Where will the “Peace Process” lead us? Lessons from Palestine and Africa
For a Workers Republic1994Internationalism and other strugglesPeace process and British initiativesRepublicanism and the IRAInternationalism and other strugglesPeace process and British initiativesRepublicanism and the IRA
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Republican leaders have made it very easy to decide whether their “peace process” will lead to justice and freedom, and therefore whether we should support it. They have pointed to South Africa and Palestine as examples of how peace can be successfully brought about, so if we look at these countries we can see the truth.
### SOUTH AFRICA
In South Africa winning the vote for Black people was a great victory, but nationalists in Lreland know that being able to vote doesn't guarantee democracy. The Aprilelections inSouth Africa were clearly rigged to prevent the ANC from getting the majority required to change the constitution.
The ANC supported this rigging in order to help justify their compromise with the hated Apartheid regime. The new constitution clearly prevents majority rule and enshrines a white veto over any real change. This is the important point. Black people supported the ANC because they wanted real change in their wretched conditions. The compromises of the ANC have left all the levers of political and economic power in the hands of the mainly white capitalist class, ensuring that their will be no end to the massive unemployment and poverty suffered by black people.
The only group to benefit is a rising black middle class. ANC MP's earn twelve times the salary of an average black worker. In Ireland, after 25 years of struggle, it is mainly the growing Catholic middle and business class which has gained.
The new ANC government has promised to respect the wishes of the International Monetary fund and other imperialist bodies. It has even taken the bizarre step of re-joining the commonwealth and linking itself politically to the feudal institutions of the British monarchy. As long as the black working class majority in South Africa is imprisoned in these imperialist structures they will see very few benefits from the right to vote.
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### PALESTINE
At least it can be said that the oppressed people in South Africa can vote. That's more than the Palestinian people can do under the deal made with Israel by the PLO. The deal made by Yassar Arafat is a complete and utter betrayal of the Palestinian people, yet still he is praised by Republican leaders.
The Palestinian people have not recovered their land or country and the majority who are refugees in Arab countries are not allowed to return to the occupied territories. They have been offered a glorified local council in the Gaza strip, which is one big refugee camp, and another at the small town of Jericho on the West Bank.
The racist and oppressive Zionist state continues to exist and effectively controis the Palestinian administration. The PLO administered territory is an economic basket case, offering no resources or economic base for its inhabitants. All that has changed is that Palestinian police, rather than Israeli, will be asked to suppress this discontent of the people.
Both peace processes have failed even to halt the violence. In South Africa violence increased dramatically as the right pushed the ANC to make even greater concessions. Despite the massacre of Muslim worshippers at Hebron Zionist settlers are free to murder at will and the Israeli state to launch terror attacks into the territory of neighbouring states.
If this is what is on offer to powerful movements like the ANC and PLO what can a relatively tiny force like Sinn Fein expect?
### ALTERNATIVE
In both South Africa and Palestine the ordinary working class people who have ignored their leaders have shown there is an alternative. The number of strikes in South Africa has doubled this year as workers themselves claim the liberation which is rightfully theirs. In Palestine the uprising of the Palestinian people has not ended and the PLO is losing more and more support. In these countries, as in Ireland, the future lies in a new struggle which rejects the terms of surrender set by imperialism and looks forward to a victory that can only happen when working people fight for socialism.
fread your emergency oulic tin with great interest and agreed with a lot of it. However | didn’t think your position on violence was clear.
Surely socialists: don’t want the armed struggle to continue?
The responsibility for the violence in Ireland rests squarely on the shoulders of British imperialism and its supporters who have used state and state condoned terror to deny the democratic rights of the Irish people.
Socialists defend the right of the Irish people to take up arms to assert those national democratic rights. But reject the idea that the IRA or INLA or any other army can conquer those rights for the Irish people.
With James Connolly we believe that only the Irish working class.
mobilised in its own independent organisations can lead the fight for lrish freedom to its conclusion. A final peace will come when the struggle for socialism ends forever the power of Irish as well as British capitalists to manipulate and terrorise Irish workers.
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A readers ques- tion on armed struggle