Community Relations and asserting identity

It is community relations week, so I want to run three posts on the subject.

Divided We Stand? Mapping patterns of shared and separated space is the title of a newly published piece of research by Orna Young and Stephen Roulston. It is of course worth a read in its own entirety, but I thought in particular this table was worth looking at, from a selection of over 400 young people of school-going age in Northern Ireland:

There is a lot to think on there, however what struck me most was the penultimate line. Asserting community identity can undermine social cohesion.

That is hugely challenging. One of the biggest causes of conflict and terrorism world-wide is a sense of lost identity. If people cannot assert their community identity without “undermining social cohesion”, we are in serious difficulties.

It is certainly not a question to which I have an answer. Has anyone?

Champions’ League Final a “Clásico” of sorts

Spain’s “Clásico” is the ultimate clash not just because it contains two of the game’s most famous and successful clubs, but because it provides a clash between Spanish imperialism and the Right on one hand, and Catalan regionalism and the Left on the other. Politics, culture and sport all intertwine at the very highest level of football.

Other countries’ equivalents do not match it because they lack this mix – Milan-Juve, Liverpool-United and Benfica-Porto all combine their countries’ two most illustrious teams in terms of national and European titles, but do not provide the same mix of politics and culture. 

This brings us to the peculiar case of Germany, where the “Klassiker” involves Bayern and a team from the west or north which rotates every so often. In the ’70s, Borussia Mönchengladbach was the rival (and even this season was one of only four teams to take points off Bayern in the Bundesliga); then the northern rivals of Hamburg and Werder Bremen took turns at it; before the rivalry shifted west again, this time to Borussia Dortmund.

This is a serious rivalry – Bayern Munich contains the name of the State in which Munich is contained in its name (“Bayern” is German for “Bavaria”); Borussia Dortmund contains the Latin name for “Prussia”, which covered most of the north and west of the country (and Dortmund, despite lying inland, was also associated with the medieval Hanseatic trading league alongside Hamburg and Bremen). Instantly, therefore, this is a historic culture clash.

Germany has also changed dramatically regionally in recent years, even leaving aside the “new States” (the former East). In the ’70s, Mönchengladbach represented the prosperous industrial west against the poorer, agrarian Bavarians. That has changed remarkably, with the prosperity gap between North and South now in fact greater than the gap between West and East – in favour of the South. Bavaria – home of Siemens, BMW and Audi among many others – scarcely experienced the German recession of the early 2000s and has emerged among the most prosperous places in Europe; meanwhile the Ruhrgebiet, an urban conglomeration the size of Greater London in which Dortmund is located, has suffered post-industrial decline. Such is the scale of the regional clash, it is quite possible that supporters of Dortmund’s local rival, Gelsenkirchen-based Schalke, will in fact back Dortmund.

On top of all that, there is of course the dialect clash. Bavaria’s First Minister Edmund Stoiber was candidate for German Chancellor a decade ago, but his phraseology, particularly when out on the stomp, left Germans elsewhere bewildered to the extent that some wonder if it cost him the election. Bavarian is closer in fact to Austrian German than anything you would hear in the Ruhr, Hamburg or Berlin, spoken more at the front of the mouth with its most famed footballing example being Franz Beckenbauer. “Ruhrpott” German, on the other hand, can at its most extreme be closer to Dutch than Bavarian.

On top of all of that is the straightforward point that the Ruhr and Bavaria tend to produce most of the German national team. This on-field clash, almost an “internal derby” of sorts, is best illustrated of course by the case of Mario Götze, born in Bavaria but bred in Dortmund, who will play his final game for Dortmund against Bayern, the very team he is joining in the summer.

So, yes, this is not quite the “Clásico”, but it has significant elements of it. One final similarity is that these teams know each other well – this season they have drawn 1-1 twice in the League (Dortmund was the only team Bayern failed to beat in the Bundesliga), and Bayern edged a home cup tie 1-0. With a degree of bitterness surrounding Bayern’s method of approaching Dortmund players and on-field familiarity, the likelihood is this will be a game of few goals – with Bayern the narrow victor.

Let’s Talk about Dementia

It’s Dementia Week and I am appearing on BBC Radio Ulster‘s Talkback programme this lunchtime to discuss my father’s dementia. I think it highly important that we do so, and my main aim (although it’ll be just a five-minute edit in the end) is to help others prepare. This is something with which many of us are already familiar, and that is bound, in the next generation, to become most of us.

1. Prepare for dementia right from the off – if you are lucky enough to live to a reasonable age, there is a fair chance you will get it. Most importantly, sign an Enduring Power of Attorney (in Northern Ireland; now known as a Lasting Power of Attorney in England/Wales). This has the effect of allocating responsibility for your health/welfare (albeit to a more limited degree in Northern Ireland than in England/Wales) and finances/property to someone else in the event that you are deemed unfit to make these decisions for yourself (collectively in Northern Ireland; there is now a separate document for each in England/Wales). Do this as soon as your children reach adulthood.

2. If you are fairly sure a loved one has early dementia, talk about it – in my case, this was when my father completely lost his sense of direction, but there are of course other indicators. This can be done gently; focus on how perhaps the memory is not what it was, perhaps some decisions are becoming unnecessarily stressful, or whatever. Continue to get physical and mental exercise.

3. If you are fairly sure a loved one is advancing with dementia, get a diagnosis - in my case, this was when my father had run up mobile phone bills, inadvertently on contracts he no doubt did not mean to sign, of ₤2,000. This may require some hard work and you may have to do it yourself (some GPs are unwilling to give the diagnosis and there is no particular clear boundary between dementia and not-dementia) – in my case, I myself had to make an appointment with the GP practically to demand the diagnosis be made, largely because my father (inevitably and understandably) denied as much was wrong as was.

4. When you feel your loved one really isn’t capable of handling their own affairs, you will then need to activate your Power of Attorney, by placing it with the High Court complete with confirmation of diagnosis by the GP. Unfortunately this costs – ₤50 to the GP, ₤120 to the Court plus (probably) legal fees. You will then receive one copy of the Power of Attorney stamped by the Court, plus copies – to use it with any authority (say, a bank) you will need to show the original and leave a copy. Note that the Power applies throughout the UK - a lot of private institutions in other legal jurisdictions of the UK will try to deny this, and so it may be worth having some solicitor’s letters handy to write to any such institution.

5. Be prepared throughout of the emotional journey - it is all well and good managing the administrative side efficiently, but ultimately you are restricting the independence of a loved one and that entails, frankly, a grieving process of sorts. Do not be ashamed of this – in fact, there would be something wrong with you if you were not, at various stages, upset by what you are having to do. And do speak to people – most people have some idea at least of what you are going through.

I sincerely hope this helps.

Should Jim Allister not just lead UUP?

It is clear – and to some extent understandable – that the Ulster Unionists are close to completing the transition to the “right” (i.e. more extreme) of the DUP. From trying to block the Education Bill in the Assembly, trying to stop the “Maze Shrine”, and trying to stop DUP health policy on the back of the care homes debacle (all of which may or may not be legitimate policies in themselves), the Ulster Unionists are undeniably harder line and, in practice, “anti-Agreement”.

This is understandable partly because it is what the DUP did to them, and partly because the geography for their remaining vote. Drawn from predominantly rural, border areas where Protestants are a minority, if Ulster Unionists listen to their own voters and potential voters that will inevitably shift them to take a harder line.

All of this leaves, however, the obvious question of the Leadership. Mike Nesbitt has become a joke, weaving about in the wind, refusing to let anyone else have any spotlight at all, and becoming rabidly sectarian – all without improving the party’s fortunes at all. Yet anyone else within the party who may take over is either a past Leader, too new to the game, or too unwilling.

That leaves it to someone outside the Ulster Unionists to be the new Leader. Someone charismatic; someone with a political brain; someone with experience of high office; someone who opposes the DUP on education, the Maze and health at every turn; someone with razor-like analytic skills. Someone like Jim Allister…

DUP/SF deliver nothing by Groundhog Day on Community Relations

Sinn Fein accused the “usual naysayers” of opposing their and the DUP’s new “Together Building a United Community” (ex CSI (ex Shared Future)) strategy, or even simply told opponents effectively to shut up (“So what?”) – both of which were revealing, as the “naysayers” are actually right and Sinn Fein and its similarly authoritarian DUP chums know it.

I may want peace walls down by 2023; indeed I may want Northern Ireland to win the World Cup by then; but that isn’t worth anything without a clear plan to achieve it. No such plan exists. Sinn Fein and the DUP know that too.

This is just “Groundhog Day”. There is nothing of any real substance in the document at all. They didn’t show it to anyone else – even their Executive colleagues – in advance because they knew that too.

The other three parties, of course, face a resultant challenge of their own. If the Ulster Unionists are so opposed to care home closures, the SDLP so opposed to Welfare Reform, and the Alliance so opposed to no movement on a Shared Future, what are they doing accepting collective responsibility for them? On the other hand, a supposedly “new” process gives them an opportunity to contribute once more.

Regardless, the fact remains that this Executive is both fundamentally incompetent and fundamentally sectarian. It is not one with which I would be accepting collective responsibility, except if I wished to be complicit in the on-going breakdown of community relations, the on-going ignoring of the Rule of Law, and the on-going decline of the local economy. But so what, eh?

Abuse allegations demonstrate need for fundamental change on men’s issues

Scarcely a day passes now without yet another celebrity being brought up an abuse claim. It is all profoundly disturbing. Yet it does leave open a fundamental question which no one has yet even posed – what are we going to do about men? (That link is compulsory viewing, by the way!)

For too long domestic violence has been seen as a “women’s issue”. Yet women are rarely the perpetrators! Instantly, by assigning it to the category “women’s issue”, we turn away the very people who, in the vast majority of cases, have the issue – namely men! As a result the whole focus, in instances of domestic violence or rape or similar, becomes the woman, the victim. We begin to ask all sorts of questions about the victim – but rarely about the man, the perpetrator! It is as if we should meekly accept there are men prone to violence against women as a fact of life, and focus on preparing women for that fact. Is this not utterly deranged?

Now that perpetrators turn out to include celebrities and victims turn out to include children, we are beginning to wake up. Yet I suspect we have not yet grasped what is at the heart of the issue – not just the crazed intermeshing of celebrity, power and sex but actually a fundamental flaw in male culture which still sees dominance as something to be strived for.

Domestic violence is no “women’s issue”. It stands alongside celebrity and clerical abuse (and perhaps also human trafficking) as very much a “men’s issue”. What is required is a cultural shift in attitudes, similar to the way we have tackled racism or even drink-driving. For the most deeply disturbing aspect of all these abuse trials is that no one spoke out at the time – and thus we have no guarantee whatsoever that this type of thing isn’t still just as common.

Nesbitt’s UUP sides with protesters against democracy

Mike Nesbitt once claimed he sought Catholic votes

A rally organised by Carrickfergus United Loyalists (a group which endorsed road blockages which caused significant disruption to many people going about their daily lives in East Antrim  and which, well, seemed unconcerned about an arson attack on an elected representative’s office which forced a neighbouring family to move temporarily) gained notoriety for an address by DUP Councillor Ruth Patterson this weekend.

Perhaps more notorious, however, was the decision by Ulster Unionist Leader Mike Nesbitt to announce that his party would be campaigning alongside Ruth’s in her constituency at the forthcoming General Election at the same rally. That the Unionist parties want single candidates across Belfast is not news to those who follow Northern Ireland politics closely – but to make the announcement at a Loyalist protesters’ rally also attended by anti-Agreement Leader Jim Allister and UVF-linked PUP Leader Billy Hutchison was highly noteworthy. Don’t forget, this is the same Mike Nesbitt who said his party should try to get Catholic votes less than a year ago…

“Ah, but it’s only Unionist cooperation” claim Ulster Unionists. That is not the point, it is the location and backdrop of the announcement which is the point. That said, as one correspondent frequently of this parish put it in response to this ridiculous cooperation-not-unity argument: “Aye, in the same way chickens cooperate with foxes…”

Conservatives still fundamentally misunderstand UKIP challenge

“Once we get our EU Referendum Bill through that’ll sort them out“, Conservatives say to each other, albeit in a consoling rather than determined fashion, after UKIP’s latest successes in England. It is a total nonsense, because UKIP’s vote has nothing to do with Europe.

The problem is one driven primarily by the media which operate only with an outrageously simplistic linear analysis of politics – in their analysis: a) from left to right you have “Labour – LibDem – Conservative – UKIP”; b) UKIP is gaining votes; therefore c) those votes are “centre-right” votes and must be coming from the Conservatives as that is the only possible source. How on earth, then, did UKIP get 24% of the vote in South Shields?!

I have long argued that the “left-right” division in politics no longer meaningfully exists. The choice is really to do with “tribe”, with swing voters (the ones who decide elections) making their decision based on perceived competence.

The situation in England was summed up recently by a poll showing the most common single-word response by people to each of the three main party leaders – to Cameron it was “privileged”, to Clegg “confused”, and to Miliband simply “no”. The sense is that all three essentially believe in the same things, most notably on the economy and immigration, to the extent that these have moved beyond serious debate. A charismatic friend of the working man who drinks ale down the pub and allows people to talk about immigration without being accused of bigotry and racism is what many people are looking for as an alternative to all three - step forward Nigel Farage.

The issue is not that the English have suddenly all become closet racists – they are in fact the most tolerant people in Europe. It is that they are not even being allowed to talk about the issues which affect them. If your factory job has been taken by a foreigner who, unlike you, doesn’t have a family to support and can thus afford to work longer hours at lower wages than you can, that is a very real issue for you – and not even being allowed to raise it, for fear of being branded a racist, is extremely galling. That is the sentiment UKIP is basing its appeal upon.

The very fact people believe the UKIP threat can be seen off with a “Referendum Bill” just goes to show how out-of-touch the Government and the main parties are with the real issues driving the UKIP vote. What working people right across England want – Conservative voters in Essex and Labour voters in Northumbria alike – is a reasonable debate on jobs and immigration. Can any of the “main parties” generate one?

Happy Europe Day tomorrow, by the way…

Irish Cup Final anthem farce shows DUP still doesn’t get it

The DUP (incorporating the Ulster Unionists) continues to stir up trouble where there was none otherwise to be had. The latest example was its weasel words about the lack of an anthem being played – something which is not new, by the way – at this weekend’s Irish Cup Final.

To be clear, this latest attempt at raising tensions followed on from the DUP raising tensions over parades, then over flags, and then over a football match involving one of the teams which was in the Final. It also just happened to coincide with the First Minister coming under pressure over his failure on a Shared Future stategy, the Health Minister coming under pressure over his U-turn on care homes, and the Social Development Minister coming under pressure over the delay in Welfare Reform. Just happened to coincide, mind…

More than this, it is further evidence that the DUP, just like Sinn Fein, is continuing to sell the people it represents a lie. In 1998, most of us signed up to an Agreement whereby the people of Northern Ireland may opt, by nationality, to be British or Irish. In other words, unlike anywhere else under UK sovereignty, its citizens may opt not to be British and still be good citizens loyal to Northern Ireland – in other words the administration has a single sovereignty, but its people have dual nationality. Whatever its representatives like to claim, the DUP signed up to the precise same deal on citizenship, with no modifications whatsoever even attempted, in 2007. Any DUP representative and any of the people he or she represents has to deal with the straightfoward fact that many of their fellow citizens are not British, while still perfectly good citizens of Northern Ireland.

This brings us to the Northern Ireland football team. The role of an international football team is nothing to do with sovereignty (otherwise there would be no separate England/Scotland/Wales teams, or Palestine or Montserrat or whatever), and everything to do with nationality – hence qualification for a team is determined by nationality/citizenship, with understandable caveats to stop players essentially being bought to compete for a certain association (the way athletes are). Long before 1998 it was clear that a player with either British or Irish nationality may play for Northern Ireland, provided that player qualified by birth, ancestry or residence link. The whole point here is that FIFA made a mistake when it allowed people with Irish citizenship to opt to play for the Republic of Ireland on no grounds other than citizenship – in 1998 (and 2007) we signed up to a deal which makes it absolutely clear that Irish citizenship may come by virtue of a link to Northern Ireland just as much as it does by a link to the Republic of Ireland. If someone is from Northern Ireland, they may be British or Irish (there is no guarantee which); likewise, if someone has Irish citizenship they may be from the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland (there is no guarantee which). Whatever the sovereignty of Northern Ireland, it is clear that to tie Irish citizenship directly to the territory of the Republic of Ireland is wrong under the terms of the 1998 Agreement; as is tying British citizenship alone to Northern Ireland.

The long and the short of it is this: affiliation to the football association of a particular territory is about nationality not sovereignty. Thus the IFA may select players of either British or Irish nationality because those are both nationalities of Northern Ireland. And thus, my friends, there is no reason to assign the anthem of only one of those nationalities to the IFA. Most of all, there is no reason to stir up tensions where none exists – and every reason to provide leadership and explain to people the country they are living in and who their fellow citizens (the ones who play for the same international team) really are.

Of course, they don’t actually play “God Save the Queen” before the Scottish Cup Final either – and indeed when Cardiff City reached the FA Cup Final the (English) FA agreed to play the Welsh anthem despite the fact it does not represent Wales. But, as ever, the DUP was obviously too busy being British to notice…

Tips for learning German

I was asked the other day for a few tips on learning German. These may usefully be split in two – those which are useful for any language, and those which are useful specifically for German.

Any Language

Know the key words. These form the core vocabulary of any language without which it is impossible to speak it fluently, and they are perhaps the one thing it is worth outright learning. Some languages actually lack certain “key words” (effectively Danish lacks “please”, Spanish lacks “become”, English lacks “ainsi/so/asi/cosi“) which is in itself good to know so you instantly know to work round them.

Know key prepositions, negative forms and pronouns – noting that their use varies considerably from language to language. Without these, you can’t put the language together – but the key is to recognise them first of all. Precise usage can come later.

Listen to music. Picking up the lyrics of songs is a great way to get used to how a language is put together. Soon, you will find full phrases and even grammatical forms just flow together instinctively.

Read/watch stuff you’re interested in. Like football? Watch after-game analysis (widely available on YouTube). Keen on cars? Read an online car magazine. It is important to use subjects you are interested in partly because you will be more motivated, and partly because you’ll already have a head start with understanding the subject. As with music above, soon you will find entire phrases and terminology just spring to mind naturally.

Visit the place (and not just as a tourist). This seems incredibly obvious, but it is amazing how many people try to learn languages while never visiting anywhere where they are spoken – not least thousands of schoolchildren up and down the UK who can even reach A-Level without doing so! Languages are part of an overall culture – they have their own character and feel, and this is heavily informed by where they are spoken and the people who speak them natively.

Forget vocabulary lists. I have covered this before – partly because you cannot learn a language by clinically learning off ever word and then learning off how to put them together like an IKEA set; but mainly because there is almost never a one-to-one correspondence between any two individual words.

German

As for German, it is notorious as one of the “harder” languages to learn. To speak it accurately, this is probably true. However, to speak it competently, it need not be.

German and English are basically the same language. German and English were the same language until around 1,200 years ago, and it still shows. Almost the entire core vocabulary consists of cognates (see above); even where meanings initially look different, they are sometimes closer than you think (e.g. English “I will” is usually translated as “ich werde” and German “ich will” as “I want”, but in fact the ideas of “volition” and “future” are closely linked and sometimes the direct translation works).

Look for patterns to recognise words. For example, if “zehn” is “ten”, “zahl” is “tell”; if “wasser” is “water”, “besser” is “better”; if “Pfeffer” is “pepper”, “Pfeife” is “pipe”; if “haben” is “have”, “geben” is “give” and if “vergeben” is “forgive”, “verloren” is “forlorn”. (Again, meanings vary slightly – actually “zählen” is “count” but cf. “teller”; “pfeifen” is “whistle”; “verloren” means “lost” generally.)

The verb goes to the end of the sentence… with the exception of the main verb in main clauses (which goes second regardless of what comes first) and the main verb in interrogative clauses (i.e. questions; which goes first). This is the best way to understand the basics of word order.

German likes nouns. In general, look for a noun phrase if you possibly can. Where in English you say “If the weather is bad, I will stay at home”, in German you say “Bei schlechtem Wetter, bleibe ich zuhause” (i.e. “By bad weather, I stay at home”).

There are only two tenses in German… and in English. Contrary to what we are taught, English doesn’t have a future, it merely has ways of indicating it. It is the same in German – just the ways (and times) you do so are different.

Invent long words. It is the most fun part of the language! Just be creative and try to be purposeful – for example, Germany doesn’t have a speed limit because that would require a Bundesgeschwindigkeitsbegrenzungsgesetz… who wouldn’t want to learn a language with a potential word like that?!