Best of the Web

• Hugh Green | Lost Boys And Girls

  Hugh Green’s excellent post on the Boys of St Columb’s documentary makes a couple of points that are worth highlighting. The now famous Northern Irish men featured - Hume, Heaney, Deane, McCann, Coulter etc, were the first generation to benefit from the 1947 British Act of Parliament which granted free secondary education to Northern Irish children. The trick of getting an education that was transformative, however, was that you had to pass the 11 plus.

  The documentary was focusing on those that had, of course, otherwise they wouldn’t have become pupils of St. Columb’s. But while there was an awareness of those who ‘had not succeeded’ among the participants,  the documentary itself ignored this majority.

  So here’s the first point worth highlighting:

  “Most of the children of the generation portrayed here, as with today’s generation, didn’t pass the 11 plus to go on to grammar school and university. These were the other Boys and Girls of St. Columb’s, who were as much a product of the education system as any of the men featured. They also took part in civil rights activism and resistance to official discrimination, but there was no account of them given here, other than in the men’s awareness that they had been picked out as the ’successes’.”

  Perhaps this documentary was not the one to examine the other side of the coin, not those who were cultivated to become leaders of the community, but rather those “deemed to be there simply to be administered to, represented and led”. But if it had, and this is the second point worth highlighting…

  “A good starting point would be in the fact that the 1947 Education Act may have led to the formation of the SDLP, but it also led to its disdainful characterisation as the ‘Schoolteachers, Doctors and Lawyers Party’. What’s more, the grouping that eventually took its place in Northern nationalist politics, having waged a decades long war against the Northern state, was led in Derry by Martin McGuinness, who had failed the 11 plus. Nearly his first act as minister for Education was to try and initiate its abolition.”

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• FT.com / Global insight - Franco-German dynamics make EMF a distant goal

  Of course, the idea floated at the weekend by Wolfgang Schäuble is a double-edged weapon. It would give that fund the same very tough tools of conditionality and intervention in the fiscal policies of individual countries as the International Monetary Fund. From the German perspective, that would be its primary purpose.
  But just as surprising is the fact that the initiative, with the promise of other unspecified measures to bolster economic policy co-ordination in the eurozone, should have come first from Berlin rather than Paris.

  Normally, the more dramatic flights of fancy in the European Union are a French prerogative. The German tradition is far more cautious. French fuites en avant are regarded with irritation. But only if Berlin signs up does anything usually happen.

  In the end, big European initiatives seldom come to pass at all unless the two largest founding states bury their differences and do a deal.

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• The Iceland Weather Report | On the Icelandic Prime Ministers Thoughts on the Referendum tomorrow

  Iceland is facing a referendum tomorrow on whether to accept the deal carved out between Iceland, The Netherlands and Britain on the Icesave debt, and its likely to vote no. But will it make any difference. "As if the government wasn’t in enough trouble with public opinion here at home, Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir has publicly announced that she plans to shun the referendum tomorrow.

  “To me it is pointless and I find it is very sad that the first referendum since the founding of the republic revolves around legislation that is already obsolete. Consequently I see no point in taking part in this referendum,” Jóhanna told Fréttablaðið.

  Granted, that opinion is shared by many people. However, in the view of a large proportion of the Icelandic nation, and even of the world*, this referendum is about so much more. Even if this is Jóhanna’s personal opinion, stating it so publicly seems like political harakiri."

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• Key Trends in the World Economy | Germany’s ‘continental economy’ - comparisons to the US, India and China

  John Ross on how Germany's trade figures shows that their economy is 'continental', that is its similiar to the US, India and China as it relies solidly on its European market.
  "The fact that Germany is operating in a continental scale economy, Eurozone Europe, with a fixed exchange rate, allows it to gain or maintain tremendous economies of scale. Conversely introduction of unstable exchange rates,including the possibility for major European trading partners to carry out competitive devaluations, would almost certainly make it impossible for Germany to maintain such a high proportion of exports in its economy - that is it would greatly weaken the 'continental' scale of its economy." Meanwhile…Handelsblatt reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday rejected a call from Spanish PM Jose Luis Zapatero for "EU-solidarity" for Greece. She also warned that the euro would not be stable without radical cuts in the budget deficits of member states.

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• Interview with Green Isle hunger strikers

  Interview with Green Isle hunger strikers from Frank Schnittger on Vimeo.

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• Eamon Devoy, General Secretary TEEU outlines background to hunger strike

  Eamon Devoy, General Secretary TEEU outlines background to hunger strike from Frank Schnittger on Vimeo.

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• Juan Cole | Harvard Professor’s Modest Proposal: Starve the Gazans into Having Fewer Babies

  Cole dismantles Martin Kramer's astonishing claim that forcing the Palestinians to have fewer children by starving them would resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
  "Martin Kramer revealed his true colors at the Herzliya Conference, wherein he blamed political violence in the Muslim world on population growth, called for that growth to be restrained, and praised the illegal and unconscionable Israeli blockade of civilian Gazans for its effect on reducing the number of Gazans.

  M. J. Rosenberg argued that Kramer's speech is equivalent to a call for genocide. It certainly is a call for eugenics."

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• Charity worker safe after mob’s adoption anger | Independent.ie

  Haitian's concerned about foreign nationals taking advantage of the catastrope in their country to take children - a justifiable concern - are described as an 'angry mob of Haitian men' when confronting an Irish female 'charity worker' (as opposed to an agent of a private adoption agency).
  "When we arrived at the airport we were surrounded by an angry mob of Haitian men," she told the Irish Independent. "They started getting very aggressive and were shouting at us. It was very scary, especially for the kids."

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• Shell Corrib Gas - Who are the real Thugs & Bullies? | Indymedia Ireland

  A number of high profile Shell to Sea campaigners including 'the Chief' Pat O'Donnell and Maura Harrington sought to appeal certain criminal convictions in cases heard last week at Castlebar Circuit Court from 9th - 11th February. A few of the appeals were successful but some of the convictions were upheld by the court.

  Also Facebook | Pat O'Donnell http://bit.ly/dyK5jh

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• Palestinian Avatar « Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

  Bilin Reenacts Avatar Film A.K.A The Palestinian Avatar!

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