March of the Orangemen

On February 25th the Orange Order plan to march in Dublin to protest at the Dáil, highlighting the plight of the victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland in the era of the Good Friday Peace agreement which has seen many of the perpetrators of the worst atrocities in the Irish ’Troubles’ set free from prison. If all goes to plan they will parade down O’Connell Street in an event that many in the Irish capital will see as extremely provocative.

For those out there who don’t know, the Orange Order is a highly sectarian society who celebrate the Protestant William of Orange’ famous victory over the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne over 300 years ago and want to maintain the Union between Britain and Northern Ireland. Their marches are the cause of much tension between the Loyalist and Nationalist communities of the province every summer. Northern Catholics see them as triumphalist and deliberately provocative, Orangemen say they are merely worshiping and asserting their right to hold parades; even if they are routed directly through Catholic communities Their presence in the South will not be popular.

In the North, Orange Marches are met with counter-protests and often riots. We can only hope the same won’t happen South of the border as this would be playing into the Orangemen’s hands. No doubt they would love trouble to prove the hostility of the Irish Republic to their culture. Trouble at the march would confirm everything that Unionists have always said about the intolerance of the South. The best thing that could happen would be for the parade to be ignored. Indeed that would be the best thing for Nationalist communities in the North for them to do the same even in the face of deliberately confrontational marches in their areas.

The Orange Order is a relic of the troubled history of Ireland but today these men in their black suits, bowler hats and orange sashes, swords in hand, are more to be pitied or ridiculed than anything else. More often than not they are drunken yobs in tracksuits, rangers football shirts and trainers - hardly an expression of pride in Loyalist or Protestant culture.

Unionism in general appears to feel under siege at the moment. Unwilling to share power in the North with Sinn Féin (which isn’t that hard to understand), threatened by the demographic time bomb that is the higher Nationalist birth rate in Northern Ireland and flanked to the South by a more prosperous, and tolerant Irish Republic, their way of life is under threat like never before. It is not impossible to imagine a United Ireland within the coming decades and with that Unionism would eventually lose its popularity and relevance. Orange marches may be petty and offensive to the Nationalist community but they are increasingly looking like the last gasps of a the slowly dying movement that is Unionism. Nationalists should realise this and let it die in peace.

As for the coming march in Dublin I welcome it as a sign of the more tolerant times that have belatedly reached this country and hope it passes off with the low levels of controversy that such an irrelevant movement deserves.

Pakistan: US Friend or Foe?

Presidents Karzai, Bush and Musharraf of Afghanistan, The United States and Pakistan - staunch allies in the 'War on Terror'.

The United States has allied itself with some nasty regimes in its War on Terror. Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan to name but two. It has also overthrown brutal governments in Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of the same war. This hypocrisy cannot be justified even in the context of the fight against terrorism as it simply breeds more resentment towards America in the Muslim world. Pakistan is another country in this duplicitous nexus of alliance and enmity with nefarious regimes in which the United States has become embroiled since 9/11. However it’s government is not held in the same disgust as some of America’s other unsavoury allies. This is platitude that should be challenged. The country is a dictatorship, has become involved in nuclear proliferation and is a hotbed of Islamic extremism, all of which are hardly qualities that the United Sates should seek in an ally.

General Pervez Musharraf seized power in Islamabad in 1999 amid much international condemnation, promising an end to endemic corruption and a swift return to civilian rule. Seven years later neither of these goals have been achieved. Corruption is still rife, especially in Musharraf’s military, and the dictator seems perfectly happy to remain in power indefinitely, merely holding elections to a parliament that he can dissolve at any time.

Meanwhile under the General’s rule, the father of Pakistan’s Nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, purportedly without the support of the government, sold nuclear secrets to Libya, North Korea and possibly Iran. Musharraf pardoned him. Pakistan’s somewhat rogue intelligence agency the ISI’s support for Islamic militants attacking Indian forces in the disputed region of Kashmir almost brought the two nuclear armed countries to war. Additionally, the despicable Islamic Fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan enjoyed Musharraf’s full support as a stabilising influence on Pakistan’s troubled neighbour. This support lasted until 9/11 2001 when the previously condemned and ostracised dictator fortunes changed and he became a crucial ally in America’s War on Terror.

Pakistan was geographically and politically important to the US war in to oust the al-Qaida supporting Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan. President Musharraf, once known to an ill-informed George W. Bush only as ‘the general’ when asked to name the leaders of Pakistan and India by a smartass journalist before his initial election; the leader of what the hilariously gaff-prone US president called the ’Pakis’, soon became very popular in Washington; attending summits and cosy get-togethers in Camp David. Musharraf’s contempt for democracy was swept under the carpet as he is portrayed as a moderate leader and a great friend to the West in its struggle with Islamic Terrorism.

However true this may be, Musharraf’s alliance with America is making him unpopular with the not insignificant radical Islamic population in Pakistan. The rise in Islamic fanaticism that has been the result of the US alliance with Pakistan has now perhaps made it very dangerous for democratic elections to be held as extremists would undoubtedly do very well in the current climate. Musharraf’s tenuous hold on has been constantly threatened by such extremists within the military and ISI, and the Islamic militants that stalk the western borders with Afghanistan and in Pakistani Kashmir. Lawless western Pakistan is now a sanctuary for the Taliban and al-Qaida, who use the region as a base to attack US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. This is ironically much like the US-backed Mujahideen from which these groups grew, used the area to attack the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Osama bin Laden himself if he is alive is thought to be hiding there. Some of Pakistan’s (Saudi-funded) Madrassas or Islamic schools radicalise their students and education tomorrow‘s terrorists. Indeed one of the perpetrators of the 7/7 attacks in London is known to have attended such a school for a number of months in Lahore. Perhaps the most vivid example of the rise in extremism and anti-Americanism in Pakistan occurred in the aftermath of last years horrendous earthquake. Reportedly US helicopters on route to help the victims were fired upon from the ground by militants.

All of this leads to the surreal events of last Friday when the United States bombed its own ally in an attempt to assassinate Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s second in command. Although this has not yet been confirmed, the attack has seemingly failed to killed its target but did cause the deaths of eighteen people, many of whom were women and children. This has understandably led to uproar in Pakistan, further fanning the flames of Islamic fundamentalism that are threatening to engulf the country.

President Musharraf is now in a difficult position. He has condemned the bombing and will surely tone down his support for America so as to appease the populace. He would do well to remember the fate of that other American ally and dictator, the Shah of Iran who was overthrown by Islamic fundamentalists in 1979. The United States should also learn from that episode. It is a cliché but it doesn't make it any less true that America must learn that support of autocrats and tyrants such as the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, the Saud Dynasty, Karimov of Uzbekistan or even a ‘dictator-lite’ such as Musharraf will only store up problems for the future. The dilemma presented by Pakistan is that with growing Islamic extremism - in part due to the alliance - a reinstatement of democracy may soon prove to be just as dangerous.

New York Stories...

At the beginning of December 2005 I travelled to New York. In the last (I promise) of a series of articles I take a look at the obesity epidemic that has swept America.

Fat City

One of the highlights of a visit to New York City has to be the range and variety of venues where you can gorge yourself on whatever food takes your fancy. From chow mein in China Town or spaghetti and meatballs in Little Italy to countless fast food restaurants seemingly on every block, you’re never far from an eatery that will serve up enormous portions of fat-filled food for very low prices. While we didn’t eat in the classiest restaurants in the city, we had some fantastic meals and never paid more than thirty dollars - great for a dinner for two.

New Yorkers certainly know how to do breakfast (bagels, French toast, pancakes!) and I recommend the pizza anywhere - though I discovered paradoxical truism in the apparent fact that the dingier the restaurant, the better the pizza is likely to be. Overall the trip was a culinary indulgence of belt-bursting proportions. At home I try to eat my veg, drink water, cut down on the fat (without being obsessive about it) and I’d like to think I don’t drink to the excesses of some of the lads. I can’t claim to have the healthiest of diets but, in a way, on my return to Ireland it was almost a relief to once more eat food not filled with sugar, salt or grease.

Stereotypically Americans are portrayed as lumbering behemoths of shuddering blubber. With the food available over there it's not hard to see why. Over a third are classified as obese by the American Medical Association; six percent, morbidly so. According to todays Guardian 800,000 New Yorkers have diabetes - a disease almost unique to the West where cheap, fatty food is in abundance. The obesity epidemic hits America’s ethnic minorities disproportionately because of worse diets due to poverty and genes that are more susceptible to the disease. As a result the problem is a massive one in New York with it’s large Black, Asian and Hispanic communities.

Obesity is clearly a crisis for the city and the United States. It has been recently been highlighted by the likes of Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation and Morgan Spurlock’s hit documentary Super Size Me where Spurlock survives (barely) on a diet of Mc Donalds food for a month. One sign of this literally huge problem that I noticed while in the States was in Newark Airport where defibrillators (the machines that administer electric shocks to heart attack victims) are installed in every corridor. That ’s something I haven’t seen in airports in any other country in the world.

Europe can’t afford to be too smug however. It is said that New York sets trends and that the rest of the world is about two decades behind. There is already evidence that Europeans are getting fatter. A recent study estimates that almost a fifth of Irish Teenagers are overweight. There are already US-style ’Fat-Camps’ for kids in the UK if not in Ireland too. Heart disease - which can stem from being overweight - is one of our biggest killers, accounting for forty-two percent of all deaths in Ireland every year. America may have its fat crisis now but ours is just a few pizzas away…

Sharon is Politically Dead, What Now for the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Process?

Today doctors in a Jerusalem hospital will begin gradually waking Israeli leader Ariel Sharon (above left) from his medically-induced coma. Only then will they discover whether the Prime Minister will survive the multiple strokes and brain haemorrhages he suffered last week and how much they have affected his faculties if he does. One thing is certain, whether Sharon survives or not he is politically dead and Israel is without its Prime Minister in the run-up to important elections both in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and at yet another crucial stage in the peace process.

As it stands acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (above centre) and the Kadima party, recently founded by Sharon after the Likud Party split over the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, is ahead of the hard-line remaining Likud members in the latest opinion polls. The same polls show that the Labour Party, in the current climate of fear in Israel, and without the heavy-weight Shimon Peres who changed alliegance to Kadima is not the force it once was. A coalition between Kadima and the Labour party is the most probable outcome and could potentially mean some chance for progress towards peace with the Palestinians.

That is not to say that Olmert would be any more willing to make a deal with the Palestinians than Sharon was. As mayor of Jerusalem in the 1990s he supported the illegal building of Jewish settlements on the Palestinian West Bank. These settlements currently being consolidated by the wall separating the Israeli and Palestinian communities are a major source of tension between the two sides. Also Olmert has yet to prove his muscle in the areas of defence and security so important to Israeli voters and may pursue a harsh policy in that area so as to shore up his credentials with the understandably security-conscious Israeli voters. This would further antagonise the Palestinians and make it even more difficult for the head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmood Abbas to control the militants both in his own Fatah movement and in Hamas.

While an Olmert administration couldn’t be any worse than the premiership of Ariel Sharon who after all provoked the current Intifada by setting foot in the al-Aqsa Mosque complex in September 2000, and began construction of the now infamous separation wall that eats into Palestinian land; it would most likely be a continuation of the policies that have led to stalemate in the peace process that has reigned throughout the Palestinian uprising. Sharon’s strategy of tightening Israel’s grip on the settlements on the West Bank while letting go of the less valuable Gaza strip would almost certainly remain in place. This makes the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians a distant possibility.

However there is an even worse possibility. Although behind in the polls, the Likud party under former PM Binyamin Netanyahu (above right) cannot be totally dismissed in the upcoming elections. Should there be a major suicide attack in Israel in the near future Israeli voters may well remember Netanyahu’s record on security. His tenure in office between 1996 and 1999 which was one of the most quiet phases in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians on the other hand will remember his uncompromising manner and ruthless crackdowns. A Netanyahu victory would ensure deadlock as he unconditionally opposes the creation of a Palestinian State, a pre-requisite for any deal on the Palestinian side.

The so-called ‘Roadmap for Peace’ put forward by the US, EU, UN and Russia is all but dead, Yasser Arafat, blamed for so long as a hurdle on that road is dead, Ariel Sharon, the main instigator of the current mess is dying, and in any case politically doomed, what remains to be seen is who will step in to salvage the situation. As of now it seems that with the current weak position of the Labour Party, a continuation of the policies of Ariel Sharon over a potentially disastrous Likud agenda would actually be the lesser of two evils. It is very hard to believe that this is the reality facing the Middle East peace process at this critical phase.