Southern Star January 10 2015
RELUCTANT as this scribe is to criticise
former Justice Minister Alan Shatter
when he’s in the doghouse, his
extraordinary rant on the terrible dangers
of voting for Sinn Fein deserves
some comment – not least because of
his misrepresentation of political fact
and context.
The ravings appeared in the Sunday
Independent (28/12/2014), a newspaper
that promotes sensationalist-style
opinion articles that often verge on the
dark side of what might be considered
objective.
Indeed, to be blunt, ever since the
Indo urged the British to execute the
1916 leaders, the newspaper group has
consistently regarded the various manifestations
of republicanism as a legitimate
target for serious attack.
That’s their right, of course, but however
one-sided the Indo-Sindo group
might be in their treatment of republicanism,
the newspapers have a saving
grace. It is their occasional investigations
into political corruption. And for
that they deserve to be commended.
Indeed the readiness to criticise government
policy and decision-making
mark the group as a fluid and reactive
organ of the ‘free press’; and it is not
strictly true either that they are Fine
Gael’s unofficial cheerleaders. After all,
did not then owner, Sir Anto O’Reilly,
endorse Fianna Fáil in the 1997 general
election under an Indo front page editorial,
entitled ‘It’s Payback Time’?
A fascist party?
However, the dilemma for the reader
is when the Indo-Sindo puts Sinn Féin
under a journalistic microscope. The
result is loud, self-centered, irrational
and unfairly-focused comment that is a
distortion of political reality.
The venom directed at Gerry Adams
is a case in point. Any evaluation
or judgement of his political activities,
or of his party becoming a major
component of the next government,
is dealt with in a manner that reeks
of contempt and a shameless lack of
objectivity. It is as if his contribution
to the democratic political process has
the same status as something the dog
vomited.
Last month Adams scored a significant
victory when the Press Council
and Press Ombudsman upheld his complaints
regarding Sindo articles about
him. The newspaper published a groveling
apology, and Adams commented:
‘The biased and downright offensive
nature of Sunday Independent coverage
of Sinn Féin and myself in particular
is unprecedented in the history of
newspapers in this country. The latest
decision by the Press Ombudsman is a
significant and positive development
which can only be good for fairness and
objectivity in political coverage’.
Which brings us to Shatter’s recent
bombast. Here’s how he defined Sinn
Féin: It was a party of fascists, a cult, a
disaster for the country, an outfit made
up of aggressive bullyboys, a serious
risk with a ballot box in one hand and a
propensity ‘to behave in a manner that
is completely undemocratically unacceptable
on the other hand’.
And, as well as all that, the party was
an enormous threat to civil liberties
and a threat to ‘our capacity to maintain
health and social services’. Worse
of all, it had an ‘outer-rim’ that presented
an even more terrible threat to
humanity (unfortunately not specified).
No substitute for facts
We recognise, of course, that there is
no such thing as a completely objective
point of view and that bias is part and
parcel of all policies and ideologies. After
all, politicos speak from inherently
biased political positions – and that’s
the nature of the game.
But, in a serious newspaper such as
the Sunday Independent, loony-toon
analysis is no substitute for facts and
information whose accuracy can be
checked.
Fascism, as Shatter well knows, was
the creature of Mussolini and Hitler
– dictators who violently suppressed
opposition, ruled by means of oppressive
controls, and who promoted a vile,
belligerent racism. To smear Sinn Féin
as fascist is, well, plain silly.
It suggests that Shatter believes the
Sindo’s readers have such a simple
understanding of politics that enlightenment
should be offered by means of
easily understood opposites: such as
‘them and us’, ‘good guys and bad guys’.
In other words, the public is considered
to be so dense when republicanism
is under consideration that without
people like Shatter and the Sunday
Independent to do the explaining, we’d
understand nothing at all.
Birth of the Blueshirts
Ironically, it is Shatter’s own party
that has the most appropriate claim
to a fascist heritage, not Sinn Féin. In
the 1930s, the Army Comrades Association
and Cumann na nGaedhael
were instrumental in fostering General
O’Duffy’s repulsive Blueshirt movement.
Happily, the Blueshirts turned
out to be a comical version of Mussolini’s
Blackshirts and, after a few scares,
nobody took them seriously.
Yet, for a time the Blueshirts very
much saw themselves as part of the
European fascist movement. Cumann
na nGaedheal deputy, John A Costello
(who went on to become leader
of Fine Gael and Taoiseach) said that
‘the Blackshirts had been victorious in
Italy, Hitler’s Brownshirts victorious in
Germany and assuredly the Blueshirts
will be victorious in Ireland’.
Ironic too that when Irishmen (many
of whom were republicans) fought fascism
during the Spanish Civil War, the
Irish Independent and Shatter’s party
enthusiastically supported the Franco
uprising, even though it was aided and
abetted by Adolf Hitler and Mussolini.
In the Dáil, WT Cosgrave declared
the ‘fate of European civilisation and
everything in it’ depended on a Franco
victory.
Some legacy!
Language most foul
This column has been bemoaning
the bad language emanating from
prominent Fine Gael politicos. Recently
a former FG strategist peppered
an interview in a family newspaper with
the f-word. Last month, a FG Minister
allegedly told a Dáil deputy to ‘f-off’
during an acrimonious debate on water
charges, and then, during the Christmas
season of goodwill, Foreign Affairs
Minister Charlie Flanagan got in on the
act when he appeared to brand Sinn
Féin as c***s.
In a Twitter exchange with TD
Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, the Minister
tweeted that in 2015 Ireland would be
faced with the choice of constitutional
politics or cult politics. Instantly, the
SF man responded with a picture of an
array of Irish Blueshirts with their arms
raised in the fascist salute. He added:
‘Hopefully cult politics doesn’t make a
comeback’.
When another tweeter asked Flanagan
if he spelt ‘cult’ incorrectly, the
Minister replied: ‘Yep, left out the “n”.’
Immediately, demands were made for
Flanagan to resign.
Gene Kerrigan of the Sunday Independent
put it well in arguing that
because Sinn Féin was outside the cosy
right-wing cartel of FG, Fianna Fáil and
Labour, it was okay to insinuate that SF
were c***s.
However, if Flanagan referred to
Joan Burton in that manner he would
be sacked. ‘Similarly, if he had used
the term about Michael Martin. Had
Paul Murphy or Gerry Adams used the
term, there would have been uproar for
weeks,’ Kerrigan said.
It seems that when it comes to obscenity
in the rancid world of Irish
politics, it’s different strokes for different
folks!
