Cultural identity and political transformation
The Irish Association Annual Conference, 11-12 October 2002
Piaras Mac ÉinrÃ, Irish Centre for Migration Studies, National University of Ireland, Cork
It is a real honour to be here. I have not had the pleasure of attending one of these conferences before and I must say that, having perused a number of the papers posted on the Association’s website, I greatly regret this fact. It reminded me of how boring it can be to be surrounded by people with whom one is in constant and complete agreement.
The overall tone of the papers could fairly be described as robust, bordering on the verbally violent in some cases. I was struck by one paper, ‘Ireland, a false construct’ by the appropriately named Arthur Green. He neatly reverses the old nationalist conceit that inside every deluded Unionist is a true Gael trying to get out, and suggests that Ireland and Irishness are themselves the problem, preventing us from embracing our true membership of the Anglo-American cultural community. Thus the ingrown cronyism and corruption of Dublin politics is seen as an effect of ‘the amputation which Irish separatism has inflicted on Ireland’. This is an argument which has a certain force at the moment.
However, when Green further argues that we see ‘collective delusions whenever Ireland is conceived in European rather than Anglo-American terms’, I part company with him. Although I am more than happy to own up to, and indeed celebrate, my own part-Britishness, I’d like to make the case for continental European influences as well.
Civil v. ethnic nationalism
I am a republican in the French sense rather than a nationalist in the Irish one. For me, the strength of the French perspective lies in its emphasis on political membership of civil society – something we can all participate in - rather than the narrow ethno-nationalism which has historically characterised much of the rest of Europe including Ireland. Wolfe Tone was a French citizen at the time of his arrest; the French understood that the right to belong was fundamentally a political one, unrelated to blood or soil.
The French did not get everything right. In particular, their emphasis on unity through the elimination of difference cannot work in a modern multi-ethnic state. But their republican ideas found an echo here in Ireland, two centuries ago, particularly with those Presbyterians who believed in a political Irish nation of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter. Nowadays we would speak of a rights-based democracy which respects diversity. By contrast, we in this jurisdiction have tended more recently to see ourselves and the Irish ‘nation’ as culturally, religiously or even racially defined, as a narrow, exclusionary ‘we’. Our instinct has been to expel, to corral or contain, or at least to insist that those who are different should know their place, that is, shut up.
So, are we a monocultural state?
To paraphrase Foucault, societies may be defined by those on the margins. Who has no power, who is in jail, who is regarded as mad, who is excluded? In the case of this State, exclusion has been a key theme. The official cultural identity of the southern jurisdiction, for the first forty years of its existence, reflected a dominant, unitary concept of Irishness. Apart from its explicit content - the ending of Partition, the restoration of the Irish language, Catholic domination, the secondary status of women, the privileging of rural over urban identities - there was an underlying assumption that difference meant inferiority, or at least, that the different should be isolated or remain silent.
The ruling structures of the newly independent State also reflected the realities of power and class. A relatively small middle class, urban and rural, inherited the earth. The marginal, the socially radical, the poor, the landless, women, minorities, were disproportionately over-represented in the ranks of those who left through emigration, taking with them much of the energy which would have been required if the dominationof the few was seriously to be challenged.
The net effect of these processes of exclusion was the preservation of apparently unitary but essentially archaic and coercive social norms. This false consensus substituted for the norm elsewhere in Europe of dynamic societies characterised by the dialectics of opposing views and identities. In political terms it was reflected in a widespread belief in corporatism of one kind or another, coupled with an excessive desire to deny the existence of real differences, such as those of ideology, class and gender – how often were we told that Ireland ‘was a classless society’? .
In the latter half of the twentieth century Ireland was thus one of the countries least able to respond to messages about plural cultural identities, still less political transformation . We were a culture which privileged tradition and feared change. Decolonisation, immigration and the ethnicisation of society, for good or ill, found little echo here.
Moving towards change
Change inevitably came, with increasing speed, from the 1960s onwards. The main initial target, understandably, was an excessively reverential and exclusive version of nationalism. We have, I hope, since worked our way through many of the excesses on both sides of the revisionist and anti-revisionist debates. The nation still stands, although it also still stands in need of re-definition.
One  way of thinking about change is by looking at how we regarded the arrival of newcomers to our society.
By the time the Vietnamese Boat People arrived in the late 1970s and early 1980s there were some ideas about their practical needs but there was no understanding of how to encourage social inclusion while respecting their cultural heritage. They were largely distanced from mainstream Irish society. The well-meaning but disastrous attempt to promote their integration through their dispersal around the country on a one-family-per-town basis soon broke down as these families inevitably drifted back to Dublin, the one place where some kind of critical social and cultural mass existed for them. Moreover, public discourse tended to present them as 'exceptional', an attitude which remained the dominant one until the very recent past. There was thus no perceived need to develop a structural response, recognising that such movements of people challenged, not only the lack of services for them, but the very nature of Irish society and identity. Identity construction in Ireland remained rooted, literally, in place, patriarchal and hermetic.
Policy towards those seen as culturally different, whether Traveller or immigrant, has stressed assimilation rather than integration. That said, "Irishness' in the sense of full acceptance is still really only acquired through birth or parental connection. Unlike Canada, the USA, Australia or even Britain, there is no easy way to 'become' Irish; citizenship does not in itself convey belonging.
Nonetheless, cultural identity as a monolith began to break down. Instead of an ethos which exalted a Catholic, consensus-based rural Ireland as the only ideal, recent years have seen the secularisation of southern life and society, the impact of feminism, the strengthening of individualism and consumerism, the more fluid relationship between Ireland and its own diaspora (including the return of large numbers of migrants), the arrival in some numbers of new immigrants with a variety of new cultures, the ubiquitous nature of the information society, and a certain confidence and willingness to experiment and adopt new ideas and customs.
Before rushing to endorse this new postmodern, whatever-you-are-having-yourself Irish identity, I want to ask a few questions:
- If cultural identity is no longer a monolith, what new multifaceted models are emerging?
- How are these new cultural identities being mediated in the political domain, if indeed they are? And if not, is a new nihilism emerging, or something more subversive and creative?
- Who are the new stakeholders?
- Who are the losers? Who are the people whose voices are still not being heard?
- How would you explain to a newly enfranchised Irish citizen from another ethnic background – French, Rwandan or Palestinian, say, the differences between Irish parties?
- Is the south a republican society in the French meaning of the term?
Present day dilemmas: the cost of diversity
If you are really committed to a rigorous respect for difference, whether in terms of cultural identity or political options, then difference is not an optional extra. In political and practical terms, diversity costs. Yet how many Southerners whose culture is not completely ‘mainstream’ have not encountered the feeling that if you want to be different in any way, you are a nuisance ? I’m not even talking Black, or Traveller, or Asylum seeker here. I’m talking Irish-speaker, or cyclist, or lesbian, or poor or blind person, or person with disability, or anti-globalist or protestor against anything the establishment doesn’t like. Compare Irish intolerance for so-called ‘cranks’ of any description with the British or Dutch tradition of individualism, eccentricity and dissent, often even within the same political party.Â
Our attitude does not encourage, still less reward, innovation and risk-taking in the social domain . There is an absence of a dynamic of creative confrontation, of the dialectical process through which ideas are opposed one to another and something new and creative emerges in the interactive process that this entails.
Society itself is changing, but some of the old norms have not. Take schooling. In this jurisdiction it’s almost entirely confessional. Fine, you may say, we have Roman Catholic and Protestant and Jewish and now Muslim schools – isn’t that choice? It isn’t. Many don’t believe in faith-based schools, even if they have a specific confessional belief themselves, or they may be agnostics or atheists, or there is in practice no choice because there is only one local school.
My son went to the local school in our part of Cork city. In fairness (as we say down there, usually following it with ‘like’) the school had an admirably open policy and worked actively to ensure that racism or sectarianism were not acceptable and that those black, Asian, Muslim and ‘other’ boys who were present by then in every class, albeit in small numbers, were accepted as equals.
Until, that is, the sixth class school photograph. This coincided, as it always had, with the Catholic ceremony of confirmation. Only one photograph was taken, and despite the desire of my son and his Pakistani Muslim colleague to be included, they were not in the picture. Small but telling; and a small but permanent erasure.
Partnership and multiculturalism
I want to mention two elements in considering whether changing cultural identities may be linked with fundamental political transformation. One, social partnership, is found in various forms such as the five Government-sponsored programmes for economic stability since 1987 and the more specific policies of the Department of Social and Family Affairs through the Community Development Support Programme (CDSP). The other is multiculturalism and its specific northern variant, the Belfast Agreement, which is now seen as a paradigm in both parts of this island for the concept of a dialectical and dynamic tension between differing communities and identities, which must all be recognised and validated but where none can be given a dominant position.
Both the partnership model and multiculturalism represent, in contrasting ways, possibilities for building a more inclusive society, recognising and validating those who have different identities and recognising their political presence in an empowering way. There are, however, problems with both models. The multicultural approach (including the Belfast Agreement) , it has been argued, reifies division and ignores inequalities of power. The partnership approach gives everyone a place at the table, but may not give everyone an equal voice. The criticism to be levelled at both is the same and concerns the role of the State. The State is not merely playing a ‘managerial’ role, or not merely neutral. How has it exercised that role? Are new paradigms really emerging?
At bottom this process of change is the shift from consensus-based mainstream to rights-based multi-stream– a change which has both cultural and political implications. But is this change simply an elite discourse as yet?  And what about those who want strongly to assert their difference– do they fit into the new model? One study of the views of foreign students about how they are seen by Irish society, Gerard Boucher’s The Irish are friendly but, is revealing . It seems the kinds of foreigners we like are the kind who want to be like us, or at any rate who are willing to work hard to have us like them (think southern nationalists and their favourite Unionist, David Irvine). Behind the rhetoric, real difference is something we are hardly ready for yet.
I would like briefly to consider these points from a southern perspective before offering a few tentative conclusions.
Are new partnerships leading to political transformation?
On the plus side, the partnership model in the South has been extraordinarily broadly based. Whereas in other European countries the social partners are typically limited to Government, employers and trades unions, in Ireland the concept has been broadened to include most groups in society, including the unemployed and the social and voluntary sector. One can argue about the representativeness of those who speak for these various sectors and it has been suggested that there are still excluded groups, such as women working in the home. Moreover the model is coming under strain as economic circumstances change. But it recognises most of the main actors in civil society.
The downside it that this is actually a very old idea wrapped in new clothing: corporatism. It is argued that this is a return to an unequal consensus which stifles dissent, to the extent that virtual ostracisation awaits those who step outside the frame.
The jury is out on the topic of whether partnership has, overall, been for the good of all. Organisations such as CORI have saluted the increase in the numbers of people at work in the 1990s, due in no small part to social partnership, but have also pointed out that the gap in Ireland between rich and poor is second only to the USA in the OECD area.
In short, while the social partnership approach has been innovative and has contributed to a broad consensus-based approach to the management of social and economic issues, it would be a very large claim to see it as representing a political transformation. For that to happen there would need to be a real transfer of power.
Perhaps the best evidence that this transformation has not occurred lies in the conservatism of mainstream politics in the south. ‘Real’ politics has imploded towards the centre ground, with little to tell between the mainstream parties. The emphasis is on managerialism, not ideology or social justice, with a strongly media-conscious approach characterised more by spin-doctors and focus groups than by principles or research. It is perhaps inevitable that the rush to the centre has led to the growth of Sinn Fein, the Greens and the plethora of independents, on one side, as well as a strong feeling on the ‘conservative’ side that the mainstream parties no longer speak for them either. I am not convinced that this really proves some kind of liberating and empowering political transformation is taking place or that the process of social partnership has really given all sectors of society access to power.
The community development model
Within the community sector, the Community Development Support Programme (CDSP) represents an innovative attempt, more than a decade old at this stage, to build real partnerships between the statutory side and communities themselves. There is now a dense network of small community organisations, working in all parts of the State on issues as disparate as support for ex-prisoners, parent and child support, drugs rehabilitation programmes, Traveller support and development work with new ethnic communities. Core funding has been relatively generous and a solid sector has emerged.
Has this led to political empowerment? On one level, yes. Take the position of women. A striking feature of recent grassroots change in Ireland has been the emergence of women in leadership roles in local activist groups through Leader, CDSP and other programmes. This has been very effective and empowering but there is still a ‘disconnect’, in American terminology, between such examples and mainstream politics, where decisions are still made, it seems, in smoke-filled rooms and politics remains ossified. Again the over-centralised nature of this politics is at least being challenged, whether by grassroots organisations or anti-motorway or anti-incinerator groups. But we have some way to to before we can create a new dialogue between these new and disparate groups and the conventional parties.
What about multiculturalism?
Turning to multiculturalism, southern style (or interculturalism to use the official term, which no-one does), there have been a number of significant initiatives in recent years. These include the establishment of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI for short), the Know Racism campaign, new legislation and the inclusion of ethnic minorities and new communities in various broader initiatives under the general heading of social inclusion. On the policy level some thought has being given to the issue as well, as shown by the publication three years ago by an interdepartmental committee of the report Integration: a two-way process, which offered an admittedly aspirational blueprint for future policy.
It has not been all negative. Civil society, the voluntary sector in particular, has shown a remarkable capacity to rise to new challenges. Thus, for instance, the Government’s policy of dispersing asylum-seekers was resisted by many at first, but I do not know of a single case where serious resistance continued once the new people had actually arrived. On the contrary. Overnight a plethora of voluntary groups sprang up, so that they now number up to one hundred in the umbrella organisation, Integrating Ireland. Moreover, these groups generally espouse a rights-based and not a charitable approach, up to a point at any rate.
Having said that, there are negative features as well. Racism is not endemic but it is far from absent and if anything seems to be getting worse. The failure of the state to attend to issues of ongoing social exclusion is also leading to trouble as the most disadvantaged members of society, rather than entering into cooperation, may be tempted to fight with one another. Little attempt is being made to explain the reality of multiethnicity in Ireland today, the fact that it is here to stay and that there must be a response on the policy level.
There is a significant gap between those working with ‘new communities’ – for the most part mainstream and middle-class Irish – and disadvantaged working class Irish people. It is perhaps symptomatic that, while I have mentioned a range of state-backed initiatives such as the CDSP, few middle class Irish people have ever heard of these programmes. Indeed, there is a more general divide between the middle and working classes in Ireland – only GárdaÃ, civil servants, social workers and a few others cross this divide, and then, mainly as gatekeepers. Movement in the other direction is even rarer. In other European countries this gap is less sharp as civil society, public spaces and public services bind all together.
Even within those very sectors where a more inclusive attitude might be expected, new communities are under-represented. Some NGOs working with asylum seekers and refugees do not see it as part of their mission to empower those with whom they work. On the official side, only a handful of CDPs directly address new community needs and fewer still are directly run by them – in fact, apart from Traveller initiatives there is only one, the Bosnian CDP, with a specific ethnic focus. In short, although the language and grammar of inclusion exists, it is not yet being employed in a sufficiently meaningful way.
Going forward
A multiculturalism which ignores social inequality will not last. It is not so long ago since a certain corporation housing project in Cork hung out a banner saying ‘we wish we were refugees’. This was both poignant and depressing, showing how alienated, excluded and angry some people felt, even if they blamed the wrong people for their predicament. It also illustrates the potential for conflict. The liberal model, with its tendency to understate the operation of power and inequality in society, cannot in itself ensure equality.
We have an opportunity to avoid this but it will require creative thinking as well as a willingness to dig into our own past and find those resonances which might help us deal with the new realities. We have one major asset to hand which we have not sought to use – the collective experience of those millions of Irish emigrants who made their way in other societies and coped with multiculturalism, difference and sometimes prejudice and outright discrimination.
A rights-based discourse will not merely benefit those who are from other communities. Look at the Irish language: the older objective of an entirely Irish-speaking Ireland has been gradually replaced by a newer, if as yet unstated one, of creating spaces where Irish may function as a lesser spoken language with certain specific support systems. This is much better than a position which was not only hegemonic and exclusionary but also unrealistic and unattainable.Â
We can reclaim nationalism from the far right if we emphasise the diversity of our own origins, not their alleged unitary nature. A shift from ethno-specific citizenship to 'social' citizenship, emphasising our shared membership of the community as the basis for citizenship rather than birth or nationality, ought not to be impossible.
Multiculturalism should celebrate all cultures, including the dominant one, within an agreed, common, rights-based framework. Those minorities within the dominant culture – Irish speakers are a case in point - who feel themselves to be excluded can join forces with other minority cultures
All of this will require meaningful power-sharing, across classes as well as across communities. This means, paradoxically, that the State must be more willing to empower and support its own critics on the margins, creating in the process a society where different cultural identities and also profound differences of view are acceptable.
Unfortunately, there is little evidence that we are ready for this. |