THE knives are out – again – for President Michael D. Higgins, after he dared to mention Gaza during a weekend event commemorating the Holocaust.
Well, when we say the knives are out, what we mean is that the forelock-tuggers and horse-saddlers of Irish social and mainstream media have been experiencing another fit of the vapours at the sight of the President fulfilling his promise to stand up for the dignity and rights of people across the world, wherever they may be found, and whomever it might discomfit.
In a country not still possessed of a hefty colonial hangover, the sight and sound of loudmouth British politicians and racist commentators ganging up to abuse the head of state would see its people rally round the figure they elected to lead them. But rather than defend the right of their own man to reflect the strongly-held opinions of the Irish majority on the Gaza slaughter, the men and women of the Dublin press and the denizens of associated social media platforms have lain down in the gutter with their colleagues across the water. They’ve gone down there in a bid to bully President Higgins into joining an increasingly shaky US-European consensus on Israel – that consensus being that Israel has the right to ‘defend itself’ regardless of what that defence entails; that consensus being that any criticism of Israel’s admitted and documented war crimes is a de facto declaration of support for terrorism.
But we’re not having it – and neither are the millions of people across the world who endorse the President’s insistence on doing his bit to ensure that the horrors of World War Two are not visited upon another people.
President Higgins is the living, breathing embodiment of this changing Ireland. It’s not that long ago that the slightest cough of disapproval from Washington or Brussels would have seen Irish politicians and diplomats scramble to do whatever was required of them to keep other, bigger countries happy. But a younger and more self-confident Ireland has carved out a place for itself at the forefront of the global fightback against the Israeli bloodlust in Gaza. A bleak colonial past informs the Irish of what it means to be trodden upon, how important it is to have the support of others, and why cowering in silence is never an option.
That stance is not without a price. Allegations of antisemitism are regularly levelled against Ireland and powerful figures who liked the Irish when they were quiet and docile are aghast that such a small country would presume to have so much to say. But the world is not what it was. Social media shows us what the Irish and British mainstream media don’t: The vast majority of people and countries across the planet are aghast at what Israel is doing.
The increasingly influential economic and political coalition that is BRICS and the growing strength of the global south is causing a shift in the international power nexus.
President Higgins, a man of 83, reflects a new and rapidly changing world that leaves his detractors confused and angry. And the people of Ireland love him for it.
