Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Ragged FringeAuthor(s): Mark RobinsonSource: Fortnight, No. 295 (May, 1991), p. 33Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25552900 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 06:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Fortnight Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fortnight.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.127.90 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 06:29:59 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Ragged fringe

MARK ROBINSON reports from the Celtic Film Festival

AFTER LAST year's Celtic Film Festival, in

Gweedore, Co Donegal, a report delivered to

the festival organiser called for "an opening out

of the agenda to embrace the cultural concerns

of a rapidly changing Europe, feeding into and

drawing sustenance from the re-emerging concerns in the wider Europe over national and

cultural identity". There were echoes in the

organisation of this year's event in Inverness,

where there were seminars devoted to Catalo

nia, Galicia, the Basque country and Norway. Yet while these speakers were listened to

with politeness, the real concerns of the festival

seemed closer to home. The gathering always tends to focus on the host country?the Scots

debating the implications of the ?9.5 million commitment to Gaelic broadcasting announced

as part of the new Broadcasting Act.

This festival (the 12th) could perhaps have been different. Tom Nairn's opening address

offered a provocation by arguing that one could

never sing, dance or whistle into a cultural

identity without paying attention to political

organisation. He accused some Scots of taking out a "forged Gaelic passport", deflecting them

selves from the central, political, issue.

Nairn's remarks relate to what many feel to

be the incoherence of the festival. Each of the

'peripheral' 'Celtic nations' has a different re

lationship to 'the centre'?for the most part the

institutions of the United Kingdom. Scotland,

Wales and Northern Ireland must respond to

different degrees of integration within the UK.

Thus, the primary supporters of the festival, the

BBC regions and the ITV companies, are parts of networks based in England. By contrast,

Cornwall lacks such designated regional out

posts, while the republic is a nation-state.

Such disparities of political status lead to a confusion of ideas of nation, country, region,

periphery and centre, subsumed into more gen

eralised feelings of marginalisation. Nor can

the festival, which has its roots in the promo tion of language, seem to come to terms with

whether or not these languages are essential to

the cultural integrity which offers a passport into the debate on the 'new Europe'.

The Celtic Film Festival cannot ignore these

questions, however removed they may seem

from the business of production. It now appears

likely, for example, that Scotland will not be

able to be the republic's partner in a new

European media initiative?because, in EC

terms, Scotland is not a 'country'. Scotland can

perhaps reapply under different EC programmes as a 'region'. The republic, meanwhile, must

seek partners, not from amongst its 'Celtic

cousins', but from people and institutions in

Portugal, Spain or Greece.

There were two Irish winners at this year's festival. The entertainment award went to

Fleadh Fever, made by Brian Waddell for Ulster Television; and the 'starting out' cate

gory was won by a student at Rathmines Col

lege of Commerce, Harry Purdue, for his Cold

For June.

Cardinal sins

Mary Maher

PERSONALLY SPEAKING A FRIENDLY local theologian told me not I long ago that there are far more references in

the Bible to the moral issues arising from

power and wealth than to sexual ethics. Wealth

is the second most common topic in the Old

Testament, surpassed only by idolatry; in the

I New Testament Jesus talked more about wealth

than heaven, hell, sexual morals or the law.

This conversation came forcibly to mind a

few weeks ago, when the College of Cardinals

held a press conference after their meeting in

Rome. It didn't get much media attention. For

one thing, Ireland is between cardinals. For

another, most of the papers in the republic were busy with the bishops' continuing battle

against loosening up the condom supply. The cardinals emerged to condemn, in

terms more vehement than usual, the squan

dering of human life on an ever more

terrifying scale, throughout this century and

throughout the world. Announcing that they would press the Pope to produce a new encyc

lical on the sacred nature of life, expanding on

the themes of Humanae Vitae, the cardinals

went on to urge the governments of the world

to enact laws which would end the killing. Not laws to end war, nor even laws to

enforce measures to bring an end to the cycle of crop failures and starvation which creates

tragedies such as Sudan. What the cardinals

want are laws severely to curtail and finally to

end the availability of abortion.

I do not object to the cardinals holding the

views they do about abortion?that it is mur

der, always unjustified, always sinful. They have the same democratic right as any other

group to preach what they believe in the hope of convincing others. I do object, angrily, to

including abortion in a statement which con

demns the "systematic degradation of nature,

physical violence, exploitation of the weak

and young, the drug trafficking... abandoning entire peoples to death through famine while

concentrating on arms trafficking". If the cardinals really believe there is a

parallel between the decisions of an individ

ual woman not to bring a child to life, and the

acts of drug barons or governments?massive and ruthless in their consequences?then the I

cardinals need to see a theologian who can tell

them what's in the Bible.

The horrifying spectacle of human de

struction which we are now witnessing on the

borders of Iraq and Turkey is the outcome of

a war about the wealth of oil. War is a business

conducted by the powerful which transacts in

the deaths of the weak, as both Sadam Hussein

and George Bush knew when they watched

the clock tick down to the deadline last Janu

ary. In the United States, the body bags were on order by then, and arrangements in place to

cart the corpses by the planeload. The US got

off lightly, the Iraqis not so lightly, and the Kurds are now paying the final, agonising I

price. These are precisely the kind of variables which governments calculate against strate-1

gic interests when taking decisions about war.

Loss of human life is simply one, rather minor,

factor to process in the political calculator.

Similarly, famine is a matter of political calculation. The decisions that will result in

raging hunger and slow death for the third world are taken in this, the first world, on the I basis of trade and debt considerations. The

governments of the developed countries could

make the investment, in technology and ex

pertise, to end the staggering slaughter the

cardinals so righly condemn. They don't,

because they will not jeapordise their own control or diminish their wealth. I

The ecological devastation which threat

ens all human life is the result of quite legal corporate greed; the drug trafficking which I

deliberately exploits vulnerable kids in grim inner cities across the globe is the result of

illegal corporate greed. Where is the comparison with abortion? I

don't propose to analyse here the many rea

sons why women take that decision, but they are virtually never premeditated calculations

concerned with gaining wealth, power or

control. In most cases, they have to do with

desperation and survival.

And, though it is seldom mentioned, they are usually decisions motivated by a strong I

sense of responsibility to others?to parents,

sadly often, or partners, to existing children,

and not least to the unwanted foetus. Women

have abortions because they don't want to

offer a child less than the welcome it deserves. I If that makes them sinners it cannot possibly

place them in the same category as the masters I

of war, arbiters of famine, destroyers of the

earth, poisoners of the young urban poor. I support the cardinals' determination to I

do something to stop these killers, but I fear

they face difficult and complex obstacles.

Reducing the incidence of abortion, however,

is relatively easy. They have only to start by

accepting that sex sometimes happen in situ

ations they consider morally wrong?smal lish sins, in biblical terms?and give their

blessing to programmes which give wide

spread, free and comprehensive information I

on preventing pregnancies. That's all. Because it is still the case, in I

1991, that the single greatest cause of abortion I

is not human evil, but human ignorance. Do I

you think someone should tell the cardinals?

FORTNIGHT MAY 33

This content downloaded from 188.72.127.90 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 06:29:59 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions