Batman
27th September 2005, 18:44
Loyalism, Republicanism, Sectarianism and the Good Friday Agreement.
When I was growing up, I was conscious of the heroic republican tradition. My Uncle had tried to take part in the 1916 Uprising and my mother’s cousin had been sentenced to death for the shooting of a police officer in Belfast in the forties. So I was well aware of the 800 years oppression from the British. My neighbors were Protestant and every July for a few weeks they would not talk to their Catholic neighbors until the Orange marches were out of the way. We grew up with the simplistic belief that when we had a united Ireland the unionists would see sense and become good Irish people. We had no sense of the importance to them of their sense of Britishness.
Republican ideology never really did take into account how to deal with unionism in the north-east of Ireland. Generally speaking, there were two approaches taken. One the benign approach simply felt that in the struggle for freedom unionism would be converted by the non-sectarian republican struggle against an evil British imperialism. The more malign approach saw the unionists as a ‘settler class’ or as planters who either would submit to the ‘Republic” or take the boat from Larne back to where they came from. Parallels were drawn by Michael Farrell of Peoples’ Democracy in the early 1970’s with the French settler class, or Colons in Algeria.
During the seventies and eighties, most republicans simply dismissed the loyalists as dupes of British Imperialism without any independent stance of their own. The large number of police agents in the ranks of the UDA and UVF only confirmed this belief for republicans. Subsequent revelations about ‘Republican’ agents somewhat tempered this belief. Individual republicans such as Daithi O’Connell tried to reach out to Protestants with concepts such as Dail Ulaidh and then the Eire Nua policy now the policy of republican Sinn Fein. However the rising tide of sectarian slaughter meant that any progressive ideas were not going to be listened to. In reaction to the military policy of the loyalists-ATWD (Any Teague Will Do) some republicans committed sectarian acts which only served to further drive more and more working class protestants into the shelter of the loyalist gangs.
Meanwhile some anti-republican socialists saw no distinctions between Catholic and Protestant working classes and with a narrow economistic perspective preached class unity while ignoring or down playing democratic issues. Nor did they try to grapple with the partition of the country with imperialism or with the plight of political prisoners. These all are key issues, which unfortunately divide the working class. Also the economistic left appealed to past examples of working class united actions in the North, such as in strikes 1907, 1919 and then during the outdoor relief riots in the 1903’s.What they forgot to mention was how few these were and how the fragile unity was so easily smashed by the waving of the Union Jack.
Now today in the wake of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement there has never been a more divided north. Catholics and Protestants feel safer living in exclusively single identity housing estates. Every advance towards a more democratic north is perceived to be a victory for republicans and a defeat for Unionism. Hence the recent call by loyalist paramilitaries, following intense violence on the streets of Belfast to end what they call the "suppression and containment" of Protestants in the North of Ireland. Loyalist gunmen opened fire on police and soldiers as petrol and blast bombers went on the rampage throughout the city and other parts of the north. Text messages to Protestant teenagers helped organise some of the heaviest rioting in recent years. This was all because the route of a parade by the reactionary Orange Order was moved away from a nationalist area of West Belfast. The UDA, whose overall leader, Jackie Mc Donald had only recently met the Irish president in a loyalist area of South Belfast said it would not
"Stand idly by and allow injustice and inequality to run rife through our community".
There has been a lot of talk about “ Protestant frustration and alienation" as being the reason for the riots. In response the British Direct Ruler, Peter Hain, has said that he wanted to embark on a programme of intensive engagement with elected representatives and civic leaders of the Protestant community and that more investment will be directed towards deprived areas. On the same day he also announced that he was going to take tough financial measures to extract higher rates and water charges as he claimed the North paid less per head than the rest of Britain for public services. So what goes into areas will also come out, as these charges will hit heaviest on the poorest working class districts, both Protestant and Catholic alike.
At the same time the DUP has indicated that it has no intention of taking part in early negotiations with Sinn Fein over power-sharing even now with the IRA (P) having total decommissioned its weaponry. This is negative leadership from the unionist leaders, saying no to talks with Sinn Fein and refusing to meet with representatives of nationalist residents affected by Orange marches. They claim all sorts of gains for nationalists and how Protestants are being discriminated against and this only perpetuates sectarian divisions and demoralises sections of protestant working class opinions. The Unionist politicians are happy to sit and talk with loyalist paramilitaries perhaps in the hope of using their muscle to force the British Government to cede to their demands and stop any further democratic advances.
It should not be forgotten that since last April there have been on average five sectarian attacks a day. These attacks are carried out in the main by murder gangs under the control of the loyalists. For example a Catholic man from north Belfast has been viciously stabbed by a loyalist gang under the direction of a young woman who yelled: 'Slice the Fenian bastard'. The Ardoyne man was stabbed at least six times in the attack. Also in Longlands in North Belfast a catholic home was petrol bombed.
A man from the Short Strand was severely beaten by a loyalist gang of 15 men full of sectarian hate, just prior to widespread loyalist rioting. A Catholic secondary school in Portadown was damaged in an arson attack. A blast bomb attack in Derry caused damage to a house occupied by two pensioners. The device was thrown into the predominately Catholic Upper Bennett Street from the mainly unionist Fountain area on a Friday night. The Fountain area itself has been frequently attacked by nationalist youths.
While the IRSP rightly condemns all these attacks and our comrades work hard to prevent them, it is a sad fact that these attacks are just the public manifestation of the sectarianism that lies beneath the surface of everyday life in the North. The Six County State was built on injustice, inequality and discrimination against Catholics and Nationalists. Believing they were superior many middle class unionists ignored the social economic deprivation and the anti-democratic nature of the state or worse still tried to justify it. Their followers were lulled into a similar mindset and believed not only that they were superior but also that Catholics were lesser human beings. Hence the spread of sectarianism through out the body politic. In 1977 Seamus Costello founder of our movement, wrote the following about how the workers have been used.
In the North the Protestant working class were led to believe that the only way in which they could preserve the marginal supremacy which they held over their Catholic counterparts in jobs and housing was through supporting corrupt Unionist politicians and through them the Union with Britain. Their genuine and well founded fears regarding the preservation of their religious and civil liberties in the context of a united and clerical dominated Ireland were also exploited by the same corrupt politicians. At the same time the Catholic working class were conned into believing that their salvation lay in supporting green Tory politicians who, while hypocritically advocating the reunification of Ireland, as a guarantee of their ultimate salvation, completely submerged themselves in corrupt Unionist politics in exchange for favours for the class they really represented, the Northern Catholic middle class. As history has shown, the working class, North and South, Protestant and Catholic, have been victims of the so-called solutions to the 'Irish Question' imposed by Britain and her subservient native parliaments. (Seamus Costello)
There is no doubt that both Catholic and Protestant working class areas have a weak infrastructure, according to research (DSD) caused in the main by
n A failure to invest in community development support;
n The continuing impact of community tensions and paramilitary activities;
n The dominance of local activities by a single agency; and
n Cultural traditions and attitudes that discourage collective and inclusive activities.
However, recent claims by Unionist politicians that their communities are suffering in comparison with nationalist area is countered by all the economic evidence. They are perpetuating myths and misleading analysis about where and why deprivation exists. These leaders are leading their communities into self-destruction mode. They seem incapable of recognising the new political realities in the North. Under the GFA there was to be equality of citizenship. But unfortunately political Unionists while they knew the words of “equality” they never learnt the tune. The mindset of unionism is still stuck in the old colonial way of thinking. The few progressive unionists who began to talk about citizenship and the finer qualities of British democracy have little or no influence within the Unionist body politic.
The pathetic sight of the Orange leaders doing a Pontius Pilate ACT over the violence following their march on the Springfield Road in Belfast would have been funny if it had not been so sad. Sad because many loyalist working class areas suffered in the aftermath and the violence gave the gangsters and drug dealing thugs in the UDA and UVF the pretence that they were defending their communities from the police. The violence also has acted a s a pole of attraction for many young protestant youths who brought up o a culture of consumerism see the drug dealing membership of gun gangs as a short cut to wealth. Gangsterism now is in the process of ruining the lives of thousands of working class Protestants. Criminality is rampant. The greatest threat to the protestant working class comes not from republicans not from the many IRA’S or the INLA, but from their so-called loyalist defenders.
The journalist Tom Mc Gurk has compared heartland unionism to American white-trash trailer park. With vicious sectarianism, low educational achievement, unemployment, a huge increase in drug taking in all its forms and a failure to face reality, Ulster Loyalism is now “synonymous with poverty, dysfunctionality and social breakdown.” (McGurk)
What a comedown for a people who once were proud of their industrious nature and loyalty to the British crown!
However, republican socialists cannot be complacent. While our movement will quite rightly help defend nationalist areas from sectarian attacks we must never forget that the working class, Catholic Protestant and Dissenter is our class and without the support of that class we can not build socialism in Ireland. Only socialism will overcome the prejudices sectarianism and bitterness that permeates northern life.
The Good Friday republicans accepted partition when they signed the GFA. The organisation of a rally in Dublin to make partition history as part of their celebration of 100 years of Sinn Fein was pure theatre; a method to rally the troops while the cement was being poured over the arms dumps. We recognise that the Agreement in 1998 signalled the end of a phase in the dispute between Britain and Ireland over the issue of sovereignty. It was and is a moment of historic importance.
But republican socialists have argued and continue to argue that it is not a lasting settlement. It was a political compromise. In signing it, the GFA Republicans were working based on a pan- nationalist consensus that had underpinned their whole Peace Process.
The Dublin government, the SDLP and the Irish American lobbies in the USA were all seen as power points to be directed against the British government to make it become persuaders of Irish unity. However, when you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas! The GFA republicans changed their view of the conflict following their tactical alliances with the Great and the Good. They began to manage the conflict and in so doing, they then began to reinterpret their republican principles and goals. That in itself was a tremendous victory for the British establishment.
Irish republicanism has traditionally seen itself as based on the principles of the French revolution and its rally cry of liberty equality and fraternity. All the famous republicans from Wolfe Tone onwards firmly rejected sectarianism. They regarded sectarianism as a tool used by the British to divide the people. Instead, Irish Republicanism embraced a universal view of the world. Republicans saw themselves as citizens of that world, in favour of tolerance and freedom of thought. Most of the republicans from the past who are honoured by present day republicans are generally seen as being radical, universal and on the left.
Sadly that position has now been undermined by the Peace Process. It has been argued and republican socialist s would agree that the view from the GFA republicans is “ethnically-centred.” (McGovern)
In essence this accepts that the conflict in the North is the result of a clash between “two hostile and mutually exclusive ethnic identities, Irish Catholic Nationalism and Ulster Protestant Unionism” ( McGovern)
The benefit of this analysis is that the issue of colonialism slips of the map. Britain can now be seen, as it always tried to portray itself, as the neutral referee between two warring sides, which for historical reasons of geography and kinship Britain had an interest in.
Instead of the question of imperialism and capitalism been the issue of discourse we now have “celebrations of differences”. All cultures and identities are to be seen as equally valid and legitimate. This multicultural approach in the North of Ireland in essence means that that there are two distinctly recognised traditions, which should be seen as of equal validity. Tolerance of each other’s position then becomes the norm. Organisations like the Community Relations Council then have a key role in persuading the community to accept the multi-culturalist approach.
The logic of this approach ends in the absurdity of giving a local dialect Ulster -Scots the status of a language on a par with the Irish language. Cultural parity is all very fine but who ever heard of Ulster Scots before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement? Furthermore the issue of parity has been used not for the sake of justice but as a political weapon against the ‘other side”.
So the Orange Order demand that local residents in nationalist areas recognise, respect and tolerate the Orange Order marching through nationalist areas while that order at the same time refuses to negotiate with the self same residents directly. That is certainly not parity of esteem. Nor can one be convinced by the loyal orders sudden conversion to human rights and sudden recognition of the existence of poverty in protestant working class districts.
What must never be forgotten is that those same districts suffered poverty deprivation and unemployment during the sixty years of Unionist control of Stormont. However, to complain or agitate for better conditions was to be labelled as “disloyal,” and a “rotten prod”. Nor should it ever be forgotten that from 1922 until 1972 every minister in the unionist one party Government of those years bar one were all members of the loyal orders.
Historically the loyal orders have been an instrument of the ruling class, to be used when the lower orders begin to question the system. From suppressing the United Irishmen, to strike breaking against the Land League to trying to suppress and drive the civil rights movement from the streets the Loyal orders have been a reactionary and sectarian force to keep the Fenians down. But not only the Fenians but the ‘rotten prods” also. Many fine working class militants from a protestant background agitated for better social and economic conditions and came from not only of the Northern Ireland Labour Party but the Communist Party and the pre 1969 Republican Movement. Purges against these heroic people took place on a number of occasions when they seemed to pose a threat to Unionist hegemony over the Protestant masses. Unfortunately not only were Unionists afraid of radicalised Protestant socialists. When a contingent of supporters of the Republican Congress attempted to march to Bodenstown to honour Wolfe Tone right wing republicans attacked them.
Even today, there is an attempt by the reactionary elements within loyalism and including the DUP to stop all contact by working class community activists within Protestant areas with working class nationalists or Catholics. The forthcoming rally by the Love Ulster Campaign planned for the end of October is just another attempt to re-unite all from the British tradition around what in essence is a sectarian mass campaign based on whipping up fears within the Unionists population. But there is also a more insidious campaign taking place against progressive radical or left wing activists within Protestant areas. The DUP are actively campaigning for control of community funding. They want the politicians to have the final say in which groups get funding. This would effectively mean that no dissent would be tolerated in areas under the control of the DUP. It is also in the community sector that there is a large body of progressive workers happy to reach out to other communities. If ever a local administration is restored then there would be a very high risk of funding under the control of local politicians be re-directed to their cronies and fellow travellers.
So in effect the multicultural approach would not have the effect of creating more tolerance but would create a situation whereby a monolithic view would be imposed on the working class and they would be forced to identify with competing nationalisms, Irish or British. In other words no change to what we now have.
If republicans accept the multiculturalism approach then they are in danger of retrospectively justifying not only the history of Orangeism but of acquiescing in a form of cultural imperialism. Not all cultures are of equal validity. Cultures arise out of certain socials economic and geographical conditions. Slavery was once considered as the norm, as indeed was cannibalism. No one today would defend these two activities so why today should people in the North of Ireland be expected to treat the Orange Order as merely a cultural expression of Protestantism when it is so blatantly not. It is certainly not an expression of being British today. Few people in Britain could identify with the orange order and its triumphalist posturing. The days of the Raj are long gone but the loyal orders do not seem to have understood that those days of converting the natives with a bible and a gun have vanished forever.
Multiculturalism is but another form of post nationalism and is a suitable vehicle for the Southern Ruling Class to impress upon the North because it helps reduce the northern conflict to ethnic conflict which can be ameliorated with the wider European context of the expanding European union. It also removes the Southern establishment from any concerns about solving the national question. In the new dispensation of the GFA terms or phrases like the National Question, Anti-Imperialism and Self -Determination become obsolete. The new buzzwords include “equality”, and “parity of esteem” and “A Europe of the Regions. Well integrated into the European union the Southern ruling class have a clear vested interest in putting the Northern question to bed. Instability threatens the Celtic tiger. The Southern Bourgeoisie has no wish for that.
Of course, all of this has the attraction of diverting people from real issues such as who has power and why does oppression continue. Instead, let’s just keep repeating the mantra of the buzz words equality, parity of esteem and human rights.
The problem about equality in the North of Ireland is that under the current economic system, capitalism, to create equality where there are inequalities means in effect taking from those who have, to redistribute to those who have not. In other words, take from the Protestants and give to the Catholics. The 50% quota for Catholics to the PSNI is a case in point. Traditionally the police, prison services and the military were overwhelming Protestant and many Protestants had a secure career path before them in those services. Now that has been taken from them. The closure of the traditional heavy industry which was also a main career path for Protestants has now all but vanished. Even the major universities in the North have a predominantly Catholic/Nationalist feel to them and many Protestants feel alienated. Hence, the flight of the protestant middle classes to English and Scottish universities. Traditionally the protestant working classes, guaranteed jobs in industry put little or no reliance on education and now are in grave danger of becoming an underclass or” trailer trash” to use McGurk's phrase as the low educational achievements in Protestant areas leaves working class youths the option of unemployment, low wages or a life of crime.
Despite over the last number of years all sorts of schemes including the Belfast Action teams, Belfast Regeneration Office and millions of pounds and dollars in peace money being poured into Belfast, poverty is widespread and there is a growing sense of alienation from the political process growing in Protestant areas. All that has happened in terms of equality is that now poverty is more evenly spread between the different communities. Rather than abolishing it, all the schemes have ever done is cause a slight redistribution of poverty. Not a recipe for abolishing sectarianism!
The in build sectarianism of the GFA means that those parties have to designate themselves as nationalist unionist or other. So the parties have an incentive to maximise the vote on their side of the house. That partially explains why both the DUP and Sinn Fein rose to the top. They maximised their votes on sectarian lines. However, the IRSP does not regard them as two sides of the same coin. Sinn Fein undoubtedly the more progressive party but they now have limited options in delivering progressive policies. The problem of power sharing under the GFA is that any coalition Government must deliver under the neo liberal agenda and the parties must appeal for electoral success to only one section of the population.
That is what the whole peace process was about. The peace process was underpinned by a belief that the conflict was ethnic and so the end result of the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement institutionalised communally based politics. That is not the way forward for either the Catholic or the Protestant working class.
Gerry Ruddy
References
Costello Seamus IRSP Broad Front Document. (1977)
Department For Social Development (DSD) “Research To Develop A Methodology For Identifying Areas Of Weak Community Infrastructure” September 2004
Irish Republican News September 16th-19 2005
McGovern Mark “IRISH REPUBLICANISM AND THE POTENTIAL PITFALLS OF PLURALISM” In Capital and Class Journal, no. 71, (Summer 2000).
McGurk Tom Sunday Business Post September 18th 2005
When I was growing up, I was conscious of the heroic republican tradition. My Uncle had tried to take part in the 1916 Uprising and my mother’s cousin had been sentenced to death for the shooting of a police officer in Belfast in the forties. So I was well aware of the 800 years oppression from the British. My neighbors were Protestant and every July for a few weeks they would not talk to their Catholic neighbors until the Orange marches were out of the way. We grew up with the simplistic belief that when we had a united Ireland the unionists would see sense and become good Irish people. We had no sense of the importance to them of their sense of Britishness.
Republican ideology never really did take into account how to deal with unionism in the north-east of Ireland. Generally speaking, there were two approaches taken. One the benign approach simply felt that in the struggle for freedom unionism would be converted by the non-sectarian republican struggle against an evil British imperialism. The more malign approach saw the unionists as a ‘settler class’ or as planters who either would submit to the ‘Republic” or take the boat from Larne back to where they came from. Parallels were drawn by Michael Farrell of Peoples’ Democracy in the early 1970’s with the French settler class, or Colons in Algeria.
During the seventies and eighties, most republicans simply dismissed the loyalists as dupes of British Imperialism without any independent stance of their own. The large number of police agents in the ranks of the UDA and UVF only confirmed this belief for republicans. Subsequent revelations about ‘Republican’ agents somewhat tempered this belief. Individual republicans such as Daithi O’Connell tried to reach out to Protestants with concepts such as Dail Ulaidh and then the Eire Nua policy now the policy of republican Sinn Fein. However the rising tide of sectarian slaughter meant that any progressive ideas were not going to be listened to. In reaction to the military policy of the loyalists-ATWD (Any Teague Will Do) some republicans committed sectarian acts which only served to further drive more and more working class protestants into the shelter of the loyalist gangs.
Meanwhile some anti-republican socialists saw no distinctions between Catholic and Protestant working classes and with a narrow economistic perspective preached class unity while ignoring or down playing democratic issues. Nor did they try to grapple with the partition of the country with imperialism or with the plight of political prisoners. These all are key issues, which unfortunately divide the working class. Also the economistic left appealed to past examples of working class united actions in the North, such as in strikes 1907, 1919 and then during the outdoor relief riots in the 1903’s.What they forgot to mention was how few these were and how the fragile unity was so easily smashed by the waving of the Union Jack.
Now today in the wake of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement there has never been a more divided north. Catholics and Protestants feel safer living in exclusively single identity housing estates. Every advance towards a more democratic north is perceived to be a victory for republicans and a defeat for Unionism. Hence the recent call by loyalist paramilitaries, following intense violence on the streets of Belfast to end what they call the "suppression and containment" of Protestants in the North of Ireland. Loyalist gunmen opened fire on police and soldiers as petrol and blast bombers went on the rampage throughout the city and other parts of the north. Text messages to Protestant teenagers helped organise some of the heaviest rioting in recent years. This was all because the route of a parade by the reactionary Orange Order was moved away from a nationalist area of West Belfast. The UDA, whose overall leader, Jackie Mc Donald had only recently met the Irish president in a loyalist area of South Belfast said it would not
"Stand idly by and allow injustice and inequality to run rife through our community".
There has been a lot of talk about “ Protestant frustration and alienation" as being the reason for the riots. In response the British Direct Ruler, Peter Hain, has said that he wanted to embark on a programme of intensive engagement with elected representatives and civic leaders of the Protestant community and that more investment will be directed towards deprived areas. On the same day he also announced that he was going to take tough financial measures to extract higher rates and water charges as he claimed the North paid less per head than the rest of Britain for public services. So what goes into areas will also come out, as these charges will hit heaviest on the poorest working class districts, both Protestant and Catholic alike.
At the same time the DUP has indicated that it has no intention of taking part in early negotiations with Sinn Fein over power-sharing even now with the IRA (P) having total decommissioned its weaponry. This is negative leadership from the unionist leaders, saying no to talks with Sinn Fein and refusing to meet with representatives of nationalist residents affected by Orange marches. They claim all sorts of gains for nationalists and how Protestants are being discriminated against and this only perpetuates sectarian divisions and demoralises sections of protestant working class opinions. The Unionist politicians are happy to sit and talk with loyalist paramilitaries perhaps in the hope of using their muscle to force the British Government to cede to their demands and stop any further democratic advances.
It should not be forgotten that since last April there have been on average five sectarian attacks a day. These attacks are carried out in the main by murder gangs under the control of the loyalists. For example a Catholic man from north Belfast has been viciously stabbed by a loyalist gang under the direction of a young woman who yelled: 'Slice the Fenian bastard'. The Ardoyne man was stabbed at least six times in the attack. Also in Longlands in North Belfast a catholic home was petrol bombed.
A man from the Short Strand was severely beaten by a loyalist gang of 15 men full of sectarian hate, just prior to widespread loyalist rioting. A Catholic secondary school in Portadown was damaged in an arson attack. A blast bomb attack in Derry caused damage to a house occupied by two pensioners. The device was thrown into the predominately Catholic Upper Bennett Street from the mainly unionist Fountain area on a Friday night. The Fountain area itself has been frequently attacked by nationalist youths.
While the IRSP rightly condemns all these attacks and our comrades work hard to prevent them, it is a sad fact that these attacks are just the public manifestation of the sectarianism that lies beneath the surface of everyday life in the North. The Six County State was built on injustice, inequality and discrimination against Catholics and Nationalists. Believing they were superior many middle class unionists ignored the social economic deprivation and the anti-democratic nature of the state or worse still tried to justify it. Their followers were lulled into a similar mindset and believed not only that they were superior but also that Catholics were lesser human beings. Hence the spread of sectarianism through out the body politic. In 1977 Seamus Costello founder of our movement, wrote the following about how the workers have been used.
In the North the Protestant working class were led to believe that the only way in which they could preserve the marginal supremacy which they held over their Catholic counterparts in jobs and housing was through supporting corrupt Unionist politicians and through them the Union with Britain. Their genuine and well founded fears regarding the preservation of their religious and civil liberties in the context of a united and clerical dominated Ireland were also exploited by the same corrupt politicians. At the same time the Catholic working class were conned into believing that their salvation lay in supporting green Tory politicians who, while hypocritically advocating the reunification of Ireland, as a guarantee of their ultimate salvation, completely submerged themselves in corrupt Unionist politics in exchange for favours for the class they really represented, the Northern Catholic middle class. As history has shown, the working class, North and South, Protestant and Catholic, have been victims of the so-called solutions to the 'Irish Question' imposed by Britain and her subservient native parliaments. (Seamus Costello)
There is no doubt that both Catholic and Protestant working class areas have a weak infrastructure, according to research (DSD) caused in the main by
n A failure to invest in community development support;
n The continuing impact of community tensions and paramilitary activities;
n The dominance of local activities by a single agency; and
n Cultural traditions and attitudes that discourage collective and inclusive activities.
However, recent claims by Unionist politicians that their communities are suffering in comparison with nationalist area is countered by all the economic evidence. They are perpetuating myths and misleading analysis about where and why deprivation exists. These leaders are leading their communities into self-destruction mode. They seem incapable of recognising the new political realities in the North. Under the GFA there was to be equality of citizenship. But unfortunately political Unionists while they knew the words of “equality” they never learnt the tune. The mindset of unionism is still stuck in the old colonial way of thinking. The few progressive unionists who began to talk about citizenship and the finer qualities of British democracy have little or no influence within the Unionist body politic.
The pathetic sight of the Orange leaders doing a Pontius Pilate ACT over the violence following their march on the Springfield Road in Belfast would have been funny if it had not been so sad. Sad because many loyalist working class areas suffered in the aftermath and the violence gave the gangsters and drug dealing thugs in the UDA and UVF the pretence that they were defending their communities from the police. The violence also has acted a s a pole of attraction for many young protestant youths who brought up o a culture of consumerism see the drug dealing membership of gun gangs as a short cut to wealth. Gangsterism now is in the process of ruining the lives of thousands of working class Protestants. Criminality is rampant. The greatest threat to the protestant working class comes not from republicans not from the many IRA’S or the INLA, but from their so-called loyalist defenders.
The journalist Tom Mc Gurk has compared heartland unionism to American white-trash trailer park. With vicious sectarianism, low educational achievement, unemployment, a huge increase in drug taking in all its forms and a failure to face reality, Ulster Loyalism is now “synonymous with poverty, dysfunctionality and social breakdown.” (McGurk)
What a comedown for a people who once were proud of their industrious nature and loyalty to the British crown!
However, republican socialists cannot be complacent. While our movement will quite rightly help defend nationalist areas from sectarian attacks we must never forget that the working class, Catholic Protestant and Dissenter is our class and without the support of that class we can not build socialism in Ireland. Only socialism will overcome the prejudices sectarianism and bitterness that permeates northern life.
The Good Friday republicans accepted partition when they signed the GFA. The organisation of a rally in Dublin to make partition history as part of their celebration of 100 years of Sinn Fein was pure theatre; a method to rally the troops while the cement was being poured over the arms dumps. We recognise that the Agreement in 1998 signalled the end of a phase in the dispute between Britain and Ireland over the issue of sovereignty. It was and is a moment of historic importance.
But republican socialists have argued and continue to argue that it is not a lasting settlement. It was a political compromise. In signing it, the GFA Republicans were working based on a pan- nationalist consensus that had underpinned their whole Peace Process.
The Dublin government, the SDLP and the Irish American lobbies in the USA were all seen as power points to be directed against the British government to make it become persuaders of Irish unity. However, when you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas! The GFA republicans changed their view of the conflict following their tactical alliances with the Great and the Good. They began to manage the conflict and in so doing, they then began to reinterpret their republican principles and goals. That in itself was a tremendous victory for the British establishment.
Irish republicanism has traditionally seen itself as based on the principles of the French revolution and its rally cry of liberty equality and fraternity. All the famous republicans from Wolfe Tone onwards firmly rejected sectarianism. They regarded sectarianism as a tool used by the British to divide the people. Instead, Irish Republicanism embraced a universal view of the world. Republicans saw themselves as citizens of that world, in favour of tolerance and freedom of thought. Most of the republicans from the past who are honoured by present day republicans are generally seen as being radical, universal and on the left.
Sadly that position has now been undermined by the Peace Process. It has been argued and republican socialist s would agree that the view from the GFA republicans is “ethnically-centred.” (McGovern)
In essence this accepts that the conflict in the North is the result of a clash between “two hostile and mutually exclusive ethnic identities, Irish Catholic Nationalism and Ulster Protestant Unionism” ( McGovern)
The benefit of this analysis is that the issue of colonialism slips of the map. Britain can now be seen, as it always tried to portray itself, as the neutral referee between two warring sides, which for historical reasons of geography and kinship Britain had an interest in.
Instead of the question of imperialism and capitalism been the issue of discourse we now have “celebrations of differences”. All cultures and identities are to be seen as equally valid and legitimate. This multicultural approach in the North of Ireland in essence means that that there are two distinctly recognised traditions, which should be seen as of equal validity. Tolerance of each other’s position then becomes the norm. Organisations like the Community Relations Council then have a key role in persuading the community to accept the multi-culturalist approach.
The logic of this approach ends in the absurdity of giving a local dialect Ulster -Scots the status of a language on a par with the Irish language. Cultural parity is all very fine but who ever heard of Ulster Scots before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement? Furthermore the issue of parity has been used not for the sake of justice but as a political weapon against the ‘other side”.
So the Orange Order demand that local residents in nationalist areas recognise, respect and tolerate the Orange Order marching through nationalist areas while that order at the same time refuses to negotiate with the self same residents directly. That is certainly not parity of esteem. Nor can one be convinced by the loyal orders sudden conversion to human rights and sudden recognition of the existence of poverty in protestant working class districts.
What must never be forgotten is that those same districts suffered poverty deprivation and unemployment during the sixty years of Unionist control of Stormont. However, to complain or agitate for better conditions was to be labelled as “disloyal,” and a “rotten prod”. Nor should it ever be forgotten that from 1922 until 1972 every minister in the unionist one party Government of those years bar one were all members of the loyal orders.
Historically the loyal orders have been an instrument of the ruling class, to be used when the lower orders begin to question the system. From suppressing the United Irishmen, to strike breaking against the Land League to trying to suppress and drive the civil rights movement from the streets the Loyal orders have been a reactionary and sectarian force to keep the Fenians down. But not only the Fenians but the ‘rotten prods” also. Many fine working class militants from a protestant background agitated for better social and economic conditions and came from not only of the Northern Ireland Labour Party but the Communist Party and the pre 1969 Republican Movement. Purges against these heroic people took place on a number of occasions when they seemed to pose a threat to Unionist hegemony over the Protestant masses. Unfortunately not only were Unionists afraid of radicalised Protestant socialists. When a contingent of supporters of the Republican Congress attempted to march to Bodenstown to honour Wolfe Tone right wing republicans attacked them.
Even today, there is an attempt by the reactionary elements within loyalism and including the DUP to stop all contact by working class community activists within Protestant areas with working class nationalists or Catholics. The forthcoming rally by the Love Ulster Campaign planned for the end of October is just another attempt to re-unite all from the British tradition around what in essence is a sectarian mass campaign based on whipping up fears within the Unionists population. But there is also a more insidious campaign taking place against progressive radical or left wing activists within Protestant areas. The DUP are actively campaigning for control of community funding. They want the politicians to have the final say in which groups get funding. This would effectively mean that no dissent would be tolerated in areas under the control of the DUP. It is also in the community sector that there is a large body of progressive workers happy to reach out to other communities. If ever a local administration is restored then there would be a very high risk of funding under the control of local politicians be re-directed to their cronies and fellow travellers.
So in effect the multicultural approach would not have the effect of creating more tolerance but would create a situation whereby a monolithic view would be imposed on the working class and they would be forced to identify with competing nationalisms, Irish or British. In other words no change to what we now have.
If republicans accept the multiculturalism approach then they are in danger of retrospectively justifying not only the history of Orangeism but of acquiescing in a form of cultural imperialism. Not all cultures are of equal validity. Cultures arise out of certain socials economic and geographical conditions. Slavery was once considered as the norm, as indeed was cannibalism. No one today would defend these two activities so why today should people in the North of Ireland be expected to treat the Orange Order as merely a cultural expression of Protestantism when it is so blatantly not. It is certainly not an expression of being British today. Few people in Britain could identify with the orange order and its triumphalist posturing. The days of the Raj are long gone but the loyal orders do not seem to have understood that those days of converting the natives with a bible and a gun have vanished forever.
Multiculturalism is but another form of post nationalism and is a suitable vehicle for the Southern Ruling Class to impress upon the North because it helps reduce the northern conflict to ethnic conflict which can be ameliorated with the wider European context of the expanding European union. It also removes the Southern establishment from any concerns about solving the national question. In the new dispensation of the GFA terms or phrases like the National Question, Anti-Imperialism and Self -Determination become obsolete. The new buzzwords include “equality”, and “parity of esteem” and “A Europe of the Regions. Well integrated into the European union the Southern ruling class have a clear vested interest in putting the Northern question to bed. Instability threatens the Celtic tiger. The Southern Bourgeoisie has no wish for that.
Of course, all of this has the attraction of diverting people from real issues such as who has power and why does oppression continue. Instead, let’s just keep repeating the mantra of the buzz words equality, parity of esteem and human rights.
The problem about equality in the North of Ireland is that under the current economic system, capitalism, to create equality where there are inequalities means in effect taking from those who have, to redistribute to those who have not. In other words, take from the Protestants and give to the Catholics. The 50% quota for Catholics to the PSNI is a case in point. Traditionally the police, prison services and the military were overwhelming Protestant and many Protestants had a secure career path before them in those services. Now that has been taken from them. The closure of the traditional heavy industry which was also a main career path for Protestants has now all but vanished. Even the major universities in the North have a predominantly Catholic/Nationalist feel to them and many Protestants feel alienated. Hence, the flight of the protestant middle classes to English and Scottish universities. Traditionally the protestant working classes, guaranteed jobs in industry put little or no reliance on education and now are in grave danger of becoming an underclass or” trailer trash” to use McGurk's phrase as the low educational achievements in Protestant areas leaves working class youths the option of unemployment, low wages or a life of crime.
Despite over the last number of years all sorts of schemes including the Belfast Action teams, Belfast Regeneration Office and millions of pounds and dollars in peace money being poured into Belfast, poverty is widespread and there is a growing sense of alienation from the political process growing in Protestant areas. All that has happened in terms of equality is that now poverty is more evenly spread between the different communities. Rather than abolishing it, all the schemes have ever done is cause a slight redistribution of poverty. Not a recipe for abolishing sectarianism!
The in build sectarianism of the GFA means that those parties have to designate themselves as nationalist unionist or other. So the parties have an incentive to maximise the vote on their side of the house. That partially explains why both the DUP and Sinn Fein rose to the top. They maximised their votes on sectarian lines. However, the IRSP does not regard them as two sides of the same coin. Sinn Fein undoubtedly the more progressive party but they now have limited options in delivering progressive policies. The problem of power sharing under the GFA is that any coalition Government must deliver under the neo liberal agenda and the parties must appeal for electoral success to only one section of the population.
That is what the whole peace process was about. The peace process was underpinned by a belief that the conflict was ethnic and so the end result of the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement institutionalised communally based politics. That is not the way forward for either the Catholic or the Protestant working class.
Gerry Ruddy
References
Costello Seamus IRSP Broad Front Document. (1977)
Department For Social Development (DSD) “Research To Develop A Methodology For Identifying Areas Of Weak Community Infrastructure” September 2004
Irish Republican News September 16th-19 2005
McGovern Mark “IRISH REPUBLICANISM AND THE POTENTIAL PITFALLS OF PLURALISM” In Capital and Class Journal, no. 71, (Summer 2000).
McGurk Tom Sunday Business Post September 18th 2005