‘Behind the Walls’ was a two-part documentary series charting the history of Ireland’s psychiatric hospitals (http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmes/behind_the_walls.html) . Part one lifted the lid on this vast system – during the middle decades of the 20th century, Ireland led the world in locking up more of its people per capita in mental hospitals, ahead even of the old Soviet Union. Part two presented a series of testimonies by former inmates speaking of their bewilderment at being forcibly incarcerated, and often abused by unscrupulous psychiatrists. The leading body representing Irish psychiatrists, however, did not accept the series, suggesting that the documentary ‘was imbalanced and lacked objectivity in its portrayal of the mental health system’, (Irish Times, 17 September 2011). Continue reading “Madness, Badness and the Irish”
Tag: Ireland
And now: it’s equality, stupid
Around the world popular protests are changing the political equilibrium. In Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Tunisia, and in different ways in Syria and Libya people are taking decisions and protesting to overturn despotic regimes. In Israel, 3,383 tents have been erected on city streets by lower middle class and working class Israelis, mostly Jews but also some Palestinians, calling for social justice – , fairer incomes, social housing, better education and health provision in a country whose economy is powered by its military and by the occupation of Palestinian lands. The three weeks protests have been peaceful and creative with 300,000 people demonstrating for social justice. The police is now considering dismantling the tents (because of Tel Aviv residents’ complaints about noise in their leafy streets, but also in preparation for September’s Palestinian state declaration, which the Israeli army and police are preparing to subdue), but Prime Minister Netanyahu has pleaded with the police not to dismantle the tents – he is terrified of the consequences of not being seen to side with those whose demands he knows are justified. Continue reading “And now: it’s equality, stupid”
Crisis racism and ‘cultural circumcision’
Like everyone else, I was appalled by the revelations of Prime Time Investigates on Monday 30 May about the impact of the cuts on disabled people and their carers. So appalled that I felt unable to watch the whole programme. I was distressed by the stories of the parents of a Downs’ Syndrome boy going hungry because the mother’s carer’s allowance was cut by €16 a week; of the woman who had to wait more than a year for an MRI scan leading to her back deteriorating beyond the possibility of operation; and of the mother who had to carry her adolescent son upstairs for a bath – the son’s scoliosis beyond operative repair because the waiting list was simply too long. Continue reading “Crisis racism and ‘cultural circumcision’”
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