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A pro-Irish American president should not upset non-Irish people
The 80-year-old Biden looks beaming in Ireland, his ancestral home. His short visit to Northern Ireland was politically sensitive.
A US president you can touch: Joe Biden mingle with people in Dundalk, Ireland.
Photo: Keystone
No one in the Emerald Isle denies that Joe Biden’s multi-day visit to Ireland has a clear purpose. The number of American citizens of Irish descent is estimated at more than 30 million, whose votes Biden cares about in the upcoming presidential elections. Pictures of the “Old Home” that evoke sympathy among these voters or reinforce existing loyalties should be beneficial to the American president and to American Democrats in general. Previous incumbents, even Barack Obama, were aware of this and made similar Irish visits every year.
But that’s not all the Biden trip is about. The 80-year-old president is enjoying his return to a country from which many of his ancestors once emigrated – like many other Irish – and whose culture and people are still powerfully defined today. Biden has been seen very lively since he left Northern Ireland on Wednesday and crossed the border into the Republic of Ireland. (Also read the article on this topic “Business first in Belfast, then pleasure in Dublin”.)
Interviews with fifth cousins
The visitor clearly enjoys his first-hand contact with the locals in the south of Ireland, and his encounters with all sorts of fifth cousins and other folks ready to chat and wave flags. The only thing curious is how far Biden’s “Old Homeland” has moved away over the years from traditional Catholicism, which still means a lot to him.
How contemporary Ireland grapples with a new social identity while Biden clings to the old values of his childhood. The same memories that the US president hoped to reveal on his nostalgia trip this week, most Irish have long sought to resign themselves to history, if only to rid themselves once and for all of their nation’s oppressive past.
In the rule of a few people in Ireland this ancient attitude of hostile rejection of other faiths, combined with the unquestioned persecution of Northern Irish Catholics by Northern Irish Protestants, contributed to many years of bitter strife in Northern Ireland.
Completely “anti-British”, Joe Biden was heard in the ranks of Northern Irish unionists.
In any case, many Protestant politicians find it completely unacceptable under the circumstances for a “pro-Irish” president like Biden to claim to have traveled to Ireland to consolidate the peace. Biden was completely “anti-British”, and his voice was heard in the ranks of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Former DUP chairman Arlene Foster complained: “He hates the UK”.
This was not the case at all, and British Northern Ireland Minister Chris Heaton Harris hastily contradicted it. Indeed, the American president tried to be careful, regardless of his personal inclinations, and not be guilty of any provocation. After all, Biden is seen in Washington as an experienced negotiating partner, and also as a pragmatic politician where understanding is required.
Billions in US Investment Prospects for Northern Ireland
Rather than criticize the Unionists for currently blocking the peace process, he promised Northern Ireland billions of dollars in US investment once the process was back on track. This seemed like a fair offer to many young Protestants too, all things considered. Moderate unionists in particular know that ultimately the problem is not Biden, but Brexit.
The initial enthusiasm of the DUP to leave the European Union, against the manifest will of the majority of the population of Northern Ireland, had all kinds of deadly consequences for Northern Ireland. Rather than linking it more closely to the rest of the UK, as the DUP had dreamed of, Boris Johnson’s maneuvering surrounding a “hard Brexit” has alienated unionists in Northern Ireland more than ever. And London itself became ever more dependent on Washington – another paradox.
An American president friendly to Ireland can now withhold the free trade agreement the British have longed for as long as peace in Northern Ireland is not re-established for all to see.
The central question remains the future of Northern Ireland. The answer to this question is still pending.
Other issues will also be taken up in Dublin at receptions for the President of the United States there. For example, Biden has sought to see how far Ireland is willing to compromise its neutrality and accept military commitments alongside the United States.
But the central question remains the future of Northern Ireland. The answer to this question is still pending. When he leaves, Biden can only hope that his tour of Ireland hasn’t created too much resentment among the island’s non-Irish population — and that the prospect of fresh capital flows across the Atlantic will benefit future negotiations.
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