David QuinnThe debate over the legacy of 1916 is proposing a specific definition of a republic, writes David Quinn
It is already well underway thanks to the upcoming centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising. I am referring to the ongoing ‘debate’ about how to make Ireland a ‘modern’ republic and so build on the legacy of the leaders of 1916.
I put ‘debate’ in scare quotes deliberately because as usual very little real debate is taking place. Instead we are being offered a definition of republicanism that reduces it to one of the values that formed the catch-cry of the French Revolution. ‘Liberte’ and ‘Fraternite’ are being left out. What we are left with is ‘égalité, égalité, égalité’ only, which is an extremely unhealthy development.
We are also being offered a very secular version of republicanism, one that is determined to relegate religion ever more to the private sphere in the hope that it will eventually die out completely, except perhaps for a few exotic and non-threatening forms of Asian spirituality.
Remember Aodhán O Ríordáin who announced a few years ago that “religion has no place in the schools of a modern republic”. Notice the ringing character of that phrase and its resounding certainty, this from the former principal of a Catholic school.
There must be no religion in the school of a modern republic! But what is a ‘modern republic’ and why should religion have no place in its schools? How tolerant can a ‘modern republic’ be if it banishes religion from its schools, and why the hostility to public manifestations of religion implicit in the statement?
First, however, let’s consider what it means for a country to be a ‘republic’. The inescapable fact is that there is no fixed view of the matter. Need a republic be secular? No. Iran is a republic and Iran is a theocracy.
North Korea and China are both republics and both are officially atheistic. North Korea has more restrictions on religious freedom than any country on the planet.
Both China and North Korea consider themselves to be democratic after a fashion in that they are ‘People’s Republics’ and therefore the state is supposedly a manifestation of the will of the people. We know this is nonsense of course, but it only goes to show once again how malleable the idea of republicanism is. Even the concept of democracy that is supposedly essential to republicanism turns out to be malleable.
Let’s consider republics that are definitely democratic in that elections every few years can change who is currently in power in parliament.
In its official ideology France barely tolerates religion. It promotes ‘laicité’, a form of secularism that tries to minimise the role of religion in public life. All state schools are secular. However, that is not to say that Catholic and other faith schools are totally deprived of state funding because that is not the case.
In Aodhán O Ríordáin’s Ireland would faith schools receive any funding at all from the public purse, or would the various faith communities be required to pay for state schools out of their taxes and then have to privately fund faith schools from whatever they had left over after paying all the bills?
That’s the American model, the most extreme found in any Western democracy. Faith schools receive nothing from the state. Not a cent.
Is American society the better for it? There is little evidence that it is. In fact, Catholic parochial schools are extremely popular and sought after and do a particularly good job educating the poor. The pity is that more poor people cannot afford to send their children to Catholic schools which they would be able to do if the state helped them.
This is one reason why a rich American atheist left millions of dollars to Catholic schools in New York a few years ago; they are better than state schools at educating the poor.
Indeed, a new study from the North indicates that Catholic schools are better at educating children from deprived backgrounds than their state counterparts. But in a ‘modern republic’ it is better that the poor suffer the effects of a state education than they should benefit from being educated in a faith school.
Italy is also a republic, and it is more generous towards faith schools than France or the US. Indeed, state schools display the crucifix on the walls of their classrooms.
Germany, another republic, is also more generous towards faith schools than the French, never mind the Americans
So as you can see, the idea of republicanism allows for all kinds of variations. Indeed, about the only thing that these variations have in common is that they lack a monarchy. After that, practically anything seems to go.
But here in Ireland, a very secular and egalitarian variety of republicanism is being offered to us. If we are to be true to the legacy of the men and women of 1916 then it is this version of republicanism we must adopt. Or so we are being told. If we follow this advice, Ireland will become a cold house both for religion and for freedom.
Freedom of religion and freedom of association are closely related. Freedom of association is the right to form organisations of the like-minded in pursuit of common aims. A political party is an example of that. So is a GAA club. So is the Church, or a Church-run school.
Egalitarians don’t insist that someone should be allowed to join their local GAA club in a bid to turn it into a rugby club because that would be an attack on the rights of those who like GAA.
If someone joined the Labour party and tried to turn it into Renua, they would be expelled.
But this freedom is not extended to faith schools. The pressure is on them to admit those with diametrically opposed ideas about what a faith school should be. These are the parents who want to destroy publicly-funded faith schools entirely, or else to exclude the faith of the school from 90% of the school day.
If the new, secular vision of republicanism on offer is widely accepted, this will come to pass. But this is to confuse secularism and republicanism. Our task as the debate over the legacy of 1916 really kicks off next year is to show that these two ideas need not be one and the same.
A republic can be friendly to religion and give it its due place in the public arena.