I’m the Green Party Area Representative for the Municipal District of Listowel i.e. north Kerry. Or in short, the Greens have not won a thing in north Kerry. How did I ascend to this exalted position? Well, I put my hand up in a meeting and said I’ll do it. As anyone who has ever been involved in any sort of voluntary organisation knows, that’s how shit gets done. The act of volunteering. Several acts to be more accurate. Showing up and volunteering for tasks, that’s what activism is. And I don’t mean just political activism. GAA clubs, Tidy Towns, literary festivals, charities, protest movements and, of course, political parties are all built on the backs of people who show up and say, I’ll do it.
North Kerry doesn’t have elected Green representation but there are Greens here. There are Green issues here and there is a Green perspective. My role is to try threading the needle of expressing that legitimate concern while being cognisant of my nonexistent mandate. It’s an awkward one. And weirdly made more difficult by our party being in government. One can have zero mandate, but also be blamed for any missteps the government makes.
In my previous post on this topic, I explained I do not see the environment as an ideological issue. I’m not hugely interested in the environment. If our civilisation wasn’t threatened by our abuse of the environment, I would not be in the Greens. I’m still bewildered that the Greens have to exist. It’s as if we needed a political party whose entire raison d’être was explaining why cancer was a bad thing and promoting policies to avoid getting cancer.
But I have to keep that bewilderment firmly under control. As we are continuing to learn in this internet age, facts don’t matter, especially facts that pertain to a decade or especially severely decades from now.
A lot of time as a Rep is taken up with learning. I’m learning about the environment (as I said, I was never an environmentalist). I’m learning more about how the political process works (I thought I knew a lot already, but there’s so much more to it than I’d thought.) And I’m learning to have conversations with people where I listen. Yeah, I know. I’m not a fan of that, but it’s proving fascinating.
North Kerry is part of the Golden Vale. An area of rich soil that favours dairy production. We produce a lot of milk. So, I’m speaking to farmers. This one group defines north Kerry more than any other demographic. And my conversations thus far have been enlightening. I’d presumed, wrongly, that they feared us.
During the negotiations to form the government there was a push in Kerry, by most of the political establishment, to demonise the Greens. Our stand against Shannon LNG was seen as outside interference. We were portrayed as being anti-farmer. We wanted to eliminate cars. That we were Dublin suburbanites intent on making Kerry into a grand holiday park. Old school anti-green rubbish, but I thought it was quite effectively done. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there was cross party cooperation on the attacks.
Obviously, it was mostly posturing aimed at their leaderships but it was also amusing to be the target of such nonsense. And encouraging. And as I said, I thought it was effective. But it wasn’t. In my conversations with farmers, they are well aware that something has to be done. They look at the same news as I do. They have children and grandchildren. They see what’s coming.
I don’t offer opinions or suggestions, yet. I grew up next to a farm. Helped out on that farm. But I have zero understanding of what it is like to be a farmer. I’m still learning. But I know nothing will happen in north Kerry without our farmers.
As well as speaking with people I have had to get on Facebook. One struggles to function in the modern political world with social media, especially Facebook. I have to post everyday just so the algorithm remembers who I am and puts my posts in front of people’s eyes. I’m serving a bloody algorithm. But as I’m not a celebrity I have to collect those likes, one at the time, building my profile one person at a time.
It’s laborious but while I’m tempted to complain, I did volunteer for this.
You can follow my political activism on my campaign Facebook page: Paul Bowler – Green Party Listowel
