Reflecting on Banner

Operation Banner ends today after 38 years. It's another milestone on NI's long road to Normality, and a moment we should appreciate and savour.

I come from South Donegal, an area affected by, but not devastated by the Troubles. Thankfully, we were only on the fringe of the conflict and escaped the worst of its horrors. Nevertheless, ordinary life was to some extent affected.

For a start, the community comprises a mix of Protestant and Catholic that is unique in the Republic. It's probably about 70% Catholic, 30% Protestant, though in the parishes round where I come from, the figures are closer to 60% and 40%, with Catholics in the majority.

It's fair to say that sectarianism has never been a big problem in the area. Yet during the height of the Troubles, both communities felt the burden of belonging to one or other of the quarelling groups in Norhtern Ireland.

The mood would always be very sombre after an atrocity in the North, particularly if it was near the border. There was a sense of collective shame after each terrible slaughter. Everyone knew that our good neighbours were not responsible, but the sense of association was difficult to escape.

Probably the event that caused the most sustained division was the hunger strikes. IRA sympathisers raised black flags on telephone poles. And IRA slogans were seen on the roadsides. This was probably country wide - but in an area of the republic with a more complex religious landscape, we felt it more.

On other occasions a mild polarisation came to the fore. For example, in the weeks leading up to the 12th of July, when many orangemen in the area would march through the village, a slight tension would hang in the air. Friends or neighbours, normally on good terms, would feel awkward towards one another. The odd lout on the Catholic side often took to lobbing eggs or tomatoes at the marchers.

We all had relatives on the other side of the Border - in Derry, Fermanagh and West Tyrone - who had to face the conflict head on. And most of us travelled across the Border often. Crossing the border, dotted with massive military installations, was like entering the West Bank. Soldiers in combat gear, finger on the trigger, would board the bus. And there was always a huge gun pointing from the towers. Likewise, the streets of Derry or Enniskillen, the towns I knew best, were quite heavily militarised. Even the police were in heavy body armour and carried machine guns. And again, after a bombing or a shooting, the air was thick with suspicion, mistrust, and often fear.

I remember paying a visit to an Uncle in Enniskillen a few days after the horrendous bombing in 1987. The rubble of the razed building lay beside the War Memorial (Where the Clinton Centre is now). 11 people had died. The security forces had flooded the town. People were pensive and brooding. It was a public in mourning. People were quiet. Words were made redundant.

A handful of times the IRA struck right on our doorstep. They murdered an ex-UDR man who had come across the border to visit his Catholic girlfriend. The couple were sitting in a car parked outside her house one evening. An IRA unit pounced, dragged her from the vehicle, and shot the ex-soldier over 70 times before running across the field, cheering in celebration.

But in these episodes we in South Donegal saw only a glimpse of the horrors taking place in neighbouring counties. This is no place to assess the rights and wrongs of that awful period. Operation Banner was part of the whole complex and sorry story. And I for one rejoice at its passing.

Harry Potter and the End of the World

I will probably never read Harry Potter. I have my own good reasons, and here they are. First, I have this theory, right or wrong, that anything loved by the masses is usually crap. No, it's not out of snobbery that you won't find the 'top 10' hits on my CD rack, it's just that I think they're pure rubbish. Same for cinema. Films which roll off the Hollywood factory floor, smashing one record after another, aren't exactly my favourites. Same for food. And same for books.

Now, I don't for a moment contend that all things which are popular, or mass-appeal, are pure junk. Not so, but invariably most are. And I'm not going to try out top 10 music, for I know that in all likelihood, it will swiftly be making its way air-born from my CD deck to the old poubelle. (Ah, you didn't like that, a snob using a French word to show his sophistication. What a tit. Ok then, I'll condescend, and we'll settle for 'bin'!)

But the main reason poor Harry will lie forever at the bottom of my wish list is this: Tolkien. Yes, J double R taught me something about myself: I hate fantasy. A friend of mine advised me that The Lord of The Rings was one of the wonders of the world. And he said the best introduction was The Hobbit, and, moved to tears that he had made a convert, he loaned me his copy.

I delved in. Immediately the fantastical and, excessively minute descriptions began to heap up and up, piling upon still more depictions, that soon I felt I had borrowed into and endless thicket of excruciating and mostly pointless detail. The minutae were sprayed out ad nauseum - Hobbits come of age at such and such an age, and eat potatoes and cheese. I mean, for heaven's sake. It seemed like J double R decided to list every observable trait that an animal, or perhaps more generally a thing, can have, and then modify it to a greater or lesser degree. In the end, I laboured so much in that torturous thicket that I decided to back out for a taste of the real world. I needed to loosen my collar and take a gasp of breath after every few pages. And that is how I turned my back, forever I hope, on that intricate, over-contrived, and to me at least, absurd world of the Hobbit.

And that foray into "High Fantasy" killed any appetite I had for plain ordinary fantasy as well. (It seems this fantasy genre has two levels, J double R residing at the higher layer, and HP making do with a lower stratum. Can they do anything simple?) So poor old Harry P will be read by me only if there occurs some apocalyptic, world-altering event - such as is wholly the norm in his own universe - which leaves me inhabiting a world where only he and I exist.

The Real 43rd President of the United States of America

A short, but telling piece in The London Review of Books on Dick Cheney

The Asian Century

If you believe that this will be the Asian century, then another strong indicator has emerged to bolster your case. It relates to the size of China's economy. In 2005 China passed the UK to take 4th place in the league of the top economies in the world. The other day, the figures for China confirm she is now sailing past Germany and into 3rd place. Perhaps the most stunning fact is not that China is now 3rd, but that it is still rising so rapidly. Could China soon be a superpower rival to the US?

In "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers", Paul Kennedy shows how economic data gave very strong signals about which nations were rising and which were falling back between 1500 and 1980. To take an example, Kennedy shows that while it's true that in the year 1900, Britain stood as the World's greatest power, the writing was already on the wall. The graphs for ship building, military expenditure, tonnes of coal produced, GDP, and so on, clearly show that Britain was being overtaken by Germany and the US. (As an aside, it seems that the Civil War in the US in the 1860s somehow unleashed its vast economic potential. From then on, it is possible to see it one day dominating the World. In fact, Alexis de Tocqueville predicted its potential as early as 1830)

Today, if we look at China's economic stats, we see a power rising at a stunning rate. Exports to US and Russia growing in double digits. Fixed asset investment up 29%. GDP growth 11.95. And if we believe that ultimately, geopolitical power is built on economic power, then we have every reason to believe that China will soon become one of the two or three biggest players on the global stage. The consequences of that would be a huge restructuring of global power.

The balance in the Pacific, where Japan plus US have dominated since WWII, would be turned on its head. What would it mean for other big nations that China borders, such as Russia and India? What would it mean for the global scene generally, where we have already seen less than benign influence by China in places like Darfur?

But none of this is a foregone conclusion. That China will continue its growth is not at all clear. Some commentators feel its growth has peaked and will cool off. (But we heard that before and it proved wrong). Furthermore, there are big questions about the reliability of Chinese figures.

Three major questions stand out, however, even if the figures have been tweaked. First, China's growth to roughly 3rd place in GDP terms is spectacular. And yet its per capita wealth is tiny (about 100th in world terms). What does this say about its potential? It reminds me of the vast untapped potential that Tocqueville saw in America 180 years ago.

And second, what is this transformation going to do to its political stability? How can its pseudo-capitalism sit within an authoritarian state?

And finally, what will this extraordinary transformation mean for the global environment?

* Thanks to wikipedia for the graph

Can Ireland be as unequal as Brazil?

This was a question that a commenter asked of David McWilliams in response to the latter's article on globalisation and inequality.

I would doubt if Ireland will go like Brazil. First, though inequality in Ireland is disturbing, it is not as if we’ve shot to the top of the European league. As McWilliams says, we’re still mid table on a European basis - and that’s after more than a decade of one of the most spectacular booms ever seen. The economy is slowing down now and is likely to reach more sustainable levels - so the great leap in wealth made by rich is likely to slow too.

Second, despite our wealth and our clear preference for an Anglo-Saxon form of capitalism, our welfare state is held in high regard. What I mean is, there are redistributive measures in Ireland that would be unthinkable in Brazil. Even our right of centre, pro-business government significantly increased almost all forms of welfare over the last 10 years (maternity benefit extended, OA pensions ramped up hugely, and so on). Why did they do this? Because our welfare state is still very popular. In other words, despite all, we still have a soft spot for the weaker in our society (thank God and long may it last). The weak spot I see is the growing privatisation in some sectors - notably health and education. It remains to be seen how far this can go politically and already it is a hot topic (had FG or Labour won a few more seats last election, some measures might already be in reverse gear)

As a final note - you’ll recall that Charlie McCreevy was seen as one of our most right wing finance ministers. The public just didn’t like it, so FF, finger on the pulse to the last, moved him on.

So there’s still a feedback loop from the ordinary man back to cabinet decisions. I’m not saying the rich don’t have a minister’s ear when they wan’t to, but our country operates in a way that, I think at least, will stop us from ever being as horribly unequal as Brazil.

High Performance Internet

It was a special day for the employees of Nortel Galway. This was the first time a Vice President of the 90,000 strong Corporation had come to town. The year was 2000 and the Tech boom was in full swing. For months Nortel's share price had curved steeply upwards. The VP was TJ Fitzpatrick, head of one of Nortel's divisions.

There was a mood of excitement as the workers took their seats in the auditorium. A chuckle of laughter was heard here and there as the occasional wag cracked a joke about the Big Lad in town. One lad wondered if "TJ" knew that Galway had made it to the hurling semi-final.

Local management had prepared meticulously for their VIP. The room was set up like a glitzy media event - each side of the stage was emblazoned with the corporate logo; snazzy pictures of key products lined the walls; pzazzy music blared from the PA in anticipation. It felt like Nortel's version of New Labour. This was new Nortel. Old Nortel did telephones, new Nortel did Internet.

TJ was introduced to rapturous applause. Not that the crowd were in awe of TJ's achievements, but they were a well mannered bunch, and crucially the preceding year or so had seen the company dish out stock options to all and sundry. And boy had they risen. Each morning at the coffee machine, people talked about the share price. There was a very palpable feel-good factor. IT had taken off. Nortel was a key player. Employees felt their time had come. So TJ's visit had a buzz about it.

TJ derided disbelievers: "Some analysts ask how we can justify a price/earnings ration of 600". Pause, then in an Al Gore like lilt he continued "It's because we're building the high performance internet".

Anyone who knew that a PE ratio normally sits between 10 and 30 would have gulped. Either Nortel and the Tech boom had really found a new paradigm or something wasn't quite right!

In the months which followed uncle TJ and his boss, company CEO John Roth, continued to talk about the high performance internet. Roth said he expected sales to grow by 30%. Nortel would continue to eat up market share.

And then it happened. Reality came crashing through all the bullshit. Nortel had to admit that the arse had fallen out of its Market. It's sales projections had collapsed. The company suddenly discovered that the high performance internet was already built! No one need any more optical gear which they had turned into a core business.

The company's value on the Canadian Stockmarket fell from $398 billion dollars to $5 billion as the stock price plummeted from $124 dollars to ... 47 cents. A swath of Canadian investors and pension funds were wiped. And Nortel had to hand out p45's to some 60,000 employees.

Apparently Roth got out in time - he baled too that fateful year. But not before he could cash in $135 million of stock options.

Nortel's woes were to continue. In 2003 it was discovered that Nortel had been cooking the books. Billions of dollars had been improperly stated in its accounts and the company had to revise (down!) its positions back to 1998.

I never learned what became of TJ, but I'm full sure he didn't lose his pension. Roth retired to his estate in Caledon Ontario where he lay low enjoying his vast fortune - every penny of it hard earned from the high performance internet.

"Out, damned spot! out, I say!"

Lady Macbeth - one of literature's vilest creatures - has blood on her hands. Metaphorically, when she pressures her husband to commit Murder, then literally when she smears Duncan's blood on the guards to inculpate them in the crime. But after the deed the dark lady is haunted by the blood. She imagines it on her hand, and it cannot be wiped away. She cries "Out, damned spot! out, I say!"

Likewise another vile creature, one Joe O'Reilly, could not erase the blood of his hands. The tap he left running at the scene of the crime was his was of crying "out, damned spot". Not only that, he was haunted and obsessed by poor Rachel's blood, which he had so cruelly spilled. Weeks after forensics had left, he hadn't cleaned the blood. And he would return to it again and again with his vistors, including Rachel's parents, God help them, who would be shocked and terrified as he re-enacted the murder, in an uncanny, trance-like manner. Blow by blow, spat by spat of blood.

Lady Macbeth ultimately goes insane and dies of her own hand (we think!). The blood simply wouldn't go away. And neither would it for our contemporary psychopath, O'Reilly, who will now have ample time to consider the wisdom of his cruel, horrendous crime.