I believe the citizens of Ireland in the Republic and in Northern Ireland – if empowered to witness a mature belief that we deserve governments and institutional authorities that are competent, responsive and respectful of the citizenry, will finally elect worthy representatives.
When my adolescent children were rebelling, I would assert my authority by saying “this is not a democracy”, well my fellow Irish men and women – this is a democracy – on both sides of the border. We get the representation we deserve.
I believe that culturally and anthropologically, Ireland is in that same adolescent place. Seen in this light, we can collectively rebel against the parents, the government and the authorities to whom we had relinquished our power. We were dependent on institutions charged with our care and security and they have failed us. We believed and behaved as told. We didn’t question, we believed the financial institutions would hold, the church would educate and protect our children, our pensions would be secure. In failing us they have abused us. Would I expect a child who I had bankrupted, lied to and left homeless to respect and obey me? No.
What I am asking you to do is to join me in becoming empowered citizens. Seizing this moment for Ireland would be to require institutions to serve and protect us. Representatives would be forced to answer to the citizenry. Citizens would have to let go of “I am powerless to change it” and go to the polls to choose competent, respectful and responsive leadership.
Who is she, why does she care, and where does she come from with this? “Myth lets you know where you are across the ages of life “ *
When I emigrated to Ireland, my Jewish friends in the states would say “She is making Aliyah! But to Ireland…”
It was said with an understanding that people who seek a new homeland are in fact following the commandment given to Abraham in Genesis “Go forth from your land,your birthplace,your father’s house, to the land that I will show you”. What was understood by these friends was the psychological, mythological understanding of Aliyah – not a literal read of the text.
What I believe is that this is the metaphor for the heroic journey we are all called upon to make at some point in our lives when we live authentically and leave behind our dependencies on an old way of being that may not be working for us anymore.
Personally, I thought I had to live the way my parents had prescribed, where they had chosen and to please their vision of who I should be. When I came into being as my own person, an authority for my own life, responsible for my own happiness I grew up. In my forties. Adolescence seems about right for this ancient land with millennia ahead….
Join me, at the polls and in the public spaces, on our collective heroic journey to require competent, responsive and respectful leadership.
* Joseph Campbell illustrates this developmental truth in his own words:
Five minutes, too dear? Start at 3!
