General

By Christopher Stanley, Litigation Consultant, KRW LAW LLP, Belfast* [i] In the last six months victims of violent abuse in Ireland have been ‘granted’ apologies. First, the Irish Taoiseach apologized to the victims and survivors of the Mother and Baby Homes. Writing in The Independent on 14 January 2021 Emer O’Toole noted: “On Wednesday, the Irish Taoiseach issued an apology to survivors, saying, rightfully, that “the shame was not theirs; it was ours”. While this state apology is important, the Taoiseach’s speech historicises the lack of respect for the dignity and rights of survivors. This trend continues across Irish political discourse, where emphasis is on closing a dark chapter in Ireland’s history. But survivors of Mother and Baby Homes and Irish adopted people are still not being listened to. They are still being denied their rights.” Second, the British Prime Minister apologized to the relatives of the victims of the Ballymurphy Massacre 1971 in which British troops shot and killed 11 civilians. Writing in The Irish Times on 25 May 2021 Sarah Burns reported that the families of the victims described the apology as “feeble and insincere”. It is widely believed, at least by the media and victims, survivors and relatives, that these apologies were hollow, weasel words, granted too late, absent of understanding, integrity or meaning. Words mouthed by politicians to an empty audience, as a gesture of apparent humility, amounting to nothing save for a ritual of vacant contrition. In terms of the violent legacy of systemic institutional abuse in Ireland (South and North) and the violent legacy of the Conflict (North and South) the apology for historic actions and inactions, acts and omissions, collusion and complicity and impunity by the State, is part of the State-sponsored system/process of Truth and Reconciliation. A societal Truth and Reconciliation process is an aspect of ‘moving on’ from the scene of violent incursion and of suturing a social wound so that such violations and breaches (of the social contract, of human rights) cannot be repeated. We Promise. Trust Us – we apologized to you. Truth and Reconciliation: Soft (Transitional) Justice. If there is a right to truth it must be a right to know why. Why was my body broken? Why was my baby forcibly removed? Why was my mammy shot by a British soldier? Why was my husband executed by the British state? This is not a Soft Right but rather it is a Hard Truth for those responsible, for those being held. “But it did not happen on my watch” says the Politician, the Civil Servant, the Bishop, the General. Therefore, the words of apology fall upon deaf ears. I reject your apology. I cannot forgive you. Is this wrong? Does it make the victim lesser than the abuser? [ii] The Oxford Reference website entry for the word ressentiment is as follows: “A vengeful, petty-minded state of being that does not so much want what others have (although that is partly it) as want others to not have what they have. The term, which might be translated as ‘resentment’, though in most places it is generally left in the original French, is usually associated with German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who defined it as a slave morality. Nietzsche sees ressentiment as the core of Christian and Judaic thought and, consequently, the central facet of western thought more generally. In this context, ressentiment is more fully defined as the desire to live a pious existence and thereby position oneself to judge others, apportion blame, and determine responsibility.” (Ressentiment – Oxford Reference last accessed 11 June 2021) In psychological terms ressentiment is a profound sense of resentment, frustration, and hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one’s frustration, generated by a sense of weakness/inferiority and feelings of jealousy/envy in the face of the ’cause’, that ultimately generates a rejecting/justifying ‘value system’ or morality that exists as a means of attacking or denying the perceived source of one’s own sense of inferiority. (Ressentiment last accessed 14 June 2021) Ressentiment is not resentment but rather a philosophical, ideological and psychological condition. It is the suffering of not understanding, the suffering of being located within a victim-hierarchy, and the suffering of not being able to forgive because of perceived self-weakness because I suffered. [iii] In the jurisprudence on the definition of torture (upon which there is an absolute prohibition) there is an important distinction between torture and inhuman and degrading treatment because of the stigma attached to torture. The victim of torture becomes stigmatized or scapegoated because they are the victim of torture. The victim of torture cannot escape the scar imposed upon them and the violence inscribed upon their flesh. [iv] Kafka describes the infliction of punishment as the crime is inscribed upon the flesh of the body of the condemned in his short story In The Penal Colony: “Yes, the Harrow,” said the Officer. “The name fits. The needles are arranged as in a harrow, and the whole thing is driven like a harrow, although it stays in one place and is, in principle, much more artistic. You will understand in a moment. The condemned is laid out here on the Bed. First, I will describe the apparatus and only then let the procedure go to work. That way you will be able to follow it better. Also, a sprocket in the Inscriber is excessively worn. It really squeaks. When it is in motion one can hardly make oneself understood. Unfortunately, replacement parts are difficult to come by in this place. So, here is the Bed, as I said. The whole thing is completely covered with a layer of cotton wool, the purpose of which you will find out in a moment. The condemned man is laid out on his stomach on the cotton wool—naked, of course. There are straps for the hands here, for the feet here, and for the throat here, to tie him in securely. At the head of the Bed here, where the man, as I have mentioned, first lies face down, is this small protruding lump of felt, which can

THE STONE WAS MOVED AND DOMINIC CRAWLED OUT By Christopher Stanley So, we have this sort of completely insane situation in which part of the building was saying, ‘are we going to bomb Iraq?’, part of the building was arguing about whether or not we’re going to do quarantine or not do quarantine, the prime minister has his girlfriend going crackers about something completely trivial  [i] After his Passion in the Rose Garden, the Stone was Moved and Dominic crawled out into the spotlight. A hybrid Jesus Christ/Sméagol/Gollum/Deranged Technocrat. His clawed hand nailed to a whiteboard of messianic data.  His name derived from the sound of his disgusting gurgling, choking cough (Gollum not Dom).  It might not have been on third day but it was near to the ‘anniversary’ of his Passion in the Rose Garden of 10 Downing Street when he ‘gave’ an unprecedented Press Conference to explain his travails/travels to Barnard Castle.  This week he ‘gave’ an unprecedent evidence session to politicians in Westminster. A stone’s throw from the scene (mise en scène) that marked the start of his departure from a public life of private office/devotion.  Dear Village Reader you may recall I took advantage of Dominic’s Passion to write a short series of opinion pieces about Type-Cummings, Project-Cummings and how his personality and conviction were shaping the modern English way of politics, governance, service to state and management of society and economy.  I described how Type-Cummings and Project-Cummings were centralising power in the Cabinet Office and not Whitehall, by way of Executive Dominance (the stranglehold of Elective Dictatorship choking those wretched constitutional checks and balances) over the Legislature (Parliament) and the Judiciary in the absence of any form of accountability, above law-morals-aesthetics, wheezing anomie.  The Odyssean-education of the synthesisers whose contempt for the Overseers (politicians and judges) was completed by Cummings Ascension to dominance is a (deliberately) complex phenomenon obscured by its own use of techno-bureaucratic language of post-modern managerial Machiavellianism. My analysis of ‘phenomenon Cummings’ was offered to Readers of Village as a warning of how a radical new fashion in how to Project-manage a complex democracy in an undemocratic Soviet-style planning of a post-industrial/digital/viral/voodoo economy is emerging. [ii] After the Summer, The Fall. Cummings fell/pushed dramatically and Icarus like.  He retreated into his Platonic cave in North London to do what he does best: Plan.  [iii] And two days after the anniversary of his Passion in the Rose Garden (25 May 2020) the Stone of the Cave moved and Dominic rose before a House of Commons Select Committee (27 May 2021) and he spoke: for seven hours. In the Rose Garden he was late and characteristically dishevelled (another nod of contempt for Establishment norms). In the Select Committee Room assigned for his return, he was open-necked and on time.  This was a joint session of Parliament’s health and social care and the science and technology Select Committees. Dominic appeared in person; some of his inquisitors appeared virtually. Dominic produced his whiteboard.  [iv] Dear Village Reader please remember Dominic Cummings was employed by the Conservative Party as a SPAD – a Special Advisor. He was not a civil servant. Rather an uncivil savant. He is beyond Spin. Therefore, in his Select Committee performance he appeared with no fixed mandate as a politician or a civil servant would.  As with his Press Conference, so with his spotlight part in the arena of Political Theatre. The Studio Space in this theatre (the Palace of Westminster as the Palace of Varieties) took precedence over the Main Space where the other dramatic personae in this performance were ‘doing’ Prime Minister’s Questions (the regular week in, week out of political repertory).  [v] And the inquisitors allowed him to vent. This was so unlike the Select Committee I attended many years ago (2009) when Iris Robinson MP (remember her?) let loose at Dennis Bradley, the co-author of the Eames-Bradley Consultation on the Past, who was giving evidence. It was reminiscent of a recent Parish Council meeting in the North of England. What was Dominic here for? Revisionism, Confession, Retribution, Justification,  Revenge, katharsis for The Fall? Or to explain why 128,000 people in the UK died of Covid-19? And in the shadow-context of that figure to exert his moral authority where others appeared to have abandoned their moral compasses, if they ever possessed them? For a person skilled in trench-warfare (recall he delivered ‘us’ – and I include you Dear Village Reader – BREXIT) he was prepared and planned for his attack.  In the Bunker of 10 Downing Street, I suspect the tin-helmets were being issued and the counterattack being prepared (Operation Chaos and Lies), even as the Great Leader spoke at the Palace of Varieties, as his Princess Nut Nut flicked through the wallpaper catalogues of Barrow and Fall.  [vi] So, the headline or salient points, Dom’s take on the management of a C21 pandemic. Blessed hindsight! Good old Auntie! Dominic Cummings: Five claims fact-checked – BBC News and Dominic Cummings: The seven most explosive claims – BBC News (last accessed 30 May 2021) The British government ‘failed’: “Tens of thousands of people died, who didn’t need to die” sorry for ministers, officials and advisers “like me” for falling “disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect”. “When the public needed us most the government failed”, apologising to “the families of those who died unnecessarily”.   The British Prime Minister was/is ‘not fit for office’: “The heart of the problem was, fundamentally, I regarded him as unfit for the job. And I was trying to create a structure around him to try and stop what I thought would have been bad decisions, and push things through against his wishes.” The British Health Secretary “should have been fired”:    “should have been fired for at least 15 to 20 things” and displayed “criminal, disgraceful behaviour” and “completely incapable of doing the job”.   First lockdown delay   “I bitterly regret that I didn’t hit the emergency panic button earlier than I did”.   Bombs, quarantine… and a dog called Dilyn   “So, we have this