Whenever
a Dissident challenges a Shinner over their party's
current policing strategy, it is an absolute certainty
that the first thing the Adam-site will do is
demand of the Dissident that they offer up an
alternative to the GFA. Few Dissidents bother
these days to answer the Shinner's question, as
the latter sadly gave up listening to anyone who
does not belong to the SF Flat Earth Society long
ago.
Although, it must be said a decent psychoanalyst
may deduce that, in reality the Shinner's, like
many who are about to fall over the edge, are
asking this question not of the dissidents, but
of themselves. Having descended into what amounts
to a deep political depression, the question is
brought on by being in a state of total bewilderment
as to how a leadership they have trusted so explicitly
could have got them into such an intolerable position,
which all but leaves them waiting upon the goodwill
of Ian Paisley snr and a British Prime Minister.
As
to the how and why they are where they are, it
is extremely interesting, and not only says a
great deal about the lack of internal democracy
within SF, but it is indicative of the total bankruptcy
of the road Mr Adams has taken the Provisional
Republican Movement down. It is clear despite
all the SF press offices powder-puffs about their
leadership's abilities, that the said leadership
has never even considered drawing up an alternative
strategy to the GFA, believing if they carped
loudly enough that the British has no plan B,
no one would notice that they themselves sat naked
in the negotiating chamber. This is shocking if
one considers the history of Unionism in the north,
and Perfidious Albion's treacherous record when
negotiating with Irish Republicans. It is without
doubt a total negation of political leadership.
It
is not as if Mr Adams wasn't forewarned by the
failure of peace processes elsewhere in the world,
about the dangers for a Liberation Movement and
those they represent if its leadership put all
its eggs in a single peace process basket. For
the PLO leader Yasser Arafat found to his cost
that, despite making countless compromises on
behalf of the Palestinian people, the Israeli
State and its US financiers and armorers continued
to raise the bar after each round of negotiations.
Until a time came when even the isolated and desperately
ill Arafat realized that the game was up, as he
was hemorrhaging support amongst his own people
due to having made far too many compromises that
in the eyes of his people served the occupier's
best interest and not their own. In the end with
no alternative strategy or realistic fall back
position, Arafat was reduced to saying, on be
asked what lays ahead for the Palestinian people
and the PLO, "To endure and hope for better
days, God willing."
Perhaps
it is time the mainstream Republican movement
woke up to the fact that the Peace Process was
never designed to provide a fast track for them
to gain access to the democratic process, but
is a vehicle the British State and its international
allies have designed to defang militant Republicanism
and demoralize its core support base. That the
Adams leadership have failed to see this, despite
the peace process being nowhere near completion
after being publicly active for over a decade,
displays a lack of leadership that can only be
described as willful.
They
have been flattered and blinded by the petty baubles
that the British State has scattered at their
feet, whether it be the access they have gained
to the media, the 'top peoples' table, their invites
to the White House and Downing St and the cash
the British and their allies have sprinkled around
them like confetti.
Mr.
Adams would do well to consider the fact that
others have been anointed the US/UK governments'
favorite sons, not least Saddam Hussein and Manuel
Noriega; and it was not they who have been left
behind to pick up the pieces but the Iraqi and
Panamanian people. The only thing to do when one
finds oneself in a hole is to stop digging. It
is time someone took Gerry Adams' shovel away.
