Tired

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday September 11, 2002 14:21 by Justin Moran - Sinn Fein maigh_nuad at yahoo dot com

This is a summary

I have just, motivated by boredom as much as anything else, fnished reading the thread 'Strange Post from SWP' or whatever the title was. By the end, it had become a slagging match between the SWP and the SP. This isn't an attempt to blame the people concerned as much as a plea to move away from this.

I'm a member of Sinn Féin and if my party gets attacked on indymedia I feel a responsiibility to protect it and once we start getting ourselves into defensive postures it's not too long before some-one makes the first smartass comment and it's daggers drawn. I'm as guilty as the next.

In the amount of time it might take me and some-one else to rant and roar at each other about PFI or Loyalist attacks or who did what to who at a meeting three years ago, any one of us could haave put together a coherent argument for Nice and mailed it to the daily newspapers in the hope of getting some publicity. Getting a letter on the Irish Times letters page may not defeat Nice, but it's a step closer to it than calling people names.

None of us are going to change the others. I'm a member of Sinn Féin because I believe in it. I'm sure members and supporters of other parties have the same committment to their parties and organisations. There isn't a single person on Indymedia who should be arrogant enough to think they can 'talk me out of' being a republican just like I don't think I can convert the most passionate of Trots. Posts like '20 Reasons to Hate Sinn Féin', '20 Reasons to hate the SWP' or even the short-lived '20 Reasons to Hate the SP' are neither helpful, nor informative.

We might disagree with each other, often widely, but there's no reason to take shots and snipes at each other. Yes, there are SWP people on the Irish Anti-War Movement. They're an anti-war party and they've chosen to prioritise this issue. It only makes sense. Recognising the SWP and their activists, or the SP and theirs or, dare I say it, Sinn Féin and ours, can do good, can work hard for a better socialist Ireland does not mean make us any less committed to our politics.

Anyway, this meanders a wee bit and was written in rant form so, to sum up. There are decent, talented, socialist and progressive minded people on Indymedia taking lumps out of each other (Guilty of it myself from time to time) in desperate attempts to 'beat' the other. It's a waste of time. Sin é. As naive calls for an end to left-wing sectarianism go, I'd say this ranks pretty high, but I'm a wee bit sick of it and I hope other people are too.

Maybe Indymedia gurus could set up a separate bulletin board where those of us who want to, or occasionally get the desire to, take lumps out of each other and accuse each other of rampant sectarianism can go and do it without getting others caught in the crossfire or boring them stupid.