Sometimes, entire days go by without a statement from AfrI denouncing the iniquities of the dreadful Western world which Ireland has the colossal misfortune to live within. Those silences can at times be extremely nerve-racking, rather like when an elderly maiden aunt, who reeks slightly of the swimming pool, decides to go pot-holing, and vanishes down a crevice in the ground. After a few hours have elapsed, and her grey bun doesn't re-emerge, you begin to worry. That's me, when I don't hear from AfrI: has it finally been garrotted by the Western forces of evil which bring famine and oppression to that world beyond these sainted shores?
What a relief to hear AfrI's meoldiously virtuous voice back in full song the other day, denouncing the Government's paper on our participation in Partnership for Peace, and condemning the Army's exchange programme with the US, and its training programmes with the UK.
Bloody Sunday
"Given the appalling activities carried out by the US military forces around the world, and events such as Bloody Sunday in Derry, it is unlikely that Irish military personnel will learn about respect for human rights from such an exchange programme or such training courses."
AfrI was, of course, spot on about Bloody Sunday - as we all know, shooting down unarmed civilians by the dozen is the staple stuff of British military training: why, they teach their students absolutely nothing else at Sandhurst - but AfrI might also have mentioned Dresden, the Amritsar massacre, the Black and Tans, the Ashanti Wars. And I always think that when discussing US foreign policy, you can't go far wrong if you begin by reminding your audience of the fate of the Plains Indians, of My Lai, and of the US slave trade.
But one moment; Ireland also has a military exchange programme with France, yet AfrI has made no mention of Dreyfus. Why? It's certain, if the Army of the Republic has any contact with L'Armee de la Republique, sooner or later the French will be hatching schemes to send Ireland's Jews packing off to Ireland's Devil's Island, Rockall. And the Rangers have trained with the Australian SAS - so why didn't AfrI mention the terrible fate of the Aborigines? There seems to be some room for heightening the tone of moral superiority here.
However, all things considered, it wasn't a bad outing, a nice enough assurance that AfrI is alive and well and that, along with something called the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, it is being given publicity in inverse proportion to its size. Some 40 per cent of recent press coverage of the Government's paper on PfP was given over to reporting denunciations of it by PANA and AfrI, both of which appear to be largely one-man bands consisting of one Roger Cole, the former, and one Joe Murray, the latter.
Morally superior
Far from begrudging them their success with the media, I rather admire individuals who, apparently operating out of an office the size of a dishwasher, can be granted so many column inches at the click of a morally superior finger. Why is that our media can be relied on to report, with such a po-faced parity of esteem, the opinions of every anti-NATO, anti-American, anti-British fringe group, be it ever so humble?
Last summer, for example, tiny protest groups turned up at airshows where RAF or USAF aircraft were performing, to protest against the "these obscene celebration of weapons of mass destruction" or some such folderol: and though they were so molecular in size that virtually nobody saw them, and I certainly didn't, amid the tens of thousands of enthusiastic people present, their protests received an extensive and sympathetic coverage in the media.
"We're here to protest against the oppression of the people of East Timor by the Indonesian government, and against the appearance of Hawk aircraft, which is the very type of aircraft used by the Indonesians in their campaign of genocide," Sean Mac Much Righteous, of the Irish East Timor Support Group (Vegetarian Marxist-Leninist) might have announced as he picketed the Baldonnel airshow. Scribble scribble go the hacks, and next day he is dutifully reported at length.
Now he's entitled to his opinions, of course, and no decent person should, could, or would make light of the horrors visited upon the poor people of East Timor. But one man blaming a particular type of aircraft for atrocities inflicted by one set of humans on another on the far side of the world is not news; merely an example of silliness at Speakers' Corner. Yet the sanctimonious rodomontade of such as Sean Mac Much Righteous has become part of our daily news diet.
Equal coverage
If a couple from the Legion of Mary picketed a pro-abortion rally attended by tens of thousands, would their opinions be sedulously canvassed by journalists, and then given almost equal coverage to that given to the rally? If 10,000 people packed the streets of Dublin in support of the Palestinians, would the dissent of three pro-Israelis bulk nearly as large as that of the 10,000? If thousands marched to protest at the bombing of Iraq by Britain and the US, and a tiny group of pro-bombers counter-demonstrated, would their minority presence be given a full 40 per cent of the coverage awarded the main demonstration?
No? So how do AfrI and PANA manage to get extensive coverage of their opinions whenever they want? What power have they? Are they able to play on some querulous journalistic need for "balance"? Or is there, in some unspoken, even unconscious way, a shared agenda?