THE obituaries of Ian Paisley make for fascinating reading. It
is easy to forget just how vile his rhetoric most often was, but
the Telegraph's obituarist was happy to remind us: "In
1958 he denounced the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret for
'committing spiritual fornication with the anti-Christ' by visiting
Pope John XXIII. In 1962 he handed out Protestant pamphlets in St
Peter's Square, and accused the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael
Ramsey, of 'slobbering on his slippers' when he met the Pope. In
1963, after John XXIII's death, he expressed his satisfaction that
'this Romish man of sin is now in Hell'."
Incidentally, that last phrase is a reminder of how helpful it
is, when you are going to say something both silly and nasty, to
say it using words that no one would ever speak in ordinary life:
"Romish" does a lot of work in making the poor dead Pope seem
alien.
Paisley could sound exactly like Christopher Hitchens. The
Times quoted his exhortation to a Roman Catholic priest:
"Priest Murphy, speak for your own blood- thirsty, persecuting,
intolerant, blaspheming, political-religious papacy, but do not
dare to be a spokesman of free . . . men." Well, all right, Paisley
referred to "Free Ulster man", which neither Hitchens nor Dawkins
would say, but the phrase does show how much of the Oxford Atheist
rhetoric is lifted almost unchanged from Victorian imperialist
hatred of Rome.
He loved the propaganda of the deed as well. The Times
again: "While forging his early extremist reputation, he produced
and mocked a Roman Catholic eucharist wafer during a televised
speech to the Oxford Union, denouncing those who believed it
sacred, and he famously threw snowballs at Jack Lynch, the Irish
prime minister, when he visited Northern Ireland in 1967."
I don't think the fact that he was later bought off, like the
remains of the IRA, with a share of the spoils of the Peace
Agreement, improves the memory of his moral character at all. On
the other hand, The Guardian, perhaps the least likely
paper to approve of him, had the most touching and humanising
reminiscence, from its Ireland correspondent, Henry McDonald, who
was raised a Catholic in Belfast.
As a teenage Goth, he had come into contact with Paisley's
daughter Rhonda, who ran a mission in the centre of the city:
"Exuding the same charm that her father deployed on the campaign
trail, Rhonda spoke to, had tea with and sometimes counselled the
kids that came together most Saturdays and sometimes after school
at the fountain in the heart of central Belfast.
"Before long, out of pure curiosity, we decided to take up
Rhonda's invite to come up to the Paisley homestead in East
Belfast. There we were treated to games of snooker, vast pyramids
of variously filled sandwiches, and Bible tracts designed to woo us
away from the satanic temptations of early teen sex, drugs and
rock'n'roll.
"Although most of us succumbed to that trio of decadent
delights, Rhonda did succeed at least in showing a side to the
Paisley family that none of us (almost all from
Catholic-Nationalist-Republican backgrounds) ever saw in the media:
a caring, loving family who actually and quite genuinely thought
that all we needed was their help."
IN ALL the concern about the Yazidis who are being so vilely
persecuted in Iraq, not very many have, until now, explained what
it is they actually believe. A long piece by Gerard Russell in the
London Review of Books goes some way to fixing this.
The spiritual leaders, known as Sheikhs, abstain from pork, but
also from lettuce. They have no coherent explanation for the second
prohibition. "The Yazidis, and other religious groups in the hills
and mountains that separate Turkey from the Arab world, preserve
rituals and beliefs that Jullian [the Apostate] would
recognise."
The Yazidis believe the world is ruled by seven angels, of whom
the chief is Malak Taoos, "the peacock angel". He may or may not be
the devil: they identify him with Azazael, and Iblis. "Malak Taoos
was once the chief of all angels; he rebelled against God and was
cast down into hell . . . but repented and was forgiven. And now,
once again governs the world on behalf of the ineffable,
unacknowledgeable deity. Hell, and the devil, no longer exist in
Yazidi theology."
I find this horribly moving, considering the evidence the
Yazidis have all around them (and through most of their history)
for the activity of some force very like the devil.
AND so to the ridiculous. No one seems to have picked up on the
grotesque horror of the "Facilitated conversations" in which the
bishops, in groups of three, must discuss their sexual lives with
one another. If Ian Paisley were still alive, he would undoubtedly
denounce it as a Papist plot to introduce celibacy for all higher
clergy, whatever their inclinations.