Someone else's wedding

Two weeks ago I returned home to Ireland for the wedding of my cousin Stephen. I’m inclined to turn down more wedding invitations than accept, but this was family. And as with Irish family weddings it was large, loud, late and full of, well, family.  The O’Donovan family tree numbers 19 branches at grandchildren level and all but one were in town to welcome Stephen’s bride to our midst. But the gathering, like all the best in life, was a fleeting affair. As  hangovers receded the morning after, we checked out of the hotel and went our  ways,  journeying back to Canada, Spain, Scotland, London, Brighton and beyond. Sometime later this year 11 of 19 will be living abroad. Some won’t ever return to live. Some simply can’t. This is Ireland, 2012.

Two weeks from now Ireland votes on the  European Fiscal Compact. And what  started as a referendum pitched locally as a debate about whether Ireland should repay  boom time lending arrears to German banks, now carries with it political ramifications that stretch across the continent and will last a generation. The Fiscal Compact is not simply about unserviced debts on loans that should never have been made. It’s about our approach to society, jobs and decent living standards for all, and ultimately the relationship we have with our governement, both local and European.

But what’s most striking in this moment, is the incredible opportunity in front of  all of us  right now. If the eurozone is serious about growth, it can have it. That was the headline of my SPRU collegue Mariana Mazzucato’s comment piece in today’s Guardian. Growth, and thus increased prosperity for all of Europe, comes not from “structural reforms”, or cuts, but from investment:

“Companies invest to make profits and grow. Evidence shows those which invest more in new technology, human capital and research and development, and are located in countries where public spending in these areas is high, are able to produce more competitive and better value products.

“Italy has not grown for the last 10 years, mainly because its public and private sector did not make key investments in factors that increase productivity. Its debt-to-GDP ratio rose because its growth rate was so much lower than the interest it paid on its debt. And Greece grew in the 90s not because it was making smart investments but because badly directed European structural funds allowed it to get away with not making them. Once those funds expired, so did the false growth.

All the cuts in the world aren’t going to bring Italy or Greece back to growth they never really had. And if Greece presses the nuclear button and exits the Eurozone entirely, as Martin Wolf puts it in today’s FT, ”the belief that countries can starve themselves back to health, in the absence of economic expansion and probably higher inflation in the core, would have to be abandoned.”

A week ago I was put in touch with a small group of people in Ireland who had had enough of this austerity dogma. Having seen the tide starting to turn following the elections in Greece and France, Ireland is in danger of committing to a treaty which was the wrong medicine for the wrong patient. As Europe starts to turn, slowly, to growth, Ireland is in danger of locking the out of date policies of radical austerity into its constitution.

And yet, other than the extreme left and even extremer right, the political establishment in Ireland follows meekly this single austerity line. The media despite some exceptions is not far behind. Yet more than one third of voter haven’t committed to either side yet. Over 40% of Labour’s supporters are planning to break their party’s line. Clearly, despite coherent leadership, the Irish people are sensing that the time for austerity is gone.

So over the past week, I’ve done what I can to help get this growth message out, building a website at forabettereurope.org (with some very talented friends) and on it  a voter declaration, where people all over Ireland can give each other the encouragement to stand up against a prevailing orthodoxy and make a responsible decision on May 31st.  Our message is simple, let’s not miss this opportunity. A ‘no’ vote puts Ireland at the centre of the movement for a better Europe.

So if you’re of voting age and Irish, I urge you to sign, and pass the message on the friends and family. If you haven’t been graced with such good fortune as to have a harp on your passport, leave a message of support on the site and on our Facebook page. For the next two weeks the people of Ireland have the opportunity to play the lead in the call for new growth policies in Europe. Together, let’s make sure we get as many as possible out of the wings and onto the stage. And here’s hoping that next time the O’Donovan cousins meet up for a wedding, we don’t all have to travel quite so far.

On May 31st every voter in Ireland has an opportunity few Europeans have been given. Ireland goes to the polls and gets to say yes or no to a referendum on accepting the Fiscal Treaty. In other words, Irish people get to decide whether the Austerity ideology that stretches from Osborne to Merkel to the IMF continues, or whether a line in the sand gets drawn by individual European citizens.

Most progressive Irish people are against this treaty and the austerity trap it would create. After four years of job losses, emigration and negative equitiy there’s a sense of dependence on Europe. No one likes it, but it’s hard to feel responsible opposing it.

BUT, unlike their governments, the people of France and Germany have shown the way. The recent elections there are a game-changer. It’s clear that there’s deep seated opposition to Austerity throughout Europe. That it’s time to put a Growth alternative back on the agenda.
An Irish rejection of the treaty could be an essential boost to this cause and its European allies.

Unfortunately in Ireland right now there’s a huge leadership vacuum. Mainstream progressives have reservations about aligning with Sinn Féin or the United Left Alliance. But if they saw a sensible, independent place to come together to show and build opposition to the treaty, they would jump at the chance.

A new surge of mainstream, independent, domestic opposition is essential to shift the government’s calculation. And if the vote goes ahead as scheduled, a new grassroots surge is the only hope of building enough opposition to defeat it.

Over the next few weeks I will be giving what time I have to try to bring some of these people together, to create the tools and resources needed to get the message out and help hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland give each other the confidence to vote No to the Austerity treaty and help create a Growth agenda which will benefit Europeans everywhere. Can you help? We need a simple website built, some design work, the word spread on social networks and plenty of encouragement. If you have any time over the next few weeks, please, get in touch cian -at- keepfaking.it. And those not lucky enough to be born of Ireland are all the more welcome!

Pic (cc) Alyssa A Miller

Saul Alinsky’s list of ideal attributes of the organiser/activist

• Curiosity
• Irreverence
• Imagination
• A sense of humour

Earlier this month I started working with 38 Degrees, the member driven campaign organisation. Friday was my first day in the field. I travelled to Sheffield to meet some of our members themselves on their way to meet their MP, Nick Clegg. I was blown away. Whatever preconception I brought into job about who a typical 38 Degrees activist was firmly put in its place. I met 30 very different people with bound by a single goal, saving our NHS.  Hopefully I can bring something to the table, the people I met last week certainly did.

Photo (cc) chotda

A book per week for a year. Yeah maybe I’ll give that a go some time, when I have some time maybe. I had a whole bundle of excuses at the start of 2010, most of them still valid, but none of them any longer convincing. So four months into the year I’m still just about on track. Here’s the listing.

1. News from Nowehere, William Morris (1890). What if instead of turning right during the first half of the 20th century, the UK turned left. Rid itself of the monarchy and all forms of government and ascended into a communitarian utopia. Morris puts down the scissors and safety glue and answers just that question.
2. The Third Policeman, Flann O’Brien (1940). Alice in Wonderland with whiskey, porter and bicycles. Genius.
3. The European Union as a Leader in International Climate Change Politics, R. K. W. Wurzel and James Connelly (2011). Okay, back to reality with a bang. If the EU can be described as reality. This is a book I have wanted for the past year, the ultimate primer on what the governance institutions of the EU are doing about climate change, along with chapters on major nation state players such as Germany, the UK and France.
4. Mao II, Don De Lillo (1991). If you’ve read nothing by De Lillo read Underworld. If you’ve read Underworld go get Mao II. Typically “Great American” in its vantage point, De Lillo takes two of that continent’s most enigmatic artists, J.D. Salinger and Andy Warhol, and uses them as inspiration for a contemplation on individualisation and the crowd at the end of the 20th century.
5. The Story of a Hedgeschool Master. Eugene Watters (1971). Educating catholic children was illegal in 17th century Ireland. This didn’t stop the emergence an estimated 8,000 hedgeschools, which are exactly what they sound like. This is the story of such a school and its European trained teacher.
6. How to Win Campaigns, 2nd ed, Chris Rose (2010). Chris did a lot of work with us at 10:10. You can take or leave his approach to value based campaigning, but there’s lots here of value to campaigners or indeed anyone working with public opinion.
7. Chasing the Flame, Sergio Vieira de Mello, Samantha Power (2008). Speaking of change, Sergio was a guy who made a difference in a big way. Total hero who one suspects was not your typical UN aid worker.
8. Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air. David McKay (2009). Solid numbers on where the UK’s energy demand is and where that demand could be met if we were to go all renewable.
9. State of Fear, Michael Crichton (2004). A slightly less believable thriller than Jurassic Park.
10. White Shroud. Poems 1980 – 1985. Allen Ginsberg (1986).
11. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man (1913) James Joyce. “If only we knew”, the refrain repeated across Ireland as Catholic abuses were uncovered throughout the Eighties and Nineties. Seems like Joyce was well aware of the huge amount of power
12. Poke the Box. Seth Godin (2011). Godin sold this e-book for $1 if you bought before the release date. Great model, great value and one important lesson; your idea is nothing until it ships.
13. The Net Delusion. How not to Liberate the World. Evgeny Morozov (2010). Morozov urges his readers away from a reductionist viewpoint that would give Twitter and Facebook credit for Arab revolutions this Spring. But in doing so he’s guilty of employing plenty of technocratic reductionist arguments himself. Which is a shame, because this is one of those books that could truly be labeled “important”.
14. Communication Power. Castells (2009). A great follow-up to Morozov and one which illustrates just how important a role our communications systems play in shaping and aggregating power in society. To change society we need to understand it, this book’s going to help.
15. Memoirs of a Minor Public Figure. Des Wilson (2011). Three reasons to read: 1) Wilson was one of the originators of the single issue campaign in the mid-sixties. 2) Wilson created and saw success on a huge number of campaigns over four decades. 3) Oh, and he was also a key protagonist in the SDP, Liberal Party merger. He doesn’t often admit fault but provides interesting background nevertheless.
16. The Golden Notebook. Doris Lessing (1962) currently reading…

I’ll update this as I go through the year. And I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on the books themselves. So if you have an opinion, or a suggested book, let me know.

Photo (c) TwestivalTunis on Flickr

When were you last inspired by something? I mean real inspiration, not just the hazy feeling of empathy towards some distant cause or impressive endevour. The way soundtracks are “inspired by” movies and shampoo scents “inspired by” forest fragrances .

I’m writing about  the type of inspiration that makes the hairs stand up on the back of our neck. No really, I mean actually stand up. That makes us not just sit up and think, but  that changes the outcome of those yes/no decisions that slowly add up to our lifetimes.

Doesn’t happen very often does it? So we should pay attention when it comes our way. Because inspiration that is not followed by action doesn’t inspire anyone, and perhaps real inspiration is the ultimate viral message.

So when was the last time you were inspired by something, really inspired? Got it in the front of your mind, good, now, go do something amazing about it.

Looks like the first battle in the war to control the unfolding nuclear narrative has been won by the incumbents, the nuclear lobby. If CJR is to be believed they’ve set the table from which the media is now working, in the US at least.

The term “nuclear renaissance” has been used to characterize the current state of the industry in a number of stories this week concerning U.S. policy in the wake of Japan despite this lack of construction. The suggestion of a renaissance, though, stems from the idea that loan guarantees for nuclear in the Clean Energy Act, combined with a new preference for “greener” nuclear options over greenhouse-damaging coal energy, have put a number of new nuclear reactor projects in the pipeline. Thus, the “renaissance” of this sixties/seventies favorite technology. The press is now asking if events in Japan might have changed the course of that rebirth. But they’re not necessarily questioning the nature of the rebirth itself.

What does this mean?

via Japan’s Quake and Political Fallout : CJR.

Clay Shirky on the Middle East. He admits over-egging the social media influence omelette but more credit to him for it. Then he gets into it. Here’s the pay-off:

“Governments have systematically overestimated access to information,” Shirky said.

“They’ve also systematically underestimated access to each other. Access to conversations among amateurs is more politically inspiring than access to information. Governments are afraid of synhronised groups, not synchronised individuals.

via SXSW 2011: Clay Shirky on social media and revolution | Technology | guardian.co.uk.

Photo (cc) Laura Appleyard.

From  today’s Guardian. Some things don’t change.

“My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis.”

For Joyce, “paralysis” represents a moral failure resulting in the inability to live meaningfully. It appears on the first page of the first story, “Two Sisters”, in a sentence that offers a key to the whole book:

“Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word Simony in the Catechism.”

From A brief survey of the short story part 32: James Joyce | Books | guardian.co.uk.

Coke or Pepsi? Both will rot your teeth, the real choice of course is to choose another game, a point subtlety missed by the Irish electorate this week. Yes the Fianna Fáil incumbency has been well and truly kicked to the curb, but replaced by a solidly right of centre led coalition. The Pepsi challenge moment for the Irish electorate was presented thus; rightwing, homophobic neo-liberalists (Fine Gael) versus the post-Marxist political wing of an alleged terrorist cum-smuggling operation (Sinn Féin). Go on, you choose.  Yes there is an Irish Labour party and they did make gains. Yes there are plenty of independents from all sides. But Ireland has gone with the high fructose corn syrup option when she should have walked right out of the store. In changing one civil war party for another the country is left with a dominant political coalition that now very much resembles the one embodied by Cameron and Clegg on the Downing Street lawn almost a year ago. We may not like to admit it but there is a right wing to Irish politics and it is now in power.

So what next? Sticking out a tongue and taking the Fine Gael / IMF dispensed medicine is the easy option. Not a particularly rosy one, but it is the safe bet. Above all else the Irish are a nation of safe people. But some time over the next 18 months, it’s going to dawn on the population, particularly those on the margins already, that this government can not and is not going to be all things to all voters.  Option two, tougher, involving as it does a little more graft, guile and imagination, three qualities very absent from this election. On the ground Irish society is going to have to stop bemoaning a corrupt government (they’re gone) and start holding the current government to account. This Fine Gael government cannot be allowed make worse Fianna Fáil’s mistakes through either a) ideology or b) stupidity. With a government likely to form by the end of next week and a busy EU schedule over the next month, Ireland better be ready to move fast.

Protest movements don’t come naturally to the Irish, but two recent examples from the UK are worth noting and would seem to be shrink wrapped and ready for an Irish voice-over. UK Uncut’s ingenious creativity and the incredible speed and inclusivity of the Save our Forests campaign. UK Uncut’s triumph is its creative engagement of people who don’t normally do protest. And in Vodafone and the banks, they have picked targets beyond sympathy. SoF exemplified the power of the network, and how massively important it is to put together a coalition of common interest, even if membership is open to those with usually opposed views. And the story was bulletproof, there is nothing more noble than fighting for English heritage.

What are the Irish equivalents? What are the narratives that will spark conversations on Facebook, Twitter and Boards.ie and maybe ignite some action offline. As the bubble moment of ending 80 years of Fianna Fáil dominance implodes and Irish voters are reminded that they’re in negative equity and it’s still raining outside, it’s time for those who have not been listened to in the last month, and will be utterly sidelined by their new government to start a new dialogue. I’d love to hear some ideas how this can be done.