The Plough #32
26 March 2004
E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
1) "Disruptive Prisoners"
2) Wasted in Dublin
3) Up in Smoke
4) The Intifada - Some Facts
5) The Assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
6) What's On?
*******
Disclaimer
There is an A4 sheet entitled "Starry Plough Bulletin" which purports
to be for a 32 County Irish Workers Republic. It arrives through the
post to our offices and with a Newcastle upon Tyne postmark. No doubt
there are other people and organisations that also receive this
publication. It purports to be anti-Good Friday Agreement and
regularly castigates the Provisional Republican Movement. We do not
know who prints this publication. It has no forwarding address nor is
connected to any organisation.
It has nothing to do with the IRSP or any section of the Republican
Socialist Movement.
*******
"Disruptive Prisoners"
The Scottish Parliament has backed measures allowing Political
Prisoners to be transferred from Northern Ireland to Scottish Jails.
Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy wants the power to
remove "disruptive prisoners" across the Irish Sea in a bid to help
the peace process. Scotland's Deputy Justice Minister Hugh Henry said
the power would only be used in "exceptional circumstances." He added
they would have the final say on which prisoners were transferred.
The Ard-Chomhairle of the IRSP totally condemns such draconian
measures backed by the Scottish Parliament. When Paul Murphy states
that he wants to remove disruptive prisoners, what he is actually
saying is he wants to remove those political prisoners who will not
submit to a criminalisation policy, and have the resolve to organise
and execute prison protest against any attempts to suppress their
political identity. Not only will this measure serve to isolate the
chosen "disruptive prisoners" from their comrades, but will also
cause immense hardship for their loved ones many of whom would find
it impossible to raise funds for a visit. This is a contentious issue
that can be resolve around a united broad front campaign involving
the participation of all Republican Groupings opposed to such a
draconian measure.
If we allow this measure to go unchallenged, what will stop the
securocrats in the future from sending Irish Republicans to prisons
in the Isle of Man, Jersey, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Jersey?
*******
Wasted in Dublin
Steering Committee member Cieran Perry of the Campaign Against the
Bin Tax, who is co-ordinator of the campaign in Cabra, said:
"By jailing 22 of our activists last year the City Council has
previously applied the big stick, which did not work. Then they tried
to blackmail us with the media campaign 'Race Against Waste'. Now Mr
Cullen is presenting a carrot. However the proposals are totally
lacking in any detail and differ little from previous vague promises
to introduce a fairer system.
"The reality is that Fianna Fail has begun canvassing for the local
elections and has been getting abuse on the doorsteps in relation to
the Bin Tax. This announcement, just ten weeks before the poll, is
aimed at defusing public anger on rising stealth taxes and cutbacks.
Mr Cullen is fooling no one."
Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from Dublin
City Council show that only one third of households have fully paid
all their bin charges. After over three years attempting to force
ordinary people to pay the charges the majority continue to reject
double taxation. Due to the strength of opposition promises to start
Œnon collection' of bins have not been implemented in the City
Council area, despite claims by the City Council that this would be
operational by October 2003.
Joe Mooney, Secretary of the Dublin Campaign Against the Bin Tax,
said: "The issue of double taxation still remains, we have already
paid for refuse collection through our PAYE system. This pay-by-
weight system proposes a flat charge, plus a top up cost per unit of
waste. The crucial point is that the flat charge can be raised by the
City Manager, as can the current flat charges. There are no
guarantees whatsoever that either the flat rate or the 'tag cost'
will not rise at up to 30% per annum, as has happened in the past.
The Dublin Campaign Against the Bin Tax is urging householders to
continue to refuse to pay the Bin Tax and to raise the issue
forcefully on the doorstep with canvassers from all political
parties."
More Information: Cieran Perry, Cabra/Dundard/Navan Road Against the
Bin Tax Ph: 086 2594158
Joe Mooney, Secretary, Dublin Campaign Against the Bin Tax Ph: 087 6698587
*******
Up in Smoke
As the smoking ban comes into operation in the Free State thereby
giving many in the bar trade a healthier environment it is ironic
that the European Union is set to reject proposals that would end it
spending E963 million (£642 million) each year encouraging farmers
to grow tobacco while it pushes through a barrage of anti-smoking
legislation.
The EU spends 70 times as much on subsidies for tobacco farmers as it
does on anti-smoking campaigns. The tobacco subsidies - 20 times as
generous as subsidies given to wheat farmers - are the most widely
derided part of the Union's agriculture policy and are strongly
opposed by northern European governments, health groups and
environment groups.
However, the Commission's proposals to stop the subsidies, which were
discussed by agriculture ministers in Brussels, are opposed by a
coalition of mainly Mediterranean nations, which insist that the
subsidies are essential to preserve the way of life in poor rural
communities.
*******
The Intifada - Some Facts
Since the Intifada started in Palestine the number of dead has been
3,828. Palestinians who died were 2,874 and there were 886 Israelis,
a ratio of 3 to 1. Of the Palestinian deaths at least 326 were killed
in Israel's targeted assassination attacks. 160 of these were
innocent bystanders including 25 women and 36 children
*******
IRSP: Zionists Wall Up the Living, Pile Up the Dead
The International Department of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
today condemned the assassination of Hamas founder and leader, Sheikh
Ahmed Yassin. Sheikh Yassin was killed along with his son and two
Hamas fighters when the Zionist military occupying Palestine blew up
the car they were driving in with an air-to-ground missile.
"While the Irish Republican Socialist Party has made no secret of
its support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as
the Palestinian revolutionaries most similar to itself in seeking to
wed the national liberation struggle in Palestine with the struggle
of the working class for socialism," said a spokesperson of the IRSP's
International Department, "and disagreed with Hamas on many
programmatic issues, we nonetheless salute the resolve demonstrated by
Sheikh Yassin consistently in resisting the Zionist occupation of
Palestine."
"Sheikh Yassin sought a sectarian, religious state, whereas the IRSP
remains strongly secularist and anti-sectarian. Sheikh Yassin was a
life-long opponent of the secular, pan-Arabist, and socialist views
that once informed many anti-imperialist movements throughout the
Arab Nation, beginning with his opposition to the anti-imperialist
regime of Gamal Nasser. These are not views we share and we do not
wish to misrepresent ourselves on these matters. That having been
said, however, we recognise that the Zionist occupation of Palestine
also represents a sectarian, religious state, one that exists to
provide a surrogate for the imperialist powers of Europe and North
America. The Israeli Zionists enslave and murder the people of
Palestine, destabilise the entire region, and help to perpetuate some
of the most reactionary regimes existent today in the Middle East
through their presence.
"Despite our differences, we salute the courage and determination of
Sheikh Yassin in resisting the Zionist occupation, as well as
resisting the false 'peace' talks though which Israel sought to
entrap the Palestinian nation. There is only one kind of peace that
Israel seeks for the nation of Palestine, and that is the peace of
the dead. The wall they are presently constructing is intended to
serve as a tomb for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian
nation. This cannot and will not be allowed to happen.
"For many throughout Palestine, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was an
incarnation of the militant resistance to the Zionist occupation."
In closing, the spokesperson said, "The IRSP express our solidarity
with them in this hour of their grief and salute the unwavering
resistance they and the whole of the Palestinian people have
waged."
*******
What's On?
*
Anti-Racism Network
Next meeting: March 31, Multicultural Resource Centre, in Belfast at
7pm
The recent attacks on Asian men in Botanic, the targeting of Filipino
nurses in South Belfast and the distribution of the race-hate leaflet
in the same area have lead us to believe that there must be a
response by students at Queens University.
The Queens Anti-Racism Network and The Islamic Students Association
of Northern Ireland have proposed that there be an anti-racism rally
at Queens University
This rally will be held on Thursday, 1st April - at 1pm (venue - more
than likely in front of the main building). To help out or to find
out more details e-mail: jimclarke1950@hotmail.com
*
Independent Workers Union (IWU)
1st annual conference, 9:00 am-5:00pm, 3rd April 2004, Victoria
Hotel, Patrick St. Cork City
Guest of honour...Mick O'Reilly AT&GWU
The newly formed Independent Workers Union (IWU) will be publicly
launched at its first conference in the Victoria Hotel, Cork City on
Saturday 3rd April.
The IWU will not seek affiliation to the Irish Congress of Trade
Unions believing that the so-called Partnership is detrimental to the
interests of Irish Workers and that meaningful partnership with this
Government, IBEC and the ISME is a delusion and no beneficial results
have emerged or will emerge for working people.
This government is:
Pressing ahead with privatisation.
Not implementing a fair and equitable tax system.
Jailing workers for opposing service charges.
Refusing to introduce pro worker legislation.
Tolerating and/or encouraging dismally low wages in many sectors.
And while the current government does this:
Workers are being policed by their own trade unions and the ICTU.
Democratic decisions of trade union members are overturned by the
union leadership and workers are prevented from leaving one Congress
Union to join another.
*
May Day - Dublin
Sat April 3rd, Open meeting to discuss the organising of events for
May Day
Teachers' Club, 36 Parnell Square (West), Dublin, 2 p.m.
*
National Protest at Belmarsh Prison - Sunday, 4th April, 12 noon
Irish Friends and Comrades, please help us to mobilise for this
demonstration at Belmarsh! We want you to participate with your
banners, flags, bring your friends and supporters! TÁL
Sunday 4th April 2004 12pm
With speakers, live performance & signing of expressions of
solidarity with the detainees being held without trial. 14 men are
currently held in Belmarsh - Britain's very own Guantanamo Bay. These
men are detained under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act
2001, which allows police to arrest people who are not suspected of
actually committing any offences or contravening any laws, on the
basis of secret evidence neither they nor their lawyers are allowed
to see. They are being held indefinitely on the basis that they are
'terrorist suspects' who threaten national security. They were
never questioned by the police and they will not go to trial! Amnesty
International has expressed serious concerns about the conditions in
which the men are being detained.
Come and Protest: let the detainees know they have not been forgotten!
Visit our website at http://www.safp.org.uk/ or contact SAfP for more
information: PO Box 241, Brighton BN1 3UQ or mail@safp.org.uk or
07815 983022 or 07961579728
NO JUSTICE: The Home Secretary has publicly pledged to fight for
a 'fair deal' for those British citizens still held by the US at
Guantanamo Bay. Yet Britain has been complicit in those ongoing
detentions and it continues to hold 14 foreign nationals who have
never been convicted of, or even charged, with any offence. Most of
them are being held in high security at HMP Belmarsh, in cells
described as 'concrete coffins' and in conditions that are tantamount
to torture. It is cruel and inhuman treatment to keep people locked
up in isolation, without any prospect of release or trial, and
without telling them why they are detained or when they might be
released. The psychological pressure they are suffering is immense
(one detainee is now in Broadmoor).
CAMPACC demands the immediate release of anyone detained under this
anti-terrorism legislation especially those interned without trial.
We demand repeal of all such anti-terrorism laws.
Sussex Action for Peace supports the aims of CAPACC and this Protest.
We are urging people from Sussex to attend the Protest. Members of
SAFP will be meeting at Hove Station 9.40 am to travel to the protest
together.
Speakers include: Gareth Pierce, human rights lawyer; Jean Lambert
MEP; Dr G.Siddiqui, Leader of the Muslim Parliament; Baroness Sarah
Ludford, MEP; Helen John, a Vice-Chair of CND; representatives from
Liberty, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Peace & Justice in
East London; Paul Donovan, journalist; Gareth Evans, Voices
UK.Performances from: Clear Air Turbulence theatre and Double
Negative music. We will also be writing messages to the detainees,
which will be passed on to them by their lawyers.
Directions & trains: Belmarsh prison is on Western Way, London, SE28,
just north of Plumstead station. Trains leave every half-hour (e.g.
11.01am, 11.31am) from Charing Cross to Plumstead station, arriving a
half-hour later. Trains stop on the way at London Bridge and
Greenwich. From East London, you can connect via the DLR going from
Stratford to Greenwich stations.
Map of Belmarsh can be found by clicking:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=545250&y=179250&z=1&sv=545250,179250&st=4&ar=N&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf
Contact: CAMPACC, http://www.cacc.org.uk/ , Estella on 020 7250 1315
or Fahim on 07818 442526.
*
International Workers Memorial Day on Wednesday 28th April 2004
Calling on all Trade Union Health and Safety Reps all over to promote
the Workers Memorial Day.
163 workers died in 2003.
To show our solidarity and have at least a minute's silence or the
planting of a tree, even the unveiling of a plaque in the work place.
Memorial day usually meets a total Press black out everywhere, so it
is up to the workers to get this point across. Recent reports of a
Chinese immigrant worker dying after stamping the word Samsung on
microwave ovens continuously for 24 hours has brought home the
horrors of overwork.
Working time was one of the key issues in which the unions were first
organised. We are now working longer and harder and the 1998 working
time regulations have had little or no impact.
Now the European Commission is consulting unions in a review of the
working time Directive. We must amend the Directives it offers
workers real protection.
Campaign for the Living
Remember the Dead
*
Mayday No Borders
Dublin Grassroots Network - Mayday No Borders weekend line-up of
events
For more information, downloadable flyers, and contact details please
visit the website at http://www.geocities.com/eufortress/
Friday April 30th
CRITICAL MASS began in San Francisco in 1992 and has since spread
around the world. Join us for this celebration of non-motorised
transport, as we take a leisurely tour of the city streets, on bikes,
skateboards, pogo sticks, or just on foot.
Saturday May 1st (daytime)
BORDER CONTROLS STREET THEATRE: Welcome to the official day of the
new Fortress Europe. Warning: You may be subject to stops by one of
the Dublin Grassroots Police Network who will be patrolling the city
in the morning. Experience the full reality of Fortress Europe with
ID & background checks, verbal harassment, intimidation, and possible
imprisonment without trial if you do not measure up to the strict
criteria.
BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS: During the war on Iraq, many private and state
businesses supported the transport of murderous arms and US troops
through Shannon Airport in Ireland. This action will make the public
aware of who they are by painting the streets and footpaths around
their premises in blood red colour. No war should ever be supported
for profit.
WELCOME THE BOAT PEOPLE: Many asylum seekers and refugees attempting
to breach the Fortress Europe barrier do so in boats and ships. Upon
detection, they are often sent back to their country of origin. This
time however, the people arriving by boat will be welcomed. No human
being is illegal - everyone should be free to travel and live where
they want without fear of persecution.
HOMES NOT JAILS: Dublin expands, swallowing up the countryside. Rents
skyrocket and house prices are beyond the reach of many with average
incomes. The number of homeless people sleeping on the streets rises
every year without any action by the State. Yet all around the city
are derelict buildings, crumbling into the ground. This action aims
to highlight this appalling situation by occupying one of these
buildings and transforming it into a living space.
PUBLIC BEATINGS STREET THEATRE: Europe is reverting to old-style
policing and jailing policies. Rather than look at what causes crime
and dealing with problems in society, the State increasingly utilises
prisons (often in terrible unsanitary condition) as a way of sweeping
the issues under the carpet. How long before the stocks and gallows
make a return? Today's the day. Come along and watch true medieval
punishment methods.
THE POLLUTER PAYS: The message during the recent anti bin tax
campaign was to tax the polluter. Is the public responsible for waste
when companies release their products in layers of unnecessary
packaging? How much waste is produced by heavy industry that is not
recycled? These actions will be encouraging everyone to bring their
recyclable packaging back to the businesses that produce it.
RECLAIM THE CITY: The idea of the "common or public space is rapidly
disappearing from the city, as rich and powerful individuals claim it
for private personal use. This action will temporarily reclaim a part
of private land, and open it to the public for a picnic and games in
the May sunshine.
Saturday May 1st (evening)
BRING THE NOISE! The EU Ministers dine in the opulence of Farmleigh
House on Saturday evening at the expense of the Irish taxpayer. We
intend to march to their doorstep and disrupt their dinner, to show
them that we do not agree with their vision of Fortress Europe! Bring
pots and pans, bells and whistles, horns and drums to generate the
biggest noise possible. May 1st is historically a day for the
ordinary people's wishes to be heard. They have chosen to ignore us
but they cannot keep it up if we scream and shout.
Sunday May 2nd
NO BORDERS, NO NATIONS - NO BORDER CAMP: Join us as we set up a No
Border camp on the 2nd day of the new Fortress Europe. We are not
against the new ascension states citizens coming to Ireland - we
think all refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants should be allowed
to travel here, regardless of origin, ethnicity, or background. The
No Border camp will be open to everyone. Activities will include
workshops, discussions, teach-ins, planning for the future, as well
as music and food.
Monday May 3rd
NO BORDERS RECLAIM THE STREETS: The only party worth joining in town!
Reclaim The Streets happens again on the May bank holiday to wind
down the weekend. Unlike the State's street party, everyone from
around the world is welcome to come to Dublin for this, not just
those that satisfy the demands of Fortress Europe. Expect music and
dancing, drinking and face painting, a day for all to come and enjoy
a vision of the Europe that we really want.
*******
The Wall Must Fall
Please sign petition and send to others:
http://www.thewallpetition.com/
*******
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*
Support the IRSP
Standing Order Form
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Please pay First Trust Bank Andersonstown Branch, Belfast, and credit
to Irish Republican Socialist Party, A/C Number 70490021, Branch Code
93-84-75
The sum of:
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Friday 26 March 2004
Friday 19 March 2004
The Plough Vol 01 No 31
The Plough #31
19 March 2004
E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
1) The Misuse of the Term "Sectarianism" in the Irish Struggle
2) SIPTU Section Supports Colombian Coca-Cola Workers
3) Anti-Drugs Group Slams Drug-Sentencing Policy
4) Anti-Drugs Activity
5) Letter - Republican Prisoners Support Network
6) Letter - From the Family of Billy Lynch
7) Letter - Whatever Gave You That Idea?
8) Letter - President McCann???
9) 'Guttersnipes with Guns'
10) What's On?
*******
Thee Misuse of the Term "Sectarianism" in the Irish Struggle
First of all, I think the word, "sectarianism" originally and
properly designates a continuing series of ruptures with mainstream
Protestantism on the grounds of an exclusive claim to truth about and
access to salvation. It became a metaphor for similar ruptures from
mainstream Marxism, but there can be no such use of it as a metaphor
in interpreting the Irish struggle. It is a total misrepresentation
equally of the imperialist oppression and of the anti-imperialist
resistance.
When the UK media (at its most progressive!) referred (at all!)
to "sectarian" murders (giving the lulling impression, through the
eyes of the supposedly liberal and secular, impartial and of course
always decent and well-wishing English, that "one side's murders
were - quantitatively as well as qualitatively - as bad as the
other") they were camouflaging them and refusing to acknowledge them
as what they were - murders by loyalists (loyalism, like the Klan, is
spread among magistrates and police chiefs) of random Catholics
(labelled "innocent" - what does that make the others?).
As to England's being secular, note by the way that in 1859 there
were riots in England when Roman Catholic dioceses were set up and
named - none of them being allowed by the state church to be set up
in the traditional diocesan cathedral cities. The monarch - and Lord
Chancellor, and other officials - still by law cannot be Catholic.
To some extent the loyalists are maintaining Protestant supremacy,
burning Catholic churches to the ground, bombing Catholic graveside
services, throwing petrol bombs at people going to mass, ramming
Catholic church doors with cars - all that sometimes on explicit
religious grounds: one such mobster said a unionist politician should
be ashamed of himself for saying Catholics were going to a religious
service - "when his forefathers died to protest that that wasn't
religion, it was idolatry." (The motto on the UVF's badge is "For God
and Ulster").
But as the political economist Petty said frankly in the 17th
century, "one should not say Catholic and Protestant, but
dispossessed [by the English state over the centuries] and possessing
of the land".
There is a complex history of many Irish Protestants resisting
English domination, and many Irish Catholics, including Dan
O'Connell, accepting it. But the partition of Ireland in the 1920s
introduced a new chapter, in which all-powerful northern loyalists
were motivated by an unbelievable bitterness and hatred of everything
associated with the words Ireland and Irish, unmoderated by an
earlier all-Ireland Protestant sense of being Irish, even if
superior, pro-British Irish. (It is today astonishing to read the
words of a 1798 Loyalist ballad which begins "Ye loyal sons of
Erin...")
Contrary to the Loyalist programme, neither the nationalist
parliamentary response nor the Republican physical force response has
had anything to do with religion. In fact, they have been so governed
by the symbolism of their French-donated 1848 tricolour of green and
orange, and by the statement in Pearse's 1916 Proclamation of the
Republic that "the children of the nation" have been divided only by
the wiles of a foreign government, that they made "the principle of
consent" (in effect, the Unionist veto) the cornerstone of
their "conflict resolution" peace process - leading to the present
copper-fastening of imperialist rule. They do not see that Irish
Protestantism is to Orangeism as Judaism is to Zionism - that would
be an insight of Connolly socialism.
Nevertheless, they have been and are still being accused
of "sectarianism", for instance in relation to Stormont Assembly
voting. Once the six counties has been accepted, the only alternative
to traditional "Ulster" one-party majority rule (Paisley's sniggering
definition of, and now his plan for, "democracy") is weighted
Unionist and nationalist quota voting. Critics, even the IRSP,
wrongly call this "sectarian" - because there is in fact a rough
correlation between the Protestant and the Catholic communities and
Unionist and national votes. But to get the assembly out of a jam,
two Alliance Party members defined themselves as respectively
Unionist and nationalist - not Catholic and Protestant. As a matter
of fact that was an even dirtier trick than protesters thought,
because the Alliance [between Catholics and Protestants] Party is in
fact a unionist party‹the fraternal party of the British Liberal
Party.
A Worker's Party poster showed a fist throttling a snake with the
slogan "Smash Sectarianism!" That is of course typically and totally
abstract and meaningless, but what is implied (apart from "Smash the
Provisionals") is "Don't Raise the Divisive 'National' Question:
Unite Catholic and Protestant Workers on Bread-and-butter Issues".
The WP is the unpopular and insignificant rump of the Stalinist
Official" Republicans (!) -- but Trotskyists like Eamon McCann have
always said and still do say the same. The WP's scientific know-it-
all leaders, whose actual support and votes (no longer existent) came
only from the Catholic community, define imperialism as the concern
of science, an impersonal economic process, export of capital; any
concern with political imperialism is seen as (religious) "sectarianism",
and "green Hibernian nationalism" - if not fascism.
James Daly
*******
SIPTU Section Supports Colombian Coca-Cola Workers
By Alan MacSimoin - Workers Solidarity Movement
SIPTU members in Trinity College have called for no investment in
Coca-Cola by the Trinity College pension fund (or by SIPTU's own
pension fund).
At Tuesday's annual general meeting of the union section - which
represents over 550 security, cleaning, catering, secretarial,
computer and other non-academic staff - there was overwhelming
support for the dis-investment motion.
The members heard that Coca-Cola is implicated in the murder and
intimidation of bottling plant trade unionists in Colombia. For this
company to stand idly by when they are quite capable of bringing
enormous pressure to bear on their bottlers is not acceptable.
This motion arose from the request of the Colombian Trades Union
Congress for concrete solidarity with the workers in the plants. As
we like to put on our union banners ŒAn Injury to One is the
Concern of All'.
Previously the section committee (shop stewards) had invited
representatives of the SIPTU bottling plant workers in Ireland and
the Latin American Solidarity Centre to meet with them.
*******
Anti-Drugs Group Slams Drug-Sentencing Policy
COCAD demands implementation of 10 year minimum sentences
The national anti-drugs group Coalition of Communities Against Drugs
(COCAD) has endorsed the demand of Tony Gregory TD for the
implementation of the minimum sentence in cases involving possession
of large quantities of illegal drugs. Mr Gregory was commenting on
the case of John Paul Duff, a drug pusher who today received a 7-year
sentence.
The National Secretary of COCAD, Cieran Perry, said "Barely a day
passes without a huge Garda seizure of illegal drugs, but once cases
come to court the average sentences work out at 4-5 years. With
suspensions and temporary releases the pusher will be out of jail in
half that time. This is no deterrent at all, neither is it a
punishment. A clear message is being sent out that drug dealing is
not viewed seriously in Irish courtrooms."
The law providing for a ten-year minimum sentence for possession of
drugs above the value of E12, 700 (£10,000) was enacted in 1999.
Since then it has actually been applied in just a dozen of almost 300
such cases.
Mr Perry continued: "Such ridiculous sentences make a mockery of the
justice system and of the efforts of voluntary anti-drugs groups and
parents struggling hard to keep young people away from drugs. The
reality is that this drug pusher will spend about three years in
jail, before being freed to wreak more destruction on our children
and communities
*******
Anti-Drugs Activity
I remember that night back in 1997 when after an anti-drug meeting in
the Macusla Bingo Hall just off Sean Mc Dermott Street, hundreds of
anti-drug activists marched on the drug dealers in Hardwicke Street.
That night 19 drug dealers were marched on, 4 of whom were members of
the Duff family. It is correct to say that John Paul Duff did not
come back to Hardwicke Street but he did continue to ply his trade,
so I suppose while it was necessary to remove parasites such as John
Paul from that Community, in reality all it did was move the problem
on.
I have the greatest admiration for COCAD activists such as Ciaran
Perry and Jimmy Mulhall who day in and day out through great risk to
themselves, campaign and highlight the parasites who offer nothing
but addiction, misery and death, to our respective Communities, and
for this life and death work they and their Colleagues don't receive
one cent from any Government agency and this deficit is something I
would like to see our over paid elected representatives such as Tony
Gregory campaign against.
JM
*******
LETTERS
*
Republican Prisoners Support Network
Six months ago, the Republican Prisoners Support Network (an
independent, non-aligned group of former Republican prisoners,
relatives and concerned individuals who campaign for the rights of
Republican prisoners, both sentenced and on remand) stated that it
would closely monitor the implementation of the Steele
recommendations.
Last week, the prisoners were moved to their own wing. We are worried
by the fact that conditions of detention have deteriorated in
segregated wings. The Republican prisoners now have to face the
following:
- Sentenced and Remand prisoners are separated in contravention of
Steele Review recommendations
- they are held under almost total lockdown
- Only two prisoners are allowed out of cells at a time
- Restricted to cell leave based on whim of prison staff
- Denied Education provisions
- Denied facilities of any sort; no tables or chairs
- Forced to take exercise in a tiny yard alongside loyalists,
separated by short wire mesh barrier
- Forced to endure severe sectarian abuse at exercise
- Denied hot meals for last half of this week
- Denied hot showers
- Offered filthy, unsanitary washroom facilities
- Denied the right to housekeeping their own landings – criminal
prisoners from another house will be sent in to clean their living
areas - Faced with grave endangerment from such housekeeping staff as
loyalists may qualify for this housekeeping position
- Under 24-hour surveillance with CAMP X-Ray style microphones and
cameras in all parts of landings
This does not even take into account the continuation of closed
visits, the use of sniffer dogs and the despicable attitude of prison
warders towards the families.
The battle for political status goes on.
For the Republican Prisoners Support Network,
Leo Martin (Chairperson)
Eddie Duffy (Vice-Chair)
Liam O'Ruairc (Press Officer)
*
From the Family of Billy Lynch
The wife, son, father and family circle of the late Billy Lynch wish
to thank all his many friends who sympathised, sent cards, flowers
and supported them in any way.
Everything was greatly appreciated.
Old friends and new friends from all over the world sympathised
together. Billy would have enjoyed them all in the one place and as
he would have said "The craic would have been mighty".
Billy lived his life as a republican socialist from the early 70's
and never wavered or changed his viewpoint. He always said "I have
great friends in every camp" and we saw that was very true.
Billy only ever asked for a Starry Plough to be placed over him when
he died and we all felt very proud as he was carried from his home
with the flag over his coffin.
To our many great friends, from the bottom of our hearts, we thank
you. To all of Red Action it was great to see and hear from you all.
Billy always said we would never lose touch and we didn't, you will
hear from us often. To all his friends in Kansas City Ancient order
of Hibernians, I.N.L.A., I.R.S.P. Belfast, Dublin, Scotland,
I.R.P.W.A., Republican prisoners at home and abroad, Teach Na Failte
republican socialist ex-prisoners. 32 County Sovereignty, Continuity
I.R.A., Na Fianna Eireann Dublin, I.R.B.B., Working Class Action
Dublin, AFA Ireland and also Linda.
You are all in our thoughts and prayers.
Billy will be deeply missed and life will not be the same without
him.
Patsy and Liam Lynch
*
Whatever Gave You That idea?
Dear Editor,
"Perhaps what the SEA is really about can be gauged from its
manifesto on its website. There are 7 pictures of Eamonn McCann. I
rather think that Eamonn, at least the old Eamon of the sixties and
seventies would have been extremely uncomfortable with this pushing
of the cult of Eamonn McCann."
Whatever gave you that idea? :-)
Comradely congratulations to John Martin and Colin Craig for their
principled response to the SEA and Eamonn McCann's long-standing and
disastrous but enormously influential partitionist politics, which he
has taken to ludicrous lengths.
JD
*
President McCann???
I frankly have wondered for many years now, how the SWP's membership
could not be completely embarrassed by McCann's one-man-band approach
to politics. It sometimes seems like you can't pick up a periodical
in Ireland without finding a piece of reporting, an editorial, a
review of an album or live show, your daily horoscope, advice to the
love-lorn, or a relating of yesterday's football scores by Eamonn
McCann--few, if any, of which seem to reflect the politics espoused
by the SWP. Then there is the problem of McCann seemingly being able
to periodically leave the SWP, only to return a short while later,
immediately restored to its helm--I mean, why don't they just give
him some title like President for Life or something.
PU
*******
'Guttersnipes with Guns'
Hi,
I read an article by SWP member Eamonn McCann lately, where he was
referring to the INLA as 'guttersnipes with guns' (a curious
Victorian-sounding sort of term - a stylistic barb designed to make
its author sound eminently respectable no doubt). I have also noticed
that the IRSP has been totally excluded from the SEA coalition or the
broader Convention of the Left, which recently took place in Derry.
Indeed, this is for precisely the reasons that James Daly lists-
total opposition to any mentioning of the 'national question' (and an
apparently concomitant labelling of anyone who raises that issue
as 'sectarian'). I certainly appreciate James' disavowal of using the
term to describe the nature or origins of the Northern Ireland
conflict - though it would be hard not to find quite a few sectarians
running around 'the province' (sic).
I think Eamonn McCann is acting in a most elitist, overly moralistic,
patronising and disrespectful way to the Republican Socialist
Movement. I don't see how (and perhaps I am wrong) he can justify
constantly moralising over and continually attacking the INLA,
portraying them as no better than loyalist death squads. He seems not
to have taken into account the concrete relations on the ground in
North Belfast (in particular, with regard to policing, the nature of
the police force in N.I. and the use of informers, etc.) or the
actual wishes of the people there (which is not to say the INLA
actions taken against anti-social types were wholly justified - I
don't really know).
The problem I have with the republican socialist perspective, in term
of actual political practice, is how on earth it is possible to build
socialist class-consciousness in working class protestant areas on a
republican (socialist) platform. Might not the SEA open up some sort
of space for dialogue and cross-class (instead of the usual old intra-
class) solidarity?
As I say, I don't think the latter cause is well served by demonising
and caricaturing republican socialists; I think the SEA has been
totally wrong to do this, in its attempt to build support amongst non-
Marxist organisations, in particular. Anyway, from what I've seen,
the SEA, like the N.I. Paisleyite government, seem totally adamant on
excluding any and all republican perspectives.
I don't think this will be conducive either to peace (which is what
we want) or progress.
Cheers.
Calvin
*******
What's On?
*
Dear friends,
Two important upcoming events have been organised for the next few
days. Firstly on Sat 20th {this Sat} from 10-12.30 at Clamill housing
Waring St. {just past the John Hewitt Bar} there is a clay-tile
creation morning. Teenagers and adults will get together to create
their own messages on tiles {these tiles may even be displayed!}. So
I would urge those who want to create a message or image on the tiles
to come along and have fun {facilitated also by local artists}. Lunch
will be provided. My partner and I are looking forward to this event
also; hope to see you there. If going can you also e-mail the network
and lets us know and as importantly circulate the details around to
let people know about it.
Secondly a film will be shown this Monday at Belfast Exposed {Donegal
Street} at 7.30pm. The film "Fear Eats the Soul" is a must watch.
Regards,
D Carlin
*
Eye Witness Palestine and Iraq
The IPSC and the Queens University Friends of Palestine will be
organising two public speaking events on Palestine and Iraq, with
Caoimhe Butterley and Ewa Jasiewicz, next week, on Tuesday 23rd March
1.00pm
Peter Froggatt Centre Room 330,Queens University and if you cannot
make that, on Wednesday 24th March, 7.30pm Culturlann, 216 Falls Rd.,
Belfast.
Caoimhe Butterley and Ewa Jasiewicz have both recently returned from
Iraq and were previously in Palestine. Caoimhe is no stranger to
Belfast people having spoken here before about her experiences in
Jenin where she lived for over a year with local families. An RTE
Documentary was screened last year about her experiences in
Palestine. More recently she has been living in Iraq where she went
when the invasion started. Ewa is 24 years old, anthropology
graduate, fluent in 5 languages who lived in Jenin, Palestine for a
year with local families. She went to Baghdad shortly after the
invasion, where she lived in the Palestinian refugee camp. While
there, she participated in a hunger strike to draw attention to the
plight of the Palestinian refugees in Baghdad. This action received
widespread Arab media coverage. Ewa worked closely with the Union of
the Unemployed while in Baghdad and since the beginning of the
Occupation has worked alongside her friend, Caoimhe Butterley, with
the human rights organisation, Occupation Watch. Ewa and Caoimhe are
is currently in Ireland on speaking engagements to try to raise
awareness about the continuing Occupations of Palestine and Iraq and
about the appalling conditions under which the Palestinian and Iraqi
people are living.
Please support these events and those organised for-Eastern Cultural
Awareness week being held at Queens University from Mon 22nd -
Thursday 25th
Féilim
*
International Workers Memorial Day on Wednesday 28th April 2004
Calling on all Trade Union Health and Safety Reps all over to promote
the Workers Memorial Day.
163 workers died in 2003.
To show our solidarity and have at least a minute's silence or the
planting of a tree, even the unveiling of a plaque in the work place.
Memorial day usually meets a total Press black out everywhere, so it
is up to the workers to get this point across. Recent reports of a
Chinese immigrant worker dying after stamping the word Samsung on
microwave ovens continuously for 24 hours has brought home the
horrors of overwork.
Working time was one of the key issues in which the unions were first
organised. We are now working longer and harder and the 1998 working
time regulations have had little or no impact.
Now the European Commission is consulting unions in a review of the
working time Directive. We must amend the Directives it offers
workers real protection.
Campaign for the Living
Remember the Dead
*
ANTI-RACISM NETWORK EVENTS FOR ANTI-RACISM WEEK
The Anti-Racism Network has organised the following programme of
events for European Anti-Racism Week 20-27 March 2004. The theme of
these events is participation, the joint participation by minority
ethnic communities and majority ethnic communities in an interesting
and fun programme of sporting, cultural, and artistic events.
We are inviting people to take part in as many of the events as
possible. Why not get a team together among your work mates, family,
or friends and join in the basketball, it doesn't matter if you've
never played before, it's for fun! Come along and roll your sleeves
up and take part in a fun arts workshop making tiles with a
difference, anti-racist tiles! Or if music and dance is your thing
you'll enjoy the Dress for the Dance event, an evening of traditional
costume, world music and dance. We also have a film screening in
conjunction with Cineniversity: "Fear Eats the Soul" by director
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the film is about a Moroccan guest worker
in West Germany who strikes up a relationship with an older German
widow. It explores issues of racism, ageism, sexism and cultural
identity.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
EVENT DATE TIME VENUE
Tile Making Workshop Saturday 20 March 10am -12.30pm Clanmil
House, Waring Street
Basketball Against Racism Saturday 20 March 12 o'clock to
4pm Malone College, Finaghy Road
Fear Eats the Soul Film Screening Monday 22 March 7.30pm
Belfast Exposed, King Street
Dress for the Dance Friday 26 March 9pm Conor Hall, Arts
College, York Street
To register your interest in participating in any of these events
simply email antiracism_ni@hotmail.com.
SPEAK UP FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN OUR SOCIETY TAKE PART IN THE EVENTS
Anti Racist Network
Next meeting March 31 Multicultural Resource Centre 7pm
*******
The Wall Petition
The Wall Must Fall
Please sign and send to others: http://www.thewallpetition.com/
*******
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Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - A website that offers a
central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a
distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this
effort go towards the IRSM and its various projects.
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/
Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees - A new 2004 full colour glossy
calendar is available now on the RSM online shop. It celebrates the
brilliant work undertaken by the Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees
this past year throughout the six counties with full colour
photographs on each page. This calendar can be viewed online by
clicking the link below.
http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.8844526
*
Support the IRSP
Standing Order Form
To the Manager First Trust Bank, Andersonstown.
Please pay First Trust Bank Andersonstown Branch, Belfast, and credit
to Irish Republican Socialist Party, A/C Number 70490021, Branch Code
93-84-75
The sum of:
Amount in words:
Commencing date: and thereafter every month till further notice.
And debiting A/C number:
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Date:
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Signature:
19 March 2004
E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
1) The Misuse of the Term "Sectarianism" in the Irish Struggle
2) SIPTU Section Supports Colombian Coca-Cola Workers
3) Anti-Drugs Group Slams Drug-Sentencing Policy
4) Anti-Drugs Activity
5) Letter - Republican Prisoners Support Network
6) Letter - From the Family of Billy Lynch
7) Letter - Whatever Gave You That Idea?
8) Letter - President McCann???
9) 'Guttersnipes with Guns'
10) What's On?
*******
Thee Misuse of the Term "Sectarianism" in the Irish Struggle
First of all, I think the word, "sectarianism" originally and
properly designates a continuing series of ruptures with mainstream
Protestantism on the grounds of an exclusive claim to truth about and
access to salvation. It became a metaphor for similar ruptures from
mainstream Marxism, but there can be no such use of it as a metaphor
in interpreting the Irish struggle. It is a total misrepresentation
equally of the imperialist oppression and of the anti-imperialist
resistance.
When the UK media (at its most progressive!) referred (at all!)
to "sectarian" murders (giving the lulling impression, through the
eyes of the supposedly liberal and secular, impartial and of course
always decent and well-wishing English, that "one side's murders
were - quantitatively as well as qualitatively - as bad as the
other") they were camouflaging them and refusing to acknowledge them
as what they were - murders by loyalists (loyalism, like the Klan, is
spread among magistrates and police chiefs) of random Catholics
(labelled "innocent" - what does that make the others?).
As to England's being secular, note by the way that in 1859 there
were riots in England when Roman Catholic dioceses were set up and
named - none of them being allowed by the state church to be set up
in the traditional diocesan cathedral cities. The monarch - and Lord
Chancellor, and other officials - still by law cannot be Catholic.
To some extent the loyalists are maintaining Protestant supremacy,
burning Catholic churches to the ground, bombing Catholic graveside
services, throwing petrol bombs at people going to mass, ramming
Catholic church doors with cars - all that sometimes on explicit
religious grounds: one such mobster said a unionist politician should
be ashamed of himself for saying Catholics were going to a religious
service - "when his forefathers died to protest that that wasn't
religion, it was idolatry." (The motto on the UVF's badge is "For God
and Ulster").
But as the political economist Petty said frankly in the 17th
century, "one should not say Catholic and Protestant, but
dispossessed [by the English state over the centuries] and possessing
of the land".
There is a complex history of many Irish Protestants resisting
English domination, and many Irish Catholics, including Dan
O'Connell, accepting it. But the partition of Ireland in the 1920s
introduced a new chapter, in which all-powerful northern loyalists
were motivated by an unbelievable bitterness and hatred of everything
associated with the words Ireland and Irish, unmoderated by an
earlier all-Ireland Protestant sense of being Irish, even if
superior, pro-British Irish. (It is today astonishing to read the
words of a 1798 Loyalist ballad which begins "Ye loyal sons of
Erin...")
Contrary to the Loyalist programme, neither the nationalist
parliamentary response nor the Republican physical force response has
had anything to do with religion. In fact, they have been so governed
by the symbolism of their French-donated 1848 tricolour of green and
orange, and by the statement in Pearse's 1916 Proclamation of the
Republic that "the children of the nation" have been divided only by
the wiles of a foreign government, that they made "the principle of
consent" (in effect, the Unionist veto) the cornerstone of
their "conflict resolution" peace process - leading to the present
copper-fastening of imperialist rule. They do not see that Irish
Protestantism is to Orangeism as Judaism is to Zionism - that would
be an insight of Connolly socialism.
Nevertheless, they have been and are still being accused
of "sectarianism", for instance in relation to Stormont Assembly
voting. Once the six counties has been accepted, the only alternative
to traditional "Ulster" one-party majority rule (Paisley's sniggering
definition of, and now his plan for, "democracy") is weighted
Unionist and nationalist quota voting. Critics, even the IRSP,
wrongly call this "sectarian" - because there is in fact a rough
correlation between the Protestant and the Catholic communities and
Unionist and national votes. But to get the assembly out of a jam,
two Alliance Party members defined themselves as respectively
Unionist and nationalist - not Catholic and Protestant. As a matter
of fact that was an even dirtier trick than protesters thought,
because the Alliance [between Catholics and Protestants] Party is in
fact a unionist party‹the fraternal party of the British Liberal
Party.
A Worker's Party poster showed a fist throttling a snake with the
slogan "Smash Sectarianism!" That is of course typically and totally
abstract and meaningless, but what is implied (apart from "Smash the
Provisionals") is "Don't Raise the Divisive 'National' Question:
Unite Catholic and Protestant Workers on Bread-and-butter Issues".
The WP is the unpopular and insignificant rump of the Stalinist
Official" Republicans (!) -- but Trotskyists like Eamon McCann have
always said and still do say the same. The WP's scientific know-it-
all leaders, whose actual support and votes (no longer existent) came
only from the Catholic community, define imperialism as the concern
of science, an impersonal economic process, export of capital; any
concern with political imperialism is seen as (religious) "sectarianism",
and "green Hibernian nationalism" - if not fascism.
James Daly
*******
SIPTU Section Supports Colombian Coca-Cola Workers
By Alan MacSimoin - Workers Solidarity Movement
SIPTU members in Trinity College have called for no investment in
Coca-Cola by the Trinity College pension fund (or by SIPTU's own
pension fund).
At Tuesday's annual general meeting of the union section - which
represents over 550 security, cleaning, catering, secretarial,
computer and other non-academic staff - there was overwhelming
support for the dis-investment motion.
The members heard that Coca-Cola is implicated in the murder and
intimidation of bottling plant trade unionists in Colombia. For this
company to stand idly by when they are quite capable of bringing
enormous pressure to bear on their bottlers is not acceptable.
This motion arose from the request of the Colombian Trades Union
Congress for concrete solidarity with the workers in the plants. As
we like to put on our union banners ŒAn Injury to One is the
Concern of All'.
Previously the section committee (shop stewards) had invited
representatives of the SIPTU bottling plant workers in Ireland and
the Latin American Solidarity Centre to meet with them.
*******
Anti-Drugs Group Slams Drug-Sentencing Policy
COCAD demands implementation of 10 year minimum sentences
The national anti-drugs group Coalition of Communities Against Drugs
(COCAD) has endorsed the demand of Tony Gregory TD for the
implementation of the minimum sentence in cases involving possession
of large quantities of illegal drugs. Mr Gregory was commenting on
the case of John Paul Duff, a drug pusher who today received a 7-year
sentence.
The National Secretary of COCAD, Cieran Perry, said "Barely a day
passes without a huge Garda seizure of illegal drugs, but once cases
come to court the average sentences work out at 4-5 years. With
suspensions and temporary releases the pusher will be out of jail in
half that time. This is no deterrent at all, neither is it a
punishment. A clear message is being sent out that drug dealing is
not viewed seriously in Irish courtrooms."
The law providing for a ten-year minimum sentence for possession of
drugs above the value of E12, 700 (£10,000) was enacted in 1999.
Since then it has actually been applied in just a dozen of almost 300
such cases.
Mr Perry continued: "Such ridiculous sentences make a mockery of the
justice system and of the efforts of voluntary anti-drugs groups and
parents struggling hard to keep young people away from drugs. The
reality is that this drug pusher will spend about three years in
jail, before being freed to wreak more destruction on our children
and communities
*******
Anti-Drugs Activity
I remember that night back in 1997 when after an anti-drug meeting in
the Macusla Bingo Hall just off Sean Mc Dermott Street, hundreds of
anti-drug activists marched on the drug dealers in Hardwicke Street.
That night 19 drug dealers were marched on, 4 of whom were members of
the Duff family. It is correct to say that John Paul Duff did not
come back to Hardwicke Street but he did continue to ply his trade,
so I suppose while it was necessary to remove parasites such as John
Paul from that Community, in reality all it did was move the problem
on.
I have the greatest admiration for COCAD activists such as Ciaran
Perry and Jimmy Mulhall who day in and day out through great risk to
themselves, campaign and highlight the parasites who offer nothing
but addiction, misery and death, to our respective Communities, and
for this life and death work they and their Colleagues don't receive
one cent from any Government agency and this deficit is something I
would like to see our over paid elected representatives such as Tony
Gregory campaign against.
JM
*******
LETTERS
*
Republican Prisoners Support Network
Six months ago, the Republican Prisoners Support Network (an
independent, non-aligned group of former Republican prisoners,
relatives and concerned individuals who campaign for the rights of
Republican prisoners, both sentenced and on remand) stated that it
would closely monitor the implementation of the Steele
recommendations.
Last week, the prisoners were moved to their own wing. We are worried
by the fact that conditions of detention have deteriorated in
segregated wings. The Republican prisoners now have to face the
following:
- Sentenced and Remand prisoners are separated in contravention of
Steele Review recommendations
- they are held under almost total lockdown
- Only two prisoners are allowed out of cells at a time
- Restricted to cell leave based on whim of prison staff
- Denied Education provisions
- Denied facilities of any sort; no tables or chairs
- Forced to take exercise in a tiny yard alongside loyalists,
separated by short wire mesh barrier
- Forced to endure severe sectarian abuse at exercise
- Denied hot meals for last half of this week
- Denied hot showers
- Offered filthy, unsanitary washroom facilities
- Denied the right to housekeeping their own landings – criminal
prisoners from another house will be sent in to clean their living
areas - Faced with grave endangerment from such housekeeping staff as
loyalists may qualify for this housekeeping position
- Under 24-hour surveillance with CAMP X-Ray style microphones and
cameras in all parts of landings
This does not even take into account the continuation of closed
visits, the use of sniffer dogs and the despicable attitude of prison
warders towards the families.
The battle for political status goes on.
For the Republican Prisoners Support Network,
Leo Martin (Chairperson)
Eddie Duffy (Vice-Chair)
Liam O'Ruairc (Press Officer)
*
From the Family of Billy Lynch
The wife, son, father and family circle of the late Billy Lynch wish
to thank all his many friends who sympathised, sent cards, flowers
and supported them in any way.
Everything was greatly appreciated.
Old friends and new friends from all over the world sympathised
together. Billy would have enjoyed them all in the one place and as
he would have said "The craic would have been mighty".
Billy lived his life as a republican socialist from the early 70's
and never wavered or changed his viewpoint. He always said "I have
great friends in every camp" and we saw that was very true.
Billy only ever asked for a Starry Plough to be placed over him when
he died and we all felt very proud as he was carried from his home
with the flag over his coffin.
To our many great friends, from the bottom of our hearts, we thank
you. To all of Red Action it was great to see and hear from you all.
Billy always said we would never lose touch and we didn't, you will
hear from us often. To all his friends in Kansas City Ancient order
of Hibernians, I.N.L.A., I.R.S.P. Belfast, Dublin, Scotland,
I.R.P.W.A., Republican prisoners at home and abroad, Teach Na Failte
republican socialist ex-prisoners. 32 County Sovereignty, Continuity
I.R.A., Na Fianna Eireann Dublin, I.R.B.B., Working Class Action
Dublin, AFA Ireland and also Linda.
You are all in our thoughts and prayers.
Billy will be deeply missed and life will not be the same without
him.
Patsy and Liam Lynch
*
Whatever Gave You That idea?
Dear Editor,
"Perhaps what the SEA is really about can be gauged from its
manifesto on its website. There are 7 pictures of Eamonn McCann. I
rather think that Eamonn, at least the old Eamon of the sixties and
seventies would have been extremely uncomfortable with this pushing
of the cult of Eamonn McCann."
Whatever gave you that idea? :-)
Comradely congratulations to John Martin and Colin Craig for their
principled response to the SEA and Eamonn McCann's long-standing and
disastrous but enormously influential partitionist politics, which he
has taken to ludicrous lengths.
JD
*
President McCann???
I frankly have wondered for many years now, how the SWP's membership
could not be completely embarrassed by McCann's one-man-band approach
to politics. It sometimes seems like you can't pick up a periodical
in Ireland without finding a piece of reporting, an editorial, a
review of an album or live show, your daily horoscope, advice to the
love-lorn, or a relating of yesterday's football scores by Eamonn
McCann--few, if any, of which seem to reflect the politics espoused
by the SWP. Then there is the problem of McCann seemingly being able
to periodically leave the SWP, only to return a short while later,
immediately restored to its helm--I mean, why don't they just give
him some title like President for Life or something.
PU
*******
'Guttersnipes with Guns'
Hi,
I read an article by SWP member Eamonn McCann lately, where he was
referring to the INLA as 'guttersnipes with guns' (a curious
Victorian-sounding sort of term - a stylistic barb designed to make
its author sound eminently respectable no doubt). I have also noticed
that the IRSP has been totally excluded from the SEA coalition or the
broader Convention of the Left, which recently took place in Derry.
Indeed, this is for precisely the reasons that James Daly lists-
total opposition to any mentioning of the 'national question' (and an
apparently concomitant labelling of anyone who raises that issue
as 'sectarian'). I certainly appreciate James' disavowal of using the
term to describe the nature or origins of the Northern Ireland
conflict - though it would be hard not to find quite a few sectarians
running around 'the province' (sic).
I think Eamonn McCann is acting in a most elitist, overly moralistic,
patronising and disrespectful way to the Republican Socialist
Movement. I don't see how (and perhaps I am wrong) he can justify
constantly moralising over and continually attacking the INLA,
portraying them as no better than loyalist death squads. He seems not
to have taken into account the concrete relations on the ground in
North Belfast (in particular, with regard to policing, the nature of
the police force in N.I. and the use of informers, etc.) or the
actual wishes of the people there (which is not to say the INLA
actions taken against anti-social types were wholly justified - I
don't really know).
The problem I have with the republican socialist perspective, in term
of actual political practice, is how on earth it is possible to build
socialist class-consciousness in working class protestant areas on a
republican (socialist) platform. Might not the SEA open up some sort
of space for dialogue and cross-class (instead of the usual old intra-
class) solidarity?
As I say, I don't think the latter cause is well served by demonising
and caricaturing republican socialists; I think the SEA has been
totally wrong to do this, in its attempt to build support amongst non-
Marxist organisations, in particular. Anyway, from what I've seen,
the SEA, like the N.I. Paisleyite government, seem totally adamant on
excluding any and all republican perspectives.
I don't think this will be conducive either to peace (which is what
we want) or progress.
Cheers.
Calvin
*******
What's On?
*
Dear friends,
Two important upcoming events have been organised for the next few
days. Firstly on Sat 20th {this Sat} from 10-12.30 at Clamill housing
Waring St. {just past the John Hewitt Bar} there is a clay-tile
creation morning. Teenagers and adults will get together to create
their own messages on tiles {these tiles may even be displayed!}. So
I would urge those who want to create a message or image on the tiles
to come along and have fun {facilitated also by local artists}. Lunch
will be provided. My partner and I are looking forward to this event
also; hope to see you there. If going can you also e-mail the network
and lets us know and as importantly circulate the details around to
let people know about it.
Secondly a film will be shown this Monday at Belfast Exposed {Donegal
Street} at 7.30pm. The film "Fear Eats the Soul" is a must watch.
Regards,
D Carlin
*
Eye Witness Palestine and Iraq
The IPSC and the Queens University Friends of Palestine will be
organising two public speaking events on Palestine and Iraq, with
Caoimhe Butterley and Ewa Jasiewicz, next week, on Tuesday 23rd March
1.00pm
Peter Froggatt Centre Room 330,Queens University and if you cannot
make that, on Wednesday 24th March, 7.30pm Culturlann, 216 Falls Rd.,
Belfast.
Caoimhe Butterley and Ewa Jasiewicz have both recently returned from
Iraq and were previously in Palestine. Caoimhe is no stranger to
Belfast people having spoken here before about her experiences in
Jenin where she lived for over a year with local families. An RTE
Documentary was screened last year about her experiences in
Palestine. More recently she has been living in Iraq where she went
when the invasion started. Ewa is 24 years old, anthropology
graduate, fluent in 5 languages who lived in Jenin, Palestine for a
year with local families. She went to Baghdad shortly after the
invasion, where she lived in the Palestinian refugee camp. While
there, she participated in a hunger strike to draw attention to the
plight of the Palestinian refugees in Baghdad. This action received
widespread Arab media coverage. Ewa worked closely with the Union of
the Unemployed while in Baghdad and since the beginning of the
Occupation has worked alongside her friend, Caoimhe Butterley, with
the human rights organisation, Occupation Watch. Ewa and Caoimhe are
is currently in Ireland on speaking engagements to try to raise
awareness about the continuing Occupations of Palestine and Iraq and
about the appalling conditions under which the Palestinian and Iraqi
people are living.
Please support these events and those organised for-Eastern Cultural
Awareness week being held at Queens University from Mon 22nd -
Thursday 25th
Féilim
*
International Workers Memorial Day on Wednesday 28th April 2004
Calling on all Trade Union Health and Safety Reps all over to promote
the Workers Memorial Day.
163 workers died in 2003.
To show our solidarity and have at least a minute's silence or the
planting of a tree, even the unveiling of a plaque in the work place.
Memorial day usually meets a total Press black out everywhere, so it
is up to the workers to get this point across. Recent reports of a
Chinese immigrant worker dying after stamping the word Samsung on
microwave ovens continuously for 24 hours has brought home the
horrors of overwork.
Working time was one of the key issues in which the unions were first
organised. We are now working longer and harder and the 1998 working
time regulations have had little or no impact.
Now the European Commission is consulting unions in a review of the
working time Directive. We must amend the Directives it offers
workers real protection.
Campaign for the Living
Remember the Dead
*
ANTI-RACISM NETWORK EVENTS FOR ANTI-RACISM WEEK
The Anti-Racism Network has organised the following programme of
events for European Anti-Racism Week 20-27 March 2004. The theme of
these events is participation, the joint participation by minority
ethnic communities and majority ethnic communities in an interesting
and fun programme of sporting, cultural, and artistic events.
We are inviting people to take part in as many of the events as
possible. Why not get a team together among your work mates, family,
or friends and join in the basketball, it doesn't matter if you've
never played before, it's for fun! Come along and roll your sleeves
up and take part in a fun arts workshop making tiles with a
difference, anti-racist tiles! Or if music and dance is your thing
you'll enjoy the Dress for the Dance event, an evening of traditional
costume, world music and dance. We also have a film screening in
conjunction with Cineniversity: "Fear Eats the Soul" by director
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the film is about a Moroccan guest worker
in West Germany who strikes up a relationship with an older German
widow. It explores issues of racism, ageism, sexism and cultural
identity.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
EVENT DATE TIME VENUE
Tile Making Workshop Saturday 20 March 10am -12.30pm Clanmil
House, Waring Street
Basketball Against Racism Saturday 20 March 12 o'clock to
4pm Malone College, Finaghy Road
Fear Eats the Soul Film Screening Monday 22 March 7.30pm
Belfast Exposed, King Street
Dress for the Dance Friday 26 March 9pm Conor Hall, Arts
College, York Street
To register your interest in participating in any of these events
simply email antiracism_ni@hotmail.com.
SPEAK UP FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN OUR SOCIETY TAKE PART IN THE EVENTS
Anti Racist Network
Next meeting March 31 Multicultural Resource Centre 7pm
*******
The Wall Petition
The Wall Must Fall
Please sign and send to others: http://www.thewallpetition.com/
*******
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*
Support the IRSP
Standing Order Form
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Please pay First Trust Bank Andersonstown Branch, Belfast, and credit
to Irish Republican Socialist Party, A/C Number 70490021, Branch Code
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Friday 12 March 2004
The Plough Vol 01 No 30
The Plough #30
12 March 2004
E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
1) The Blanket, Eamonn McCann, and the Use of Language
2) Media Management?
3) Thousands to Die of Cancer Because They're Poor
4) Why the War on Iraq Was Wrong
5) Arrest on the Anti War Demo
6) Museum at Long Kesh
7) Statement from the Irish National Teachers' Organisation
8) On European Union Constitution
9) What's On?
*******
Apology
Last week we published an article on the Miners strike and attributed
it to (PM from Socialist Action)
http://www.marxist.com/Europe/miners_twenty_years_on.html
Of course that was a serious error it should have read Socialist
Appeal, http://www.marxist.com/Europe/miners_twenty_years_on.html
Our apologies to both PM and Socialist Appeal.
(The editor has been sentenced to reading Eamon McCann's Book "War
and An Irish Town" three times before next Tuesday night!!!!)
*******
The Blanket, Eamonn McCann, and the Use of Language
On the 7th of March, The Blanket
carried an article
entitled "Ardoyne Suicides" by the journalist Eamonn McCann. At no
stage since the whole issue of suicides in Ardoyne blew up did Eamon
McCann approach the Republican Socialist Movement to hear its side of
the story in relation to what was happening in the area. That does
not surprise us. Regularly the Sunday World prints a whole series of
lies about our movement and rarely tries to get our side of the
story. The journalist Eamonn McCann used to work for the Sunday
World, so maybe he learnt bad journalist habits there.
In his article in the Blanket, McCann refers to the "Irish National
Liberation Army" and he uses speech marks around the name. However
when we checked his writings about other armed groups we found that
he referred to both the Provisional IRA and the Real IRA without
speech marks (Socialist Worker, Issue 208). Of course the purpose of
the speech marks was to question the validity of the INLA and later
on in his article he refers to "INLA gangs" and "to guttersnipes with
guns."
He also peddles the lie that one of the young suicide victims was
subjected to "prolonged vicious beating by an INLA gang". He also
finds it hard to believe that the local community had pressurised the
INLA to take action against those engaged in anti-social behaviour.
For the record, the INLA is approached in a lot of areas, including
Derry, to take action against "hoods." I wonder what Eamonn would do
with the hoods in Derry who tried to set a young fellow on fire
recently. Give them a copy of Tony Cliff's book, "State Capitalism"?
Eamonn talks about "self worth". Fine. Does he think that his
negative references to the INLA will persuade anyone in that
organisation to listen to his voice? Denigrating and belittling
people and organisations on the basis of false media reporting, half
truths, and a concerted campaign by pro-Agreement people to discredit
the INLA will not cut any ice with those living in working class
areas suffering from a reign of terror from hoods.
We know that the volunteers in the INLA acted from the best of
motives in doing what they did. But the IRSP has said both publicly
and privately to them that a number of their actions were wrong. We
have exerted our influence to change their way of dealing with
problems. In fact we have been working on this from long before
Eamonn McCann and his media cronies discovered Ardoyne and suicide.
(Those who wish to know the details can contact gerryruddy@teachnafailte.org)
McCann is also being simplistic about the issue of funding. A large
slice of peace funding has been going into Ardoyne creating jobs for
pro-Agreement elements. There is also a Community Restorative Justice
scheme in the area perceived to be too closely associated with one
pro-Agreement party. Some people believe that the end result of such
funding is only to cement the electoral machine of some politicians
and tie them in more firmly to the whole process of pacification.
Perhaps some enterprising journalist will actually conduct proper
investigative journalism into this whole area.
We have been trying to encourage people to take responsibility for
their own community and we see that as part of the process of
empowering the working class to begin to take control of the state
and begin the task of building a socialist society. Members of our
movement have made mistakes and our organisation has made mistakes in
the past. No doubt we will make mistakes in the future.
But we will not equivocate about imperialism. Recently at the so-
called "Left Convention" in Derry, I was accused of personally
attacking Eamonn McCann after I said that the programme he was
standing on amounted to gas and water socialism. Below is his answer
in Socialist Worker to the following question: But is this not
all "gas and water socialism"? What about imperialism?
"We are unashamedly anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist. We are
actively against the occupation of Iraq and the corporate agenda,
which enforces cutbacks and privatisation across the globe. The
threat to water service jobs here and introduction of water charges
is an example. Those who see themselves as anti-imperialists should
see that this is the front to fight on for the future. The fight
against imperialism in 2003 is a fight against US-led imperialism
across the globe, or it is nothing. Those who welcome Bush as "a
friend of Ireland" position Ireland on the side of imperialism. We
reject the idea that the issues which are convulsing the world have
nothing to do with politics here. We make common cause with all
across the world struggling for the same aims. We wouldn't have taken
George Bush's hand at Hillsborough except to twist it up his back and
run him out the door."
All very fine and noble sentiments but notice what is missing? There
is no mention of British imperialism nor is there a clear call for
the defeat of USA/British troops in Iraq. Perhaps that might alienate
some of the more pacifist members of the SEA. Well, we believe that
there is an imperialist presence in Ireland and as republicans our
comrades fought and died opposing that imperialism. They did not die
for a nationalist Ireland. They died for the liberation of all the
working class from reactionary ideologies and for the establishment
of a Workers Republic here.
Words are important and Eamonn McCann has a fine way with them. He is
also a fine writer and writes exactly what he means. His words in The
Blanket effectively put him on the other side of the barricades to
ourselves. He is on the side of the guttersnipes with word-processors.
(Gerry Ruddy)
*******
Media Management?
Hypothesis of Islamic attack gaining ground with al-Qaeda claim.
After saying at midday there was "no doubt" it had been ETA, by the
evening Acebes admitted that "all theories" remained open. - Imanol
Murua Uria DONOSTIA (San Sebastian)
There was one version until one o'clock: it had been ETA. There were
two contradictory versions from early in the afternoon onwards:
Arnaldo Otegi [Batasuna member] said it was not ETA, and Spanish
Interior Minister Angel Acebes, on the other hand, said that there
was no doubt whatsoever that ETA had been responsible. And from 20.15
onwards one of the versions began to carry weight, because Acebes had
begun to back down.
In his last appearance of the day the Interior Minister admitted that
all the hypotheses remained open, yet went on to say that ETA
was "the main focus of investigation"; but when he pointed out that a
tape with verses from the Koran had been discovered along with seven
detonators in a van allegedly used in the attack, he began to admit
that an Islamic organisation could have been responsible.
It was after nine o'clock when a statement claiming responsibility
signed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades of al-Qaeda reached the
London-based daily al-Quds that credibility began to be attributed to
the theory of an Islamic attack.
Furthermore, Abdel Bari Atwan, the al-Quds editor, pointed out that
the claim looked genuine, because it resembled other claims that had
been received in the past. Spanish Government sources indicated that
they had news of the claim and that they were examining it carefully.
Nevertheless, from early in the morning the main political leaders of
Spain and the Basque Country considered that ETA had clearly been
behind the attacks.
From Basque language paper "Berria"
http://www.berria.info/
*******
Thousands to Die of Cancer Because They're Poor
It is estimated that up to 3,000 people are dying from cancer every
year because of huge differences in the way the richest and poorest
patients are diagnosed and treated according to recent research in
Britain.
Patients are up to five years behind the most affluent patients, if
they are from the most deprived areas of the country. Despite overall
improvements in cancer survival rates, the "deprivation gap" between
rich and poor is increasing year by year.
Patients in some parts of the country have access to treatment and
drugs denied to people in other areas.
More affluent people tended to visit their GP at an earlier stage of
their symptoms, and were more demanding about the treatment and care
they were offered. For some types of cancer, patients from the
richest fifth of society had a 17 per cent higher survival rate than
similar patients from the poorest fifth.
The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, is the first
attempt to quantify the gap in survival rates between the richest and
poorest patients. Researchers analysed more than two million people
diagnosed with the most common forms of cancer, and followed their
survival rates over three periods of five years between 1986 and 1999.
They found that while survival rates had improved across the board
and for all socio-economic groups, the "deprivation gap" had become
increasingly wide. For instance, the survival rate for rectal cancer
among men had improved by 7.4 per cent every five years. But the gap
between survival rates for the richest and poorest patients had
widened by an average of 2.4 per cent in the same period.
Men from the richest fifth of society now have a survival rate which
is 9.4 per cent higher than similar patients from the poorest fifth
of Britain.
For cancer of the larynx, survival rates for the most affluent men
are 17.2 per cent higher than the poorest.
Breast cancer survival rates also show wide gaps between rich and
poor patients. Women from the poorest groups have a 5 per cent
reduced survival rate compared with the richest sufferers.
On average, a 5 per cent improvement in overall survival rates for
cancer has been accompanied by a 1.5 per cent increase in
the "deprivation gap" between the richest and poorest patients.
Survival rates for the poorest patients were about five years behind
the richest.
(Adapted from The Independent, 10 March '04)
*******
Why the War on Iraq Was Wrong
The Belfast Anti-War Movement held a Public Meeting on Friday, 12th
March in Grosvenor House in Belfast. The special guest speaker was ex-
Labour MP George Galloway. Others on the panel included Eamonn
McCann - Journalist, Jamal Iweida - Belfast Islamic Centre, and
Padraigin Drinan.
Senior Special Branch officers who wanted to know what he was going
to say at the meeting detained George Galloway for 30 minutes. In a
powerful speech he accused Tony Blair of being the biggest liar that
ever had graced number 10 Downing Street. He pointed out that Blair
had got it wrong on a number of points. There were no weapons of mass
destruction. The Iraqi people did not welcome the USA/Brit coalition.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict had escalated. The Middle East was
now unstable. Violence was on the increase in Iraq.
*******
Arrest on the Anti War Demo
I was arrested around a year ago at peaceful anti war demo at Belfast
City Hall. Protest turned into a lie down protest upon the appearance
of lines of armoured policemen. What ensued was an ugly scene of
police manhandling and beating peaceful protestors off the main road.
I was threatened to have my "arm snapped in fucking two" if I was to
make an effort to resist. Despite over a hundred people being removed
from the road only a select few were arrested and moreover, fewer
formally charged. I was charged with disturbing the peace and an
innocuous charge of "obstructive sitting". The D.P.P have failed for
over a year to construct a solid case against myself and the six
other protestors formally charged and even offered to drop charges of
disrupting the peace if we were to accept guilt, as well as a
caution, for the charge of obstructive sitting. Myself and the other
protestors refused this as we saw it as a means to trivialise our
actions as petty criminal deeds whilst also admonishing the police
for flaring tensions with their intimidatory tactics. We also
regarded a formal day in court as an ideal means to once again put
the anti-war case in the media with protest action on the day. A
formal court date was set for Friday the 12th of March but that the
D.P.P failed to give full disclosure of evidence to the defence thus
leaving the court date a defunct formality. There may be a chance
that the case is thrown out of court. Never the less, I call on all
comrades to spare thirty minutes at the front of the court buildings
when next we appear to take part in a demo to show solidarity for the
seven accused as well as the global anti-war/anti-imperialist
movement.
In solidarity
T G.
*******
Speech on the Proposal to Have a Museum at Long Kesh, Delivered at
the Linenhall Library on Wednesday, 18th February 2004
First of all, on behalf of Teach Na Failte, the Republican Socialist
ex-prisoners association, I would like to thank Coiste for inviting
us here today. We feel that it is important that everyone who has an
interest in promoting the idea that part of the Long Kesh site be
made into a museum should have a chance to put their ideas to the
fore.
We welcome the launch of this booklet on the conference proceedings
as it brings to the attention of ordinary people what exactly is
happening to the former Long Kesh site. The inclusion of recent
photographs of the prison helps one to visualize just how badly run
down the prison site has become and just how important it is to get
this project underway, as soon as possible.
The Maze/Long Kesh prison site has played a very important part in
the recent history of the North of Ireland, from the introduction of
internment and the burning of the cages with the brutal attack on the
prisoners in the seventies, the heart attacks and the deaths, the
protests and the hunger strikes of the eighties, the political
discussion, the death of Billy Wright and other deaths, and the slow
release and the eventual closure of the prison in the nineties.
The names Long Kesh/Maze Prison and the sight of the H-Blocks have
become famous around the world. They are part of our history.
Combatants from all sides were imprisoned there. In a time of
conflict resolution a museum would help the differing traditions to
observe, understand, and learn from the past. It could be a reminder
to future generations what happened to the prisoners and how they
coped when they got there. There have been many ex-prisoners, from
both sides, who have came out of Long Kesh and then gone on to play a
major role in bringing about the ceasefires.
All sides have their own story to tell, so what better way to educate
the younger generation than to let them physically feel conditions
for themselves. It could be used much like Robbins Island, Kilmainham
Jail, and the German Underground hospital in Jersey, a place where
school trips and overseas visitors could go and experience at first
hand the lived experience of thousands of our prisoners.
Do not forget the relatives and visitors whose lives were heavily
influenced by the prison. The weekly trips, the loneliness, and all
the other hardships they endured due to their connection to the Maze.
Each and every one of those people also has a history to the prison
with their own story to tell. And what about the Prison Warders?
Surely they have their own memories. Although seen from a different
point of view, their stories and input are just as important.
Long Kesh played a major in the Troubles and that is a fact. It
cannot be allowed to be hidden and forgot all about. There are too
many different groups with their own history to let it all be
destroyed. We must remember that if the Maze/Long Kesh is destroyed
there will never be another chance like this again.
As it is on approximately only five to ten per cent of the total area
that is being proposed, then why can it not be divided up of part
Republican, part Loyalist, and part Prison system? That way the
history of all who were connected to the prison would be all-
inclusive to each of their beliefs.
Last but not least I would like to wish all involved in this venture
all the very best and hope that there will be a satisfactory outcome
for us all. Once again thank you for your invitation.
(Gerard Murray - Chair of Teach Na Failte)
*******
STATEMENT FROM IRISH NATIONAL TEACHERS' ORGANISATION
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
8 MARCH 2004
This International Women's Day, the INTO demands that government
prioritise the education of women in its developing world budget. We
demand that our government meets its obligations in the developing
world. We celebrate 8 March by seeking a better future for the next
generation of women.
A Millennium Development Goal of the United Nations General Assembly
is the elimination of the gender disparity in education. The set
target date is 2005 for primary and secondary education and no later
than 2015 for all levels of education.
The enrolment of girls in primary school is improving in 86 countries
out of 153 countries. Of the remaining 67 countries, only 18 have a
good chance of attaining the goal by 2015. Some 49 countries are not
expected to achieve the goal, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa.
For years, research has shown that investing in the education of
girls makes a significant contribution to the reduction of poverty.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the social return on a girl's education is
estimated at 24.3% for basic education - the highest rate in the
world. In Nigeria, according to the United Nations Population Fund, a
percentage increase in the number of girls finishing secondary school
would boost economic growth by 0.3 percent.
Notwithstanding this, each little girl is only a little girl going to
school. She has a right to be educated regardless of the economic
benefits it brings. But the same little girl can also change the
future. Increasing the number of girl's finishing school will bring
great returns. Part of the reason for this is that women are more
likely to invest in their children's health and education, which will
boost further benefits to the society.
Every year, almost 12 million children under the age of five die of
infectious diseases associated with poverty. But each year their
mothers spend in primary school lowers the risks of premature deaths
by about 8%. In Pakistan, for example, an extra year of school for
1,000 girls could prevent 60 infant deaths. In Brazil, for instance,
babies born to mothers without formal education are twice as likely
to die before the age of five.
Women and girls' education is deeply influenced by poverty, cultural
background and legal systems. Change requires political will, not
only to educate girls but also to eliminate all forms of
discrimination.
*******
TAOISEACH BERTIE AHERN BACKS GERMANY AGAINST POLAND AND SPAIN ON EU
CONSTITUTION
(Statement from The National Platform Research and Information Group,
24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9, Ireland) Tuesday 9 March 2004
"You cannot ask the citizens to ratify the Treaty of Nice and then
say to them that what they have ratified no longer counts for
anything before it has even come into force. How could we then ask
them to believe in what we are doing?" - Spanish Prime Minister Jose
Maria Aznar in yesterday's Le Monde
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is openly siding with Germany in pressurising
Poland and Spain to change their position on their Nice Treaty voting
rights, so as to make possible the re-founding of the European Union
on the basis of its own State Constitution.
Bertie Ahern and the diplomats of Iveagh House hope to open the way
to this at the spring EU "summit" meeting on Friday fortnight next.
By backing Germany against Poland and Spain Taoiseach Ahern is
flouting the convention that the holder of the EU Presidency should
be neutral and impartial between its Member States on issues that are
in dispute between them.
On 9 February Bertie Ahern told the German news magazine, Der Spiegel:
"Schroeder's position is sensible. The fact is that Germany has a
large population, Germany makes a large contribution to the EU - and
that must be reflected in the voting system."
On 26 January he said in Davos, Switzerland: "If people just stick
totally with Nice and don't move at all, you can't do that because
it's not going to be satisfactory to Germany. There's a fair amount
of sympathy for the German position because they are a large country,
they are a big part of the paymaster. We need to look very helpfully
at the German position. I have to try and get movement from those who
need to move and at the same time not try to put it in a way that
forces them beyond a position they can explain to their own people
and their own parliaments."
Yet Taoiseach Ahern was the man who pushed through the Nice Treaty in
this country in 2002 by saying that the voting system it proposed
was "essential" for EU enlargement, and was the best system for EU
law making in a 25-member EU!
See what Spanish Prime Minister Aznar has just said about this in his
interview in Le Monde (v. quoted passage above.)
If the EU were a single State for a single European "nation" in which
Poland, Spain, Ireland, and the other EU members were provinces, the
population-based voting system demanded by Germany and France for an
EU Constitution would be justified, for Germany's 85 million people
would entitle it to greatest influence.
IF THE EU IS NOT TO BE ONE STATE, but a partnership or alliance of
constitutionally equal states, then it is right that Poland and Spain
should have similar voting weight to Germany - indeed that smaller
countries than either of them should have that too.
Inside the virtual EU Federal State which the proposed Constitution
establishes, Germany can look forward to being joined in due time by
Turkey, with its 75 million population, whose admission to the EU
Germany champions. At present Germany and France between them have
nearly 40% of the population of an enlarged EU. Under the Draft
Constitution this would enable these two States to block whatever EU
laws they do not want and, with some allies, to push through whatever
EU measures they do want. Between them Germany and France would
effectively dominate the EU.
The population-based system for making EU laws that is proposed in
the draft EU Constitution - viz. using a 60% population headcount -
would turn the existing river of EU legislation into a flood. It
would greatly increase the volume of laws and rules coming from
Brussels. This is why the EU Commission and European Parliament
desire it, for their power derives from their role in EU law making.
The "double majority" system proposed for the Draft Constitution
would make EU laws easier to pass and therefore increase
EU "efficiency", say its supporters.
They must think people are right gobdaws to be taken in by this line
of argument, for a simple dictatorship would be more "efficient"
still in this particular sense of efficiency! If Romano Prodi were to
be made a EU dictator, so that he could issue edicts/directives that
we had to obey every quarter-hour of the day that would presumably
increase the output of EU laws.
BUT WOULD THEY BE GOOD LAWS and would they be democratic?
Bertie Ahern and Iveagh House are going all out for an agreement to
recall the Intergovernmental Conference to adopt a EU Constitution at
the EU summit meeting later this month. After all, it would give him
a flag that he could wave in next June's local elections.
Yet most Irish people - and much of the media - have not a clue what
this proposed EU Constitution entails. Bertie Ahern has called it "a
mere tidying-up exercise"; and after all are not EU matters
so "boring"!
The proposed EU Constitution will completely repeal all the EU
treaties to date, from the Treaty of Rome (1957) to the Treaty of
Nice (2002), and re-found the EU as a new legal/political entity on
the basis of its own Constitution.
Article I-1 of the Draft Constitution states: "This Constitution
establishes the European Union." So this new European Union would
clearly be legally and politically different from the European Union
that was established by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, and which we are
currently members of.
The proposed Constitution would give legal personality and corporate
existence to the EU for the first time, separate from that of its
Member States. It would make the EU an international actor in its own
right, distinct from its component States; so the EU would sign
international treaties on their behalf, just as the US Government
signs treaties committing Idaho and California, and Germany signs
treaties covering Bavaria and Wuertemberg.
Article I-10 provides that the EU Constitution, and law made under
it, "shall have primacy over the law of the Member States", something
that has never been stated in a EU Treaty before - and implicitly in
the EU Constitution it covers all areas of public policy.
The proposed Constitution also extends EU powers into some 30 new
policy areas, one of which makes the EU Court of Justice the ultimate
decider of our human rights. It makes fundamental changes in how the
EU is run, changes that benefit the Big States - such as the proposed
60% majority population voting system and a two-tier EU Commission -
and disadvantage smaller States like Ireland.
The Draft Constitution gives the EU legally for the first time the
official symbols of a State - its own flag, anthem, motto and annual
official holiday.
Is not the proposed repeal of all the existing European treaties to
clear the way for a re-founding of the EU on the basis of its own
State Constitution a good opportunity to re-examine existing EU
policies - for example the EU fisheries policy, the Common
Agricultural Policy, Euratom, whether Irish should be an official EU
language, the militarization of the EU, the Brussels Commission's
mania for harmonising everything, the unwillingness to repatriate
back to national parliaments a single power that has been taken by
the EU Institutions in their 47 years' existence, despite all the
rhetoric about "subsidarity"?
Are Irish people so happy with all the existing EU policies, and so
unquestioning with regard to them, as to agree without demur to make
them part of an EU Constitution which henceforth will govern most
details of their lives, and those of their children and grandchildren?
(Signed)
Anthony Coughlan
Secretary
(Tels. (O1) 8305792 /6081898)
*******
The Wall Petition
The Wall Must Fall
Please sign and send to others: http://www.thewallpetition.com/
*******
What's On?
*
Socialist Alternative? A meeting with Joe Costello, Carmel Gates and
Jim Barbour - Thursday 18th March, Days Hotel, Hope Street, Belfast
at 8.00pm
*
Saturday March 20th-International Day of Action Against the
occupation of Iraq and Palestine Rally - 2pm Arts College, Belfast
For more information 07742 531 617 07748571269
*
ANTI-RACISM NETWORK EVENTS FOR ANTI-RACISM WEEK
The Anti-Racism Network has organised the following programme of
events for European Anti-Racism Week 20-27 March 2004. The theme of
these events is participation, the joint participation by minority
ethnic communities and majority ethnic communities in an interesting
and fun programme of sporting, cultural, and artistic events.
We are inviting people to take part in as many of the events as
possible. Why not get a team together among your work mates, family,
or friends and join in the basketball, it doesn't matter if you've
never played before, it's for fun! Come along and roll your sleeves
up and take part in a fun arts workshop making tiles with a
difference, anti-racist tiles! Or if music and dance is your thing
you'll enjoy the Dress for the Dance event, an evening of traditional
costume, world music and dance. We also have a film screening in
conjunction with Cineniversity: "Fear Eats the Soul" by director
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the film is about a Moroccan guest worker
in West Germany who strikes up a relationship with an older German
widow. It explores issues of racism, ageism, sexism and cultural
identity.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
EVENT DATE TIME VENUE
Tile Making Workshop Saturday 20 March 10am -12.30pm Clanmil
House, Waring Street
Basketball Against Racism Saturday 20 March 12 o'clock to
4pm Malone College, Finaghy Road
Fear Eats the Soul Film Screening Monday 22 March 7.30pm
Belfast Exposed, King Street
Dress for the Dance Friday 26 March 9pm Conor Hall, Arts
College, York Street
To register your interest in participating in any of these events
simply email antiracism_ni@hotmail.com.
SPEAK UP FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN OUR SOCIETY TAKE PART IN THE EVENTS
Anti Racist Network
Next meeting March 31 Multicultural Resource Centre 7pm
*******
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this past year throughout the six counties with full colour
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clicking the link below.
http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.8844526
12 March 2004
E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
1) The Blanket, Eamonn McCann, and the Use of Language
2) Media Management?
3) Thousands to Die of Cancer Because They're Poor
4) Why the War on Iraq Was Wrong
5) Arrest on the Anti War Demo
6) Museum at Long Kesh
7) Statement from the Irish National Teachers' Organisation
8) On European Union Constitution
9) What's On?
*******
Apology
Last week we published an article on the Miners strike and attributed
it to (PM from Socialist Action)
http://www.marxist.com/Europe/miners_twenty_years_on.html
Of course that was a serious error it should have read Socialist
Appeal, http://www.marxist.com/Europe/miners_twenty_years_on.html
Our apologies to both PM and Socialist Appeal.
(The editor has been sentenced to reading Eamon McCann's Book "War
and An Irish Town" three times before next Tuesday night!!!!)
*******
The Blanket, Eamonn McCann, and the Use of Language
On the 7th of March, The Blanket
entitled "Ardoyne Suicides" by the journalist Eamonn McCann. At no
stage since the whole issue of suicides in Ardoyne blew up did Eamon
McCann approach the Republican Socialist Movement to hear its side of
the story in relation to what was happening in the area. That does
not surprise us. Regularly the Sunday World prints a whole series of
lies about our movement and rarely tries to get our side of the
story. The journalist Eamonn McCann used to work for the Sunday
World, so maybe he learnt bad journalist habits there.
In his article in the Blanket, McCann refers to the "Irish National
Liberation Army" and he uses speech marks around the name. However
when we checked his writings about other armed groups we found that
he referred to both the Provisional IRA and the Real IRA without
speech marks (Socialist Worker, Issue 208). Of course the purpose of
the speech marks was to question the validity of the INLA and later
on in his article he refers to "INLA gangs" and "to guttersnipes with
guns."
He also peddles the lie that one of the young suicide victims was
subjected to "prolonged vicious beating by an INLA gang". He also
finds it hard to believe that the local community had pressurised the
INLA to take action against those engaged in anti-social behaviour.
For the record, the INLA is approached in a lot of areas, including
Derry, to take action against "hoods." I wonder what Eamonn would do
with the hoods in Derry who tried to set a young fellow on fire
recently. Give them a copy of Tony Cliff's book, "State Capitalism"?
Eamonn talks about "self worth". Fine. Does he think that his
negative references to the INLA will persuade anyone in that
organisation to listen to his voice? Denigrating and belittling
people and organisations on the basis of false media reporting, half
truths, and a concerted campaign by pro-Agreement people to discredit
the INLA will not cut any ice with those living in working class
areas suffering from a reign of terror from hoods.
We know that the volunteers in the INLA acted from the best of
motives in doing what they did. But the IRSP has said both publicly
and privately to them that a number of their actions were wrong. We
have exerted our influence to change their way of dealing with
problems. In fact we have been working on this from long before
Eamonn McCann and his media cronies discovered Ardoyne and suicide.
(Those who wish to know the details can contact gerryruddy@teachnafailte.org)
McCann is also being simplistic about the issue of funding. A large
slice of peace funding has been going into Ardoyne creating jobs for
pro-Agreement elements. There is also a Community Restorative Justice
scheme in the area perceived to be too closely associated with one
pro-Agreement party. Some people believe that the end result of such
funding is only to cement the electoral machine of some politicians
and tie them in more firmly to the whole process of pacification.
Perhaps some enterprising journalist will actually conduct proper
investigative journalism into this whole area.
We have been trying to encourage people to take responsibility for
their own community and we see that as part of the process of
empowering the working class to begin to take control of the state
and begin the task of building a socialist society. Members of our
movement have made mistakes and our organisation has made mistakes in
the past. No doubt we will make mistakes in the future.
But we will not equivocate about imperialism. Recently at the so-
called "Left Convention" in Derry, I was accused of personally
attacking Eamonn McCann after I said that the programme he was
standing on amounted to gas and water socialism. Below is his answer
in Socialist Worker to the following question: But is this not
all "gas and water socialism"? What about imperialism?
"We are unashamedly anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist. We are
actively against the occupation of Iraq and the corporate agenda,
which enforces cutbacks and privatisation across the globe. The
threat to water service jobs here and introduction of water charges
is an example. Those who see themselves as anti-imperialists should
see that this is the front to fight on for the future. The fight
against imperialism in 2003 is a fight against US-led imperialism
across the globe, or it is nothing. Those who welcome Bush as "a
friend of Ireland" position Ireland on the side of imperialism. We
reject the idea that the issues which are convulsing the world have
nothing to do with politics here. We make common cause with all
across the world struggling for the same aims. We wouldn't have taken
George Bush's hand at Hillsborough except to twist it up his back and
run him out the door."
All very fine and noble sentiments but notice what is missing? There
is no mention of British imperialism nor is there a clear call for
the defeat of USA/British troops in Iraq. Perhaps that might alienate
some of the more pacifist members of the SEA. Well, we believe that
there is an imperialist presence in Ireland and as republicans our
comrades fought and died opposing that imperialism. They did not die
for a nationalist Ireland. They died for the liberation of all the
working class from reactionary ideologies and for the establishment
of a Workers Republic here.
Words are important and Eamonn McCann has a fine way with them. He is
also a fine writer and writes exactly what he means. His words in The
Blanket effectively put him on the other side of the barricades to
ourselves. He is on the side of the guttersnipes with word-processors.
(Gerry Ruddy)
*******
Media Management?
Hypothesis of Islamic attack gaining ground with al-Qaeda claim.
After saying at midday there was "no doubt" it had been ETA, by the
evening Acebes admitted that "all theories" remained open. - Imanol
Murua Uria DONOSTIA (San Sebastian)
There was one version until one o'clock: it had been ETA. There were
two contradictory versions from early in the afternoon onwards:
Arnaldo Otegi [Batasuna member] said it was not ETA, and Spanish
Interior Minister Angel Acebes, on the other hand, said that there
was no doubt whatsoever that ETA had been responsible. And from 20.15
onwards one of the versions began to carry weight, because Acebes had
begun to back down.
In his last appearance of the day the Interior Minister admitted that
all the hypotheses remained open, yet went on to say that ETA
was "the main focus of investigation"; but when he pointed out that a
tape with verses from the Koran had been discovered along with seven
detonators in a van allegedly used in the attack, he began to admit
that an Islamic organisation could have been responsible.
It was after nine o'clock when a statement claiming responsibility
signed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades of al-Qaeda reached the
London-based daily al-Quds that credibility began to be attributed to
the theory of an Islamic attack.
Furthermore, Abdel Bari Atwan, the al-Quds editor, pointed out that
the claim looked genuine, because it resembled other claims that had
been received in the past. Spanish Government sources indicated that
they had news of the claim and that they were examining it carefully.
Nevertheless, from early in the morning the main political leaders of
Spain and the Basque Country considered that ETA had clearly been
behind the attacks.
From Basque language paper "Berria"
http://www.berria.info/
*******
Thousands to Die of Cancer Because They're Poor
It is estimated that up to 3,000 people are dying from cancer every
year because of huge differences in the way the richest and poorest
patients are diagnosed and treated according to recent research in
Britain.
Patients are up to five years behind the most affluent patients, if
they are from the most deprived areas of the country. Despite overall
improvements in cancer survival rates, the "deprivation gap" between
rich and poor is increasing year by year.
Patients in some parts of the country have access to treatment and
drugs denied to people in other areas.
More affluent people tended to visit their GP at an earlier stage of
their symptoms, and were more demanding about the treatment and care
they were offered. For some types of cancer, patients from the
richest fifth of society had a 17 per cent higher survival rate than
similar patients from the poorest fifth.
The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, is the first
attempt to quantify the gap in survival rates between the richest and
poorest patients. Researchers analysed more than two million people
diagnosed with the most common forms of cancer, and followed their
survival rates over three periods of five years between 1986 and 1999.
They found that while survival rates had improved across the board
and for all socio-economic groups, the "deprivation gap" had become
increasingly wide. For instance, the survival rate for rectal cancer
among men had improved by 7.4 per cent every five years. But the gap
between survival rates for the richest and poorest patients had
widened by an average of 2.4 per cent in the same period.
Men from the richest fifth of society now have a survival rate which
is 9.4 per cent higher than similar patients from the poorest fifth
of Britain.
For cancer of the larynx, survival rates for the most affluent men
are 17.2 per cent higher than the poorest.
Breast cancer survival rates also show wide gaps between rich and
poor patients. Women from the poorest groups have a 5 per cent
reduced survival rate compared with the richest sufferers.
On average, a 5 per cent improvement in overall survival rates for
cancer has been accompanied by a 1.5 per cent increase in
the "deprivation gap" between the richest and poorest patients.
Survival rates for the poorest patients were about five years behind
the richest.
(Adapted from The Independent, 10 March '04)
*******
Why the War on Iraq Was Wrong
The Belfast Anti-War Movement held a Public Meeting on Friday, 12th
March in Grosvenor House in Belfast. The special guest speaker was ex-
Labour MP George Galloway. Others on the panel included Eamonn
McCann - Journalist, Jamal Iweida - Belfast Islamic Centre, and
Padraigin Drinan.
Senior Special Branch officers who wanted to know what he was going
to say at the meeting detained George Galloway for 30 minutes. In a
powerful speech he accused Tony Blair of being the biggest liar that
ever had graced number 10 Downing Street. He pointed out that Blair
had got it wrong on a number of points. There were no weapons of mass
destruction. The Iraqi people did not welcome the USA/Brit coalition.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict had escalated. The Middle East was
now unstable. Violence was on the increase in Iraq.
*******
Arrest on the Anti War Demo
I was arrested around a year ago at peaceful anti war demo at Belfast
City Hall. Protest turned into a lie down protest upon the appearance
of lines of armoured policemen. What ensued was an ugly scene of
police manhandling and beating peaceful protestors off the main road.
I was threatened to have my "arm snapped in fucking two" if I was to
make an effort to resist. Despite over a hundred people being removed
from the road only a select few were arrested and moreover, fewer
formally charged. I was charged with disturbing the peace and an
innocuous charge of "obstructive sitting". The D.P.P have failed for
over a year to construct a solid case against myself and the six
other protestors formally charged and even offered to drop charges of
disrupting the peace if we were to accept guilt, as well as a
caution, for the charge of obstructive sitting. Myself and the other
protestors refused this as we saw it as a means to trivialise our
actions as petty criminal deeds whilst also admonishing the police
for flaring tensions with their intimidatory tactics. We also
regarded a formal day in court as an ideal means to once again put
the anti-war case in the media with protest action on the day. A
formal court date was set for Friday the 12th of March but that the
D.P.P failed to give full disclosure of evidence to the defence thus
leaving the court date a defunct formality. There may be a chance
that the case is thrown out of court. Never the less, I call on all
comrades to spare thirty minutes at the front of the court buildings
when next we appear to take part in a demo to show solidarity for the
seven accused as well as the global anti-war/anti-imperialist
movement.
In solidarity
T G.
*******
Speech on the Proposal to Have a Museum at Long Kesh, Delivered at
the Linenhall Library on Wednesday, 18th February 2004
First of all, on behalf of Teach Na Failte, the Republican Socialist
ex-prisoners association, I would like to thank Coiste for inviting
us here today. We feel that it is important that everyone who has an
interest in promoting the idea that part of the Long Kesh site be
made into a museum should have a chance to put their ideas to the
fore.
We welcome the launch of this booklet on the conference proceedings
as it brings to the attention of ordinary people what exactly is
happening to the former Long Kesh site. The inclusion of recent
photographs of the prison helps one to visualize just how badly run
down the prison site has become and just how important it is to get
this project underway, as soon as possible.
The Maze/Long Kesh prison site has played a very important part in
the recent history of the North of Ireland, from the introduction of
internment and the burning of the cages with the brutal attack on the
prisoners in the seventies, the heart attacks and the deaths, the
protests and the hunger strikes of the eighties, the political
discussion, the death of Billy Wright and other deaths, and the slow
release and the eventual closure of the prison in the nineties.
The names Long Kesh/Maze Prison and the sight of the H-Blocks have
become famous around the world. They are part of our history.
Combatants from all sides were imprisoned there. In a time of
conflict resolution a museum would help the differing traditions to
observe, understand, and learn from the past. It could be a reminder
to future generations what happened to the prisoners and how they
coped when they got there. There have been many ex-prisoners, from
both sides, who have came out of Long Kesh and then gone on to play a
major role in bringing about the ceasefires.
All sides have their own story to tell, so what better way to educate
the younger generation than to let them physically feel conditions
for themselves. It could be used much like Robbins Island, Kilmainham
Jail, and the German Underground hospital in Jersey, a place where
school trips and overseas visitors could go and experience at first
hand the lived experience of thousands of our prisoners.
Do not forget the relatives and visitors whose lives were heavily
influenced by the prison. The weekly trips, the loneliness, and all
the other hardships they endured due to their connection to the Maze.
Each and every one of those people also has a history to the prison
with their own story to tell. And what about the Prison Warders?
Surely they have their own memories. Although seen from a different
point of view, their stories and input are just as important.
Long Kesh played a major in the Troubles and that is a fact. It
cannot be allowed to be hidden and forgot all about. There are too
many different groups with their own history to let it all be
destroyed. We must remember that if the Maze/Long Kesh is destroyed
there will never be another chance like this again.
As it is on approximately only five to ten per cent of the total area
that is being proposed, then why can it not be divided up of part
Republican, part Loyalist, and part Prison system? That way the
history of all who were connected to the prison would be all-
inclusive to each of their beliefs.
Last but not least I would like to wish all involved in this venture
all the very best and hope that there will be a satisfactory outcome
for us all. Once again thank you for your invitation.
(Gerard Murray - Chair of Teach Na Failte)
*******
STATEMENT FROM IRISH NATIONAL TEACHERS' ORGANISATION
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
8 MARCH 2004
This International Women's Day, the INTO demands that government
prioritise the education of women in its developing world budget. We
demand that our government meets its obligations in the developing
world. We celebrate 8 March by seeking a better future for the next
generation of women.
A Millennium Development Goal of the United Nations General Assembly
is the elimination of the gender disparity in education. The set
target date is 2005 for primary and secondary education and no later
than 2015 for all levels of education.
The enrolment of girls in primary school is improving in 86 countries
out of 153 countries. Of the remaining 67 countries, only 18 have a
good chance of attaining the goal by 2015. Some 49 countries are not
expected to achieve the goal, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa.
For years, research has shown that investing in the education of
girls makes a significant contribution to the reduction of poverty.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the social return on a girl's education is
estimated at 24.3% for basic education - the highest rate in the
world. In Nigeria, according to the United Nations Population Fund, a
percentage increase in the number of girls finishing secondary school
would boost economic growth by 0.3 percent.
Notwithstanding this, each little girl is only a little girl going to
school. She has a right to be educated regardless of the economic
benefits it brings. But the same little girl can also change the
future. Increasing the number of girl's finishing school will bring
great returns. Part of the reason for this is that women are more
likely to invest in their children's health and education, which will
boost further benefits to the society.
Every year, almost 12 million children under the age of five die of
infectious diseases associated with poverty. But each year their
mothers spend in primary school lowers the risks of premature deaths
by about 8%. In Pakistan, for example, an extra year of school for
1,000 girls could prevent 60 infant deaths. In Brazil, for instance,
babies born to mothers without formal education are twice as likely
to die before the age of five.
Women and girls' education is deeply influenced by poverty, cultural
background and legal systems. Change requires political will, not
only to educate girls but also to eliminate all forms of
discrimination.
*******
TAOISEACH BERTIE AHERN BACKS GERMANY AGAINST POLAND AND SPAIN ON EU
CONSTITUTION
(Statement from The National Platform Research and Information Group,
24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9, Ireland) Tuesday 9 March 2004
"You cannot ask the citizens to ratify the Treaty of Nice and then
say to them that what they have ratified no longer counts for
anything before it has even come into force. How could we then ask
them to believe in what we are doing?" - Spanish Prime Minister Jose
Maria Aznar in yesterday's Le Monde
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is openly siding with Germany in pressurising
Poland and Spain to change their position on their Nice Treaty voting
rights, so as to make possible the re-founding of the European Union
on the basis of its own State Constitution.
Bertie Ahern and the diplomats of Iveagh House hope to open the way
to this at the spring EU "summit" meeting on Friday fortnight next.
By backing Germany against Poland and Spain Taoiseach Ahern is
flouting the convention that the holder of the EU Presidency should
be neutral and impartial between its Member States on issues that are
in dispute between them.
On 9 February Bertie Ahern told the German news magazine, Der Spiegel:
"Schroeder's position is sensible. The fact is that Germany has a
large population, Germany makes a large contribution to the EU - and
that must be reflected in the voting system."
On 26 January he said in Davos, Switzerland: "If people just stick
totally with Nice and don't move at all, you can't do that because
it's not going to be satisfactory to Germany. There's a fair amount
of sympathy for the German position because they are a large country,
they are a big part of the paymaster. We need to look very helpfully
at the German position. I have to try and get movement from those who
need to move and at the same time not try to put it in a way that
forces them beyond a position they can explain to their own people
and their own parliaments."
Yet Taoiseach Ahern was the man who pushed through the Nice Treaty in
this country in 2002 by saying that the voting system it proposed
was "essential" for EU enlargement, and was the best system for EU
law making in a 25-member EU!
See what Spanish Prime Minister Aznar has just said about this in his
interview in Le Monde (v. quoted passage above.)
If the EU were a single State for a single European "nation" in which
Poland, Spain, Ireland, and the other EU members were provinces, the
population-based voting system demanded by Germany and France for an
EU Constitution would be justified, for Germany's 85 million people
would entitle it to greatest influence.
IF THE EU IS NOT TO BE ONE STATE, but a partnership or alliance of
constitutionally equal states, then it is right that Poland and Spain
should have similar voting weight to Germany - indeed that smaller
countries than either of them should have that too.
Inside the virtual EU Federal State which the proposed Constitution
establishes, Germany can look forward to being joined in due time by
Turkey, with its 75 million population, whose admission to the EU
Germany champions. At present Germany and France between them have
nearly 40% of the population of an enlarged EU. Under the Draft
Constitution this would enable these two States to block whatever EU
laws they do not want and, with some allies, to push through whatever
EU measures they do want. Between them Germany and France would
effectively dominate the EU.
The population-based system for making EU laws that is proposed in
the draft EU Constitution - viz. using a 60% population headcount -
would turn the existing river of EU legislation into a flood. It
would greatly increase the volume of laws and rules coming from
Brussels. This is why the EU Commission and European Parliament
desire it, for their power derives from their role in EU law making.
The "double majority" system proposed for the Draft Constitution
would make EU laws easier to pass and therefore increase
EU "efficiency", say its supporters.
They must think people are right gobdaws to be taken in by this line
of argument, for a simple dictatorship would be more "efficient"
still in this particular sense of efficiency! If Romano Prodi were to
be made a EU dictator, so that he could issue edicts/directives that
we had to obey every quarter-hour of the day that would presumably
increase the output of EU laws.
BUT WOULD THEY BE GOOD LAWS and would they be democratic?
Bertie Ahern and Iveagh House are going all out for an agreement to
recall the Intergovernmental Conference to adopt a EU Constitution at
the EU summit meeting later this month. After all, it would give him
a flag that he could wave in next June's local elections.
Yet most Irish people - and much of the media - have not a clue what
this proposed EU Constitution entails. Bertie Ahern has called it "a
mere tidying-up exercise"; and after all are not EU matters
so "boring"!
The proposed EU Constitution will completely repeal all the EU
treaties to date, from the Treaty of Rome (1957) to the Treaty of
Nice (2002), and re-found the EU as a new legal/political entity on
the basis of its own Constitution.
Article I-1 of the Draft Constitution states: "This Constitution
establishes the European Union." So this new European Union would
clearly be legally and politically different from the European Union
that was established by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, and which we are
currently members of.
The proposed Constitution would give legal personality and corporate
existence to the EU for the first time, separate from that of its
Member States. It would make the EU an international actor in its own
right, distinct from its component States; so the EU would sign
international treaties on their behalf, just as the US Government
signs treaties committing Idaho and California, and Germany signs
treaties covering Bavaria and Wuertemberg.
Article I-10 provides that the EU Constitution, and law made under
it, "shall have primacy over the law of the Member States", something
that has never been stated in a EU Treaty before - and implicitly in
the EU Constitution it covers all areas of public policy.
The proposed Constitution also extends EU powers into some 30 new
policy areas, one of which makes the EU Court of Justice the ultimate
decider of our human rights. It makes fundamental changes in how the
EU is run, changes that benefit the Big States - such as the proposed
60% majority population voting system and a two-tier EU Commission -
and disadvantage smaller States like Ireland.
The Draft Constitution gives the EU legally for the first time the
official symbols of a State - its own flag, anthem, motto and annual
official holiday.
Is not the proposed repeal of all the existing European treaties to
clear the way for a re-founding of the EU on the basis of its own
State Constitution a good opportunity to re-examine existing EU
policies - for example the EU fisheries policy, the Common
Agricultural Policy, Euratom, whether Irish should be an official EU
language, the militarization of the EU, the Brussels Commission's
mania for harmonising everything, the unwillingness to repatriate
back to national parliaments a single power that has been taken by
the EU Institutions in their 47 years' existence, despite all the
rhetoric about "subsidarity"?
Are Irish people so happy with all the existing EU policies, and so
unquestioning with regard to them, as to agree without demur to make
them part of an EU Constitution which henceforth will govern most
details of their lives, and those of their children and grandchildren?
(Signed)
Anthony Coughlan
Secretary
(Tels. (O1) 8305792 /6081898)
*******
The Wall Petition
The Wall Must Fall
Please sign and send to others: http://www.thewallpetition.com/
*******
What's On?
*
Socialist Alternative? A meeting with Joe Costello, Carmel Gates and
Jim Barbour - Thursday 18th March, Days Hotel, Hope Street, Belfast
at 8.00pm
*
Saturday March 20th-International Day of Action Against the
occupation of Iraq and Palestine Rally - 2pm Arts College, Belfast
For more information 07742 531 617 07748571269
*
ANTI-RACISM NETWORK EVENTS FOR ANTI-RACISM WEEK
The Anti-Racism Network has organised the following programme of
events for European Anti-Racism Week 20-27 March 2004. The theme of
these events is participation, the joint participation by minority
ethnic communities and majority ethnic communities in an interesting
and fun programme of sporting, cultural, and artistic events.
We are inviting people to take part in as many of the events as
possible. Why not get a team together among your work mates, family,
or friends and join in the basketball, it doesn't matter if you've
never played before, it's for fun! Come along and roll your sleeves
up and take part in a fun arts workshop making tiles with a
difference, anti-racist tiles! Or if music and dance is your thing
you'll enjoy the Dress for the Dance event, an evening of traditional
costume, world music and dance. We also have a film screening in
conjunction with Cineniversity: "Fear Eats the Soul" by director
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the film is about a Moroccan guest worker
in West Germany who strikes up a relationship with an older German
widow. It explores issues of racism, ageism, sexism and cultural
identity.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
EVENT DATE TIME VENUE
Tile Making Workshop Saturday 20 March 10am -12.30pm Clanmil
House, Waring Street
Basketball Against Racism Saturday 20 March 12 o'clock to
4pm Malone College, Finaghy Road
Fear Eats the Soul Film Screening Monday 22 March 7.30pm
Belfast Exposed, King Street
Dress for the Dance Friday 26 March 9pm Conor Hall, Arts
College, York Street
To register your interest in participating in any of these events
simply email antiracism_ni@hotmail.com.
SPEAK UP FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN OUR SOCIETY TAKE PART IN THE EVENTS
Anti Racist Network
Next meeting March 31 Multicultural Resource Centre 7pm
*******
Please feel free to comment on the contents of the Plough. We welcome
political comments and criticisms.
If you know of anybody who might wish to receive the Plough please
send his or her e-mail address to johnmartinps@eircom.net.
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To unsubscribe to the Plough please send e-mail
entitled "unsubscribe" to johnmartinps@eircom.net.
It is the policy of the Plough to acknowledge information and
articles from other sources.
Subscribe to the bi-monthly
"The Starry Plough/An Camchéachta"
P.O. Box 1981, Derry, BT48 8GX, Ireland.
THE VOICE OF REPUBLICAN SOCIALISM!
Email: starry_plough@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.irsm.org/irsp/starryplough/
Fighting Fund/Donations
To: The Starry Plough
First Trust Bank, Derry, BT48 6BU
Account No. 14986015 Sort Code No. 93-86-10
http://www.irsm.org/irsm.html (Pairtí Poblachtach Sóisialach na
h-Éireann)
http://www.wageslave.org/jcs/ (James Connolly Society)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/ (James Connolly Archive)
The Republican Socialist Forum from Derry IRSP
http://rsmforum.proboards23.com/
Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - A website that offers a
central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a
distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this
effort go towards the IRSM and its various projects.
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/
Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees - A new 2004 full colour glossy
calendar is available now on the RSM online shop. It celebrates the
brilliant work undertaken by the Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees
this past year throughout the six counties with full colour
photographs on each page. This calendar can be viewed online by
clicking the link below.
http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.8844526
Friday 5 March 2004
The Plough Vol 01 No 29
The Plough #29
5 March 2004
E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
1) Orde the IRA and the INLA
2) The Left Convention: Letter to The Plough
3) A Response: The Cult of the Individual?
4) The Miners strike
5) Letters to the Editor
6) May Day
7) What's On?
*******
Orde the IRA and the INLA
Looks like the mask has slipped. Orde the Chief Constable of the
PSNI/RUC has reverted to type. His extraordinary outburst about an
INLA/IRA feud shows not a factual knowledge but a wish list. No doubt
the securocrats would love a republican feud. After all there is
extra overtime, more resources called for, and careers to be made.
Unfortunately the reality is different. There has been some community
unrest in Ardoyne - that is obvious and the INLA, we understand, have
taken certain positive measures to rectify the situation. Relations
between republican of different shades are good regardless of
political differences. There is a drug problem in Ardoyne as in many
areas but the INLA are not nor have been involved in drug pushing.
Indeed all volunteers in the INLA know the consequences of drug
involvement. There is no evidence of INLA involvement but that is the
line pushed by certain sections of the media and by some within the
RUC.
Recently we learned via the Sunday World that the "INLA had been
responsible for placing a bomb under the car of journalist Paul
Williams." Williams' evidence came from the Free State Special
Branch. He did not check with the RSM. We knew that the INLA were not
involved. Williams has since admitted he got it wrong and now blames
some Dublin criminal.
We in the Republican Socialist Movement have little defence against
the constant stream of lies that pour out from the lips of hack
journalists and peelers. Our own defence is that those who work with
us on class politics know our true worth.
*******
The Left Convention: Letter to The Plough
Dear Sir,
Very difficult to answer to such a chaos. But I would like to clear
up a few points, both as a member of the SEA and as a Communist.
1) your "open letter to the SEA" was sent to a lot of organisations,
the C.P. I. amongst them - but not to the SEA. If you want to send
open letters and indeed if you want an open debate, do it straight!
2) "parties involved in the SEA" who you are looking clarification
from do not exist. We are an alliance which has no other parties
involved in it, that goes for the C. P. I., the SWP, the Greens or
anyone else. Members of the SEA may belong to other parties but we
work out our own policies.
3) If I was in doubt for one minute that the SEA was not clearly
rejecting parties or groups with any kind of paramilitary links, I
would resign from it immediately and we have made this very clear
both in writing and spoken. If you read our stuff, read it right.
4) Not only did Gerry attack Eamonn McCann who he called
partitionist but also the "left" - whoever he defines as that who he
called dishonest (hear hear).
5) I chaired one of the sessions and I want to completely reject the
notion that we favoured people or disadvantaged others. That was not
planned and it did not happen. What did happen was that people got up
and made clear their opposition to the IRSP. For very good reasons as
I would think.
Hermann Glaser-Baur
*******
A Response: The Cult of the Individual?
The above letter is a response to an open letter that appeared in The
Plough #27. In one point Hermann is correct. The e-mail was sent
individually to all of the above parties except the SEA itself. That
was a regrettable mistake for which we apologise.
It ill becomes Hermann to talk about open debate. At each of the
sessions of the Left Convention there were invited speakers who
strangely enough were either members of the Socialist Workers Party
or the Communist Party. If I'm wrong in this perhaps Hermann will
list the invited speakers and their party affiliations?
On his second point Hermann is being a little bit obscure. Nowhere in
their literature can I find out the composition of the SEA, or its
constitution. Is he telling us that no parties are affiliated? So
presumably then there is individual membership, a constitution, and a
convention where all their policies and rules were drawn up. So I
presume that it is clearly written down somewhere that the SEA
rejects parties or groups with any kind of paramilitary links. Which
meeting was this agreed at and how many individual members attended
that meeting?
If indeed that position is the position of the SEA why then did they
have in Belfast a member of the Workers Party on their platform.
Doesn't Hermann know that they have paramilitary links?
Perhaps also Hermann is not aware that when the INLA was engaged in a
war against British imperialism the IRSP held meetings with the CPI.
Also during the '81 hunger strike the SWP shared public platforms
with the IRSP and Sinn Fein when both the IRA and the INLA were
killing British soldiers. At those times both the CPI and the SWP
tried to influence the IRSP towards their politics. A correct stance
for any socialist organisation. They did not demonise or isolate
armed republicans. They tried to influence them.
After the Left Convention does anyone really think the SEA will have
any influence with Left Republicans, particularly at a time when the
INLA is on ceasefire and is committed to a total process of
politicisation?
Do Hermann and the SEA really believe that the politics of exclusion
will work or do anything to advance the struggle of working people in
these islands? We in the IRSP don't mind political criticisms but
there were none at the Left Convention only the politics of disdain.
That is also obvious from Hermann's comments above as well.
As regard the failure of the Left one has only to look at the results
of the last Assembly elections. Northern society is polarised into
two sectarian blocs. Members of the SEA who at the Left Convention
talked about the "movement" were and are living in cloud cuckoo land.
The Left has failed and we include ourselves in that failure. Unless
we honestly face up to reality and begin to engage in serious
politics and not pursue the latest in thing the left will continue to
be an irrelevancy.
Now as regards the alleged attack on Eamonn McCann, come on comrades
wise up. I spoke directly to Eamonn McCann and pointed out he had
stood on a partitionist platform in 1969 and it had not worked then
and it would not work now. That was dealing with the politics of the
SEA not the politics of Eamon. God help politics if that is seen
today as a personal attack. The SEA addressed none of the points that
I raised. Instead Eamonn McCann choose to launch one of his usual
from the heart machine gun rapid speeches that totally glossed over
the real differences there. Is Eamonn above political criticism?
Perhaps what the SEA is really about can be gauged from its manifesto
on its website. There are 7 pictures of Eamonn McCann. I rather think
that Eamonn, at least the old Eamonn of the sixties and seventies,
would have been extremely uncomfortable with this pushing of the cult
of Eamonn McCann.
(Gerry Ruddy 5th March 5, 2004)
*******
The Miners Strike
Twenty years ago on March 5, 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers
(NUM) embarked upon the most important class struggle in Britain
since the general strike of 1926. Over the following twelve months of
ferocious battles billions of pounds were spent by the ruling class
to crush the miners' militancy. More than ten thousand miners were
arrested; two were killed on the picket lines and countless others
injured. Decades of so-called consensus were obliterated and the real
and ugly face of British capitalism was exposed for all to see. The
masks of Democracy and the Law, behind which the ruling class try to
conceal the rule of capital, were shattered as the veil of so-called
independence of the courts, the police, and the media was lifted to
show the real role of the state in capitalist society.
The courage and determination of the miners and their families,
struggling to defend their communities from an unparalleled assault
by the ruling class, should serve as an inspiration to a new
generation. The strike is rich in lessons, and we would be doing that
heroic struggle no favours if we did not also try to understand the
mistakes which played an important role in the dispute as well as
drawing inspiration from the colossal resolve and sacrifice of the
miners' struggle.
Engels once explained that in some periods twenty years can pass as
if they were a single day, whilst, at other times, the experience of
twenty years can be concentrated into just 24 hours. Between March
1984 and March 1985 there were 365 such days.
The consequences of the strike - and its eventual defeat - for the
miners, the coal mining industry, the labour movement, and the
working class as a whole make it our duty to study its many lessons.
The miners were defeated, but contrary to the twenty years of
propaganda which has followed declaring the class struggle to be
finished, two decades have passed quietly only on the surface.
Beneath, wounds have been healed, a new generation has grown up, new
experience has been gained, and capitalism has squeezed and pressed
the working class to the limits of its patience. Far from the miners'
strike representing the end of class struggle, it provides us with a
wealth of lessons to prepare for the new battles, which have already
begun. Twenty years after the miners' strike of 1984-85 new class
battles are today being prepared in Britain.
(PM from Socialist Action)
http://www.marxist.com/Europe/miners_twenty_years_on.html
*******
Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor
Having read the edition of The Plough #28 I must comment on a
statement contained in the article on "British state educational and
institutional discrimination."
In the article the claim is made that 75% of the adult prison
population is dyslexic. As a special needs teacher who has worked in
the prison system as an educator, I can categorically state that this
figure is a wild exaggeration and I would love to know how the
research, which arrived at this figure, was carried out. I have met
many inmates who claimed to suffer from dyslexia, but when tests were
carried out it was discovered that they were using the
term "dyslexia" as an excuse for their inability to read and write.
When they were put on a properly structured programme of Basic
Education the vast majority of these inmates were perfectly capable
of learning and were, in fact, very pleased to do so.
I am not saying that there are no inmates suffering from dyslexia,
far from it, but when a statistic such as that contained in the
article is bandied about as fact, it gives many underachieving
inmates, a comfort blanket with which to cover their lack of basic
educational skills and gives them an excuse to avoid trying to learn
those skills.
Yours fraternally
F. R.
*
A Chara,
In all of the Publications of The Plough, Number 28 was the most
enjoyable read that I have encountered, I am not saying the others
were inferior, I just feel that the articles in this edition shoot
from the hip that they confront our enemies head on. The day of
sitting on the sidelines is truly gone, Fair Play. Keep up the good
work,
Slan John
*
Dear Editor,
Just to say I enjoyed reading the latest edition of The Plough.
LOR
*******
May Day
The Irish Republican Socialist Party is calling for a united campaign
of protest action against the European Union on Saturday, May 1st
2004, to be held in Dublin on International Workers Day.
The IRSP call on its members and supporters to actively take part in
May Day rallies and protests across the country against what we see
as the anti-working class agenda of the EU.
As the 26 county administration, which currently hold the EU
presidency, will be playing host to the EU signatories in Ireland on
May 1st to formalise entries into the European Superstate.
Other protest events are planned to highlight a weekend of action
from Friday April 30th to Monday May 3rd, as hundreds of other
protest groups, trade unions, anti-imperialists, and others descend
upon the capital. The weekend of action will remain be focused on
symbols of the EU, including from militarism, globalisation, neo-
liberalism, fortress Europe and the EU police state.
*******
What's On?
*
Hate Crime in Northern Ireland: request for evidence
The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee is requesting evidence for a
new inquiry into hate crime. The Committee wishes to do the
following:
To explore the reasons for the reported increase in crimes and
incidents motivated by hatred within and between the communities in
Northern Ireland.
To examine the effectiveness of measures taken by government and
relevant agencies to tackle prejudice, and to support the victims of
such prejudice.
To assess the effectiveness of the existing law and proposed changes
to that law.
Submissions should not exceed six sides of A4 in length. Submissions
sent by email should be followed by a single hard copy, for
verification purposes. It is expected that hearings will take place
shortly after Easter. The Committee seeks views from any individual
or group, which has an interest in this issue. Submissions should be
sent by 25 March 2004 to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee,
Committee Office, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA or email:
northircom@parliament.uk.
*
The Wall Petition
The Wall Must Fall
Please sign and send to others:
http://www.thewallpetition.com/
*
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement and the Irish Republican Prisoners
Welfare Association are holding a picket/protest this Saturday 6th
March in Derry City.
The protest is being held to highlight the on-going Dirty Tricks
campaign currently being waged against Republicans and the corruption
within the RUC/PSNI, the Director of Public Prosecutions and The
British Army. We further wish to highlight the politically motivated
raids against the families of political prisoners and the refusal of
RUC apologist Denis Bradley to comment upon them or the fact that
Irish Republicans have been and continue to be fitted up by the
police force he seeks to legitimise.
Assemble Free Derry Corner 2pm.
*
Grassroots Gathering - Cork
This Weekend - March 5, 6, 7 - Friday, Sat and Sun
The Grassroots Gathering comes to Cork this weekend! Now in its
eighth gathering, the GG is a meeting space and network for activists
who organise in a non-hierarchical way. The weekend centres around
providing a meeting and participative space for workshops where
activists can talk, discuss and share their experiences and learn
from one another. Below is a general outline of what will be
happening....but there will be plenty of more. Come along and take
part... See you there.
FRIDAY
8 pm on...
Social at the LV public house, MacCurtain St, City Centre
SATURDAY
Morning Workshops (11.30 - 1 pm) on Pro-Choice, Future of the anti-
war movement, DISSENT (Organising for G8, London 2005), Circus skills
Afternoon Workshops (2-6 pm) on EU presidency/May Day Mobilisation in
Dublin
Entertainment (8 pm to late) Los Langeros and DJ’s at LV bar,
MacCurtain St.
SUNDAY
Workshop/ Talks (11.30 - 1 pm) on The Anti-Incinerator Campaign,
Grassroots Organising – Dublin Experience, Women and
participation in Libertarian politics, Fintan Lane on Prison
Afternoon Round up: Where To From Here and the Next Gathering
If you have any queries, please e-mail ggcork2004@yahoo.co.uk or
phone:
Scooter: 087 9572438
Kevin: 087 6805517
The venue for the gathering is Ennismore House, Middle Glanmire Road
in Mayfield on Saturday and Sunday. To get to the venue, get the No.
8 bus from Eason's on Patrick Street (should have Mayfield or Lotabeg
on the front). Use the map attached to find the bus stop or ask your
friendly bus driver. If in doubt, contact one of the people on the
numbers listed below.
There will be a certain amount of accommodation provided on site at
Ennismore House and more will be provided by your local gatherers. If
you need accommodation, please send an e-mail to
ggcork2004@yahoo.co.uk. Accommodation will be allocated on Friday
evening (at the LV bar, MacCurtain St., City Centre) and all day
Saturday (at Ennismore House) as required.
The full programme available at weekend
*
Friday March 12th
Protest against Anti-War activists arrests 4pm City Courthouse
Public Meeting The War, Occupation and Resistance 7.30pm Grosvenor
House (Glengall st next to Europa Hotel) Special Guest speaker Ex-
Labour MP (now RESPECT coalition) George Galloway Panel includes
Eamonn McCann - Journalist - Carmel Gates – President NIPSA -
Jamal Iweida - Belfast Islamic Centre, Anti-Racism Network speaker to
be requested
*
Subject: Fwd: St Paddy's Day Committee
Friends in Belfast, Ireland and across the world, we the St Patrick's
Day Carnival Committee invite you to view our website:
http://www.stpatricksdaybelfast.com/
We have continuously tried and failed to get Belfast City Council to
financially back an outdoor event in Belfast that captures the sense
of pride, fun and all that feels good about being Irish, as expressed
by millions of fun-loving people throughout the world. We are asking
that this website is hit by so many people across the globe that
Belfast City Councillors feel compelled to reverse their decision
before St Patrick's Day - the 17th day of March 2004.
ONE MONTH TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
http://www.stpatricksdaybelfast.com/
*
Saturday March 20th
International Day of Action Against the occupation of Iraq and
Palestine Rally - 2pm Arts College, Belfast For more information
07742 531 617 07748571269
*
ANTI-RACISM NETWORK EVENTS FOR ANTI-RACISM WEEK
The Anti-Racism Network has organised the following programme of
events for European Anti-Racism Week 20 27 March 2004. The theme
of these events is participation the joint participation by
minority ethnic communities and majority ethnic communities in an
interesting and fun programme of sporting, cultural, and artistic
events.
We are inviting people to take part in as many of the events as
possible. Why not get a team together among your work mates, family
or friends and join in the basketball, it doesn't matter if you've
never played before, it's for fun! Come along and roll your sleeves
up and take part in a fun arts workshop making tiles with a
difference anti-racist tiles! Or if music and dance is your
thing you'll enjoy the Dress for the Dance event, an evening of
traditional costume, world music and dance. We also have a film
screening in conjunction with Cineniversity: "Fear Eats the Soul" by
director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the film is about a Moroccan
guest worker in West Germany who strikes up a relationship with an
older German widow. It explores issues of racism, ageism, sexism, and
cultural identity.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
EVENT DATE TIME VENUE
Tile Making Workshop Saturday 20 March 10am -12.30pm Clanmil
House, Waring Street
Basketball Against Racism Saturday 20 March 12 o'clock to
4pm Malone College, Finaghy Road
Fear Eats the Soul Film Screening Monday 22 March 7.30pm
Belfast Exposed, King Street
Dress for the Dance Friday 26 March 9pm Conor Hall, Arts
College, York Street
To register your interest in participating in any of these events
simply email antiracism_ni@hotmail.com
SPEAK UP FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN OUR SOCIETY TAKE PART IN THE EVENTS
Anti Racist Network
Next meeting March 31 Multicultural Resource Centre 7pm
*******
Please feel free to comment on the contents of the Plough. We welcome
political comments and criticisms.
If you know of anybody who might wish to receive the Plough please
send his or her e-mail address to johnmartinps@eircom.net
If you wish to receive back copies of the "The Plough" Please e-mail
to johnmartinps@eircom.net stating which numbers you wish.
To unsubscribe to the Plough please send e-mail
entitled "unsubscribe" to johnmartinps@eircom.net
It is the policy of the Plough to acknowledge information and
articles from other sources.
Subscribe to the bi-monthly
"The Starry Plough/An Camchéachta"
P.O. Box 1981, Derry, BT48 8GX, Ireland.
THE VOICE OF REPUBLICAN SOCIALISM!
Email: starry_plough@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.irsm.org/irsp/starryplough/
Fighting Fund/Donations
To: The Starry Plough
First Trust Bank, Derry, BT48 6BU
Account No. 14986015 Sort Code No. 93-86-10
http://www.irsm.org/irsm.html (Pairtí Poblachtach Sóisialach na
h-Éireann)
http://www.wageslave.org/jcs/ (James Connolly Society)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/ (James Connolly Archive)
The Republican Socialist Forum from Derry IRSP
http://rsmforum.proboards23.com/
Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - A website that offers a
central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a
distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this
effort go towards the IRSM and its various projects.
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/
Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees - A new 2004 full colour glossy
calendar is available now on the RSM online shop. It celebrates the
brilliant work undertaken by the Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees
this past year throughout the six counties with full colour
photographs on each page. This calendar can be viewed online by
clicking the link below.
http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.8844526
5 March 2004
E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
1) Orde the IRA and the INLA
2) The Left Convention: Letter to The Plough
3) A Response: The Cult of the Individual?
4) The Miners strike
5) Letters to the Editor
6) May Day
7) What's On?
*******
Orde the IRA and the INLA
Looks like the mask has slipped. Orde the Chief Constable of the
PSNI/RUC has reverted to type. His extraordinary outburst about an
INLA/IRA feud shows not a factual knowledge but a wish list. No doubt
the securocrats would love a republican feud. After all there is
extra overtime, more resources called for, and careers to be made.
Unfortunately the reality is different. There has been some community
unrest in Ardoyne - that is obvious and the INLA, we understand, have
taken certain positive measures to rectify the situation. Relations
between republican of different shades are good regardless of
political differences. There is a drug problem in Ardoyne as in many
areas but the INLA are not nor have been involved in drug pushing.
Indeed all volunteers in the INLA know the consequences of drug
involvement. There is no evidence of INLA involvement but that is the
line pushed by certain sections of the media and by some within the
RUC.
Recently we learned via the Sunday World that the "INLA had been
responsible for placing a bomb under the car of journalist Paul
Williams." Williams' evidence came from the Free State Special
Branch. He did not check with the RSM. We knew that the INLA were not
involved. Williams has since admitted he got it wrong and now blames
some Dublin criminal.
We in the Republican Socialist Movement have little defence against
the constant stream of lies that pour out from the lips of hack
journalists and peelers. Our own defence is that those who work with
us on class politics know our true worth.
*******
The Left Convention: Letter to The Plough
Dear Sir,
Very difficult to answer to such a chaos. But I would like to clear
up a few points, both as a member of the SEA and as a Communist.
1) your "open letter to the SEA" was sent to a lot of organisations,
the C.P. I. amongst them - but not to the SEA. If you want to send
open letters and indeed if you want an open debate, do it straight!
2) "parties involved in the SEA" who you are looking clarification
from do not exist. We are an alliance which has no other parties
involved in it, that goes for the C. P. I., the SWP, the Greens or
anyone else. Members of the SEA may belong to other parties but we
work out our own policies.
3) If I was in doubt for one minute that the SEA was not clearly
rejecting parties or groups with any kind of paramilitary links, I
would resign from it immediately and we have made this very clear
both in writing and spoken. If you read our stuff, read it right.
4) Not only did Gerry attack Eamonn McCann who he called
partitionist but also the "left" - whoever he defines as that who he
called dishonest (hear hear).
5) I chaired one of the sessions and I want to completely reject the
notion that we favoured people or disadvantaged others. That was not
planned and it did not happen. What did happen was that people got up
and made clear their opposition to the IRSP. For very good reasons as
I would think.
Hermann Glaser-Baur
*******
A Response: The Cult of the Individual?
The above letter is a response to an open letter that appeared in The
Plough #27. In one point Hermann is correct. The e-mail was sent
individually to all of the above parties except the SEA itself. That
was a regrettable mistake for which we apologise.
It ill becomes Hermann to talk about open debate. At each of the
sessions of the Left Convention there were invited speakers who
strangely enough were either members of the Socialist Workers Party
or the Communist Party. If I'm wrong in this perhaps Hermann will
list the invited speakers and their party affiliations?
On his second point Hermann is being a little bit obscure. Nowhere in
their literature can I find out the composition of the SEA, or its
constitution. Is he telling us that no parties are affiliated? So
presumably then there is individual membership, a constitution, and a
convention where all their policies and rules were drawn up. So I
presume that it is clearly written down somewhere that the SEA
rejects parties or groups with any kind of paramilitary links. Which
meeting was this agreed at and how many individual members attended
that meeting?
If indeed that position is the position of the SEA why then did they
have in Belfast a member of the Workers Party on their platform.
Doesn't Hermann know that they have paramilitary links?
Perhaps also Hermann is not aware that when the INLA was engaged in a
war against British imperialism the IRSP held meetings with the CPI.
Also during the '81 hunger strike the SWP shared public platforms
with the IRSP and Sinn Fein when both the IRA and the INLA were
killing British soldiers. At those times both the CPI and the SWP
tried to influence the IRSP towards their politics. A correct stance
for any socialist organisation. They did not demonise or isolate
armed republicans. They tried to influence them.
After the Left Convention does anyone really think the SEA will have
any influence with Left Republicans, particularly at a time when the
INLA is on ceasefire and is committed to a total process of
politicisation?
Do Hermann and the SEA really believe that the politics of exclusion
will work or do anything to advance the struggle of working people in
these islands? We in the IRSP don't mind political criticisms but
there were none at the Left Convention only the politics of disdain.
That is also obvious from Hermann's comments above as well.
As regard the failure of the Left one has only to look at the results
of the last Assembly elections. Northern society is polarised into
two sectarian blocs. Members of the SEA who at the Left Convention
talked about the "movement" were and are living in cloud cuckoo land.
The Left has failed and we include ourselves in that failure. Unless
we honestly face up to reality and begin to engage in serious
politics and not pursue the latest in thing the left will continue to
be an irrelevancy.
Now as regards the alleged attack on Eamonn McCann, come on comrades
wise up. I spoke directly to Eamonn McCann and pointed out he had
stood on a partitionist platform in 1969 and it had not worked then
and it would not work now. That was dealing with the politics of the
SEA not the politics of Eamon. God help politics if that is seen
today as a personal attack. The SEA addressed none of the points that
I raised. Instead Eamonn McCann choose to launch one of his usual
from the heart machine gun rapid speeches that totally glossed over
the real differences there. Is Eamonn above political criticism?
Perhaps what the SEA is really about can be gauged from its manifesto
on its website. There are 7 pictures of Eamonn McCann. I rather think
that Eamonn, at least the old Eamonn of the sixties and seventies,
would have been extremely uncomfortable with this pushing of the cult
of Eamonn McCann.
(Gerry Ruddy 5th March 5, 2004)
*******
The Miners Strike
Twenty years ago on March 5, 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers
(NUM) embarked upon the most important class struggle in Britain
since the general strike of 1926. Over the following twelve months of
ferocious battles billions of pounds were spent by the ruling class
to crush the miners' militancy. More than ten thousand miners were
arrested; two were killed on the picket lines and countless others
injured. Decades of so-called consensus were obliterated and the real
and ugly face of British capitalism was exposed for all to see. The
masks of Democracy and the Law, behind which the ruling class try to
conceal the rule of capital, were shattered as the veil of so-called
independence of the courts, the police, and the media was lifted to
show the real role of the state in capitalist society.
The courage and determination of the miners and their families,
struggling to defend their communities from an unparalleled assault
by the ruling class, should serve as an inspiration to a new
generation. The strike is rich in lessons, and we would be doing that
heroic struggle no favours if we did not also try to understand the
mistakes which played an important role in the dispute as well as
drawing inspiration from the colossal resolve and sacrifice of the
miners' struggle.
Engels once explained that in some periods twenty years can pass as
if they were a single day, whilst, at other times, the experience of
twenty years can be concentrated into just 24 hours. Between March
1984 and March 1985 there were 365 such days.
The consequences of the strike - and its eventual defeat - for the
miners, the coal mining industry, the labour movement, and the
working class as a whole make it our duty to study its many lessons.
The miners were defeated, but contrary to the twenty years of
propaganda which has followed declaring the class struggle to be
finished, two decades have passed quietly only on the surface.
Beneath, wounds have been healed, a new generation has grown up, new
experience has been gained, and capitalism has squeezed and pressed
the working class to the limits of its patience. Far from the miners'
strike representing the end of class struggle, it provides us with a
wealth of lessons to prepare for the new battles, which have already
begun. Twenty years after the miners' strike of 1984-85 new class
battles are today being prepared in Britain.
(PM from Socialist Action)
http://www.marxist.com/Europe/miners_twenty_years_on.html
*******
Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor
Having read the edition of The Plough #28 I must comment on a
statement contained in the article on "British state educational and
institutional discrimination."
In the article the claim is made that 75% of the adult prison
population is dyslexic. As a special needs teacher who has worked in
the prison system as an educator, I can categorically state that this
figure is a wild exaggeration and I would love to know how the
research, which arrived at this figure, was carried out. I have met
many inmates who claimed to suffer from dyslexia, but when tests were
carried out it was discovered that they were using the
term "dyslexia" as an excuse for their inability to read and write.
When they were put on a properly structured programme of Basic
Education the vast majority of these inmates were perfectly capable
of learning and were, in fact, very pleased to do so.
I am not saying that there are no inmates suffering from dyslexia,
far from it, but when a statistic such as that contained in the
article is bandied about as fact, it gives many underachieving
inmates, a comfort blanket with which to cover their lack of basic
educational skills and gives them an excuse to avoid trying to learn
those skills.
Yours fraternally
F. R.
*
A Chara,
In all of the Publications of The Plough, Number 28 was the most
enjoyable read that I have encountered, I am not saying the others
were inferior, I just feel that the articles in this edition shoot
from the hip that they confront our enemies head on. The day of
sitting on the sidelines is truly gone, Fair Play. Keep up the good
work,
Slan John
*
Dear Editor,
Just to say I enjoyed reading the latest edition of The Plough.
LOR
*******
May Day
The Irish Republican Socialist Party is calling for a united campaign
of protest action against the European Union on Saturday, May 1st
2004, to be held in Dublin on International Workers Day.
The IRSP call on its members and supporters to actively take part in
May Day rallies and protests across the country against what we see
as the anti-working class agenda of the EU.
As the 26 county administration, which currently hold the EU
presidency, will be playing host to the EU signatories in Ireland on
May 1st to formalise entries into the European Superstate.
Other protest events are planned to highlight a weekend of action
from Friday April 30th to Monday May 3rd, as hundreds of other
protest groups, trade unions, anti-imperialists, and others descend
upon the capital. The weekend of action will remain be focused on
symbols of the EU, including from militarism, globalisation, neo-
liberalism, fortress Europe and the EU police state.
*******
What's On?
*
Hate Crime in Northern Ireland: request for evidence
The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee is requesting evidence for a
new inquiry into hate crime. The Committee wishes to do the
following:
To explore the reasons for the reported increase in crimes and
incidents motivated by hatred within and between the communities in
Northern Ireland.
To examine the effectiveness of measures taken by government and
relevant agencies to tackle prejudice, and to support the victims of
such prejudice.
To assess the effectiveness of the existing law and proposed changes
to that law.
Submissions should not exceed six sides of A4 in length. Submissions
sent by email should be followed by a single hard copy, for
verification purposes. It is expected that hearings will take place
shortly after Easter. The Committee seeks views from any individual
or group, which has an interest in this issue. Submissions should be
sent by 25 March 2004 to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee,
Committee Office, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA or email:
northircom@parliament.uk.
*
The Wall Petition
The Wall Must Fall
Please sign and send to others:
http://www.thewallpetition.com/
*
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement and the Irish Republican Prisoners
Welfare Association are holding a picket/protest this Saturday 6th
March in Derry City.
The protest is being held to highlight the on-going Dirty Tricks
campaign currently being waged against Republicans and the corruption
within the RUC/PSNI, the Director of Public Prosecutions and The
British Army. We further wish to highlight the politically motivated
raids against the families of political prisoners and the refusal of
RUC apologist Denis Bradley to comment upon them or the fact that
Irish Republicans have been and continue to be fitted up by the
police force he seeks to legitimise.
Assemble Free Derry Corner 2pm.
*
Grassroots Gathering - Cork
This Weekend - March 5, 6, 7 - Friday, Sat and Sun
The Grassroots Gathering comes to Cork this weekend! Now in its
eighth gathering, the GG is a meeting space and network for activists
who organise in a non-hierarchical way. The weekend centres around
providing a meeting and participative space for workshops where
activists can talk, discuss and share their experiences and learn
from one another. Below is a general outline of what will be
happening....but there will be plenty of more. Come along and take
part... See you there.
FRIDAY
8 pm on...
Social at the LV public house, MacCurtain St, City Centre
SATURDAY
Morning Workshops (11.30 - 1 pm) on Pro-Choice, Future of the anti-
war movement, DISSENT (Organising for G8, London 2005), Circus skills
Afternoon Workshops (2-6 pm) on EU presidency/May Day Mobilisation in
Dublin
Entertainment (8 pm to late) Los Langeros and DJ’s at LV bar,
MacCurtain St.
SUNDAY
Workshop/ Talks (11.30 - 1 pm) on The Anti-Incinerator Campaign,
Grassroots Organising – Dublin Experience, Women and
participation in Libertarian politics, Fintan Lane on Prison
Afternoon Round up: Where To From Here and the Next Gathering
If you have any queries, please e-mail ggcork2004@yahoo.co.uk or
phone:
Scooter: 087 9572438
Kevin: 087 6805517
The venue for the gathering is Ennismore House, Middle Glanmire Road
in Mayfield on Saturday and Sunday. To get to the venue, get the No.
8 bus from Eason's on Patrick Street (should have Mayfield or Lotabeg
on the front). Use the map attached to find the bus stop or ask your
friendly bus driver. If in doubt, contact one of the people on the
numbers listed below.
There will be a certain amount of accommodation provided on site at
Ennismore House and more will be provided by your local gatherers. If
you need accommodation, please send an e-mail to
ggcork2004@yahoo.co.uk. Accommodation will be allocated on Friday
evening (at the LV bar, MacCurtain St., City Centre) and all day
Saturday (at Ennismore House) as required.
The full programme available at weekend
*
Friday March 12th
Protest against Anti-War activists arrests 4pm City Courthouse
Public Meeting The War, Occupation and Resistance 7.30pm Grosvenor
House (Glengall st next to Europa Hotel) Special Guest speaker Ex-
Labour MP (now RESPECT coalition) George Galloway Panel includes
Eamonn McCann - Journalist - Carmel Gates – President NIPSA -
Jamal Iweida - Belfast Islamic Centre, Anti-Racism Network speaker to
be requested
*
Subject: Fwd: St Paddy's Day Committee
Friends in Belfast, Ireland and across the world, we the St Patrick's
Day Carnival Committee invite you to view our website:
http://www.stpatricksdaybelfast.com/
We have continuously tried and failed to get Belfast City Council to
financially back an outdoor event in Belfast that captures the sense
of pride, fun and all that feels good about being Irish, as expressed
by millions of fun-loving people throughout the world. We are asking
that this website is hit by so many people across the globe that
Belfast City Councillors feel compelled to reverse their decision
before St Patrick's Day - the 17th day of March 2004.
ONE MONTH TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
http://www.stpatricksdaybelfast.com/
*
Saturday March 20th
International Day of Action Against the occupation of Iraq and
Palestine Rally - 2pm Arts College, Belfast For more information
07742 531 617 07748571269
*
ANTI-RACISM NETWORK EVENTS FOR ANTI-RACISM WEEK
The Anti-Racism Network has organised the following programme of
events for European Anti-Racism Week 20 27 March 2004. The theme
of these events is participation the joint participation by
minority ethnic communities and majority ethnic communities in an
interesting and fun programme of sporting, cultural, and artistic
events.
We are inviting people to take part in as many of the events as
possible. Why not get a team together among your work mates, family
or friends and join in the basketball, it doesn't matter if you've
never played before, it's for fun! Come along and roll your sleeves
up and take part in a fun arts workshop making tiles with a
difference anti-racist tiles! Or if music and dance is your
thing you'll enjoy the Dress for the Dance event, an evening of
traditional costume, world music and dance. We also have a film
screening in conjunction with Cineniversity: "Fear Eats the Soul" by
director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the film is about a Moroccan
guest worker in West Germany who strikes up a relationship with an
older German widow. It explores issues of racism, ageism, sexism, and
cultural identity.
Join in Anti-Racism Week By participating in any of these events and
send out a positive message for cultural diversity in our society and
against racism.
EVENT DATE TIME VENUE
Tile Making Workshop Saturday 20 March 10am -12.30pm Clanmil
House, Waring Street
Basketball Against Racism Saturday 20 March 12 o'clock to
4pm Malone College, Finaghy Road
Fear Eats the Soul Film Screening Monday 22 March 7.30pm
Belfast Exposed, King Street
Dress for the Dance Friday 26 March 9pm Conor Hall, Arts
College, York Street
To register your interest in participating in any of these events
simply email antiracism_ni@hotmail.com
SPEAK UP FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN OUR SOCIETY TAKE PART IN THE EVENTS
Anti Racist Network
Next meeting March 31 Multicultural Resource Centre 7pm
*******
Please feel free to comment on the contents of the Plough. We welcome
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The Republican Socialist Forum from Derry IRSP
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Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - A website that offers a
central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a
distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this
effort go towards the IRSM and its various projects.
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/
Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees - A new 2004 full colour glossy
calendar is available now on the RSM online shop. It celebrates the
brilliant work undertaken by the Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees
this past year throughout the six counties with full colour
photographs on each page. This calendar can be viewed online by
clicking the link below.
http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.8844526
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