Kathy Sheridan: Are we really too passive, too deferential, to government?

The writer Michael O’Loughlin asked in The Irish Times on Monday why the Irish never riot over anything. He was taken aback by Irish people’s surprise at the rioting in the Netherlands, where disturbances are nothing new despite the appearance of consensus and order. This time, the riots were sparked by the government’s attempt to impose a nighttime curfew.

But the Dutch are far from outliers in the current unrest. Similar protests have flared all across Europe in recent months, many in response to Covid-19 restrictions. In Italy, Molotov cocktails were thrown in Florence and stores looted in Milan and Turin. Riot police have been called out in Belgium, France, Austria and Hungary. In Berlin, a far-right mob attempted to rush the Reichstag, Germany’s national parliament, after a weekend demonstration against restrictions.

All of these recent flare-ups in Europe happened within a local or national context, of course. Where a curfew might be annoying if tolerable for many societies , for example the Dutch curfew happened to be the first since the Nazi occupation during the second World War – a historical fact which was certainly a trigger for some of those involved.

The lack of Irish civic unrest during the economic crash and crushing bailout is indeed an enduring mystery for many Europeans

Even allowing for historical triggers, it’s difficult to fathom a mindset that puts individual freedom above the protection of other people’s lives in a deadly pandemic. That a crowd of young, educated, middle-class Europeans were ready to sacrifice lives for their personal freedoms seems quite shocking and quite shockingly misinformed.

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Disturbances

They are not alone, of course. Dublin has made fleeting appearances on international media’s lists of disturbances across Europe. Some form of lunacy has surely taken hold if a brand of spoilt, Western exceptionalism represents more than a few thousand protesters.

The notion that raging, infectious diseases do not happen to us, only to the old or the vulnerable or poor people on some other continent, is highly dangerous and self-defeating in a globalised world.

The Irish have willingly and generously complied with the rules, for the most part. Communal solidarity and co-operation has helped the country weather the Covid storm.

But the dark side to that, O’Loughlin suggested, is a deference to Government and the inability to see the State as our occasional enemy. The lack of Irish civic unrest during the economic crash and crushing bailout is indeed an enduring mystery for many Europeans.

One EU ambassador was astounded to see Enda Kenny, then taoiseach, in Croke Park, chatting to anyone who approached him

But, as a journalist covering a slew of protests over many years, I recall little deference to anyone, merely an absence of physical violence. Memorable events include thousands of raging pensioners roaring at politicians over the 2014 budget cuts, powerful marches against water charges which split the population but caused the government parties to perform spectacular U-turns, and the constant, sustained pressure that persuaded influential politicians to get on board for two referendums.

Punched

No one got punched, no street furniture was ripped up nor buildings torched. At a purely strategic level, could the politicians have surrendered as readily if those protests had turned violent?

The reluctance to riot may indeed be rooted, as O’Loughlin suggested, in the fact that we come from a small, deeply connected country, with a population about the size of Manchester and Birmingham combined.

Another reason may be that Irish politicians are probably the most accessible in Europe. One EU ambassador was astounded to see Enda Kenny, then taoiseach, in Croke Park, chatting to anyone who approached him. Even cabinet ministers must routinely knock on constituents’ doors to keep the seat. Bertie Ahern was famous for it. Journalists who have shadowed politicians have borne witness to the adulation but also the door-slamming, choice language and general lack of deference that often accompanies their rounds.

And perhaps we tend not to riot because we have absorbed the lesson of what happens when riots become a routine answer to political obstacles. We live up the road from the Border and perhaps are more aware than most of the tinder-box on which society is built.

We have had to reconcile ourselves to the hated bank debt. We were lucky enough to come out of those years without raising a polarising figure such as Marine le Pen or Nigel Farage, or an anti-immigration or anti-EU movement of any weight. Instead the past 10 years have seen a fundamental power shift. People have learned the power of the ballot box. The proof is in the numbers.

It may not hold out the instant gratification of a riot but they know this: just wait a while in the long grass and it gets things done just the same.