Racism and Common Sense

I've just been thinking about Prince Harry's gaffe, which certainly provides distraction for the Tabloid press, and draws attention away from more serious stories. I remember Prince Philip's famous "slitty eyes" remark made in China; so there is clearly an inherited gene there. Prince Harry's remark was an obvious blunder, but there is a danger in society today to be hypersensitive to any kind of remark which might be interpreted in a racist manner.

It is a kind of post-modern Freudianism, which looks for "latent racism" in attitudes, sees "internalised racism" in institutions and individuals (because of their background), and transposes the Marxist notion of "false consciousness" to the modern politically correct agenda.

It can be seen recently in the row over "Big Brother", where it is noted that:

Politician Tommy Sheridan has instigated a sectarian row in his home city of Glasgow after singing 'Fields Of Athenry' during a live broadcast of Big Brother. Channel 4 producers cut coverage during the broadcast, but enough of the song was heard to draw criticism from the Unionist community in Scotland. Rev. Stuart MacQuarrie, a chaplain at Glasgow University, told The Herald that 'Fields Of Athenry' is "anti-British" and therefore "racist" due to the song's reference about rebelling against the Crown. "This is an Irish rebel song," he said, "and so the song should not be sung on television, or indeed anywhere."

In fact, "The Fields of Athenry" is an Irish folk ballad set during the Great Irish Famine (1845-1850) about a fictional man from near Athenry in County Galway who has been sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay, Australia, for stealing food for his starving family. In its way it is making a protest, but so is Victor Hugo's Les Miserable, in which Jean Valjean is sentenced to the galleys for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving family. The protest is against a society in which such injustice existed, and I see no reason why these stories should not be told, and songs sung. It is in the remembering that we see how injustice works, and don't fall into those traps (or new versions of them) again.

The Fields of Athenry" was written in the 1970s by Pete St. John, and topped the Irish folk charts. It is a lovely plaintive song, which reminded me in many ways of the sad parting of Ovid from his family, when he is sent into political exile, and wrote the Tristia about his plight, and remembered all that was dear to him that he was about to lose as he set off away from home.

Here are the lyrics, and if anyone can find anything remotely racist about them, I think they have serious personal problems with their own obsessions. If you really wanted something that was rebelling against the Crown, then the Sex Pistol's "God Save the Queen" is both direct, and deliberately offensive.

This song is a folk ballad, and is no more racist than "Les Miserables". The Reverend Stuart MacQuarrie called it "vile, viscous and racist", so read on and judge for yourself.

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling
Micheal they are taking you away
For you stole Trevelyn's corn
So the young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.

Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling
Nothing matter Mary when your free,
Against the Famine and the Crown
I rebelled they ran me down
Now you must raise our child with dignity.

Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.

By a lonely harbor wall
She watched the last star falling
As that prison ship sailed out against the sky
Sure she'll wait and hope and pray
For her love in Botany Bay
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.

Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.

Links:
http://www.digitalspy.com/bigbrother/a140717/tommys-racist-song-sparks-criticism.html
http://www.rutherglenreformer.co.uk/rutherglen-news/rutherglen-local-news/2008/12/31/rev-hits-out-at-old-firm-songs-of-hate-hypocrites-63227-22577878/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fields_of_Athenry

CS Lewis: The Backward Glance

"CS Lewis: The Backward Glance" by Ronald Bresland is a fascinating study of how C.S. Lewis Irish roots remained important to him throughout his life, at times, when younger, as something to react against, when he could see the divisiveness of Irish society, and how he was able to step away from Protestant prejudices of his native Ulster. When older, the landscapes of his youth, visited again on walking tours, remained important as a continual wellspring for his imagination.

This is a superbly written book, and for a glimpse of some of the beautiful landscapes mentioned, with notes on how this fired his imagination and writings, I would recommend the site:

http://www.cslewisinireland.com/

I enjoyed this book thoroughly, and would recommend it to anyone interested in a fresh glance at Lewis and his Irish background.

The theme was taken up in a fashion by Brian Sibley in the BBC Radio 4 Play, which I remember listening to back in 2004. It was broadcast over Christmas.

THE NORTHERN IRISH MAN IN CS LEWIS
Writer: Brian Sibley
Duration/Slot: 60 min Saturday Play R4
Transmission Date: 21/12/02
Producer/Director: Gemma McMullan
Star Cast: Geoffrey Palmer (best known as Lionel in 'As Time Goes By') as CS Lewis, Dario Angelone ('The Calling', 'December Bride') as the young CS Lewis, Jack Logue as his brother Warnie, and Jimmy Ellis as their Grandfather.

A play about CS Lewis, one of the twentieth century's best loved writers

---

James O'Fee has written this review:

The Backward Glance: C. S. Lewis and Ireland, by Ronald W. Bresland,
(The Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast, 1999) ISBN 0 85389 746 8, paperback, 140 pp, 8.50 (UK), $17.95 (amazon.com).

Ronald Bresland's book is the product of his year 1997-98 as a Research
Fellow attached to the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University,
Belfast. The book follows a biographical format, but the theme is literary criticism, an investigation and appreciation of how Lewis's Irish background influenced his work.

Bresland first learnt of Lewis at his primary school where a teacher read the Narnia stories to her class. Bresland commands a deep understanding of the literature of Ireland, and during his fellowship he studied important primary sources, notably the copy of the "Lewis Papers" held in Oxford's Bodleian Library. His book has the welcome scholarly additions of Index, Bibliography and so on.

Bresland identifies Irish connections with Lewis at several levels. Among Irish writers, W B Yeats was a major influence on Lewis's early poetry. In the 1920s Lewis met Yeats in Oxford when Lewis discovered Yeats's fascination with the occult. Shortly afterwards, a brother of Mrs Janie Moore became deranged and died in torment. Lewis blamed the brother's interest in the occult, and Lewis would reject the occult as a dangerous snare. Bresland traces the influence of the episode in forming Lewis's first attempt at a novel, what Bresland calls the Ulster novel (really only two chapters), set on the Liverpool-Belfast ferry and then in Belfast.

About 1917 Lewis was attracted to the ideas of the Romantic Nationalist movement, associated with W B Yeats and his circle. Lewis wrote to his friend Arthur Greeves of his love for the Ireland of "Patsy Macan" (sic) and declared that if he ever were to become interested in politics, he would be a nationalist. (Patsy MacCann is a character in a novel by Irish writer James Stephens.) Lewis also writes that, if he were ever to publish (ie the material that became Spirits in Bondage), he would choose the publisher Maunsel in Dublin to "tack myself definitely onto the Irish school".

Yet shortly afterwards Lewis was writing to Greeves of the danger of the 'New Ireland school' becoming a cult, or an intellectual by-way. Lewis wrote of the importance of keeping 'in the broad highway of thought', to 'feel what can be felt by all men, not merely a few'. This about-turn was decisive - how greatly Lewis would succeed in the aim of communicating what 'can be felt by all men'. 'Spirits in Bondage' was later published, but not in Dublin.

Frank Frankfort Moore wrote a satire on Ulster life, The Ulsterman (1914), which may have influenced the young Lewis in his part-satirical "Ulster novel". Earlier unpublished texts of Lewis's reveal his familiarity with Frankfort Moore's book. Lewis knew well the work of perhaps Ireland's greatest Irish satirist, Jonathan Swift -- Lewis's science fiction may have been influenced by Swift's Gulliver.

Amanda McKittrick Ros was an Ulster writer beloved of The Inklings. Her novels are wildly melodramatic and romantic -- she may be said to bear the same relation to prose that William McGonigal does to poetry. The Inklings amused themselves by a competition as to who could read the longest passage from Amanda's works without laughing. One winner was John Wain who, Warren Lewis records, was able to read an entire chapter without a smile.

Albert Lewis had dealings with Amanda through his legal work. Amanda wrote Albert Lewis a letter published in Jack Loudan's biography of Amanda, O Rare Amanda (London, 1954). Bresland has done us a service by re-printing this choice item.

Forrest Reid was a Belfast author of whom CS Lewis wrote an appreciation for the magazine Time and Tide. Both authors dedicated books to their friend Arthur Greeves. Bresland reproduces Arthur Greeves' portrait of Reid, which hangs today in Reid's old school.

Louis MacNeice was a poet and author from Ulster with whose background Lewis had much in common. MacNeice gave his best-known play for radio the ominous title of "The Dark Tower". Yet the two had opposed views of modern poetry and MacNeice was a friend of Lewis's old rival for the poetry Chair at Oxford, Irishman C. Day Lewis.

At another level, many of CS Lewis's closest emotional ties were with fellow-Ulstermen and fellow-Irishman, for example Arthur Greeves, Warren Lewis, WT Kirkpatrick, and Janie Moore. Bresland adds the names of many more Irish friends.

In his domestic arrangements, Lewis often lived with Irishmen (and women). Kirkpatrick spoke "purest Ulster" and Kirkpatrick's Bookham became almost an Ulster colony in deepest Surrey. For many years The Kilns at Oxford, too, resembled an Irish enclave.

The Irish landscape continued to inspire and refresh Lewis throughout his life, yet at times he less sympathy with the human inhabitants. In a letter to Arthur Greeves, Lewis wrote of Ulster, "The country is very beautiful and if only I could deport the Ulstermen and fill their land with a populace of my own choosing, I should ask for no better place to live in." Bresland shrewdly argues that Lewis did precisely that in his Narnian stories. Narnia can be seen as an idealised Ulster populated with creatures from Lewis's imagination.

This is a fine and well-argued book. There are, however, a few sins of commission and omission.

Bresland writes that W T Kirkpatrick was born in Belfast -- he was born on a farm in County Down. And Bresland fails to mention Lewis's tribute to Kirkpatrick, the character MacPhee in That Hideous Strength. Bresland ignores two Irish denizens of The Kilns. One was the widow Mrs Alice Moore, for whom Lewis built a bungalow in the grounds where she lived in the 1930s. Another was Vera Henry, through whom her native County Louth became a favoured holiday destination for Warren Lewis. Vera helped with the cooking at The Kilns in the 1940s and, with her brother Frank, so charmed the Lewis brothers that Warren began to take holidays at Annagassan, County Louth. Vera died in 1953, but Warren Lewis had developed a liking for these Irish breaks, where C S Lewis would often join him. Frank Henry, blessed with longevity, drove the Lewises on many of their Irish jaunts and lived to see the Lewis Centenary. Finally, omitted is any reference to Mary Rogers' fine article "Narnian Ulster". Despite these minor defects, The Backward Glance is a well-written addition to Lewis scholarship. A wonderful selection of period photographs supplements and illustrates the text. The whole is a delight.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=801