Five Claimants

Here are five claimants for the title of Jinn:

Nationalism

Loyalism

Republicanism

Sectarianism

Racism.

Each can be seen as a set of beliefs, but is it really alive? There are many reasons why I think so.

Like humans jinn are born and die, but their lifespans are much longer, frequently lasting hundreds of years; so they survive the death of the humans most closely associated them. Al Quaeda does not cease to exist because Osama bin Laden was assasinated.

Birth assumes a parent and I see the origin of each of my five claimants in a very powerful instinct found in many vertebrates. It is the impulse to find a territory where it is possible to feed and breed, to mark that territory and to defend it against invading members of its own species and other threatening species. Both our cats, male and female, mark and defend territories. The male rubs the side of his head several times against the French door when I open it to let him in. Birds in the garden are constantly delineating their territories by flying around the trees and shrubs which form the boundary and singing on each one. We have walls and fences and title deeds. In each case an individual, or a small related group, claims and defends a territory.

Each of my five proposed jinn lays claim to a superterritory and defends it against individuals and other superterritories. Nationalism, Loyalism and Republicanism are obviously connected to physical territories. Sectarianism is associated with a mental one.

A recent BBC radio programme expressed surprise at the apparently inexplicable behaviour of Northern Ireland teenagers too young to have experienced conflict. These kids are using social-networking sites to promote Sectarianism. The assumption is that, once politicians sign a peace deal, Sectarianism vanishes; but jinn live on. They haunt places and possess people. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to them as ancient genes insist they establish a territory with a view to mating. At fourteen they are in no position to own a car, never mind a house. They can’t even lay claim to an intellectual field.

The presenter of the programme was particularly shocked by the virulance of the language used on the social networking sites; but jinn have emotions similar to ours. It is not surprising that humans possessed by them display hate, fear and envy when marking their virtual territories.

Like humans, jinn marry. In Northern Ireland Nationalism and Republicanism are ofter married to Sectarianism; but the apparently opposed Loyalism is also the spouse of this hairy legged, sharp-clawed one.

Jinn are said to have another formidable capacity. They shape shift. After the Good Friday Agreement, when Nationalism, Loyalism and Rebublicanism were put into bottles, stoppered and flung into the Atlantic Ocean, Sectarianism quietly shape shifted into Racism.