Few human beings of my acquaintance are as petty and mean spirited and negative as those in the Afrikaner wing of unionism.
A question posed at O'Conall Street and missed by everybody I think in the aftermath of Gerry Adam's offensive comments to the Sinn Fein Fat Cats in the States:
Was this comment actually racist in itself?
Conall mentioned one example of an Afrikaner anti-apartheid campaigner, Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert; another, Beyers Naude died recently. Gerry with his very wide brush, is implying that the mere fact of being born Afrikaner (or Serb...or Israeli...or British-Irish...or a host of other non-approved nationalities or ethnicities) automatically qualifies you for the "Bad People" title. Which is, any way you want to look at it, a racist assertion.
The spiritual Father of modern Irish ethno-nationalism, founder of Sinn Fein and anti-semite, Arthur Griffith would, no doubt, have approved of Gerry's concept of racial collective responsibility:
‘His* views on negro-slavery have been deprecatingly excused, as if excuse were needed for an Irish Nationalist declining to hold the negro his peer in right. When the Irish Nation needs explanation or apology for John Mitchel, the Irish Nation will need its shroud.’
*Referring to John Mitchel, the Young Irelander who was transported to Tasmania for his part in the 1848 rebellion. He eventually escaped and moved to the southern US. where he became a firm defender of slavery.
‘I consider negro slavery here the best state of existence for the negro and the best for his master; and I consider that taking negros out of their brutal slavery in Africa and promoting them to a human and reasonable slavery here is also good.’
8 comments:
It's quite sad that Gerry Adams had to resort to such nonsense behavior and you are right to point out previous racist rantings from the republican movement.
Griffith is a strange figure in Irish history much forgotten by his own side due to his views neither being particularly Republican or indeed politically correct.
His anti-semitism is of course well chronicled along with his involvement with the Limerick pogram.
However describing Griffith as an "ethno-nationalist" is slightly inaccurate as he himself said:
"The Gael has come and gone, the Dane has come and gone, the Englishman has come and gone and the Irishman has arrived"
Griffith himself could not describe himself as "Gaelic-Irish" as he was quite blatantly of Welsh descent and his grandfather was an Ulster-Protestant.
He was Anglophobic - he often described Childers as the "Englishman" and made out he did not trust him simply becuase of his English background.
The joke is of course (for unionists and nationalists) was that Griffith for much of his life was a unionist - in today's sense of the word. He wanted the UK reformed along the lines of A-H with Ireland and Britain continuing to share a common currency, defence policy, foriegn policy and head of state. He wanted a portion of the British Empire to be given to the control of Dublin with the British Empire being rebranded "The British-Irish Empire".
He however envisaged a system of customs controls between the two entities to allow Ireland to "build up their industries" and have a monopoly on resources of the Irish imperial territories.
Griffith's influence in the nationalist movement was his idea that the Irish cause could only be listened to by London if Irish MPs boycotted the Commons and set up a rival administration in Dublin. This was used in the aftermath of the 1918 election.
Griffith's Sinn Feinn (which originally had the above Britain-Ireland platform) had been mistiakenly blamed for the 1916. Whilst Griffith had neither knowledge or participation in the Rising he was jailed for life in the general round up after it merely for writing a few articles supporting it. Somehow this may have diluted his enthusiasm for the British connected.
The "Sinn Feinn" brand was leapt on by Rising veterans who hijacked the party and turned it into a Republican seperatist movement. Brugha was the main archetect of this.
Griffith had got his abstensionist idea from A-H. When Prussia and Austria went to war in 1866 over Schweslig-Holstein, the Hungarians smarting from their defeat in 1848in an act of treacherous, nationlistic fervour refused to fight Prussia. Hungarian soldiers stayed in barracks or deserted. The politicians boycotted the Vienna parliament and the establishment closed Hungary's great grain stores from supplying Vienna.
After the defeat Vienna was forced to renegotiate terms with Budapest/Poszny and give the Hungarians independence short of independence.
Griffith's great inspiration was Lajos Kossuth - the Hungarian nationalist of German and Slovak stock. One of Kossuth's speeches is supposedly engraved on Griffth's gravestone.
Griffith is now a largely marginal figure. Apart from a few memorials - such as the oblisk in the grounds of Leinster House and Griffith Higher Technology College - he is largely forgotten for his views and the perception he always wanted to "sell out" over the Treaty.
I once met one of Michael Collins' "cousins" (in the loose Irish sense) who is a Mancunian and namesake of his famous relative. Indeed the two had more in common. Mike works for BERR. Mick worked for the Board of Trade.
His parents used to stay with the Big Fellow's sisters every summer.
Mike said to me that whilst he was very respectful about Mick's contribution to Irish history, he always felt that his glamour had overshadowed Griffith which he thought was a great shame.
A final thought. Was it not a bunch of Scotch-Irish who founded the KKK?
^i think you'll find by that point they were americans
Griffith is a strange figure in Irish history much forgotten by his own side due to his views neither being particularly Republican or indeed politically correct.
He's been airbrushed more like, his brand of nationalism doesn't quite fit either with the "progressive" lie that SF try to sell to those allies on the left in particularly Europe (in contrast, in the US, his views would still fit quite easy with the likes of the AOH, still banning gays on St pats day).
Griffith’s core argument was that Ireland was culturally different from England and so to a large extent, defined Irish identity as diametically opposed to that of England. He attempted to prove this difference culturally with the promotion of gaelic sport and language and used his politics to tightly define what or who made up the Irish nation.
Whether you actually qualify yourself for the fully "pure gae"l title or not (and and a fair few of early SF most certainly did not), doesn't stop you from being an ethno-nationalist and deciding which others are fit to share your island.
A final thought. Was it not a bunch of Scotch-Irish who founded the KKK?
Anti Afro-American racism was a common problem among all second generation Irish in the US,
"How the Irish Became White" by Noel Ignatiev is an interesting book to read on the subject of racist gangs like the Molly Maguires in NY.
The spiritual Father of modern Irish ethno-nationalism, founder of Sinn Fein and anti-semite, Arthur Griffith
Arthur 'dual-monarchy' Griffith as "father of modern Irish ethno-centrism"? I think you need to go get an education in Irish history, buddy. Someone's clearly been feeding you porkies.
As to the Afrikaaner jibe - I think it can be assumed that people know what he meant.
Whether you actually qualify yourself for the fully "pure gae"l title or not (and and a fair few of early SF most certainly did not), doesn't stop you from being an ethno-nationalist and deciding which others are fit to share your island.
I find this vastly amusing coming from a descendant of, and apologist for, a pretty ruthless gang of colonists who consideredd themselves "fitter" than all other races - an attitude that they also took to the New World with them. Cheers!
Arthur 'dual-monarchy' Griffith as "father of modern Irish ethno-centrism"? I think you need to go get an education in Irish history, buddy.
And I think you need to get a new pair of glasses buddy
Griffiths was an ethno-nationalist, ethno-nationalist, anti-semite and racist- I see you've omitted answering those last two charges, uncomfortable aren't they?
As to the Afrikaaner jibe - I think it can be assumed that people know what he meant.
Really? So is there a list of other races we can all safely abuse in the knowledge that everyone else will know what we "mean"? Whatever he meant, on the face of it, is it a racist comment Adams made or not?
find this vastly amusing coming from a descendant of, and apologist for, a pretty ruthless gang of colonists who consideredd themselves "fitter" than all other races - an attitude that they also took to the New World with them.
Oh right, and how exactly do you know all that about my family history, was it that "o'neill" which gave it away?
You wouldn't be indulging in a bit of racist stereo-typing yourself there now would you?
Now, why don't you potter along and paint a post-box green, or abuse some other Unionist "colonialist" for dear old Mother Ireland.
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