All the H-Block fist waving against the malevolence of US imperialism has become nothing more than hot air.
Much of this is the outworking of the success both the London and Dublin political establishments have achieved in moulding Sinn Fein in their own image, something the artist Carlos Latuff captured in his graphic mural which was obliterated before being restored to the International Wall in West Belfast. Here kneels Ireland's coalition.
Since the onset of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and not taking account of the Patrick's Day issue, Sinn Fein on at least three occasions has been embroiled in controversy over its stance on Gaza.
- The refusal to vote for a proposal to abstain in Belfast City Council from a motion calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Ireland
- the contrasting expulsion of a number of Palestinian protestors from a Sinn Fein event in Belfast
- the blacking out of the Latuff mural.
We know for certain the party was responsible for the first two and while the evidence is inconclusive, thus not allowing us to be definitive about the culpability for the mural destruction, most observers seem to take the view that it is unlikely to have been the work of anybody else. As someone mockingly quipped on Twitter, it might have been Fine Gael's West Belfast youth wing.
I don't really expect much else from Sinn Fein, which as an institution has long since been turned by officialdom from poacher to gamekeeper. We could at the very least have expected more from former prisoners. Michelle O'Neill in the her comments following the release of the Kenova Report appeared to draw a line between the Good Friday Sinn Fein generation and that which waged the IRA's war prior to the GFA. She is not wrong to make that assertion, but is merely restating what critics of the party have been pointing out for decades. Good Friday republicanism, if it may be called that, amounts to a total resiling from Easter Sunday republicanism. Sinn Fein now more resembles not those republicans who fought the war but those whom they fought the war against. This is what makes the current shilling by former prisoners all the more lamentable.
While not unexpected it is certainly disappointing that Sinn Fein has opted to prove its establishment credentials by agreeing to be a shamrock bearing cheer leader for the Biden White House. The real shock would have come had the party followed the example of Colm Eastwood of the SDLP who has taken up a much more radical stance than former IRA prisoners.
Take Pat Sheehan, for example, once a close friend of mine and for whom I retain a measure of affection, bearing him no personal animosity whatsoever. At a recent rally he urged supporters not to feel beholden to the BDS campaign and cited the example of Glasgow Celtic supporters who a few years back turned up for a game against an Israeli team. He spoke glowingly of how the supporters wore their keffiyehs, waved their flags and chanted their support for Palestinians.
It is a fair point but a fake comparison. I would support Sinn Fein attending the Scandalous Shamrock Soirée if it too waved flags and thrust the images of murdered Palestinian babies in the face of Genocide Joe. Imagine the message that would transmit to the world rather than the cringeworthy image of of the party's leaders standing smiling with Biden rather than presenting him with a framed photo of a starving Palestinian child.
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But we know that is not going to happen in a party where deference displaces defiance. Not a keffiyeh on display during the Ireland Funds national gala. It is most unlikely that the party will follow the lead of former Irish president Mary Robinson and call on Biden to his face while it is in Washington to prohibit all weapons sales and funds to Israel.
Later today the weekly vigil for Gaza will take place in Drogheda's West Street. I will not be there as I have an early train to Sligo where the Drogs will take on the home side later this evening. At one of the previous gatherings, I met a friend who I had not seen in a while. He shook his head in despair, observing to me that whatever Sinn Fein has done in the past, shafting everybody for a piece of power pie, abandoning the Palestinians was an all time low.
I have no doubt that Sinn Fein is strongly opposed to genocide and does not approve of Biden' role in it. But unless the party seizes the opportunities that present themselves, it will find itself on the receiving end of the accusation that it never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Ireland's situation does matter and Sinn Fein is right to raise it. But when a genocide is occurring those on the receiving end must take priority. The victim not the perpetrator should be made to matter most in Washington.
Hand Biden a wreath on Patrick's Day not a shamrock.
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Great piece but utterly sad ......
ReplyDelete" What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in an American greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save:
Republican Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave. "
They could hand a wreath and the point would be lost on Biden. The man is clearly elderly and suffering from the onslaught of various cognitive problems that entails especially in someone who has had brain surgery. His predilection for sniffing children is disturbing enough.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, the shinners are wearing the regalia of government and by extension capitalism. What little can be expected of them when they are in the house of rampant exploitation?
The rebranding of Sinn Fein Republicanism has been stage managed, perhaps not always carefully, but it's effective in luring the young.