Nationalism, a scourge - Village Magazine

4 July-August 

Issue 83

June-July 2024

ONLINE

www.villgemgzine.ie

@VillgeMgIRE

EDITOR

Michel Smih

edior@villgemgzine.ie

DEPUTY EDITOR

J Vivin Cooke

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION

Lenny Rooney

INTERN

Ashling Gormley

ADVERTISING

sles@villge.ie

PRINTERS

Boylns, Droghed,

Co Louh

VILLAGE IS PUBLISHED BY

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Nationalism, a scourge

EDITORIAL

Brrett: Ntionlism wers old clothes

Corrections:

In light of comments received

after publication from Gript.ie

about our cover story in the last

edition, we acknowledge and

have changed in the online ver-

sion a number of minor

inaccuracies; we removed an

inaccurate reference to Gript

failing to apologise to Eamon

Ryan over the awarding of a

bicycle-hire contract, that Gript

had wrongly said was nepotis-

tic; and we deleted an

inaccurate statement that John

McGuirk had either mistakenly

or dishonestly claimed that Leo

Varadkar had intervened in the

asylum application of the Alge-

rian to whom Gript wrongly

attributed the Parnell Square

stabbing.

We also corrected the state-

ment: "47% of misinformation

and disinformation across a

range of hotbutton issues came

from just two alternative media

outlets, Gript and TheLiberal.

ie, with Gript receiving 30% of

all social-media shares" which

was based on a misreading of

the ISD report 'Uisce Faoi

Thalamh An Investigation Into

the Online Mis- and Disinfor-

mation Ecosystem in Ireland'

which actually states that 30%

of media shares, of any kind,

within what the ISD referred to

as "the mis and disinformation

ecosystem" comes from Gript.

HE DANGER with

Nationalism as a

policy is that it tells

you who governs

you (your Nation

through its government) not

how you are governed (what

your government’s policies

are). The problem with that is

that day-to-day government

aects people through the how not the who.

Nationalism doesn’t help with that.

Once you’ve got your independence, which is

certainly a big deal, Nationalism provides no

guide. It is politically self-erasing, vacuous.

Republicanism is no better in this respect than

Nationalism since it provides no guide once a coun-

try gets rid of its monarch or emperor, the primary

targets of Republicanism.

Nationalism allows left-wing and right-wing,

conservative, liberal, xenophobic; and indeed eve-

rything else, all at the same time.

In Ireland, Nationalism gave us the parties that

emerged from our independence from the UK.

That was bad enough. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil

stand for little. While that has allowed them to

make a sort of incremental progress in policies that

has not been evident in many other countries, it

has also held them back from imaginative or radi-

cal policies, such as the ones this magazine

espouses and that this, now rich, country needs

and deserves.

It prevented them representing solidly and per

manently Socialism. Or equality and sustainability

and accountability. Or Quality of Life. Or indeed

anything else consistent this magazine — or

anyone else — considers good.

If a party is ideological in any way it can no

longer really claim to be primarily either National-

ist or Republican.

Rude as it may sound, for Village Nationalists

and Republicans are political sluts.

They’re missing the opportunity to choose a

transcendent ideas-based platform or ideology

that would drive their attitude to particular issues,

and optimise the lives of the citizenry. Of course

they can improvise one, but they are at a disadvan-

tage to those whose guiding ideology gives them

their clear platform.

Worse, the vacuums at the heart of Nationalism

and Republicanism create an opening for the dis

tortion of agendas by frailty, mediocrity,

inconsistency, vested interests and corruption.

That vacuum was ﬁlled in Ireland by the Church,

by the gombeens, by the mohair-suited property

speculators and the Galway tent.

Nationalism provided no bulwark.

In the last thirty years Sinn

Féin has become a major

nationalistic force in Irish pol-

itics. It seemed like it would

be socialist. But let’s be

clear: it no longer deﬁnes

itself as socialist, so it has

stopped being socialist.

It’s not really even clear

that for example on immigra-

tion, on hate legislation, on property tax, or on

economic and social policy in Northern Ireland, it

isn’t in part….conservative.

Sinn Féin fudged its policies on immigration, the

aspirational €300,000 Dublin house-price, re-run-

ning the care referendum, meeting Biden while he

funds the war in Gaza. It’s talking to Davy’s Stock

brokers and Johnny Ronan.

Nationalism has taken it in precisely the same

shifting, improvised direction Fianna Fáil and Fine

Gael have gone, and that’s before it’s even served

in government in the Republic.

Its Nationalism has been toxic for it. (It’s not

even advancing the United Ireland most of us ulti-

mately want for practical reasons since borders get

in the way. The best politics to unite Ireland is

patience, to wait for momentum and avoid a pre-

dictable Unionist backlash.)

It is therefore dicult to be sanguine about the

current rise of some individuals, and parties like

Independent Ireland and the Irish National Party,

that want to be more nationalistic (by which they

mean more anti-immigrant) than Sinn Féin and a

lot more anti-immigrant than Fianna Fáil and Fine

Gael.

For Village they are all a regression. Sinn Féin

risks being Fianna Fáil for slow learners. The Anti-

Immigrant Nationalist parties risk being Sinn Féin

for slow learners.

They risk ignoring the lessons for faster learners

of 100 years since the formation of the Sation and

its ﬁrst political parties. It’s not so much the new

forces keep stealing the clothes of the older ones

as that they all ﬁnish up wearing the old clothes.

Nationalism has held back Fianna Fáil and Fine

Gael, it has recently corrupted Sinn Féin. The nutty

right have it tightest now and are welcome to it.

Ideally its toxicity will ultimately alienate every-

body, leaving an isolated last man standing, the

Nazi-uniformed Justin Barrett.

We need a substantive politics. Just conceding

that is a start, a start that opens endless opportu

nities, of which Village’s agenda is just one, albeit

a rare coherent and progressive one!

Dump Nationalism. Equality of outcome, sus-

tainability and accountability is a full and fair

agenda, for all.