Urgent need to examine our eagerness to occupy high moral ground

RECENT events in Irish social life have given the lie to three classic philosophical theories as they relate to Ireland that …

RECENT events in Irish social life have given the lie to three classic philosophical theories as they relate to Ireland that the quest for money (Marx), sex (Freud), or power (Nietzsche) are the only governing social motivating forces.

In recent months people have been willing to jeopardise mental health, financial well being, logical consistency, and even the whole peace process for the sake of a seemingly much more fundamental pleasure: the feeling of self righteousness that comes from occupying the high moral ground.

In the divorce debate the pleasure of obtaining this elemental satisfaction gave way in the face of an awareness of the complexity, tragedy and ambivalence in which all of us live our lives. Absolute moral condemnations were replaced with a compassionate, if reluctant, acceptance of the multi faceted nature of moral decision making.

In recent days, however, the cliched, often hysterical responses of some of our politicians towards Gerry Adams suggest that these concessions were a temporary aberration. "Do you condemn?" "Can you justify?" they asked, at a time when he, together with John Hume, had put his reputation, political career, and possibly his life on the line.

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As Gerry Adams and John Hume repeatedly said, this is no time for scoring cheap political points; no time for selective and largely ritual condemnations; no time, in particular, for the cheap grace to be accorded to those who have not lived through the atrocities of the past 251, years. From the luxury and protection of a Dublin studio, or Dail debating chamber, these politicians can afford to jump to the high moral ground while Gerry Adams and John Hume scramble to hold on for dear life to what might be left of a shattered and faltering peace process.

Gerry Adams has attempted to occupy a political space, mediating between the physical force tradition and democratic politics. Can Irish society really not tolerate or grant the space for dealing with complexity? How would a dead Gerry Adams serve the peace process?

Clearly we need a revolution in our way of thinking. We need to examine our addiction to the high moral ground. Perhaps, for the first time, we need to take seriously the words of Jesus who urged us to learn the meaning of the words "What I want his mercy and not sacrifice."

The work of sacrifice is the work of power: it is the work of excluding, rejecting, vilifying those uncomfortable parts of ourselves and projecting them on to a victim. Excluding the victim from the community, we rest content in our own self righteousness: the high moral ground. The work of sacrifice is the work of war: the instant solutions of ejaculatory politics, and the spurious power gained at another's expense.

The work of mercy is quite different. Mercy embraces the weak, the rejected, the sinners, the faltering. Mercy embraces rather than rejects the unwelcome parts of ourselves. The work of mercy is the work of peace: the patient building, mending, weaving webs of complexity and channels of hope.

Is it not a supreme irony that in the name of Jesus, who came to put an end to sacrifice and scapegoating, sacrificial dynamics continue to permeate Irish life? And is it an accident that in recent years it was the women from the two dominant communities who most successfully challenged its workings?

Marie Wilson's dying words on Remembrance Day at Enniskillen - "Daddy I love you very much" - enabled her father, Gordon Wilson, to offer his community, not words of revenge, but the challenge of love. The refusal of the Wilsons to pass on their grief broke a sacrificial cycle of revenge and, even for a brief moment, held out the possibility of hope.

Similarly, when President Mary Robinson shook the hand of Gerry Adams, she was implicitly refusing the sacrificial option, the scapegoating of one individual for the systemic ills of a whole community. Her action endorsed or set in motion a train of events that led to the peace process.

What we need now from the two communities are similar imaginative, ethical responses based on mercy, not sacrifice. Can the unionist or British communities, instead of calling for the ritual humiliation of the nationalists - a symbolic castration (otherwise known as decommissioning) find it in their hearts to emulate the generosity of Marie and Gordon Wilson? Could it really be, after all that as happened in the past 25 years, that the pleasures of the high moral ground still take precedence over everything else and that whole communities can be sacrificed toward its achievement?

Most of all, to those who have now reverted to the politics of the bomb - will the pleasures of the high moral ground, the fantasies of your own political immortality, now take precedence over all else? Do your parents, your children, your grandchildren not deserve something more intelligent, creative, imaginative, and compassionate? Would it not serve Mother Ireland better (in whose name you speak) to accept the invitation of Mary Robinson to enter the fifth province, the land of imagination, faith, and hope, to find new ways forward?

In Irish mythology there are several stories of the quest to find the rightful king. An old hag presents herself. Many men shy away. Some jump to the high moral ground, disgusted at her appearance. Others might have tried to bomb her into oblivion.

The only king fit to rule is the one who can embrace the old hag in all her terror, ambivalence, tragedy and messiness - an embrace that proves his wisdom. Once he does so, fertility, love, fruitfulness and hope return to the land.

Surely among all the brave heroes out there - the politicians, the paramilitaries, the media commentators - there could be found one among you today who can do likewise?