Hi
Folks,
Below
is a piece by Karl Carlile a friend of mine. It is an interesting piece and
worth a read
George
Pennefather
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KARL CARLILE:
THE IRA AND THE GOOD FRIDAY
AGREEMENT
The recent farce at Stormont
which resulted in the establishment of a six county government that lasted a
mere ten minutes raises questions as to the real political nature of Sinn
Fein/IRA.
Sinn Fein/IRA by actively
supporting the Good Friday Agreement has openly accepted partition. Its
entrance into the erstwhile six county executive means that Sinn Fein/IRA has
agreed to administer a reconstituted partition and use state power against any
threat to the existence of partition.
Sinn Fein has effectively
abandoned its official republican programme and its armed struggle. It has
agreed to actively participate in administering the oppression of the “nationalist” section of the working class in
particular and the working class of the six counties in general. Up to now,
this present period of apparent overt betrayal of republican doctrine, Sinn
Fein/IRA’s promotion of imperialist oppression assumed a more disguised form.
Due to the exhaustion and demoralisation of the “Catholic” masses partly as a
consequence of both Sinn Fein/IRA’s conservative leadership and organisational
forms it can now abandon its formal adherence to republican principles while
increasing its electoral support. This exhaustion is a consequence of the
continuous organised violence directed against the Catholic masses by the
British state over the last thirty years together with the reactionary
leadership provided by the SDLP and Sinn Fein/IRA.
Sinn Fein/IRA is facilitating
the advancement of the class interests of the bourgeoisie through its programme
to reconstitute the six county state in accordance with the new objective
conditions that obtain both nationally, regionally and globally.
Consequently there is no
question of the present settlement meaning, as has been claimed by Bernadette
McAliskey and others, a defeat for the “nationalist community”. Instead an adjustment is being made to the character
of the six county statelet in correspondence with the changing
politico-economic context within which it is organised. In short an adjustment
is being made to the form of class rule in the six counties, the Irish Republic
and Gt. Britain.
Concerning the “Catholic”
section of the working class the new adjustment will simply mean a change in
the form of its national oppression. There is no question of this constituting
defeat. Indeed the popular upsurge of the Catholic masses in the North against
national oppression experienced defeat a considerable time ago. This defeat
manifested itself in the form of the growing hegemony of the conservative
forces, in the form of the SDLP (including its precursors) and Sinn Fein/IRA,
over the “Catholic” masses in the face of the savage imperialist response to
that insurrection. The latter response manifested itself as the increased mass
terror of the British state in the form of internment, the active oppression of
the British Army and its paramilitary loyalist gangs against the “Catholic”
masses.
The political role of Sinn Fein/IRA as a key player has been changing.
Sinn Fein/IRA’s bombing and shooting is the form through which the popular
insurrection of the “Catholic” masses was subverted in the interests of
imperialism. Civilian bombings and attacks on state and loyalist military
forces by elitist “republican” organisations were the subversive form
eventually assumed by the spontaneous potentially revolutionary revolt of the
Catholic masses. In this way a positive popular challenge to the system was
subverted in this reactionary form --in the form of Sinn Fein/IRA, the SDLP and
other minor elements. The place for a revolutionary communist movement was
filled by the reactionary politics of
Sinn Fein/IRA. When this form of petty bourgeois politics had served its purpose
by nihilistically assisting in the destruction of popular revolt in the North
the traditional role of Sinn Fein/IRA
was no longer called for. Sinn Fein/IRA was now required by capitalism to play
the new role of leading sections of the “Catholic” masses into constitutional
politics by actively promoting continued partition around the bourgeois peace process. Its purpose
was to lead the “Catholic” masses into acceptance of partition under the guise
of an apparently new and promising settlement, the Good Friday Agreement, that
was presented by Sin Fein/IRA as the embryonic form of a thirty two county
Irish republic. The latter illusion was, in some degree, the product of an
elaborate ideology constructed by the bourgeoisie and sections of the petty
bourgeoisie (Sinn Fein/IRA, sections of the mass media etc.).
To suggest that the GFA
constitutes a defeat for Sinn Fein/IRA is to entirely misrepresent the real
character of the current situation. What is mistakenly defined as a betrayal of
republican principles is simply a continuation of Sinn Fein/IRA’s
pro-imperialist politics in another form. At present Sinn Fein/IRA is simply seeking the best terms from the ruling class in exchange for their
acceptance and active support for a new variety of national oppression of the
“Catholic” masses and the Irish working class as a whole–a form that shall
enhance bourgeois political stability and thereby the conditions for the
exploitation of the labour power of the working class. Unionism, on the other
hand, is seeking to minimise the concessions offered to Sinn Fein/IRA. They are
seeking to force Sinn Fein/IRA to change tack for as small a price as possible.
Complementing this the Blair government, as has been implied above, is seeking
a new form for the continued national oppression of the six county masses that
corresponds with changing overall objective conditions. However both seek this adjustment in such a way as
to concede as little as possible to Sinn Fein/IRA. London is using Ulster
Unionism as the means by which it can minimise any concessions granted to Sinn
Fein/IRA. To argue that the nationalist community will have been defeated by
the implementation of the GFA is mere ideology designed to conceal the real
nature of political development in Ireland and Britain while sowing despair and
passivity within the ranks of the working class. The situation is that the
“nationalist” working class will continue to be essentially exploited and
oppressed. The difference is that the
conditions of national oppression will have undergone adjustment. This adjustment
is intended by imperialism to enhance the conditions for the further
exploitation of labour power.
The more Sinn Fein/IRA surrender
the old traditional obsolescent form of its
politics and the less it gets in return is not necessarily a defeat for
it. It simply means that it has been forced to change the form of its politics
on conditions less satisfactory than it had perhaps hoped. The point is that
Sinn Fein/IRA is settling and going to settle. The question is the price at
which it will settle. It is this process that is currently taking place. The
substance of the politics of Sinn Fein/IRA has not been changing –just the
form. Sinn Fein/IRA is a petty bourgeois
organisation that ultimately serves the interests of imperialism in
particular and capitalism in general. However given its petty bourgeois
character Sinn Fein/IRA’s politics tend to have a zigzag character --a function of the changing
balance of class forces at any given time.
The upshot is that Sinn Fein/IRA was never essentially a revolutionary political force representing the class interests of the Irish working class north and south of the Irish border. Thereby it was incapable of leading a struggle of national determination of the Irish people because of its political character. Its present machinations around the GFA provide clear and unadulterated evidence of this. The real reactionary nature of Sinn Fein/IRA is being increasingly exposed as events unfold.
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28/07/99