Monopoly of Truth

Scotland, separatism and celtic mythology

2009-06-23T04:25:00.000-07:00

I am not talking about King Arthur and Lady Guinevere. I am referring to the cult of celtic separatism which has become fashionable since the 1960s, specifically in Scotland.

Some would have you believe that the Scots are a race apart: a fierce tribe of plaid-clad wildmen with their own language, customs and genetic heritage, permanently at odds with the English, who have over the centuries raided, and oppressed them.

Films such as Braveheart and The Bruce have of course propagated the image. It in turn, has developed its own weight and is expressed frequently in Scottish media. The result of course, is a new-found national pride, a suspicion of things "English" or "British", the rejection of a shared heritage and a growing independence movement which looks set to be successful. Call it independence, but it merely subjugates Scotland to the EU directly, rather than via United Kingdom. Mel Gibson's cry of "Freedom" is a rallying-cry toward deception, Alec Salmond an EU stooge every bit as much as Gordon Brown.

That there were once tribes of celtic-speaking people living peacefully in the glens is difficult to deny. That they were invaded and conquered, repeatedly, is difficult to deny also. Our historic record is fairly good. Before the Romans came Scotland was inhabited by the celtic-speaking Britons (sometimes called Welsh) in the south and the mysterious Picts in the north.

We know little about the picts and little or nothing remains of thei language. But it seems certain they were descended from the original post-glacial inhabitants of these islands. Genetic studies indicate these early Brits came from the Atlantic seaboard of Iberia and their strain remains, to this day, the major part of our genetic legacy, right across Britain. The subsequent invasions of the last 2000 years have been nothing more than icing.

Fast forward. The Romans arrived, and had no joy against the men north of Hadrian's wall. Pictish and British (Welsh) kingdoms to the north, Romano-Britons (Romano-Welsh) to the south. Fast forward again to the 4th century and the first Scots, or Gaels started settling in the Western Isles. In the 5th and 6th centuries AD, further south and the Romans are replaced by Angles (angle = the root of England, English and anglo), Jutes and Saxons migrating across the North Sea from Denmark and northern Germany. Historians tell us at this point the Welsh-Roman Britons pack their bags and retreat westwards and northwards.

The northernmost Angle kingdom, Bernicia grows and extends as far as the Forth in the north. Bernicia and Deira merge to form the Kingdom of Northumbria. The Northumbrian Angles found the city of Edinburgh. Northumbrian influence grows across Pictish territories Dumfries, Galloway and farther north until repulsed. Scotland was at this stage a land of (indigenous) Picts, Angles, Britons and of course Scots.

The Scots brought with them their language, Gaelic, which eventually replaced varieties of Pictish and British (Welsh). Scots also invaded parts of northern England and the Severn estuary but did not impact the language significantly. Scots Gaelic is very similar to Irish but not to be confused with lowland Scots or old Scots, largely derived from Northumbrian Anglish.

If that wasn't enough the vikings started to invade all over Britain. The Orkneys, northern and western mainland of Scotland and Cumbria were settled by fair-haired Norsemen (from Norway). Across central and eastern England and scattered parts of Scotland, it was the Danes, close relatives of the Angles.

It was a Scot (or Gael), Kenneth McAlpin who finally united with the Picts and carved out a kingdom called Alba in 844 AD. It was not the Scotland we know today. The 'capital' was at Dunadd, and it did not include Strathclyde, Lothian, Galloway, Orkney, Shetland or the Hebrides. Edinburgh was still Northumbrian.

When York fell to the Danes in 866, the power of Northumbria was smashed. The Danes, Angles and Saxons fought it out until an English kingdom was established in 927 AD. The Normans (themselves French speaking vikings) upset the applecart down south in 1066. Malcolm III opportunistically struck south but William the Conqueror quickly struck back. Malcolm paid homage to William and Norman influence grew in Scotland, especially under David I. Jostling to keep his own power he surrendered much of Scotland's land to the Normans, who, rather like in England, became the backbone of the aristocratic class. It is perhaps for this reason that the most truly British strain of people in this island is the upper class.

Seminally Scottish clan names like Ramsey, Fraser, Hunter, Ogilvie, Cameron, Douglas, Hamilton, Sinclair, Wallace and Gordon (and many more) are all of Norman origin. The ultimate Scottish patriot Robert the Bruce was Robert de Brus. Thus Scotland came to have three languages: Gaelic, Scots and French.

It was not until 1237 AD that the modern borders were established between the two kingdoms under the Treaty of York, and 1266 that the Hebrides were finally won from Norway.

Not long afterwards began the messy squabbling between the pretenders to the throne that led to two invasions of Scotland from England. They became known as the wars of Scottish independence. It was never quite that simple. Scotland was divided into factions on both sides of the division and the whole mess would not have started if the Scots had not invited Edward I to arbitrate, then accepted him as Lord Paramount of Scotland, and then turned coat against him with the French.

During the first war William Wallace made his name, winning at Stirling, losing at Falkirk. He was not much like the character portrayed by Mel Gibson. He was a lowland aristocrat, whose ancestors are thought to have come from Shropshire, the name Wallace itself thought to be a Frenchification of 'Welsh'. Robert the Bruce's father wouldn't get involved, but eventually his son won a famous victory at Bannockburn in 1314.

The losing faction of the first war got together with Edward III's (keen for revenge after the humiliation at Bannockburn) support for a second (unsuccessful) try, to put the obsequious Edward Balliol on the Scottish throne. Scotland remained independent until in 1603, their king, James VI, a Stuart (another Norman clan) took the English crown (as James I) and unified the kingdoms.

His son, Charles I was famously decapitated by Cromwell's roundheads during the English civil war. The Scots were rightfully incensed. He was their king too, and the English parliament had killed him. Cromwell's puritanism had much in common with the Scots covenanters, but they did not rally to his banner. He invaded, and defeated the Scots at Dunbar. Thus Scotland was absorbed into the short-lived Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. The restoration followed, and Charles II came to power. His son James VII/II was deposed on both sides of the border during the Glorious Revolution. His daughter Mary (a protestant) was then crowned, sparking the Jacobite rebellions.

Often portrayed as conflicts between Scotland and England it was not that simple. The Stuarts were arguably the rightful heirs of the throne. They drew much support from the Scottish highlands but had support also in northern England, southwest England and Wales. Their symbol was the white rose of York. And not all highlanders were for James. It was a struggle between British supporters of catholic James Stuart and British supporters of his usurper, protestant William of Orange.

The massacre of Glencoe is one of the most memorable episodes in the Jacobite risings. On 13 February 1692 soldiers of the Campbell clan, loyal to William, murdered 78 unsuspecting MacDonalds, loyal to James. It sent a powerful warning to the other Jacobites and also signalled the end of the clan lifestyle. And by the way, each clan did not have its own tartan. That was a fashion introduced 150 years later, long after the clans had any significance.

1707 saw the legal creation of the nation of Great Britain, debt-ridden Scots allegedly bribed with English gold. Peace would reign but for the Jacobites twice more. The first rebellion (1715) started in London when Tory Jacobites conspired against the Hanoverian monarch. They were joined by a miner rebellion in Derbyshire and the weavers of Monmouth. Plotters in Cornwall and Devon were arrested, forestalling armed conflict. A large army of highlanders marched on Sherrifmuir. A second Jacobite army marched on Preston. They both lost.

1745 was the turn of Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Silvester Severino Maria Stuart, otherwise known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. Born and raised in exile in Italy, the young pretender is said to have spoken no Gaelic and no Scots. After victories at Falkirk and Prestonpans he marched to Derby but finding support lacking was forced to retreat. It was the wrong move. London was defenceless.

The Stuarts' ambitions died on the field at Culloden the next year and Charles fled to France. Again, often portrayed as an English invasion of Scotland, a British Hanoverian army (composed of highlanders, lowlanders and English recruits) defeated the Jacobite army (of highlanders and Frenchmen) for the final time. Fearing the danger of a recurrence the British government instigated the highland clearances. It was particularly cruel, and forced many to emigrate to north America. But was it any worse than the enclosures act?

In any case, the peace of sorts that followed allowed empire-building to begin in earnest. The British empire became the biggest the world has ever known. Scotland, throughout retaining autonomy of religious practice, law, education and (eventually) sport, prospered through the industrial revolution and Scots, numerically much inferior to the English have been at the vanguard of British affairs ever since.

Scottish - English relations have been at times volatile. You would expect nothing else between neighbours. But there has been no perpetual emnity, no irredeemable schism. The conflicts that there have been have had nothing to do with inter-racial hatred, everything to do with the power games of the ruling classes - ruling classes which, remember, are close kinsmen of Norman extraction.

What we today call Scotland has become home to Picts (probably Iberian), Britons/Welsh (celts), Scots/Gaels (celts), Angles (germanic), Norse (germanic), Danes (germanic) and Normans (franco-germanic). Pretty much the same components as the English...

A study commissioned by the BBC in 2001 for the programme Blood of the Vikings studied Y-chromosome DNA on males across Britain. It found some interesting results. Men who were tested in mainland Scotland had a percentage of Celtic genetic heritage similar to the population of southern England. Two myths were dispelled in one swoop. The Britons did not all pack up and march off when the Angles and Saxons arrived in England. They mingled. And the Scots are no more celtic than the English.

The border has been porous for centuries, with large numbers of Scots (of all strains) moving south, large numbers of English (of all strains) moving north. The so-called 'indigenous' language, Gaelic, (present in Scotland only slightly longer than forms of English) is spoken by only 1% of the population. English is spoken everywhere. Our heritage is indeed so similar that the process of differentiation is only achieved by rampant symbolism - the stamping of thistles, blue saltires or lions rampant on every stamp, milk bottle and number plate.

This is accompanied by a Scoto-centric insularity prevalent in all forms of media. Scots are increasingly believing that what happens in England, Wales or Northern Ireland is not relevant to them. Forgetting that theirs is only 8% of the UK population they have come to expect parity of representation in all things with England (with 84% of the population). It is impossible and it can only breed dissatisfaction.

As a colonial empire both Scotland and England have inherited new genetic input from all corners of the globe, and with the open border arrangements of the EU, all corners of Europe. This policy is of course making notions of nationhood and tribal affiliation weaker. It plays into the hands of the superstate on two counts. Firstly, nationalism is a natural reaction to mass immigration. Secondly, that nationalism and its natural conclusion, separatism, weakens the central authority of the state (Great Britain). This leaves the EU as the only authority. It is a classic divide and conquer strategy and it is working beautifully.

Is it a coincidence that the advent of Scottish nationalism coincided with the rise of the EEC? The EU now makes no secret of the fact its aim is a superstate. Most Scots nationalists overlook the fact that already around 70% of their laws are made in Brussels, not London. Of the remaining 30%, only a small amount are made in London. True Scottish independence is not from the UK, but from the EU! So far the signs are that Scottish independence, when it comes, will be as phoney as clan tartans.

Kingdom United

2009-06-11T03:34:00.000-07:00

The Cricket World Twenty 20 Championship has once again highlighted the confusion that enshrouds our competitive sports. England, the hosts, have started with embarrasment against the Netherlands, failing to live up to expectations, as we have come to expect. Other lesser-famed cricketing nations on the card included Scotland and a smattering of ex-pat antipodeans that, when cornered at the pavillion bar, enigmatically refer to themselves as "Ireland".

No Wales? Well, yes, in fact "England", the militant wing of the England & Wales Cricket Board, includes Wales. This is probably due to the fact that in legal terms, Wales is a part of England. We just don’t call it “England & Wales”. “England & South Africa” would reflect the demographic more accurately anyhow. The last Welshman in the side was Worcestershire pace bowler Simon Jones who hasn’t played since 2005. There are cries to re-establish a Welsh national cricket team which has not competed properly since its last friendly game against England in 2004. A separate Wales minor counties side (under the control of the Welsh Cricket Association, a purely amateur body), has been appearing in the NatWest trophy since the late '80s, occasionally playing quasi-international fixtures within the minor counties remit, once notably beating Denmark in the first round of the 2004 C&G Trophy.

A team calling itself Scotland has also appeared in minor counties cricket over the years. But this has nothing to do with the Scotland competing at the T20. You don't have to be Scottish to play for Scotland MC (but it helps). You do have to be Scottish to play for the Scotland national team (that might not help). Admittedly shinty lends itself better to the highland weather, but there have been a few Scottish cricketers of test match quality over the years, including the notorious Douglas Jardine, instigator of the ‘bodyline’ controversy in the ‘30s, and Mike Denness, Wisden cricketer of the year in 1975. They both of course, captained England.

The England cricket team: you don't have to be English.

Next year we look forward to the dazzling pageant of football and razzmatazz that will be the South Africa 2010 World Cup. Barring divine intervention neither Scotland nor Wales will be going. Wales have not qualified for a World Cup finals tournament since 1958, Scotland not since 1990. Barring disaster, England will qualify, the only home nation that routinely does.

There is no united Ireland in football. The Irish Football Association and the Football Association of Ireland (guess which is which) both field their own sides and both the Republic and Northern Ireland are still in with a shout (the latter after the best run of home results since the likes of Norman Whiteside and Pat Jennings saw them through to the Mexico World Cup in 1986).

This is unlike the situation in the rugby union world, where an all-Ireland team have played for decades, regardless of nationality or religion, a remarkable feat considering the history of the island. A similar arrangement for football is backed by the SDLP and the Irish Green Party but heavily opposed by the Ulster Unionists, which is not surprising.

Rugby league is in interesting case. Its popularity is restricted mainly to the ‘whippet belt’, that strip of Northern England between the Trent and the Tees. We originally competed as England and in the early days often took on a team known by the wonderfully precise name ‘Other Nationalities’, which soaked up all the Scots, the Welsh and South Africans who didn’t have a national team of their own. This changed drastically after the war with a significant influx of Welsh players to the league, and to a lesser extent Scots, attracted by the salaried nature of the game, in the days when union was still an amateur code.

With no serious playing base outside its heartland in the north of England, but with plenty of celtic rugby union defectors to draw upon England soon became Great Britain and Ireland, usually shortened to Great Britain. They were a strong side, always serious contenders against the best in the world, Australia. Since 1975 however they began intermittently splitting into home nations for world cup competitions. The dearth of league-playing countries made this necessary to make up numbers. In 2006 the Great Britain identity was finally retired except for occasional southern-hemisphere tours, rather like the British & Irish Lions - more a cost-sharing exercise than national crusade. Rugby League Ireland was established to run the sport in Ireland whilst England, Scotland and Wales remain ostensibly under the administration of one governing body, the Rugby Football League, although the latter has sprouted a separate subdivision for the sport in Scotland. What Ireland, Scotland and Wales have in common is that practically every single one of their players are as Yorkshire as flatcaps, or as Aussie as budgie smugglers.

Holding their own: Great Britain vs Australia, 1990

The London Games 2012, are a different proposition altogether. The Olympic Games is one of those increasingly rare occasions when we do stuff together (unlike the Commonwealth Games where the home nations compete separately). Northern Irish athletes will compete under the Great Britain & Northern Ireland banner (although the Northern Ireland bit is always left off) alongside athletes from England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and all other peripheral Crown Dependencies of ambiguous status. The Republic of Ireland will of course, do their own thing. This does however leave us a quandry regarding the olympic football competition. Aside from the fact that many people do not really think it belongs at the Games, and that the players are (U21) professionals, there has not been a combined UK or GB football team in play since 1972.

The problem is that there has never been a single governing body for UK football. The Football Association, founded 1863, was the first in the world. It didn’t call itself the English FA because it didn’t need to. It was the only one. Either that or it had pretensions to represent the whole UK. In any case it remained simply ‘The FA’, though Scottish, Welsh and Irish associations were founded soon afterwards, establishing exclusion zones for the home nations’ systems.

And so it has remained. The Scottish FA and the nation-builders in Edinburgh see the prospect of a British football team as a threat to their autonomy, the Welsh and Northern Irish slightly less so. The Scots are really horrified. Have I said that already? The argument seems fallacious, and is perhaps just political. Until 1972 we managed to put a GB team together and none of the associations were the worse off for it. Nor do the rugby unions suffer for fielding the British and Irish Lions. Nonetheless Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president has come out in sympathy for their concerns and this leaves us with the odd prospect of a Great Britain olympic football team, ostensibly representing the United Kingdom, but comprised entirely of English players. One might expect a few smug remarks about this being inevitable anyway. Perhaps the Scots are sparing their own blushes, but there will be no ‘Kingdom United’.

It's worked before: the 1912 GB olympic football team.

Aside from the Olympics the idea of a British football team has been mooted before. It never got far and this is tragic for one reason at least: the thwarted hero. The thwarted hero is that player of outstanding talent from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, who never gets to play in the World Cup. Those worthy of special mention here are George Best (Northern Ireland), Ryan Giggs, Mark Hughes (both Wales) and Ally McCoist (Scotland). These players were let down by below-par squads, resulting from their smaller national catchments.

They and many others would have found their places in a British team, which would arguably have been stronger than any of its parts. Who could say that a team comprising Best, Banks, Moore, Stiles, Charlton, Hurst, Toshack, Bremner and Law would not have beaten the world in 1970? Even knowing this, or perhaps precisely because of this, the Scottish, Welsh and Irish FAs prefer to put out a second-rate side that’s all theirs, rather than have minor representation in what would inevitably tend to be an England-dominated British side. This means no success in the World Cup, but as tennis player Andy Murray famously remarked, they can still support anyone that plays against England. It was just banter, but as Andy knew, there are many for whom the sentiment is serious.

So if never the twain shall meet, what about eligibility? In general home nations sides representing professional sports deem a UK-born player eligible to play for them if a) he was born in that country, or b) at least one parent or grandparent was born in that country, and c) he has not played for another national team at senior level. For a great many of mixed ancestry it boils down to personal choice, for others it is more complex.

Take the case of talismanic England forward Michael Owen. Michael comes from Flintshire, Wales, but was born at the nearest hospital, just over the border in Cheshire, England. His parents were both born in England and he has one Scottish grandparent. Despite having lived all his life in Wales, and of course the name, he does not qualify for the Welsh football team. Wales’ loss is England’s gain.

Naturalised citizens are theoretically eligible for any of the home nations. Those South Africans who arrive on tourist visas and end up on the England cricket team a couple of weeks later could theoretically play for Scotland if they wanted to. It is an odd paradox of the system. Denying British-born citizens rights that are afforded naturalised foreigners seems unfair, if not unlawful. There is no English, Welsh or Scottish citizenship after all. The fact is if you put a red dragon on Michael Owen’s chest he becomes Welsh; put a lion on him and he becomes Scottish; put three lions on him and in our minds he becomes English; but Michael Owen is best described as British.

Michael Owen: Welsh lad who couldn't play for Wales,

could have played for Scotland, but plays for England.

England’s relatively greater footballing success gives rise to a feedback loop in these situations, which tends to widen the gulf between them and the rest. Owen Hargreaves, a Canadian by birth, but with British parents, was eligible to play for any of the home nations. Perhaps because of his name he ended up in the Wales youth team, but just before his U21 debut, England approached him and he switched. England offered greater prestige and a better chance of playing in the big events. Except for true patriots, given the choice most ambitious young lads would do the same, and England aren’t complaining.

PFA player of the year 2009, Ryan Giggs, did the opposite. Born in Cardiff, he moved to Manchester as a youth and represented England schoolboys. Eligibility at schoolboy level depends uniquely on place of residence so for Ryan it wasn’t really a conscious choice. The England U21 squad hoped to get hold of him too until it transpired he has no English grandparents. He does have an African one. Ryan Giggs, British citizen, Manchester resident, Manchester United star, England youth player, English PFA player of the year, was eligible to play for Sierra Leone, but not for England. He has represented a below-par Wales ever since, rubbing shoulders with lower calibre ‘Englishmen’ such as Vinnie Jones, for whom having a Welsh grandfather was the only window to international football.

Confusion and ambiguity aren’t confined to football. Scottish squash player Peter Nicol did once play for Scotland in the Commonwealth Games, but later switched to England because of better funding. It was easy. He could represent England as long as he stayed there for six months prior to the Games. The Commonwealth Games chiefs have now tightened up the rules, insisting one be resident in said country for two of the three years prior to an event. Though one still imagines it might be easy to use a cousin’s address in Newport and bomb down the M4 on alternate weekends to tend the daffodils, should one desire.

The situation may change again soon. The aforementioned nation-builders in Edinburgh, with SNP leader Alec Salmond at the helm, are pushing for a complete separation of Scotland from the UK. At the same time, and regardless of constitutional changes, moves are afoot to separate Scotland from the Team GB olympic squad. The website www.c-scot.org claims 78% of respondents are in favour of a separate Team Tartan for 2012. Where that would leave the rest of Team GB is a perplexing question. “Team England, Wales and Northern Ireland” does not really roll of the tongue, and it would require some interesting photoshopping on the flag. Furthermore London 2012 would cease to be a home olympics for Scottish athletes. A patriotic Scottish public might not appreciate the value of home crowd support, but athletes do.

Athletes have ridiculed the idea of a Scottish olympic team, none more so than cyclist Chris Hoy. The most successful Scottish olympian ever has pointed out that he would not have three gold medals around his neck (or the knighthood, Chris) from the Beijing Games if it had not been for Team GB. Tellingly, what he doesn’t say is that it is because he feels British. It is because Scotland does not have the facilities to train up world-class athletes. Until Alec Salmond builds a new velodrome in Leith Team GB’s future seems safe.

Proud to be... receiving British sports funding – cyclist Chris Hoy

Domestic competition is less vulnerable to nationalistic sentiments. Entertainment is the draw, not national pride, English Premiership football of course being the jewel in the crown. The 'Old Firm' clubs of Glasgow, Rangers and Celtic, would like to join. Enticed by the big money and slightly embarrassed by the scruffy kids mum keeps inviting to their parties, they have made repeated overtures to the Premiership moguls. It represents competition at their own level, or better, and a payday unheard of in Scottish football.

For the most part the established Peremiership clubs, seeing plenty to lose and little to gain for themselves, have closed ranks. Phil Gartside, Bolton Wanderers Chairman is an exception. He has recently proposed a two-tier Premiership of 16 teams each, essentially sliding another division in between the Premiership and the Championship, with Rangers and Celtic in the second tier. It seems unlikely to get the backing of the required 14 out of 20 Premiership clubs, nor the blessing of the FA, the SFA and UEFA. If the top two were to defect, Scottish football would undoubtedly find itself heavily devalued, rather like its Welsh counterpart.

The rather oxymoronic Welsh Premier League is a parochial affair that hardly gets a mention in the papers. The top six Welsh clubs, including Championship high-fliers Swansea and Cardiff, long since left to play in the English leagues. The Welsh champions are Rhyl FC and frankly who cares. There is a Welsh Cup too, but it suffers from the same obscurity. The big six have not participated since 1995, now playing in the (English) FA Cup instead. Conversely, English clubs located close to the Welsh border used to compete in the Welsh Cup, but were booted out at around the same time. The last English winners were Hereford United in 89-90. This year’s final was between Bangor and Aberystwyth at the tiny Scarlets Park, Llanelli. The ground was almost empty.

Aberystwyth and Bangor outnumbered the fans at the Welsh Cup final, Llanelli 2009

Football in Northern Ireland is simlarly of low calibre, falling well short of the critical mass required to sustain a viable league of any standard. But this belies the fact that both Wales and Northern Ireland have produced, and continue to produce some of Britain’s most outstanding footballers, whose best career move is sadly, to go to England.

Consider Manchester United. Their enormous success over the years has been in no small measure due to the ranks of talented Welsh, Northern Irish and Scotsmen who could not be retained by their domestic leagues: Darren Fletcher, Brian McLair, Gordon Strachan, Mark Hughes, Ryan Giggs, Norman Whiteside, Gordon McQueen, Martin Buchan, Sammy McIllroy, Mickey Thomas, George Best, Denis Law, Jimmy Nichol, Arthur Albiston… the list goes on, and the trend is repeated across the top English clubs.

Perplexingly, if any of the Welsh clubs in the English pyramid were to have the kind of success that brought them European qualification, they would be barred from taking it up, since they remain under the administration of the FAW (Football Association of Wales), and as such could only qualify for Europe from within the Welsh system. They will cross that bridge if they ever come to it, but there were no doubt a few sweaty brows at UEFA when Cardiff made the FA Cup Final in 2008. Other anomalies abound. Now-defunct Gretna FC (in Scotland) used to play in the English league. Just across the Cheviots, Berwick Rangers (in England) play in the Scottish league. TNS of Oswestry (in England) play in the Welsh league.

The English system is massive, awash with money and attracts the best players from around the world and the British Isles. The Welsh and Northern Irish systems languish in obscurity and the Scottish league is robust but top heavy. The sensible solution might be comprehensively to merge the top tiers of the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish football pyramids. A British Premier League...? a British Championship...? A British Cup...? What would be wrong with fixtures such as Aberdeen vs Swansea or Fulham vs Kilmarnock? It seems logical. The travelling distances are short. New club franchises in Wales and Northern Ireland could boost the game there and draw on a fan base who have for decades supported the top English and Scottish clubs.

But could it work? It would fly in the face of political trends, powerful vested interests and threaten the autonomy of well-entrenched governing bodies who will surely fight tooth and nail for their survival. It might just require an Act of Parliament (or three) and the recall of the Black Watch from Afghanistan (funnily enough we still die in wars together).

There are few precedents to draw on. The FA’s original flagship event was of course the FA Cup, but in the early years being English was by no means a pre-requisite for entering. Queen’s Park was a regular. Even after the Scottish FA launched its own version, the Scottish Cup, several Scottish clubs continued to enter, including Hearts, Rangers and Partick Thistle. Queen’s Park even finished runners up on two occasions, losing out to Blackburn Rovers in consecutive years. The Scottish FA, sensing a leak in its jurisdiction and prestige, finally barred Scottish clubs from entering the FA Cup in 1887.

The closest we came to creating a British cup was the Anglo-Scottish Cup. This saw sixteen English clubs and eight Scottish clubs battle it out through knockout rounds over a few summer seasons in the 1970s. Public interest was weak, club interest eventually waned and the tournament was scrapped in 1981. What is clear is that such a competition cannot exist in tandem with the established FA and Scottish cups. It would have to incorporate them. It is certainly plausible, but with British football so resolutely balkanised an expansion of the UEFA Champions league across top-tier European football seems infinitely more probable.

Rugby union has found its own quirky set of compromises on this issue. Whilst the Guinness Premiership is an all-English affair, (if you don’t count London Irish, based of course in Reading, and no longer very Irish), the Magners League has combined the top clubs from Ireland, Wales and Scotland in what was originally called the Celtic League. Leapfrogging England entirely, the Magners League now looks set to expand to include two brand new Italian club franchises. There had been prior moves to set up an Anglo-Welsh league but negotiations broke down over the issue of how many teams from each would take part. David and Goliath reached a compromise in the case of the EDF Energy Cup, which finds room for the 12 Guinness Premiership teams and the four Welsh Magners franchises, one of which, Cardiff Blues, is the title-holder. The Scots and Irish stay at home.

We still just about manage to do tennis together. Unusually, we probably have our strongest Davis Cup team for decades and most of the top players are Scots, including the world number three and darling of the all-England club, Andy Murray. If they keep up their run of form we could see Alec Salmond calling out for more separatism. It is a remarkable situation. The celtic fringe has always suffered a massive numerical disadvantage compared to England. The combined populations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland represent only 16% of the UK population, which currently stands at around 61 million. This means traditionally that in any combined UK or GB team Scotsmen, Welshmen and Ulstermen are usually in a small minority. It is rarely mentioned, but this single accident of demographics is at the root of the British problem. The Scottish, Welsh and Irish struggle for political and sporting parity with England is an impossible dream.

Andy Murray: He's Scottish and we love him.

It only poses a problem insofar as we cling on to the home nations identities and reject ‘Britishness’, and we stubbornly do. After all, within an English context, could the same logic not be applied by those forgotten underachievers the Northumbrians or the men of Wessex (proudly independent as recently as the 9th and 10th centuries respectively) to field their own national teams? If our history had perhaps been less murky, our constitution more resolved and our future less uncertain, we might perhaps have become real Brits. Nowadays it seems less likely than ever, as the protective cradle of the European Union has offered smaller nations the escape route they were waiting for and a rash of panting separatism has swept across western Europe.

We aren’t particularly good at looking abroad for inspiration, but perhaps we should. Giant countries like Brazil and Russia (itself with 100 nationalities of its own) put out unified national teams. Our neighbours the French and Spanish are no less diverse than we. (They boast 10 native languages and dialects each, whilst the UK has 5). But despite this and despite being much larger countries, when it comes to sports France is always France, Spain is always Spain and they still manage to muddle through with just one domestic sporting structure, one flag and one anthem. From a British perspective (if there is such a thing) there’s something quite refreshing about that!

The issue of anthems adds more mud to the mire. Like it or not, there is only one official national anthem in the UK, God Save The Queen. The England football team use it, although they did have an inexplicable Rule Britannia phase for home internationals, cunningly substituting one British anthem for another. The Northern Ireland football team also use God Save the Queen. The all-Ireland rugby union team are supposed to do so also on the rare occasion that they play in Belfast. (If they play England there would the anthem be sung twice?) In Dublin they sing Amhrán Na bhFiann, the anthem of the Republic (presumably loudly enough to drown out the gritting of teeth) and in an uncommon compromise they came up with a third anthem, ‘Ireland’s Call’ to use at away matches.

It would be fascinating to know what would happen if rugby union ever makes it as an olympic sport. Assuming the rugby football unions could co-operate, unlike their association football counterparts, and assuming Team GB survives, would Northern Irish players play for the Republic of Ireland, or for Great Britain against their teammates? One imagines it might depend on which anthem they sing best.

God Save The Queen used to be played at Scotland games but the boos got so loud that since the ‘90s rugby and football sides play Flower of Scotland instead, a tune composed allegedly, in a nice touch of paradox, on Northumbrian pipes. It recalls Robert Bruce’s routing of Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314 and, reassuringly to those south of the border, is the favourite to be one day selected as an official Scottish national anthem. The problem with God Save the Queen, it is said, is the legendary extra verse added during the second Jacobite rebellion of 1745, that includes the cleverly tactful line ‘…like a torrent rush, rebellious Scots to crush…’. Even if the story is true, the Scots really had nothing to worry about. No-one knows the words anyway.

Although Scottish nationalists generally find common cause with their counterparts across Europe, in an ironic 1925 parallel, passionate Catalans at FC Barcelona’s stadium jeered the Spanish national anthem before a game and then proceeded to applaud God Save the King, played by a visiting Royal Marine band. The dictator, Primo de Rivera was enraged. The stadium was closed for six months and the club’s president forced to flee the country. Perhaps foreign observers can appreciate our virtues in a way that we can’t. More likely it was just an impudent protest. But it reminds us that Britain has enjoyed a freedom of expression rare in other parts.

Scotland the Brave, the second favourite for a Scottish national anthem, is used at Commonwealth Games medal ceremonies, the Northern Irish use Danny Boy, whilst English medallists hear Land of Hope and Glory. The latter was also used by the England rugby league selection until 2005, when they reverted to God Save The Queen, perhaps to coincide with the demise of the Great Britain side. According to a 2006 BBC poll Land of Hope and Glory is the frontrunner if England ever finds itself dismembered and needs an anthem of its own. Other polls, notably www.anthem4england.co.uk, have the favourite as William Blake’s Jerusalem. This is the tune that England’s cricketers have been getting dewy-eyed to on pavillion steps since 2003.

The Welsh songbirds gain points for consistency, firing themselves up to Land of Our Fathers whatever the occasion. There was controversy at the 2008 FA Cup Final when Cardiff FC, (a rare summer visitor), insisted on having it played at Wembley. Cardiff had managed to muster three Welshmen in their lineup, five Englishman, three Scots and one Ulsterman. A more authentically British team could not have been conceived, but the FA agreed to their request, although no English anthem was played alongside, at what was supposedly an English occasion, in front of a predominantly English crowd, in England.

British team, English competition, Welsh songs: Cardiff at the Cup Final

A few years ago it might not have ruffled a brow but the English are slowly catching on. England fans nowadays proudly fly the cross of St. George and the three lions banner at matches, having finally understood that the union flag is not theirs. At the 1966 World Cup finals and even into the ‘90s many seemed to think it was, whilst for others Englishness had been subsumed into a generic Dad’s Army kind of Britishness, which was at its heart inevitably quite anglo-centric. This used to produce the odd spectacle at England-Scotland games, of stadia semi-festooned with union flags and demi-bedecked with blue saltires, presumably keeping psychoanalysts in the Wembley area scratching their heads.

“England, Great Britain, same ‘fing ‘innit?” World Cup fans, 1966

Undoubtedly the parliamentary devolution movements of the ‘90s played a part in reviving English symbolism too. Scots have always been very comfortable with their cross of St. Andrew and their lion rampant, the union flag kept for best when aunt Lizzy comes to visit. The curious exception of course, are Rangers fans, who wave the union flag in furious defiance of the Celtic followers, who naturally brandish Irish tricolores back at them. Happily, they can all agree to boo at God Save The Queen, but not within earshot of Balmoral, one hopes.

We're Scottish, can't you see? Celtic fans at an Old Firm derby.

The hurdler Colin Jackson tells the story of his agent, an Australian, the first time he saw Colin draped in a red dragon. “What’s that?” says the agent. “It’s the Welsh flag” replies Colin. “I thought you were British.” says the agent. He might be forgiven. Wales has no representation on the union flag. In fact it’s difficult to see how the red dragon could be accomodated, and technically Wales is still part of England, remember. There have been suggestions that the little known cross of St David (gold cross on black background) could be revived and insinuated on the union flag by adding gold trim around the edges of the St George cross. It has never been used as an official flag.

Neither has the red saltire, or cross of St. Patrick. It was once unofficially used to represent all of Ireland but after the split came to be more associated with the south. Northern Ireland has no official flag of its own. The Ulster banner, a kind of George Cross with red hand, is often used to stand in, but this was in fact only the flag of the former Northern Ireland government. Another proposal being put forward is a combined cross of St Andrew and St Patrick, a kind of union flag without the English, intended to represent the mixed Scottish and Irish ancestry of the province. It is bound to cause controversy and unlikely to catch on.

Welsh IS British, silly!: former hurdler Colin Jackson

Politics and vested interests run through sport like buses down Princes Street: frequently, noisily and blocking sensible moves in the right direction. In these days of constitutional confusion when neither we ourselves, nor foreigners know if we’re British, Welsh, or European, there seems to be less and less that binds we ‘Brits’ together. It may well be that our varied and separate identities, in an arena as stirring as competitive sport have contributed to the unravelling of the bonds of union we are now witnessing in the political sphere. Or perhaps the confusion over our sporting identities is symptomatic of the fact that it was never going to work anyway.

Unique among countries we can switch between identities as we wish. Scottish for football, British for tennis. English for cricket, British for the olympics, Welsh for rugby, British for warfare. Certainly we have been innovators, inventing most of the world’s favourite sports. Whilst we waited for the world to catch on the home internationals were the only internationals, giving rise to the sporting sectarianism that still persists on our little archipelago. The first football international, Scotland v. England, was played by 22 enthusiastic Victorian gentlemen on 30 November 1872 at the West of Scotland Cricket Ground, Glasgow. It was a goalless draw, but the outlook seemed promising. The match report gushed “A splendid display of football in the really scientific sense of the word, and a most determined effort on the part of the representatives of the two nationalities to overcome each other.”

The annual football friendlies (the Home Championship and the Rous Cup) were done away with years ago due to crowd trouble. The rivalry got acrimonious and in the wake of the Heysel and Hillsborough disasters our image abroad could not take any more battering. Nowadays England are as likely to take on Kazakhstan 3,500 miles away in Almaty as to risk a trip up the M74. There is talk of reviving the home internationals in the near future, but with a difference. The Four Associations Tournament will, rather like the Magners League, include the Republic of Ireland, but not England. One hopes it will be a success but the question remains, if we won’t play together how united is the kingdom?

Wikipedia, the EU and censorship

2009-04-01T04:50:00.000-07:00

We all live with Wikipedia. It has fast become the de facto encyclopedia of our times. Any google search will return high on the results list, a Wikipedia entry relating to your search. It's used by scholars, students, housewives, interested daydreamers, politicians, civil servants, businessmen etc. etc. etc.

The revolution of Wikipedia is that you can write it yourself. You don't even have to log in although if you don't log in you are warned that your IP address will be displayed publicly. Want to make a change? Make a new entry? Just click "Edit Page" and away you go. The downside is of course that your changes can be superceded by anybody else...

It's the democracy of information, perhaps eventully it will become the sum of all human knowledge. We'll see, but today I tried something interesting. Having read the page on the European Union I thought I would exercise my democratic right and make some clarifications on what I found to be, an informative but frankly misleading depiction.

When you're trawling through a long piece on Wikipedia (and the EU page is a long one) you tend to save as you go along and that is what I did. In fact, I saved after the very first word I input, which was just a modest (unofficial) between the words "Anthem" and "Ode to Joy".

I was immediately informed I had a message. It said words to the effect that my edit had been declined as it was deemed to be unconstructive. OK, fine, I'll let that go - on to the body text:

The additions I made included the following:

"although the Parliament does not have the power of an executive."

"After some minor modifications of the Treaty, there are plans for a second Irish referendum, and so on until the Treaty is ratified to the satisfaction of the European Commission. Once the constitution is ratified the EU will officially assume most of the entities of a sovereign state. Until then, the EU flag and the anthem (Ode to Joy) are not sovereign symbols and have no lawful standing as such."

"although this does not avoid allegations of widespread corruption and cronyism throughout its institutions"

"contrary to the popular illusion that it is the European Parliament that fulfills this function"

"These political groups will eventually replace national party identities in member states"

"The euro is designed to centralise fiscal and economic powers across the Union, including crucially the authority to set interest rates. It also eases the flow of goods and labour..."

Now, I can't include all the context for these amendments but you will get the picture that I am slightly "euroskeptic". Once more I saved as a I progressed, all fine and dandy. But when I had finished and made my final save I was warned of an Edit Conflict. Now, I hadn't experienced that before but I was informed that the page I was editing had been re-edited before my final edit had been submitted.

A long and extensive appraisal of my changes and the reverted state of the page were included. To summarise, all my changes had been scratched and the page reset to its state before I'd even started. This had happened within just a few minutes. It hardly seemed in the spirit of democratic Wikipedia! Or perhaps it was (?)

Well, either there was a pro-EU Wikipedia moderator on duty on a diet of caffeine pills or the EU is using our money to pay a roomful of interns in a Brussels basement to monitor the web with a handy clipboard of cut and paste official propaganda. I don't know, my censor's name and IP address weren't displayed...

Please, if you are curious about this give it a go and let me know what happens.

The Georgia Guidestones and the New World Order Agenda

2009-03-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

In the rural hinterland of the American south, not far from the self-styled "granite capital of the world", Elberton, Georgia; a number of granite monuments have appeared over the years. Not surprising, considering the abundance of the resource in the area. More granite is produced in Elberton than anywhere else on the planet. They are a point of interest for tourists passing through the area and little more. One monument, however, has achieved a degree of international notoriety and in some corners, admiration (not least Yoko Ono, who is a big fan). It is known as the Georgia Guidestones, and also referred to as "The American Stonehenge".

The monument was allegedly commissioned in 1979 by a well-heeled gentleman calling himself R.C. Christian. We know this wasn't his real name as he indicated the fact on the small signature stone laid on the ground a few feet from the monument. We know precious little else about him. What we can say is that he had some substantial means in order to pay for the monument, and that his convictions were sincere enough for him to want to set them in stone. Not only that, the inscriptions are in 8 different languages. Mr Christian wanted to reach an audience. We also know that he wasn't alone. The signature stone alludes to "A small group of Americans who seek the age of reason."

Unlike the dolmens of Stonehenge, which as far as we know have never been engraved, the Guidestones are inscribed with a set of ideals, a manifesto for the future of humanity, if you will. Some go as far as to call them the "10 Commandments for the New Age".

I will next list the inscription on the stones with a small commentary after each point, discussing the possible implications as I see them.

Maintain humanity under five hundred million in perpetual balance with nature.

This immediately looks like a page out of Malthusian theory. Rev. Thomas Malthus was an 18th Century economic theorist. He contended that unchecked, populations grow exponentially and eventually destroy the capacity of their environment to support them (the systems of which are said to grow linearly). This, he said, eventually leads to a drastic population collapse, an event which biologists and economists refer to as a Malthusian Catastrophe.

Currently our global population stands at around 6 billion and growing. To reduce the population to 500,000 implies the removal of 5 1/2 billion people. To better envisage this: the current population of India is around 1 billion. Imagine halving the Indian population, and then removing every single other human being on earth; nine tenths of humanity as it stands. What kind of Malthusian events might achieve this and in what timescale we do not know. One can only guess that disease, environmental disaster, war, famine, abortion, euthanasia, contraception, sterilisation, infertility and even mass execution might all be required to play a part. I would not scoff at any of these possibilities- they are all already a daily reality, though not quite on the scale implied here!

So Mr. Christian is foreseeing something Malthusian in the offing, nay, apocalyptic. Perhaps he sees that inevitably humanity will eat itself into extinction or blow itself up. He could be right. But what if Mr. Christian and his American friends were actually ruthless enough and powerful enough to take matters into their own hands?

Why would Mr Christian and his friends want so drastically to reduce the population? Less competition? Perhaps they're a hopelessly misanthropic bunch. Maybe just downright evil? Or maybe deepdown is a heartfelt conviction that it is the only option to save humanity. Perhaps the end justifies the means. The counter argument to this, of course, that Malthusian catastrophe is hypothetical. Why would bringing about a devastating artificial apocalypse be any better?

Could they have the means to do it? Well, the means are certainly out there. Without knowing who R.C. & friends are, we can say we have the nukes to wipe ourselves out pretty quickly and comprehensively and if any of this bunch are high in the US government, we could be in for a Dr. Strangelove. Are people capable of starting wars for "ulterior motives". Well, did you see any WMD in Iraq? Furthermore, The Reece Committee found out a lot of nasty stuff about tax-exempt foundations in the US doing just that and plenty more. Seeing is believing.

Aside from war, well, in the West, abortion, contraception, sterilisation and infertility (thanks to a steady cocktail of chemicals and female hormone in the water) are all nibbling away at the population, but very slowly. Add in euthanasia (or the "right to die with dignity" - the only kind of rights that seem to be expanding these days!). That's making its debut on the front pages so you can be pretty sure it'll be legal in a few years. What about disease? Some say ebola, AIDS and plenty of other nasties were developed in military laboratories for just the ends we are talking about. There's no end of diseases out there, but the population is still growing. Added to that, the concerted efforts of a great many scientists and doctors who are still genuinely trying to treat disease rather than spread it. They're gonna need a bigger bug...

Sterilisation is pretty big in the developing world. Bill Gates himself has poured billions into such projects. Of course, if you are a poor chap in the developing world, you look to kids as being your hope in life, not the bane. Consequently, not enough people come forward for the snip voluntarily. There has to be a degree of coercion and deceit. For some mysterious reason the targets, in Latin America at least, tend to be the indigenous communities. Racist eugenics? Well, maybe...

The environmental crisis. We know the dangers of global warming, whether natural or artificial. Will floods wipe out our coastal cities, claiming millions? Perhaps, in time, we will destroy our planet's finite water supply. We've already seen trunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes. None of them very predictable and all of them claiming casualties in the thousands, at worst tens of thousands. Barring a random asteroid collision, only truly apocalyptic acts of God could slay billions.

Starvation is promising. You may have noticed the great progress made by GMO crops in recent years. All completely against popular opinion of course (no pro-GMO rallies in my neighbourhood anyway!). A key tool in GMO is the so-called terminator gene which produces a crop with no fertile seed. Now, the main reason for this is good ol' monopoly. Once the agro companies have a dependent clientele (such as Iraq, where it is now forbidden to cultivate 'natural' wheat), they will have to return year after year to the GMO seed producer to buy more seed. Heartless enough. But if you did want to starve half the world (or nine tenths of it), get the world hooked on GMO and oops, you have a big red button to do it.

What about mass execution? The problem with this of course, is that it is slow, it is distasteful and it is expensive. It looks bad on TV and the public would not be too keen. On the scale of billions, you need macro events to do the damage. Nuclear wars, starvation and some serious disease. Whether R.C. Christian and friends are at all of the mindset or in a position to advance any of these scenarios we do not know.

Mr Christian, of course, does not indicate which sections of humanity would be for the chop in such a scenario, but I suspect that he might not be including Mr & Mrs R.C. Christian, R.C. Junior or his small group of American friends that seek the age of reason. Nor can I imagine that anyone else influential enough or arrogant enough to propagate the notion will be queuing up at the slaughterhouse!

The last part of the statement "in perpetual balance with nature", implies that the population should remain static, i.e. maintain a neutral replacement rate: for every one that dies, one should be born. Which leads us to Guide number 2.

2. Guide reproduction wisely, improving fitness and diversity

Well, if you want to maintain a static population and "improve fitness and diversity" you are going to have to exercise a great deal of control. Human reproduction has always been chaotic, uncontrollable, unpredictable. Genesis says: "Go forth and multiply, replenish the earth." It's a basic human right. Right?

We may actually be looking at the end of natural reproduction altogether, in favour of in-vitro, State-sanctioned artificial insemination and even, down the road, human cloning. Do not scoff at this idea. Attempts are already being made (illegally) to clone human embryos. Even in the UK, the idea of "carbon-taxing" larger families has been tabled. "Guide" is a weak euphimism for "control" We're talking about genetically engineering humanity here, and even selective breeding! - thus far reserved for crops and livestock. It would indeed seem that free, natural reproduction is to end if Mr. Christian is to have his way.

1938 cover of Neues Volk (New People), magazine of the Nazi Racial Policy Office

This is a eugenics agenda. Dictionary.com defines eugenics thus:

the study of, or belief in, the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)

Eugenics movements have been flourishing in Europe and North America ever since the Darwinian revolution. The term was coined by Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin. (Darwin himself was a prominent adherent and his family would only breed with the Wedgewoods and the Huxleys, with disastrous consequences). It was one of these Huxleys that would go on later to write the book "Brave New World" which contains many ideas inherited from Malthus, Galton and Darwin, and indeed bears many parallels with the message of the Guidestones.

Eugenic theory have been and continue to be used to justify racism and extermination of "inferior" native peoples in the Americas, Africa, Australia and elsewhere. Whilst popular and respectable amongst Edwardian and Victorian society it lost favour when the Nazis exterminated millions of Jews, Slavs and Gypsies in the name of racial improvement. Hitler wasn't the original. He modelled his policies on American notions. Did the eugenicists all disappear in 1945?

Human genome project, genetic engineering, fertility treatment, therapeutic abortion, cloning.... no, of course they didn't.

3. Unite humanity with a living new language

"War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength". Thus spake George Orwell, in 1948, foreseeing an era of euphemism, doublethink and spin, which are now fed to us in our daily diet of propaganda and advertising. With the advent of neurolinguistic programming we are increasingly aware of the immense power of words to manipulate and direct our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Undoubtedly there are good applications for this, but also plenty of machiavellian ones.

It is not clear at this point in time, when English is fast establishing itself as the lingua franca of the modern world, what this living new language might be. Perhaps some evolved form of English, perhaps an entirely new, invented language, in the style of esperanto. Or perhaps a new creole; a truncated fusion of English, Spanish and Chinese internet slang. (I suppose a lot will depend on which nations survive the Malthusian Catastrophes).

The idea of losing our est. 6,800 current living languages will certainly enrage many. Great efforts are being made to preserve minority European tongues, such as Welsh and Scots Gaelic, with new media channels and a revival of primary school instruction. But in a shrinking world of homogenisation and dissolving boundaries, around 3,000 languages are predicted to die out in the next 100 years alone (according to linguist Stephen R. Anderson). Without use and nurture languages tend to die, and along with them the cultures of their speakers.

In biblical times God scattered the men of Babel and made them speak in diverse tongues so that never again would they attempt to subvert His authority. It looks rather like we're doing it again! Language has the power to unite, to divide and to protect our privacy. Subversion occurs in foreign tongues, folk tales and rebellions. John Woo's movie Windtalkers showed that in wartime the Navaho language was in fact a more powerful weapon than any secret code. Languages are powerful. Dictators throughout history have recognised this and attempted to stamp out minority languages exactly because of this threat. The unity R.C. is talking about may also be subjugation.

Words reflect our lives and also direct them. When one loses a word, one also loses the idea it stood for. Similarly, an unknown idea is given life with a new word. In his book "1984" Orwell described "Newspeak" as "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year". Its intention was to make any alternative thinking impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on. They say the Inuit have dozens of words for snow, but none for dishwasher. I wonder if the lexicon of R.C. Christian's utopia will contain words for "love" or "freedom".

4. Rule passion, faith, tradition, and all things with tempered reason.

No euphemism here. To rule all things, with tempered reason. All things. Somewhere, the authority in place to rule all things. Well, we seem to be making headway towards this great global authority already. The financial and judicial bases are being laid for it. Who, of course, will be wielding such unchallengable authority we do not know. The apparatus has not been chosen democratically, so there is little reason to believe its leaders will be either.

Passion, faith, tradition, to me sound like some of the foundations of the human experience. This encompasses our emotions, our belief systems, our religions, our sexuality, our cultures, our ideas and our dreams too! What will happen if one's ideas are considered out of line or seditious in this utopia? I can't tell, but this sounds like a regime that won't take kindly to criticism or noncomformity.

And what of course, constitutes tempered reason is a matter for debate. Reason can mean the end of ignorance, the end of superstition, but also the end of empathy and compassion. To me this does suggest the end of free thought, free choice, free speech and free will. Without too much irony I can say, this is political correctness gone truly mad...

5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

Well, this sounds perfectly reasonable. People should be protected by fair laws and just courts. It's what we already expect. The danger in this statement lies in the protection of "nations". This relates also to Guide 4. It is alluding to the establishment of an international court which is right now coming about along with a world central bank. This in itself might seem a good idea. But if you have a court, you are enforcing law. Whose law? An international court requires international law, law which will overrule the laws of all the nations under its jurisdiction (presumably, all of them). There is no room for national sovereignty in Mr Christian's utopia.

In what is already looking like a very totalitarian world, I wonder who would be making that law (you can bet it won't be who we think it is), what their idea of "fair" and "just" might be and who on earth would be able to challenge it.

6. Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world court.

Aha! So we were right about the world court. But this point is also alluding to internal self-regulation. We don't know what the shape of nations will be like in Mr Christian's post-Malthusian utopia. They may have merged, broken down, eroded, splintered. Who knows, in the wake of whatever cataclysms eradicate nine tenths of humanity and with only one language amongst them.

What we can see are parallels here with the current European situation. The EU member states have slowly, over the past few decades handed over the bulk of their law-making power to the central authority of the European Commission, Parliament and Courts in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. Similar projects are underway for a North American Union, a southeast Asian Union and an African Union.

Each member state is already subdivided into EU regions. These EU regions will eventually replace, or so the plan goes, the sovereign member states as political entities. e.g. under the current plan the UK is currently constituted of 12 EU regions. Eventually each will have its own local legislature and regulation, with "national" law being decided in Brussels. This plan has partly come to fruition with legislatures now established in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. I have to say, it was ingeniously implemented, with millions of patriotic Scots and Welshmen (also Catalans, Basques, and several others) actually believing they are on a road towards independence (independence from the UK could happen, but is irrelevant. Independence from the EU, that is to say real independence, will not). The remaining eight English regions await their new parliaments, but it is promised.

Under even more radical proposals new cross-border regions are being drawn up that respect no national boundaries or geographical barriers. This would group, for example, southern England with north-west France in a region known as "trans-manche". Obviously such groupings are designed to confound cultural and nationalistic bases for independence or withdrawal from the EU. It is exactly the same strategy used by Napoleon to break up the independence ambitions of minority nations within France. National governments, as they exist today, will eventually be scrapped, and authority centralised.

Guide 6 looks like the European model, gone global.

7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials

Amen to that. I think most of us do our best to do this anyway! A fine principle, but rather vague. On the face of it it does seem to contradict Guide 6, but that may just be the point. It sounds like a get-out clause! It all hinges of course on how one defines a petty law and a useless official. Could it actually be used to slowly erode the authority of the nations and regions discussed in Guide 6 until all real authority is centralised? We're already getting the picture of a power-hungry global government here. What if they then want to do away with Guide 6 and have ALL the power? I don't think anything is beyond Mr. Christian at this point.

8. Balance personal rights with social duties

Some time after his inauguration President Barack Obama made a speech. In it he declared he would be expecting more from the American people, that sacrifices would have to be made, that they must all work harder for a better future. The masses clapped, roared and hooped. What man, since Hitler, could ask such things and get such a response?

Obama has since announced his plans for a civil militia. In effect a civilian draft, where citizens would be required to serve, training in basic "emergency" and "counter-terrorism" activities. They intend the force, which will work in close collaboration with the army, to number one million. All Americans under the age of 64 will be "required" to serve for a minimum of three months (initially). It is not an option. There is more than a whiff of Waffen-SS about this scheme, and more than a whiff of Nazi rhetoric about Obama's speech.

In other words, mandatory military service has returned to America, shrouded in the usual gloss of euphemism. But not the kind where soldiers are sent off to fight a foreign war. This "civil" force is for domestic use only. Four million Americans will be trained to kill per year. They will be soldiers in all but name. But what is wrong with the National Guard? They are already trained to a military standard and every State in the Union has one. Well, firstly, the National Guard are not Federal and secondly they cannot be relied upon to kill people they know and have grown up with.

If sweeping, unpopular changes are coming, a well-armed, freedom-loving American public will probably put up a fight. Remember, this force will be operating on American soil. They will be trained to kill other Americans. They will not go home and be forgotten. You can bet they will be held on a reserve list: an almost limitless supply of cannon fodder. Interesting. In this scenario FEMA emergency detention camps make more sense. Is this a preparation for civil war?

There is an old law enshrined in the American Constitution called the Posse Comitatus Act. It basically makes it illegal for US troops to enforce laws on US soil. It's a sensible precaution, included to prevent coups d'etats and military oppression. This has now been broken with the introduction of some 20,000 troops to patrol US streets. In California US Marines are operating "sobriety checkpoints". Although more will certainly follow, that clearly isn't enough for Obama's purpose.

Political soldiers. Waffen-SS recruits on parade

Back to Mr Christian's world, once again we can see the euphemistic overtones of the word "balance". It could mean "overlook" our personal rights, or "end" our civil liberties and notions of private property. We don't need to look to Mr. Christian's utopia to imagine this. CCTV, wiretapping, DNA databases, phone call monitoring, psychological profiling, ID tagging and internet snooping are already slipping around our necks like a noose. Basic legal rights such as the right to protest, habeas corpus and the right to a trial by jury are being lost, all in the "fight against terrorism". Not a few of us are wondering if "terrorism" is not just a means to an end.

Guide 8 brings to mind some wise words of Benjamin Franklin:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

9. Prize truth, beauty, love...seeking harmony with the infinite.

Well, thank God R.C.'s got a softer side. Here we seem to be touching on the spiritual, and yes there does seem to be room for the word "love" in the lexicon. Interesting, since "harmony with the infinite" is not a turn of phrase usually associated with your pragmatic, atheistic "man of reason". I can't imagine these words coming from Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman or Charles Darwin.

R.C. does believe in something, but he is a Christian only in name. I cannot know what his religious view might be, but he has already expressed a wish to rule over things such as faith and to establish one unifying language. I would be surprised if Mr Christian's world would not require a single unifying religion also. There are two ways of looking at this. From one standpoint, it implies unity between faiths. This is what the ecumenical movement is working towards right now and some faiths, such as the Baha'i are already establishing. You can belong to any religion and also be Baha'i. (incidentally, they are huge on promoting esperanto). Unity, peace, tolerance, understanding, you know, not a bad sentiment.

On the other hand, homogenising faith into one dogma, rather like languages, also means in effect the end of all faiths as we know them, consistent with Guide 4. i.e. the abolition of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Taosim, Alevism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Shintoism, Confucianism, and on and on and on through the diversity of human beliefs. What of course these religions all share, despite their differences, is a moral code which I'm guessing might be rather inconsistent with the morality of R.C.'s utopia.

The only clue we have as to what this religion might be is the following, taken from crystalinks.com:

The stones are placed so that a slit at eye level in the central upright slab permits an observer to view the eastern horizon and aligns with the position of the rising sun at the Summer and Winter Solstices. Through the center stone, from south to north, a two-inch diameter hole is inclined at an angle of 34 degrees and points to the North celestial pole. A beam of sunlight passing through a hole in the capstone forms a spot of light below. The position of the spot can be used to determine high noon and the day of the year.

The eye-level, oblique hole is drilled from the South to the North side of the center, Gnomen stone, so that the North Star is always visible, symbolizing constancy and orientation with the forces of nature.

A slot is cut in the middle of the Gnomen stone to form a window which aligns with the positions of the rising sun at the Summer and Winter Solstices and at the Equinox, so that the noon sun shines to indicate noon on a curved line.

The cap stone includes a calendar of sorts, where sunlight beams through a 7/8 inch hole at noon, and shines on the South face of the center stone. As the sun makes its travel cycle, the spot beamed through the hole can tell the day of the year at noon each day. Allowances are made because of variations between standard time and sun time to set the beam of sunlight at an equation of time. The site was chosen because it commands a view to the East and to the West and is within the range of the Summer and Winter sunrises and sunsets. The stones are oriented in those directions.

No wonder it's called the American Stonehenge! Mr Christian went to great lengths to position the Guidestones in accordance with astrological aspects. Furthermore, it is reported that occult rituals regularly take place at the site, and even include prominent dignatories from government on the guest list. I think we may be on the fringes of paganism here, perhaps something darker, but I can't substantiate it at the moment.

It sounds whacky but you may have already seen the footage at the Bohemian Grove club shot by Alex Jones, where Presidents and billionaires gather to burn a human effigy to a giant owl statue. I wouldn't put anything past our leaders right now.

10. Be not a cancer on the earth... leave room for nature... leave room for nature...

A fine ideal, of course. Conservation, environmental protection, biodiversity and sustainable development. We are taking great strides towards these ends. We're producing cleaner energy, recycling our raw materials and conserving power. Children are even instructing and informing on parents that don't comply(!).

A system of carbon taxes and carbon credits has been unveiled as the great solution. Call me a cynic, but this does look like exploitation by the money men, and does call out for closer investigation of the veracity of the environmental crisis.

Two issues spring to mind about Guide 10. Firstly, R.C. is bringing us full circle to Guide 1. We are pointing back to Malthusian theory: the idea that overpopulating the planet will destroy its capacity to sustain us, and thus destroy us also. The problem, of course with Malthusian theory, along with Darwinian theory, is that it has not been adequately evidenced in reality. It remains theory, and barring the greed and wastefulness of some of us, I believe we may actually still be a fair way from the earth's capacity to sustain us.

There may be an antidote. Instead of challenging population levels and right to reproduce, could we not challenge greed and wastefulness? Greed seems to be latent in all of us and given a chance we'll all take as much as we can in any given situation. What may hold us back is individual morality. That only comes from family, faith and paersonal suffering. But in R.C.'s utopia "families" as we know them may well be completely defunct and all established religions eradicated. Presumably the suffering will have gone too, so all the usual conduits for morality have been replaced with an all-powerful State and its officially sanctioned "religion". Greed may be encouraged in the future. The lucky 500,000 will have it all!

What I hope Guide 10 is not saying is that conservation justifies the eradication of billions of people. I believe in conservation and I love nature, but I could not bring myself to place environmental issues above the human right to life. (I say that of course, but who knows, with the right kind of NLP, perhaps I could).

This is what a lot of Americans are currently complaining about under current "rewilding" legislation. The idea is that areas of the US which are currently inhabited, or given over to human activity will be put off-limits and allowed to restore their natural state. Whilst I love the idea of rewilding and preserving wilderness areas, and these schemes advocate no loss of life, critics are complaining that it is merely designed to restrict the areas in which people are allowed to live, travel and to confiscate private property and thus is a further control on the rights of individuals.

Furthermore, and related to this point, the idea of selling carbon credits via the protection of wilderness areas leaves me uneasy, as it will presumably endow some title of "responsibility" or "custodianship" of our wilderness areas on the corporations that buy them. These may end up being little more that euphemisms for ownership itself. In effect, we might just be selling the world's last great wilderness areas to the corporations who made the mess in the first place, all in the name of conservation.

The Guidestones, the Illuminati and Nazis

Some have drawn parallels between the message of the Guidestones and the tenets of Illuminism as espoused by the Illuminati. Don't believe in the Illuminati?

Well, we know for sure that the Illuminati certainly did exist at one time. There is no dispute that Adam Weishaupt, a lawyer and philosopher from Bavaria founded the "Order of Perfectibilists" in 1776, which later became known as the Illuminati. Its stated mission was a world in which all distinction of nations, creeds, etc., would disappear, and the establishment of a so-called "New World Order".

It shared philosophical principles with other groups in the French "Enlightenment" and revolutionary movements. Weishaupt knew his ideas were radical so intended to use subversion and a completely secret network of members which he modelled on the Freemasons and the Jesuits. Each agent would never know the true identity of their superiors. and only a handful would know that Weishaupt was the leader of the movement. With unaccountablity and anonymity the group could infiltrate all sectors of society and government and slowly bring about transformation.

He introduced his radical ideas of "illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispel the clouds of superstition and of prejudice" to the Freemasons, who were not immediately impressed. The Bavarian authorities were not either, when in 1784, so the story goes, lightning struck one of Weishaupt's messengers on his way to France with written instructions for starting a revolution.

The papers were horrific to the establishment. The organisation was banned in Bavaria and Weishaupt fled. The French Revolution began five years later. How much influence Weishaupt had on proceedings we will never know.

Whatever intrigue Weishaupt was involved in, his most dangerous idea was probably these five words: "the end justifies the means". It is the apology of every despot, tyrant and monster in history, none of whom, we should remember, thought they were doing the wrong thing.

It is said that he became religious in later life and renounced his Illuminist doctrines, although by then his ideas had spread far and wide. Whether his organisation lived on, we cannot be sure, but neither can we prove that it died out. Such is the nature of secrecy. That illuminism infused and steered freemasonry in new directions seems fairly certain. It is said by some that he had joined forces with the banker Mayer Rothschild and merged secrecy with high finance into an unstoppable plan for world domination.

We have evidence that the doctrine reached America within just a few years. In 1798 George Washington wrote:

"It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am."

He was right. In 1794 Thomas Paine, the British-born American revolutionary began the publication of his treatise "The Age of Reason", which espoused many of the principles of the Illuminati and the revolutionaries in France. Some say the Illuminati have been behind almost every revolutionary movement in the last two centuries, bringing about Bolshevism in Russia, Nazism in Germany and the two world wars. Some go as far as to say they control central banks and engineered terror attacks in the USA in 2001. We can't know for sure.

What we can say for sure is that a) secret societies do exists, and their need for secrecy betrays a malicious purpose, b) the Illuminati were a secret society that certainly did exist at one time and c) the principles of Illuminism, whether by coincidence, consent or illicit design, have been coming to fruition in the Western world in the last century, and increasingly so.

The charter laid out by R.C. Christian (a pseudonyn) [sic] shares a great deal with this philosophy; with the eradication of religions, and sovereign states. They both appear to have a foothold in current events. These ideas are not new. They are inherited directly from Weishaupt, Paine, Malthus, Darwin, Galton and presumably others, and have found favour to some degree with all of us.

But hang on a second: extermination, eugenics, cultural vandalism, totalitarianism, the occult and a soft spot for the environment... Some of you might by now be seeing a large flashing swastika hanging over that lonely field near Elberton, Georgia (don't forget, Hitler was a vegetarian).

We don't know if R.C. Christian is some kind of neo-Nazi intellectual, or a member of the Illuminati or anything else. Nonetheless, he and his small group of American friends do, by virtue of their anonymity and their agenda, already fit a broad definition of "secret society". We don't know either if they already have a hand in the hidden dynamics already apparently propelling us towards this "age of reason". Nor do we know if they have the will or the means to bring about Malthusian catastrophes on the scale implied by the Guidestones. Would they seriously start a nuclear war? Time may tell, or it may not.

There is talk that the stones were recently vandalised. Some have even called for them to be destroyed. Not surprising, when you consider Elberton lies in the heart of the bible belt. That might be difficult. Granite is tough stuff. Stonehenge has stood since around 3,000 BC. Its builders, no doubt enthused with religious zeal, a desire for immortality, or a sense of their own importance, didn't choose wood or straw to convey their purpose. Nor did Moses transcribe the 10 Commandments on sheets of paper. Whoever R.C. Christian and his small group of American friends are, they seem to mean what they say.

The January 09 Crisis - mere speculation.

2008-12-19T13:58:00.000-08:00

Back in October Colin Powell went on air to endorse Barack Obama as President. During the interview he said something really odd. Now, politicians say odd things all the time, but this was odder than most.

Watch this clip here.

So - a crisis on the 21st or 22nd of January. Hmmm. Obama gets sworn in as President on the 20th. Sounds quite similar to a statement made by VP-elect Joe Biden on the same day, apparently. Watch the clip here.

It's not that a crisis is something odd. We're probably in the midst of about two dozen of them at the moment. But what is odd is that these guys seem to know something is going to happen already. And the very nature of Colin Powell's statement "a crisis that we don't even know about yet". Well, by we did he really mean you? Or is he just guessing?

I'm going to assume they do know something and they are talking about the same thing.

So, what might that crisis be? Let's look at the evidence. Well, according to Joe Biden, said crisis which is going to force some tough policy decisions. i.e. things the public aren't going to like. Now that could be anything from tax hikes, food rationing, enforced car pooling, confiscation of private property, a new war, abolition of the dollar, open borders, dissolution of Congress or even martial law. Maybe more than one of the above. But Biden specifically mentions foreign policy and an international crisis of the same kind Kennedy faced.

Kennedy's major international crisis was the Cuban missile standoff. His other international crisis was the Vietnam war but there the friction was really domestic. In Cuba finally the Soviets stood down and world war 3 was postponed, by a whisker. Could a similar scenario transpire on the modern world stage? China to invade Taiwan? Russia to reclaim the Caucasus? Russian missiles to be placed in Venezuela? Perhaps an act of terror with no clear perpetrator a la 9/11? North Korea "gone rogue"? Iranian nuclear bomb threat uncovered in Jerusalem?

The scenarios are actually limitless and almost impossible to consider completely. They do fit into two categories however. On one hand, unilateral power plays by foreign powers. Clear, unambiguous action by a US rival towards an ally or towards US interests. The other category would be of a terrorist nature, a la "al-Qaeda". No nation involved.

The first case is possible, if not improbable. The theory is a "rogue state" (Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, etc. by Bush's definitions) may wait for the arrival of a "soft" president rather than play its hand against a man with nothing left to lose (Bush) and clearly has no compunction about invading foreign countries. That's the only justification I can find for the first case, otherwise there would be absolutely no predicting it. But Joe Biden and Colin Powell know about it already so presumably the whole government know about it already. Why not act now? Here my speculation reaches the buffers.

What about the second case? The beauty of terrorist attacks is that they can be blamed on anyone, no proof required and we will believe. Another 9/11? A 1/21 or 1/22? Without declaring who was really behind 9/11 (because we still don't know for sure), there have been groups that benefitted from it. Like they say in criminal investigations - follow the money: Israel, big business (Halliburton, Monsanto, Texaco, etc. etc.) and the military. Further symptoms have been a crackdown on civil liberties across the "free" world. If a secretive cabal of politicking bankers and chairmen do indeed want total power via a global police state, 9/11 advanced their cause no end.

This last notion is not far-fetched. In fact it is the stated aim of certain rather powerful figures. I am going to speculate that another 9/11-type incident is what is going to happen some time soon. I am going to speculate that the people to benefit from it will be the same as those that benefited from 9/11. Also, I will speculate that one of its side effects will be more erosion of civil liberties. Such an incident requires a target, and a perpetrator.

So what about a target?

PD51/HSPD20 (passed by Bush) would give President Obama dictatorial power in the event of any national emergency. However I doubt the public are going to buy it if it is a flu outbreak. It would have to be something pretty big to convince the masses this is a good idea. The Washington Post article mentions an decapitating attack on government by a foreign power as a possible scenario.

Congress? The idea of Congress as a "terrorist" target is superb as it achieves the double objective of horrifying the public whilst at the same time destroying the democratic legislature of the country. Virtually any action could be justified as a response and President Obama would have all the authority to carry it out.

So what about the perpetrator, or rather alleged perpetrator, even "fall guy". Well again, a little speculation but not too far-fetched.

Watch the clip here.

Something very reminiscent of the Colin Powell and Joe Biden interviews in this one. Well, if what Aaron Russo is saying is true, there remains one target unaccounted for in this alleged plot. Venezuela. What if an attack on Congress could be pinned on Venezuela? Wouldn't it be right for Obama to strike south and invade? Venezuela has a lot of oil. Enter the military machine, then Halliburton, Monsanto, Texaco et al...

With Congress crippled and the American people hysterical, martial law could then be declared. But Obama has been painted as such a "nice guy" that the people will accept it. Enter new draconian laws to remove remaining civil liberties.

And who could believe their leaders could do the same thing twice? As Himmler said, the people will much more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one.

Finally I want to add into the picture a couple more ingredients. Namely, that US military personnel are conducting exercises in crowd control, disarmament and apprehension of civilians on American streets, something that is entirely unconstitutional. Additionally, there are reports of many concentration camps constructed, or under construction in the USA. Whatever this crisis turns out to be, they are preparing for something.

So here you have it. Pure speculation. We'll see...

Paranoia vs Denial

2008-12-17T22:10:00.000-08:00

There's a whole world of trouble out there. Everywhere is conflict and I don't just mean violence. Happily my life and the lives of the majority of my peers are thus far, mostly free from violence. But we are daily assaulted by other conflicts, especially conflicts of information.

Dividing information down to its two main strains: the experienced and the received, in the "information age" the latter category greatly outweighs the former, probably for the first time in history. We know more about the world out there, about places we've never been, about people we've never met, and events completely alien to our own lives than ever before.

Now, that can be a good thing. Information, as we know translates nicely into knowledge for us and enriches our lives, or so it would, were it not for conflict. Now this problem arises predominantly in the realm of received knowledge. That which we experience for ourselves we seldom dispute, but received information, be it via word of mouth or through media, is just a witness report. It might be wrong. It might be deliberately misleading. It might be a misinterpretation of fact. It might be downright lies.

Confronted with the reality that we are not in a position to ascertain absolute truth on any matter, stuck as we are with limited time, limited money and limited energy, we make decisions. We decide, in effect, who are our reliable witnesses and who aren't. We are forced to choose who to believe.

Now that choice will be coloured by many factors about us, our lives, our inherent beliefs and our previous experiences, and that most enigmatic of fellows, our intuition. Take the following example. Two cars collide at a crossroads. There are only two people to witness the scene: a drunk and a lawyer. They both give conflicting accounts of the crash. The drunk, we assume was probably cognitively impaired; the lawyer, probably morally impaired. Add to the maelstrom that one of them is black and one of them Irish, and like it or not, it just got further complicated for you, because yes, everybody prejudges, everybody is prejudiced to stereotype.

So who do we trust? Is an Irish drunk more reliable than a black lawyer? Is a black drunk more reliable than an Irish lawyer? Add to it all that unknown factor of human fallibility which varies in all of us but is present in all of us, nonetheless, and our assumptions are all but worthless.

We may even be forced to conclude they are both unreliable and that the truth lies somewhere between their two accounts or nowhere near either.

So, to take this example and put it in context, every day we are bombarded with received information, mostly via the media: tv, radio, internet, newspapers etc. They have owners who in turn have imperatives (to make money, to keep a reputation, to advance an agenda etc.). We know that these imperatives influence in detail and in general the layout of their information, the tone, the level of detail, the level of prominence and indeed, whether or not information is imparted or not.

In the UK, it used to be the case (not so much any more), left-wing, labour voters would read the Guardian; right-wing Conservative voters, the Times, or Telegraph. Interesting, because they all covered pretty much the same stories. They can't both have been correct. Perhaps the Guardian was more accurate some days, perhaps on others the Times got closer to reality, but the point for the reader was that they liked the version of facts given to them by one or the other because it fitted with a reality they wanted to perceive.

What I am saying, in a nutshell is an old idea: people believe what they want to believe. And this concept is far more nefarious than we imagine, because in our cosetted, non-violent, affluent lives we are not confronted with horrible truths that we must deny or confront on a daily basis, to the detriment of ourselves or others. We are not a middle-class family from Dachau in 1942. "Where does daddy work?" asks the kid. "At a factory," mum replies. And "at a factory" is probably the way dad sees it too, because he does not necessarily feel comfortable with the fact that he is a guard at a forced labour camp, and people are dying. In such extremes, believing what we want to believe allows horrors to happen. The case becomes simply, Denial.

For a few hundred years blacks had few civil rights in the USA. They were enslaved, abused and sidelined. In their daily lives they experienced the contempt of the white man. Then came civil rights, protests, the 60s, emancipation. On paper at least, equality arrived and since that time people of black ancestry have literally risen to the highest offices and positions in the land. And yet, when a certain Mr X., a black man in New Orleans, fails to get the job he wanted he goes home and tells his wife it was because the interviewer was racially biased. In fact, he was the least qualified for the job, but centuries of prejudice tainted his perception. The case becomes simply, Paranoia.

So, Denial, the unwillingness to confront a horror, that we cannot or simply don't want to accept. Paranoia, perceiving horrors where there are none, because we've experienced them before and we expect them to happen again. The gap between them, of course, lies in whether we perceive a victim. The denier refutes it, the paranoid insists upon it. The denier is really refuting his own culpability, the paranoid avoiding his own responsibility.

Back to our modern scenario. The world is complex. Horrors are happening. Politicians lie to us, the media lie to us, even our spouses lie to us, but not all the time. Sources conflict, contradict, a lot of the time. Our lifestyle, experience, character and role will colour whom we choose to believe. Just how reliable is the picture of reality we have constructed in our minds? Certainly not completely reliable, and probably not even very.

Every so often some scandal or revelation will erupt and people will be shocked. "Who would have thought it?", "I never would have guessed", "It can't be true, it's impossible". We might be wise to take these as choice reminders that our witness reports are always subject to doubt. And yet, the very next day, most of us probably slip back into out old belief system, the one that replaces doubt with trust, just because it's comfortable, because it reassures us. Once again, we'll be believing what we want to believe and it's a rare individual that can step outside that frame.