Fortnight Publications Ltd.

A Wilful Deafness to the North's Self-QuestioningAuthor(s): Robert JohnstoneSource: Fortnight, No. 230 (Dec. 2 - 15, 1985), pp. 19-20Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25550672 .

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Robert Johnstone Gerald Dawe_

A WILFUL DEAFNESS TO THE NORTH'S SELF-QUESTIONING

Robert Johnstone

BOOKS

and ARTS

THE FIELD Day series of pamphlets has been a gale of fresh air in Irish intellectual

life, and the pigeons have been fluttering about the dovecots since it started. As an

attempt to initiate a debate among literary critics and historians on the cultural back

ground to Irish politics?mainly on what could still be called 'the national ques

tion9?it has been rather successful. Lit.

crit. has suddenly found an edge, and lit.

critics may be tempted to feel more signi ficant than they used to.

Intelligently, the enterprise began by emphasising the importance of defining terms. Pamphlet number one was a plea by

Tom Paulin for dictionaries of 'Irish

English', so that we might write and talk about ourselves in thoroughly non-col

onial language(s). Pamphlet number two was a poem by Seamus Heaney which

sought to explain an Irish perception of the word 'British' to two English poetry editors.

How depressing then that Field Day pamphleteers, like everyone else, find it so

easy to lapse into facile name-calling. I got into terrible trouble when, reviewing

Paulin's pamphlet, I referred to 'Protest

ant' where he had put 'loyalist', and sug

gested that there was less difference be tween 'republican' and 'nationalist' than

he might like to think. As a result (I assume) of those howlers, Paulin felt jus tified in writing of me as 'sectarian'.

Another example appeared in Fortnight

227, when Declan Kiberd reviewed Across a Roaring Hill: The Protestant Imagination

in Ireland, a collection of essays edited by Gerald Dawe and Edna Longley. Dawe

and Longley, of course, are better able to

defend themselves and their book, and

have not been stung to reply, but I mean to

discuss Kiberd's attack as a symptom of

the name-calling disease.

I believe that sectarianism within

Ireland is the major obstacle to political and social progress. We can argue why it

occurs, and I would not disagree that it is

largely due to the economic effect of Great Britain's involvement and, originally, the

Plantation. It might seem to follow that British withdrawal would therefore re

move both cause and effect of sectarian

ism. But I find this insanely optimistic. I

simply do not believe that all the bigots I have known will suddenly, or even gradu

ally, embrace their compatriots and

assume the common name of Irishmen

(that phrase has an antique air about it) when the last British soldier leaves. It's

strange that those who call for British withdrawal have such faith in the good sense, humanity and adaptability of

Unionists?a faith I have never shared.

How are we to overcome sectarianism?

When I was an idealistic teenager I

imagined one could ignore labels entirely: I resolutely refused to guess who was Pro

testant, Catholic, Jewish or whatever, with the occasionally comic result that I

missed the subtext of what was going on.

Now, in my cynical thirties, this seems

naive. I am not, nor have I been for over

twenty years, your honour, a Protestant in

religious or political terms. In my own

head I define myself (if I define myself at

all) by what I think and do, by what has

happened to me. But to everyone else?to

those, let's hope, who are not friends?I

am a Protestant, the other sort of Irish

person.

To call an Irish person a Protestant

would have little meaning if there were no Catholics around, and vice versa. Perhaps the extremity of religious devotion here

owes something to this symbiosis. I've

never been able to understand fully why these distinctions are so important, but

they are, and since that is the way this

society operates, it would be pointless to

object too much to being labelled. For the label does refer to real differences, how

ever objectionable the reasons for those

differences, and however insubstantial

those differences might be. Labels must be dealt with, they cannot be ignored.

Therefore I object to the taboo which is

placed on the word 'Protestant' by certain

anti-Unionist (and some pro-Unionist) critics. I once attempted to arrange a series

of essays on the theme of Protestant cul

ture in Northern Ireland, feeling that it was a topic largely overlooked in literature

and literary criticism. (Am I alone in being tired of the Big House novel?) Nobody

was interested. One distinguished his torian told me there was no such thing as

Protestant culture in Northern Ireland. I

abandoned the idea with the distinct im

pression that I had said a dirty word, that

my sensibilities were hopelessly coarse if I even contemplated giving serious thought to such a 'sectarian' project.

Declan Kiberd attacks Dawe and

Longley in much the same spirit. He seems

worried by the fact that the essays are not

about religion?as if that were what

people meant when using the term 'Pro

testant'. He objects to the concentration

on Northern Ireland Protestants?as if,

presumably, he still thinks the Anglo-Irish a significant social group, or the propor tion of Protestants in the Republic com

parable to that in the North. He accuses

the editors of the unpardonable sin of

having an Alliance Party caste of mind (an accusation which is, I suspect, groundless, but suggests that he prefers the supporters of the DUP or Sinn Fein). And he comes

up with this: "Why use the word 'Pro

testant' in the subtitle at all? Is it finally less embarrassing than 'Unionist'?"?as if

a non-religious (i.e. 'political') considera

tion of Protestantism were per se Unionist

and per se sectarian.

So it seems to need saying that it is pos sible to talk about Protestants without eu

phemising 'Unionists'. Indeed, it is essen

tial to talk about Protestants in Northern

Ireland, some of whom are, and some of

whom are not, Unionists, and some of

whom are in-between. It is yet another of

those pleasant fictions to which our cul

tural and political life is prone that pre tends you can miss out parentheses in the

equation. Are we ever going to think seriously

about a better sort of Ireland? (I don't count the likes of Charlie Haughey as

thinking seriously about Ireland's future.) I don't really care whether Ireland is

united or not. That seems beside the

point. If we are ever going to build a better

society throughout the island, we simply

continued overleaf

Fortnight 2nd December 1985 19

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o A ~~~~~~~~~~~S A

A~ ~~~~~ i i i S

Reply to Kiberd continued from page 19

can't avoid considering the million-odd

people who see themselves as different from everyone else. And it may be worth

recalling that all those who remember an

Ireland before partition are drawing pen

sions now.

The fastidiousness of objecting to dis cussion of Protestants rather than Union

ists relieves one of the necessity of looking at the complexities within that group and the challenges they pose to the rest of the island. This smothering gentility feels like an aspect of the attitude that the Republic can seek unification without any need to

change itself. I would define the bigotry of the people

I grew up with as irrational prejudice and wilful deafness towards another group of

people. It seems to me that there is wilful deafness from anti-Unionist, anti-British

writers towards genuine attempts in the

North to open up debate, to encourage

self-questioning among Protestants, to try to work out who we are, and whether what

we are, as a whole, might be made more

humane than under the unionist Stor

mont. These are not reactionary, sectarian

things to try to do (as Enoch Powell inad

vertently demonstrated in his attack on Across a Roaring Hill in The Times, on the

grounds that such self-questioning en

dangered the Union). It is absurd and futile for Declan Kiberd, Tom Paulin, et al to direct their fury at those enlightened ones among us who are not of the Enoch

Powell persuasion, especially when there

are so many who are.

It's not so long ago that Northern

Ireland had an intellectual blackout in the current South African style. I don't want

to return to those days, and it's safe to say

that neither do Dawe and Longley. But

calling names across the columns of mag

azines is no way to conduct an intellectual

debate. I'm almost tempted to say it's a

ploy to avoid taking serious account of

those who raise topics that don't fit neatly into the 'Brits Out' ideology. But it would

be unforgiveable to impute motives where

none exist. After all, those who are not

with us are not necessarily against us.

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20 Fortnight 2nd December 1985

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