09.23.07

German ambassador

Posted in Feminism at 9:50 am by Sarah

It’s been a bad week. First, David McWilliams scared the bejaysus out of us all on Monday night, although at least he did it with a spring in his step. Economics is the dismal science and they don’t get more dismal than George Lee, who gave us another mauling on Prime Time on Tuesday. I spent the rest of the week calculating which of my monthly outgoings will have to be eliminated when interest rates double, Intel flees and my husband job’s is outsourced to China.

But while it’s fine for McWilliams and Lee to talk things down, we’re not having German ambassadors blabbing to outsiders about traffic congestion and how much our senior civil servants are paid. Oh no.
The hullabaloo over the remarks made by Christian Pauls reminded me of the time I stayed in a friend’s house as a teenager. Two sisters constantly complained about their grandmother, mocking her and calling her dreadful names. Finally I met the dreaded granny and indeed she lived up, or rather down, to their description. When she left the room, I cheerfully concurred: “Gosh, she is an old bag, isn’t she?” Whereupon one of the sisters burst into tears and didn’t speak to me for two days. You can criticise your own, but on no account are visitors allowed to have a pop.

The lesson is one which most spouses have learnt the hard way. Having a go at the in-laws is up there with driving advice as a guaranteed marital row-starter.

So perhaps Ambassador Pauls isn’t married and doesn’t know the rule? Everyone from President Mary McAleese to Archbishop Sean Brady down to common or garden columnists and taxi drivers make searing indictments of Irish society and are usually praised for their bravery and honesty. But criticism from a foreigner? And a German, to boot?

Dermots Ahern and Gallagher, minister and secretary-general at the Department of Foreign Affairs respectively, didn’t even wait until the ambassador could clarify a garbled account of what he may or may not have said, via a translater, before administering formal slaps on the wrist to Pauls. They claimed that his speech, made in Clontarf Castle to a delegation of 80 German industrialists, was “inaccurate and misinformed”. Rubbish. Pauls’ remarks were bang on the button, and deep down we all know that. Didn’t everyone in Ireland, for example, choke with outrage when a consultant dismissed an offer of a €200,000 annual salary and a possible additional €20,000 as “Mickey Mouse money”? So what’s wrong with foreigners hearing about it?
Pauls noted that 20% of the workforce are in the public sector (true) and that the Catholic Church has lost moral authority due to the exposure of sex scandals (obvious). The ambassador denied that he used the term “coarse” to describe Irish society, but an increasing number of Irish people use precisely that word to describe it.
I, too, wonder who is paying for all the high-end 07 cars that pass me on the road, so why shouldn’t Pauls crack a joke about the phenomenon? Perhaps he was obliquely praising his native country’s engineering when he pointed out that most German cars are eight or nine years old. Vorsprung durch technik, and all that.
The ambassador reasonably stated that there is a debate over whether our new prosperity has made Irish society a rougher, less caring one. Sounds a lot like “the problems of prosperity” that Fianna Fail talk about when they are being on-message.
His comment that Irish history is “even sadder than Poland’s” was also used against the ambassador, as if this was some sort of insult. In fact, some political groups in Ireland treat the 800 years of oppression as a badge of honour.
But what Pauls said was not really the issue. The problem was that he forgot the basic rules of criticism. In theory, we admire those who speak honestly, and we insist that constructive criticism is welcome. In practice, we bristle at the slightest hint of negativity. Nobody actually likes criticism, whatever they say before it’s delivered. If criticism must be voiced, it should be done in a very, well, diplomatic way. Which I suppose is quite ironic.
The other thing poor Pauls did wrong was to show us up in front of visitors, another no-no on the domestic front. If the ambassador’s audience was Irish, his comments might have been forgiven. But having a pop in front of other Germans was out of order. Whatever about the Catholic Church, putting on a good face is still the dominant religion in Ireland. Getting the country ready for visiting Yanks – John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Tiger Woods among them – provided the impetus to do some serious spring cleaning in the past. With damp spots to cover up, they didn’t call it white-washing for nothing. These days the state formally adopts the role of the panic-stricken mammy when it knows visitors are coming. Charlie Haughey was a great man for this. When Ireland assumed the presidency of the European Commission, we could be guaranteed a frenzied spree of pot-hole filling and tarmacing in the weeks preceeding the arrival of Mercs. As soon as the foreign dignatories arrived, there wouldn’t be a spade to be seen.
Similarly, as McWiliams observed on The Generation Game on Monday, the M7 wasn’t finished in a hurry to relieve the stress of Irish commuters but to put on a good show for the golfers flying in for the Ryder Cup last summer. We’ll put up with any level of misery ourselves, but there’s no way we’d let the side down in front of visitors. It’s pure instinct. When I was young and my mother had guests for dinner, the Careys would operate the FHB rule – Family Hold Back – without even being told. A sliver of lamb was to be gratefully received and offers of seconds vigorously refused until the visitors were taken care of. They were to go home assured of our affluence and comfort. You didn’t mention the bad plumbing or draughts coming in under the door.
As a nation we have employed the same policy. The Industrial Development Authority lured investment into the country by talking up our young educated population, and keeping quiet about the absence of infrastructure. We are experts at sweeping the bad stuff under the carpet. Ambassador Pauls must’ve missed the induction course where foreign diplomats are trained in this Irish custom. Despite the thorough telling off he got last week, at least the German ambassador is being allowed to carry on in his last posting before retirement. Were he a younger man, one can envisage him, Father Ted-like, exiled to the Craggy Island of the diplomatic world, some obscure -stan with a harsh climate. Instead he’ll be heading home to Germany just as our Winter of Discontent descends. Still it looks at least like George Lee and David McWilliams will be vindicated at last. Every cloud, and all that.

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