Reports: Provisional Sinn Fein Ard Fheis 1980

~ Reports

ISR 23

Provisional Sinn Fein Ard Fheis 1980 Provisional Sinn Fein’s annual Ard Fheis (National Conference) was held in Dublin on the weekend of January 20th/2 Ist, attended by up to 800 delegates from all over Ireland north and south, as well as visitors from Britain and several European countries. There were messages of support from many European groups including O.U.T. (Portugal, represented by Otelo de Carvalho), ETA (Basque), and also SWAPO (Namibia), FRETILIN (East Timor), FSLN (Nicaragua), EPLF ! (Eritrea), and Partido Socialista (Chile).

‘ From Britain solidarity greetings came ! from the UTOM, Women and Ireland, , Big Flame and Hands off Ireland.

* This was an important Ard Fheis for Sinn Fein, marking a definite advance in the movement’s policy and programme, an advance which is the result of ten years hard experience. A new policy document was presented by the leader- ; Ship to be debated and voted upon. The } document articulates a socialist perspect- } ive more appropriate to the problems | facing a national liberation movement in a world dominated by multi-national ; capital, and is a significant up-dating of } the old Fire Nua document with its more j populist ideology. To Pearse’s call for freedom and national sovereignty over Ireland’s resources have been added the words of Connolly: “We believe that the present system of society is based on the robbery of the working class and that capitalist property cannot exist without the plundering of labour, we desire to see capitalism abolished and a democratic system of common and public ownership erected in its stead. This democratic system, which is called socialism, will, we believe, come as a result of the continuous increase of power of the working class.” The new document, only a brief draft of principles at this stage, outlines strategies to extricate Ireland from the control of international capital. The measures proposed include State control of import and ‘export of capital, public control of finance, insurance and all the key industries, agriculture and fisheries; national and community ownership and control of mineral extraction and processing. All of this was accepted { without opposition. The most contentj ious issue was the policy on ownership lof the land. All ranches and estates would be broken up and units leased to families of other groupings of people, to be run cooperatively, in line with national objectives. There would be an upper limit to the amount of land any individual WER. ecteaee cccgennetn seen ete could own, and incentives and restrictions enacted to ensure utilisation of agricultural land in the interests of the people.

The aim of these measures is to expand the variety of land use and move towards self-sufficiency in food-production, thus reversing the trend induced by the EEC for land to be concentrated into larger and larger units devoted to beef production for export. Of equal priority is the aim of rural repopulation, since migration from the countryside is having a disastrous effect on Ireland’s economic, social and cultural life.

Certain sections of the delegates were worried about the land proposals, as they felt that they amounted to an attack on the small farmer. Other delegates strenuously argued that they were the opposite: an attempt to reverse the current elimination of small farmers and to stem the resulting flight from the countryside. The debate provided a sharp example of the needs of the different sections of the people who must be catered for by a serious movement for socialism, and was a lesson in the crucial importance of carrying along the mass of people in agreement and full understanding of radical policies. Democratic Control While emphasising the need for nationalisation and state direction of the economy, the document lays great stress on democratic control. Popular control has always been a central part of republican philosophy, from the time of its birth in the days of the French Revolution. In the old policy document Eire Nua these ideals were articulated within ancient Irish social forms of cooperative, which gave native Irish the right to ownership of the land they worked (called the Comhar na gComharsan). These ideals are now given a sounder modern basis as a result of the Republican Movement placing itself within the worldwide tendency in socialism to seek social forms which avoid the rigid and dominating forms of Eastern bloc communism. As one of the socialist Prisoners of War in a British prison has written: “A bureaucratic socialist state would simply mean an upgraded welfare state for workers.” (P.R.O., Republican 4 prisoners of war, Albany Jail, Isle of Wight). In the old Eire Nua document, a federal system with Ireland governed by provincial assemblies based on the four ancient provinces of Ireland, was thought to be one political structure which would guarantee popular control.

This is now felt to be inadequate and ae ty Sue O’ Halloran somewhat abstract, and more thought is being given in the new document to methods ef genuinely decentralising political and economic power and devolving power down to “the lowest possible unit of government”’ consistent with the national economic requirements outlined. The last section of the policy document consists of a strategy for “economic resistance’, and basically involves the movement in recognising the importance of the class struggle ongoing in Ireland today, north and south, as a part of the struggle for national independence that must be taken as seriously as the armed struggle for the end of the British occupation of the North. This debate took up most of the first day of the conference. During the debate significant statements were made concerning how Sinn Fein views the present stage in the war of liberation in the North. The years of struggle have made people much more sharply aware that a neo-colonial solution would be a hollow victory. Gerry Adams, the Vice-President, ' said: “The slogan ‘Brits Out’ on its own is not worth one day in Castlereagh, one day on the blanket, one dead comrade, or even one dead soldier.” The Irish Republican Army has not been . defeated, will not be defeated, and its ‘ : popular support is holding up well; all _; this is freely conceded by the British army.

This means that the time may fast be approaching when political solutions will be sought in real seriousness. The movement is becoming acutely aware of the responsibilities of Sinn Fein to provide credible political options: “‘The British have realised that there can be no military victory, it is time the republicans also realised that there can be no military victory’’, said Gerry Adams. “We have -: to link up with other struggles and show ‘: our struggle is their struggle . .. We have ‘; to do in the 1980s the work we have i, neglected in the 1970s”.

There are a number of reasons why the increased emphasis on social and economic struggles have arisen at this time. First, the young working class militants of the North have not been fighting for ten years only to wake up one day living in the same poverty and injustice as before, but under a green flag instead of an orange one. At the same time over these last ten years the nature of imperialism in Ireland has rt remanence