Nationalism's winners and losers (1993)

From the October 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

The IRA claims it is acting in the interests of 'The Risen People’. But as R Montague makes clear, it is our fellow members of the working class, fighting over the fictions of opposing nationalisms, who are not only the battle casualties but the social casualties of the ‘national question’.

'The cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland". So wrote the renegade James Connolly when he abandoned his concept of internationalism and aligned himself with the racist nationalist, Patrick Pearse, in a struggle to extend the power of Ireland's fledgling capitalists back in 1916.

The lie did not die with Connolly; it remained to pollute working-class politics in Ireland and to facilitate the divisive interests of Ulster Unionists and Irish Nationalists and to bolster the fiction among some workers that despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary Ireland is in some way "their country". Connolly's reformist vision of solving the "national question" in order to clear the ground for the class struggle played no small part in making the so-called national question — which should be of no concern to the working class — a battleground on which workers slaughter one another over tribal issues.

The Provisional IRA and its political cousin, Sinn Fein, frequently use the term "the risen people" to designate their members and supporters, most of whom reside in working-class housing estates or on small farms. Like much of the archaic political baggage of the republicans, the expression dates back to the early part of the present century when the Gaelic revival and Sinn Fein were a burgeoning force in Irish politics.

Not that Sinn Fein or the genteel pseuds of of the Gaelic League were particularly concerned about the ordinary people. In Dublin, where Sinn Fein was especially active, the Medical Officer of Health announced in 1912 that 82,000 people were living in one-roomed tenement slums. Poverty was endemic, grim, the sort of poverty that has an ambience of real hunger, foul smells, ignorance and beggarly hopes and expectations. In 1912, too, Jim Larkin began to unionize the low paid, the labourers and transport workers who, against a background of mass unemployment, had no protection from their particularly rapacious employers.

The employers responded with a lock-out and the Royal Irish Constabulary won a contemptible place in Irish history by brutally attacking these semi-starvelings who had the audacity to ask their employers for a little more. The priests moralized and reminded the workers that property was a divine right and that they must distrust the motives of trade unionists in Britain who opened their homes to the starving kids of the victims of property and who, according to the priests, might be careless of the religion of those they were helping!

Sinn Fein stood aloof; its founder. Arthur Griffith, making no secret of his bitter hostility to the cause of organized labour.

"The first duty of the (Irish) nation", according to Sinn Fein, was not the plight of the desperately poor and downtrodden families that represented the generality of working-class life. Sinn Fein and the Gaelic League were not on their side. On the contrary: in as much as Sinn Fein’s purpose and its policy was aimed at gaining political independence so that an Irish government could nurture a native capitalism behind tariff walls and import quotas, it can be said that it was firmly on the side of the masters whose riches and affluence were fashioned from the grim exploitation of the poor.

With fierce candour, Sinn Fein would declare the first duty of the new Irish nation to be the interests of "the home manufacturers and producers" — a euphemistic description of the Irish capitalists who were locked in class warfare with the workers. Yet it was these workers who were subsequently elevated in republican myth to the status of "the risen people" because the republicans had succeeded in convincing some of them to forgo their ow n class interests and risk their lives fighting for the political and economic interests of their enemies!

In the light of recent revelations appertaining to lifestyle, wealth and poverty in Northern Ireland, it might be of interest to take a look at the current crop of "risen people" and to assess whether they are winners or losers in the grim game of death, maiming and suffering so grandiloquently misrepresented by republican slogans.

We must make it immediately clear that when we look for those who are losers and those who are winners in the Northern Ireland troubles, we see neither category represented as catholics or protestants, or as republicans or loyalists. All such categories are among the winners and, of course, catholics, protestant, loyalists and republicans are the entire human material of the losers the people who suffer death, maiming, intimidation and imprisonment. Among the losers, too, are those who inflict these miseries on one another.

Who are the "risen people"? Where and how do they live and what sustains the claim that either in their actual conditions, or in their political aspirations, they could justifiably be seen to have "risen"? Put another way, as the media draws attention to the rich lifestyles of some people in Northern Ireland and disgraced ex-Minister, Michael Mates, suggests the British government’s £3 billion annual subvention is making life easy for some people, we might suspect that these are the real risen people. The question is, are these people whose lives have changed so noticeably for the better as to gain the attention of the national press the "risen people" of republican legend?

In offering the testimony of Michael Mates we are conscious of his dubious reputation but he is right in saying that the British government makes a nett contribution of some £3 billion annually to Northern Ireland and he is right in suggesting that some of this money goes to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and he might even be right in inferring that that public authority has evolved a standard of housing which is superior to some local authority housing in Britain.

Where Mates lapses into nonsense is in inferring, as he does, that money invested in public housing is in some way associated with the reluctance of local politicians to hammer out an agreed solution to the province’s problems. The fact is that there is still an acute housing problem in Northern Ireland and that this is being currently aggravated by severe cuts in the housing budget.

It is true that the overwhelming majority of IRA activists and IRA supporters, the "risen people", in the cities, towns and villages of Northern Ireland live in public housing estates. By their nature, even where standards have improved, these are depressing places and when the IRA or Loyalist writ is triumphant life can be very frightening indeed.

Peculiarly, the "risen people” and their "enemies” who support the loyalist cause, live in very similar surroundings. Whether they support the posturings of the paramilitaries or remain frightened and silenced by graffiti, intimidation, hijackings, and the occasional taking-over of their homes by local or state gunmen, they live in fairly uniform poverty. Unemployment in some of these areas can be as high as 85 percent; where it is lower, it remains a fact that most of the people are wholly dependent on state benefits.

As far as political aspirations are concerned, for most people they extend to the simple and somewhat despairing hope that the killings will end and the gun bullies, legal and illegal, go away. For others, politics are the bitter reaction to the last atrocity. For others, and especially the young people, nurtured in the ambivalence of a capitalist "morality" that glorifies military thuggery, and licensed killings, it is easy to translate the machoism, romance and reaction to state violence into the cause of Ireland — or the cause of Ulster. These are the areas from which come those who are killed, those who are maimed and those who are sentenced to long periods of imprisonment — and, of course, those who are doing most of the killing. Workers in these areas are often articulate and aware that whatever way the troubles are ultimately resolved will not affect the economic life of their class. The regime under which they live — either republican or loyalist — doesn’t tolerate dissent, however. Freedom is the right to do what you’re told!

Both republican and loyalist paramilitaries accept and commonly practise capital punishment even for what they term anti-social behaviour; there is no appeal, no concern for the social conditions that give rise to the alleged misbehaviour. This is a dominant, frightening part of the life of the IRA's risen people and they are locked into it because it is the heritage of their class; because their poverty denies them the opportunity to seek another form of life that exists a short distance away — among the real winners.

The prominence of this other form of life has become so pronounced that it has become newsworthy. On August 8 the Independent on Sunday featured an article entitled "Ulster Few Enjoy A Golden Age”. The article was accompanied by a picture of yachts and luxury cruisers tied up at Bangor marina and the lead-in proclaimed. "The sweet life goes on in North Down despite everything".

The ”story" was about luxury boats, about Jaguars and Mercs and Porsches, and the arrogant, pompous and non-productive people who own these things.

Two days later, the Irish Times took up the theme in a lengthy article entitled "The Sweet Charm of the Northern Bourgeoisie". The writer, Nuala O Faolain, festoons her article with quotes that speak volumes about the "charm" of her subjects. Listen to their words. these people who live rich lives because they own the means of wealth production or who organize the exploitation of the producing class for those owners. When you read what these people have to say you will see that, while they live a mere dozen-or-so miles from the working-class housing estates of Belfast, economically and culturally they are light-years away.

Here are some of O Faolain’s direct quotes:

"You can hear explosions across the lough. I do wonder some times why we‘re so fortunate, when they're so unfortunate."

"Pound for pound, we have a higher standard of living than anywhere else in Europe."

There’s a lot more of the same thing. But there is no talk of catholics and protestants; not a word about republicanism or loyalism. These people might compete with each other but they have no fictions to kill for. No, they know what side their cake’s buttered on and they can eat in peace — together.

And there, surely, is a lesson for us — the working class.

Richard Montague

Blogger's Note:

Embedded within this article were two 'Facts Files' giving more background on some of the participants in the conflict. Rather than try and post them within the article, I have reproduced them below:

FACT FILE: The Royal Ulster Constabulary

The RUC came into being with the Stormont state and over the years proved a willing and frequently brutal instrument of the ruling Unionist Party. With the commencement of the Civil Rights agitation in 1968 the RUC unquestioningly accepted Unionist Party instructions to deal with protest in the traditional way — with the boot, the baton and, if necessary, the gun.

Before the provisional IRA came into existence (1970) the RUC had been responsible for at least six deaths. The first two fatalities were as a result of beatings and, later, the RUC directed heavy machine-gun fire against a block of flats killing four people including a nine-year-old boy and a British soldier home on leave.

The RUC do not carry out normal policing in nationalist areas; instead, heavily armed patrols in armoured Land Rovers travel through these areas accompanied by soldiers. No attempt is made by these patrols to carry out ordinary policing; on the contrary, the frequent journeyings up and down streets in residential areas is seen as an act of provocation which helps to consolidate the influence of the IRA. Given its history, it is as difficult to see the RUC achieving acceptance among nationalists as it is to see loyalists tolerating the IRA. The force is much more a part of the problem of Northern Ireland than it is a part of the solution.

FACT FILE: The IRA's "Mandate"

The last all-Ireland General Election was held in 1918. Sinn Fein won 73 seats (for Westminster parliament); other nationalists won a further 6 seats and the Unionist Party won 26 seats. The Unionists won majorities in four only of the six counties that was to become Northern Ireland.

In 1921 the British government partitioned Ireland, creating Northern Ireland (6 counties) and the Irish Free State (26 counties).

The present IRA and Sinn Fein validate their right to carry on an armed struggle by reference to the electoral victory of Sinn Fein in 1918. Given that numerous general elections have taken place in both parts of Ireland since that date and that, when they have contested these elections. Sinn Fein have failed to achieve a significant vote, the IRA/Sinn Fein "mandate" claim is patently absurd. Current indications are that in an all-Ireland election Sinn Fein could expect two percent of the vote.

The Provisionals do not mention that the Irish electorate in the 1918 election was staunchly catholic and conservative and that today that electorate oppose contraception, divorce, abortion and all the other trappings of a pluralist state. The IRA/Sinn Fein, on the other hand, have abandoned the old 1918 conservatism: today, despite their claim to be faithful to 1918. they not only mouth the sort of left-wing shibboleths that would cause the 1918 electors to rotate continuously in their graves but they have, also, espoused most pluralist reforms.