Faith & Music : Sinead O'Connor ITV 09/05/93 transcribed by Matthias Radestock 11/05/93 ----------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm not a liar and I'm not full of hatred, but I hate lies and so the liars hate me. But the war has started now and truth will win." ... I was born in, well I wasn't born in but I lived in Glenagerry in county Dublin near the sea. I've an older brother, an older sis- ter, then me, then my younger brother. And my parents separated when I was quite young. My mother was a very violent woman, not a healthy woman mentally at all. She was physically and verbally and psychologically, spiritually and emotionally abusive to all of us. We were battered children basically. I was a battered child - well I am still, although I'm not being battered anymore. So things were fairly spiritually devoid - not surprisingly. I was born on the 8th of December which in this country is a na- tional holiday. It's the feast of immaculate conception. So I al- ways felt a kind of a, you know, connection with the mother of God anyway, because I always used to get these birthday cards that my mother used to give me, with a lovely painting of the im- maculate conception on it. But mostly I'd say the way I got into God and - that was because of the circumstances I was growing up under, because I was so frightened all the time and I was so, I mean, the situation we were growing up in was such hell, that there was nothing that could possibly save us. So when I was a very young child I asked God to help me to get out of this situa- tion and if he did I promised that I'd work for him as soon as I was able to and do whatever I could to belong to him and to serve him - which I believe he did do and I believe he did get me out of this situation and that he gave me the live that he gave me by giving me my voice. It was my voice that got me out of this si- tuation. One of the ways of ensuring that we wouldn't get beaten up was, would be, to sing to my mother, because if we sang she would be in good mood and all that stuff. So there was a lot of singing going on. ... I hold the church entirely responsible for the circumstances of my childhood and for the circumstances under which a lot of Irish children are growing up - Ireland being the country which has the highest statistic in Europe of child abuse. I didn't get sucked into Catholicism because I could see subconsciously at a young age, where it's only became conscious recently, that the cause of my own abuse was the church's affect on this country, which had produced my mother through her own family, through the genera- tions of her family which came down since the beginning of time, who were of cause affected by what the British did in this coun- try, which they couldn't have done without, and most people don't know this, without permission from the Roman Catholic Church, which is still available in writing for everybody to see that the church in fact used the English to do their dirty work in this country. It was never the English that did it. The church gave permission to the English knowing that they had a policy of using starvation as a means of controlling people to come into this country. And they gave this permission for money and in the name of Jesus Christ. ...... And what the English did was they took away our right to speak our own language. They paid the people who were starving to death 2 pounds to teach their children English and would ???? to make sure that they couldn't speak Irish. They took away our right to practice our own religion. They took away - that's the most im- portant thing- our right to educate ourselves. Then what happened was we were killed, like for trying to go to school. We had to hide in bushes to go to school. So what happened was that the church then came in and set up the only schools that we were al- lowed to go to. And in those schools they told us lies. To this day Irish children will be taught in their history books that there was a famine in this country when in fact there was never a famine in this country, there was a potato blight. But the British doing the job for the Vatican, had made a law that Irish people were only allowed to eat potatoes. All the other food - and the shipping lists are still available for everyone to see today- hundreds of tons of meat, fish, eggs, poultry, milk, well, everything else, vegetables, were shipped out of the country under armed guard while the Irish people were starving to death. There was never a famine, but yet still the Catholic Church, who set up the only schools that we were allowed to go to, told us lies. And I really believe that when you take people away from the truth of their history you're not allowing - like we weren't allowed to be Irish, just as I would compare Ireland to an abused child, just as the child wasn't allowed to be a child the people weren't allowed to be Irish. And I think that the fact that we were taken away form the truth of our history and what we're really supposed to be is what made us manifest in our houses domestic child abuse because of the frustration of not knowing who we were. ...... My first album then, being called "The Lion and the Cobra", I suppose is the most representative of what I'm talking about. It's psalm 91 which says: 'For he will command his angles con- cerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you'll trample the great lion and the serpent.'. Basically: you gotta look after you. So to me the Lion and the Cobra that needed to be trampled on were the facts of my abuse and that's what the album was. ... I believe very much that the world is in this awful evil state that it's in because we were taken away from God. The only thing that can possibly save us is God. That's the only thing that can possibly save us. And the only thing that will make us wake up and realise that we've been lied to and even though, even though we think we believe in God, we don't. We're using God's name to do all this evil. ...... I didn't believe for a long time, I found it hard to cope with the idea, that Jesus was actually, you know, God manifested in a human body. I do believe that that's true now, but I also believe that Jesus Christ is actually a spirit. It's a sprit that can ex- ist through all of us. That God lives inside us and that we can bring that sprit that is Jesus Christ into the world through our- selves, if we're in touch with our instincts, which is how God speaks to us - through our instincts. And what they did was to teach us to ignore all of our instincts so that we think God was outside. They brought us up never to trust our emotions or our feelings or our instincts. So what I believe is that Jesus Christ is a spirit which lives inside all of us and which can be brought into the world through all of us, basically. I also believe that the man himself, hmm, they say that the word Christ means 'a Pri- est King', one who was a priest king, and I do believe that he was and actually by rights and by blood and by descent the king of the Jewish people, the descendant of the royal house of David, that he was the king of Israel which was at that time under oc- cupation by the Roman Empire just as Ireland was at that time we're talking about by the British. And there is a lot of evi- dence which suggests that he in fact led an armed insurrection against the Roman occupation of his country, which i do believe. Historically it's proven that crucifixion was only a punishment for one crime, which was armed insurrection against the state. So I believe that he did lead an armed insurrection as the king of the Jewish people against the Roman state and it failed. I do be- lieve that he was married,. There's no way that he wouldn't have been. For a Rabbi not being married those days would have been outrageous. Therefore I do believe that he had children and therefore his descendants are still alive somewhere in the world, yeah. ... When I wrote "ou est le roi perdu?" I wanted to see if they might respond - the descendants of that man who was the king of the Jewish people, the descendants of the whole royal house of David where ever they may be. Because I believe very much that's like a bad time they got off there asses, really, and come to help us all, because we're in trouble. I believe that God is gonna show up in the next I'd say five years. And to me God is truth, the truth of everything that is inside human beings but also the truth of what's being going on throughout history. And I think the way that God is gonna show up is through the truth being re- vealed to us - there being physical prove of the truth that we haven't known up until now. And I don't mean that I think, you know, wooooooooo - God is going to show up like some kind of spirit, you know, or a Jesus Christ. I think what will happen is that the truth will be revealed and that's how God works, that God is truth and nothing is hidden. Of course that will not be revealed. That's what I mean when I say I think God is gonna show up. That there's going to be so much physical evidence, physical prove to people that what we've been given to believing is a lie that there won't be any way denying it. And therefore there will be the immediate return to the Garden of Eden which is the cir- cumstances under which we were supposed to live in the first place. ... ... From the time I was at very young age I used to run away from home a lot when I was really, you know, a ???? and that. And I can remember wondering around the place by myself, singing to my- self, yeah and making up songs to myself. Singing and writing for me was a way of - it started as protection obviously. It started as a way of expressing my own pain and my own frustration which I couldn't keep silent although everyone around me was keeping it silent, like, like we see happening in the public arena - people keep quiet. They don't scream and shout, particularly about child abuse. What happens in most people's houses is that there's silence about it - the wall of silence. And I was determined to keep screaming and shouting, because if I didn't I would have died, I couldn't stand the feelings I had inside me. And I've al- ways been that kind of person that I have to get it out or it will kill me. ...... I did the album "Am I Not Your Girl" because I like the music but principally I used the fact of being able to make an album of music that I like, in order to create the circumstances under which I could conduct my own fight against what I see as being evil. And the tools that I can use are the fact that I am a famous person and therefore can attract a lot of attention and can create a lot of discussion, which I obviously did by ripping up the picture of the Pope. I could never, never regret it now. I'm very proud that I did it, I'm very happy that I did it. Because I understand both on an in- dividual level and a social level why I did it. And I'm only sor- ry that I hadn't done my therapy years ago so I would have been able to survive that abuse without being affected by, which I feel that I have very much been physically and emotionally, spir- itually and psychologically affected by the abuse that I've ex- perienced, having ripped up the picture. And I don't mean the booing in Madison Square Garden, I mean general abuse. And if I didn't believe in God I would find that - I do find it very painful - the fact that I believe in God allows me to believe that it's all OK. You know what I mean? That it all will be OK. You know what I mean? Whereas, If I didn't, like, I'd be dead. But actually speaking of that - I mean, the whole, Jesus, I came that close to slitting my throat, THAT close to slitting my throat. I never thought about suicide before the whole Pope thing happened. I just couldn't deal with what - what they were doing was triggering everything because I hadn't dealt with it. You know what I mean? And really was - the amount of times - if I had had something I would have slit my throat. Jake was the only thing that stopped me from it, you know. If I didn't have a child I would have killed myself way before now. ... He is quite special. And to me he's always been a comfort even when he was a tiny baby. And that's what that song talks about - times when I was really messed up. And he would just look at me sometimes and just rub my face, like, and smile like me, like he know there was something up, and just smiled like me as if to say: 'It's all cool, don't worry.' ...... I heard him saying as prayers in the church one day - we had been in Galway and he had been out walking in these farm that we were staying on with these dogs. And I heard him saying this prayer in the church and he said: 'I hope you enjoyed the walk with me and the dogs.' You know, to him. And I never said it to him. To him God is something that is with him constantly. He went out for a walk with the two dogs and God, as far as he was concerned. And when he said this prayers he said: 'Hope you liked the walk.', which I think is really nice, the idea. If we remembered that God is something that is with us that we're not by ourselves, we're not on our own. You know what I mean? And for a little child like him, I think it's amazing. I think he is a very special individu- al. I think you gotta watch out for him. If you think I was a troublemaker, fasten your seatbelts, Jake Reynolds is on the way. ... I was determined that I was going to be like a servant of God by serving the truth, by by, phhh, in my own individual as well, which is not an easy thing to do - to face the truth in oneself. You know what I mean? To be truthful. To always, always tell the truth because I could see from a very young age, as I said ear- lier on, that what was happening in my house was happening be- cause there was a lie. Somewhere there was a lie which we still haven't found out yet but we will. ... What that video is about; basically it was the explanation and reason for why I did the whole thing, which was to expose that fact that the persuade of material success has resulted in the manifestation of child abuse which is destroying the world be- cause all the evil is committed by those of us who have been abused as children and not dealt with it, and on one level or another. Now, the reason for why we're pursuing money so much is because Christ's representatives on earth did it. They set us that example. The ones who represented God told us that that's what we ought to do. That's what they still tell us and continue to tell us, by example. And that was the whole point which I was trying to make by making that song and making that album basical- ly. And I was kinda worried that God was going to be really upset with me, like for doing this kind of stuff. But then I realised, yeah I am angry. And I've every right to be angry. There's no way I'm going to shut my mouth. I'm a battered child and the whole bloody world is going to know about it. The same as they're going to know about every other battered child. They're not going to be able to shut us up just because they don't want to hear about it. ...... So being a Christian I have to do in any given situation what I believe Christ would have done, which is basically love people and understand people no matter what they've done or no matter how terrible the thing is they've done. And if that was put into practice really that's the only way we could survive. And I'd say that's what I've been trying to communicate. And that's what I've used whatever power I had in order to try to do. And the only power I did have was the fact that I'm a celebrity. ... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Matthias Radestock rade@freia.inf.tu-dresden.de r3@doc.ic.ac.uk