A past gone mad…a present no less so… Senator Harris, the other Senate nominees and what this tells us about contemporary Irish politics. August 4, 2007
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.trackback
They say when you leave a country for a period, even a holiday, and then you return that one has the capacity to look at everything anew, in a fresh and unexpected way.
That certainly seems to be the case over the past twenty four hours. I returned in the small hours of this morning, flights delayed due to problems at Dublin airport and I’m presuming that these problems stemmed from the rush to leave the country for the bank holiday weekend. Anyhow, as a nervous flyer there are few words to less inspire confidence than ‘it may be a little choppy the last five minutes before landing’. As the Airbus A321 came in over Howth it was indeed ‘a little choppy’, but I have a funny feeling that had the pilot not forewarned me I might not even have noticed.
Anyhow, due to transit I was out of contact with media for over twenty-four hours. And what new joy is brought to my attention this morning? Why someone texted me to tell me there were 7 independents in the Senate, including one Eoghan Harris. ‘Eoghan who?’ I texted back, a disturbing thought already forming in the back of my mind. ‘Harris, the newspaper columnist’, came the response.
Yeah. The world is made anew.
While away (and apologies to Donagh of Dublin Opinion who promised to get me a copy some time back, but this had a bonus disk with Peel sessions and not one, but three – count them three! – versions of their seminal cover of ‘Lost in Music’) I purchased the Fall’s 1993 album, The Infotainment Scan. Years ago it was robbed from my then house during a burglary. It’s a great album, by a great group (favourite album by them, probably This Nations Saving Grace, favourite song by them, perhaps C.R.E.E.P. perhaps Hey! Luciani, or perhaps L.A.), but the internet is full of people lauding the Fall, and I don’t particularly want to echo that chorus. Still, the Infotainment Scan has at least two gilt-edged classics, and one of them is A Past Gone Mad.
It’s a cheerful little piece which seems to satirise an unthinking nostalgia.
But here we are. A new Senate which includes Ivor Callely, and yes Eoghan Harris. Maurice Hayes has not been reappointed. There is no nominee from the North. The PDs and the Green Party have gained two Senators apiece each.
I don’t intend, or indeed want to, criticise these nominees as individuals. Indeed many years ago Eoghan Harris did me a favour as regards some research I was engaged in and I have that at least to thank him for. One could argue that Callely – a man whose election posters and hoardings in Clontarf included the immortal line “The Future is Callely” is profoundly energetic in his struggle to remain in political life. The return of Dan Boyle to the Oireachtas is a good days work. Fiona O’Malley gets a bad rap, but her somewhat eccentric demeanour is interesting and colourful. Donagh also has an interesting critique of Harris on a left/right political axis.
But.
What does this tell us?
I’m afraid that what it tells us is that politics is dead. That there is no over-arching vision. Instead it is about tedious and narrow-sighted micro-management of party issues and in the case of Harris – well, what is it about? Is it some sort of reward for the staunch level of his support for Ahern during the election? An odd basis for selection to the upper house.
And worse again, and here I want to discuss this in conceptual terms, I think it rewards an analysis – if one can even term it that- which should not be rewarded. That analysis is one which this site has tried to consider over an extended period because for myself, and perhaps others here, it was part of our political background and has spread to inhabit curious nooks and crannies of the Irish political psyche. And that analysis is one which to my mind is rooted in nothing very much but a sort of oppositional approach (essentially to PIRA/PSF but any target de jour will do) dressed up as some sort of moral or ethical framework. Some will say, well, it was necessary to oppose, and indeed it was. But…the ‘hush puppies’, the ’sneaking regarders’ were always much much less of a threat to this democracy than they were painted. The general population was never going to take up arms to overthrow partition. Quite the opposite if anything, and the chances for a civil war were just about nil. Furthermore, the tone injected into the public discourse by this analysis was one which the term ‘McCarthyite’ might not quite do justice to, but would not be entirely incorrect. Our national broadcaster riven by factionalising. Support for de facto censorship. A ‘little Irelander’ mentality which shrank the the people to 26 counties and an social approach that – at best – could be regarded as bourgeois. At worst…well much much worse than that.
And finally, and most irritatingly, an analysis which refused to see the potential for change in others which was seen in those who made it. In other words, the Conor Cruise O’Brien journey from working for the Department of External Affairs and pumping out revanchist nonsense such as this:
… to the member of the UKUP. Or the similar journey of Harris from Official Sinn Féin to supporter and advisor to Fine Gael and later the Ulster Unionist Party (incidentally, top tip for political Unionism, avoid at all costs any former Republicans who offer to give you a PR makeover. Both Bob McCartney and David Trimble learned that lesson).
So while they, in all their ethical wisdom could change their beliefs 180 degrees, no-one else could, and therefore everyone else had to be coerced through the use of state power to tow the line. Even when it was apparent that there were shifts within the Republican movement towards a different approach the analysis remained strong and consistent, indeed has until this very day. And that brand of coercive, bullying, intolerant, and worst of all unknowing and ignorant – because it cannot and will not accept change is possible in opponents because only those who make the analysis are allowed that capacity – political analysis is one which I find anathema within a democratic polity.
And yet this is what is rewarded? This is what is given time of day, by a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach.
And we lose what? We lose the opportunity to put a voice from Northern Ireland in the Senate (and although there is a part of me that wonders whether this lack of Northern voices will be used by the Taoiseach to push through a different form of Northern representation, perhaps, if we’re lucky). So while an analysis which effectively failed is reified (and fail it did. Every prediction it made from the monolithic power of Republicanism, to the inevitablity of civil war and on to the impossibility of armed Republicanism to actually divest itself of weapons and accept a political context was proved incorrect), we have no opportunity to hear from, y’know, actual living breathing Unionists of whatever stripe, or even those who would be part of that tradition.
I think I want to go back to the airport.
“what is it about? Is it some sort of reward for the staunch level of his support for Ahern during the election? An odd basis for selection to the upper house.”
There probably was some sort of deal done, I doubt if senatorial nominations come out of the blue. But, whether a deal was done or not, and what its nature was don’t really matter. The point is that representative democracy is a pantomime – it just doesn’t matter very much what idiots sit in those houses. Bertie understands this and I’d bet a lot that the driving reason for this appointment is that it’s farking hilarious – I can just imagine Bertie sniggering to himself at the thought of the outraged reactions from the “D4 intelligentsia” IT types as he made the decision.
Incidentally, the phoenix was reporting that Harris had been trying to get Bertie to appoint him to the RTE authority. This is probably a negotiated compromise – the senate is somewhere that Bertie can introduce a clown without risking him wrecking some properly choreographed bits of the pantomime.
At what point in the decline of the Roman empire did Caligula make his horse a senator? I’m not being funny (incidentally my old pair knew Harris in UCC in the 60s and he was an arse even then, apparently).
Parties like FF get their hegemonic position by taking the game seriously; when they stop taking it seriously (by appointing a known wanker to the upper house of the legislature, for example), that’s when their grip starts to slip. . .
You might recall that Spitting Image sometimes put a horse in their Cabinet scenes towards the end of Thatcher’s reign. In respect of which: when did she say “we have become a grandmother”? I always took that as a definitive sign of lunacy.
I think the story about Incitatus, which appears, a little research* indicates, to come from Suetonius, may be apocryphal.
[* = Wikipedia]
Jeekers Chekov, that’s a gloomy prognosis. Although I’m not sure one swallow (Harris) is the equivalent of a Summer, or even the canary in the coalmine of democracy – in other words I don’t think this is final proof of the uselessness of democracy, and even if it is, seems to me there’s a long way from here to whatever is the optimum next situation.
Got to say Idris, I agree with that analysis very much. Some have mentioned John Waters would have made a more suitable equivalent, and I can’t say I disagree with that. At least he has some sort of intellectual track record even if one disagrees with him.
[...] There is an old Jewish proverb that, if you live long enough, you’ll see everything. It strikes me that this applies equally well to Irish politics, and was more or less my reaction on hearing the news that former Stickie apparatchik, legendary media pundit and friend of this blog Eoghan Harris has somehow managed to wangle himself a seat in the Seanad, as one of Bertie’s eleven appointees. This appointment has caused consternation across the land, and for those readers with their mouths still hanging open, you can read detailed accounts of Eoghan’s political peregrinations from Donagh and WorldbyStorm. [...]
The Chinese believe if you sit on a river bank long enough your enemies come floating by. As you guys know Harris partly raged against the Provos because they had no democratic mandate. Welcome to the Seanad Eoghan, a bastion of democratic accountability.
At what point in the decline of the Roman empire did Caligula make his horse a senator?”
The empire was still to reach it’s peak actually and if Caligula did make his horse a consul (because we really don’t have much to base this on), it was in the context of an attempt to show the ‘chattering classes’ that their legalities and constitutional niceties were pathetic compared to his power – a dispute that definitely did happen.
Still a very apposite comparison though.
“Parties like FF get their hegemonic position by taking the game seriously; when they stop taking it seriously (by appointing a known wanker to the upper house of the legislature, for example), that’s when their grip starts to slip. . .”
Wishful thinking I’m afraid. You’re confusing the game of power with the pantomime of parliament which really doesn’t have much significance beyond PR. When it comes to the real game of holding power and understanding how to maintain it, they are as astute as ever.
To compare it to the Roman Empire, from the middle of the first century BC, the leading politicians in rome came to understand that control of legions was the important thing and thereafter the senate and the rest of the constitutional structure progressively became nothing more than a pantomime. Caligula’s alleged horse-appointment was nothing more than him rubbing the noses of the ‘intelligentsia’ in it, who liked to pretend that their role was more important than it was. And it predated the real decline of the empire by anything from 100 to 200 years (depending on where you identify the decline).
Caligula Ahern. I like it. Do we reckon the cutist one reads the classics or is it just the inevitable process of power and history that has us repeating tragedy as farce in this incidence?
Chekov, as a matter of curiosity, do you see any aspect of our contemporary ‘democratic’ society that you can actually see as salvageable? Is there any element of the structures within it that you think are even half way represenational?
JF, the latter I’d say which goes some ways to linking with Chekovs thesis.
WBS, I don’t think it’s gloomy at all. Actually, accepting that parliamentary democracy has a democratic content that is rapidly approaching zero makes the world look like a much more promising place. It’s only if you have an emotional investment in it’s transformative powers that this outlook becomes necessarily gloomy.
“Do you see any aspect of our contemporary ‘democratic’ society that you can actually see as salvageable?”
Contemporary society is full of absolutely brilliant stuff – the internet, dancehall reggae and considerable individual freedoms, to name three random ones. Even within the state, there are all sorts of good ideas and well-worked out, pragmatic, sensible processes for dealing with public affairs. For example, the jury system and many aspects of the public health system and the various social services are, in essence, pretty good solutions to very difficult social problems.
But, when it comes to parliamentary politics, I just think it’s a total waste of time and something that has virtually zero potential for becoming a significant agent in social change in the future.
“Is there any element of the structures within it that you think are even half way represenational?”
There are gazillions of ways in which high quality information about what the population thinks flows through the structures of the state into the thoughts of decision makers, but power flows from top to bottom and the decisions that are made are normally only representative of what the powerful judge they can get away with in light of that information.
Actually that’s quite heartening Chekov. I see more scope for movement forward through parliamentary democracy. But, I’d share some of your scepticism regarding it, and I completely agree that many other networks are necessary beyond it…
Chekov – very interesting comment; I am reminded, slightly obliquely, of Kant’s distinction in [i]What is Enlightenment?[/i]between the public use of reason – which must be defended at all costs – and its private use, ‘which may often be restricted without particularly hindering the process of enlightenment’ . Oddly to modern ears, what Kant means by the public/ private distinction is that between the cosmopolitan freedom of the scholar to pursue truth (public reason) as against the private(d) use made in the carrying out of one’s civil office.
What strikes me is that in a world where the horizontal flow of information is creating a cosmo-polity, the institutions of state remain vertical; information and ideas reach the ‘top’ only with difficulty; and power and responsibility flow, as you say from the top down.
For Kant, our obligation to obey, as citizens, was non- negotiable – peculiarly, although enthused by the French revolution, he absolutely deprecated the right to revolt (because it involved secrecy, and reason – to be reason – must be public) – but, equally, our freedom, as members of a cosmopolitan assembly of rational inquirers was equally non- negotiable.
Where I think this is leading me is somewhere like this; whereas the various totalities of the 20c attempted to identify reason with the state, to make the state the embodiment of a rational order of things – an Hegelian end of History – the creation of non- hierarchical, non- authoritative, networks of communication and comment has, at least potentially, the ability to create a permanent ‘outside’ an atopia, where communicative rationality rather than ownership or coercive power confers temporary – and always interogatable – authority.
Yep, I can go with that. How deep the alternative networks can be, or indeed how self-sustaining without state support is an interesting issue, or does the state simply become the regulator of an area of social endeavour? That has oddly market based overtones.
WBS- Yeah, I agree; the possible homology of ‘the market’ and whatever horizontal networks we’re talking about (the internet + effectively) needs to be carefully monitored; one can easily become an alibi for the other.
I was away myself when I heard the news (although, nothing as carbon-intensive as flying, tut tut WBS).
The text I got summarised it nicely: “Hope the holiday’s good, because the Seanad certainly isn’t”.
I used to take trains and ferries, once went all the way to Rome and back. So I figure I’m still in credit – just about…
Did any of the people who were in the WP ever meet this guy back then? I have to admit that I had never heard of him until the Mary MacAleese presidential campaign. Is it not strange that all these weekend newspaper profiles of Harris can mention that he was a member/supporter of official SF and not point out this means that he was in an organisation with an active armed wing? Not that precludes him from public life (certainly not in Ireland!) but he would be the first to cry foul if Bertie appointed someone who had at any stage been associated with the Provos.
Neither strange nor suprising. The Dublin 4 clique that controls the Irish media never had any sincere desire to assist in the search for an end to the Northern Irish; the only thing they were interested in was in having a spectacular backdrop to pose and preen themselves against. EH is one of their own, so they’re hardly going to upset their applecart by pointing out the blots on his copybook.
the search for an end to the Northern Irish
Actually they’d like nothing more, ho ho
Ed-I think he was viewed as fairly eccentric by many in the WP -although he was of course influential-(Irish Industrial Revolution) but went beyond the pale with his “necessity of social democracy”, a precursor to the last great split in the WP, although he left/was expelled before this.
Incidentally I don’t know if people have been checking out politics.ie where apparently Harris has been posting under the nom skibbereen albatross recently and has been letting fly all manner of vituperative comments to those opposed to his appointment?
I doubt that it is Harris posing as Skibbereen Eagle. I’ve had the dubious pleasure of engaging with SE and s/he appears utterly demented.
Hello Ed Hayes.
You mentioned Harris and the WP’s “armed wing”….
In the 2000 anniversary edition of Magill, there’s a feature recalling the
magazine’s articles on the WP and the Offical IRA. Magill accused the
OIRA of carrying out numerous crimes, including the murders of
Larry White and Joe Costello. The magazine also accused Cathal
Goulding, Sean Garland and our friend Mr. Harris of turning
the WP into “virtually a Unionist organisation”.
According to the article,the INLA later murdered Jim Flynn, using the Magill articles as justification. Vincent Browne later received threatening phone calls
blaming him for Flynn’s death.
Browne seems to polarize opinion, but I think the Flynn affair
explains why Harris really hates him.
And Anne Harris, Eoghan’s ex, was in the WP too. Maybe that’s
why the Sindo’s always going after Browne, especially in the
infamous “Keane Edge” days….
Grendal, excuse my ignorance, but was Harris close to Flynn? Politically it doesn’t seem to make much sense for Harris to hate Browne because of Flynn, particularly if one looks at what is suggested about Flynns activities in the mid-1970s and then some of his ideas just prior to his murder. In Jack Holland and Henry Cusacks book on the INLA they suggest that Flynn was eager to push the Officials GHQ towards a ‘peoples war’ in the North, although that might just have been counterspin put out to further discredit – were such possible – the INLA.
I think Harris’ antipathy towards Browne was due to the latter’s percieved support for the Provisionals-I’m not aware it had anything to do with Jim Flynn’s murder. I’m also not sure about Holland and McDonald’s claims about Flynn wanting to reopen an OIRA war in the North again-this, as you’ve rightly said WBS would have put him at odds with the Officials’ leadership. He is also still held in esteem by many in the WP who regarded him as a loyal member-again if he was planning an overturning of the WP’s strategy in 1981-82 it’s hard to believe he would still be seen today as such a highly thought of activist. But, then again the whole period is shrouded in spin, half-truths etc.
Yeah, it just doesn’t make sense…
My only source for the Jim Flynn controversy is Magill itself, so
I can’t say (I don’t know much about the INLA or the Officials).
But Harris certainly has into in for Browne, alright. Both
Vincent and Eoghan seem to have a gift for rubbing people
up the wrong way.
That’s putting it mildly
I presume Harris knew nothing about Jim Flynn or his activities. Just as he appears to know nothing about the IRA’s activities from the 1960s until whenever the Official IRA called it a day. Afterall it was about just about reaching out to Northern Unionism wasn’t it? Hence Senator Barnhill and John Taylor.