Time for rejuvenation - Get angry, stay angry, get involved

THE Anglo Irish figures are almost beyond belief, but the consequences for each and every one of us are utterly depressing and oh so enraging.

Equally, the anger provoked by the collusion of the Catholic hierarchy with the predatory evil in their midst – and their mind-numbing hypocrisy – are staggering and terribly depressing.

We’re all sick to the teeth of corrupt bankers, ineffective political leadership and paedophile priests. We’re almost beyond outrage, utterly dispirited by the extraordinary, the appalling, the immoral and the incompetent.

We’re disheartened by what seems to be the powerlessness of our systems to protect us or to impose any kind of retribution on so many of those immoral and dangerous people who have played major parts in the destruction of this economy. The people whose insane greed may deny us, and our children too, the social, educational and health services we all expect.

We’re hurt and shamed by the scandalous lengths the Catholic Church went to to hide paedophiles. Huge numbers of people have had to re-imagine where their faith and Catholicism meet because of these decades of betrayal. Thousands have had to question the core beliefs that shaped the essentials of their lives.

We’re well past saturation point with gloom and misery but we have few enough options but to confront the sources of this despair. We can opt out and turn a blind eye and quietly accept more of the same. Alternatively, we can stay on the sidelines, angry, impotent, irrelevant and accept being treated with contempt.

Or we can choose to become involved in a failed and discredited system that must be made fit for purpose if this society is to have any meaning, coherence or future. We can involve ourselves in trying to encourage and, later, introduce the deep and real change this damaged, beggared and failing society must go through.

Too many of us are happy enough to leave politics, social activism, and, to a lesser degree, volunteerism to others but we can no longer afford that. Our arm’s-length relationship with the active citizenship that underpins decent democracies has cost us dearly. Our relationship with the State and the Catholic Church has fallen into disrepair; it has become toxic.

By becoming involved in politics, whichever party you choose, by becoming involved in pressure groups, again whatever you’re having yourself, we might start to build a momentum that might eventually break the inertia and the conservatism, the rotten golden circles and the kind of political culture that produces a leader who can only show passion when his reputation is questioned, all of which combined to get us to this sorry, incandescent point. Economist Colm McCarthy has told us that anger is not a policy but it can be a very powerful catalyst for the changes we all know must happen in this country. Embrace it and use it.

In a few short years the army band tubas will be polished dazzlingly bright and reviewing stands will clutter every main street in the country. We will hear passionate speeches about the sacrifices and visionaries of 1916. There’ll be puffed chests, bellies held in, loud songs and a lot of lip service to the idealism that made it possible for us to live in a Republic.

What a fine, worthwhile tribute of acknowledgement it would be if we energised the next six years with political and social activism to move a step closer to a centuries-old ambition. What a fine thing it would be if we upset the cosy cartels that have run business and politics in this country into the ground.

Though there is more than enough for us to give out about the time has come for us to join up or shut up.

Get angry, stay angry, get involved in our future.