I’ve forwarded things from this guy a few times in the past. This one is from the MN Anarchist list and discusses the situation in Northern Ireland, including the McCartney murder. I have NOT spent any time vetting the accuracy of the statements made, so read it with propaganda filters on high:
I’d like to post this here because a number of anti-colonialist Irish activists post to this list. To those anarchists who find Sinn Fein too statist to warrant their support, I am sympathetic and aware of the problems for anarchists who oppose colonialism, but do not support nationalists aspirations for a home-grown authoritarian system. I can suggest only that we may learn a lot from pragmatists such as Sinn Fein, while remaining anarchists…
-Tom
Dear Friends and Family,
A few thoughts on Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day…
St. Patrick’s Day in the U.S. has become largely a generic festival day, a day for parades and green beer. That’s no wonder, as _most_ of the Irish immigrants to America came over more than 100 years ago.
For those of Irish background, it is also a day to remember our roots: More and more, Irish-Americans are learning that the so-called “potato famine” that drove the Irish to America in the 1800s was in large part a forced starvation caused by British policy. It was only a generation ago, 1921, that most of Ireland was freed from British control. Irish Republicans are still fighting to re-unite the six counties known as Ulster with the rest of the island.
What is going on in Ireland today? What is the status of the Good Friday peace process? It’s hard to keep up with the news on Ireland, and so I’ve put together a few notes for you.
The general situation in the northern six counties, controlled by the British, is that the Good Friday peace process has hit a difficult road block. The Unionists (mainly Protestant) have two main parties, David Trimble’s UUP (Ulster Unionist Party) and Ian Paisley’s DUP (Demcratic Unionist Party).
The UUP was the main unionist party for a few years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and David Trimble played the line between rank-and-file members who are largely anti-Catholic bigots who hate Sinn Fein, and the British government of Tony Blair (backed by American influence under Clinton) who wanted the unionists to cooperate with Sinn Fein in a government based in Ulster.
Behind the scenes, unionists opposed to sharing power with Sinn Fein looked for ways to undercut the Good Friday Agreement. Eventually, a scandal was manufactured in which members of Sinn Fein were accused of spying for the IRA in the government office building shared by all the parties. All of those arrested were eventually released without charges, but this gave the anti-Good Friday unionists an excuse to undercut David Trimble’s already half-hearted efforts to bring the unionists into government with Sinn Fein. Using the spying accusations, the UUP withdrew from the government set up in the Good Friday Agreement, and Ulster is again governed from London.
Now, the most popular unionist party in Ireland is Paisley’s DUP. Paisley is an unrepentant anti-Catholic bigot (you can look at his quotes over the years) who has always refused to work with Sinn Fein. The DUP have continued to resist the Good Friday Agreement, and still refuse to sit in government with Sinn Fein. Because they are the most popular unionist party, the British allow them to dictate that rule from London continue.
The problem for Irish nationalists is that US-led “War on Terror” and the influence of the Bush administration benefit the right-wingers in Ireland and England. They have been able to manufacture new crises for Sinn Fein, like the Belfast bank robbery last year, blamed on the IRA without evidence. This is entirely implausible – why would the IRA jeopardize everything they have worked for for years, especially when they have better ways of getting money?
Another problem for Irish nationalists is the bad luck of the McCartney murder — members of the IRA were involved, but it was a bad bar fight, not an IRA operation. The man killed was a Catholic, and members of his family have said that they have voted for Sinn Fein in the past, and will do so again if the IRA and Sinn Fein support the prosecution of the murderers. Unfortunately, it provides a great opening for those who want to undermine Sinn Fein and the peace process.
The problem for the unionists is that support for Sinn Fein continues to increase in the polls, despite everything working against them. Support for Sinn Fein is steadily increasing in Ulster and in the Republic of Ireland, and this is a real political threat to the establishment there, both the unionists in the North, and the current government in the South.
Another big problem for unionists has to do with demographic trends, and this is a cause for great hope: Catholics in the North (who tend to be nationalist, i.e., support a united Ireland) have a much higher birth-rate than the unionists (largely Protestant). In 30 years or so, another generation, Ulster will be predominantly Catholic/Nationalist. The nationlists will be able to unite Ireland by referendum, without resorting to violence.
The American press love to point out that sectarian violence has gone on in Ireland for 800 years, evoking the idea that it’s just how those stubborn, drunken Irishmen are. But reality may be far different.
I believe this is why the IRA have been willing to hold to a diffilcult cease-fire while unionist paramilitaries continue their violence with impunity; why Sinn Fein have been willing to make so many compromises to preserve the Good Friday peace process. It is entirely possible that within our lifetimes, or in our children’s lives, Ireland will be re-united, and entirely self-governed for the first time in 800 years.
The current Sinn Fein leadership grew up with constant violence, with torture of young men who “might” be IRA members, jury-less courts and the memory of Bloody Sunday. In such a setting, it is easy to feel that “life is cheap.” By maintaining the current peace process, however maddening it must be at times, they are ensuring that one more generation does not grow up as they did, in a de-humanizing culture of violence.
This is why Sinn Fein is my favorite political group, and the most hopeful of my causes as an activist.
Please remember the Irish today, and by proxy, all of those people who have fought invaders and colonists to regain autonomy and self-determination: India and Pakistan, Vietnam, the Basques in Spain, the Poles, the Palestinians, nearly the whole of Latin America, the Native Americans, the people of East Timor, most of Africa, especially South Africa, Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and Algiers, Sicily, France, Korea, Tibet… add your favorite here!
Thanks for sharing this with me, Tom
For the record, I don’t believe that the IRA’s offer to murder the suspects in the McCartney murder holds well to what I consider to be anarchist ideals.
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