IT TAKES a journalist with some pluck to conduct an in-depth interview with a man like Ian Paisley. The Democratic Unionist leader has a favourite biblical quotation when it comes to the media scrum: “And they could not come nigh unto Him for the press.”
Is the big man mellowing? He is 80 now, and in The Big Man (Radio 4, Sunday of last week) Kevin Connolly tried to find out. Certainly, there are fewer references nowadays to the Whore of Babylon, and a fair proportion of Kevin Connolly’s interview focused on Mr Paisley’s expressed sense of his own frailty. “Prayer”, he says, “is like breath.” He cannot live without it. And he claims to have no desire to see anyone burn in hell.
It seems as much the case that others have mellowed towards him as vice versa. Baroness Boothroyd, who had Mr Paisley expelled from the House of Commons on more than one occasion, now talks of their fine working relationship. Nicholas Winterton MP was positively effusive, lauding Mr Paisley’s leadership and consistency. Is it because Mr Paisley is old now that he feels safer and more lovable? Has he been transformed into a national eccentric, like Tony Benn?
Those who indulge this transformation would do well to listen to some of the other commentators in The Big Man — those who regard as deceitful the way in which Mr Paisley has enflamed passions with fiery, partisan sermons, and then denied any responsibility for the ensuing violence; also those who see his support for armed Unionist groups’ exercising the right to kill IRA members in “self-defence” as disingenuous.
We should also remember that Mr Paisley is as big a player as ever in the politics of Northern Ireland. It is a situation that David Trimble is bitterly amused by, having tried and failed to promote the peace himself.
The ambivalent relationship between the Church and political violence was further explored in Martin Bell’s two-part documentary God and the Gun (Radio 4, Mondays). Focusing on the work of army chaplains, whose numbers have recently been swelled by Buddhist, Sikh, and Muslim representatives, the programmes explored the relationship between those whose business is peace, and those who are paid to kill.
The attitude of the average squaddie was summed up by one chaplain early on: “They don’t mind being prayed for, even if they don’t pray themselves,” to which Martin Bell — as a former soldier, clearly in his element — added the appropriate cliché that “there are no atheists in fox-holes.”
Brief mention must go to a rare gem in the usually grim news-quarry that is the Today programme. Wednesday of last week saw the conclusion of a competition in which the public were asked to supply new opening paragraphs for oddly titled books.
The winner — Tim Sanders — appropriated the title (and this is a real book) How Green Were the Nazis?, imagining a novel in which the relentless advance of a Panzer Corps division is re-routed in order to avoid an area of special natural beauty.
Their commander’s concluding message as they negotiate the forest is uncompromising: “Keep to the paths, and no shooting.” |
back to Media
previous story
|
next story 
back to top
