Gerry and his pacemaker

It’s hard to take Gerry Adams seriously these days. The whiff of sulphur has gone and the air of infalbility has been blown away on the winds of child abuse, policy illiteracy and a sense of nation which means little to the vast majority of Irish people.

Last nights speech was high on rebel rhetoric but short on anything except tax the middle classes and kick the brits.

It will be interesting to see if there is any bounce in the southern polls. To date Mr Adams’ “SF is not interested in managing the economy” line has sunk like a lead balloon.

The more I hear from SF the more I hear the old Ireland. Inward looking, anti European and anti business. A party that gets angry but does nothing. That talks equality but is built on inequality. A party of the few and of the past.

Time for a new North

During the political affairs debate at SDLP Conference I called for a new regional politics. Full text below.

Conference.

 I don’t want to be an MLA for the second nationalist party. I want to be an MLA for a renewed SDLP that will speak for the majority who want a new North. For the many who know that we are not as divided as our politics suggests.

 This is the type of politics that made the SDLP great. Working hard, reaching out to communities and breaking new ground to evidence that we can be a party for everyone.

 We know it is time to renew. To bring forward a new generation, energetic on the ground, in touch with workers and families and dedicated to making this region work.

 Friends, people want politics to change and they want our party to change too.

They know the DUP – SF coalition isn’t working. Thousands are loosing their jobs and good companies are being put to the wall.

 My generation never had the chance of a job for life and many of us have started our own businesses. We need MLAs who know this and are willing to support inward investments and business start ups in a real way, harnessing the talent and the energy of this region.

 Those of you who marched with the civil rights movement know power-sharing is based on equality and respect. Well today, equality means a Bill of Rights and respect means strong polices to tackle racism and sectarianism. I want honour your legacy and be a loud and confident advocate for both taking on the DUP in a way SF MLAs have failed to.

Truth is the current coalition is built on inequality.

That a nationalist will never be able to hold the justice Ministry because SF negotiated away their right to do so is not just a denial of the SDLP’s mandate, it is an act of outstanding political and social discrimination, the epitome on inequality.

This inequality is also evident on the streets. It fuels the prejudice that boiled over last summer in naked racism. It’s in the flags that are flown every year on our roads. It was on the streets of Belfast this Christmas and in the internet hate groups.

It’s in the gerrymandering of the constituency boundaries and the privatisation of education.

I will challenge hate and prejudice on our street, speaking up for shared communities and demanding that dialogue take place before tensions rise. I want to now why we still spend £1.5 billion a year servicing sectarianism. That’s ten thousand pounds out of all our pockets to accommodate the bigotry the DUP and Sinn Fein so rely on.

When Sammy Wilson comes looking for water rates or tries to sack healthcare workers we will be on the doorsteps reminding voters that he should be tackling the cost of bigotry not hitting on pensioners and the young.

The North is changing.

Our hand in friendship will always be there to those who want to change too. Opposing those who want to undermine power-sharing does not mean we should not work with parties which support it. 

It’s time to offer the electorate an alternative to the DUP-SF coalition.

Cooperating in the interests of this region is not a denial of identity; it is an expression of confidence and ambition for the North and this island. It’s real patriotism, not partitionism. 

Our mission is not to destroy the North but to make it strong. We are the party of the North. The party that knows we can all be proudly northern and proudly Irish. A stronger north will mean a strong Ireland and a weak north a failed one.

But to do this we must change and we must renew. We must prove to ourselves and to the people that we can build new coalitions.

Today is our opportunity to show that we have a future. We can challenge unionism to come to the table and talk about the issues that matter. Their future is not in Hatfield House talking to English Tories it is her in Ireland talking about how we can make this region and this island work.

If a united Ireland is our tomorrow then a new North must be our today.

Let us support the platform for change and start a new conversation which brings ordinary people into politics again.

That’s what the civil rights movement did and so the time has come for a new generation to pick up the torch which John Hume lit and assert that this region is our future and that we will work that common ground to make it a success.

To bury the politics of the past.

To speak directly to those who are young in age and spirit and tell them that a new Northern Ireland built on equality and respect is possible.

That politics is not about the faith you follow or the passport you carry but the better life you want and the ambitions you hold.

Today we proclaim that this is a party with a future.

For the many not the vested interests of the few.

For a strong North and a strong Ireland.

For a new politics and a new SDLP.

Real change will only come when the DUP & SF start tackling the economy, education, health and sectarianism

I’m on my way back up to Hillsborough this morning. The ball is still with the DUP and SF.  Will both parties commit to this region and its future or will they put party interest first?

I don’t know whether they will make a deal or not today. What I do know is that this is not 1998 and the people really don’t care.

I hope we get to welcome a resolution later but lets be real about it. Change will only come to this region when the big two dedicate the same energy to the economy, the crisis in education and the need to tackle sectarianism as they do to standoff.

Homage to Helen

They have been paying tribute to the late Helen Lewis all week. Fionnuala O’Connor had a lovely piece in the Irish News and Steven Jaffe reminded us how she once had to dance for her life in yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph.

Today I will join the mourners at her final farewell. The Belfast poet and Helen’s neighbour Michael Longley will deliver the eulogy.

This Christmas my old friend Peter Coll gifted me a copy of Longley’s collected poems. His accompanying note a reminder that we are very fortunate in this city to live amongst a great poet.

A LINEN HANDKERCHIEF

for Helen Lewis 

Northern Bohemia’s flax fields and the flax fields

Of Northern Ireland, the linen industry, brought Harry,

Trader in linen handkerchiefs, to Belfast, and then

After Terezin and widowhood and Auschwitz, you,

 

Odysseus as a girl, your sail a linen handkerchief

On which he embroidered and unpicked hundreds of names

All through the war , but in one corner the flowers

Encircling you initials never came undone.

Michael Longley

Happy New Year

Happy New Year.

Obama’s message for Northern Ireland

President Obama’s speech last night to the houses of Congress was a tour of force. It also contained a passage which applies as much to our Assembly as it does the the men and women on Capitol Hill.

And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter — that at that point we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges.  We lose something essential about ourselves.

Facebook – Friendfeed union quite a revolution

Yesterday afternoon news broke that Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, has bought FriendFeed, an up-and-coming web service, in a sign that it plans to extend its lead over rivals such as Twitter.  The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, is likely to boost Facebook’s move into instant, real-time updates to compete with micro-blogging service Twitter.

The Times online reportedthat Facebook held talks with Twitter last year with a view to buying the company but Twitter founders decided to remain independent. The micro-blogging service has gone from strength to strength with millions flocking to its stream of real-time updates on users’ home pages.

 FriendFeed allows users to see what their friends are posting on different social media sites. It aggregates all social media activity on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, blogs etc, as well as having the normal discussion and social networking functions.

This is an opportunity for individuals and organisations interested in building or being part of online communities. As Facebook becomes even more of an information aggregator, brands with a profile on the site will be able to publicise their content, news and views easily and effectively to their “fans” (i.e. people that have opted in to receiving information from the brand).

We will be monitoring developments closely here at Weber Shandwick.

Hotel Rwanada manager in Ireland

PAUL RUSESABAGINA and DON CHEADLE on the set of HOTEL RWANDA

Paul Rusesabagina was the temporary manager of a four star hotel in Kigali, Rwanada in 1994 when he used  his influence and connections to shelter 1,268 Tutsis and moderate Hutus from being slaughtered by the Interahamwe militia is to make his first visit to Ireland. He is visiting Belfast and Dublin before travelling to Kinsale.

The Irish Times reports that Mr Rusesabagina, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, travels the world raising awareness about the need for truth and reconciliation in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Mr Rusesabagina’s story received worldwide attention after the release of the powerful movie Hotel Rwanda, in which he was was played by Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle.
 

Meet Paul Rusesabagina, Foundation President and inspiration for the film Hotel Rwanda from Paul Rusesabagina on Vimeo.

His foundation has campaigned for an internationally sanctioned truth and reconciliation commission for the Great Lakes region of Africa, which includes Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

His story has been described as an African Schindler’s List and I really hope we get the opportunity to hear him speak in public when he visits us here in the North next month. 

If anyone on O’Conall Street knows when and if he will be speaking please leave a comment.

Official Launch

Martin Walsh, Rushmere Shopping Centre manager, and Sematiko Katende, MP for Mityana North, officially open the Rushmere School, kibaale Parish, Mityana District, Uganda.

The band opened the proceedings

Tables arrive for the celebration

Celebrations get underway

...as does the cooking

They killed a cow for our feast but I missed the butchering. As luck would have it there was a local butcher working in a field by the side of the road on the way to the village. He told me he would get around £1.20 per kg for the meat.

Happy smiling people

Alison Knox, also part of the Rushmere School team in Uganda, shares her thoughts as guest blogger onsite in Kibaale:

Every day we travel the same route, sometimes stopping for pineapples and bananas, but not much else. Today was different; today we stopped at a local school. It was built in 2008.The locals raised the money themselves and could only afford to build class rooms for nursery to P.3. Over the coming year they hope to raise enough money to complete the school.

Many of the kids who attend the school are extremely poor. They are the children of tea pickers who work at the surrounding tea plantation. Their parents work from 7am-7pm for as little as 2p a kilo. The most anyone could hope to collect daily is 100 kilo’s. Hardly anything, yet that is more pay than a teacher!

The kids gave us presents of fruit – pawpaw, jack fruit and avocado – and made traditional African bags for us. There was an incredible act of generosity and kindness which left everyone more than a little emotional! On the way home we passed the school again and all the kids came running out, smiling and waving at us – wearing little more than their underwear. They had been mixing cow dung with water and spreading it on their classroom floors, to keep away pests and also settle dust.

I know our work at Rushmere School will help the 400 kids studying there, but it was heart breaking to see this school and know there are so many more which also need that hand up.

 Alison