Echo Opinion: Politics, salami, Irishness: remarks on a marching season

The complexities regarding Robert McCartney’s murder were lost by the time Adams came here amid a media squall over the White House snub. More than a few people asked me how the IRA could have killed that man in Belfast. What, these people asked, was the IRA thinking?
Of course, the McCartney murder was hardly the result of a conscious decision on the part of the Army Council. It was a bar fight gone terribly, horribly wrong. The men who killed Robert McCartney, the father of two small children, did not perpetrate this act of violence in the name of a united Ireland. They committed murder.
But because the killers were members of the IRA, this random act of terrible violence took on political significance, even though the crime was utterly devoid of political intrigue. That part of the story wasn’t explained very well here. And so Gerry Adams, already on the defensive about the IRA’s alleged role in the Belfast bank job a few months ago, found himself in the middle of a controversy over a murderous knife fight in a pub.
To be sure, the IRA has some explaining to do. Idiotically, it offered to execute McCartney’s alleged killers. This kind-hearted offer no doubt was made to show that the IRA is capable of administering swift and certain justice. Surprisingly, however, many people concluded that the IRA might serve itself better simply by turning over the alleged culprits, kneecaps intact, to — yes — the dreaded security forces.
In the days before his trip to the States, Adams invited the murder man’s relatives to Sin Fein’s annual party conference, gave the security forces the names of several Sinn Fein members who may have witnessed the crime, suspended those members from their party leadership positions, and threatened to expel members who did not cooperate with the investigation.
Those measures sound impressive and forceful. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration decided to return Adams to the political wilderness. Perhaps the White House will demand explanations from Ian Paisley or David Trimble the next time some loyalist feud turns deadly.
? The thinned ranks of the Fighting 69th as they marched up Fifth Avenue served as a reminder of how dependent we are on the men and women of the National Guard — the true citizen soldiers of the war on terror.
Some 40 percent of the troops deployed to Iraq are National Guard, like the men and women of the 69th Infantry, or members of the Reserves. These are the country’s proverbial weekend warriors — school teachers, firefighters, police officers and lawyers who set aside a portion of their lives not to improve their golf games or learn yoga, but to serve their country.
Elements of the 69th are part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and are serving alongside 20,000 comrades as part of Task Force Liberty in Tikrit. Among the casualties suffered by the 69th was Specialist Azhar Ali, whose funeral was held at the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens the day after St. Patrick’s Day. The unit made famous by Irish immigrants and their children has been transformed by a new generation of immigrants and their offspring.
The debt we owe to Specialist Ali and his comrades will never be paid. However, some folks at home are doing their best to show the troops that they have a support, regardless of how we feel about the war in Iraq. Recently, I ran across two brothers, Michael and Marc Brummer, who run the last great Jewish deli in Newark, Hobby’s. They are asking customers — and anybody else who is interested — to donate $10 to buy salamis for the men and women of Task Force Liberty, which included the 69th. It’s a small gesture (reminiscent of what Katz’ Deli in Manhattan did for the troops during World War II), but it does wonders for morale.
The two brothers hope to raise enough money to send a salami to every member of Task Force Liberty — all 20,000-plus. The inspiration of a friend, Michael Rothman, led them to take on this wonderful assignment. Rothman is a businessman who joined the National Guard after Sept. 11, and is now a captain serving in Task Force Liberty.
If you’d like to send a salami to the men and women in Tirkit, you can call Hobby’s Deli at (973) 623-0410.
? I caught some of the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade on the superstation WGN and was struck by how different that parade is, and, frankly, how much more fun it seemed than the great New York parade. There were more than 100 floats, and while some seemed silly, others featured live music from traditional Irish bands.
Of course, the parade in New York actually is an anomaly in its strict rules against floats and — remember this one? — wheelchairs. Most parades are like Chicago’s. The parades near my home in New Jersey feature Little League teams and Girls Scouts and political organizations. They certainly are not as impressive as the New York parade, but they do offer a very different vision of Irish America. That point was made most dramatically by one unit in the Chicago parade — the Yiddish Sons of Erin. Frankly, I’d like to see Irish Jews marching behind their own banner in the New York parade, and Irish Protestants as well. Why not? Well, the parade is run by the AOH, and in the AOH’s view, the celebration on Fifth Avenue is a tribute not only to Irish heritage, but the Catholic faith as well.
That’s fine, but as the other parades demonstrate, the New York vision of Irishness is only one of many.
And, finally, have you noticed that the media — always so very conscious of racial and ethnic stereotyping — simply cannot cover St. Patrick’s Day without mentioning beer?