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Politics
6 min read

Northern Ireland’s imminent danger is distraction

Distraction damages much more than your concentration. Its consequences could cost Northern Ireland its future.
Smartly dressed politicians sit or mill around a round table.
Rishi Sunak with the leaders of the Northern Ireland Government.
Prime Minister's Office.

Should you be reading this article right now? Are you meant to be working? Perhaps you’re working from home with the glorious ‘freedom’ that brings? Forgive me for judging, but it’s just that I know myself all too well. Dear reader, I must confess to you that in the course of writing this article I have already ‘cut away’ to cricket scores or my fascinating chess match with covidchessfun34 more than a few times. We are an increasingly distractable people. But you’re here now, so whether you landed here through word of mouth or social media, welcome. Much as you would (I am sure) love me to deconstruct yours and my individual psychology and boundaries, my hopefully more important point here is that distraction also operates at a political level.    

It’s been a frustrating few years for the people of Northern Ireland. Which when placed on top of the devastating history of the last 50 years seems a tad cruel. Just when the Good Friday Agreement seemed to have pulled off a miraculous balancing act on the high wire of a divided island with contested history, Brexit came along to throw off NI’s centre of gravity. It was in fact thrown off to such an extent that NI was left just trying to cling on, balance and survive, rendering no forward progress possible. Sadly, the circus metaphor seems appropriate in more ways than one.  

Given that context, you can appreciate how the people of Northern Ireland felt this week when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak flew into Belfast and attempted to educate them. He urged the newly formed Northern Ireland executive to focus on ‘things that matter’ rather than constitutional change. With hospital waiting lists that rival Sierra Leone and some roads that rival, well, Sierra Leone, I think that folks in Northern Ireland get that ‘things that matter’ are the things that matter. Of course, what the Prime Minister is talking about is Northern Ireland’s obsession with the elephant in the room - the border, or the desired removal of it. We don’t just talk about the elephant in the room. We study her in minute detail. We build brand new scientific devices just to study her. So, to be fair to the Prime Minister, ‘Don’t get distracted by the border’ is at a surface level an important thing to hear. Especially as Northern Ireland’s new First Minister Michelle O’Neill has not been shy about putting a United Ireland firmly on the agenda in her first days in office. 

Condescension from someone that knows more than you is challenging, but condescension from someone who knows less than you do really grates. 

But what has grated the good people of Northern Ireland is that this sermon to not be distracted by constitutional change was delivered by one of the chief exponents of Brexit – the biggest constitutional upheaval for Northern Ireland in a generation. The time spent and the regulatory gymnastics involved in trying to do a job of Brexit damage limitation for Northern Ireland has sucked the political energy and life out of these last seven years in Belfast and beyond.  

None of us enjoy condescension. It is that annoying thing that happens when people know more about a subject than we do and lord it over us. But what the people of Northern Ireland have had to endure in this last decade is being lectured by the Jacob Rees-Moggs of this world about the wonders of Brexit, when it became patently clear to most Northern Irish folks that not only had the particular challenges of NI not been fully considered but that even senior Brexit-supporting politicians didn’t actually understand the logistics how NI currently operated within the EU. Condescension from someone that knows more than you is challenging, but condescension from someone who knows less than you do really grates. And that’s only the nuts and bolts we’re talking about. Probably more detrimental was the ignorant blind spot around identity and psychology that was exposed. A palpable lack of knowledge was exposed regarding how the Good Friday Agreement combined with EU membership had created a remarkable ‘safe space’ in Northern Ireland where people who wanted to feel Irish could feel Irish and people who wanted to feel British could feel British. Condescension feels even worse when it seems that people don’t understand your circumstances or care about you.  

The force(s) of darkness are not idiots. They don’t waste time for most of us tempting us with the big stuff. In short, they try to distract us.

So, I put it to you that the consequences of distraction can be large. Those of us with Irish DNA need to hear the challenge that our obsession with the border has led to us not loving our neighbour as ourselves and stolen decades of healthy existence from our island. But might it be wise to at least consider that the distraction of Brexit has stolen and may continue to steal decades of focus on climate change, strengthening family life, healthcare, immigration, economic justice, international peacebuilding, and maintaining local service provision from local councils. In short, ‘things that matter’. 

The temptation is to see distractions as whimsical, temporary things. We think, “ah that quick scroll through Facebook or Instagram may make me less efficient, but it won’t kill me”. But that is exactly how temptation works. If you believe in an invisible battle between good and evil (and I do), then there are some dynamics that are worth considering. If there is a person or an impersonal force tempting me, then it is unlikely to tempt me to do things that are socially and culturally inappropriate in my world. I am not likely to be tempted to murder someone this morning. That would be an inefficient tempting strategy. But it would appear from the state of the world that whoever is in charge of tempting is actually quite good at it. 

That’s why I believe we are more usually tempted not to swing dramatically one way or the other but by a small shift of the needle. Just a little bit more than the day before. Not tempted to kill someone but tempted to score that point in a social media discussion. Not tempted to rob a bank, but tempted to ‘creatively’ adjust small increments in our tax reporting. Not tempted to commit adultery, but tempted to linger too long in a conversation or on a website.  

The force(s) of darkness are not idiots. They don’t waste time for most of us tempting us with the big stuff. In short, they try to distract us. Just a little wander off the main path. Won’t hurt anyone. Won’t take up much time. Except that habits form and unhealthy practices and opinions start to solidify, and ever-so-subtly the wheels may start to come off. Multiply that by a few million people and a whole country can end up hacking through gorse and bushes rather than driving on the track.   

Sure, a marriage can be patched up after innocent distraction becomes a porn addiction, but there will be wounds and scars. We need to acknowledge and repent to allow healing. The people of Northern Ireland know all too well that real reconciliation needs the hard yards of repentance and forgiveness. 

My prayer for the new Northern Ireland executive is that they can avoid further distractions and keep the main thing the main thing. At present only seven per cent of young people in Northern Ireland attend an integrated school. That means that the vast majority of people are growing up not getting to know kids from the other side of the religious divide. In that vacuum the fear, ignorance and prejudice can fester. Our own secret apartheid. That would be one place to start. 

Speaking of which. Get back to work. 

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3 min read

Line judges replaced by robots? You cannot be serious!

Wimbledon is about more than efficiency, it’s about humanity.

Matt is a songwriter and musician, currently completing an MA in theology at Trinity College, Bristol.

Tennis line judges stand and lean forward with hands on knees
Line judges, Wimbledon, 2012.
Carine06, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, I’m not talking about Christmas, but Wimbledon, of course. Two weeks of absolute delight. Tennis matches on the TV non-stop. Incredible displays of athleticism and skill. Wimbledon never fails to be an emotional rollercoaster for Brits as we watch our favourites reaching for glory (to various degrees of success). 

But it’s not just the tennis: it’s the entire aura around the Championships. The Pimm’s & Lemonade; the strawberries and cream. The big serves but bigger personalities. The familiar cadence of retired legends in the commentator box. The ball kids, impeccably disciplined as always, run like the clockwork we come to expect at the tournament. The outrageous Englishness of it all, from the refined fashion to ridiculous costumes, to the umpire’s chiding of the raucous crowd, popping champagne bottles at inappropriate moments. Wimbledon is like a faithful friend, who even after a year of being apart, makes a deep connection instantly. 

However, this year something - or rather someone - seems to be missing. I am of course speaking of our old friends, the line judges. 

Those stoic sentinels, guarding watch over the chalky borders of the court, have gone. In their place, a machine: efficient, faultless (apparently), and it doesn’t require a pension. But we still hear the ghost of the line judges haunting the court: their disembodied voices, recorded for posterity, call out from somewhere in the AI aether. 

Gone are the days of the drama of McEnroe’s ‘you cannot be serious’, and even the Hawkeye challenge - an apparently rude interruption to the gameplay - is no longer necessary. Perhaps this was inevitable: the next step on the path of progress, the realisation of a techno-optimist utopia. Fewer human errors, more tennis for us, even fewer shirts for the All England Club to iron. 

Technological advancement has made our old friends, the line judges, obsolete. 

But I’ve got to be honest, I miss them. It’s not that the technology seems to be glitchy at times, nor that I’m an old-fashioned technophobe. 

I recognise we don’t really need those line judges anymore, but I think, deep down, we do want them. 

Wimbledon is about more than efficiency, it’s about humanity. 

It’s about the on-court drama when a player disagrees with a line call. It’s about the risky moments where a line judge narrowly (and somehow quite elegantly) misses a 120mph serve. Computers eliminate risks, but they also diminish these human moments. 

I miss the line judges like I miss the conversations with people at the bus stop. Both made redundant by the people upstairs who benevolently(?) oversee our technological advancement. 

Our world teaches us to value efficiency, but at what cost? Just picture it, in years to come: the ball kids replaced by a super smart lawn mower with a sucker pipe to retrieve wayward balls, or God-forbid, Tim Henman recreated as an AI commentator avatar. 

Perhaps they may decide that’s a step too far. Perhaps our technocratic overlords may seek to consult a moral authority before destroying all human connection. 

Speaking of moral authorities, I believe in a God who created us, not because he needs us, but because he wants us. He could have made perfect robots with far less risk, far less drama, far less pain. But he chose to create human beings that fail, and frustrate our desire for efficiency. While the potential that AI offers is exciting, I am wary that we lose the potential latent in every human being: to connect. Let’s learn to see others not for their efficiency, but their humanity. 

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