IT TOOK reports of Seanad Éireann's epic all-night session on Thursday to bring home to me the fact that we were witnessing another October Revolution, writes Frank McNally
I must confess I had never before seen the Seanad in a heroic light. But it was impossible not to be moved by the accounts of a bleary-eyed Brian Lenihan rising to address it for the last time at 8.02am, and later being embraced by his fellow Bolshevik Donie Cassidy, while the normally sweet-smelling Senator Joe O'Toole was forced to apologise for not having changed his shirt since Wednesday.
The scene evoked John Reed's description of events at the Smolny Institute in Petrograd during the tumultuous days leading up to Lenin's seizure of power in 1917: "The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of storm, delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to take part in the debate. Trostsky, Kameniev, Volodarsky speaking six, eight, 12 hours a day. . ."
Even so, and much as we may admire comrades O'Toole and Cassidy for staying up all night in an effort to create a better world from the ruins of capitalism, we should not forget the man who made this week's revolution possible. I refer, of course, to Bertie Ahern.
We are approaching the fourth anniversary of the former Taoiseach's famous interview in this newspaper, during which he revealed that he was a socialist. The claim was widely mocked at the time. He was then marking 10 years as Fianna Fáil leader, and wags quickly took to calling it the "Ten Years that Shook the World" interview.
But in light of the startling events we have witnessed these past few days, it may be time to look again at exactly what he said.
Here's the key extract: "People mightn't believe this but I have a very socialist view on life. I have it in my mind that I own the Phoenix Park, and I own the Botanic Gardens, I own Dublin Zoo. Because the State participates in these things, I am free to go in there whenever the opening hours are. . .
"I don't feel I need to own a huge house with a huge glasshouse when I can go down the road 10 minutes and [visit the Botanic Gardens]. It's just the way I think about things. What is the best form of equality? It is the fact that the richest family in this area can go on a Sunday afternoon to the Bots, and the poorest family can too. . . So I have fought for 15 years to improve the resources of things like that, the Phoenix Park, Dublin Zoo, and also things like sport."
He was right. We didn't believe him at the time, but we sure as hell believe him now. And it's clear that his ambitions didn't stop with the "Bots". He was removed from power before his Marxist-Leninist master-plan could be fully implemented. But the momentum was too much to stop, and this week the plan reached fruition. First the Bots. Now the banks.
AMONG other things, the week's events mean we can finally give up the search for the so-called "third socialist" in Leinster House. You'll recall that Charlie McCreevy claimed there were three: Bertie, Joe Higgins, and an unnamed other. In fact it turns out that, like the Third Policeman, the Third Socialist was living within the very walls of the building. When the call came to nationalise the banks, opposition was non-existent.
Cynics may claim that what has happened amounts only to socialism for the rich. And maybe they're right. Essentially, as I understand it, we the proletariat have seized the means of losing money from the banks. But then again, the whole socialism-for-the-poor thing didn't really work out, did it? So you have to try different things.
Certainly I find myself caught up in the new revolutionary fervour. As a taxpayer - and to use Bertie's terminology - I now "have it in my mind" that I own the AIB and Bank of Ireland. I don't feel the need to buy a large public building with ATMs and cashiers and toxic loans on its books and all that, because I can go down the road 10 minutes, and there's one I bought already.
Of course, unlike the Bots, the banks are not open on Sunday afternoon. And I don't want to visit them on Sundays, necessarily. But now that I own them, I'd like the management to work all weekend anyway, just for the hell of it. All this power is intoxicating.
The question is: where will the 2008 October Revolution go next? As you may recall, the original version had a surprise twist. Lenin and Trotsky thought one of two things would happen: either the great powers of Europe would combine to crush the movement at birth; or it would spread spontaneously to engulf the entire globe. In the event, neither happened.
The latter-day Lenin and Trotsky - Biffo and Bertie - are already a step ahead of that, however. Whether the Houses of Congress will back the US bank bailout plan is unknown as I write. But the great powers of Europe look set to fall like dominoes before the revolution. Already the cradle of civilisation on the continent has followed Ireland's lead. Today Greece, tomorrow the world.
fmcnally@irish-times.ie