Of saints and celebrities

They say the Irish are obsessed by history, like song, dance and drink. We had it all last week, as we pageanted and fireworked about our towns and cities, and all tremendously Catalan and Celtic and windswept and fascinating and romantic. There you are. Still ourselves, as far as we can tell, after colonialism and conflict and still trying to make and remake what we have thought was history.

Its leaps are various. So, for example, the latest abortion referendum is thought to mark a turning point in history. But how can you tell?!? Do we feel differently this month than last? Can we describe the way it was and the way it is not now? I’m not so sure. I welcome the vote and I called for a No vote. But I think it’s more watermark than watershed.

The No majority was largely, but not entirely, on the pro-choice side of the argument. And the differences between urban-rural, east-west and young-old are evident and have been much remarked. That much is clear.

But these things have been building for a while. You can see it in the changing demography. Ireland has a population bulge moving slowly and inexorably through the population. It’s in the 18-35 age group now. They’re the consumers, the drinkers, the shaggers, the drivers, the smokers, the urbanised, the computer generation, the mobile phone adopters, the stormtroopers of change.

That’s another watermark. Once people looked to the lives of saints and holy people for example, and pondered the meaning of the gospels for lessons on how to live a good life. Now they aspire to become celebrities rather than saints, and they comb the pages of the celeb magazines for lessons on how to live the good life.

And there’s more. Once upon a time, people lived in fear of the moral police, that is, the clergy, who exercised the moral framework within which everyone lived. People feared being caught out and shamed, they feared their righteous wrath.

Well, we don’t have very many of those now, and most of them are old. Who fears them? But we have a new moral police (or clergy), the media. It’s true – the media exercise precisely the same function in modern Ireland as the priests did in the old days. Indeed, they have even turned the tables, exposing and shaming many of the priests themselves.

And rightly. I’m all in favour of that. But when you pull back from the smug certainties of both celebrity and media, are we any better off in real terms?

We are not more free. Once people did right because they thought God was watching and noting down their misdemeanours and they’d be exposed on the last day. Now, people know they’re being watched all the time. Every day and in every way, we are tracked, but now it’s by the police and the private security industry – there’s a camera everywhere – the telecommunications companies and banks (through your credit cards).

Go on, tell me. There’s a difference? Right now, in Britain, it’s proposed that all cars will have a transmitter fitted that will track its movements and will be used to calculate the driver’s road charges. Big Brother indeed, even as Big Brother makes more celebrities. And the same thing is on its way here. If you ask me, we’ve just swapped a seedy, prurient moral police state for an equally seedy, prurient amoral police state.

It is no consolation that the United Kingdom is even further down that appalling road than Ireland, notwithstanding the opinions of David Trimble. In a remarkable outburst, Trimble said Ireland is sectarian and pathetic. He was speaking to that great bastion of British civilisation and democracy, the Ulster Unionist Council.

According to Trimble, the Union is strong and never more respected. He asked his listeners to “Contrast the United Kingdom - a vibrant multi-ethnic, multi-national liberal democracy , the fourth largest economy in the world, the most reliable ally of the United States in the fight against terrorism – with the pathetic, sectarian, mono-ethnic, mono-cultural State to our south”.

Frankly, there’s something ridiculous about Trimble extolling the virtues of the multi-ethnic, multi-coloured, multi-national, liberal country that Britain has now become, to the Unionist Council. None of them is black or Asian, all of them are Protestant and all of them are old British, not new British. They’d curl up and melt at the prospect of living in Bradford.

Many people, and a lot of them are in Britain, fervently wish that Trimble and Paisley’s people would truly become more British and less Irish, because then they’d be more tolerant, wouldn’t they?

Finally, two things from what the Healy-Rae’s call the wide earthly world.

Firstly, Britain is the closest ally of the US in the war against terrorism, says Trimble. Okay - the US has apparently widened its set of potential nuclear battlegrounds. The Cold War is back. They may be about to attack Iraq. Most European countries are opposed. So too is half the British cabinet. Where does the Unionist Council stand on that?

Secondly, it has emerged that a language dies every two weeks. All but 500 of the 6,000 languages now spoken will die by the end of this century. It’s been called linguicide, a language massacre. It’s the product of military and economic power, it’s imperialism, it’s the language of the media, of computers, it’s globalisation, colonialism. And English is the key.

I know it can feel good to be a member of the big guy’s gang and to march shoulder to shoulder with him when he goes to beat the shit out of someone weaker than himself. But every now and then surely we have to reflect on what we are part of. And it isn’t treason to criticise it. Even for a member of the Unionist Council.