What has Gerry Adams Done for West Belfast?

[Guillem2]

For those who don't know Squinter writes a column in the Andersontown News (as well as editing the paper). He tends to have his finger on the pulse in West Belfast. I wonder what his agenda is on this one?

Squinter: Taking a sideways look at the week

20 years on, Gerry must face the truth

"The cruellest lies are often told in silence." Adlai Stevenson wasn't far wrong when he said that. Not that Squinter can be accused of keeping quiet too often, but it is the case as we prepare to bury Bap McGreevy that there are some things that are said and some things that aren't, and one of the things that isn't being said – publicly at least – is that it's time for Gerry Adams to shoulder his share of the blame for the mess we're in and stop blaming everybody else.

Adams has been the West Belfast MP for 20 years. First elected in 1983, he has served continuously since then, save for a five-year break when Joe Hendron took back the seat for the SDLP in 1992.

If a week is a long time in politics, then 20 years is the Upper Paleolithic Age. It is in that same 20-year period that the slow, steady decline into chaos in certain parts of West Belfast began, and it was on his watch that it has gathered pace to become the runaway train that it is today.

First thing to be said is that there are many people and many agencies to blame for the state of the lower Falls, to take that as an example: the Chief Constable, the Housing Executive, the courts, the Prison Service, the Probation Board, Social Services, certain local parents – the list goes on. But while Adams can and does point the finger at some or even all of the above, Squinter has to say that he has never heard Adams accepting any responsibility for the fact that large parts of his constituency are no-go areas, but without the bellbottoms, the parkas and the armalites, of course.

It definitely wasn't Adlai Stevenson who said: "You don't drown by falling in the water, you drown by staying there." Whoever said it had a point. Like every one of us, Bap McGreevy fell into the water when Harry Holland was slaughtered. It was hoped back then that the wave of community disgust and horror might be fashioned into a life raft which would carry us all on a tide of community solidarity and determination to a safer shore. Didn't happen. What happened was that Bap McGreevy was left to drown – in his own blood – while the rest of us continue to flail around hoping that we won't go under too.

Who's to blame for the failure to press home the Harry Holland momentum? Gerry Adams is to blame, that's who. He's not the only one to blame, of course. Squinter refers you back to the list above, and every one of us who complains and then pulls the curtains and turns up the TV when the sun sets is to blame in our own collective way. But Gerry Adams is the MP, has been for 20 years. He's supposed to know how to marshal and direct; he's supposed to give us the ideas and the leadership; he's supposed to make things better. When he asks for and gets our votes he accepts a host of very onerous responsibilities, and the most basic of those responsibilities is to make his constituency a good place for decent people to live and for parents to bring up their families. In that he has failed terribly.

Of course the police are falling down on the job, but how long is it possible to get away with that excuse? Bears crap in the woods, fat babies fart, the Pope wears a funny hat, the Trevors are jaw-droppingly useless. Tell us something we don't know. Gerry Adams knows a lot better than Squinter that while the PSNI might have a lot of intelligence about the people of West Belfast, they know them as well as they know the remotest tribe of Western New Guinea – and they care even less. Against that background, complaining about the PSNI not doing their job is like complaining about the cold weather we're supposed to be getting over the Easter weekend.
And every time Sinn Féin gets together at another fist-clenching Stormont meeting (the 2008 equivalent of Long Kesh political lectures), we're told that economic deprivation underpins the myriad social problems that are convulsing the West Belfast community. They hope nobody will think to ask whose job it has been for the past 20 years to get investment and jobs and to generate community confidence and optimism.

It wasn't as if Adams didn't have the clout and the contacts. A former aide of Tony Blair has been making frankly embarrassing revelations in a new book about how close Adams and Blair were. Adams was the Oprah Winfrey of Irish-America. And what did we get? InBev gone and Visteon going. A huge investment conference that holds its nose as it swishes past West Belfast ferrying ministers and Invest NI suits to Hillsborough and Cultra. Adams might have got away with pointing to the lack of investment in his constituency in 1983 and saying: "Nothing to do with me, mate." 20 years on and you'd buy a house in Ross Street quicker than you'd buy that.
20 years. Two decades. Four parliamentary terms. Four US Presidents. Two Popes. 11 Secretaries of State. Five UN Secretary-Generals. Five Taoisigh. Five Prime Ministers. In Ross Street the wind of change blows in empty Budweiser boxes and despair; it blows out good people and hope.

As a friend bitterly told Squinter over a St Paddy's Day pint, Ourselves Alone are not the proud and risen republican people surging shoulder-to-shoulder towards a new Ireland, but the abandoned pensioners of the lower Falls who now fear the night a million times more than they ever feared the Brits or the loyalists. And don't tell Squinter they're not right to be afraid. When the bad guys can kill a well-known and popular ex-prisoner who was a fit and strong body-builder, then quite frankly Squinter's more than a little concerned himself.

And so, next election day, Squinter thinks he'll stay in the house in solidarity with those who are staying in their homes simply because they're afraid to leave.


http://www.squinter.net/2008/03/20-years-on-gerry-must-face-truth.html


 

[Down Gael]

Its not just happening in West Belfast, look at Newry over the weekend, or Dublin, or any other large town in Ireland.

[Donagh]

Read that this morning and I have to say he's spot-on. Adams has neglected his constituency in favour of his Party and the 'Peace Process'. Contrast that with Hume who always found time to use his contacts to do what he could for Derry whenever he could.

[A Quinn Martin Production]

Someone once said that revolutionaries who join the mainstream usually end up as Tories

[Guillem2]

Mallon used his contacts to give Newry a lift as well but i still think it's a bit unfair putting all the blame on the bearded one. Govt policy plays a big part an there's only so much the MP can do.

Squinter has an agenda here & I don't know what it is. Is there a palace coup planned? Who could do a better job than Gerry?

[Gaoth Dobhair Abu]

Agreed Guillem, its a bit rich blaming Gerry for all the ills of WB, one man cannot stop the tide.
I do think that Gerry will stand aside before the next election.

[spiritof91and94]

All MLA's are out for one thing - themselves...
Wait to you see South Down this weekend - Jim Wells will be having his annual 'kick the Pope at every opportunity' because of a Easter Parade in Newcastle - he will such a PR drive it will give him an enormous erection!
If they would look into drug dealing, anti social activity it would serve us all better....

[Boolerhead Mel]

Politicans can only do so much. Lets call a spade a spade the people responsible for the Hoods are their parents. An example should be made of them-their houses should be picketed should be removed from the community. They chose to have these excuses from Human beings they should be made to account for their offsprings actions. Drastic times call for drastic action's community should reclaim the streets and use any means necessary to rid of the filth fight fire with fire-not some QUB educated twit talking about social disadvantage!!       

[Over the Bar]

...well he gave us the roads.......

[Minder]

Why would he want to make the area better when he can sit back and let conditions deteriorate and blame others? 

Agree TYP, Sinn Fein are aware of various drug dealers operating in their community and allow them to operate with impunity.

[Orior]

Increased duffle coat sales?

[ONeill]

Anyone who votes for politicians in the hope that they'll do something needs their head checked.

It's the think-tank that makes the decisions. Politicians are there to placate the unwashed.

Bit like headmasters having inset days about policy changes/staff development. The decisions have already been made. Those days are just a bit of psychological codology.

[Square Ball]

finding to hard to think of anything, did he start the West Belfast Festival?

[Guillem2]

Paul Maskey is on Nolan now defending Gerry and SF. Basically he just keeps saying "he's working hard" over and over again. Getting some awful abuse from the callers.

[Minder]

There was a piece in the Irish News today where he was repeating his usual mantra of PSNI incompetence and refused to accept criticism from the electorate in West Belfast of Sinn Fein saying "his party's record spoke for itself".....