Why do Irish people never protest about anything?
OK some lobby groups do manage to protest every now and then. The farmers and the taxi drivers spring to mind. But what about the rest of us?
And heaven knows we have a lot to protest about. The government, developers, bankers and regulators have brought the country to the brink of ruin. Unemployment (which ran between 3.6% and 5% between 2000 and 2007) has now rocketed to 14.6%. Our country is now run by a troika of the EU, IMF and ECB. It’s hard to believe that we are being rescued by bankers from problems caused by bankers!
In February 2009 an unnamed man threw eggs at the AIB Bank in Cork. I thought this was the kind of thing that could catch on: a non-violent way of sending a message to the bankers. But no. It was a one-off.
There was also a march in February 2009 but that was targeted specifically at the public sector pension levy.
In September 2010, Joe McNamara drove a cement truck with “Toxic Bank Anglo” drove into the gates of Leinster House and disabled it so that it took some time to remove. A sign on the back of the truck said “all politicians should be sacked”. He was subsequently cleared in court of criminal damage and dangerous driving charges.
There was another large march in Dublin in November 2010.
In February 2011 the Irish people came as close as we have to making a large-scale protest about what has been done to us. In line with Joe McNamara’s advice the government party was reduced from 71 seats to 20 and those 20 were sent to the opposition benches.
The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has resulted in “Occupy Dame Street” which, while I think it is welcome, only involves a small number of people.
Contrast our lack of protest about our economic crisis with places such as Iceland, Spain, Italy, and Greece.
So why do not protest?
Is it our natural sunny optimism? Our belief that there is little point in protesting when everything will work out fine in the end?!
Or is it our long history of being oppressed, and our belief that bad things will happen to us no matter what we do. I suspect this is a more likely explanation.
I just wish there was some way that we could make our anger and indignation known and take back some control over our own destinies.