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Watching
George Monbiot speak at the Elmwood Hall is simultaneously
an uplifting and depressing experience. Uplifting
because he lances a boil of boredom induced by the
political discourse that permeates our endless discussion
about the peace process. Listening to the politicians
from here talking about themselves and their self
serving problems while lying through their teeth about
what they have done, are doing, and will continue
to do for a better society and demanding that everybody
from London via Dublin to Washington pay attention
to them, merely confirms Bernard Bailey's view that
'when they discover the center of the universe, a
lot of people will be disappointed to discover they
are not it.' Nauseating tossers who would spend an
eternity debating flags and emblems as they sup the
same fine wine at pig only banquets, but who couldn’t
find a few minutes to turn up for a cancer services
debate. And who now want us to sit on tenterhooks
while they nudge each other's snout out of the trough
slobbering over whether it is right to have an election
or not. They have been out of Stormont a year and
who really misses them? Monbiot's sense of something
other than himself is the antidote to the lot of them.
But
his description of world poverty and the struggle
that confronts those seeking to eradicate it, takes
the wind out of the sails. What joy is obtained from
forgetting our political knuckle shufflers dissipates
quickly as Monbiot tackles real issues which are literally
life or death for countless millions of people.
The
New Ireland Group and The de Borda Institute hosted
the public lecture delivered by him entitled ‘Unionism,
Nationalism or Globalisation.’ The organisers
could easily have left out the first two as globalisation
was the only thing that the audience gathered for.
Seriously, who would pay five quid to hear somebody
sensible talk about the crew of pirates that seek
to govern us? Between them they manage to shipwreck
everything before sliding off to scream to Blair 'Cap'n,
Cap'n, they did it.'
That
Paddy Sloan of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Association
chaired, given the subject matter, indicated an acknowledgement
that human rights were social and economic and could
not be marginalised to the political sphere as yearned
for by the political right. Although Philip Orr and
Peter Emerson from the host groups also spoke and
were lively and witty, it was the George Monbiot show
and that's what people paid to see. He introduced
people to the central ideas in his book, The Age Of
Consent, and suggested that globalisation opened up
opportunities for the disadvantaged to organise and
blunt the incisors of capital. I was surprised that
the Socialist Workers Party activists did not throw
any questions his way. He was very critical of Marxism
in his book, blaming Marx himself rather than his
offshoots for the murderous virus that beset the ostensibly
emancipatory project almost from its inception. The
SWP is hard to knock. They do the work and if their
activists disappeared off the streets of Belfast tomorrow
morning the city would almost certainly be declared
a radical free zone. And, as people, for the most
part they are sociable. They like the craic and the
banter and no matter how fiercely you debate with
them, at the end of it, it is the end of it. Nothing
carries over. Unlike some of the Marxist Moonies I
have met over the years, they won’t hyperventilate
just because you think Trotsky was wrong on something
like the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in
Outer Mongolia …
But
they do display a trait which infuriates some and
irritates most. And it is the same whether you are
in Southampton or Belfast, Manchester of Dublin. Any
event you attend - and George Monbiot’s lecture
was no different - on the way in they are standing
shoving their paper into your face. And just before
the event ends they scarper from the hall to meet
you with the same paper on your way back out. You
might be sitting beside one all night but you’ll
be beaten to the door by her. The problem is not the
paper as much of it is good reading - when is Eamon
McCann anything but stimulating? But the manner in
which the activists gather to sell it, almost in the
fashion of performing a cult-like ritual, creates
an image of the theatre of the absurd and casts a
shadow of the ridiculous over a group of people who
are otherwise very serious and committed activists.
It gives them the appearance of the sandwich board
men in the town who try to catch the unwary on a Saturday
and who, if you are unfortunate enough to pause momentarily,
will howl nonsense about God and the devil at you.
If they are what populates heaven, then it is hell
for me.
Having
said that, whatever the irritation, Brid Smith, a
senior SWP activist is now in a prison cell because
of her role in opposing the bin tax in Dublin. A socialist
political prisoner, she has pushed her political conviction
beyond the boundaries that the state defines as lawful.
She has broken the law but only to avoid becoming
a criminal by obeying it.
Ultimately,
it will be names like Brid Smith and George Monbiot
that will come to be associated with future radical
projects. Whether locally or globally they are pushing
in the same direction - against the structures of
cupidity and avarice. It is not an open door and the
forces determined to keep it in position are powerful
beyond belief. When the gentle chords of George Monbiot’s
voice caressed the Elmwood Hall, outlining for his
listeners the destructive power of the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund, our own strength
seemed like that of a flower in the path of a tank.
From where springs hope at moments like that? Brid
Smith, Joe Higgins, Clare Daly, Lisa Carroll, Christine
Heffernan….
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