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Mick Hall • 15 December 2004
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What
can one conclude from the latest peace process merry
go around? The longer this particular carousal spins
around, the only visible progress which appears
to be being made is by the British/Unionist side.
I say visible as, if one talks to SF activists,
this is clearly not how they see things. Nevertheless,
as far as the more traditional Irish Republicans
are concerned, there seems very little progress
that would advance their Cause. On the surface,
any political differences the Sinn Fein negotiators
may have with the British and their Unionist allies,
for instance about the very existence of the six
county State-let, does not appear to have been argued
out at all, but left to future reference, which
means in reality to bubble away below the surface,
like caustic soda. In other words, it has been returned
from whence it came: before it exploded so necessarily
onto the political stage in 1969.
As the word betrayal is sadly never far from people’s
lips within Northern Ireland, one has to be very
careful what one says, as it can be so easily misconstrued.
The more so these day's within SF circles, if one
is not a permanent resident of the Fall's Road,
or does not walk around with a shillelagh over your
shoulder forever saying begorra. To be fair SF would
claim they have concentrated on their equality agenda
and the curtailment of the armed struggle within
these negotiations. But even here if past experience
in the South of Ireland is anything to go on, every
gain Sinn Fein makes in bringing about equality
in the north is likely to push reunification that
much further away. For after all those years of
living as second class citizens, if SF's equality
agenda is successful in the north, fewer nationalists
are going to get that fussed about reunification.
The more so if it means a noticeable drop in living
standards and life’s opportunities.
If anything an equality agenda hangs like the mythical
Sword of Damocles above the heads of Mr Adams and
his leadership clique. For if you take away the
gross inequality suffered by Catholics, which has
been the raison d'être of the northern Statelet
ever since its creation, would it be that unattractive
a place for nationalists to live in? If it were
a State with normal policing, provision of housing
and health care, employment prospects and a devolved
government, what would make it any different from,
say, Catalonia in Spain, in which Catalans and Castilian
incumbers live happily side by side, both retaining
their language and cultures within the Spanish State
whilst operating politically in both a devolved
and national environment?
It has become increasingly clear during the course
of these GFA negotiations that it has been this
equality agenda that has been the driving force
of the PRM; and not that of traditional Irish Republicanism
whose main aim is Irish unity. The overwhelming
majority of PIRA's northern volunteers joined the
army because they wished to kick back at the unionist
State-let that oppressed them. Fighting the RUC
and the British army were merely physical manifestations
of this. If this was, down the years, true of the
average volunteer, over time it has become doubly
true of the current leadership, which became epitomised
by Gerry Adams and his closest colleagues, nine
out of ten are whom are not only northerners but
come from a small geographical area within the north
east of Ireland. The day the PRM movement succumbed,
to the admittedly seemingly logical argument, that
as the northerners were doing the fighting they
should be the leadership majority, was the day this
movement moved away from traditional republicanism;
and it made a deal along the lines of the GFA almost
inevitable.
In itself, unless that is you are a die-hard physical
force Republican, there is nothing wrong with this;
an all Ireland Left Reformist Party may well be
just what is needed in Ireland. The real question
is this: what Sinn Fein will become? It is pretty
obvious that the Adams leadership have long ago
concluded much of the above for themselves. For
when Mr Adams makes statements that the party leader
should be a southerner and fast-tracks youngsters
like Dublin based Mary Lou, all he is doing is putting
this into practice. Although in reality he seems
to have no intention of this new southern Sinn Fein
Party leader emerging until his (Mr Adams') bottom
is firmly seated in the Presidential chair in Áras
an Uachtaráin. Of course, he has his problems
and this is the main reason for his continuous acts
of sleight of hand and deviousness towards his own
core constituency, and why he still makes what can
only be described as the silly claim that SF is
still a revolutionary Republican Party, when it
is clearly not. Irish Republicans have never, publicly
or privately, recognised the writ of the British
State in any part of the Island of Ireland. Whereas
SF by signing up to the GFA clearly do. And this
is the rub of Mr Adams' problems, for people like
Martin Ferris and Brian Keenan did not become volunteers
and spend some of the best years of their lives
in jail just to witness the north of Ireland become
a successful social democratic corner of the United
Kingdom, nor to see Mr Adams greeting their old
adversaries at Áras an Uachtaráin
as President of an Irish State that does not cover
the whole of the Island of Ireland.
As far as Ferris is concerned (and many like him)
Mr Adams has found him a comfortable birth as Sinn
Fein's Farmer Giles in the Dail, which should see
him out until retirement (And many like him who
have been found similar jobs). But men like Keenan
have no wish or need for such baubles. They are
ever conscious of the ebb and flow of Irish history,
that when the need arises each generation will provide
the men and women who will do their duty and complete,
if at all possible, the national revolution. They
understand that for a host of reasons their generation,
despite Herculean efforts, were unable to do this.
But they, rightly or wrongly, have no doubt that
they have laid down a benchmark for future generations
to follow. That Mr Adams intends laying down an
altogether different type of benchmark has either
not registered properly or does not matter that
much to them; only history will tell us which of
these two parties turn out to be correct.
Most of Mr Adams former comrades who have left the
PRM look upon him as a traitor to their Cause and
if you look at what he says today and what he said
twenty years ago, that they do so is perfectly understandable.
However many of those who remained within PIRA look
upon Mr Adams with a little more tolerance. They
see him more like a spoilt and wilful teenager,
who is determined to have his own way; and as they
feel the armed struggle for the time being has run
its course, they see little harm in letting him
to get on with it, although I am sure many of them
doubt in the long term much will come of it, as
historically they have seen much of this before.
The alternative for them would be to shut up shop,
go home and await better days; however one must
take into account due to age, for many of these
people better day’s are something many of them
are unlikely to see. Although as the recent negotiations
showed, they are not averse to taking away Mr Adams
ball and stopping him from going out to play for
a few days. As it seems T. P. cannot quite yet bring
'himself' to sign the final proclamation.
Of course there is and always has been another option
that Republicans could choose, however Mr Adams
and his colleagues have consistently refused to
even contemplate it. It is possible to agree with
peace and disagree with the Peace Process and its
offspring the Good Friday Agreement. I just wish
some members of the PRM who still consider themselves
to be Left Republicans, would make even the slightest
effort to understand this. It is simply not possible
for a radical political party to get into the slipstream
of the Bourgeois State for any length of time and
not be swept along in its undertow. To understand
this one only has to have witnessed both SF and
the DUP demand for a one billion pound handout during
the recent negotiations. One wonders if these people
were ever told who pays the piper calls the tune?
If SF remains in this flow for any length of time
it will inevitably be transmogrified into a moderate
nationalist party of the right, in fact just like
the governing party is in Catalonia. Indeed many
Shinners have already started describing themselves,
or rather their party as such, although still claiming
to be of the Left. In the 21st Century, Nationalism
is not an attractive political phenomenon, especially
these days when racism and a fear of asylum seekers
are on the rise. A Party which positions itself
as such will inevitably end up with some uncomfortable
bedfellows; indeed this has already happened with
Sinn Fein over a woman‘s right to choose. The
sooner Sinn Fein decides exactly what type of party
it intends to place itself before the electorate
as, the better for all. Its current masquerade as
a Revolutionary Irish Republican Party is long past
its sell by date, and an insult to the electorate.
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All
censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging
current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress
is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and
executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently
the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.
- George Bernard Shaw
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