It
has been dismissed as a propaganda film and its
director Ken Loach portrayed as a Leni Riefenstahl.
Nevertheless, Loach seemed unperturbed. In promoting
The Wind That Shakes the Barley he claimed that
'partition had failed … the unionist veto
on change must be removed.' The irony is that
despite Eoghan Harris's claim that this film can
be used as propaganda by Sinn Fein, it actually
constitutes a challenge to what Sinn Fein so fervently
embraces - the modern 'Treaty' that is the Good
Friday Agreement.
From
my experience growing up in a working class nationalist
community where self-identity post-1970 was formed
in opposition to British troops on the streets,
there was little that struck me as controversial.
The opening scenes of British soldiers taking
a young man 'out the back' and brutally murdering
him, or their clubbing a train driver into the
ground, resonates deeply of a myriad of similar
incidents that occurred during the 1970s. The
same violence, accents, arrogance, threats, contempt
and racism were a defining feature of Ted Heath's
'squaddies'.
Loach
made little attempt to explain the background
to the war of independence that raged in Ireland
from 1919 to 1921. He avoided everything that
preceded, but crucially moulded the conditions
in which that war was fought. His ahistorical
starting point was the war itself and he illustrated
how young men came to join the IRA, not out of
any highly developed set of ideological beliefs
but in direct response to British military repression
on the streets. This is why the film chimes so
strongly with the 'common sense' that many in
the audiences grew up with in areas like West
Belfast or the Bogside. When Dan Keating who fought
against the British during the period covered
by Loach said the film 'brought back old memories,
all right', he spoke for more than his own generation.
If
the foundational assumption that the British were
wholly wrong went unexplored some of the more
ideological cleavages that existed were expressed
through the characters. Two of these have been
the source of internal tensions throughout the
long divisive lifespan of Irish republicanism:
whether republicans should fight against the rich
on behalf of the poor as part of the anti-British
struggle; the compromising of the ideal of republicanism
when it settles for an outcome that changes only
the 'accents of the powerful and the colour of
the flag.' Loach ensured that those articulating
the grievances of the poor and opposing the compromises
emerged on top intellectually.
Those
critics who think Sinn Fein stand to gain from
such a film have got it wrong. The republicans
who will have genuine cause to cheer this film
from beginning to end are those who believe that
the prosecution of an armed campaign is legitimate
until there is no British presence in Ireland;
critics of Sinn Fein such as the Real or Continuity
IRAs. The arguments made in defence of the Treaty
by former IRA members who executed their erstwhile
comrades who opposed it are exactly those made
today in support of the Good Friday Agreement.
Small wonder Dan Keating dismissed the Sinn Fein
peace process as 'a joke.'
As
I left the cinema I noticed a former fellow republican
prisoner in the departing audience. Very much
a supporter of the current Sinn Fein leadership
strategy, he should not have made the journey
back to West Belfast with his mind uncluttered
by difficult issues. If he thought about it at
all, this was a film that challenged all he held
dear.
