The Plough Vol 03 No 23

The Plough
Vol. 3- No 23

Sunday 16th Aril 2006

E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Party






1) Easter statement of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement



2) IRSCNA Easter Statement.





3) Easter Statement from the Republican Socialist Youth Movement


4) What’s on







Easter 1916- Easter 2006.



90 Years on and the struggle not yet over







Easter statement of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement





Comrades and friends,



Let us first remember why every year we gather, as thousands do all over this island, at grave -yards and memorials. We stand here to pay homage to and remember all those who died in the struggle for national independence.



Since the first stirrings of the separatist movement in the latter part of the 18th century, many men and women have lost their lives in the pursuit of Irish freedom. In the 18th, 19th 20th and 21st century Irish republicans have died in the struggle for freedom.



We honour them all, regardless of which republican organisation they belonged to. No one holds the rights and deeds to the legacy of those who died. No one can claim that they can interpret the thoughts of the dead or claim that they and they alone are the sole heirs and followers of the republican dead.



Of course on this special occasion we as members or supporters of the Republican Socialist Movement and family representatives of dead volunteers remember in particular our own dead comrades and friends who devoted their lives to republican socialism. The reading out of their names on our roll of honour cannot do full justice to the lives they led nor ease the pain of their families. No one knows what they would have become or what they could have achieved if born in a different time and place.



Unfortunately, they grew up in a country partitioned and with its nearest neighbour claiming jurisdiction over part of this island. That neighbour, Britain, was and is an imperialist power.



Some might find the use of that word, imperialist, archaic, outdated, or old fashioned. After all, we live in a world of instant communications and where shopping in super and hypermarkets is the new religion. Celebrities and fashion dominate the main news. There is a rising standard of living for many of us in the European Union. Those who denigrate the Easter Rising and revise history to suit their current political direction, these revisionists and reformists, say “move on, look at the bigger picture. Forget 1916 it was a mistake anyway”



Well here is the bigger picture. Britain and the USA, two major imperialist powers, one junior and one senior, are bogged down in an imperialist war in Iraq. They threaten Iran, refuse to recognise the democratic mandate of Hamas in the occupied Palestine land, try to undermine the Bolivarian revolution taking place in Venezuela. They gave aid and arms to the King of Nepal to suppress a popular uprising. They torture political prisoners; force-feed hunger strikers and support corrupt dictators in Africa. They turn a blind eye to multi national companies using goons and murder squads to assassinate trade union leaders. They have blockaded Cuba for over forty years, and are destroying the very planet we live in.



That is imperialism and that is the enemy. Our enemy is not the British working class. Our enemy is not the protestant or loyalist or unionist working class. Our enemy is most certainly not other republicans. No comrades and friends, never, never, never fall into the trap that so many on the left fall into, of seeing those closest to us in outlook as being our main rivals and therefore our main enemy. Of course, we have differences with others. That is why we exist. We place our movement firmly within the working class and have a socialist analysis. We categorically state no socialism without national liberation and no national liberation without socialism.



But our differences we must be able to state, without rancour, without bitterness, in an open honest fashion and treating those, with whom we disagree, with respect. That is the republican socialist way. Those who lie, slander, spread gossip as fact, back bite, bitch, and try to turn republican against republican, socialist against socialist, are objectively the agents of Imperialism.



In recent times, there has been a sustained campaign to undermine and subvert Irish Republicanism by linking Republicanism with criminality. That same tactic was used 25 years. The deaths of ten hunger strikers put paid to that fallacy. No republican is involved in criminality, for no republican joined the struggle to make money.



However, an intelligence led media black operation has tried to link our own movement and in particular key members of our movement with criminality. This has allowed the PSNI to carry out a range of raids on republican socialists in an attempt to blacken denigrate and slander this movement. We utterly refute those allegations. Maggie Thatcher tried to foster the badge of criminality 25 years ago on us and failed. Republicans stood firm and united then. We are steadfast today against any effort to criminalise our struggle.



The current political impasse in the North confirms our original analysis of the Good Friday Agreement. Eight years on and the Good Friday Agreement has still not been implemented. All that has happened has been some tinkering with the system. Sadly a small return for years of struggle sacrifice and death. Some republicans now must bitterly regret going down that road-a road that increased sectarianism, solidified partition and legitimised British interference in Irish affairs.



Currently we now have far more direct British rule than we have ever had. As the British overlords prepare to introduce a wide range of punitive charges on us, privatise public companies and assets and reward the RIR with millions they must have a strong sense of satisfaction with a job well done. British right to rule in the North is now recognised internationally. Articles 2 and 3 are gone. The armed struggle is over, complete, gone.



And a good thing to. Let us be honest. In the current local national and international context, the continuation of armed struggle is not merely futile but is counter-productive to the aims and objectives that republicans seek. To those republicans who sincerely believe that armed struggle is the only way forward at this time we say; look at the meagre gains that the struggle from 69 to 98 achieved, when it had the full backing of many working class nationalists. Do you really think that you can achieve more especially without the support of working class nationalists?



It is time for republicans and socialists to sit down together without grandstanding and chart a new way forward for radical democratic republicanism. We don’t care who convenes such talks or where they are, or if its in a forum, a federation, a congress, a seminar, a conference, a workshop or a summer school. We are prepared to play our part in a politically non-sectarian way without pre-conditions.



For friends and comrades be in no doubt there is a growing sense of frustration especially among young people at the direction mainstream politics is going. There is still a place for those who still have beliefs, not interests, integrity not opportunism, principles not pragmatism.



We must reach out to channel that frustration into positives politics. In the language of the business world there is a market out there for republican politics but only if we adapt.



For Irish Republicanism itself is in crisis notwithstanding the electoral gains of Sinn Fein. If anyone doubts that then ask yourself how many organisations now exist claiming to be republican and how closer to the republican ideal have those organisations brought us? We say this not in bitterness but in a spirit of realism. Claiming to be the true, the real inheritors of 1916 and carrying on as if nothing has changed from say 1916, or 1969, or 1974, or 1986, or 1997 is plainly not on. It ignores not only reality but also shows some contempt for the mass of the Irish people.



If that is the case then it is unfortunate for it is the mass of the people who we need to win over to the struggle for our Republic. And comrades and friends that mass of people include those brought up to consider themselves British or Unionist.



If republicanism is to be relevant, it has to renew itself and adapt to the times that are changing. And in changed times we also change. If republicans are not involved in the everyday struggles of the people, in the struggles of the tenants, of the trade unionists of the political prisoners of the migrant population, of the low paid exploited worker, of the old, of the sick, of oppressed women and oppressed gays and don’t fight for the dignity and liberty of all, then republicans are irrelevant to our society.



We are republican socialists. We see the relevance of the class struggle and the importance of taking an internationalist perspective on issues. Daily Irish neutrality is whittled away while USA planes use Irish airspace to move weapons of war and tortured prisoners around the world. Meanwhile the EU continues to move towards a centralised bureaucracy, undemocratic in reality while on the face of it answerable to the people. It is the bureaucrats who rule and who push forward economic liberalism that will see the selling off of national and publicly owned assets to the private sector.



1916 kick started the struggle for national independence and sovereignty. In 2006 90 years on we see that independence, limited as it is, and that sovereignty, limited as it is, handed lock stock and barrel over to the bureaucrats of Brussels who act not in the interests of the people but in the interests of the multinationals or corporate world.



Was it for this that the greatest of the men and women of 1916 James Connolly gave his life?



We abhor and condemn attempts by mainstream political parties to use the names of the hunger strikers for strictly party political purposes. They did not die for political parties. They died for political status; for the right to be regarded as political combatants and not criminals. No one but no one had the right to bargain away gains made by their deaths. We call on all republicans no matter from which organisation to support the continuing struggle for political status.



It is sometimes argued that Republicans are obsessed with the North and ignore what goes on in the 26 counties. If that is so then that attitude is wrong. Republican and socialists should be actively involved in the many struggles going on. Not because it will win kudos for republicanism but because it is right.



It is right to stand with the migrant workers exploited in both fields and factories by the modern day gombeen men who pay low wages and treat migrants as no better than slaves.



It is right to expose and highlight the brutality, lies and corruption that are part of the culture of the Garda. They needed no lessons from the RUC. We need to channel the resentment of working class youth towards the Garda into a positive political direction.



It is right to campaign against partnership deals with employers that tie the vast majority of trade unionists to relatively low wage increases, while profits continue to rise.



In short, it is right to stand with the weak against the strong with the protester against the multinationals, and with all those who strive to save our planet from destruction.



In honouring the men and women of 1916, we must remember they had no mandate. Wolfe Tone had no mandate. Robert Emmet had no mandate. Liam Mellows had no mandate. Seamus Costello had no mandate when he helped set up our own organisation.



However, what they all had was a burning sense of indignation against injustice and oppression. And friends they acted on it. Their actions covered the full gambit of political action from the party meeting; the committee room.; the picket line; the handing out of leaflets; the mass meetings; the political discussion to convince ; and ultimately the taking up of arms when no other alternative was available to them.



Today friends and comrades we are building the alternative. Over the last 10 years, this movement has gone from strength to strength. Our politics have matured, our membership has increased and our commitment is as strong today as when Seamus Costello founded this movement. Republican socialism is on the up and although much work has still to be done, we walk away today firm in the belief that each and everyone of us will renew our commitment to the revolutionary struggle for the socialist republic. Down with Imperialism. Up the Republic.



(Delivered by Willie Gallagher, IRSP)



IRSCNA Easter Statement.





On Easter Monday ninety years ago, men and women of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army marched into the streets of Dublin to confront the British occupation forces. Their shared goal was the liberation of Ireland once and for all from British control. The ICA, led by Marxist trade unionist James Connolly, had the ultimate goal of creating an Irish Socialist Republic, a republic of and for the Irish working class. The great revolutionary V. I. Lenin later recognised the ICA as “the first Red Army in Europe.”

The Irish national liberation forces held out against the British for a week before they were forced to surrender. The leaders of the Rising, including Connolly, were executed but the spirit of the Rising was an inspiration for the continuation of the national liberation struggle. Although this struggle won partial independence in 1921, six northern counties remained under direct British occupation while the twenty-six southern counties formed the comprador Irish Free State. As Connolly had predicted in 1914, the partition of Ireland led to a carnival of reaction in both statelets.

Today, both statelets continue to exist, and the southern twenty-six county statelet is even more of a comprador state, administering capitalism for the benefit of the foreign and domestic ruling classes while allowing US imperialists to use Shannon Airport for their criminal war in Iraq. In the northern six county statelet, the so-called “peace process” and the Good Friday Agreement are proven farces. The republicans turned constitutional nationalists of Provisional Sinn Fein have given up on the national liberation struggle for a place at the table administering British rule, a place that’s being denied to them by the reactionary bigots of the Democratic Unionist Party who are unwilling to share power with ex-republicans. There is a great irony that ex-republicans wishing to administer British rule are being blocked from doing so by fanatic advocates of British rule.

Ninety years after the Easter Rising, the members of the Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America, continue to be inspired by the example of the Irish working class, marching into battle under the banners of the Irish Citizen Army and the Starry Plough flag to join with others, bent on ending foreign domination of Ireland and ultimately to press forward for the greater liberation that socialism means for our class, the working class.

We deplore the antics of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who holds up the Irish Defence Forces as the true inheritors of the Easter Rising tradition of resistance and has organised an IDF parade through Dublin to mark the Rising. What have these “defence forces” ever done to defend Irish sovereignty from British occupation? What have these “defence forces” ever done to defend Irish people in the North when they were murdered by the British occupation forces and their loyalist death squads? What have these “defence forces” ever done to defend Irish workers from the bosses who exploit them? What are these “defence forces” doing now to defend Irish sovereignty and neutrality while an Irish airport is used by American forces engaged in a criminal war of occupation in Iraq? Indeed, what has the Prime Minister done but bend his knee to US and British imperialism? He’s a lackey of the ruling class and the working class of Ireland should be under no illusions of whose side he’s on—or whose interests the Irish Defence Forces really defend.

The true inheritors of the Easter Rising tradition are those republicans and republican socialists who continue the fight against British occupation and those republican socialists who continue to fight for James Connolly’s dream of an Irish Socialist Republic.

As the North American section of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, the IRSCNA send our greetings of solidarity to our comrades in Ireland and restate that we remain committed to the Irish Republican Socialist Party and to the movement as a whole. We send our greetings to the republican socialist prisoners of war and we once again call for the immediate release of our comrade, Dessie O’Hare. We also commend the recent actions taken by the Irish National Liberation Army against drug dealers.

The IRSCNA is justly proud of our twenty-two years of service to the movement and we pledge ourselves once again to continuing our efforts to build recognition of and support for the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, the national liberation of Ireland, and the liberation of the Irish working class from the shackles of capitalism.
Onward to the Irish Socialist Republic!



Easter Statement from the Republican Socialist Youth Movement

The leadership of the Republican Socialist Youth Movement would like to take this opportunity to extend solidarity greetings to all political prisoners both at home and abroad. We extend greetings to our comrades in the Irish Republican Socialist Party, to former Republican Socialist Prisoners of War, to the supporters of the IRSM abroad and to the Volunteers of the Irish National Liberation Army.

We would like to highlight the case of Aidan Hulme ˆ a man whose rights the British government are prepared to infringe by refusing to grant Aidan the medical treatment he urgently requires. We also should like to see the 26 county administration fulfil their promises in regards to the case of Dessie O’Hare and to make this year his last in prison.

In Europe, there is a general offensive to criminalize the struggles of those who seek to secure a decent living for their people and the working class. It is a part of the world offensive against those who refuse to renounce their sovereignty to any foreign power. The European Union have replaced May 9th, the day on which the people of the Soviet Union mark their victory over Fascism with ‘Europe Day’.

In Czechoslovakia, there are attempts underway to outlaw the Communist Youth Union, the red star as well as Nazi insignia thereby equating the two polar opposites.

Lukashenko is referred to as “Europe’s last dictator” by the Irish media, a phrase they borrowed directly from the Washington. Now that it has emerged that those who opposed Lukashenko in Belarus had planned to cry foul of his election victory weeks before the ballots were counted the claims of Washington do not hold much merit.

In Ireland, too, we have our own domestic saboteurs. From the sadists of the Gardai Special Branch, prepared to harass and arrest Republicans at will to 26 county officials at the highest levels. Here in the 6, there are those who recently have attempted to harass members of the IRSM in Derry and Strabane as well as make the business of Teach na Failte more difficult. They will not succeed for one reason only ˆ we will not let them. Greater resilience and restraint is needed now more than ever, the IRSM must not yield an inch to these people for they are attempting to provoke a response of disproportionate action from our movement. They have their agenda and we have ours.

Today there will be a military ceremony in Dublin headed by Fianna Fail. Fianna Fail are the very organisation which practically outlawed the sale of the Easter Lilly and still to this very day prevent Republicans from selling them. Republicans rightly refuse to apply to the 26 county administration for permits to sell their lilies, their actions are based on a solid and principled Republican stance. We gather each Easter to remember our martyred patriot dead in doing such today we remember that under Fianna Fail more Republican POWs were executed in Mountjoy than when the British controlled the prison. Fianna Fail will forever be regarded as the party of De Valera, a name which in Irish history connotations of Quisling have been reserved.

An invitation to the ceremony was extended to the Love Ulster organisation.

Perhaps the 26 county ruling class has not learned from previous events, sectarian marches are not tolerated on the streets of Belfast, Derry or Dunloy in any such case, the people of Dublin should not be expected to tolerate bigots either. The events in Dublin gave a clear prediction to those who proposed that the Queen of England should visit Ireland on a state visit.

We will oppose any such visit, just as we opposed the Love Ulster march. We will remain steadfast to our principles and beliefs despite what instruments the state may utilize in opposition to us. The coming years will give the IRSM great opportunities to expand its influence into new arenas. They will also give us the chance to grow and consolidate ourselves. The opportunity must be seized.

Beir bua.
Republican Socialist Youth Movement Ard-Comhairle









WHAT’S ON


REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST YOUTH MOVEMENT RAFFLE

REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST YOUTH MOVEMENT RAFFLE



The RSYM is selling tickets for a raffle which will be held at a funraising

event in Belfast on 28 April which will include a ballad group with disco

afterwards.



The prizes are a Hunger Strike commemorative bodhran, a Portlaoise prison

craft, Portlaoise bodhran and a selection of Republican CDs.



Tickets are priced as - 2 euro, 1 pound and 3 dollars each. Available from

the usual outlets.



The funds raised from raffle ticket sales will help RSYM to acquire a

banner, pins and to cover finances for the coming year. It's important work

in establishing the IRSM's youth wing and all sales are greatly appreciated!







As part of the celebration for the 90th Anniversary of the execution of James Connolly the Communist Party of Ireland has organised a weekend of events on the 12th-13th-14th May. On Friday we have booked Liberty Hall to have a celebration of Connolly's Life & Times with visitors coming from India, Venezuela, Cuba and Britain. On Saturday will be an all day conference dealing with contemporary Ireland. On Sunday we have plannedan International wreathe laying ceremony in Arbour Hill.



For further details visit our website , www.communistpartyofireland.ie .





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It is the policy of the Plough to acknowledge information and articles from other sources.



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have re-launched their website.

It can be viewed at

www.rsym.org



An Glór / The Voice

News sheet of Belfast Republican Socialist Youth Movement

January 2007

Circulation: 400



- Brit police never acceptable

- Maghaberry Prison protest continues

- Assets Recovery Agency, a question of money

- Support the Turkish death fast

- Ard Fheis rejects any move towards INLA decommissioning

- Volunteer Davy McNutt RIP

http://www.rsym.org/pdf/magazines/anGlor1.pdf



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have produced a short video on the situation concerning Shannon airport and its continued use by American troops and the CIA. The video can be viewed at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH0WqJb95l8



Subscribe to the bi-monthly “The Starry Plough/An Camchéachta”

P.O. Box 1981, Derry, BT48 8GX, Ireland.

THE VOICE OF REPUBLICAN SOCIALISM!

E-mail plough@irsm.org



The Starry Plough

http://irsm.org/irsp/starryplough



IRSP: Pairtí Poblachtach Sóisialach na h-Éireann

http://irsm.org/



James Connolly Society

http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/



James Connolly Archive

http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly



The Republican Socialist Forum from Derry IRSP is

http://rsmforum.proboards23.com/index.cgi



Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - Website

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 it’s various projects.

http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/index.html

The Plough Vol 03 No 22

The Plough
Vol. 3- No 22

Thursday 13th April 2006

E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Party




1) 1916-A Blow For Democracy

2) IRSP Speech in Cork

3) Privatisation =Did You know?

4) Letters

a.

b.

5) From The Newspapers

a.

6)

7) What’s on



1916-A BLOW FOR DEMOCRACY


Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s opinion piece in The Observer (1) will give British readers a taste of the sort of arguments that one can find in the Irish media on the 1916 Easter Rising on its 90th anniversary. Reactions have been cautious at best and hostile at worst: that the Rising was a criminal, undemocratic, sectarian act, led by a fanatical madmen who had no 'mandate' from the people, caused untold carnage and misery in the heart of Dublin and was roundly denounced on all sides at the time. Far from being celebrated such an event should be denounced.

For Wheatcroft, the Easter Rising was “a bloody rebellion against parliamentary democracy” because the rebellion occurred in a democratic state and the insurgents had not electoral mandate. The rebels thought it was an irrelevance as the Act of Union had been contrived without a democratic mandate and the British presence in Ireland persisted without a democratic mandate. (2) Leaving aside how far democracy existed under the Union, a clear majority had voted for the Irish Parliamentary Party in the previous election but it was then obvious that the democratically endorsed Home Rule Bill of 1914 was going to be frustrated by Loyalist, British army and Tory opposition. What was the importation of arms to Larne and the Curragh mutiny, aided and abetted by the Tory opposition, if not an undermining of democracy? More generally, what characterises critics of the 1916 Rising is their inability to understand the colonial nature of the relationship between Britain and Ireland. (3) British rule in Ireland was entirely a product of conquest, and the threat of superior force by the imperial power was the context in which all Irish political discourse was maintained. This was vividly illustrated only three years later when the democratic will of the first Dail was met by state terrorism.

Some of the 1916 critics will deny that Ireland was then a colony or that the Rising can be understood through the prism of anti colonialism, and argue that it was an Eastern Europe or Balkan ethno national type problem. As to the inappropriateness of an anti-colonial struggle between 1916 and 1923, Nicholas Mansergh, a leading Irish and commonwealth historian stated in 1965:

"The contribution of Ireland was successively to weaken the will and undermine belief in Empire. Beyond a certain point, it was not worth it. Stanley Baldwin summed it up when he said there must not be another Ireland in India". (4)

The revolutionary assertion of an indigenous national sovereignty in the context of the imperial world of the period gave 1916 and its Proclamation global significance. Subjugated peoples everywhere found inspiration in the Easter Rising; Gandhi and Ho Chi Minh for example. “Its imaginative power hastened the end of the imperial and colonial ages and, critically, its wider context as both cultural and political revolution created a template that changed the world.”(5) The Easter Rising was globally recognised as a blow for democracy, and no such thing can be said of any ‘deeply divided’ societies ethno national conflicts.



Critics say that celebrating the Rising would be to ‘glorify violence’ and that the insurgents had suspect democratic credentials as the majority of voters supported the Home Rule party. It is unquestionable that violence has been central to the emergence of modern Ireland, but the same could be said of most of the countries that have emerged since the French Revolution. It is true that the insurgents of 1916 did not seek an electoral mandate before the Rising, but neither did the French revolutionaries in 1789, 1830, 1848 or 1871. Neither did Garibaldi or Algerian and Vietnamese revolutionaries. It was the Tories and the Unionists who first abandoned constitutional procedures and introduced the gun in Irish politics. It was Bonar Law who stated that

“there are things stronger than parliamentary majorities”. Had this not happened, it is doubtful whether the Rising would have taken place. Instead of focussing on the suspect democratic credentials of the insurgents, it is reasonable to concentrate on the deliberate denial of democratic principles by Tories and Unionists. If critics are so concerned about commemorations that lead to unnecessary violence, they should begin by opposing the carnival of militarism and glorification of British terrorism that is Remembrance Sunday. In a typical ten minutes on the Western Front, the numbers of people slaughtered in the interests of British imperialism was greater than the total numbers who died during the Rising. While the Rising was very much a reaction against the Great War and militarism, the Poppy is a celebration of it



Other critics have argued that the Rising was unnecessary, constitutional nationalists could have achieved just as much without any recourse to insurrection as Home Rule was inevitable given that a Home Rule Bill was enacted on 18 September 1914 (implementation delayed until after the war) and that the Empire was being dismantled. In fact the modest measure of Home Rule enacted by the House of Commons was rendered meaningless by the combination of armed revolt by the Ulster Unionists, the mutiny against Parliament by the British Army, and rejection of the decision of the elected chamber by the unelected House of Lords and by the British Conservative and Unionist party. So, after nearly three decades of debate and three Home Rule Bills, and even with Home Rule formally on the Statute Book, it was still not going to come into force.



More importantly, the 1916 rebels did not act to hasten Home Rule. Home Rule and the concept of an Irish Republic were not simply totally different things, but they were actually diametrically opposed to each other. Home Rule would have granted Ireland a 'caretaker' parliament in Dublin, but the Proclamation set its sights on the higher goal of unimpeded Irish sovereignty—the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies. A Home Rule parliament was simply a devolutionary device to corral the growing demands for Irish democracy into a legislature whose ultimate control lay under the Crown and the Commons. If the notion of an Irish Republic was freehold, then Home Rule would give the sovereign Irish people no more than mere tenancy status in their own country. (6) As to the dismantlement of the Empire, the brutal suppression of independence movements in India, Cyprus, the then Rhodesia - the list goes on - hardly indicates that there was a recognition of the need for the inevitable dismantling of the British Empire. The Rising brought about Irish independence much earlier than would have occurred otherwise, had it not been for the Rising, Ireland would not have become independent until the Second World War –if then.



It is sometimes alleged that the Rising was a mystical ‘blood sacrifice’. As the noted historian Eoin Neeson recently pointed, the Rising was never intended to be a “blood sacrifice”, such an idea has been “one of the most effective and enduring examples of black propaganda this country has been subjected to in modern times.” At the time of the rebellion, Germany was expected to win the European war. Certainly there was not an expectation then that Germany would be defeated. The general consensus was that the war would be followed by a peace conference at which, the insurrectionists hoped, Ireland would be represented, but only if there had been a signal of a determination to achieve independence. The 1916 leaders hoped the volunteers would hold out for three days on Easter Week, thus satisfying the requirement that would enable a victorious Germany to fufill its promise to give Ireland a hearing at the post-war peace conference as an independent belligerent nation; hence the reference in the Proclamation to the ‘gallant allies in Europe’. (7)



For Wheatcroft, the Easter Rising was “the forerunner” of Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome and Hitler’s 1923 Munich putsch. “Patrick Pearse's exalted (or insane) words about the tired old earth that needed to be enriched by the spilling of much blood …was the very language of Blut und Boden (blood and soil) that the National Socialists would soon use.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

"The tree of liberty must continually be watered with the blood of martyrs and the blood of tyrants".

This archetypal Pearseian phrase was written by Thomas Jefferson. So are we to take it that the American war of independence was a forerunner of fascism? Bare in mind that the most strident critics of the so-called 1916 'bloodshed' are those who enthusiastically take part on the militaristic ceremonies of Empire at the Somme or on 'Poppy day' or try to rehabilitate the 'peaceful' Redmondism -recruiting sergeant for the Empire's war against Germany and Turkey- that lead thousands to their deaths. Those who think that 1916 was a mistake should start promoting the alternative: the imperialist war-monger John Redmond who was prepared to carry a ‘blood sacrifice’ of 50 000 Irish people in exchange for an unfulfilled promise of a measure of local government!



According to Wheatcroft “for Ireland to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the 1916 rebellion is to betray democracy.” “In 1916, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a democracy with limited representative government and a rule of law.” His assertion of the Rising not being a democratic event should be put in a wider context; while the 1916 Proclamation at least accepted ‘the suffrages of all her men and women’, Westminster was "still refusing to concede women the vote on the basis that to do so would be to give in to terrorism" and all Irish MPs were against women's suffrage around the time of the Rising!



It appears that the Rebels may have had a better grasp of the fundamentals of democracy than their critics give them credit for. While it was not perfect, the Proclamation remained an important step forward in women's rights even before the self-proclaimed cradle of modern democracy at Westminster was able to contemplate the step. At a recent conference, President Mary McAleese argued that the Rising was not sectarian, thus countering some revisionist claims that republicans intended to set up a Catholic-dominated state and persecute their Protestant neighbours. At the same event, Owen McGee threw some further light on the matter by explaining how the Catholic nationalist followers of political parties, such as Redmond's, were vigorously opposed to the IRB on the assumption that it was anti-Catholic and that it would attempt a separation of Church and State such as was being conducted in republican France. These Irish Parliamentary Party supporters and the like were not too concerned whether their state gained Home Rule under a monarch or not as long as its Catholic character remained intact. It would seem from this that Protestant unionists had less to fear from republican revolutionaries than Catholic constitutional nationalists. The 1916 Proclamation set out to guarantee religious tolerance and liberty for all the nation's citizens. (8) While fascist regimes were turning away from democracy, the Easter Rising was moving towards it.

Given that the official ideology of the southern regime is ‘peace and reconciliation’, one could expect that Liz McManus, the Labour party Dáil member on the cross-party committee organising the ceremony, would insist that all participants should be remembered.

"I put forward the view that we should commemorate the civilians who died and people who were doing their duty in the police and the British army as well," she said. In a sign of political ‘reconciliation’ and revisionism, the Irish government is planning a second state ceremony in July to remember those who perished on the Somme in 1916, fighting alongside the British. (9)

The two, however, are incompatible. While the insurgents were fighting for democracy and freedom, those fighting at the Somme were doing it for King and Country. In other words they were fighting for the British Empire, the 300-year project of world conquest, colonisation, ethnic cleansing and genocide. This part of the Irish war effort was successful, as the British Empire gained vast territories in Africa and the Middle East from the Great War, and went on to pile horror upon atrocity right up to Palestine and Iraq today. Far from commemorating the ‘Great War’ as a positive event, it should be acknowledged as a ‘Crime Against Europe’ and a ‘War Upon the German Nation’, in the tradition of Irish foreign policy pioneered by Casement and Connolly. The likes of Connolly thought that a Rising was justified because Britain had embarked in a world war and suspended democracy.

If the establishment really believes commemorations of World War dead might be a potential common meeting ground for unionist and nationalist, and if we are to celebrate a common heritage, then it should campaign for monuments to IRA men like Tom Barry and Dan Breen to be erected in the UK. These men after all were British up to 1922 according to history and are therefore as clearly a part of Britain's past as they are of Ireland. It will argue that here will be opposition to this because of unionist sensibilities and among people who had had relations in the security forces. If Unionists and the relatives of people killed fighting Irish independence have a veto in Britain, why should republicans and the relatives of those who died in the Independence Wars not have the same privilege in Ireland? (10) By confusing the insurgents with those who fought them, those who died in Dublin and those who died at the Somme; the original intent of the 1916 Rising becomes totally deformed and lost.

Liam O RUAIRC

NOTES



(1) The Evil Legacy of the Easter Rising, The Observer, Sunday 9 April 2006

(2) Vincent Brown, The 1916 Easter Rising was a success, Village 16 February 2006

(3) On that topic, the actor Samuel L. Jackson was some time ago interviewed by Kate Thornton on ITV about working with Colin Farrell in S.W.A.T. when the following conversation took place:

Kate: What's it like working with Colin, 'cos he is just so hot in the U.K. right now.

Samuel: He's pretty hot in the U.S. too

Kate: Yea! but he's one of our own!

Samuel: Isn't he from Ireland?

Kate: Yeah, but we claim him 'cos Ireland is beside us.

Samuel: You see that's your problem right there. You British keep claiming people that don't belong to you. We had that problem in America too - it was called slavery.

(Last Post: Colin Farrell: Not British, Sunday Business Post, 14 December 2003)



(4) Martin Mansergh, Letter to Village, 15 October 2005

(5) Tom McGurk. The Easter Rising: The shots that changed the world forever, Sunday Business Post, 12 March 2006

(6) Tom McGurk, ibid

(7) Eoin Neeson, Letter to the Irish Times, 6 February 2006

(8) Nick Foley, 1916 Versus Whig History, Irish Political Review, February 2006

(9) Owen Bowcott, Dublin still split on Easter Rising, The Guardian, 10 April 2006

(10) Nick Foley, ibid













IRSP Speech in Cork



(The following speech was delivered to a packed meeting in Cork by Ard-Comhairle member Gerry Ruddy on republicanism today.)

Friends and Comrades, I would like to outline some of the thinking that that we have in relation to the Ireland of the day. Is this the republic that the men and women of 90 years ago set out to achieve when they took up armies against what was then the greatest imperialist power ever in the world? Let us remember what the struggle to build a Republic was about.

Quote, from the Current president of Ireland Mary Mc Aleese



“ It’s fundamental idea was freedom or in the words of the proclamation, ‘the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland’”



-“The kind of Ireland the heroes of the Rising aspired to was based on an inclusivity that famously would cherish ‘all the children of the nation equally oblivious of the differences which have divided a minority from the majority in the past ’”



-“There is a tendency for powerful and pitiless elites to dismiss with damning labels those who oppose them.”



Attacking those who tried Irish nationalism as somehow narrow, sectarian and introverted, she said when talking about the participants of the Rising,



“Others of them were active participants in the international working class movements of their day. Whatever you might think of those involvements they were universalist and global rather than constricted and blinkered”



That’s the tradition from 1916 that our movement and I identify with, the universalist and global.



Of course there is always a gap between the dreams and the reality. The Ireland of today is very different from 90 years ago. The abject poverty that then existed in the main cities of Ireland and that drove the workers of Dublin into the great industrial struggle of 1914 no longer exists. Well, not in Ireland, but certainly, it exists in the rest of the World. We have now what is called relative poverty. Relative poverty by the way means that the rich don’t pay tax and the gap between rich and poor has been getting wider.



Relative poverty needs to be seen in the growth of the economy and the improvement in living standards and health of the nation. Given the wealth that exists, there is no need for anyone to go hungry, live on the streets or even have unfulfilled ambitions to develop their talents to the maximum. And yet in both states in Ireland nearly a quarter of the population have literacy and numeracy difficulties and over a quarter of a million children live in poverty whether we call that real of relative it is still by today’s standards poverty. There is also the growth of the low wage economy particularly in the service industries and the exploitation of migrant workers.



Perhaps the men and women of 1916 would look at Ireland today and say yes that is what we fought for. Perhaps and perhaps not. Certainly James Connolly would have raised his powerful voice against the injustice that exists not merely in the field of industrial relations, not only against the corruption in planning by local politicians, the control of the media by a few rich press barons who try to impose their view of the world on us all. Indeed Connolly was quick in his day to attack the Irish Independent as the voice of the capitalist class. Nothing has changed there.

Connolly would also have tackled the big issues including of course what he called the carnival of reaction, partition.



When the five advisors to the man responsible for the health service, Prof Brendan Drumm, earn a minimum of 163,000 Euros and have an overtime rate of 1500 Euros a day then I know I’m not in the republic that James Connolly died for. People in both states, when in hospital have to almost fight to hold on to their trolleys if they want to go to the toilet. Trolleys mind you, not beds, for there are not enough beds in the health service. And it is unlikely that Mary Harney or her British equivalent in the North will deliver what is an abundantly clear-more bed She seems more intent on providing facilities for private hospitals to operate within the grounds of the public ones. And it is clear that new Labour is intent on continuing to privatise any remaining public utilities.



In Buncrana, County Donegal former workers of Clubman Omega have picketed the company over its failure to implement a Labour Court recommendation regarding redundancies. Needless to say, the workers lost their jobs because the company moved its operations to Lithuania for lower labour costs. 109 jobs have gone in the elastics plant in Limerick. Workers from Poland doing subcontracting work at Moneypoint ESB Power station were paid one third of the legal limit. Although entitled to 18.97 Euros they were in fact paid 5.20 euros.



In addition, of course we have had the scandal of Gama Construction not paying their Turkish workers that which they were entitled to. This information only emerged after the excellent work carried out by Deputy Joe Higgins of the Socialist party.



Policing

It appears also that the Garda have a lot to answer for. Apart from the serious allegation, that Garda stations regularly bug the conversations between solicitors and their clients, (something that the PSNI proudly boasts of), it is clear that the culture inside the Garda is wrong. It seems there is nothing wrong with casual brutality to prisoners, nor to also double jobbing as landlords and using intimidatory tactics against tenants, and to planting false evidence against people. Of course, republicans have always known this but now it is gradually seeping into the consciousness of the public. Part of the reason behind the Dublin riots over the Orange Victims march in Dublin was the justifiable hatred of working class Dublin youth for the Garda force, which regularly harasses and intimates them. Do not forget at least one youth has died in mysterious circumstances while in Garda custody.



The setting up of tribunals including the Morris tribunal seem to have uncovered a wide net of corruption that embraces many of the great and good in this society.



Two of the biggest issues facing politicians in the six-counties have to be the peace process and the political process. They are two separate processes.



On the peace processes, we in the IRSP have clearly and unequivocally embraced that process. We have worked extremely hard to open up channels of communications with progressive sections of the protestant working class and entered into serious dialogue with them. We have done our best to act in such a manner that no working class area feels under any threaten from our form of republicanism. We have acted as a moderating influence on issues such as parades and have encouraged ex-combatants to act in a positive way within nationalist communities against the many negative influences that arise there. The INLA have assured us that they are not a policing force to curb anti-social behaviour and that their primary purpose at this time is to act if absolutely necessary in defence of working class areas.



On the political process, well that is an entirely different matter from the peace process. What you have now in that political process is cynical, cheap bargaining for the pursuit of an illusory power in Stormont. What you see is not what you get for there is backdoor negotiations taking place all the time. We said from 1994 that this political process was a trap for republicans. Perhaps I could quote some words written by Gino Gallagher,



"Despite the euphoria surrounding the IRA ceasefire many nationalists are already beginning to express doubts. At first if someone was to speak out against what has been termed the 'peace process’, you were immediately viewed as being politically short-sighted or a war- monger. The British response to the IRA ceasefire, in their typically arrogant attitude was to argue and delay over the words 'complete' and 'permanent;' brand Republican prisoners as criminals; and again re-iterate that there will be no constitutional change to this sectarian statelet.

Amidst media speculation, nods and winks and hints about secret deals, the advocates of the laying down of arms have gained no binding agreement concerning political change. British soldiers will wear berets instead of helmets and this is portrayed as a step in the right direction. In reality, it amounts to nothing but a ridiculous gesture. Proposed U.S. investment is portrayed in some kind of charitable fashion. If capitalists invest millions in Ireland, you can be certain that the fat cats expect to reap millions in return. Partition and the Unionist veto remain firmly in place; publicly ratified by both London and Dublin.

The leadership of the IRA has ordered a halt. Sinn Fein has aligned itself with the constitutional reformists of the SDLP and the Dublin government in an unarmed strategy. The Republican Movement appear to have put their faith in a diplomatic war against Britain in the hope that the British Government will react positively. This course can only lead into a political cul -de- sac-. This is undoubtedly a critical period in this campaign and all concerned must speak out, must come together and pool their thoughts in order to ensure that an alternative strategy is advanced. A real peace, a lasting peace cannot be achieved until the British are confronted and forced to withdraw from Ireland. Gino Gallagher Andersonstown.11th September 1994. "



We said in 1998 that the Good Friday Agreement was a failed flawed document and that if produced the good in five years we would hold up our hands and say, we were wrong. Well friends we were right. Eight years on and what have we got.



A Stormont Executive that fell four times, Articles 2/3 gone, the Northern State enshrined in an international treaty thereby legitimising the partition of Ireland, a massive increase in sectarianism between Catholics and Protestants, 28 new peace walls build since the GRA, the prospect of Ian Paisley as a the First Minister as right wing unionism is strengthened. 4 Major acts of decommissioning by republicans and British sovereignty in the six counties strengthen as well as the removal of political status for Irish Republicans and the bargaining away of the gains won by the sacrifices of 7 IRA prisoners and 3 INLA prisoners. Nobody but nobody and I do not care what mandate they had, had the right to negotiate away political status. Shame on those who did. The hunger strikers died for the right to be recognised as political prisoners and rejected the then criminalisation policy.



Today guess what? In the absence of armed struggle, Republicanism is being criminalised even more successfully than 25 years ago. This criminalisation policy by both the Brits and the Fianna Fail /PD coalition is designed to frighten off the middle class voters who may have been attracted by the surface radicalism of Sinn Fein. But it is also because the establishment and the intelligence services recognise the revolutionary core at the heart of republicanism.



I utterly reject the argument from those on the so-called left that republicanism is either reactionary or past its sell by date. Let me put to you a very simple proposition that I as both a Marxist and republican adhere to. The duty of any revolutionary is to support anti-imperialist forces in their struggle for national self-determination. That is not an endorsement of the politics of the anti-imperialists but recognition that without national liberation there can be no socialism. Therefore, friends when you meet so-called revolutionaries today ask them a simple question.

“Do you support the armed resistance to the Imperialist occupation of Iraq? “

If the answer is either no or equivocal then you know you are not talking to serious revolutionaries. You do not even have to ask them their position on the fundamental contradiction in Ireland. It is equivocal! Possibly verbal support for the anti-imperialist struggle but nothing practical and certainly these same people would not be seen dead on a picket line or protest in support of Irish political prisoners.



Britain and the USA, two major imperialist powers, one junior and one senior, are bogged down in an imperialist war in Iraq. They threaten Iran, refuse to recognise the democratic mandate of Hamas in the occupied Palestine land, try to undermine the Bolivarian revolution-taking place in Venezuela. They gave aid and arms to the King of Nepal to suppress a popular uprising. They torture political prisoners; force-feed hunger strikers and support corrupt dictators in Africa. They turn a blind eye to multi national companies using goons and murder squads to assassinate trade union leaders. They have blockaded Cuba for over forty years, and are destroying the very planet we live in. And they dare to lecture Irish republicans about violence!



That is imperialism and that is the enemy. Our enemy is not the British working class. Our enemy is not the protestant or loyalist or unionist working class. Our enemy is most certainly not other republicans. No comrades and friends, never, never, never fall into the trap that so many on the left fall into, of seeing those closest to us in outlook as being our main rivals and therefore our main enemy. Of course, we have differences with others. That is why we exist. We place our movement firmly within the working class and have a socialist analysis. We categorically state no socialism without national liberation and no national liberation without socialism.



But we recognise that others have a different perspective. Our job is to persuade by rational argument, analysis and by our actions on the ground that our view and vision are the way forward for the working class. For example take the crucial issue of policing. Our view is straight forward. North and South the police exist to defend the status quo and defend the rights of property over the rights of individuals or the majority.



Others may well take a different view. But then it is no good complaining about political policing. What do people expect when the RUC and the Special branch were absorbed into the nearly revamped PSNI. Getting what was in effect a sop like the Bloody Sunday enquiry was a double-edged sword. It is clear that the brits are not and never were serious about genuine reform. Look at the Finucane case. The collusion reaches all the way to the top and the blood of Pat Finucane and of hundreds of Nationalists and Catholics rests not only on the loyalist and Brit agents who carried out the actual deeds but responsibility rests firmly with the British government and past and present Prime Ministers. Of course, there is political policing. Why else are they there?





As regards other republicans, may I quote from the 2006 Easter statement of the republican Socialist movement?



“In the current local national and international context, the continuation of armed struggle is not merely futile but is counter-productive to the aims and objectives that republicans seek. To those republicans who sincerely believe that armed struggle is the only way forward at this time we say; look at the meagre gains that the struggle from 69 to 98 achieved, when it had the full backing of many working class nationalists. Do you really think that you can achieve more especially without the support of working class nationalists?



It is time for republicans and socialists to sit down together without grandstanding and chart a new way forward for radical democratic republicanism. We don’t care who convenes such talks or where they are, or if its in a forum, a federation, a congress, a seminar, a conference, a workshop or a summer school. We are prepared to play our part in a politically non-sectarian way without pre-conditions.





In any such talks based on our own experiences we will argue that there is nothing to be gained at this moment in time in trying to build an Anti-Good Friday bloc of republicans. The IRSP have always been open to co-operation. It is inherent in our broad Front policy. We were happy to facilitate other republicans in Portlaosie Gaol. We have supported prisoner protests. However, it is clear that republican unity-whatever that means is not on the agenda.



The IRSP have made its views about the Good Friday Agreement clear. However, we are now 8 years on and we have to look at what is happening today. Those who become obsessed with the past repeat the mistakes of the past. There are huge issues affecting the working class that need to be tackled now and if republicans are not in the forefront of the class struggles then Irish republicanism will become an irrelevance to the needs of the Irish working class because by ignoring the class it will ignore that which gives it its revolutionary potential.



We in the republican socialist tradition do not intent to see that happen. Irish republicanism has a proud revolutionary tradition and we do not intent to see that disappear. However, republicanism has to adapt to the prevailing conditions of today and renew itself with each generation. Socialism is the way forward for republicanism. Without a class analysis, without a clear class perspective, Irish Republicanism will succumb to the banishments of nationalism and eventually accommodate with Imperialism a la Fianna Fail, Clann Na Poblachta, and Sinn Fein.



The IRSP are the only republicans with a clear class analysis of the Irish situation. We are firmly working class believed that neither the national nor the class question can be divorced from each other.



No other republican group shares our analysis. Therefore, while we can co-operate in short term issues in the long term the only course open to us to build our own internal party strength to ensure that there exists a revolutionary core capable of advancing the struggle.



We believe we are the most advanced politically of the republican groups. We are the most stable; with an established leadership, a stable base and a membership that is the most class conscious in Ireland. Sure, we have made mistakes and we will make some more. However, if there are people out there who think that the road to the republic is by taking up the gun talk to us before making that choice. Our movement has been there. Done that!



Now is the time for the head to rule the heart. The only road forward is the political road. Only by engaging in the everyday struggles of the working class can we make revolutionary republicanism relevant to the class. Come join with us in the only struggle that will make a difference.



Privatisation facts

Did you know that…

· Independent sector treatment centres (ISTC) receive 11% more than NHS hospitals for the same operation.

· ISTCs have virtually "risk free" contracts, with a guaranteed income for at least 5 years, whether or not they carry out the operations

· The government has forced local Primary Care Trusts to place at least 15 per cent of hospital procedures with ISTCs, even if there is sufficient (and cheaper) NHS capacity, and patients prefer the NHS.

· 100 new hospitals were promised under the 2000 NHS Plan, almost all using Private Finance Initiative.

· At the end of a PFI contract, usually 25 years, the hospital belongs to the PFI contractors, not the NHS. As someone pointed out at the SOS NHS conference, it is like paying your mortgage off over 25 years and then the building society repossesses your house.

· The government has forced GPs to include a private provider in the four "choices" patients are offered when they need a hospital referral. This is all part of the patient-led NHS.

· The latest PFI hospital to be approved, at Barts and the London, will cost the trust £45 million a year, and it will open with three floors empty because they will be too expensive to run!

(From Workers Power e-news 4th April 2006)





WHAT’S ON


REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST YOUTH MOVEMENT RAFFLE


The RSYM is selling tickets for a raffle which will be held at a funraising

event in Belfast on 28 April which will include a ballad group with disco

afterwards.



The prizes are a Hunger Strike commemorative bodhran, a Portlaoise prison

craft, Portlaoise bodhran and a selection of Republican CDs.



Tickets are priced as - 2 euro, 1 pound and 3 dollars each. Available from

the usual outlets.



The funds raised from raffle ticket sales will help RSYM to acquire a

banner, pins and to cover finances for the coming year. It's important work

in establishing the IRSM's youth wing and all sales are greatly appreciated!







As part of the celebration for the 90th Anniversary of the execution of James Connolly the Communist Party of Ireland has organised a weekend of events on the 12th-13th-14th May. On Friday we have booked Liberty Hall to have a celebration of Connolly's Life & Times with visitors coming from India, Venezuela, Cuba and Britain. On Saturday will be an all day conference dealing with contemporary Ireland. On Sunday we have plannedan International wreathe laying ceremony in Arbour Hill.



For further details visit our website , www.communistpartyofireland.ie .





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It is the policy of the Plough to acknowledge information and articles from other sources.



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have re-launched their website.

It can be viewed at

www.rsym.org



An Glór / The Voice

News sheet of Belfast Republican Socialist Youth Movement

January 2007

Circulation: 400



- Brit police never acceptable

- Maghaberry Prison protest continues

- Assets Recovery Agency, a question of money

- Support the Turkish death fast

- Ard Fheis rejects any move towards INLA decommissioning

- Volunteer Davy McNutt RIP

http://www.rsym.org/pdf/magazines/anGlor1.pdf



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have produced a short video on the situation concerning Shannon airport and its continued use by American troops and the CIA. The video can be viewed at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH0WqJb95l8



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Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - Website

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 it’s various projects.

http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/index.html