RADIO REVIEW/Harry Browne: In the week when Rupert Murdoch's position at the pinnacle of Irish soccer was (at least temporarily) affirmed, and thus hundreds of thousands of us revisited involuntarily the traditional pleasures of football on the radio, it was fitting that we heard the first programme of Wealth, Power and Protest - the Story of Globalisation (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday).
Too bad Ronan Tynan's and Anne Daly's earnest and clear new series seems to fall into RTÉ's "not ready for prime-time" category, because the debates deserve to be morning-radio mainstays, not Monday-night fillers. the series started, appropriately if over-ambitiously, by looking at what might be seen as the two institutional poles of the argument, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Zapatista movement.
However, the show was less about either of these bodies and more about the feelings they engender. Fittingly, the music chosen to be the evening's emotional keynote was Something Inside So Strong, with its stirring lyric about "the higher you build your barriers . . ." Or it could have been fitting, if you were ready to believe that using the song in this context reclaimed it bravely from its cheesy corporate association as background music for TV advertising. I wasn't quite buying it.
Tynan baldly stated, with supporting evidence, that "the unfair nature of world trade plays a key role in keeping poor countries poor". Since even the WTO's director now seems to accept this, it's probably not terribly controversial, but it remains absent from the feast of international politics and media, despite the efforts of the best No to Nice campaigners. Having made this vaguely brave statement,the show shied away from explaining how the WTO sustains "unfairness".
Good stats though. For example, Japan has 25 negotiators permanently committed to the WTO in Geneva; Bangladesh has one; another 29 countries have none at all. Trade restrictions, according to Oxfam, cost poor countries $100 billion a year, twice as much as they receive in aid. A far smaller share of global direct investment and capital movement goes to less-developed countries today than it did 100 years ago. They are all decent debating points next time you're faced with a capitalist pig - I mean no offence to any readers by the phrase; since a recent Fortune magazine article revealed that the executives and directors of the 1,000 or so companies whose share prices collapsed furthest managed to cash in $66 billion in shares before the crash, the term can only possibly be considered offensive to pigs.
So what's globalisation then? One talking head told how Ireland had benefited since the mid-19th century from the best facet of globalisation, freedom for people to migrate: it meant remittances from abroad and less pressure on resources back home. Sadly, that seems to be the freedom most despised by today's western elite. Participants made a good case for the Zapatista Encuentro in 1996 as the key moment in building opposition to such neo-liberal hypocrisy and exploitation. As one Irishman who trekked to the Mexican mecca explained: "I ended up being involved in the movement before I even knew it was there."
What about those Irishmen who trekked to Colombia? I have no intimate knowledge of their motivation, but personally, I've long suspected it was a sort of junket. On Tonight with Vincent Browne (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday to Thursday), Suzanne Breen made a similar comment about other alleged IRA espionage: "It's occupational therapy for the hard men," she said. Breen also repeated suggestions MI5 may have been playing a therapeutic role by ensuring low-grade information was available to the IRA "spies".
Browne sounds in good humour these evenings - his chat with Breen brought him much amusement when he joked about the "impotence" of the Official IRA "here". (Wherever did he mean?) He's been getting a similar kick from the comedy sketches that have become, to use a Dunphy phrase, "an integral part of the programme". To judge by the abuse being flung in both directions by the two ground-breaking broadcasters, Browne won't particularly appreciate comparison with Eamo - let alone the assertion by the Evening Herald that Tonight has been remade in the image of The Last Word (Today FM, Monday to Friday). There are a number of objections to that claim, but the chief of them for me, just now, is that Navan Man was generally funny, while the likes of The Castrati on Tonight generally ain't.
Navan Man's decision to split The Last Word must surely have hastened Dunphy's decision to do likewise. In fairness, Dunphy hasn't made it sound like the grind of daily journalism is beneath him, but he has sounded weary, unamused.
On Monday, your radio reviewer took a leap to The Flip Side (NewsTalk 106, Monday to Friday), presenting the show in Daire O'Brien's place for one day only: it was easily the most enervating three-hour shift I have put in. So, to all you presenters, forgive me, for until now I knew not what you did.