I had read it in 1978 in Cage 11 after receiving a copy from Gerry Kelly while sojourning in Cage 9 for a day due to 11 being given a tarmacadam facelift. I often reflected on it during the blanket protest, even telling the story out the door to a merciless ribbing from Pinta McKnight for grossly, and wilfully, overstating the treacherous role of Moses the Raven. The book had a lasting effect on me. I remembered it long after Gerry Kelly had seemingly forgotten it.
When I wrote that piece in 1999, it prompted the usual howls of indignation: I was a cynic who had called it wrong and would have to eat my words. The criticism failed to impact me. I sensed the metamorphosis from pig to man would be complete. What I was unable to predict with the same certainty was that the summersault would be executed with a perfect 10.
Sinn Fein’s God Save The King rendition might be the standout moment on its journey from guard dog of radical republicanism to establishment lap dog, but it was not its last. In recent days other cows were sent off to the abattoir. They were not as sacred as previous ones that were put to sleep, but because the cow meat is irritable to the establishment palate, it has no place on the banquet table.
God has had his work cut out keeping up with the needs of Sinn Fein to unburden itself of anything the political establishment cannot accommodate. God must not only save the king but has also been beseeched to save NATO and Pesco as well. It is not another throwing overboard of previous policies but merely a refinement "in a way that’s contemporary . . . It’s not about throwing long-held policies out the window — it’s about what’s achievable." The boilerplate defence of the reformist.
Sinn Fein is simply a reformist party that jettisoned every piece of radical baggage to make it fit for purpose in the world of establishment politics. Being wholly mistrustful of revolutionaries I am not implacably hostile to reformists. There is something more honest about them: they are political horse traders keenly aware of what is possible when playing by the rules of the status quo game. Pragmatism, not principle, is the currency they deal in.
What makes Sinn Fein’s tight embrace of reformism so easy a target for its detractors to mock is the planetary gap it has traversed in its bid to escape its radical past and land safely on its conservative present, all the while pretending to have done no such thing. No party on this island has performed more u-turns than Sinn Fein nor moved further to the right.
As the political system prepares itself to accommodate Sinn Fein as partners in government it incessantly works to ensure that the defiance which for long characterised republican opposition is drained to the point that not a single vestige from the era of Bobby Sands will be left in place to operate as a brake on the party’s absorption into the status quo.
The Marxist theoretician Nicos Poulantzas for many years pointed out how the state could accommodate erstwhile radicals without ever ceasing its vital function of uniting the dominant bloc, disuniting the dominated bloc and mediating the relationship between the two, always to the benefit of the former. All the reformist can obtain in the absence of a fundamental restructuring of society - which reformism is not about, being content with 'what is achievable' - is formal power. The real power continues to circulate around the same power centres as it always did, its levers, like the fruit tree that for eternity beckoned but betrayed Tantalus, always out of reach of the reformist.
What is happening with Sinn Fein is the political equivalent of Darwinian natural selection. The system has modified the party through the relentless pressure of incremental modification in order to make it adaptable to the establishment environment. What radical policies and ideological positions exist are ruthlessly culled by system selection, bringing to the fore those elements that can survive within the system. The crucial thing with natural selection is that the creature is changed by the environment, not the environment by the creature.
The moral of Animal Farm is that farmers don't become pigs - pigs become farmers.
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By making the environment peaceful there is no requirement for the creature to become belligerent though. Ergo why WOULD Sinn Fein be radical when it serves no requirement? At what point did the leadership of the Shinners become aware that being a farmer had a far longer list of benefits? And did they mind that a few pigs would need to be slaughtered en route?
ReplyDeletedon't reduce radicalism to belligerence. Radicalism always serves a requirement for radicals but is an obstacle on the career path of conservatives. You seem to take a radical approach to matters, which suggests you feel it serves a purpose. There were huge benefits for the careerists in ditching radicalism but a la Animal Farm some creatures are more equal than others. Most of the animals never got the chance to become farmers.
DeleteFair point though I've never considered my ideas to be radical? I thought I was boringly commonsense and mundane to be honest.
DeleteI always tended to position you on the thoughtful left of the continuum.
DeleteI suppose I'm more interested in the people's welfare more than anything else. My wife is an inveterate capitalist so it does make for sparks to fly when some Tory bastard comes on the TV down here!
Deletewhich is why you fell into the radical slot!
DeleteSad that as a society such a viewpoint is considered radical though.
Delete"Pragmatism, not principle is the currency they deal in."
ReplyDeleteBut, hasn't pragmatism always been the bane of the ideologically ensnared? The distaste that old-style 26 counties Republicans held for Fianna Fáil, which was by times even greater than that which they held for the Blueshirts, would suggest so. Indeed, the old guards' sense of abandonment & betrayal was not too dissimilar to the over-arching sentiment implied and suggested above.
Trust the leadership, with patience and small incremental gains, we'll achieve the Republic. Progress not perfection ought be the new battle cry don't you think?
The question is pragmatism driven by what? A pragmatic decision driven by the need to be respectable might be radically different from the pragmatic decision driven by the need to be responsible. The pragmatism of what is strategically possible under the current circumstances is going to be different from the pragmatism of what is good for me. The trade union leadership that behaves pragmatically when guided by its own bureaucratic interests can end up in a cosy relationship with the employers to the point that it becomes little more than an extension of employer management into the ranks of the employees. The conservatism of the system will always condition perceptions of the limits of pragmatism.
DeleteAs for trust in leaders, that is a commodity not in stock in your cupboard. With patience and small incremental gains - a concept I subscribe to - tried from the start would have left a lot of people alive.
Bottom line - never trust revolutionaries.
The enlightened concept of 'victory through surrender' tends to be grasped by few. But the merits of'strategic quitting' have become better understood & more widely accepted. However, the idealists & idolaters will most stringently deny possible or potential merit in acceptance of it.
Delete(On trust in leadership: Ultimately one ought to have trust in oneself. With trust in oneself comes an authentic ability to engage and disengage when necessary. There's a difference between becoming a blind follower, a devotee, and participating in partnerships of common purpose).
Sounds like something I would say if I was on the whiskey!!!
DeleteThen you should drink more whiskey!
DeleteThat's the plan
DeleteMany moons ago Bertie Ahern having finished an interview for RTE television and not knowing the camera was still running did a very telling thing. He pulled off the anorak as if it was a dirty rag and threw it at a helper while another stepped forward with the Cromby and made him whole again. .... He went on to become a famous ' farmer ' .....
ReplyDeleteIt is a convenience characterisation and if we imagine a binary world for convenience where the binary of conservative and radical exist, you are a radical!!
ReplyDelete