subject: Why Would the Irish Reject British Help for their Economic Woes? [print this page] Why Would the Irish Reject British Help for their Economic Woes?
Ireland's present fiscal disposition is not as rosy as the Irish would want it to be. In just a few years or maybe even less the Irish government can go into default, sending its whole economic hierarchy back into the Dark Ages and yet they have rejected all forms of outside help.
The International Monetary Fund World Bank (IMF-WB), with the prodding of the United Kingdom and the rest of the European Union Parliament, offered a debt bailout for the ailing European nation so that it can get over what it everyone in the international calls its "worst financial situation in all of history".
Contrary to most satirist's beliefs, the Irish will not ask for help from their magical leprechauns. Whether Ireland needs a bailout or not is not really an issue, even for the Irish themselves. Instead, the problem lies in the form of help that is offered to them.
Ireland has fought hard for its political, social, and economic independence throughout its history, and the freedom that they enjoy right now is something that they are not willing to give away.
What the heck are you talking about?
At face value, the situation suggests that the Irish are too proud to admit that they are running out options on how to weather this financial storm. On the last week of November 2010, stocks have fallen dramatically over fears of the government being unable to pay back its debts. The banking sector suffered the most as it suffered almost a 20 percent dive in overall stock value.
Most people would think that the UK and the rest of the planet are trying to play the nice guy in school while Ireland is the self-pitying manic-depressive classmate who secludes himself from everyone else, leaves the school, and settles in the middle of the jungle.
But the story is not really about pride. Instead, it is the craving for freedom.
Foreign aid is very rarely unconditional. IMF-WB loans come with certain conditions that will inevitably force a country to yield varying degrees of its sovereignty, just for it to be able to acquire the needed financial help. This happens usually through in the form of privatisation, where local markets are opened up for grabs to international investors, taking away their ownership from local hands to multinational conglomerates.
If a foreign multinational firm enters a local industry, it is very likely that they would have more financial, logistic, and geopolitical teeth that they can use to obliterate local competition and thus establish their tactical hegemony. This would not have been a point of debate if the multinational company were largely Irish-owned. Sadly, most, very few of them are.
In essence, the Irish fear that their nation will be akin to a human farm, where workers will be paid just enough to get by, while all their natural resources and national wealth are continuously sucked out of their borders.
This "foreign conqueror" phenomenon is not something new to the history books. The practice of devolving the central government's power through the issuance of loans is still rampant in developing countries. However, during the very recent Greek economic debacle, the truth finally reared its ugly head as IMF-WB and the European Union demonstrated their quasi-economic-superpower status by taking over the reins of the Athenian government.
That is the problem that Ireland is facing right now. That is, they had to choose between the lesser of two evils, and most of them concluded that rebuilding their economy from scratch by letting it suffer a total breakdown is much more bearable than subjecting themselves into modern slavery.
