Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Sarah & Josie O'Toole, (Anniv).
11.00: Lily, Joe & Lucia Magliocco, (Anniv).
6.30: Gerry Colgan & Maureen Kieran, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

Northern Ireland seems to be moving towards some resolution. It has been a very bloody chapter in our history. According to a study carried out by Martin Sutton, specific responsibility can be allocated as follows with reasonable accuracy:

Republican Paramilitary Groups killed 2,055

Loyalist Paramilitary Groups killed 1,020

Security Forces killed 368

Persons unknown killed 80

That is an horrific litany of murder, given that the population of the 'conflict zone' was no greater than 1.5 million. And violence found every expression imaginable: no-warning bombs, brutal sectarian murders, informer protection, duplicity, and out-of-control murderous informers. As the O'Loan Report revealed, no side emerged from this conflict smelling of roses.

Despite everything, the possibility of power-sharing is tantalisingly close. The IRA have said they are prepared to back the process. "I never thought I would hear myself saying this," said Monitoring Commission member John Grieve on Tuesday, "but instructions from the IRA's commanders have been clear and consistent, and terrorism and violence have been abandoned." As former commander of Scotland Yard's antiterror unit, the words must have all but chocked him! So it does seem likely that Sinn Fein-IRA are now firmly on-side. The DUP want some proof that the IRA will co-operate with the police. March 26th is the deadline set by Blair and Bertie. If it's not met, then Direct Rule resumes immediately. Don't hold your breath! The 26th will still find the DUP huffing and shadow-boxing.

Inevitably, the sticking point is trust. Both communities must trust: that there will be integrity in the processes; that neither group's interests will be privileged over the other's; that people's lives will be protected rather than rendered vulnerable. The future must surely be based on trust - trust that the other will not betray, will not deceive, not to go back on their word.

Yet, without a healthy mistrust, neither Adams or Paisley would have survived. The same applies to both communities. How many poor people met their deaths simply because they were naive in their trust? Many died simply because they drank in the wrong pub or club. In Northern Ireland, mistrust was a primary element in the precarious project of self-preservation. It will take generations for that iceberg to thaw.

So trust isn't something that can now be given readily, nor should it be! Paisley would be an idiot to trust Adams. Adams would be an idiot to trust Paisley. But, thank God, there is more to relationships than trust. In St Paul's language, there is also hope, and there is perseverance too. There's the steady commitment to making things better, whatever the hurts. In Northern Ireland it will be commitment which wins the day. And that may not be built now on trust, but trust can be built on that, on working on the future together simply because it is the right thing to do. Plus, the alternatives are too horrible to contemplate.

-Dick Lyng

Items of Some Interest

Our Family Units are Shrinking

European birth rates have dropped below population replacement rates. If this trend continues, extinction beckons. This is far more serious than global warming. Yet, it is ignored in popular debate. It represents a serious withering of the spirit of western civilisation. We are losing the will to breed.

The birth rate necessary to ensure that population numbers remain steady is 2.1 children per woman. Today the birth rates in the major European countries are as follows: Ireland 1.99; France 1.90; Norway 1.81; Sweden 1.75; UK 1.74; Netherlands 1.73; Germany 1.37; Italy 1.33; Spain 1.32; and Greece 1.29. The figure for Japan is 1.28 and for the US 2.09.

At this rate it is predicted that Europe will lose 25 per cent of its "natural" population by 2060. The Japanese minister for health warns that if current birth rates continue, the Japanese population will be 500 by the year 3000! The Polish population fell by 500,000 in the past 6 years, and the parliament recently passed legislation to pay women for each child they bear. One Italian town now offers couples €10,000 for each newborn baby.

Unless the birth rates are turned around, the only "solution" for Europe will be massive immigration (scores of millions) of people from the developing world in order to care for the elderly and to pay taxes to maintain welfare states. This solution would be fraught with political and social difficulties and doesn't seem feasible considering how poorly the relatively small immigration into European countries has been integrated to date.

Why have birth rates plummeted in the West? One factor is the changed status of women. However, there is a deeper problem, and it is rooted in the overall societal model we have adopted in the West, based on extreme liberalism and moral relativism. We refuse to value any substantive thing over any other and are insidiously exhorted to feel ashamed of our European heritage. The value of individual rights is trumpeted while the responsibilities that automatically accompany rights are glossed over. Increased standards of living in a materialistic culture also blunt enthusiasm for making sacrifices for the sake of children.

We get all 'hot and bothered' about global warming but ignore the fact that we may leave precious few descendants to be affected one way or the other. We applaud every advance in the medical technology of assisted reproduction to allow a few people who cannot procreate in the usual manner to have children, while very many women who can conceive naturally elect not to do so.

We question and lose confidence in our most basic institutions, eg the traditional family model, despite the evidence that this model is best for parents and children alike. We are losing our nerve and our optimism, which, combined with the pressures of the modern workplace, conspire to lessen our appetite for procreation.

We are sleep-walking into a huge problem. To quote the American historian Will Durant: "A great civilisation is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

-William Reville is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at UCC. (From The Irish Times, 01-02-07.)

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