Republicanism is a busted flush
Gerry Adams is fuelled on self-delusion. He fills himself up on the stuff then charges around the world trying to convince others of the logic and inevitability of his opinions. It's always the same speech, of course; a trait he has in common with every other champion of Irish republicanism.
Way back in the late 1960s he believed that stepping up the violence a notch or two would finally push the British out – and to that end he was one of the founders of Provisional Sinn Fein/IRA. By the mid-1980s he had decided that unity was best achieved by a pan-nationalist alliance.
A decade later he had shifted onto demographic territory and was citing 2016, the centenary of the Easter Rising, as the breakthrough moment. A couple of years ago he kick-started Sinn Fein's unionist outreach project – aimed, it seems, at those wibbly-wobblies of liberal unionism who would do anything for a quiet life.
And last Thursday he was down in Limerick telling an audience that a "new" Ireland should emerge from the economic chaos that was engulfing both Ireland and the United Kingdom.
"It means ending the nonsense of two competing economies on this island with two administrations, two health services, two education systems, two investment bodies with separate strategies and two different tax regimes," he said.
'Nonsense'
He failed, however, to point out to his audience that the "nonsense" he referred to was partly his own responsibility.
After almost three decades of trying to bomb and bully Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom it was Sinn Fein that threw in the towel, abandoned the ditches and safe houses and accepted a role in a regional government within the United Kingdom.
That Ireland remains divided is now his doing as much as that of unionism. It was, after all, under his leadership that Sinn Fein signed up to partition, signed up to recognition of and representation in local and regional government in Northern Ireland and signed up to a formal coalition with the DUP.
He said: "Irish unity is not just a dearly held republican aspiration, it is an economic imperative."
Yes, really, Mr Adams is capable of spouting that sort of twaddle while managing to keep his face straight. What he doesn't seem to understand is that political unity doesn't actually ensure a strong economy; for if that was the case then the United States and the European Union wouldn't be suffering to the same extent as everyone else at the moment. The factors behind economic implosion are no respecters of national boundaries and no respecters of national ideologies either.
Consequences
And Mr Adams never ever deals with the direct consequences of unification.
If Northern Ireland stopped being part of the United Kingdom and became, instead, part of a new, untested Irish nation it would have huge economic, social, political and constitutional consequences – most of which Sinn Fein seems blissfully unaware of.
Removing the border and giving everyone the same passport wouldn't mean that this 'new' Ireland could compete with the rest of the world.
Sinn Fein's economic strategy is a mixture of Karl Marx meets Groucho Marx, with a bit of Castro communism and turquoise socialism thrown in for good measure.
In essence, though, it boils down to high taxation and nationalisation, both of which would act as deterrents to the economic growth that a 'new' Ireland would require.
"Ireland today needs a new standard of patriotism that is not in thrall to gombeenmen, bankers and profiteers. The foundation stone of that patriotism is the democratic programme of An Chead Dail."
No place for unionism
Unsurprisingly, Mr Adams seems to have no place for unionists or unionism in his new standard of patriotism. Mind you, he doesn't seem to have any particular place for the other political parties either.
Indeed, someone who didn't know very much about southern Irish politics could be forgiven for assuming that Sinn Fein was a major player down there, instead of the mere also-ran it actually is.
But, as with all those who are fuelled on self-delusion, Mr Adams has to convey the impression that he and his ideas are essential pieces in the political jigsaw.
The reality is different: in Northern Ireland Sinn Fein has accepted partition and co-governs with unionism, while in the Republic it can barely reach double figures in the Dail.
"Republican values and republican politics have never been so relevant or so necessary." That's right, Gerry, you go on believing that.
If Mr Adams really does believe that republicanism can be defined as promoting the merits and values of Irish unity, then he, Sinn Fein and the IRA have been complete and utter failures.
Let's face it, the overwhelming majority of the southern Irish voted against unification when they endorsed the Belfast Agreement and the removal of articles two and three.
And the overwhelming majority of nationalists and republicans in Northern Ireland endorsed partition and a stand-alone Northern Ireland in the 1998 referendum.
Intellectually redundant ideology
Republicanism, in particular, is a busted flush on both sides of the border. And it's a busted flush because the republicanism championed by Mr Adams is a brutal, half-baked, blinkered, myth-ridden, intellectually redundant and economically fatuous ideology. His speech in Limerick was the sort of hand-me-down, crypto-revolutionary junk you would expect to hear in a shebeen after one too many glasses of poteen. It was the speech of an old man in a great hurry: the speech of a man who had finally realised that his political ambitions would remain unfulfilled.
Ironically, it is a speech that unionists, if they had any sense, could learn from; for it demonstrated that there is practically nothing left in all-Ireland republicanism other than hot air and wish fulfilment. Mr Adams will continue to travel the world, addressing diminishing audiences of the curious and the still delusional. Yet, wherever he rests his head at night, Gerry Adams knows one thing for certain: his day isn't coming.
Alex Kane is director of communications for the UUP
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Wednesday 30 May 2012
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