A man of menace
By Eoghan MacCormaic
Have you ever wondered where the Iraqis get all their
US flags from when they take to the streets of Baghdad
to protest. I've often wondered about this matter.
Y'see, you'd think that for some time now it would be
sort of difficult to walk into a shop in Iraq and ask
for The Stars and Stripes. Heads would turn; eyes would
roll. Or maybe eyes would turn and heads would roll.
Either way, it wouldn't be a popular commercial
purchase.
d yet, at the first sign of a protest, there's always
a few flags on hand to add a bit of fire to the anger.
Where do they come from? Is there a secret factory
producing flammable US flags in Iraq? Is this what the
Americans are really looking for? Or is all that film
footage a blast from the past, a repeat? Are all those
flags taken down from some back shelf, dusted off and
brought back into focus just when Saddam wants to
direct the public attention somewhere else?
News is a manageable commodity and a commodity that is
used to manage us. Image is everything and a camera or
a microphone in the right place can work wonders to
shift the emphasis on a news story. I was thinking
about that this week as RTÉ tried to `analyse' the
continuing loyalist murder campaign against
nationalists and Catholics. The Pat Kenny show, on
radio, wheeled out Denis Faul, and his logic was as
bizarre and as solidly anti-republican as ever. We
were, in fact, on a time warped trip into the realms of
the clergyman's imagination and in light of the murders
it was eerie to see how easily RTÉ can slip back into
the eighties mode of blaming the victims for their own
deaths.
Despite all the evidence, despite all the complaints
for years, despite collusion and complicity with
loyalist death squads, Faul told Pat that 2,000
Catholics should join the RUC. It got worse.
`Catholics', he elaborated, really wanted to support
the RUC. The problem was The Provos. Yes indeed. Just
as the Iraqis have their store of Old Glories, Denis
Faul has his store of old stories.
The Provos are really to blame for the LVF/UFF death
squads. `Ordinary people are afraid to call the
police,' he said. On that much we can agree. `When they
hear shots in the night they think it's another Provo
punishment shooting, and they don't phone the RUC'.
Kenny didn't think to question Faul on the level of
such punishment shootings or when the last one
occurred. That would have spoiled a good anti-Provo
rant.
On and on it went. Punishment beatings, intimidation,
little dictators, bullies, only a few bad apples in the
RUC, etc. It was Faul at his worst, as he sought to
reconstruct the RUC and blame nationalists for their
own suffering. You wouldn't know who to be more angry
with, Faul for his diatribe or RTÉ for airing it. And
it was a gross insult to the families and neighbours of
the six nationalists murdered since Christmas, people,
according to Faul's warped reasoning, who only had
themselves to blame.
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