Whenever Irish Republican Socialists raise questions
or critically point out (what they regard as)
flaws in the GFA strategy of Gerry Adams, they
quickly come under either a hail of abuse from
supporters of the SF President, or it is demanded
of them that they offer up an alternative strategy
and a fully formed Political Party to put it into
practice. When nothing to their liking is immediately
conjured up, the Shinners brand these critics
as dissidents, who they claim carp from the political
margins—seemingly oblivious to the facts
that Irish Republicans have always raged from
the margins of so called 'mainstream' politics,
and whilst doing so, dissidence is the flag they
have labored under. (Dissidence: disagreement
with authority or with prevailing opinion, Encarta(r)
World English Dictionary.) Far from it being
a term of abuse, in reality it is a badge of honor.
It is also not uncommon these days to hear members
of SF justifying their membership of that party
by retorting there is no viable political alternative
that can effectively represent the nationalist
northern working classes. However, to put forth
such a self-evident argument hardly helps move
the process forward, nor helps us understand how
Republicanism has reached the stage where its
largest faction is likely to recognize the legality
of the British police within Ireland. What these
members of SF are doing is demanding of the dissidents
something they themselves are either unwilling
or unable to do. It is as if whilst silently differing
with the way the Adams leadership have handled
strategy over the GFA etc, instead of getting
to grips with this and attempting to do something
about it, they are willing yet another top down
leadership to emerge, with a ready-made SF Party
Mark2 to boot, which they can give their allegiance
and who will take the burden of free thought and
all responsibility for the future of Republicanism
from their shoulders. It seems to me this is yet
another indictment of the Adams leadership style
and the atmosphere within SF. For if true, it
appears even the best of SF activists are unable
to think beyond the ridged confines of top down
democratic centralist politics.
History
has surely taught us that if a political party's
internal structure lacks true democratic accountability,
whether this is due to flaws within its constitution,
or its malicious interpretation and misuse by
the leadership, it is a train wreck waiting to
occur, as it is doomed to evolve into a very conservative
party, if not become a willing tool of the Neo-Conservative
political and economic establishment.
One
only has to look across the Irish Sea at the political
decline of the British Labour Party to understand
this. Its membership, due to their mad desire
for political power, in a Faustian pact allowed
Tony Blair and his New Labour coterie to fillet
that party of its core beliefs and its democratic
mechanisms. Much of what the LP had stood for
throughout the 20th Century was removed from its
constitution, and its internal structures where
gradually filleted of all democratic accountability.
Whereas once the Party Conference, along with
the National Executive, was the party's main authority
and Parliamentary candidates where selected by
the rank and file at local party branches, without
any direct outside interference, all of this was
swept away in the name of modernization and the
pursuit of power, to be replaced by the will of
the Party Leader and those he chose to represent
him on Earth.
The
end result has been the wasted and shameful years
of the New Labour Administration led by Tony Blair.
Public Office is all New Labour craves, to be
attained at all costs: their disgusting military
adventures abroad in support of the Neo-Conservative
U.S. President G. W. Bush; its cringing before
Rupert Murdoch and the reactionary Rothermere
Press; handing out peerages and knighthoods to
anyone who can give them a lift up or an open
cheque; introducing legislation like that which
cut Welfare Benefits for the sick and disabled,
and cannot but further impoverish many of those
who live in the Party's heartlands and have been
its core support base in good and bad times.
As
to the British Labour Party, whilst the New Labour
apparatchiks have prospered it has become a shadow
of its former self, having lost well over a third
of its membership. A majority of these have gone
home demoralized and shut their door, lost to
political activity, having been replaced by spivs
from the City and flim-flam men and women from
the professions. This should be a warning for
SF as this is what many of those working class
members who leave the party have also been doing.
Those
members and supporters of SF who criticize the
majority of today's Republican dissidents for
failing to offer up an alternative strategy and
ready-built organization are totally overlooking
a number of important factors. Not least that
the overwhelming majority of dissidents come from
the generation that fought the war in the north
east, and in most cases gave their heart and soul
to that struggle. Thus they have all faced an
enormous conflict of emotions over the political
direction in which Gerry Adams has taken the PRM.
For these comrades there was no Damascus road
revelation, which instantly exposed before their
very eyes the futility of the Adamsite strategy.
Nor did it occur at a mass rally that was struck
by divine intervention, which revealed the truth
to all those present. All of these comrades gradually
went through their very own Calvary, and finally
broke with SF after much soul searching. It is
hardly surprising they do not yet form a homogeneous
group, let alone a political party.
The
one thing they have all concluded is, to quote
the Countess, "you cannot make a silk purse
out of a sow's ear." No one is trying to
deny SF the right to enter, for example, the 'governing'
committees of the PSNI. But if it does, SF can
no longer masquerade as an Irish Republican political
party whilst the British State, by force of arms
still controls the north east of Ireland —
for the simple reason that this act goes against
the most basic tenant of Irish Republicanism.
Nevertheless, most, although not all, (as some
belong to RSF, 32CSM or IRSM) of the main Republican
dissidents, give credit to Gerry Adams for being
amongst the first within the Movement to understand
that the war had run its course and must be brought
to an end, not least because the revolutionary
period which started in 1969 is well past its
sell by date. A new strategy was needed for the
21st century.
However,
there main differences with Mr. Adams and his
leadership coterie (originally) centered around
the fact that, although Mr Adams managed to achieve
his aim of bringing the Provisionals military
conflict to a close with his 'Republican Family'
all but intact, which undoubtedly took considerable
skill and acumen, tragically he chose to do this
by incorporating a strategy that was based on
lies, deceit and sleight of hand politics. Something
which was not only repugnant to many members of
the PRM, both past and present, but went against
all Republican values.
'Dissidents'
believed that in the long run such behavior would
prove to be a fatal flaw and disastrous for Irish
Republicanism. Whilst it may well have achieved
Mr Adams aim of holding the PRM together as a
unified entity, in the process it not only lost
the PRM some of its best militants, but in reality
it stripped it of its democratic accountability,
radical politics, and its effectiveness as an
Irish Republican Organization, which was formed
by and to represent the urban working classes
and the less economically well-off in the countryside.
It
is perfectly true SF activists play an important
role in the campaigns that centre on the big political
issues of the day, the anti war movement, the
international struggle against Neo-Con economic
and military imperialism, the struggle for better
wages and working conditions via the Trade Unions,
campaigns for better schools and hospitals, etc.
But they do so whilst Mr Adams and the leadership
clique is publicly seen to hobnob with the very
people who represent the multi-nationals politically,
or have allowed themselves to become totally immersed
in the British governments machinations over the
GFA, which in the eyes of many negates the good
work Sinn Fein rank and file activists carry out.
Perhaps
it is time Irish Republicans, whether they belong
to a political party or not, seriously question
what role a left of centre radical Republican
political party should play in a post-conflict
Ireland, and even give some thought to whether
or not an Irish Republican Party is far too blunt
an instrument to bring about lasting change which
will benefit the working people of Ireland in
the 21st Century. Whatever is debated, what is
undoubtedly needed is a bit of 'Whither Irish
Republicanism?'.
