The Age of Empires is Back.

I stand with Ukraine as I always did with Palestine. Putin does not recognise Ukrainians as a separate people with the right to their own independent country. Netanyahu does not recognise Palestinians as a separate people with the right to their own independent country.

We are living in dangerous times.

Trump, Netanyahu and Putin are narcissistic, expansionist and imperialistic leaders wanting to return their states to a mythical past with a supposedly God-given right to consume their smaller neighbours.

We as an Irish people that suffered centuries of occupation and colonisation can empathise with the present day struggles of the Palestinians and Ukrainians. Their struggles are our struggles.

Beir bua!

 

The World Deserves Better than Harris & Trump

Donald Trump is a narcissistic racist misogynist who has been convicted in a US court of sexual assault, has helped transform social media into a realm of hate, wants to undermine the United Nations and has openly declared war on the planet and all living things by dismissing the overwhelming scientific consensus on the Climate Crisis, calling it a ‘hoax’ invented by China. For him, the world and all of its species exists solely to serve and to be exploited for the benefit of the rich and powerful amongst the homo sapiens.

Kamala Harris is Vice President of a US administration that has given unhindered political, financial and military support to an Israeli government to allow it to conduct a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide which has reduced Gaza to rubble, destroyed huge swathes of Lebanon, aided the racist colonial Zionist settlers to continue to confiscate Palestinian lands in the West Bank, left nearly 50,000 people mainly women and children dead, and forced over 3 million civilians to flee their homes and become refugees.

Having lived there for a while and visited many times, I love so much about the USA- its music, its arts, its grassroots environmentalism, its innovations, its technologies and lots more. But its people must know better. The world deserves better.

I cannot in all honesty understand how any one of good character can justify voting for either of these politicians.

Belarus 2020: A Female-led Revolution that the world desperately needs.

 

The protests against the dictator Alexander Lukashenko represent the most female-driven political revolution that I have ever witnessed.

Women are at the forefront of the rebellion against a patriarchal chauvinistic ruler whose misogyny can best be summarised in his comment that "Our society has not matured enough to vote for a woman opposition presidential candidate".

He gravely underestimated the power of women.

For it was a female (Svetlana Tikhanovskaya) that was the opposition candidate in the recent presidential election and her key campaign advisors were women. The response to police brutality and a rigged election was not stone throwing and smashed windows but flower-waving women dressed in white (symbol of hope) marching through the streets who, by their courage and leadership, became the rallying call for the rest of the Belarus nation to follow in what has been so far the most peaceful rebellion of the modern era.

A female-led revolution is what humanity needs now more than ever. When the Earth lies on the edge of the abyss due to the man-made Climate Crisis, the male leadership of Britain, China, India, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, USA, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are squandering the world's financial resources on a new machismo ("my missiles are bigger than your missiles") arms race instead of using these monies to tackle poverty, social inequality, pollution and biodiversity loss by dramatically increasing investments in health, education, renewable energies, reforestation and green sustainability technologies.

It is not surprising that the policies and comments of so many of these political leaders, as well as those of other countries including Brazil, Philippines and Somalia, are characterised by a lack of empathy and often open hostility towards women, religious/ethnic minorities and the environment. Bolsanaro, Erdogan, Trump, Putin, Mohammed bin Salman and Ayatollah Khomeini represent an arrogant macho culture that has nothing to offer the world but hate, division, aggression and greed.

It is no coincidence that so many of the countries that have coped best with the COVID-19 pandemic are led by women - Finland, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Taiwan.

It is also worth reminding ourselves that it was the caring nurturing skills of (super)ordinary doctors, carers, first responders, hospital back-up personnel, social workers, teachers and gardeners as well as benign musicians, cleaners, grocers and community volunteers amongst others that got us through the pandemic not the violence of a military, nor the get-rich quick profiteering of property speculators or the brash in-your-face lifestyles of self-centred opinionated celebrities.

For most of the history of humanity, women were society's leaders and worshipped as the 'givers of life'.

But with the capability to smelt metal and create weapons of war from the Bronze Age onwards, it was the male warrior as the 'taker of life' that came to dominate religion and governance.

A patriarchal culture has been but a brief intermission in the over 200,000 years of hominid existence. It is time for it to finally end and to liberate women from all forms of servitude and rediscover a sense of connection and respect with the rest of Nature (Mother Earth) before it is too late.

All power to the brave women of Belarus for showing us all the way forward. Let the men of the police, army and government departments of their country have the awareness and common sense to now stand beside their daughters, sisters, wives, partners, girlfriends, mothers and grandmothers in the common struggle to end oppression.

Trump's Ban, Palestine & My Galway Workplace.

Recently my friend Ihab Salawdeh gave a highly illuminating talk on his homeland of Palestine as part of our institute’s “My Country” series. The idea is for staff/students working at the Insight Centre for Data Anlaytics to present informative but light-hearted overviews of their country to their colleagues. With over 30 nationalities represented at our university research centre, we have had some excellent insights into places far and near. 

The jovial Ihab introduced us to a Palestine that not too many outsiders are aware off; a land where, in spite of Israeli military occupation and colonial settlements, is rich in natural beauty, culture and history. The inhabitants of the Holy Land are proud of their ethnic cuisine, folk dances, vibrant musical heritage, traditional dress, scenic hillwalking routes, churches, mosques, synagogues as well as ancient Roman/Greek/Jewish and Byzantine ruins. Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem are great world centres of tourism and religious pilgrimage.

Thinking about Ihab’s talk and the ‘United Nations of Galway’ that is my research institute at NUI Galway, I have come to the conclusion that Trump’s decision to ban travel to the USA for refugees and people from seven countries that have majority Muslim populations will have enormous and immediate negative ramifications not just socially, economically and politically but also scientifically.
Some of the researchers at our university centre are respected scientists from Syria and Iran who often as part of their work attend research conferences in the USA and elsewhere. America is now off limits to them and the research community of Galway, Ireland, Europe and the world will suffer as a result.
Trump will I feel extend the ban to other countries with Palestine probably at the top of the list.

With Trump promoting his newly discovered Christianity (of the conservative strand) and his support of American business entrepreneuralism, I should remind him that Steve Job’s father was Syrian and that the family of Jesus Christ fled to Egypt as refugees to escape probable death at the hands of a despotic ruler.

Trump is bringing a coldness and darkness to a United States that has such a proud bright history of welcoming immigrants escaping religious, racial and cultural persecution.