Nay-sayers give game away to the pick-handles
The rejection of the EU constitutional treaty by the French and Dutch electorates is a body-blow.
However, nine member states, including three of the more populous - Germany, Italy and Spain - and significant smaller states like Austria, accounting for 220 million people, have already ratified the treaty. More will do so.
Even if the number ratifying by the end of 2006 does not reach the proportion required to trigger an automatic inter-governmental conference, the issues which make the treaty necessary will not go away.
An EU already with 25 diverse members, and due to expand by two or three more, must re-configure the way it runs itself if it is not to grind to a juddering halt.
The charter of fundamental human rights, which is part of the treaty, provides a commitment, not now satisfactorily existing, to rights which many of us take for granted.
We did not begin to realise in large numbers until the Iraq war that the rapidly shrinking globe on which we all depend is ruled by a ‘pick-handle culture.’ Those who have big pick-handles believe they can do what suits them - without due process, without democratic consultation and consent, without respecting sovereignty or rights.
This is not just a matter of a few foreigners being killed far away on our TV screens. Behind the distraction of the shooting war (however brutal, though increasingly boring, it may be), the real world is run by the people in the backrooms who regard it as their disposable property. So this is about who decides what we eat, what we wear, what we pay at the petrol pumps, how we play, how hard we have to work to make ends meet, whether we die with dignity. It is about the kind of planet (or how much of it) we are passing on to our children and grandchildren.
Sooner than that. As Ed Koch said just before the Iraq war: “This is about little old ladies dying of hypothermia in New Jersey.” In Donnycarney and Bangor Erris? This is about a divvy-up of essential resources which is anything but democratic or respectful of rights - all decided by the pick-handles.
Not in a melodramatic way, this is the Great Resource War in which the military are gladiatorial pawns and the real generals wear suits and fire financial emails.
And the most frightening aspect of it all is that the boys who think they are in charge of the planet have shown in Iraq how incompetent they are.
Let us get our feet on the ground. Beyond all the slap-happy propaganda about the Celtic Tiger, the Irish Republic is a tiny player whose entire population does not add up numerically to one decent-sized city.
The standard of living, which is cosy enough for most of us in Ireland for the moment, depends almost entirely on ‘external’ trade in goods and services - very precarious in a globalising world.
The ‘deal’ we get on that trade is not decided by our Government. Or rather, our Government only has a say when it is part of a system respected by the other players.
For all the weird and wonderful differences between EU members, there is some kind of broad consensus on the general rules by which we would like the game to be played.
This is what ‘European values’ is really about - and it includes a vision of different kind of planet.
Unfortunately, this Europe has no voice. Setting up a system by which we in Europe can sit around a table and work out effective common positions - and present them to the world with authority - is what the European constitutional treaty is about.
Working towards a world in which there is an alternative to the pick-handle is also what it is about.
This is the 21st century chapter of the struggle of our people for a society which will cherish all the children of the nation equally. And the children of the world.
The question is not whether or when the Taoiseach will let us have a little chat about the treaty and maybe vote on it when it is safe for him to let us do so. It is about thinking Irish citizens mobilising themselves to get the treaty ratified not just in Ireland, but in and for the rest of our Europe and our world.
Maurice O’Connell
19 Forge Park
Oakpark
Tralee
Co Kerry
