MacBride Still Crucial

I WRITE regarding last week’s “Intelligencer” piece titled “Quinn’s Mistake?” that raised concern that the New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was maybe second-guessing the need for the MacBride Principles.

Whatever was going on, the controversy has had a positive outcome. The speaker has re-affirmed to many people, including myself, her unequivocal support for the still so very important Principles.

I am pleased Quinn is going to push for increased investment in Northern Ireland, in compliance with the MacBride Principles. All Irish Americans should support that position.

The MacBride Principles were launched in 1984 to ensure that U.S. dollars would no longer subsidize anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland. (The Principles oppose discrimination against anyone, of course. But the reality is that the endemic, systematic employment-discrimination that plagued Northern Ireland was anti-Catholic discrimination, in which American companies were inevitably caught up).

Thank God, there has been great progress in Northern Ireland. And it is important to remember that the MacBride Principles campaign helped to pave the way for America becoming more involved.

As more and more states and cities passed legislation on MacBride, peaking in passage by Congress, it was inevitable that there would have to be a change in U.S. foreign policy.

The bad old days of the British government saying to Americans, “Please mind you own business” were effectively over because in supporting the MacBride Principles that is exactly what Americans were doing, minding their own business —- making sure their money and their business did not subsidize discrimination in Northern Ireland.

Now that there is going to be a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland, and that the armed campaigns have ended, the work of Irish Americans can really come into its own. Instead of resting on our laurels, we must increase our activity, for, as African-Americans will tell you, freedom is a constant struggle.

There is still serious anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland. There is still the whole terrible issue of collusion, on which the British government has not come clean but continues to cover up, increasing by a thousand-fold the sufferings of the victims.

And there is still deep seated and virulent anti-Catholic sectarianism. I’m not talking here about legitimate theological differences, but about a mindset that sees Catholics as inferior, just as a racist mindset sees African Americans as inferior.

Sectarianism and racism are but two sides of the same coin. They are never legitimate, and always deadly. They are the twin evils of this world.

So let us all join Speaker Quinn in promoting investment in Northern Ireland, in compliance with the MacBride Principles, and build up, as Martin Luther King urged, the Beloved Community.

Let us help create an Ireland —- north, south, east and west —— of equality, human rights and mutual respect, where all people, including new immigrants, will be loved and cherished and where God’s poor will receive special attention.

Father Sean Mc Manus

President, Irish National Caucus

Washington, D.C.

I Support MacBride

I WOULD like to take the opportunity to clarify my position and my record on investment in Northern Ireland. I do not believe in withdrawing or ending the MacBride Principles.

In fact, when these fair employment guidelines were first passed in New York, I supported the effort. All the city’s investment should be done in a way that insures public dollars go to responsible companies, and I know that the MacBride Principles continue to be critically important.

I traveled to Belfast earlier this month with CAIR and a delegation of Irish American elected officials and community leaders, including Brian O’Dwyer. We saw first hand how the economy in the north is lagging behind that in the south.

With this power sharing agreement in place, now is the time for those of us who care about peace in Northern Ireland to look for new ways to support this new government and the people living in the North by, among other things, increasing investment in those companies that promote equal employment opportunities.

With that in mind, I did indeed reach out to other city and state officials earlier this week, after the announcement of an agreement at Stormont, to suggest we consider increasing targeted investment in compliance with the MacBride principles.

Clearly the power sharing agreement is a tremendous step forward in the peace process. But it does not mean that discrimination or hate will disappear overnight from Northern Ireland.

New Yorkers need to remain vigilant about making sure the next steps are done in a way that acknowledges the ongoing need for equal employment and equal treatment.

As a proud Irish American, I will continue to be a voice for peace, justice and economic development in the North, and I will continue to push for targeted investment in compliance with the MacBride Principles.

Christine C. Quinn

Speaker, New York City Council

New York, New York

Giuliani Ain’t No Good

LETTER writer John Rogers, in issue dated February 14-20, made derogatory remarks about former President Bill Clinton, the first American president to appoint an envoy in the name of George Mitchell to broker a peace treaty in Northern Ireland. As a result of said action taken, there are no more H-Blocks, Maze prisons, British lookout rifle posts and many other inhumane practices in that region.

Clinton got major support from genuine people on both sides of the Atlantic, but former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was not one of them.

Rogers mentioned infractions in Clinton’s personal life, but he neglected to state that Giuliani’s apron needed to be sent to the cleaners a few times. Someone once wrote a song way back called “Highway Patrolman” and one of the lines is, “Man turns his back on his family ain’t no good.”

Regarding the cleaning up of Times Square, it was the developers who came in and spent big money to build that infrastructure, which of course chased out the undesirables – not Giuliani.

Mr. Rogers erroneously stated that I was engaging in partisan politics with my previous letter against the presidential candidacy of Giuliani, which is not true.

Current New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is a better mayor. Reason being he listens to other people, and unlike Giuliani he believes in the policy of inclusion not exclusion.

Mr. Rogers stated he had compassion for Irish political prisoner Joe Doherty, yet had high praise for Giuliani who put Doherty in solitary confinement for nine long years. Conventional wisdom would say what we have here is a major dose of hypocrisy.

When I and many others, some of whom I mentioned in my previous correspondence, were marching and protesting for the release of Joe Doherty, Mr. Rogers was nowhere in sight.

All I can say to Mr. Rogers is that I am a concerned citizen who wants a decent human being in the White House, Democrat or Republican, who doesn’t kill half a million people in some foreign land, doesn’t appoint people like Bernard Kerik to Homeland Security, doesn’t cozy up with people like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and doesn’t give away and waste our treasury, which could be used to help our young and old here at home.

In closing, I wish Mr. Rogers good health and happiness and not to be one of those people who puts a green hat on his head on St. Patrick’s Day just to be Irish for a day, because people like that are called flip floppers.

P.J. Harvey

New Hyde Park, New York