May « 2009 « Our Jacob

I’ve come to regard Our Jacob as a place where serious things sometimes crop up, but usually there’s a happy resolution or a soufflé of laughter to balance things out. Not tonight. No fun to be had tonight. The country is quietly convulsing with the publication of the Child Abuse Commission’s report into religious abuses of our children over the last 70 years.

It’s big and it’s ugly. Comes to over 2,600 pages and it’s far beyond sobering. It’s nothing short of hideous. It’s even got its very own unlucky chapter 13 dedicated to the special abuse of special needs children. Fifty eight of them. A heavy thank you to the ever watchful and flinchless eye of Suzy B for this.

I want to gnaw my knuckles off, hide my head. It’s almost 3am but how can I sleep with the weight of this horror? These MONSTERS are beyond my contempt. These people who lived within a comfortable complicity and whose perversions were allowed, through church and state collusion, to flourish at the expense of thousands of defenceless children.

Image by Gerald Scarfe in The Sunday Times

The boards are lit up, around the globe. It’s on The Huffington Post. It’s on the BBC. CBS. It is everywhere. This is not another tired case of some paedophile ruining a child’s life. This is us, the country, Ireland, having to collectively face up to our duties, or our dereliction of them. I am beyond furious, beyond hurt and beyond understanding. I’ve been venting some of the anger over at my friend Bock the Robber‘s site, but to be honest I think if the seas were to be emptied I could fill them again with the rage I feel against so many of the people and institutions against which I have measured myself down the years, only to have found myself wanting.

So I’ll be taking stock of that lost time.

The Catholic Church in Ireland must at this point consider how it will move forward. Meantime, while I try to regain some composure, I will just leave you with a morsel of what’s in the report. This is from that chapter 13, page 241, pertaining specifically to special needs kids.

13.31

Witnesses reported that while attending special needs services they were physically abused and assaulted by various means including being hit with leather straps, canes, spade and broom handles, various types of sticks and brushes, kitchen implements, wooden coat hangers and rulers. They also reported having their heads held under water, being put into cold baths, having their hair cut and pulled, being forcibly fed, and being locked in outhouses, sheds and isolated rooms. Witnesses with sensory impairments described the particular fear and trauma associated with being physically abused when they could not see or hear abusers approaching them.

God in Heaven I am angry tonight.

I’ve had my behind soft-kicked by His Girl Friday because I’ve been so lazy. And fair play. We’ve been busy and never seem to be on top of things, but that’s no excuse.

I wanted to mention how delighted we are with Cathal’s progress. We’ve gotten very fond of the wee man (even though we STILL haven’t met yet) and we were all anxious when his cardio surgery was announced. Thankfully he’s past that now and well on the way to terrorising the household. His supergran Nan P has been doing a great job of keeping us up to date, and now we’re getting the full, dramatic story from his mum too, now that she has a minute. Makes for nervy reading by times, but cardio issues are a reality for two out of five kids with DS, so it’s important to know.

On a different note entirely, a grim smile was afforded by the news that Sequenom’s shares fell by a huge amount last week. You may remember quite a while back that I wrote on the release of their ‘wonder drug’ that could detect DS in utero. The fear being, of course, that early positive detection would mean early abortions. This won’t stop them, of course, but losing money is the only thing that this particular shower of monkeys will ever understand. *** them. (Insert triumphalist swear word here.)

I wrote a while back about August’s upcoming World DS Congress. I had hoped to attend, but at €375 per guardian attending, and €200 per person with DS, it’s unjustifiably steep for us. I’m sure they’ll do well, I know it’s a huge organisational task for them and the costs are no doubt enormous but nonetheless I am a little dismayed that the prices are quite so high.

Finally, on an up note, I want to link to Hammie and give her a massive round of applause for the great work she’s been doing on her own website and also at Irish Autism Action. This is one tireless lady and I have huge admiration for her. Drop in and learn a thing or two about what the autie crowd are doing to push their agenda. Plus, if you want to see what a great big softie of a Boyzone member looks like when he’s having a little cry, Hammie’s the woman to go to. 😉