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There
is little in Brian Kelly’s
article with which I would disagree. While analogies
are seldom exact I certainly agree that a number of
them can be drawn from the past history of the Southern
States of the USA and applied to Northern Ireland.
This article is not therefore a rebuttal of Brian’s
article, far from it, but the article did provoke
some thoughts that I feel need to be expressed in
the light of Brian’s desire to see the “dead
dogmas of the past” well and truly buried.
My
argument in the past has been that it is as wrong
for nationalists, especially those who claim to be
socialists, as it is for the unionist establishment
to write off the vast majority of working class unionists
as the Irish equivalent of "poor white trash".
In fact in my response to one of Anthony Mc Intyre's
articles I made the point that one thing that nationalists
and a great many socialists had in common with the
unionist establishment was their agreement in dismissing
working class unionists as the local equivalent of
“poor white trash”.
Brian
Kelly rightly points out that the unionist establishment
"callously left us abandoned in social
and economic terms". Like Lazarus the beggar
who picked up the crumbs that fell from the rich man's
table, we picked up the social and economic crumbs
that trickled down from the unionist establishment.
Admittedly we picked up a few more crumbs than those
that were picked up by our nationalist working class
neighbours, but they were crumbs all the same. In
Belfast parlance it was a matter of "tuppance
ha'penny looking down on tuppance." Of course
that same callous abandonment of the working classes
was replicated by successive Dublin governments. In
the Republic it was a case of nationalists, many of
whom had served the revolutionary cause, being abandoned
by their fellow nationalists. But that never seems
to draw the same criticism from nationalists - after
all “labour can wait” until the republican
project is complete. Within ten years of his death
the principles for which Connolly stood were shelved
in a “labour can wait” policy that has lasted
for eighty-six years. Jacqueline Dana’s article
“Connolly ain’t nothing but a Train Station
in Dublin” says it all. Tuppance ha’penny
looking down on tuppance” was nothing compared
to nationalist affluence looking down on nationalist
poverty.
While
the vast majority of the unionist working class accepted
their lot as part of the price they thought they had
to pay for maintaining the union, there were always
small pockets of radical dissenters who refused to
toe the establishment line. There was the 1907 carters
strike when Big Jim Larkin succeeded in uniting unionist
and nationalist workers in common cause - much to
the consternation of both the unionist establishment
and the Catholic hierarchy. Padear O'Donnell succeeded
in uniting nationalists and unionists in common cause
against unionist bosses in County Armagh during his
term as ITGWU organiser. Unionists from the Shankill
joined forces with nationalists from the Falls in
common cause during the Outdoor Relief riots and a
Wolfe Tone Society operated on the Shankill Road for
a time during the thirties.
Again,
during the thirties several hundred working class
unionists from East Belfast and the Shankill aligned
themselves with Republican Congress - a move that
evoked the fury of the republican leadership under
Moss Twomey and the 'radical' Sean MacBride who organised
an IRA unit to prevent them from 'desecrating' the
sacred ground of Bodenstown. The comments of George
Gilmore that it would be a long time before they'd
hear "Up the Shankill" again at Bodenstown
proved to be prophetic. Many of our families voted
for dissent in less spectacular ways by seeking to
return Labour and, in East Belfast, even communist
candidates. Others preferred to vote for independent
unionists.
Prior
to the greening of the trade union movement, and the
start of the economic bombing campaign waged against
the unionist community by those claiming to be fighting
for a socialist republic, there was a strong working
class unionist presence within the Labour and Trade
Union Movement. The old dogma that “labour can
wait” until the prods are bombed into submission
is a dogma that needs to be buried. There can be no
true unity of the working classes while one section
of it believes that socialism can be imposed on the
other section at the point of a gun.
Contrary
to popular belief it was not always the bigoted redneck
prods who refused to pursue a "joint struggle
alongside their fellow workers from the Falls or the
Short Strand”. The Catholic hierarchy, Gombeen
Nationalists and various Republican leaders were just
as anxious as any unionist to divert the working classes
away from the real issues that affected their every
day living. But in these days of chronic nationalist
self-righteousness the politically correct version
of history exonerates the nationalist-republican community
and lays the blame squarely on the unionist family
- especially the "poor Orange trash" of
the unionist working class communities.
If,
as Brian Kelly wishes, we are to see through the tissue
of lies that have been fed to us and if we are to
bury "the dead dogmas of the past”,
socialists need to acknowledge that the unionist community
does not have a monopoly on those old time-worn dogmas.
If there is to be a funeral service for the past it
will have to be attended by both communities.
It
is ironic that those working class unionists whom
pro-nationalist socialists criticise most are not
the groupings within loyalism that are still wedded
to sectarianism or violence, but those of us who are
striving to rekindle the spirit of independent thought
and break free from the shackles which held us captive
for so long to the unionist establishment. Both "Fourthwrite"
and "The Blanket" have been criticised
by socialists for allowing people like myself space
to air our views and, at one of the Voice of the
Lark debates, it was a self-proclaimed socialist
who objected to Tommy Gorman reading a paper on my
behalf. We have been picketed and heckled by socialists
demanding working class unity but rejecting our right
to be part of that unity. Is it not a bit strange
that those who whinge and girn most about unionist
discrimination are to the fore in demanding that republican
editors and debating panels deny working class unionists
like myself the right to set forth our views. Will
the real rednecks please stand up! It seems ludicrous
to me for pro-nationalist socialists to call on the
one hand for working class unity and on the other
hand to refuse to engage in dialogue with those who
have a degree of influence within working class unionist
communities.
Working
class unionists as a whole are all too readily dismissed
en bloc by pro-nationalist socialists as a people
to be despised and caricatured as tattooed Neanderthals
with shaven skulls and knuckles trailing the ground.
Whereas in the Southern States of the USA it was the
racist white supremacists (whom socialists rightly
detest) who were guilty of dehumanising and caricaturing
the Afro-American people, in Northern Ireland it is
the self-righteous pro-nationalist socialist supremacists
who are guilty of dehumanising the working class loyalist
community - an analogy that perhaps Brian should give
some consideration to.
Less
than 25% of the membership of the Progressive Unionist
Party, for example, ever had any connection with a
paramilitary organisation. The vast majority of the
party membership is made up of working class unionists
who are disaffected from mainstream unionist parties
and who want to engage in class-based politics. The
party electoral base is comprised of the same type
of people. Yet, with the exception of the Workers
Party, the Official Republican Movement, and some
members of the CPI, members of the PUP are treated
with contempt by pro-nationalist socialist groupings.
Rather than genuinely seek to develop working class
unity on crucial social and economic issues many socialists
seem committed to a policy of maintaining a single
identity socialism that is rooted squarely within
the nationalist community and tradition - a socialism
that accepts non-nationalists into the fold only insofar
as they are prepared to turn their backs on their
cultural identity and their legitimate desire to maintain
their citizenship within the United Kingdom.
Brian
quotes with approval the comments of Frederick Douglass,
"The antagonism between the poor of both races
is easily explained. They have divided both to conquer
each." But surely nationalists and socialists
who refuse to acknowledge that many loyalists have
a genuine interest in opposing sectarianism and in
developing a political agenda that seeks to address
crucial social and economic issues are just as guilty
of perpetrating division! If Brian is genuinely seeking
encourage socialists in Northern Ireland to "challenge
effectively a status quo that doles out poverty and
misery to working people on the Shankill and the Falls..."
he needs first of all to challenge effectively those
socialists who refuse to engage with those of us who,
not only hold similar aspirations, but who are already
working to that end. A single identity socialism that
is rooted and grounded in one (Catholic Nationalist)
community, and that treats the other community with
contempt, is not going to have much of a unifying
effect. Indeed, why would you want unity of purpose
between the Shankill and the Falls if you treat those
from the Shankill who are most likely to engage with
people from the Falls as political lepers? It sounds
good - and it is the socialist thing to say - but
is there any real meaning behind the rhetoric?
Over
the past ten years or so a growing number of loyalists
and republicans have worked constructively together
to tackle social and economic issues through projects
like the Springfield Inter-Community Development Project
along the Shankill-Springfield interfaces and the
LINC-InterComm alliance in North Belfast. These initiatives
have continued in the midst of the worst of interface
violence and against the backdrop of the reactionary
voices of gloom and doom from certain mainstream politicians.
Notwithstanding the recent upsurge in interface violence
and sectarian attacks the tide is beginning to turn
and positive inter-community work is continuing against
the odds. Yet few from the more vociferous socialist
groupings in Belfast have become engaged alongside
us. Indeed a number of their members actually earn
their living implementing social policies that militate
against the welfare of some of the most vulnerable
people in working class areas. But then Northern Ireland’s
public servants have a tradition of serving their
political paymasters rather than the general public
- another thing that mainstream unionists and the
new breed of upwardly mobile nationalists have in
common. For many within my community there appears
to be little or no difference between NIPSA and the
Police Federation or Prison Officers Association.
Brian’s
reference to “Those whites who managed to
see through the race-baiting and who stood alongside
blacks (rotten Prods?) were denounced as "nigger
lovers" and "race traitors," expelled
from their own "communities", physically
attacked and occasionally lynched” will be
well understood by those within loyalism who have
been branded “fenian lovers”, “lundies”
and “republican fellow-travellers”. I have
lost count of the times when party colleagues and
myself have had to deal with such insults. It is quite
an experience to return from a function where you
have been vociferously heckled by young militant socialists
only to be further heckled by militant loyalists for
daring to fraternise with the “other side”.
Yes, and some of my colleagues have been expelled
from their communities and some have lost their lives.
The analogy rings true.
In
closing, there are a growing number of working class
unionists (loyalists), including some like myself
who were once members of paramilitary organisations,
who are willing to work constructively on common social
and economic issues with those with whom we disagree
on fundamental constitutional issues, and on issues
of socialist ideology. Are pro-nationalist socialists
prepared to do the same?
The
cause of labour has been left waiting for eighty-six
years north and south of the border while mainstream
political parties use the “national question”
as a means of perpetuating working class division
(some paying lip service to addressing the question
while secretly cherishing a hope that it will never
be addressed - why kill the goose that lays the golden
political egg!). Are socialists going to play the
same waiting game - waiting until the border is removed,
waiting until everyone can sing from the one ideological
hymn sheet, waiting until the prods are sufficiently
sanitised or bombed into submission…waiting …
waiting …waiting…forever waiting. Meanwhile
the divisions grow deeper, the poor grow poorer, the
powerless remain disempowered and our communities
continue to be locked into a vicious cycle of alienation,
conflict and violence.
Can
we really afford to keep the cause of labour waiting?
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