Mary Kenny
Many people were irritated by Bob Geldof’s decision to return his Freedom of the City of Dublin as a protest against the current regime in Myanmar (still sometimes called Burma) and the treatment of the Rohingya people there. The Lord Mayor of Dublin felt, especially, that it was a graceless move, since this honour is not given to many.
But Geldof [pictured], who can be bombastic and headstrong, achieved what he sought: to focus on the injustices and cruelties that have been meted out to the Rohingya Muslim people in Burma. And to draw attention to the fact that Burma’s much-praised leader, Aung San Su Kyi – also given the Dublin City honour – seems to have been complacent in allowing these horrible persecutions, sometimes called ‘ethnic cleansing’, or even genocide, to occur. This week the City of Oxford has followed Geldof’s lead, and stripped the Burmese leader of the honour that they had bestowed on her previously.
Pope Francis, visiting Myanmar-Burma, has had to walk a diplomatic line between showing care and compassion to those who have suffered, while not risking making things worse by reprimanding the majority Buddhists. Yet his very presence has also highlighted the pitiful situation.
The persecution of the Rohingya people – who have suffered beatings, killings and expulsions inflicted by the Burmese authorities – has had another effect. It has tainted the widespread perception of Buddhism as a religion of peace, harmony and that ‘mindfulness’ which implies tolerance of all.
Atrocities
Buddhist monks and preachers have been implicated in the atrocities. The BBC has reported that Buddhist leaders have said that the Rohingya deserved their suffering, as they are an alien people. The Rohingya are not militant Muslims, but the militancy of some Muslim sects has been attached to their reputation.
Buddhism has been, in recent decades, the most fashionable of religions and philosophies, particularly in Hollywood, where it has been seen as so very different to the “harsher” and more “judgemental” of western faiths. Buddhism’s concern for animals has been especially endearing to those who are fond of their pets – and there’s no harm in that.
But it’s now clear that Buddhists can be as aggressive and even as tyrannical as any other group of people: like the rest of us, they are flawed human beings who make mistakes and can be cruel, malign and even murderous when the Devil takes a grip. Original sin never disappears from the human race.
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Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s fiancée, describes herself as a feminist, and she has spoken at the UN about women’s rights. It will be interesting to see how she far she accommodates feminism with being a British princess. Will she retain her own name, or incorporate it into that of her husband, as in ‘Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex’ (said to be the title in waiting)? What an anguishing decision awaits!
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A lasting work of art
In clearing out my old flat, I found a framed Irish pound note from the early 1970s. I wouldn’t normally frame an example of ‘filthy lucre’ – as I believe St Paul refers to money – but I see this note as a piece of history. It is based on a design commissioned and endorsed by the poet W.B. Yeats, who headed up the Currency Commission for the Free State in the 1920s, so the pound note is bordered in beautiful Celtic designs.
The face on the currency, as older readers will know, is that of Hazel Lavery, dressed as an Irish ‘colleen’. (On the larger denominations, she also has a harp.) Hazel, an Irish-American beauty, was married to the Belfast-born painter Sir John Lavery, and was herself a talented painter and art teacher. She was Winston Churchill’s painting tutor, while she was advancing the cause of Ireland among the political classes at Westminster. She fell in love with Michael Collins, and afterwards, it transpired, Kevin O’Higgins fell in love with Hazel. So far as we know these amours were never consummated, but the grá was there.
She died in 1935 at the age of 55 from a heart condition, myocarditis, her husband Sir John by her side. According to Sinead McCoole’s fine biography, Hazel, Sir John consulted 18 doctors in an effort to save her.
So this Irish pound note is full of history, of narrative and of cultural background, and when I look at it, I think not of ‘filthy lucre’, but of the national and biographical narrative behind it all.
And I think how vapid and meaningless, by contrast, are the designs on the Euro notes. Wouldn’t it be an uplifting contribution to everyday transactions if the European Central Bank would add some culture to the currency – the sculpture of Michaelangelo, the paintings of El Greco, the brooding face of Beethoven? Then it would be rather more than just money.