OPTIMISM is a funny word. It comes from the Latin meaning "best", but often in Irish life it should be spelt "optomism", from the Greek word opto meaning what one sees. For what one sees is not always what is, especially when dealing with the intractable problems of identity and history in this most peculiar island of ours.
Optomism the hallucinatory vision which translates the impossible into the possible and conjures success out of failure has been a major factor in the creation of much of Irish life. Optomism requires the removal of all evidence opposing what you are optimistic about, and the tailoring of existing evidence to suit your case. TnaG is a case - a scandalous case - in point, but optomism can also apply retrospectively.
The 1916 Rising, for example, was a classic example of purblind optomism in its planning and its execution, which met with predictable failure. It is not remotely conceivable - other than in the bizarre and fantastical world of the optomist's fevered imaginings - that a violent insurrection in Dublin in the middle of a world war was going to persuade unionists to join an Irish Republic. One might as well sacrifice virgins at sowing time to improve the harvest - and the metaphor is apt, for 1916 was in one sense no more than a vast and bloody indulgence in sacrificial magic to the god Ceres.
No politics
Only an optomist could look at that period and describe the outcome - the Anglo Irish war - as successful from the Irish point of view, yet repeatedly Irish history books have said precisely that. Even today, the genuinely fascinating truths of the time are concealed by the fevered creativity of optomism. Reading, for example, the recently published history of Clongowes Union, I came across two paragraphs relating to this time. The first was that 604 Old Clongownians served in the Great War, and 94 of them died. In the item dealing with the 1916 Rising, no Clongownians are reported as having participated, but the writer concludes: "The fact that so many old Clongownians fought in the Great War could not be regarded as an indication of any political affiliation."
Oh that's all right then. If it wasn't politics, what was it? Something in the Clongowes water that made boys come over all funny and enlist? But whatever it was, it wasn't political, dear bless my soul no, no, with nearly 100 Clongownian lads dying on active service. Political? Not a bit of it.
We might call this view of the world optomism. Psychiatrists use another word: denial. "Denial" is a cliche these days favoured wherever homegrown psychobabble is heard. It means the same thing as optomism - the rigorous exclusion of what does not suit your view of the world. It is optomistic denial which has sustained both the campaigns of the IRA and the hopes of the Peace Process.
Minority of a minority
We read now that the IRA hopes to achieve unity within 15 years. Fair enough. How? Democratically? Sinn Fein got 6 per cent of the total vote cast in the North. You can cut this vote anyway you like, it will not be transformed into a majority. Cut the Sinn Fein vote in the Republic any way you like, and the result will be even worse. All parties in the Republic, both at the Forum and in repeated policy statements, have said that a united Ireland must be based on the consent of the unionists. The British say the same.
Democrats who argue that the British should withdraw if they are democrats know that electorally they must win this argument, or democracy means nothing. They have not won it in the Republic, have not won it in the North, have not (yet) won it within the Northern minority. They certainly have not won it in Britain.
But Sinn Fein, not understanding democracy in the least degree, but being optomistic to the ninth degree, thinks that sufficient terror can change minds. With a new Labour government certain, did it really think that paralysing the British economy and wrecking great sporting events would persuade Tony Blair to give it what is not in his power to grant?
Sinn Fein remains deluded by optomism. It optomistically misapprehends different opinions as mere delusions. No settlement with the absolutist Sinn Fein optomism is possible. If Sinn Fein leaders negotiate for less than their full demands, they are following the democratic route taken by Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Democratic Left, and are therefore no longer Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein really does mean Ourselves Alone. The opinions of others are only of interest in the way in which they can be ignored. Only our own, misguided constitutional optomism leads us to believe otherwise.
Futile wars
Optimism is a noble virtue. Optomism is not. Optomism causes futile wars and magical uprisings, optomism causes intelligent men and women to see magic wand cures through murder and destruction.
Optimism is one of the great qualities of the Irish people; and optomism, seeing solutions to problems by harebrained, irrelevant methods, is the great besetting vice. Constitutional optomism has led governments to believe terrorist optomism could be wished away. It was precisely that kind of morally craven optomism which meant that the Government did not hunt down the entire IRA after the murder of Detective Jerry McCabe. Until we confront the vices and the idiocies of optomism, there is no reason to be optimistic.