Striving for the Ideal and Irish Reunification – by Carl Duffy

 Through travel and learning about different cultures one learns to appreciate the freedoms and prosperity we experience in most of the West. Relative to the poverty I’ve seen in places such as Bolivia or Cambodia, I count myself lucky to have grown up in the occupied six counties for all its faults. One also learns to appreciate democracy all the more when the alternatives are considered. Democracy is not the norm and is far more fragile than many believe. Many democracies are less than a generation old, and of the rare true democracies only around twenty-two have been in existence for over half a century. As bad as things are in our gerrymandered statelet, they could be a lot worse. But Ireland also has the potential to be much better. If we look at countries that function better, we should ask ourselves how can we be more like that. How can our democracy function better like we see in countries with a similar population size such as Denmark? When contentious issues such as mass immigration arise in Denmark, the electorate vote for parties advocating stricter policies and a sensible policy position is reached. This happened with the ascendancy of the Danish People’s Party in the 2015 general election, which forced other parties to adopt stricter immigration controls. Irrespective of one’s views on mass immigration, this serves as an illustration of democracy working as intended. The electorate voice their concerns at the ballot box, and the Government enacts the will of the people. There may be cultural reasons, why Danish democracy functions so well, after all this nation bravely resisted Hitler and protected its Jews. The most recent Danish general election had an 84% voter turnout, whereas last year’s Irish general election had a sub 60% turnout. Ideally Irish democracy would have a more engaged electorate who vote for meaningful change and have their voices listened to. If people, see elections creating meaningful change then one would hope the electorate will become more engaged. I believe Irish reunification can usher in a golden age of democracy on our island. Freed from the shackles of British occupation in the Northern six counties, we can finally have a complete say over how our 32 counties are governed. The Republic of Ireland is now experiencing its third consecutive Government featuring both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Is it any wonder we experience such levels of voter apathy? However, in a United Ireland both these parties would have a diminished hold on power. In the North, the democratic dividend of Irish Reunification is much greater. Partition has entrenched the sectarian divide, and while well-functioning democracies have sensible political divisions between left, right, liberals and conservatives etc… Our political division remains centered around constitutional preference. Other countries also experience these sectarian divides such as Bosnia and Herzegovina where the presidency must consist of one Bosniak, one Serb and one Croat. This isn’t entirely dissimilar to the power-sharing arrangement in the North. Structurally don’t we want our government to be more like Denmark and less like Bosnia? Irish reunification isn’t about creating a green state instead of an orange one. It’s about creating a pluralist democracy for the entire 32-counties where the political divisions are more so centered around how to deal with ‘bread and butter’ issues than using each election as a proxy vote for constitutional preference. If the ideal is a well-functioning democracy, isn’t it plainly obvious that reunification brings us closer to that ideal? The North only has 2.8% of the total number of MPs in the UK Government. Our votes count for very little in these elections. When someone stays silent or supports partition, what they’re actually telling us is they don’t have any aspirations of Ireland becoming a better functioning democracy.