Last week’s events in the North finally put an end to the long Anglo-Irish saga. Now the question on everyone’s lips is: what are the parties going to do with their newly acquired powers? I don’t know if there is any other part of Europe where the ‘bread-and-butter issues’ metaphor has been so exhausted in such a short space of time. This has had serious consequences for my diet, and I conjecture that if the politicians insist on flagrant overuse of this hackneyed cliché, the wheat and dairy industries of the North could be in for unmitigated recession! But real politics has little to do with flags and national anthems, and it is refreshing to see the ascendancy of reason as opposed to the age-old emotionalism of tribal conflict. Now the big question is: how are the Sinn Féin socialists going to govern with the ultra-conservative DUP?
As soon as the ceremony in Stormont was over, everyone wanted to know how the increasingly sticky Teflon Taoiseach and his colleagues in the Builders’ Party would respond to Sinn Féin’s pre-election euphoria. As astute students of Northern politics, they took the predictable option of subterfuge: “We won’t go into government with Sinn Féin.” Sinn Féin, is seems, are just too left-wing for the ‘Soldiers of Destiny’. Again, predictably, Sinn Féin – the arch strategists – decided to play down their left-wing proclivities. Adams came on the radio last week speaking about the necessity of “realpolik” on the big question of the election: corporation tax. Yes, in spite of one of Europe’s most disgraceful health services, a risible public transport infrastructure and house prices now beyond the salaries of the majority, corporation tax became the key issue. You would have to pity those corporations, wouldn’t you? Imagine the thought of corporations having to pay an equitable tax comparable to the ordinary worker, the mere mortal!
But Sinn Féin have their hopes set on a 32-county nation, and they know that the terms ‘left-wing’, ‘socialism’ and particularly ‘Marxism’ are taboo in this country, expurgated from the Irish consciousness by the defeat of Noel Browne’s Mother and Child Scheme in 1951. Browne proposed a scheme to provide free healthcare for women and children; it shouldn’t be forgotten that a lot of Irish people used to pray for the ‘conversion’ of the Russians in Sunday mass during this time. The problem was that the poor Soviets had abandoned God. That is what ‘Socialism’ and ‘Marxism’ meant for the obsequious masses and the Church-State apparatus insured it would stay that way. They described the Browne proposals as ‘socialist’ and ‘totalitarian’, and endorsed the kind of two-tier system we have today instead.
I watched Mary Lou McDonald and the Labour spokesperson on economics on Prime Time last week where that taboo word was mentioned again: Marxism. However, McDonald vehemently denied the charge of the Inquisition. The Labour spokesperson also adroitly refuted the accusation of having ‘Marxist’ leanings. So here we had two parties who we should be able to call left-wing or socialist, desperately denying any sympathies with poor old Karl Marx!
Just as it was taboo to be an atheist during the Middle Ages, so it is taboo in our time to be a socialist. Unless, of course, you divest the term of meaning as Comrade Bertie has famously done, by calling yourself one anyway. In France last week we saw an election where the terms ‘right’ and ‘left’ were still in use, but Segolene Royal’s Blairism alienated her from most socialists and the populism of Sarkozy won the day. In Ireland, there is no question of a left-wing alternative to the way the country is governed. Any party that believes in social justice and egalitarianism will have to prove that that is not really the case if they want to get into Government, as they will have to join up with the dominant right-wing parties, Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
What we have, then, is simply a change of name and little else. Parties who believe corporations should contribute their share in taxes to the economy, so that families have adequate childcare while they work for them, or that a country of this wealth should have a top-class health system – instead of what Maeve Ann Wren called “an expression of Victorian values in which health care is a commodity to be purchased or, when it is unaffordable, to be given as a charity, never a right” – will only get into power if they renounce their beliefs.
Any parties who dare to challenge the status quo are, according to the powers that be, trying to kick Ireland back to the bad old days of ‘the eighties’. The reminder of that decade can also serve as a lethal weapon for the companies that control Ireland’s wealth. It has a similar function to hell for the Catholic Church; it induces fear and obedience. However, I do not recall a socialist or ‘Marxist’ Government in the Ireland of the eighties. In fact, it was socialism that was equated with hell. Remember ‘prayers for the conversion of the Russians’? Well, the prayers must have paid off for the Russians; they got Putin! So perhaps we should have prayed for ourselves, that we might have decent public services. But, of course, that would be unthinkable, that would be tantamount to ‘Marxism’! Well not really, for old Marx had no time for prayer or infinite theorising. The point was, he reiterated, to change the world. But don’t worry, there’ll be none of that very soon.
metrogael.blogspot.com / gaelmetro@yahoo.ie
But Sinn Féin have their hopes set on a 32-county nation, and they know that the terms ‘left-wing’, ‘socialism’ and particularly ‘Marxism’ are taboo in this country, expurgated from the Irish consciousness by the defeat of Noel Browne’s Mother and Child Scheme in 1951. Browne proposed a scheme to provide free healthcare for women and children; it shouldn’t be forgotten that a lot of Irish people used to pray for the ‘conversion’ of the Russians in Sunday mass during this time. The problem was that the poor Soviets had abandoned God. That is what ‘Socialism’ and ‘Marxism’ meant for the obsequious masses and the Church-State apparatus insured it would stay that way. They described the Browne proposals as ‘socialist’ and ‘totalitarian’, and endorsed the kind of two-tier system we have today instead.
I watched Mary Lou McDonald and the Labour spokesperson on economics on Prime Time last week where that taboo word was mentioned again: Marxism. However, McDonald vehemently denied the charge of the Inquisition. The Labour spokesperson also adroitly refuted the accusation of having ‘Marxist’ leanings. So here we had two parties who we should be able to call left-wing or socialist, desperately denying any sympathies with poor old Karl Marx!
Just as it was taboo to be an atheist during the Middle Ages, so it is taboo in our time to be a socialist. Unless, of course, you divest the term of meaning as Comrade Bertie has famously done, by calling yourself one anyway. In France last week we saw an election where the terms ‘right’ and ‘left’ were still in use, but Segolene Royal’s Blairism alienated her from most socialists and the populism of Sarkozy won the day. In Ireland, there is no question of a left-wing alternative to the way the country is governed. Any party that believes in social justice and egalitarianism will have to prove that that is not really the case if they want to get into Government, as they will have to join up with the dominant right-wing parties, Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
What we have, then, is simply a change of name and little else. Parties who believe corporations should contribute their share in taxes to the economy, so that families have adequate childcare while they work for them, or that a country of this wealth should have a top-class health system – instead of what Maeve Ann Wren called “an expression of Victorian values in which health care is a commodity to be purchased or, when it is unaffordable, to be given as a charity, never a right” – will only get into power if they renounce their beliefs.
Any parties who dare to challenge the status quo are, according to the powers that be, trying to kick Ireland back to the bad old days of ‘the eighties’. The reminder of that decade can also serve as a lethal weapon for the companies that control Ireland’s wealth. It has a similar function to hell for the Catholic Church; it induces fear and obedience. However, I do not recall a socialist or ‘Marxist’ Government in the Ireland of the eighties. In fact, it was socialism that was equated with hell. Remember ‘prayers for the conversion of the Russians’? Well, the prayers must have paid off for the Russians; they got Putin! So perhaps we should have prayed for ourselves, that we might have decent public services. But, of course, that would be unthinkable, that would be tantamount to ‘Marxism’! Well not really, for old Marx had no time for prayer or infinite theorising. The point was, he reiterated, to change the world. But don’t worry, there’ll be none of that very soon.
metrogael.blogspot.com / gaelmetro@yahoo.ie
