Free State

Ice its establishment as a formally ependent state in 1920 through the stminster Government of Ireland Act ‘Free State has consistently resorted “special” or “exceptional” legislation order to deal with the various social, ;nomic and political problems facing it. at it has had to do this is a reflection the way it was designed to perform two tually irreconcilable tasks — to preserve tition and at the same time provide table framework for its bourgeoisie to ild itself a secure economic base. To ectively perform the second task would an the preventing of British perialism from plundering the country t this can only be done if the partition tlement is destroyed. The Free State en is incapable of being anything other an a pathetic reactionary off-shoot of itish imperialism and this is why it s suffered from unstable stability for e whole of its existence, Using this as ir framework we can analyse what lies hind the growing crisis of the Free State, amine why it is now being forced to unch a new attack on civil liberties and what extent this is a reaction to ents in the Six Counties, see how various rees can be mobilised against this tack and establish how far the Free ate will have to go before reaching its eaking point.

ie Republican Threat ee Sivte tec nieny axpects (dacrimnination it is true to say that repression in the ainst women, clerical domination, high ligration and unemployment etc), we must derstand that it has always been the sublican movement which has presented the 3st immediate threat to the Free State even ough it has mostly never even mentioned t alone understood) or fought against the pader aspects of Free State repression.

:publicanism has always been the strongest litical ideology among the southern working iss at the level of a general political sympathy tt republicans have never had a dear-cut rspective of using that sympathy to organise ass movement against the State. The ée State has taken advantage of this in the past cht years to selectively use repression against oublicans. Nevertheless it has failed to defeat # current republican campaign while at the me time it has found itself being forced to use pression in an increasingly wider scale against her social groups, and some of its initiatives ve been very badly defeated or stalled (e.g.

p attempted deferral of equal pay). All of this yws from the combined effect of the lernational recession and the structural crisis vernment is being forced to adopt an intensified ategy of repression. The Government Offensive ‘There is no lack of evidence to back this analysis up, This new phase began with the hijacking of Frank Stages funeral, Members of a registered political party, the Irish Republican Socialist Party have produced detailed evidence that they were systematically tortured and beaten up by Special Branch officers in various Garda stations. The organisation dealing with these cases, the Association for Legal Justice, has begun 3 systematic inquiry into Garda brutality and has revealed that the IRSP case is just the tip of an iceberg. Also of course there is the banning of the 1916 commemoration to be added to this list. Allied to these attacks the government has launched a crude propaganda offensive: women are being blamed for causing the economic crisis; the Union of Students’ in Ireland are being accused of trying to build a “Sino-Hibernian”™ {!) . Marxist” society; and many warnings have been given that “traditional” civil liberties will have to be abandoned to “defend democracy” (!)

The Northern Background We must realise however that these moves are not solely a reaction to the crisis of the Free State. A marked feature of the recent government moves has been the amount of opposition they have encountered and the creation of a situation where splits and visions must inevitably occur within all the major bourgeois parties. Judged solely in terms of what is happening in the south the héjacking of Frank Stage’s funeral and the banning of the 1916 commemoration could be seen as hysterical and stupid moves which have brought extra forces into opposition to the government. When we examine what is happening in the North however the reasons become very clear. The ‘Sunday Times’, the *[rish Times, and numerous other irrefutable sources have produced evidence that the conflict in the Six Counties is being deliberately “Ulsterised” or more accurately “Loyalist”. “Republican News” has.

reported that army recruiting is being intensified. Not only that but once Loyalists are recruited into Irish regiments in the Six Counties they are trained in Britain, transferred to another regiment and then sent back to the North. Thus even the reduction in the role of, and numbers in, the Army, hides the true significance of what is taking place.

This should also clarify that the different Loyalist factions are not disagreeing with each other over whether to defy or give in to non-existent British government pressure for “oower-sharing™ ot the continuance of direct rule. In reality they are so confident of being able to take power ina relatively short space of time that they feel able to argue over who will get the spoils.

It would be very dangerous to pose this asa victory for the Republican Movement on the grounds that Britain is pulling out. What it shows is that Britain believes its loyalist lackeys can control the situation without overt military assistance, just as they did before 1968. That is not to say that there are no dangers involved fro Britain in pursuing this strategy o1 that the situation in the Free State is controllable in the short term. In some ways it is not and that is why it is necessary to try and build a civil rights campaign in the south capable of undertaking mass mobilizations and preventing the government from successfully carrying out its attack on civil liberties. resist equal pay efc.

to take such stands.

CAMPAIGN! government A Programme for Action Already a number of people such as John Mulcahy (editor of Hibernia) have been involved in discussions around building such a campaign. We strongly support the moves he and others have made to establish a permanent civil rights campaign and believe it could successfully adopt the following demands: * Abolition of repressive legislation (eg.

Offences Against the State Act, Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill etc.) * Opposition to discrimination against women — for the right to contraception, divorce, Support the right to work — oppose victimisation and blacklisting Obviously issues such as that should be open to the broadest possible discussion but what is particularly important is that there must bea willingness to take up every case that comes to the campaign's notice irrespective of what political allegiances any victim or victims of state repression may have. It is only through adopting such a position that the campaign could credibly claim to oppose all state repression and not just act either asa sort of social welfare agency or a front for particular organisations. Also it is necessary that there should be open membership to anyone agreeing with the campaign, that it not be simply a group of public personalities making representations to the government. This is not to say that defiance of the government by people like Michae!] Mullen and David Thornley should be ignored — instead it should be stressed that the actions they have taken against the government are very welcome and support should be offered to them as long as they continue Finally, with regard to the Republican movement, it must be stressed that this is the only possible perspective for successfully opposing the Free State at the present time. Even if we get to the stage when if, as appears likely, the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill becomes law, Gardai simply hand people over to the RUC armed resistance alone will not stop them. Every possible legal means must be used to highlight cases of government brutality, just as the IRSP has done, Indeed one of the reasons the government has behaved so provocatively in the past while it may have been its desire to provoke a rash reaction from those it is attempting to destroy.

We cannot allow Cooney, O'Brien and Cosgrave to get away with these kinds of manoeuvres and they must be effectively opposed. The time for talk and futile action is rapidly fading away — the government will not delay much longer.

DEFEAT GOVERNMENT BUILD A MASS CIVIL LIBERTIES JAMES GALLAGHER 5