Liam redux

There's something on TV that day

Weighing two kilos Diarmaid MacCulloch’s A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years is full of interesting nuggets. You might think that things get a bit tetchy in the lefty blogosphere. That’s hardly a squabble in a nursery playground compared to what Christians used to get up to. I don’t want to put ideas…

Liam
3–5 minutes

Weighing two kilos Diarmaid MacCulloch’s A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years is full of interesting nuggets. You might think that things get a bit tetchy in the lefty blogosphere. That’s hardly a squabble in a nursery playground compared to what Christians used to get up to. I don’t want to put ideas in anyone’s head but the Catholics burned thirteen Orthodox monks at the stake in Constantinople because they insisted that the Eucharist should be made from leavened bread. The Papists, for reasons that made perfect sense to them, felt that the  host  should be made without yeast. Then you had the tremendous leap of faith of the hermits who would spend half a lifetime sitting on a column or living in a cave in an attempt to get closer to the divine.

Something of the same  ascetic disdain for the material world lives on among the Sinn Féin organisers of an event called the London Irish Unity Conference on February 20th. Top of the bill is Gerry Adams along with Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn , Salma Yaqoob and a representative of the Gaelic Athletic Association among others.  The publicity material starts with a tendentious assertion about the Good Friday Agreement. It’s right when it claims that the  Agreement  is "supported by the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland" though it doesn’t mention that this is largely because they were all fed up with a futile and defeated armed struggle.  O bvious tripe is the claim that the GFA has "has positively transformed the relationship between Britain and Ireland". That would be the relationship where one country occupies a bit of the other, keeps a military garrison and a paramilitary police force and has just built a massive MI5 building outside Belfast.

A thread running through the publicity is the reasonable and civilising nature of British imperialism. This used to be a theme of liberals and imperialists but, based on its own recent history, Sinn Féin is convinced that any leopard can change its spots. Through the Agreement imperialism has conceded "clear mechanisms for ensuring equality, rights and parity of esteem" and even "the provision for a possible constitutional route to a united Ireland" "should a majority in Ireland wish it". I’m open to correction here but I can’t find any reference in the books to a majority requesting partition. What this really means is the London decides when it withdraws and it’s not going to.

When you’ve tried, without much luck, to unite Ireland by armed struggle and going into coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party you need a Plan C. It seems to be procreating your way to Irish freedom or the "demographic trend" that  the conference organisers refer to. Catholics tend to have more kids than Protestants is the sectarian religious logic of that proposition. When you are reduced to rolling out that staple of a drunken Celtic fan’s political analysis you are running out of ideas.

Sinn Féin has failed to convince anyone outside its own corrupt grantocracy that the political collapse represented by the Good Friday Agreement is anything other than a major victory for British imperialism in Ireland and it’s by no means certain that even the grantocracy is quite so naive. It is dishonest or delusional to pretend that there is any parity at all in the power relations between the Britain, the Irish State or Irish Republicanism. This understanding  is motivating the misbegotten attempts to go back to what the Republicans were doing twenty years ago. Wrapping up defeat in verbiage about social justice, equality and inclusion somehow just emphasises the depoliticisation of mainstream Republicanism.

What’s interesting is the way both the Labour and Marxists lefts in Britain (plus much of the Irish left) have almost unanimously accepted the Sinn Féin / British Government narrative of what the Good Friday Agreement represents. The main reason for that is that anyone who does not follow Irish politics too closely still tends to see Sinn Féin as some sort of radical organisation and much of the British based solidarity movements were never open to any other interpretation of events in Ireland than that provided by the Provies. It was an easy substitute for doing your own thinking. Part of me thought that it might be interesting to go along on February 20th to discuss some of these ideas but you can’t have a dialogue with people who choose to deny reality.

23 responses to “There's something on TV that day”

  1. otor Avatar
    otor

    debate works two ways, people believeing in the validity of there opinions but this isn’t being organised as a debate on the likelyhood of the GFA working or not. i suppose people who go to the conference believe that london has the ability to devolve power to stormount. through the GFA stormount can deside independent of westminster. the debate of this conference is how to organise support to block opposition to devolveing power in britian.

    you might be right that the gfa you might be wrong. its easy to dismiss any plan for the future, not much to it.

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  2. otor Avatar
    otor

    sorry that was ment to be london can deside independent of westmister how much it gets involved in the north south bodies. the more power the more area for co – operation.

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  3. StevieB Avatar
    StevieB

    Thanks for publicising this important event. Sorry to see that you won’t be there.

    What is always notable about Liam’s posts on Ireland is the complete absence of proposals for activity. Doubtless this is not unrelated to the fact that the political trend in Ireland that you support has become a microscopic fossil. If your estimate of mass struggles is wrong, then that is where you end up. But the struggle for Irish reunification goes on, and this conference is an important opportunity to contribute to that struggle from Britain.

    As one who supposedly denies reality, I continue to see Sinn Fein as the radical element in Irish politics. This comes from reading their material, seeing their contribution to the struggles in the 32 counties, seeing their international orientation (pro-Cuba, pro-South Africa, pro-Palestine, pro-Venezuela,etc).

    The nationalist struggle in Ireland since the 1960s has been the most consistent struggle in these decades in Western Europe. Sinn Fein members have made an extraordinary contribution to the leadership of that struggle. Far from being defeated, the struggle has assumed a new form.

    Nor do I regard myself as “never open to any other interpretation of events”. But it’s not about just interpreting Ireland, it’s about changing Ireland – and Sinn Fein has done more and better.

    I am very aware of other socialist trends in Ireland – too often counterposing the workers struggle to the national struggle; or glamourising trade unionism over nationalism; worse still, attacking the republicans for “militarism” then calling them “sell-outs” when the turn comes. Some of these trends seem to have searched for the pure Irish workers who will appreciate what Marx liked to call “undiscovered geniuses”. But Sinn Fein has a better claim to be the descendents not just of Pearse, but also of Connolly.

    Reconsider Liam, it would be good to see you there.

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  4. Ciarán Avatar
    Ciarán

    seeing their international orientation (pro-Cuba, pro-South Africa, pro-Palestine, pro-Venezuela,etc)

    Well, out of those four they’re certainly following the ANC and Fatah’s lead.

    But Sinn Fein has a better claim to be the descendents not just of Pearse, but also of Connolly.

    This from a party that has introduced the failed PFI system into health, education and public transport, has slowly began privatising ports and public transport, attacked striking classroom assistants and supported a Thatcherite Programme for Government in Stormont. This is what Sinn Féin in power looks like.

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  5. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    Christ what drivel that was from StevieB.

    The Provisionals have been defeated on every level. Their current strategy for a united Ireland, underneath the endless waffle and Gerry-speak, has been entirely cribbed from the underpants gnomes of South Park.

    In power they have been the most determined privatisers in recent Irish history and an unrelenting friend of business interests.

    People like StevieB aren’t simply blind but willfully blind.

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  6. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    And to all the points that Ciarán makes we must add the level of corruption which is now associated with Republican cadre in the north. Managers in the public sector there are expected to turn a blind eye to it. That’s not my understanding of either Connolly or Pearse’s tradition and it has added to the demoralisation of many Sinn Fein supporters.

    In answer to Steve – Sinn Fein’s internationalism extends to attending receptions with George W Bush, running US sponsored “conflict resolution” seminars in the Israeli State and Iraq. That paid activity more than offsets a few articles and speeches about Cuba or Venezuela.

    It’s inevitable that after a defeat on the scale represented by the GFA that there will be a period of passivity, That’s what’s happening in the north and it’s dperessing but not unexpected that the main Republican opposition to the Adams’ leadership comes from groups which seem incapable of attributing the defeat to anything but personal venality.

    There are two significant processes happening in Irish society at the moment. The first is the economic collapse of the Southern state. The union bureaucracies have delivered the working class into Fianna Fail’s hands after a couple of token demonstrations. If it were not clear before any resistance to the austerity offensive in the south has to combine the development of a militant opposition to social partnership and the existing union leaderships. There is no sign of this happening at the moment and nothing I can do will change that.

    Whoever wins the next British General Election will also make major cuts in public spending. Sinn Fein will have the chose of leading the opposition to this or administering it. They will take the latter option. Along with austerity and rising unemployment will come an increase in sectarianism directed against nationalists. We’ve no way of knowing how that will play out but it may be the catlyst for new struggles which again lead radical youth to question what the northern state is.

    Arguing for a democratic, socialist political alternative may not be popular at the moment but it remains necessary and much more preferable to spending a day listening to a torrent of Adams speak.

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  7. Padraic Avatar
    Padraic

    StevieB, your analysis of the trajectory of Sinn Fein (and their London groupies) over the period since the Anglo Irish Agreement of 1985 is worthy of those microscopic sects whose paid employment (until recently at least) was to provide political cover for left -sounding leaders as they accomodated themselves to New Labour and to British Imperialism.

    In Ireland only the most deluded “community worker” paid by the British state to (literally) police the sectarian statelet does not believe the Republican Movement – and whatever radical potential it might once have held – has suffered not just a generational but a historic defeat.

    Just as the Republican Movement shifted to the right under the hammer blows of defeat in the Civil War of 1922/23, steadily morped into Fianna Fail – clericalist , corrupt and utterly reactionery, so you can see the same defeat work its way through Sinn Fein.

    Sinn Fein expected a breakthrough in the last General Election in the South and trimmed their already mildly reformist economic policies so as not to upset their potential coalition partners in FF. Not suprisingly, southern workers and other progressive voters didn’t fall for that one – a pattern repeated in the Euro Elections.

    And your political blindspot is the British State itself – not a single reference to its interests in the Good Friday Agreement. Could it be that, like for many an English Liberal or “socialist” before you, the problem really resides with those colonials, fanatics or extremists who reject the benign, guiding and enlightened hand of the ‘mother of democracies’.

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  8. StevieB Avatar
    StevieB

    What unites Ciaran, Mark P, Liam and Padraic is the desire for a socialist alternative to Sinn Fein. Comrades, what happened to your attempts to build the better revolutionary party? Why did you fail in the most consistently militant and anti-imperialist working class in Western Europe?

    On Internationalism, Ciaran says Sinn Fein tails the ANC and Fatah. The ANC led the struggle against apartheid, and contains the most advanced sections of the socialists and working class. Whatever the challenges, it is still the sensible place to work. As for Palestine, Sinn Fein delegates meet Khalid Meshal, Head of Hamas Political Committee just before Xmas. Do keep up.

    Liam thinks Sinn Fein serves U.S. imperialism, although he’s too mealy-mouthed to put it that clearly. This is the same person that belongs to an organisation that didn’t oppose the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

    All believe that the Good Friday Agreement is an historic defeat. Yet the republican movement is now the largest party in the six counties, and growing in the twenty-six counties. Unionism is continuing its historic fragmentation. The Orange “ascendency” has been assigned to history, with due qualification that the struggle for an Ireland of equals continues. And the British government is obliged to co-operate with the Southern government on issues affecting the six counties, which are supposedly “solely” sovereign to Britain. Explain.

    Various doubts about my gullability, credibility, optical fitness, and anti-imperialist calluses. Pity these things can’t be compared across the net. Have paid, and am paying, my dues.

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  9. skidmarx Avatar
    skidmarx

    I might say something sensible about how Stevie B’s assertion about capitalist restoration is Stalinist nonsense, but perhaps Sinn Fein has not been unsuccesful in its own terms as LIam suggests (and perhaps there are parallels with Respect in the UK).

    Instead I’ll suggest that maybe what they need is a Plan 9 From Outer Space:

    After all, it is Star Trek that predicted we’ve only another 14 years to wait:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6553307.stm

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  10. Ciarán Avatar
    Ciarán

    On Internationalism, Ciaran says Sinn Fein tails the ANC and Fatah. The ANC led the struggle against apartheid, and contains the most advanced sections of the socialists and working class.

    The ANC are a corrupt bunch of wasters who have sat by and watched as the economic divide between blacks and whites has increased in the years since apartheid was apparently defeated, and the tripartite agreement with the SACP and SOCATU continues to crumble. But of course they’ll have the police on the streets to clear away all the homeless and poor so they don’t get embarrassed during the World Cup.

    Yet the republican movement is now the largest party in the six counties, and growing in the twenty-six counties.

    Sinn Féin topping the poll in one European election depended entirely on Jim Allister and TUV’s performance (SF’s own vote actually went down in that election). There’s no guarantee that the TUV will have the kind of organisation for SF to come out on top of council, Stormont or Westminster elections. As for the Twenty-Six Counties, it would very generous to say they have stagnated there. Since their peak performance in 2002 they have been falling back, with their most senior political in the 26 losing her seat in June’s European elections. Regardless, they have completely immersed themselves into the establishment of both partition states in Ireland.

    Republicanism suffered through a major defeat in the 1990s and 2000s, but a resurgence is coming about again. And with the IRSP putting its house in order and éirígí involved in its campaigning work, we’re going to see the socialist republican alternative put back to the people over the next few years.

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  11. Padraic Avatar
    Padraic

    “And the British government is obliged to co-operate with the Southern government on issues affecting the six counties, which are supposedly “solely” sovereign to Britain. Explain.”

    This has been the British policy since Thatcher led the Tories! They are no more obliged to co-operate with Dublin over Norn Ireland than they are obliged to co-operate with their puppets in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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  12. fiannanahalba Avatar
    fiannanahalba

    Im sure this event will be exciting as Gerry tells a great yarn and the audience and other speakers buy his bullcrap.

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  13. fiannanahalba Avatar
    fiannanahalba

    Remember to ask the Bearded one why he has lied about his relationship with his brother the child rapist and how he was unaware he was working with young people in West Belfast, Dundalk and Donegal. Also how come the British state and RUC have sat on this knowledge about his brother when Gerry was supposed to be public enemy no1.

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  14. decent interval Avatar
    decent interval

    “They are no more obliged to co-operate with Dublin over Norn Ireland than they are obliged to co-operate with their puppets in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
    Are the Afghan and Iraqi governments British puppets then? Somebody should tell the Americans – and the Iranians, for that matter.

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  15. Padraic Avatar
    Padraic

    Decent Interval,

    My main point was a reply to StevieB’s laughable suggestion that the awesome power of Sinn Fein forced the British Government to cede some sovereignty over “part of the United Kingdom”.

    When referring to “puppets” I should of course have made it clear that Britain is merely the junior partner of the main puppeteer – the US.

    Though tightly tied to US policy because they don’t have the military clout to protect their substantial overseas interests, the humiliation in Basra shows the limitations of the British position.

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  16. decent interval Avatar
    decent interval

    “I should of course have made it clear that Britain is merely the junior partner of the main puppeteer”
    Well I’m glad you didn’t, as “junior partner of the main puppeteer” sounds like something that a subeditor at Peking Review c 1972 would have struck out for smacking too much of tired leftist jargon. If Maliki is a puppet of anyone it’s the Iranians, and the US tried unsuccessfully to get rid of Karzai. So while I know nothing of the NI situation, puppets can obviously develop Pinocchio-like autonomy sometimes.

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  17. Padraic Avatar
    Padraic

    Surely I don’t detect a blind spot for US/British imperialism here or would that be too like the “Peking” Review c 1969?

    Funny that the problems almost always lie with those “autonomous” elements in sometimes not-that-far-away places rather than with the the decent liberals in London and Washington doing the best they can.

    When the body count in Norn Ireland seemed it threatened public support for the war, the British Labour Government decided on a policy of “Ulsterisation” – in other words, have the loyalists take the bullets – which had the benefit of stoking up a sectarian war as well as allow the Brits to pose as “peacekeepers”.

    Not quite there yet in Iraq – those damm Iranians don’t you know – but we will keep the invasion force there to “train” them (and keep an eye on the oil ) until they are advanced enough to be able to govern themselves. But they are sooooo backward, it will take years.

    Not even in the killing grounds yet in Afghanistan – it takes a while to stoke up sectarian war – but we’re working on labelling the different “tribes” in the hope we can repeat the victories of the late 19 Century.

    Or is that dwelling a little too much on imperialism……….

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  18. Garibaldy Avatar
    Garibaldy

    “Why did you fail in the most consistently militant and anti-imperialist working class in Western Europe?”

    Yes that’s right, the masses of the six counties (implicitly of course you actually mean non-unionist working class people, cause you know, people who aren’;t nationalists can’t be working class) are noted for their militancy in defence of working class politics. It’s hardly like they have voted consistently for centre-left parties mired in a deeply religious and sectarian political culture.

    I know that we all have our delusions, but this is just hilarious.

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  19. decent interval Avatar
    decent interval

    Yes, padraic, whatever. I have never really worked out why describing the subjects of imperialism as puppets is deemed to be utterly pc, while attributing autonomy and a political agenda of their own to them is not. Do you seriously think Al-Maliki is a puppet of the US or Britain or Israel? Or that Iraq in any case presents an appropriate analogy with NI? Or that you can forever evade any serious political discussion by accusing everybody else of being dupes of imperialism?

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  20. Padraic Avatar
    Padraic

    decent interval,

    “pc/non-pc” is not a useful category for understanding what is going on in the world while “imperialism” is. I’m not saying that these regimes don’t have their own agenda: they do and they vigourously pursue them. But that’s not the main argument.

    What is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan is indeed analogus to what is happening/happened in Norn Ireland. And these comparisons are both historical – at the height of the British Empire, Britain occupied both countries to “save them” from the oppressive Turks/Russian expansion – and contemporary.

    Brit counter-insurgency “experts” think of themselves as much more subtle than the US because of the lessons they learned not just in NI but in Aden, Malaysia and Kenya. Remember how dismissive they were of the Yankees in the early days of the invasion of Iraq – wearing soft hats and being filmed walking about the markets.

    Frank Kitson’s “Low Intensity Operations” their long time manual, was developed in NI in the early 1970’s. They sent the ex-RUC Chief Constable to Iraq and many of the SAS assassination squads from NI now operate in both countries.

    Imperialism really is the key to understanding what is going on and the real test for the left in Britain is their attitude to the British state and its activities.

    Beginning from anywhere else is, as you say, not a basis for serious political discussion

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  21. John Meehan Avatar
    John Meehan

    I agree with many of the points made by Liam, Padraic and other correspondents above – and am reluctant to discuss with others I do not know who use pseudonyms.

    it is very important to engage constructively in detail with others on the left with whom we disagree. it is better to give up the effort when red herrings are consistently thrown in to the mix, or where no real opportunity to engage in debate exists.

    A theme in the debate above on Sinn Féin and the Good Friday Agreement. / Peace Process is the electoral decline of the Gerry Adams-led party in the 26 Counties since the May 2007 general election.

    Where have the former Sinn Féin voters gone?

    In last June’s local and European Elections many of them rurned left, voting in council elections for candidates from People Before Profit, the Socialist Party and other non-aligned left-wing candidates. In the European Elections Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party took one of the three Dublin seats with 12.92% of the first preference vote. The losers were Eoin Ryan of Fianna Fáil and the Sinn Féin chairperson Mary-Lou McDonald, whose second preference votes elected Higgins ahead of Ryan. *

    This tells us something very interesting – Sinn Féin voters in Dublin – presented with a choice between a Fianna Fáiler and a Trotskyist – choose the far-left candidate by a margin of 22201 versus 5426.

    For more on this people might like to engage with av related debate, where Liam has already dropped in a comment :

    Killian goes off piste

    One last question to comrades living in London :

    if you had a reasonable chance to participate in a debate at the February 20 event putting forward an alternative policy to Gerry Adams et al, would you consider attending?

    Given the parallel scandals now surrounding the Unionists (Iris and Peter Robinson) and the Nationalists (Liam and Gerry Adams) – things may have moved on rapidly by February 20 – Direct Rule looms while the devolved Stormont institutions suffer prolonged paralysis.

    Did someone mention the “good old days” in the early 1970’s when a favourite far-left slogan was “Smash Stormont”?

    * Why was there one gainer but two losers? Because in the previous 2004 elections the Dublin constituency had four seats rather than the three on offer in 2009.

    All the figures are here :

    http://www.electionsireland.org/counts.cfm?election=2009E&cons=524&ref=

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  22. i4ni Avatar
    i4ni

    “After decades of prejudice, anti-terror laws and anti-Irish vilification in some sections of the media and elsewhere, today it is infinitely more possible for Irish people to feel their voice can be heard – including on political issues relating to Ireland. In London, including all sections of our diverse community in the life of the city is absolutely important for the city’s life and future. Linked to that is understanding that we are not isolated, but, as a world in one city, injustice in any other part of the world affects us and all our communities here.” – Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London and GLC ’81 – ’86 http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/02/recognising-the-role-of-irish-londoners/

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  23. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    That cut and paste comment is a good example of the “ascetic disdain for the material world” that the post refers to.

    Prejudice, anti-terror laws and vilification tend to be directed at Muslims these days by the British state which does make travelling on an Irish passport less of an adventure than it used to be. On the other hand the lively political networks of the Irish diaspora have collapsed. The St Patrick’s day party in Trafalgar Square was more a marketing opportunity for Guinness than anything else.

    And what has been the most recent step to the establishment of the Republic? The Provies get some control over the cops!

    Jesus wept.

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