Stand up and Surf

For many years we listened to our leaders telling us how strong a nation we where, how good it was to be here, how fortunate we were to be living the dream, how successful our economy was and how it was a model for all others to aspire too. We listened intently to the message and we acted as instructed. Homes were bought and sold in a manner akin to buying a coffee. We had a multitude of choice, half fat, skinny, full fat, double shot etc. etc, and we loved our coffee.

The bankers played their part, in the role of Master Barista, blending the beans to suit a variety of tastes. They offered us a vast menu filled with a variety of propositions to suit each and every one of us, encouraged by access to cheap money and promoted by the state, these masters of our addiction served us till we could drink no more. Today many coffee shops, like a great many other service sector businesses, are closed. A few have survived with the help of the state but in reality they are closed for business, their shelves may be full of beans but the Master Barista is no longer brewing.

When the times were good we experienced a level of happiness and contentment few before us had ever experienced. Our generation no longer looked to holiday at home, the world was our playground, warm sunny climes with calm seas our reward. The calm seas of our contented minds were the result of our general happiness. Small issues caused ripples across the sea but barely, if ever, made land.

However we now find that the pressure is building, waves have started to form that are capable of breaking on our shores and should that pressure continue to increase and multiply, the inevitable storm will rage against us.

Today, in Ireland, we the citizens are battling against raging storms within our minds caused by the pressure of everyday struggles. We find ourselves barley living the life we were repeatedly encouraged to live, looking for a reason as to why it has changed so much, abandoned to the crashing waves of debt with no one willing to safe us.

Alone and cold we now survive our daily lives without our coffee, replaced with regret and mourning, we suffer the withdrawal symptoms of a life we once had knowing in our heart of hearts that it is gone for good. Everyday is a struggle, everyday brings more and more waves of pressure, everyday we ask why, everyday we see injustice, everyday we feel threatened, and everyday the waves come closer to our shores. These incoming waves of pressure have started to create, in many, an opposing wave of anger directed towards those who encouraged our folly.

And this wave of anger, of demands for a solution, of claims for rights trampled on by the state and the banks, which is beginning to sweep the land of Ireland, will not stop. This wave will swell with every passing day and a storm will rage, in the hearts and minds of the citizens, in streets of every town and city. What will survive is unknown the storm however is now inevitable.

We the people of Ireland must decide to either stand up and surf or seek shelter on faraway shores of faraway lands leaving our once proud nation devoid of hope for a brighter future…

“And the wave of anger, of demands for justice, of claims for rights trampled underfoot, which is beginning to sweep the lands of Latin America, will not stop. That wave will swell with every passing day”

Che Guevara, United Nations General assembly, 11 December 1964