A REMARKABLE FEATURE of Ireland through the past half-decade has been the relative lack of major protests compared to those seen throughout southern Europe. We haven’t seen very many massive rallies or, thankfully, riots like those in Spain or Greece. No Italian Five Star type movement has emerged to hoover up those disaffected with a political system that has quite measurably failed to preserve the economic wellbeing of the nation.
I can only recall the one major protest march of several hundred thousand through Dublin during the Cowen years. It was organised by the unions but attracted a much broader audience than just their membership. We have had plenty of smaller, but still significant enough, marches and protests that disrupt traffic for a little bit before dissipating.
Most of the time we have been quite civilized in our protesting. I remember one protest outside government buildings when the protestors managed to storm the gates, and then sort of lost their fizzle as if not knowing what to do next. Had it happened in Athens, about ten times as many people would have got in and quite probably burned the place down.
Student protests tend to get a bit rowdy, but flinging paint and eggs at the Department of Finance is still a far cry off the Arab Spring.
Abortion campaigns have a particularly nasty undercurrent to them, with plastic foetuses and much worse being sent to politicians; but it has always been like this. Those who perpetrate the more extreme attempts at intimidating public representatives tend to be in the minority. We haven’t seen pro and anti-abortion campaigners knocking lumps out of one another when they meet outside Leinster House.
Slow learners among the republican movement, the type occasionally march around parts of Dublin dressed in the haute couture of 1970s bogside, are also fans of bully-boy tactics. These people are extremists, easily spotted and dismissed as cranks.
There has been a worrying trend, however, among protest groups with more reasonable concerns turning to unreasonable tactics. I’ve said before that property and water taxes make sense, but not when loaded atop an already onerous tax base in a depressed economy. For or against the taxes, however, I believe that people have a natural right to protest against them.
The trouble is that these groups are moving to more and more thuggish forms of protest.
Earlier in the month the Taoiseach was met with anti-water meter protestors at an event he was attending. Normally this is a fine way to get some attention for your protest, as most news cameras enjoy catching a shot of a politician passing placard waving people. What was not edifying was shouting and roaring and scuffling with Gardai outside a medical facility for elderly and infirm people.
The Taoiseach took the time to speak with the protestors, which he often does much to his credit. He took one man’s telephone number and then left, whereupon some protesters got physical with Gardai and an arrest had to be made.
The prominent mortgage debt campaigner and independent candidate in the Dublin West by-election David Hall, who is also a member of the Beaumont Hospital Foundation, described the protestor’s behaviour as “thuggish” and intimidating to staff and patients.
A Labour TD in Dublin North East, Sean Kenny, has had anti water meter protesters camped outside his home in the evenings for most of the week. Sean Kenny’s job is as a TD. He lives more in the public eye than most, but he is still entitled to a private life. His neighbours and family do not deserve having people show up to intimidate him, which is essentially what protesting at a person’s house is designed to do.
There are enough people opposed to water metering for it to deserve organised protests against it. Setting out to intimidate people, and as a consequence any bystanders caught up in a protest, does not edify any cause.
We do not have a violently oppressive government that requires reciprocation on the streets. Some may say we have been muted in our response to years of economic hardship – but so, too, we can say that unlike the Greeks, for example, we’ve never burned a bank down with staff trapped inside.
There are appropriate places and ways to protest against whatever particular policy irks you. These gain attention and support. Resorting to intimidation, and even violence, turns the story away from the substantive issue and over to the means rather than the end.
Groups that are engaging in these sorts of protests ought to take a step back and consider how much traction they will get if they are simply viewed as a pack of thugs and bullies. A good protest tends to have people we can relate to, features children and a good atmosphere. People don’t join protest groups that have a reputation for screaming, swearing and getting into scuffles with Gardai.
A trend towards personalising protests and increasing the vitriol at them would be highly unfortunate. If these tactics begin to take root, particularly among those on the hard left who tend to show up at the core of many groups, then it will forever coarsen our national discourse and public debate.
Politics isn’t conducted to Queensbury rules, nor should it be. But so too it shouldn’t devolve into lager lout football hooliganism. We’ve been mostly good at striking a balance, and it’s something we should strive to keep.
Aaron McKenna is a businessman and a columnist for TheJournal.ie. He is also involved in activism in his local area. You can find out more about him at aaronmckenna.com or follow him on Twitter @aaronmckenna. To read more columns by Aaron click here.
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