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Mr. Blair, Tear Down This Wall!
Irishman poet Yeats foreshadowed the devastation of the Iraq war
A
BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by
Hugh Conrad
Perhaps neither British Prime Minister Tony Blair nor President Bush understands the irony of their meeting this week in Northern Ireland.
First, it is ironic that two men who have racked the Middle East with an undeclared war and concomitant violence, resulting in the barbarous deaths of innocent children and women, now meet with the hope that they can get the peace process working again in Northern Ireland.
Blair and Bush men of peace?
The Irish can see the irony in that. The two men obviously believe that they will meet no demonstrators in Northern Ireland. They do not understand the history of the Irish Isle.
If only former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan had lived just a little longer, perhaps the Irish-American intellectual politician could have explained to Bush the irony of this meeting of two warmongers in an area that has seen decades of Catholic-Protestant strife.
The meeting is also ironic in that it is being held in the North and not in Ireland itself, which is primarily Roman Catholic. Bush has slammed Catholics in the past, visiting Bob Jones College -- who call Catholicism a cult -- in the presidential primary in 2000. Bush is also violating the admonition of Pope John Paul II, who has condemned the actions of the two leaders in Iraq as being unjust and immoral, calling the action a "sin."
However, if Blair and Bush truly wanted to understand the situation in Northern Island, they could read a poem by one of the most famous Irish poets of all time, William Butler Yeats. Actually, Bush would probably need to have Condi Rice explain the meaning of "The Second Coming," which was written almost a century ago. However, the poem may presage the future of the world and the Middle East, a violent one with Chapter 1 now being written in Iraq.
Read closely what Yeats says in the first stanza about anarchy being loosed on the world, the blood-limmed tide the result, resulting in the ceremony of innocence. Also, note that Yeats talks not about the Second Coming being a peace-loving Christ, but instead is a "rough beast."
The Second Coming
William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The Falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
More anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely, the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: Somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man.
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The ultimate irony of this meeting is that England has been dominating the Irish for centuries, and Blair cannot see that the Irish should rule their own island. Isn't that what the battle in Iraq is being waged for, at least what the neocons say it is? Isn't this bloodshed being shed to set up Democracy in the Middle East?
Mr. Blair, tear down this ignominious wall of outrageous imperialism and give the people of Ireland their independence. Otherwise, you are as duplicitous as George Bush, who would not understand the situation even if Condi explains it to him.
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
Hugh Conrad, a grandson of three Irish immigrants, is a free-lance writer and a college English instructor.
Articles in the BuzzFlash Contributor section are posted as-is. Given the timeliness of some Contributor articles, BuzzFlash cannot verify or guarantee the accuracy of every word. We strive to correct inaccuracies when they are brought to our attention.
