You can lead an Irishman but you can’t drive him
On October 19th Irish citizens will be forced to vote a second time on
the Nice Treaty. Without reason. This is a slap in the face of democracy
and an act of disrespect towards the people’s will. It is degrading. In a
democracy, the people are the sovereign. Many Irish are angry—and rightly
so. This vote is about more than just the Nice Treaties. It is about undermining
their—and our—democratic rights even further.
The EU Reveals its Despotic Face Once More
Let us remember: Last year the Irish people were the only ones allowed
to vote on accepting or rejecting the Nice Treaty. European Union commissioners
exerted enormous pressure on the outcome. The Irish were informed of the
date just three weeks before they were to vote. There was a deliberate attempt
to keep the citizens in the dark on the treaty’s real content. Instead there
was a campaign to manipulate the vote by playing on people’s emotions: Would
the Irish want to prevent the poor Polish people from receiving the same
benefits the Irish have been enjoying since it became a member of the EU
years ago? This was difficult for Irish citizens to swallow. What they were
not being told was that Polish opposition to being subjected to a totalitarian
system once again was growing, too. Small-scale farmers were opposing membership
in particular.
Thanks to the efforts of one single person years ago, a law was pushed
through making it a constitutional right for Irish citizens to vote directly
on issues dealing with the delegation of sovereign rights. None of the citizens
in any of the other European countries were asked to vote. Instead, the treaties
were quickly ratified in the other member states without informing their
citizens of the treaty’s true contents and consequences, let alone allowing
them to discuss them—utterly degrading.
Many citizens from other European countries were pleased to read the result
of the vote in this paper a year ago and expressed their appreciation towards
Irish citizens for not becoming ensnared by the whole EU propaganda, for
clearly rejecting a despotic system and thus for exhibiting civic sense.
And now? The Nice Treaty has not changed much since then. The campaign
around this second referendum is being fought with no holds barred. False
information is being spread, smear campaigns are being launched: The chairman
of the ‘No to Nice’ movement, an Irish NGO, is being discredited as a fascist.
In another instance the lie is being spread that the Hungarian foreign minister
has pleaded with the Irish to allow the poor Hungarians to join the EU. Even
Ireland’s bishops’ yes-slogan is being instrumentalized to weaken the
Irish citizens’ resolve.
Even if the referendum is being played down again, Europe is looking toward
Ireland: The Irish are very independent-minded and are not easily fooled.
In history they have had to fight hard and pay a great price for their independence.
Or as an Irish friend once explained, ‘The Irish are very clever voters.
They have so far been able to extract the bait from the prongs of the mouse
trap without getting caught.’
Dr Eva-Maria Föllmer
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