💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › solidarity-federation-peace-or-revolution.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 13:59:52. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-07-09)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Peace or Revolution? Author: Solidarity Federation Date: Summer 1998 Language: en Topics: peacebuilding, revolution, Ireland, United Kingdom, Direct Action Magazine Source: Retrieved on April 8, 2005 from https://web.archive.org/web/20050408024044/http://www.directa.force9.co.uk/archive/da7-features.htm Notes: Published in Direct Action #7 — Summer 1998.
The Northern Ireland peace agreement is now accepted in referenda north
and south of the border. It introduces a Northern Ireland Assembly,
North-South bodies, and a British-Irish council.
Where is the peace process going, and what does it mean for the
traditional beneficiaries of sectarian violence — the politicians?<
Northern Irish politics have hitherto been fought on the basis that a
gain for one side is a loss for the other. So, getting Loyalists and
Republicans to accept this deal has been greeted as the achievement of
the impossible. Countless column inches have sung the praises of the
politicians involved — we’ve read of “Blair the peacemaker”, of
Trimble’s “great statesmanship”, even of the “pragmatic” Sinn Féin
leadership.
DA refuses to go along with this hype. We remember Trimble and Major
stalling at every opportunity during the first IRA cease-fire, when
first its “permanence”, then “decommissioning” of weapons, became
excuses to delay talks and eventually led to the cease-fire breaking
down. We remember the long line of sanctimonious politicians refusing to
talk to “the men of violence”, not accepting that peace would have to
include those who were at war. We remember the long years it has taken
for it to dawn on the Republican movement that a million unionists were
not going to be forced into a united Ireland, or that the British army
was not going to be driven back across the Irish Sea. We remember
politicians, some of whom are now saluted for their great vision,
whipping up sectarianism whenever it suited their purpose.
For us, therefore, peace has been held back by incompetent, stubborn,
and downright sectarian political parties and politicians who, with
their predecessors, must share the blame for agreement not being reached
after the August 1994 IRA cease-fire, if not earlier. This point has
been ignored amongst all the back-slapping.
Back to the so-called miracle. The apparent unionist/nationalist harmony
is the result of a massive fudge that allows some Loyalist parties to
portray the agreement as strengthening the Union with Britain, while
Sinn FĂ©in can simultaneously paint it as a step forward for Irish unity.
But herein lies a potential hurdle — what happens when either the Union
or Irish unity appears to be under threat? However before we reach that
particular pass, there are many more rivers to cross.
The Protestant King William of Orange crossed the River Boyne in 1690 to
defeat the Catholic King James II. This is commemorated all over
Northern Ireland by the Orange Order every 12^(th) of July at parades
which celebrate “Protestant” supremacy over the “defeated” Catholics.
Where parades pass through nationalist areas, the population is forced
to endure a torrent of sectarian abuse and threats. In recent years,
Drumcree, where Portadown’s Orange Lodges exercise their “God-given”
right to march along the nationalist Garvaghy Road, has become a
Loyalist rallying point. This 12^(th) of July, “Drumcree 4”, promises to
be a focus for all those Loyalist groupings for whom the agreement is
yet another concession to the IRA — Paisley’s DUP, the Orange Order, and
the paramilitary Loyalist Volunteer Force among them. The LVF is based
in Portadown, and its opposition to the agreement has already resulted
in the random murders of Catholics. Little wonder then that Portadown
has been dubbed “Ireland’s most bigoted town”.
The Easter Rising of 1916, when a small force of Irish Republicans
occupied key buildings in Dublin, declaring independence from the
British Empire, is celebrated every Easter. This year’s commemoration
followed the agreement by 2 days. Since then, the Republican movement
has split. There is a new political grouping, The 32 County Sovereignty
Committee, and an armed wing, the
Dissident/Real/True/Anti-Agreement/Anti-Treaty (delete as appropriate)
IRA. This, among the three Republican paramilitaries now opposed to the
agreement, seems the most serious threat. They, along with the INLA and
Continuity IRA, are wedded to the mistaken idea that the border can be
bombed and shot out of existence. They see Sinn Féin’s recognition of
partition, and the changing of Articles 2 & 3 of the Irish Republic’s
constitution as selling-out those who died in 1916, as well as the more
recent “martyrs”, whose memory is aroused by the presence of Bernadette
Sands-McKevitt in The 32 County Sovereignty Committee.
The existence of this unholy, if unrecognised, alliance of Loyalist and
Republican groups threatens the agreement’s chances of long term
survival. Add this to the potential strife of prisoner releases,
decommissioning, policing reforms, let alone getting the assembly and
the North-South council to work, all in a continuing sectarian
atmosphere, then it’s easy to be cynical about those survival chances.
There has been a small tendency within anarchism to view the IRA’s armed
struggle as somehow revolutionary. This may result, on one hand, from
confusing Irish Republicanism’s enmity for the British government for a
kind of anti-statism. On the other hand, it may be accounted for by the
love common to many anarchists for things that go bang in the night.
Either way, they are mistaken in viewing the Republican movement, or any
particular faction of it, as revolutionary. Merely changing British
rulers for “better” Irish ones, as Republicans intend, is not anarchism
— nowhere near it.
Having said that, we do agree that the partitioning of Ireland is
anti-working class. It has divided the working class north from south,
and has further deepened the sectarianism that already existed between
the “nationalist” and “unionist” working class in the north. However,
the border is a reality and cannot be wished, or bombed, out of
existence. For anarcho-syndicalists, the ending of partition must be
part of a strategy aimed at winning working class minds away from
sectarianism, a strategy that fights all attempts to divide the working
class, be it worker against worker, employed against unemployed, man
against woman, Protestant against Catholic, or northerner against
southerner.
Just maybe the peace agreement will take the gun out of Northern Irish
politics, or at least limit its impact. A sectarian political scene
without guns will be preferable to one with guns. Perhaps this is the
best we can hope for from this agreement. Nevertheless, it is of more
use to Irish anarchists than armed struggle. It would therefore be more
helpful if anarchists outside Ireland, who feel they have a contribution
to make, were to help their Irish comrades than to get embroiled in
Republican in-fighting. As for SF, we will continue to give our
unconditional support to Organise!-IWA, our sister organisation in
Ireland.