Je Suis Moi-même

So far January has been a callous month. It has brought endless rain, a sprinkle of snow followed by brutal hail, terrifying winds and excessive violence.

I have found myself barely able to speak about the events in Paris ten days ago.
Even less able to comment on Nigeria - stunned by the lack of official comment.
Large sections of the British media appeared to move, lock stock and barrel to Paris for days on end to bring us every nuance of what they wanted us to know of events in France. Nigeria, it seems, only merited a bit of a mention by comparison.


And now everyone has hoisted a Je Suis banner of one sort or another.
It's not hard to do, hoist a banner. I would hoist one too, if it was simply about showing sympathy - my heart goes out to those who have lost their beloveds in Paris and Nigeria, as it does to the victims of Syria - victims everywhere.

But what actually happened in Paris last week?

Yes, I believe in freedom of speech. I believe, too, in not kowtowing to terrorism.
But while we're shouting about freedom of speech, where are the parallel core values that render it a human right?

Personally, I don't mind what people believe in, however dingbat their ideas might seem to me (or mine to them, for that matter). Someone's dingbat belief probably gets them through each day.
It's where freedom to say what you think (and thus to believe what you want) becomes the freedom to harm that's the problem. And how do you measure or quantify these things?

Being the complex creatures that we are, we can all wax lyrical on a thousand ways wherein we differ from the next person, but ultimately it's how we deal with difference that matters.


If I'm honest, I'm not that bothered about what cartoonists depict or journalists write, they are looking for maximum impact, after all. I daresay I'm pretty average in feeling ambivalent. I have the choice - I can read it/buy it or ignore it/tear it up - it's up to me.
I'm pretty average in other ways too: middle-aged (my kids might say old) middle-class, from the west, well fed and well educated. Not surprisingly I'm pretty happy to live and let live - it's easy for me. My biggest gripes in life are the weather and the government. I'm not going to go out and kill over either of them.

It's not like that for everyone, we are all different. Especially the young, who are passionate, hot-headed and know that they can change the world. Throw in underprivileged, marginalised and disaffected and you have created a bomb, just waiting to be detonated by something. When there is nothing else, an extreme belief system might be just the thing to make their lives worth dying for. Hello fundamentalism.

I have nothing against 'belief', and what people believe is entirely up to them, but I'm not keen on 'religion' which seems to me largely a tool for manipulating unwieldy masses. And any kind of fundamentalism makes me back away in haste. I once read the words 'we all make God in our own image', and I find them to be more true, the older I get - never more so than with fundamentalists of any faith. Marx is often misquoted, but what he actually said lies at the heart of the matter: Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. 
In today's world, I would happily replace the word 'religion' there with 'fundamentalism', and the very fact of being a fundamentalist seems to impose it's own obligatory jehad - literally, a crusade for an idea - not exclusively a Muslim concept by any means. People who knock on your door and try to convert you are on just as much of a jehad as any terrorist.

Amongst much interesting comment, there was  one article this week that left an impression on me. It pointed out that by forcing murderous distortions of Islam on the world, Muslim fundamentalists make violence their religion, 'a blasphemous interpretation of Islam, which in its truest expression is a religion of peace' By its very nature, this is 'an 'identity theft' of the Muslim faith'. 

The article also quoted Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Belgian newspaper columnist, who is Muslim, who tweeted: 'I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so.' Dyab Abou Jahjah (@Aboujahjah)

Which brings me back to the core values that need to underpin all our freedoms. The core values, that at the start, underpinned most religions.
Yes, I believe in freedom of speech.
But what happened to respect for others, for their beliefs and personal choices?
Where is the line drawn between freedom of speech and causing harm - on either side of the line.
As another good article, Five Days On intimated, it is about personal responsibility - in this instance, self-censorship. Perhaps this is a facile question, but why is it necessary to prove that we have freedom of speech by ridiculing and humiliating any culture or faith? Isn't that just a form of bullying, dressed up in suavely sophisticated clothes? It doesn't just provoke fundamentalists to acts of terrorism, it carves deep and painful fissures in the tentative bonds that grow - oh so slowly - between all the multi-ethnic communities in our increasingly homogenised world.

In the end, if we can't control ourselves and decide what constitutes a freedom of speech that does not cause harm and allows everyone to live in dignity, we leave the way open for governments and their military to control us, which they willingly do - with greater surveillance, new laws and tighter reins, none of which are ever rescinded. And let's not beat about the bush here - it seems a symptom of the human condition that those in power will always seek security in office via the old adage, divide and rule. They may have marched in Paris, they may profess to want unity, but unity doesn't serve them, and the ways of all political parties have become too tangled to allow for any single truth - so while, in the public gaze, governments train their hoses to put out the fires, in the background they are often busy fanning the flames. Politically the convolutions are endless, and nothing is what it seems; so we are told what they want us to hear and left to puzzle over the all too frequent anomalies afterwards.

Who can say with any real confidence what actually happened in Paris last week, and why?
More and more, we are taught to live in fear - something we have learned from America, and taken to our hearts.
All of which causes more 'distress' as Marx phrased it, which ultimately leads to more protest, more radicalisation and more problems - the endless vicious circle.

As Jim Wallace said in the Sojourners article, the only way to change fundamentalism is from within.
That's for the leaders and followers of all religions to address.
But everyone needs to address what the humane parameters of freedom of speech encompass, and what we can expect in return for our ability to express everything we think.

Les Sticks and Les Flics

Like most women, I am not obsessed with my weight.
I just think about it all the time.
I don't do much about it, admittedly, but I think about it.
And, happily, being completely indifferent to fashion, the resurgence of spray-on jeans has neither sparked any desire to be a la mode nor impinged on my physical comfort.

I don't suppose you have to be stick-thin to carry off the spray-on look, but I'm sure it helps.
Paris is stick thin.
I don't think I have ever seen so many wafer-women anywhere.
I don't know how they manage to walk about - some of them on sky-scraper heels as well.
How do they do it? And in Paris of all places, where every second shop is a boulangerie, and the ones in between sell wine or cheese, or chocolate, or some other epicurean delight.

When it came to our Essential Paris List, the In-Charge and I were as one.

'Matchsticks!' said I.
'Toothpicks!' said he, but then, 'Spaghettini,' he corrected himself.

We noticed it on our first day. Sitting in a cafe, the In-Charge suddenly said: 'There isn't a pick of flesh on that.'
The last time he'd said that was when we collected SuperModelTeenQueen from her foster home (and that was after three weeks of intensive feeding), so I turned, expecting to see a starving stray.
I suppose she could have been a starving stray, but her clothes didn't fit the bill, and she certainly wasn't either canine or feline.

We got quite competitive in the end.
'Her legs are thinner than the ones you saw yesterday!'
'There go the skinniest pins in Paris!'
We were too busy gawping to record the best of the super-mince, but one or two slipped through by accident.

 

Anyway, you don't want to be caught snapping girls' legs every time they totter past.
You might attract the wrong kind of attention.
You might be arrested. It could happen.
Les flics were very near the top of both our EP lists. We've never seen so many in our life.

Admittedly, we were staying close to the Ile de la Cite, upon which resides - apart from Notre Dame - the Prefecture de Police, so we knew instantly if anything was going down in any quartier of the city, as fleets of vans stuffed with armed officers would go screaming out, sirens wailing, regardless of the snarled up traffic they left in their wake.

We went to Giverny one Sunday, and when we got off the train at Gare St Lazare on our return, it was to find the area around the Opera closed off, and phalanxes of cops in riot gear lining the streets, shoulder to shoulder.
Excitement, excitement!

Don't you love the irony? Or perhaps not - are they, like Irish Gards, just guardians of the peace...

I immediately ducked behind one of their riot shields to ask what was happening, and found that we had missed a massive manifestation, during which, apparently, 1,000,000 people from all over France had gathered in Paris to protest against the legalisation of gay marriage.

The French, as everyone knows, are always ready to storm the barricades, take to the streets, blockade ports with trucks or find some way of making their feelings known.
Good for the French.
And shame on us for being too apathetic for follow suit.

The police are everywhere in Paris. They are present, in van-loads, at any disturbance, they are on foot, on motorbikes, on rollerblades, on horseback. They are in mufti, they are in uniform, they are in riot gear and   you are definitely going to come off worst in any encounter with their protective clothing.
And, of course, they are armed.
But equally Paris is also full of buskers, beggars, illegal traders and more - none of whom look harassed.
Being a law-abiding tourist with no axe to grind, I don't have an opinion about either police numbers or presence, but I found myself wondering how the French feel. Secure or scrutinised?

One of the funniest moments of our holiday happened in the Tourist Office near Pyramides.
While waiting for a leaflet at the desk, I overheard an elderly American woman talking to the official at the next desk.
'Well,' she said, waving her arms expressively. 'I don't know about that. All I can say is, I'd feel much happier if there were more police on the street!'


We burst into laughter and had to leave immediately.
But for the rest of our stay, one of us only had to say: 'Well, all I can say is, I'd be happier...'

The 32nd Amendment

 
Yesterday, for the second day in a row, and despite it being Sunday, I set out bright and early to take Model Dog to the vet. On Saturday morning she went in to be spayed - or 'splayed' as one ditsy old woman we knew used to say.
Poor Puffalump. (Model Dog's affectionate nickname springs from the fact that despite her long legs and undeniable beauty, she shares many characteristics with heffalumps.)
It has not been a good weekend for her. It started badly and only got worse.


We've had Model Dog for six months now, during which time she's never been out in the car on her own, so I quite understood her perplexity at being driven off without Top Dog and Under Dog. She didn't howl or whine, but there was a wary look about her that didn't respond to reassurances.
Although her nickname could be Tigger, because she is constantly bouncing, never far beneath her joie de vivre, remains the dog that was abandoned before she came to us. She is permanently anxious about being separated. We were told that she eventually found her way home again, tired, hungry and bewildered, the first time she was dumped, whereupon her owner immediately took her out and dumped her again - still tired and hungry. The second time he left her in a state of collapse outside a shop in some town, after telling someone what had taken place and saying he couldn't 'be arsed' about her.

When we got her from the Rescue Home, she immediately attached an invisible bungee to my knee. She somehow manages to slip through doorways simultaneously with me to avoid being left on one side or the other; she walks so close beside me that I have several times poked her in the eye with fingers hanging innocently at my side; and she watches me constantly, until she is sure I have 'settled' at whatever I'm doing, and won't creep away without telling her. If I'm inconsiderate enough to go off somewhere without her, she transfers her bungee temporarily to the In-Charge.

Of course, now that we are back into college routine, the In-Charge is not always at home, but mercifully as the months have gone by, she has become content to have the odd duvet-day if I have to go out.
It was not always thus. Before we realised the extent of her separation anxiety, we did have the Water Day, but perhaps it's unfair to mention it, as there was just the one incident.
Shortly after we got her, the In-Charge and I went to town to execute various commissions - as you do.
We left all three dogs happily ensconced in their beds in the kitchen - or so we thought.
When we returned a few hours later it was to find chaos of near-Biblical proportions. She had obviously jumped up to try and follow us via the kitchen window which - thankfully - yielded not, but in so doing she  not only managed to turn the tap on (the cold tap - lots of pressure!) but also to swivel it round so that it gushed not down the capacious sink, but into the extremely receptive window sill.
It is probably best to draw a veil over the rest. Suffice it to say that the In-Charge was Not Amused, and even Less Amused when I laughed. The wall was saturated through to the outside, the floor was awash and opening cupboard doors brought forth walls of water Moses would have been proud of.
I daresay you are getting the picture.
We won't go into the dirty paw prints the entire length of the kitchen counter. Or Model Dog's completely innocent demeanour. That would be hitting below the belt.

She is much less insecure now, but even so I would have taken the other dogs with us on Saturday morning, were that journey not Top Dog's particular Torture, and had we not been bringing Model Dog home barely conscious afterwards.
Fortunately our vet is very user-friendly and despite the In-Charge's mutterings about being surplus to requirements, we both stayed with her until she was out for the count, and were back with her before she woke up.                          

The operation itself was completely successful, but the Needle-Lady (Who-Will-Be-Obeyed) commanded Puff's re-attendance for a post-operative check-up the next morning, Sunday notwithstanding.
Yesterday, on our return visit, the vet declared all to be well, but poor Puff wasn't a happy bunny and proceeded to be hideously sick on the way home. The after-effects of the anaesthetic, no doubt, coupled with the morsels of bread and pate she'd finally toyed with at midnight after her 30-hour fast.


I stopped in a deserted car park to clean the car up. I'm not a good traveller at the best of times - let alone in a vehicle reeking of vomit. Reluctantly Puff got out and stood watching me in her shapeless hand-me-down dress - an old, baggy T-shirt adapted to prevent her from removing her own stitches, should the desire suddenly prove irresistible.
She looked heart-wrenchingly forlorn and stared around the car park bleakly. I wondered if she was weighing it up as an abandoning-site.
I found my mind straying to the person who'd dumped her before. They weren't good thoughts.

Poor Puffalump

As soon as I'd got rid of the worst of the sick, I helped her back into the car and stopped at the next garage to buy some hot sausages from their breakfast bar. Hot sausages are the food of dreams for Puff and I felt she needed cosseting. She ate two, after I'd broken them into little pieces, but apologetically declined the third. I put it back in the bag - I didn't want anymore cleaning up.

On the way home I saw a poster nailed to a telegraph pole. It was about children's rights.
Currently our Constitution doesn't provide a separate statement of rights for children, and Ireland has a referendum this coming Friday on whether to change the Constitution to include a new Amendment.

On the whole I think 'Rights' can be a difficult issue. Of course we need them, but people talk very glibly about their 'Rights', and it feels like we are obsessed with enshrining as many as possible in law; yet sometimes it also feels like the more 'Rights' we all have, the less well we all treat each other - as if 'Rights' somehow obviate both the need to focus on the individual and the requirement for the individual to assume certain responsibilities.

But be that as it may, the poster made me aware that I hadn't really thought about the proposed Amendment.
Yes - every child does have the 'Right' to be cared for (in every sense of the word) by its parents, or to be given over to someone else who will. No child should ever be abandoned or abused.

But neither should any animal.
And for that matter, every animal has a 'Right' to be cared for (in every sense of the world) by its owner, or be given over to someone else who will.
Maybe it's about time we had an 'Animal Rights' Amendment to our Constitution as well.
The 32nd Amendment.
Something that could then be enshrined in law.
And enforced.

(And maybe they could add in something about 8 out of 10 dogs preferring sausages for breakfast.)

COMING SOON: 

In honour of Writing from the Edge's first birthday, I will be having a wonderful Giveaway! 

Don't miss it!

The Property Tax is a Riot

After we'd looked at what the Market had to offer yesterday, some friends and I sat in its nicely old-fashioned cafe and had a cuppa, and the talk, as so often nowadays, turned to the situation in Ireland. Someone mentioned the new property tax.

The Market has lots of good things on offer. Like these...

Now I should explain that we have no council charges, domestic rates, property taxes or whatever they are called in other parts of the world. I have even heard it said that 'rates' is a swear word in Ireland, a hark-back to the bad old days of the British. Fair enough.

I have even heard it said that 'promises were made' that such an evil would never be re-introduced.

Hmm.

(Perhaps it was a Government that made that promise. Enough said.)

and these...

The new Property Tax is going to be a hundred euros per household.
Well - this year, anyway.
Once they have managed to make the country swallow the idea that rates (that old swear word) are indeed on the annual menu, then I suppose the sky's the limit. 

I guess you may all be gasping with amazement that we don't have a local taxes of some kind, but we're not getting away Scot free. Ireland is an expensive place to live, everything seems to be loaded, one way or another and we have a high rate of VAT, high road tax, income tax, some people pay water rates (soon everyone will pay water rates) and so it goes on... And if you want your rubbish collected (what else can you do with it in a country where bonfires are illegal?) you pay a private company...

Back at the table yesterday, someone voiced the opinion that the new tax was illegal. Someone else said you couldn't be forced to register for it. Only one person said they didn't mind paying, as the government needs the money - how else can it claw back the gazillions Ireland owes?
Another person said 'But it's not my debt!'

I'd have to agree with that one.

and these...

We then got on to discussing all the side issues - corruption, the lack of justice being meted out to the wankers, sorry - bankers who caused all the problems in the first place, the bonuses still being paid by the banking sector 'so that we can continue to attract the right kind of employees'.
Yeah. Right.
That really worked last time.



And the fact that the Irish secretly admire a chancer, someone who flouts the system and gets away with it. Lots of 'chancers' in positions of authority here.
It comes, one person said, from all the years of trying to get one over on the British.
Very true. But as she pointed out, now they are getting one over on themselves.
Not such a result perhaps.

and these soaps...

We discussed the current gloom and doom in the country and the sorry fact that the economy is flatter than last weeks pancakes.

It was what we didn't discuss that I found myself thinking about afterwards.
We didn't discuss standing up and shouting about it.
Or marching, or fighting back.
Or even having a jolly good riot. Riots seem popular in other places.
Riots, it seems to me, come about when people don't think they are being heard.
But you have to say something for there to be any chance of being heard.
Is anyone in Ireland shouting?

For shouting to be effective, it needs to start somewhere and grow.
Maybe the Property Tax would be a good starting point.
Why it needs to be levied in the first place.
We've all given up dreaming that with all the bank debt ladled onto Everyman's shoulders, there would be some kind of moratorium on mortgages, but at the very least everyone who pays the Property Tax ought to get the same amount knocked off their mortgage bill.
That's something else we could shout about.

We refilled our cups and the chat moved on to other things.

not to mention these samosas and goat's cheese tartlets...

And now I am wondering. Is it just my perception, or is that the problem?
In Ireland we love sitting around a table with a cuppa, chewing the fat.
We can do that for an Olympic Gold.
We're not given to shouting enough.
And I can't see a riot taking place.
Shame.

So I guess we're all just going to pay.
And pay.
And pay.

and locally made cards and crafts....  It's a very good Market!