Miscellany, Volume 115, Issue 3

volume 115 issue 3 trinity term 2008

miscellany

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Experience something new in the Old Library

The Trinity Library Shop The Library Shop opening hours are: 9.30 - 5.00 Monday to Saturday 12.00 - 4.30 Sundays Email: library.shop@tcd.ie

http://www.tcd.ie/Library/Shop

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contents

contents 4 Editorial

14 Society Europe is becoming increasingly

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

A Few Words… 5

Interviews with familiar faces around campus

6 Starters

Just to whet your appetite

Politics 8

The Incendiary Olympics issue

9 Culture

Is Irish by any other influence still as sweet?

Politics10

Democracy with hidden agendas is not really democracy

11 Duckerrific!

Last chance...

inaccessible to assylum seekers

Culture 16

A year away can change a man

18 Society

Climate change isn’t going away, so isn’t it time we started facing up to it?

Society 19

The time to change our view towards smoking has come

20 Politics

The Northern Bill of Rights offers an encouraging example of peaceful resolution

Responses 21

22 Good ol’ T.C.D.

Society 12

Is our information being tainted by commercial influence?

Editorial Team Editor - Sinéad Fortune Layout and Design Amy Fleming and Barry Murphy Advertising Natasha Finnerty Contributors - Jean Acheson, Cíaran Cleary, James Dempsey, Conor Gannon, Steven Lydon, Sarah Maguire, Conor James McKinney, Mícheál P. Ó hEogain, Gearoid O’Rourke, Leah Sullivan Illustrations - Orla Shortall Cover photographSinéad Fortune Duck photography and equipment- Robert Donohue This publication is partially funded by a grant from the Trinity Publications Committee. The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the editor.

All serious complaints, questions, or comments should be addressed to

ZENmonkey

By Sam Kavanagh

Miscellany 2nd Floor, House 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2 (01) 896 2335

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editorial

Trinity Term, 008 Ah, springtime. The birds are swaying, the trees are singing, and if we’re lucky, the weather has just become pleasant enough to begin lounging on the pitches with friends, a can of classy Bavaria in our hands and thoughts of summer on our minds. Of course, all this is darkened by the impending doom of exams... Nonetheless, time spent on a sunny park bench watching bejumpered cricket players clambouring after balls can cheer the gloomiest of spirits, even if it is just as a few minutes’ reprieve from the drudgery of the library.

This is the season for my favourite thing about Trinity: the cherry blossoms which adorn the Rose Garden and line the cricket pitch. Each year without fail, the limbs burst with flowers and drop their petals in small flurries upon those strolling by. They lend a sense of timelessness to the lengthening spring days, as year after year they return without fail.

However, while I’ve been lulled into a Romantic stupor by the Sublime, four years have passed. This spring will be my last in Trinity, and God only knows where the time has gone. The cyclic motion of the seasons gives the illusion of stasis while time continues on, changing everything around us. I’m sure Heraclitus would be quick to agree from his river in flux that the petals we see before us are not the same petals of yesteryear.

Indeed, I am not the same wee thing of seventeen I was when I first entered Trinity’s hallowed halls, nor are any of you. The imperceptibly passing days somehow turn into years, and now and then we find ourselves at a significant turning point in our lives, a time in which we must reflect on how things have changed since last we stopped to think about it.

As it so happens, the theme of the final issue of Miscellany is change (coincidence, or fate?). While you ponder changes in climate, foreign policy, and media, why not take a moment to reflect on how you yourself have changed in the past few years. After all, you were looking for an excuse to procrastinate, weren’t you?

My final words as editor will be of gratitude to everyone who contributed and leant a hand this year. A very special thanks goes to Amy Fleming and Barry Murphy for their layout and design prowess as well as their friendship, Natasha Finnerty for all her work hounding advertisers, editors Gearoid O’Rourke, Brendan McGuirk, Brendan Guildea, Claire Diamond, and Mark Wright, and the Trinity Publications executives. Finally, thank you and best of luck to Jean Acheson, into whose capable hands Miscellany will pass next year.

Sinéad Fortune Editor Miscellany Magazine

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Photo By Patrick Jefferson

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college

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starters

Child Suffrage

By Robert Donohue

T

he right to vote is regarded as one of the most fundamental democratic principles of our society. We consider universal suffrage to be a marker of an egalitarian society, and therefore making a distinction about who can and who cannot vote is contradictory. However, such a demarcation is made in regards to age: according to Article 16.1.2°.i of The Constitution of Ireland, one must have reached 18 years old in order to qualify to vote. We must look again at the way we are disenfranchising a massive proportion of society and the reasons why it’s inappropriate.

First, we seem to be ignoring the concept of “No Taxation Without Representation”. A child is permitted to work from the age of 14 and consequently is earning and taxed upon his or her own money. Despite this, he or she has no input into tax policy or how his or her taxes are to be spent. I don’t think it is fair for a person’s private possessions to be misappropriated in this way.

Perhaps some might say that the child is not capable of making the decisions necessary to vote. However, this is not the standard used in deciding who and who cannot vote; if it were, there would be an exam to test the capability of people to understand and appreciate the issues involved.

absolutely no justification for not allowing young people to vote.

That said, while we need to avoid mixing aptitude qualifications with our voter registration forms, we do need to have some form of test. Some people are incapable of voting, for example those with severe mental handicaps, very young children, or people in comas. We can legitimately say that these people cannot vote because they are unable to fulfill the simple technical requirements of ticking the boxes. This, I believe, is the only legitimate standard that can be used.

It also seems to me that there is no such thing as a “wrong” vote.

It is not our prerogative to say that children are not allowed to vote because they will do it incorrectly or they will not make the “right” decisions. Many people would admit that photos of the candidates effected their decisions on how they were going to vote. If these people are going to be allowed to vote we have

Allowing young people to vote will foster a more involved attitude in people from a younger age and show them that their view matters. If they see this, hopefully they will continue on the road to playing an important role in the community. I think it’s time to end this electoral discrimination and allow young people to vote, and therefore to become active and interested citizens.

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starters

The Student Life

by Kevin Breslin

A

s a student, living with people you don’t know is often a necessity. Most times it works out well; sometimes it proves a lesson in tolerance. My new flatmate is pretty hot, but not the sharpest tack in the box. I was in the kitchen the other day asking her how her day was in the usual teeth-being-pulled manner of conversation that has become the norm since her stellar performance at the interview process. I still can’t work out how her English was so fantastic for those 5 minutes and so dreadful in general.

“How was your Day?” “Sorry?”

“How was YOUR day?”

“YOUR?” “Day.” “Em...Tuesday.”

Well and all as it was going, I decided to leave that conversation for the time being and ask her how to work the microwave.

I’ve always had a problem with diagrams on microwaves; if it’s not the full power with the steam coming off a bowl then I don’t know what’s going on. The one in the house has a dial with four different types of snowflakes that a cryptologist would struggle with. I wanted to defrost a steak so I asked, “What’s

defrost on this thing?” foolishly expecting some sort of coherent answer. “Eh…Sorry?” Ah, don’t blame yourself sweetness, faces that pretty weren’t built to store information, yet I persisted. “Do you know what defrost is?” She thought to herself for a minute; she looked puzzled, brow furrowed, as if searching for the words. I thought to myself how ironic it was that the person who finally explains the mystery of the microwave to me is someone who barely knows her own name in English. “When a man and a woman”- hang on, what’s all this about –“don’t love each other anymore...” Oh sweet Jesus, is she…she is, she’s explaining the word divorce!

So there I was in a kitchen having the word ‘Divorce’ explained to me by a girl whose face was going red with exertion, and all I could think of was that she thought I had been looking for the answer on the side of a microwave! I felt like dropping the frozen steak on the ground, throwing my hands in the air, shouting, “Done!” and walking out. However, I don’t know her that well and don’t want to hurt her feelings, so I just nodded politely and said, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, interesting, interesting…also, do you know how to DEFROST a steak?” She shook her head in that cold dismissive way that French girls are famous for, as if I had just asked her could I cup a boob. Apparently not. Who cares, I lost my appetite and I was so exhausted from the exertion of suppressing laughter that I went to bed for a nap.

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society politics

The Olympic Dilemma Conor James McKinney discusses the unresolved issues darkening the upcoming Olympic Games.

A

s the Olympic torch bludgeoned its way through the streets of Paris and London in early April, one could be forgiven for wondering what the point of the exercise was. The flame now seems destined to set the streets ablaze in every location through which it passes. It is a strange fate for a symbol supposed to be the embodiment of everything noble about the Olympic movement, and which expresses sentiments that are inherently unobjectionable. The passing of the Olympic flame is usually a free lunch in terms of PR; rather like a politician opening a shiny new hospital, it is generally impossible to come out of it looking worse than when you went in.

And there’s the rub. The point of the procession was to enhance the prestige of the Beijing Olympics, as China unleashes a propaganda juggernaut upon its own citizens and the world at large.

It has back-fired woefully. The reason for the protests along the route, and the black cloud hanging over the Beijing Games in general, is the appalling human rights record of the Chinese host. Decent people everywhere should be glad that this repressive regime has not thus far managed to utilise the Olympic brand in order to gloss over these failings. More needs to be done, however, to ensure that the Chinese government does not gain undeserved respectability from its staging of the Games.

The Chinese authorities point out that sport ought to be separate from politics. This is nonsense. Politics cannot readily be separated from anything, nor should it be. The All Blacks flanker Michael Jones refused to play most of New Zealand’s games in the 1991 World Cup because they fell on a Sunday. No one tried to argue then that sport and religion should be kept separate. Similarly, politics in its truest form encompasses one’s core values and deeply held beliefs; concern for basic human freedoms cannot stop at the stadium entrance. Political values and convictions are of huge importance, and ought to be advanced through whatever avenues are available.

In any case, the staging of the Olympics is a highly politicised event, as the host country seeks to portray itself in the best possible light. If it were only a horrifically expensive, low-key sport-

ing competition, cities such as London and Beijing would run a mile. The benefit is in the respect won abroad, and while there is no real reason to boycott the Games altogether, I would argue that the Chinese government cannot be allowed to do this in the light of its egregious failure to respect basic human rights.

The Chinese model of free markets but unfree people is a noxious one. It should not be encouraged or held up as an acceptable model of governance, and the international community must make this clear. Communism failed in Russia and Eastern Europe partly because of internal movements for reform, and partly because of relentless international pressure over half a century.

The Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, whose offences have been studiously ignored by its African neighbours, is further proof that international pressure is a sine qua non of progress towards decent government in a given country.

Current Western diplomacy seems based on the hope that China will become more democratic as the Communist Party gradually allows it. This hope may well be borne out in the long run: China has made great strides since the days of Mao, and may well become more liberal as time goes by. But as Keynes so bluntly put it, in the long run we are all dead. In the meantime, many more advocates of religious freedom will be silenced, many more Hu Jias imprisoned, many more peasants turfed out of their homes in the name of progress. The international community needs to take a more robust stance towards China now.

Allowing its government to use the Games as a propaganda tool sends the wrong message.

World leaders should take the same approach as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who recently announced that he would not be attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games.

Boycotting the opening ceremony would send a clear signal: China can have the Games, but not on the same terms as a democratic state. Such a gesture may be small comfort to the victims of Chinese policy in Darfur and Tibet, but it is better than nothing.

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culture

The Evolving Mother Tongue Mícheál P. Ó hEoghain explores the effect of time and outside influence on the Irish language.

I

n the 1950s, a debate animated the ether of Irish-language academia: was the poetry of Seán Ó Ríordáin Irish? Any sensible dilettante might reasonably resolve this dispute by observing that An Ríordánach wrote in Irish. The petty and bruising criticisms made by Máire Mac an tSaoi represent a failure for which many of us could be condemned: she equated change with decline, transformation with deterioration, and development with discontinuity. The farcical polemic was provoked by the lack of tired traditional poetic idioms, by a clumsy but enthusiastic playfulness with the form and meaning of words and by metrical problems in Ó Riordáin’s work, as well as by the fear of the contamination of English. What Máire Mhac an tSaoi failed to recognise was that Ó Riordáin’s Eireaball Spideoige boldly suggested that the Irish literati could finally let go of the seventeenth century and yield to the dynamic potential of modern poetry. Popes adopt familiar names of predecessors, kings attach a re-assuring numeral to their regal names, would-be cabinet ministers compare Cowen and Lemass, and Máire Mhac an tSaoi calls Ó Riordáin’s Irish Esperanto.

It is an auspicious improvement that the conservatism that blighted the Irish-language intelligentsia half a century ago has broadly lifted. Poets like Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill demonstrate a respect and understanding of the past that exceeds antiquarianism: Ní Dhomhnaill’s poetry represents a dialogue between the present and our historical literary tradition. Seán Ó Riordáin pushed the boundaries of Nua-Ghaeilge. He and Synge represent both a dialogue between present and past, but also between the two ‘national’ languages of Ireland. It is no insult to Synge to say that in poems like ‘The Curse’, he wrote Irish in English.

Why is it an insult to An Ríordánach to say that he wrote English in Irish? I would not advocate the anglicisation of An Ghaeilge, but in showing the influence of Shelley and Hopkins Ó Riordáin (no matter how he would later compromise to purists) helped make Irish poetry modern and gave it freely to the modern reader. No Irish speaker cannot understand English. Why should Máire Mhac an tSaoi have asked us to pretend that this is not so?

Joyce, Synge, Ó Riordáin, and Ní Dhomhnaill exploit the ten-

sion between English and Irish to generate work that invigorates both languages.

Of course, an elementary knowledge of history will provide any purist with sufficient ammunition to demonstrate how negative change has resulted from contact between English and Irish.

This, of course, has not ceased. In many cases, anglicisms are too embedded in the Irish language to be removed and thus the distinctiveness of Irish is compromised. The idea of a new language emerging at the aureole of contact between English and Irish is an exciting but outlandish one: Irish and English are not merging together; English is superseding Irish. Irish-speakers must seriously ask themselves if ‘Táim excited’ should replace ‘Tá sceitimíní orm’. Those who have ‘learnt’ the language should ask themselves if they are speaking the Irish language or an inter-language so crowded with English words, phrases, and notions as to render it an exceptionally idiosyncratic dialect of Hiberno-English. The emergence of new urban dialects in Belfast and Dublin and amongst the students of gaelscoileanna is to be welcomed if indeed it represents a progressive development.

I do not believe it does.

Seán Ó Riordáin used English to address a deficiency in Irish, while the Irish-ed English heard from TG4 to Corca Dhuibhne creates a deficiency in Irish today. This Irish-ed English represents not the wholesale acquisition of something Irish lacked, but the crude neglect of the comprehensive capacity of the Irish language. This Irish-ed English is not the way to revive Irish, but a way to ease its passing.

The Irish language is being consciously revived; why not consciously revive something worthy and distinctive? The Irish language has been heavily influenced by Latin, French, English and other languages throughout the centuries; the word Gaeilge itself comes from Welsh. It can look forward to dialogue with the languages of migrants to Ireland and with English. However, it is the duty of Irish-speakers to ensure that this dialogue enriches rather than impoverishes the Irish language.

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politics

Democracy vs.

Europe S

Steven Lydon expresses doubts regarding the possibility of democracy in the free market economy Europe has become.

ince the French Revolution, democracy has been the driving force of progressive social change. Our western society is the pinnacle of human success and achievement, based on the stout and immovable pillars of justice, equality, and fraternity.

You may remember the Russian elections a short while ago, in which accusations of tyranny and corruption were featured across the media, elaborated in the smug voice of monotone objectivity. Shocked, we turned our faces from this mockery of justice, this flagrant flouting of our cherished ideals.

agenda. All of these petty politics are distracting us from our real aims – saving the world. Such a shame that the masses of uneducated plebeians of Europe don’t recognise that this is a necessary step, but I guess if they were educated they wouldn’t want to work in fish factories anymore, and then we couldn’t sustain our economic growth - never mind our chilled prawn-salads.

Come to think of it, now that the housing market is collapsing, I think we need the Progressive Democrats again. Those damn Greens have destroyed the economy.

Our spiritual leader, the United States, announced in response to the 70% landslide victory in favour of Putin’s successor that it “looks forward to working with the new president,” and that “it’s in our mutual interest for Russia and the United States to work together on areas… such as counterterrorism and combating trans-national crime.” There is something strangely hypocritical in this statement, but in any case I’m just glad that Iraq is now a fully functioning democracy, enacted not only out of a magnanimous interest in the spread of global freedom, but also out of the interests of the US and its allies. Who could tolerate having weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an undemocratic tyrant? Of course, the US is second in the world only to Russia in the amount of weapons of mass destruction it possesses.

The Lisbon Treaty might be a necessary step in the long run, but it is also highly undemocratic, and this fact must be acknowledged. Putin’s dismissal of democracy is not something the media should be salivating over, if only because it disguises the faults of both Putin’s government and the democratic system itself. Also ignored is the less sensational but nonetheless striking disregard of the democratic process in our own country. A political party that accepts corporate donations is operating in an extremely undemocratic manner. Democracy is based upon the ability to make an informed choice, and this needs to be achieved through discussion rather than airbrushed photos of political representatives paid for by corporate lobbies. We are informed, not with facts in our best interest, but with rhetoric that caters to the lowest common denominator and plays upon fears and anxieties in the name of sensationalism and profit. Perhaps an independent body regulating the media should exercise some control in order to preserve it from the more severe effects of the marketplace. But, that would be undemocratic.

We are about to cement our glorious democratic tradition with the Lisbon treaty, otherwise known as the European Constitution. What’s more democratic than a constitution? France didn’t exactly embrace it the first time round, but they changed a couple of sentences and it’s called something different now, so that troublesome voting process isn’t really necessary anymore. The logic behind this is that the population don’t really know what’s in their own interest. They don’t know the facts. If we don’t start producing on a scale comparable to China and the U.S, we’re not going to be able to sustain our economic growth, and chaos will likely ensue. People just aren’t seeing the big picture these days, I guess. They’re not having enough kids, and they’re retiring too early. They need to start buying bigger cars, more property, and swimming pools.

But we need a United Europe to deal with pressing global challenges, like environmental catastrophe. We cannot tackle this issue unless we are united in our goals by an abstract, apolitical

Democracy cannot be achieved in a free market economy. If we are to insist on a democracy, however, drastic steps must be taken to prevent the encroachment of the marketplace on institutions central to the proper functioning of the democratic process, and this involves the restriction of corporate influence on national governments and the media. A regulatory influence on multi-national corporations is crucial in order to prevent not only their encroachment on democracy, but also to prevent the spiral of impending environmental disaster. Some of these steps might be criticised by corporate forces as inhibitive of freedom, but freedom is strictly proportional to capital. The definition of democracy must recognise the distinction between the freedom of the economy and the freedom of the people.

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competition

Fowl Sightings, Campus-wide...

Interest in the last issue was much improved, and congratulations are given to all who made the effort to enter. We hope the winner did not imbibe his prize in one sitting; it would not be advised. The locations were the sixth floor of the Arts Block, Pomodoro’s ‘Sfera con Sfera’ outside the Berkeley library, and the JCR in Goldsmith Hall, home to the Dead Pig and the beloved JCR workers. The Miscellany Duck has had great fun traversing the campus this year, and hopes his exploits have made you a little more aware of your fine surroundings. He’s off to warmer climes, and so will bid a fond adieu to the winner with a bottle of delicious rum.

Yum. As always, all entries to miscellanyduck@gmail.com.

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society

The Commercialisation of the Modern Media Gearoid O’Rourke investigates the pejorative changes commerical influence has brought to the media.

N

ow is the time for some serious navel gazing by the Irish media: failures have occurred, serious mistakes are being made every day, and now is the time to stop and take stock. Some in the “media” will be predisposed to disagree with me – they will see the failures that I speak of as the logical outcomes of progress within the media. What I set out to do here is not to hang the media with the mistakes that have been made nor to tar everyone with the same damning brush; rather I want to have you truly consider whether it is ever possible to have what I suggest we need: truth-telling, objective journalism based solely on a public interest remit.

I see the major failure of the modern Irish media as a failure to act in the public interest. The media presents itself, in many instances, as the public’s watchdog and the public’s conscience; however, in failing to truly act in the public interest it fails in these roles. This should lead us all to the question how useful the media is if it does not do what it is “supposed” to do.

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society Contributing mainly to this failure is the new-found focus on commercialism, the burning need to “sell” the news. Before I begin to sing the ills of this commercial focus and, like Comrade Bertie, declare myself a socialist, I think it prudent to point out that for the vast majority of the history of the media there have been consumers and traders in news. The biggest newspapers have invariably been sold to the public, the major news channels have survived on ads; yet true journalism has always lived in a protected space created by the financial security provided by commercial success.

However, the walls of this “journalistic bastion” have more and more often been breeched by the need to “sell” the paper. No longer is the realm of journalism separate from the business sphere. This has not been a positive development; in fact it is a grave failure of the moral fortitude of newspaper editors and publishers that they have allowed it to come to pass.

We see examples of the commercial influence on the media everywhere from the sponsoring of news shows on cable TV to the spread of advertorials. This latter example is one close to my own heart as this last year one major advertiser pulled out of advertising with my own newspaper when we refused to run paid-for editorial content. In a way these are the less dangerous instances as they allow readers some opportunity to spot the influence of the corporate puppet masters. However, two much more insidious forms of commercial influence are more interesting case studies. The first is the proposed outsourcing of the sub-editing process by the New Zealand arm of the Independent News and Media organisation as well as by its Irish operations.

APN News and Media owns the New Zealand Herald and a range of provincial titles and is in turn owned by Sir Anthony’s company. The plans will see 70 staff outsourced to a subdivision of Australian Associate Press. In Ireland, the plan is to make 34 production staff redundant and outsource their positions to a private company called RE&D. In one fell swoop a large chunk of the editorial process will be taken out of the hands of journalists and editors and given to a private company.

the hands of a private company with its own inherent prejudices and biases?

Secondly, this trend of outsourcing may be too tempting for newspapers with the effect that the outsourcing of newsgathering is not too far off. Essentially what this trend means is that “news” will not be owned by newspapers and TV stations but rather by private enterprise. To get Marxist for a moment, news will become commoditised.

But leaving outsourcing aside – the second more insidious side of the commercialisation of the media is the creeping mentality that journalists of all forms are there to sell the news; they are not. Journalists should not be sales men of hyperbole or peddlers of viewpoints outside of the “opinion” arena. However, the driving need to sell newspapers, increase viewer ratings, and grab audience share has meant that there is more pressure now from the top to make news into a marketable product.

In my opinion this leads to the media frenzies around cases such as the Diana car crash and the Madeleine McCann murder/abduction/whatever. Here are stories that are marketed to tug at the heartstrings and are milked to provide endless “sell-ability”.

This is the ugliest side of the commercilaisation of the media and also the cause of its greatest failure, because when the media begins exploiting the ordinary public to sell papers, shows, and magazines, it stops acting in the public interest. Even worse, it conflates its own interests with that of the public interest.

The media has failed in the past on many counts. Currently it is failing the people by confusing and conflating its own commercial interests with the public interest. This is a grave failure because it goes right to the heart of what the media is. The point at which the media stops serving the public interest is the point that it becomes obsolete. Currently, commercial interests are pushing the media towards this point and I am left wondering, where is the way back?

Not only will this action further weaken the Independent Group’s already floundering news credentials and demoralize its remaining staff (with the subsequent effect on the quality of their work), it will also effectively turn the production of news into a commercial process in a very real way. It will now be governed by contracts, margins and profits rather than journalistic integrity.

The argument will be made that the journalists are still employed by the newspapers in question, but this faces two problems: first, I challenge any journalist to somehow write off the importance and influence of good subediting. Indeed, one friend of mine who works in the trade regularly explains how journalists “can’t really write anyway”—he would probably even suggest they have difficulty tying their own shoe laces— and that the “subs” do most of the writing in reality. Is this function to be placed in

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society

Is Europe Closing its Doors to Those in Need?

Conor Gannon discusses the increasing difficulty of accessing asylum within the E.U.

S

ara, a young woman from Afghanistan, gazes out through the bars of her window as a steady stream of tears flows from her face. You might imagine that she is distressed by the thoughts of the crime she has committed, but she is not a criminal: she is merely guilty of fleeing from persecution in her home country.

Like so many other refugees, Sara is being held in a European detention centre as her case for asylum is being processed. It probably seems to Sara as though the new European life she had dreamt of is now a rapidly disappearing figment of her imagination. She had done everything to give herself and her children

a chance in life, one where they would be recognised as human beings. Now that she has become separated from her family, undergone a horrific ordeal in order to make the arduous journey and has no idea whether she will get out of the detention centre, she is in despair.

There is no doubt that asylum seekers such as Sara are in a particularly vulnerable position, and countries, especially European member states, have an obligation under international law to protect such persons. According to the Geneva Convention (1951),

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society to which member states have subscribed, a person is considered a refugee when, ‘owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, they are outside their country of former habitual residence and are unwilling to return to it.’ In light of the increasing hostility towards refugees in Europe, there is a concern that we are failing to respect the rights guaranteed under the Convention. So what is the reality of accessing asylum in Europe today?

Despite what one might think, statistics show that overall asylum claims within the European Union have been consistently decreasing. According to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), around 112,000 people applied for asylum in the first half of 2005, which constitutes a decrease of 17% from the first half of 2004. This is what much of the popular media would have us believe. Headlines claiming that ‘immigrants are taking our jobs’ and ‘abusing our services’ are ill-informed and hinder people from forming an educated and balanced opinion on the subject.

Interestingly, more than half of all asylum applicants have arrived in the EU through illegal channels, often with the aid of an increasingly dense and efficient network of costly ‘people smugglers’. Once they have lodged a claim, the applicants must then wait for it to be adjudicated, an often lengthy process. During this time asylum seekers are detained, which can be quite damaging in the case of those who may have been tortured or affected psychologically by the situations from which they fled.

Many EU countries’ detention procedures are in breach of both the Convention and the rather broad UNCHR guidelines.

At the end of this process, some are granted full refugee status under the Convention and some are not. Regrettably, the number of those being rejected within the EU is on the increase. Removals from member states and voluntary departures comprise half of those that are rejected. It is assumed that the remanding half leave prior to the threat of removal but, most probably, they either went underground or did nothing, simply because there was no possibility for legal migration elsewhere.

Perhaps the fact that the rejection rates are rising has deterred some potential asylum seekers from making claims at all, preferring instead to remain underground. This would be likely for those with relatively weak claims and in countries where the flourishing underground economy makes it easy to live and work undetected. For these migrants, low wages and uncertain employment in the EU are better than the conditions they would face in their country of origin.

Over the past twenty years, the number of asylum seekers has increased exponentially in Europe. However, only 20% of the global refugee population came to Europe. The vast majority of people who have fled to save their lives were, and still are, received in the poor regions of the world. Despite this, political decisions across the EU as a whole aimed to reduce the number of entries and discourage new requests for protection. We can

see a clear trend in the tightening of external border controls after internal border controls were relaxed. This happened following the Schengen Convention (1990) and the Maastricht Treaty (1993).

European countries have taken steps to make asylum applications increasingly difficult. For instance, after the Dublin Convention, it was resolved that asylum claims would only be dealt with by one country, namely the state of first entry. Furthermore, it was decided that if an applicant had travelled through a country deemed to be ‘safe’, member states were allowed to refuse asylum to that person. A host of controversial readmission agreements followed, which allowed member states to send asylum seekers back to countries through which they had travelled. These were severely criticised as they were in contradiction of the Geneva Convention’s principle of ‘refoulement’, which forbade asylum seekers being forcibly returned to a territory where they might be at risk of persecution. Unfortunately, this has been ignored.

While these regulations might not have been binding, they gradually diffused across the EU. Today, rather than deterring asylum applications, the effect of tougher and inconsistent policies has been to deflect them from one EU country to another. As a result, there is a desire to create a common European asylum system. This is more difficult than it seems, as member states find it particularly difficult to agree on procedures to determine just who should qualify for international protection and what rights they should enjoy. Most countries seek to maintain their existing asylum systems as well as the security culture generated in the aftermath of September 11th. It seems bizarre, but terrorism has achieved a ‘success’ in the sense that there are now more restrictions on human rights than ever before.

The result of this procrastination has been an EU agreement at the level of the lowest common denominator. This falls far short of international standards and best practice in refugee and human rights law. The fear is that these minimum standards may be the maximum achieved. The former UN Secretary General attributed this to the fact that States tend to see immigration as a problem, not as a solution to the alleviation another people’s plight.

The ratification of the Lisbon treaty, which is now awaiting a judgement from the Irish people (incidentally the only country in Europe to have a referendum on it) could provide some light at the end of the tunnel. It contains a Charter of Fundamental Rights, which could provide the legal basis for ensuring that asylum seekers’ rights are vindicated in their application for asylum.

Ultimately, Europe will have to bear its responsibility by burden sharing, not burden shifting. This responsibility includes, in the words of the Vatican, ‘Respecting and protecting the dignity and human rights of migrants and refugees, which like anyone else, they are entitled to enjoy.’

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25/04/2008 17:11:51

culture

I

16. How has being a Language Assistant changed you?

Explain… by James Dempsey

t seems to me that the subject of change is on everybody’s lips this time of year, and it’s hard to escape. In the Dáil, the climate and the arrival of spring. It’s everywhere on campus, with stressed students burning the midnight oil, cramming any relevant fact into their brains. The libraries are packed to capacity and books are hoarded into nooks and crannies, students afraid that someone else will take the precious pages from their grasps. Instead of empty tables and audible whispers here and there, these days the libraries need a bouncer, and if you’re lucky enough to get a seat, more often than not, you find yourself sitting in the uncomfortably balmy body heat left over by some perspiring Senior Soph. realising that the end is nigh.

And I’d be one of them, stalking the German Satire section of the Ussher, the cranniest nook I know, hoping no one else has stumbled upon my treasure trove, or worse, some librarian has returned the book to its section. I’d normally be cursing staff efficiency and Dewey and his dreaded decimals. But no, I have a stay of execution, as I finish up my final days in southern Alsace as a Language Assistant.

I can’t escape the topic of change, though. Instead, I find myself bombarded from all sides. Last week, I got two emails in the space of a few minutes, both of which brought up the topic at hand. One, from Madam, telling me the topic of this issue was change, the other from the French Government, telling me I had to answer all questions on the survey attached, including the above number 16.

So here I am, asking myself if these past seven months have made me a different person. Normally, I’d labour the point a bit, maybe throw in some boring references to Existentialism and my essence and how only those around me can tell if my times they are a changin’. But I don’t even need to think about it, because the realisation that I’m different came to me in a moment of searing clarity about a week ago.

It was a Tuesday morning, like all the others I’ve spent in Altkirch. The school runs a programme called the B.T.S., which is a state-sponsored version of a P.L.C. course. The students, having finished their Baccalauréat , stay in school for another

two years, and come out with a vocational qualification. In my Lycée, it’s an accountancy B.T.S., but the students also take classes in languages.

Obviously, for these students the numbers add up while the languages are a struggle. Theirs was the first group I’d ever had, and it wasn’t the outstanding outset I’d hoped for. I was sent to a room, followed by two students, who were to answer some general questions and discuss a text. Easy peasy, I had thought.

The general discussion was fine; I’d remember my Leaving Cert days, and ask about hobbies and pets and weekends, past and future. The students were of mixed ability, but the real difficulty came with the text analysis. The topics on offer were not lemon squeezy at all, but rather, “The Increasing Rates of Sexual Abuse in High Schools and its Effects on Education”, which trumped me as much as the students. What was I supposed to ask, “So, you’re a girl… in a school, a schoolgirl so to speak, so… have you been sexually abused? And does this affect your homework?”

To top all this, I also had to fill out an evaluation of the students and grade them. But as I neared my seventh month, I’d come to grips with the B.T.S., and both the students and their teacher were happy with what I was doing. I’d seen all of the students, one on one, at least three times, so I knew what to expect. So there I was, sitting in my classroom, when there was a knock at the door, and in she walked. Amandine.

The previous classes with Amandine had resulted in me grading her as 5 and 4 out of 20, and I was just being nice and letting her pass. But this particular Tuesday I was in a bad mood; I hadn’t slept, I had forgotten to drop in my photocopy request sheets (only France could have such a bureaucratic system that you must fill out a call sheet and hand in the originals to be photocopied, getting it back two days later), which meant my whole week was out of whack and would probably be turning into a “Today we’ll be watching an Irish TV show, called Fr. Ted” festival. So I simply wasn’t in the mood to pull teeth.

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culture

General chat with Amandine was like something from “Marathon Man”.

“What are your hobbies, what do you like to do in your spare time?”

“Music… euhhh… cinema.”

“So what kind of music do you like?” “… j’sais pas.”

“Well… do you like rock, pop, metal, electro, rap?” “… j’sais pas.”

And so it continued, with Amandine j’sais pas-ing her way throughout the entire interview. Even if she’d said “I don’t know” instead, I’d have probably been nicer. But by the time we got to the text, the milk of human kindness had curdled.

The text was something relatively easy, about low cost airlines and passengers’ opinions. Amandine could not think of any reasons why passengers are attracted to low cost airlines, or any disadvantages to the service they provide. Instead, with every question I asked, I was met by her favourite two syllables of the English language, j’sais pas.

What annoyed me most about her was that she wasn’t nervous.

If she’d been suffering, shaking from anxiety, my sympathies would have surfaced. But she just plopped herself down in

front of me and proceeded to look at me like I was some sort of boring distraction taking up 20 minutes of her time. On the two previous meetings, I’d poked and prodded, figuratively, as the first text we covered was always on my mind.

In the most furious French I could muster, I looked her straight in the eye and said, “What are you doing? Do you want to fail? You have only said 10 words to me in English, all you say is j’sais pas and j’sais pas. You’re wasting your time, but above all, you are wasting my time, when I could be with someone who wants to at least try. You’re here to show off, show what you are capable of. Instead, you sit there, looking bored and you don’t react to anything. Go back to Mr. Giachetti’s classroom. You have no imagination. Just leave. ” And as she left, I saw the faintest trace of a quiver on her lips.

So, the question of change isn’t really the issue here, but rather whether I’ve changed from a mild-mannered Meath man into an absolute bollocks? The prospect of sending a sobbing schoolgirl from my class isn’t one I really relish. But, chastise me all you want, I am of proud of myself.

I had tried, I really had. I know that I had made more effort with Amandine than with the other students. I was patient and good tempered and helpful with her. I gave her all the advice I could muster. The previous times we had spent together, I had listed umpteen ways she could improve. And she threw my efforts back in my face.

And schoolgirl is too generous a term, to those bleeding hearts out there who think I went too far. This woman is 20 years old, had finished her schooling and was voluntarily sitting in front of me. She chose to do the B.T.S., just as she chose to ignore my advice and petulantly pout and j’sais pas for 20 minutes.

I am proud that I spoke up for myself, that I had enough respect for the work I had been doing, that I volunteered for, but for which I actually took responsibility. Irritable as I was that morning, I like to think that if I’d slept like a log the night before and opened my locker in the staff room to find a crisp pile of A4 sheets, warm from the photocopier, that I’d still have had the boules to do the dirty and call a spade a spade.

So yes, I have changed. I’ve come to respect myself more; the work I do in France is not the same as a teacher, I know, but I am there to assist the students to learn, and I hold up my end of the bargain. So I will tell everyone of my battle with Amandine, and tell them with pride.

Though, I probably won’t say that I made a girl cry in the French Government survey.

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society

No Room in The Sullivan questions whether Ark Leah it’s not a bit late for climate change C

limate change is happening even faster than many scientists had predicted. The trend of climate change is irreversible – there is no way that we can now prevent a rise in global temperatures that will not seriously alter life as we know it. Even if emissions reductions targets are reached we will still be faced with a situation which could trigger conflict and mass displacement.

While it would give me a degree of satisfaction to bitch and moan about the things that we should have been doing and are still failing to do to merely slow the pace of this doomed trajectory, what we are looking at right now is damage control. What changes will we have to make to our everyday reality in order to adapt to this future, and are there some changes to be made that will challenge our basest human instincts?

By 2010, the number of environmental refugees― people who are forced to migrate from their home due to climate changeinduced natural disasters― could grow to 50 million. Other estimates put the figure at 150 million by 2050. The injustice of the situation is that the people doing the most damage to the environment, countries with the highest carbon emissions per capita, will be the ones least in danger of lack of resources. The perpetrators will not be the ones who are forced to bear the brunt of their elephantine carbon stomp. The carbon-heavy decisions I make today in Ireland may well be felt by the person whose land becomes desert in Africa; it may well be felt by the Tuvaluan whose native land is swallowed by rising sea levels.

Tuvalu presents an interesting case. As leader of a low-lying island threatened with extinction from rising sea levels, in March 2002 Prime Minister Koloa Tolake said he was considering legal action against the United States and Australia, as the nations most responsible for carbon dioxide emissions, at the International Court of Justice. He did not succeed. Just as it’s so difficult to place blame on a particular party for a global trend, it’s too easy for us to shirk responsibility for a problem which is too easy to ignore.

activists....

However, as sea levels rise, arable land becomes scarcer, and fresh water becomes more precious than oil, we are forced to ask, where are all these environmental refugees going to go? At present, environmental refugees are not recognized by international law, meaning that they are unable to count on any material or juridical support. Last month EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana argued that as climate change threatens to “overburden states and regions which are already fragile and conflict prone”, the EU needs to radically rethink its policies to better protect its own political and security interests. This “close the castle gates” mentality is one of the most frightening aspects of the situation.

When push comes to shove, will we deny refuge to people who have been forced to leave their homes and have nowhere to turn but our own backyard? Do we dare deny a chance of survival for those from whom we, for the want of two weeks every year in Benidorm, have already condemned to death? The Indian government certainly has its priorities clear: in 2004 a 2500-mile fence along its border with Bangladesh was constructed to stop the flow of refugees fleeing high waters in Bangladesh. It seems we will already resort to physical barriers to protect our interests. What’s next- armed guards and attack dogs protecting our precious green pastures?

Some say that the only reasons for human conflict are resources, or a lack thereof, and religion. As recourses dwindle dangerously low, as the Vatican recently announced environmental pollution to be a new deadly sin, and American Baptists admit their moral responsibility to combat climate change, it seems that climate change and its consequences on human life will provide ample fuel for future human conflict. If this is so, then the next century will be a true test of man’s capacity for compassion in the face of adversity. In a country that claims to bitterly remember the pain and horror of a man-made natural disaster in The Great Famine, the idea that we might leave people to die in a natural disaster of our own creation should repel us to our very core. Will we try to keep people out with legislation, fences or walls? Or do we, as New Zealand has done in the case of Tuvalu, accept migrants, albeit with discriminatory restrictions?

(Tuvaluan migrants must have job prospects, speak English, and be under the age of 45.) The challenge will be to find the ethical solution; do we open up the proverbial flood gates to people displaced by the consequences of climate change of which we ourselves are the perpetrators? Or do we close the castle gates to “protect our interests” and leave millions of people to suffer, starve, and drown? You decide.

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society

The Tobacco Ciáran Cleary is fed up of fags.

Debacle (or...feels the time has come to combat smoking in society.)

A

t the main entrances to many buildings on campus, the passer-by is greeted with a colourful mosaic of debris. Chewing gum vies with cigarette butts for the pedestrian’s attention.

Meanwhile, an eclectic array of people can be found standing outside these doors at almost any time of day. With their faces set against the harsh Irish weather, these renegades inhale their cigarettes in an impressive display of defiance to efforts to clamp down on smoking.

According to figures from the Irish Office of Tobacco Control, following the introduction of the smoking ban in March 2004, there was a slight dip in the smoking rate. This trend subsequently reversed and at the moment, the rate oscillates around the 24% mark. In other words, smoking is still very much in fashion.

There are various reasons why people start, but the main one seems to be based on the social aspect. It is visible in countless films, both classic and modern. ‘Casablanca’ might have lost some of its romantic appeal if Humphrey Bogart gnawed on a carrot instead of drawing on a cigarette. Smoking seems ideal in that you can look great, make friends, keep your weight down and worry about the negatives at some far-off point in the future.

There is only one small problem: reality.

In reality, smoke contains as many as 4000 chemicals. These vary from mundane ones like water and carbon dioxide to more exotic ones like formaldehyde, naphthalene, benzene, phenol, benzopyrene, carbon monoxide, and arsenic. None of the chemicals in the second list are welcome in the body and will do as much damage as possible when inside. The most important substance to the smoker though, is nicotine.

All members of the Solanaceae family, including potatoes, tomatoes and black nightshade contain some nicotine, but the tobacco plant contains the greatest amount, concentrated in the leaves. It is a relaxant in low doses but highly addictive. In larger doses, the effects are more akin to a proper poison. Nicotine is even used as an organic insecticide by farmers.

Smoking is a direct cause of many diseases and ailments, which include but are not limited to: lung cancer, mouth cancer, throat cancer, coronary thrombosis, emphysema, ulcers, kidney failure, tooth degradation, and gangrene. Lung cancer is one of the most common in smokers. Usually, our lungs function perfectly

without giving any trouble. Only 0.5% of those with lung cancer never smoked once. Emphysema is another disease almost unique to smokers where the intricate, fractal-like structure of the lungs is obliterated by the vicious chemicals contained in smoke.

Smoking does not come cheap, either. Irish consumers of tobacco products pour millions of euro annually into the hands of the Government and multinationals like Imperial Tobacco and Altria, who are more than happy to accept the money. The only way to retrieve the vast sums of money spent is to sue these companies, but many of these legal cases fail because the firms say that people should take responsibility for their own actions.

That is a heavy price to pay for looking slightly trendier. The only tangible benefit smoking offers is weight control. However, the effect is superficial and could be better achieved by having a balanced diet. Besides, what use is a shapely figure if there is a good chance you will not be alive in 30 years time to enjoy the benefits?

Smoking is extremely resilient. Education does not work, shock tactics do not work, higher duties only partially work, and the smoking ban just pushed smokers outside. If governments are serious about stamping out smoking, they have to strike at the root and put a blanket ban on the sale of all cigarettes, cigars, and pipe tobacco. Snuff could remain for those who still want to find out what cancer in a nasal passage feels like.

This might seem draconian, but look at similar cases. Lead has been used since ancient times because it is easy to mine and work with. The Romans used it in water pipes and kitchenware, and it was widely used up to recently in applications like highoctane petrol. Unfortunately, lead is a dangerous poison and is being phased out as much as possible.

In addition, many other materials cannot be freely traded at all in Ireland, like cannabis and fireworks, and with good cause.

There is no reason why the same argument cannot be extended to tobacco. There are enough pointless deaths in this world without having to add tobacco into the picture. Failing a full ban, other avenues could be pursued, like placing colour photos of diseased lungs or mouth cancer sufferers on cigarette packets. If you are a smoker, you can either ignore what you have just read or you could try to change. It is never too late to give up, but the sooner the better.

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politics

Never Too Late to Change

B

Sarah Maguire highlights the Bill of Rights in Northern Ireland as an exemplary effort towards peace.

y turning on the television, radio or by opening up a daily newspaper we are brought to the reality of the world of violence that is around us. At present war in the Middle East and news of deaths in Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq come as no surprise to many.

It is at this time of relative peace in our own home region that we can reflect on the changes that are occurring closer to home, most notably the historical move in Northern Ireland towards establishing its very own Bill of Rights.

It is not my intention to delve into a history lesson of ‘the troubles’ but to point out that the adoption of the Bill of Rights is no less than a remarkable move towards peace in our very own backyard.

The main purpose of a Bill of Rights is to provide fundamental and essential rights to the whole community. The significance of a Bill of Rights is that it is a legally enforceable agreement between the state and its citizens. This is the first Bill of Rights ever to be produced in the UK and it is being put together by Northern Ireland’s main political parties along with the extended community and other voluntary and public sectors. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was an attempt in the past to achieve similar rights and it is good to see as time has moved on that there is still support for rights and liberties from the people of the North. Getting the involvement of the larger community and groups that are responsible for the welfare of the community should pay off in the long term as people can recognise the Bill as something they helped create and not just a Bill rushed through Parliament or legislation that involved little consultation with the community. Members of the Northern Irish community were asked to vote in an independent survey on what they thought of the idea of having a Bill of Rights. 75% of those who voted thought it was very important to have a Bill of Rights.

This large majority shows the great support for the Bill and it is pivotal that these people are getting the opportunity to have their say in what should be included in the Bill.

suit a post conflict atmosphere.

The rights will include social, economic cultural and civil rights.

This broad range of rights is included to recognise and appreciate the diversity that exists and promote the equality that was once so lacking in the North. The proposed clauses to be contained in the Bill range from equality, right to life, freedom from torture, the right to privacy, religion, education, rights for children, women, ethnic groups, people with disabilities and the victims of the ‘Troubles’. The clauses to be contained will be those which attract the highest level of support. Compromise is a tool which is necessary for this process to run smoothly and though this is not usually a word that springs to mind when mentioning the North’s political parties and population the process has been quite successful so far.

The Bill of Rights will help rebuild the confidence of the community in Northern Ireland and also restore faith in the legal system. It will signify a fresh start that has haunted the reputation of the area for the past 40 years. By developing its own Bill, Northern Ireland can build on the strength of the European Human Rights policies already in place and adopt these further around the needs of the region and around the history of the country to

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responses

Responses Response to Dearbhla Crosse

by Declan Harmon In the last issue of Miscellany, Dearbhla Crosse presented a very simplistic view of the problems in our healthcare system.

While describing the standards in our accident and emergency departments as being akin to the ‘kind of treatment you would expect in war-torn Iraq’, she asked, ‘What is Mary Harney playing at?’

Does it really help for writers and commentators to constantly be putting down our system? What must it do to the morale of hard working, frontline staff when they see their work being compared to that of a system in a country that until recently was ruled by Saddam Hussein? A dose of optimism about our ability as a nation to overcome the difficulties would be helpful, rather than allowing this doom and gloom to prevail.

Having praised the staff, however, I can’t give them or their representative bodies a perfect score either. Mary Harney’s task of reforming healthcare has not been made any easier by

Response to Graham Neary

by Anna-Marie Ryan In the last issue of Miscellany Graham Neary defended apathy, saying that, ‘those people without an opinion are not responsible for the crises dominating society.’ His basic argument was that apathetic people generally are not the ones causing the horrors that shake the world today and on that reasoning, perhaps apathy is something we should all strive towards. While I found the article interesting, I believe the argument is fundamentally flawed.

I would accept that apathetic people are generally not the ones committing the crimes; however, I feel apathetic people allow these things to happen. Instead of standing up and saying, ‘No, it’s wrong to [fill in blank]’, they sit back and say nothing because it holds no interest for them. Apathy is as dangerous to society as, for example, sectarianism. In a study of sectarianism in Northern Ireland, a pyramid was used to explain how it functioned. This pyramid placed psychotic killers at the top, above paramilitary organisations, which were above politicians and religious leaders, with ordinary citizens at the bottom. Each level was found to disown the level above it, and yet each level

those in the system with vested interests. While I do have some sympathy for the views of nurses, it is impossible to be supportive of consultants when the former head of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association describes a salary of up to €205,000 per annum as ‘Mickey Mouse’ money.

I am not a member or supporter of Ms Harney’s party, and I have major issues with many aspects of the policy platform of the Progressive Democrats; however I believe that there is no better person for the job. Mary Harney has bravely put her reputation on the line knowing that the Department of Health has haunted top politicians such as Rory O’Hanlon (who came to be known by campaigners as Dr Death), Michael Noonan (whose handling of the blood scandals while in the health ministry haunted him throughout his time as leader of Fine Gael), and Micheál Martin (the jury is still out on the permanent damage done to his political career by serving as Minister for Health). It is more selflessness like Ms Harney’s that we need in the health service and if we can couple that with a positive attitude, we can make progress.

could only operate with some level of permission from the lower levels. Essentially, the psychotic killers were allowed to exist because of the paramilitaries, who were there because of the political leaders who gained legitimacy from the ordinary citizens.

The pyramid proved that it was enough to simply do nothing, and the system would remain in place. All it takes is for people to be apathetic and not take a stand, and violence and corruption will continue unabated.

I take Mr Neary’s point that it’s not apathetic people perpetrating these acts, yet can they really avoid all responsibility?

I don’t think so. It’s not enough to say that apathetic people didn’t cause the the health system or whatever it may be, because they stood by and allowed these things to happen in the first place. Furthermore, simply because they didn’t cause the problem doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be responsible for fixing it. The Health service has been broken for a long time, the environment has been on a downward spiral since the Industrial Revolution, and the situation in Palestine has been in existence for a lot longer than that. At the end of the day, just because you weren’t around when the mess was made, doesn’t mean you’re not responsible for cleaning it up. After all, if you don’t, who will?

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I met Prumbles in the hall of the Museum Building. He was standing in front of the biggest of the two giant deer skeletons and looking at it.

“Why,” I asked, “do you stand in front of this giant deer skeleton looking up at it? Does it fill you with the deep yearning for possession which drives penniless artists to steal priceless paintings from galleries, or have you also noticed that one of its legs is a centimetre shorter than the other?”

“Turn around,” he said, “and observe also the smaller of these two giant deer. Look carefully at it and tell me if any idiosyncrasy strikes your eye.” I turned round. “One of its legs is longer than the other.”

“Wrong,” he said. “One of its legs is shorter than the other. Grasp the significance of your observations. Not just one limping giant deer but two- perhaps a whole race of giant limping deer. Females limping to the right, males to the left. Unable to meet the ever present threat of changing Nature this mighty race of lop-sided deer was overwhelmed in the struggle for survival.”

“Could it not be in some ways advantageous?” I suggested timidly. “The tendency to walk in circles would confuse their enemies.” Plumbles turned to look at me. “You are not taking me seriously,” he said. “You do realise that soon mankind will have to face up to the ruthless side of nature. The population soars: we have less than a lifetime in which to establish a World Government.”

“Then it will never be established,” I replied. “You are too much of an idealist, Plumbles. You do not realise how many people do not want a World Government. Patriotic feelings are fostered amongst people of every nation: men are made willing to die for their countries but not for mankind. Differing philosophies and natural tendencies divides our planet into antagonistic parts. Nature divides and rules.”

“You think you are taking a realistic view of things,” said Plumbles earnestly, “but you are a defeatist. It cannot possibly help to adopt such an attitude. Next you will be falling into the old trap of supposing that everything will work out alright in the end because it has done so in the past. I can see these giant deer saying that to each other the day before they finally became extinct.”

“I think,” I said firmly, “that the prospect of a whole world controlled by a single all-powerful government appeals to very few people.”

“It would not be all-powerful,” came the reply. “It would have only the power to halt the population increase and see that every human being had food and shelter and enjoyed good health.”

“You really imagine that it would be possible to establish such an organisation without someone using it to further their own, perhaps evil, purposes?” I asked a little scornfully.

“I imagine,” said Plumbles, “that id we do not very quickly try to establish such an organisation we shall, like these deer, become a dead branch on the evolutionary tree.”

I looked up at the deer. “I wonder,” I said, “if when all the bones were wired together they gave the large deer one of the small deer’s legs and the small deer one of the large deer’s legs.”

“Dear, dear,” said Plumbles.

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“ Time may change me,

but I can’t trace time.

”

-David Bowie

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