Kieran Allen breaks down the latest gleeful condemnations of Sinn Féin from the Irish political establishment and points to a wider trend in Irish politics. The left must be prepared for all the mud-slinging of the establishment.
The French sociologist, Piere Bourdieu, used to write about ‘habitus’. It referred to how individual dispositions are conditioned by their social class, culture and background as well as their own life experiences. The recent visceral media offensive on Sinn Féin is a good example of Bourdieu’s theory.
Let’s get it clear. We hold no brief for Sinn Féin. Despite a rhetoric of speaking up for working people, they have been steadily moving to the centre. Some within the Sinn Féin leadership were consciously preparing the way to enter Coalition with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, even as minority partners. They panicked over the far right and in some cases have even tried to steal their clothes by appearing stricter on immigration.
No doubt the party has a less than democratic culture, to put it mildly. It tried to marry supporters of an armed struggle with community activists and managed this with authoritarian methods. But then again, few people would claim that Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil are genuine membership-led democratic organisations.
But the media reaction to recent scandals is something else. Sinn Féin has been pilloried by political correspondents and other media commentators. Every effort Sinn Féin has made to deal with inappropriate behaviour – and we have no idea of what is alleged or how it was dealt with – has been held up to ridicule and suspicion.
Fionnan Sheehan gave a clear expression to the subtext of this offensive when discussing the Niall Ó Donnghaile case. Brushing aside concerns about mental health, he accused Sinn Féin of ‘misleading the democratic institutions of the State’. The implication was that Sinn Féin are unfit to govern because they do not show sufficient respect for the ‘democratic institution of the state’.
What balderdash! The Irish state has been able to shred documents or have them disappear when they needed to. They do not reveal the commercial contracts which have been signed with private companies lest we be able to track how their risk-free profits are made. And when it comes to the grave issue of sexual abuse of children in schools, the Irish state prefers to set up Commissions of Inquiry that last approximately ten years to ensure little happens.
Which then begs the question: Where was RTÉ’s grilling of Church representatives who have repeatedly failed to even pay adequate compensation to victims?
Where was the exposure of Fine Gael TDs who claimed to be concerned with child protection while supporting a government that denied a legal right of children with special needs to be assessed?
Or how does one explain the different media treatment of individual behaviour in Fine Gael as against Sinn Féin? Take, for example, John McGahon who was recently ordered to pay €39,000 to the victim of his assault. Where is the media grilling of Simon Harris, who has supported him throughout? Harris even stated that ‘I’m happy for John to seek a nomination from the members of Louth Fine Gael.”
Where were the repeated media inquiries into Fine Gael’s investigation of their local election candidate, Marian Agrios? It is alleged that a developer agreed to pay her €15,000 in cash and carry out €15,000 worth of work on her home in exchange for the withdrawal of her objection to a development in Termonfeckin.
We could go on with many more examples. But the issue is not individual behaviour, because in our current society there will always be individuals who transgress basic ethical standards. The real issue is why has the media honed in on Sinn Féin, just days before a general election is called?
Here we need to return to Bourdieu’s theory of habitus. The media commentators are drawn from an upper professional class which has a distinct culture. Many prominent journalists, though not all, have imbibed the culture of Dublin 4, which is not just a postal code but a distinct mentality.
This culture celebrates its own sense of self entitlement, pretending that its more privileged position has been gained by hard work. Typically, parents encourage their sons and daughters to study accountancy, medicine or law, as that is where the secure money is.
One feature of this culture is a disdain for anything that might resemble a struggle against partition and imperialism. D4 people hate republicanism and the far left with a peculiar passion. Walking into the corridors and canteens of RTÉ, the Irish Times or the Irish Independent, you are more likely to encounter derogatory remarks about Sinn Féin, no matter how much the latter bend to the norms of the political establishment. In more recent times, the D4 culture surrounds itself with a fake liberalism, pretending that they have moved beyond traditional values, while the rest of Ireland are stuck in ‘backward’ notions of defending neutrality or remembering Ireland’s anti-colonial legacy.
Not surprising then that when they see Sinn Féin falter, they go into overdrive. No matter how much that party dithers and moves to the centre, the privileged people of Ireland fear that their rental income or their easy subsidies from the state might be withdrawn. Not, mind you, the big multi-nationals, who are more than content with Sinn Féin’s promise to keep the tax haven safe.
One noticeable feature of this week’s controversies is how the Labour leader, Ivana Bacik, and the Social Democrats leader, Holly Cairns, are praised in the media for their attacks on Sinn Féin. They too know the price that the political establishment extracts for entry into coalition. And this week, they have shown once again that they are willing to pay.
