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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 178 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 178, September 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
For the first time since 1975 there seems the real possibility of an IRA ceasefire. An influential group of Americans have appeared on the Belfast scene brokering a new deal. They include Bruce Morrison, the man who gained entry to the United States for Gerry Adams and who is set to join the Clinton administration; Charles Feeney, owner of the General Atlantic group; Bill Flynn, chief executive of the US’s largest insurance company; Niall O’Dowd, publisher of the New York magazine Irish Voice; and an unnamed official of the AFL-CIO, the US trade union federation.
Talk of a ceasefire follows rejection by a special Sinn Fein conference of the Downing Street Declaration. But that did not close the door on a peace deal. Indeed what marked the conference was the degree of faith Republicans have in the declaration’s authors, John Major and Irish premier Albert Reynolds.
There can be no doubting the sincerity of Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams in desiring a peace agreement. A leading Republican, Danny Morrison, reinforced that while released from prison on parole by talk of an unarmed strategy.
While Republican hopes of a military victory over the British have been dulled, Sinn Fein has also given up on hopes of overtaking the middle class Catholic SDLP electorally and of building any significant support in the Republic. This has led to what Irish journalist Tim Pat Coogan describes as: ‘a growing realisation on the part of the Sinn Fein leadership that dialogue must take place’. Adams is now banking everything on winning Sinn Fein a place at negotiations.
The Northern Ireland ‘troubles’ began with mass demonstrations for civil rights. These toppled the Unionist government which had ruled Northern Ireland for 50 years. That is the single biggest gain of these last 25 years.
Since then the Republican politics which have come to dominate the Catholic working class of Belfast and Derry have failed to build on those gains. Republican politics rest on the idea that a few dedicated, armed or elected individuals can win national liberation. The days of mass mobilisation are long gone – except for the period of the 1980 and 1981 hunger strikes.
British and Irish politicians blame the Provos for violence. That hypocrisy we reject. We will not join the demands that Republicans renounce violence. But neither do we glory in the military struggle. Rather we look to the tradition of mass mobilisation, to the strike by 2,000 Harland and Wolff shipyard workers against the assassination of a Catholic workmate or the demonstrations on abortion in the Republic two years ago.
A break from militarism towards that approach would be welcomed. Yet Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein are not about to do that. Rather every time Republicans have dropped the military campaign they have embraced constitutional politics.
Over the last 25 years there have been two traditions on the left. One has dominated Labourism on both sides of the Irish Sea and has centred on denouncing Republican violence while ignoring British repression. The other has been to act as cheerleaders or armchair advisers for the Provos in the belief they could provide a short cut to socialism.
That is something this journal has always rejected. When Republicans challenged British imperialism we defended them but we disagreed with their strategy and tactics. That strategy has now come to the end of the road.
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