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Workers Solidarity No. 42
Irish Anarchist Paper
Net addition
Yes to peace and to an Ireland
that is neither Orange nor Green
DESPITE ALL THE talk of peace the war continues. The
media has as usual focused on the acts of the
republicans, particularly around the Heathrow attack in
March. However as the following extracts show the
British state is also continuing its war effort and
continuing to defend its usual mixture of lies and
torture while doing so. They are all taken from An
Phoblacht/Republican News (Sinn Fein paper) in the
closing weeks of March, mostly stories the media did
not consider to be worth covering.
"Yet again, an RIR soldier has walked free from a
Diplock court even though he admitted supplying the
names and addresses of republicans to loyalist gangs.
David Murdock was one of three people who appeared
before Belfast Crown Court on Tuesday, 15 March. The
court was told that Murdock supplied information to 28-
year-old loyalist Brian Appleton from Windsor Avenue,
yet Appleton was not convicted of any offence arising
from this."
"The RUC has kept up its policy of harassment
against nationalists in the County Tyrone town of
Cookstown, with a series of dawn raids carried out on
Monday last, 21 March, on the Greenvale Estate. The RUC
rampaged through 12 houses using sledgehammers to gain
entry to several houses at 5.45am. They arrested one
man who was released the following day without any
charges being preferred."
"A ruling by the Court of Appeal in Belfast on
Monday, 7 March, has sanctioned physical abuse of women
prisoners in Six-County jails. It stated that the
practices and procedures involved in the forced strip-
searching of women prisoners is legal and so entitles
the prison's governor "to order a prisoner to be strip-
searched whenever he sees fit."
"The inquest into the killings of six people in RUC
shoot-to-kill operations in Armagh in 1982 have been
adjourned yet again, for two months.... This latest
adjournment was requested by the crown lawyers to allow
the British government time to prepare a Public
Interest Immune Certificate (PIIC)." The PIIC will
prevent the questioning of those who carried out the
shooting.
WHAT'S NEW?
Not an especially exciting collection, in fact pretty
typical of the ongoing war of the British state, but
one you just don't hear about in the mainstream press.
Indeed in the aftermath of the Heathrow attack the
mainstream centred on Gerry Adams threat of more IRA
spectaculars to come. Except of course Adams it
transpired had said no such thing. His words had been
changed through the application of what it politely
know now-a-days as spin. As usual however the original
(false) remarks got front page headlines, the
correction received no coverage or a couple of cm's on
inside pages.
The point of all this is that despite the formal
lifting of Section 31 its business as usual for the
media. The stories we are fed continue to be selective
and designed to create a false impression from events,
in this case that republicans are not serious about
peace while the British government are. To a certain
extent a reaction of 'so what else is new' is
legitimate to all this. But the important point that
all this black propaganda on one side, and endless
calls for clarification on the other is hiding the real
nature of the peace talks.
WHAT'S GOING ON?
The peace talks represent the ditching of Sinn Fein's
left gloss and a return to good old nationalist
politics, pure and simple. They started with the Hume -
Adams dialogue, a still secret document but one which
clearly set out to demonstrate that the northern
nationalists could be trusted (by both Dublin and
London) to 'behave' in the event of British withdrawal.
Once Sinn Fein might have talked of nationalising
foreign sections of the economy, now according to their
recent pamphlet on The economics of Irish unification
they expect that the British government will continue
to pump around 1 billion pounds a year into Northern
Ireland.
Gerry Adams gave a special St. Patrick's day address
as part of the process of spelling this out. In it he
said
"Irish history has been scarred and mutilated by the
support which the British government gives to unionism
and the consequent inability of unionists to come to a
democratic accommodation with the rest of the Irish
people. The British government's role as persuaders is
key. That is obvious." AP/RN March 24, 1994
What all this means is transparent. In the past
Tories have feared that British withdrawal would lead
to a "Cuba off the British Coast", that a Sinn Fein
victory would lead to widespread nationalisation and
social upheaval. But Sinn Fein is no longer talking at
all of that kind of victory. To expect Britain to give
1 billion a year after withdrawal clearly sees
withdrawal not in the context of a defeat for
imperialism but as a different way for imperialism to
manage Ireland. The unionists are the problem, Britain
as a persuader we are told is the potential solution.
Adams Ard Fheis speech was laced with such a
perspective, rather than appealing to Protestant
workers he said "It is also time that the Protestant
people heard the voice of reason and sanity from their
leaders. They need a De Klerk to lead them and us into
the next century."
The left in Sinn Fein would once have talked of the
spirit of James Connolly, I'm sure nobody needs the
difference between Connolly and De Klerk spelt out for
them.
Adams Ard Fheis speech was quite clear about what
Sinn Fein are offering and how they are looking to the
ruling class of Britain and Ireland rather than the
workers as the way forward. "Our party paper, Towards a
Lasting Peace in Ireland, clearly places the onus on
the two governments to secure change. It especially
calls on the British government to "join the
persuaders" and on the Dublin government to persuade
the British that partition is a failure..."
He also clearly put forward the idea of Hume-Adams
as a pan-nationalist alliance saying "credit must given
also to Albert Reynolds...the first Taoiseach to have
taken the steps he has taken to address the core issues
of a negotiated settlement" and again "we need
particularly to consider how we can appeal to the
national sentiment that is strong particularly at the
grassroots of Fianna Fail..."
SELL OUT, SENSE OR INEVITABLE?
Now is all this a sell out? Well no, despite the twists
and turns of republican politics from the "Year of
Victory" militarism of the 1970's, to the community
politics "ballot box and armalite" of the 1980's this
is what has always been the core of nationalist
politics. It is no more a sell out than Fianna Fail's
attacks on healthcare or Thatcher's attacks on the
trade unions.
The purpose of Irish republicanism is and was to see
Ireland as Robert Emmet put it "take its place among
the nations of the world". A place which includes those
key features of all the other nation states,
alienation, cops and the rule of a minority. Not just
in Ireland but everywhere in this century it has been a
fault of the left to accept the populist rhetoric of
nationalist movements, from Nicaragua to Cuba as
socialist.
Sinn Fein wants the same sort of settlement that the
ANC and PLO have 'won'. Where the post boxes get a lick
of green paint, and the harp replaces the crown on the
caps of the police. Where the existing state (and
yesterdays enemies) control what were their puppets (be
it loyalist death squads or Inkatha) in return for a
guarantee of stability from the 'anti-imperialists'. We
recognise these things as a step forward, the ending of
legal apartheid or the sectarian state in the North
would not be trivial things and just as we would fight
against their introduction, we support their ending.
But they offer only crumbs to the working class.
Unification under capitalism throws up a huge number
of problems for the ruling class. First amongst these
is Protestant privilege. The northern Protestant
workers may have the second worst living standards in
comparison with any group in Britain but they are ahead
of the worst group, northern Catholic workers. What's
more, in an economy where they too have a high
percentage of unemployment about 30,000 Protestants are
dependant on the 'security forces' for a job. If all
that is on offer is unity under capitalism then given
the past record of loyalism it could be foolish to
expect them not to fight.
A REPUBLICAN SURRENDER?
On the other hand any settlement that did not rectify
the imbalances would offer nothing to Catholic workers.
War weariness might cause it to be accepted but in the
longer term resistance to injustice would be sure to
reappear and without any left alternative would
probably repeat the events of the end of the 60's and
start of the 70's. Sections of the far-left have
supported just such a republican 'surrender' in the
impression that this would give them room to grow. In
the south however many people consider the border
irrelevant to their day to day lives. Here too the far
left has failed to break out of isolation, suggesting
there's more than the border in the way in the north.
So what are the two possibilities? With the end of
the cold war and the collapse of the northern economy
Britain's long term interests in staying have declined.
A significant section of the ruling class would seem to
want out if they could leave stability behind. Let us
not get too excited by this however, another section
wants to stay under any circumstances. The debate may
be leaning towards the first section at the moment but
the wind could easily change. The question is are they
willing to pay the price of stability?
That price comprises maintaining the current living
standards of Protestant workers, including finding
20,000 or so new jobs for those currently working in
security. (Lets assume they keep 10,000 to police this
'new' Ireland. It means offering a substantial enough
bribe to the local ruling class to pull them (and the
unionist parties) behind such a solution. It also means
pulling up the standard of living of Catholics to a
level where the deal appears to offer something and
creating a mechanism to achieve equality of opportunity
and access over a period of time. It would appear from
their calls for a Protestant De Klerk, Britain to
'convince' the unionists and continued investment from
Britain that this is what Sinn Fein hopes for.
The bill would be billions of pounds, the problem
being that capitalism in recession would have severe
difficulties finding this money. Is the British and
Southern Irish ruling class prepared to pay such a
price? It would seem unlikely with the exception of the
bombings of the City of London (and they are important
exceptions) the ruling class has managed to isolate the
problem to the 6 counties and keep costs down. Thatcher
once boasted that there had been more British troops
killed in driving accidents in West Germany than in
northern Ireland. The British ruling class is not going
to support withdrawal unless it can be guaranteed un-
interrupted exploitation and that it would be cheaper
to leave then to stay.
GAZA MARK II
The second option would be of the type worked out by
Israel and the PLO. Token improvements could be made
that would redistribute poverty, the local ruling class
bought off and any opposition destroyed by massive
repression from the relevant side. Perhaps Britain
would withdraw politically but possibly retain troops
on the ground in a peace 'enforcement' capacity,
through the EC or UN. Perhaps they would be U.S.
troops. The new regime could then try and create a new
stability through force.
Is this a possibility? Its one fraught with
difficulties for the ruling class. Britain's policy of
Ulsterisation introduced under Labour and stepped up
under Thatcher meant replacing British troops with
local police and UDR (RIR) where possible, and arming
loyalist death squads to do the dirty work. But these
official and unofficial forces retain some loyalty to
the community from which they come, the Protestant
working class. Britain has been testing this loyalty in
recent years with its partial (very) clampdown on the
UDA. In turn the republicans would have similar
problems in getting its forces to police its side of
such a deal. Such an option would be far from straight
forward for the ruling class (and needless to say
disastrous for us).
Whatever the possibilities and some of them are very
unattractive all Sinn Fein is promising at best is a
stability which will include mass unemployment, low
wages and all the other features that make Ireland an
attractive investment for imperialism, otherwise how
can they expect #1 billion annually from Britain. That
is why we have always said that only socialism can rid
Ireland north and south of poverty and reaction. That's
what we will continue to fight for, peace deal or
otherwise; the class war goes on.
Andrew Flood
This is the fourth part of the latest issue of Workers Solidarity,
produced by the Irish anarchist group, the Workers Solidarity
Movement. We are changing the format for this posting to
two parts consisting of short articles and then posting longer
related articles separately. They should arrive on this
list/newsgroup over the next few days. Some lists/
newsgroups will only get postings relevant to them. To
get other parts reply to this address with a request or
watch out for them on alt.society.anarchy between the
13th and 24th of June.
The parts and their contents are.
Workers Solidarity 42 (Editorial and shorts) 1/6
For starters
That's Capitalism
Stake your claim to cash
PLC students demand grants
Telethon - A hypocritical sham
If the cops don't like you
French show how to fight... and win!
Bosnia, Rwanda and UN intervention.
Workers Solidarity 42 (More shorts) 2/6
Significant minority say NO to union leaders
Don't vote...it only encourages them
Letter
Prepare to Sink the service charges
Find Out More
WS 42 Gay Pride 3/6
Loud and Proud
The reasons Emmet Stagg should resign
WS 42 Ireland, Sinn Fein and the peace talks. 4/6
Yes to peace
WS 42 Year of the Family 5/6
Parents, puritans and poverty
Gas masks and pantyhose
WS 42 Evolution and revolution 6/6
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at
PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland
or by anonymous e-mail to an64739@anon.penet.fi
Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive
by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18
or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu")
in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM