“that’s the trojan horse of the entire republican strategy…”

From his reported comments, it would appear that Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd, the Northern Ireland Education Minister, has, at best, a flawed “understanding” of his party president’s comments last night – and, hence, a flawed “understanding” of his party’s entire strategy.  From the UTV report

Mr O’Dowd added that his understanding of Mr Adam’s ‘Trojan horse’ comment was that it was about overcoming bigotry, sectarianism and homophobia.

He added: “There are very well fortified positions which people are protecting against equality. What we’re saying is we need to get around those walls, we need to deliver equality.”

Comprehension has, sadly, been neglected in our education system…

Gerry Adams told Will Crawley on Talkback today that he understood what the term “a Trojan horse” meant.  And, in her statement earlier, the DUP’s Arlene Foster assisted those who might not.

A Trojan Horse is a weapon dressed up as a gift.

The SDLP’s Colum Eastwood also focused on the Trojan horse remark

“Gerry Adams said very clearly that Sinn Féin is using the principle of equality as a tactic. When he said that equality was a ‘Trojan horse of the entire republican strategy’ Adams revealed that Sinn Féin is not interested in promoting an equality agenda because it is the right thing to do but rather because it can ‘break’ their opponents.

The Alliance Party leader, David Ford, added

“I have absolutely no idea why Gerry Adams could possible think that this language was justified. He has actually damaged equality legislation with his remarks.

And the UUP leader Mike Nesbitt

“But the most shocking revelation is that he considers equality as a ‘Trojan Horse’.

“The audio recording makes clear Gerry Adams thinks equality is nothing more than a tool to be used to manipulate people like me. That is shocking, to the point of nausea.

Fortunately, after his “the point is to actually break these bastards” comment, the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, TD, went on to provide a couple of examples to illustrate his point about using “equality” as “the Trojan horse of the entire republican strategy”.  From the Impartial Reporter’s fuller transcript

[Gerry Adams] “But what’s the point? The point is to actually break these bastards – that’s the point. And what’s going to break them is equality. That’s what’s going to break them – equality. Who could be afraid of equality? Who could be afraid of treating somebody the way you want to be treated. That’s what we need to keep the focus on – that’s the trojan horse of the entire republican strategy – is to reach out to people on the basis of equality.

The question about where is the tipping point… You see, the interesting thing about Gorbachev… Gorbachev didn’t set out to get rid of the USSR – that wasn’t his intention. He wanted to modernise it. It needed to be reformed but once he started to pull the thread it wasn’t possible. The afrikaners didn’t want to bring about an ANC government in South Africa. They wanted to get rid of the international campaign that was hurting them in terms of their different money making ventures. They actually, and I had the privilege of going there after Mandela was released and I talked to the guy – I forget his name but it is well enough written about -went into the prison to talk to Mandella and he told me, because he was one of the people who went and argued for them to start defusing some of the worst aspects of apartheid rule. They thought Mandela was going to home, they thought that blacks couldn’t govern themselves – he told me that.” [added emphasis]

At last, then, the answer Gerry Adams refused to give to the question posed on his one-night-only appearance in New York in June 2009, “United Ireland – How do we get there?”  On a Trojan horse!

[Look into my eyes, the eyes, the eyes, not around the eyes..? – Ed]  You might very well think that…

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