Over
the recent period there has been a fair amount of
discussion taking place in the street, on the Internet
and in the media about the RTE documentary Joe
Cahill: IRA Man, which featured in the RTE Hidden
History series. Anthony McIntyre wrote an article
for the Blanket entitled, St
Joseph Patron Saint of The Peace Process. Another
piece appeared in the Sunday Independent
written by their correspondent Jim Cusack with the
header, Joe Cahill was more Forrest Gump than
IRA Terrorist Mastermind (Sunday Independent,
December 12th 2004). The basic charge of both journalists
as can be seen from the headlines above their articles,
and the main topic of discussion among many non-PRM
supporters was that the RTE programme was little
more than a hagiographical eulogy. The reason for
this being that journalists at RTE, and indeed in
much of the Irish mainstream media, are simply not
prepared to produce any work that casts a critical
eye on the Peace Process and its main participants,
for fear of upsetting the whole apple cart. Whilst
this may indeed be true, those who live in the rest
of the UK will be less surprised by the RTE eulogy
of Joe Cahill.
The British State has a long tradition of welcoming
into its bosom those who had once been its enemies.
The criteria they insist upon is twofold: the individual
concerned and the organisation they belong(ed) to
must no longer be a threat to the British State
and its interests, wherever they may be. It matters
little if the individual concerned is alive or dead,
nor even if they wish to be welcomed by their classes/countries
enemies, for they are really not the point of the
exercise. The whole purpose is to impress upon current
enemies if they bow the knee, a better life full
of pomp and glory may well await them, plus of course
due to the imperial past of the English State, it
loves displaying magnanimity to the natives.
If you look back into history and follow it through
right up until the present day, there is a whole
raft of radical politicians who have been publicly
lauded in their defeat or self-abasement. However,
some of the first people to get such treatment were
far from radical; Indian Maharajas and the Zulu
Kings were some of the first to be walked along
this road. Scottish and Irish radicals like Tim
Healy and Ramsay MacDonald soon followed and despite
their youthful indiscretions, when they represented
their class or fellow country men and women to the
best of their abilities, once they put such silly
nonsense aside they were each placed at the pinnacle
of their respective States, Healy as the British
nominated first Governor General of the Irish Free
State and MacDonald as Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom. These two were followed by countless others
who were also forgiven their youthful indiscretions
and rose to the highest office or were provided
with a comfortable retirement, once they put all
that equality nonsense aside.
And of course one should not forget Michael Collins,
who, whilst he physically refused to bend the knee,
by accepting the treaty he all but did so, and in
the eyes of the British establishment and its tame
media turned from number one bogeyman into Statesman
almost over night. Indeed on his death, he had Ireland's
enemy the arch imperialist Winston Churchill writing
an obituary of him that was little more than a hagiographical
eulogy, to use Mr McIntyre’s words to describe
the RTE Cahill documentary.
However it was not really until the post WW2 period
that this process got into full flow, with the rising
struggles of a host of anti imperialist forces throughout
the British Empire. Men and women who regarded themselves
as socialists of one kind or another led the overwhelming
majority of the organisations which made up this
struggle. They ranged from Pandit Nehru, Jomo Kenyatta,
Abdul Nasser, (gamalu cabdu n-nâsir), Nelson
Rolihlahla Mandela, Robert Mugabe, Chin Peng and
many others. After what was often a harsh and violent
struggle, the British, or those post colonial caretaker
governments they had placed into power, were quite
happy to allow those who had fought them to take
power. There were to be though one or two prior
conditions, which were usually agreed upon at lavish
conferences at Lancaster House or the likes of Leeds
Castle. If their former foes where prepared to join
the British Commonwealth or be within its orbit,
and forget all that nonsense about socialist land
reform etc, then the honey pot was theirs for the
taking. Once they agreed, those who had once been
hunted like animals through jungles and shanty towns
by the British Army and their tame local militias,
soon found themselves riding down London's Mail
in an open carriage, off to stay with Betty Windsor
at Buckingham Palace, with the House-Hold Cavalry
firing a salute as Britain's latest satrap passed
by.
Of course those who refused to compromise or bend
the knee were treated in a different manner. They
were hunted down mercilessly, to become non-persons
as far as history is concerned. There is no better
example of this than the gallant Chin Peng, who
spent the whole of WW2 in the jungles of Malaysia,
fighting the Japanese invaders alongside the British
who awarded him of all people the Order of the British
Empire. At the Victory Parade that took place in
London at the wars end, he was one of the few senior
Asian Soldiers to take part. But when he refused
the will of a wisp offer of freedom he and his countrymen
and women were offered in reward by the British,
he took to the jungle once more, forever to be branded
a traitorous, treacherous oriental, when anyone
remembers who he was that is. Indeed when he eventually
emerged after decades of war and pressure from Malaysia’s
neighbour Thailand, few had any idea who the old
gentleman was.
To conclude it is worth remembering some of those
who have been given the Cahill treatment when their
movements are no longer a threat. Nasser, once his
successor Sadat had taken the almighty dollar, in
death became an Egyptian patriot when portrayed
in the British media, whilst in life he was a bloodthirsty
Arab and a tool of the Russians. Arthur Scargill,
who like Gerry Adams was for some years public enemy
number one in the British media, found himself written
up as good old Arthur once the members of the NUM
were defeated and scattered to the four winds after
their noble but unequal struggle against Thatcherism;
he was allowed to pontificate on TV shows like BBC
Question Time, for without his TU comrades he was
powerless. Another is Tony Benn, who when he had
a crack at being the deputy leader of the British
Labour Party, found himself crucified on a daily
basis in the Murdoch gutter press. It was also thought
by many that he was poisoned during this leadership
campaign by the British security services, to take
him out of the contest, which if true shows how
much they hated and feared him. Yet now he is old
he appears all over the same newspapers, portrayed
as everyone's favourite politician. Never mind he
is long retired and can be found in a theatre near
you in his one-man show.
Finally I leave the two best examples from recent
history, Arafat and Mandela. Despite all his faults
in the end Arafat refused to sell out his people
and deny them the right of return; for this he was
vilified and hated in the US and UK, his name blackened
by the media lackeys at every turn, until he met
a strange and untimely death. Nelson Mandela, for
all his attributes, on becoming State President
of South Africa agreed one thing which would have
enormous negative consequences for his people. He
agreed the multi-nationals could continue to enrich
themselves in the trough of the SA economy. By doing
this he turned from being a terrorist into a Statesman
and was regarded as such even by those who had the
most blackest of hearts and had spent a political
life time opposing his release from jail. He became
a man who opportunists from all over the world came
to visit -- Pop/Movie Stars, Conservative politicians
and multi-national blood suckers lined up to be
photographed along side Mr Mandela, in the full
knowledge that some of his media enhanced gloss
would rub off on their shabby selves and perhaps
advance their own grubby careers. Did Mandela protest
or refuse these charlatans entrance? No, for he
knew like Faust that if you make a pact with the
devil it is wise to keep it.
None of the above is designed to belittle the often-pivotal
role played by those people who I have named above.
For in struggles against powerful vested interests,
what people represent is often as, if not more,
important than what individuals actually did; I
would suggest Joe Cahill is a case to point. This
is the reason why the representatives of Capital
see the re-writing of the history of the anti imperialist
struggles as essential to their interests. Thus
it is of vital importance that Irish Republicans
claim their own history; those who were participants
in the often heroic, but nevertheless bloody struggle
in the north of Ireland over the past thirty four
years have a responsibility to those who did not
survive and future generations to put down their
own recollections. As there will be many who have
a vestige interest in re-writing history, and be
warned they will not always come from the obvious
quarter.
So
when Republicans question a take on their history,
which they believe to be mistaken, as Mr McIntyre,
did in his article about Joe Cahill for the Blanket,
it should not be seen as spitting on the graves
of the dead, but part of the process to offer a
version of history beyond that which is acceptable
to powerful vested interests. If a voice is heard
to whisper, some things are best left unsaid; surely
it is time to reply, Republicans were never afraid
to face the truth, in all its starkness. If this
means one or two halos become scratched in the process,
no matter, for as Bobby Sands said, “all have
a role to play, no matter how big or small.”
