Una Mullally: Ukraine crisis will not be solved by macho posturing against Irish neutrality

Neale Richmond is getting all worked up. The Fine Gael TD’s pivot from “here comes the big airplane” parenting influencer to “here comes the big airplane” would-be exporter of arms is quite the jolt.

But it is characteristic of Fine Gael’s populist tendencies. Last week, Richmond, who has fully committed to this Baby Wesley Ross Kemp act, went on a BBC radio programme talking about sending Irish missiles to Ukraine, with the embarrassing hard man air of a lad jonesing to wear a flak jacket for a photo op. Please stop.

Those in Fine Gael who characterise Irish neutrality as a myth aren’t wrong, however. We have capitulated and facilitated awful things, most notably American war planes in Shannon, as they stopped off on the way to murder innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is an impulse of the unimaginative to dispense with what is broken, rather than seek to repair it so it can be better. Now is the time to reassert our neutrality, not toss it away

CIA warplanes involved in torture landed and refuelled in Shannon. Despite this being illegal and against every human rights statute in any book, these planes were never stopped, they were never searched, they were never inspected. This is a stain on our conscience.

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So yes, our neutrality is flawed. It is pick and mix. It is two-faced. But it is an impulse of the unimaginative to dispense with what is broken, rather than seek to repair it so that it can be better. Now is the time to reassert our neutrality, not toss it away.

The militaristic pontificating by excitable and immature Fine Gaelers speaks to a mode of being in the party that loves to grandstand and play geopolitical dress-up. We could all walk around with our chests out, thinking we’re big and important, but it’s much harder to do the practical on-the-ground work in our own communities to help Ukrainian people.

Eamon Ryan is right that politicians should take Ukrainian refugees into their own homes, or indeed into one of their spare homes. I hope every TD takes up this responsibility. Thousands of non-politicians in Ireland will.

Dirty money

It’s easy to pontificate about the things we can’t control. But why doesn’t the Government act on the things we can? There’s plenty of anti-Putin rhetoric in government right now and rightly so. And yet no party has done more to facilitate Russian wealth in Ireland than this contemporary incarnation of Fine Gael.

There’s billions of euro – subjectively dirty money – sloshing around our capital that emerges from the toxic and corrupt stew of Putin’s pals. Why hasn’t Fine Gael outlined its programme to systematically dismantle the policies, companies and systems that allow for this to happen in the IFSC? Where are the press conferences on how our financial system will be cleaned up, so that no country can utilise Ireland to shelter rotten wealth and hide their billions accumulated from oppression, cronyism and corruption?

Where are the grand plans to have a look at the hundreds of planes leased to Russian airlines by “Dublin-based” lessors? Easier to tweet and make high-falutin’ speeches I suppose.

It does seem that sometimes Fine Gael just doesn’t understand what we should be proud of in Ireland, what we should maintain, and what we should bolster. Our neutrality, however ropey, is a point of national pride.

Our island also offers an example to the world of how an extreme era of an entrenched violent sectarian conflict could be brought to a point of peace with calmness, compromise, collaboration and co-operation.

Painting a target

There is, unfortunately, no compromising with Putin. He is a murderous dictator, a danger to the world, and a reckless and sinister force. He has been so for a long time. Finding a way out of this moment feels like a monumental task, with only bad options on the table.

All the while, innocent Ukrainians die and young Russian men are dispatched to meet their end as cannon fodder. This is an emergency where horror, grimness and trauma cannot be overstated.

While I don’t think this is a moment for self-interest, there is something ridiculously stupid about the militaristic rhetoric the likes of Richmond is spouting (hopefully unnoticed by anyone who matters). It is painting a target on an island that cannot even come close to defending itself.

We need calm heads, not politicians shrieking about shipping missiles from the Curragh

Nothing good can come from militarily neutral nations expanding armies and acquiring more weaponry. Our strength is in our peacekeeping record, our talent as neutral negotiators and brokers, utilising our soft power, our diplomatic prowess, our solidarity, our capacity to roll up our sleeves and help people – not armies – and our international characterisation as a friendly point of contact.

In geopolitical terms, we are no one’s enemy. That position is incredibly powerful, and one that should be maintained.

Like everyone, I’m worried and scared. I feel sick reading the news every day. None of those concerns even come close to a fragment of the nightmare people staying in and fleeing from Ukraine are experiencing. But this “screw neutrality” bluster coming from politicians, journalists and commentators is hot-headed, overly emotional, reactionary and overrun with short-term thinking.

We need calm heads, not politicians shrieking about shipping missiles from the Curragh. I don’t have the answers to how we can navigate this horrific, terroristic storm to calmer waters. But I do know that one of those answers is most certainly not spoofing a macho fantasy of Ireland’s military weight.