ever asked why none of this triumvirat well known for talking a lot about solidarity, joined the hunger-strike in 1981.
Ah, well, Ian Paisley did not kill anybody, and so didn't Maggie Thatcher, did they?
And the moral of the story: It's nice to have indians when you are the chieftain.
The peace of the night.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

On a Lonely Skylark's Song

Yesterday night I continued re-reading parts of an anthology* of the writings of Bobby Sands. from which I chose the poem for yesterday's post. And, although I did not accept all I read, again I felt deeply moved.

My thoughts? My feelings?
A photo I once took on my various strives through the Bogside in Derry - also known as Londonderry :) - might be able to tell you more than I could in thousand or two thousand words.



Click to enlarge


* Skylark Sing Your Lonely Song, Mercier Press,
ISBN 0-85342-726-7

Monday, May 05, 2008

A burning thread

The seagulls are crying
Swirling up to spray
Upon the ocean of my mind
Blown, by a breeze of yesterday.

Oh! the simple gentle thoughts
The loneliness of the prisoner
To see the golden mermaid of the rock
Yet, to be cut adrift from her.

The mind knows no doors
A burning candle in the night
To seek the green or grey of yesterday
Or the 'if' the 'wish' or 'might'.

In the tomb the darkest depths
The candle flickers dying
Death is slaying life unseen
While the seagulls are crying.

Bobby Sands, died May 5th, 1981

Why would I not forget this day?
It's also the birthday - Happy brithday, James! - of an Irish Dominican I once, in 1974, met in San Clemente, and who happened to become one of the dearest persons in this agnostic's life.
Actually, I am almost sure if it had not been for meeting him, I'd rather probably than perhaps not have come to 'know' Ireland better than my native country.

'to know'? Ah, the more I came to learn the less I felt to know.
Helplessness in the face of a 'terrible beauty' in which children long before their first day at school would know more about hatred than about what day by day is fervingly being preached in the church but not as fervently being practiced: love.

One last sentence for now:
I didn't, don't and (very hopefully) won't ever support violence.
However I am trying to understand its 'sources', its 'mechanisms'.
Nothing more, nothing less.

This just to make sure that I'll not be misunderstood.