The
on-line discussion list Irish-left yesterday became
the messenger of bad news. E-Bay, the massive Internet
auction site, sent the IRSP notice that they could
no longer sell ‘IRA’ items in Britain,
and that this ban would also extend, with some loopholes
perhaps, overseas through the Commonwealth and America.
Of course, if you’re reading this, you know
the distinctions between Irps and Provos and Stickies
too arcane for a corporation to bother with. But,
the threat this presents can, as IRSP spokesman
Peter Urban writes in his post carried by Irish-left,
be seen as more evidence of the climate we live
in post 9/11.
Some,
I expect, would find a precedent with E-Bay’s
prohibition of Nazi memorabilia sold in Germany,
obeying that nation’s strict laws on the dissemination
of such propaganda. Obviously this issue remains
extremely sensitive. Does it logically follow, however,
that Irish republican material carries the same
taint as Waffen SS replica badges? Outside of Germany,
I have noticed a bustling trade in WWII-era German
artifacts and reproductions, and in histories and
memoirs of this period. Does that mean that E-Bay
enables its buyers and sellers to spread Hitler’s
legacy outside the former Reich? I would counter
that freedom of speech and the right to learn from
the past trump any harm caused by a few reactionaries
misled into thinking, or acting, upon the assumption
that such material presents a viable and attainable
system demanding or awaiting resurrection. Were
would all the military vendors go with their collectors?
Similarly,
the supply of Irish republican, and loyalist, memorabilia
should not be blocked by E-Bay. Probably many of
you have logged on to find rare items from the other
side of the globe or the next town over via this
site. For myself, I continue to look for pamphlets
and long out-of-print periodicals that many republicans
reading this would despise. Far-right and far-left
ephemera, part of my own research into fringe movements
and their attitudes towards Irish nationalism and
cultural traditions, cannot be obtained from the
local bookseller. I hunt for such publications as
they usually have no LinenHall staff to gather and
preserve them in a safe archive. Websites run by
a few of the committed have a tendency to vanish—or
splinter!--as quickly as they appear, and I choose
not to send my money directly to groups with whose
ideology I disagree. Occasionally, as with any rare
item, a seller auctions such material and I bid.
I have no way of otherwise obtaining scarce items
any more than I’d expect a chainstore to stock
the works of John Devoy or the Countess Markievicz.
E-Bay’s crackdown cuts off the conduit by which,
over the last few years, goods freely flow across
borders and past censors. It also inhibits inquiry.
My
wife looks on E-Bay for art made by prisoners, itself
a morally complicated commodity. Should sellers
profit from crafts made by those incarcerated, who
will not share in the profits? Is this any different
than the sale of an H-Block election poster or a
passle of ten SF buttons for five pounds? I realise
that there are those at E-Bay genuinely conflicted
about, as the Clash sneered, ‘turning rebellion
into money.’ But unless the corporation shuts
down any potentially controversial items that advocate
revolution, dissension, or free thought, the slippery
slope argument that Nazi and now IRA items should
be deleted leaves E-Bay open to charges that any
product auctioned on its site that advocates disturbing
ideas or action must be eliminated.
