This post was a while coming but I had to wait till this weekend till I found out the ending which I would put to it.
A couple of months back my brother approached us all in the family with an idea . After doing some research, my brother discovered we had a great uncle whom had fought in the Somme . From what we could gather he could not find work at the time and enlisted in the British Army in search of adventure, justice, work or whatever, we simply do not know, all that we were aware of was that in November 1914 he was shot and died on the battle field in the Somme having seen just 19 years of his young life come to a very sudden end . Nothing much was known about this till my brother discovered it.
Cue the weekend just gone by. A couple of weeks back my ma had asked if I fancied going on the trip to see his grave and take in some of the sights in general (all expenses paid and money being tight I was not going to turn it down) . Once booked she then mentioned other people were going too but I was a bit worried this might cause some tension as being a gregarious sort , this lad here has been known to rub people up the wrong way.!
Come Friday morning we took a 7am flight to Charleroi in Belgium and drove the hour and a bit it was to Lille to check in and this was where the fun began. The hotel didnt let us check in till four so we decided to check out the graveyards to see if we could locate where our great uncle (we'll call him by his initials JR) was buried in Belgium. We drove for hours through lovely little towns and villages with red brick houses and stopped at all sorts of graveyards where we encountered local Flemish speakers who were only too willing to help and we had hit a snag. My brother had a grave reference and some idea as to where he may be but we were unsure about the graveyard as to its location. Having my grandmother with us who is quite frail and other family in tow we were limited to what we could do in terms of researching and exploring. Back at the hotel that night we all sank a few Belgian beers ( fuckin Leffe is like rocket fuel and Chimay, dont get me started!) but Saturday started off with a bang. We were lucky we had two hire cars with relations in one and my immediate family and grandmother/cousin/aunt in with us . Come midday I was cracking open a few beers looking for any sort of inspiration that could come to hand. I was totally indifferent to this quest before hand but now I was hooked. Most of my time was spent translating (I speak French and a crash course in Flemish before hand proved useful),with my father driving at the helm and my brother with his information to hand we started off the day in good spirits. We went to a small village called Poelkapelle to see the graveyard where he apparently died however there was no mention of him in the register. A Canadian tour guide suggested we check with the tourist office in Ypres but time was working against us pretty much and weather.
At a random suggestion my mam suggested we pulled into a town called Langenmark which could have had no more than a population of a few thousand and myself and her decided to look at a church that was interesting enough (because there was an outside pissoir as they call them in French) and to kill some time while we had a toilet break. Being in close proximity to some people for the length of time we had had caused a little strain but this search had brought us back togther as a family and pushed us closer. (Im rambling but I will continue!!). In the church my ma insisted on saying a prayer to her father to find the grave. At that very moment a pastor in the church came over to talk to us . He was heavy set and came straight over after my ma had said her prayer and spoke to us in a soft voice , making us take note as we had been quite loud before hand! We ended up chatting to him and we told him about our quest to find the grave of JR. He informed us that there was two graveyards and not one in the village of Poelkapelle and gave us excellent directions to the graveyard. We ran right out to get my brother to talk to the vicar as my brother was the one with all the information.
With a biting wind to my back and after about three cans of Juplier beer to withstand the wind we came upon the graveyard the pastor had mentioned. It was tucked away on the road to Brugges on a little road . There was rows of white crosses each one as white as the next which traversed the graveyard for a few acres and detailing those who had fallen.
The reason that the graves are perfectly straight is that all the bodies are lying on a concrete plinth.
I checked the register of the names and let a shout out to my brother once we located the name. A mixture of excitement and sadness over came me, we found the grave and all I could do was stare and cry a small bit. Being extremely butch was not something I could ever do well . My dad had a bottle of calvados and at that moment poured a drop to our fallen relative and we stood there in the biting wind trying to absorb all of what we had found. A drop of Calvados later we took some pictures still wondering what life had been like for JR, a young man in the prime of his life as some cliches would put it.
On deeper reflection afterwards and discussion some solid conclusions came out of it. Some soldiers joined an army then as there was no other opportunities available, a situation that is still the case these days. For me though the biggest part was not finding the grave, that was a bonus but it was the sense of togetherness that is instilled in me that I have not forgotten and have not shaken off since I got home this morning. The trip made me feel so connected to my extended family in a way that I have not experienced in years, its like an epiphany of sorts.
I apologise that unfortunately I lack the eloquence of prose that others have here but this has been on my mind all day and I have been itching to share it with you all here! I have been forumlating it in my head for a while how I would do it but it just spilled out ....
RIP JR
Was discussing some information with the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign earlier who were demonstrating on O Connell St earlier on today. The topc of CRH came up and their role in the building of the illegal wall in Jerusalem and the role they played in its construction, he was of the opinion they were breaking the law as they were involved in construction of said wall. A complaint was lodged that detailed that CRH did not act within the confines of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprise which state that (according to the following website from the Russel Report -http://www.russelltribunalonpalestin...plc-3.5.11.pdf )
The Guidelines are recommendations by governments covering all major areas of
business ethics, including corporate steps to obey the law, observe internationallyrecognised standards and respond to other societal expectations.
Two of the key policies state “that enterprises should respect the human rights of
those affected by their activities consistent with the host government’s international
obligations and commitments” and that they should “Encourage, where
practicable, business partners, including suppliers and sub-contractors, to apply
principles of corporate conduct compatible with the Guidelines”
A case as far as I am aware is currently with the International Court of Justice but I have no idea how far along it is. Is anyone more up to date with the case than I am? Google is proving a bit fruitless...
The Graduation Theory is one of the latest hypothesis as to why serial killers and their ilk develop the way they did due to the influence in their formative years of inflicting pain upon the animals. One subject often cited is the case of Jeffrey Dahmer who for years killed and tortured animals for pleasure and then moved on to humans. Oft this type of behaviour (i.e. the hunting of animals) is rewarded with pats on the back from some sectors of society with the stag mounted on a wall to be displayed as a trophy. These people are akin to the serial killer in their early stages of their path to becoming serial killers but most never thankfully reach that stage of becoming killers but the potential is always there. More information can be read here on the theory and the rewarding of such behaviour.http://www.deviantcrimes.com/serialm...allearning.htm__________________
In ancient Greek mythology, Zeus put in Pandora's box hope, for he knew man was too curious to not open it, in it were contained all the evils of the world and Zeus knew that man would need something when the evils of the world were unleashed on him. Religion is a bit like that, during a time of need we need something to cling to, a mechanism to aleviate fear when times are tough and religion precisely fills this roll.Humans know that their time on Earth is limited so how do you cope when you lose a loved one and need to engage in something that fulfills that attachment mechanism we all need? There is a strong case that religion itself is an adaption that we needed to be crucial for survival, the so called god gene as Richard Dawkins called it. Some of the research I have read explains a lot of the psychology behind religious belief very well as religion by and large is very irrational. One of the examples I read about was if someone says something is true, that does not mean its necessarily so. Eg. I tell you that you are warm when you are freezing, a faith in being warm is not going to alleviate the suffering but when religious people are going through some sort of tough time they are thrown head long into their faith, they seem to cope somewhat better than some athiests do . This irrational belief system may have evolved somewhat to enabled us to cope when times were tough and is therefore an adaptive measure. Another reason I have seen cited is that religion is more or less like a community aspect and brings people together under a common umbrella and therefore is likely to enable people in social groups to carry out business deals, favours etc as is the case in a lot of the American right wing now days. Perhaps now thanks to more abstract thinking and a more critical view of the world and the fact people are a lot more widely educated they can cast of the shackles of an irrational belief system and live their life as it was intended.
Referenceshttp://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articl...9_religion.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...gy_of_religion
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I take it we are all familiar with the class system here and how it works. Does it work against us though in a way? The Us vs Them scenario that we create divides us into two groups essentially along economic lines. Those who do not have the money and those who do not. Can we not change this? Instead of creating a society drawn along humans lines we create a society based on the needs of humans as per the Human Scale of Development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_human_needs). Class strucuralism as described by Marx etc can be applied in a modern context but its a little too rigid so perhaps we need a new socialist movement based on the intentions of the original structure as described by Marx and re-empower the proleteriat?
"Person or Number", a report issued just yesterday by a number of organisations including NASC Ireland makes for very startling reading. (http://www.nascireland.org/ ) . The report cites a number of issues with the attitude of some CWO's and Dept of Social Welfare Officials to immigrants looking to claim benefits here. In one case, a Nigerian man who was refused benefits was more or less told to fuck off back to Nigeria if he did not like it. This was just the tip of the iceberg, most of those interviewed would not make a complaint for fear it would cause an issue with their benefits that they in most cases are genuinely entitled to. Its thanks to the good people at organisations such as Intergrate Ireland and other such advocacy organisations that we can get a message across that discrimination of any kind is not welcome....
The right make so much of a deal of marriage these days , they claim its the basis of the nuclear family or 2.4 children . Man meets woman, they get engaged and they marry and for what? Let us not beat around the bush here, marriage only serves a financial purpose, couples who are married here in Ireland are better off financially than those that are not (http://www.youandyourmoney.ie/content.asp?contentid=882) . Tax credits can be transferred between spouses whom are married. The other issue is, marriage in a way is discriminatory, it creates a world where gay people cannot get married but must have to make do with a civil partnership. The rights of a CP are not the same as that of marriage (http://www.marriagequality.ie/learn/...rtnershipbill/) particularly in relation to inheritance and rights. Instead of us all fighting for equal rights why not just scrap marriage all together for everyone? Families who want a religious ceremony can have one by all means in their local church but the marriage must be registered at a registry office . Outdated practices such as marriage should be consigned to the bin of the past, they went out with the dinosaurs, cowboys and Indians and FF as relics of Ireland's past. Start the marriage ban as a basis to building a secular society where we all then become on an equal footing.
