Enda Kenny is a stupid man who should resign but wont Alan Ruddock PUBLISHED 08/09/2002 | 00:11 The Fine Gael leader is clearly a fool and thats the kindest thing anyone can really say about him, says Alan Ruddock ENDA KENNY, the man charged with reviving Fine Gaels fortunes, is a fool. And that is the kindest thing that can be said about him this weekend. What possible motive, other than brainlessness, can you ascribe to a man who stands up before an audience of party colleagues and journalists and decides to tell a humorous story that relies on the word nigger for its punch line? You have to believe he is a fool, because if you exclude brainlessness from your calculation, if you credit the leader of our second largest political party with intelligence, you are left with a far grimmer prospect. If hes not a fool, hes a man who thinks nothing of telling sto ries containing the word nigger, and quite possibly Pakis, Jews and queers as well. What a boyo. Context matters hugely, and there are very few contexts in which the use of the word nigger to get a laugh from an audience could be deemed justifiable. Rich ard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock all black comedians could get away with it; Bernard Manning and Enda Kenny, not. Kennys context is worth examin ing because it throws some light on the manner in which politi cians and journalists interact in this country, and because it gives us a glimpse of the club-like atmosphere that can envelop them. Kenny was speaking at a farewell party in Buswells Hotel for a Fine Gael colleague and he used part of his speech to remi nisce about David Molony, another former colleague, who died suddenly last week. Of all the stories he could have chosen, he chose the one about the drunken week in Portugal, the shiny-teethed Moroccan barman and the cocktail called Lumumba, named, according to the barman, so the punchline went, after some nigger who got killed dans la guerre an apparently humorous reference to the murder of the Congos Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader in Africa. Kenny, who had already told the journalists in the audience that he didnt want to read any thing in the papers about what he was about to say, then announced that what they had just heard was not a racist joke. Clearly, he had deliberated about telling the story, decided it was appropriate to do so and thought that it could remain just a private matter between the good old boys of the press corps and the good old boys of Leinster House. Nothing racist, or wrong, about using nigger to get a laugh, because it was just a story, not a set-piece joke. News of his choice of language and anecdote did not appear in Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays newspapers. So initially, at least, Kennys calculation was correct. Perhaps most of the journalists at the party thought that it was appropriate for the leader of Fine Gael to use the word nigger, perhaps they found it amusing, but they certainly didnt consider it all that newsworthy. Maybe it is common for Irish politicians to use abusive racial epithets in their everyday language, maybe not. What is apparent, however, is that many of the journalists who attended the function deemed it more important to maintain a compact with their political contacts than with their readers. To report on Kennys speech would have been to break the code, and risk what? Exclusion from the club? No more stories dropped in their laps? Confrontation? Who knows. But it was always possible that one or more of those present would consider his words inap propriate and report them. If his first calculation failed, Kennys second calculation must have been that if that happened, no one would care. That remains to be seen. To berate Kenny, to wonder anew at his foolishness, to feel anger at his considered use of the word nigger, is not political cor rectness, gone mad or otherwise. Political correctness is the lunacy that sees a man lose his job because he used the word nig gardly and his audience, and his boss, are too ignorant to know what it means; it is when a col lege lecturer loses his job for using the word nigger in a wide-ranging discussion about taboo words; it is about denial and eradication, about banning Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn from a school syllabus because it uses the word. But it is not modishly politically correct to object to a political leader, or a friend, using the word as way of getting a laugh. Nigger is one of the most loaded words in the English language. When it was used frequently by Mark Fuhrman, a Los Angeles detective, during the trial of OJ Simp son, it caused mayhem in news rooms across America. Could they print it, could they broadcast it? CNN referred to the n-word or to groups of ns, newspapers used n*****, until many realised that proper reportage required that the word be used, and spoken, in its entirety because to do otherwise was to censor the trial. The word can be used and is used a lot. It is the context that matters. At the time of the Simpson trial, Antonio McDaniel, a professor of sociol ogy at the University of Pennsylvania, said: The word has specific meaning. It is a solid rallying call for racists of various colours. It is a conceptualization of African people that others have perpetuated for years. There is a deg radation of the position of black people in society. Use it as long as you appreciate the gravity of whats being said. Did Kenny appreciate the gravity? His decision to use it, to choose that one story above all others, will be defended in a variety of ways. We will be told that it was a private function, that he meant no disrespect, that he was just relating an event and what someone else said. It was not, he will stress again, a racist joke, and in no way similar to the joke told by Ann Winterton, a junior member of the Tory shadow cabinet, which cost her her job. Others will say that there are far more important things to worry about in this country, and abroad, than whether Enda Kenny tells inappropriate stories. What about the health service, or the inability of tribunals to reach conclusions, or the looming war with Iraq or Robert Mugabes destruction of Zimbabwe? What does it really matter if Enda Kenny stumbles on an anecdote? Journalists who were present may argue that the context was appropriate, or that it is normal to attend events where the whole proceedings are off the record. They may say that without a sense of trust, without an envi ronment where politicians can feel they can let down their guard and be themselves, relationships between journalists and politicians would deteriorate to such an extent that the flow of news would be compromised. All nonsense. Kennys ill-chosen epithet mat ters because it was wrong and because, for the moment, he rep resents the alternative government. This is a man who wants to convince us that he could be Taoiseach, that he could lead us at home and abroad, that he is a man of sound judgment, a man who can be trusted to weigh up the options and take the right decision. What we would see instead, if we were allowed to see by those whose job it is to inform us, is a man of poor judgment, poor taste and minimal intelligence. He may be clubbable, he may be friendly, he may be good company, but he is not a Taoiseach in waiting. Is it too harsh to judge a man by one phrase, by one story on a night of some emotion? No. By his actions seeking cover from the journalists before he spoke, and then claiming that it was not racist he knew what he was doing but still chose to do it. Stupid. Even if Ireland had a pristine track record on race relationships it would have been stupid, but given the increasing evidence of racial tension in our society, it is doubly so. He should resign, but he wont. Worse, he probably wont face any pressure to resign. The story will be dismissed as a petty little affair, insignificant in the face of much more pressing social ills. By dismissing it, we will say much about ourselves and our attitude to racism, and none of it will come as a surprise to the victims of Irish racial abuse. Kennys comments matter less than war, or famine, or economic collapse, but they still matter because they tell us much about the calibre of the man who would lead us. He is, clearly, a fool. And thats the kindest thing you can say. independent.ie/irish-news/enda-kenny-is-a-stupid-man-who-should-resign-but-wont-26243835.html
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 01:27:36 +0000
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