Opinion

Tom Kelly: Father figure Joe Biden is what America needs at this time of division

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

Poet Amanda Gorman reads a poem during the inauguration of President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool)
Poet Amanda Gorman reads a poem during the inauguration of President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool) Poet Amanda Gorman reads a poem during the inauguration of President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool)

Watching the inauguration of Joe Biden, I could not help but notice the beds of snowdrops surrounding the Capitol Building.

Snowdrops are the tiny flowers which signals the beginning of the end of winter darkness. A sign of awakening. A harbinger of hope.

Not even the riotous antics of the insurrectionists could hold back these resilient little blooms from breaking through the hard frost-topped soil.

It seemed appropriate they should welcome a new political start in Washington DC - not just for America but for the world too. As the amazing youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman put it: “ When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it”.

Those snowdrops haunted me because I noticed snowdrops at the door of the late Seamus Mallon's home when I attended his wake twelve months ago. I promised to plant some but never did.

A week before Seamus’ death we chatted about the best time to cut back hydrangeas and the planting of climbers - even in dying he was looking forward to Spring. Mallon also held forth on the state of the SDLP, the quagmire of sectarianism and the folly of Boris Johnson. As I recall I was not spared a flea in my ear either. But that was Seamus and a year on from his death I can still hear his gravelly, authoritative voice echoing in my head like a spare conscience.

Mallon would have loved to have witnessed the Biden/Harris inauguration. He knew Biden well and he would have been impressed by the dynamic Kamala Harris, in much the same way he was proud of his namesake, Nichola Mallon, as a leader and a voice of the future.

Biden may be 78 but he is just what America needs at this time of division. A fatherly figure for the nation. A man who personally experienced hurt and loss and who is capable of sharing the hope which follows.

The entire theme of the Biden speech was about reconciliation, debate not discord, the richness of diversity and the binds of nationhood which unite citizens not divide them.

Mallon in one of his final interviews said he primarily got into politics ‘to help people particularly in a divided society”. Biden’s words, “Some days we need a hand” and on others “we are called to lend one”, would have very much resonated with Seamus.

Mallon understood the concept of trying to stand in the shoes of the other person. His biography is testimony to that.

Biden’s career has been very much one of bi-partisanship. He has little time for the political rancour and bitterness so evidenced by the Trumpian dominance of the Republican Party over the past four years.

Because of his advanced years Biden is a man in a hurry. He can unravel the nastiness of the Trump legislation but he will have to work much harder to win hearts and minds of those at odds with facts and science and who are detached from reality and government. He may not succeed because whilst the vast majority of the millions of Republicans who voted for Trump are not bigots or racists, those who are need to be rooted out. Political parties should not give ground cover to fanaticism and fascism.

To hear in 2021 an inauguration speech which called out white supremacy and domestic terrorism was both reassuring but also disconcerting. As Biden said, there is a huge chasm between the American ideal about everyone being created equal and the “harsh, ugly reality” of ingrained racism and nativism.

Thirty five years ago Seamus Mallon addressed the House of Commons and quoting Spinoza said: “Peace is not an absence of war. It is a state of mind, a benevolence, confidence and justice.”

Biden now aspires to a similar sense of benevolence.