Opposite sides of the same coin
The Two Irelands: 1912-1939
By David Fitzpatrick
Published by Oxford University Press
Price £8.99
The Italian historian Croce once made the acute comment that when
we write about history we are actually writing about ourselves.
That is, the way we interpret the past depends on how we
experience the present. This little maxim is well illustrated by
David Fitzpatrick's shrewd and cleverly constructed account of
Ireland from shortly before the Rising to the outbreak of the
Second World War.
A common approach is to treat Republican and Unionist history
entirely separately from one another; indeed many historians
treat the two as mutually incompatible. However, Fitzpatrick
carefully draws out the unexplored, complex and surprising
similarities between Republican and Unionist rebellions (or `dual
revolution' as Fitzpatrick terms it) against the British state -
the reason behind the seemingly odd choice of historical time
frame for the book.
Also of interest, and hence the paraphrasing of Croce above, is
the way in which Fitzpatrick skilfully highlights the parallels
between then and now, particularly in respect of Republicanism.
Most of them are pointed up in a vaguely sarcastic tone.
Fitzpatrick can also sound irritatingly patronising in places,
even if one should be used to it by now from southern academics,
but it still has the effect of making one think very hard about
the current state of political play in Ireland.
Importantly, however, what the book ultimately does, precisely by
its apparently strange choice of period, is to force readers from
both sides of the political divide into considering the arguments
and rationale of the opposition, and manages to do so without
didacticism. The argument, however, is not that old
`there's-more-which-unites-us-than-divides-us' chestnut; rather
it is one which suggests with subtlety and logic that
Republicanism and Unionism are opposite sides of the same coin; a
coin which many could say, and with absolute justification, was
minted by the British state.
By Fern Lane
Cosy conclusions
Fianna Fail and Irish Labour
By Kieran Allen
Published by Pluto
Price £9.99
Call me cynical and conspiratorial but when I first looked at the
cover of this book titled Fianna Fail and Irish Labour: 1926 to
the Present, written by Socialist Worker editor and UCD academic
Kieran Allen, all my in-built political prejudices clicked into
gear.
I didn't need to read it because just by associating the author
and subject matter I could guess the conclusive analysis Allen
would produce.
It was clear that he would show that a weak, disorganised and
ideologically impotent Irish Labour Movement would be no match
for a wily Fianna Fáil able to transcend social class with the
overpowering emulsion of socially radical republicanism espoused
by Dev and his cohorts in the early 1930s.
Fianna Fáil had convinced the Labour Movement that they could be,
at some remote corporatist level, partners in government and I
believed Allen would argue this is still the case as shown by the
ten years of social partnership and wage agreements between the
ICTU and successive Dublin Governments.
However, on tackling the book you will find it a surprisingly
good read. Not that Allen doesn't reach the predicted
conclusions; he does. It's more that the book is well researched
and Allen has brought together a lot of interesting material.
It's not that I disagree with his conclusions either. I don't. It
is that the next step in his argument, which is touched on in
this work, is impossible to agree with. Allen writes in the last
pages of this book that ``the other alternative that is available
to Irish workers is the smaller tradition of radical
republicanism''.
The Sinn Féin tradition is for Allen flawed because ``Ever since
the H-Block crisis, republicans have worked on a strategy of
constructing a pan-nationalist alliance that stretches from Irish
America to the local Fianna Fáil branch. This has meant that they
now disavow any intention of undermining the southern state'' thus
making them unworthy allies for the left in Ireland.
Allen's book is good on its own merits but he cannot resist the
predictable cheap shots at socialist republicans. It just reminds
me of James Connolly's reported musings in the GPO at the start
of the rising:
``They will never understand why I am here''. How right he was.
BY NEIL FORDE
A bad news day
On Television and Journalism
By Pierre Bourdieu
Published by Pluto Press
Price £9.99 (pb); £30.00 (hb)
Television is an inescapable medium - as well as being ``such an
ugly piece of furniture'', according to film director John Waters.
In this short and highly entertaining book, noted French
sociologist Pierre Bourdieu examines this extraordinary method of
communication. He raises fears about its ``dumbing down'' and the
impact this has on the ..........culture and democracy itself.
The dumbing down of TV, asserts Bourdieu, is inextricably linked
to market forces and a preoccupation with ratings. This ratings
mindset had led to the tabloidisation of TV, in which the real
news agenda is rudely shunted aside in favour of sensational news
(particularly crime), human interest stories and sport. You only
have to glance at the schedules to see this approach in action.
Competition for viewers has led to a battery of standard
journalistic subjects that are thought to have mass appeal. These
subjects will interest any and every viewer, and are unlikely to
offend. They arouse curiosity but require no analysis. They are
non-controversial and demand no knowledge.
Channel hopping - in the context of news - has become a futile
pastime, as each station inevitably covers the same stories and
themes. The threat of competition has resulted in a levelling of
output. So, paradoxically, as more channels emerge, the variety
of output actually reduces, as audience ratings dictate a
homogenised agenda and uniform approach.
In TV journalism, speech is secondary and dialogue reduced to
soundbites, thereby trivialising content. If you can't say it in
30 seconds, then it's apparently not worth saying. Time pressures
(and the short attention spans now assumed of viewers) ensures
guests and interviewees are chosen on the basis of being
professional talkers - pundits - who can churn out what Bourdieu
calls cultural ``fast food''. For TV producers, there's no appeal
in their guests actually thinking. As an image, it doesn't work
well on TV and is wholly inappropriate for an impatient audience
(although the same could be said of radio journalism too). But
the visual nature of TV, and its preoccupation with time, renders
it almost impossible for people to say what they have (or want)
to say in any case. Everything is directed, edited and regulated
(some might say censored) by faceless producers with audience
figures in mind. Such an approach, interestingly, seems
tailor-made for a certain breed of modern politician.
Bourdieu believes the real threat of television lies in the
powerful effects it can have on public opinion. As a medium
that's supposed to record and report reality, it actually has the
power to create or mutate its own reality instead. Such false
realitys can engender whatever feelings in the viewer are
demanded by the public behind the news agenda - whether those
feelings are fear (of crime, for example), racism, xenophobia, or
just the warm fuzzy feeling you allegedly get from learning about
Blinky the Bicycling Penguin.
On a French TV station in 1989, as unlikely a cultural
commentator as you could find - Sylvester Stallone - commented
that the ``last thing people want is truth''.
So turn on, tune in, and veg out.
By Eileen Lyons
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)