NEWTON'S OPTIC:AFTER LAST week's disgraceful scenes of agricultural violence in the centre of Cavan, it is time to face some uncomfortable home truths about the farming community, writes NEWTON EMERSON
There are of course many fine people in that community, just as there are many violent people in the non-food producing sector. Nobody wishes to contribute to unfair and unhelpful stereotypes of those who live off the land. But we must accept that farmers seem far more likely than the general population to believe that they can do as they please, with no regard for the same laws and standards which apply to the rest of us.
Reports of cars being attacked, mobs taking over town centres and people turning up in politicians’ driveways and demanding money to leave are sadly all too familiar. The tolerance of even the most decent citizen can be tested under these circumstances, not least when the authorities appear reluctant to intervene. It behoves us as a liberal society to ask, in as careful and as roundabout a manner as possible, if our current attitude towards farmers is really serving their best long-term interests.
Fortunately, liberal society can be held entirely responsible for every problem with the farming community.° We have encouraged these people to think that they can live on hand-outs, pay no tax and expect special treatment at every turn. Should we be surprised if they develop a culture of self-destructive dependency?
That aside, it is a measure of how much progress we have made that farming is understood to be a culture. Previously, it was often referred to as an occupation or even a mere lifestyle. But membership of a cultural group does not in itself excuse unacceptable behaviour.
This must be taken on board by the huge industry of agencies, quangos and campaign groups which lobbies on behalf of the farming community. Rather than encouraging development and self-sufficiency, that industry has entrenched an irresponsible sense of exceptionalism and entitlement. It may only be a matter of time before farmers start claiming they are a separate racial group, although it is obvious that they only look the way they do because they spend so much time outdoors.
The most difficult question facing farmers’ rights activists, apart from how they will ever get another job, is whether traditional farming is still viable in 21st-century Ireland.
The days when a family of 18 could survive on a few cows and a field of potatoes are long gone. Many of the fields have also disappeared beneath new roads and suburbs. Perhaps there is simply no longer room, economically or physically, for the old farming way of life.
Nor can we ignore the terrible health problems increasingly experienced by the agricultural community. Farmers are more prone to genetic diseases like sheep-dip hair and Brusselosis, while their children suffer elevated levels of GAA in their DNA.
Most tragically of all, few have any education beyond Regional Technical College level.
Obviously, it remains for farmers themselves to decide how they want to move their community forward.
Assistance and guidance from society at large is a delicate matter which must be handled with great cultural sensitivity. Anyone else who wants to march down a street where they don’t live burning an effigy of someone that they don’t like should join the Orange Order.