The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Black Mountain are playing tonight in Dublin, and although I couldn’t make it despite having a ticket, here’s a little something for all those who also missed them and want to get a taste of their Zep/Sabbath/Neil Young/Jefferson Airplane/something entirely different approach …

Well. That was unexpected. The Democratic Party in Serbia won a projected 102 seats and 38.7% of the vote. That’s up 16 seats.

Cue near unconfined joy in European capitals. Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.

And indeed not at all bad considering the Kosovo debacle (which in fairness was not the DP’s responsibility - although whether a stronger line by them would have been of greater utility is an interesting question). In a 250 seat parliament 102 seats is already more than half the way towards a majority. The problem is the remainder of the way. Because the DP’s former coalition partners, the distressingly similarly named Democratic Party of Serbia, won a projected 30 seats on 11.3% of the vote and appear unlikely to jump back to the DP after said debacle, wanting said stronger profile against the EU and US. Meanwhile the Serbian Radical Party gained 77 seats on 29.1% of the vote and the Socialist Party 20 seats on 7.9%. The winners? Well, the Democrats and the SP (who went up 6 seats). The clear losers, at least in terms of losing seats, the Radicals and the DPS (down 4 and 13 seats respectively). Although on reflection the actual ‘blocs’ of sentiment seem near identical don’t they?

So. Coalition building time, and perhaps the unconfined joy in European capitals should be a bit more muted. Because crunching the numbers provides us with some interesting combinations.

The DP and DPofS could perhaps comprise a coalition of 133. That’s over the magic 125. But, is Kostunica, the outgoing prime minister and leader of the DPofS going to go for that? It seems unlikely considering the breakdown between the two parties over the past number of months.

Alternatives? Well try this for size. The Radicals, the Socialists and the DPofS could combine to get … 127. Is that likely either? Kostunica might not be inclined to make that sort of a deal, but presented with the perceived existential issues relating to Kosovo who can tell what way he might jump (although note again the losses for the DPofS… that might tell a story too).

And this is borne out by the comments of:

The Radicals’ leader, Tomislav Nikolic, said the Democrat claim of victory jumped the gun.

‘There are very clear possibilities of a coalition which does not include the Democratic Party’, he said.

Mr Nikolic said he would talk to the two parties that share the Radicals’ ideology, the Democratic Party of Serbia led by outgoing nationalist premier Vojislav Kostunica and the Socialists of the late Slobodan Milosevic.

Either these three parties would form a coalition, he predicted, or ‘Serbia will not have a government at all and we’ll have to go to new elections’.

And that’s far from the most unlikely scenario. So, Mr. Kostunica comes back into the frame as kingmaker.

Recognised as such as well…

Mr Nikolic has already offered Mr Kostunica the post of premier in any Radical-led government.

I’m not certain about the relationship that now exists between Kostunica and Tadic, but to judge from the quotes available on the internet it might be characterised as icy. So, perhaps Kostunica might well be tempted - although such a move might be difficult for him, particularly with his background.

On the other hand if he did go for a deal with the DP one can bet that the terms would be far more to his liking than hitherto. And perhaps Tadic is signalling the same when he says:

“The government we form will not recognise Kosovo,” he said.

Sure, it hasn’t so far, but… we might see something a bit more muscular.

And on the other side of the balance sheet? The economic right Liberal Democratic Party (Hayek is their inspiration, who’d have thunk it? And they’re a split from the DP, which confusingly is a member of the Socialist International although its programme is not unlike, say, FG in an Irish context… ah the joys of post-Communist political positioning) which would presumably support the DP by default went up 7 seats to 14. Smaller parties representing minorities remained at or about. Which means that a DP/LDP and others bloc (assuming others were interested) would have about 123 votes… Not enough.

Cue uncontrollable sobbing in European capitals.

That said, what of this firming up of pro-EU sentiment? Or rather pro-DP sentiment, which is a very different thing? Well in part that perhaps was a cautious judgement by many as to the shape of the future. Nor should the recent blandishments of the EU be ignored. As the Irish Times reported:

In the run-up to the election, however, in a bid to boost pro-EU parties, Brussels signed a pre-accession pact with the Democrats and offered the free visa to Serbs, who were plunged into international isolation by the 1990s Yugoslav wars.

Fine, but nicer again to have seen this detached from the Kosovo situation and agreed anyway, and perhaps better politics too.

A minority DP government? A nationalist coalition? A new election? The fun never stops for the politicians.

And meanwhile, as the implications of the electoral math sinks in, the figure 127 must be making palms sweaty across Europe this morning. And rightly so.

Addendum… just thinking that this is one of those occasions where lacking a direct knowledge of a language is a real problem and where projecting external models is near pointless. How to read Kostunica? Solid conservative nationalist who means it, whatever about Brussels ambitions? Who can rise above opportunism in either direction as regards his specific beliefs regarding Kosovo? I just don’t know and can’t make a serious assessment from what information there is. But a very interesting question. The answer to which is very very tricky for Brussels. Next time they might be a little more cautious in their approach to such matters.

I meant to post this earlier, but events comrades, events… Reading the Irish Times two Saturday’s ago it was almost inevitable that my eye would stray to Breda O’Brien’s column. And with equal inevitability it was certain that Breda O’Brien would weigh in on the High Court case. Breda is gentler and less fluffy than John Waters… but the message?

Well we’re told that ‘it’s simply unjust that fathers do not have an automatic right to guardianship’. Well, yes and no. Circumstances are all. But we’ll get to that…
Then, we’re told that…

The real issue in this week’s case is the right of a child to know, and where possible, to be reared by his or her biological parents. There is also the reality that the child in this case cannot avoid eventually knowing that his mother took a conscious decision to exclude his father from a parenting role.

Two thoughts strike me. Firstly - despite the supposed exoticism of the particular case, this situation isn’t anywhere near as unusual as she presents it. I know of mothers who have also taken quite conscious decisions to exclude for a variety of reasons including drug-taking, fathers from a parenting role. I think that is a sensible and - unfortunately - sometimes inevitable outcome of such matters. Yet curiously, no hand-wringing about that then - eh?
Secondly, and interestingly, she seem less concerned with the context of the family than with the biological aspects. But then, presumably there are distinctions between good and bad families…

She notes that the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network havea ’suggested that family units of three parents should be recognised in these cases’.

She continues, ‘but where would the line be drawn? Why not four parents, if a gay couple and a lesbian couple decided to cooperate in producing children? Why not six, to allow for break-ups and reformed partnerships?’

Erm… well, again, this isn’t entirely novel. In the context of divorce something approaching this is already evident. And she knows that hence she says ‘we already have ample evidence of how difficult children find it to navigate te two seperate emotional worlds of their parents when a couple break up…’ Still, she doesn’t actually reference this evidence. Which is unhelpful. And then to continue ‘ … what will happen to children of three or more parents?’. Well, yes. But then what of the fact that the nuclear family is actually usually embedded within broader social networks. I was largely brought up practically on a day to day basis by my grandmother who lived with my parents. Is that not close to three? How on earth did I manage to ‘navigate’ the inevitable conflicts and issues that three adults living in a house brought up? No doubt Breda O’Brien would say that was ‘different’, but the distinction is not entirely clear.

And then she cuts to the chase…

The simplest but no longer politically correct solution is to do everything possbiel to support the changes of children being reared by biological parents, or carefully screened adoptive parents. That means supporting heterosexual marriage and enabling those who are not married to shoulder the rights and responsibilities of parenthood.

But, predictably she shies away - perhaps in a fit of political correctness - from the logical conclusion of her thoughts. The only way to ensure the above is to prohibit sperm donation or egg donation or gay marriage or whatever. Except that won’t actually stop Irish people from going abroad, as countless numbers of them have already, or gay and lesbian couples entering into private arrangements which result in the birth of children which they will parent (verb, Breda, not just a noun). And unless she’s suggesting some form of truly draconian social measures I can’t see how matters would be markedly different from the current de facto situation.

And the paucity of her argument is found in the following:

It is even worse when the State colludes in the idea that it is acceptable to plan to exclude either a father or a mother from their proper role in a child’s life before the child is even conceived.

Well perhaps. But the State didn’t collude as such, it merely had to adjudicate on the actually existing family which came about as a result of the various events. Not quite the same thing (incidentally what, one wonders would Waters view be of two gay men acting as a couple entering into a similar situation with a woman - would their wheel of life be regarded as coming loose?). And again, what sanction does she suggest for such things? Prison for those involved?
Is that what she is proposing? I think we should be told.

OSF/USSR
So, here from 1973 is a document published by REPSOL for Official Sinn Féin as a submission to the “World Cogress of Peace Forces” in Moscow. Much of it as would be expected. Consider the references to “Ireland [joining] the so-called European Economic Community thus adding to the domination and exploitation of our people by this new modern imperialist bloc.”

The language as regards armed struggle is ambiguous. Note that it argues that “…we have realised that armed struggle on its own, or as an end in itself, is doomed to failure. Armed struggle must always be related to the needs of the people.”

Yet it continues… “The most consistent element in the Irish Republican tradition is armed resistance to British imperialism. It was only out of this armed resistance that our revolutionary vision of the Ireland of tomorrow came”

And as a nod towards Moscow’s sensitivities it argues that “It is essential that all who are involved in the National Struggle for Liberation realise that the national struggle is a people’s struggle - a class struggle”.

The language as regards Britain is much stronger than might be expected, to the point that we read “There is only one issue on which practically everyone in Ireland is agreed. We do not want to be ruled by Britain. This fact must therefore be made clear and emphatic. All should unite on the demand “Britain get out”.

Indeed Tomas Mac Giolla (sans fada’s) is quoted as urging delegates to the Congress to ’support the short and long term Republican demands which called for the withdrawal of British Troops and an end to all repression in Ireland’.

Which is interesting, but no more so than the following: “Clearly as with the British imposed arrangement of 1920, any solution which advocates the continuation of a Six or Nine County Ulster state, whether it has constitutional links with Britain, or not, must be rejected.”. A dig at PSF who had recently issued Éire Nua? More than likely. But interesting how in order to fend off the Provisionals it was necessary to ramp up the anti-British rhetoric.

It’s a brief document but a telling insight into the direction of a much harder edged ‘Republican’ stance evident in Official Sinn Féin at this point in time.

Very briefly, perhaps everyone does love Brian as much as was suggested here. For the latest poll from the Sunday Business Post is fairly revealing.

As Pat Leahy in the SBP reports:

Support for the Lisbon Treaty has recovered slightly in the past fortnight and the gap between the Yes and No sides has increased from four points to ten, according to the latest Sunday Business Post/Red C tracking poll.

Not that it’s all good news for the Yes side…

However, over a third of voters remain undecided, reflecting the continuing uncertainty among the electorate.

Overall the figures are 38 per cent for, 28 per cent against and 34 undecided. That’s a shift of 3 points up for the Yes side and 3 points down for the No side. Early days, clearly, but perhaps indicative of the pro-Lisbon lobby beginning to cohere with Brian Cowen and Fianna Fáil back fully engaged. And that’s no small thing. A united Fianna Fáil, enthused by Cowen’s ascension is a strongly proactive force for pushing the process to a Yes. Cowen has made it his priority. I see no reason to doubt him, and with that there is a lot riding on it.

And, as the SBP notes, the farmers are back on board, having done the protesting thing…

Where previous polls had shown farmers were opposed to the treaty, today’s numbers show a small lead of four points for the Yes side among farmers, though a quarter remain undecided.

And inconceivable that the following demographic won’t weigh in on the Yes side…

Fine Gael voters, previously lukewarm, now back the treaty, with 42 per cent saying they will vote Yes. The poll was conducted between May 3 and7 among over 1,000 voters nationwide.

All rosy in the garden? Well, no, not at all. Many a slip twixt cup and lip, sure… for now, though, Cowen can be privately pleased at just how a tide might be turning. How different too, the reception for him contrasted with that of Gordon Brown. But that’s another story.

Incidentally, Vincent Browne has a fascinating column also in the SBP which bemoans the lack of experience or specialised knowledge of ‘at least five members of the cabinet’ in ‘the departments they are now expected to manage’.

There’s something in this. Consider his following points…

Brian Lenihan is a clever barrister and a skilled communicator, but does he have knowledge of economic management, fiscal policy, official and economic priorities? None at all.

As executive head of the Department of Finance, he is expected to manage that department, having had no experience of managing anything, aside from 11 months in the Department of Justice.

And he recognises that:

They are elected to the Dáil, not on the basis of their ability to manage anything, but on a hodgepodge of other criteria: likeability, party affiliation, geographic location, personal acquaintance, appearance and, maybe occasionally, policy grounds. But certainly not because they have any ability to manage anything.

Which is true as well. His solution?

I have proposed a resolution for this before: get rid of the government as we know it. Let the executive branch be unelected and fully professional. Let them get on with the execution of policies defined by the people (ideally), or the people’s representatives in parliament.

I’m not entirely certain about that. It’s a technocratic approach which is fair enough (and is it my imagination, but doesn’t something somewhat similar happen with the US cabinet system? Or indeed what of Gordon Brown bringing in external ‘talent’ to his cabinet, well, that’s working out just fine, isn’t it… errrr….lets not talk about the extraordinary Digby Jones). But he ignores the reality of a civil service which is meant to act and advise. Whatever about the egregious deflections of genuine ‘public interest’ by our current democratic structures, the idea that another layer of unelected managers are necessarily the best people to intercede between representatives and state structures seems a bit counterintuitive. Again, what do people think?

40 years on, and the legacy of 1968 remains contested.  This is probably inevitable.  While it’s one of those few years like 1789, 1848 or 1989 that are synonymous with uprising and revolution, 1968 is unique in that there’s little or no consensus on what it meant then or what it means now.

Sean O’Hagen, in a recent feature for The Observer, gives a good overview of the events of that year.  Over on the Prospect website, you can find a variety of views on ‘68 under the title ‘1968: liberty or its illusion?’ from a slew of writers ranging from Tsvetan Todorov to PJ O’Rourke.  Don’t miss this characteristically bitter little piece from Alan Johnson.  Not to be outdone in the bitterness stakes, of course, our own John Waters (sub req’d) describes 1968 as ‘The tragic conflict between freedom and tradition’.  A little more coherent than most of Waters’ pieces, he does descend into his typically nonsensically quasi-mysticalism towards the end, stating that:

(F)reedom is a deceptive word which, in its modern meaning, conveys a pursuit of desire without limit.  Because of the structural limitations of the human mechanism, there is a point at which the pursuit of desire, in any direction, becomes destructive.  One of the consequences of the disrespecting of tradition since the 1960s is that this consciousness of limits has been mislaid.

Hours of fun could be had speculating about where John Waters thinks the ’structural limitations of the human mechanism’ lie, but we’ll simply gesture towards the area between the navel and the knees and move on.

Over on Comment is Free, the fight is being played out between Geoffrey Wheatcroft, who argues that the actual consequences of 1968 are four decades of near uninterrupted right-wing political control and 17-year olds being offered positions as strippers at the Job Centre, and Peter Lennon, who instead argues that the events of May 1968 in Paris had substantial positive effects lasting even to the present day (although he does include a rather gratuitous ‘My demonstration is bigger than your demonstration’ dig at the British soixante-huitards).

As disparate as Wheatcroft and Lennon’s positions are, they both, I think, fall into the same error: that of seeing 1968 solely in terms of events in Western Europe and the United States (Lennon, in fact, implies that only the Parisian ‘68 is the authentic one).  This is a perception shared by many of the Prospect writers and writers elsewhere, as well as in the popular consciousness.  When one thinks of 1968 one immediately thinks of either French students digging up cobblestones to throw at policemen or the mixture of rioting and assassination that characterised the US Presidential campaign that year. 

This is, without a doubt, the sexier side of ‘68, the side which appeals to those who prefer the ‘Street-Fighting Man’ of the Rolling Stones to the ‘Revolution’ of the Beatles.  However, it’s also extremely limited and the more we look back on the legacy of 1968, the more limited such a view appears.

While, for example, the anti-war movement in the United States, and globally, was hugely significant at the time, and was a crucible from which major figures in contemporary US politics emerged, it’s important not to see it as a spontaneous mass phenomenon which emerged sui generis on the Washington Mall and on campuses across the continent.  It evolved slowly, and gradually, over the course of half a decade.  As Chomsky writes in the current edition of New Statesman, contrasting the anti-war movement of the 1960s with the opposition to the invasion of Iraq five years ago:

You have to remember that, during Vietnam, there was no opposition at the beginning of the war. It did develop, but only six years after John F Kennedy attacked South Vietnam and troop casualties were mounting. However, with the Iraq War, opposition was there from the very beginning, before an attack was even initiated. The Iraq War was the first conflict in western history in which an imperialist war was massively protested against before it had even been launched.

It’s also worth recalling the extent to which the anti-Vietnam war movement, the student movement, was dependent on the civil rights movement for its very existence.  Even though the formal civil rights movement had, to a large extent, played itself out by ‘68, when one looks at leaders like Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, even Abbie Hoffman, what’s particularly notable is how many of them either had their political baptism or were heavily involvement in the Freedom Riders or the voter registration projects from earlier in the decade.  Indeed, many of the tactics employed by the anti-war protestors were perfected on the streets of Selma, Birmingham, Albany and other towns across the deep South.  It’s fair to say that without the initial work of the NAACP, the SCLC and the SNCC, there wouldn’t have been an anti-war movement, certainly of the scale that came to exist.  However, this doesn’t tend to be part of the dominant narrative of 1968, or to feature prominently in the Sunday newspaper nostalgia pieces, where the massive significance of the civil rights movement at the time, and its legacy to the present day, tends to be reduced to the assassinations of that year.

Similarly, when one considers whether 1968 represented a turning point in the United States’ engagement with Vietnam, one should overplay the significance of the anti-war movement.  Important though the domestic and international demonstrations were, they paled in comparison to the actions of the Tet Offensive of the same year, which demonstrated that the United States military machine could be defeated on its own terms, and acted as a call to arms for anti-imperialist movements across the world.

Turning East, or West (depending on your perspective) there’s also a tendency to diminish the significance of the uprisings and protests across Eastern Europe (not to mention in Southern Europe, where the term ‘fascist government’ carried much more weight than just a rather self-indulgent hippy cliché) as an off-shoot of the demonstrations in Paris or Chicago, where the main event was happening.  However, in hindsight we can see that what occurred in Czechoslovakia, as well as in Poland and elsewhere during that year, proved to have a far greater impact than the equivalent Western activities.  Far from being a failure, as they may have appeared at the time, they proved  - as Timothy Garton Ash notes - in time to have laid the ground for the revolutions of 1989, arguably the most important mass social movements since the Second World War.

None of this is intended to in any way denigrate the achievements and the commitment of the students, workers and revolutionaries who took to the streets in Paris, Berlin, London, Chicago and elsewhere in 1968.  Many argue that the lasting legacy of 1968 is the dominance of right-wing politics over the last forty years, that the backlash which thrust Nixon, Reagan, Thatcher and, latterly, Sarkozy into power can be laid at the feet of those who fought for a better world at the time.  This strikes me as a rather myopic, not to mention begrudging view, of those events.  The achievements of feminism, of the gay rights and anti-racist movements and the rise of Green politics are, at the very least, just as much the outcome of 1968 as the emergence of the Red Army Faction of the ex-Trotskyists of neo-conservatism, and those of the left should be unashamed to claim this legacy as their own.  It’s far more plausible to state that the civil rights movement - by breaking the stranglehold of the Democratic Party on the Southern states of the US - inadvertantly caused the near permanent dominance of the Republicans in US politics, but no one would suggest that, because of this, perhaps it would have been best if Rosa Parks had taken a different bus after all.

It is probably a mistake to speak of 1968 as a single phenomenon.  Rather, it might best be remembered as a confluence of different events, movements and individuals which together formed something greater than the sum of their parts.  However, on one point they were as one.  Like the proverbial stopped clock, John Waters is actually correct on one point.  What the various strands we understand as ‘1968′ have in common was the determination to challenge authority, particularly traditional authority, in the name of human freedom.  Of course, for Waters, this is a bad thing, being synonymous with the uppity women he despises (particularly those who play house).  However, if one imagines the kind of Ireland that Waters seems to advocate in his criticism of those who challenge authority - one where the Roman Catholic Church retains a tight grip on social policy, women are still treated as second-class citizens, where Northern Catholics never demanded their rights from a state which structurally discriminated against them and where gay people remain in fear of criminal prosecution, one can see that the spirit of ‘68 is something which should still be held dear.

No sign, as the Daily Show noted, that Hillary Clinton is seriously conceding the Presidential nomination. Which on one reading is fair enough. It ain’t over til it’s over.

But, just when one thinks her campaign is unable to surprise, what of this?

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

Is she saying that hard-working Americans are white? Or are the comma’s between each term meant to indicate distinctions? In either case how very very interesting. Or depressing. And how very telling that the spouse of ‘first black’ President of the United States should come to this. Does she not get how this sort of language is comprehensively deconstructing her reputation amongst many people?

Meanwhile as also reported on the Huffington Post, John Edwards has suggested that for Clinton:

“it’s very difficult to make the math work”

Well that’s the kind way to put it. But with noises off like this, how long can the Clinton campaign continue in its current mode?

Socialist Unity has carried an interview from the Morning Star last week with Eric Hobsbawm. For those of us interested in one of the more serious thinkers on the further left across decades it makes for provocative reading. Hobsbawm is far from without flaws, membership of the CPGB across those same decades would indicate at least some question marks, but, at the same time he is a genuinely humane and thoughtful individual who has dedicated his life to political activity that many of us, whatever our positions will recognise as of some utility.

I won’t go into this in any great detail but just draw attention to a couple of aspects I thought worthy of brief consideration. This follows on from a comment that Graham from the Irish Liberty Forum posted the other day. He asked…

What would political success look like to you? In other words, what are you trying to achieve? At what point is your work complete? I mean this for you personally and/or for the movement with which you are associated.

Well, before getting to that - which should be dealt with in greater detail anyhow later, let’s consider what Hobsbawm has to say about it…

He argues that:

21st-century socialism will be based on the survival of the planet and reconstruction of a society disintegrating under capitalist development.

Well, we all go down that road sooner or later. Gorz, Bahro, and now Hobsbawm, at least to an extent. But he adds:

…the idea of socialism as a 100 per cent publicly planned collective economy has not survived the end of ‘really existing socialism’ and will not return.

Twenty-first-century socialism will be an economy combining the public and private, non-market and market elements, but one whose object is not maximising economic growth and profit but the survival of the planet and the reconstruction of a human society battered and increasingly disintegrating under the impact of the past half-century of capitalist development. How this is to be achieved is the big question for this century’s socialists.

I broadly speaking don’t disagree, but it’s not exactly meaty stuff is it? Social democracy by another name and all that.

And this brings me back to a thought Nick Cohen raised in one of his more interesting moments in “What’s Left?” where he wondered “if anyone can tell you what a society significantly more left-wing than ours would look like and how its economy and government would work. (Let alone whether a majority of their fellow citizens would want to live there.)”. His implicit answer - that the status quo was just about okey dokey - was on a superficial analysis similar in some respects to that posited by Hobsbawm, a strong social welfare/public infrastructure, etc, etc. Yet, within his analysis was contained a remarkable defeatism for a man who had spent years excoriating New Labour and its works. Because unlike Hobsbawm he was unable to frame a left approach within a broader socio-political and cultural vision, one that sought to reshape not so much the ‘how’, as the ‘why’. Survival and reconstruction. It’s possibly the biggest project socialists - or anyone - could engage in. Now, there are those who will argue that all this is reformism of the most insipid kind, and perhaps they’re correct. But, the path from here to there, wherever there is, will have to be built on the Irish (and other) people as they are now, not as we would wish them to be. And that has obvious implications, unless we shift towards an unconsidered, and essentially futile, utopianism.

Hobsbawm is far from uncritical about the contemporary situation.

“I don’t see much prospect of a revival of the classical socialist and communist movements of the 20th century.

In the West, their basic constituency, the industrial working class, which they saw as the main agent of social change, could no longer play this role even if labour movements wanted to.

“Their basic form of political action and mobilisation, the mass-membership party of the social-democratic type and the vanguard party of the Leninist type, have not survived the old century.

And the newer forms of activity?

“What survives of such movements in the West must work as part of new, wider political and social movements and find new forms of action, notably transnational ones.

“Some such movements are coming into being, generally as a succession of ad hoc campaigns, but, as yet, they show no signs of being capable of changing society.

To be honest I’m dubious about transnational political structures. But that’s for another day.

And yet I can’t help feeling that simply reworking the objectives as Hobsbawm proposes from maximisation of growth and profit to the well being of a planetary society would be an enormous shift in and of itself. That it also chimes with left Green thinking is both unsurprising and important. Here on the CLR the issue of just where the Green Party (and the broader global Green movement) is positioned has exercised people. Naturally so. The capacity for left and ‘right’ Green political approaches is both opportunity and danger. But some serious work by the left might keep the Green Party within the broader left umbrella. Ironically, so might coalition with Fianna Fáil since that party too has populist instincts that can sometimes, but often not, be indistinguishable from our supposed left parties responses.

Consider again Hobsbawm’s point about societies ‘disintegrating under the impact of the past half-century of capitalist development’. Actually, I’d argue it predates that, but the point is that our societies have undergone massive shifts in their socio-political and cultural positionings. Some of these are easily assimilated, others not so much. But a political dynamic, that of capitalism, or whatever, is in many ways destructive and dissonant. This sense that we must ‘reconstruct’ is important.

And that to address Graham’s question, even obliquely, underscores the point that this is a process. There is no end point, at least none I can think of, outside the confines of a techno-utopian future. Just slow and steady progress to extend and maximise the autonomy of individuals and groups within the context of the society, both within the nation-state and beyond it. Do we wind up at a point where the state evaporates as individual and communal autonomy come to the fore? It’s possible, but not yet. Definitely not yet.

Indeed for these processes to arrive at a point of completion is perhaps to argue for human perfectibility, which seems unlikely.

Note that Hobsbawm, like many on the - and I use the term advisedly - ‘traditional’ left has moved from the position that the state is in and of itself the solution. There are huge dangers here as evidenced by the facile approaches New Labour project where the concept of state as enabler rapidly seems to have shifted to one of state as patsy to the wiles of the private sector, and private interests (and once upon a time a certain N. Cohen had much the most convincing analysis of such matters that I read). But, there’s scope there for new spaces and approaches to be opened up. If that sounds like an experiment, well, why not? The dangers of the current situation with an effective planetary crisis, allied with the opportunities of reworking our societies into more humane and sustainable structures (and for all the techno-utopians out there, being smart about using technology) surely justify this…

Still, all that said, what do other people think? Should it be simply short, medium and long term goals, and if so what are they?

An interesting reshuffle which quite honestly was nothing like the characterisation by Miriam Lord in the Irish Times as being: Captain Cowen shuffl[ing] around the deckchairs of radically unchanged crew. This was far from ‘radically unchanged’, it was instead a clear shift in generational and political terms, and simply because the faces remained the same did not indicate that relative positions, power balances and suchlike were constant.

Okay, we’re not talking Kremlinology (hey, what a pastime that used to be), but, there is something fascinating about the way in which it is as if the ice floes in Fianna Fáil are beginning to break up after the Ahern years. Those who have shuffled at or around the middle reaches of power are now - finally - getting a sniff of the highest offices of state. So we see Michael Martin given Foreign Affairs. Not a bad spot from which to mount a campaign for the top job. Except, I wonder if for him it is a case of shining too bright too soon. Certainly his star was in the descendant for the past three or four years. And while Foreign Affairs is a good brief, nonetheless it is also the potentially poisoned chalice of Lisbon. On the other hand Cowen was pretty clear that he saw Lisbon as his primary objective in the near future.

Meanwhile Dermot Ahern has shifted, well sideways, if not exactly down…

Apparently keen to depart foreign affairs, Dermot Ahern, who is a political heavyweight, takes over from Lenihan in justice, where his tough approach is likely to be appreciated.

Perhaps. And Seamus Brennan (class of ‘77) is finally gone, while Martin Cullen inexplicably hangs on by his fingernails. Really, what is it about him that every Taoiseach feels the urge to retain him? It can only be geography, surely?

Got to say that the enthusiasm we saw yesterday, if replicated within Fianna Fáil and their impressive electoral and campaign machine could certainly swing a vote. So, let’s hope everyone loves Brian as much as we are told…

Talking about Brian’s, what of Brian Lenihan, our new Minister of Finance. The IT argues that:

Cowen, clearly, has gambled that Lenihan will be able to make the tough decisions required, and “sell” unpalatable messages to the public better than either Dermot Ahern or Michael Martin could have done.

Well, with the times that are in it that too may be a poisoned chalice. No one likes a party pooper, and while things may not be quite at the inevitable final crisis of capitalism it’s not unreasonable to suggest that they’re not great either. Brian’s cheery demeanour will be put to the test sharpish, as will ours by extension.

And then there is Mary Coughlan. Genuinely one of the most liked people (and likable) Coughlan is a lucky politician in many ways having risen with relative ease. Still an interesting point is raised in the Irish Times:

The choice of the highly popular and able Coughlan is novel, and offers a welcome gender balance to Cowen, who has work to do to appeal to women voters, though it does leave open the possibility that Dublin voters might be less favourable to the party in the post-Ahern era.

Is a high-command of an Fianna Fáil government without Dublin representation a political Achilles heel he must deal with sooner or later? And consider that, in Cabinet, it is the non-FF representation, Ryan, Gormley and Harney who make up the Dublin numbers with only Hanafin (how her star has fallen) and Lenihan from the capital. These aren’t small things. One of the strengths of FF was the ability to retain seats in Dublin across the last decade. Barry Andrews as Minister of State for Children redresses that to some degree (as does Pat Carey as Government Chief Whip), but, he represents Dún Laoghaire and perhaps a specific demographic of FF voters. John Curran and others may well wonder when their day will come.

The Green Party Ministers and their Junior Minister were safe from the get go, as was - perhaps unfortunately - Mary Harney. Broader political considerations have cemented them into power. Tom Kitt, who has a surprisingly good reputation amongst the Green party, lost out. Presumably not cause and effect. Certainly the language was good between the two parties yesterday, and it was notable that Trevor Sargents position was reaffirmed on the same day, something that was not absolutely necessary, but perhaps gave comfort to the GP (some of whom were a bit leery about the ascension of Cowen to the top job).

The reality is that nothing significant will change. The Green project in its constrained form wil continue. Harney retains Health. The ideological positioning of the government, whatever Cowen’s obeisance to society and family over individuals will not deviate a whit from its current course. And consider the following:

Outlining his demand for public sector reform, Cowen told TDs, after he had named his ministerial team: “We all want better outcomes but the last decade has shown that money on its own will not achieve them.”

Plenty of room there for ‘outcomes’ not to our liking. Particularly in economically turbulent times.

And finally anyone watching the footage from the Dáil Chamber yesterday of Batt O’Keefe being given the position of Minister of Education will have noted his obvious delight at his elevation and the the remarkable swarms of TDs from all parties around him congratulating him. The Irish Times reported:

Mr O’Keeffe is one of Mr Cowen’s closest political confidantes but said his elevation came as a surprise to him. “I did not know until 4.45pm when the Taoiseach telephoned me. At that stage I had no clue what was going on. To be honest, I had half given up because I had not received a call the previous night,” he said.

I think, judging from his expression on the day, that that is about right. Still, no harm having a Taoiseach who can keep a (political) secret. Oh, hold on, we’ve had those before…

Who is it who:

has made an extraordinary contribution to the advance of this State in many spheres during his eleven years in high office.

Who…

played a phenomenal role in bringing about peace in Northern Ireland;

and…

presided over the best of the Celtic Tiger years which define Ireland’s position, strategically and economically, in the world today;

But not stopping there, who:

unified his party in the wake of the disastrous and damaging divisions of the 1980s; espoused consensus, not just in successive national wage agreements but on the greater European stage; and, excelled at the art of politics by embracing coalition and…

and?

…making Fianna Fáil indispensible to the formation of government for the forseeable future.

Whose…

achievements, to coin the phrase of the celebrity culture in which he lives, are awesome.

Wait a second. That’s Bertie Ahern they’re talking about… and it’s the Irish Times these words appear in. And not merely the Irish Times, but the Irish Times editorial. And this on foot of a multi-page overview, retrospective and biography of the man in the paper itself.

Such honeyed words, such praise… for consider the following…

Cumulatively, historians will judge whether they exceed those of any other Fianna Fáil leader or Taoiseach in their day. His place in Irish history is guaranteed. His electoral success, the real test of any party leader, comes closest to that of Eamon de Valera.

Of course this being the Irish Times editorial there has to be a bit of grit in the honey, the sort of grit that is impossible to remove without smashing the jar, discarding what is left and forgetting about the toast… for…

It could be argued that his performance exceeds de Valera’s in one important respect because he held office for three terms without ever winning an overall majority for Fianna Fáil.

Ouch!

But after this slight case of leaves on the tracks it’s everyone back on the praise train…

His lasting legacy is the achievement of the Belfast Agreement which led him to claim in his address to the Joint Houses of Congress in the United States last week: “I am so proud, Madam Speaker, to be the first Irish leader to inform the United States Congress: Ireland is at peace”.

His human qualities?

Unlike the eleven Taoisigh to preceed him, Bertie Ahern earned the respect of the people in the manner in which he grasped the opportunities presented to him. His support from the people was hard won by achievement in many different spheres. And, over-riding it all, there was an affection for his affability, his ordinariness, his common touch. He was always a man of the people. He struck a chord with voters: businessmen and Belfast men, trade union activists and members, women and separated families, culchies and North Dublin Dubs.

Then come these…

* * *

Praise over, down to the hard stuff? Well yes and no.

There is no doubt that his historic achievement was the successful negotiation of the Belfast Agreement and the bedding down of the peace process which, on his resignation, has a devolved, multi-party coalition government in operation in Northern Ireland controlled by the extremes of Dr Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party and Gerry Adams’s Sinn Fein.

See? They’re still not happy about the ‘extremes’ (although go read Jonathan Powells excellent point in this months Prospect which notes that it was John Hume who opened the door to Adams and Sinn Féin in the 1980s, and who refused to countenance any agreement without them - a very different proposition from that implicitly made by the Irish Times and others about the ‘moderates’ being shouldered aside) And then a masterfully ambiguous line…

This development may not have happened without the presence of Mr Ahern.

Indeed.

While other party leaders had the grand vision to dare imagine a possible solution - ….Mr Ahern was the man to deliver on the day. He was the right man in the right place at the right time.

Well, that’s history for you. Them’s the breaks. Still, the text becomes - shall we say - more double-edged in its assessment… consider the following…

He may not have had the vision of his predecessors to construct the framework for peace, but his particular skills came into play in the intense negotiations to follow.

The first part of that sentence is extraordinary. How on earth can we tell? Since he wasn’t Taoiseach in earlier times it’s unknowable.

He achieved the consensus to bring the peace process forward, not just in constitutional, administrative and political terms, but he built up a relationship with the unionists, a trust between Dr Paisely and himself, the likes of which has never been seen before. He has transformed the North/South and the Anglo/Irish relationship.

Some more of these…

* * *

And this time we have praise and criticism…

On the home front, Mr Ahern had hugely significant achivements also. He presided over the best of the Celtic Tiger years when this State witnessed wealth beyond our wildest dreams…But, there are two areas, in retrospect now, where he did not make progress: on the health service and on infrastructual development…

A bit of party politics…

In his years as Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil, Bertie Ahern brought politicis to a fine art. He inherited a deeply divided party after the Haughey years and made it whole again. He crafted coalition governments to suit the electoral mood of the day. He introduced the concept of the five-year term of office. He did the unthinkable by bringing the Green Party into the current coalition arrrangement even when their numbers were not strictly needed. In the process, he has made Fianna Fáil almost indispensible to government-formation.

No dispute there… but a shadow passes in front of the sun…

Yet, any honest attempt to assess the legacy of Bertie Ahern must record that there was another side to the man. He espoused a set of political standards for others that he did not live by himself. He had to resign, in the end, because of his handling of matters before the Mahon Tribunal relating to the controversial payments he received when he was Minister for Finance. He was caught by the culture of a former time. He breached a trust with the people today.

Interesting. Not the issues themselves, but the ‘handling’… very interesting. Still, every cloud has a silver lining…

His departure marks the end of the Haughey era.

And even that is better than bad…

Unlike his mentor, … , Mr Ahern did this State considerable service over many, many years. He lived for politics. And when history comes to be written, Bertie Ahern will be remembered for the political achievments of a lifetime far more than the squalid stories about his monies.

Hmmmm… squalid stories you say? What an interesting, and almost detached phrase. No mention of the small matter that the Irish Times, and in particular its editorial pages has been at the forefront of discussing these issues. Still, perhaps even the IT worries a bit about the heavy and un-nuanced hand of history and after all, why spoil a beautiful early Summers day?

I can’t decide is this completely craven or of a piece with the statements in the Dáil a week or so back, where the great and the good turned their noses up at Caoimhín O’Caoláin for actually having the temerity in a fairly straightforward, and not ungracious, piece to point out some of the garments that the emperor appeared to be lacking (most entertaining was Stephen Collins inevitably sniffy remarks about C O’C in the Irish Times the following weekend, considering Collins approach to this matter over the years). There is something distasteful about the way in which bonhomie asserts itself in these instances. Either the situation is serious enough to require a serious response, or it isn’t. And I’m not talking about the scattergun approach of insulting Ahern personally that appears almost like a therapeutic process for some which has absolutely no purchase on the political realities, but a considered and collected engagement with these issues, warts and all.

Still, the biscuit is well and truly taken in a further piece by Harry McGee which seriously discusses his future prospects as either President of Ireland, or President of the council of Ministers of the EU. Sure…

The major stumbling block is how his ongoing dealings with the Mahon tribunal play to other EU political leaders.

But that these, a potential political life post Tribunal - are potential outcomes tells us a lot about both the process we have seen and the reality of political life. Because the nearly but not quite approach of the Irish Times is both reflection and exemplar of a dynamic whereby we mean it but we don’t really approach to politics and political life in this country. Afraid to strike, afraid to hold back. ‘Sure you’re an awful man…’ but what precisely do they mean? Or is it fingers crossed and let’s leave it to history to judge?