Tom Myatt | Senior Editor
Seeing the news recently, one would be forgiven for thinking this was Russia in 1917, or France in the eighteenth century. But no, the daily populist rhetoric you hear is coming from modern-day Ireland, not over some repressive government that stops at nothing to harm its own people, but over a water charge of the type that every other country in Europe already has to pay.
There are plenty of problems with the way the policy has been implemented, and the government hasn’t been properly transparent about it, but many critics have also crossed the line into ridiculousness.
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As somewhat of an outsider, the protests and the entire debate from both sides seem to have grown increasingly ludicrous. There are plenty of problems with the way the policy has been implemented, and the government hasn’t been properly transparent about it, but many critics have also crossed the line into ridiculousness, making them look more often like screaming children than people trying to help their community.
If the anti-charges movement is going to make real progress, it needs a serious change in tone toward something that the government can actually consider negotiating with reasonably, rather than rude and often violent “discourse”. Last week, Sinn Fein TD Mary Lou McDonald decided she didn’t like the concept of people paying for water, so she marched into the Dail and conducted a one-person sit-in protest, preventing our country’s government from operating for an entire day. She eventually had to be forcefully removed from the chamber.
What could have been a genuine and legitimate disagreement with a government policy was suddenly made into an unbecoming nuisance, and ruined any chance she had of influencing government policy. The state does not want to face embarrassment by negotiating with what are seen as angry, loud irritants, instead of people who can be taken seriously. The TD may have felt impassioned about the issue, but the slightest amount of rational thinking and action, as well as simply acting like an adult, would prove far more effective in pursuing political goals.
The state does not want to face embarrassment by negotiating with what are seen as angry, loud irritants, instead of people who can be taken seriously.
Similarly, a semi-viral YouTube video shows a water charge protester on Dawson St. running in front of a state car that police were trying to get through the crowds. Upon jumping in front of the car and banging on the bonnet – which, of course, is hardly a reasonable or empirically successful means of being involved in the national policy-making process – the woman was grabbed by the Gardai and thrown out of the way, before apparently hitting a pylon.
The video’s comments displayed little except complaints of police brutality. While causing the woman to hit something truly was regrettable and unacceptable, it’s worth taking a step back and looking at what preceded the event. Someone ran in front of, and began banging on, a state vehicle. Not only is that a major security breach, but in some countries she’d have been shot immediately. Can you imagine someone keeping hold of their life, let alone any sense of safety or dignity, if they ran in front of Barack Obama’s cavalcade in America? Hardly. She got off lightly, but the harm she did to her own cause was far greater than that done to her pride.
What the Sinn Fein party needs, besides a Junior Cert-level economics lesson, is to take responsibility for constructing a more coherent anti-water charge campaign. A great deal of academic literature exists discounting the effectiveness of childish political action compared to a more reasonable approach, and history shows that when you can make those in power feel you’re not a threat or an irrational nuisance, you are far more likely to be listened to and accommodated.
It is understandable that if you feel strongly about something, you may want to show your feelings in in an impassioned way. But stopping for a moment to think about what good you’re doing is far more effective.
It is understandable that if you feel strongly about something, you may want to show your feelings in in an impassioned way. But stopping for a moment to think about what good you’re doing is far more effective. Frankly, I think both sides have been taking this whole issue too far anyway. There are so many more pressing problems in the world and in this country, yet here we are getting angry about being the last country in Europe to have to pay for water.
Illustration by Caoimhe Durkan for The University Times
