Bard Bart
Hunger Strike '81
Ten died,
among others
and otherness,
for all of us
to live, truly,
as they did,
by conquerin'
greatest fear,
that of mortality.
Empire deluded people fallin'
for own tricks,
attemptin' to impose
same old dirty tricks,
so clever
out maneuverin' themselves
as their house of lies
collapses,
walls fallin' in on them,
justice triumphin'.
Hunger Strike!
Tortuous days dyin'
destroyin' lies
the enemy
sayin' heros are terrorists
thugs, murderers, criminals:
carrot and stick oppression,
cocktail party suggestions
of ideological believers
havin' pride shattered
by hunger strikers
civil righters
puttin' on Bodhi mantle
battlin' demons
of power, wealth, lust
in all fields of experience
till all have fair share
of power, wealth, love
peaceful ecstasy
justice's joy,
whether thru affirmation
or denial of erotic
works either way
erotica is child's play.
Truth of human experience
of arrival at innocence
will shock, be accused
of blasphemy against authority
which means
you could end up
hangin' from some old tree
whatever form it might be:
death squads eliminatin'
leaders in community:
call them troublemakers.
The labelers, character assasinators
trained by empire makers
CIA, SAS, KGB
harass, intimidate, infiltrate
always defeated
by those who struggle
to dyin' breath.
Where's propaganda victory now?
Sands and friends escaped them,
those who tried
to terrorize them
were freedomized instead
by those who endured most.
Just regular lads
took on an empire.
Bobby, Frankie, Patsy, Raymond
one by one
went thru the agony
of the heart;
Kieran, Joe, Mickey, Tom
would not be outdone,
Kevin and Martin
added to song:
it was won.
Here's a rendition of the poem by the author
Buck Mulligan's mentality is alive and well in the editorial offices of the "Irish Independent" to judge by Sunday's edition ( Jan 8 '12). Columnists, led by Paul McCarthy, savaged Bobby Sands and the other 9 hunger strikers who died with him in '81. According to McCarthy, Sands was guilty of treason against the state 'cos he and his buddies laid down their lives for their friends. That being the case Christ was guilty of treason by allowing himself to be crucified by the Roman Empire. Sands' crucifixion was by the British Empire, in collusion with the 26 county Irish government, whose officials did some hand wringing trying to cover their self serving perpetuating fraud crapola.
It was the 26 county state McCarthy was accusing Sands of committing treason against. Yet Sands is guilty of treason against the southern government even though the hunger strike took place in the 6 counties still dominated by the British empire . There's a divine comedy here folks. To help appreciate it let's get back to Buck Mulligan.
He's a character in Jame Joyces' novel "Ulysses". In the novel he's still a med student but well on his way to being treated like a god in an impoverished Dublin 1904.
In contrast there's Stephen Daedalus, a poor struggling artist with a sense of the sacred, believing there are things worth living and dying for: Mulligan, a mocker and scoffer; Daedulus serious as hunger strike about living his life with integrity as an artist .
There's a struggle between their points of view, their value systems. An age old struggle between the physical and metaphysical, different visions for Ireland and humanity.
Joyce was comin' from the same place as Aristotle in his understandin' of the physical, knowable universe, which evolved into the science of physics. The metaphysical comes from Aristotle's work on the dimension/s unknown to us: a sense of the word thru philosophy, religion, myth, poetry, music, stories, oral and written.
In our day the struggle is bein' represented as between "liberal secular humanism" (pinko commie fags) and "conservative religious family values" (reactionary capitalist patriots). A struggle between the male and female principles, which are totally out of balance. Which explains the problem to begin with.
What Joyce dealt with in his literature and the struggle to achieve balance, freedom, between the two principles. That's the journey, based on Homer's "Odyssey", the character Stephen Daedalus is on in Joyce's "Ulysses".
The hunger strikers of 1981 in the Maze prison, Belfast, Ireland were on the ultimate odyssey of freedom. "Give me liberty or give me death" is a famous quote from an American revolutionary,Patrick Henry. That's what was goin' on with the hunger strikers '81. Give us liberty or death. Heroic by any reasonable standard.
Unless you're a hack writin' for the "Irish (In)dependent". A perfect example of what Stephie D. said to a fellow student, Cranly, at the end of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"-"Ireland is the sow that eats its own farrow". Shortly after Stephen concludes by sayin' he's "going to create the conscience of his race in the smithy of his soul."
Apparently those home boys from "the dependent Irish" never read any Joyce, and if they did they certainly did not comprehend. The Irish state is based on the principles of the Easter Proclamation of 1916, written by Padraic Pearse.
The key section is the paragraph on civil and religious rights: "The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government which have divided a minority from the majority in the past."