Colin Sheridan: Obama’s silence on Gaza makes Freedom of Dublin award deeply problematic

Dublin is honouring Obama amid a genocide he won’t speak out against — and that silence should matter more

US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama enjoying a Guinness in Hayes Bar in Moneygall, Co Offaly, during their visit to Ireland in 2011. Picture: PA

There’s a long and noble Irish tradition of giving medals to people who don’t need them. Mimicking our one-time oppressors, we’re good at the pomp and pageantry, terrible at timing. 

And in this grand tradition of ceremonial sycophancy, we’ve now decided to give the Freedom of Dublin to Barack Obama — the same Barack Obama whose presidential legacy includes a kill list, expanded drone warfare, and now, more recently, a silence on Gaza so deafening it practically registers on the Richter scale.

Now, before someone starts waving a Hope poster in my face and singing 'Is Feider Linn', let’s be clear: this isn’t a character assassination. Barack Obama is, by many accounts, charming, intelligent, a skilled orator, and less overtly monstrous than some who followed him. But if the bar for receiving Dublin’s highest civic honour is simply “better than Trump,” then let’s all take turns.

This isn’t about left or right. It’s about right and wrong. And giving Obama the keys to a city that prides itself on solidarity, social justice and neutrality — a city only a century since it's own liberation from colonisers, a city that once shut down its port in protest of apartheid — is a moral absurdity that would be funny if it weren’t so grotesque.

Let’s talk about Gaza. Right now, we’re witnessing an unquestionable genocide, one that even conservative estimates rank among the worst atrocities in recent memory. Tens of thousands dead. Children buried under rubble. Journalists and doctors targeted with impunity. And what’s Obama’s response? A few muted bromides about “the complexity of the situation” and the usual plea for restraint — the kind of lukewarm platitude you'd expect from someone looking to protect a Netflix deal, not someone once hailed as the conscience of the free world.

Remember, this is the same man who, while president, gave Israel the largest military aid package in US history — $38bn over ten years. The same man who watched as Gaza was pummelled in 2014, and then blocked efforts at the UN for accountability. 

In Obama’s world, apparently, some lives matter more than others — and it’s not the ones buried under the debris in Khan Younis

So let’s ask: What, exactly, are we honouring?

Is it the weekly “Terror Tuesday” meetings where he personally signed off on drone strikes — many of which killed civilians, including children, with such frequency that his administration had to redefine the word “combatant” to keep the numbers palatable? Is it the Nobel Peace Prize he received before bombing seven countries? Or is it the charming eloquence with which he explained away extrajudicial assassinations and mass surveillance?

Maybe it’s the warm pint he had in Moneygall. Maybe that’s enough. 

Maybe our foreign policy is so thin it can be blown over by a puff of Guinness foam.

Obama’s defenders, and there are many, will say: "He tried." They'll point to the Iran deal. They'll mention the thaw with Cuba. And fair enough — no presidency is black and white (though drone strikes absolutely are). 

But a Freedom of the City is not a footnote in a CV. It’s a declaration of values. 

And at a time when Dublin has become a symbol — however small — of international moral conscience on Gaza, this award feels not just tone-deaf, but actively insulting

It's worth asking how we'd feel if another country handed such an honour to, say, Tony Blair, citing his contribution to the peace process while politely ignoring Iraq. We'd scoff. We’d march. We’d write strongly-worded op-eds, the kind I’m doing now.

And yet, because Obama quotes Seamus Heaney and has a smile that makes white liberals feel good about themselves, we’re expected to ignore the trail of bodies left in his geopolitical wake.

It’s also galling because the Freedom of Dublin isn’t just symbolic fluff — at least, it wasn’t meant to be. It should be given to people like Nelson Mandela and John Hume — people whose lives were defined by their resistance to violence, not their management of it. To toss Obama into that company is like inviting Monsanto to an organic farming festival.

Let’s not pretend this is just a harmless bit of civic theatre. In a world as interconnected and morally muddled as ours, gestures matter. They signal what we stand for

And giving Obama this award now — as children in Gaza die in silence, too exhausted to even scream — sends a very clear message: that brand is more important than behaviour, that the image of progress is more valuable than the practice of it.

And to those in Dublin City Council who greenlit this award: shame on you. Not because Obama is uniquely evil — he’s not — but because you should know better. You should know that real solidarity isn’t measured in photo ops, but in principles. 

You should know that timing matters. Context matters. And right now, there’s blood on the sand in Gaza, and silence in the White House archives.

We don’t need empty ceremonies. We need moral courage. And giving the Freedom of Dublin to Barack Obama is not an act of courage. It’s an act of cowardice wrapped in a velvet sash.