For those in peril on the sea

Okay, before I get started just a little word of advice. I’m livid, absolutely raging, so be aware that this post will contain quite a decent helping of colourful language, likely accompanied by liberal doses of four-letter words. You have been warned!

Over recent years, I’ve become pretty desensitised when it comes to news stories. Ever since both the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump over in the US, humanity seems to have started regressing ever more rapidly. Still, there are some institutions whose work is so universal that you’d think that they’re above the increasingly roiling sea of racist, sectarian, and partisan turmoil and acrimony. Well, on Monday morning I learned differently.

It turns out that the Daily Heil, sorry, I mean the Daily Fail, oh damnit, I mean the Daily Mail (insert ten minute break here as I had to wipe up the bile forced up by even typing the name of that „paper“), that bastion of racism and xenophobia, ran a story on Sunday that outlined that the RNLI, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, was spending up to 2% of its budget on water safety projects outside the UK and Ireland. The projects in question are based in Bangladesh and Tanzania respectively, combining the Mail‘s favourite targets, muslims and people of colour, and are both aimed at helping vulnerable groups, namely women and children, learn basic water survival skills. Feel free to check out the Huffington Post‘s story on the whole thing, I‘m NOT going to dignify the Mail by linking directly to their website!

RNLI lifeboat station at Mumbles Pier

For me, such an initiative is only sensible. More than any other environment, water knows now borders, no ethnicities, and no mercy. It will kill anyone who is caught unprepared, and even those that are prepared often fall victim to the power and sheer indifference of the oceans, or indeed any body of water. I‘ve grown up near the coast. I‘ve seen and experienced the frightening power of an angry, storm-whipped sea, and I can tell you there are few things more terrifying than being confronted with this immense, seemingly limitless violence. It renders moot any suggestion, any delusion that we are in any way the masters of this small world we inhabit. Sir William Hillary, the English nobleman who founded the RNLI in 1824, recognised this most basic of facts, and in the pamphlet that laid out the principles of what was to become the RNLI, he stated that the services of the RNLI should be rendered equally to all persons and vessels in distress, without respect to any political allegiances, state of war, or any other form of fear or favour.

The Mumbles lifeboat of the RNLI in its boathouse on Mumbles Pier

RNLI Lifeboat at Mumbles station.

Yet, the very fact that the RNLI uses 2% of it‘s annual budget to support these absolutely worthwhile projects was enough to trigger an enormous backlash amongst the Mail‘s readership. To be perfectly honest, I‘m surprised that that paper actually has a readership, meaning people who actually read it, as from my experience the intellectual effort required to do so is lightyears, if not parsecs beyond the demonstrated abilities of most of its customers. But I digress. Anyway, the RNLI‘s social media channels have been inundated by racist vermin threatening to to reduce or withdraw their donations. It is more than a little obvious that the overwhelming majority of these people come from the nationalist & pro Brexit camps, in fact many of those shouting the loudest have profiles & timelines that are downright racist. What‘s worse, a number of Tory MPs have also joined in, clearly demonstrating how far that once great party has fallen. Regardless of their political affiliation however, these people are definitely not the sharpest tools in the shed, and it‘s debatable whether they ever supported the RNLI in the first place. If they did, they must have been completely ignorant of Sir Hillary‘s original guidelines for the organisation, as well as of the annual reports, where these projects are clearly laid out.

Being raised on the coast an in a distinctly maritime household, the work of water rescue organisations such as the RNLI, or its German counterpart, the DGzRS, has always been deeply impressive and humbling to see. They head out in the most atrocious of conditions, putting their lives on the line to save those in peril, often with scant regard for their own safety. And too often, the rescuers pay the ultimate price for their selflessness. By threatening, or actually withdrawing their donations, these bloviating wankstains deliberately endanger lives not in Bangladesh or Tanzania, but here in the home waters, where the vast majority of RNLI assets are operating, and will continue to do.

I‘ve had the pleasure of experiencing the hospitality and professionalism of the RNLI when I visited the Mumbles Lifeboat station during a recent visit to the United Kingdom. The humbleness and dignity of the staff is impressive, and their service behooves everyone to support them when possible. Such is the renown of the organisation that even in Ireland, a country with a deeply troubled relationship to any organisation bearing the prefix „Royal“, the RNLI is respected and admired almost universally. For me, the racist hatchet job published by the Daily Heil has left effectively one course of action open. As of 13:35, I‘ve become a monthly supporter of the RNLI. If you want to join me, you can find out how to do so on the RNLI website, while those readers back in Germany can do likewise on the website of the DGzRS. I rarely encourage people to donate, but I would really ask you to check these organisations out, and donate what you can.