In Upcoming Documentary, RTE Will Focus on Yet Another Victim of U.S. Bombing

On the face of it, it is about a humanitarian cause. bombs and mines left over from the Viet Nam war have left an appalling trail of suffering in Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia. The United States deserves some criticism for this and the world must do what it can to help victims and clean up the mess.

But, once again, RTE documentary programming will be focusing on victims of American foreign policy. The succession of such programs in recent years evokes sympathy for Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, leftist guerrillas in L:atin America, and now the neocommunist dictatorship in Laos.

Reporting Tiananmen: The Rest of the Story

Old Progressive Irish media continue to report on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident with a key qualification: the West would be wrong to assume that this was about a struggle for Western-style democracy. It is true, after all, that leading student protesters denied they were trying to verthrow the state. Some talked of Communist reform or a better form of socialism. And, of course, to the extyent that Tiananmen was rooted in internal Chinese politics, the outcome could never fit a precise Western paradigm.

But this analysis is like the same kind of thinking that reflected Irish Times and RTE praise for the “civic” NGOs in East Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1989. Once change got under way, these mystical third forces just slipped away.

China’s economy is, in some respects, very capitalist already. Now, we have the diaries of Zhou Enlai showing that he, a Communist Party leader, saw democratization as leading to something very close to Western liberal democracy. Other East Asian democracies – S Korea, Japan, ROC/Taiwan etc .. have their Asian characteristics, their Confucian traditionalism and all the rest. But they are still recognizably “bourgeois democracies,” to use the old left’s term of abuse. Though the path might be tortupous, this is also the likely outcome of any real opening in China (assuming it does not trigger a rightist authoritarian backlash).

But old Progressive Irish media outlets only reluctantly celebrate liberal democracy in Eastern Europe and deny its relevance to China and Cuba.

Irish policymakers should treat the challenge of regiume change and democratization in Communist states on the basis that the struggle for democracy is indivisible and should be constituted as a component of Ireland’s moral voice and national interest on the world stage. Academic and media obfuscation designed to sideline this issue should be challenged wherever they occur.

EP Elections: Cross-Posting

Commentary from our EastWestEurope blog:

Looking for a Home in Europe

Irish politicians and journalists often lament the disconnect between European election campaigns and the great issues of EU policy. They explain this by arguing that the perceived weakness of the European Parliament turns it into an expendable plaything, a tool which to beat national governments over the head in a “mid-term” revolt. Or perhaps a place to put either trainee or has-been politicians.

But the attitudes of Irish parties to EP party groupings give the game away. Those same politicians who lecture the public on its ignorance of European issues haven’t a clue when it comes to the ideological families of European politics. They have to join groups, as if it were some great boring chore.

Martin Will Not Topple Cowen, for Now

Foreign Minister Micheal Martin indicated that the Fianna Fail party would not unseat Brian Cowen, after Fianna Fail scored disappointing results in local and European elections this weekend. Martin is tipped as an ambitious party member with considerable experience and gravitas, despite questionable positions he has taken on EU policy and, as we have reported,  on Irish relations with Cuba. In the climate in which both reporting on and critical analysis of foreign policy are limited, Martin’s Cuba policy will not register at all if he runs for leadership.