I've been feeling afraid and angry and confused for the past few days, and I've wanted to write something, knowing that my fear and grief can't be perfectly communicated, and that too many words don't serve us. So perhaps I am writing this only for myself. If that's the case, thank you for bearing witness to my own attempt at healing. 

I've lived with the threat of violence all my life, and for this and other reasons I write as a survivor. Growing up in the north of Ireland/Northern Ireland, I've known people to kill for ideological reasons, and out of desperation to be heard, as well as apparent sheer blood lust. I've witnessed counter-terrorist strategies that often made things worse, because they dehumanized people further, equated the imposition of force with security, and sometimes slipped over into revenge. We didn't know much of restorative justice, and little account was taken of the dominant culture's own errors in the treatment of minority or marginalized people, or their/our complicity in oppression. Wisdom figures were there, but rare. However, later I also saw unfolding and participated in a peace process that eventually brought sworn enemies to the negotiating table, a massive reduction in violence, and a commitment to share leadership for the common good. People said it was impossible. But it happened. It isn't perfect. But it happened. It can happen again. 

Spy stories imagine a secret world, happening underneath the one we think we inhabit. At their best (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), they grip and empathize, lamenting the very existence of the espionage system. At their most popular (James Bond), they have been the frivolous backdrop to over half a century of serious war games, seeing out the Cold War, the eras of Reagan, Clinton and Bush, and now the post-9/11 confusion. Honest attempts at spy stories tell us that secret agents are scapegoats for communities unwilling to be transparent with each other, and that unless the general public is willing to risk the first move in de-escalating international tensions, their jobs will always be a necessary evil.

When I was ten years old, I got stuck on my bike in an underpass, the cacophony of mighty traffic racing above me, the choice of three tunnels in front adding to the sense of dislocation. Three was worse than one, because it meant I was twice as likely to take the wrong path. I remember the feeling of cold and isolation and confusion and terror. It was just a bike ride near my house, but I might as well have been in outer space. Everyone has had the experience of being lost, and “losing it” as a result. I expected that Ridley Scott and Drew Goddard’s film The Martian, in which Matt Damon is stranded on the red planet, would evoke similar feelings. There’s so much opportunity for awe (at the planet), empathy (with the main character), and being impressed (at the ingenuity of his and NASA’s combined attempts at getting him home).

Announcing our first Ireland retreat for 2016: I'm co-leading another trip to Ireland, with David Wilcox and friends, and applications are now open!  I've wanted to bring people to my homeland for a long time, and we've been doing these trips for a couple of years now, with guest co-facilitators and dear friends.  One of the constant refrains I hear from folk in the US who have visited Ireland before is that they 'didn't go to the North'. We're going to change that.

To call a film the "most" harrowing is not the "most" useful response, nor is it possible for someone who has never been a combatant in an active violent conflict to evaluate the "realism" of a war film. That said, watching BEASTS OF NO NATION felt like one of the more distressing experiences I've had in a cinema; and its portrayal of war as a subject too grave for mere entertainment makes it a more humane and noble use of the medium than previous war films.