Eamonn McCann: Did you hear the one about Sinn Féin’s sectarian leaflet?

The joke about the fellow who is asked upon his arrival in Belfast whether he is a Catholic or a Protestant and who replies “I’m an atheist” and then faces a supplementary, “Are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?” was never particularly funny. Nowadays, it’s not funny at all, but taken as a serious, politically relevant question by, for example, Gerry Kelly, Sinn Féin candidate in North Belfast in today’s election.

Kelly’s team has deluged Catholic areas with leaflets (inset) proclaiming that Catholics are now in a majority in the constituency – “Catholic 46.9 per cent , Protestant 45.6 per cent – Make the Change, Make History”. The figures are taken from the 2011 census.

Denying that his pitch to the voters was blatantly sectarian, Kelly’s colleague, Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure Carál Ní Chuilín, suggested that, despite the wording, the reference was to political allegiance rather than religious belief: the party had intended to cite the “last election figures” but had been told by the Electoral Commission that this was impermissible. So they’d had to fall back on census data.

Radio programmes

Phone lines to a number of radio programmes were quickly jammed by callers pointing out that, by law, all election results are in the public domain and can be used for any public purpose. Ní Chuilín backtracked and apologised.

Neither of the elections Ní Chuilín might have had in mind, the 2010 Westminster poll or the Assembly election of 2011, yielded figures which could have been used to convey that “We are the top dogs now, let’s get them uns out”.

One remarkable aspect of the affair has been the intervention of a number of party members expressing dismay. Seán Fearon, immediate past chairman of Sinn Féin at Queen’s University, was nothing if not forthright: “This is an absolute disgrace. The very antithesis of what republicanism represents. . . .not how many bloody Catholics and Protestants live in an area and assuming they’ll vote on ethno-nationalist lines as a result.”

Party stalwart Joseph Donaghy was just as blunt: “Turning the race for the seat in North Belfast into a sectarian head count is absolutely disgraceful from the party I have dedicated so much of my time to and had so much belief in. Republicanism has been let down greatly by the Gerry Kelly leaflet.”

Effectively, the census in the North doesn’t count Catholics and Protestants, but people from Catholic and Protestant backgrounds.

If you come from a Catholic family you are put down as Catholic, even if you have identified yourself as an atheist. It is a fact not a fancy: there are Catholic atheists and Protestant atheists in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Féin in North Belfast is by no means alone in conflating religion and politics.

Among the more bizarre sights of the last few days has been the stern faces of members of the DUP as they lament Sinn Féin’s adoption of a sectarian approach. Pot, kettle.

A number of “moderate” commentators have meanwhile argued that while Kelly’s formulation was ill-judged, he was simply reflecting one of the unfortunate facts of Northern political life – that, by and large, religion does shape political loyalties and that only the hopelessly naive can imagine things ever being different.

But there is evidence that not everyone can be allocated so neatly to one community or the other.

The 2013 NI Life and Times Survey suggested that 53 per cent of self-described Catholics identified themselves as nationalists, 64 per cent of Protestants as unionists.

Misleading

A majority of the rest said that they fitted into neither category.

It is suggested, and not only by cynics, that these figures are misleading, that once inside the polling booth most voters revert to “tribal” consciousness. This appears to be what Kelly is hoping for. Perhaps his hopes will be realised. But even if this proves to be the case, a taste of discontent will be left in the mouths of many, including a number of party members and supporters.

The “Vote Catholic” leaflets make a mockery of Sinn Féin claims to have risen above the hibernianism of Wee Joe Devlin to connect with the noble tradition of the founders of Irish republicanism.

Wolfe Tone

On March 1st 1798, Wolfe Tone observed of the Treaty of Tolentino, under which a humiliated Pius VI surrendered the Papal States to Napoleon: “The circumstances relating to this great event are such as to satisfy my mind that there is a special Providence guiding the affairs of Europe . . . turning everything to the great end of the emancipation of mankind from the yoke of religion . . . Many people thought, and I was one of their number, that it was unwise to let slip so favourable an opportunity to destroy forever the papal tyranny. . .” And screeds more along such sensible lines.

Surely this passage should be read out every year at Bodenstown? Or at the top of the New Lodge Road. Twitter: @eamonderry