I
was pleased to see in Ray O'Hanlon's article that
British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has asked
U. S. Senator John Mc Cain (R-AZ) to urge the
Reverend Ian Paisley to share power with Sinn
Fein. ("McCain asked to intercede with Paisley",
Irish Echo, February 7 - 13).
I
have a great deal of respect for Senator Mc Cain,
a genuine American hero, irrespective of what
one thinks of the Vietnam War. However, it is
ironic — and maybe not too politically advantageous
— that Mc Cain's first very public foray into
Irish politics would be high-profile association
with the one person who more than anyone else
is the personification of anti-Catholic sectarianism
and bigotry in Northern Ireland over the past
60 years. It could evoke the specter of George
W. Bush's campaign-visit to Bob Jones University
— Paisley's main American sponsor for the
past 60 years.
GOP
and Northern Ireland
Over
the past 30 years, The Republican Party, in general,
has not distinguished itself by opposing anti-Catholic
sectarianism in Northern Ireland — although,
by a delicious irony, it was the Republican-controlled
Congress that passed the Mac Bride Principles.
For that we have to thank the great Ben Gilman
(R-NY), former Chairman of the House International
Relations Committee. There are, of course, other
Republican Members of Congress who have stood
up for justice and equality in Northern Ireland:
Jimmy Walsh, Peter King, Chris Smith, the late
Hamilton Fish, to name some of the more prominent.
But to my knowledge — and I've been working on
this issue for almost 35 years in America; twenty
nine of those years on Capitol Hill — Senator
Mc Cain has never been significantly involved
in opposing British injustice and Orange anti-Catholic
sectarianism in Northern Ireland. He has been
silent on anti-Catholic discrimination, collusion,
State-sponsored terrorism, etc. , etc. He did
not even raise his voice against the torture of
political prisoners in Northern Ireland (when
his voice would have been the most eloquent, granting
his own experience, which he heroically endured).
Anti-Catholic
Sectarianism
Here,
let me explain something that surprisingly is
often missed. When we talk about anti-Catholic
sectarianism in Northern Ireland, we are not talking
about some obtuse theological difference between
Catholic and Protestants. Rather, we are talking
about a Government-sanctioned policy for keeping
Catholics oppressed. So when Paisley ranted and
raved about "Popery", he was not making
some nice theological point but rather shoring
up the status quo and making sure that Catholics
(not the Pope or the Cardinals, but the poor,
unemployed Catholics) would be kept " in
their place" — at the back of the bus. In
much the same way the segregationists in the Deep
South had shored up Jim Crow. (Sectarianism is
but the flip side of the racist coin).
Anti-Catholicism
has been the State religion of the Northern Ireland
state. Now, thank God — and thanks to Tony
Blair — all that can change because of the
peace-process. But let no one be in any doubt
— vicious, dangerous, anti-Catholic sectarianism
is still deeply embedded in Northern Ireland,
ever ready to be stoked into flames by Paisley-like
demagoguery. If one does not understand that,
one fails to grasp the most fundamental reason
why historically the State of Northern Ireland
was created by the 1920 British Government Act
Of Ireland. The deal was: British rule through
Protestant supremacy, and Protestant supremacy
through British rule. (None of which had anything
to with the many valid points raised by Martin
Luther and his Reformation).
So
while I welcome John Mc Cain's growing involvement
in Irish affairs, I think it is incumbent on him
to use his powerful and rightly respected voice
to oppose anti-Catholic sectarianism in Northern
Ireland.
A
Good Place for Mc Cain to Begin
A
good place for him to start is to convince Tony
Blair to abolish the inherently anti-Catholic
Act of Settlement, 1701, under which no Catholic
can become King or Queen of England, and which
states that if the Monarch becomes a Catholic,
or marries a Catholic, he/she forfeits the Throne
and "the people are absolved from their allegiance".
While this law may mean little to the average
Englishman in the street, it has always been of
deep importance to Protestant/Unionist/Orange
extremists in Northern Ireland. It provides the
ideological and philosophical underpinnings for
their bigotry and sectarianism. For you see, the
spurious but deadly logic goes, if a Catholic
by law can't get the top job, then Catholics are
not equal to Protestants, therefore it's okay
to discriminate against them. Can you imagine
how the flames of racism would have been stoked
in the United States had there been a Constitutional
ban on a Black person becoming President? (And,
please, let no one say, " but that's different",
because it's not).
Quite
amazingly, while there is a growing groundswell
in Britain itself against this anti-Catholic Act,
Tony Blair, who has done so much good in Northern
Ireland, has refused to move to repeal it, even
though he has admitted it is "plainly discriminatory".
Maybe the distinguished Senator form the great
State of Arizona can convince Blair to do the
right thing.
