SOCIAL JUSTICE: This lively book provides a timely and welcome antidote to the growth of cynicism in a country of allegedly dashed idealism and awash with political and planning scandals, corporate corruption and middle-class greed.
Chronicling the first 30 years of the life of Concern, it is, in the words of its patron Seamus Heaney, as "informative as it is inspirational".
Irish citizens, bombarded all-too-frequently by the TV images of venality and human mediocrity courtesy of a myriad of tribunals, will find a source of inspiration in the idealism, actions and unstinting service since 1968 of the Concern founders and volunteers.
This volume is very much a counter- narrative to what often mistakenly is allowed pass as the mainstream of Irish culture.
Sensitively written and well researched, the author avoids the danger of producing a hagiography of the "glorious years". Seamus Heaney, in his preface, puts this point strongly: "This is no dutiful, in-house paean by an organisation to its own virtues. It is a window on to the times we have lived through, often heartlifting, as often heartbreaking".
The alert reader will find a historical treatment that does not duck examining the difficulties of a complex organisation that has succeeded in containing different and divergent philosophical streams. It has moved through very defined stages of growth, emerging at the end of the 20th century as a cohesive organisation ready to take on new challenges.
Concern had its origins in the Nigerian civil war or war against Biafra in the 1960s. A large number of priests from the Irish Province of the Holy Ghost Fathers were working there at the time. Their efforts to relieve the famine of the Biafrans made an indelible impression on the generation of the 1960s, helped by vivid reporting on RTÉ. Television was still a novelty in Ireland in that decade.
Each one of us who has lived through the second half of the 20th century has a store of terrible images of war etched in our minds. But many will recall the TV report that showed a young Biafran being shot in cold blood at the side of a country road. That, and many other TV images besides, illustrated the viciousness of the conflict.
The founders of Concern lived through the horrors of the Biafran war. A major airlift was mounted and nightly mercy flights were flown in. The war ended in defeat for the Biafrans and in the expulsion of many Holy Ghost Fathers, including Jack Finucane. Rather than spelling the end of Concern, Biafra proved to be "the seedbed" for its growth and expansion.
On October 3rd 1968, the minutes of a board meeting read: "It was resolved that the Joint Biafra Famine Appeal angle be allowed to peter out and that the Africa Concern Limited image be emphasised so as to allow for a continuing effort to help under-
developed areas even when the immediate Nigeria/Biafra conflict is over".
It was further resolved at the same meeting that "the sending or financing of specialist teams to help countries was, in principle, an appropriate activity for Africa Concern". For the following 30 years, Concern raised and sent large sums of money to aid relief. But the real Irish contribution for all of that period, according to the author, was not to be money. It was, instead, "the hundreds of idealistic young Irish volunteers who were sent to the Third World to make their contribution, and with them the thousands of local workers who made the work of these volunteers possible". (The names of the many hundreds of volunteers are usefully set out in an appendix.)
There was never any shortage of work. There were 2.5 million refugees worldwide in 1968, a quarter living in Europe. Ten years later the number had risen to 10 million, a quarter in Africa. By 1988, there were 14 million, and 6.8 million were in Asia. At the end of the 20th century, there were 12 million refugees. Concern volunteers have worked for over 30 years in refugee camps in India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.
Concern responded to a diversity of challenges. In 1992 - a year noted for the intensity of famine in Somalia - the organisation raised £36m. In 1993, Concern raised £31.5m; 91 percent of that went overseas, with two percent being spent on development education and administration and five percent on promotion. Public donations were responsible for 39 percent of the overall sum. The 1993 annual report showed that Concern was working in 13 fields, Angola and South Sudan being new. It spent £29m million overseas, half on emergency aid, the remainder on a wide range of programmes running from HIV/AIDS support to initiatives for urban and rural development. Concern employed 4,600 people, of whom 141 were Irish.
The retirement of Fr Aengus Finucane, a founder of Concern, in 1996 marked a change of eras. David Begg, a trade union leader, replaced him as chief executive and he prudently and diplomatically built upon the solid foundation laid by his charismatic predecessor. New structures were needed for a new era. Strategic new appointments were made to management. The number of field areas grew from 19 in 1998 to 27 in 2001. He retired from his post that year. But much had been achieved in a short time.
That work of restructuring and reform is now being carried on by a new chief executive, Tom Arnold.
Professor Dermot Keogh is head of the History Department, University College Cork
Dermot Keogh