Poppygate, and why students' unions should follow ULU's example.

Last year, Dan Cooper, vice-president of the University of London Union, declined to lay a wreath at ULU's remembrance Sunday service, and this quickly resulted in a Tory-led campaign to oust him from his post. Of course the whole episode became known as Poppygate. 

Unsurprisingly, the same thing has happened this year.

The Senate of ULU has passed a motion stating that "ULU's elected representatives have the liberty to choose" whether to go to this year's service in a personal capacity, but that they cannot go in their ULU capacity. Essentially, this means they can't go and claim to represent the 120,000 students who make up ULU, but that they are perfectly entitled to go on their own behalf. President of ULU, Michael Chessum, then made it clear that he wasn't planning to attend, and that choosing to attend or not is in itself a political statement. Cue Poppygate 2.0.

I'm going to talk about why I think it is a good thing ULU have adopted this position, and why I fully support my friends and activist colleagues in their decision- not least because Michael's already been subject to a load of abusive emails because he had the audacity to call out the farce that is the state's hijacking of remembrance day. 

I'm Irish. I live in Belfast and have lived here for my entire life. I'm not religious at all, but culturally I am a Catholic. Essentially, that means I tick 'member of the Roman Catholic community' on equality monitoring forms, because I come from a Catholic background. My mum comes from West Belfast, and my dad comes from Omagh. I was born in 1992, so I'm part of the generation who have grown up post-Troubles (or rather, post-what-people-say-is-the-end-of-the-Troubles-but-it's-actually-a-lot-more-complicated-than-that, but that is a topic for a different blog post), the Good Friday Agreement wasn't signed until I was 6 years old, but naturally I don't really remember much of the political world around me when I was that age.

I've gone to Catholic schools my entire life. And I love history- my entire family loves history. But I didn't get to learn about Irish history until I chose the subject for GCSE, and then learnt about it in further depth when I studied it for A Level. People can deny it all they want, but the reality is that British state played a massive role in exacerbating the conflict here, killed plenty of innocent people, and is still trying to worm its way out of taking much responsibility for the generations worth of devastation they've left behind. And for a lot of this, they used the military.

A few years ago, I worked in IKEA. And a lot of the security guards there (who I spent most of my days in relatively close contact with) were ex-military. I would talk for hours with them about Northern Ireland and the Troubles, and they helped make what was a menial and often frustrating accessibility-wise job a lot more interesting, and they were wonderful people.

But they didn't get to choose to do what they had to do. That was their job as soldiers.

The British state wrecked havoc in Northern Ireland throughout the Troubles, from internment to state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries; and to this day both they and many politicians in Northern Ireland refuse to own up to the part that the state played in the conflict here. Unfortunately, the army plays to the tune of the state. What the state wants, the army does. Just a few weeks ago, the current government was getting ready to send the military to Syria. The people fighting wars they don't understand and dying for causes they can't quite justify aren't those making the decision to send daughters, husbands, sons, parents, brothers, friends, colleagues to their death. They're ordinary people, doing the state's bidding.

Like it or not, poppies no longer represent what they initially were created for. Every year we have remembrance services where those in power in the state talk about our military and giving thanks to their courage, whilst handily forgetting that when current soldiers often come back from tours of Afghanistan, it's up to charities to mend what's been broken. The state absolves all responsibility, or at least most of it. Many charities end up picking up the pieces of soldiers who have come home and been abandoned by those who sent them out to fight in the first place. The army are there when the state and those in power want a good few photo ops, whenever they want to use these men and women as political footballs in their petty little game, but whenever it comes to providing affordable housing, a decent standard of education, accessible mental and physical health services, and leveling the playing field in terms of equality of opportunity for these people and their families, the state hangs them out to dry. Nationalism and patriotism can result in a dangerous ability to overlook the things, or lack of, that your state is providing for you in the name of service to your country.

I'm not a pacifist anymore, because I know holding that belief is a luxury afforded to those who have never had to fight for anything. But I also don't support the British state, and by extension, the British military. I don't support what they did in Northern Ireland in the last fifty years, and I don't support the war they've raged on Irish people and my ancestors for centuries. This blog post has barely scratched the surface. Of course I do not think those who choose to wear poppies are all British imperialists, held bent on oppressing Ireland- but I also think that these conversations are too important to ignore, and unfortunately in Northern Ireland, we keep pushing these conversations away. If we are to have a truly integrated shared future, it is time to ask the difficult questions and provide the difficult answers- how can the state expect ex-paramilitaries to do this when they won't lead by example? 

Unfortunately, this is probably too contentious a thing for many people who are in the public eye to come out and say, and I have the luxury of not being in that position. But if my own students' union can't come out and take a strong anti-war and anti-imperialist position, I'm glad a students' union across the water can. 

Special Advisers Bill

NB: This is a personal blog, and I speak about this bill as an individual. I'm not speaking for the Labour Party, nor am I speaking for the SDLP or NUS-USI. I'm speaking as myself, and will be held account as an individual. If you have any problems or concerns with what I have said, talk to me about them- not my political parties. These words do not reflect any political party nor political organisation. 

PDF of the final Bill: http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/Documents/Legislation/Bills/Non-Executive%20Bills/Session-2011-12/Civil%20Service%20(Special%20Advisers)%20Bill.pdf

Copy of the Belfast Agreement: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/agreement.htm#rights

The Civil Service (Special Advisers) Bill is causing a lot of controversy. In the last fortnight we've seen a lot of immature, childish, and pretty libellous things said about parties and individuals on both sides of the debate. This is a debate that needs to be had with great sensitivity and respect. We're talking about the lives of innocent people who have died during a period of intense conflict- essentially, it was a war.

The Bill stipulates for the appointed "special adviser not to have serious criminal conviction", which means a conviction for which "a sentence of imprisonment of five years or more was imposed" or "a sentence of imprisonment for life was imposed" and applies "whether the person was convicted in Northern Ireland or elsewhere, was convicted before or after the coming into operation of this Act".

"The Department must issue a code governing the appointment of special advisers within 3 months of this section coming into operation" and "the appointment of special advisers must be subject to the same vetting procedures as the appointment of Senior Civil Servants to the Northern Ireland Civil Service". 

A number of amendments were proposed by Dominic Bradley & Alban Maginness- all of which were rejected by Jim Allister, the proposer of the bill. Unsurprisingly. 

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 stipulates that "the parties affirm their commitment to the mutual respect, the civil rights and the religious liberties of everyone in the community... the right to pursue democratically national and political aspirations, the right to seek constitutional change by peaceful and legitimate means... the right to equal opportunity in all social and economic activity... the right of women to full and equal political participation". 

"The achievement of a peaceful and just society would be the true memorial to the victims of violence". "An essential aspect of the reconciliation process is the promotion of a culture of tolerance at every level of society". 

If we had a Bill of Rights, like we're supposed to, this Bill wouldn't hold up. Criminal convictions do play a part in some jobs, such as teaching, medicine, etc. And *mostly*, I can see why (though the fact that criminal convictions play a part in whether or not you can work in a certain sector opens up another argument to the validity of the convictions and the processes surrounding them- which is another important argument to have, not not one I'm trying to have here). 

But the peace process (if you can call it that) wouldn't have happened if we didn't have political prisoners on side, if they were not sitting at the negotiating table and actively working to end their campaigns of armed resistance. It wouldn't have happened, period. There are many weaknesses to the Good Friday Agreement, but the fact that it actually happened remains a strength. 

To shut out those with criminal convictions from becoming special advisers is not fair. We elect them. We work alongside them. If we're going to open the special advisers can of worms, then why don't we focus on their huge salary? Why don't we focus on the fact it is more often than not 'jobs for the boys', rather than the appointment of an expert in the field? To me, that is more concerning. I'd have no problem with a special adviser having had a criminal conviction if they actually knew what they were talking about when they took up the post- many don't, and that's a huge problem that seems to be too often ignored. We seem intent to shut out those with criminal convictions but ignore the fact that so many of those employed (with and without criminal convictions) are in no way qualified for the job. That's the most important issue, to me.

If we had an adequate programme of reconciliation, victims would feel as though their losses have been acknowledged. Recognised and apologised for. And we haven't done that yet. The reason that emotions are running so high amidst this Bill is because we have no process of reconciliation, we have not acknowledged the hurts of the past and it doesn't look like the current Executive in Stormont are getting any further in any kind of strategy. This is a huge problem. And again, the Bill has overtaken this issue as seemingly a more important one. 

It's a plaster covering a wound that needs properly dressed and a much bigger bandage than the one currently being offered. It'll help for a bit, but in the end, will prove futile in both the reconciliation process and any kind of attempt to foster a tolerant and just society.