Alexander Billet
Gerry Adams used to represent high hopes for the people of Northern Ireland. In the 1980s, he was the most outspoken and charismatic leader calling for a free and unified Ireland, a constant thorn in the side of Margaret Thatcher and other defenders of the British empire. In the 1990s, his willingness to back the peace process made him a mainstream hero as well.
Now, seven years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the Sinn Fein president is coming under increasing pressure to separate from the Irish Republican Army after the killing of Robert McCartney, a Catholic father of two from Derry, which involved senior members of the IRA. [On July 27, the IRA announced that it was abanoning "armed struggle". The previous day, Irish justice minister Michael McDowell claimed that Adams had resigned from the IRA's Army Council.]
Sinn Fein has long been considered the political wing of the IRA, with both organisations working together in order to free Northern Ireland from British rule and join the rest of Ireland in a unified republic. The slaying of McCartney, along with the robbery of the Northern Bank in December attributed to the IRA, has meant that both branches are coming under huge public scrutiny among Irish citizens — north and south, Catholic and Protestant.
Catholic and Protestant both celebrated the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. With over 30 years of brutal violence during "the Troubles" behind them, Catholics and Protestants were both eager to grasp any sign of peace.
The agreement, along with its accompanying cease-fire between pro- British ("loyalist" or "Unionist") and Republican forces, was to formally end sectarian violence, and provide a way to relax Britain's rule with a Northern Ireland Assembly. It was also supposed to end the laws used by the British government to persecute Catholics and deny them political and civil rights, supposedly on behalf of the Protestant majority.
Blair's empty promises
It proved to be an empty promise. British PM Tony Blair caved almost any time there was Unionist opposition, such as from David Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party. For example, when Unionists argued that Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam was too "pro-Catholic", Blair quickly sidelined her, then removed her from that position in 2000. Any time there was opposition from the Republican side, they were ignored.
The loyalists were allowed time and again to derail the peace process, and the British government dragged its feet implementing many of the civil rights laws. Though the language seemed truly progressive on paper, the Blair government failed to translate any of it into practical measures to protect the rights of Catholics.
Sectarianism was not only not put down by the agreement, one might say it was almost encouraged. The agreement allowed for the continuation of Catholic- or Protestant-only institutions such as schools.
Meanwhile, Blair's spinelessness toward the unionists meant that he was unable to present the agreement as a viable alternative to Unionism and loyalism, and he failed to win significant sections of Protestants away from sectarian violence.
Catholics have suffered the brunt of a vast majority of attacks since the beginning of the cease-fire. Though there has been sporadic internal fights between separate Republican groups, the IRA has for the most part obeyed the conditions of the cease-fire. But loyalist groups such as the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) or Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), despite their official recognition of the cease-fire, have carried out several attacks with the intention of provoking Republicans back into violence since the agreement.
During the three months to July 2002, for example, 363 non-lethal attacks were carried out by loyalist forces against Catholics, including 144 bombings, 25 shootings, and 43 personal assaults. It is worth pointing out that there was violence coming from Republican groups during this period — but mostly from dissident, non-IRA splinter groups, not the Provisional IRA, and not from groups that were observing the cease-fire. The UDA and UFF were, at least officially, observing the cease-fire.
It is also worth pointing out that while Adams now faces public pressure to formally break with the IRA in light of the McCartney murder, this kind of pressure was never hiked up on the likes of Trimble, who throughout all this simply screamed that the IRA wasn't decommissioning its arms quickly enough, or demanded that Sinn Fein be kept out of the executive of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Living standards in Northern Ireland are relatively low for both sides. While there is a strong tradition of "Protestant privilege" that runs through Northern Irish society, the budget cuts and privatisations that were carried out directly following the Good Friday Agreement have affected all workers, Catholic and Protestant.
Sinn Fein's rightward drift
The discrimination against Catholics can only be seen as a divide-and-rule strategy, and Republicanism, because it seeks to improve Catholics second-class status, presents a threat to that order. Though how much of a threat is up for debate. Those same budget cuts weren't fought at all by Sinn Fein.
The party's website still extols the need for "a 32-county workers' republic". Indeed, its rhetoric has been quite radical over the years. But its role as "the political wing" of the struggle for a unified Ireland has meant it has been forced to make concessions time and again so as to not risk its chances of getting into and retaining office.
Over the past several years, while participating in Northern Ireland's Assembly, Sinn Fein has retreated on a woman's right to choose, and led the way for privatising hospitals and schools.
Adams has been increasingly critical of militant action over the past decade, and most governments and mainstream media have heaped praise on him for this. But the time has never quite been right for Adams to completely break with the IRA. McCartney's murder has provided that golden opportunity.
This is hardly Adams' effort to turn to a more effective strategy, such as mobilising the Irish workers around key demands, but another concession in order to further legitimise Sinn Fein as a business-friendly party. In other words, Sinn Fein has backed itself into a corner by trying to play both sides. It has two choices — either abandon the IRA and continue swinging to the right, or defiantly scrap any hopes of entering into the government in favour of resuming guerrilla warfare (which would be an unpopular and laughable move seeing as how it has the past seven years praising the benefits of the Good Friday Agreement).
This represents a fundamental contradiction in the philosophy of Irish Republicanism. Its inherent elitism leaves it unable to organise the majority of people around its demands. According to Irish writer and activist Kieran Allen, the Republicans "share a fervent belief that the mass of people are fundamentally passive and that it requires a committed minority to achieve gains. This heroic myth of 1916 is drummed into every republican. The mass of Dublin workers were 'corrupted' by empire and only 'woken up' by the brave action of the martyrs."
Ever since before the 1916 Easter Uprising, Republicans have rejected the idea of mass struggle. This is the backbone of Sinn Fein's electoral strategy and the IRA's militarism. After all, if they are two sides of the same coin, it makes sense that their tactics reflect each other.
The IRA, from its inception, has sought to foment struggle through conspiratorial means. Individual assassinations and car bombings (intended to carry the struggle forward) require intense secrecy. For that reason, it has never been accountable to the Catholic communities it is fighting on behalf of.
"When there is no real struggle, paramilitary organisations become self serving", says Allen. "They have huge organisational resources — but little to fight for beyond periodic elections."
This can result in tactics as varied as having interests in small capitalism such as taxi businesses or pubs, to engaging in bank robberies in Belfast. For these reasons, the IRA finds its support waning to its lowest level in 35 years.
Whither Norther Ireland?
Robert McCartney's sister put her finger on the problem when she contrasted the "Old IRA" with the "New IRA", but she doesn't see the connection between the elitism of both. What she does, however, speak to, is the need for a real solution in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Fein's neoliberal agenda eliminates it as any kind of viable alternative for the people of Ireland. The IRA's guerrilla-turned-vigilante police squad tactics provide no way forward either.
The present crisis in Irish Republicanism presents questions for all people who seek liberation for Northern Ireland. That liberation will come not from elitism, be that the elitism of electoral opportunists or heavy-handed guerrilla tactics. Rather, it lies in defining the struggle along class lines, not religious ones.
The Protestants may constitute a majority, but that majority is slim. The 2001 census found that 46% of Northern Irish are Catholic, and suggested that they may soon be the majority. The solution lies in the contradictions of an increasingly globalised society, where the bottom line is the only line that matters. Capitalism doesn't care whether a worker is Catholic or Protestant, it only cares about squeezing both to get the most out of them. Right now that squeeze has taken its toll on both sides.
Since the beginning of the agreement, living standards and wages have fallen for both Catholic and Protestant, and this makes the potential for workers to see each other as allies even greater.
The liberation of Northern Ireland is in the streets, but until those streets see every worker, both Catholic and Protestant, marching arm-in-arm for self-determination and against British control, both will remain in chains.
[Abridged from <http://www.counterpunch.org>. Alexander Billet is an actor, writer and socialist living in Syracuse, New York State.]
From Green Left Weekly, August 17, 2005.
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