Why does the Irish government not want to defend democracy? |
SPANISH prime minister Pedro Sanchez hosted a big conference in Barcelona last weekend.
It was attended by more than 20 political leaders from around the world including President Catherine Connolly. Strangely it received almost no coverage here.
The conference was called In Defence of Democracy. It’s the fourth in a series of an initiative Spain and Brazil launched jointly in 2024 to discuss the growth of authoritarianism, autocracy, imperialism and the consequences of all that for international law and multilateralism, especially the United Nations.
Perhaps it’s because the leaders attending were predominantly left of centre or socialist, and speakers condemned Trump and the death and destruction he has wreaked alongside his partner-in-crime Netanyahu, that first world leaders ignore the conferences.
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However, representatives from left-of-centre parties did attend. For example the British Labour Party sent delegates. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz attended. Murphy gave a speech excoriating Trump.
Government leaders included Cyril Ramaphosa from South Africa, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, Brazilian president Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, and the leaders of Colombia, Uruguay and Barbados.
The Irish government didn’t send anyone, perhaps because they’re centre-right, perhaps because they didn’t want to be seen in the company gathered in Barcelona. Perhaps they didn’t want to annoy Trump, which is what almost everyone there took the opportunity to do.
Clearly the government didn’t approve of President Connolly attending, but they stayed quiet about her going.
However, they let their disapproval be known through anonymous briefings by officials (“multiple sources“ were quoted) which appeared in the press. RTÉ hadn’t much to say about the conference either.
Clearly the government didn’t approve of President Connolly attending, but they stayed quiet about her going. However, they let their disapproval be known through anonymous briefings
The “multiple sources” said the government would have preferred Connolly’s first trip abroad to be to Britain.
They would have liked her to meet the king of Spain, the head of state, not head of government, Sanchez.
There was also concern that she visited Barcelona, the Catalan capital, not Madrid, the capital of Spain.
Then there was a peculiar objection, that neither Britain nor the US was represented at Barcelona. Why would that mean she shouldn’t go? Go figure.
It all seems very contrived, nit-picking and petty. More seriously, the pathetic objections look as though they’re intended to send Connolly the message that her job is ceremonial and that she should stick to following protocol like meeting her equivalent the king of Spain, whose role is also only ceremonial.
Well, it’s not gonna happen. Connolly was elected on a clearly enunciated agenda by the biggest ever personal vote in the Republic’s history.
Besides, Michael D Higgins made some pretty controversial speeches in his 14 years as president and the Irish government didn’t like them either. So what? He also enjoyed enormous approval ratings throughout his tenure.
Connolly made an excellent speech at Barcelona, which you can read in full on the website of the president.
What did she say? She said that as “a neutral, post-famine, post-colonial republic, Ireland is uniquely placed to offer a valuable perspective” on world affairs.
She emphasised the importance to small countries like Ireland of multilateralism through the United Nations and called for reform of the UN institutions, so that they can’t be sidelined and abused by powerful states so that might is right.
She deplored the fact that over 80 years there was “a collective willingness to treat violations [of the UN charter] by powerful states as exceptional cases rather than the precedents they have become. Each time a violation was absorbed without consequence, the threshold for the next one was raised”.
She pointed out that “multilateralism is not a luxury; it is a necessity. It is how we uphold international law. It is how we protect human rights. It is how we respond to the crises that no country can face alone – climate change, displacement, poverty, the normalisation of war – all of which are inextricably linked”.
In many ways what was being advocated at Barcelona was remarkably similar to the highly-praised speech Canada’s Mark Carney made at Davos, when he highlighted a new world order and recommended medium-sized countries organise to pivot away from economic ties to the US.
Carney’s remarks were primarily about the economic havoc Trump had caused by his stupid obsession with tariffs as a trade weapon, and the requirement therefore to find ways to stand up to the 21st century version of imperialism.
Carney quoted Thucydides: “The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must.”
Essentially Carney was saying the same as Connolly. Organise multilaterally: economically, politically and legally to protect the weak.
Does the Irish government really want to distance itself from that, or were the ‘wrong’ people saying it?
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