The Portuguese Abortion Law could be a way forward for Ireland

I liked the Portuguese abortion law - when last I looked. The good ingredient was time, lacking in our pending masterpiece of legalese. From memory, it permitted abortion up to ten weeks (although doctors could refuse to preform one, and fathers had a right to be "consulted"), and, beyond that, in a range of certain conditions, all with CLEARLY DEFINED time limits. 

It is certainly preferable to what will soon be my homeland's stance, which is it is constitutionally banned, with one condition (threat to the mother's life), but - and here is what terrible government looks like - suicide risk is considered a threat to the mother's life, so a country with a conservatively "pro-life" constitution could potentially have a relatively liberal abortion regime. 

Moreover, now, because of Ireland's cognitive dissonance, there could be more late abortions in this country, a country with a constitutional prohibition, than a country with a liberal constitutional stance, but one with clearly defined time limits. True, discriminating between in utero "trimesters" can be arbitrary, but arbitrary lines are preferable to chaos. Besides, are these distinctions arbitrary, could we possibly have a true philosophical debate about abortion in Ireland, rather than this media manufactured culture war, or, as a friend put it, "a political football to be kicked about four weeks before an election". The nihilism of the Irish far-left is deeply shocking - what is it about family, long-term commitment, motherhood, fatherhood, and, particularly, femininity, that infuriates and repulses them - but, to hell with them, what we need now is intelligence and deep, detailed debate.

David Norris; Another Gaff

Unfortunately, Norris didn't seem to anticipate that his Joycien blending of vulgarity and eloquence would have an unintended consequence; the media would go on a titter/tatter about "offensive language", rather than the issue he was trying to raise, the scrapping of the Seanad. They are three observations that struck me about this latest piece of political theater. 1) The hypocrisy of Irish "liberals" - the Americanism is just about applicable in the Irish context - can be comical at times. Let us imagine for a second a hypothetical abortion debate, a right-wing journalist, in the pro-life corner, tells a female pro-choice politician, while blustering, that she's  "talking through her fanny".  Exactly the same people now defending Norris would be in a frenzy of rage, burning their fingers on enter keys, spreading bile through every blog on the blogsphere.  If a right-wing politician makes a sexist gaff, the liberally inclined would automatically blame latent misogyny, if a lovable senator makes a similar gaffe, (presuming, for argument, that it wasn't premeditated), we blame humoruless political correctness.

Therefore, at the very least, Norris' gaffe can be a worthwhile moral lesson for the politically self-righteous; all men, have at least a tendon of misogyny in their body.  Misogyny is very similar to homicidal impulse - in fact, it is worse, some people deserve to be killed, no woman should be hated simply for being a woman - all men have the inherent potential.  All men have it, if you don't, you're not a man.  In similar measure, if you're not, in your heart, filled with utter devotion and love for women, then you're not human.

The falstaffian senator himself; donning a panama hat, and that wonderful Socratic beard

2) I find it remarkable that some people actually think they should be protected, by law, from "offensive opinion".  For me, this desire to be insulated from offensive opinion - more often than not, the protective shield is dragged out to repel atheists - is symptomatic of an overly pampered culture.  For this generation, accustomed to cars, buses and planes, and never using their feet, whose cough syrups and toothpastes come loaded with artificial sweeteners and saccharine, who grew up accustomed to lazy, pampering sun holidays, it isn't at all surprising they tend to "whine" - and whine in the most self-importantly bourgeois manner - about being offended.  Sometimes, to be truthful and insightful, requires an unflinching harshness, even brutality. Therefore, this over-civility, this over sensitivity to other people's feelings, is anti-intellectual.

3  Where's the Victorians were overly secretive about sex, this culture is overly casual.  Sex has been completely dymystified.  Removing social conventions regarding sex - and with it the sacredness and exclusiveness of the human body - has, without question, had a disastrous cultural affect; it has become cheapened, and - with the growth of the internet and relaxing of censorship - highly abstract and fetishistic.  The Romantic revivalists turned sex into a religion, while this society treats sex like an especially intense "pleasure", the same way recreational drugs are a "pleasure", or, perhaps, the way a fillet steak is a "pleasure".  Therefore, completely separating it from love.

A "Catholic Unionist", umm

Three points about a recent newspaper article about the growth of "Catholic Unionists" in the six counties.;  1.  While I'm sure they are many exceptions to the following gross generalisation, please read with an open mind, because it is something I have always suspected is true.  Ulster Protestants - particularly of Presbyterian/reformed background - are first and foremost Protestants, and secondly, Unionists.  Irish Nationalists - of all stripes; constitutional/militant, Republican/Nationalist - are first and foremost Irish Nationalists, and, secondly, Catholics (at least from the political perspective).  If this hunch of mine is true, why such a mirror oppositioning of loyalties exists is complicated.  To understand the Ulster Protestant psyche one must understand the reformation, and how a people can come to define themselves and their struggle theologically.

In contrast, Irish nationalist "holy sites" - Bodenstown, the GPO, and so forth - are mythologised in secular nationalist terms; the landmarks and relics of an oppressed people fighting oppression, without explicit reference to religious imagery.  When nationalistic pilgrimages descend into the quasi-religious they usually resort to Neo-Pagan imagery; evocations of blood, soil, land of our fathers and so forth.  Pearse and Yeats' obsession with self-sacrifice - and how this sacrifice becomes a sort of collective empowering- has always been quasi-religious glitter, which nationalist leaders, every so often, may speckle their speeches and rhetoric with, but that's what it remains, fanciful, quasi-religious glitter, never diverting from the more worldly objective; independence, power and self-determination.

(They are some exceptions; the IRA's custom of opening Army Council meetings with decades of the rosary, for instance.  This disturbing practice was - allegedly- one of the reasons behind the split between the Marxist leaning "Official IRA" and the more overtly Nationalist "Provisional IRA".)

The Protestant imagination, in contrast, defines its struggle is an explicitly Christian way.  The most striking example is the central event in the Protestant/Unionist psyche; the siege of Derry.  Marcus Tanner, the British historian, describes the myth of the siege, and all its explicitly Christian allusions and symbolism, deftly I think, in his book "Ireland's Holy Wars";

"The fact that the siege of Derry became the favourite symbol of the history of the entire community is not surprising I think....the story of teh seige contains many of the great stories of the New Testament.  There was the theme of betrayal, with the governor of Londonderry, Governor Robert Lundy, taking the role of the traitor, Judas Iscariot.  There was the theme of suffering for the sake of righteousness.  There was the theme of endurance to the end.  And there was the theme of eventual deliverance.  The setting was symbolic.  Londonderry was a walled city.  To anyone versed in the old Testament, the image of the Kingdom of God as a city on the hill acted powerfully on the imagination." (Tanner, Ireland's Holy Wars, pg 157.)

I can anticipate that certain people won't like the above, and for many different reasons, but one particular criticism is worth addressing now.  Some may say, that by empahsising the religious inspiration behind Unionism, I am actually undermining it, and reinforcing the legitimacy of the Nationalist cause.  They may argue - to borrow terms from Marxist cultural theory - that because I am depicting Unionism as abstract and religious, I'm inviting people to treat unionists as alienated from their material needs, as stupefied by "false consciousness", in this case politically shackling religious lore, and to treat nationalists - albeit no enlightened philosophes, - as more focused on their immediate material and economic needs, such as self-determination and maximizing their own power.

While it is certainly true  that the current economic arrangement in Britain disproportionately benefits the south of England -and, according to the reputable Gini Coefficient Index, Britain is a highly unequal country (and only slightly more equal than India!!) - admittedly, Ireland isn't much better - undermining Unionism through devious casuistry really isn't my intention.  My intention is alot more subtle.

In actual fact, the more I understand the Protestant psyche, particular the religious inspiration behind how they think, the more I sympathise with them.  Ture, I'm neither a Unionist nor a Protestant, but I certainly have more sympathy for Protestantism than Monarchism; particularly the obscenely rich, condescendingly familiar, media worshiped celebs which post Diana British "Royals" have morphed themselves into.

However, I have  one final criticism of Unionism - as a political ideology - to make.  Well, criticism may be harsh; observation! Britain, as a national identity is a little iridescent isn't it?  Its like an iridescent gemstone you might find stuffed into one of the Queen's vulgar bonnets - not the ones she dons when watching horses being abused, but when dragged into the Commons - the iridescent gem glistens and twinkles, but, it also changes colour, sometimes its blue, sometimes its red, depending on what angle you look at it.  If your a social worker who lives in Notting Hill, the iridescent gem will be one colour, if you're an Apprentice Boy in Derry, it will look a totally different colour.

2. I get very irritated when I talk to people of a particular mentality about what they call "culture"; "I identity more with British culture", as the Catholic Unionist, profiled in the Times article, phrased it.  For me Joyce is part of Irish culture - despite the fact he detested Irish Catholicism and was dismissive of nationalism (of all varieties) - but I don't "identify" with Joyce more than I "identify" with Dickens or E.M Forster, or any other British novelist I enjoy reading.  I don't like Sean O'Casey - a freethinking Marxist - but he is part of Irish culture, even though"identify" is obviously the wrong verb.  In my definition the novelist Eoin Mcnamee (who writes brilliant literary thrillers set in Northern Ireland) and the musician Van Morrison are culture, in a way buntings, marches and walls smeared with murals are not; buntings and murals are dead and stale, while a culture of any kind must be living.


3.  I am very surprised when people are shocked by the phenomenon of Catholic unionism.  Clearly, they don't understand the deep historical affinity between Catholicism and Monarchism, and, similarly, the historical affinity between the radical reformation and Republicanism.  The Papacy itself, is in all respects a regaled, absolutist monarchy.  Up until recently, it had all the ceremonial pomp and circumstance of a monarchy; traditionally, when coronating a new pope, the "Papal Tiara" is placed on his head - an outlandish chunk of gold and insetted jewels - dazzling ostrich feathers  are flaunted, and the newly elected Pontiff Maximus is carried around St. Peters in a "Sedia Gestatoria".  In the battle of the Boyne, - commemorated by Ulster Protestants in processional marches, with bowler hats and buntings galore - a good bulk of King William's army were Republican Protestants, deeply opposed to the restoration, and sided with William for opportunistic  sectarian reasons, as well as deep hatred of the Stewart dynasty. Similarly, James II's army was completely comprised of Catholic loyalists.  Ironically, the Battle of 1690 isn't confirmation of Northern Ireland's political mythology, it completely demolishes it.  For me, the Jacobite wars read like a Marxist parable; raggedly Irish peasants ,doped and fed propaganda and superstition, kill each other to decided which fat, lazy King sits on the English throne; which, like the current scoundrels, will live off the back of someone else's sickle and slane.