[lbo-talk] Irish Priests Beat and Raped Children

Wojtek Sokolowski swsokolowski at yahoo.com
Thu May 21 06:28:04 PDT 2009


--- On Thu, 5/21/09, cmk1 at eircom.net <cmk1 at eircom.net> wrote:


>
> But what's also clear from details that are emerging form
> this report and from the debate in Ireland on this issue
> over the past few years, is the clear class element to the
> abuse. If you were a working class child and transgressed
> the criminal law or the more stringently enforced moral laws
> you were more likely to be go to an institution. Your
> chances of suffering at the very least physical abuse and
> possibly sexual abuse were very high. Moreover, if you were
> working class and your family suffered any kind of problems
> - break-up, death of a parent(s) - you went to one of these
> institutions and, quite often, became a victim. But, of
> course, class have never existed in Ireland and I'm talking
> rubbish. Aidan Quinn's film 'Song for a Raggy Boy' can also
> give some sense of perspective on this system.
>

[WS:] Very interesting, indeed. Another point worth mentioning in this context is the role of Catholic institutions in the delivery of public social welfare in Ireland - far greater than the social class structure of Ireland would lead us to believe. In some ways, afaik, social class structure in Ireland is similar to that in Sweden or Norway - weak domestic (not counting the Brits who were kicked out in 1921) landed gentry (meaning the absence of labor-repressive agriculture,) weak bourgeoisie, relatively strong class of independent farmers and nascent working class.

In Sweden and Norway - this class composition led to the famous Scandinavian welfare state with huge public social welfare spending (around 30% of the GDP) and a well developed public system of that service delivery. In Ireland, by contrast, this led to a relatively low, by European standards, government social welfare spending (about 19% of the GDP, lower than that of the UK!) and a service delivery system that is more reminiscent of the fascist Italy under Mussolini than the liberal Britain - which favors Catholic institutions as a preferred venue of publicly funded social services.

So the real problem is not a few perverted priests (after all, who but a pervert would be attracted to this job?) but a public social welfare system that sells the public down the river to the Catholic service delivery institutions. As I see it, this shows the weakness of labor in Ireland - which seems to be attracted more to nationalist than socialist or social-democratic ideals.

Wojtek



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