The news that President Bush will visit Ireland at the end of June has been followed by a series of initiatives by the Irish government — with implicit US approval — that if effective are meant to stifle the basic right to protest and prove Ms. Roy to be needlessly insolent. Indeed, the events underway in Ireland seem to bear out Thucydides maxim that ‘large nations do what they wish, while small nations accept what they must.

Since the Great Famine in the middle of the nineteenth-century Ireland has felt a special connection with the United States. Over two million Irish had no other option but to plough the rough seas of the North Atlantic after being evicted or made ‘redundant’ on their small plots in Ireland. Many ended up in eastern Canada where even today the pronunciation in Newfoundland exactly corresponds to the brogue found in south eastern tip of Ireland. Still more, however, made their way to Ellis Island and from there across the vast interior of the US, macadamizing roads, erecting bridges and any other menial tasks they could undertake along the way. Today some 40 million Americans claim Irish descent (about 14 per cent). Indeed, come hail or high storm the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) may be found eating lunch as a ‘special guest’ of the White House on St Patrick’s Day each year.

The logic of Bush’s impending visit to Ireland seems to be threefold. First, it is hoped that Ireland can draw on its past history with the US and its present position as president of the European Union to repair the growing gulf (so to speak) between Europe and the United States since the renewal of conflict in Iraq. Although it is not certain whether the Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern would consider Ireland to be part of ‘old’ or ‘new’ Europe (in Donald Rumsfeld’s derisive words); what is certain is that ‘Bertie’ — as he is affectionately called in his home town of Dublin — considers Ireland’s presidency to be crucial in restoring ‘stability and vitality to the EU-US relation’. The second reason is of course to place Northern Ireland firmly back on the North American political map. George Bush seems none too keen to follow in the steps of President Clintons who spent some of his final days in office trying to broker a historic settlement in Northern Ireland. (Alas, history will recall that Clinton’s luck ended with his office.) Finally we should not dismiss the importance of an Irish visit as US elections loom. In actual fact, according to the system of rotating venues the annual EU-US summit ought to be taking place in Washington this year. Carole Craig, who formerly worked as a journalist for the Boston Globe called the Bush visit a ‘12 hour photo-op.’

The impending visit scheduled for June 25 will be Bush Junior’s first visit to Ireland since he took up office in 2000. News of the event has already sparked minor political fall-outs. Unsurprisingly the war in Iraq is a major sticking point. The Irish government rightly stands accused of ambiguity over the war. On the one hand, when pushed in the Dàil (the Irish Parliament) the Minster for Foreign Affairs can declare that the war in Iraq is illegal without a U.N. mandate, while, on numerous other occasions Mr. Ahern and his cabinet have found it convenient to express their sympathies with the present ‘war on terror’ not least by allowing US military aircraft to use Shannon Airport.

The use of Shannon Airport has proven particularly controversial. Opposition parties accused the government of being compliant in ‘the killing of innocent Iraqis, the flouting of international law and the weakening of the United Nations.’ The government — now apparently word perfect in Orwellian doublespeak — countered that US military aircraft moving through Shannon were ‘not part of any military exercise.’ (Inside the Dàil at least one minister saw this argument for what it was. Mr. Higgins pointed out: ‘If the people who came to plant the Dublin and Monaghan bombs were facilitated at a petrol station along the way with the knowledge of the petrol station owner as to what they were doing and where they were going, would the Government say that person had nothing to do with it? Under our law, would that person not be aiding and abetting and subject probably to the same charges of mass murder as those who left the car? What is the difference in facilitating bombers to blow children, women and men to bits as we saw in recent days?’)

Of course strong opposition spilled beyond official channels. Opinion poll findings suggested that a majority of Irish citizens — as many as three to one — were against the use of Shannon Airport in the event of a unilateral strike against Iraq. As matters turned out, the Irish government proved no different to many other purportedly democratic countries around the world in which the majority were opposed to the war (I am thinking here of Italy, Turkey, Spain and Australia): the government simply ignored the voice of the people offering lame excuses that the present course was ‘for their own good’ or in ‘our national interest’ — words calculated to foment conviction and to ‘extol the present as a process without an alternative,’ in author Tariq Ali’s words. Shannon Airport was used — and continues to be used — by the US military in the war in Iraq. Moreover, the Irish government waived charges for the use of Irish airspace thus effectively subsidizing the US war effort. Recently the Minister of Foreign affairs told the Dàil that the use of Shannon was ‘particularly appreciated’ by the US because of its capacity and location.

However, the Irish government’s response to the proposed presidential visit may be about to polarise the political ground even more. Reports that President Bush is to fly into Shannon Airport have been followed by an intense security crack-down in the Shannon region. The Gardaí (The Irish police force) are currently calling to each of Shannon’s 2,800 homes, taking the names and ages of all residents, the registration numbers of their vehicles and documenting the names of visitors expected at the time of the Bush visit. Although residents have been advised that they are not obliged to give this information, the Gardaí are also cautioning people that if they refuse to co-operate then they may not be issued with a pass for ease of access to their homes during the Bush visit. As more than one commentator has noted, the surveillance of households has a historical precedence in Ireland. During the bloody War of Independence (1919-21) the ‘Black and Tans’ — a notorious counter-insurgency force deployed by the British and named after their chequered uniforms — ordered residents to display on their front door the names of all those then lodged in their dwelling.

Of course this analogy can only be drawn so far. Nonetheless these intrusions on daily life have urged people to question not only the legitimacy of this personal surveillance but the collective cause which considers them necessary.

It is well known, for example, that in distributing passes to locals Gardaí are intending to prevent anti-war protestors from entering an ‘exclusion zone’ around Shannon during the visit. Recently it was announced that following consultations with the US Secret Service, the Department of Justice has cleared a wing in Limerick prison to be used as a detention centre for protestors in ‘the event of disorder.’ When pressed on these issues during a recent visit to Ireland US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson retorted that this was ‘just the way that modern democracies work.’

Hannah Arendt, a distinguished political philosopher, often spoke about the ‘boomerang effect’ of power. In her words, the whole long and messy history of imperialism teaches us that tyrannical power — including the power to rule over foreign people — can stay in power only in so far as it destroys first of all the institutions of its own people. The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw also understood this lesson when he supposedly called for ‘home rule for England,’ the implication being that the first colony of Great Britain was England.

In much the same way, the events now under way in Shannon may provide a valuable lesson for the residents of Shannon and the people of Ireland more generally. As systematic searches and tagging continue, the armed forces roll in, and E-3 Sentry AWAC plans police the sky, won’t witnesses be compelled to see that ‘freedoms’ are not being defended but eroded? The cordon sanitaire that will be imposed around the Shannon region represents — in tiny compass — the closing of political space and the annihilation of dissent. In this sense, the people of Shannon are not simply being visited by the President of the United States; they are also being visited — in an intense and intrusive way — by the new geopolitical order he represents. This is America abroad and emboldened as the sycophants and cissies of empire watch in awe from the sidelines.

David Nally is a PhD Candidate at the University of British Columbia