Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony
Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony
Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony
RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony
Waiting for SIPO Anthony Public Inquiry >>
Promoting Human Rights in IrelandHuman Rights in Ireland >>
The Ginger Rogers Theory of Information Wed Dec 25, 2024 18:00 | Sallust In the Daily Sceptic, Sallust draws our attention to the 'gynogenic climate change' hypothesis: that is is women who are principally to blame for global warming.
The post The Ginger Rogers Theory of Information appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Some Laws Relating to Speech Are Surprisingly Uplifting Wed Dec 25, 2024 16:00 | James Alexander Politics professor James Alexander has compiled a compendium of amusing laws ? Murphy's Law, Parkinson's Law and Cole's Law (thinly sliced cabbage) ? to give you a break from making polite conversation with your relatives.
The post Some Laws Relating to Speech Are Surprisingly Uplifting appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Warm Keir Starmer Just Looked Out? Wed Dec 25, 2024 11:00 | Henry Goodall 'Warm King Starmer just looked out, On the feast of Reeves, then...' Read Henry Goodall's version of 'Good King Winceslas' updated for Starmer's Britain, exclusive to the Daily Sceptic.
The post Warm Keir Starmer Just Looked Out… appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Declined: Chapter One Wed Dec 25, 2024 09:00 | M. Zermansky Introducing Declined: a dystopian satire about the emergence of a social credit system in the U.K. that's going to be published in serial?form?in?the Daily Sceptic. Read episode one here.
The post Declined: Chapter One appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
The Lobbyists Behind the Climate and Nature Bill Wed Dec 25, 2024 07:00 | Charlotte Gill The Climate and Nature Bill threatens to decimate the UK economy by turbo-charging Net Zero. But where did it come from? Charlotte Gill dives in and finds a glut of Left-wing activists working furiously behind the scenes.
The post The Lobbyists Behind the Climate and Nature Bill appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?113 Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:42 | en
Pentagon could create a second Kurdish state Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:31 | en
How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en
Statement by President Bashar al-Assad on the Circumstances Leading to his Depar... Mon Dec 16, 2024 13:26 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en Voltaire Network >>
|
SHAME OF THE IRISH LEFT
national |
rights, freedoms and repression |
opinion/analysis
Sunday July 22, 2012 22:55 by Diarmuid Breatnach - Personal Capacity
Irish Left ignores plight of Irish political prisoners
Irish Republicans have been on dirty protest in Maghaberry for two years -- the kind of situation that led to ten dying on hunger strikes in 1981. Also, opponents of the normalisation of the British occupation of Ireland are being framed and convicted, locked up without charge or being tried for actions back in the 1980s. Meanwhile, the organised Irish Left is averting its head. In what other country would this happen?
Supporters of Free Marian Price Campaign, Dublin Committee, publicizing their cause to the Campaign Against Household & Water Charges march, 18th July. Most of the Republican prisoners in Maghaberry jail have now been on dirty protest for two years. When they cannot throw their faeces out the window, they spread them on their cell walls. Urine goes out the window or under the door. These are terrible conditions in which to live anywhere but particularly awful when in confinement.
It was after a few years of this kind of life that the prisoners in the H-Blocks resorted to the hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981, the latter resulting in the deaths of ten Republicans (from two different organisations) and probably permanent damage to a number of others.
In those years, the prisoners were demanding political status and, in all but name, they won it after those ten deaths, until it was given up as part of the Good Friday Agreement. Although the prisoners in Maghaberry now also seek that status, it is essentially the degrading practice of strip-searching that is at issue. The prison authorities refuse to implement an agreement that was reached many months ago to introduce the BOSS chair which gives an x-ray picture without prison officers needing to strip prisoners and probe and peer into their anuses.
Every time they leave or return to the block, Rowe House, they are subjected to this degrading treatment. Many resist. Colin Duffy, held for years before he was found not guilty January this year, arrived in court one morning in his underpants. Earlier in Maghaberry he had been handcuffed to a radiator and his trousers cut off him by prison screws with scissors. Arriving with bruises in court from Maghaberry is nothing unusual but teeth have been broken, muscles wrenched ....
Marian Price, though ill, has been interned without trial now for two years and Martin Corey for longer. Gerry McGeough was sentenced to prison last year for an alleged attack on a UDR officer in 1981. Gary McAdam is held, denied bail, for an alleged offence in 1986. Brian Shivers, suffering from cystic fibrosis and with about three years to live, was convicted on essentially the same evidence which failed to convict Colin Duffy and was sentenced to life (or death, realistically) in prison.
These people belong to a variety of organisations and none. All are Irish Republicans. All have declared themselves against some aspect of the process of normalisation of the colonial occupation of the Six Counties. None are receiving the solidarity or support of the Irish Left.
The Socialist Workers’ Party, the Socialist Party and the Workers’ Solidarity Movement are, certainly in terms of numbers of supporters, the main revolutionary socialist organisations of the non-Republican Left in Ireland.
As I stood on the pavement with others of the Free Marian Price campaign in Dublin on Wednesday evening, holding up to those on the march against the Household and Water Charges a placard demanding her freedom, the eyes of some people I know on the Irish Left slid past mine without acknowledging me. Some others greeted me somewhat half-heartedly.
What is wrong with the Left in Ireland? Each of the organisations I named above, two of them Trotskyist and one Anarchist, regularly hold up the Irish icons of James Connolly and Jim Larkin. Do they really think that either Jim would walk away from this issue? Do they believe that they would for one minute hesitate about declaring their solidarity with the prisoners?
The six or seven Special Branch men knew whom to harass – they went straight for the Marian Price campaigners and, quoting the Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act, demanded their names and addresses, even following them right up to Molesworth Street at the back of the march and accosting one of them there for the second time. The Republicans – and those who support Republican prisoners – habitually experience a level of harassment in the Twenty-Six Counties that no socialist organisation in the state can even approximate. Were they to suffer it, loud would be their cries – and rightly so. Is it just OK because it’s happening to others?
In what other country in the world would one find people laying claim to any kind of revolutionary socialist ideology turning their backs on their compatriots who are fighting the struggle for national liberation? Well, yes, maybe in the Spanish state – the Trotskyists and Communists of Izquierda Unida, they do indeed turn their back on the Basque and Catalan prisoners. Oh yes, and in France, the major Trotskyite groups and the French Communist Party ignore the plight of those prisoners too. And some Turkish communist and socialist organisations do not support the Kurds.
One can accuse those parties of unionism. They wish to capture the whole state for the working class, they declare. It seems nations declaring independence of the state would be inconvenient and is not a thing to be welcomed. Clearly those socialists are wrong – but at least they have a logical reason! What is the reason of the Irish Left, which has no other nations within the state to consider and which is without unionist ambition, not even within Ireland? Could it just be embarrassment, the wish to keep their hands clean, not to touch the national struggle? People did kill and get killed in that, you know. Yes, it wasn’t very nice, was it?
And these are the organisations who offer themselves as a leadership for the Irish working class, to bring us to successful revolution, the overthrow of the state and its repressive forces!
End
|
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (19 of 19)
Jump To Comment: 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1..but 'republican' assassination squads will only create more Marian Prices.
I don't buy into the martyrological road to a healthier society.
As I said, it rings hollow and simplistic.
Free Marian Price!
http://icl-fi.org/english/wh/219/MarianPrice.html
..and you monopolise 'republican' and 'nationalist' to equate with reactionary random acts of violence that continue to justify to many nationalists and republicans on both sides of the imperial partition the very armed presence you claim to deplore. None of us want our kids and grandkids bodies wrapped in your green flags. Nor do we want our cousins over the water wrapping theirs while the real culprits laugh and thank YOU for making their divisions flourish.
Knowingly or not, you serve only the interests of MI6 and the securicrat budget-hunters..
You show all the insight of the poor uneducated gobshite 'useful idiots' that have filled the trenches and graves of imperialism for centuries.
Wave the right butcher's apron and they pull triggers to order.
I won't impugn your motives(yet)but suggest you consider my point before replying.
The following article was published in Workers Hammer in Spring 2009:
"British troops out of Northern Ireland now! -- Defend Irish Republicans against state repression!"
http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/935/ireland.html
It gives details of how the Socialist Party and SWP both supported the pro-imperialist, anti-Republican rallies on 11 March 2009, shortly after the Real IRA attack on the Massereene British Army base.
Excerpt:
...
Socialist Party: Union Jack “socialists”
While the Taaffeite Socialist Party in England was up to its neck in a reactionary crusade for “British jobs for British workers”, its sister group the Socialist Party in Northern Ireland played an equally reactionary role, lining up behind British imperialism and the Orange state in whipping up a chauvinist frenzy against the “terrorism” of the Irish nationalists. On 11 March the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions called a pro-imperialist, anti-“terrorism” rally in which Loyalists, clergy and trade union bureaucrats united in condemning the Republican attacks on the army and PSNI. The Socialist Party was highly visible and distributed a leaflet titled “No More Killings!” (dated 11 March), which said: “The killings by the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA of two soldiers and a policeman should be roundly condemned by every section of the working class movement”, adding that: “The killings in Antrim and Lurgan are a reactionary attempt to divert the attention of workers away from the class issues that bring people together by stirring up sectarian division.”
This chauvinist organisation’s idea of “bringing people together” is unity under the Union Jack — whether leading chauvinist anti-immigrant strikes in England or pandering to Loyalists in Northern Ireland, such as former paramilitary killer Billy Hutchinson whom they hosted in their meetings in the 1990s. The leaflet said not one word against the British Army, either for its butchery in Iraq and Afghanistan or in Northern Ireland, which is hardly surprising given that the Socialist Party refuses to call for the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland. Rather they view British imperialism as a force for “democracy”.
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) also supported the pro-imperialist, anti-Republican rallies on 11 March. Addressing the Derry rally, the SWP’s Eamonn McCann said:
“It’s worth recalling that it was protests by ordinary people that gave the spur for the peace process that ended 30 years of armed conflict between the mainly Catholic Republicans, who want a united Ireland, and Protestant Unionists backed by the British state. Time and time again people took to the streets to push the process forward when establishment politicians were blocking it.”
— Socialist Worker, 21 March
Indeed the likes of McCann and the trade union bureaucracy did mobilise the unions in Northern Ireland and peddled massive illusions in the imperialist “peace deal” because, like the Taaffeites, promoting British imperialism as a force for “democracy” is what their programme boils down to. Thus the SWP welcomed the British troops being sent to Ireland by a Labour government in 1969, obscenely declaring that: “The breathing space provided by the presence of British troops is short but vital. Those who call for the immediate withdrawal of the troops before the men behind the barricades can defend themselves are inviting a pogrom which will hit first and hardest at socialists” (Socialist Worker, 11 September 1969)....
Thanks for the two responses above.
I think, Wageslave, that in the last paragraphs of my article I alluded to this "shame by association" fear among the Irish Left. You say that "The media has done it's job of tarnishing the word 'republican' all too well." But to me that is yet another point of criticism of most of the non-Republican Left, that it appears unable to take a stand against this "tarnishing" and to plot an independent line of policy and action in this area according to what is right and what is necessary.
I agree with your final paragraph and would go further -- revolution in Ireland, at least led by the current organised Left, is a far distant prospect as long as that Left is unable to set the propaganda of the bourgeois media aside and take its stand on principles of revolutionary solidarity.
Gearoid O Loingsigh, if you return to my article you will see that I specifically mentioned the "Trotskyists and Communists of Izquierda Unida", which I would have thought was a pretty clear indication of who I meant. However, no matter, we are in agreement on the nature of their stand.
I didn't ask you to "justify the Hipercor supermarket bombing" and nor do I justify it. Revolutionary struggle is not a tea-party, as someone said, and many things occur, some correct and some wrong. It is no valid excuse of revolutionaries to justify their desertion of the field because of "that type of thing."
Not all "who are on the picket line .... are Republicans, nationalists of some sort" -- I am neither. That the previously strong community base of militant resistance in the Six Counties has been eroded, deactivated and splintered (although it is reforming and growing) is no excuse for us on the Left and if "the left groups .... have no interest in the north" then that is yet another cause for shame. Also an indication of how short-sighted they are, for it is clear to most that any revolution in Ireland would have to be a whole-island one.
I hope that this attitude on the Irish Left will change and a good start would be to see them supporting actions in solidarity with the Republican prisoners.
To answer your points Diarmuid, the large organisations on the "left" in the Spanish State that you now clarify you were talking about (would have been good from the start) are I presume Izquierda Unida, PCPE, PSUC, etc. These are organisations that are essentially reformist and do not have a position in favour of Indpendence for the Basque Country or Catalonia, that is the principal problem and explains why they didn't support the prisoners. Though as I pointed out the demand and pressure to support the prisoners organisations didn't help. I wouldn't attempt to justify the Hipercor supermarket bombing and any attempt to complain about prisoners conditions was frequently linked by the solidarity groups to just that type of thing.
As for who are on the picket line, well obviously they are Republicans, nationalists of some sort. My point is that the vast majority of the nationalist community in the north have turned their backs on them. The Irish left is tiny in comparison. You direct your article at this tiny Irish left and not at the community that should be supporting them, but whose leaders are too busy getting fat on the hand outs from quangos (though some manage to stay in shape by investing in holiday homes in Donegal instead of spending it on food and wine). This is a point that will not go away. The lack of support for Marian Price is a problem wider than the left groups that have no interest in the north.
Diarmuid
I accept your points as coming from the perspective of a revolutionary socialist. I just wanted to highlight that republican issues DO get some concrete support from the left, Indy being evidence for same. Nevertheless I do also accept that you have a valid point here.
But the real problem I see is more one of "shame politics". i.e. "PC" left activists don't want to be linked to past acts of violence by republicans by being seen physically standing beside them and possibly being filmed / photographed by the state or media doing so.
You said: "As for the tactic of "shaming" being seen as counter-productive, well, perhaps. But will it result in less solidarity? Hardly."
I think you misunderstood me. My reference to "shame politics" was intended to be a comment on the use of "republican shame" as a means to cause negative division and lack of solidarity between republican protesters and left leaning activists who would in practice have quite a bit of common social ground otherwise. And that tactic's success is manifested in practice by the lack of left "bodies" appearing at republican prisoner protests. (or for that matter protests vaguely related to "conspiracy theory" or even for animal rights) My comment was not a reference to your post being an attempt to shame the left into solidarity. (I'm sure they don't need that ever!! ;-) In other words, it was pretty much in line with your own points. It was not intended to attack your effort to highlight same. It was actually intended to support your assertion.
However, I just didn't think it quite fair to blanket the left/anarchists with the statement that there was no support for such issues. But I do agree that lack of physical presence by left activists on such protests is certainly a noticeable issue.
How can we overcome this "shame politics" issue? It's a tricky one. But people, if they think through the issue, should come to the inevitable logical conclusion that taking a stand against mistreatment of people such as marion price in no way necessarily condones past actions of the IRA and left leaning activists should perhaps make more of an effort to use this kind of logical thinking on the right and wrong of individual issues rather than just reacting on an easily manipulated emotional level to "shame politics", and, if you will excuse the phrase, maybe "bite the bullet" and give whatever support they can to such campaigns. Imperialism is imperialism.
However I can't see this happening overnight. The media has done it's job tarnishing the word "republican" all too well.
And the left are currently hypersensitive to media tarnished words like "republican" or "conspiracy theory" or "animal rights" or "terrorist"
And until this hypersensitivity to words, this pathological paralysis on certain issues driven by the fear of having it's image tarnished further by a servile media, is overcome and the left becomes a little more robust, we will still have a problem with the easy manipulation and control of the left and quite a few similar issues including proper street presence in solidarity regarding the mistreatment of these prisoners.
Wageslave, although my article criticizes (not "insults") "the Irish Left" and can be superficially seen as a criticism of everyone on the Irish Left, it is clear from the actual text that the target was the three organisations mentioned who form most of the organised Left in this country. However, it is true that the malaise does extend well beyond those three organisations. I have never attacked Indymedia. I posted in Indymedia precisely to catch the attention of the Left. I respect the work of volunteers at Indymedia.
You cannot deny the experience of standing on pickets for Republican prisoners in Dublin and noting that those standing alongside one are nearly all Republicans and that not one of person is there from the organisations mentioned.
With regard to the issue of the prisoners, they ARE political prisoners and they are also Republican and one can support them from a number of perspectives. I support them primarily because they are political prisoners, there as a result of some activity, real or imagined, in opposition to the imperialist occupation of this country. Nevertheless, I am not an Irish Republican and often need to make that clear because of assumptions made by others or to clarify my ideological position. You can accuse me of "distancing" myself (getting a bit nasty and personal here?) but the facts of my political activity don't bear that out -- to the extent even that some people on the Left seem to assume I am a Republican.
I am "hiding behind" nothing (more snidey comment?) -- my ideology is revolutionary socialist and anti-imperialist. That's what I describe myself as and I take my stands accordingly to the best of my ability. I am supporting the prisoners on the basis that they are anti-imperialist and not any other (except in some cases humanitarian also). And that's what I would expect from other socialists. And this is nothing to do with being "PC" (really, yet another snidey?) but with the absolute necessity of combining the class and national issues in order to have any chance of overthrowing this system.
As for the tactic of "shaming" being seen as counter-productive, well, perhaps. But will it result in less solidarity? Hardly.
Gearóid, the article is not criticising the Irish Republicans because it was directed at the non-Republican Irish Left. If you think that Irish Republicans are not supporting Marian Price or the prisoners, perhaps you can tell me the political background of those with whom I have been standing in pickets or marching with or in campaign meetings?
With regard to Catalonia and the Basque Country, some Left groups in those nations outside the left-sovereignist movements there have supported the prisoners but it is the big Left organisations of the Spanish State to which I was referring, which either did not even pretend to support or adopted a paper position of support without taking the necessary action.
I have no intention of blaming the Irish Left for any failures of Republicans, nor indeed to blame Republicans for the failures of the Irish Left.
Well Diarmuid half answered my post. Why is the artilcle not entitlled the shame of Irish Republicans as they are the one who have not come out for Marian Price etc.
However, I let slip by reference to Catalonia and the Basque Country. I lived in Catalonia for 7 years and the issue of prisoners was always to the fore for left groups such as the LCR and the MCC and the later fused group Revolta as was seen in the campaign around Nuria Cadenas who was imprisoned for having a text book on chemistry. One of the problems was that the group Terra Lliure demanded adherence and support for its methods in any campaign for prisoners much like the provos prior to 1981.
As for the Basques, the LKI and later Zutik (both trokysist) always offered their support and participated in campaigns on prisoner often in slavenly manner. Diarmuid don't blame the left for the failures of repubilcanism nor for the way in which their methods alienate people. The left has been there. it is not our fault that the republican base prefers to receive handouts from the quangos of the British State rather than protest.
"And Wagelslave, I am not attacking Indymedia, so I don't know why you brought that up, nor am I posting anything pro-Republican (but interesting that you see it that way). I am posting pro-political prisoner and ANTI-IMPERIALIST material."
Posting an article complaining that the left are not supportive of republican issues on a left / anarchist website that regularly hosts articles highlighting republican issues is (apart from being deliciously ironic!) mildly insulting to the volunteers who work here, some of whom would regularly support such issues in both cyberspace and meatspace.
I brought it up as concrete evidence that republican related issues DO get support from people on the left and anarchists. This website is concrete evidence of that. It's a left / anarchist run website and we host republican related articles alongside everything else. That's supportive isn't it??
Regarding my turn of phrase, there is nothing "interesting" about it.
I find it hard to understand how republicans on dirty protest in maghberry prison cannot reasonably be described amongst other ways as a "pro republican" issue. They are republicans, the article is supportive of them, ergo it can be described as "pro republican". The phrase is merely descriptive, not perjorative. Personally I don't consider the word "republican" as being an insult or an automatic negative. You added the extra meaning yourself because evidently you perceive things in that way. Well, I don't. It's just another article to me, but I had to refer to it somehow in order to discuss it. However I'm equally happy to use the descriptive phrase you provided that YOU seem to be more comfortable with.
Of course, you do realise that people could be forgiven for interpreting that phrase of yours as distancing yourself from republicanism. Pot kettle??
Indymedia DO support republican issues in exactly the same way as they support other left / anarchist / activist issues. By providing a website infrastructure where such issues can be highlighted in articles with minimal technical / financial hurdles.
And as I stated before, we welcome these articles and our past record of support speaks for itself. And we don't hide behind phrases like "political prisoner" or "anti imperialist". We accept republicans have a POV and that this has long been suppressed by other media, and still continues to get a systematic bad press. We support their right to express that POV here subject to our editorial guidelines same as any other article.
So you can't reasonably say republican issues (or whatever descriptive term you are comfortable with) don't get any concrete support from the left. Indymedia is one concrete case in point.
Personally I support efforts to highlight the plight of Marion Price and others and I agree that the left and republicans should follow the good example of Eirigi activists by supporting issues on the basis of right and wrong not on the basis of right and left. And we should not become puppets of "shame" politics or "PC" fashionable viewpoints. We need to overcome divisions and focus more on similarities if we are to grow strong enough to take on power effectively in this country.
I find the idea of Adams and co. not to mention the 'dissidents' ever becoming revolutionary to be hysterically funny and then some.
and I can't help it if the only one to react is the WSM, so that the discussion is going on between us.
I certainly have no wish to negate the solidarity activity of anyone and if what you say about Cork WSM comrades is true then certainly, apologies. But does that reflect the organisation? If in Dublin, the capital city, I don't see the WSM on the picket lines then either Dublin is out of step with the WSM's policy on prisoner solidarity or Cork would be (to their credit).
I am not attacking the WSM but the organised Irish Left, of which yes, the WSM is a part. That is part of its importance which is why it is included.
And Wagelslave, I am not attacking Indymedia, so I don't know why you brought that up, nor am I posting anything pro-Republican (but interesting that you see it that way). I am posting pro-political prisoner and ANTI-IMPERIALIST material.
It shouldn't make any difference but it seems I have to make it clear that I am not an Irish Republican. Nor have I been since I first began to construct a conscious ideology. I am a revolutionary socialist and have in fact supported some actions called by the WSM as well as by coalitions of which the WSM were a part. I am not hostile to the WSM but I reserve the right to criticise shortcomings in any organisation and especially so when the issue is of serious importance.
John, I would dearly love to see the WSM (and the SWP and SP) on Dublin prisoner solidarity pickets as well as involved in building the unity that you ask for. I look forward to it.
The divisions among the Republican organisations themselves are concerning but do not serve as an excuse for anyone else's inaction. I do what I can about those too. A number of them are represented in the Free Marian Price Campaign (Dublin) which may (or may not) be a step in the direction of united agitation around all the prisoners.
Lastly, what's at stake is ultimately even greater than the issue of prisoners. Unless the division of labour between the Irish Left and Irish Republicans is broken, where the first mostly take on economic and social issues and the second mostly take on the struggle against British imperialism, we (all of us) are never going to overthrow our oppressors, domestic and foreign.
Apart from what James has just pointed out and I would like to ask, how do republican prisoner groups expect others to get involved whenever they are deeply divided in the prison themselves due to a range of issues from personal egos to tactics?
Indeed outside the prison there is little agreement or solidarity between republican groups themselves. Dairmuid, you have clearly not done your homework on this issue again and you might be better actually posing the question of how can we build the same level of support and mobilisation as the 1980/81 anti- H-block campaign?
As some previous authors have already alluded to the problem is not the alleged lack of support from the left but even the wider community and that goes for Belfast too
Diarmuid,
forgive me for pointing out the obvious but you are posting this article and lots more pro republican posts besides on a lefty / anarchist volunteer run website.
And we are of course most happy for you to continue doing so. Even when you directly insult us like this!! ;-)
Does that count as (patient!) support from left / anarchists perhaps??
WSM members in Cork city have participated in many of the monthly prisoner protests in the city. Solidarity Books (WSM bookshop) has provided a meeting space for the PSG group and stores their placards etc. There have been several articles in the Workers Solidarity and the website on the prisoner issue.
Your attack on the WSM does nothing to aid the prisoners cause and is more likely to make people disinclined to participate in in protests alongside you than otherwise.
The objective surely is to increase participation and support. Whilst the prisoner issue is important it is not the only issue the wsm supports and further the wsm is not a mass organisation with unlimited resources.
Prisoner Supporter: "the big task is not to try and win these groups over but for Republicans to become the revolutionary left" is your opinion but this has not to date come anywhere near success, in nearly 100 years during which various attempts have been made. It is my opinion that a revolutionary socialist organisation is necessary which is also decidedly anti-imperialist, anti-British imperialist first and foremost because they are the primary imperial enemy on our soil (in the same way that I would expect Latin American revolutionaries to prioritise opposition to US Imperialism).
John, I did do "some research" by active participation and if I missed the odd article in two years or the odd WSM activist involved in prisoner support, then I tender my sincere apologies. One of your comrades from Belfast told me they weren't involved there and I haven't seen the WSM comrades I know on the many pickets I attended in Dublin (except a few on one Marian Price demo, Derry). Do you really think those comments of yours refute my criticism of the organisations as lacking in support for the prisoners?
On an issue of "doing some research" you might reflect on why you inferred that I was anyone "from various shades of 'dissident republicanism'", when I am not. Interesting that a WSM supporter assumes a criticism of lack of support for Irish political prisoners must necessarily come from a "dissident republican".
If you wish to respond further I'd appreciate it if you addressed the arguments and the facts rather than try to de-legitimise mine (unfortunately another tactic all too common on the Irish Left) by assumptions about my ideology or political background upon which you can then cast aspersions.
Gearoid O Loingsigh, I have answered some of what you said above. Your link, though interesting, does not refute anything I said.
Thank you for telling me what you think my "real problem" is but I hope you don't mind if I repeat that it was the problem I actually addressed in that short article. There is another problem of the dissipation and fragmentation of revolutionary Irish Republicanism but I don't think anyone on the Irish Left should get smug about that. Such situation furthers neither the cause of anti-imperialism nor that of socialism which at least in Ireland, I believe, as did Connolly, are inextricably linked.
When a revolutionary is criticised, she or he should examine the criticism and see whether and to what extent it is justified. In the case that it should become clear that it is justified and that the extent be significant, the revolutionary option is to organise to change that. That holds for individuals as well as for organisations. The defensiveness exhibited in two of these responses in the face of the clear facts does not bode well for critical examination, much less change.
If my public attack has provoked that defensive attitude then I am sorry but two years of dirty protest and other protests before that was surely enough time to come to realise where the duty of a revolutionary in Ireland lies.
Yes, you may not speak for other groups but it is good of you to point out the WSM's position and participation. I include a recent link from the Socialist Democracy website as well. The SP don't go on prisoner demos or support the issue because they are two nationist and are happy with what they call British Sovereignty and the "British" sensibilities of protestants and always have been. They were absent during the 81 hungerstrike. The SWP, well that depends on which way the wind is blowing.
Diarmuid's real problem is not that the left doesn't support them, it is that the vast majority of what was the Republican base doesn't do so due to the influence of Sinn Fein. The sell out by the provos did not happen because of the left but due to the failings of the republicans. It is no use blaming the left for the failings of republicanism.
http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/RecentArticles/Recent....html
That article is a load of crap. If Diarmuid done any research he would of found that WSM members particular in the North, in Belfast and Derry, Cork and taken part in protests, pickets etc against ongoing selective internment and treatment towards republican prisoners. In fact one member is heavily involved in the Prison crisis group in Derry
I cannot speak for the rest of the left but this was a statement released by WSM last year in relation to this
http://www.wsm.ie/c/...berry-prisoners
Also covered in website
http://www.wsm.ie/c/...tice-everywhere
I dont think anyone from various shades of 'dissident republicanism' is in any position to lecture others whenever there is little unity amongst the prisoners and their representatives themselves
Good statement.
The likes of sp and swp are only concerned with parliamentary power and wsm is a theoretical society at best. nothing revolutionary about do-nothing theorists.
why is it that wsm,sp,swp are never on prisoner protests? its because they dont care.
the big task is not to try an win these groups over but for Republicans to become the revolutionary left.