Let’s imagine you’re thinking of setting up a bucket business. You want your bucket firm to be the best there is, benefiting you and everyone in the bucket world. Who would you turn to for guidance?
If I suggested Joe Bloggs, whose bucket factory went out of business some fifteen years ago, would you think it a good idea to listen to Joe? Especially as Joe, when he gives advice, never mentions the way some years ago, his business degenerated under his leadership to the point where the factory was full of malfunctioning machines and scurrying rats, the buckets sold kept separating from their handles and their bottoms were rusted and forever leaking, until Joe had to throw in the towel and admit bankruptcy. Consult Joe on bucket business? You gotta be kidding. He’s a by-word for bluster and flim-flam. The man screwed up big-time when he had his own business, and now you’re saying I should listen to him?
Which brings us to Michael McDowell’s latest column in today’s Irish Times. In it he explains how polarised the North is and what Sinn Féin must do if it wants a border poll:
“If Sinn Féin really believes in an early Border poll and in the need for an inclusive dialogue on unity, the very least it can and should do is to set out its own stall.”
Er, no, Michael. The very least Sinn Féin and other southern parties should do is push for a citizens’ assembly, where all the possibilities regarding a new Ireland can be looked at and debated, where those with a political axe to grind or rust-riddled bucket to sell will be politely refused entry. Citizens’ assemblies, when properly constituted, can identify the potential and perils in different aspects of Irish reunification, and when they’re finished, pass this to the government and other political parties for consideration.
Michael’s idea, that Sinn Féin alone should present its detailed image for a new Ireland, besides assuming that other Southern parties have no interest in reunification, is to invite not-so-friendly fire from those like Michael who are opposed to a border poll and to ensure that any such poll is set back by at least a decade.
Michael has failed as a party leader (where are you now, Progressive Democrats, now when Ireland has such need of your wisdom?) and yet here he is, inviting Sinn Féin to commit political hara-kari so that he’ll have something to talk about in his Irish Times column. Perhaps that expectation tells us something of why he was such a total bucketing failure as party leader and why he whistled as he led his party over a cliff edge.
Look, Michael, we all understand how you come out in hives at the mention of Mary Lou McDonald. We appreciate that the notion of republicanism makes your blood-pressure rocket. But you’ll just have to accept that democracy means all those concerned about a reunited Ireland sitting down and sharing their thinking, so that a well-balanced and agreed solution can be arrived at.
I know you mightn’t find that as much fun as whacking the Sinn Féin leadership over the head with a rusty bucket, but trust me, it’ll be better for us all in the long run.
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