The Forgotten Maggies is the debut documentary of Steven O’ Riordan and Ger Boland. Launched at the Galway Film Festival 2009. The documentary follows the lives of several Magdalene Women who were incarcerated into Irelands infamous Magdalene Laundries.This is a clip from the documentary which explores the human rights aspect of these institutions. For more information please visit www.magdalenesurvivorstogehter.com
1 What’s the right thing to do?
Michael Sandel, American political philosopher, discusses the processes that involve ethical and moral debates. According to Sandel, such discussions do not boil down to the exposition of individual opinions, nor to the search for the correct answer.
Argumentation, persuasion, storytelling and other elements must come into play for groups to learn to resolve impasses about values such as justice and well-living.
Transcript and video
Please enjoy the Harvard course:
2 A sense of purpose
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Frence
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What a speech.
The way he humanizes politics and conveys the importance of social awareness and pursuing ones passions above ones mere short-sited desires.
This man will go down in the history books as one of the greatest Presidents, as well as human beings, of all time.
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Wat een toespraak.
De manier waarop hij politiek vermenselijkt en het belang van sociaal bewustzijn en het nastreven van je passies
boven je kortstondige verlangens overbrengt.
Deze man zal de geschiedenisboeken ingaan als een van de grootste presidenten, en ook als mens, aller tijden.
Frence
Quel discours !
La façon dont il humanise la politique et transmet l’importance de la conscience sociale et de la poursuite de ses passions au-dessus de ses simples désirs à court terme.
Cet homme restera dans les livres d’histoire comme l’un des plus grands présidents, ainsi que des êtres humains, de tous les temps.
Transcript:
OBAMA TO GRADUATES CULTIVATE EMPATHY
“The world doesn’t just revolve around you”
June 19, 2006 – Barack Obama was then 45 years old
Barack Obama speaks in an inspired way and with humour of the chalk lines of life.
Walking in someone else his shoes
Growing up from a child into adulthood.
The accountability you owe to a child, to life and to society.
He humbly tells the story of his own life.
“As you go on in life, cultivating this quality of empathy will become harder, not easier.”
A few inspiring lines from Barack Obama’s excellent speech
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…
‘Which drove home for me the first lesson of growing up:
The world doesn’t just revolve around you.
There’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us – the child who’s hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room,‘
…
‘I was tired too. But at that point, I looked outside and saw some young boys playing in a vacant lot across the street, tossing stones at boarded-up apartment building. And I turned to the volunteers, and I asked them, “Before you quit, I want you to answer one question. What’s gonna happen to those boys? Who will fight for them if not us? Who will give them a fair shot if we leave?”
And at that moment, we were all reminded of a third lesson in growing up:
Persevere.
Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it’s not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t.
it’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere. ‘
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…
‘Wat me de eerste les van het opgroeien bijbracht:
De wereld draait niet alleen om jou.
Er wordt in dit land veel gepraat over het federale tekort. Maar ik denk dat we meer moeten praten over ons empathie tekort – het vermogen om onszelf in de schoenen van iemand anders te schuiven; om de wereld te zien door diegenen die anders zijn dan wij – het kind dat honger heeft, de ontslagen staalarbeider, de immigrantenvrouw die je studentenkamer opruimt,’
…
‘Ik was ook moe. Maar op dat moment keek ik naar buiten en zag aan de overkant van de straat een paar jongetjes op een braakliggend terrein met stenen gooien naar een dichtgetimmerd flatgebouw. En ik wendde me tot de vrijwilligers en vroeg hen: “Voordat jullie stoppen, wil ik dat jullie één vraag beantwoorden. Wat gaat er met die jongens gebeuren? Wie zal er voor hen vechten als wij dat niet doen? Wie zal hen een eerlijke kans geven als wij weggaan?”
En op dat moment werden we allemaal herinnerd aan een derde les in opgroeien:
Doorzetten.
Je stempel op de wereld drukken is moeilijk. Als het makkelijk was, zou iedereen het doen. Maar dat is het niet. Het vergt geduld, het vergt toewijding, en het gaat gepaard met veel mislukkingen onderweg. De echte test is niet of je deze mislukking vermijdt, want dat doe je niet.
Het is of je je erdoor laat verharden of je ervoor schaamt niets te doen, of dat je ervan leert; of dat je ervoor kiest door te zetten. ‘
3 The conscience of a society
Please enjoy the inspiring speech…
When justice breaks the life of a child, notwithstanding children’s eyes, one puts him in the worst possible life situation, whereas every day could be the best in life.
4 The authenticity of others pain
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- in economics we learned to quantify and dehumanize suffering,
- we learn that poverty, inequality, unemployment are unavoidable,
- that so long as we reach equilibrium people who live on pennies a day are somehow better off,
- in social studies and sociology we learn to treat others suffering as an academic exercise to ponder their pain from a distance,
- we critique structural inequality and oppression.
Excerpt from A beautiful speech by Jonathan Roberts | Harvard Commencement 2017
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De echtheid van andermans pijn
- In de economie leerden we lijden te kwantificeren en te ontmenselijken,
- We leren dat armoede, ongelijkheid en werkloosheid onvermijdelijk zijn,
- dat zolang we een evenwicht bereiken, mensen die leven van weinig geld op de een of andere manier beter af zijn,
- in sociale studies en sociologie leren we het lijden van anderen te behandelen als een academische oefening om op afstand over hun pijn na te denken,
- bekritiseren we structurele ongelijkheid en onderdrukking.
5 The mother and baby homes in Ireland
The barbarity with which religious people treat the lives of people, especially children, is at odds with respect, ethics and human rights.
It is incomprehensible that those who live a life based on religiosity have such a poor understanding of the reality of life.
This incongruity of human cruelty has persisted for almost a century. Virtually the entire twentieth century.
1 The Magdalene Laundries Ireland – ‘ The Forgotten Maggies’ trailer.
The official Documentary
That was child slavery
Please take the time to watch the horror of the Magdalene laundries
It is shocking. it is beyond words.
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The Magdalene Laundries
by Joni Mitchell
I was an unmarried girl
I’d just turned twenty-seven
When they sent me to the sisters
For the way men looked at me
Branded as a jezebel
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I’d be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries
Most girls come here pregnant
Some by their own fathers
Bridget got that belly
By her parish priest
We’re trying to get things white as snow
All of us woe-begotten-daughters
In the steaming stains
Of the Magdalene laundries
Prostitutes and destitutes
And temptresses like me
Fallen women
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery
Why do they call this heartless place
Our Lady of Charity?
Oh charity!
These bloodless brides of Jesus
If they had just once glimpsed their groom
Then they’d know and they’d drop the stones
Concealed behind their rosaries
They wilt the grass they walk upon
They leech the light out of a room
They’d like to drive us down the drain
At the Magdalene laundries
Peg O’Connell died today
She was a cheeky girl
A flirt
They just stuffed her in a hole!
Surely to God you’d think at least some bells should ring!
One day I’m going to die here too
And they’ll plant me in the dirt
Like some lame bulb
That never blooms come any spring
Not any spring
No, not any spring
Not any spring
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De Magdalena Wasserijen
door Joni Mitchell
Ik was een ongetrouwd meisje
Ik was net zevenentwintig geworden
Toen ze me naar de zusters stuurden
Voor de manier waarop mannen naar me keken
Gebrandmerkt als een jezebel
Ik wist dat ik niet naar de hemel zou gaan.
Ik zou in schande geworpen worden
In de wasserijen van Magdalena.
De meeste meisjes komen hier zwanger
Sommigen door hun eigen vaders.
Bridget kreeg die buik
Door haar pastoor.
We proberen alles zo wit als sneeuw te krijgen.
Wij allemaal, wee-dochters.
In de dampende vlekken
Van de Magdalena wasserijen
Prostituees en behoeftigen
En verleidsters zoals ik
Gevallen vrouwen
Veroordeeld tot droomloze sleur
Waarom noemen ze deze harteloze plek
Onze Vrouwe van Liefde?
Oh liefdadigheid!
Deze bloedeloze bruiden van Jezus
Als ze maar één keer een glimp van hun bruidegom hadden opgevangen
Dan zouden ze het weten en ze zouden de stenen laten vallen
Verborgen achter hun rozenkransen
Ze laten het gras verwelken waar ze op lopen
Ze zuigen het licht uit een kamer
Ze willen ons door de gootsteen jagen
In de wasserijen van Magdalena
Peg O’Connell is vandaag gestorven.
Ze was een brutaal meisje
Een flirt.
Ze hebben haar gewoon in een put gestopt!
Je zou toch denken dat er tenminste een belletje zou gaan rinkelen!
Op een dag ga ik hier ook dood
En dan planten ze me in het vuil
Als een stomme bol
Die nooit bloeit in de lente
Geen lente
Nee, geen lente
Geen lente
A fight for justice.
A corrupt society.
This is a clip from the documentary which explores the human rights aspect of these institutions.
The lady on the photo of the video says:
- I want to do something for it.
- I don’t know how long I will have to live.
- I want to tell what happened to me.
2 Joni Mitchell : Magdalene Laundries (KCRW 1994)
Back to menu The song starts at 52 sec
3 VIDEO: Enda Kenny’s biggest Dáil moments as Taoiseach
6 Wrongly convicted and wrongly imprisoned
Someone who is not the type, who does not have the profile him having a run-in with the law and that type of person is convicted and spends years in prison unjustly, not because something was unclear or because there was doubt about an issue,
but because you end up in a wrong or malfunctioning justice system.
One cannot imagine being framed for something that, without a doubt, you have nothing to do with.
Then after years in prison you are released because it is established that the person indeed has nothing to do with it!
They are probably the most serious examples of unique but for reasons that are very similar the most serious examples of what the state, our state, can do, does, has done and if we won’t stop, it will do again when it want to use and abuse and manipulate every ounce of power that it possesses and there isn’t one way in which one can say what happened to someone was an accident.
It wasn’t an accident and if the terminology gets somehow softened and the word miscarriage of justice is for what happened to someone which isn’t a miscarriage if miscarriage means accident.
7 A much wider system
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The Putten murder case is one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in Dutch history. In 1994, two men from Putten are convicted of the rape and murder of Christel Ambrosius. They serve unjustified prison sentences and are only released after six years of appeal.
It was not until 2008 that an exact DNA match led to the arrest of the real perpetrator, Ron P., who was sentenced to eighteen years in November 2011.
Former chief commissioner Jan Blaauw followed this case from beginning to end. His analysis of the file revealed that the conviction was based on false confessions. Partly due to his efforts, the investigation into this murder case was reopened.
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De Puttense moordzaak is een van de meest geruchtmakende gerechtelijke dwalingen in de Nederlandse geschiedenis. In 1994 worden twee Puttenaren veroordeeld voor de verkrachting van en moord op Christel Ambrosius. Zij zitten onterechte gevangenisstraffen uit, en kom pas na hoger beroep na zes jaar vrij.
Pas in 2008 wordt door een exacte DNA-match de werkelijke dader Ron P. opgepakt, die in november 2011 wordt veroordeeld tot achttien jaar.
Oud-hoofcommissaris Jan Blaauw heeft van begin tot eind deze zaak gevold. Door zijn analyse van het dossier kwam aan het licht dat de veroordeling op valse bekentenissen was gebaseerd. Mede door zijn inspanningen werd het onderzoek in deze moordzaak heropend.
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J.A. Blaauw worked for the Rotterdam police for forty years, going through all departments – from vice and child police to homicide and narcotics brigade – until he retired as chief of police in 1990.
Since then, he has championed honest police investigations.
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J.A. Blaauw werkte veertig jaar bij de Rotterdamse politie en doorliep er alle diensten – van zeden- en kinderpolitie en moordzaken tot narcoticabrigade – tot hij in 1990 als hoofdcommissaris afscheid nam.
Sindsdien heeft hij zich opgeworpen als voorvechter van eerlijk politieonderzoek.
…
8 Trapped in the perversion of justice to put a different spin on the issue
The purpose of justice is to provide a solution.
However, the weakest link is honesty.
When there is no honesty, it is incorrect justice, like an faulty war.
Wrong legal action.
Even when the reality is known by everyone, the justice system can create a pointless text and a file based on delusion.
This does not correspond to what justice is and should be.
A kind of plaything that has the effect of dragging justice through the mud.
When someone in a weak situation is used to do the wrong thing, everything is blocked and you get something that cannot be imagined.
People who throw everything overboard and become part of something that could not arise and yet becomes reality.
One can see a pattern in all the issues mentioned on the first page of this website.
There are things that do not bear the light of day.
E.g. In the past it was not allowed to say that there were innocent people in prison, as Barry Scheck and Peter R. de Vries say.
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Campaigner s believe that as many as 900 operators, often known as subpostmasters, may have been prosecuted and convicted between 2000 and 2014 after the Horizon IT system installed by the Post Office supplied by Fujitsu falsely suggested there were cash shortfalls.
In his damning written judgment a nd , Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Picken and Mrs Justice Farbey, said the Post Office, which brought the prosecutions itself, “knew that there were serious issues about the reliability of Horizon”.
He wrote: “The failures of investigation and disclosure were in our judgment so egregious as to make the prosecution of any of the ‘Horizon cases’ an affront to the conscience of the court.
“By representing Horizon as reliable, and refusing to countenance any suggestion to the contrary, POL [Post Office Limited] effectively sought to reverse the bur den of proof: it treated what was no more than a shortfall shown by an unreliable accounting system as an incontrovertible loss, and proceeded as if it were for the accused to prove that no such loss had occurred.
“Denied any disclosure of material capable of undermining the prosecution case, defendants were inevitably unable to discharge that improper burden. As each prosecution proceeded to its successful conclusion the asserted reliability of Horizon was, on the face of it, reinforced.
Defendants were prosecuted, convicted and sentenced on the basis that the Horizon data must be correct, and cash must therefore be missing, when in fact there could be no confidence as to that foundation.
Excerpt from “Court clears 39 post office operators convicted due to ‘corrupt data’” article in the Guardian pdf below
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Campagnevoerders zijn van mening dat tussen 2000 en 2014 wel 900 exploitanten, vaak subpostmeesters genoemd, mogelijk zijn vervolgd en veroordeeld nadat het door Fujitsu geleverde IT-systeem Horizon, dat door de posterijen was geïnstalleerd, ten onrechte suggereerde dat er kastekorten waren.
In zijn vernietigende schriftelijke vonnis zei Lord Justice Holroyde, zittend met Mr Justice Picken en Mrs Justice Farbey, dat het postkantoor, dat zelf de vervolging instelde, “wist dat er ernstige problemen waren met de betrouwbaarheid van Horizon”.
Hij schreef: “De tekortkomingen bij het onderzoek en de openbaarmaking waren naar ons oordeel zo flagrant dat de vervolging van een van de ‘Horizon-zaken’ een belediging van het geweten van het hof is.
“Door Horizon als betrouwbaar voor te stellen en elke suggestie van het tegendeel te weigeren, trachtte POL [Post Office Limited] in feite de bur den van bewijs om te keren: zij behandelde wat niet meer was dan een tekort dat door een onbetrouwbaar boekhoudsysteem was aangetoond als een onweerlegbaar verlies, en ging te werk alsof het aan de beklaagde was om te bewijzen dat een dergelijk verlies zich niet had voorgedaan.
“Aangezien zij geen enkel materiaal mochten bekendmaken dat de zaak van het openbaar ministerie kon ondermijnen, waren de verweerders onvermijdelijk niet in staat zich van die oneigenlijke last te kwijten. Naarmate elke vervolging tot een goed einde werd gebracht, werd de beweerde betrouwbaarheid van Horizon op het eerste gezicht versterkt.
De verdachten werden vervolgd, veroordeeld en gevonnist op basis van het feit dat de gegevens van Horizon correct moesten zijn, en dat er dus contant geld moest ontbreken, terwijl er in feite geen enkele aanwijzing was dat dit het geval zou zijn.
4 Post Office – Inside Out South, BBC 1 – First transmitted 7 Feb 2011
9 Acting as the Samaritan of the day
A touch of luck, a bit of luck.
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Thanks to her I am free, Lucia De Berk says in the video.
The video shows in 4 minutes what a miscarriage of justice is and what it means for someone in that situation to be ‘A touch of luck, a bit of luck. namely that writing a book is the basis for solving a miscarriage of justice.
The contents of the book
Personal story by an involved nursing home doctor about the Hague nurse Lucia de Berk, who was sentenced to life imprisonment and tbs during a disputable trial for a number of murders of patients, but was later acquitted on appeal.
jurisdiction, law, administration of justice, criminal procedure, Lucia de B. case, history, biography, Berk, Lucia de, man and society, law of evidence, methodology, criminal trials; separate, man and society general
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Dank zij haar ben ik vrij, zegt Lucia De Beck in de video.
De video laat in 4 minuten tijd begrijpen wat een gerechtelijke dwaling is en wat de betekenis is van iemand die in die situatie ‘A touch of luck is, a bit of luck. namelijk dat het schrijven van een boek aan de basis ligt van het oplossen van een gerechtelijke dwaling.
De inhoud van het boek
Persoonlijk relaas door een betrokken verpleeghuisarts over de Haagse verpleegster Lucia de Berk, die tijdens een discutabel proces wegens een aantal moorden op patiënten tot levenslang en tbs werd veroordeeld, maar later in hoger beroep werd vrijgesproken.
rechtspraak, Recht, Overheidsadministratie, Strafprocesrecht, Zaak Lucia de B., Geschiedenis, Levensbeschrijving, Berk, Lucia de, Mens en Maatschappij, Bewijsrecht, Methodologie, Strafprocessen; afzonderlijk, Mens en maatschappij algemeen
I was told, about Lucia de B. The bell, the clapper and the whistleblower
2 apr. 2014
6 Klokkenluider Metta de Noo uit Diepenheim teleurgesteld in film Lucia de B.
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Former professor Ton Derksen in the video:
Professor emeritus of the philosophy of science Ton Derksen says there should be many more opportunities for people who are detained innocently to be heard and to get out.
His estimate is that 1 percent are innocent, which is about 300 people a year.
Lucia de Berk was very lucky to be released. There are many coincidences that played a role.
He also says that the people in charge at the justice department didn’t believe that she was innocent.
The good thing about the film, he says, is that Lucia De Berk is innocent and that no murders took place.
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Oud-hoogleraar Ton Derksen in hogerstaande video:
Hoogleraar emeritus wetenschapsfilosofie Ton Derksen zegt dat er veel meer mogelijkheden moeten zijn voor mensen die onschuldig vastzitten om gehoord te worden en eruit te geraken.
Zijn schatting is dat er 1 procent onschuldig is, dit is zo’n 300 mensen per jaar.
Lucia de Berk heeft ontzettend veel geluk gehad dat ze is vrijgekomen. Er zijn heel veel toevalligheden die gespeeld hebben.
Hij zegt ook dat de verantwoordelijkheden bij justitie niet geloofden dat ze onschuldig was.
Het mooie aan de film zegt hij dat Lucia De Berk onschuldig is en dat er geen moorden hebben plaats gevonden.
Disappointed she is, Metta de Noo from Diepenheim. For years, as a whistleblower, she was busy trying to prove the innocence of Lucia de Berk (then known as Lucia de B.), who was imprisoned for the murder of seven hospital patients. According to her, the story told in the film ‘Lucia de B.’ doesn’t match reality.
As a nursing home doctor, De Noo was convinced that the evidence against Lucia was incorrect and kept insisting that the criminal case against the convicted nurse should be reopened. That happened in 2008 and in 2010 Lucia was acquitted.
Whistleblower written out of film’.
This week the film about the story of Lucia de Berk, simply called ‘Lucia de B.’ is released. The film tells the story of the nurse, but Metta de Noo is written out of the film. De Noo finds it disappointing, especially because the whistleblower in the film is an employee of the Public Prosecution Service. Even though the newcomer at the Justice Department is dismissed in the film, according to De Noo it doesn’t reflect reality very well: “Given the very tough battle against the Justice Department, which so many ‘outsiders’ have waged for Lucia’s acquittal, it’s a very crude ‘poetic license’ to now give the Public Prosecution Service the credit.” De Noo also thinks that only someone with a medical background could have solved the case.
10 A wolf in sheep’s clothing
11 Walking in someone else his shoes
“That woman could’ve been my grandmother, Barack.
She spent her days cleaning up after somebody else’s mess.”
An excerpt out of the inspiring speech of OBAMA TO GRADUATES: CULTIVATE EMPATHY
And once, after a particularly long night of partying, we had spilled a little too much beer, broke a few too many bottles, and trashed a little too much of the dorm. And the next day, the mess was so bad that when one of the cleaning ladies saw it, she began to tear up.
And when a girlfriend of mine heard about this, she said to me,
“That woman could’ve been my grandmother, Barack.
She spent her days cleaning up after somebody else’s mess.”
Which drove home for me the first lesson of growing up:
The world doesn’t just revolve around you.
12 The cracks in the justice system
Sometimes it is about developing a case against someone, regardless of the known true facts. According to examples on the website, it is done in an extreme way. For this reason, crucial data are shameless withheld, data that make it clear that the person in question cannot be classified as a perpetrator.
We are dealing with a wrong legal system, just as we can speak of a wrong war. In the wrongful conviction case of Lucia de Berk in The Netherlands, nursing home doctor Metta de Noo says the doctors gave wrong information to the court and doctors are trusted.
Something similar happened in the large-scale Post Office wrongful conviction scandal in Great Britain.
The mistakes that are made are extreme, even about something very simple.
It is clear you cannot imprison someone, especially in a simple matter, when the person has nothing to do with it.
Video above ‘Klokkenluider Metta de Noo uit Diepenheim teleurgesteld in film Lucia de B.‘).
A beautiful speech by Jonathan Roberts | Harvard Commencement 2017
Please have a look at some highlighted sentences in the transcript of the speech on the link above and enjoy listing
… I recognize that, we are now not yet ready to inherit this world. …
“Now we need to act beyond ourselves and think what is possible for others.” …
13 The law of nature, civic duty, empathy, solidarity and touching human emotions
7 Vriendelijke daden – Echte helden – Goede mensen goede daden #2
20 dec. 2021
wannabnireland
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