Grant Warren

The latest in a long line of gaffes and storms concocted by our local representatives is the tweet-gate which exploded this past week, starting with a misogynistic and distasteful joke shared by UUP leader Doug Beattie which led to an excavation of deeply offensive tweets posted not only by Mr. Beattie – but also by a host of Sinn Fein MLAs.

For those of us tuned into the daily cut and thrust of Northern Irish politics, we are well aware that politicians saying controversial things is simply a fact of life – jibes about Northern Ireland being ‘artificial’, food-based analogies about the Irish language, and politicians embracing talents they never knew they had such as poetry and part-time epidemiology.

What is striking about this social media earthquake is the extent to which it seems to stretch across the political divide. It is a near certainty that with enough digging, most of our elected representatives would have social media posts which they are far from proud of. In Mr. Beattie’s case, the argument of his opponents will be that the double whammy of unsavoury jokes and deeply troubling tweets demonstrate that his attitudes haven’t really changed as it was only a week ago that he was indulging in casual misogyny. Do not underestimate the damage this has done to the Beattie brand, which was built on the premise that Doug’s unionism is far cuddlier and more inclusive than that of the DUP.

Ultimately, it’s up to Doug to account for his views and to repair the damage he has caused with his tweets. However, I think it is worth keeping in mind the human side of the man who has become the target of our collective anger. Having met Doug only the once, I cannot say I know the man, nor can I profess to being a fan of much of his politics, such as his ‘wait and see’ approach to the NI Protocol. Nonetheless, I believe we should take the man at his word: on the one occasion that I met Doug, he made no secret of the fact that he is ‘rough around the edges’, a product of a childhood of upheaval and a lifetime spent in the military. In this light, it is not surprising that Doug at one stage held opinions which were derogatory towards women and people of faiths and ethnicity. Simply put, people are products of their environment.

I must stress that this is not to defend Doug’s words but to demonstrate that what ultimately matters in calling him to account is his capacity to face up to what he did and to change his behaviour going forward. Others, particularly those he has directly hurt as result of his actions, hold the real power in whether Doug is forgiven and rightly so, but surely accountability is first and foremost about effecting wholesale change in attitudes and behaviours that are now deemed completely wrong? If we hang people out to dry for their actions, surely as a society we must also have a conversation about a path to forgiveness. To not do so would be to indulge in only the satisfaction of calling people to account, but it takes an entirely greater effort to forgive.

*I fear the pressures and toxicity that this new mode of accountability will have for a generation already burdened with issues of self-image, identity and inequality.*

The other main element of concern is the broader question of what this means for how people’s words on social media will impact on their future professional prospects. It may well just be the case that in a world where social media is the go-to place for expressing our views that our use of it will act as a kind of scar tissue which will forever carry the mark of our former attitudes and opinions. However, just because this is the case doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t care. I, like everyone else, have said things on social media that I regret. Indeed, I have even self-censored myself and deleted posts mere minutes after I put them up because they are not a true reflection of how I feel, or the tone of my words was simply too caught up in the heat of the moment to rationally convey my thoughts. 280-characters can never do justice to our complex, conflicting and contradictory mix of emotions and opinions. Yet this is the criteria which we are judged by, and increasingly so for younger people, for whom the idea of ‘cancel culture’ is so much more greatly embedded than older generations… I fear the pressures and toxicity that this new mode of accountability will have for a generation already burdened with issues of self-image, identity and inequality.

In short, issues of accountability, forgiveness and professional consequences are complex and frustratingly problematic. We have the ability to hold public figures to higher standards than ever before with greater consequences for errors and damaging actions. If there is one thing that people should take away from this whole Twitter debacle, it is the messy and often contradictory nature of the feelings we experience when people say things that are hurtful. For some people forgiveness is easy and for others they cannot reconcile their feelings with the guilty party’s account of their actions: both positions are absolutely valid – and neither should override the other. Above all, let’s not lose our capacity to allow for personal growth because elected representatives, like the rest of us, will continue to mess up.

Grant Warren is a second year French and History student at Queen’s University Belfast

Doug Beattie's resurfaced tweets shouldn't make us forget our capacity to forgive