Sinn Fein strangely silent at Shannon anti-war protest

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday January 24, 2003 13:47 by Allen

An Article by Sen. Brendan Ryan published in The Evening Echo.

I was in Shannon last Saturday. I was there because there is something
profoundly immoral about being involved in war while pretending nothing
has changed. If our government wants us to support the U.S. then
like Tony Blair they ought at least to have the courage to say so. It
appears though that a classic “Tadhg a' dá thaobh” position is
their preferred option. For George Bush we're doing everything he asks
of us. For home consumption it starts with denial and moves on to
something less, accompanied by the assertion that even if they
are breaking our laws well it's only a little bit !! And no doubt
the person who saw US officers in a Limerick Hotel in full uniform walked
in on a film set!!

So the first protest was about truth and our right to have it. The
second protest was about war. It was about the apparent determination of
a US President who was never properly elected to go to war whatever the
rest of the world or the United Nations thinks. And our government again
talks of the United Nations but doesn't say what they will do (as distinct
from what they say the wish to do!!) if the US and the UK ignore the United
Nations.

The third protest is about hypocrisy. Sadam Hussein is powerful, ruthless
and dangerous for his own people. But the reason he is like that is becaus
the US and it's allies built him up, funded him and armed him in order to
try and destroy Iran. And even after the Gulf War they left him there
because they felt that any likely replacement would be too left wing for
their liking. And besides he could be relied upon to keep the Kurds
from doing anything about their independence.

That's why 2000 people found ways to get to Shannon last Saturday. It
mattered so much to many Munster people that they even missed Munster's
greatest triumph for the sake of principle and peace. And in spite of the
seriousness it was both an enjoyable and a colourful event. Banners were
plentifull with Labour more visible than they have been for many years, but
with the Greens, The Socialist Party, The Socialist Workers all there
with their various shades of red and green.

Funnily enough one shade of Green wasn't visible . There were Sinn
Fein representatives there all right which you'd expect given the noise
they made about neutrality during the Nice referendum. Perhaps there were a
large number of Sinn Fein people there; I don't know them all. Though I do
know they claim to have hundreds of members in Limerick .

So where were the banners? How come the party ,that for it's size is the
richest in this state, couldn't muster banners and placards to match The
Greens or even The Socialist Party. Sinn Fein is a party of prfessional
communicators. It is efficient disciplined and organised so the absence of
banners and posters was hardly an oversight. On other occasions they have
produced the lot at what seemed like an hour's notice so I can't believe
they forgot.

So why would Sinn Fein decide not to make it's presence visible at a
protest about our neutrality, about a future war and about militarisation?
Could it be they didn't want to be seen? And if so by whom? Well the Gardai
saw them , other political parties saw them, and Irish papers reported
their presence. So it wasn't us they were hiding from. Who was it then?

Well of course I don't know. But Sinn Fein is the richest party in this
state because it raises enormous funds in the USA. Those funds have
enabled them to fund huge full time organisations in the constituencies
where they hope to do well. Before the last election one Labour T.D. was
faced with six full time Sinn Fein people for the two years before the
election. All paid for, presumably, by American money.

Americans and Irish Americans in particular are patriotic in ordinary
times. They are almost fanatically so today. And they think very highly of
their armed forces so they wouldn't be very keen on funding organistions
which object to the presence of US forces on their soil. Indeed they might
get very angry indeed if they found out about it. And since most of them
rely on TV for their news then a bit of invisibility at a protest
would protect Sinn Fein from the consequences of what they tell us are
deeply held convictions about our neutrality.

So I believe Sinn Fein chickened out. When their principles and their
pockets came into conflict they opted for invisibility. They decided
they'd keep their US funders happy and keep their protest low key and
largely invisible, particularly from the visual media. If a picture is as
good as a thousand words then a question arises. How many dollars is the
absence of a picture worth? And how many dollars is a principle worth??