President Higgins Is Right – Ireland Should Defend its Neutrality
Today’s slanted 'Security Forum' is the latest in a long-running effort to water down Ireland’s historic neutrality – it must be opposed by anyone committed to peace and diplomacy.
The President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins warned the country is 'playing with fire' during a dangerous period of 'drift' in foreign policy. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
It’s not a surprise the Irish government isn’t particularly fond of Michael D Higgins.
In a career that included stints as a Senator, a Teachta Dála (TD), and Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Higgins scrapped restrictions that prevented Republicans speaking on the Irish airwaves; founded an Irish language free-to-air public service television network; and opposed a constitutional ban on abortion services decades before other politicians did.
Since becoming ceremonial head of the Irish state in 2011—defeating reality TV show personality Seán Gallagher, Eurovision singer Dana Rosemary Scanlon, and former IRA leader Martin McGuinness in the process—he’s used his platform to speak out on various important issues, from the dangers posed by concentrated wealth, to the looming threat of the far-right, to the impressive accomplishments of Cuba in the face of a U.S. blockade.
These interventions have enraged coalition partners Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party, who appear to believe President Higgins’ role should be confined to shutting up, shaking hands, and playing an occasional round of golf with visiting world leaders, perhaps a tech CEO or two.
Due to Higgins’ overwhelming popularity, however, politicians have opted for anonymous attacks or letting friendly journalists sling mud on their behalf.
‘He just doesn’t care anymore, and he’s more popular than the government, so he just does what he likes,’ said one minister, who was too frightened to identify themselves, last year, after the President correctly referred to Ireland’s housing crisis as a ‘our great, great, great failure’.
At the weekend, relations between the president and the government deteriorated further.
Speaking to the Business Post, President Higgins called out ongoing government efforts to dispose of Irish neutrality and align with NATO, an imperialist military alliance whose members are responsible for millions of civilian deaths globally. Such efforts amount to ‘playing with fire’, the President told the newspaper.
Though the government remains taciturn, its allies in the media are once again on the offensive.’
‘I can’t stop wishing that he’d come down off his high horse and start approaching the argument with some civility for other points of view,’ said one. ‘Has the president stepped beyond the customary bounds of his office to become involved in policy debate with the government? You bet he has,’ said another.
But Higgins is correct: the so-called national ‘debate’ about neutrality is a farce, orchestrated by people whose mission is for Ireland to abandon its laudable anti-colonial history and become a simpering enabler of Western imperialist powers.
Tooling Up
It’s well-documented that Irish neutrality has been degraded by consecutive governments, especially since 2003. US warplanes refuel in Shannon Airport, Irish soldiers participate in the militarisation of Europe, and the government is attempting to foster an indigenous arms industry.
As all of this has happened, politicians call for a ‘realistic’ discussion.
The latest transparent attempt to manufacture consent for abandoning neutrality is the government’s Consultative Forum on International Security Policy, a four-day ‘public consultation process’ taking place today, packed with militarists and an assortment of other hawks.
It’s hard to disagree with President Higgins’ assessment of the Forum as frivolous parlour games concerned with a life-or-death issue. Acting as Chair is esteemed academic Louise Richardson, a supporter of American and British wars in the Middle East who has ‘very large letter DBE’ next to her name, as Higgins remarked, though he later apologised.
He shouldn’t have.
A person who holds a Most Excellent Order of the British Empire title is obviously not an appropriate choice for overseeing a discussion on Irish neutrality. Ireland’s historic position of non-engagement in military alliances owes in large part to its colonial history, the ongoing partition of the country and the refusal of the British government to engage openly in investigations into war crimes during the Troubles.
Stacking the Deck
Socialist political party People Before Profit estimate that anti-neutrality speakers at the Forum outnumber pro-neutrality speakers at a rate of approximately five to one. When left-wing TD Paul Murphy pointed out how few pro-neutrality speakers are set to participate, Tánaiste Micheál Martin accused him of authoritarianism.
‘You guys are no great advocates of freedom of speech at all, and I shudder to think of the day where you might be in authority,’ Martin said, in a typical abuse of parliamentary privilege. ‘By God, would you put the jackboot on people who might have views different to yours. That’s where you guys are coming from.’
Afterwards, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that Ireland now faces ‘different threats.’
Some of the impending dangers up for discussion include the safety of underwater cables off the Irish coast, our involvement in the oxymoronic NATO Partnership for Peace, and cybersecurity, which was regarded as a policing issue until recently, even as Ireland’s health service suffered a catastrophic data breach in 2021.
Attendees will also talk about removing the triple-lock mechanism for Irish Defence Forces deployments abroad, which states that any of the five permanent UN Security Council members—the United States, Britain, China, Russia, and France—can veto Irish participation in UN peacekeeping missions. (Ireland’s Peace and Neutrality Alliance told Tribune that this has occurred once in the history of the UN: China prevented Irish troops being deployed in Macedonia because of its position on Taiwan.)
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to those in favour of greater militarisation that Irish peacekeepers are respected precisely because of our neutrality—not despite it.
What Kind of a World
In some corners of the West, uncritical support for escalating the conflict in Ukraine is a purity test. Ireland’s political leadership is eager to pass.
During Joe Biden’s recent ‘homecoming’ to Ireland—ostensibly to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement but mostly a mission to keep us as a strategic asset—Varadkar thanked the U.S. President for his ‘leadership’ on the conflict, adding that he doesn’t know ‘what a kind of a world we’d live in’ without the United States.
It would be better to leverage what is left of our neutrality and call for peace talks. With Sweden and Finland joining NATO, Ireland would likely be the only Western European nation that could contribute meaningfully to the arbitration that will inevitably come—hopefully not after hundreds of thousands more have die.
Instead we join the chorus calling for ramping up the war while making sub-par efforts to accommodate people fleeing it. Though we talk a big game, human rights organisations have criticised Ireland’s treatment of Ukrainian refugees; many of them are condemned to poverty and attacked by fascists as the Taoiseach implies they are to blame for the homelessness crisis.
In Europe, meanwhile, Irish MEPS have voted down initiatives aimed at targeting oligarchs enabling Putin.
The Irish government doesn’t want a debate about neutrality. If they really did, it is unlikely they’d have voted down a motion calling for a referendum on the issue or ignored polls demonstrating widespread support for staying out of foreign wars and military alliances.
Here’s what’s actually happening: influential elements of the Irish bourgeoise—credulous Europhiles, abject chauvinists, and fanatical proceduralists alike—long for the approval of the United States and Brussels to such an extent that they are willing to send young Irish people to die abroad, escalating the risk of nuclear war along the way.
Any public figure who stands in opposition, particularly prominent left-wing politicians like President Michael D Higgins, is likely to end up in their crosshairs.