Conference tallis::celt

    
    This is the last note I shall enter in this conference, or indeed
    within DEC. Tommorrow I type "lo" for the last time in Ballybrit.
    
    I will definitely miss CELT - over the last year it has been 
    something I really enjoyed in Digital (well, most of the time!).
    
    I wish I could leave on a upbeat note, but we must remain on
    Northern Ireland "more hopeful than optimistic", to quote
    John Hume. Despite previous protestations, there has been
    little signs in the last months that the Unionists have a 
    formula to break the deadlock. Nor has the oft-touted
    "generosity" of Nationalists, should the Unionists come
    to the conference table, been much in evidence. There are
    about six weeks left of talks to bridge the gap.
    
    Instead, the following quote is my parting message:
    
    "There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief
    that the end justifies the means. The push-button philosophy,
    that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster
    in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human
    spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind and 
    turns a nation, a civilisation, into a regiment of ghosts
    - obedient ghosts, or tortured ghosts."
    
    				Jacob Bronowski "The Ascent of Man".
    
    Bronowski spoke these words on TV standing in a pool of 
    water - except that the pool was at the site of Auschwitz,
    where his family had been murdered. Over-dramatic for
    Ireland, you say? Yet the dilemma he poses is our dilemma, too. 
    
    We must start to see the suffering of all, Protestant and
    Catholic. We must start to open our minds and start to pressurise 
    the "witch-doctors calling for a mighty showdown" (as Paul Brady 
    called them) on BOTH sides. The way forward is going to be
    halting and groping, there are no easy options, no dramatic
    solutions. 
    
    Bronowski also said "We are always on the brink of the
    known, we feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every
    judgement .... stands on the edge of error."
    
    I would like to think the CELT notesfile could be part of
    that "feeling forward" by the free exchange of ideas and
    opinions without rancour or bitterness - though sometimes
    that is hard!
    
    Finally, thanks to everyone who took the time on different 
    occasions to send me a E-mail expressing support for some 
    stances I took during the year. It made me feel I wasn't
    a lone voice.
    
    Regards,
    
    Toby
    
    

    Toby,
    
    You will be sorely missed in the political notes of this conference. 
    Your entries ensured most readers got a balanced insight into what is
    happening in NI.
    
    The conference has been of great interest over the last 18 months or
    so, maybe it has become a microcosm of the Northern Ireland situation
    but I have learnt a lot from your notes and others.
    
    Good luck in whatever you pursue, especially a peaceful solution to the
    Northern troubles.
    
    Thanks,
    Brian.                                           

    Farewell and all the best in your new endeavours.
    

    
    Good Luck in whatever you do.
    
    paddy  

    
    I forgot,  if you go to the North look up my cousin he would love to
    talk to you about the British judicial system in particular the
    "Diplock" courts.  He went to one in 78 and has been a guest of HMG
    ever since.  Speak to him and you may come away with a different slant
    on what people go through.  By the way don't ask what the evidence was 
    because there wasn't any.  But then there didn't have to be he is a
    Nationalist.  His address is Maze Prison, Co. Antrim, Ireland
    
    paddy  

    TOBY,
    
    	HOPE THIS NOTE REACHES YOU IN TIME....I'VE BEEN OUT SICK FOR THE
    	PAST TWO WEEKS AND JUST READ YOUR NOTE....
    
    	I AM HEARTBROKEN....I LOOKED FORWARD TO ALL YOUR SUBJECTS AND
    	ANSWERS EACH DAY I ARRIVED AT WORK...NOW, WHAT WILL I DO?????
    
    	ALL MY GOOD WISHES AND HOPES FOR HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS IN ANY
    	NEW ENDEAVORS YOU PURSUE....I KNOW YOU'LL BE A WINNER AT WHAT
        EVER YOU DO!
    
    	MARY

    
    
    
    	Toby,
    
    		I usually don't write to this notes conference but I wiil
    make an exception..
    
    		Thanks for all of your entries over the years and keep the
    white flag flying.
    
    Slan agus Beannacht
    
    
                      Take care
    					Brendan

    Toby, 
    
    Good luck in your future endeavors!
    
    Keep the faith - there *will* be dramatic solutions to the north.
    Peace will come to Ireland as the men of war (the British Army
    and the various paramilitary groups - the IRA, INLA, IPLO, UDA,
    UDF, UFF, etc.) recognize the futility of violence.
    
    Sl�n,
    George                                                                   
    

    Toby,
    
    Goodbye and good luck.   I will miss your notes.   
    
    
    
    Bernie

    
    Good luck Toby, maybe we'll meet sometime again in the future; I hear
    that lots of the old KLO'ers are leaving, sad, really sad to hear.
    
    GC

    Toby,

    You can stick your head in the sand all you want when it comes to ignoring
blatant British institutionalized terrorism in Ireland. You can even commit
cultural suicide by abandoning your IRISH history, culture and traditions,
(as described by Robert Ballagh in his famous quote below). It is obvious
from your notes, and your sympathies, that you have chosen to do so.

    But if you learned anything from this medium of Notes remember this:

    At the end of the day, people like you who accept the British military
presence and colonial occupation of IRELAND as "justified", or as
"peacekeepers" HAVE "become become the monster in the war machine", as
Jacob Bronowski so aptly stated.

     By your failure to speak out against the forced British partition of your
country, by your ignoring the undemocratic division of the people of Ireland
by a foreign entity, and by your conspiracy of silence against the very
colonial power that prevents the self-determination of the Irish people as a
whole. Indeed, it is people like you who unknowingly (or knowingly) foster
and maintain the "death-embrace" with the British invaders of your country:
The Brits by their illegal presence in Ireland, you "colonized" Irish who have
committed cultural suicide by your denial of your history and abandonment of
your culture.


       "In the past, cultural genocide was practiced on the Irish (by the
        British.) Now however, this has slowly and subtly changed to cultural
        suicide. Self-confident nations do not abandon their history,
        culture and traditions.

        Unfortunately, the quality colonized peoples lack is self-confidence:
        they cannot deal with the present or project a future because they
        will not face the past." 
    

     Since you find it fashionable in your farewell to quote a Jewish 
survivor of the Holocaust, (always conveniently fogetting that the
homicidal Brits that infest your country pay no heed to such quotes),
allow me to quote from a real Irishman, Des Wilson. At least he's not busy 
trying to forget his nation's past, nor is he afraid to speak out against 
the real reasons for the continued bloodshed in IRELAND.

    "Governments drive people into war because they believed they can deal with
war more advantageously to their own interests than they can with citizens'
demands for peace, prosperity, or democracy.

    The artificial boundaries which are causing death and destruction
in the Middle East were created at the same time and by the same people
as the artificial boundary in Ireland after the War of Independence.
These artificial boundaries in so many areas of the world have caused so much
damage that they have to be looked at again, and if necessary, adjusted or
dismantled.

    Trying to remove the artificial border in Ireland is not a matter of some
obscure Irish idealism which is shared by nobody else, it is part of a
movement for world peace by dismantling the artificial boundaries set by
Imperialist interests in many places in the 1920s and before that date.
It is a necessity if we are to undo the disasters which these artificial
boundaries caused not only in Ireland, but in other countries as well.
Whatever is done to remove the artificial boundary in Ireland must be seen in
this world context of a vast struggle for peace through dismantling the selfish
imperial arrangements of the past.

    Putting it within this context, we are true to the internationalism of the
people of 1916 who never saw themselves as a selfish little enclave in Ireland
or anywhere else.  We also show that the Catholic/Protestant inter-community
enmity interpretation of  what is happening in the north is nonsense and that
the question of Planter versus Gael is irrelevant.

    Simone Weil, a Jewish woman who closely identified with poor people and
eventually died of hunger in England because she could not bear the thought of
having a full stomach while others were starving, had a principle which we
should follow:  she accepted her past, all of it, because it was part of
herself. She accepted it readily, good or bad, because it belonged to her. She
would no more have thought of repudiating or forgetting any part of her personal
or community history than she would of cutting off her arms. And deliberately to
forget the past for political or financial gain would have seemed to her the
ultimate betrayal both of the people and of the God who created and redeemed
them.

    Simone Weil has a lot to say to us, and reading what she wrote, we are
convinced once again that the men and women of 1916 deserve to be honoured not
only on our behalf, but on behalf of those in every place who value human
dignity."

     Toby, As soon as Irish people like you stop denying your history, your
culture, and traditions; as soon as people like you stop apologizing for
being Irish, as soon as people like you stop turning a blind eye to the real
cause off violence and bloodshed in your country, then and only then will there
be peace in IRELAND.
 
                                     

    Toby,
    
    Good luck in whatever you decide to do next. 
    
    
    Tony.

    Drotter,

    Even the worst of political enemies can set aside their boorishness to
    at least acknowledge their adversary's contribution to the debate on
    the 'retirement' of that adversary. I think your last couple of notes
    are an unworthy parting shot at someone who has always, even if you
    vehemently disagree with his opinions, striven to be conscientious about
    his contributions here. I do not agree with all of Toby's ideas (in
    fact I disagree strongly with a number of them), but I find his attitude
    more open minded and helpful than yours. 

    My parting shot to Toby (if I'm not too late) is farewell and thanks
    for your excellent contributions and in particular for the effort you
    always put in to your notes. 
    
    		Daith� Fallon

    re: .14    Well said.
    
    Toby,
        go n-eiri an bothar leat.

    RE .14
    
    I'm glad someone said it!
    
    To Toby.....All the best in the future. You certainly added a balanced
    viewpoint to these notes over the past year. You will be missed.
    
    
    Gerry

    D.FALLON....
    
    	Accolades of praise for that note!....you said it all!
    
    	Mary

    Re: Last four...!
    
    I have to disagree....Joe has the right to express his farewells etc.
    etc. in whatever manner he chooses....without having to succumb to 
    other peoples' norms or opinions....not much point in being insincerely
    pleasant....there's more than enough of that around already....."a kinder,
    gentler....." Yeah, right!
    
    All the best, Toby.
    
                                    M.
                  
    

    
      re: .18
    
    Thank you, Murphy!
    
    
    To the others: Since when is "Slan" (Note .12) not considered a Good-bye 
    wish? And of course, there was the ever-popular Good-bye sentiment, 
    "Toodle pip, dearheart" made famous by Joe Woodrow,. (Y'all remember him 
    don't you? The guy who claimed, (like every other Brit I've ever met)
    to be half "Oirish", who enforced BRITISH *law and order* through the
    barrel of a gun in YOUR country).  
    
    Oh well, I guess I'm not as "PC" (Politically Correct) as the colonized 
    Irish in the Peanut gallery would like.
    
         

    RE: .18
    
    Of course Joe has the right to express his farewells in whatever manner
    he wishes, Kevin. However,the point Daith� made was that no matter what your
    opinion or viewpoint, Toby added a lot to this notesfile in the way of
    information and political opinion, and deserves better than the
    criticism Joe piled on in his 'Farewell'.
    
    You can find some good in everyone, even in Joe if you look hard 
    enough :->
    
    Gerry
                                                

    
    RE.  -.1
    
    next time I see Joe I'll look.
    
    But it'll take a lot of looking I'm sure.
    
    
    big 8*)'s
    
    paddy

    re: .21
                                
    Sure, and the reason it takes Paddy a lot of looking is because he's
    *vertically challenged*  ;^>

    
    	...as oppose to, of course, you being obtuse, right herr
    	::DROTTER?