Sir,– Your editorials often offer a reasoned and independent-minded analysis. It is disappointing, therefore, to see them lapse into the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching pretend horror that has characterised the wall-to-wall media coverage of the apparently earth-shattering event of a man calling the President a midget (January 31st).
It is par for the course, indeed vital, that the nexus of political and economic power ridicules and demonises popular and progressive movements in order to uphold the political and economic orthodoxy. Demonstrators must be shown in the media to be disorderly, aggressive, even ridiculous. “Customers” must be disabused of the lofty notions they hold above their station, radical and dangerous ideals such as equitable taxation and social justice.
To that end, ample column inches and airtime must be given over to a man calling the President a midget, otherwise we would have to focus on the more important issue – why the wealthy have seen their share of the pie increase as a result of “austerity”, while the poor and marginalised are shoved further into the quicksand of poverty and deprivation.
A handful of protesters hurling misplaced personalised insults at a head of state is neither particularly newsworthy nor characteristic of the anti-water-charges and anti-austerity movements. But they must be portrayed as being both in order to divide and conquer popular opposition. We are invited to be aghast at the supposed violence of the Tánaiste being splashed by a water balloon; we are discouraged from questioning the real, legalised violence of troikanomics, which has engendered humanitarian catastrophes across Europe. We are prompted to express outrage at Joan Burton being grounded in her car for a few hours; we are not as readily called upon to question the Government’s complicity in spiralling numbers of families, including young children, being grounded in cars because they have been made homeless.
But we must be “sensible” and prioritise our concerns and focus on a man calling the President a midget. – Yours, etc,
WILSON JOYCE,
Cambridge, England.
Sir, – Stephen Collins (“Protests and Dáil antics fail to drown out good news”, Opinion & Analysis, January 31st) seems to suggest that the abuse that a small number of protesters hurled at the President in Dublin was reflective of the general anti-water charges movement.
I support the idea of water charges. However, from my own personal experience, most of the people involved with the anti-water charge movement are not uncivilised socialist extremists, but genuinely annoyed with the sheer waste that they are expected to pay towards through their water charges – and they would utterly condemn the abuse hurled at the President. – Yours, etc,
TOMÁS M CREAMER,
Ballinamore, Co Leitrim.