Connect: Dear, oh dear, the socialists are quarrelling bitterly again. The Left's so doctrinaire, isn't it? Splinter factions continue to interpret Marx, Lenin, Gramsci and the rest in their own fervid ways and refuse to compromise. It's woeful realpolitik. After all, surely there can't be any more than hair-splitting between the ideologies of avowed socialists such as Joe Higgins and Bertie Ahern?
Nonetheless, they clashed again this week. Comrade Ahern likened the "failed ideology" of Comrade Higgins to that pursued by a "nitwit". He went farther: "You're a failed person who was rejected and whose political philosophy has been rejected. You will not pull people back into the failed old policies you dreamed up in south Kerry when you were a young fellow. Now, go away."
It's said that a civil war is the most bitter of all. It certainly appears so when socialists clash, even verbally. Ahern's retaliation was a response to an attack by Higgins on the spiralling cost of housing. Speculators, Higgins said, "bought the party's former leader [ Charlie Haughey]" and Ahern had "failed cataclysmically to stop the unbridled speculation by developers and house builders".
Higgins added: "The VIP pen in the Donnycarney church [ at Haughey's funeral] was like a major house builders' convention. In March 1996, the average price of a home in Dublin was €82,000. This year, 10 years later, it is €384,000. That represents a €30,000 increase per year, the equivalent of the current average industrial wage each year for 10 years." Such figures bring into question Comrade Ahern's commitment to socialism. So does the fact that the Republic of Ireland now has the most unequal society in Europe. Indeed, some people say that Ahern leads the most right-wing government in the history of the State.
These phenomena surely present difficulties for a self-proclaimed socialist. Don't they? Consider Comrade Ahern's attitude towards land speculation, health and education, for instance. A handful of speculators, doubtless including other Ahern "socialists", control the land banks around Dublin. In health, we have the Blackrock Clinic and other private hospitals, while in the public system, people lie on trolleys. In education, there are fee-paying schools and slum schools.
It's certainly a revolutionary form of socialism that Comrade Ahern espouses. People who believe socialism advocates communal control of production, distribution and exchange are obviously deluded. Comrade Ahern knows better. He has, it's clear, privatised socialism, given it a make-over, made it "relevant". Whatever would we do without such a thinker? Thank you, Comrade Ahern.
It's outrageous that Bertie Ahern should call himself a "socialist". Leave aside whether you believe it's a superior or inferior ideology to capitalism - that is not the argument - and think about his claim. Either he's the "nitwit" he accused Higgins of being, or he doesn't believe what he said. Both possibilities question his fitness to be the most senior politician in Ireland.
Maybe he believes words must denote whatever meaning he ascribes to them. Perhaps he's a postmodernist - wearing his socialist clothes one day, his capitalist ones the next and his social democrat attire on other occasions. But, even to a bored electorate, it's not so simple, Bertie. Whatever you are, you are not a socialist. Your behaviour in Government proves this.
In a civilised country, Ahern would have to withdraw his claim. It may be that the capitalism he and his Government have pursued has been materially better for the State than any socialist policies could have been. Nobody can know. But it's undeniable that his Government has implemented policies that have made rich people a whole lot richer. That doesn't sound like socialism.
When he made the claim a year and a half ago, he may have been trying to begin cleaving Fianna Fáil away from the Progressive Democrats. Given that party's 3 per cent standing in opinion polls, it has exercised hugely disproportionate influence on government policy. They cannot be blamed for this but in allowing them such free rein to do the "dirty work", Comrade Ahern can.
For his part, Higgins told Village magazine last year: "I'm a revolutionary socialist. I stand for the complete transformation of society with all institutions, banks and big industry democratically owned and controlled by the people." Sounds like old hat, Joe.
Clearly, your socialism is not as revolutionary as that of Bertie Ahern. Then again, that would be indeed be difficult.
When a brand of socialism exacerbates inequalities of health, wealth and educational opportunity, it is, quite frankly, too revolutionary for me. I cannot manage to "get with the programme" - at least, with any socialist programme - that results in such disparity. Only Bertie Ahern and his acolytes can do that.
There is, perhaps, a messianic quality to Higgins. Nonetheless, he is a genuine socialist. Bertie Ahern is not. He really should be forced to withdraw his idiotic remark. He's no "nitwit", but his claims to socialism are more insulting than funny.