Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora
March 17 is a day when most of the English speaking new world – North America, Australia and New Zealand – celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. It is perhaps the most widely celebrated Christian holiday that has been able to transcend religious boundaries. It is said to be the day that the patron saint of Ireland died in the 5th century. The tradition of commemorating the day in his honour dates back to the 10th century but was extended to other parts of the world, following large-scale immigration of Irish women and men, fleeing persecution and hunger in the middle of the 19th century. Today, the new world has become home to Irish migrants and St. Patrick’s Day is an important reminder of the long, hard journey that their ancestors had taken.
So it was in San Francisco last week. The city was draped in green and most people wore funny hats, glasses, clothes and other paraphernalia, to leave little to chance in their boisterous celebration of everything considered to be Irish. Some wrapped themselves in the Irish tricolour flag, while others posed in front of the floats that made their way down the main streets. Most of the people who took part in the celebrations, either as spectators or as participants, were of every racial and ethnic descent and a small number were actually Irish. The metal workers’ union, mostly from Latin America, had a float to showcase their struggles. The Chinatown schools sent out a marching band of young girls and boys, and even the local Tai-Chi association sent out a group of elderly practitioners for the parade. My favourite float was the one sponsored by the American Friends of Sinn-Fein, which simply said: “Ireland Unfree and Divided Shall Never be at Peace”. My partner and I cheered and pumped our fists in the air, as though we were card-carrying members of Sinn Fein. As if to acknowledge our enthusiasm, the young African American woman carrying one end of the “Unite Ireland” banner, raised her fist in return. It could have been a Black Panther salute, or an Internationalist greeting that dated back to the days of the Spanish Civil War (where thousands of Irish men and women defied the edicts of their bishops to fight alongside the socialist government and against the Fascists).
There is something refreshingly tragic, though contradictorily celebratory about Irish nationalism. The German Nobel laureate, Heinrich Böll, who had spent a considerable amount of time travelling and living on the island, reminded his readers that of all the countries in Western Europe, Ireland alone had not sent out its daughters and sons to colonise the world by force of arms. Instead, he wrote, Irish poets, missionaries and idealists had used the power of ideas, dreams and creative intellect of the human mind, to reaffirm the spirit of universalism and freedom. For a small island, forever under threat from its powerful neighbour, England, Ireland has produced an enviable number of creative persons who have changed our ideas about literature, politics and culture. Irish nationalism, therefore, has extended beyond the confines of parochial patriotism.
Today, the world is home to some very inward-looking forms of nationalism, where patriotic duty calls for unquestioned support to the flag and other overt symbols of the military state. The more we are asked to commemorate wars and victories over our so-called enemies, the less likely we are to be able to spare any thought to the genius and generosity of the human spirit. Even though it is a little innocuous to be celebrating the trials and tribulations of a small island in a land where the indigenous First Nations were bound into servitude by white settlers, we suspend our uncomfortable memories of powerful Irish-Americans, with surnames like McCarthy, Hannity and Regan, who were not above bullying the weak. For one day in the calendar, we stumble – sometimes unknowingly – into a parade that commemorates the Saint who drove out snakes (and injustice) from Ireland. It would be wonderful if our own efforts at driving out the roots of injustice from our lands, could appeal to universal ideas of equality.
Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora
xonzoi.barbora@gmail.com
