In
a recent edition of Daily
Ireland, columnist Jude Collins wrote that in
his opinion the majority of the US, UK and Irish
media has been on a downward spiral since the 1960s,
culminating in its recent attacks on Irish Republicanism.
Unfortunately he failed to mention in any detail
that the current media onslaught against the Provisional
Republican Movement began soon after PIRA rejected
the humiliating pre-conditions demanded of them
by the Democratic Unionist Party, when Oglaigh na
hEireann offered to decommission the majority of
its remaining weaponry, thus enabling the DUP to
crash the latest round of the GFA talks and unfairly
place the blame at SF‘s door.
This
was followed in quick succession by the Irish and
British governments' claims that it was the Provisional
IRA who robbed the Northern Bank in Belfast of a
considerable sum. And then, as if to completely
ruin Gerry Adams' mockney centenary celebrations
of SF, PIRA off duty volunteers murdered Short Strand
resident and SF supporter Robert McCartney after
a bar room argument — and to make matters worse,
a group of SF ‘supporters’, believing
no doubt they were serving the cause, went out and
cleaned the crime scene after this horrific murder,
thus giving the media one hell of a bone to chew
on.
Mr Collins' failure to mention these traumatic events
all but negates his attempts to link the media attacks
on the PRM with the ever increasing downward spiral
he claims the media has been in for decades.
In
any case, those with longer memories than Mr Collins
would, I'm sure, challenge his prognosis, as in
many ways the UK and Irish media is far more open
these days than at any time over the last forty
years.
True,
this is not saying much as grub street still rarely
challenges the powers that be —whether political
or economic— and never goes against the dominant
economic theory of our age, no matter what hardships
this system inflicts on those least able to defend
themselves. Sadly, although still a new boy on the
block, I would include Daily Ireland in this
criticism; I could also add if I was being facetious,
the PRM own weekly newspaper An Phoblacht/Republican
News, for when did that newspaper last carry
an article attacking the unbridled naked capitalism
of today's free market economy?
However, if one reads the Jude Collins article carefully,
it becomes clear he is less interested in what state
the media is in than the fact it has almost inclusively
taken an anti-Provisional Republican slant since
the breakdown of the GFA negotiations at the end
of last year.
On
reading his claim that the media has suddenly become
inherently anti-republican, one wonders what Mr
Collins was doing when the media in the UK cheered
on the fitting up of the Guildford Four and the
Birmingham Six, the death of the ten Hunger Strikes,
the shooting down like mad dogs of Mairead Farrell
and her two comrades in Gibraltar, plus the fact
the overwhelming majority of the southern Irish
media acquiesced to section
31? Something even the BBC refused to adhere
to completely: instead, in a very English way it
chose to make a farce out of the Thatcher government's
attempt to censor Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness,
by having their words dubbed by actors, one of whom
was a close relation of a leading Republican.
Mr Collins also neatly side-steps that for the last
few years, Sinn Fein and its leadership could not
put a foot wrong as far as the majority of the UK,
US and Republic of Ireland's media was concerned,
and any disreputable or otherwise acts the PIRA
may have been involved in, like the odd spot of
GBH, armed robbery, highjacking of cigarette lorries,
etc, was all but ignored, something which seems
to have slipped Mr Collins' mind in his tale of
the media's woeful downward spiral.
There is a more serious point here than my mere
bitching at a normally half decent columnist, as
the storm of media condemnation Mr Collins mentions
has undoubtedly wrong footed the leadership of the
PRM, to such an extent they have ended up more than
once of late on their rear ends. When
they have tried to regain their feet they have time
and again stumbled all over the place like the proverbial
drunken sailor, seemingly incapable of finding solid
ground.
Thus
we now witness the likes of Mr Collins being called
on to supplement the Belfast Pen and Ink Battalion
led by the redoubtable Danny Morrison and Jim Gibney,
to help harden the earth — not least because
Mr Adams and his fellow SF candidates will need
to get out and about whilst campaigning in the forthcoming
UK general election if they are to maintain or increase
the SF vote.
Since the murder of Robert McCartney, it has been
clear the likes of Mr Collins and his fellow members
of the Pen and Ink Brigade have been called to the
colours to write ‘circle your wagons boys’
articles. Now with the aforementioned article it
seems, ‘all the fault of the media’ has
been added to the Connolly House approved list of
subjects to put pen to paper on.
The
downside of this is the Pen and Ink Brigade are
often supplemented in the core Republican communities,
where the natives have been getting restless of
late, by local PIRA volunteers, donning their aprons
and hair nets, in the manner of Les Dawson and Roy
Barraclough in the former's BBC comedy show and
by so doing going forth to spread rumours, smears
and innuendoes over the garden gate, not against
the historic enemy or their Loyalist surrogates,
but the community from whence they come: the purpose
being to turn the community against all those who
might be able to offer a real explanation for the
recent media assault on SF, i.e., it is mostly of
the Provisional Republican Movement's leadership's
own making.
That the SF leadership have chosen to go down the
road of spin to solve their current predicament
is indicative of politics in the 21st Century, so
we can hardly blame SF for joining the pack. After
all, they have entered the mainstream of bourgeois
politics and have witnessed at first hand, during
their brief sojourns at the Clinton White House
and Tony Blair's Chequers, how this method of conducting
politics can pay off with large electoral gains
and handsome dividends.
However,
myself I wonder whether in a small nation like Ireland,
spinmiester politics can be transferred for the
good from countries like the USA and the UK.
Take the core Republican communities; even in Cities
like Dublin and Belfast these areas often resemble
small towns if not villages, rather than the urban
conurbation's of London or New York, in which people
are often oblivious of each others existence, not
even knowing their immediate neighbours.
In
the core Republican constituencies little is secret
as far as family relationships and history is concerned,
many families having lived in the same area for
generations. Indeed, in the past this fact has paid
dividends for SF, because no matter what the media
claimed, people knew the truth about the character,
hard work and sacrifices made by both leading Republicans
and rank and file members. Any attempt by the Media
to portray them as a godfather, criminals, etc.,
fell on deaf ears.
People,
not being stupid, also realised that there were
bad eggs within the PIRA and SF, but history had
taught them in time these were normally weeded out,
either by the movement or the individuals concerned
moved on, being unable to cut the mustard for any
length of time during the armed struggle.
If one considers the comparatively small size of
Ireland, thus the small pond and class base from
which the PRM fishes for recruits, and the fact
until comparatively recently the more able of them
were channelled into the PIRA, Sinn Fein being regarded
as the poor relation of the family, Mr Adams and
his comrades' achievement has been considerable.
Over the years they were able to build a solid base
of support in the aforementioned constituencies,
out of which a hard working cadre of Republican
politicians have emerged.
Unfortunately with the Peace Process, SF has become
over reliant on spin and instant rebuttal. This
was fine when they were dealing with National Governments
and their Unionist opponents. Closer to home it
has opened up an avalanche of problems, the vast
majority of which could have been avoided.
Nowhere
has the failure of Spin been more exposed than in
the McCartney affair. The facts are well known,
as is the commonly held view that within the Short
Strand a section of the local PIRA unit was out
of control and had stretched the local community's
nerves to breaking point. This unit's behaviour,
far from being a rogue element within PIRA, appears
to mirror the behaviour of a small number of similar
units within core republican communities, and is
clearly a symptom of an army on perpetual ceasefire.
Whilst it is not true to say PIRA has completely
morphed into a Rafia, undoubtedly an increasing
number of its volunteers have in both behaviour
and outlook.
If, after the PRM’s leadership realised Armed
Struggle was no longer a viable strategy, they had
acclimatised both their membership and their core
constituency to this fact, they could have then
gone ahead and stood PIRA down in the normal tried
and trusted manner. Thus much of the aforementioned
disintegration of volunteers moral and discipline
would have been avoided. I must stress here I'm
not talking about liquidating Oglaigh na hEireann,
but standing it down, which is different from what
the Unionist politicians and the British and Irish
Governments are demanding of SF.
Nevertheless, even if this had been done, the thugs
who murdered Robert McCartney may still have carried
out their foul deed. But I doubt the PRM would have
felt the need to send out the volunteers of the
local smear and innuendo brigade. In any case, the
work of the unhooded volunteers was always going
to end in failure in an area like the Short Strand
for the reasons I have given above, plus the tenacious
and decent nature of the McCartney family.
Of course the loyalty the people of the core Republican
communities displays towards SF cannot be wiped
away by one incident, nor should it be. Gerry Adams
has made a start in putting things right by sending
out a message to the killers that he is not going
to let this matter go. Although only time will tell
if this is yet another attempt at spinning; in the
meantime I see no reason not to take him at face
value.
Instead of writing promo pieces that contain more
spin than substance, perhaps writers with Republican
sympathies would do more good if they asked themselves
what type of party, which claims its aim is a socialist
Ireland of Equals, in which open government and
democratic accountability is to be the order of
the day, would wish to spin to its core support
base, or to anyone else come to that?
For
surely if there is one element of the electorate
who should not be deceived by spin, it is Sinn Fein's
core supporters, who have remained loyal to SF through
thick and thin, and in all probability will remain
so when they vote for SF in the May UK elections.
Unlike
the Irish middle classes, the over whelming majority
of Ireland's working classes and less well-off rural
workers, from which SF draws its core support, are
not the type of people to respond to spin, bullshit
and bollix based on personal advantage or prejudice;
otherwise they would never of supported Sinn Fein
in the first place.
When
members of the PRM come forward and tell people
untruthfully this or that person is a drug dealer
or whatever, people feel insulted, as having lived
alongside the individual so named they know the
truth of the accusation. Thus they take umbrage
with Republicans for taking them for fools and begin
to wonder what else they are being told is bullshit.
Thus if ever their was a political leadership which
needs constructive criticism it is Gerry Adams and
his comrades. In return what Mr Adams and his colleagues
need to understand is those who do not acquiesce
to their will are not necessary their, or the PRM's
enemies. Indeed constructive criticism is a healthy
thing; for the PRM leadership to treat such people
as if the war was still in full swing and their
republican critics were Ireland Quislings is contemptible.
Wise politicians listens to their constituency,
especially the section of it that makes them feel
uncomfortable.
The
fact the Adams leadership has been unable to keep
many of their more able former colleagues on board
has clearly been detrimental to the movement. Perhaps
it's time Gerry Adams considered re-building a few
bridges at home. After all, he made a start doing
just this with old US comrades who had been out
of favour of late, having been replaced by the very
people who turned on Mr Adams during his recent
trip to the USA.
