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Sean
Smyth raises several important points pertinent
to the left in Ireland, among them its approach to
and analysis of sectarianism. I agree with him fully
on the sad and embarrassing factionalism which characterises
the hard left here, albeit a number of those groups
have many admirable well-meaning individuals of considerable
ability within their tiny ranks. However I am also
among those who feel disillusioned by the failure
over the trade union leadership to address the issues
here with any coherent analysis still less strategy
for replacement/alleviation based upon popular mass
action.
As
we know, the political structures which we have in
the north simply won’t facilitate expression
to be given to an alternative to sectarianism and
the GFA has institutionalised the politics of identity.
In such circumstances surely therefore there is an
even greater responsibility for the union movement
here to provide leadership to the feelings of its
members on areas of common interest. Jobs, housing,
education, health, transport are all now (as ever)
part of the zero sum politics of the north, a zero
sum game to which Sinn Fein have taken like green
ducks to Tory blue water. The TU movement has missed
enormous opportunities to challenge this “we
win, you lose” deception through leadership and
the popular mobilisation of its members. Platitudes,
press releases and polite appeals for calm galore,
but placards and angry pickets? Afraid not. Too controversial,
that. Imagine the bother we’d have on the streets
with workplace colleagues - catholic, protestant,
dissenter, whatever - standing shoulder to shoulder
to demand safe places to live, job protection, better
wages, an end to exploitation of young people through
slave wages and casual employment – frightening
stuff, eh Sean? Wouldn’t want overseas shareholders
getting jumpy about the likes of employee welfare,
would we? Don’t want to upset the churches, the
cops, the nice ministers at the NIO, do we? Old fashioned
approach, this direct action stuff. Forget substance
when symbolism will do - down with activism, up with
lethargy. Can’t buck the system, take what you’re
given. Be grateful and don’t ask for more. Controversial,
you see.
You
tell us that the current TU suits work “quietly
behind the screams of the victims of sectarianism”
and meet with leading sectarians to ask nicely whether
they wouldn’t mind awfully desisting from this
rather untidy and un-PC business of broken lives,
bruises, blood and bodies. TU members have a right
to know what was discussed with these people, what
decisions were taken, what mandate extended to the
TU to undertake such a project. Does Sean know? Does
he care?
It
is the absence of an organised, radical alternative
willing and able to mobilise and take action against
the reactionaries which perpetuates the myths on which
sectarianism thrives and violence the ultimate expression.
I have no problem with gradualism and reform Sean,
we have to start somewhere. However unless such a
package ultimately points toward an eventual replacement
of the type of society we have at the moment we will
continue to be blighted by the problems of sectarianism
and the inequality, barbarity and poverty it gives
rise to. You can’t remove the causes of sectarianism
by sharing cappuccinos with sectarians, snuggling
up to secureaucrats, blowing bubbles of niceness to
bosses, Sean. That process can begin when the TU leadership
here, in the Free State, Britain and far beyond pursue
an agenda of direct and active intervention in issues
of common interest to members and their families–
precisely the issues to which you refer – not
simply
against ‘all violence’ but for free education,
for protection of jobs, for a better health service,
for human rights and equality before the law, for
freedom of choice for women. These debates can muster
support by rational argument and publicity but they
cannot be won by it. Force of numbers, strategic deployment
of member numbers and direct action (call it ‘struggle’
if you want, the terminology’s irrelevant) can.
And already have. All over the world. This isn’t
pipedream stuff Sean, we might be talking Portadown
Sit-in rather than Prague Spring in terms of scale
but change can happen through organisation.
As
for us all being ‘guilty of having been sectarian’,
speak for yourself Sean. Those of us with an alternative
analysis which actively challenges sectarian structures
and forces (and its root causes) aren’t sectarian,
those who wish to tinker around with the existing
divisions and crisis manage them a little better in
collaboration with right wing politicians, clergy
and globalised industrialists without fundamentally
providing an alternative to them possibly are.
Relative
to where the working class in this state has come
from decent homes and decent jobs with basic safety
and security, equal access to quality healthcare and
free education would represent a breakthrough within
itself. But these are rights Sean, not fantasies.
They are entitlements, not examples of greed or unreasonableness.
To do that we need an agenda which is constructed
around fairness, equality and human rights for all
and does not deviate from it – where else other
than from within the trade union movement is this
going to be found? But such a breakthrough won’t
be secured by sectarian politicians nor by a lazy,
compliant trade union leadership. And it can’t
be just talked, it needs to be walked. It needs to
begin at the beginning and acknowledge that we have
a state which was constructed around a sectarian headcount
and which has been glued together for 80 years by
varying degrees of low level and high intensity intimidation,
structural
inequality and repression which adversely impacted
the catholic working class people by exploiting protestant
workers. Unless and until we can all accept the imperfections
with which we live and the mistakes inherited from
the past then we can’t agree on a basis for a
solution. It is only when people can identify a reason
to come together for progress, for economic reasons,
social reasons, rights issues, that such a platform
can be built. But it must be constructed by mobilisation,
not blether and press releases and platitudes and
chummy chats with the forces of the right.
The
choice is therefore not as Sean suggests between a
flawed peace process and, by implication, a return
to war but rather between the contradictions we live
with now and a future built on solid determined collaboration
on everyday needs and rights in which working people
identify shared interests and an appetite for direct
action to end socio-economic injustice. The infrastructure
is there, the membership is there and, I’d suggest,
the will is there on an issue to issue basis –
where is the leadership?
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