Sectarians are the 'syphilis of our passions'
Sunday February 26 2006
Do you doubt we share the same tribal passions as the lumpen republicans who used iron railings to rip into the marchers?
If so, look at the lack of leadership shown by the two main shapers of public opinion - the political class and the and media class - in preparing public opinion for a march that was always going to put our thin pluralism under pressure.
From day one, the President, the Taoiseach and senior figures from both the main Christian churches should have been infusing the public with a noble vision of the Irish Republic as a place which would cherish all the children of the nation equally. Instead, the response of the political class ranged from indifference to inflammatory interventions.
Far from the Taoiseach and his ministers making firm calls for calm and tolerance, they stayed largely silent on the symbolic importance of the march passing off peacefully. Past comparisons of Protestants and Nazis made by President McAleese and Fr Alec Reid - and widely reported by the tabloids - have not helped to cool the tribal temperature.
Meantime, most of the Irish media went into tribal mode. This ranged from the amused indifference affected by most mainstream commentators to the openly tribal stance taken up by some presenters on Newstalk 106, so much so that a few weeks ago I called it Tribal talk 106 in my weekly column.
Given that Newstalk is aimed at a Dublin audience, it might have been expected to create as much empathy as possible between marchers and public by explaining the sufferings of South Armagh Protestants. But no.
On Saturday morning, only a few hours before the march started, Newstalk was carrying competitions for jokes about "why the Orangeman crossed the road". This was followed by a five-second clip from Damien Kiberd's lunchtime show in which he mockingly asked if they were going to play 'Kick the Pope' music? In the absence of any pluralist programmes putting the point of view of the Protestant marchers, are we asked to believe that this did not create a sour climate?
Any public inquiry into the attack on the march - and there should be an inquiry - should pay close attention to the tribal role played by Newstalk 106 in relation to its Dublin working-class audience. The buck for this brand of brutalist broadcasting stops with Damien Kiberd, the news editor of Newstalk who writes a column in the republican Daily Ireland.
The Broadcasting Commission, if it has the guts of a mouse, should listen to the tapes of Newstalk 106 over the past two weeks, ask experts to evaluate their effect on an ill-educated section of the public and consider whether Newstalk 106 should be allowed to spread their atavistic views to a national audience.
Meantime, we can forget about doing a deal with Northern Protestants. We might go on pretending to be tolerant. But the blood on the streets of Dublin tells another story.
- Eoghan Harris
