How Lisbon Treaty can light up your life without firing the imagination
It was, in fact, the second house I’d set fire to in one week, thereby inviting a re-write of Wilde: To burn one house may be regarded as a misfortune. To burn two looks like arson…
The first house to which I set fire is occupied by my mother. It boasts a snazzy gas cooker with an eye-level grill.
It never struck me that, because it was in easy reach, my mother might have put a pile of newspapers on top of it. But she had, and within minutes of my lighting the gas below them, they went up in flames.
I grabbed them and headed for the back garden, somewhat hampered by my mother’s security-consciousness. Her back door has enough bolts to serve as the rear entrance to Fort Knox.
Trying to open all of them, one-handed, while holding aloft a flaming torch, made me look like a Ku Klux Klanner who’d forgotten to don his pointy-hatted robe — and it didn’t do the kitchen ceiling any favours either.
I tossed the papers into Ma’s beautifully -kept back garden and retreated. Of course, by that time the toast looked like something you’d put on display in the museum in Pompeii. But smoke-inhalation is quite an effective appetite depressant. I didn’t confess any of this to my mother, either, so let my brief attempt at arson stay between us, OK?
On Saturday, I heard Dick Roche on a radio programme, gently but persistently suggesting that all concerned citizens should visit www.reformtreaty.ie to learn about the Lisbon Treaty. He’s right, I thought. It is my duty to inform myself.
So I built up the fuel in the little black stove, so Himself would be cosy while he watched sport, and headed upstairs to do my homework. I had reached quite an interesting bit before all hell broke loose. The bit where the proposed treaty says that: “Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.”
The purpose and logistics of that floored me. First of all, what constitutes “a significant number” of Member States? Three? 13? Secondly, organising a cross-border (not that we have borders any more) petition involving a million people in an unspecified number of countries wouldn’t be easy. Thirdly, what on earth, given all the subsidiary co-operation and unity of purpose implied by the overall text of the Treaty, could give rise to so extraordinary a situation that these million people would “invite” the Commission to do something?
It was when I was trying to get a handle on this clause that the man in my life let out a yell. Now, this is a quietly spoken man not given to yelling. In fact, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he has yelled since I met him.
Because yelling is not his wont, I took this outbreak seriously and ran downstairs to find him standing in the middle of the room, black smoke swirling around him.
My personally crafted papier-mâché environmentally friendly briquettes, neatly stacked behind the stove, had caught fire. I brought buckets and water and a long tongs, removing the marginally involved briquettes first and running to the garden with them. The cats ran with me. They ran with me, across me, between my legs, tripping me and yelling encouragement.
THE man in my life opened the front door, which vented the smoke but greatly excited the remaining briquettes smouldering behind the stove. I didn’t argue with him about this, because I figured I didn’t have a strong fire-prevention position from which to negotiate at that moment. Anyway, I wouldn’t have been heard over the cats. Himself went back to standing in front of the television in the smog. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anybody stand FURIOUSLY.
He furiously watched as someone, I think called Brad Fridel, made a great save.
At the end of 10 minutes, the flaming brands were burning in a high wind in the back garden, the cats were covered in smuts, the house was a mini-version of Chicago, the windy city, and the man in my life was still standing furiously in front of the TV. I figured a) Manchester United were not winning and b) until he sat down, divorce was still a threat.
When he eventually sat down, fastidiously checking with a forefinger to see if smoke had stained the armchair, it was clear Manchester United had at least drawn the game. Although he was still silent, his was a less suppurating silence.
I went back upstairs to continue with the Lisbon Treaty. From start to finish, I read it. Two and a half hours, it took. At the end of it, one thing was clear: the posters showing Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny, carrying a caption suggesting the Treaty is Good for Them, Bad for You, are very, very clever. I didn’t say they were accurate, justified or valid. Just clever.
Because they play into a series of human realities that the EU, because it is led by bright, academically accomplished men and women, tends to forget.
The EU forgets that a huge tranche of people in this country read tabloid newspapers and attend to radio and TV programmes which major on people rather than process, feelings rather than fact. As exemplified by the programme on which Dick Roche urged us all to read the treaty: the excitement in that programme was provided by a farming leader who was ratty about something not directly related to the treaty at all.
It may be worthy and desirable that every Irish person who votes in the referendum reads the treaty, but it will be amazing if we see Northern Rock-type queues lining up outside public libraries for that purpose.
Heavy cross-party support for the treaty is supported by major accountancy partnerships, business umbrella groups and other pillars of the establishment. The sheer mass of high-level support, however, has its downside. It irks the hell out of mavericks — and half the population fondly believes itself to be maverick. It creates an us and them scenario. It stimulates the desire to stick it to the top guys. It invites action to express widespread current fears about the future. It plays to the short memory of the general public. It personifies the issue.
If the “Yes” side doesn’t speedily start to explicate the Lisbon Treaty in a similarly vivid way, the end result may be a significant “No” vote, empowered by a sense that rejecting the treaty is without immediate negative consequences for the individuals who choose that route.
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