Top Issue 1-2024

23 October 1997 Edition

Resize: A A A Print

Always ask why

By Laurence McKeown

A friend and parent of many years advised me recently that in the not too distant future our house will echo to the words `but why? or `cad thuige? That we will hear these words morning, noon and night until we become exasperated.

They were of course referring to our daughter Caoilfhionn when she would reach that age of inquisitiveness and curiosity combined with an ability to verbalise her developing wonder at the world. Which is a good thing really. It's the sort of thing we learned in the books on Training for Transformation whilst confined in that university outside Lisburn. (That's the one that is neither a campus of Queen's nor the University of Ulster.)

It was a very simple lesson really yet crucial to our understanding of the world and how things happen. It taught us that when we hear of poverty in the world, or oppression, or discrimination or any of the other injustices including poor sanitation, bad housing, unemployment, lack of educational facilities, barren land and so forth we should ask, `but why'? To say it's simply fate, bad luck or the hand of God simply isn't good enough any more. There's a reason why these things happen. Usually a political, economic or military reason. Usually a combination of all three.

It's difficult for me now to hear of events without the question arising, `but why'? Why is this happening? Why is it happening now? What forces are behind it?

You can imagine then that I had much to occupy my mind over the past few years when looking at events concerning Dublin governments. Well, more specifically, Dublin governments which involved Fianna Fáil.

First, Albert Reynolds had a short spell as Taoiseach. This was Albert who had played a fairly positive role in relation to the peace process and was the first Taoiseach in my memory who had publicly stated that if Articles Two and Three were to be up for discussion then so too should be the Government of Ireland Act.

I'm not trying by any means to minimise the gravity of the Brendan Smith case which, we were told, was the issue which brought down the government. I'm just inclined to think that probably there were worse abuses of power which governments in the south were guilty of. It led to the installation of a Taoiseach in the form of John Bruton who just weeks previously had been voted the least impressive leader of any political party in the south since the foundation of the state.

Then Ray Burke, Minister for Foreign Affairs and a fairly outspoken person on the national question (at least in Fianna Fáil terms) was forced to resign over payments to his electoral campaign (not, he said, to him personally) and over the issue of passports for sale which had happened several years previously and which was already publicly known. Maybe I'm just a bit cynical but I'm inclined to think that if he had had responsibility for roads or fisheries the issue would never have arisen.

Now Mary McAleese is the target. A woman who grew up with Protestant and unionist neighbours, who was in the upper echelons of the administration of Queen's University, an administration not regarded as a hotbed of revolutionary republicans except possibly by Nigel Dodds or `baby Paisley'. She is condemned for having associations with one Jim Fitzpatrick of the Irish News, a paper which has often been criticised by republicans, especially Gerry Adams for its anti-Sinn Féin bias.

But who else is she accused of consorting with? None other than that priest whose face was televised world-wide as he prayed over the dead bodies of two British soldiers on the Andersonstown Road in 1988. And the crime in this instance? That she was trying to assist the peace process and encourage the involvement of Sinn Féin and the community it represents.

I remember reading some time after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ending of the Cold War that most of the agents for British Intelligence were redirected to Ireland. Not surprising you may think. What did come as a bit of a shock though was that the majority of their operatives in Ireland were not based in the occupied Six Counties but in the south, mostly in Dublin.

Now why's that? And where are they? And what do they get up to? Whose interests do they serve? Whose agenda do they work to? Regardless of what majority Tony Blair may have in the House of Commons or whatever his long term intentions in relation to Ireland there is a very powerful element within the British establishment who still see themselves as being very much at war in Ireland. Maybe some in the media, to quote biblical text, should `become like little children'.

An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland