Entries by Thompson, Matthew

Today as we bid a sad farewell to our South African friends, I find myself in a somewhat reflective mood. I begin to wonder, where is the good in goodbye? It is only when I think back to that first day in June when our SAWIP counterparts were introduced to us, that I realise quite how far we have come.

I can’t imagine how daunting a task it must have seemed for them to arrive after a full day’s travel and immediately have to integrate into a WIP team whose foundations had been laid months previously at orientation, and who had already been together for a week in DC. To their great credit however, each of the seven SAWIP members put themselves to the task with gusto, and their enthusiasm was simply infectious. Throughout the summer they contributed such a great deal of knowledge, passion and entertainment that I think it is safe to say that without them, it wouldn’t have been half the summer it has turned out to be. I cannot praise SAWIP enough for the insight that they offered into the problems and more importantly, the potential of a country that shares so many of its difficulties with our own. Their unbridled love for their country and passion for their cause should, and did, act as an inspiration to all of us on the Washington Ireland Program. Indeed, it was perhaps they more than anyone that managed to awake in us an awareness of the need to close our eyes to the past, and instead look to the future, to become active in assuming the mantle of leadership, and to continue the march of progress that was begun by the bravery and steadfast dedication of our predecessors. Our generation, a generation that is more than ever liberated from the shackles of prejudice and mistrust, has the potential to achieve great things, and it is up to us as young leaders to awaken and empower that potential. This has been perhaps the most valuable of many lessons on the summer program, and it is indisputable that SAWIP played a crucially important role in its formation and development.

More than simply being valuable participants in a leadership programme however, Thulani, Vuyo, Udo, Roz, Thami, Cheri and Christo (not forgetting Jean of course!) became our friends. Outside of the classroom, we shared an enormous number of special moments, almost too many to mention. On a personal note (if you’ll permit me the in-group references) I’ll never forget Thulani’s dancing classes, bonding 'en francais' with Roz, and guys, what more do I have to say than “1, 2 … I’m an idiot”? Good times!

At times like this, it’s easy to focus on the negative, to wonder precisely where the good lies in the word goodbye. However, with a little reflection, I am reminded of the words of Richard Bach, who wrote: “Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends.” Friends we are, and friends we will stay. So I’d like to thank you my friends, for everything you have contributed to my summer, and I only hope that you take away from us as much as we have learned and gained from our time with you. And should you feel sad or upset at our parting, I would ask you to look again at the words of Bach, and also to remember that it’s no use crying because it’s over. Rather, smile because it happened.

As a final thought, one of the most chanted refrains of the holiday, as the title of this post would suggest, has been that SAWIP is on fire. It is now clear to me that SAWIP is on fire, and that it has ignited a small flame of change in the hearts of 26 young Irish and Northern Irish students, a flame that hopefully we as individuals and as a partnership of nations, can fan into a bushfire. SAWIP is on fire, and it is up to us to ensure that that flame is never extinguished.

The Surrealist movement of the early 20th Century developed a technique of writing that became known as 'automatic' or 'stream of consciousness' writing. The author writes with no structure or plan or preconceived ideas, noting the words simply as they come flowing into his head. The purpose of this style was to access a mental plane that was beyond the rational, and so unburden the mind and let it express itself freely. In my immensely fatigued state, rather than write a detailed blog last night I decided, having studied Surrealism at some length, to give automatic writing a go myself. So, here’s the end product for your viewing pleasure (with some family-friendly editing, I’ll admit!)


I feel I know I should start by saying what I mean to say which is that I don’t know where or why or how I mean to go on to go on in the muck the mess the dirt the grime as Sam said it is hard to know where to start I mean to stop I mean who knows what I mean in the end is it worth it what does it mean

I write to say what I feel can I say what I feel can I mean what I say it is hard a quoi bon sert-il to get ones thoughts in order is hard when one doesn’t know what to think what to say what to feel when one lacks that with which to speak

despair it is easy to despair look at the world see fear will see pain will see bitterness injustice ignorance a world absurd Gott ist tott as Friedrich said a world absurd no place no meaning nothing only a life absurd

why not end now end all now as Albert asked we can’t end all we must go on as Sam said we must go on we can’t go on we go on no progress no on only striving meaningless striving no future or is there yes perhaps is there perhaps something a future in all of this?

To where do we go on? to what we must find an answer here not there we must find an answer to change today not cast our gaze to tomorrow to the transcendental this is tantamount to nihilism. Meaning in death perhaps perhaps not but meaning in life is certain here we can now we can mean

There can be value yes value in doing in acting now in striving even against absurdity even if we are doomed value yes in that. From where value how value in joining with fellow man value in change value as Luther said even if I knew tomorrow the world would go to pieces I would still plant my apple tree

Hope in that at least hope inaction is despair to give in is despair pourquoi pas se suicider? To act is to hope we must create we must choose choose to live to act to hope.

It is hard to know where to go what to think what to do why am I here what purpose is there a purpose how do I live live for others live for myself not mutually exclusive but interdependent as Jean-Paul said we are responsible alone but responsible together in the mess in the muck of existence to choose to act to create to build. Build a world inclusive a world in which we unite cultures unite and share to forget differences to forget and come together in a world which can be better en me choisissant je choisis l’homme.

Change is hope and hope is change we must live to have hope we must hope to have change and we must change so that we can live to hope.

In the dark it is easy to live for me and live for mine but what is the purpose the point it is pointless to live for oneself therein lies despair live not for me live for we we are born alone we may die alone perhaps but it is together that we live even in the dark the mess the muck it is together that we can mean

something

On Wednesday of last week, three members of the Class of 2008 stepped up for their time in the sun. It was our moment. Our destiny. The most competitive, challenging and talked-up debate in WIP history. Georgetown vs. WIP. The motion? Guantanamo. The players? Phil, Cliona and myself vs. three of Georgetown’s best. The stakes? Honour, pride, and our place in history…

Ok ok, perhaps it wasn’t quite as important as all that, but it certainly felt that way as we took our seats to begin the proceedings! All in all it went very well. Our opponents were as competent as expected, if not more, but since no one on our team had ever been at a debate in their life, we really rose to the challenge, which resulted in a fascinating and highly competitive evening for all involved. In the end there were no judges to call a winner, but at the risk of sounding horrendously cliché, I think everybody, organizers, audience members and debaters alike, can consider themselves the fortunate winners of this unique event. Below, if you are interested, I have included a copy of the speech I gave in favour of the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay facility.


Mr, Esteemed Opposition, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Freedom is a powerful word. It is a word that has been employed with conspicuous frequency by the Bush administration to explain and justify a variety of practices and goals in the so called “War on Terror.” It is a word which conjures up a variety of associations. These range from Mel Gibson’s somewhat over-dramatised depiction of bottom-bearing Scotsmen winning freedom from colonial oppression, to the more contextually relevant notion of civil, religious and human freedoms within a democratic state. There is one aspect of the word however, that we should be very conscious of avoiding. Freedom within today’s society does not mean freedom from international accountability. It does not mean freedom from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it does not mean freedom from commitment and strict adherence to the Geneva Conventions.

As recently as February of this year, the Bush administration instructed American diplomats to defend its decision to seek the death penalty for six Guantanamo detainees by recalling the executions of Nazi war criminals after World War 2. Obviously, President Bush hasn’t been doing his history homework.

One of the most serious lessons learned from the Second World War was that the heinous crimes perpetrated by the Nazi state were not illegal, because there were no international laws to prohibit them. The spirit of Nuremberg gave birth to a new era of international humanitarian law. One that sought to redress such a legal deficiency through a new international framework, based on the ideals of consensus and universalism. Six decades on, far from taking Nuremberg as a precedent, the actions of the Bush administration at Guantanamo transcend the bounds of these international laws in the name of national security. The idea that absolute security is the foremost legal right of the state contravenes the legal principle, established by the Geneva Conventions, that certain practices are universal crimes, and that their perpetrators are subject to punishment. It undermines the very basis of post- World War 2 legal developments, and its consequences for the future of international law could be devastating. It is for this reason that an institution such as Guantanamo has no place in a society that holds the preservation of immutable individual freedoms, backed up by a solid framework of international laws, as its guiding principle. It is for this reason that Guantanamo Bay must be closed with immediate effect.

Furthermore, the Bush administration chose Guantanamo Bay because it considered that its actions there would be beyond judicial review under the United States’ Constitution. However, since the Supreme Court ruled on the 12th June in Boumedeine vs Bush that the Constitution does apply even in de facto US territory, there is clearly no further need for the facility at Guantanamo. The Court has granted the detainees the basic right to habeas corpus, a corner stone of liberty since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, and a right enshrined in the 5th Amendment. The future of the detainees is thus henceforth to be subject to judicial scrutiny under the auspices of the Constitution, and as such all further treatment of their cases must be removed from the shadows, and incorporated into both the US and international judicial systems, where there can be no further ambivalence regarding their rights as established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions. An essential indication of this new intent would be the closing of Guantanamo and the transfer of its occupants to US soil-proper as they await either their release, or their trial.

The lasting outcome of Nuremberg was the institutionalization of individual liberty at an international level. If we are prepared to compromise this liberty through a back-door assault on the very principles which uphold it, as is being done at Guantanamo, how can we be justified in waging war against an enemy whose alleged crime is an assault on that very same liberty? Guantanamo is an abhorrent affront to the laws and values that govern modern day international society, and as such, must be shut down with immediate effect.

I support this motion.

“I wondered whether music might not be the unique example of what might
have been - if the invention of language had not intervened - the means of communication between souls.”
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

Last week, we visited Mount Lebanon Baptist Church, and having had that time to reflect on my personal experience there, I thought I’d share with you a few of my thoughts on the matter.

I am not a religious person, in the sense that I am not a church-goer, and I do not subscribe to any one particular religion. However, I am not quite a committed atheist. I am certainly open to the possibility that there is a spiritual side to our lives, but only a few times in my life have I felt that possibility become a tangible reality. Once was just after my first midnight communion at St Georges Anglican Church in Belfast, when the service simply overwhelmed me, and as we walked out into a gentle snowfall, I couldn’t hold back my tears. The second was last week, during the service at Mount Lebanon.

Friedrich Nietzsche believed that as human beings, we are all connected to a great, primordial ‘oneness’, a unity that precedes the development of the ego and the rise of individuals. Trapped in a rational cage, however, humans are unable to access this fundamental truth. Language, a clumsy, awkward tool even at the best of times, is unable to pierce into the truth of being. However, it is through music, Nietzsche argued, that we are sometimes afforded a glimpse of the innate unity which we all share as humans. Music bypasses cognitive understanding, and can evoke the same emotional response in a room of people, no matter what languages they speak, connecting us all and engaging with us on a level that is unexplainable on a rational level. Music speaks, as Nietzsche wrote, “from the heart of the world”.

At Mount Lebanon, during the intensely musical service, I experienced something unique. I hesitate to call it a religious experience – I didn’t quite feel like Saul on the road to Damascus – but it did set off a powerful emotional response in me that went right to my core. On some level, I felt connected to every person in that room. I felt that we were sharing in something, something uniquely and joyously human. The pastor may have said that what we shared was membership of the “fellowship of God”. Whilst I don’t know if that’s necessarily true – there’s something a bit too ‘Lord of the Rings’ in it for me – I had the feeling that whatever it is we were involved in, this crazy game of life, wherever it takes us and whatever becomes of us at the end, the one saving grace is that we are all in it together. I think that’s an important lesson to take heed of even on a practical, rather than a purely metaphysical level. One thing we all share in this life, beyond any petty differences of race and creed, is our humanity. And that’s something to celebrate.

Well, here I am. After months of mouth-watering build up and a frantic week of orientation, I'm finally able to begin my web journal. As I write this, I sit in my ivory tower, surveying all below me from the lofty heights of the political capital of the world. Capitol Hill, that is. Don't worry though, I'm on my lunch break so I'm in no way neglecting my duties!

I shan't get into the intricate details of our whirlwind tour thus far, but suffice to say that we've seen the sights (Arlington cemetary, including the tombs of both JFK and the Unknown Soldier, the Lincoln and Roosevelt memorials, and the Korean and Vietnam War memorials); we've hit the town (though perhaps not as much as some of us would have liked!) and met a host of eminent figures, most notably Sen. Patrick Leahey, currently the 7th most powerful senator and movie star extraordinaire.

Perhaps the most memorable moment so far however, for me at least, was the time we spent entertaining classes from the J.O. Wilson Elementary School. It was a fantastic effort from the team given such little time for preparation, but more significant than that was the incredible sense of fulfilment to be gained from seeing the kids' faces light up as we taught, acted, sang and danced our way through the afternoon. I was particularly touched as one young kid of around 9 years old told me afterwards that I was his "favourite guitar player ever". So in your face Hendrix! On a different note however, whilst I was there I couldn't help but think of the vast amount of potential to be found in each and every one of those ebullient, spirited kids, and what a crying shame it would be to see a single ounce of that potential go to waste. So I resolved, as part of the task group for the WIP group public service project, to see what more might be done for them during our time here in DC and beyond. I'll keep you posted on any developments in that regard.

So all in all it's been an exhausting but unforgettable 10 days - everything we thought it would be and more. And I think I speak for everyone in the group when I say that already we can feel the bonds of great and lasting friendships taking root. Here's to much more of the same over the course of the summer!