Reading the Observer recently (14/10/2012) brought my thinking back to the nature of political struggle and the party structures that we have in the nation state.

Lester Brown, an environmental analyst and president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington had an article in the paper. He has a new book out - Full Planet, Empty Plates – in which he predicts “…ever increasing food prices, leading to political instability, spreading hunger and, unless governments act, a catastrophic breakdown in food.”

On one level, we can see this already reflected in price hikes on basic staples like rice, wheat and other cereal crops. Brown, however, focuses on the geopolitical fall-out.

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Professor Georges Enderle from the University of Notre Dame has been giving a series of lectures this week at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick. One of his most interesting ideas is around the purpose of business, which he sees as the creation of wealth. So far, so Friedman. The cool bit is how he defines wealth. By Sheila Killian. 

Briefly, he makes the point that wealth, as in the wealth of a nation, includes public as well as private wealth. Public wealth includes public goods, such as clean air, safe streets, good infrastructure. It also includes a healthy and well-educated population, necessary for economic growth as well as for equity, and a culture that respects human rights, a safe place for all of us to live. Still, it’s framed in monetary terms; his formal definition of wealth creation is:

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While trying to understand what is happening in our modern history and how the world is handling revolutions and fights for liberty, I find myself in front of a big question mark and no common sense, wisdom or intellect can help me understand. Didn't our ancestors fight for human rights, to reach for a life in peace and freedom with equal rights for all? By Sumou Al Nassea, Syrian activist.

From the "Human rights declaration": An equal and inalienable right of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world; human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom of fear, whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression.

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While being caught up in the spectacular opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympics, not for the first time I found myself wanting to be an athlete rather than a writer. The incredible sight of the disabled aesthetic being so celebrated in a public – indeed, a worldwide – forum left me emotionally energised. Just for a moment I found myself amongst the group being lionised.  The commentary didn’t interest me, it was more the affirmation of seeing people like me acknowledged on primetime television as world-class athletes and artists. It wasn’t a sense of inspiration or triumph over tragedy but a recognition that these people put in effort and time and commitment to be part of a display of excellence. Knowing their journey, knowing their history and realising that the universality of disability or impairment runs the gamut of class, education, geography, ethnicity and gender is powerful. It is powerful because it reinforces a narrative of pride. The ceremony was thrilling and I really was empowered by the sheer possibilities and exposure that this enormous gig will afford not only the athletes but also the artists. Then I was brought back to reality. The cuts in service provision for disabled people in Britain had poisoned the joyful spectacle: the main sponsor of the Paralympics is Atos, responsible for cutting back disability benefits in the United Kingdom.

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Last month the Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik was found guilty of killing 77 people and wounding 242 in a murderous rampage last year. Breivik’s actions were undeniably wicked and grotesque. However, Breivik was found to be sane – in other words, this was the work of a rational, intelligent human being. No sinister voices in his head; no obscure songs played backwards issuing subliminal murderous missives. And what is so important about this judgement is that it recognises that this form of extremism can no longer be ignored; that it cannot be simply shoved away into asylums and prison hospitals.

The extremist’s greatest fear is irrelevance. This irrelevance propels them towards narcissism, a complete enthrallment with the self. Like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, they self-glorify to counteract the realisation that they are a nobody; they imagine themselves as warriors, saviours fighting a just cause against some known enemy. Åsne Seierstad, in a recent article for the New Statesman, describes these types as “the one who was always there, but whom most people never remembered.” This rebellion against irrelevance usually manifests as hatred and is often linked with a zealous patriotism. Like Bickle, most are loners, but in certain instances, chiefly by means of a charismatic firebrand, extremists can form a critical mass.

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On 8 October 2011 the Occupy Dame Street camp was established. But the next five months made it clear that such a disorganised (or “non-hierarchical” to use their term) protest would not be effective. On 8 March 2012 An Garda Síochána dismantled the camp and any campers that had remained were gone for good. But the campers had certainly generated public debate around the issues they had raised. Officially (in the context of Occupy protests, this term is used very loosely), the Occupy Dame Street (ODS) camp had four central demands:

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We, the people of Ireland, remembering "the heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation" enacted for ourselves Bunreacht na hÉireann, the basic law upon which our State exists.

We live in what we ourselves have constituted as a "sovereign, independent, democratic state." We have stipulated that "All powers of government...derive...from the people" and that it is our right to "decide all questions of national policy".

We have stated that it is our "inalienable, indefeasible, and sovereign right to choose our own form of Government" and "to determine" our relations with other nations.

 

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Nothing gets the goat of the Irish quite like a sports-related injustice. In 2009 a Thierry Henry handball mobilised the nation into a marching, protesting, boycotting behemoth. The display of outraged solidarity truly was something to behold; the type of display sadly lacking when it came to the clearly more trivial matter of the Government of the day selling the country down the river in the 2008 bailout and thus condemning the country to decades of hardship. Fast forward to 2012, and it is clear that Ireland’s sporting skin is as thin as ever.

There is no doubt that what Henry did in the 2009 World Cup play-off game was wrong, but the hysterically over the top reaction to the incident - by fans, the Irish Government and the Football Association of Ireland - quickly stripped Ireland of the moral high ground. Similarly, it was wrong for the Daily Telegraph to refer to boxer Katie Taylor’s nationality as ‘British’, although one suspects this latest ‘injustice’ was born more from lazy journalism and contained considerably less malice than the actions of a certain French footballer. But never mind, the Irish had identified their quarry and so thousands upon thousands of emails and tweets, each drenched in various amounts of bile, made their way to the Telegraph offices.

 

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