When
I arrived and saw the main hall of Derry's Tower
Hotel filled to overflowing, my first thought
was that Sinn Fein had put the work in and packed
the venue. Later reports of the attendance ranged
from 400 to 600. A follow up thought questioned
my earlier prediction that unlike previous events
in Belfast and Toome Sinn Fein would not turn
up for this debate. The party had formally announced
its leadership's long made decision to back the
British PSNI and would not want to go through
what for it was the sham of discussing the issue
in circumstances where it did not control the
audience. It was ten or fifteen minutes into the
debate before I realised that my prediction had
in fact been right.
Trying
to peer over the heads from the entrance, it was
not until the second panellist, Gerry McGeough,
had finished speaking that I realised that the
body of the hall was a Sinn Fein free zone. Tony
TC Catney from Belfast had been introduced to
the audience by chair John Kelly as a former member
of Sinn Fein and he opened the night's events.
The crowd applauded politely as the former republican
lifer gave a detailed submission in which he raised
his objections to current Sinn Fein strategy and
called on critics of the party's position to think
much more seriously about the policing debate
than heretofore.
On
the panel alongside McGeough and Catney were Tony
McPhilips of Republican Sinn Fein, the 32 County
Sovereignty Movement's Francie Mackey and Eddie
McGarrigle of the IRSP. McPhilips and McGeough
had a clear advantage over the others in that
they are accomplished public speakers. McGeough
in particular knows how to push the buttons in
a republican audience and he showed no dearth
of dexterity in hitting them all at the right
moment. Whether it was his dismissal of the Sinn
Fein leadership as inept and bungling or his description
of the RUC abuse of the body of Derry hunger striker,
INLA volunteer Patsy O'Hara, each utterance prompted
rapture.
Conversely,
the remaining panellists delivered their talks
in a rather flat manner. While such presentations
might suit a more reflective academic audience
the gathering at the Tower Hotel was not in the
mood for reflection, preferring instead to have
the emotions stoked and the instincts sated through
a diet of republican rhetoric.
What
I learned from the meeting was that the numbers
of angry people are growing steadily. To see so
many former prisoners there whom I had served
time with was heartening. To a man they echoed
the sentiment of sell out. There was no dissent
from the crowd and general agreement from the
panel when it was suggested from the floor that
the Sinn Fein leadership is heavily infiltrated
by MI5. Contribution after contribution from the
standing room only crowd made reference to a sense
of betrayal.
What
I did not learn from the meeting was any outline
for a way forward. True, Sinn Fein has no alternative
to the administration of British rule and has
accepted the British state's alternative to republicanism.
Yet, republicans gathered in Derry showed little
sign of developing the republican strategy they
profess to hold. This gives Sinn Fein the advantage.
One of the elements in the collapse of republicanism
and it being replaced by a non-republican strategy,
the peace process, was the inability of the Sinn
Fein leadership to develop republicanism and shift
it out of the political cul de sac in which it
had long resided. Sinn Fein gave up the ghost,
moved out of the cul de sac but in the process
signed up to an internal solution. Those opposed
to an internal settlement show no sign of escaping
the political ghetto. Many seem content to stay
there.
On
the night, the panellist who must have gained
more satisfaction than most was Francie Mackey.
Eight years ago in the wake of the appalling Omagh
bomb he would have been lucky to have an audience
of two listen to him. Then he was pilloried and
lambasted the length and breadth of Ireland. The
leaders of the Enniskillen bombers with brazen
duplicity turned up at Omagh to join in the frenzied
assault. That no one ever alleged Mackey was involved
with the bombing seemed not to matter. His membership
of the 32CSM was enough to demonise him. While
he never sought to defend the act the critics
rarely differentiated between his position and
the act of the bombers. In the face of unremitting
hostility he faced press and critics alike, steadfastly
refusing to walk away from the political perspective
he believed in. Mackey's political views can be
challenged but his courage stands unassailable.
To admire him being applauded for his contribution
by an audience so large was not to acknowledge
in the slightest that physical force republicanism
has any place in republican activism, but to recognise
the durability and strength of character of the
individual on the platform.
The
absence of Sinn Fein from the debate gave it the
sound of one hand clapping. It became a political
rally rather than an informed exchange of views.
Many of those who wanted to ask questions of Sinn
Fein seemed incapable of reformulating their question
so that positions could be teased out from the
panel. It was an opportunity missed. The panel
were hardly going to disagree on points of criticism
thrown at the absent Sinn Fein from the floor.
It became an echo chamber for the audience. There
was also a disturbing touch of the evangelical
about proceedings. At one point somebody apologised
for having allowed Sinn Fein to lead him by the
nose. No one seemed interested in challenging
the panellists. Gerry McGeough for instance went
unquestioned about views he holds that many republicans
regard as anti-secular, misogynist, racist and
reactionary. Elsewhere McGeough has vigorously
contested such characterisation but the Tower
Hotel event was the venue where the matter should
have been discussed more thoroughly. McGeough
is no shrinking violet and would not have wilted
in the face of intelligent probing. As it was
he was denied the opportunity to set the record
straight and neither he nor the audience appeared
to mind. His listeners seemed content to lift
the roof as McGeough's powerful oratory glided
into overdrive.
It
would be a travesty if such a gathering of republicans
were to remain indifferent to these concerns.
The emotion of the evening should not have acted
as a seamless garment that enveloped all before
it. Unless threads are unpicked at such gatherings
and republicans challenge each other the ability
of these events to inform is limited.
Ironically
Sinn Fein shaped the meeting without even having
to turn up. The crowd was fixated with the party
and expended its intellectual energy in highlighting
its shortcomings. This may be an exercise that
writers and critics can afford to pursue but for
people ostensibly seeking to politically advance
the republican project as a viable alternative
to Sinn Fein, it was the 'opportunity to miss
an opportunity'. A former republican prisoner
from Downpatrick was alone in pointing it out
and urged the hall to strategise rather than criticise.
On
the way home to Belfast, pondering the night's
events, I had mixed emotions. On the one hand,
intense satisfaction that the power of isolation
is diminishing. On the other, a feeling that Mr
McGeough and colleagues had marched them up to
the top of the hill … and back down seems
the most likely destination.
