Hear Melanie Verwoerd describe the 1994 South African election

I still recall the frisson that tingled me when I bought my first bottle of South African wine, and I can tell you the wine shop in York where I bought it. That was twenty years ago today, as I was reminded this morning by RTÉ's Marian Finucane in discussion on the radio with Melanie Verwoerd, former South African Ambassador to Ireland, marking the 20th anniversary of South Africa’s first democratic elections.

It's the second item on this page.

Hear Melanie describing her emotions when she saw the silent queue to vote at 5 am, telling of a grandfather pushed in a wheelbarrow to vote coming out of the polling booth clutching his fist in the air and falling down dead, and relating how Archbishop Tutu couldn’t describe what it felt like to be voting for the first time. (He said it would be like trying to describe the colour red to someone born blind.) Much could be said and much is being said in the run-up to the current South African elections about disappointed hopes, and this was touched on in the discussion, but in the main it was a celebration of the day and there's no harm in that.

I'm not sure who the studio guest is who comments on the voting queues, I think it might be Theo Dorgan, an Irish poet (born 1953).

The South African constitution was mentioned. I like the preamble, so here it is:

South African Constitution, 1996

Preamble

We, the people of South Africa,

- Recognise the injustices of our past;
- Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;
- Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and
- Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.

We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to ­

- Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
- Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
- Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
- Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.

May God protect our people.

Will Shakespeare’s 450th

Here's my contribution to Will Shakespeare’s 450th birthday.

              
            Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
       For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
       That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Had I chosen one speech to read, it would be Macbeth: full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. But there's a perfection in a sonnet that you don't find, can't find, in a play.   When I studied Shakespeare at Cambridge we didn't pay much attention to the sonnets, at least I didn't. For example it was only yesterday in Wikipedia that I discovered the word volta (turn). It seems this usually occurs in the ninth line. In this sonnet the volta is “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising”. It's where the poem turns from anxiety to resolution. It's not an easy line to get right and I don't think I've achieved it. In fact I've discovered that reading a Shakespeare sonnet aloud is a good deal harder than I thought.

If you want to hear how it ought to be done, listen to the sublime Judi Dench reciting (impromptu apparently) "Let me not to the marriage of true minds". But on the Bard’s birthday we must each bring our own tribute, flatfooted though it may be.

Thankfully, infinity isn't all it's cracked up to be

According to the many worlds hypothesis, there exists an infinite number of universes, and consequently anything that can happen has happened an infinite number of times.  So there's another universe in which I went to bed early tonight and didn't get round to writing this stuff … and yet another in which I omitted the commas from the previous sentence … and so on. Actually an infinite number in which I did each of those things, but lets skip over that absurdity as the proposition is already absurd without it.  It makes my brain explode, and I refuse to accept that this is the way reality is.

So how do we account for this state of affairs? Until recently only two possibilities presented themselves. The first of which was that the many worlds hypothesis is false. There's either only one universe or a finite number of them.  Now, physicists may indeed have got it wrong, but it's hardly my place to say so, as they’ve done the equations and I haven't, nor could I.   So we must consider a second possibility.

Namely that there's something wrong with my intellect. Evolution has simply failed to equip me with a brain capable of grasping the truth about reality. Well, that may be the case; but I refuse to accept it; perhaps indeed, because I've been given the wrong sort of brain; but I refuse to accept it nonetheless.

Mary Midgley: infinity not all it's cracked up to be. And a book that’s just come down from the shelf.

Thankfully the other day in New Scientist I came across a way out of this impasse: a third possibility, that there's something wrong with the idea of infinity.

On the letters page the philosopher Mary Midgley wrote about the meaning of “an infinity” of universes, which she asserts to signify a mere absence of known bounds. Our ignorance of limits is just a negative, she claims. As such, it cannot spawn new facts. In particular it can't spawn the new fact that "everything that can happen will happen, infinitely many times". In this sentence,  infinite is used in a different sense, this time meaning a very large number. This sort of thing is not philosophy, she says, it's just muddled language.

So hurrah. The physicists may be right about an infinite number of universes, but we've misconstrued the consequences of this. There isn't another me that omits commas, and I can accept the possibility of many universes without my head exploding.

There's a book on my shelf about infinity which I've never read.  I see that from the inscription that I bought it at Oxfam in York in 2006. A Brief History of Infinity – the Quest to Think the Unthinkable, by Brian Clegg, 2003.  It's off my shelf now. Time to tackle it.

A short note on many worlds if you want it.

Mealy mouthed climate report panned

Two responses to Monday's IPCC report worth reading. In The Guardian George Monbiot lashes out at in all directions, while Joe Romm's Climate Progress blog lashes out at the IPCC scientists for being mealy mouthed. 

We are at risk of making large parts of the planet’s currently arable and populated land virtually uninhabitable for much of the year — and irreversibly so for hundreds of years, says Joe.  He blames the scientists for wrapping this bombshell up in euphemisms and burying it deep in the text:

By 2100 for the high-emission scenario RCP8.5 [an atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide of about 936 parts per million], the combination of high temperature and humidity in some areas for parts of the year is projected to compromise normal human activities, including growing food or working outdoors.

“compromise normal human activities” ?!

Puh!  A clearer word would be “obliterate”, he says.

Follow George Monbiot and follow the climate progress blog. Its political focus is on the US but even if you don’t live there it's invaluable.

The Stations - they'll miss it when it's gone

Everyone complains about the Stations. A common theme of conversation hereabouts is it's time they were abolished. I don't agree, but as a blow-in and a non-believer my views count for little. Twice a year on a weekday in March and October all the neighbours from 15 houses in this vicinity of North Cork gather at one house where the parish priest celebrates a mass, followed by sandwiches, cakes, tea and beer. This is known as a Station Mass, or more commonly, just "the stations". Three weeks ago it was our name on the rota, and consequently we spent much of the preceding month painting and cleaning. This is regarded as a huge pain and it's what gives rise to the calls for abolition. But to me it's a price worth paying. Some neighbours help with making sandwiches, some bring apple pies, and some bottles, and it's all very chummy. Mary brought the mass kit and dressed our dining table into an altar. An official church website advises that for this purpose the host family is meant to supply: a table cloth, two candles, a crucifix, holy water, and a small jug of tap water.

Clockwise from top left: making sandwiches in the utility room, dressing the altar, admiring the altar, the priest robes up, studying the prayer sheet, the priest hands out communion, an altar no more.

Including ourselves, 32 people were present. The priest turned up at 8, and heard confessions in the parlour, though few participated in this. The mass started about fifteen minutes later and  lasted about half an hour, whereupon envelopes were collected. These envelopes contain “dues”, money for the priest. €20 is the going rate. Up to only a few years ago, everyone’s name was read out and defaulters were noted, but that has lapsed. [1] The empty envelopes were handed round in the preceding couple of weeks. As host of the stations this time round, it was Eileen’s job to attend to this. 

The final agenda item was agreeing who hosts the stations next October. Then it was on with the kettles and out with the sandwiches.

A compromise without merit

Sadly the abolitionists will get their way. And I fear all too soon. Because it's really only the over-50’s who participate in all this. The younger families absent themselves, and gradually the pool of those able and willing to host the stations dwindles. A compromise in which I see no merit whatsoever is for the station mass to be held in the local church.  When the number willing to host the stations reduces to the level where your turn comes round every two years instead of every four, then I foresee that the last hardy few will say enough’s enough and the institution will suddenly die. And then everyone will say do you remember what great times we had when we used to have the stations.

A starched white cloth

In most houses round here after the mass the priest is ushered to a table in the parlour, with a starched white cloth, and it’s considered an honour to be asked to join him, while the remaining neighbours shift for themselves in the kitchen, or have to await the priest’s convenience for a second sitting. Up to the 1970’s, it was the men who joined the priest and the women who stayed in the kitchen.  I witnessed the tail-end of this tradition. I must have attended my first stations during the 1980’s, and I can recall once, and I think only once, being ushered in to join the priest for a cold plate along with all the men. Very uncomfortable, but this was already widely deemed old-fashioned. 

Being seated next to the priest is a dubious honour for most people who don't actually know what to say to him. Eileen and I frequently manoeuvre ourselves into the hot seats, which seems to be suit everyone;  though Eileen and our neighbour Sean place me under strict interdict against “haranguing”. How I've acquired a reputation for “haranguing” priests I'm at a loss to know. But in whatever this haranguing consists, it appears to cause remarkably little offence, if I can judge by the lack of reluctance to be sitting next to me on these occasions.

I remember a station mass soon after the 2011 general election.  Fr Michael Fitzgerald (since elevated to Canon) discussed the allocation of cabinet posts in the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government, and went on to comment that Labour was a bit too radical for him. At this point, had I not been under interdict, I should have hit him with the Jesus was a socialist theme. But I dutifully let it go.

A little bit of history

The stations seem to date from the 17th century and the Penal Laws. At that time in Ireland and up to about 1750, the Catholic church was oppressed and public ceremonies involving Catholic clergy were banned. Moreover there were no Catholic churches. In this climate two new traditions emerged: the Mass Rock and the Station Mass. I think it’s a matter of debate amongst historians how energetically the penal laws were enforced, but the popular image is of the priest arriving in disguise while locals kept a look-out from vantage points in the landscape on alert for any approaching English militia.

A modern reconstruction of an 18th century open-air mass with look-outs and approaching soldiers, reproduced here on a devotional card

The Irish countryside is peppered with mass rocks which are still considered by some to be special sacred places. An alternative mass venue was in private homes. Word was put about locally that mass would be said at a given house on a given day. The neighbours would gather for what was often a rare opportunity to receive the sacrament. This mass became known as the "station mass" because the venue was only temporary, one of the early meanings of the English word station.  And for all I know, of the Irish word stáisiún.  A discussion of etymology if you want it.

Lack of church buildings, as much as fear of persecution, may have driven open air and station masses.

Abolishing dinners

In the 19th century, the Catholic Church tried to regulate the stations, as well as some other aspects of popular Catholicism. A strange leap from persecution to control, which remains a puzzle to me. Some clerics thought the stations were just an excuse for partying, and would have abolished them altogether. James Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin from 1819–1834, was influential. He saw the station dinner rather than the station itself as the main abuse, so the dinners were abolished, but stations allowed to continue. In 1843 the statutes of the Armagh diocese permitted stations but forbade the station dinner, the priest only being allowed to have a snack. [2] How far was this observed I wonder?

I understand that until the 1970’s, the station mass in our area was always held in the morning and was followed by breakfast for the priest and neighbours.

[1] Even further in the past, before my time, the actual amounts were read out. A farmer £10, a labourer £1, and so on. That I understand occurred up to the 1960’s and is now recalled with disgust.  It seems priests in those days were unfamiliar with the gospel story of the widow’s mite: witnessing temple donations made by rich men, Jesus calls attention to a poor widow contributing only two mites, and observes this was all she had, whilst the rich give only a small portion of their own wealth.  (Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4)

[2] The Religious Condition of Ireland 1770-1850, Nigel Yates, Oxford 2006. Some day I shall read the 1843 statutes for myself to see if this means the priest alone being allowed to have a snack, and everyone else nothing at all.

Is there a Moon Agreement and does it matter?

At the British Library in St Pancras yesterday to improve my understanding of the status of the 1979 Moon Agreement.   

But I wasn’t able to stay long enough, and I'll need to wait for another visit in a few months.  Ten days ago in Galway I gave my lecture on the ethical limits to space exploration and regrettably, for lack of knowledge, I had to skate around the common heritage of mankind principle. This principle (known to insiders as CHM) is enshrined in the Moon Agreement, which hasn’t been ratified by any country of importance. Accordingly, it seems obvious that it’s a dead letter. Yet I find the Moon Agreement is frequently referred to. So is it a dead letter or isn’t it? In the BL I came across an essay explaining at some length how the Moon Agreement is indeed a dead letter [1]. And yet the very lengthiness of the essay suggested to me that the deadness of the letter is a matter of debate. In October I’ll have the chance to listen to a leading space lawyer on the subject. Perhaps I’ll have to wait till then to get a grip on this.

Staking a claim

And what, you may ask (if you’ve stayed with me thus far) has all this to do with the price of cheese?  Well it has to do with the price of minerals. There are corporations that intend to mine asteroids and the moon. This, despite my perhaps ill-chosen illustration, is a serious proposition. The CHM principle says that all minerals in space are the common heritage of mankind, and have to be shared out equitably. Moreover no-one can own asteroids or planets [2]. But the corporations that propose space mining don’t like this at all: they want private property in space.

Asteroid mining: a serious proposition (Credit: The Tech Journal)

Can any law at all apply in space? Jim Benson has something to say about this. He is now deceased and so is his Space Development Corporation, but he’s a seminal figure in space mining, and in 1997 he said he would send a spacecraft with robotic mining equipment to an asteroid. “After landing, we will ‘stake’ any mining and patent claims we believe to be possible, and then will simply declare ownership of the trillion-dollar asset. This will help draw attention to the need to establish private property rights in space.” [3]

Colonising Mars

Other topics I lump together under the ethical limits to space exploration include

•    The debate on the so-called overprotection of Mars – what are planetary protection rules for, and should they be relaxed with respect to Mars? The ultimate relaxation of planetary protection for Mars would be terraforming - is it desirable?

•    Should Mars be colonised? If so why? Are there good and bad reasons for colonising Mars? Is the Mars One project a suicide mission? Does it infringe human rights? And if so, does it matter?

•    How much invasive science should be done, such as vaporising comets?

•    What is space archaeology and is it important? What steps ought to be taken to preserve it? Is there a role for UNESCO?

The militarisation of space, which arguably dwarfs all of the above issues,  is not included. Another day’s work perhaps.

I’ve set up a dedicated website with links, which I shall add to as time and energy allow.  Also has my presentation slides.

      [1] "The 1979 Moon Agreement - where is its today?" by Carl Christol, 1999, p 273 in Space Law (part of "The Library of Essays in International Law", Francis Lyall & Paul Larsen ed., 2007)
      [2] The non-ownership principle is less contested than CHM. It's in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, Article II
      [3] Kenneth Silber, A Little Piece of Heaven, 1998

“Neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism”

Confused about Ukraine.  There seems to have been a revolution without any input from the left. I suppose this is something I have to get used to; but I'm not used to it yet. Moreover most commentators agree that the far right has played a significant role in the “Euromaidan” occupation in Kiev.

Mark you, I don't think the word revolution is apposite. I prefer to reserve this word for a revolution in the classical Marxist sense of one class superseding another, as in the English revolution of the 1640’s, or the French Revolution on the 1790’s, or the ultimately unsuccessful Russian revolution of 1917.  But whatever about semantics, this movement has forced a change of regime which is rocking international politics. Out of all I've read, my bones tell me that this piece from Socialist Worker has its finger on it. Putin's imperial ambitions (and national populism) clashing with the EU extending its zone of neoliberalism. So it’s no to western military intervention and no to Russian invasion. But the Ukrainian popular movement includes some unsavoury elements ... so it's a tangled mess I certainly haven’t got to the bottom of.

One thought on Socialist Worker’s comment that the Euromaidan movement “unfortunately harbours illusions in the European Union”.  If the choice were between the EU and the mafia capitalism of Russia, I suspect I too might be inclined to harbour illusions in the EU. Be that as it may “Neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism” is always a handy slogan, and it will do here I suppose.

Socialist Worker uses this image of Russian frigates to illustrate the crucial strategic importance to Moscow of the Crimea, which since the 18th century has served as the base of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and thereby access to the Mediterranean.
(Pic: Russian Federation Ministry of Defence)

Worth reading are interviews with three protesters who don't sound like fascists to me, on The Guardian website, Tuesday: "We were so naive and optimistic".