Review: A Pathway to Peace

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 18

REVIEW

A PATHWAY TO PEACE

Gerry Adams with a direct simplicity and a refreshing avoidance of political “esperanto” has in his latest book “A Pathway to Peace” constructed an eloquent critique of British rule in Ireland. Adams didn’t learn to swim in the library otherwise he would have drewned by now; rather he is a man of the working class streets who can keep his head above water and talk to those around him in a language they can understand. It requires no interpreters or elaborate decoding device to see that the language in this book speaks forcefully and passionately about treachery. Written from a radical nationalist perspective, the main thrust of Adams’ critique is directed against the constitutional nationalists whom he rightly shows as having been responsible for continuously selling the national democratic struggle short. In the short period from the end of 1985 alone, the reader’s mind can focus on a frightening catalogue of injustices inflicted on the nationalist community. Yet this has been a “victorious” era for constitutional nationalism. Small wonder that Gerry Adams quotes Seamus Mallon as having said of the Hillsborough Treaty that “It’s the only LITTLE THING we have got in 65 years”.

The author leaves us in no doubt about which side of the partition line the southern ruling class stand on, As he says, “The ruling classes in the 26 counties have abandoned the principle of national self-determination, indeed they never really subscribed to it”. Yet there remains the suspicion that Republicans draw too great a distinction between party leaderships and rank and file members in the twenty-six counties. It is difficult to imagine that the rank and file in Fianna Fail are not in general happy (despite what they may nudge and wink to genuine republicans) with Fianna Fail policies including extradition. Surely at some point co-habitation in the same party with treacherous leaders must become complicity in their policies, and even if Fianna Gael does retain its Michael Collins tradition, it is a tradition republicans can do without.One Michael Collins was surely enough. - Regardless, constitutional nationalists will find little in the book to ease their apprehensions, Adams leaves little room for ambiguity that the Sinn Fein/SDLP talksas much as anything else they may have been designed to achieve-were an attempt to demonstrate the strategical paucity of the SDLP in the face of the armed struggle forced upon republicans. His call for the establishment of an economic democracy in Ireland - terrain now openly abandoned so opportunistically by Frank Ross and his Sticks - will be no comfort to the southern body politic. Coming at the book from a very different angle, the left, particularly Marxists, will probably find the contents confusing. Rather than argue fora strategy which has as its central plank the aim of exposing the southern party leadership on the national question, Marxists would emphasise the need to mobilise working class people against these parties on class issues as the one way of securing working class hegemony over the national democratic struggle, thus increasing its prospects for success.This is why Marxists would perhaps put forward the example of the African workers charter of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) as opposed to the African National Congress (ANC) charter considered by Adams as a programme for action. The advocates of the ANC charter hound anyone attempting to raise socialism on to the agenda, while COSATU remain emphatic that apartheid will only be fully destroyed by a working-class led revolution which has socialism firmly in its sight and not deleted from the agenda.

There is indeed much to be said for the Marxist case, but a word of caution is called for, Marxists should not develop tunnel vision when looking at the intellectual produce of republicanism, and see only what a certain prejudice allows them. Rather than congregate in splendid isolation at the wailing wall- as some unfortunately are prone to do - bemoaning the book's omissions, Marxists should apply their powers of cultivation to what fertile ground is offered. This requires no negation of principle on their part. It is only through critical dialogue and ideological struggle, not huffy inertia, that socialism will force its way onto the agenda and strengthen the force of the national democratic revolution. ANTHONY McINTYRE.

H-BLOCKS, LONG KESH.

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Cork and the IDA; Gombeen development The present economic policy of Insh capitalism dates from the Whittaker plan of 1958. The southern elite decided to abandon all pretence of autonomy and to throw open the doors to multinational capital penetration. Corporate investment from abroad would somehow do what native gombeens could not - without of course challenging the role of the gombeens themselves. Thirty years on it has come time to evaluate this ‘strategy’ - based more on pious wishes than sound economic principles. Fewer people are at work now than in 1958.

Mass unemployment has become the norm. Declining living and health standards are tangible realities. And, to cap it all, the multinationals that have arrived have shown themselves to be environmentally dangerous, anti-union and unwilling to invest, preferring instead to export their profits. The greater Cork region has been particularly targeted.

One of the largest natural harbours in Europe is ringed by potentially highly toxic subsidiaries of multinationals. As food processing, car assembly and ship manufacture collapsed the chemical giants moved in. Rumours abounded as to what they made - rumours almost as strange as the nauseous smells. Residents and workers began to highlight pollution, inadequate planning regulations and a high-tech disregard for the quality of life. Meanwhile state agencies launched an offensive. Aided by Trade Union bureaucrats they denounced opposition to their grandiose fantasies of industrialisation. Questions were clearly not to be asked. An asbestos plant rejected by Puerto Rico - was located in Ballincollig.

Massive local opposition (subsequently successful) was denounced by the IDA. Genuine concern was portrayed as naive, wwell-heeled liberalism.

While the focus of concern has understandably been the nature of corporations locating in the area, the time has come to investigate vigorously the role of the IDA itself.

Its largest ‘land bank" in Ireland lies in Ringaskiddy. It is over 1000 acres of prime land with publically funded gas, water and electricity laid on. It is empty.

The most recent fiasco centred on a chemical multinational, Merril Dow - the people who brought agent Orange to Vietnam. They snubbed Ringaskiddy and opted for Killeagh - a village in the heart of unpolluted and agricultural East Cork. A massive local opposition movement united farmers, workers, ecologists and citizen groups. The proposed project was defeated by a politically aware movement that mobilised extensive Opposition. The subsequent attack on this opposition by the Managing director of the IDA, Padric White, was outrageous.

He attacked “small unrepresentative groups” which were holding up the juggernaut of IDA financed multinationals. It was, plainly and simply, athreatagainst the people by an organisation funded by the people. - It is time for an alternative strategy of industrialisation to be advanced. The IDA has shown itself to be bankrupt intellectually and morally. It is the trojan horse of multinational rape nowhere is this seen as graphically as in the Cork region. Village after village has its empty “advance factory”. Union busting “management specialists” are wined and dined by the IDA in Kinsale bistros while local initiatives are denied funding. The state industrialisation agency has launched an attack on the people of the start who have dared to ask questions. Irishindustrial developmentand prosperity for its people is possible, but its achievement will mean confrontation with a 26-county gombeenism willing to poison Irish workers for their own profit and their servants in the

IDA.

Alan Bruce.

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PEACE TRAIN-

A RECIPE FOR VIOLENCE

The ‘Peace Train’ campaign has won a great deal of sympathy and support - a sympathy and support which is wholly undeserved. Like all the other pro-imperialist ‘Peace’ movements its policy is a recipe for greater violence and repression - all the more dangerous for its claims to speak for the workers movement.

The hypocrisy of the group is evident. ‘Freedom of movement’ is invoked only when applied to IRA actions. Those involved manage to ignore the British blockage of border roads, the daily harassment of Nationalists at road blocks, exclusion orders and the forced movement of extradition an emigration. They attack the symptoms and ignore the cause of violence.

What is not so evident is the violent nature of their programme. The campaign called on the Dail to take “all necessary steps” to preserve freedom of movement.

What does this mean in the land of the ‘heavy gang’ and extradition? It is in fact a naked call for more violence and repression - quickly answered by Fine Gael support for the introduction of internment. A section of the Trade Union bureaucracy, having sold out the economic rights of workers, are equally willing to abolish democratic and civil rights.

Yet we must note that the campaign’s success in mobilising many outside the rabidly anti-republican ‘new consensus’ of the extreme right and the Workers party rests on its ability to focus in on the weaknesses of the anti-imperialist movement. The IRA’s explanation of why a movement committed to a united Ireland is bombing the Belfast-Dublin link is unconvincing. This is because it is not based on a political strategy but is in fact a military substitute for the failure of Sinn Fein to build such a strategy in the 26 counties. The need for such military substitution has also led to a gradual widening of acceptable ‘soft targets’ - a drift which many republican supporters view with disquiet and leads to an increasing isolation of the movement.

The task of defeating this new pro-imperialist offensive requires the republican movement breaking out of its isolation and building a radical 32-county political strategy aimed at the working class. A start was made with the “Peace Bus’ along the border, but the battle needs to be brought to the heart of the trade union movement and involve a broad democratic alliance of anti-imperialists. It’s worth noting that the last major disruption of the rail link was the “Belfast boycott’ launched by the Irish Citizen army at the start of the civil war in protest at sectarian attacks on Northern nationalists. This involved the armed siezure of trains but the bureaucrats of the day kept an discreet silence - they dared not stand up to a mass mobilisation with an organised voice in the workers movement.

FRANK ROSSA.

Leaks - P.D. Mem Recently a tattered photocopy was pushed through the letterbox at the home of one of our members by the RUC. It was to inform him that he was the subject of a ‘leaked document’. Behind all the hype, fake concern and enquires the RUC has lost no opportunity to show their lack of concern for the lives they and their cohorts in the British army and UDR have put at risk.

There is another aspect to the targeting of our member besides the complete contempt for the lives of nationalists shown by the RUC on many occasions. He has never been a member of the IRA or of any section of the Republican movement. Much of his political work has been connected with perfectly open Trade union activities. He has been arrested once - again this was on a perfectly legal and open May Day march in Belfast.

This open political activity was considered enough for his photograph to be taken and included in a photomontage - that is made a target for routine harassment by the

TROOPS OUT!

THE POTENTIAL FOR SOLIDARITY

The August demonstration in London to mark the twentieth anniversary of the British Army’s current stay in Ireland was a disappointing affair. Most realistic estimates put the number present at around 5000, this despite the fact that it was organised by the high-profile ‘Time to Go!’ campaign. This campaign was established just over a year ago by a self-appointed committee which includes Clare Short MP, John McDonnell (formerly Ken Livingstone’s deputy at the Greater London Council) and a few other figure who are quite well known on the British Left. The idea was to make this the campaign which broke out of the isolation of established solidarity organisations like the Troops Out Movement (TOM) by winning the support of large sections of the Labour party and Trade UNions, thus making Ireland a legitimate area of political debate in Britain. However the Time To Go! steering committee was determined from the very start to keep control of the campaign’s direction in its own hands. It won the ber Targeted state forces and for it subsequently to be leaked and his life put at risk. The issue of the leaks is not an issue of pieces of paper, security procedures, orthe old story of “afew bad apples”.

Itis about state collusion in sectarian killings. By resuming the everyday business of the Hillsborough accord the Dublin Government has now become directly involved in this process. The issue of the leaks must not be allowed to go onto the back burner or swept aside with a few dramatic arrests of the more obvious candidates in the UDR and Loyalist organisations. We must continue to protest at every opportunity this continuing collaboration in murder between London and Dublin.

FRANK ROSSA.

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(largely rhetorical) support of the various fractions of the Communist party and, most importantly, the support of the Socialist Workers party, the largest of the revolutionary organisations in Britain. This guaranteed a large number of people who would work without asking any questions, but it alienated large numbers of activists, particularly in TOM, by its undemocratic practices. Even now, well over a year since its foundation, there has been no mention from the leadership of setting up a democratic structure which would allow activists to decide how the campaign should be run.

Nevertheless the campaign got off to a reasonably good start by persuading a hundred more or less famous people to put their names to a charter which, though weakly worded, came to the conclusion that Britain should get out of Ireland. Since then it has had a programme on BBC2, a number of well attended fringe meetings at union conferences and NALGO, a local government union with 500 000 members, voting to affiliate at its last conference - a feat no other solidarity campaign has achieved. But the NALGO affiliation reveals the contradiction facing Time To Go! The campaign was aimed at union leaderships, but affiliation was achieved despite the resistance of the union leadership, who didn’t want to be seen taking what would be perceived as a “Troops Out’ position, and partly as a result of many years of work by members of the “isolated’ solidarity movements.

At the end of the year of activity to mark the twentieth anniversary of the deployment of British Troops on the streets of the North there are reasons to be optimistic about the solidarity movementin Britain. A campaign around the media restrictions on Sinn Fein has attracted a wide degree of support and it provides a good example of how itis possible for activists to work together when no group tries to take over a campaign. Serious militants have learnt the lesson that real support for withdrawal can only be built by an open democratic campaign. More importantly, many now have experience of building meetings all over Britain where republican speakers were represented. This fact alone is evidence of the tremendous potential that exists for building a solidarity movement.

NAVIGATOR.

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AEF AST THREE

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