One Big Union is a self-published collection of essays by Irish poet Ciarán O’Rourke.The essays, many of which have been previously published in such outlets as Poetry Ireland Review, Irish Marxist Review, and indeed, Cassandra Voices herself, are a mix of literary criticism, political theory, and personal writing.
The book’s introduction locates itself in the burgeoning genre of pandemic writing. Thus he writes:
Between the winter of 2019 and the summer of 2021, a period of cascading social and ecological crises, I found myself returning to the work of a number of poets, artists, and political firebrands, with a fresh sense of discovery and gratitude. This miscellany of essays is the result.
In essence, this book is a polished version of a reading diary, with O’Rourke responding to the artists he was confined with over quarantine. As such, it’s an intensely personal and vulnerable work, even when the directly autobiographical material is minimal.
You finish the book with the impression that Percy Bysshe Shelley plays a leading role in O’Rourke’s inner life ; that Irishness is something O’Rourke feels strongly attached to; and that he is passionately devoted to left-wing political ideals, even though he finds the atmosphere of devoted Communist organisations mentally stultifying.
This is a lot to know about a relative stranger, and it’s a testament to O’Rourke’s ability as a writer that this distinct, personal voice is present throughout, even in moments when the subject matter veers into academic territory.
Hole in the Wall Blues
Perhaps it’s scholarly fatigue, but I must admit I found the moments of personal, autobiographical writing the most compelling parts of the book.
In ‘Hole in the Wall Blues’, O’Rourke writes about a topic made timely by the Save the Cobblestone protest – the erosion of Dublin’s cultural geography – in an endearingly personal way.
The example he uses is the Screen cinema on Townsend street, now a building site for what O’Rourke believes will be a “rental hub”.
It wasn’t like the Screen cinema was some beautiful location, he argues. No, it was dingy, cheap, and outmoded. But, O’Rourke writes, “just by being there and providing the service it did, this rather run-down space had made the city a home of sorts”.
In another essay, ‘Sea Music’, he talks about the strange intimacy that has grown between himself and the other regular bathers at Seapoint. These accounts of his private life made me care about the more abstract essays, helping me, as a reader, trace the thread of emotional necessity behind his discussions of Percy Shelley or Langston Hughes.
Although most of these essays are ruminative and introspective, there are a few that pack a satisfying punch. My favourite is ‘Smashing the Mirror’, where O’Rourke excoriates Poetry Ireland’s toothless humility in front of the strong arms of cultural hegemony, exemplified in their partnership with the Dublin office of Facebook for national poetry day in 2017, and their use of a video of Joe Biden giving a merry, public-relations-approved speech about the beauty of Irish poetry for their fundraising campaign in 2019.
What does it mean for the institutions of Irish poetry to flatter the centres of power so shamelessly? O’Rourke is excitingly sharp in his rhetorical denouncement:
The emerald glint in Biden’s eyes, the nostalgic quaver in his voice, is meant to reinforce, for voters at home and lackeys elsewhere, a relation (between lord and vassal, say, or centre and outpost) that each of these circumstances also exemplifies – all under the guise of celebrating Irish poetry. And Poetry Ireland, it seems, is happy to play along: cosying up to power, for the sake of PR, and presumably on the long-term promise of cash.Admission of Bias
I may be biased when it comes to reviewing this book. In the first year of my English Studies course in Trinity College, Ciarán O’Rourke was working as a teaching assistant while he finished his phD, and I happened to be placed in his Romanticism tutorials.
Ciarán was a wonderful teacher, with a gift for generating class discussion. He also had the touch of eccentricity required to deliver a course on Romanticism. At one point he had the whole class stand up and communally reciteShelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’in early Spring; as if we could hurry the pace of the seasons through the right incantation of the words.
With that said, I had no idea I was reading my former teacher’s book until after I had read through the collection. From the tone of the writing, and the subjects covered (bathing in Dun Laoghaire, Marxist politics, nineteenth century poets), I had assumed the author was in his fifties or sixties. I imagined a Terry Eagleton type – hip enough to know about Ursula Le Guin, but whose outlook on life has been shaped by figures from a deeper past. Then I looked up some interviews, and, with a jolt, recognised the fresh-faced, tall figure of my Romanticism tutor.
Critique
One criticism I have is in relation to the structure of the book. First, it lacks certain features of a professionally published work. There is no publication date. The cover image, by Lewis Hine, is not credited on the back cover, or on one of the first pages, but in the ‘Introduction and Acknowledgements’ section.
These may seem minor issues, but by failing to follow conventions, it becomes harder to work with, and conveys an attitude of slight carelessness, unbefitting of its important contents.
My second criticism is of the repetition between essays. As many of the essays were published in different publications, it appears the author was unconcerned at repeating a few key points. When gathered together in a book, however, these repetitions jar on the reader.
For example, several pieces of information related to Shelley in the essay entitled ‘Shelley’s Revolutionary Year’ are duplicated without development in the title essay ‘One Big Union’, for example. This certainly conveys the extent of Shelley’s psychological importance to the author, but it doesn’t expand on the issue.
Overall, this is an intriguing collection of essays from a young Irish poet. Those interested in O’Rourke’s poetrywill gain insights into his artistic influences, and anyone looking for topical cultural critiques will be well served by some of the later essays in particular. Its main value is as a political statement of purpose for the poet. It also represents an opportunity for those interested to support a promising Irish writer, whose work has been hitherto largely available to readers for free.
One Big Union is available for purchase through Ciarán O’Rourke’s website, ragpickerpoetry.net
Never before have I felt so far from my country of origin as when I heard that Italy would be added to the list of countries from which arrivals are mandated to enter a hotel quarantinefor twelve days on arrival in Ireland. Now any trip to my family will cost almost two grand, and that’s before accounting for the flights and numerous tests.
That’s quite a spike in price compared to the few hundred euro I needed prior to April 15th. In pure economic terms, it further diminishes the purchasing power of a particular section of immigrants, as well as Irish citizens living abroad; even if only for a particular item, such as the opportunity to visit loved ones occasionally, and to return for a short stay in case of an emergency.
For many of us, living from pay cheque to pay cheque, the inflated price of the hotel stay is a serious impediment to reaching one’s country of origin; and that’s without considering the dread we feel about spending almost two weeks under hotel arrest, without even access to a kitchen. I wonder how healthy it is to eat takeaway food for twelve days in a row?
One may argue that the measure is a proportionate response to a public health emergency and that the right to travel abroad does not come before the right of a country to remain Covid free. But this ignores whether we test negative on arrival and show no symptoms and, more broadly, the rights of European citizens living in another member state.
Under Article 45 of the charter of the fundamental rights of the European Union, as citizens we enjoy a right to freedom of movement. Every citizen of the Union has the right to move and reside freely within each member states’ territory. There has to be a very compelling (and proportionate) reason for this right to be withdrawn.
The time for extreme restrictions on the right to travel was March 2020, when some member states including Denmark and Poland temporarily closed their borders. But at this stage any restrictions surely should be decided on a case-by-case basis, and not applied indiscriminately. Ireland isn’t exactly Covid-free New Zealand at this stage, and the Irish government is not aiming for a Covid-free status. What’s more the number of exceptions – including for politicians, and elite athletes in all likelihood – demonstrates the law is being applied unfairly.
I wonder if this is another aspect of our pre-Covid life that we have to reluctantly accept has disappeared – in order to protect the weak and vulnerable? Or so it is argued. Even if that means uselessly undermining the rights of immigrants living in Ireland now confronted with draconian barriers to movement.
One can understand – confronting the pressure the pandemic has put on healthcare capacity all over the world – why authorities might consider any means possible to stop the spread. But even working from that assumption, it is really difficult to find justification for mandatory hotel quarantine if an individual tests negative on departure and after five days on arrival, for example.
In any case, regardless of its arguable necessity, this measure’s immediate effect is to further alienate foreign communities living in Ireland and, I suspect, Irish ex-pats abroad, even though the data shows that foreign travel has had a miniscule effect – just one percent of cases according to Leo Varadkar in January – on the spread of the disease.
Regarding the Irish media’s coverage of this issue, it is disturbing that sympathy seems to be reserved for Irish citizens returning home to loved ones, but silence on how this will affect other EU citizens, and non-EU nationals. It sends out a clear message about how much the political and media establishment value foreign workers living in this country who cannot vote in national elections.
The effect is to place a prohibitive price tag on returning to countries of origin for communities that are already massively economically disadvantaged by the pandemic; not to mention the housing crisis, and more generally, a widening inequality that too many in the political establishment of this country seem to accept as “the way things are.”
Now this political establishment has no shame in implementing Populist measures, which seem aimed at gathering political support from a terrorized audience that dreams of a ZeroCovid approach, after being treated to a partially informed debate for months.
It is a curious paradox that the internationalist establishment left in Ireland has no objection to sealed borders, and the effect this will have on immigrant minorities, many of whom are living on the margins of society.
Often, the most useless measures to tackle a problem reveal where the real problem lies. In this instance, the cynical alienation shown by NPHET and politicians in proposing and implementing such policies that have major impacts on communities with whom they normally have no contact, apart from well-orchestrated photo ops with appropriately smiling immigrants.
The question now becomes: for how long will this policy of internment last?
In December 1899 Honolulu-based physicians attributed two deaths to bubonic plague, and a local paper duly announced that the ‘scourge of the Orient’ had arrived.[i] Within months a first plague fatality was reported in continental U.S. as Chinese-American Chick Gin (Wing Chung Ging or Wong Chut King depending on the transliteration) succumbed to the disease in San Francisco. The cause of death was based on a classic plague symptom of swelling around the groin, but was disputed even after rudimentary bacterial analysis. Regardless, political and health authorities were already taking actions that resonate today.
Fearing the economic impact of a dreaded disease, the state governor denied the existence of plague altogether, accusing his own health officials of propagating rumours and ‘injurious opinions’ detrimental to the ‘great and healthful city.’[ii] Conversely, successive quarantines had already been imposed on San Francisco’s Chinatown, excluding non-Asian homes and businesses despite their proximity. Enforced by barbed wire and a heavy police presence, the blockade led to dwindling food supplies and a steep rise in costs. An experimental vaccine with severe side effects, developed in 1897 by bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine, was made obligatory for any Chinese (and Japanese) wanting to leave the city.
In 1900, Honolulu’s Chinatown was set on fire to in a misdirected effort to control Bubonic plague.
Unsurprisingly, the turn-of-the-century scapegoating of East Asians in California did not occur in a vacuum. Anti-Chinese prejudice had already been formalized in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, banning their immigration for undermining the ‘dignity and wage scale of American workers.’[iii] There were, likewise, widespread perceptions of the Chinese as carriers of disease. If Europeans had been imperilled by the ‘barbaric hordes of Asia’, germs represented ‘a peaceful invasion more dangerous than a warlike attack.’[iv] And while dogma of the day suggested limited danger to the West due to advances in health and civilization, extreme measures might be necessary with plague. In such cases Russia’s ‘heroic methods’ in its Chinese colonies were helpfully referenced, as firing squads for the infected ‘saved trouble and other people’s lives.’[v]
An 1886 advertisement for ‘Magic Washer’ detergent: ‘The Chinese Must Go’.
Old Wine, New Bottle
Associating disease with marginalized groups, minorities and others has hardly been an exclusively American experience. And by today’s standards, persecution over illness is not necessarily as crude, but neither can toxic discourse or indeed violence be excluded. The arrival of a new coronavirus in December 2019 is a case in point. The linking of its presumed place of origin in Wuhan with East Asians generally, and Chinese in particular, did not take long to manifest itself as multiple accounts of discrimination emerged. In Western countries this played on traditional racial tropes such as sordid animal markets and uncleanliness. Reflecting an entirely different experience, namely apprehension over Chinese influence, regional reaction was also alarmist. Both say as much about perceptions of mainland China as of the disease itself.
There is no shortage of recent examples that demonstrate medical scapegoating around a novel or poorly understood disease. In 2010, the lynching of voodoo priests in Haiti originated with rumours of pout kolera (magic cholera powder) deliberately poisoning the water supply. The choice of target was partially reflected in the complex history of voodoo practitioners and the Haitian State. At times associated with resistance to foreign occupation, at others integrated into the personality cults of Haiti’s twentieth century dictatorships, notably that of ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier. Confusion over the origins of the cholera epidemic ‘fed on feelings of insecurity and fear’, in turn fuelling stigmatization and violence.[vi] More sustained anger eventually shifted towards the unwitting culprits, negligent United Nations peacekeepers that had contaminated the Artibonite river with cholera-infected faeces.
Vodou ceremony, Jacmel, Haiti, 2002. Image: ‘Doron’.
A corollary of medical scapegoating is fear and misinformation. Fundamental weaknesses in the Pakistani health sector, combined with accusations of a fake Hepatitis B campaign orchestrated to locate and kill Osama Bin Laden, has reinforced suspicions of polio vaccinations. With rumours of polio vaccines being either harmful or simply a front for intelligence gathering, health workers have since borne the brunt of attacks by armed groups.[vii] Misunderstandings and distortions around Ebola, both in West Africa in 2014 and more recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo have led directly to the deaths of medical staff. In the latter case, mistrust over the response is rampant, provoked in part by ‘community resentment’ over the focus on Ebola while ignoring underlying problems in the country.[viii]
The targeting of health workers as somehow responsible for bringing illness into a community, and thus the cause or at least the visible manifestation of a terrifying epidemic, is an extreme example of the need to apportion blame. But if sickness has historically been portrayed as a punishment for sin, socially excluded groups and minorities have proven most vulnerable. Whether linked to mortality or fear of the unknown, context is key to understanding the long history of how those on the margins of society have been scapegoated. Much as nineteenth century descriptions of Chinese immigrants as ‘walking time bombs of infection’ cannot be separated from pervasive Sinophobia, the frequent panic associated with novel or misunderstood illness has tended to reinforce pre-existing stereotypes.[ix]
From Tragedy to Farce
The fate of Chick Gin aside, apportioning individual responsibility for epidemics is unusual in that it is difficult to prove. ‘Typhoid Mary’ is likely the most infamous example as she came to be seen as ‘synonymous with the health menace posed by the foreign-born.’[x] An Irish immigrant cook, Mary Mallon was a so-called healthy carrier of typhoid bacteria, unintentionally instigating outbreaks amongst her wealthy employers in New York until she was eventually tracked down in 1906. Vilified in the papers as a ‘walking typhoid fever factory’ or a ‘human culture tube’,[xi] Mallon would end her days in forced isolation.
‘Typhoid’ Mary Mallon in hospital.
On a more grandiose scale, Canadian air steward Gaëtan Dugas was posthumously declared ‘Patient Zero’, accused of intentionally infecting his partners with HIV and provoking the spread of AIDS in North America.[xii] Although later disproved, the fear and exclusion of the five ‘H’s – homosexuals, heroin addicts, haemophiliacs, hookers and Haitians – remained commonplace in the 1980s.
Much like the five ‘H’s, easier to trace is the scapegoating of entire groups, the archetypal example almost certainly being the pogroms and massacres inflicted on European Jews during the Black Death. Rumours of an ‘anti-Christian international conspiracy’ fit snugly with long-standing antisemitism, particularly when mortality rates among Jews were seen as inexplicably low (the fact that sensible hygiene laws laid out in the book of Leviticus had been employed was entirely ignored). Initially directed at medieval lepers and vagrants, Jews came to be accused of poisoning wells, eventually resulting in the extermination of entire communities.[xiii] Six hundred years later hygiene control of typhus, a lice-borne pathogen, became an element of Nazi propaganda intended to justify the mass murder of human carriers during the Holocaust.[xiv]
Representation of a massacre of the Jews in 1349 Antiquitates Flandriae (Royal Library of Belgium).
The transatlantic journey of yellow fever holds particular irony in the history of racial stereotyping over disease. The mosquito-borne virus’s first documented appearance in the New World was in 1647 Barbados. Even if thoroughly misunderstood at the time, much like malaria there was an assumption that black Africans were immune to the disease, all the more so as white Europeans were so highly susceptible (in reality this was largely due to early exposure during childhood). This immunity in turn became one of the justifications on which the Atlantic slave system was built. Brutal conditions on the sugar plantations and corresponding high mortality rates ensured continued new arrivals, often with the same immunity, all the while reinforcing the original racial stereotype. It was only as slavery was gradually abolished in the nineteenth century, a period coinciding with multiple outbreaks of yellow fever in the American South, that former slaves were themselves accused of spreading the disease.[xv]
Skibbereen, west Cork, in 1847 by James Mahony.
Cholera likewise has a special place in the history of medical scapegoating and became highly politicized. Despite having long circulated locally on the Indian subcontinent, it only emerged on the global stage in the early nineteenth century, an appearance closely intertwined with colonial trade policies. As the bacteria must be ingested through contaminated water or food, the poorest and most deprived urban areas proved most vulnerable. And given the profile of its victims, the spread of cholera inevitably took on class connotations that shifted smoothly towards immigrants, even as disease transmission came to be better understood. The Irish migratory experience was strongly marked by outbreaks of cholera, with higher mortality rates used as ‘corroboration that they were carriers of the disease’ rather than a reflection of widespread discrimination and impoverishment.[xvi]
The link between poverty and disease was particularly apparent with venereal disease, more specifically syphilis (and gonorrhoea with which it was often confused). Referred to at times as the ‘secret plague’ given the strong underreporting, symptoms had been recognizable since the late fifteenth century. And while there had long been a feminized connotation as per responsibility, hence the expression ‘one night with Venus and a lifetime with Mercury’, apportioning syphilitic blame took on far more sinister connotations through the later association with underprivileged women. Various incarnations of the Contagious Diseases Act in 1860s Britain essentially allowed the arrest and forced treatment of prostitutes in an attempt to limit venereal disease in the military, and subsequently the broader population.[xvii]
The emergence of syphilis also provoked an unusual example of xenophobic scapegoating, essentially a bizarre etymological battle that took on global proportions. As the disease spread throughout Europe and beyond, rivals were duly named responsible. For the French it was the Neapolitan disease, the Italians vice versa; the Russians blamed the Poles; the Dutch turned towards the Spanish; in Japan it emerged as the ‘Chinese ulcer’; while the Turks were less discerning, simply referring to the Christian disease.[xviii] The 1918 influenza pandemic likewise went through multiple national incarnations before settling on the familiar Spanish flu, a reference to the neutral country that first reported the disease. Both examples border on the farcical and if there are lessons to be learned, at least as far as 1918 is concerned, it is rather the impact of censorship and misinformation in controlling a pandemic.[xix]
Lessons Unlearned
Being reminded of past madness has a purpose, especially as we have a nasty habit of repeating our errors. Our understandable fear of disease sadly has often revealed our basest instincts, further stigmatizing the most vulnerable and endangering the health of all. Barbaric reflexes are never far from the surface. The emergence of a new pandemic has provoked ugly reactions very much reminiscent of the past, and counterproductive to controlling both the disease and the corresponding panic. While there are no rules to the patterns of hate linked to epidemics, just as increased social cohesiveness is also a potential consequence, the choice of scapegoating targets is not random. Facile demonization of the ‘foreign’ remains a perpetual risk, and disease a convenient pretext.
As for Chick Gin, he was merely the first of many plague fatalities in 1900 San Francisco. Over the next eight years at least one-hundred-and-seventy-two others would perish, both Chinese and non-Chinese.
[ix] Quote taken from testimony to Congress in 1876 over the state of Chinese immigration, Mary Roberts Coolidge, Chinese Immigration, Arno Press: New York, 1969 (original 1909), p. 106.
[xi] ‘Woman ‘Typhoid Factory’ Held a Prisoner’, The Evening World, New York, 1 April 1907.
[xii] Charlie Campbell, Scapegoat: A History of Blaming Other People, Duckworth Overlook: London, 2011, p. 161.
[xiii] John Kelly, The Great Mortality: An intimate History of the Black Death, Harper: London, 2006, pp. 232, 248.
[xiv] Samuel K. Cohn, Pandemics: Waves of Disease, Waves of Hate from the Plague of Athens to A.I.D.S., Historical journal (Cambridge, England), 2012 November 1; 85(230): 535-555.
[xv] Sheldon Watts, Epidemics and History: Disease, Power and Imperialism, Yale University Press: London, 1999, pp. 245-246.
[xvi] Philip Alcabes, Dread: How Fear and Fantasy have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to Avian Flu, Public Affairs: New York, 2009, pp. 74-75, 77.
Admission of Bias
