While our parents stoked the fires of justice, we fell asleep beside them

Sunday Tribune 26 October 2008

Two stories caught my eye last week. The first was about the cancellation of bus services to UCD because of violent behaviour by drunken students. The other told how education minister Batt O'Keeffe was attempting to lure Chinese students here with the offer of great opportunities in our universities.
What an excellent idea, I thought. If we fill our universities with young Chinese folk, they can show our lot how students should really behave. They could teach them how to be the architects of social change, as opposed to just being anti-social. China's students, after all, were responsible for sowing the seeds of democracy with their defiant stance in Tiananmen Square. Even the most belligerent Belfielder would admit that squaring up to a tank is more impressive than getting tanked-up and squaring up to a bus driver.
Also in Dublin last week, a young "protestor" was fined for causing €13,500 worth of graffiti damage. I'm calling him a "protestor" because protesting was generally the reason people sprayed graffiti when I was a teenager in the 1980s. What was the message he wrote? Brits Out? Say 'No' to Apartheid? Free Nicky Kelly (with every packet of cornflakes)?
No, it was 'Konk'.
That's right, 'Konk'.
'Konk' was his graffiti tag-name. So instead of making a controversial, witty or inspirational statement, he did the literary equivalent of jumping up and down and shouting 'Look at me!' The idiot.
While I was pondering the state of our not-so-disaffected youth, an old familiar voice was tuning up in the capital. It grew louder and louder and by Tuesday afternoon was soaring over the spire of St Andrew's Church, Westland Row, and out across the country. The battle cry of a generation had been recommissioned: 'We Shall Overcome', the pensioners sang, and the government trembled.
Then, like a clip around the ear, came the realisation who these angry old folk were. They were the generation who first manned the barricades in the golden era of protest, the 1960s.
These were the young people who marched for civil rights.
These were the angry young men who protested against Bloody Sunday and burned down the British Embassy.
These were the brave young women who defied church and state by bringing a train-load of contraceptives into our prudish Republic.
These were the people who filled the streets to protest against the cruel taxation system of the late 1970s.
These furious grey-hairs who besieged the Dáil on Wednesday were the people who taught my generation to fight for the underdog.
Stirred by their example, we supported the Dunnes Stores strikers in their stand against apartheid. We campaigned for nuclear disarmament and told Ronald Reagan to go home when he visited Ballyporeen.
We shouted 'stop' to the destruction of Wood Quay and followed Sean DBR Loftus as he tried to save Dublin Bay.
We marched, sat-in, fasted and signed miles of petitions in support of the oppressed – from El Salvador to Cambodia.
This era of protest peaked in 1985 when we raised our voices to demand employment at the Self Aid concert in the RDS.
And then, when we got what we wanted – the jobs, the prosperity – we fell asleep. We dozed off beside the fire instead of continuing to stoke it. We became complacent and let our leaders turn this country into a Nanny State. We became the 'Me Generation', obsessed with wealth and status. Those of us who entered politics helped consolidate this new materialism.
It has taken the pensioners of Ireland to smack some manners back into us. And we deserve their anger.
As I stood outside Leinster House on Wednesday and watched them spank the government, I felt ashamed of myself and my generation.
Instead of passing on what our parents taught us about caring for others, we showed the next generation only how to be consumers. We failed them.
At 2.30pm, the pensioners gave way to another army fired up by their actions.
The students had arrived. They had looked beyond my generation to our parents for leadership. They proved there's still hope for us.
Long live the Granny State.

dkenny@tribune.ie

October 26, 2008