Showing posts with label Bristish Army of Occupation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bristish Army of Occupation. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

On The Anniversary Of The Irish Easter Uprising-Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-"The Internationale"- A Working Class Song For All Seasons

Click on the title to link a YouTube film clip of a performance of the Internationale.


In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist. Sadly though, hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground and have rather more often than not been fellow-travelers. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
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The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]

Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.




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L'Internationale

Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout

C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain

Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud

L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits

Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.

Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
Appliquons la grève aux armées
Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales
A faire de nous des héros
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux

Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs
Combien, de nos chairs se repaissent
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours
Un de ces matins disparaissent
Le soleil brillera toujours.


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Die Internationale

Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,
die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!
Das Recht wie Glut im Kraterherde
nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.
Reinen Tisch macht mit dem Bedranger!
Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!
Ein nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht langer
Alles zu werden, stromt zuhauf!

Volker, hort die Signale!
Auf, zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale
Erkampft das Menschenrecht

Es rettet uns kein hoh'res Wesen
kein Gott, kein Kaiser, noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlosen
konnen wir nur selber tun!
Leeres Wort: des armen Rechte,
Leeres Wort: des Reichen Pflicht!
Unmundigt nennt man uns Knechte,
duldet die Schmach langer nicht!

In Stadt und Land, ihr Arbeitsleute,
wir sind die starkste Partei'n
Die Mussigganger schiebt beiseite!
Diese Welt muss unser sein;
Unser Blut sei nicht mehr der Raben
und der machtigen Geier Frass!
Erst wenn wir sie vertrieben haben
dann scheint die Sonn' ohn' Unterlass!


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(The English version most commonly sung in South Africa. )
The Internationale

Arise ye prisoners of starvation
Arise ye toilers of the earth
For reason thunders new creation
`Tis a better world in birth.

Never more traditions' chains shall bind us
Arise ye toilers no more in thrall
The earth shall rise on new foundations
We are naught but we shall be all.

Then comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the human race.


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(Zulu) i-Internationale

n'zigqila zezwe lonke
Vukan'ejokwen'lobugqili
Sizokwakh'umhlaba kabusha
Siqed'indlala nobumpofu.

lamasik'okusibopha
Asilwise yonk'incindezelo
Manj'umhlab'unesakhiw'esisha
Asisodwa Kulomkhankaso

Maqaban'wozan'sihlanganeni
Sibhekene nempi yamanqamu
I-Internationale
Ibumb'uluntu lonke
*****
British Translation Billy Bragg's Revision[16] American version

First stanza

Arise, ye workers from your slumber,
Arise, ye prisoners of want.
For reason in revolt now thunders,
and at last ends the age of cant!
Away with all your superstitions,
Servile masses, arise, arise!
We'll change henceforth the old tradition,
And spurn the dust to win the prize!

So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale,
Unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale,
Unites the human race.

Stand up, all victims of oppression,
For the tyrants fear your might!
Don't cling so hard to your possessions,
For you have nothing if you have no rights!
Let racist ignorance be ended,
For respect makes the empires fall!
Freedom is merely privilege extended,
Unless enjoyed by one and all.

So come brothers and sisters,
For the struggle carries on.
The Internationale,
Unites the world in song.
So comrades, come rally,
For this is the time and place!
The international ideal,
Unites the human race.

Sunday, April 21, 2019

WHEN THE HARP WAS CRUSHED BENEATH THE CROWN

CD REVIEW

THE RISING OF THE MOON, Tradition, 1998; UNWRAP THE GREEN FLAG, Sony, 1996; and, IRISH SONGS OF DRINKING AND REBELLION, Legacy, 1994, all by Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers.


The following review is being used to comment on several of the Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem recordings. The obvious musical skills, talent and commitment to craftsmanship of this group during its history need no comment by me. Nor does their commitment to keeping alive the Irish folk tradition. Thus, the criterion for review here of their many recordings is whether the works represent the political traditions associated with the historic struggle for independence from the English. These recordings best represent that tradition.

A word. As I developed a quasi- leftist political consciousness in my youth I also, in an unsystematic, and for the most part then, unconscious manner, developed an interest in what is today is called roots music. Initially this was reflected in my first love-the Blues. During the early sixties, under the influence of Dave Van Ronk at first, then Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and the rest I developed an interest in folk music, then at the height of its revival. It is through this process that I came to appreciate the work of the artists under review. This is odd, and I will explain why.

I was actually reared on the material presented here by my maternal grandfather, a great and ardent supporter of the Irish Republican Army. I gained from him my own romantic attachment to the exploits of the IRA in 1916 and later. Although my own political evolution since then has led me away from political support to the IRA (although I continued to support actions by that organization directly against the British Army of Occupation) I still love the old songs which represent the spirit of Irish national identity and aspirations for national liberation of a people historically suppressed by the bloody English.

A word about the songs presented here. The liner notes included with the Rising of the Moon CD are helpful here. The songs range in subject from ‘The Rising of the Moon’ at the time of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishman, probably the last time that a united, independent, non-sectarian single Irish state was possible, to ‘Kevin Barry’ and ‘Sean Tracey’ just before the partition in 1921, creating the mess that still confronts us politically today. That said, as these lines are being written we are approaching the 90th Anniversary of the Easter Uprising of 1916. The vision of James Connolly, and others, of a Social Republic proclaimed at the General Post Office still waits. In short, there is still work to be done, North and South, united or as independent, but federated states. Listen to these songs to understand where we have come from and why we still need to fight.

SOME OF THE RECORDINGS REVIEWED HERE MAY NOT BE READILY AVAILABLE AT LOCAL MUSIC STORES OR LIBRARIES. CHECK AMAZON. COM FOR AVAILABILITY THEIR, BOTH NEW AND USED.

Friday, August 21, 2015

From The HistoMat Blog- New Film: The Labour Leader's Speech -Long Live The Tongue In The Cheek!

Thursday, March 10, 2011
New Film: The Labour Leader's Speech

...From the makers of the award-winning The King's Speech...

...Starring Oscar winner Colin Firth as Ed Miliband...

...Charlie Sheen as George Osbourne...

...Teri Hatcher, Rachel Weisz and Scarlett Johansson in Ed Miliband's dreams...

...and Ralph Miliband spinning in his grave

Comes the eagerly awaited... THE LABOUR LEADER'S SPEECH


The incredible story of the quiet man who found himself accidentally becoming leader of the Labour Party instead of his brother and was accordingly expected as the alleged official 'leader of the Opposition' to give voice to the hopes of millions on the TUC backed mass 'march for the alternative' on 26 March in London...will Ed make it to the march? Will he actually speak on the demo?

'I can't wait to hear Ed speak...the excitement and anticipation is unbearable'
Nobody
Labels: Ed Miliband, New Labour


posted by Snowball @ 12:46 PM

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Twenty Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! –We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!

Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
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We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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#TomemonosBoston

Somos la Sociedad conformando el
99%

Dewey Square
Cercerde South Station

ASAMBLEA GENERALTODOS LOS DIAS
6:00PM

vvww.occupyboston.com

Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
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Markin comment October 1, 2011:

There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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Markin comment October 14, 2011:

Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.

On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naiveté about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.

The most important development though for our side, and one that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement, led mainly by socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist workers, drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule!

Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !

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Markin comment October 16, 2011:

On a day when we honor the heroic efforts of Captain John Brown and his heroic band of anti-slavery fighters in 1859 at Harpers Ferry it is worthwhile noting that that seemingly utopian event galvanized the broader anti-slavery forces in the North for the titanic struggle of the American Civil War. All Honor To Their Memory.
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Markin comment October 17, 2011:

As mentioned before in this space I am happy, very happy, that the Occupy Boston movement has occurred. As a long-time veteran of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-militarist, anti-capitalist actions I had been previously somewhat worried that we, the remaining remnants of the struggles that started in the 1960s, would have no one to pass the torch to. The Occupy movement has seen that we need not worry about that. I am, however, getting a bit worried about where this movement is going, if anyplace. I say this as one who has visited Occupy Boston almost daily since September 30th, participated in the defend of Occupy Boston in the early hours of Tuesday October 11th, and has been at virtually every rally, march, shout-out, and a good number of General Assemblies.

It has struck me hard over past few days since the early morning police raid that endless encampments and endless marches are not, in the end, the answer to the points on the social agenda that need immediate attention. I would assume that most sisters and brothers who support Occupy Boston know deep in their political gut that this is true. Moreover, using the exemplary example of the community formed at the Occupy Boston
as a model for what a future, more equitable, society would look like, while worthwhile, is not the kind of thing that will give us the power, the political power, to create lasting social change.

While many, just now, may recoil from the notion of power, of taking political power, because of some desire to be “nice” in the world that will just not do. The corporations, the banks, the mass media, the police, the military, Barack Obama, Deval Patrick, and the myriad other institutions and personalities that defend capitalist society every day in every way will permit many things. But give up the real power to reorder society for human needs. No way. More later. For now though-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!

Friday, October 24, 2008

*From The Marxist Archives- The Irish Question-Our Day Will Come-A Socialist Day

Click on the title to link to "Wikipedia"'s entry for the Provisional IRA, provided here as background. As always with this source and its collective editorial policy, especially with controversial political issues like the Provisional IRA, be careful checking the accuracy of the information provided at any given time.


Commentary

From The Archives- The Irish Question

Spartacist Ireland Spring/Summer 2002


The protest action of 18 January 2002 by Catholic and Protestant workers in Northern Ireland against the murder of a Catholic postal worker by Loyalist paramilitaries was a rare and welcome display of united class action across the sectarian divide. However, the pro-capitalist trade union bureaucrats worked to divert the justified outrage of the workers into support for the imperialist “peace” fraud, which has in fact resulted in an escalation of anti-Catholic violence. It is precisely united working-class action which is needed to be mobilized against racist attacks and in defense of immigrants and Travellers, but the union bureaucracy here are wedded to pushing the lie of “national unity” and social “partnership”.

We of the Irish section of the ICL fight to break the workers from the reactionary “national unity” which has been the cornerstone of the “war on terrorism. In the U.S., for example, our comrades in the Labor Black League for Social Defense and the Partisan Defense Committee have raised the call on the powerful multiracial unions of the San Francisco Bay area to mobilize on February 9, 2002 against the U.S. government’s war on America’s integrated working class, on black people and on immigrants.

The struggle against racism must be linked to the fight against capitalist exploitation and for socialist revolution. It must be conducted not only against the clericalist state and groups like the xenophobic Immigration Control Platform, both of which incite murder by racist gangs, but also a political battle against the misleaders of the workers movement- the Labor Party and the trade union bureaucracy. The Irish Labor Party was in the previous government which seized on a wave or racist hysteria to enact the 1997 “Aliens Order” and slammed the door to immigrants. Their left tails, the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party absolve the trade union bureaucrats and the Labor Party, whom they supported in the previous elections.

NORTHERN IRELAND

The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City was gift to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in several ways, not least that the IRA (Irish Republican Army-Provos) announce on October 23, 2002 that they had begun to decommission their weapons. The British government claims to be waging a “war against terrorism” in the interests of “democracy’ and the “civilized world” against religious fanatics. Terrorism anyone? How about the terrorism of the British state, such as the massive bombings of Afghanistan, and before this Serbia, in which this bloodthirsty Blair Labor government took center stage? What about British imperialism’s domination of Ireland, which lasted for centuries and created a militarized garrison state in the North where the façade of democracy was never much in evidence and where no-one has any reason to believe in such myths as “unarmed Bobbies”. As for religious zealots, there are very few Muslims in Northern Ireland but British rule there rests on collaboration with a gang of crazed fundamentalist Protestant bigots.

We said in 1993 that: “Any imperialist ‘deal’ will be bloody and brutal and will necessarily be at the expense of the oppressed Catholic minority. And it would not do any good for working-class Protestants either” (Workers Hammer no. 138, November/December 1993). This has been borne out: Loyalist attacks against Catholics have continued, firebombings and pipebombings are commonplace. There were 220 Loyalist attacks recorded in 213 days to August of 2001, including 75 bombings and 20 gun attacks (An Phoblacht, 9 August 2001). In the last week of October 2001 alone there were twelve bomb attacks against Catholics in North Belfast. There have, additionally, been a number of murders of Catholics including a Protestant killed by a Loyalist gunman who thought he was a Catholic.

The Catholics are an oppressed minority living under permanent siege. The plight of working- class Catholics hit international headlines in the summer of 2001 as schoolgirls in Ardoyne, North Belfast trying to walk to Holy Cross school with their parents wee shown daily on television confronting a Loyalist mob howling vile anti-Catholic and anti-woman slurs and throwing pipebombs and garbage. The British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary- now renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI)- lined the streets and tried to look as if they wee making an honest effort to “keep the peace”. On the day of their name change, the PSNI escorted leaders of the Orange Order down the Catholic Garvaghy Road. Catholics know they have as much to fear from the police and the army as they do from the Loyalist death squads; indeed IRA decommissioning leaves sections of the Catholic population feeling defenseless against these forces.

Those scenes at Holy Cross school are a microcosm of Northern Ireland which show the bitter reality of British Labor’s imperialist “peace” deal. The fact that Catholic parents refused to meekly accept their status as second-class citizens brought out blatant anti-Irish prejudice from British journalists covering the story who would often report with amazement that the situation was reminiscent of the conditions of blacks in the American South in the 1950’s prior to the civil rights struggles there; nevertheless in the next breath they would ask Catholic parents why they did not use the back entrance to the school! The Irish bourgeois press, which has the same contempt for working class Catholics in the North as for those in the South, echoed Loyalist lies that the exercise was just a publicity stunt for Sinn Fein (SF). But, with or without decommissioning, Sinn Fein manifestly can offer no way forward to the beleaguered Catholics.

Sinn Fein has been organizing protests against particular military installations and complaining that the imperialists have not lived up to the ‘“program for demilitarization ‘ that was promised in the Good Friday Agreement “ (An Phoblacht, 1 November 2001). But while the British may agree to scale down the army presence to cut their costs, the Good Friday Agreement is premised on troops remaining in Northern Ireland.

We fight for the immediate unconditional withdrawal of British troops, not merely because no good can come of the British military presence there, but also because we agree with Karl Marx that the British working class cannot make a revolution against their “ own” capitalist rulers if they accept imperialist oppression in Ireland. It is in the direct interest of the working class to oppose repressive measures in Northern Ireland, which are often subsequently imposed on workers and minorities in Britain. After 9/11, Jack Straw pledged Britain would see “security of a kind people in Northern Ireland have had to live with for decades”. Sure enough, immigrants suspected of “terrorism” are being rounded up and interned without trial.
Withdrawal of the British Army does not in itself automatically ensure advance in a revolutionary direction, but it is the necessary starting point for a proletarian revolutionary perspective. We seek to break workers from illusions in Labor, which has loyally served racist, chauvinist British imperialism and the monarchy. The SL/B and Dublin Spartacist Group, sections of the ICL, fight to build revolutionary internationalist workers parties to put an end to capitalist rule and to establish a workers republic in Ireland as part of a federation of workers republics in the British Isles. Our framework is internationalist and is based on the necessity to link the struggles of the working class of Ireland, North and South, with those of workers in England, Scotland and Wales.

In Northern Ireland divisions between Catholics and Protestants have deepened, which means the prospect of united struggle by Protestant and Catholic workers for their common class interests appear remote. Although Protestant workers are only marginally better off than their Catholic counterparts, the view is pervasive that the improvements in the position of one community will necessarily be at the expense of the other. This indeed is true, unless such struggles challenge the framework of capitalist rule. A proletarian revolutionary perspective is the only way forward. There can be no just solution to the communal conflict in Northern Ireland short of proletarian rule in all of Ireland and Britain.

LABORITE “SOCIALISTS” PUSH IMPERIALIST “PEACE”

The Labor-loyal fake left have shamelessly touted British imperialism, in the guise of Blair and the Labor government, as the agency to bring peace and equality to the North. In the last British elections (2001), the Socialist Alliance-which at the time consisted of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Socialist Party, Workers Power and others- supported the reelection of Labor and removed the call for troops out of Northern Ireland from their manifesto before launching it to the bourgeois press. We said “No vote to Labor, imperialists butchers” and “No vote to Socialist Alliance, lackeys of Labor.”

The SWP is silent about the British Army, but gushing about the “tremendous hopes for peace in Northern Ireland following the IRA’s announcement that it will destroy its weapons”. They cravenly claim Labor’s “peace” process provides “space” for united struggle of the working class. Socialist Worker (3 November 2001) says;
“That process is about reaching an accommodation between politicians representing Catholic and Protestant ‘communities”.

“It can reproduce the sectarian division that is built into the Northern Ireland state. But it does provide a space for working class people, Catholic and Protestant, to fight for their interests against sectarianism.”

This is almost exactly what the SWP said when they supported British troops being sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 (by a Labor government, of course), which they claimed would provide a “breathing space” for the Catholics. They wrote:
“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

Less than three years later “their” British Army shot down 14 defenseless Catholics in cold blood in Derry on Bloody Sunday.

The sectarian Orange statelet was created by British imperialism’s partition of Ireland as a police state based on subjugation of the Catholic minority. Its backbone has been the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and, since 1969, the army; both work in tandem with the Loyalist paramilitary killers. Recent history is littered with scandals about collusion between Loyalist murderers and the RUC/PSNI and British Army, and there is “no breathing space” for anyone who tries to expose this to the outside world. Thus on September 28, 2001, Martin O’ Hagan, a journalist with the Dublin-based Sunday World, who researched the collusion between the British Army, the RUC, leading Unionist politicians and Loyalist death squads, was murdered by the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). Rosemary Nelson, a prominent Catholic lawyer who reported to the UN that she received death threats from the RUC was also murdered in 1999; ten years earlier Pat Finucane, another well-known Catholic lawyer was also murdered by the Loyalist in collusion with the state. The current Labor government (2001) is withholding documents on the 1974 bombings in Dublin and Monaghan which killed 33 people and British state involvement is widely suspected.
The Laborite left even advocate “peace” with Loyalist thugs such as Billy Hutchinson. Irish secretary of the transport union ATGWU, Mick O’Reilly, recruited the Ulster Volunteer Force’s Hutchinson and David Ervine into the ATGWU. The wretched Socialist Party has sponsored Hutchinson in public meetings and the SWP jumped on the bandwagon by taking part in a 1999 “debate” with him organized by the Scottish Socialist Party.

NOT ORANGE AGAINST GREEN, BUT CLASS AGAINST CLASS!

Following capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union in 1991-92, petty-bourgeois nationalist movements like Sinn Fein and the PLO have had much less room to maneuver and have increasingly sought to make deals with imperialism. Sinn Fein played up illusions that by involving U.S. imperialism and the Dublin government they would secure a better deal from British imperialism for the Catholics. This overlooks the fact that U.S. imperialism is the most powerful enemy of the workers and oppressed of the world as can been seen in the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, or the dirty colonial wars against Korea and Vietnam; the bedrock of the system of exploitation of American workers rests on racist oppression of black people. The imperialist “peace” deal was brokered under Democratic President Clinton, who preferred to pass off imperialist marauding as “human right” imperialism, something Bush and Company do not bother with. British imperialism is the junior partner of U.S. imperialism- the City of London has close ties with Wall Street and British imperialism is also the foremost military ally of U.S. imperialism in Europe. The Irish capitalist government is certainly no better. It supported the U.S. and Britain’s military adventures, including offering facilities for NATO warplanes at Shannon airport, and is viciously repressive of workers, women, Travellers and Republicans at home.

Petty-bourgeois nationalism is a political dead-end which cannot further the interests of the Catholic minority. It is premised on the world being divided into good and bad peoples. Whether through armed struggle (“the Armalite”) or the parliamentary road (“the ballot box”) the perspective of the Irish nationalists is to pressure imperialism.

Actions such as the Omagh bombing by the “Real IRA”. Which killed and maimed both Protestant and Catholic civilians in a shopping area, was a hideous crime from the standpoint of the working class and in no way a blow against imperialism. Marxists oppose the tactic of individual terror because it is antithetical to the necessary task of mobilizing the working class against imperialist and capitalist oppressors. Rather it expresses the aims of its practitioners to be the leaders of “their” people. When Irish nationalist groups strike a blow against the forces of British imperialism, the RUC/PSNI or Loyalist fascistic killers, we defend the perpetrators of such acts against state retribution. But we have a fundamentally different attitude to indiscriminate terror directed against civilians. From a proletarian standpoint, bombings such as Omagh or the bombing of British shopping centers and pubs, are criminal acts which only serve to deepen hatred between Protestant and Catholic, English and Irish workers.

The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, an atrocity designed to kill as many civilians as possible, has served to weld American workers to the ruling class just as Irish nationalist atrocities against Protestants push Protestant workers toward Loyalist reactionaries. Viewed from the interests of the working class, nationalist terror ranges from criminal-such as Omagh- to merely stupid. Even when the IRA hits a military target these acts are carried out as part of a program, which writes off the Protestant-and Catholic- working class and also the British proletariat, which has an important Irish component.

In 1993, on the eve of the “peace” negotiations, the mainly Protestant workforce at Short Brothers in Belfast walked off the job in protest against the murder of a Catholic co-worker by Loyalist paramilitaries; very shortly afterwards the IRA placed a bomb in Belfast’s Shankill Road, which killed nine working-class Protestant shoppers. This led to anti-Catholic demonstrations by Protestant workers in Belfast.
A revolutionary party would struggle for an integrated, programmatically based workers militia to defend both Catholics and Protestants against sectarian attacks. As we said in our Theses on Ireland this must be based on the demand for the immediate withdrawal of the British Army and our Marxist analysis of terrorism:
“Such militias will need a broad and strong programmatic basis if they are not to be derailed or coopted. They cannot develop just out of trade unionism but fundamentally require the existence of a strong and authoritative revolutionary cadre. Each militia unit would need at least one member of each community and the presence and strong influence of trained revolutionary cadre. Consequently, the demand for an anti-sectarian workers militia is closely linked to the growth of a Leninist party based on a developed revolutionary program.”

Spartacist no. 24, Autumn 1977

We also explained there that:

“Leninism and nationalism are fundamentally counterposed political viewpoints. Thus, while revolutionists struggle against all forms of national oppression, they are also opposed to all forms of nationalist ideology. It is a revision of Leninism to claim that the ‘nationalism of the oppressed” is progressive and can be supported by communist internationalists. In one of his major works on the national question Lenin stressed: ‘Marxism cannot be reconciled with nationalism, be it even of the “most just”, “purest” most refined and civilized brand. In place of all forms of nationalism Marxism advances internationalism…’ “Critical Remarks on the National Question,’ Collected Works, Vol. 20

WORKERS REVOLUTION BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER AND BOTH SIDES OF THE IRISH SEA!

Loyalist bigot Ian Paisley howls that the Good Friday Agreement is the slippery slope to being ruled by Dublin. Partition meant that Catholics in the North constituted an oppressed minority (although they are now over 40 per cent of the population) but an overwhelming majority in the South, In the North, we oppose all discrimination against the Catholic minority. We also recognize that the Protestants are a distinct community, largely defined in opposition to the Irish Catholic nation. As Leninist we uphold the right of self-determination of all nations, which means the right to set up an independent state, but where peoples are geographically interpenetrated “self-determination” for one can only be achieved by denying it to the other. Under capitalism this leads to intercommunal slaughter. We oppose the perspective of a capitalist “united Ireland” proffered by Sinn Fein nationalists, a prospect which is used to heighten genuine fears among Protestants of a reversal of the terms of oppression. Fear of being incorporated into the clericalist state serves to compact Protestants behind the Loyalist bigots. Precluding a polarization along class lines and instead laying the basis for communal blood-bath and forced population transfers.

The fact that the bourgeois state in the South is a Catholic Clericalist state is grist to the mill of the Loyalist bigots. The struggle for separation of church and state and for free abortion on demand is key not only for social progress in the South but as a way to under mine communalism in the North. Sinn Fein shares the clerical-nationalist outlook f Fianna Fail. Sinn Fein no longer flatly opposed abortion rights, but only concedes that it should be legally available in extreme circumstances, specifically: “where a woman’s mental and physical well-being or life is at risk or in grave danger” (Irish Times on the Web, 6 December 2001). The struggle for abortion rights strikes at backward Protestant fundamentalists as well. Significantly, although Sinn Fein’s Bairbre de Brun is health minister in the Stormont Assembly (2001), Sinn Fein was conspicuously absent from a crucial debate on legalizing abortion in Northern Ireland which was opposed by Ian Paisley’s DUP, David Trimble’s UUP, the Alliance Party and the SDLP.

The DSG has actively intervened in support of struggles of the combative Irish working class, fighting for abortion rights and counterposing our program to that of the Laborite bureaucrats. We said in a leaflet for the 1999 Irish nurse’s strike:
“It is this anti-woman Church which runs the hospitals. We call for: complete separation of church and state! We need free, quality healthcare for all. For free abortion and free contraception on demand! For free 24-hour childcare! To achieve these basic needs of women and the working class requires a revolutionary struggle against the entire capitalist system- and its labor lieutenants within the working class.”

-reprinted in Workers Hammer no. 171, Winter 1999/2000

After the recent elections (Spring 2002) in the South, Sinn Fein is poised to gain support at the expense of Fianna Fail and also trying to re-brand itself as the “left” alternative to Labor. Labor is rightly hated by workers for having dished out capitalist attacks as partners in coalition governments, most notoriously in 1994 by refusing to support striking TEAM Aer Lingus workers at Dublin airport. The Irish Labor Party, like its British namesake, is a bourgeois workers party- having a working-class base but a bourgeois program. They are loyal servants of the Irish capitalist class.

Sinn Fein can be scathing in their press about Labor’s rotten record. One of their articles on Labor concludes: “Sinn Fein is well on its way to overtaking the Labor Party, to cementing its position as the voice of the Irish Left, but in doing so the party must be careful that it does not lose sight of one of Connolly’s most fundamental truths. ‘The cause of labor is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of Labor” (An Phoblacht, 30 August 2001). But the idea that Sinn Fein could become the “voice of the Irish left” is absurd- they are a petty bourgeois capitalist party.

It is disingenuous in the extreme for Sinn Fein to claim the tradition of James Connolly. Connolly initiated and led the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin, hoping it would ignite workers struggles against capitalist rule in Europe amid the carnage of World War I. This did come about, with the Russian October Revolution of 1917, but by that time Connolly had been executed. Nonetheless the Rising was the catalyst for the end of British colonial rule in Ireland. Connolly was a revolutionary socialist and an internationalist who, together with Jim Larkin, led significant class battles of the Irish working class in Dublin, and in Belfast they made huge strides to unite Catholic and Protestant workers. Connolly’s success in overcoming sectarian bigotry was achieved because as a socialist he fought against the state, the Orange Order and, to the best of his ability, against Catholic nationalism. Like most socialists of his time outside Russia, he was not acquainted with Leninism, which alone hammered out a Marxist perspective on the national question. Connolly fought trenchantly against the Laborite trade union bureaucracy in Britain and in Ireland; as a true labor lieutenant of British imperialism Labor’s Arthur Henderson led the applause in the House of Commons when the announcement was made that Connolly had been executed by a British firing squad.

The kind of consciousness Connolly had instilled among workers was once again in evidence among the Belfast workers in the 1919 engineering strike. The most significant class battle to take place during the independence struggle. Charles McKay, a socialist of Catholic background, led a strike of mainly Protestant workers that shut down all heavy industry and most of the city. It was part of a wave of tumultuous strikes in engineering centers, including Glasgow. The army was deployed in Belfast (and later in Glasgow) but the strike lost because it was betrayed by the Labor bureaucrats in Britain and Ireland. The defeat of the Belfast strike led to massive purges of Catholics and trade union militants from the shipyards (including Protestant shop stewards), which paved the way for partition. Lord French, the British overlord in Ireland, released Sinn Fein leaders such as Arthur Griffith from prison in Dublin in recognition of Sinn Fein opposition to working-class struggle.

He told the Cabinet:

“I did not however, consider that the time was ripe for an actual move in the direction of an immediate release of prisoners until the strikes in the North occurred and a very dangerous crisis was at hand which might plunge the whole country in disaster.’

-quoted in Revolution in Ireland, C. Kostick (1996)

Today with the growing economic recession throughout Britain and Ireland (2002)
The capitalists will seek to increasingly pit one section of the working class against another. This could lead to increase communalism in Northern Ireland or, as happened during the struggles of unemployed workers in Belfast in the 1930’s, it could lead to united struggles of Protestant and Catholic workers. When instances of integrated working class struggle do arise, intervention by a communist vanguard will make a decisive difference to the outcome.

We seek to awaken the working class of England, Scotland and Wales to socialist consciousness and mobilize them around opposition to the monarch, House of Lords and other archaic institutions of British bourgeois rule including the “Mother of Parliaments”. We fight for an Irish workers republic, part of a voluntary federation of workers republics in the British Isles. We also want to create ICL sections and reforge the FI