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I’ve
been mulling over Mick Hall’s observation, from
his 30.11.03 article ‘Doing
Well for Themselves Alone’ about Sinn Féin’s
recent tendency to back formally educated representatives.
Hall notes: Sinn Fein's younger activists and those
chosen to be electoral candidates increasingly come
from lower-middle or middle class backgrounds like
the SDLP. Having had University educations like their
counterparts in the SDLP, when at one time it was
a proud boast of SF that there was not a degree amongst
its leadership. Apart from, that is, revolutionary
studies, awarded by the University of Long Kesh.
From
a working-class family myself, I’ve always suspected
those who romanticize the proletariat or those who
criticise those with degrees. And vice-versa. I received
government grants for ‘low-income’ students.
I achieved the first (and only) degrees in my family.
My teaching in the inner-city and now at an urban
institution full of first-generation degree earners
has been to serve that same demographic. I sympathise
with Hall’s thesis, pointing out the danger in
SF’s members following the path of SDLP. Mark
Ryan in his book nearly a decade ago, War and Peace
in Ireland, prophesied that the Shinners would
wind up as the ‘radical wing of the SDLP’.
And, Ryan, Hall, and I would agree, the ‘radical’
qualifier itself might be the only part of the prediction
that has (or will) not come to pass.
Radicalism
does diminish with education for many students, as
they distance themselves from the dirty work and pursue
high-tech. This may be inevitable, lament it though
we do. If you’re from a poorer family, the money’s
not to be made as an activist, or for that matter
an instructor—as my own family lamented when
I chose a doctorate rather than a law degree. I’m
unsure, however, if the alternative that Hall and
many Blanket readers might wish—that today’s
students will necessarily find themselves in solidarity
with the trade unions and their own families’
beginnings—can be a given anymore than before.
The cruelty of the job market makes their investment
in education--and the crippling burden of loans most
of my students carry along with jobs and often families
to support—a commitment that demands a quick
payoff.
Having
wearily graded last weekend nearly ninety essays by
students at my university (a version of what pre-Thatcher
would have been called a polytechnic), I’m reflecting
on their stories. They wrote an account of their family’s
background relating to technological advancement—how
they and their predecessors had or had not benefited
from globalisation, mechanisation, immigration to
the city; how their cultural attitudes towards such
technological change may or may not have contributed
to their own choice to pursue a technical or business-based
higher degree. I read more than one narrative of escaping
from the Khmer Rouge, the Viet Cong, or Marcos’
thugs. Nearly all of the essayists had come from farms—or
at least their parents had. Out of the ninety, perhaps
two were from landowning families—and these owners
were killed by communists.
Now,
only decades later, these sons and daughters of fishermen
and washerwomen were all finishing university degrees.
True, I know that only one of them desires a political
career. But, the expectation from the ‘60’s—when
students like Bernadette Devlin could for the first
time earn a degree—seems to have dimmed. No talk
of community service when debts must be paid and incomes
generated immediately. These are not students ennobled
by the legacy of the liberal arts. They have no ivy-covered
halls to stroll chatting Marx or Marcuse with the
dons. (I’m the token, full-time but never to
be tenured, humanities professor in their numbers-driven,
machine-whirring curriculum.) Out of the ninety students,
nearly all will leave their parents’ lifestyles
behind. I doubt if any of them would want to go back
to where they were raised. The careers they choose
will draw them elsewhere. That’s part of the
whole appeal of their upward mobility, and ironically
enough, the hope that their families push them to
achieve, often as the first graduates in their household.
I
verified, just this week, that my great-uncle represented
smallholders in the late ‘40s and early 50’s
in the brief heyday of Clann na Talmhan, a
tiny party that lasted from 1938-65 which represented
farmers in Galway, Mayo, and his own Roscommon. (I
know of its rather simple prejudices and its battles
with self-proclaimed nationalists and republican veterans
who took their titles more seriously than their responsibilities
to an economically beleaguered constituency, but that’s
another article.) Jack Finan never had a degree when
he entered into the Dáil, the Seanad,
or the county council. I estimate few in the Dublin
government half a century ago had graduated from universities.
He and his party colleagues represented people like
themselves from nondescript Connacht villages and
market towns. Then, as with SF now, grassroots energy
boosted their prominence.
In
1943, the CnT gained 10.3 of the popular vote; thirteen
seats were filled at Leinster House. But infighting
and the difficulty of sustaining a nation-wide expansion
of the party meant that subsequent popular vote gains
resulted in fewer seats. Although 1948 found the CnT
entering the interparty government, its power kept
declining. Its working-class members were outmanouevered
by savvier FF, Labour, and FG rivals. By 1954’s
coalition, the CnT was fading, and its remnants drifted
into FG by the mid-60’s. (Luckily, Jack wasn’t
around to see this!) Perhaps Jack and his colleagues
might have gained more for their floundering but well-intentioned
populist movement if they had more negotiating skill
and a broader base of knowledge with which to battle
the careerists against whom they tried to push their
rural-based agenda only to be submerged into first
a coalition and then political irrelevance?
Isn’t
the claim of class-based activists that the promotion
of higher education is crucial to progress and the
achievement of a truly equitable system for all? Republicanism
aspires to class solidarity and educational advancement—informally
in the Kesh when necessary, formally in a more peaceful
time—bunscoileanna or QUB (a name change
I trust is in the works?) Certainly Anthony McIntyre’s
study of ideology or Pat Magee’s thesis on ‘troubles
fiction’ serve as valuable reminders that graduates
of the University of Revolution can transfer their
credits to more traditional establishments and continue
to serve both academia and the republican community
by their educational pursuits. I’m not saying
that any party should neglect its roots, especially
when republicans claim allegiance to the streets.
But I remind you that university graduates Pearse
and McDonagh fought and died along their working-
and middle-class comrades. SF, or any other entity
claiming republican representation, should be ‘cherishing
all the children of the nation equally,’ to quote
the Proclamation. We all have our part to play, and
those with or without degrees can bring their smarts
to the same struggle. Leaving out any cadre, we republicans
risk sharing the fate of the earnest but unskilled
labourers-turned-politicians from Clann na Talmhan.
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