Dublin Opinion

This is a blog where important things are discussed, but now and again the personal intervenes when I insist on doing my ‘kids say the darnedest things’ posts. One such is about to follow (apologies in advance if you were looking for a serious discussion).

With the weather being fine this weekend I took myself out to cut the grass for what could be the last time before the temperature regularly drops low enough to stop the fecking stuff growing. My daughter, Hannah was out too, and as usual kept up a steady stream of chat which required me to respond, usually in the voice of one of several possible characters, to whatever fictitious scenario her imagination had her completely embroiled.

I’ve seen fathers become involved intimately with whatever has captured their child’s imagination, but I’m not sure that they have to put on the voice of Shaggy from Scooby Doo when replying to the child. Well, not as regularly as I do, anyway.

However, I realised that I was having one of my absent moments when, while bending to scoop up some loose grass from the driveway I heard Hannah say ‘Daddy’ several times in a frustrated way. I was thinking, you see. I do this now and again, and when I do my mind is away, and I often don’t hear when people are speaking to me, even though they could be standing beside me when they do. In fact, this happens much too often.

On this occasion I was thinking about how some people may consider the narrative of George Bush’s Presidency in the same way as they would a Shakespearean tragedy. Not as George Bush as the tragic hero, but as the usurper of power. Many of Shakespeare’s tragedies and indeed the majority of his plays have a common structure. They start off with everything in order. One might call it the natural order, where the hierarchy is established and everyone knows their place. Then something happens to turn this on its head, a King abdicates and splits his Kingdom among two of his three children. A black man rises to the rank of general, a General murders his King based on a prophecy, the Duke of Milan is tricked out of his principality. A series of catastrophes ensues where the usurper tries to maintain control until eventually they are vanquished and normal order returns. In the case of George Bush some might see him as a usurper, especially as he didn’t win the popular vote in 2000 and there was all that business of hanging chads.

Further on from that there was a series of catastrophes, 9/11, which was an event outside of his control, but many others, which were an attempt to place control over a society that was becoming increasingly uneasy with the nature of his Presidency, were. The ensuing state of fear, of secrecy, the curbing of personal liberty, the flouting of national laws, the patent disregard for international conventions, the draconian security measures and so on.

Internationally too there seems to be such a patent disregard for life combined with a desperate attempt to consolidate power in a region upon which the world is dependent for its supply of oil. There are those who also say, as Edgar does in King Lear “We have not seen the worst while we can still say “this is the worst”, and as the situation in Iraq deteriorates and a confrontation with Iran increasingly on the cards they seem to almost wish that the worst would happen soon so that finally someone from the old aristocratic order would step in and shout stop or vanquish the usurper so that the rightful order can be returned (although what this rightful order could be is anyone’s guess).

Anyway, I was having this thought when I heard ‘Daddy’ again. ‘Oh I’m sorry’, I said, ‘I was thinking’.

‘Uhhhh, Daaaaddddy’.

‘There’s nothing wrong with it, Hannah. I’m sure you do plenty of thinking.’

‘Oh yes’, she said, ‘but mostly only when I’m sitting on the toilet’.