The perils of politics

“Never talk religion or politics” was the rule in my Irish-American family, when the whole clan gathered at wakes and weddings. One-half of us were staunch Republicans, the other, liberal Democrats. During the Vietnam era, my uncle Martin, a U.S. Army General, and I would enjoy a Broadway show together only to have our dinner at the Algonquin dissolve into a heated discourse about the war, or the dubious mental health of Richard M. Nixon.

It’s hard to talk about politics these days, almost anywhere. It’s harder still to avoid it. When someone passionate begins to boil over in public, I find myself looking for an exit strategy. When I am the boiling pot, I count on friends to guard my flanks, hoping they don’t get spattered in the process.

It is easier in contentious times to stay close to your philosophical tribe, to surround yourself with like-minded folk. But in the middle of a heart-felt rant about the inequities of capitalism or the deliberate and soulless aims of war, one may look around for an answer only to find an audience as frustrated and impotent as the speaker.

A colleague of mine has a son who is serving in Iraq. I don’t talk politics with her, but always inquire about her son and send my blessings for his safe return. I’m not sure what this woman’s politics are regarding this war, but it hardly seems to matter, considering the stakes.

At a talk about Irish culture and literature at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance this past Sunday (see photo on page 2), Malachy McCourt found it impossible to extricate the current political situation of war from his subject matter, likening the British occupation of Northern Ireland to the Bush occupation of Iraq.

As he spoke, I found myself scanning the audience, wondering how many fans of Irish literature were holding their tongues against voicing a different view. I thought I saw a few.

I tried to imagine being one of those people of an opposing mind. Would I be able to ignore the politics and savor the poetry and storytelling prowess of this engaging author? Or would his strident tone infect my experience with bitterness?

Yeats himself was a revolutionary of his time. His poem, “Easter Rising, 1916,” is as furious a rant as any by Che Guevara. But Yeats sits peacefully on bookshelves everywhere now. His poetry is loved by conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, and even by a few Brits.

Is it the distance gained with time that renders politics inconsequential?

At the open mic portion of McCourt’s talk, a local woman rose to read a poem that was authored by her father. As a young man in Ireland, he had left home to join the republican (Irish) rebels, fighting in the Easter rebellion that Yeats described. He wrote of his mother’s heartbreak and of his own sense of duty and honor, although he was considered a terrorist by authorities and countrymen alike.

On a trip to Ireland many years later, the man’s daughter, American by birth, re-united with her Irish relatives. An aunt told her they never spoke her father’s name after he left—a fate worse than death had taken him as an eternal hostage. He had left Ireland for the U.S. with a bounty on his head. He had followed his heart, guided by his politics, and killed in the name of freedom. But his own freedom would only come at the end of a lifetime of banishment from those he loved.

Yeats’ poem, after hearing this man’s personal history, seems much closer to me now. I have stood in Post Office Square in Dublin, and crossed the Liffey at dawn as the rebels did, but until I saw the blue eyes of the rebel’s daughter looking into mine, I had never truly felt the human cost of hewing to a cause.