A Tangled Web

That Publisheth Salivation



Apologies to the religiously sensitive amongst you for having paraphrased a line from the Book of Isaiah as the heading for this blog, but I was struck at the frenzied undertones of Brian Feeney's rant in Wednesday's Irish News. Eager anticipation laced with salivating-inducing emotions leap forth from every one of Feeney's traditionally poisonous syllables. On this occasion, he positively relishes the emergence of Sinn Fein/IRA in the future governance of the Irish Republic. Naturally, one wouldn't expect Feeney to question the moral fibre of individuals who comprise the Brownshirt vote. Exposing the inherent evils of Irish fascism is way beyond Feeney's journalistic comprehension.



Nonetheless, Feeney's clairvoyancy should be treated with a heavy dose of scepticism. He was the man who confidently predicted a future Catholic majority in Northern Ireland. The Census results roundly disproved his conclusion. He then went on to argue that Unionist failure to give armed terrorists a sustained role in Ulster's governance would lead to the imposition of joint authority. No such scenario has emerged, nor is it likely to.



Several of Feeney's contentions need to be taken to task:



1. He, like all nationalists, views everything through the prism of Ireland's geography. All comparatives and analogies are considered on the basis of the island's 'geographical unit'. The term is used both implicitly and explicitly to convey an impression of sound political/constitutional assessment, even though the qualities of any conclusions garnered courtesy of this perspective are vacuous and false. Thus: 'Sinn Fein's emergence as an all-Ireland electoral force has driven home more clearly than at any time since 1921 unionism's position as a minority in this island' changes absolutely nothing. The 'island of Ireland' is not recognised as a constitutional entity in any tracts of domestic or international law. The right of self-determination is afforded to a majority in Northern Ireland, and the position of the province as an integral (and rightful) part of the United Kingdom is dependent upon that majority as well as the tenets of domestic and international law.



2. Feeney must be awarded first prize for gullibility if he honestly thinks three years will see the transmogrification of the IRA from a lethal, insurrectionist alliance into something approaching an ex-terrorists Darby and Joan Club. For his information the IRA is still active, armed to the teeth, and dishing out punishment beatings, smuggling, racketeering and the odd murder on a frighteningly consistent footing.



3. The results in the South most certainly do not 'vindicate Sinn Fein's peace strategy.'. If anything, they vindicate a terrible absence of conscience among certain Irish people. It's the 'harbouring weapons to threaten democracy is OK as long as they are used only when absolutely necessary' school of electoral thought which emerged to give the Brownshirts their large vote across the island.



Sinn Fein's rise in popularity with the baser elements of the human evolutionary scale reminds me of the verse from Alexander Pope's Essay on Man:



'Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As to be hated needs but to be seen,

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.'