Gerald Dawe's heart sank when he heard David Trimble's remarksabout the Republic
In his novel Love and Garbage, the Czech novelist Ivan Klima coined a word for official and propagandistic language: jerkish. It would appear from current reports that the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party is still afflicted with the virus. Whatever about antagonising "the body of Catholics in the North" (whom I am sure don't wait up nights on his behalf), David Trimble's remarks depressed this particular lapsed Protestant from Belfast.
I can only assume that Trimble was speaking, as the Ulster Unionist party leader in which case the blarney was (alas) in keeping with the downside of that party's rhetoric. And maybe we got him on a bad hair day. But the fact that he is also Northern Ireland's First Minister shows just how far he has to travel to statesmanship.
The "pathetic, sectarian, mono-ethnic, mono-cultural State" which Trimble describes as the Republic exists alone in his fervid imagination. He seems constitutionally incapable of informing himself, his party, and sadly, the State of which he is First Minister, of the complex changing nature of contemporary society in Ireland. Some of these changes have been painful: the loss of authority and prestige of the Catholic Church; the contamination of the municipal democratic institutions; the increase in racism. But all of these changes (and related problems) are the signs of a thriving, dynamic European society alert to the new century, not recycling stale old jargon.
Mr Trimble seems ignorant of the role Irish people from all walks of life are playing in creating (diplomatically, economically, culturally; as peace-keepers) that "vibrant, multi-ethnic, multi-national liberal democracy" at home, in Europe (including the devolved Britain) and further afield. He is in denial that the country with which he and his party share an island has undergone, both internally and externally, profound and lasting change. It mightn't be a bad idea, if to start with, he and the Ulster Unionist Party tried to catch up with the rest of us.
Harsh words are sometimes said, Mr Trimble is quoted as stating, but that is life.
"Maybe you should go to [the Republic] and look at it. I am basing [my comments] on the nature of the society that is there. I think this is a self-evident fact."
It strikes me that the petulance of Trimble's scripted remarks will not be overlooked as so often has been the case in the recent fraught past when the majority of those in the Republic willed him on for the just cause of the peace process. So far as I can tell, most people here consider Trimble as an honest, if awkward, courageous politician who deserves support for his civic vision of a North at peace with itself. However, when he speaks like one of those thoughtless Unionist politicians of old the heart sinks. As First Minister, Trimble has a moral responsibility to confront the persistent strains of sectarianism and bigotry in the North; not pander to them. One clear lead in this necessary liberating step would be to acknowledge honestly the profound changes that have transformed society in the Republic.
HAVING lived and worked here since 1974 I can say that it is simply untrue to refer to the Republic as "a sectarian state". The remnants of the confessionalist state (such as the Angelus Bells) are hardly repressive. Nor do I know what Mr Trimble means by the foot-stamping term "pathetic". Rather than this little brother attitude, it might be refreshing for the Unionist Party to articulate an adult socio-economic cultural argument for the Union if they believe such a case deserves our attention.
What we heard from David Trimble on Saturday last, along with his graceless inability to vindicate his comments with any degree of knowledge or good manners, doesn't add up to much really. It merely conforms to the dominant negative stereotypical image of unionism, official or otherwise, saying "it's someone else's fault". But the schoolyard name-calling by the First Minister debilitates the development of the peace process and that is important.
Over 50 years ago, the great English novelist and essayist George Orwell wrote in Politics and the English Language: "If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.
The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient."
Which in a nutshell sums it all up.
Gerald Dawe is a poet and teaches at Trinity College, Dublin. The Gallery Press publishes his most recent collection, The Morning Train