Disagreeing with a man doesn’t mean you have to hate him

Whether it was his proposed bill on blasphemy or his gangland crime bill, the Minister for Justice’s actions in recent times have proved our national capacity to rush to personal judgment, rather than address the ideas involved

I KNEW my marriage was over eight months after it began. The certainty was total. I got into the passenger seat of his car and looked fixedly out through the window on my left, counting the ghostly lampposts as they materialised and disappeared. Waiting for the apology that might give us a future. It never came.

I couldn’t believe it. He had disagreed with me in front of four friends. Worse, he had explained to them in great and enthusiastic detail why my point of view was unsustainable. I had sat, cheeks flaming, earlobes swelling with rage, while he had supplied much more evidence than was required to disprove my case.

After a long time driving in silence, he spoke.

“Tess, loving someone doesn’t mean you have to agree with them.”

It made such sense, I hated him even more, while realising immediately that I had to learn this precept and apply it. The problem is, I’m a slow learner. To this day, whenever he disagrees with me, I’m dividing the property and related debts before the guests leave. He gets the Cooley Kickhams clock and the autographed photograph of some British soccer team whose name I forget. I get custody of the cats. It’ll all be very civilised.

The consoling thing about being a slow learner in this department is that I’m not alone. It’s a trait I share with most of the nation, as proven by the reaction to Dermot Ahern’s recent legislative moves.

Whether it was his proposed bill on blasphemy or his gangland crime bill, the Minister for Justice’s actions in recent times have – at least initially – provoked reasoned debate, but have then proved our national capacity to rush to personal judgment, rather than address the ideas involved.

When a group of lawyers got together to mount a reasoned argument against the gangland crime measure, for example, their input didn’t even get the first brief benefit of serious consideration as a set of ideas and as a re-statement of essential democratic values.

Instead, they were told they were overpaid, pampered, uncaring and unrealistic because of spending so much time in the ivory towers of academe: Never mind the issue, go for the man. Or woman. Or in this case bunch of barristers.

They were asked if they’d ever lived in the gang-ridden areas of Limerick, the question coming freighted with the sure expectation of a negative answer.

The odd thing was that most of the people demanding to know the county of origin of each of the lawyers raising questions about Dermot Ahern’s intentions hadn’t lived in those areas, either, but they assumed their ignorance didn’t prevent them having a level of insight not vouchsafed to the equally ignorant lawyers…

Because anger, mutual abuse and characterising the other guy as a complete plonker make for great media, in no time at all, the issue had boiled down to Classic Right Wing Fianna Fáiler who Never Listens versus Liberal Lefties who’ve Never Been Mugged in their Lives, never mind shot in Mistake for Someone Else.

Now, I have doubts about the way this and previous governments in recent times have sheared away legal protections in order to get at the most-feared villains of the day (once terrorists, now gang-leaders) or vindicate the saddest victims of the day.

I have doubts that the new legislation will markedly reduce the number of deaths at the hands – and guns – of viciously inept career criminals with a family tradition of violence, disregard for others and incapacity to consider alternatives.

But disagreeing with a man doesn’t mean you have to hate him. Or characterise him as a tunnel-visioned Dundalk bootboy. You can go that way, of course. More power to you. There’s a great and easy satisfaction to it. A man you disagree with has been found guilty. Done and dusted.

Except that there’s a lot more to Dermot Ahern than that. First of all, he does have the courage of his convictions, whether you like those convictions or you don’t.

The obvious and repeatedly demonstrated courage of his public contempt for the IRA and Sinn Féin is one example.

Ahern knows the damage done to the warp and weft of communities in border counties by organised Republicans over the years, and never – even when saying so carried at least a chance of a damaged knee or two, if they could get at him – backed away from saying so.

The same courage undoubtedly informed his recent legislative moves, except this time, quite apart from liberal lawyers, he would have been clear in advance the bulk of media were going to be against him.

Ahern is good on media. Clear, considered and speedy to respond. Right up to the hour the gangland legislation was passed, he was taking every media opportunity and providing features for newspapers, laying out the reasons for the bill and what he believed it would achieve.

He’s one of the cabinet cohort sent out on general Fianna Fáil issues, particularly in bad times, because, although he doesn’t have the baffled resolute reasonableness of a Batt O’Keeffe or the wistful determination to persuade of a Micheál Martin, what he does have, in spade, is something some other members of the cabinet sorely need: an in-depth understanding of his portfolio and of wider government policy.

This is a diligent man who reads his material and deals in data. Well, most of the time he deals in data. He does have an instinct in common with Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar, to emit smart heckles on the floor of the house.

Sometimes they work for both of them. Sometimes they boomerang and do neither of them any favours at all. But you get the impression that heckling, to them, is an addiction rather than a device. Once in about six weeks of silence and withdrawal symptoms, they’re overcome by the need for a fix and just have to let fly before they get the shakes.

One of the factors that makes Dermot Ahern interesting is his strand of the solitary. Most politicians, despite constant immersion in humanity, tend to favour leisure pursuits that further immerse them in company: pints, golf and attendance at GAA matches.

Our Minister for Justice, in lonely contrast, goes wind-surfing. Rumour hath it that he’s very good at staying upright in a high wind, which is a useful maritime and political skill. I have to admit, the first time I saw a photograph of him at this pursuit, I had a problem with the rubbery gear he had on.

Not that there was anything wrong with it. He looked grand in it. It’s just that he’s the kind of dapper bloke you expect to wear tailored suits at all times, even in bed.

A lot of the time, in common with lots of other people, I would disagree with Dermot Ahern. But then, liking someone isn’t predicated on agreeing with them.