Irrelephant
16th February 2012, 19:57
Hey there everyone,this is my first real post on Revleft and I'd like to address a topic that's close to my own heart,and is a real barrier to my leftist political activity.
There a number of countries today in which the political climate is turbulent,and talk of revolution and a change of government is frequent,such as Greece,Spain and much of the middle east.There is,however,one country,my very own fatherland, in which things have not changed in the slightest:Ireland.
To fill you in on the recent political goings on in Ireland,here's a breakdown of what happened.In 2011 we thrust out Fianna Fail(populist,socially conservative,economically conservative-centrist) who,with their incompetence and cronyism had destroyed the Irish economy.They had been in power during what is referred to as the ''boom'' years (in reality a small housing bubble in the 90s) and people celebrated as they thrust out those that they so fervently voted in all those years ago.
Now in any other country,there would be a backlash.After all those years of social and (somewhat) economic conservativism,surely a new election would see a sharp swing to the left.Alas this was not the case as our people instead voted in a coalition of Fine Gael (Social Conservative,Extreme Fiscal Conservative,has roots in the Fascist Party) and Labour (Much like Britain's New Labour,has taken a drastic shift to the right and to neo-liberalism in recent times.)
But still the people chanted that now was the time when things would change.they were most certainly wrong.What we have received has been the Fianna Fail method..but even harsher.Constant austerity obliterating the working man while saving the bankers,speculators and wealthy of our society.And all the while our government tells us that this is for the best,and that these people shouldn't pay for a crisis they caused.A real tragedy eh? But this is not freak accident.This current political climate is rooted in the central shortcoming of Irish politics:ignorance
Many of our current voters are entirely ignorant of the actual policies of the parties they vote in.Irish politics has nothing to do economic or social issues and has everything to do with a sort of tribal sense of belonging to one group of ideas or the other.This attitude can be traced back to a singled document in Irish History:The Anglo-Irish Treaty
To sum it up,after years of fighting for independence,Ireland was given a choice-
1.Continue fighting in the hopes of getting a full 32 county(an area of land somewhat like a state,département etc.) Republic and more than likely get crushed by the British Army
2.Accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty and form a 26-county (hence the 6 counties of Northern Ireland) state with limited control over its own affairs.
The Irish delegation went with option 2 and signed the Treaty,before bringing it back to Parliament to be voted on.Then,a split occured in Irish politics and society.Fianna Fail consisted of those who didn't want the dream of an independent republic to die,while Fine Gael consisted of those who wished to accept the compromise.The two were engaged in a brutal two year civil war that tore the country apart.
Naturally enough,these divisions still exist today.You are a ''Fianna Fail man'' not because you like their policies or agree with their ideology but because your father and his father before him and his father before him etc. was. In this way the Irish voter does not wish to educate himself about policy lest he be turned over to the ''other side''.And so we have,for most of our time as a State,swapped between two virtually identical Conservative Parties,all because of a single document.
For this reason,many Irish people have no real familiarity with politics beyond what is ''in their blood''.They have no desire to learn about or investigate Leftist or Socialist Parties because their Conservative Parties (which have time and time again robbed and exploited them) tell them that they're all crazy radicals and what this country needs is ''stability''
So called ''Stability'' is the bane of Irish politics.For too long have the Irish working class been too afraid to affect true change,too long goaded by their Conservative masters into ''not rocking the boat''.Well People of Ireland it is time to turn the boat over!
Thank you,comrades,I have hoped that I have shown you one of the biggest barriers to leftism in my little Island so isolated from the world,and hope I can speak more about the subject in future.
There a number of countries today in which the political climate is turbulent,and talk of revolution and a change of government is frequent,such as Greece,Spain and much of the middle east.There is,however,one country,my very own fatherland, in which things have not changed in the slightest:Ireland.
To fill you in on the recent political goings on in Ireland,here's a breakdown of what happened.In 2011 we thrust out Fianna Fail(populist,socially conservative,economically conservative-centrist) who,with their incompetence and cronyism had destroyed the Irish economy.They had been in power during what is referred to as the ''boom'' years (in reality a small housing bubble in the 90s) and people celebrated as they thrust out those that they so fervently voted in all those years ago.
Now in any other country,there would be a backlash.After all those years of social and (somewhat) economic conservativism,surely a new election would see a sharp swing to the left.Alas this was not the case as our people instead voted in a coalition of Fine Gael (Social Conservative,Extreme Fiscal Conservative,has roots in the Fascist Party) and Labour (Much like Britain's New Labour,has taken a drastic shift to the right and to neo-liberalism in recent times.)
But still the people chanted that now was the time when things would change.they were most certainly wrong.What we have received has been the Fianna Fail method..but even harsher.Constant austerity obliterating the working man while saving the bankers,speculators and wealthy of our society.And all the while our government tells us that this is for the best,and that these people shouldn't pay for a crisis they caused.A real tragedy eh? But this is not freak accident.This current political climate is rooted in the central shortcoming of Irish politics:ignorance
Many of our current voters are entirely ignorant of the actual policies of the parties they vote in.Irish politics has nothing to do economic or social issues and has everything to do with a sort of tribal sense of belonging to one group of ideas or the other.This attitude can be traced back to a singled document in Irish History:The Anglo-Irish Treaty
To sum it up,after years of fighting for independence,Ireland was given a choice-
1.Continue fighting in the hopes of getting a full 32 county(an area of land somewhat like a state,département etc.) Republic and more than likely get crushed by the British Army
2.Accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty and form a 26-county (hence the 6 counties of Northern Ireland) state with limited control over its own affairs.
The Irish delegation went with option 2 and signed the Treaty,before bringing it back to Parliament to be voted on.Then,a split occured in Irish politics and society.Fianna Fail consisted of those who didn't want the dream of an independent republic to die,while Fine Gael consisted of those who wished to accept the compromise.The two were engaged in a brutal two year civil war that tore the country apart.
Naturally enough,these divisions still exist today.You are a ''Fianna Fail man'' not because you like their policies or agree with their ideology but because your father and his father before him and his father before him etc. was. In this way the Irish voter does not wish to educate himself about policy lest he be turned over to the ''other side''.And so we have,for most of our time as a State,swapped between two virtually identical Conservative Parties,all because of a single document.
For this reason,many Irish people have no real familiarity with politics beyond what is ''in their blood''.They have no desire to learn about or investigate Leftist or Socialist Parties because their Conservative Parties (which have time and time again robbed and exploited them) tell them that they're all crazy radicals and what this country needs is ''stability''
So called ''Stability'' is the bane of Irish politics.For too long have the Irish working class been too afraid to affect true change,too long goaded by their Conservative masters into ''not rocking the boat''.Well People of Ireland it is time to turn the boat over!
Thank you,comrades,I have hoped that I have shown you one of the biggest barriers to leftism in my little Island so isolated from the world,and hope I can speak more about the subject in future.