Category Archives: Northern Ireland

Emmanuel Macron’s Berlin Wall

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Emanuel Macron, the naughty schoolboy with the Oedipus complex who the French elected as their President, said about Brexit:

“ (Britain will find out) . . . It is not easy to leave the EU . . . there are consequences.”

And then he went home to sit on Maman’s knee for his cupcake and a glass of Orangina.

What is he planning to do? How will he make good his threat? In order to curry favour with his German masters is he going to round-up as hostages the 155,000 British expatriates living, working and paying taxes in France? And then is he going to put them against the schoolyard wall and shoot them? Maman will surely buy him a Milice playsuit for his birthday?

Ah! Le silence de la Mère.

When the great Russian Revolution was failing in Eastern Europe, the East Germans built The Berlin Wall to keep their people in. It was not easy to leave – and there were consequences. You were machine gunned down if you tried.

The West responded with psychological warfare. West Germany in general, and West Berlin in particular, became outstanding symbols of capitalistic affluence, hedonism, and entitled Civil Libertarianism. The appeal, especially to the young, was irresistible – and The Wall came tumbling down. Macron is intelligent enough to know that after BREXIT, freed from the dead hand of bureaucratic Brussels and trading internationally the UK will become a beacon of affluence and entitlement, irresistible to the young.

When OPEC, dominated by the Arab Gulf States in general, and Saudi Arabia in particular, took over their crude oil assets, they raised the price 5 fold, and used their petro-dollar power base to promote a swing toward radical Wahhab Sunni Islam. It was similar to the revolution against the Shah by Shia Ayatollahs in Iran. Sunni and Shia clerics built a wall against The West by imposing stringent and puritanical limitations on their citizens. But The West ensured that Bahrain and Dubai became affluent, hedonistic and relatively liberal: accessible fleshpots to weaken the resolve of the people. And it is working. The walls are coming down.

Dubai, in just a few short years has become one of the most enterprising trading capitals of the World, ranking alongside New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong. Bahrain lives in Dubai’s shadow as an international financial and tourist centre. But thousands of Saudis and their families cross the Causeway to Bahrain every weekend and taste Western freedoms.

My current work in progress, THE GULF “The Beginning of Sorrows” that concerns itself with the 2008 GFC (Global Financial Crisis) is centred on Dubai, because of its relevance as an international financial centre. But my current book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” is set on Bahrain as it transformed from a sleepy backwater of the British Empire into an independent nation state that acts as an interface between The West, and insular Saudi Arabia.

You can review and buy my book, THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” and its fictionalizations of real events in the Middle East at:

amazon.com

Or on my publisher’s website:

feedaread.com

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Nelson Mandela was a terrorist

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The hapless Jeremy Corbyn cannot get it right. So much of what he says is correct – but the way he says it – and when he says it – just alienates people. And nowhere is it more apparent than in his support for the IRA, and the leader of the Munich massacre.

Much as I support the Palestinian cause, I believe that killing people in cold blood is inhuman and Godless. No matter how noble the cause, acts of terrorism cannot be justified – and are counter productive.

As the recent attacks in Manchester and London have shown, they have brought the communities closer together in their determination to oppose Islam – and forced the government to take even stronger action. Exactly the opposite of what was intended.

Nelson Mandela in his early days condoned the killing of innocent white women and children. For that he was sent to Robbins Island and spent 5 years in solitary confinement. But, contrary to the fake news myth created by the gutless media (that he spent 25 years on that island) he actually spent the next 7 years in a private sanitorium outside Durban being nursed through tuberculosis. At some time during that stint he saw the errors of his ways, and when he went back to Robbins Island he was treated as an open prisoner – allowed a garden, visitors and a study with books, and he passed The London Bar exams. And the last 4 years of his so-called imprisonment he lived on a private estate outside Capetown with very little restriction on his movements – or visitors.

Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here. Perhaps all radicalised Muslims should be placed in solitary confinement for 5 years. One of the criticisms levelled at the West by Muslims is that we are preoccupied with non-stop entertainment. We are “ . . . never alone in an empty room to contemplate the face of Allah.” So maybe, like Nelson Mandela, they should spend 5 years alone in an empty cell – and another 5 years of self study.

Having said all of the above, I believe like Jeremy Corbyn, that the underlying cause of radical Islam is The West’s (American) foreign policy. Its unconditional support for Zionism and its greed for cheap oil, and the offence and outrage this has caused to the deeply religious and conservative societies in the Middle East. All of this is made clear in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”.

My book is based on the hard facts of recent political history, heightened by the fictional consequences for the flawed characters featured in the stories. The flotsam and jetsam of expatriates who wash up in The Arabian/Persian Gulf for whatever reason. It is soundly based on my 40 years experience working in the international oil industry.

You can preview my book, THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”, on Amazon’s Kindle Websites at:

www.amazon.com www.amazon.co.uk

and read the comprehensive 5 Star reviews it has received, and download it if you have a Kindle.

If you prefer a real book in your hands, you can preview my book, and order the paperback from my publisher:

www.feedaread.com

Tribal Weaving

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One of the criticisms levelled at BREXIT it that it will encourage the rise of nationalism in Europe. The irony of the European Union is that it has already presided over the rise of nationalism, and a descent into tribalism.

First we had the breakup of Yugoslavia, with only Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia as viable economic entities, and the remainder as dependent entities for the forseeable future. Then Czechoslovakia broke up with Slovakia heavily dependent.

Now it seems that the UK might break up – with Scotland and Northern Ireland wanting to stay in the EU – and leave the UK. The EU encourages disintegration, with its promise of huge regional grants to support peripheral economies that actively encourages ethnic differences.

I am, on my Mother’s side, Anglo Saxon from Middle England, with surnames like Brown, Jackson and Washington, and possible distant realtionships with American Presidents. But on my Father’s side I am a Celt with grandparents from Greenock on Clydeside, and Wrexham, North Wales. I even have a Manx great grandmother, so there is some Viking in there. (And this raises the issue of The Shetlands, which are as much Norwegian in their thinking – UP HELLY Aa festival with Geizer Jarl and a procession of Vikings. And remember, The Shetlands were a gift from the Norwegians to the English Crown so legally does not belong to Scotland).

Where I was born and raised in England our neighbours were predominantly Irish – the Brandons, the Braddocks, the Burkeys and the Hollingsworths – and Welsh, the Williams, the Roberts and Jones’s. And where my grandparents lived they were mostly Scottish – the Lawsons, the McTaggarts, the McCallisters. And the Anglo, Irish, Welsh and Scottish children all freely intermarried. The idea of racial purity is atavistic.

The British are a mongrel nation of Anglo-Celts with dashes of Viking, Norman and even Roman blood – and it was this broad gene pool that produced the hybrid energy and dynamism that changed and enriched the whole world. It is unthinkable that we will go back to the atavistic extremes of nationalism, tribalism and ferocious clan loyalties.

We have just recently emerged from 25 years of the blood letting and brutality of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. A battle between two Celtic tribes with the English as “piggy-in-the-middle”. Imagine if Sinn Fein get their wish, and Northern Ireland stays in the EU, and the EU supports the unification of Ireland. How will the Protestant Celts respond? I forsee a civil war with Scottish Protestants joining the fray. It will be The Balkans all over again, with the Americans and the UN joining in and turning a crisis into a disaster.

It is exactly this sort of outside interference and intervention that has caused the sectarian rivalry and tribalism and the apocalyptic and brutal conflicts in the Middle East.

In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” there is a story, TRIBAL WEAVING, that appears to support tribalism. In a way it does, because the yearning to return to the simpler nomadic life of a hunter/gather, (the Noble Savage), and escape the boredom of sedentary and tedious suburban living, is very strong, particularly in the hard-pressed Western male. But the story is more serious than that.

Iran had a democratically elected government under Mossadeq – but he was socialist, and so the Americans deposed him and placed the despicable Shah and his cronies in power. They tried to drive the nomadic tribes to settle in towns and villages so that they could seize their lands. And the people revolted and threw out The Shahinshah and replaced him with the Ayatollahs. Out of the frying pan and into . . .

If you want authentic insights into the chaos in the Middle East from 1960 that lead to the events of 9/11, 2001 then read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. Based on 40 years working in the international oil industry it is a collection of stories about expatriates washed up in the Arabian/Persian Gulf. Flotsam and jetsam trying to survive in a rapidly changing and frequently violent world. You can preview it at:

www.amazon.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

and download it if you have a Kindle.

If you prefer a real book in your hands, order the paperback direct from my publisher:

www.feedaread.com