OPINION:Using existing resources and talent can affect change at local level – which then feeds into national transformation
LONGSTANDING READERS will remember that former Irish Times editor Douglas Gageby was fond of quoting Thomas D’Arcy Magee’s lines about our Celtic forebears: “Long, long ago, beyond the mighty space of twice a thousand years, there lived a mighty race, taller than Roman spears.”
When all the dust has settled on our economic shakedown, when the recriminations have finally ended, and the years of economic analysis are over, I want the people of this country to have forged a better future, to have regained our national pride, and to stand again taller than Roman spears.
We are not going to do that if we sit about awaiting deliverance from others. Already, the calls for a new republic refer to something more fundamental than a restored economy, urgent though that may be. There is a hunger to reinvent ourselves, to identify and embrace new principles for a new republic.
There is a pyramid of concerns. Different members of society are challenged at different levels on the hierarchy of human needs, ranging from physical survival to social belonging to loss of self-esteem and self-actualisation.
Simultaneously, at the other end of the spectrum, there are real questions about the ability of all our institutional systems, religious, administrative and electoral, to produce the type of leadership required to deal with the challenges of the complex interdependent global society we inhabit.
Between these two levels of concern, more and more counsels of despair pour into the void. But counsels of despair will not put bread on the table. Anger is not a policy response. Where is the candle to light the darkness?
Ireland is not the worst country in the world. It is far from being the worst off in the EU. But we climbed too high and fell back too fast. People are railing against their helplessness to deal with the financial tsunami that has hit. With months of political uncertainty ahead, an interim mechanism is urgently needed to give people some sense of control over the recovery process, some empowerment to reclaim their own destiny.
Nightly, individuals and families watch their televisions in isolated horror as an array of declared experts and politicians debate and disagree. Some media programmes recklessly peddle fear, based on alleged facts that often do not stand up to scrutiny.
All traditional sources of leadership are constantly questioned and no positive alternatives are offered.
There is an urgent need to avoid a descent into what French sociologist Emile Durkheim labelled a “state of anomie”, where common values and meanings are no longer understood or accepted, with a resultant sense of futility, lack of purpose, and emotional emptiness and despair which can have calamitous personal results.
Who has the capability and the will to tackle things now, to deliver some hope and relief? There is no knight on a white charger to hand. In any event, we know that merely replacing the king will not suffice to make “glorious summer” of this “winter of discontent”. So what can those of us who are not in, or going to be in, the new Dáil, Central Bank or Nama going to do while the current paroxysm works its way through the system?
There is something that can be done at grassroots level in every town and parish in Ireland. It is not a quick fix, or dramatic solution, but it is something that could have a slow and positive burn. Something that would allow large numbers of people to make their contribution to the kind of Ireland they want to build.
One of the downsides of the boom has been the erosion of civil society as membership in voluntary organisations fell away.
There is a wealth of active and untapped leadership at local level throughout Ireland. Many organisations have a national reach, such as the area partnerships, the GAA and other sporting bodies, the ICA, Muintir na Tíre and myriad local development groups. Within this configuration, there is proven organisational ability and commitment.
Equally, in every community, there are business and professional people with the will and ability to make their mark, and an untapped reservoir of talent and ability represented in the non-working population whose ranks are swollen by recent retirees and new jobseekers, who have plenty of energy and a need to use it constructively. Add to this the charitable organisations like St Vincent de Paul, which have a national network. They and community social workers know precisely where the greatest needs lie.
What could the leadership and drive of these entities achieve if they were to combine forces at local level, in a structured manner, to address the most urgent problems in their area?
A start would be to audit local assets and needs and form a positive and realistic plan of action to marry the two. Transforming national politics is a very long-term project. Something can be done right now at local level by going back to Ireland’s ancient and honourable tradition of the meitheal.
A cross-fertilisation of ideas and talents within communities, directed towards achieving a common aim, would carry positive benefits in terms of alleviating immediate hardship; providing work; encouraging entrepreneurship; developing social outlets and planning ahead for a better future. Furthermore, it would encourage co-ordinated planning and develop ideas and projects to avail of the job initiatives that will come with new government programmes.
The impetus for a programme of integrated community action will come from the quality of local leadership and the willingness of people to step up to the plate. What could be the mission statement and ethical underpinning for such an initiative? I am proud to offer a suggestion drawn from my own neck of the woods.
Last year, a large signpost erected in the village of Fenor, Co Waterford, read: “There is no limit to what can be achieved by a community working together.”
True words for that community as they successfully fundraised to build a children’s playground in addition to their many other civic achievements. The words are the logo of the pioneering DFBA organisation, comprising the communities of Dunhill, Fenor, Boatstrand and Annestown, which has won many national and county pride of place awards.
A year before, I heard some striking words at the opening of a community project in nearby Tramore, where their former Meeting House had been handed over, by the small group of Quakers left in the area, to a voluntary body, Tramore Development Trust. A leading Waterford Quaker, Roger Johnson, reflecting on the new use of the building as an afterschool care centre, rejoiced in the fit between traditional Quaker beliefs and values and the motivation of the young staff members in their dealings with the children. “They are looking for the innate goodness that lies within us all and trying in a personal and individual way to draw it out and develop it for each child that comes to them. Their emphasis is on the positive.”
There was a slightly antiquated quality to his words. They had an element of surprise, delivered as they were to a secular audience towards the end of the Celtic tiger boom. Definitely predating the Celtic tiger in their ethical underpinning, they are surely worthy of revisiting in a new republic.
A financial dam has been built around the country for the next four years. The water inside may be shallow and cold, but we do have some time to navigate our way. The four-year plan and the international rescue package provide only the financial parameters. What they do not and cannot quantify or limit is the nature of the Irish people’s response at local level to this recession. That response can impact hugely on the sentiment and confidence required to grow jobs.
If we want to reinvent Ireland, to create a new republic, we can start by making things better in small ways at local level. New vision and leadership will emerge from there to feed into the national-level transformation.
There are many people who are great role models in their communities and their song should be sung. TV footage of the recent snowstorms showed an individual farmer who spent all day on his tractor, unasked and unpaid, pulling abandoned vehicles out of the snow. Why? Because it needed to be done and he could do it!
No one in any position of influence should encourage hopelessness. Empowerment equals confidence, equals spending, equals jobs. A failure now to actively foster the enormous reservoirs of good in all communities, a response that continues to dwell only on mistake and ruin, will serve only to deepen the sense of crisis and chart the course for a bleaker future. Light the candle.
Agnes Aylward is a former researcher with the Economic and Social Research Institute and public servant