“No”
“I’m sorry… what did you say?”
“I said no!”
“Hang on a minute, while I kick you several times in the testicles…”
“Actually, when I said ‘no’, what I actually meant was ‘yes’”
As Ireland travels into this supposed period of political uncertainty, with question-marks allegedly dangling precariously over our EU future, it’s reassuring that, even in this period of ‘uncharted waters’, we’ve still got John Waters. And in Friday’s Irish Times, he seemed quite unhappy that the frankly abominable concept of democracy has discredited his claim that, “from Lisadell to Latvia, we’re singing as one clan”. In fact, he’s absolutely furious at what he (somewhat less lyrically) calls, “the most disgraceful episode in the history of Irish democratic procedures.”
To be fair, Waters is only saying what most of our politicians are thinking. Only they have to pretend that they respect the wishes of the electorate. They have to bite their tongues and blurt out the usual “the people have spoken” rhetoric… at least until they declare the inevitable second Lisbon referendum. Whatever happens, our ‘No’ vote will ultimately prove to be nothing more than a tiny blip and a meaningless minor delay in the execution of the European project.
Contrary to the pre-referendum scaremongering from the main political parties, our failure to ratify the treaty will not result in Ireland being left behind. It will not result in catastrophic job losses. And as shown by the clear lack of mirth from the EU’s most powerful, Ireland has not become ‘the laughing stock of Europe’. While our government are being somewhat coy about the idea of giving two fingers to the plebs, all of the noises from Europe’s most prominent politicians suggest that Ireland’s naughty voters will simply be sent back to the ballot box - this time, to make the ‘right’ decision. Thanks to its economic success, Ireland has become something of an EU poster-boy, and a perfect advertisement of the benefits of membership. ‘Leaving Ireland behind’ in a ‘two-speed Europe’ is definitely not part of the Final Solution.
There are suggestions that, in a bid to ‘encourage’ us to vote in the correct manner, the next referendum will give us a choice between “Yes to Lisbon” and “No to the EU”, thus treating with complete contempt the majority of people who may be unhappy with aspects of the Lisbon Treaty, but are generally pro-European nonetheless. What a great idea. Perhaps, in any future referendum on the issue of Abortion, the government could take a similar line. I’m sure the ‘pro-life’ brigade would be quite happy if we were asked whether we want to “Maintain the current ban on abortion forever” or “Make it compulsory to murder all innocent, cute little babies”. As shown by Robert Mugabe, there are loads of ways of getting around the inconvenient democratic process. A bit of threatening here, a loaded question there… the public just need to be ’steered in the right direction’ sometimes.
John Waters need not fret. Give it a year, and this “pampered, narcissistic and vacuous generation” will have re-entered the polling booths and ticked the right box. He’ll be happy, the government will be happy and, once again, the continental choir will be singing hand in hand. The only casualty will be democracy itself.
Filed under: Like, serious shit | Tagged: Democracy, Europe, Ireland, Irish Times, John Waters, Lisbon Treaty, Mugabe
