A New Year's Wish List

A New Year’s Wish List (Derry News, 30^th December 2004)

In the run-up to Christmas there was an advert on television that suggested that we wouldn’t approve of someone coughing and spluttering all over us and so we shouldn’t approve of someone smoking in our face. The smoking would presumably cause as much damage as the coughing and spluttering, and was very antisocial.

Equally well, if someone constructed a monument in the middle of our city centre glorifying and replicating a man pushing a broken bottle into the face of another man lying on the ground unable to defend himself, we would consider it to be in very, very bad taste.

So why then do we tolerate a monument in the Diamond area of the city centre that shows a soldier in full military wears pushing aggressively the bayonet of a rifle into the unseen horizontal body of another human being, probably unable to protect himself, most likely injured and dying, as he lies on the ground.

This is of course the glorification of the obscene that constitutes the war memorial in our city. It’s time, given that we have entered a new century and millennium, that this monument was torn down and replaced by a peace garden designed by people who actually believe in the integrity of the words of Jesus Christ and who don’t turn around and glorify evil at every opportunity.

It’s time that sensible people constructed sensible monuments that reflect the values – and more importantly, the aspirations - of the people of this city. We are not a warmongering people and yet a visitor to this city will immediately have foisted upon him or her this tawdry justification of the most evil and obscene acts of war imaginable at a central and pivotal position on the landscape of this peace-loving city. What does that tell them about us?

I have heard it argued that we are honouring our dead of two world wars when we stand and pray beside these monuments to cowardice, but I don’t accept that that could not be done elsewhere. In any case, the age has gone where young men will dedicate the rest of their lives to dying in the most courageous (foolhardy?) way possible.

By all means, honour your dead if that is what you feel is appropriate, but if you’re going to honour them beside these perverted monuments then move them to somewhere more appropriate. I suggest, tongue firmly but not totally in cheek, that you move them to the grounds of Gransha Hospital so that you won’t have far to go if your behaviour ever becomes as irrational as your choice of monuments.

Other things that need a good look at for the sake of creating a culture of peace and responsibility among our young people in this city include the cannons on the walls of the city, guns and bombs, and Rosemount military base (cum police station).

The cannons on the city walls are of a time now past when such things were effective in war and so they cannot be seen in the same light as the bayoneting soldiers of the Diamond. On top of that they are in reality pointed at the municipal offices of the local council and thus they look like a bit of a farce rather than the positively obscene image that emanates from the War Memorial.

It’s time now that there were no guns to be worn in the city nor bombs set off here. We need the cooperation of all organisations who carry such arms or carry out such actions in asserting our collective desire to remain free from a culture of death. Derry must become a killing free zone.

Rosemount base is another terribly unsightly vilification of the people of the surrounding areas who want only peace - and not vilification - from the British army or the PSNI. It is an anachronism, if it was ever effective in any meaningful sense, and it must go.

Finally, the Derry News should set up a new column in its newspaper with the assistance of some of the same people who helped bring us the Memories of the Troubles articles. It should read “Memories of the Troubles” but with the subheading “What we did during the Troubles”. Then we might get to the bottom of why there was so much pain suffered by republicans during the course of the past number of decades. At present we’re getting a very false picture of the Troubles. It is certainly different to the period that I lived through, and conflicts with my knowledge that there were some very evil acts carried out by Irish republicans. You would think that they were as innocent as doves the way that they (deliberately) portray themselves these days in the press. So “what we suffered” should be balanced by “what we did” or the column should be dropped altogether. Have a prosperous, peaceful and happy new year.

*John O’Connell is Derry-based author.

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