ESPERANZA PRODUCTIONS – Blog

Ronan L Tynan

The Magna Carta has come to represent the rule of law, curbs on state power and the civil liberties and human rights we enjoy today. But Wednesday night (June 10, 2015) at the launch of a book that touched on that historical legacy by Prof. Francesca Klug, (‘A Magna Carta for All Humanity’) I was reminded that a considerable struggle took place to secure them in the first instance. Indeed, on June 15, 1215 the “rebel” Barons extracted from the tyrannical King John agreement to the Magna Carta at virtual “gun point,” and the ongoing battle to maintain our rights even in democratic societies is one that requires constant vigilance – the attempt to repeal the Human Rights Act in Britain but one example.

At the book launch – which took place in the London School of Economics I was struck by a tremendous sense of complacency, or maybe more correctly an apparent lack of awareness of what it takes to defend human rights, especially in situations where there are no institutions available to secure their enforcement – as applies say in China. I had China on my mind because under President Xi Jinping’s very harsh crack down on freedom of expression Gao Yu 71, a grandmother in poor health and one of the country’s most courageous journalists was given seven years in prison just for doing her job. I had also just read journalist John Sweeney’s letter to the London Review of Books in which he warned about the risks to freedom of expressions of British universities taking money from the Chinese government – citing the £863,537.91 the London School of Economics got from President Xi’s government to establish a Confucius Institute. Against that background, I asked Prof. Klug in the Q & A session about the importance of activism, especially in cases where pressure is needed to secure the release of people like Gao Yu, who have no other means to secure their release? And in that context, I enquired if she thought it appropriate for the LSE to be taking money from the Chinese government when it is locking up courageous journalists like Gao Yu? I was quite taken aback by Prof Klug’s reply when she said she agreed with me; would have to refer my question to higher authority as she was retiring; and if I remember correctly would also be taking to the “barricades!” in her retirement.

President Xi Jinping’s government sentenced Gao Yu to seven years for allegedly leaking what can probably now be described as the Chinese Communist Party’s implicit rejection of everything the Magna Carta represents, and which has come to be known rather crudely as ‘Document No 9’. However, there is no doubt Gao Yu did not leak it, not least because no evidence was produced at her “trial”; and in alleging it was a “state secret” the Chinese government only served to underline the absurdity of the case against her. This is because the document was so widely distributed by the time she was charged it would have had the status of a best seller if it had been commercially published.

Document No. 9 was a very widely circulated internal CCP document that warned members against the dangers of even allowing discussions of what it determined as the seven evils and included such taboo issues as universal values, human rights, press freedom, constitutional democracy, “historical nihilism” (the Chinese Communist Party’s past mistakes – seriously!), all of which are perceived to represent an existential threat to the Party’s survival. In short, Document No. 9 specifically repudiates everything the Magna Carta might be said to symbolically represent and a key part of President Xi’s bid to restore the “purity” of the Party’s dictatorship.

But should the London School for Economics, or any others universities, that subscribe to academic independence and freedom of expression be taking money from the Chinese government, especially at a time when it is vigorously engaged in a campaign to suppress those values as illustrated by the imprisonment of journalist Gao Yu, and indeed Nobel Laureate and writer Liu Xiaobo?

Ronan L Tynan

Twitter: @RonanLTynan

Web: esperanza.ie

Ronan L Tynan

Today is World Press Freedom Day and after filming an interview about 71 year old veteran Chinese journalist Gao Yu with her friend Shao Jiang, a human rights defender and Beijing Student Leader in 1989, we have no doubt this remarkable woman must rank as one of the most courageous journalists of our time. Sentenced to a third terms in prison, this time for seven years, for her outstanding persistence as a journalist in seeking to report in the public’s interest on the authoritarian Chinese government, there can be no doubt she worked to the highest standards and paid a very high price for her professionalism and dedication.

However, President Xi Jinping in seeking to silence her has reminded the world that his government poses a threat to press freedom everywhere, because if he is allowed to lock up one of the China’s best journalists, and also a grandmother and in very poor health, we allow him to normalise the idea that journalists are expendable, that our first line of defense in defending our human and civil rights can be swept aside with impunity. In defense of journalists everywhere, and not just in China, we must secure the release of Gao Yu because if we fail to do so we put our own liberty at risk, especially the way our own governments are falling over themselves to secure trade deals with China.

As filmmakers and journalists we decided to make this documentary to get that message across, that Gao Yu’s fight for freedom is our fight as well. If our governments fail to make her freedom as a journalist an absolute priority we allow them to begin to see our journalists and our freedom of expression as less than the urgent and absolute rights they must always be seen.

In this brief post I also wanted to underline the urgency of securing Gao Yu release because she is in very bad health, and as Shao Jiang emphasised to us today, she will not get adequate health care in her Chinese prison. He cited the well known recent case of the human rights lawyer and ‘citizen journalist’ Cao Shunli who died because she did not get the health care she needed when imprisoned by the Chinese government for her very courageous human rights work. Indeed, one report was quite unequivocal in outlining her mistreatment noting that “signs of her mistreatment during approximately five and half months in detention” were apparent on her body.

One way you can help is by getting on to your local public representative and ask her or him to urgently make contact with the Chinese Ambassador to demand the release of Gao Yu. Or better still perhaps contacting Amnesty International or similar organisation to help organise a public event to draw attention to her plight and embarrass the Chinese government over their incredible inhumanity in locking up one of their bravest and most distinguished journalists.

Ronan L Tynan

Twitter: @RonanLTynan

Web: http://www.esperanza.ie

Anne Daly reflects on the life of an inspiring woman who made a difference:  “Vicky was a force of nature in Ballymun,” this was how Fr. Eamon Sheridan her local Parish Priest summed up the life of the late great Vicky Mc Elligott who died earlier this week. At her funeral mass held in St Joseph’s parish church I had expected to shed a lot of tears but instead I left uplifted as the life of this amazing mother of 8, and a very dynamic community activist was celebrated in story, samba music and much humour as she would have wanted. I knew exactly what Eamonn Sheridan meant when he described Vicky as a “force of nature.” A description of her that resonated with the hundreds of friends and family mourners who packed the church to overflowing – a real tribute to some one who “lived the radical gospel and brought it to life” in Fr Eamon’s words.

I became friends with Vicky when I was invited by Fr. Noel Kearns in the mid 1990s to join the then Columban Youth Project – and now the Poppintree Youth Project – which he had just set up with the local community primarily to help the youth of the parish. Vicky was very active in organising that project and it has made a great difference in the lives of many young people over the years. However, the local institution in which she was most actively involved was BACA – The Ballymun Animal Caring Association, and became very well known as the public voice of part of that initiative the Ballymun Horse Owners Association. The association worked with local people to maintain what Vicky believed was an important part of Dublin working class culture. In an interview with a Ballymun local paper in 1999 she said:“There have been horses in this area for 18 years. They are kept at an old derelict Workmen’s Club which was converted into stables where the horses are well looked after. However, there is a need for a more permanent facility where the horses can be made available for the wider community and training provided in caring for the animals.”  Over the years she turned that statement into reality helping to raise considerable funds and securing the building of very impressive facilities.

Vicky was drawn always to the underdog, especially the young offenders and would regularly visit them in prison. This helps to explain her commitment to the horse project which she saw as a valuable outlet for them.

Vicky was a fearless community campaigner and always spoke her mind. At our board meetings at the Poppintree Youth Project she would question everything, and had a razor eye for detail, especially in regard to any decisions that could or might affect the vulnerable and marginalised. However, when those meeting ended we would often remain chatting with other board members, including Eileen Adams and Mary Couch, laughing for hours as Vicky regaled us with her many stories. One I recall was the thrill she got from learning to drive. I remember her describe in a childlike fashion the sense of freedom she said she experienced in getting those wheels and being able to go where she wanted. At her funeral service her son Christy said the “family never saw her once she learned to drive.”

I got to know Vicky very well for the first time when on behalf of Esperanza Productions I invited her in 1999 to come to Tanzania for the filming of our documentary film Are We So Different. That trip was described by one of sons at her funeral as “life changing.” What amazed Director and Co-Producer Ronan Tynan and myself was her innate ability to engage with Tanzanians during what involved a 1,200 kilometer trip between the capital Dar es Salaam and Arusha. The aim of the film was to facilitate an exchange between Tanzanian and Irish women to discover if the outcome of a major UN conference would make any difference to their lives. Outside Dar es Salaam on one occasion I recall her rage at seeing women stone breakers working in a local quarry for an absolute pittance, in the intense heat which was very obviously disastrous for their health. Her encounter with some Maasai Warriors was one of the high points of our trip, and I always remember fondly how to her delight one of them invited her to dance outside our hotel in Arusha.

As the Victorian horse drawn Hearse, which was preceded by a group of young Ballymun outriders on horse back escorted Vicky on her final journey to Glasnevin Crematorium, I was overcome with a sense of the passing of a truly great human being who made a real difference for her family, her community and so many of the people she came into contact with throughout her life.

Ar dheis De go raibh a anam.

ANNE DALY

Twitter: @AnneDaly19                                  Web:     http://www.esperanza.ie

Ronan L Tynan

What is really shocking about the brutal austerity imposed on Greece is that it was mostly unnecessary as Philip Legrain points out so convincingly in the Financial Times. Describing the Eurozone as a debtors prison created by Germany’s Merkel he asserts, as many of us know all too well, that the aim of the Greek bail out was not to help Greece but to save German and French banks that had so recklessly lent to her.

However, the scale of the austerity imposed on Greece beggars belief in that it led to a loss of output between the third quarters of 2009 and 2014 of €191 Billion – more than 100% of GDP!  Unemployment even with record emigration is extremely high, with youth unemployment at more than 50%. However, the key point now is Greece’s loans are unrepayable and more “extend and pretend” will only impose further unconscionable suffering on the Greek people, and potentially damage the Eurozone still teetering on the brink of catastrophic deflation. Indeed, it is silly and dangerous for Chancellor Merkel to even imply we can afford to see Greece leave the Eurozone without disastrous consequences for the Euro.

But just to underline how impossible it is for Greece to pay back its debts under current Eurozone rules: from next year the Greeks must run a huge primary surplus of 4.5% of GDP. Worse still that must be accomplished under the structures of the EU Fiscal Compact which means that governments with debts of more that 60% of GDP must reduce them by 1/20th every year – and with Greece’s debts 175% of GDP surely that is mission impossible?

The Financial Times was unequivocal in a recent editorial pointing out such brutal conditions could only be met by turning Greece into a ‘slave economy’! German and French banks lent irresponsibly to Greece, and Greek governments were obviously irresponsible to engage in such borrowing. But it is morally indefensible to force the people of Greece to bear 100% of responsibility? Of course by now the banks have escaped all responsibility because after 2012 European governments and taxpayers are now on the hook for her unrepayable debts. At the same time, the Eurozone seems trapped in a deflationary spiral because Germany has taken full control of the leavers of economic power, and will only end if Chancellor Merkel’s morality play economics are replaced by common sense (i.e. ending policy of cutting government expenditure in pro cyclical way with a view to producing growth!).

I can only conclude by echoing Legrain: “The eurozone has become a glorified debtors’ prison. If its German jailers aren’t wise enough to give Greece some relief, Greeks are quite right to try to smash the locks.”

Ronan L Tynan

As I recoiled with shock and revulsion at the indiscriminate murder of civilians especially women and children in Gaza, no where more so than in its poorest and most densely populated neighborhood of Shejayia where bodies were left strewn in the streets by the Israeli military, I discovered this very moving clip from Holocaust survivor Hajo Meyer: perhaps the most devastating criticism of the kind of Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu represents.

When a human rights activists or even a Palestinian victim of one of the world’s most powerful armies compares Israeli actions to the Nazis, there is always a lingering, even an unconscious sense of complicity with the perpetrators of the Holocaust. However, when an Auschwitz survivors, a man of integrity, deeply proud of his Jewish heritage does so, it is painfully clear that Netanyahu has not only gone too far, but has betrayed everything Hajo Meyer believes Israel should stand for.

Claiming the Israelis treat the Palestinians like “vermin,” and very upset at the way one Israeli general described the Palestinians as “a cancerous growth’ – because it is the same way the Nazis spoke about him as “a boy in Germany”.

“When the Nazis gassed the Jews the world was silent,” and now when Israel persecutes the Palestinians and “steals away their land the world is silent, and I want to want to awake the world,” he said.

Hajo Meyer went on: “Any criticism on the policy of Israel is hampered and made impossible by a terrible trick and crime of Israeli propaganda, that any criticism on the politics of Israel comes out or is induced by anti-Semitic feelings. And our main purpose is to show to the world that we are Jews, we are conscious Jews, and we want to show that you must criticize Israel if you ..want anything at all good for the Jews in the world. Because what Israel is doing is destroying the Jewish world and the Jewish heritage”.

Obviously a lot of Jewish people agree with Hajo Meyer given the numbers that are visible at demonstrations against Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza in all parts of the world.

Ronan L Tynan

Twitter: @RonanLTynan