Even some migrants workers try to make their plight it is always unjustified if the employers are strong enough to crush it as most of the companies are ownwed by Royal families members or prince. I have plead my plight to Royal court to King Abdullah himself but what is the benefits
I have filed case filed in the ministry of labor through your Royal court of Riyadh on dated on 17/09/1429 case #7014 and 20/02/1430 case numbers 82281, as until now I was not inform about my final verdict or case is solved. Land of holy places with sinful act of inhumane culture. Among the gulf regions Saudi Arabia is rated highest in migrants workers exploitations according to human rights.
Re: Edmund Standing’s article on Islamic extremism.
This is an interesting article, but I’m not sure how a ‘disjointed society’ can also be said to have ‘collectivism and communalism’ – this seems contradictory. The article also seems to be implying that New Labour is a left-wing party when their economic policy, initiated by Tony Blair – complete deregulation of markets, etc – suggests otherwise. Certainly, many ‘traditional’ (i.e. socialist) Labour voters and thinkers have been alienated from the party for this reason.
I take issue with Standing’s formula for a cohesive society – this sounds very much like Tory Party rhetoric, and one only needs to look at Thatcher’s government to see the effects on society of Tory policies (she didn’t even *believe* in ‘society’). One of the main reasons New Labour has been so disappointing, in my opinion, is that it has been too much like the Tory Party. The abolition of the 10p tax rate, for example, is something Thatcher would’ve been proud of.
I really enjoy reading Butterflies & Wheels, but I feel uncomfortable at times with its negative portrayal of the political left wing. I am left wing – I describe myself as a socialist – and I am also an atheist who believes religion has no place in public life. I don’t think the two are contradictory. I believe that society should look after its most vulnerable via publicly-funded services and a certain amount of redistribution of wealth. Such a political position does not require a belief that public money be given to religious organisations. All public services (schools, NHS, benefits offices, and so on) can and should be secular. Anyone (Muslim, atheist, rich, poor, etc) should be able to access them on an equal footing.
The idea that all left-wingers are anxious to ‘tolerate’ Islam is also wrong. There is at least one left-winger (me!) who doesn’t feel that way. Holding up Tony Blair as an example of this phenomenon is wrong, as he’s not left-wing. George W Bush said ‘Islam is peace’ and he is about as right-wing as you can get. Clearly this is not a problem with the political left-wing.
In my opinion, it’s more of a PR thing – no-one wants to be seen as racist, least of all politicians. Even if you accept (as I do) that criticising ideology and religious beliefs is not the same as racism, this is how it is seen when it comes to Islam, and politicians are very cautious when it comes to image. Even if in private they are actually racist. I’m sure David Cameron will be making similar noises about Islam in the upcoming election campaign, and should his party get in, he will be giving similar amounts of public money to religious organisations. The Tory Party are even less likely to secularise public life than New Labour are.
I understand Standing’s frustration with the coddling and bankrolling of religion in our society, including Islam, but the left-wing isn’t the enemy here. It can’t be – because we haven’t actually *had* a left-wing government in over 30 years.
erybodylike many others i came back to ireland after 41 years i had lost touch ith evebody i was very frightened the first person i met was someone i hade known very well in goldenbridge apparently she was there very often she was worried about what i might say so she was very aggresif and accused me of lying about my escape from goldenbridge but i have my records to prove it what a terrable lot of lies she hase been telling everybody the whole thing is beeing turned into a personal story even taxidrivers told me about what a terrable time she had but in goldenbridge she was just like the rest of us tittiv
Amy, ah well, I’ll have to publish some more leftwingery then – my intention isn’t to offer a ‘negative portrayal of the political left wing’ in general. I’m left wing too – but I don’t publish solely articles that I agree with 100%.
It seems like all major religions are everything but peaceful and just WHEN THE CLERGY IN THOSE RELIGIONS HAVE ENOUGH POWER!
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikh, Hindu and some Buddhists are all the same when they have the upper hand. The religious leaders historically have been no better than the modern tyrants, and they have been at it much longer.
hello the numberded ones Iwas in goldenbridge from 1952 to 1961 when Iescaped when i read these letters i know excatly how you feel and now after the redress board Idont think things have changed that much we are still screaming in silence and now if we are not careful we will disappear in fact its very important for history that we leave signs or it will go down as the story of a handful of people this is very unfair to all those who are dead from titti
do you really understand the spirit of islam? don’t you think islam is the final religion in this world? it seems all the secular world opposes the religion. god will really die soon?
Survivors of Child Industrial Prisons for that is what they were,Children from the ages of a few weeks old to 16 years old myself included were sentenced to detention by the court as a young child to Industrial Reformatories ,Therefore we were prisonors ,we were only known by our given number , NOT our name ,Held in Detention and used as slave labour and Savagely Abused and Starved and flogged us for no reason the Nuns didn’t need a reason they were total Sadists ,The suffering we children were subjected to was beyond Cruelty,Goldenbridge the Child Prison Of Horror’s.The Ryan Report should have come out Before the Redress Board , It was all a set up to frighten us out of our wits Were we were abused again,,WE Must be Compansated Properly, for what we were put through effected the whole of our lives.
Survivors of Child Industrial Prisons for that is what they were,Children from the ages of a few weeks old to 16 years old myself included were sentenced to detention by the court as a young child to Industrial Reformatories ,Therefore we were prisonors ,we were only known by our given number , NOT our name ,Held in Detention and used as slave labour and Savagely Abused and Starved and flogged us for no reason the Nuns didn’t need a reason they were total Sadists ,The suffering we children were subjected to was beyond Cruelty,Goldenbridge the Child Prison Of Horror’s.The Ryan Report should have come out Before the Redress Board , It was all a set up to frighten us out of our wits Were we were abused again,,WE Must be Compansated Properly, for what we were put through effected the whole of our lives.
Tube Trains have been Blown up in London Killing and Maiming , A Bus was Blown Up in London Killing and Maiming,The Talaban Murder Women and children +the elderly by Blowing them to pieces ,Women walking around in Burqua’s , Noone can tell me Islam is a religion of peace ,>Its NOT just a Religion > It is an Idology ,< I for one have become Fearful of Islam I worry about our childrens future.Islam has made The World a dangerous place .
Exactly, we should keep bringing it home to the Irish government that we were not criminals and that our records should be expunged. There is a lot of ignorance out there with respect of our status in these institutions. Petty criminals! They vehemently cry out! Such stupidity! As you say, some detainees were only babies when they went to Goldenbridge. There was one particular baby pet that I recall, in the sixties, who was wheeled up and down in the classroom every single day by Sr. F. Alas, she has thus passed away. There was another young wet-the-bed Sacred Heart girl who had a big red ball hanging out of her. I heard that she died under sad circumstances a few years ago. I could go on and on – but I would not like to upset you further. Yeah, the Ryan/Laffoy commission (CICA) should not have run concurrently with the redress board (RIRB). Goldenbridge was truly a child prison of horrors. Did you know that Brendan Behan’s mother was a detainee there for years. Is your sister, Pauline, still living in France?
Aye, I had two numbers. To begin with – it was 155. I went out with a host family for ten months – and when I was found wandering alone in the middle of O’ Connell St, at nine years of age, I was discovered by the Sisters of no Mercy, who then chaperoned me in the black Maria all the way back to the haunted house of horrors with a hundred windows. I was then given number 39. In hindsight, I never should have been sent to the host family as there was really nobody there to really take a personal interest in me. Freedom was my only friend. I never saw the family ever again during my incarceration period in Goldenbridge. Pets were always given posh families to go out with and the rest of us were given families from very poor circumstances. Strange set-up and mindset of the religious.
Yes, it is very important that we all leave behind our individual Goldenbridge imprint. We have to come out publicly, though, for that to happen, as remaining anonymous only adds to the inward frustration and ‘screams’ you mention. There is immense freedom when one comes out and acknowledges ones time in Goldenbridge – believe me, I have been there and have felt the constant fear of people finding out I was in that hell-hole. I do not feel the shame anymore and nobody can hurt me with their hurtful remarks. There are so many of our counterparts who still feel the burden of their offspring finding out they were in Goldenbridge and as a consequence they too are ‘screaming’ inside. They do not owe their offspring anything when it comes to trying to protect them from knowing about their pasts. They need such protecting and nurturing themselves and they should not be doubly burdened with the legacy of pain. It is inevitable that the legacy of pain will have a knock-on affect.
Yeah, even the religious sisters in the convent right beside Goldenbridge industrial school were unaware of the systematic cruelty that was meted out to children. Or, if they knew, they did not interfere – not even the highly educated nuns, who taught at the nearby national school. You see, the children behind the prison walls were from the lower echelons of society and were not worth thinking about at all. The nuns were seen by all of Irish society to be rescuing these degenerates – as we were called by some un-savoury characters. Deprivation and starvation of our minds, senses and bodies was a daily reality during our childhoods in Goldenbridge. We should never have been born and were a curse and a blight on the Irish landscape – we had to be locked away for the whole of our childhoods.
Yeah, the ethos of the Sisters of Mercy was to educate the poor – but the poor were never educated during my time in that hell-hole. Well, if one wants to mention the one and only person in a whole hundred years – in the guise of Christine Buckley. There was an ethos of days of yore that blacks be given some form of education – as the State was afeared of the latter rebelling in the futiure. Such a tendentious issue must not occur. The blacks were also sent out of sight to the west of Ireland. To hell or Connaught!
I’d very much like to reproduce your article, “A Very Young Activist’s Reply”, in my blog, The Rational Fool, with your permission. Please let me know if you have any objections. Thanks.
The stark contrast between Alaina’s clear prose and clearheaded view of human rights and morality and that of the POMO-babbling anti-“colonialist” couldn’t be greater. Maybe it takes a 13 year old uncluttered by intellectual pretensions deliver the message in such unequivocal terms.
Two cliches come to mind that very much apply here:
Even some migrants workers try to make their plight it is always unjustified if the employers are strong enough to crush it as most of the companies are ownwed by Royal families members or prince. I have plead my plight to Royal court to King Abdullah himself but what is the benefits
I have filed case filed in the ministry of labor through your Royal court of Riyadh on dated on 17/09/1429 case #7014 and 20/02/1430 case numbers 82281, as until now I was not inform about my final verdict or case is solved. Land of holy places with sinful act of inhumane culture. Among the gulf regions Saudi Arabia is rated highest in migrants workers exploitations according to human rights.
Re: Edmund Standing’s article on Islamic extremism.
This is an interesting article, but I’m not sure how a ‘disjointed society’ can also be said to have ‘collectivism and communalism’ – this seems contradictory. The article also seems to be implying that New Labour is a left-wing party when their economic policy, initiated by Tony Blair – complete deregulation of markets, etc – suggests otherwise. Certainly, many ‘traditional’ (i.e. socialist) Labour voters and thinkers have been alienated from the party for this reason.
I take issue with Standing’s formula for a cohesive society – this sounds very much like Tory Party rhetoric, and one only needs to look at Thatcher’s government to see the effects on society of Tory policies (she didn’t even *believe* in ‘society’). One of the main reasons New Labour has been so disappointing, in my opinion, is that it has been too much like the Tory Party. The abolition of the 10p tax rate, for example, is something Thatcher would’ve been proud of.
I really enjoy reading Butterflies & Wheels, but I feel uncomfortable at times with its negative portrayal of the political left wing. I am left wing – I describe myself as a socialist – and I am also an atheist who believes religion has no place in public life. I don’t think the two are contradictory. I believe that society should look after its most vulnerable via publicly-funded services and a certain amount of redistribution of wealth. Such a political position does not require a belief that public money be given to religious organisations. All public services (schools, NHS, benefits offices, and so on) can and should be secular. Anyone (Muslim, atheist, rich, poor, etc) should be able to access them on an equal footing.
The idea that all left-wingers are anxious to ‘tolerate’ Islam is also wrong. There is at least one left-winger (me!) who doesn’t feel that way. Holding up Tony Blair as an example of this phenomenon is wrong, as he’s not left-wing. George W Bush said ‘Islam is peace’ and he is about as right-wing as you can get. Clearly this is not a problem with the political left-wing.
In my opinion, it’s more of a PR thing – no-one wants to be seen as racist, least of all politicians. Even if you accept (as I do) that criticising ideology and religious beliefs is not the same as racism, this is how it is seen when it comes to Islam, and politicians are very cautious when it comes to image. Even if in private they are actually racist. I’m sure David Cameron will be making similar noises about Islam in the upcoming election campaign, and should his party get in, he will be giving similar amounts of public money to religious organisations. The Tory Party are even less likely to secularise public life than New Labour are.
I understand Standing’s frustration with the coddling and bankrolling of religion in our society, including Islam, but the left-wing isn’t the enemy here. It can’t be – because we haven’t actually *had* a left-wing government in over 30 years.
RE: Amy Clare
Amen! Here’s to all you lefty atheists. May you continue to read B&W.
assalamu alaikum.
i think this is a very good article.may almighty help you all to produce the truth tot the world .aameeen.
erybodylike many others i came back to ireland after 41 years i had lost touch ith evebody i was very frightened the first person i met was someone i hade known very well in goldenbridge apparently she was there very often she was worried about what i might say so she was very aggresif and accused me of lying about my escape from goldenbridge but i have my records to prove it what a terrable lot of lies she hase been telling everybody the whole thing is beeing turned into a personal story even taxidrivers told me about what a terrable time she had but in goldenbridge she was just like the rest of us tittiv
Amy, ah well, I’ll have to publish some more leftwingery then – my intention isn’t to offer a ‘negative portrayal of the political left wing’ in general. I’m left wing too – but I don’t publish solely articles that I agree with 100%.
It seems like all major religions are everything but peaceful and just WHEN THE CLERGY IN THOSE RELIGIONS HAVE ENOUGH POWER!
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikh, Hindu and some Buddhists are all the same when they have the upper hand. The religious leaders historically have been no better than the modern tyrants, and they have been at it much longer.
hello the numberded ones Iwas in goldenbridge from 1952 to 1961 when Iescaped when i read these letters i know excatly how you feel and now after the redress board Idont think things have changed that much we are still screaming in silence and now if we are not careful we will disappear in fact its very important for history that we leave signs or it will go down as the story of a handful of people this is very unfair to all those who are dead from titti
I only want to know if there is some spanish traduction of this article. A would like to show it to my parents.
do you really understand the spirit of islam? don’t you think islam is the final religion in this world? it seems all the secular world opposes the religion. god will really die soon?
Survivors of Child Industrial Prisons for that is what they were,Children from the ages of a few weeks old to 16 years old myself included were sentenced to detention by the court as a young child to Industrial Reformatories ,Therefore we were prisonors ,we were only known by our given number , NOT our name ,Held in Detention and used as slave labour and Savagely Abused and Starved and flogged us for no reason the Nuns didn’t need a reason they were total Sadists ,The suffering we children were subjected to was beyond Cruelty,Goldenbridge the Child Prison Of Horror’s.The Ryan Report should have come out Before the Redress Board , It was all a set up to frighten us out of our wits Were we were abused again,,WE Must be Compansated Properly, for what we were put through effected the whole of our lives.
Survivors of Child Industrial Prisons for that is what they were,Children from the ages of a few weeks old to 16 years old myself included were sentenced to detention by the court as a young child to Industrial Reformatories ,Therefore we were prisonors ,we were only known by our given number , NOT our name ,Held in Detention and used as slave labour and Savagely Abused and Starved and flogged us for no reason the Nuns didn’t need a reason they were total Sadists ,The suffering we children were subjected to was beyond Cruelty,Goldenbridge the Child Prison Of Horror’s.The Ryan Report should have come out Before the Redress Board , It was all a set up to frighten us out of our wits Were we were abused again,,WE Must be Compansated Properly, for what we were put through effected the whole of our lives.
Tube Trains have been Blown up in London Killing and Maiming , A Bus was Blown Up in London Killing and Maiming,The Talaban Murder Women and children +the elderly by Blowing them to pieces ,Women walking around in Burqua’s , Noone can tell me Islam is a religion of peace ,>Its NOT just a Religion > It is an Idology ,< I for one have become Fearful of Islam I worry about our childrens future.Islam has made The World a dangerous place .
xiled Survivor.
Exactly, we should keep bringing it home to the Irish government that we were not criminals and that our records should be expunged. There is a lot of ignorance out there with respect of our status in these institutions. Petty criminals! They vehemently cry out! Such stupidity! As you say, some detainees were only babies when they went to Goldenbridge. There was one particular baby pet that I recall, in the sixties, who was wheeled up and down in the classroom every single day by Sr. F. Alas, she has thus passed away. There was another young wet-the-bed Sacred Heart girl who had a big red ball hanging out of her. I heard that she died under sad circumstances a few years ago. I could go on and on – but I would not like to upset you further. Yeah, the Ryan/Laffoy commission (CICA) should not have run concurrently with the redress board (RIRB). Goldenbridge was truly a child prison of horrors. Did you know that Brendan Behan’s mother was a detainee there for years. Is your sister, Pauline, still living in France?
“hello the numberded ones”
Aye, I had two numbers. To begin with – it was 155. I went out with a host family for ten months – and when I was found wandering alone in the middle of O’ Connell St, at nine years of age, I was discovered by the Sisters of no Mercy, who then chaperoned me in the black Maria all the way back to the haunted house of horrors with a hundred windows. I was then given number 39. In hindsight, I never should have been sent to the host family as there was really nobody there to really take a personal interest in me. Freedom was my only friend. I never saw the family ever again during my incarceration period in Goldenbridge. Pets were always given posh families to go out with and the rest of us were given families from very poor circumstances. Strange set-up and mindset of the religious.
Yes, it is very important that we all leave behind our individual Goldenbridge imprint. We have to come out publicly, though, for that to happen, as remaining anonymous only adds to the inward frustration and ‘screams’ you mention. There is immense freedom when one comes out and acknowledges ones time in Goldenbridge – believe me, I have been there and have felt the constant fear of people finding out I was in that hell-hole. I do not feel the shame anymore and nobody can hurt me with their hurtful remarks. There are so many of our counterparts who still feel the burden of their offspring finding out they were in Goldenbridge and as a consequence they too are ‘screaming’ inside. They do not owe their offspring anything when it comes to trying to protect them from knowing about their pasts. They need such protecting and nurturing themselves and they should not be doubly burdened with the legacy of pain. It is inevitable that the legacy of pain will have a knock-on affect.
Lorna,
Yeah, even the religious sisters in the convent right beside Goldenbridge industrial school were unaware of the systematic cruelty that was meted out to children. Or, if they knew, they did not interfere – not even the highly educated nuns, who taught at the nearby national school. You see, the children behind the prison walls were from the lower echelons of society and were not worth thinking about at all. The nuns were seen by all of Irish society to be rescuing these degenerates – as we were called by some un-savoury characters. Deprivation and starvation of our minds, senses and bodies was a daily reality during our childhoods in Goldenbridge. We should never have been born and were a curse and a blight on the Irish landscape – we had to be locked away for the whole of our childhoods.
Yeah, the ethos of the Sisters of Mercy was to educate the poor – but the poor were never educated during my time in that hell-hole. Well, if one wants to mention the one and only person in a whole hundred years – in the guise of Christine Buckley. There was an ethos of days of yore that blacks be given some form of education – as the State was afeared of the latter rebelling in the futiure. Such a tendentious issue must not occur. The blacks were also sent out of sight to the west of Ireland. To hell or Connaught!
Alaina Podmorow:
I’d very much like to reproduce your article, “A Very Young Activist’s Reply”, in my blog, The Rational Fool, with your permission. Please let me know if you have any objections. Thanks.
RE: Alaina’s article:
The stark contrast between Alaina’s clear prose and clearheaded view of human rights and morality and that of the POMO-babbling anti-“colonialist” couldn’t be greater. Maybe it takes a 13 year old uncluttered by intellectual pretensions deliver the message in such unequivocal terms.
Two cliches come to mind that very much apply here:
1-Out of the mouth of babes.
2-The emperor has no clothes.