The Year of the Germans — last days of the Irish Apartheid

WHAT a quirky, inconsistent nation we are. We regard the French who landed in my native Mayo in 1798 as heroes â€â€ liberators. They arrived to bring us Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, and Madame la Guillotine, no doubt. The Year of the French and all that â€â€ they came in a spirit of altruism to rid us of the oppressive administration we laboured under, which was mercilessly milking most of Ireland's people. But now, when their neighbours, the Germans, are preparing to land and liberate us from another oppressive and parasitic administration, busy sucking us dry to keep itself insulated from economic reality â€â€ we're told they'll be worse than Cromwell â€â€ but worse for whom?[private] What's the problem with the Germans liberating us? Since we welcomed the French and the Spanish before them, we can hardly start discriminating at this stage. And it would be liberation because, from where I'm standing, we live under an Apartheid regime, structured along the lines of the old South Africa, a little more benign, admittedly, with the Whites being those sucking greedily from the public teat, while the Blacks are the workers in the private sector, the SMEs and farmers â€â€ the producers of the country's wealth caught up in the tax net. Because when it comes to tax, it's important to differentiate between net beneficiaries and net contributors. Everybody can claim to pay tax, not everybody gets the same return. OK, it's not quite as black and white as all that. The private sector includes a fair number of wasters and chancers, while the public sector is comprised of a majority who conscientiously perform roles essential to society. These are the coloureds of the system â€â€ feet in both camps. But under Irish Apartheid, we have an elite squatting at the top, producing little, but hogging for themselves the lion's share of the rewards collected from the producers. We have our bloated political class â€â€ a part-time and now effectively redundant Dáil padded out with a few over-paid village idiots, who are joined by 60 of the most useless wastes of space in the country, indolently and vacuously filling the Seanad on an even more part-time basis than the TDs. Propping up this facade are the mandarins of the Civil Service whose most notable achievement lies in propagating the myth that they are selfless and incorruptible patriots, while at the same time rewarding themselves to a degree that leaves their Troika counterparts gobsmacked. Your country may be bankrupt â€â€ theirs is doing just fine. Then there's the quango 'kings and queens', milking the State on one or more of these sinecures created by the system to ensure insiders are afforded access to the public teat without having to dirty their hands on real work. Joining them in the greedy scramble for the State's coffers are the members of our anachronistic legal profession who, when not milking tribunal and court gravy trains, are happily taking advantage of laws they themselves dreamed up to funnel hapless citizens into their greedy maws â€â€ conveyance being a fine example of the above. And the medical profession isn't behind the door either in this regard. Overpaid consultants milk the State liberally, aided and abetted by successive supine Governments ensuring the door to the treasury is kept ajar, leaving them comfortably feather-bedded and free to make a private killing. The HSE is a golden goose for some practitioners of medical self-interest. The interests of patients and the health of the nation are the fig leaves the operation hides behind. And the scams go on. Special advisors and government consultants, grossly overpaid academics, inflated public contracts, the princelings in local authorities and expenses-fiddling councillors â€â€ the list is endless â€â€ enough to make a Greek spin doctor blush. But who pays? Who keeps this corrupt and tottering sham on the road? The Blacks of Irish Apartheid, that's who. Will we revolt? Well, that's the question. An instinct for self-preservation means all regimes try to keep some of the people happy some of the time so those in charge can remain happy all of the time. It's rule number one in power maintenance and it can ensure the longevity of corrupt regimes long past their sell-by-date. Look at Syria. 'It's only in fantasies that the poor, downtrodden peasants rise up and oust the oppressive ogre from his castle' It's only in fantasies that the poor, downtrodden peasants rise up and oust the oppressive ogre from his castle. If it were just a matter of one head we could gladly sacrifice Enda's â€â€ his shoulders wouldn't miss it. But no ogre ever ruled solo. He (sorry, girls, but ogres, like the hierarchy, are always men) needs wicked sheriffs and bailiffs, cruel judges and tax collectors, torturers and jailers too. He needs soldiers to do his dirty work and they need informers and collaborators to get the job done. Then there are the peasants who, although oppressed, feel things will get better if they keep their heads down. They don't want to risk what little they have by joining the revolution. Chances are the next crowd would be as bad anyway. Some peasants just don't give a damn â€â€ if 'I'm all right, Jack', let the others suffer. Fantasy aside, it takes a lot more than a damsel in distress waving from the ogre's tower to get a mandate for regime overthrow. Just look at the Greek election. Which explains why when the French arrived in Killala in 1798, not everyone was happy to see them. Those running the regime were terrified â€â€ landlords, the established church, the business community. They didn't want change. There was nothing in it for them. Then there were the farmers and the middle classes who had accommodated themselves to the set-up. The army and justice system knew which side their bread was buttered and when their families, those who were neutral and those who couldn't have cared less were factored in â€â€ the numbers began to stack up. The French were joined by excited peasants with little to lose, and a few idealistic dreamers. When the tide turned against the revolutionaries at Ballinamuck, the French, gentlemen to the last, made an honourable surrender, which unfortunately didn't include their Irish comrades, and stood aside while the pikemen were massacred. So today, when we hear the Year of the Germans is upon us, who has the most to lose? What if any difference is it going to make to us Blacks of the Celtic Apartheid regime if the Germans call the shots? Very little, is my guess â€â€ I'm certainly not worried. The people who need to worry, just like those who worried about the arrival of the French over 200 years ago, are those doing just fine under the current set-up. Yes, for them the game is almost up â€â€ the beast has been bled dry. Croke Park is the Government's last desperate attempt to keep the troops in line. The farcical benchmarking scam bought time and votes for the corrupt Fianna Fáil regime, and Croke Park is just a way of saying 'nice doggy' until this Government can find a big enough rock to clobber it with. For short-term gain, the collaborationist trade union movement abandoned the Blacks in the private sector in order to sup at the top table with the White elites. Now, too late, they know they picked the wrong horse. When Croke Park inevitably goes kaput, and the Germans draw a line at doling out salaries, gilt-edged pensions and golden handshakes far in excess of anything they themselves receive, our lot will eat their union leaders without salt. And the comrades can forget about coming back crying to Apartheid-land â€â€ private sector workers will nurse long memories of how they were abandoned and betrayed. Only our cosseted elites need fear a federal Europe, fiscal integration and budgetary discipline. Most of us have nothing to lose but economic serfdom of the home-grown kind. There will always be spongers, opportunists and mountebanks who milk the system. But maybe â€â€ if we're lucky â€â€ over the coming decade we'll see a quiet revolution, which will end our Apartheid system. And if, a century after Davitt and Connolly, our discredited, dysfunctional and inequitable form of government looks like it's tumbling and about to be replaced? Wilkommen seems the appropriate response. â€Â¢ â€Â¢ â€Â¢ Quote of the Week 'Solutions are not the answer.' â€â€ Former US Vice-President Dan Quayle [/private]