This political abuse has to stop now
Is Michael D Higgins a traitor? What is the appropriate punishment for a traitor? Is Joan Burton a liar? Is there any place in public life for people who tell barefaced lies? Things have been getting a little out of hand for a while now.
Anger, the defining emotion of the recession, is being used by some to justify dragging standards of decency in public life into the gutter. Various targets are being subjected not just to abuse, but character assassination. Last week saw two examples of protest that says something about where political discourse may be heading.
A group representing deferred Aer Lingus pensioners brought their protest to the family home of the minister for transport, Paschal Donohoe. The group has a legitimate grievance. Their pensions have been hit as a result of a huge hole in the pension fund.
They are understandably devastated. Yet, in keeping with a current trend, some among them believe that their anger justifies targeting anybody they arbitrarily deem responsible for their predicament.
What exactly Donohoe could realistically do, within financial and legal constraints, isn’t clear. But these people believe that the minister’s young children should have the grievance visited on their doorstep. On Monday evening, a group of over 60 marched on Donohoe’s home in Phibsboro.
They chanted protests outside the house, and distributed leaflets to neighbours apologising for the disruption. What about Donohue’s two young children? They would have been aware that the angry chants were directed at their home.
Is it now legitimate to intimidate by default small children on the basis that their father is deemed responsible for not addressing an issue in a manner that is demanded of him? Clare Daly is an elected TD who formerly worked in Aer Lingus.
She had no problem with the protest. “The pensioners feel their families’ lives have been devastated as a result of the government’s unwillingness to listen to an equitable solution and foisting through their proposals,” she said. “I suppose they felt strongly enough to bring it to the minister’s family door.”
So, because the pensioners’ families are invoked – on a dodgy premise – it’s ok to drag Donohue’s small children into the matter? Or maybe, as in times of war, it’s just a case of dehumanising the enemy.
Daly has been a valuable addition to the Dáil since her election in 2011. But when things turn ugly, she appears to be prepared to stand by those who go too far, rather than invoke some basic standards. Early in the week, a video emerged of a protest in which the country’s president was subjected to nasty personal insults.
It involved a group opposed to the water charges, Dublin Says No, and occurred when the president was visiting a school in Finglas. The video was posted on Facebook by one of the main protestors, Derek Byrne.
The 73-year-oldhead of state was called a “sell-out” a “traitor” and a “little midget parasite” as he left the event. Last week, Byrne apologised for using the term “midget”, but he said he wouldn’t apologise for hurling the insult “parasite” at the President.
Defending the right to protest against the President, Socialist TD Paul Murphy told this paper’s Shaun Connolly that he had an issue with the midget stuff. “I would not agree with personalised comments.... I defend their right to protest, including against the President because people are angry that he signed the bill.”
The bill was the revised water charges bill, signed into law in late December. The bill represented a major victory for the people power that was on display last Autumn over objections to the then water charges regime.
For many, it brought certainty to the level of charges, and effectively ensured that there is no chance of Irish Water being privatised in the foreseeable future. Some still oppose the new regime, and some among them have maintained their anger.
In Murphy’s world, that anger justifies protesting against the head of state, who is regarded as being above party politics. What could Higgins have done bar resign? There were obviously no stand-out features to the bill that suggested a constitutional problem.
It was so sound that the president didn’t even think it necessary to consult the Council of State, not to mind refer it to the Supreme Court. This was not a piece of legislation that threatened to undermine civil liberties, or religious freedoms, or human life.
It was a political matter over how to pay for the state’s water infrastructure. But, for politicians like Murphy the water charges issue is about much more than water. It has presented the opportunity to manipulate the justifiable anger felt by many over austerity and recession. The goal is to hoover up disaffected votes, and to do so by feeding off anger, and when necessary whipping it up.
When challenged during the week on Today FM’s The Last Word about the protest last November in which Joan Burton was trapped in her car, Murphy didn’t hold back. “She is a woman who got elected on a lie that she was going to oppose water charges. She is destroying people’s lives.” As he would have it, Burton didn’t break a promise. She knowingly peddled an untruth during an election campaign. There is absolutely no evidence of that. But Burton’s party is highly unpopular, so Murphy feels justified in labelling her a liar, because he knows that will go down well with potential voters.
Who, after all, would have a problem with detaining in her car a liar, who was responsible for destroying lives? Wouldn’t such an ogre deserve that treatment? What kind of president signs into law a bill without due consideration for any anger felt about it? Surely only a traitor. That is the depths to which political discourse has sunk.
Some of it is due to the importance that certain interests have attached to the water charges issue. The ineptitude of the government presented politicians like Murphy the opportunity to make hay.
In the desperation to ensure this moment doesn’t pass, anything goes, including swiping away basic standards of decency. The tragedy is that there is a large chunk of the electorate looking for political representation which could articulate their disaffection, and offer a plausible alternative way forward.
Despite six years of austerity, no such entity has emerged. Instead, in the absence of an alternative vision, those like Murphy concentrate on the protest aspect, because it would appear they have little to offer in the way of an alternative.
And in such an environment, it’s only inevitable that the protests will be nastier, violent, and fuelled by hatred rather than political opposition. It will pass, though. It must if any semblance of democracy is to be maintained.
The establishment parties haven’t exactly been robust in representing the tenets of democracy in recent years themselves, but at least they have maintained some basic standards. Let’s be careful out there.
READ MORE: SHAUN CONNOLLY - Hard to call which politician most deserves derision
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