Is Davy Carlin a member of the SWP?

down | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Monday January 12, 2004 02:29 by J McAnulty - Socialist Democracy jonsocdem at north41 dot freeserve dot co dot uk 02890601555

The SWP and Loyalist racism

Davy Carlin, Claiming to represent an anti-racist network, has issued a statement calling on the Loyalist leadership to 'use their influence positively' in relation to racist attacks

jonny adair

Is Davy Carlin of Belfast a member of the SWP? Is he a member of the SWP leadership?

I have a specific reason for asking. On Saturday (10th Jan) the local teletext service in the North carried a statement from Davy wearing one of his many hats, claiming to be the spokesperson of a local anti-racist network. In the statement he called on Loyalist leaders to ‘face up to’ racial prejudice in their ranks, to ‘wake up to’ racism within a ‘section’ of loyalism. Carlin calls on ‘those with influence’ to use it positively.

There should be no mistaking the nature of this statement. Racist attacks in Belfast are running at one a day. Racial incidents in the North now outstrip areas in England seen as flashpoint areas for racism. The attacks have been characterised by their organised nature and mind-numbing brutality. There is overwhelming evidence that the UDA, and to a lesser extent the UFV, are organising the attacks. Even the conservative and unionist Alliance party, in a statement released at the same time as the Carlin statement, were able to unambiguously identify the loyalist paramilitaries as the organisers of the attacks.

Yet Davy Carlin, claiming to speak for anti-racists, is openly exonerating these gangsters and the front organisations of the Progressive Unionist party and Ulster Political Research group.

His statement suggests that these leaderships, after thirty years of sustained sectarian murder and intimidation of Catholics, after Drumcree and Holy Cross, aren’t involved in an organised campaign of racist intimidation which, coincidently, is concentrated in areas where they are at their strongest. Only a few bad loyalist apples, suggests Carlin, would stoop to racism. Now that Davy, previously distinguished on the left for speaking at the far right PUP conference, has pointed out the truth, the loyalist gangsters will be horrified and ‘use their influence positively’ to put matters right.

To tell the truth the sort of tosh Davy Carlin is wheeling out is commonplace in the North since the Good Friday agreement. The Loyalist monster keeps bursting out in a society that has been designed to nurture and conciliate them and people keep averting their eyes from the stark reality.

That’s why I ask about Davy Carlin’s status. His statement not only is he betrays members of ethnic minorities on whose behalf he claims to speak, he is also fatally and criminally discrediting socialism which, in my opinion, is the only real alternative to the hell-hole in the North of Ireland and can only be built by opposing the organised forces of racism and sectarianism – not by acting as apologist for them.

If Davy Carlin is a member of the movement that founded the anti-Nazi league then the Socialist workers Party has a lot of explaining to do.

John McAnulty

(A member of Socialist Democracy)