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When
Tommy Gorman phoned me on a Saturday evening and asked
if I would like to accompany him to the Michael Moore
talk - a roar would be a more apt description - at
the West Belfast Feile, I was delighted to get the
chance. Previous to his call I had assumed no tickets
were available due to such a high early demand. The
Feile's Carol Jackson later explained that within
an hour of release the tickets were gone. Not that
surprising given that they went gratis and few would
have survived the opening rush once made available
to a hungry public.
Moore
has assumed something of iconographic status for many
on the left seeking alternatives to the less than
inspirational clowns that the left have been wont
to worship over the years. Breezy and irreverent he
has made a reputation for ridiculing the sacred cows
of the right. Amongst the issues he has tackled, according
to one report in Dissent magazine, are the increased
use of prison labour; botched urban renewal schemes;
the temping of the workforce; and problems of welfare,
violence and racism. The prospect of hearing him thunder
live was not to be turned down.
Yet,
almost immediately on taking our seats in the Feile
marquee, I sensed that this was not going to be the
earth moving once in a lifetime event that it was
being billed as in some quarters. And when I left
I was more impressed by the introduction performed
by Stephen Rea than I was by the performance of the
big man himself.
It
was no minor feather in the hat of the Feile management
to host Moore. He is an Oscar winner, successful author,
filmmaker and prime time TV commentator. His reputation
for acerbic but witty social commentary travels before
him so he could easily pull crowds anywhere. While
1200 took up their seats in West Belfast, Danny Morrison
of the Feile management committee was hardly exaggerating
when he said 5000 tickets would easily have been snapped
up. Health and safety requirements meant that 1200
was the upper limit. Yet watching Moore’s performance
I was struck by the visibility of the awkward joints
that incongruity throws up. Moore came to the citadel
of conformity and the capital of censorship in Ireland
and spoke about truth. Fine in so far as it goes but
all his utterances seemed premised on an assumption
that truth is something West Belfast places a premium
on. It seemed bizarre that he would single out one
of the leading liars of Irish political life for praise.
And despite his pejorative dismissal of the ‘stupid’
George Bush and his war on Iraq, there was not one
word of opprobrium for those politicians, some of
whom were in the audience, who undermined the Irish
anti-war movement by galloping into Hillsborough to
meet with the US president during his war summit while
school children were being battered by the RUC outside
Belfast City Hall for stating their opposition to
the US-UK summit being held in Ireland.
Observing
this, I was instantly reminded of the writer Albert
Camus who, if he could have cast an eye from the silence
of his grave, might just have found in Moore’s
exaltation of the truth evidence of its absurdity.
Looking around the hall we could see the local Stazi
monitoring the audience. They were hardly there to
promote the values expounded by Michael Moore. And
the word ‘dissent’ would have sent electric-like
shocks through them. Their view of a critical thought
is that it is equivalent to a contagious disease -
something to be quarantined at the first hint of its
emergence. These people's capacity to absorb nonsense
maybe only hours or days after dismissing as fools
others for even hinting at it would have provided
a most interesting and revealing target for Moore's
ire.
Moore
gave me the clear impression that he was good on American
domestic affairs but very vague when it came to Iraq
and Israel, and utterly hopeless when addressing the
conflict in Ireland. His lack of insight he conceals
well with humour, but at the heel of the hunt it remained
none the more insightful for that. Did we really need
him to come here and play to our prejudices? He pretended
to his audience that decommissioning of IRA weaponry
had not yet taken place. And the audience in turn
pretended to believe him.
His
admonishment to the unionists to get real on the grounds
that those who were formerly oppressed, themselves
never resorted to oppression was amazing. It merely
confirmed for me that he really did not know a lot
about the Israeli experience. I wanted to ask him
how he rated Orwell’s Animal Farm but time was
up. Was he not aware of Napoleon’s acerbic observation
that amongst those who are oppressed are many who
like to oppress?
Michael
Moore is more a humorist-cum-polemicist than an analyst.
As Michael Mattson writes in Dissent he has made political
criticism entertaining. But because he seeks to politicise
through entertainment he exposes himself to the charge
of ‘junking accuracy’. That much was evident
in his Feile debut. Nevertheless, his voice is one
that is raised in protest against much that is unjust
and is therefore welcome. He is the fulcrum upon which
swathes of dissenting opinion can position themselves
much more effectively. Without him the intellectual
armoury which fires salvo upon salvo into the fortress
of the powerful would be seriously depleted. As Stephen
Rea said sanguinely America will never succumb to
fascism because Michael Moore will not shut up.
Leaving
to make our way back to the car I commented to Tommy
Gorman that West Belfast made Michael Moore welcome
because he does not live here. If he did and continued
to dissent or probe for truth behind the line that
is handed down from on high he would find his house
surrounded by a lot of very stupid white men eager
to throw their copies of his books on the pyre.
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