Imagine….
Imagine that the CPI – it is possible – becomes an effective, organised political entity. Imagine a new leadership emerging that upholds basic principles of Marxism but also basic principles of human respect, dignity and engagement. Imagine that it starts to be what it should be, an attractive political alternative for people opposed to capitalism and a cause of worry to the establishment.
Now imagine how the establishment – led by the media – will respond to such a threat.
Will the establishment engage in a reasoned debate on the merits or otherwise of socialist democracy, socialist justice or socialist principles of fairness and a dignified life for all?
Or, would the establishment go straight for any skeletons in the closet of its adversary? Of course, if the CPI has no skeletons in its closet, then all is well. However, the CPI has many, many skeletons and its entire future is dependent on how it treats those skeletons – will it give them a decent burial or will those skeletons remain in limbo until they become a powerful tool to be used against the Party?
The CPI has only one option but how it chooses to deal with that option will determine the eventual outcome of its political development. We know how it works: for as long as the CPI is no real threat, then the skeletons are of no real consequence – that is where the CPI is today.
When the Party does, as we hope it will, become a force to be reckoned with, then the dynamics will change dramatically and the consequences will be entirely outside the control of the Party.
Former General Secretary, Eugene McCartan, writing in the November issue of Socialist Voice stated: “Most recently they were badly mauled because of internal disciplinary problems.” He was referring to the plight of Sinn Féin and not the sad story of the CPI itself.
Comrade McCartan is able to see the speck in Sinn Féin’s eye but not the log he put in his own eye and in the eye of his Party. It is little wonder that the CPI is a little short on foresight! Still, the log in their eyes is the least of their problems – for now. Wait until the media and other political opponents spot the obvious and it will be an unsurmountable obstacle to overcome.
Sinn Féin is not being mauled so much on the issues themselves as on the handling of the issues and by the forensic examination of the conduct of the leadership by the media and other political opponents. The mauling intensified during and after the leaders’ ‘debate’ on RTE. The only reason why the CPI has not been subjected to such forensic attention is because it poses no threat. However, if – and hopefully – when the CPI does become a threat the skeletons in its closet had better be cast into history or it will suffer an even more serious mauling than Sinn Féin is being subjected to.
When will the CPI realise that past indefensible actions, unless corrected and repudiated, remain current indefensible actions?
McCartan was to the forefront in creating the monsters that now haunt the Party. After all those years in leadership positions, that is his legacy. Of course, a different legacy is still possible: he could take personal responsibility for the legacy he has burdened the Party with and embark on a road of rectification. That would require positive character and leadership traits to emerge that were not entirely absent during his long years in the leadership of the Party.
After all, he has nothing to lose but his chains.