BLOGPOST SPECIAL: KNOWLEDGE OVER? KNOWLEDGE WITH?

Colm Cille Spirals: Creative Convention: The Fold

Verbal Arts Centre, Derry. Saturday 30/11/2013

The Opening Speech ©Dave Duggan 2013

KNOWLEDGE OVER? KNOWLEDGE WITH?

Good afternoon. Tráthnóna maith.

I work as a dramatist and novelist, so you'll not be surprised that my point of departure is a story. It is said that Colm Cille – that's his working name. His mother and father named him Criomhthann and he was born beside a pristine lake at Gartan, a short drive north of here. The story has it that Colm Cille was in Iona, an island off the west coast of Scotland, when he realised that a colleague had fallen from a round tower in Durrow, which is in the middle of Ireland and a good deal more than a short drive from Iona. Colm Cille immediately despatched an angel to Durrow, who caught the falling colleague and brought him safely back to earth.

I suggest this – realising as knowing; despatching angels as communicating - this places Colm Cille in the forefront of the knowledge economy of an age of major social transition. We convene today to re-interpret the legacy of this wondrous man, a man who resembles The Hero with a Thousand Faces, as described by Joseph Campbell:

The hero becomes less and less fabulous, until at last, in the final stages of the local traditions, legends open into the common daylight of recorded time.

We need to be wary of 'the great man' theory of history, with its byways of singularity, hierarchy and sexism. Wary, also, of the term 'legacy'. Not for any doubt of Colm Cille. But because of a very public controversy between local government, cultural brokers, social commentators, journalists and politicians about the legacy of the splendid cultural programme of the year 2013.

That legacy is hard to re-interpret. How much harder must it be to re-interpret 'legacy' for a character in the middle of the 6th century?

I propose, instead, that we consider the term 'concrete outcomes' in re-interpreting the life and work of Colm Cille, as they appear in the themes of this creative convention – departure, pilgrimage, land and, in particular, knowledge.

If you depart from this fine building, onto Bishop Street, then turn left, past The Court House, then take a right, up some steps, you'll find a Cathedral named for Colm Cille, in the Latin form of his name, Columb. There are the two villages in Cornwall, that are further concrete outcomes of the life of this wondrous man; they are St. Columb Major and St. Columb Minor. Perhaps Colm Cille sent angels to Cornwall, further evidence of ethereal web connections across time and land, a sort of 6th century internet.

The 21st century internet's website of the nearby Cathedral tells us that its primary purpose is the worship of Almighty God. The stone and mortar, glass and wood that humans shaped manifest a very concrete outcome of the man Colm Cille aka Criomhthann, aka Columb. Not five hundred metres below us, towards the boggy side of this island city, is the beautiful church at the Long Tower called St Columba. Another name. And another concrete outcome and continuation of the work of Colm Cille, the Christian missionary.

He was possessed with new knowledge. This big, new story, a Roman one, was brought by Patrick and other zealots, men fired up by The Good News. An earlier Roman story, when their heroes were Caesar and The Gods, never quite made it to these northerly regions.

But the later Roman story, brought by Patrick and other knowledge economists of his age, had just one God and achieved great purchase in the same regions. So fired up were Colm Cille and others by this new knowledge that they mimicked the heroes of the first version of the new story and departed in bands of 12 single men, led by one special man, such as Colm Cille, who frequently appeared suffused in light.

Such a departure is more than emigration. If there are any Australians present, I thank you, on behalf of the people of Ireland, for welcoming and giving work to our children, when we have failed to. We will want them back, of course, at least some of them. Rather than economic migrants, as the bulk of today's departers are, Colm Cille stood in the prow of a boat-load of pilgrims; voyagers on a proselytising, spiritual mission, with a knowledge purpose, driven by the new-knowledge that burned within them. A magnificent image of this pilgrim departure is seen in the painting above the stage at St. Columb's Hall, opposite Badger's pub on Newmarket Street.

A children’s book I found in Little Acorns bookshop tells the story of the founding of the city of Derry by Colm Cille. Like all foundation stories, it is contested. In this telling, Colm Cille is granted a wonderful wooded island in the middle of a great river by a local king. Try warlord instead of king. Now, the first thing Colm Cille does is burn the great trees down and denude the forested hill. The king is appalled at this wanton destruction of the earth's resources and the land. Colm Cille says he is ridding the hill of pagan spirits. Try evil/bad/lesser/wrong instead of pagan. I put the book down and felt depressed and confused.

These feelings deepened when I read that the publication was supported by The Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), an educational body charged with advancing knowledge. What is the concrete outcome of a foundation myth based on the dereliction of the environment and the land?

I suggest that, as well as being an early human form of a light sabre and a precursor to our impoverished internet - nowadays we can only send terse emails and receive spam, not angels – Colm Cille was also an early master of the knowledge economy, when he burned the oakgrove, according to The Curriculum Council, and very definitely, when he departed to Iona.

I am delighted to tell you that The Oakgrove still exists. It is now a pub. Instead of turning left at The Courthouse, turn right and leave the walled city, onto Bishop Street Without for about three hundred metres and there it is. The Oakgrove. It features in the print edition of a local satirical magazine, Pure Derry - an ideal stocking filler for the not-so-easily-offended local and the jocular-if-bemused visitor.

Pure Derry reports that St Columb/Colm Cille – Pure Derry treats him as Fathers Ted, Dougal and Jack would - it is an ecumenical matter - using both forms of the name – Pure Derry reports that Colm Cille was arrested by the Police Service of Northern Ireland's Historical Inquiries Team due a battle he started in 561 over a book. The fact that this larger-than-life man can feature in contemporary satire is another concrete outcome. Another re-interpretation. There is a further story in Pure Derry, in which the success of the festival, The Return of Colm Cille, is said to rest upon the marketing ploy of basking the city in an horrendous amount of sunshine.

Together with thousands of fellow citizens, I attended the climax of that festival on the banks of the River Foyle. This was the battle between a metal sculpture of a dragon, spewing fire and smoke and a wee, white-cowled figure, suffused by light. Citizens noted the David and Goliath reference. And the telling use of light and darkness. This display re-interpreted the big story of Colm Cille putting down The Loch Ness monster – described by Colm Cille as dracus magnus deterrimus terribilis. This story is found in the life of Colm Cille, Vita Columbae, written by Adhamhnán, an abbot on Iona at the end of the 7th century. Now, Adhamhnán was a major figure in the knowledge economy of his day. He took the life and work of Colm Cille and wrote it up in banner headlines. He made it news: a focussed, functional and thoroughly edited form of knowledge.

I'm reminded of the newspaperman at the end of John Ford's magnificent film of social transition, The Man who shot Liberty Valance. The newspaperman famously says: This is The West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. Locally, country people round here say This is the west, sur. Give me the legend and thons a fact sur.

I sensed I was in a post-modern west as I stood on the bank of the river Foyle watching the fire-breathing dragon face the cowled Colm Cille. We're Northern Europeans, in the main, tribally Anglo-Americans, thus all cultures, the past and the present are, post-modernly, 'ours'.

Behind me was The Mandarin Palace, not a regal residence, but a family-friendly Chinese restaurant run by Stan Lee, who often performs an Elvis impersonation for delighted diners.

There we stood, in front of The Mandarin Palace, itself an image of the source of the new story – the new knowledge economy - coming from the east, watching a spectacle that mimicked a Chinese dragon in a Chinese water painting.

Many of my fellow citizens strained to see the spectacle and held modern devices above their heads to catch images of the scene. Tablets, notepads, smart phones, androids, iphones and ipads – many of them built by Mandarin-speaking workers in China - all raised on high, as if in votive offering to the images in front of us; a spectacle of fire and war, conflict, victory and defeat.

These are concrete outcomes of the life and times of the marvellous man Colm Cille, manifesting a particular view of conflict and the morality of violence, with definitions of just war, unburdened of ethical irony.

I remember leaving the riverside with the thought that, for dramatic effect, it's hard to beat war and violence. Could we imagine a river spectacle, where a bucketful of rate-payers ten-pound notes are sent up in smoke in a fireworks extravaganza, to the great pleasure of the citizenry, myself included, a great light and dark spectacle, to mark the anniversary of a peace treaty? Or the ending of poverty in our city? Just as The Devil is said to have all the best tunes, the producers of war stories have all the best spectacles, it seems.

Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka, asserts that politics and religion are two sides of the spinning coin of power. A widely-held contemporary notion asserts that knowledge is power; political, religious and economic power. And that there are two manifestations of power: power with, which we know as solidarity and power over, which we know as oppression.

This leads to the vexing problem that arises at all times of transition, such as when Colm Cille and his fellows pilgrimaged their way across these islands. This problem is described by Richard Rorty, as

the problem of how to overcome authority without claiming authority.

By accepting the assertion that equates knowledge with power, it follows that there are two forms of knowledge; knowledge with and knowledge over. Which form of knowledge did Colm Cille manifest in his working life and thus, how might we re-interpret his legacy: what are the concrete outcomes today?

Writing is at the core of this, obviously. And that's not special pleading on my part. The ability of Colm Cille and his colleagues to produce magnificent illustrated texts of their good news story imbued the story with added-value, portability and longevity.

Let me advise you, then, of another possible Christmas present, one that is a legacy of the work of the manuscript illuminators. There is a new edition, just published, of the famous Belgian comic book series, Asterix. I recommend it highly, for its fascinating illustration of the type of social transition that is underway globally at present. The new edition is called Asterix and The Picts, which echoes the era of Colm Cille.

In our current understandings, The Picts were on Iona when Colm Cille landed. Let us consider that another concrete outcome of the life and work of Colm Cille is knowledge over The Picts, who I suggest are 'people before', like the Pagan Celts of Patrick's age in Ireland – people with perfectly serviceable forms of ritual, social organisation, law, economics, cosmic world views, ethics, as well as domestic arrangements.

There's an exhibition of beautiful Iron Age decorative work in gold, called The Broighter Hoard, currently on display at The Tower Museum just off The Guildhall Square, as evidence of organised and self-aware social arrangements among such 'people before'.

The marvellous fire garden in St. Columb's Park as part of this weekend's Lumiére festival is a contemporary re-interpretation of a pagan light and dark story. There, in the middle of the trees and the light, is a marvellous statue of Colm Cille.

When knowledges come into contention, as they did in Iona in Colm Cille's age, the arriviste surely feels

Our knowledge is good. Yours is, well, not great. It's not as good as ours. And that's true of your language, your rituals, your economics, your customs, your laws and your domestic arrangements.

It's only natural, I suggest. Especially if you've made a long and arduous journey – a pilgrimage - across Sruth na Maoile, the Moyle Strait, to land this new knowledge.

In the lore from Colm Cille's time, the Picts are said to be small, sturdy people, with long hair and large feet. There's something runty about them. The Picts are lesser. Thus, is it not proper - necessary - to bring them the good news story, the new knowledge? It is also said of them that their feet were so large that they could shelter themselves from the rain by standing on their heads.

I ask us now to visualise, to envision; I ask us now to imagine a young Pict couple, peering out from the hedgerows that creep close to the shores of Iona, their beloved land. It is not raining, so they are upright and they can see an incoming boat. The young man counts twelve figures in sodden brown cloaks and one luminous figure, cowled in white. He asks:

Do you think the story they have will make our lives better?

The young woman ponders a moment, before replying:

They must think it's good. We'll see.

The rain begins to fall and they stand on their heads.

It is held that the arrival of the new knowledge in Ireland with Patrick, and in Iona with Colm Cille, and the major social changes that ensued, occurred without bloodshed. That this is remarkable is obvious, given the evidence of great blood-letting across Europe within and between Christian communities and with communities holding other forms of knowledge. Montesquieu, the French Enlightenment writer, is quoted in Sam Peckinpah's famous film blood-fest, Straw Dogs, when three characters, one of them a minister of religion, exchange views.

After all, there's never been a kingdom given to so much bloodshed as that of Christ.

That's Montesquieu, isn't it?

Oh, really? Who's he?

Somebody well worth reading.

The arrivistes with the new knowledge and the possessors of the existing knowledge are both in contact and in conflict, not least in terms of cultural violence, as defined by peace researcher Johan Galtung, as any aspect of a culture that can be used to legitimize violence.

In the era following Colm Cille, hymns appeared mixing Irish and Latin, illustrating the tension between the existing knowledge and the new knowledge. A famous one is associated with the Donegal monk Maol Íosa Ó Brolcháin, written in the macaronic form Latin, Irish, Irish, Latin.

Deus meus adiuva me

Tabhair dom do shearch, a Mhic ghil Dé

Tabhair dom do shearch, a Mhic ghil Dé

Deus meus adiuva me.

Ironically, in our age, it is the people before, the ones who hold to the story, the good news, broadcast by Colm Cille, who are most threatened by the arrival of the not-so-new knowledge of secularism and the post-modern technological tsunami driving it from the east. The 'people before' are experiencing a major transition as illustrated by the different stories we tell and live regarding birth control and the genders of the people with whom we have sexual congress. And by fundamentalist tellings of the story broadcast by Colm Cille, widespread in the world. Are these forms of re-interpretation, concrete outcomes of the legacy of Colm Cille?

Are we left with the foreshortened horizon offered by another French man, this time mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal?

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Or is it the case that an expansive, pilgrim impulse is required for transition to occur, through a blending of knowledge with and knowledge over?

If contemporary knowledge economists such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckermann had sat quietly in a room, instead of galvanising multi-billion pound operations at Microsoft, Apple and Facebook, would we notice any difference in the fold and flux of the essential lives we lead?

And here I make a personal confession. I have not sat quietly in a room alone. I have travelled and worked, in particular in South-east Asia and in West Africa, in a late nineteen seventies' form of secular pilgrimage known as voluntary service, based on the presumption that my knowledge – my story - was better, and thus desirable, to the peoples I had the good fortune to live among.

I very quickly found that I gained more than I imparted. And that the pilgrimage of solidarity I was engaged in benefitted me more than it did the people I grew to know and cherish. Then, there are my plays and novels, films and other dramas – are they not pilgrimages of knowledge, thrust into the world, as knowledge with and knowledge over?

Let us finally consider two cultural manifestations of knowledge transition underway today, which we could interpret as concrete outcomes of the life and times of Colm Cille and many others.

Following an imperial model developed as The British Council - French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and American instances exist - the Chinese state is bringing a new story - their own good news - all across the world with the establishment of Confucius Institutes. These are contemporary centres of learning, with modern zealots teaching and writing, sharing and advancing the good news they hold to. A number of them are open in Ireland currently, including one in Coleraine. Rooted in the life and work of the sage Confucius – we can readily see parallels with Colm Cille, I suggest – the centres do not offer transcendence but culture, language and, of course, possibilities for trade and enterprise. For pilgrimage read trade mission. This is a new story, coming our way and currently in contest with the stories we already have.

Another instance of the new story, present in a pilgrimage of a sporting character, is the arrival of numerous new owners of British soccer clubs. The contest between the new owners' story of what soccer is - a corporate manifestation of leisure consumerism - and the old story of a locale of social class and regional identity, grounded in participatory sporting rivalries - is most obvious in the case of Cardiff City Football Club.

Traditionally known as The Blue Birds, the new Malaysian Chinese owners, with their new story, changed the club shirt colours to red, a symbol of good fortune in the east. The transition is partial currently. At home games, red club shirts are visible underneath blue jackets as the two stories of Cardiff City Football Club contend in the crowded stands.

I offer these as two contemporary, concrete outcomes of the life and times of Colm Cille. And of many other people who took new knowledge - knowledge with and knowledge over - to distant places and set them with and against existing knowledges – stories – in those places.

Can we now re-interpret Colm Cille's legacy through these lenses, labelled knowledge with and knowledge over? If Colm Cille had stayed in the house, would we be talking about him today?

Would we be seeking concrete outcomes from his life in order to re-interpret them? Would we be different? Better?

I'm back to the pragmatist Richard Rorty again when he says that

modern, literate, secular societies depend on the existence of reasonably concrete, optimistic and plausible political scenarios and that in order to retain social hope, members of such a society need to be able to tell themselves a story about how things might get better.

In wishing you and this convention all good wishes, let me close with a nod to an earlier creative convention, Fairport Convention, fronted by the miraculous Sandy Denny, who sang

Who knows where the time goes, who knows where the time goes.

I am back at the river, as always, the river Foyle; swept up there in the flux and fold of time; past then, present now and future always.

Songwriter Eamon Friel writes

How can the river be where it was

When it's forever running away?

The Pictish couple; the people before; us – we are beside the river, a site of departure and return. We shelter from the rain, share stories we create; and stand on our heads.

Thank you. And good luck. Go raibh maith agaibh agus ádh mór.

©Dave Duggan 2013