New Administration

Every January millions of people embark on their get fit programmes to reclaim lost youth and shed the pounds acquired over the festive season. A New Administration in their head dictates what they cannot eat and how long they must stay on the treadmill or in the sauna. The bathroom scales take a pounding and guilt drives compliance – at least in the short term. Gym owners everywhere are accustomed to the surge in membership each January and rely on a rapid disillusionment and high drop-out rate to ensure that their facilities can cope adequately with their regular members – the rank and file, dutiful attendees who take their exercise seriously, if perhaps ineffectively, as part of a healthy lifestyle. Across the Atlantic Donald Trump has just become the 45th President of the United States and his dictates and his new administration are already causing distress. Behind the headline grabbing Supreme Court appointments, Tweet pronouncements and phone call tantrums there are tens of thousands of administrators struggling to keep up and implement leadership decisions. There are also provocative military manoeuvres in the world’s oceans and along Russia’s borders. Already there are reports of bewildered administrators refusing to implement decisions from above. They face punitive sanctions of course, it wouldn’t do to encourage civil disobedience, but the heightened state of tension, fear and hatred among the masses is generally accepted as normal. The dutiful patriots take their NATO exercises seriously but certainly ineffectively and grossly unhealthily as far as de-escalation and world peace is concerned. Here in Northern Ireland we will also be asked to choose a new administration at the start of March. One can hope that we elect representatives that see a bigger picture and dedicate themselves to improving society rather than just their bank balances. Here, more than in any other part of the UK, there is a dependence on the public sector for employment. So there tends to be an ineffective use of public funds and an unhealthy reliance on state support. There is also a reticence to think about how things can improve as though it’s too risky to stand out and stand up for change. Until we do however the absurdity of failed policy will continue buoyed along by the momentum of the status quo and fuelled by ignorance if not deliberate deception. At the Ark Community Garden in Newcastle a serious movement is gathering pace. As Aldous Huxley would have recognised, it’s subversive in the extreme; it’s based on truth. The idea that God has provided everything we need to thrive if we only seek to work with nature rather than against it. Yes, as spring approaches the propagation trays are ready to provide a bumper crop of seedlings for the raised beds containing the richest soil we can make. God willing, the garden will be transformed this summer so that our community witnesses an abundant harvest of organic vegetables that can bring us robust health. This is true resistance to a world gone mad. It’s called Regeneration. More than campaigning for sanity and simply resisting the status quo, we can show the superior yield and better health resulting from simple practices of yesteryear before our agricultural and medical systems were hijacked by the petrochemical industry. Resist the ‘Special Relationship’ between the US and the UK becoming an excuse for an influx of GMO patented seeds to Ireland and an acceleration of the poisoning of our people. We don’t need sabre rattling in Poland, Mexican walls, attacks on immigrants or resource squandering wood-chip stove scandals distracting us from the fact that we have everything we need right under our feet. Let’s build a united and healthy community. Let’s install a new administration of our own. Let’s regenerate our own special relationship with the soil and live a better way of life.