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The End of the War
The statement issued by the leadership of the PIRA on Thursday 28th of July, instructing an end to their armed campaign is significant beyond its declaration that the war is over. Ordering all volunteers to dump arms the statement included the wording:
"All Volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means."
This is clearly aimed at satisfying the British and Irish governments and unionism that the war is over and it sets the stage for a return of Sinn Fein to the Stormont Assembly and the possibility of coalition in the south. The timing of a return for the Stormont Assembly depends largely on there being some sort of change in the attitude of the majority unionist party, the DUP. The DUP line had been disbandment although a significant act of decommissioning, of “deeds not words”, may make such a hard line less tenable. And its hard to imagine why the PIRA wouldn’t proceed to a significant act of decommissioning, they can present it as calling Paisley’s bluff while the truth is that their war against the British state has been over for at least 11 years.
So, should we welcome this as creating peace in our time? Predictions like that have been made before only to become disastrously unstuck. The basis of the Good Friday Agreement and the Assembly set up in its wake is such that, even if it was re-established, it could collapse over policing, parades or any number of contentious issues – particularly given the political near domination that would be enjoyed by Sinn Fein and the DUP.
It is also the case that none of this is likely to see a reduction in sectarianism in our society. Back when the GFA, or Belfast Agreement, was brokered one of the predecessors of this organisation, Organise! - IWA stated:
"...sectarianism is far from eradicated from our society. The ‘Agreement’ isn’t really about that however, in fact it institutionalises sectarianism with members of the northern Assembly being required to identify themselves as Unionist, Nationalist or Other."
Other was then and is now a non-option as far as the sectarian and communal political carve up is concerned. Since then sectarianism on the ground has actually worsened.
The statement views the armed struggle as having been completely legitimate, and while the PIRA are not the sole combatants in the conflict, as libertarian communists we take issue with that assertion and we are mindful of the fact that the overwhelming majority of people who were bereaved, suffered injury, incarceration and death throughout this conflict where working class.
Paramilitarism and gangsterism continue to blight working class communities. State military institutions, troops and a paramilitary police force all need to go. Demilitarisation is a short term objective, removing nationalism from politics and building on class unity and solidarity are essential to achieving meaningful change for working class people in the north. As the Belfast Libertarian Group, who experienced the slide from civil rights campaigning into sectarian conflict, said back in 1973:
"Nothing is new or radical in Irish politics… Northern Irish politics are the politics of the dead. No organisation offers real hope to the working class in Ireland. No organisation can until nationalism is taken right out of politics."1
We all lose out as a result of sectarianism and nationalism (of the Irish, Ulster and British varieties) while Sinn Fein are happy to get back to the business of administering British rule – British rule that’s bent on implementing a neo-liberal agenda. Government from Westminster, Stormont nor Dublin offers us anything – north, south, east or west.
Working class prods are not going to be won to a battle to get rid of partition and create a united Irish republic – and in all seriousness why should they? No-one seriously believes that such an extended Irish state will have anything socialist about it. Beyond some young, naïve and deluded members of Ogra Shinn Fein no-one believes Sinn Fein's (increasingly rare) talk of socialism any more surely?
In reality there can be no satisfactory statist or capitalist solutions, the situation demands that working class people take matters into their own hands. In the short term we must increase working class resistance to attacks in our workplaces and communities, we must work to overcome segregation and to smash the grip of the churches on our education system. In the long-term we must strive towards a society based on working peoples direct control of our workplaces and communities, federating with others to ensure our needs are met. In this way we can abolish all borders and create a federal commonwealth of labour uniting the people of these islands and the globe in the pursuit of a world based on need and ability not greed and violence.
It may prove difficult after over 35 years of armed conflict but working class people must take this opportunity to bury the politics of the dead and develop a politics of the living.
Notes:
1 Belfast Libertarian Group, 1973, Ireland, Dead or Alive, pp23-24.
From the pages of Working Class Resistance #10, magazine of Organise!
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opinion/analysis
Sunday December 11, 2005 11:40
by Rebel - Organise!
organiseireland at yahoo dot ie
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Comments (16 of 16)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16how the news broke here on indymedia ireland, and the comments it garnered -
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71187&time_posted_upper_limit=1122609600&time_posted_lower_limit=1122523200
Once at that link if you hit the "back to newswire button" you'll see the other articles that were published that day, and better understand the context we set.
Of course ORANGEise dont regard the Republican war as legitimate. I wonder is there any oppression in the world great enough for ORANGEise to consider a military campaign against it justified? Onlyy if the sole participants are ideologically pure Class Struggle Anarchists. The British Establishment is now shivering, ORANGEise wont have the Provos to blame anymore for sectarianism in the North. ORANGEise will now sweep the Northern State away.
Do you guys never get tired of issuing your self-important statements? Holding your 6 member meetings in backrooms and thinking you are deciding the destiny of Nations?
The so called Anarchist movement leaves me cold with self glorifying statements which pander to the British establishment views on the legitimate armed struggle waged by the Irish Republican Army.
Does the statement give a critical analysis of the role played by the British establishment, in using working class soldiers from britain to fight a foreign war against working class people.
The hypocrisy of groups like this beggers belief, the only way to stop sectarianism is to dismantle the sectarian six counties.
Or is this revolutionary idea of national unity beyond the political aspirations of this group of arm chair revolutionaries.
The IRA fought a revolutionary war.
What proportion of the Irish people supported this "legitimate armed struggle"?
Kinsmills, Warrington,Birmingham, Guildford Frizzell's, Enniskillen, Billy Fox and whacking some retired RUC guy in his 50's in front of his family - yep, a real "revolutionary war" alright.
What proportion of the British people supported this "Low Intensity Operation"?
You could sound off the atrocities carried out by the British and their locally recruited militias and "counter gangs", but it might be better to think about the future, rather than engaging in a pointless listing of grievances.
My criticism of groups who can talk the talk of revolutionary politics while supporting state terrorists and apeing the london and dublin establishment's press releases on a genuine working class uprising against discrimination and state sponsored terror.
How many people supported armed struggle in Ireland? Enough for the IRA to be undefeated militarily.
What matters is that was those who sacrificed their lives to fight a war of liberation, who uncritically pledged their support to a struggle for equality and justice, which gave the oppressed of the six counties heart and a voice which was heard worldwide.
If you read the statement carefully no support is given to state terrorism which operated in ireland nor the IRA.
There is a difference between what was a geniunely community resistance against state pograms in 1968 in the Bogside for example, when the IRA were one their knees than giving support to the subsequent national liberation struggle which on the ground achieved progressive gains for 'our' class, except a seat at stormont by Sinn Fein.
the article clearly recognises that the IRA was not the cause of the conflict, and is not an attempt to criminalise the republican struggle!
Its easy saying this in hindsite but this is the reality of today in which Irish and British nationalism has got us knowhere!
Apologies, no progressive gains for òur´class!
I dont like short digs, but whats revolutionary is the sense of replacing one state with another except a change from ´'British' to 'Irish'?
Why a statement condemning the the largest organisation which successfully took on the london and dublin establishments.
The struggle for a workers controlled state on this island was was led by the IRA. Its enemies were and still are the london and dublin establishments.
The first stage to any revolution is to get rid of the national oppressor. Class unity can only be achieved after this has been carried out.
Back to basics, national democracy is not nationalism, lets build the Irish Republic and let its people decide the future of its government, not the direct rule civil servants, or their six county allies.
your a dreamer
"The struggle for a workers controlled state on this island was was led by the IRA"
When the laughter subsides I'm sure you will remind us that all that slaughter of ordinary working people was necessary, and we are now well on the way to the workers' republic. We must assume it is, since you have given up your "armed struggle".
And presumably, when you have established your "Provisional" Workers' Republic, you will also tell us, without a hint of irony that "labour must (still) wait.
Ok, knowone would have moaned if the Tory Cabinet and thatcher was taken out, but how can you claim the struggle was 'successful' when PSF have changed their strategy as they have realised that you could not bomb your way into a united ireland!
Apart from the fact the sectarian divisons have only been strengthened!
Its time to bury the politics of the dead and develop the politics of the living which is class politics which does not ignore the 'national question', but instead confronts it and abolishes it!
It is no secret that I have disagreements with some of the stuff Organise! say on the north - see http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67598 . But I'm genuinely shocked by the apolitical nature of the republican responses to this article.
Spartacus makes a lot of pretty standard 'fingers in the ears' noises right down to his '6 member meetings in backrooms'. None of this really says anything beyond 'I don't like Organise! but am not very capable of explaining why so I'll make a lot of noise'. Whats more if I remember correctly 'Spartacus' has made pretty much the same jokes and comments on all the articles Organise! have previously posted here - suggesting that for all the talk he takes these '6 member meetings in backrooms' a lot more seriously then he pretends to. BTW Spartacus for the numbers obsessed its worth remembering that Irish republicanism got started with 'five men on Cave hill' - even from your figures it seems Organise! have a head start of this.
'By Any Means Necessary' almost has as little to say apart from returning to the traditional line that 'the only way to stop sectarianism is to dismantle the sectarian six counties'. Whether or not this is still true is worth debating but it is very odd to couple it with 'The IRA fought a revolutionary war' because as he should be aware that war is over and the 6 county state still exists. The IRA is signed up to accepting this until a majority of the 6 counties vote for unification. In other words the criticism he attempts to hurl at Organise! is more applicable to Sinn Fein and the IRA of today. Organise! haven't been part of the government of the sectarian six counties, Sinn Fein has and is seeking to get back into power.
In his later post 'by Any Means Necessary' retreats to the
more familar emotional terrain of first making the false accusation that Organise! are "supporting state terrorists" and ending on the timeless jargon of the glorious dead. Presumably exactly the sort of apolitical emotionalism that the appeal at the end of the Organise! article to "take this opportunity to bury the politics of the dead and develop a politics of the living" was aimed at.
By his third post 'by Any Means Necessary' is reduced to a load of assertions with no argument provided for them at all.
Firstly we have "The struggle for a workers controlled state on this island was was led by the IRA". This is just weird - while at times Sinn Fein talk's left that left talk is much more of a social democratic 'equality agenda' then that of a 'workers controlled state'. And in the historical periods when there were attempts at workers control in Ireland (1917-23) the IRA at the time either maintained a position of neutrality or moved against such experiments.
According to the historican Emmet O'Connor during the Limerick Soviet when for 10 days the workers controlled Limerick "Sinn Fein worked to maximise the political advantages accruing from the Limerick Soviet but worked quietly behind the scenes for a return to work."
And despite the important role played by the anti-conscription strike and anti militarism strikes of 1918 and 1919 "Dail Eireann never sought to invoke it, or attempt to manipulate political strikes once they had begun. Employing a weapon of social conflict would have run counter to Sinn Fein's integrationist strategy"
Even on the land question the rank and file Volunteers were ordered not to take part in land seizures or cattle drives in uniform and officers were ordered not to take part at all. Republican courts were 'successful' in that they nearly always handed back the land seized by labourers.
At times some on the left have tried to use the republican movement to push a left agenda - they have always been defeated and from this point in history that strategy looks like it was always a dead end.
But then just as strangely 'by Any Means Necessary' immedately states the actual republican positions - that "The first stage to any revolution is to get rid of the national oppressor. Class unity can only be achieved after this has been carried out.". How on earth can you square the two positions you have just stated - they are in direct contradiction to each other?
And how do you expect to achieve 'national unity' with the one million odd northern protestants who don't find our rapist priest hiding southern state all that attractive. Tell them everything will be OK when Gerry is in charge instead of Bertie?
This is a genuine question - there no longer even seems to be rhetorical appeals from Irish republicans directed at any section of northern protestants. Today such appeals are more likely to be directed to the British state in a request it 'sort out' the problem it created by sorting out northern protestants. I think 'become a persuader' is the stock phrase - a very weird turn around in the history of Irish republicanism.
The main thing I get from these responses is an illustration of just how lost at sea Irish republicanism now is. Apart from one dissident there doesn't appear to be a single republican regularly posting to indymedia that is actually capable of arguing their politics beyond the troting out of a line of outdated cliches we see here.
The definition of the revolutionary is not open in my opinion for debate by those who sat on the sidelines while a war for national unity was waged in the six counties and britain.
Politically the situation of one party domination, religous division and economic control by a foreign power could only of been challenged by armed struggle.
What was the alternative ? I have yet to read any polemic or document from any group, who espouse revolution but were critical of the IRA campaign which puts forward an alternative which would of gained grass root community support from the most oppressed group on this island ( arguably western europe ), the republican/nationalist working class communities of the occupied six counties.
"The definition of the revolutionary is not open in my opinion for debate by those who sat on the sidelines while a war for national unity was waged in the six counties and britain."
I suppose we'll just have to take your word for it in that case. I'll update my dictionaries - I'm sure the folk at the OED are similarly unqualified to engage in debate about the subject and will happily take your definition.
Revolutionary: adj - administering local government on behalf of the crown forces.