|
Below
are some comments to an piece written by the Irish Times columnist Fintan O
Toole published in the Irish Times on Friday, 18th February
2000: Fintan
O Toole: As the rump of the Second Dáil and the remaining leadership of Sinn
Féin after the departure of Eamon de Valera to form Fianna Fáil, these people
really did believe that they were the legitimate government of Ireland. And
until very recently, Sinn Féin and the IRA went on believing in this fantasy.
When,
in 1939, the tiny rump of the Second Dáil formally passed its powers to the IRA
army council, the line of apostolic succession passed to an ever more secretive
elite. And throughout its vicious campaign in Northern Ireland, the IRA, in its
own mind, continued to draw its legitimacy from this weird delusion.”
George
Pennefather: The actions of Sinn Fein/IRA must be analysed within a political
context. The politics of Sinn Fein/IRA must be understood from the point of view
as to whether its politics are correct
or not. It is essentially irrelevant as to whether its ideology is
illusory or not. What must be analysed is the character of its politics –not the
character of its ideology. The character of its ideology is derivative. It is
its politics that is of primary importance. To attempt to undermine the politics
of Sinn Fein by way of its ideology is evidence that one is her/himself the
prisoner of delusion –the prisoner of ideas. Fintan:
“For those outside the republican movement, and, indeed, for some within its
ranks, it was impossible to believe that anyone took this stuff seriously. But
it was, and to an extent remains, the official creed of the republican movement.
The
"Green Book" which the contemporary IRA gives to its new recruits informs them
"that war is morally justified and that the Army is the direct representative of
the 1918 Dáil Éireann Parliament, and that as such they are the legal and lawful
government of the Irish Republic, which has the moral right to pass laws for,
and to claim jurisdiction over the territory, airspace, mineral resources, means
of production, distribution and exchange, and all its people regardless of creed
and loyalty". This
mania was underpinned by an elitism which had always been a part of Sinn Féin's
selfimage. It goes right back to Arthur Griffith's notion that Ireland was not a
society, or even a people, but a concept: "When we say we love Ireland we do not
mean by Ireland the peasants in the fields, the workers in the factories, the
teachers in the schools, the professors in the colleges - we mean the soul into
which we were born and which was born into us." George:
The view that Ireland is “the soul into which we were born and which was born
into us” is no different to the view that the bread and wine in the Sunday mass
celebrated in Catholic churches each Sunday all over Ireland is the body and
blood of Christ. This is the “twisted theology” to which the leadership of the
principal bourgeois political parties in the South subscribe. Neither Sinn
Fein/IRA nor the latter’s delusions can be any more “weird”. Indeed the very
Constitution on which the twenty six county state is founded bases itself on the “weird delusion”
that there exists a Christian god. “This is, as (De Valera’s) language suggests,
a notion which owes more to a twisted theology than to rational democratic
politics.” (Brackets mine). Fintan’s
comment suggests that the problem is not theology but merely twisted theology.
Surely, if anything, the source of the problem is theology and not “twisted
theology”. When it gets down to it all contemporary theology is by its very
nature “twisted” and has its source in bourgeois politics of one sort or
another. Fintan:
As republican ideology became more and more isolated from the reality of Irish
life, it embraced isolation itself as a spiritual virtue, the distinctive trait
of religious martyrs. As the Sinn Féin president said in 1940: "Minorities are
nearly always right; it was a very small minority that stood at the foot of the
Cross, and a very large majority indeed that shouted: `Give us Barabbas'."
George:
But if Sinn Fein/IRA adheres to a theology then clearly, as Fintan suggests, it
is a Christian theology. But surely then it is the prevalence of Christianity, a
“weird delusion” too, that is, in a sense, ideologically the source of the
problem. Surely it is the main
political parties in Ireland that base their politics on the fantastic illusion
of Christianity in the bureaucratic authoritarian form of Catholicism that is
the same source from which Sinn Fein draws its ideology and indeed politics.
Yet, despite their “twisted theology” they still represent the class interests
of the bourgeoisie. How come? Because politics determines ideology --not the other way around. This then
means that the “twisted theology” of Sinn Fein/IRA does not necessarily preclude
it from serving class interests too and thereby being “realistic” practical in
its political conduct. People who believe in leprechauns and other “concepts”
are not necessarily unrealistic in their day to day
existence. Fintan:
Slowly and painfully, most republicans have got over these fantasies and stopped
issuing grandiose edicts from a make-believe government, just as de Valera and
his colleagues did in the mid-1920s. But all through the history of
republicanism a significant number of its adherents has been psychologically
unable to abandon its absurd pretensions. Instead
of remaining the political prisoners of these fantasists, the Sinn Féin
leadership must finally split from them. George:
Again Fintan’s comments above are further evidence of his idealist conception of
reality. For this idealist conception it is ideas, images and fantasy that
determine the character of social reality –not the reverse. The source of
reality is ideas. Change the ideas and the world is correspondingly changed.
Change the fantasies of Sinn Fein/IRA and their politics will correspondingly
changed. The
problem of the politics of Sinn Fein/Fein is not psychological. It is a political
problem. Consequently it can only be adequately comprehended within a political
context. It is not a subjective psychological problem, as Fintan would have it,
of relieving oneself of certain fantasies. Psychology is not the determinant of
politics --the reverse is the case If,
as Fintan argues, most republicans have got “over these fantasies and stopped
issuing grandiose edicts from a make-believe government” then this is because of
the specific character of political development in Ireland and within Sinn
Fein/IRA itself. It has nothing to do with republicans having gotten “over these
fantasies” as being the cause in any change in its politics. The change in the
character of its politics, assuming there has been a change, has to do with
politics and has nothing to do with some curious exercise in ideological
emancipation from a particular collection of fantasies. Indeed any political
change may derivatively express itself in the movement from one set of fantasies
to another set. The ideological change is an expression of the political change
–not the reverse as Fintan would
have it Overall Fintan’s piece is a simplistic idealist attack on Sinn Fein from a right wing perspective. It is a piece that is itself a “prisoner” of the very images it seeks to undermine. It makes no attempt to seriously subject to examination the essentially reactionary character of the politics of Sinn Fein/IRA. Warm
regards Be
free to check out our Communist Think-Tank web site at Be
free to subscribe to our Communist Think-Tank mailing community by |