Who does Noel Browne Speak For?

- Cavan Monaghan WHAT KIND OF CANDIDATE?

In a recent letter to The Irish Times concerning the Fermanagh South Tyrone bye-election Socialist Labour Party TD Noel Browne takes to a new level his “suspicion” that the struggle of the Irish people for national | liberation and an end to British occupation is really a conspiracy involving trigger happy fascists and Christian Brothers in a massive plot to distract us from the real straightforward struggle for socialism.

In his letter Browne attacked the SDLP for failing to stand a candidate In Fermanagh/South Tyrone. According to Browne the SDLP.”

should have put up a candidate in order to split the Nationalist vote and elect the Unionist in the interests of democracy. It is hard to see how demociacy served by electing a Unionist MP in aconstituency that is majority nationalist. But Dr.

Browne is not talking about democracy but a specific form :

bourgeois parliamentary democracy.

He is not interested in the democratic right of the Irish people to self-determination; when the struggle to achieve this right challenges the parliamentary institutions which maintain partition, Browne stands for Unionism.

To defend parliamentary democracy against the democratic wishes of the people Browne has to ignore the facts or turn them on their head. The Provos are slandered as ‘fascists’

and Browne gives us the amazing ‘fact’ that the Provos shoot people because they are Protestants. On H-Blocks campaign must do if it is to triumph in Cavan-Monaghan. It must convince the electorate that by choosing a supporter of the hungerstrikers they will in fact be. taking a step towards bringing down the Coalition. The campaign must also convince the electorate that a new genelection will not result in the type of government -- be it Coalition of or Haugheyite Fianna Fail -- which will continue to defer to Thatcher.

To make such a breakthrough the H-Block campaign will have to seriously reconsider its approach to elections. Another abstentionist the other hand the Unionist candidate, Ken Maginnis, an ex-major in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), representative of a tradition which has denied democratic rights to Catholics during the 50 years of Stormont rule, becomes: “the Protestant Unionist parliamentarian who is not a gunman”.

Browne is a self-styled socialist with a warped view of the world. He thinks the national question is an unnecessary complication in Irish politics. He has ignored events in the 6 Counties for years, only hesitating to advise others to do the same.

He can ignore it no longer. The H-Block campaign has once | again made what is happening in the 6 .

Counties an issue in the 26 Counties.

The victories of Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew have shown clearly the These factors illustrate what the H-Blocks would definitely be the opposite of what is needed. Much of the broad based support for the prisoners would be lukewarm towards that kind of election campaign. More importantly, an abstentionist candidate, even if elected, could not lead the fight to kick out the Coalition.

RAISE HELL We need an election campaign in CavanMonaghan which highlights the broad support for the prisoners in a dynamic. way. Above all, the situation demands a candidate who will enter Leinster House to raise hell, day in and day out with the avowed intention of voting level of support for the prisoners. Tn B. owne’s ownConstituency he was challenged by Peoples’ Democracy and the end of a cushy career living off his achievements in the first inter-party government of 1948-51.

the 1981 campaign. A generalised populist denunciation of unequal distribution of wealth (witkget an equal share) was presented to It is fitting that he now shares a room in Leinster House with Jim Kemmy (who would have been more honest, and even more successful had he campaigned under the slogan ‘Jim’Il fix it )”’-Defying the SLP to which he still claims allegiance, he seems set on trying to Revive with rats (NPD) that he maintained in the early 60’s with Jack McQuillan. Alas, as Marx said, the first time is tragedy. the second farce; the NPD consistently opposed the government of the day, and did not ‘critically support it the left because it was a 26 county party at a time when it seemed possible that the national question could continued on page 8. against the Coalition in order to bring it down.

Within Leinster House the strategy of a H-Block TD would be to constantly expose the hypocrisy of FitzGerald an¢ Haughey. Such a TD would play noi play the genteel parliamentary every possible occasion. At the moment conditions in Leinster House are very favourable to this type of tactic. The democratic facade of the parliamentary game is paper thin. An unpopular government with a knife edge majority is trying to force through sweeping anti-working class measures. Fianna Fail and the candidate Vincent Doherty, who supported the prisoners. Browne sees in all this the beginnin_ of the end for sham democracy practised in Leinster House Browne claimed credit for his 30 year old Ministerial accomplishments during out explaining how the have-nots could remind people that Noel Browne was, workplaces. once,a Socialist Labour politician.

Kemmy the parliamentary contribution of the National Progressive DemocThere is a second difference. The NPD was partly able to act as vanguard of the politicians. game but would disrupt proceedings on

SOCIALIST REPUSLI imprisonment .

“Bent begins as a very funny play . It opens with Max, heavily hung over, trying to reconstruct the events of the previous evening. His lover Rudi, a dancer at Greia’s night club, helps him to remember while gently poking fun at some of the wilder things he has done. It is a scene that must be familiar to many of us.

While they are thus engaged, Wolf, a teenage member of Hitler Youth begins | to stir from the blankets to the right. It transpires that Max, while drunk, pretended to be a rich Polish baron, the better to seduce the handsome youth.

The reality is somewhat different. A loud banging at the door announces what Max and Rudi believe to be the arrival of their landlord looking for three weeks rent. When they open the door, the SS burst in, drag away Wolf and threaten to return for the” two lovers. Max and Rudi have been unwittingly caught up in the aftermath of the Night of‘the Long The Project Arts Centre in Dublin recently staged a ction of ‘Bent’ sotay ele leh de ated ok Neraonicn koe rlaonetign se, :

‘The story of the suppression of gays has not been fully told and even today there are people who claim that the Nazis did not victimise gays. When Germany was ‘liberated’ by the Allies, gays were the only group Even in 1975, when the compensation, the surviving threatened with a wretched existence of hunger and cold. This is nothing new from their life in Berlin, but now they must hide their love from other outcasts. In the hieragchy of oppression under fascism, it is even ‘better to be a Jew than a queer’ (sic).

They are soon rounded up and transported to Dachau. On the train, in an effort to save himself, Max denies his love for Rudi.who is brutally murdered by the guards. Max does a “deal” and earns the ‘right’ to wear a yellow Star of David - badge of the Jewish inmates - rather than the pink triangle of homosexuals who are universally despised.

In the concentration camp Max meets Horst, a gay incarcerated for signing his name to a petition demanding an end to laws making homosexuality a crime, (Section 175 of the Penal Code was not repealed until 1969 and gay internees were never compensated. Many of those who survived the extermination camps were re-imprisoned as ‘criminals’).

Horst and Max argue constantly about whether it is better to stand up for oneself, fight and die or to accomodate to the violence of oppression. In the end, the contradiction is resolved by Horst striking out at a cruel SS officer. As he is killed by the officer, Max realises that death is inevitable. Better, then, to fight than to passively await death Max dons Horst’s jacket, proud now of his pink triangle and its symbol of resistance.

‘Bent’ is a graphic illustration of life The Women’s organisiag Committee of the H Block/Armagh Campaign held a successful planning meeting in dundalk on the 13th of September. Women from Dublin, Derry, Belfast and Louth attended. Plans for a cross Border Women’s Assembly were agreed. Women will gather Sunday 4th of October at to Derry City to join activities surrounding the 13th anniversary of the original 1968 Civil Rights march.

Most of the time very little is . heard of the second chamber in on the Muff-Derry Border on 1.30pm. They will walk three miles

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