A Shekel For Your Thoughts

Anthony McIntyre ☠ Writing yesterday about the political perspective of Sean Lynch having evolved I was reminded of how another former prisoner had undergone an even more striking departure from the ground he had almost died on.

Pat Sheehan is an old friend who has previously featured on the pages of TPQ. I think because of our once firm friendship, but maybe not, I was sent via Facebook an audio recording of a disputatious exchange between him and pro-Palestinian activists. They were arguing over the heckling of Sinn Fein luminary Declan Kearney when he addressed a rally in support of Gaza earlier this year. Sheehan was annoyed at some in the crowd shouting 'Kearney you are a fuckin wanker.'

Sheehan also drew attention to himself being heckled:

when I got up to speak at the City Hall, as soon as I got up to speak, as soon as it was announced that I was speaking, part of the crowd started booing.

I don't believe Declan Kearney or Pat Sheehan should have been shouted down. It was denying others their right to hear what either had to say. If people do not approve of the Kearney/Sheehan perspective, to the point that they do not want to listen to them, they can always turn their backs in silent protest. It happened to Sinn Fein speakers during the Iraq war when the party was suspected by many in the anti-war movement of trying to play it both ways. The joke then was that Mitchel McLaughlin would appear at the anti-War rally at Hillsborough while Alex Maskey would attend the war rally outside Belfast City Hall.

People Before Profit activists, Sheehan's interlocuters, were claiming that the heckling was spontaneous, over which it had no control, whereas Sheehan contested any notion of it being random.

When it was put to Sheehan by a Palestinian woman that perhaps the hostility towards both he and his party colleagues was a result of anger at his meeting with Likud, he responded 'and what?'

To put some context on this, imagine responding to Jewish people - who had lost friends and colleagues during the Holocaust and complained about others meeting the Nazis - 'and what?’ Is there a more appropriate word than arrogance to describe such an ill-advised rejoinder?

Meeting with Likud is like meeting with the Nazi Party. Perhaps an argument can be made for meeting with Nazis at critical junctures. Back channels are probably essential in the midst of violent political conflict. Norbert Masur and Folke Bernadotte evidently believed so, and in their defence they saved the lives of many Jewish people. But Sinn Fein would be hard pressed to show one Palestinian life saved as a result of the party meeting Likud. There is not a scintilla of evidence to show that Likud would be swayed in the slightest by Sinn Fein, merely using the meetings to exercise bragging rights over the Palestinians - with taunts of even your allies are now high-fiving it with us.

Arguably, there was only one reason for Sinn Fein to meet Likud. That was to demonstrate to the establishment that it is a party that has been cured of its radicalism and is now fit for government, trotters suitably attired in polished shoes as it sits at the top table snorting with Farmer Jones.

Sheehan told his detractors that to claim there was no organised heckling, 'you are pissing up my leg and telling me it is raining.' Takes some chutzpah to make that claim given his own party's history in organized lying and handing out brollies to those whose backs it just pissed down.

After listening to the audio, I asked a Belfast activist aligned neither to SF nor People Before Profit for his take. Very familiar with the rallies and protests, he stated that while People Before Profit members might have joined in, the heckling was not organised but was the result of young people in particular being abhorred by what they felt was Sinn Fen's duplicitous stance on the Gaza genocide.

From Pat Sheehan friend of Liberation to Pat Shekel friend of Likud, not the type of epitaph you would want on your headstone.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.