The Sinn Féin leader has chosen two revolutionaries of the past and one for the future among the people she most looks up to.
On The Hard Shoulder this evening, Ivan was joined by Mary Lou McDonald for the latest episode of ‘Who are your heroes?’
For her first pick, she put forward Irish revolutionary and politicians Countess Georgine Markievicz.
Markievicz was a key figure in Ireland's struggle for of Independence and is one of the country’s best-known suffragists, politicians and activists.
Deputy McDonald said she was “someone who was committed to social justice and who deplored poverty.”
“The essence of her is that she stepped outside her social class and onto the ground of really revolutionary change in her lifetime,”she said.
“That was evident through her activism in terms of suffrage and a woman’s right to vote, because back in the day women were denied even that fundamental freedom.
A statue of Countess Constance Markievicz in Rathcormack, County Sligo, 10-06-2020. Image: Peter Zoeller/Zuma Press/PA Images
Noting that she became the first woman elected to Westminster in 1918 and was a founding member of Dáil Éireann, Deputy McDonald described her as a “trailblazer on so many levels.”
“She was a committed and a convinced republican,” she said. “She is a nationalist icon; she is a feminist icon and she is a person who, in a very direct way, shaped everybody’s lives.”
Demonstrators march from the Martin Luther King Centre toward Piedmont Park in Atlanta, 06-06-2020. Image: Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS/Sipa USAThe Sinn Féin leader's second pick was civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
Deputy McDonald said Dr King used everything he had available to him to “paint a revolutionary picture of people living side-by-side equally.”
“Growing up as a child and a young adult, I would have seen preachers and preaching, particularly from the southern states of America, as something that was used more often to divide than to unite,” she said.
“The interesting thing about Martin Luther King, and his use of rhetoric in particular, is that he used those skills and his grounding as a person of faith to paint up a revolutionary picture of people living side by side equally.
“Embracing black children and white children and embracing friendships and a whole new dispensation of society built on that basis.”
She said modern politics could learn a lot from the way he communicated his message.
“There is something hugely democratic about the way he expressed huge ideas in very simple terms,” she said.
“I think there is something that all of us in activism and political life can learn from that.”
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi arrives for a press conference, with her mother Nariman ® after her release from an Israeli prison where she served a sentence of eight months, 29-07-2018. Image: Ilia Yefimovich/DPA/PA ImagesFor her final pick, Deputy McDonald chose Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi.
Ms Tamimi hit headlines around the world when a video of her confronting heavily-armed Israeli soldiers as a young teenager went viral.
Deputy McDonald said the now-19-year-old “personifies the Palestinian struggle."
“When I met her it struck me, for somebody who was so brave and had gained international notoriety for her stance, she was just a typical 17-year-old kid who quite clearly was fed up repeating her story and her perspective over and over again for interested visitors,” she said.
“I think she is a hero because for me she personifies the Palestinian struggle. She also personifies that great courage that young people and young activists had.”
She said the international community has “looked the other way” regarding Israeli treatment of Palestine and she admires Ms Tamimi because, “as a child – a Palestinian child – she was prepared to confront that which the international community will not.”
You can listen back to the segment here:
