Jessie Buckley has recently entered the hallowed pantheon of great Irish actors. Victory in the 2026 Oscars, in one of the blue ribbon events that is best leading actress, was achieved by her empathetic performance as Shakespeare’s wife, in the movie ‘Hamnet’. She is now occupying that rarefied place, up amongst the greats of Irish entertainers such as Cillian Murphy, Brenda Fricker, Daniel Day-Lewis, Neil Jordan, George Bernard Shaw, and Cedric Gibbons who, incidentally, is also credited with conceiving the design of the Oscar statute. 

Aside from being just old-fashioned good entertainment, are movies and books that have a historical backdrop, a help or a hindrance? Jessie Buckley’s victory has drawn even greater attention to the book ‘Hamnet’, written by Maggie O’Farrell in 2020. It has already made its way onto the English Leaving Cert curriculum, which of course is a tribute to the work’s literary value and popularity. But how true to life is it and should that matter? In this article, I want to explore a number of texts that are grounded in historical events or based upon a historical person and explore the positive and negative aspects upon their readerships. 

Let’s start with the novel ‘Hamnet’. Little is known about Shakespeare’s family life aside from a few basic facts. He got married at 18 to an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had a number of children, including twins, one which was christened Hamnet. Shakespeare was the son of a glover who struggled financially and his son Hamnet did die during the time of the plague. A few years later he wrote, ‘The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.’ It may surprise you that, in terms of biographical accuracy, we don’t know much more about his family life. O’Farrell is particularly effective in how she fuses her understanding of Elizabethan society to enrich the backdrop of the book, enabling the reader to form a picture of how people lived and toiled in daily life. Her understanding of the horrors of the plague are well-researched and no doubt one of her main attributes was leaning into some Shakespeare’s very own narratives. O’Farrell imagines that William and Anne planned to get pregnant to force their marriage against the will of their unsupportive parents, which mirrors the storyline of a courting couple in a Shakespearean play called ‘Measure for Measure’. O’ Farrell also reimagines their youthful courtship along the lines of another of his better known plays, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’. The difficulty now, is that many readers/viewers are already forming the idea that this is how it actually happened.

On a positive note, any ‘historical’ book (or movie) that inspires someone to read, can only be a good thing. Perhaps many a generation, who were scarred from studying Shakespeare to simply pass an exam, may feel inspired to pick up Hamlet. Outside the cauldron of an exam, it remains a most wondrous and beautifully-penned play. Those who only watched the movie Hamnet, may well decide to take a chance with O’Farrell’s book, and enjoy engaging with the novel. The problem for some historians arises when fiction is conflated with truth. A good friend of mine was surprised that during a discussion of ‘Hamnet’ at her book club, some readers took umbrage with how horrid Shakespeare’s father was and wondered how on earth he went on to become a writer, forgetting that the depiction of his father is purely fictional. I have heard others profess the theory that the death of his son, Hamnet, inspired the great bard to write the play Hamlet – beautifully romantic, but a wholly invented narrative. It illustrates how the fiction can obscure the fact. We know nothing of their relationship and, by the time Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, his star had risen and he was writing commercially successful plays for the Globe Theatre. The novel/movie hinges greatly on a romantic ideal, of a grieving Shakespeare using his pain to exercise his own loss, by exploring the father-son relationship in his play Hamlet (and also the fact that the names are so similar has added fuel to the speculative fire). It’s a frivolous theory but, will probably seep into people’s take on Hamlet. To further puncture this romantic bubble (sorry), King Hamlet and father of prince Hamlet is a self-confessed sinner who, when appearing to his son as a ghost, briefly recounts the horrors he endures in purgatory, paying for the horrid sins he committed in his life, before weighing down his intellectual but ill-equipped son, with the burden of revenging his murder.  For all that we admire about young Prince Hamlet, he also shows himself to be a heartless brute to his ex-girlfriend Ophelia and mother, a coward, a procrastinator, and ultimately a murderer of innocent men. Is all this inspired by the memory of his eleven-year-old son? Closer to the truth is that Shakespeare – buoyed by the success of plays like ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – knew how to conjure up a great tragedy and was astute enough to give Elizabethan audiences what they held dearly: a good old supernatural plot, that would draw audiences into the Globe theatre and money into his pocket. He repeated the trick with more zest in the play ‘Macbeth’, not just with ghosts, but adding witches, continuing a winning formula. What O’Farrell has shown is how research and imaginative writing can transport people back to a bygone world. 

Perhaps the queen of this style of historical fiction was Hilary Mantel with her ‘Wolf Hall’ trilogy, also based in Tudor times. Her novels revolve around the relationship between King Henry VIII, and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell [not to be confused with Ireland’s nemesis Oliver Cromwell], during that tenacious reign where Henry moved heaven and hell to get his way and remarry, brutally disposing of wives like confetti, all in pursuit of an heir. This novel also leans into imagined fictions and invented conversations that bring the work alive. However, Mantel’s history is a lot more solid, as she works within the court politics, religious animosity between Catholicism and the emerging Protestantism and the well-documented annulments, executions and deaths that the helpless queens had to endure at Henry’s hands. Mantel [who almost bought a house in Ardfield, now occupied by a friend of mine, who never tires of telling me this] was of course a master of historical fiction and, in my opinion, a more nuanced and able writer than O’Farrell. Although she has a lot more material to work with than O’Farrell had, boy does she weave a most believable world of Tudor sexual morasses, politics and power plays. Like any historical fiction, no doubt people will quote her book, saying Thomas Cromwell said ‘this’ or ‘that’, without considering the dialogue is a figment of her well-researched imagination. 

Irish great, Colm Tóbín, is famously known for his historical fiction which he would claim is ‘inspired’ by the writings of those he depicts, such as the great German writer Thomas Mann in the novel ‘The Magician’ and American writer Henry James in ‘The Master’. Similar to Mantel, his research is extensive and he ‘finds’ the voice of both protagonists in his stories, sticking closely to real life narratives of events in their lives but finding that Midas touch, that breathes life into his characters and narrates them in a way that invites us to become a voyeur into their private world. That’s the real power of historic fiction and, in this case, Tóbín may well lead his reader to the actual novels written by Mann and James, once their interest is tickled by the power of his storytelling.

Another novel that has the perfect pitch between historic fact and imagination is the novel ‘HHhH’  by Laurent Binet, who brilliantly captures the days running up to the assassination of SS commander, Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, in 1942. That for me is the closest anyone has gotten to the perfect blend of history and narrative, capturing real events, the real time line and real people into a storytelling thrilling novel style, as opposed to a standard biography or history. I would totally recommend it for those interested in the mind-set of the Nazi regime and how it was controlling many parts of Europe. 

Closer to home and more problematic in my opinion is the Michael Collins movie directed by Neil Jordan. We are used to movies taking some liberties but the Collins movie goes to town. If it was just any movie, one might just accept that’s part of Hollywood playbook, but given that Collins is such an important historical figure and studied in schools, the movie has led to misleading information in the public discourse. There are more holes in it than Swiss cheese and, perhaps the most dangerous one connects De Valera’s appearance in Béal na Bláth with giving the order to assassinate Collins. For the record, while Dev was in West Cork on that day, it was Liam Lynch who was in charge of the anti- treaty IRA and their military strategy, as well as local commanders on the ground. Dev was not consulted or listened to on military matters, most certainly not at Béal na Bláth. The 1970s-style car bombs blowing up agents at Dublin Castle, while cinematically spectacular, was historically cringe worthy nor was Collins in the GPO during the 1916 Rising. The movie has had such a misleading impact that recently, while on a school tour of Glasnevin Cemetery, the tour guide, standing at Collins’ grave, told us that an American woman had recently arrived with flowers for the grave of Liam Neeson. I carefully reminded the group not to include that in their Leaving Cert answers! 

Ultimately anything that gets you reading fiction or interested in history is a good thing in my opinion, as long as you do a little bit of your own research and discover what is real and what is entertainment.

What binds all the great philosophers from Aristotle to Peter Singer is a voyage of self-discovery. Despite the many centuries and cultural nuances that separate them, time and time again, a common theme that emerges from so many of them, is to be virtuous and selfless. Aristotle believed that happiness comes from service to the community. Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas, said the key energiser is love and thus acts of love towards humankind. The great fifth century Chinese philosopher Confucius preached that a person becomes whole when they fulfil responsible roles in society in a selfless way. Twenty-first century sage Peter Singer puts it that basically one wants to feel there is more to life than just consuming products and generating garbage. He asks what greater motivation can there be than doing whatever one possibly can to reduce suffering and pain?

The recent pairing of the Republic of Ireland soccer team and Israel in the same group has, once again, highlighted the tensions between the two nations that has developed since Israel’s military incursions into Gaza. It’s probably not a bad thing, since it has turned the spotlight back on the conflict that a UN report has called genocide, seeing that it has dropped out of the media cycle. Yet there have been 600 deaths and counting since Israel agreed to stop the bombing and a ceasefire. So what’s this got to do with a bunch of philosophers?

Prior to the draw, League of Ireland clubs such as Saint Patrick’s Athletic have bravely brought a case to UEFA against Israel’s continued participation in both international and club football. The case is black and white. In summary, the argument revolves around the fact that Israel’s continued participation is a direct breach of article three and four of UEFA’s statutes. By allowing Israeli clubs in occupied Palestinian territory, to participate in European competitions, UEFA are in breach of these statutes and indeed international law. By coincidence the recent draw has escalated this case further but so far both the Irish Government and the FAI have decided not to take a stand. Supporters of the boycott favour UEFA taking the lead on this with a ban – like they did previously with Russia and Yugoslavia – but Israel seems exempt from these rules. So what happens next? The Irish woman’s basketball team, when faced with this uncomfortable fixture, fulfilled it, in spite of many of the young women speaking out against it. Basketball Ireland said it would “damage the sport” and thus the game went ahead.  Will our government take action?  Mary Lou has said we should give Israel “the red card”, whereas Simon Harris said, “Ireland would miss out” The FAI likewise have said they “have no choice”. Will individual players take it upon themselves to take a stand? It’s difficult on one level given many may feel it could damage their career, but should we listen to the great men and women who believe that virtue and selflessness will lead to a fulfilled life above everything else? 

This article will look at some sportspeople who made the decision to do what they felt was right, even if it could have led to their own personal ruin. History has been kind to them for their brave actions and, in times of great moral ambiguity, we need more of our heroes to stand up. 

Muhammad Ali 

By 1967 there were almost half a million soldiers fighting in Vietnam. Black people were drafted in disproportionate numbers, something that Martin Luther King Jr highlighted in a famous speech he gave at the Riverside church in New York in April 1967. Always conscious of keeping the white political elite on board, he risked sanction with his direct confrontation; “We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”

Muhammad Ali would take it further, which ultimately led to the loss of his boxing world title and his arrest and deny this brilliant and charismatic athlete from performing in a boxing arena for a further three-and-a-half years. Just a few short weeks after King’s speech, he refused to be drafted, as it went against his religious beliefs and, like King, his moral outlook. On April 28, he declared to the world “The real enemy of my people is right here (USA). I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality.”

Tommie Smith and John Carlos

Mexico City 1968. America marvels at the performances of their 200-metre sprint team. Carlos claims the bronze and Smith the gold, breaking the world record in the process. Since then there have been thousands of American medal winners that most people have forgotten, but these two athletes will be remembered forever for their brave stance. They walked into the area, shoeless, as a symbol of the poverty that had engulfed their communities. (Vietnam was costing the state 30 billion dollars a year and LBL’s ‘great society’ project was bankrupt). Carlos wore a necklace to symbolise lynching. More symbolically, they raised their clenched fists in the manner of the civil rights group, the Black Panthers, after they received their medals and during the national anthem. Afterwards they were sent home in disgrace, received death threats and endured financial hardship. When Smith was asked if he regretted that salute, he replied, “The only regret was that it had to be done.”

Tony Ward 

In 2026, Irish rugby has been obsessing about who should be the Irish number 10 for the national team – Jack Crowley or Sam Prendergast. There was a similar conversation in the early eighties, when Tony Ward and Ollie Campbell were the darlings of that era. They were both so good that they were selected for the Lions tour to apartheid South Africa in 1980. Both men jumped at the highest accolade in rugby, but it would have a negative effect on Ward. The reality of the situation appalled the young man: “When we arrived in Johannesburg airport I came face to face with the reality of apartheid when I went to the toilet and saw the sign ‘Whites only toilet – No Blacks’.” The following year, trade unions, the government and the Catholic church called on the IRFU not to tour South Africa. It fell on deaf ears and unbelievably they still went. Not Tony Ward (and a dozen others). After what he had seen firsthand, he refused to travel and his international rugby career was never the same again after. 

Naomi Osaka 2020

Osaka is one of the highest profile players in the women’s tennis circuit, winning four grand slam titles. During the US open of 2020, she wore seven masks bearing the name of black victims shot dead by police, to shine a light on the continued police violence in the USA that has been particularly hard on immigrants and the black community. In an interview she said, “For me it’s just spreading awareness. I feel like the more people know the story, then the more interesting or interested they’ll become in it. It’s quite sad that seven masks aren’t enough for the amount of names.” That was the same year the high profile case of George Floyd was choked by police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020 on the streets of Minneapolis, where this last month Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good were killed by federal agents. Has anything changed? Thankfully Osaka’s career was not negatively affected for her brave stance.

Vladyslav Heraskevych 2026

Heraskevych, a Ukrainian Winter Olympic athlete engaged in a similar protest as Osaka’s. On his helmet, he wore what he called a ‘helmet of remembrance’ depicting twenty-four of his friends that have been killed by Russia in the war on Ukraine. He was disqualified from the competition on the grounds that the Olympic committee does not allow signs of political, religious or racial propaganda to be displayed. Heraskevych said it was to honour his dead friends and refused to back down. The IOC disagreed and he lost his Olympic dream because of his moral stance. 

It’s an eternal question that never goes away. Should sport and politics mix? Perhaps instead we should ask the question: Is every platform a legitimate one to voice concerns, raise awareness and shed light on injustice? Sadly, for many who have used their fame for such things – be it writers, sports people or musicians – the consequences have been negative. One thing is for sure, the aforementioned examples have lived up to the ideology of some of the greatest philosophers. What is it all about – love, selflessness, the service of your community and the betterment of all our lives. That is true happiness.

At least it’s one less despot in the world I hear some of you say! What’s the problem if it makes life better for Venezuela? If their reasoning was simply to rid the world of despots, why not take out Putin of Russia, Kim Jong Un in North Korea, Khamenei of Iran, Netanyahu of Israel, Museveni of Uganda, Bashar al Assad of Syria? Well, we know their motivation because Trump told us… He wants their oil. It was brazen, bold, typical American imperialism, serving only American interest and not that of the country it supposedly ‘rescued’ from Maduro. In the meantime, María Corina Machado, the primary leader of the democratic opposition in Venezuela, has been side-lined by the Trump administration. This is the same woman who was recognised by the international community with the Nobel Peace Prize. Ignoring her pleas, Trump has declared he will now rule Venezuela; he brazenly posted a doctored map of the world on social media showing Venezuela, Canada and Greenland emblazoned with the ‘stars and stripes’. 

The current en vogue phrase coming out of the Oval office is ‘spheres of influence’, but this has been how the United States has conducted its foreign policy for centuries. The US, overtly and covertly, interfered and agitated within other countries for their own imperialist desires, despite the image of being anti-colonial. As far back as 1823, when the US was barely out of new nationhood nappies, the so-called Monroe Doctrine – named after President James Monroe – became the backbone of future US foreign policy. On balance, it was a way to protect itself, given that European countries still occupied large parts of the continent of America, the Caribbean and Canada. The crux of it explicitly stated that the US maintained a right to interfere in Latin America for its own purpose. However, this mentality was not confined to Latin America. When Britain and France were at their zenith at the turn of the 19th century, Spain was long in decline as a world power. During the Spanish-American war of 1898, President McKinley annexed the Philippines. After defeating the Spanish, America stayed for a while – almost fifty years – before granting independence to the Philippines in 1946.

Enter Theodore Roosevelt, a racist imperialist and someone who would make even Trump blush. He believed in racial supremacy and displaced thousands of native Americans, reportedly declaring “I wouldn’t go as far to say that only good Indians are dead Indians but…”. He is infamous for his role in the Panama Canal, which was then a province of Colombia. It remains one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century, albeit its construction came at a great cost to human life. Colombia refused to allow the Americans to complete the canal that the French had started but failed to finish. The United States did what it has often done: it supported an insurgency in Panama in 1903 to break the territory away from Colombia, enabling it to negotiate directly with the new Panamanian government and secure a highly favourable deal – an approach not entirely dissimilar to how Trump leveraged Ukraine’s urgent need for US military support to extract a major mineral agreement. This amounted to Panama granting the US “in perpetuity” the rights, power, and authority over a 10-mile-wide canal zone. They held it until Jimmy Carter, an anomalous and genuine president, halted drilling in Alaska through a land preservation act, installed solar panels on the White House, and returned control of the Panama Canal to its host nation in 1977, much to the disbelief of the hawks in Washington. During the Panama fiasco in 1903, Roosevelt’s administration also expelled the Spanish from Cuba, but compelled the Cubans to include a provision in their constitution that would allow the US to maintain a base at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely – unless both countries agree to change it, which, of course, has never happened. (Are you watching Greenland?!) It wasn’t the only Caribbean island to be bullied. The United States occupied both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, governing them through a military administration for nearly a decade, from 1916 to 1924. Ironically much of this happened under the watchful presidency of Woodrow Wilson who, speaking out both sides of his mouth, told the Europeans at Versailles in 1919, that they needed to dissolve their colonies and allow self-determination.

After World War II and the advent of the Cold War, President Truman, in 1947, created the CIA, with the objective to ‘conduct covert action abroad, as directed by the President’, as stated on their website (no joke). Covert is a key word here and probably the main difference between Trump and his predecessors. A country that for so long sold the world the line that they were the world’s policeman, had no one policing them! Countries that elected left-leaning governments became prime targets. The most famous example occurred during President Kennedy’s tenure – the Cuban Missile Crisis. Its roots were planted a year earlier, in 1961, when Kennedy attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro using CIA-trained Cuban exiles. That went disastrously wrong and undermined his reputation. He recovered somewhat in 1962, getting the Soviets to publicly withdraw missile bases in Cuba, while while secretly arranging for the United States to dismantle its nuclear bases in Turkey, which were within striking range of the USSR.

Chile elected their socialist leader, Salvador Allende, in 1970, in an open and fair election. He wanted to drag his population out of poverty and his programme of nationalisation went on to hurt capital interests in the USA. His rule was also an inspiration to other poor Latin American countries to follow suit. It was incredible that he won the election at all given that the US spent tens of millions of dollars on undermining the Chilean elections from 1964 on under the watchful eyes of President Johnson and then President Nixon. (I hope by now you see that whether the president is a Democrat or Republican, it amounts to just different shades of the same thing). When that failed, the CIA orchestrated a military coup in 1973, allowing general Pinochet to take over and begin his bloody regime including implementing torture and death camps. It also prompted the period of the ‘Disappearances’, during which any opponents were arrested and never seen again. This was also happening in Argentina under Jorge Videla and the military junta who, from 1976, got the green light from president Ford to, at all costs, go ahead with his violent repression of left wing opponents. President Ronald Reagan sanctioned the CIA to train the Contras, a group set up to dispose of leftist Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. In this instance he failed, instead crippling the country with economic weapons and creating an improvised nation that has forced hundreds of thousands to flee illegally to the USA for a better life. A generation on and they now have to face ICE.

America’s best-known international geopolitical bullying is what the Vietnamese call ‘the fight between the elephant and the grasshopper’. This escalated into an all-out war between the military might of the US ‘elephant’ and the tiny Viet Cong ‘grasshopper’. While the Vietnam War was not strictly a covert operation, President Johnson downplayed its escalating costs even as many American cities faced deepening poverty and racial unrest. Even countries with little military or political power, like the mineral-rich Congo, became targets of US foreign policy. Patrice Lumumba was elected in 1960 as the first democratic leader of the Congo, a former Belgian colony. He leaned towards the communist ideal of nationalisation and socialist policies. President Dwight Eisenhower, a military hero who fought against the dictatorial power of the Nazis, had the CIA support a coup, after which Lumumba was tortured and executed in 1961. Another famous example of a socialist-leaning African leader whose administration was undermined by the US in the same era is Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, who was overthrown abroad, in a 1966 coup orchestrated by the CIA.

Each of these events deserves an article in their own right and each makes a fascinating study of American foreign policy. In our own time, we have seen presidents Bush, Clinton, Obama and Biden conduct wars of ‘liberation’ in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, and for what? To destabilised countries, a move that ultimately enriches the US. Presenting these events together in this article (and this is far from a comprehensive list) illustrates the far-reaching and often harmful influence of US foreign policy around the world.

Political commentators have said that Trump and his policy makers are destabilising the world. While this statement is correct, you would be mistaken in thinking that Trump is an aberration. American presidents have been destabilising the world for over two centuries. The key difference today is that Trump makes no effort to conceal his actions or maintain the pretence that the United States acts as the world’s benevolent policeman – it never truly did.

Defendants in the Moscow Show Trials of the 1930s.

Within these past few weeks, Trump’s audacious attempt to broker a peace deal in Ukraine, if accepted, could result in a humiliating defeat for Ukraine and a justification that if a bigger country like Russia wants something, then they can go ahead and just take it. The offer on the table would require Ukraine to cede territory that is currently occupied by Russian forces, as well as additional territory that is not. Ukraine would also be required to restrict the size of its army, while Russia would face no such limits. The proposal would give Russia joint control over a Ukrainian nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. It would permanently bar Ukraine from joining NATO. Finally, it would allow Russia to rejoin the G8 and reintegrate into the global economy as if nothing had happened.  When I broached the subject with two of my senior Ukrainian students, expecting them to share my disgust at this proposal, I was taken aback by the response: “I just want to go home,” “I just want the bombing to stop.” My armchair political analysis was superseded by the most human of reactions – the lore of home, family life and normality.

It’s almost four years since Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine, which has certain parallels to Stalin’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Both wars have resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. Both conflicts have centred on attacks on civilian towns and infrastructure, resulting in a mass exodus of refugees. And both conflicts have destabilised Europe. Another interesting comparison between then and now is that Western allies did not commit any troops into the theatre of war to defend the invaded territories. Stalin was a dictator ruling the USSR from 1924 to 1953, while Putin is a dictator in all but name, serving five terms as president or prime minister from 1999, doing so by changing the constitution that has allowed him to serve until now. Indeed, further constitutional amendments mean he ‘legally’ can remain in office up to 2036, thus surpassing the ‘Man of Steel’s’ thirty-year grip on the sceptre of power. Who would have thought this could happen again after the USSR was dissolved in 1991? It prompted the now infamous (and erroneous) political belief that the end of communism would now mean that western liberal democracy would become the victorious, final form of human governance – a kind of Darwinian political survival of the fittest. How wrong was Francis Fukuyama, the American political scientist who coined that phrase ‘End of History’ and wrote a book on it in 1992?

Instead we are in the midst of an era where illiberal and intolerant democracies and overzealous nationalist governments have blurred the lines between the independence of their judiciary and the reach of their rule. Perhaps Francis Fukuyama might be tempted to rebrand his as: ‘End of History for Liberal Democracy’. From the USA to Brazil, Hungary to India, Russia to Israel, the once vociferous voice of the free people is turning into a weakened whisper. Governments in these countries conflate criticism with anti-patriotism. We must not take for granted what we still have in Ireland – genuine freedom of our press, debate and our expression. 

What is really a key component for any dictatorship is the control of media and thus public opinion. Putin creates laws that criminalise criticism of Russian military operations in the media and restricts foreign newspapers. In 2024 81 European broadcasters were banned from airing in Russia. His latest battle is to control individuals’ access to information that is not censored and controlled through their state media outlets. SnapChat has been banned, Apple FaceTime blocked, and WhatsApp is next, throwing a blanket further on the sharing of any stories that run counter to the Russian official line. 

Stalin of course didn’t have to worry about digital or broadcasting media. Neither was he too concerned about print media, given that so many of the population of the USSR were illiterate and over 130 different languages were spoken across its landmass that spreads halfway around the globe across eleven time zones. But he was keen to get his message across to the masses. What was the best vehicle to do this? The trials of the 1930s. Invent a crime – one that betrays the state and therefore the people – make the message a simple one and punish mercilessly anyone who opposes you. Do it all in front of a judge and legal system in order to lend an air of legitimacy – even to foreign ears – and you have your magic formula.

There were three major ‘Show Trials’ in USSR during the 1930s. Stalin had seized control after Lenin’s death, though he was not his ‘anointed man’. Stalin had what Putin has: an unshakable belief in his own dogma. He executed 20,000 people in the early years, withstood all contenders, the most notable of whom was Trotsky, who fled to Mexico where he was eventually assassinated by Soviet agents. He was determined that the socialist revolution was to be led via the urban worker, to the detriment of the masses of peasant population who had to feed the urban Soviets. This would lead to collectivisation of their farms, widespread famine and subservience of the more well-off Kulak peasantry. Putin, likewise, has eliminated politically and by force, his political opponents, most notably Alexei Navalny, who was poisoned, an act widely attributed to the Russian state. When Navalny bravely returned home to rally his supporters, Putin had him imprisoned, and after a corrupt trial, he died in jail. Since then, it has become law that any Russian living outside of Russia is prohibited from running for office – a rule that affects many who fled the country to escape censorship for speaking out or to avoid unfair imprisonment.

Alex Navalny in court as part of the Kirovles trial, 2013.

Step back to 1936. The economy is not going well, and Hitler’s rhetoric against the USSR and communism is growing louder and more aggressive. Holding a trial that revealed an internal ‘danger’ would serve as a way to rally support and send an unmistakable message to the population that Stalin maintained complete control. It would also carry enough weight to have a disciplining effect on all the international communist movements that were attempting to foster communism abroad in their host countries. But not just any kind of communism – it had to be Stalin’s kind of Russian communism. The evidence used in the trials were a set of confessions from the accused that corroborated a conspiracy to overthrow the state through the assassination of key leaders. The accused were aware that these confessions would almost certainly result in their execution, yet they were still coerced into giving them. It also closed any debate. If they all agreed to their guilt, then there could be no rousing defiant defences or speeches that might capture the imagination of anti- Stalinists. The trial of course appeared legitimate. This is a task Putin has failed at – persuading international audiences that there is any semblance of fairness. On the other hand, the key prosecutor of the 1930 show trials, Andrei Vyshinsky, carried that air of legitimacy. He had a dress sense that caught the eye of British observers. One commented that he looked “like a stock broker from the city…a reliable kind of chap”. The American ambassador called him sober-minded, capable and wise. Years later, in the 1950s, he visited London, and the young Princess Margaret was eager to meet him because of his notorious prosecutions! Show trials by their nature imply a propagandistic element to the whole proceedings. They suggest a false narrative, a pretence that masks a dictatorial system that controls the judiciary. But Stalin succeeded in convincing his people and, for a while, the international community, of the authenticity of the proceedings

Comparing politics from different eras within a country is not straightforward given the prevailing conditions of any given time. Putin could not possibly get away with mass purges of Stalin. But mass jail sentences ultimately do the same thing. Silence opposition. Both men have a natural fear of the West – perhaps with good reason. Napoleon, Hitler and the collapse of the Soviet Union have all come from western assaults. The Russian Bear does not like to be poked. Throughout its long history, Russia has rarely experienced any form of liberal democracy. Instead, it has progressed from dynastic, feudal Tsars to communism, then dictatorship, followed by a one-party system, a brief experiment with democracy, and now a Putin-style autocracy. But it has been the Russian way. George Orwell, a contemporary of the 1930’s proceedings, observed. “What was frightening about these trials was not the fact that they happened – for obviously such things are necessary in a totalitarian society – but the eagerness of western intellectuals to justify them.” Perhaps that is the difference between then and now. For all our problems across the globe today, thankfully we can say we live in more enlightened times, and are more equipped to challenge the word of leaders who claim to be the voice of the people. This does not magic away all the horrendous conflicts; Sudan, Palestine, Ukraine and the many other regimes that suppress their own people. But there are enough dissenting voices out there that whatever or wherever the next show trial is – we will at least ask questions, look at the sources and view the evidence for ourselves. As long as we do that, there is always a chance.

Arthus Miller in 1966.

Arthur Miller is one of America’s greatest playwrights. Some of his dramas are household names; ‘Death of a Salesman’, ‘A View from a Bridge’, ‘All my Sons’. His story lines are suspenseful, his themes tackle morally ambiguous scenarios, his characters depict ordinary, relatable people like you and I, faced with awful decisions. Arguably however, Miller’s greatest play is ‘The Crucible’. Not only is it an enthralling historical dramatisation of the Salem witch trials of 1692 – a masterly-crafted story that lays bare the human condition; love, power, jealousy, hypocrisy, injustice and redemption – but it is also an iconic political statement.

Its allegorical connection to what was happening in 1950s America elevated its status. Written in 1952, amidst the hysteria of the Red Scare that enveloped American society, Miller was influenced by the great paranoia shaking the nation – the perceived communist penetration into the USA. He sought to use his art to draw a poignant and dangerous parallel to the Salem witch trials. Let me build you a picture of those times to clarify the context in which Miller was writing.

After entering World War II in December 1941, the Americans tipped the balance in favour of the Allies. Out of the ruins of fascism would emerge a far greater perceived threat than the one they had vanquished: the communist Soviet Union. Even before the war had ended, both nations were carving out spheres of influence. Whether it was squeezing the Nazis in Europe or chasing the Japanese from their colonial territories, red Russia and democratic America both liberated and occupied in equal measure. Churchill famously coined the term ‘the Iron Curtain’ in 1946 to describe the division of Europe into two camps. Within a short time, the Soviets tried to wrap a stranglehold around Berlin. While West Berlin barely survived a blockade, communism was also creeping into China, North Korea, Yugoslavia and nearly into Greece. Could it ever infiltrate America?

Several factors contributed to the belief that America was contaminated with communist sympathisers and agents. In the 1930s, communism and socialism were more ‘fashionable’ in America. Trade unions had become the weapon of the working man and woman. Many in that generation had been imbued with socialist ideology when confronted with the growth of fascism in Franco’s Spain, Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy and Salazar’s Portugal. It was therefore not uncommon to find ordinary people and left-leaning celebrities supporting the anti-fascist cause, joining foreign brigades, or supporting trade unions and collective ownership. But this past would come back to haunt many. Miller, though never a communist, had expressed socialist sympathies and spoken at pro-communist events, and by the 1950s this had become a dangerous legacy. Red Russia, it seemed, had arrived at the gates of Troy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HCUA) believed there were American citizens waiting in the wooden horse. 

The game-changer was the discovery of atomic espionage. The Manhattan Project in the deserts of New Mexico had brought together the greatest scientific and technological minds to create the world’s first atomic bomb. Klaus Fuchs, one of those scientists, was arrested in London in 1950. He not only admitted his role in passing secrets to the Soviets but gave up the names of a ‘spy ring’ of scientists centred around Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The Rosenbergs contended that they were motivated by a sense of duty to protect global destruction; if the Soviets had the bomb, they argued, it would act as a counterweight to America’s potential unchecked use of atomic warfare in future conflicts. This laid the groundwork for a period of hysteria, accusation and paranoia throughout the 1950s. Senator Joseph McCarthy led the charge – this vehicle being the aptly named House Un-American Activities Committee. It comprised bipartisan members of the House of Representatives. Shockingly, McCarthy accused the State Department of harbouring 200 communist members. This accusation ushered in what was to become known as the ‘Red Scare’. Over the next several years, civil servants, unions, teachers, librarians and – most famously – Hollywood stars were hauled in front of the committee to lay bare any ‘associations’, however insignificant, with labour unions or left-wing organisations. The hysterics had begun.

With television becoming a mainstay of the American public, watching Hollywood stars grilled in front of the committee was better than…well, watching Hollywood. It was infused with a catch-22. Thousands were subpoenaed, often simply because they were named by others who often were attempting to save their own careers. Some were co-coerced outright. Refusing to answer could lead to imprisonment for contempt. People with even the smallest connections could be crucified. One must remember that this was happening in a country that had pioneered free speech and freedom of association. Not at this time. As many as 320 Hollywood actors, directors, and writers were blacklisted and never worked again for major studios. It was amidst this madness that Miller bravely penned ‘The Crucible’.

In Salem in 1692, a number of young girls claimed that the devil was working through them because witches were pulling the strings. Just as 1950s America wanted to purify the nation of communists (prompting the line ‘Better dead than red’), the Puritan community of 1692 saw itself as pure and Christian. Incredibly, the girls were believed based solely on their testimony, with no corroborating evidence, resulting in many innocent people being hanged and 200 more languishing in jail. It was a mirror image of was unfolding in Miller’s America. 

Miller does a superb job of dramatising the human condition, capturing the mania and paranoia, but also the frustration and disbelief of innocent people being named as witches or devil’s agents. John Proctor is the play’s flawed protagonist. He is far from perfect but this adds a layer of the everyman in us all. His wife Elizabeth, perhaps the play’s purest character, is accused by Abigail , who is infatuated with Proctor after their affair. In her frenzy, Abigail and her accomplices, begin to name names to the court with impunity. Her daring and power grow exponentially, to the point where she threatens the authority of the court when she is questioned too closely, declaring, ‘think you so mighty that the power of hell may not turn your wits?’ Many characters are presented with a bleak ultimatum – confess or be hanged. It’s the classic ‘damned if you do or damned if you don’t scenario’, one that would be mimicked in the 1950s McCarthy hearings. False confessions were extracted, just as in Salem. Refusing to answer meant jail.

Miller could have been named when his long-time friend and director, Elia Kazan was called before the HCUA. Kazan was a massive name and it suited the HCUA for him to declare himself pure while simultaneously condemning others. To his credit, in his first appearance he refused to name anyone, but in his second, public appearance, he found himself in the unenviable position of ‘if you’re not with us, then you are against us’.  Names were named, and with the utterance of those words, people’s lives crumbled, careers were finished, some even took their own lives. He never did mention Miller, who would be questioned himself years later for his left-leaning ideas and appearance at communist-linked events. Miller, like Kazan, faced the same ordeal, but refused to crumble. He was cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted, but fortunately for him and us, this verdict was later overturned in a court of appeal.  

Even before ‘The Crucible’, Miller’s plays were known for their introspective examination of America’s moral fibre, which he often found lacking in its care for the common man and woman. Miller would survive and thrive. After marrying Marlin Monroe, he wrote the screenplay for the famous 1961 movie ‘The Misfits’, and continued writing until his death in 2005. He fell out with Kazan, as did many others who had the moral fortitude to resist the advances of the HCUA, even if it hurt their career and life.

Kazan’s informing haunted him for the rest of his life. In 1999, he received a lifetime achievement, which was met with a lukewarm to outright hostile reception. Yet he is probably best known for his Oscar-winning picture ‘On the Waterfront’ in 1954, released two years after his HUAC testimony. The film, a brilliant piece of cinema, tells of the struggles of New York longshoremen under the control of the mafia. Kazan clearly sends his critics a message by making it a movie about one’s duty to inform. In this case, it’s to the Waterfront Crime Commission, who are investigating corruption and are depicted as the ones that can save the workers from the clutches of the mafia. One of the film’s main heroes is Father Barry, a straight-talking local priest who tries to help the dockworkers. He says ‘Now what’s ratting to them, is telling the truth for you. Now can’t you see that?’. If ever a line expressed a director’s personal justification, it was that. But perhaps Miller’s voice will always be louder and more significant. In the climax of ‘The Crucible’ his main character, Proctor, declares – before he is hanged for defying the court: ‘I am John Proctor – you will not use my name’.

To use a metaphor: imagine a sporting event. Many coaches will try to win a match within the laws of the game; many more will try to bend or break them if the end justifies the means. If you support a team that defies the rules, then victory can blind you to the methods used to win.  Leaders such as Trump and Netanyahu lose no sleep in justifying their methods in the name of victory. The crowd can see dirty tactics, the referees have seen foul play, the sporting bodies have consulted the rule book – yet the game continues. 

But we are not talking about a game and a referee or a rule book. We are talking about the international community witnessing in real time, a state-sponsored army – led by government policy and supported by sections of its population – waging a campaign of near-total destruction against the Palestinians in Gaza. This campaign has included making life so unbearable that it may force Palestinians to relinquish their land.

The rule book is the ‘United Nations Charter, Article two’. The UN Commission has called it genocide, defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’. Four of the five genocidal acts have been identified: deliberately inflicting conditions that calculated to destroy the groups, (90 per cent of Gaza has been destroyed and damaged and hygiene and sanitation systems have collapsed); Killing members of a group, (i.e. ethnic Palestinian people); preventing births, (hospitals have been deliberately targeted and destroyed); and mental harm, (generational trauma, especially for the surviving children, who have also lost their education).

Israel has denied this accusation. It has also restricted international journalists from entering the war zone, leaving the world to rely on Palestinian journalists – around 200 of whom have been killed while reporting. Yet still, like fanatical fans supporting their team, some will never accept the ‘referee’s’ decisions.

To push this metaphor even further, take a governing body like FIFA or the International Olympic Committee. What happens if you don’t play by their rules? Ask former Irish Olympian swimmer Shane Ryan, who has decided the rules don’t matter anymore and will go to the enhanced games where he can break them. He has lost his standing in international sport. Isreal and USA, while part of the UN, also play outside the rules of international organisations such as the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet they have so much power, they can simply ignore the international community.

Isreal now finds itself on a long list with other regimes accused of genocide – ironically, since the Jews people themselves were victims of Nazi genocide. This list includes Stalin’s mass starvation policies in the USSR; the Cambodian genocide of 1975, which saw a third of the population targeted and exterminated by the communist affiliated group, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot; the 1995 Serbian campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Muslims, most infamously at Srebrenica; and the 2003 genocide in Sudan under President Omar al-Bashir, involving mass killings, rape, and torture. The list goes on into the 21st century with the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in China both described as having genocidal characteristics.

A recurring theme among these regimes is denial. Sadly, but oftentimes, it seems we have to wait until the USA start using the label ‘genocide’ before it is ‘officially’ accepted.

Let’s look at some of these genocides that have plagued civilisation.

A common theme to genocides is the colonial footprint and the politically-nurtured imbalances set up by the conquering Europeans, oftentimes creating the ground conditions from which the seed of genocide germinated. In 1994, 800,000 Tutsi Rwandans were murdered by their fellow countrymen and neighbours, the Hutu. Why did this happen and what were the conditions that facilitated it?

In the scramble for Africa, it was the Germans who invaded and colonised Rwanda from 1897 to 1916. The Belgians, who were already sucking the Belgian Congo dry, succeeded the Germans, where they created a division between the two predominant tribes, the Hutu and Tutsi, which made the country disunited, weaker and easier to govern.  

The Tutsi minority were nurtured and favoured by the Belgian authorities and the (White Father Missionaries) church, which would carry devastating repercussions. The Belgians favoured the Tutsi minority, viewing them as racially superior and granting them positions of authority. This favouritism created deep resentment among the Hutu majority. When the colonial government later replaced Tutsi chiefs with Hutu ones in the 1960s, tensions exploded. After independence in 1962, recurring violence and mass migrations further destabilised the country. This caused a further wave of massive migration to neighbouring countries such as the Congo, Burundi and Uganda, resulting in a further 300,000 Tutsi going into exile once independence was declared. 

A generation later, many of the Tutsi refugees would play a central role in the geopolitical pyre that was lit. Perhaps a cautionary tale for Israel today. When war broke out in the Congo in 1990, it was fuelled by many ‘Rwandan’ Tutsi. This also added to a ‘fear’ of the return of Tutsi power in neighbouring Rwanda. But the petrol on the flames was the death of Rwandan  Hutu President Habyarimana, whose plane was shot down in April 1994.

Pual Kagame, a Tutsi and leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, had been living in Uganda since he was exiled as a child. He was accused of carrying out a rocket attack from an armed camp that shot down the plane of the Rwandan President. The Hutu majority feared the return of the Tutsi elite that had been waiting in the long grass. However, the perpetrators of the Rwanda genocide remain disputed. The genocide was carried out by a combination of the Presidential Guard, the French-trained rural police (gendarmerie), the Rwandan Armed Forces, civil servants and the general peasant population. Liberal Hutus, who defended the Tutsi and some Belgian settlers, were also killed in the bloody rampage that killed 800,000 Tutsi.

In conclusion, there are many factors that influence a genocide.  But what Israel has in common with most is the interference of European powers – it was Britain that played a central role in its creation. Israel also shares a belief in a racial superiority and imposes an apartheid system within the ‘shared lands’. Current Minister of Finance, Bezalei Smotrich, is on record for saying that Jewish and Arab women should be separated in maternity wards. The minister for agriculture, Amihai Eliyahuhas, said that “we are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba” (reference to 1948, when 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes and expelled.) Boaz Bismuth, a member of the Knesset (parliament) has said, “there is no place for humanitarian gestures”. This rhetoric is just a small example of the mindset of the Israelis who can no longer see the wood from the trees. Years of conflict and fighting with a terrorist organisation, Hamas, has now led to a mindset that seeks to remove any Palestinian threat, even if it means destroying or displacing that race. 

Two years of captivity of Israeli prisoners was barbaric and so was the killing of 1,200 Jewish citizens on October 7, 2023.  Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that Israel seems to have forgotten its own sad and horrendous past, which the world still commemorates every year and which every Irish history schoolbook uses as a tool to say “never again”. And yet they remain deaf to their own history. 

Over the centuries, the Russians had been expanding east from Moscow all the way up to Siberia and Eurasia, driven predominantly by a lust for timber and fur. The small body of water that separates the USA from Russia, the Bering straits, is named after ‘Russian’ explorer Vitus Bering. (He was actually a Danish national but employed and funded by the Tsar of Russia).

Bering ultimately would fail. On his return to the Americas on a second exhibition, he perished on the island that was named after him, but had laid down a template for the ambitious, brash and destructive Grigory Shelikhov to follow. He had ambitions for a ‘New Russia’ yet had some convincing to do in persuading the then-Russian monarch Catherine, to fund and patronise his initial American venture in 1783. Much like Napoleon at his pomp, who sold greater Louisiana to the USA to fund his European ventures, Catherine was far more interested in the established, European theatre of influence, rather than the potential of a ‘new’ world. But Grigory Shelikhov was determined. He recognised the magnitude of the fur trade. China at that time produced goods that the rest of the world desired and coveted; silk, porcelain, tea. The Chinese themselves had an insatiable appetite for fur, in particular sea otter, (for its warmth, durability and texture) and thus there was a huge market for the Russians to monopolise, if they could.

His ventures would take him from the most eastern tip of Russia, and a voyage of discovery and cruelty inflicted upon the indigenous populations he encountered, across the Pacific archipelago off the mainland. It culminated in 1785 with the massacre of the Alutiiq, bringing about their ultimate serfdom. Shelikhov broke the Alutiiq resistance at Refuge Rock, near Kodiak island, massacring an estimated 3,000 natives, a battle often referred to as the ‘Wounded Knee Massacre’ of Alaska. (Wounded Knee was the destruction of the Lakota ‘Indians’ by the USA army in South Dekota in 1890). 

However it was Alexander Baranov, who is credited with growing and keeping alive the hope of a Russian colony in America, serving as Russian’s ‘colonial governor’ from 1799-1818. It is to him that homage was paid to with the erecting of his statue in 1989. He dreamed of something greater than just trading posts. Places such as ‘New Archangel’, and ‘New Russia’ were some of the settlements that were born. The Russians even had a station in California, the Fort Ross colony in near present-day Bodega Bay, but in reality their settlements never amounted to more than trading outposts with small numbers of colonists – with Sitka peaking at 550 people at any given time. Yet they claimed vast swathes of land and would stubbornly defend them and their colonial rights for another half century.

So why did Russia fail to grow their colony? There are a number of reasons put forward by historians, both Russian and American. One is that it was never a colony in the proper sense of a settlement. People went to these outposts to embark on working opportunities, not new lives. Was work solely enough reason to settle? The harsh climate is often cited, but this part of the world is no different to north east Russia, where many settlers hailed from. It is certainly true that the colony, despite its lucrative trade in furs, was always in debt and needed constant supplying. The fur trade would eventually be exhausted and China would cool on furs.

In recent years, historians have given more scholarly attention to the role of resistance by native peoples. This was often underestimated or ignored by a generation of culturally superior ‘academics’ who didn’t consider it. There’s enough evidence to demonstrate that the interference of Spanish, British or Americans privateers, all undermined the Russian settlement, and all were impediments to its growth. But the greatest threat came from the local indigenous tribe called the Tlingit.  

In this vast Pacific wilderness, location was everything. Baranov had set his sights on Sitka Island as the heart of ‘New Russia’ for a combination of reasons; accessibility to huge otter regions, shipping access and a gateway to unclaimed territory by Europeans. What he didn’t bargain for was the Tlingit who, unlike many other indigenous peoples of America who capitulated or were crushed, offered stiffer resistance. There is now more scholarly focus on how their resistance was the reason behind why Russian colonialism never actually established a strong foothold. 

The Tlingit, like so many other native American tribes, were not just going to let Europeans take the land. Baranov, in contrast to the cruelty of the conquistadors in South America and later the Americans on the western plains of the USA, initially tried to implement a measure of diplomacy and coexistence. His longterm plan was that the Tlingit would eventually accept becoming Russian subjects. The fiercely proud and independent Tlingit somewhat reluctantly agreed to a trading post (after all trading could be beneficial both ways). As Baranov became more ambitious, and his colonists more aggressive, killing many Tlingit and oftentimes ravaging and raping some of the local women, the natives had enough and demanded that Russians quit their ancestral land.

What transpired was a war between the two, culminating in a defeat for the Russians in 1802, on a par with General Custer’s defeat at the ‘Battle of Big Horn’, but a lot more damaging. This was called the first battle of Sitka. In 1804, Sitka became the centre point of the battle at the mouth of the Indian river, where once again the Tlingit showed themselves to be more than able to match the Russians. On this occasion, a tactical retreat was taken and thus began the great survival march over a mountain range, consisting of a clan of 900 warriors, elders and families. Incredibly this was still not the end of the Tlingit of Sitka Island. Together with their other clan members in the greater region they created a trade barrier blocking outsider routes and neighbouring tribes from trading with the Russian outpost. They even encouraged English and American traders to isolate the Russians.

However the Tlingit defiance could not last, and not because of Russian might. What wore them down was a changing way of life. Nearly a million seals were killed for their fur in the North and West Pacific coast, culminating in their near extinction. Tlingit clans would be weakened because they could no longer live independently. In time they would have to work for the European newcomers and as a result the fabric of their society unravelled. But they had been detrimental to the colony’s growth, prospects and standing amongst Russians.

By 1867, Alaska had consequently been sold to the expansionist USA for 7.2 million in gold. Just a few short years later, gold was discovered in the Klondike region of Yukon in northwestern Canada promoting boom towns along the route through Alaska, which opened the floodgates for European settlers to migrate north, something Russia failed to do in this vast and oftentimes, indomitable land. Alaska would become a place of boom and bust towns, rising and falling over gold, timber and salmon. Even today its tiny population lives amidst the great mountains, glaciers and forests that seem almost as impenetrable a landscape as it was when Shelikhov, the self-proclaimed ‘Russian Columbus’, and Baranov, dreamed of a new Russia. Today there are tiny reminders of that dream; an old Russian Orthodox church in Juneau; placenames like Russian Square or the Russian Gardens in Anchorage. There is an island called Baranof (from Baranov) and there is a lingering number of Russian surnames to be found. But what defines them most today is the remembrance of the Tlingit and their totem poles. The tribe that stopped an empire.

Shah is simply the Iranian term for king. Reza Pahlavi the reformer, was keen to hold onto the ancient title. It would reveal the duality of his regime – modern but safely anchored by history. By renaming the country he was indeed a unifying figure, attempting to bring all the regions ethnically labelled ‘Aryan races’ under one banner, whether they wanted this or not. On gaining control of the country in 1921, Reza engaged on a campaign of modernisation, reforming education, building roads, creating new laws that banned the Muslim chador for women and cutting the influence of the Islamic clerics, which enraged them and religious sectors of society. To ‘unify the country’ he forced the nomadic tribes to settle, and confiscated huge amounts of land off others, acquiring large estates for himself. After years of colonial plunder, he halted French interests in Iran’s antiquities that were finding their way out of Iran back to Paris. To achieve his societal changes, he manipulated the fledgling democracy, making sure the parliament and politicians were aligned to him and controlling the army (using up to 50 per cent of the budget to maintain their loyalty towards the end of his reign). Media was controlled and monitored and punishment rather than reward was a tool of control – chiefly detentions, torture and imprisonment for dissenters. During this time, Reza was internationally trying to keep foreign interference to a minimum, indeed going so far as to create strong relations with Nazi Germany instead of the traditional power houses, while remaining neutral in WWII. As I mentioned last month, Iranian sovereignty was violated in that war, which ultimately led to the forced exile of Reza. His son Mohammad Reza became the new Shah at the insistence of his puppet masters, the British, helping to keep in check Soviet interests in Iran. In essence it allowed the new Shah to rule unchecked with even more authority, corruption and opulence. History was repeating itself and this eroded the legitimacy of westernisation further, as well as creating more tension between secularism and religious orthodoxy, and the ideals of democracy.

To understand Iran’s isolation on the world stage today, one has to understand Britain’s role in this theatre of geopolitics and the postwar climate. For many reasons, self-determination grew strongly post World War Two. The age of the empire was ending; imperial countries like Britain and France were broke after the war and maintaining an empire was becoming increasingly difficult. The Americans and Soviets were keen to see the great colonies fall too, as this was now the era of the Cold War, with each of the aforementioned looking to carve out their zones of influence through economic leverage, covert operations and placing military bases in ‘liberated’ countries, from Japan to eastern Europe, the Philippines to the Middle East. It was a type of new colonialism, that still exists today, not through crude conquering and takeover, but with destabilisation of countries and economic strangulation in order to control them. Iran remains one of the most sanctioned countries in the world today.

While good old-fashioned colonialism would last another few decades or so, some countries post war began to exert their freedom in the late forties and early fifties: India and Ghana from Britain, Vietnam from France and Indonesia form the Dutch. Iran, while not a colony, was nevertheless controlled. It too was infused with this new global spirit of liberty and wanting to reassert her own sovereignty. In 1951, in defiance of the Shah Mohammad Reza, the prime minister (who under the Shahs was only a token position of power), rose in this fervour of nationalism and self-determination. In efforts to regain their own resources and destiny over affairs, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh nationalised the Anglo Iranian oil, in an effort to channel its profitability into Iran instead of the murky hands of profiteers in Britain. It neither suited the British nor the Americans, (whose Middle Eastern foreign policy continues to centre around dividing and weakening the bonds between Muslim and middle eastern countries, culminating in the Iran-Iraq War where they supplied arms to both sides!), who orchestrated a coup in 1953 that overthrew Mossadegh and reinstated the Shah, who would rule with an iron fist. Nasser in Egypt had the audacity to nationalise the Suez Canal later in 1956, once again precipitating British, French and Israeli intervention to keep their own interest at the forefront.  

This incessant meddling in the affairs of Iran, backed by the Shah, undermined a generation’s belief in democracy, rule of law and secular westernisation. These are the very conditions that can push rather than pull people into the refuge of a religious regime, one that, at least on the surface, offers a system that accounts for stability, one’s religious beliefs, ethics and tradition. It would culminate in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution. More often than not, it’s framed from the perspective of the American embassy hostages, as if that was the priority in a country of 40 million back then. Then US president Jimmy Carter negotiated all of the hostages’ safe return 444 days later. This was after a failed rescue attempt, but Carter resisted going to war (in fact Carter is the only president of modern times not to get the USA tangled in a war during his term).

It was the religious cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the opposition to the Shah’s rule in 1979. It swiftly caught fire, despite the Shah for decades claiming that his people loved him. In comparison to other regional civil wars that have torn the Middle East apart, there was a relatively small death toll of 2,500 souls, which points towards a very small support base for the Shah. But Khomeini was only one piece of the pie in the uprising that contained the Islamists loyal to Khomeini, secular liberals, nationalists, communists and Islamist-Marxists. Religious theocracy was not the driving factor in the mixed bag of allies, rather the deposition of the despot and decades of foreign intervention, whose fiefdom had contained the world’s fourth biggest oil fields and second largest gas field – rich resources that never trickled down to the populace as they should have. Now they were nationalised and so were the banks. Profit sharing for workers was implemented and poverty measurably decreased. Perhaps a little known fact is the increase in literacy rates for women. Can the same progress be seen in today’s Iran? 

Sadly, and we have seen this in our backyard in the North of Ireland, ideology, religion and violence go hand in hand. The Khomeini faction executed 12,000 people who opposed him, sweeping aside any other the other ideological allies that wanted voice – and so the Islamic Republic was born. A country independent of western influence and free to practise the Shia religion, integrating it into society, politics and education (whether you liked it or not). Indeed the regime wanted to purge it from westernisation, that had partly modernised and partly corrupted it. History has thought us that regimes that follow colonisation and western bullying themselves become uncompromising, pure, and all-consuming.

The aim of the article is not to defend or criticise Iran or any state who wishes to have religion at the centre of its body politic. Rather it aims to understand some of reasons behind what shapes a country, causing it to react in a certain way. It also seeks to show that we can oversimplify situations into one country being seen as simply bad or good. There are multifaceted reasons why countries take certain paths and, in Iran’s case, the troublesome state linked to terrorism and sectarianism, while undermining regional stability, was once itself destabilised, terrorised and abused with their religion denigrated. Today, there is a lack of freedom for women, religious intolerance, and political control. The Shahs may have liberalised some sectors, but media, politics and the army are all controlled. What separates them is not just ideology, but identity. Iran is run by Iranians and is no longer under the yoke of the west and that is why we must be circumspect in making black and white judgments. However, it is also fair to say that Islamic ‘Revolution’ rather than Islamic ‘Republic’ has become the dominant trait of 21st Iran, where hardcore ideology is at its centre and not republican-style emancipation for Iranian nationalists, free thinkers, or many  women. Finally, Iran is a Shia Muslim country, arch enemy of countries that are Sunni-dominated. This factor will also play a defining role in how Iran is viewed, even within the Islamic sphere, as Sunni believe the Shia religion to be heretical, akin to how Catholics would have originally seen Martin Luther’s newfound ‘Protestantism’ in the 16th century.  Even the most informed of us may take a side or label a country; but knowing what shaped it, can at least inform our judgments.

Politics and history often works that way. We tend to label, for example, the UK, USA, Russia or Iran, as either good or bad, in black or white. In nearly all cases there are multifactorial reasons why countries behave accordingly in any given geopolitical environment. Is Iran the malignant force, the trouble-maker, the bad guy? Iran casts a wide net. It has funded military equipment to Hamas, the Houthis Rebels in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon; and it also engages in proxy wars with the Saudi’s (no angles themselves!) and is aligned with Putin’s Russia. There is popular and political support for Palestinians in Ireland but that is not the same thing as supporting weaponised militias who use an armed struggle to attain their goals. Throw in Iran’s human rights record and treatment of women and it would take a brave lawyer to represent them in a court of public opinion. But before we judge too harshly, it is always a good idea to ask: does the government and regime in any given country have popular and universal support of its own people? And if not, who becomes the victim when sanctions, travel bans and bombing raids rain down? As always, it’s the civilian population.

I think it’s fair to say that when our brains begin our ‘categorisation’ process, middle eastern countries are immediately tarnished by the fact that they are heavily, if not totally, influenced by religion in their political system. In an ever-growing secular Europe that moved away from this model of governance, we tend to judge them by this metric. Lest us not forget that, well within our living memory in Ireland, is a time when religion was heavily intertwined with and influential over law, education, the constitution, marriage and so on. Even if one does not share a belief in that type of system, there are millions in the world who want their religion to be the cornerstone of how their country is run. The problem arises when it is imposed on a country. Those who do not believe or want to engage in it, are disadvantaged or, in some cases, punished. Iran is one such place. Israel, despite its veneer of secularism, has proven in the last year to be religiously, ideologically driven, given that many in government and civil society believe the war in Gaza and abuses in the West Bank can be justified, based on their biblical history. Do these countries face the same level of scrutiny?

In June, Israel started a war against Iran, targeting areas in Tehran, a city of ten million people. Their model is similar to their campaign in Gaza. Strike first, ask questions later and, if civilians get killed, well, don’t say we didn’t warn you. The Israelis justify it on the grounds that they believe Iran is on the verge of creating nuclear capability, an assertion that has not been upheld by the International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog. Israel, in spite of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty –  an international treaty set up in 1968 to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology and achieve nuclear disarmament – has acquired these weapons, and the USA is armed to the teeth. Do they face the same level of scrutiny? Good guy’s can do it, but not bad guy’s, right? Israel also points out that the regime (the people of Iran by association) have called for the destruction of the nation of Israel. Is it rhetoric, an idle threat, or a military aim of the Iranian regime? We don’t know for sure, but what we do know is that Israel is destroying large swathes of Iran in a pre-emptive strike. So I ask again, do they face the same levels of scrutiny? Probably not, because they position themselves as the ‘good guys’, western-leaning, democratic, righteous. 

Iran has a president, but its power is centred around the ‘supreme leader’, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a religious figure, who has control over the government, judiciary and military. Because of his fundamentalist beliefs, and that of his supporters, his control over the strings of governance has led to an uncompromising and intolerant system, where there is no room for dissenting voices or oxygen for compromise and reform. There is a level of fundamentalism that, no doubt, is intolerant of other religions, which includes a stand-off with Sunni Muslims, in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan. His regime has been anti-semitic too. This fundamentalism did not simply happen, but was born out of colonial interference, military leaders, and despots, who ruled corruptly, sometimes under the banner of ‘democratic’ regimes. It’s therefore unsurprising that this would tarnish the democratic system of governance, as one that did not have the interests of the common people in mind. Religion offered unity and solace when all else failed. That is where we are at today.

In our western-centric world view, we forget that Iraq and Iran were the cradle of the civilised world. The state of Persia was the world’s first great power in 550 BC. Cyrus, the ruler of this state, ensured that his conquered territories remained economically productive while allowing freedom of religion, creating a prosperous and tolerant empire. In light of Israel’s attack on Iran today, it’s worth noting that Cyrus once allowed Jewish people in his empire to return to the region that is now modern-day Israel. In the centuries that followed, the Silk road connecting the East with the West – running from China to Europe, India, Africa and, at its central artery meandering through Persia – brought not only wealth, but information, language, cultural exchanges and interconnectivity, all which helped to develop Persia as a land of great lure, knowledge and mystique.

In both the great wars of the 20th century, Iran hoped to remain neutral. On both occasions, their sovereignty was compromised at the will of greater powers, whose interest did not lie in Iran or Persia but in their own self-interests. During WWI, the British, Turkish and Russians all schemed to invade Persia. The ‘good guys’ – the British – had eyes on protecting their oil fields (no less on Iranian soil!). They also looked to safeguard the Trans-Iranian railway that was a major transport hub for their black gold, which they had discovered and took control of in 1912. Oil, not coal, was now fuelling the Great War, and the British were determined to keep it, even if it meant violating the sovereign rights of another nation. Their control of transport hubs and food supplies led to parts of Persia enduring famine between 1917-1919. Russia, Britain’s war ally, had been promised control of an area of Persia with access to the straits that led to the Black Sea, thus giving Russia military access to the Mediterranean. But the ‘good guys’ won the war, so it was all worth it!

Enter the Shah, Reza Shah Pahlavi, in 1921: A military leader who deposed the old Qajar Dynasty and became Prime Minister and founder of modern day Iran. His reforms brought him into conflict with the religious clerics. Initially he played along with democracy, helping to install a new Prime Minister after the coup in ’21. Within four years, Reza would establish his own dynasty, one that would rule with much corruption supported by western powers, until the 1979 Iranian Revolution. His own son, Mohammad Reza, was overthrown by the clerical leader Khomeini and his supporters, creating the religious state that exists today, the ‘Islamic Republic of Iran’

There’s a lot more to it but one thing is for certain in life – you reap what you sow. The Iran I described at the beginning of the article is certainly part of the picture, but the path it has chosen has been shaped by over a century of Western bullying. I will continue to tease out the complexities of Iran in the second part of this article next month. Until then, look further than the easy soundbites about what defines a country, and ask yourself: who is doing the defining?

Standing at the epicentre of where the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated by the USA on August 6, 1945, is a surreal experience. Hiroshima, a modern and somewhat serene city, is less hectic and less claustrophobic than other Japanese cities, but that is to be expected given that the city had to rebuild anew when 92 per cent of all structures and houses within a two to four kilometre radius of the blast were damaged.

The juxtaposition of such horrible historical destruction with a smooth, organised and communal society is difficult to get your head around. So too is the pantomime villainous WWII Japanese soldier, a complete contrast to what are possibly the most polite people on the planet. This is not to excuse the military, which history tells us, treated their POW’s inhumanely and with barbarity, often with enforced slave labour in death camps. But reading the civilian testimony reveals a population engulfed by a system, which propagated a feudal way of life, one where the population were subjugated to the emperor and his imperialist desires. 

Schools and civilians were imbued with military training and populations starved for the glory of the Japanese military that had begun expanding into China at a time when Hitler was a small boy in shorts. An advanced society nevertheless, old footage of videos in the Hiroshima museum reveals a city bustling with commerce, festivals, and pretty buildings, some cars and fine rivers. That famous building, the ‘A Bomb Dome’, build by a Czech architect in 1915, remains as a skeleton reminder of what man can do to man on such a huge scale. Iconic yet sober, it sits amongst the ruin and rubble of August 6, 1945.

And so to that day. Germany had surrendered and the Axis powers broken. Japan was all but defeated, laid to rubble, least we forget, by incessant American air-raids on military infrastructure but also on civilian life to break their morale. The emperor and his military zealots refused to buckle, though it was only a matter of time. For decades the Americans would propagate the lie that a ground invasion would cost too many soldiers’ lives, and so they decided that Japanese civilians’ lives were less valuable than an American one. Nazism and Japanese imperialism were yesterday’s news; the Soviet Union was what the Americans had their eyes on, when deciding to demonstrate their superiority to their ‘allied enemy’. What better place to do it, given the Soviets own expansionist ambitions in the region.

Witness testimony from the Museum captures a collective memory of colour: white light, dark red, yellow, orange, black rain, exploding 600 metres above ground. The locals would later call it ‘pikadon’, pika meaning flash and don, sound. The destruction was caused by blast and heat, 3,000 to 4,000 degrees of heat at the epicentre that vapourised people, where now the peace park and eternal flame lie. And of course don’t forget the high octane radiation that accompanied this weapon. On show in the museum, is the actually step where a human shadow remains, where a person had once sat and been vapourised the moment the bomb exploded. 

The museum, built in the 1950s, has collated a wonderfully tragic collection of photos, pictures and items from that day: bloodied makeshift stretchers, the remains of tattered clothing, pieces of wall stained with the radioactive effervescent liquid black rain, melted  medical bottles, a watch stopped at 8:33, taken from a woman who drowned in a nearby river in an attempt to escape the fire and heat eighteen minutes after the Atomic bomb exploded, and so many more testimonies. The photos are harrowing, charred bodies, men, women, babies covered in massive burns, naked, scalded, piteous to the extreme. 

The word that appears most in aftermath is ‘hell’. One that stood out was a girl’s testimony that retold how, as a child, her Buddhist monk father had showed her a picture of hell. When she regained conscious after the blast, she thought she had woken up there. Skin melted off limbs, such was the heat on the ground. Another testimony of a school boy reveals how he tried to help home his fellow student who had no skin on his feet. Scorched and thirsty, when the black rain fell (a mixture of vapourised radioactive dust) people stood with their mouths open to sooth their burning tongues, unaware of the deadliest and most long-lasting effects of the weapon – radioactivity. Those and the thousands who poured into the city to help their fellows, would die in the following days and months. It began with hair loss, then bleeding gums, diarrhoea, weakness, blisters and an agonising death without any medical aid.

As if that was not enough, Truman and his administration dropped another in Nagasaki three days later; to be sure of victory; to put the fear of God into the USSR; or delight in their newfound might and experiment, this time in the plutonium version of the A Bomb (uranium was used in Hiroshima) – I’ll let you form your own conclusions.

Outside we meet an 80-year-old local man who was in his mother’s womb on that fateful day. She unbelievably survived until old age years, not without many illnesses. He showed us a small pink medical book that survivors received to help with medical costs. (He has a level four for those born to someone exposed to the bomb in that day. They were graded one to four based on exposure). Another story emerged. He told of the discrimination people faced in areas of employment, marriage, even day to day treatment by their own people and the Japanese government. He was angered by the museum’s political correctness, disillusioned at any information condemning the USA, so as not to ‘upset them’. Why, he asked, had a country that had perpetrated the atomic bomb atrocities, been allowed maintain military bases?  But we already know the answer to that, don’t we.

Truman set up the ABCC, an organisation that the Japanese hoped would help with medical aid, but instead was used for experimentation, for the effects of the bomb. Bodies and dead foetus were used grotesquely for ‘research’. Today, the USA, along with Israel, UK, France, China, North Korea, Russia, India and Pakistan all possess nuclear bombs, capable of multiples of thousands, of the force that decimated Hiroshima. Decades of testing in islands, deserts, sea and underground have released countless tonnes of radiation, which must be damaging to the globe.

Can it happen again? Of course. In our own time Putin has threatened to use his  nuclear arsenal in his war in Ukraine. Man’s inhumanity to man has no limits, but hope remains. The Japanese nation are testament to that; caring, communal, creating a society of respect and dignity. A city of death has become a city of hope. Like the flame that burns brightly in the Peace Park, the memory too must never be extinguished.

There are those who can make cases that the model of religious morality we fostered since the foundation of the State was suffocating, hypocritical and to many, damaging. Others voice concerns over society’s lack of values, higher levels of violence and homage to all things materialistic. Is that a result of the decline of the dominant role of the Catholic Church or is it that our world would have inevitably been challenged by the problems that we face today, because of this explosive leap forward we have witnessed in the 21st century? I guess your perspective will probably be shaped by where you stand on religion, but I think it’s fair to say we had a lot wrong with our ‘old’ Ireland, and there’s plenty wrong with the ‘new ‘one too.

Let me take you back nearly one hundred years, to a landscape that would be unrecognisable today. To a place where the Catholic Church was the dominate force, and to a religious event that would go on to define Irish culture and society – the 1932 Eucharistic Congress. This event was staged in different locations around the world, since its inception 1881. In 1932, on the 1,500-year anniversary of the arrival of Saint Patrick, the Congress was awarded to Ireland, as a way of recognising Ireland’s dedication to the Christian faith. Pope Pius XI sent his papal legate, Cardinal Lauri to represent him in Dublin. The opportunities afforded by the granting of the congress were huge. It would help position the independence of the Free State on a global stage, and reinforce its cultural differences from Britain. This was not the first time that the new Irish Free State had looked to promote its cultural differences that were once shackled by imperialism. In 1924, the ancient Irish tradition, the Tailteann Games, was revived by the Cumann na nGaedheal government. The events held in Croke Park were attended by an impressive 250,000 people. (It was also successful in 1928 but by ’32 was losing popular and political support.) But these games were to be dwarfed eight years later when an estimated 1.5 million attended the Eucharistic Congress that celebrated, not sport, but Catholicism. 

For five days, between June 22 and June 26, the Catholics of Ireland came in their droves to Dublin, including pilgrims from the north who incidentally were stoned by protestant loyalists lying in wait. The celebrations began with 50,000 people amassing on the piers and roads of Dun Laoghaire, simply to herald in the arrive of the Papal legate. More celebrious figures, such as Arch Bishop Byrne and Taoiseach Eamon De Valera, welcomed him personally.

The streets were festooned in the white and yellow of the papal colours, from the broadest grand streets and squares of Dublin to the tiny slum lanes and less well-to-do corners. There was very much an inclusive feel to the proceedings according to witness testimonies of the time. Its high point was of course the procession through Dublin, surrounded by hordes of people and the open air mass in Phoenix Park that was attended by an estimated one million souls, (only to be eclipsed by the open air mass for Pope John Paul in the same venue in 1979. Though one has to consider, if a million went to see the Pope’s legate, what would the turnout have been if Pope Pius had come himself?) De Valera, when he spoke, was at pains to emphasise the freedom of the Irish Catholic in the Free State compared to their treatment under centuries of British rule. 

But what were the consequences of the Congress on shaping Irish society? At the time, it was a proud moment for the country when Irishness, nationalism and Catholicism was synonymous with each other. That in itself would become problematic, for many were neither Catholic nor nationalist.  Schools were closed, as were offices. Government business was suspended and universities shut. In the short term, there was some financial relief to the Irish economy given that the ‘economic war’ between Ireland and Britain was starting. It also demonstrated that despite the destructive nature of the civil war only a decade earlier, Irish people could unite and celebrate under the one banner – Catholicism. This was hugely symbolised by the peaceful transfer of power from Cumann na nGaedheal to Fianna Fail in March 1932. Despite the event being organised by Cosgrave, his defeat in the election had meant his arch-rival and political nemesis Dev, was going to be the face of this historical event. 

Any analysis of this period must not be judged by today’s standards, nor can historians always look back and say one event, ‘inevitably’ led to the next. The values of people then were very different than they are today and people did embrace the proceedings of ‘32. But could it be argued that the Eucharist Congress set the tone for church interference in areas it should not have gone? Part of Ireland’s rebranding after centuries of imperialism, was the promotion of the GAA and the Irish language. The Church, emboldened by the success of the Congress, and the willingness of politicians to facilitate it, would become the third leg of that stool. It would accelerate exponentially in a few short years. The placing of the Catholic Church’s privileged position in Irish society, into the constitution of 1937, under the heavy influence of De Valera, gave it untouchable powers that would cause problems later.

While the Church for years had dominant numbers in occupations such as teaching and nursing, Catholic dogma soon became enshrined into the fabric of society and its institutions. Their untouchable powers in schools meant that the abuse of children in regular or industrial schools would for generations go unpunished. We now know, that internal investigations by the Church would often result in moving the abuser to another parish, rather than make it public or fire the perpetrators. [Even more startling was that oftentimes Gardaí would defer to a bishop when faced with a complaint of a sexual nature]. The role of the Church in healthcare would have detrimental effect on women in particular. Dr Noel Browne, who did so much in his role as Minister of Health, to tackle the scourge of TB, through his interventions, was much maligned and eventually beaten by the Church when he tried to introduce family planning and contraception in the 1950s. It was a time of great poverty and mass unemployment. Having smaller families would have permitted families to cope better and recognise women as more than just bearers of children. It never happened because of Archbishop Charles McQuaid’s direct influence in preventing Browne’s proposal for seeing the light of day. The over-moralisation of society, facilitated and nurtured by the Church meant that generations of Irish women were incarcerated into mother and baby home when they had a child out of wedlock. Thousands of babies were illegally taken from the mothers, and many hundreds died from neglect. Many more have since been discovered discarded in septic tanks and unmarked graves.

The Eucharistic Congress helped facilitate the Church into a dominant cultural force, supported by the people, and politicians, lest we not forget. It permeated into areas of life that it should never have touched. It meant Ireland faltered as a progressive society on many levels. Critical debate was curtailed, and censorship, as well as Catholic influence on the media and television, would prevail. It would take the revelations of abuse in the 1990s to unleash a fury and ‘memory’ that found voice, and eventually courage, to tackle the imbalance that had taken hold of Ireland. Within a decade, eighty years of unquestionable power came tumbling down. For many it was justified, others felt its vacuum. Though 69 per cent of Irish people still ticked the Catholic ‘box’ in the census (2022), it’s not the same type of all-encompassing Catholicism of the 1930s. There are many forces that drive today’s violence and immorality, such as drugs, the internet, polarisation, pornography. For many others, it may be that the guiding hand of religion has been chopped off. For all that’s said and done, we certainly live in a freer society today.

After Trump won the USA presidential election, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to allow my 2025 articles become dominated by his political journey. However, he unleashes so much global negativity on a daily basis, that’s its difficult to navigate from the political chaos he is causing internally and externally: Blaming the Washington plane crash on diversity hiring policies, pulling out of the WHO, withdrawing financial support from thousands of American-sponsored aid organisations, blaming Ukraine for the war and labelling Zelensky a dictator, offering/threatening to buy Greenland, suggesting Gaza be redeveloped as a sort of massive holiday resort for Americans and Israelis, pardoning the January 6 Capital Hill rioters. You could write a book on each. But instead of blaming it all on Trump, I think I’m going to surprise you all and blame everything on, well, us.

So, why are people in their droves supporting and celebrating the Musk’s, the Putin’s, the Trump’s, the Marine la Pen’s of this world: Could the common denominator in this be our unadulterated obsession with mobile phones? It’s not so much the phone itself, but how your data is amassed from all your usage – on social media platforms, shopping platforms, what and how you read. This in turn, is engineered by the big corporations and used by manipulative leaders and organisations into shaping the new world around us, which is facilitating a new social order

Three things have fixed my attention on this issue. Firstly, the latest OECD report on western literary levels. [Just to be clear the OECD is defined as The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It conducts research and independent analysis internationally on a range of policy areas from those countries]. The second was from a Guardian article that reported on the Moldovan general election, and the third is from a chilling but must-read book called the ‘Anxious Generation’ by social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt. What do all these disparate sources have in common? A worrying trend that is facilitating all those despots – technology, social media and AI.

Before I am burned at the stake for an attack on technology – let me declare it is a wonder of our evolution. I use the word evolution deliberately because, as humans we have progressed from cave dwellers, to humans who have produced great civilisations over time – six million years give or take!  Our technological evolution is propelling our ‘progress’ so quickly, that we have hyper-jumped ‘evolution’ and are entering into areas where we may not know their impact on humanity because we are going too quickly.

Let’s begin with a shocking statistic from the OECD report. Only nine per cent of Irish adults are deemed to have a high level of literacy, which means that these adults can ‘comprehend and evaluate long, dense texts across several pages, grasp complex or hidden meaning’.  We are not talking about highbrow stuff here. The key words are, ‘comprehending’, ‘dense’, [detail] ,‘several pages’.  Worryingly this is far below the Nordic countries with 24 per cent and even Britain at 14 per cent, all low in their own right. The reason why this is such a worry, is that humans are losing an ability to disentangle information and, more importantly, are less willing to engage in an article that occupies them beyond a soundbite, catchy message or sensational and short piece of writing. This has allowed the gradual creep of people like Trump, Vance, Modi (India’s PM), and so on to get away with what they are saying/writing because populations no longer have an interest, or ability to go deep into an argument. It’s been a fundamental part of disinformation and fake information that seems to be accepted at face value, without reflection. People are accepting simple soundbites because we are losing the skills to unravel more profound debate.

Jonathan Haidt has been tracking data about the effects of mobile phones on children and teens, [who have turned into adults] since the advent of social media, coinciding with the development of the iPhone and its equivalent since 2010. The result of his work is a brilliant piece of research, ‘The Anxious Generation’. Our obsession with phones and in particular social media has had a devastating impact on a generation of people, leading in many ways to what has been borne out by the OECD report. The premise of Haidt’s argument is that phones and social media have created anxiety in people because social media companies try to ‘maximise engagement by using psychological tricks to keep people clicking and hooked’. That is bad enough for an adult but in the teen years the brain has been rewired during a very vulnerable stage in life, at a time when their frontal cortex, which is important for self-control, has not yet been developed. Aligned with people’s lessening ability to deal with more complex articles or information, people’s attention span has been diminished hugely too. Haidt tells us what many of us already know – the addiction problems. Social media hooks its audience with every type of notification – sent, delivered, liked, tagged, messages and so on. TikTok, Instagram, Snap Chat, hoover up huge amounts of hours on vacuous visuals that instead of energising people, drain them. The more powerful AI is becoming, the more sophisticated the algorithms have become to keep you on your phone and away from everything else.

Haidt is a thorough researcher. He has based his findings on numerous studies over decades, mainly in USA, UK, Canada and Australia – none of those a million miles culturally different to Ireland. What he found in one study is that young people get 192 notifications a day, or approximately one very five minutes. That means that all day long, they are being pulled from a task/job/moment of focus. This is part of the reason why, as adults, people can no longer focus on long and dense texts, when they have been shaped by short and snappy messaging and soundbites, as well as twenty second videos and endless scrolling, during their youth.

The book contains numerous behavioural charts, which all show a high rise in a range of conditions since the advent of the smartphone and social media. On every metric, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, sleep deprivation, feeling like a failure and feeling lonely all are exploding, and even more so for girls it appears.

And so to Moldova. Maia Sandu is the current leader of Moldova, a country of 2.4 million. It’s a former soviet satellite state and Putin wishes for it to be under Russia’s sphere of influence, as well as Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, to name but a few. However, Ms Sandu has won two consecutive presidential elections on the platform of EU integration, the rule of law, transparency and anti-corruption, the antithesis of what Putin stands for. Ilan Shor, a Putin-supporting oligarch, ran a vote-buying campaign. How does that work? Targeted people (via algorithms, AI, phones), were asked to open a bank account where money could be sent to them. The next step was to download a chatbot on a messaging app called ‘Telegram’, where they would receive information on how to vote, where to protest against Sandu or go to pro-Russian rallies. Then they would be paid. Ten per cent of the voting population were found, after an investigation, to be part of this covert scheme. This is no longer a thing of science fiction in a world where people are less and less interrogating data, are accepting simple and often misleading messaging, and are believing disinformation because we are losing our capacity to analyse it. It is here and its tentacles are reaching further into our society.

Is it too late to combat it? Not according to Haidt. If we care about children and our future in a world that will be eventually run by these same children, there are steps one must take. It begins with collective actions where groups of parents agree to a no phone policy for children before twelve. No social media before sixteen. Phone-free schools. And what some of you might find curious – more unsupervised play and child independence, to allow children to learn pitfalls and make independent choices away from well-meaning but increasingly suffocating parents. Learning from peers, reading body language, working out how to play in groups are all the very things children no longer do, as they are glued to phones and blanketed by parents. I would add, that phone time could be replaced with more literature, articles, puzzles and thinking games, so that we will have a generation, who can work things out for themselves, and combat the dangers of AI and social media, which has, in many ways, dulled our critical thinking when our choices are made simpler by artificial thinking. It won’t be easy. After his meeting with Trump in DC, Keir Starmer announced their joint approach to dealing with AI. Read what you may into it.  He said, “Instead of over-regulating these new technologies, we’re seizing the opportunities they offer.”  Surely we need more regulation, not less? Over to you…