Letter: IRA again (1988)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

I wish to thank the workers of Calverts Press for their letter in response to the criticism of their action in appending a disclaimer to my article (Hate and Its Causes - March S.S.). Let me make it clear that my opposition to their action was not based on the argument that the workers of Calverts — like Murdoch's wage slaves — had no right to criticize what they were obliged to print. What I objected to was the method they choose — proprietorial censorship — when, as demonstrated by your publication of their lengthy letter, our journal has always provided for the expression of opposition opinion.

As to the letter from Calverts: before dealing with the "inaccuracies" and "unsubstantiated generalisation" of which 1 am accused, I would like to refer to the claim immediately following these charges that they (Calverts workers) do not "wish to enter into a political debate with the Socialist Party about Socialism, whose broad aims and principles we agree with".

Do they? Surely this is what it is all about. Whatever alleged inaccuracies my article contained (and we will examine these), its substance was largely concerned with the fact that socialism, as defined by us and "broadly" accepted by the Calverts workers, is not compatible with, or advanced by. the action of a small under-representative and undemocratic group setting up an organisation whose purpose is to kill other workers who are not prepared to concede political power to them.

They say they are aware that Sinn Fein's views would "not completely" correspond with ours. It would have been much more interesting and informative had they shown us a single point of compatibility between the Socialist Party and Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein, like earlier fascists who employed the same anti-working class tactics as Sinn Fein, do couple the word "socialism" to their fanatical nationalist and racist policies and activities but I would challenge the Calverts workers to show, from their obvious wide reading of Sinn Fein/lRA literature, any evidence whatsoever of that body displaying either the slightest knowledge of, or interest in, the case for socialism as defined by the Socialist Party — and allegedly, ' broadly" approved of by Calverts workers.

As to the numbered points made by the Calverts workers:

1) They claim that my statement that the IRA is simply a nationalist group is based on a quote from "Eire Nua" which is at least five years old and which has been "superseded" by new material. Are they saying that Sinn Fein/IRA repudiated the former document in the latter? That they confessed to an earlier error and enlightened us with a new and definitive version of what they saw as being socialism? I put it to them (the Calverts workers) that, apart from the sort of sweeping generalisations and empty rhetoric used in later statements, and quoted by the Calverts workers, the material I used is the only definitive statement extant of what the Sinn Fein/IRA see as socialism — an inevitably authoritarian political and economic bastardization of "free" and "state" capitalism. I confess, however, that I may not be as well acquainted with Sinn Fein's propaganda material as IRA supporters abroad. I am only one of the people they are prepared to kill in order to make me "free" and they do not use their open access to the media here to convince us that they have viable political and economic policies to improve our life style; such "convincing" is easier among the gullible Lefties abroad who do not see their handiwork at close range. Here, policy statements are largely confined to arguments about whether catholics are getting a "fair share" of the crumbs that fall from the table of capitalism.

2) British capitalism and colonisation can only be maintained in Northern Ireland with the collaboration of the Unionists. This, of course, is typical of the sort of utter rubbish and simplistic nonsense that is the political stock-in trade of Sinn Fein. Capitalism exists in Northern Ireland for the same reason that it exists elsewhere: because the material conditions essential to the establishment of the socialist alternative to capitalism do not exist. Since the Calverts workers broadly agree with us about socialism they will know that capitalism is a world condition, that its alternative is a world system based on conscious majority understanding, unity, co-operation and conscious democratic action. I suggest that the flaw in their "broad agreement" is the fact that they see these things advanced by an undemocratic and divisive campaign of internecine murder.

Who are the colonists? Are they that section of the impoverished wage slaves in Northern Ireland who call themselves "Protestants" and whose forbears arrived in Ireland a mere 385 years ago and later than the Gaels who arrived earlier? Are these the colonists that a cost-cutting British capitalism maintains to the extent of some £2 billion annually? If the Calverts workers believe that then the rest of their ignorance is understandable. Whatever it was in the past, the situation today is that British capitalism would gladly disengage from the economically and politically disastrous web which history has spun from earlier British policies in Ireland. The problem for the British are the consequences of disengagement both in Ireland and, arguably, in Britain and, in this regard, the IRA are more part of the problem than they are of its solution.

3) The Calverts workers challenge my use of the expression "marginally worse" in relation to the condition of protestants and catholics respectively and claim that recent figures show that catholics are four times as likely to be unemployed than protestants. Further, they claim that catholics are subject to daily harassment by the "security forces" and have their funerals noisily surveilled by helicopters.

The most recent employment statistics show that catholics are 2.5 times (not 4 times) more likely to be unemployed than protestants. Those figures reveal religious discrimination, the WSP has never denied that, but the problem is not as simple as the Calverts workers have been persuaded it is. Certainly the difference between most of the low-paid jobs available, to protestants and catholics, and the subsistence allowances made to unemployed workers generally leaves the latter only marginally worse off than the former. As a socialist, however. I find it surprising that workers claiming an understanding of socialism and. thus, an understanding of how capitalism works, can make common cause with what is a squalid and sectarian approach to the capitalist problem of unemployment.

It is utter nonsense, of course, to argue, as do the Calverts workers, that there is harrassment at catholic funerals. The "security forces" do attack IRA funerals for the reasons stated by me in an article in last month's Socialist Standard.

The Calverts workers are correct in saying that the police and military brutally harrass workers who are catholics. This thuggery, where it follows an organised pattern, is largely confined to areas where they are rejected and opposed. The fact that catholics in middle-class areas are not generally subjected to such harrassment, plus the behaviour of the same forces where and when they have been opposed by workers who are protestants, shows that thuggery is not simply visited on people because of their religion. Unfortunately, the beneficiaries of state thuggery is the IRA for it is the reaction among young catholics to the brutality of the so-called security forces, and not any principled stand for socialism, that swells the ranks of the IRA.

4) The Calverts workers find my claim that the IRA practise sectarian killing to be "offensive and untrue". Apart from such cases as where IRA members have been convicted for sectarian murders — one of the more prominent of the Maze escapers, for example, was serving a life sentence for blowing up one of the many "protestant" public houses that was bombed on the Shankill Road, I accept that the weapon of sectarian murder was initiated by protestant paramilitaries, with the likely collusion of the "security forces", but the IRA have responded in the tit-for-tat sectarian murders. I have no more faith in the statements of the police than I have in those of the Sinn Fein/IRA. unlike Calverts workers who have seemingly blind faith in the IRA, but, according to forensic evidence, weapons used in many purely sectarian murders have been used in other operations admitted by the IRA.

The spectacle of worker killing worker, irrespective of their perceived justifications, is surely something that must be regretted and deplored by those who see working class unity as an essential precondition of the achievement of socialism. I find it thoroughly offensive that people claiming even broad agreement with the Socialist Party should act as apologists for those involved in anti-socialist activities.

5) The Provisional IRA did not, according to the Calverts workers, emerge in 1969 in its present form with no prior history of struggle against Britain. True, nor did we claim it had. Our pamphlet. Ireland, Past, Present and Future which. I believe, was printed by the Calverts workers in 1983 (without a disclaimer!) gives a brief history of the IRA and its service to Irish capitalism. If the Calverts workers would like to add this to their Irish studies, we shall be happy to deal with any objections they might have.

The Provisional IRA emerged in 1970 out of the, then, IRA because the latter body initially refused to become militarily involved in the sectarian pogroms that had been inspired by people like Paisley, Craig and others. An earlier military campaign, launched by the IRA in 1956 had proved wholly abortive because, as the IRA admitted in 1962 when they publicly withdrew from armed struggle, the northern catholics had not shown any commitment to the campaign. The Provisionals were born out of sectarian conflict and inevitably became part of that conflict, claiming a role as protectors of the catholics.

Space does not permit me to deal with the simplistic view of Irish history offered by the Calverts workers but even Lenin's tortured view of imperialism would be troubled to explain a form of imperialism which currently contributes to the revenues of the conquered rather than economically plundering them.

Calverts workers raise what they claim is a really serious objection to my view — that the issues that lead to the present conflict were social and economic. (No, I do not know if this particular portion of their letter was written by the same person who claimed affinity with the Socialist Party!). They ask if I am implying that, if the Unionist government had been able to provide decent homes, jobs. etc. there would not now be trouble from the catholics. I am not implying any such thing; I am saying quite categorically that the struggles of 1968/9 were about the extension of the local government franchise, about homes and jobs. I am saying that the very people who rejected the IRA in 1956, when the IRA was dependent on the old nationalist shibboleths to muster support, gave support to the Provisionals after the Unionists had met their social and economic demands with violence. I would add that the small minority of catholics who do support the provisionals are almost exclusively confined to a few given areas of absolute social deprivation.

The remarks from the Calverts workers about Irish culture, language, etc. are really amusing. Ireland today has the same Coca-Cola culture that capitalism has inflicted throughout the world and had the Provisional IRA emerged on the basis of teaching the Irish language and Irish dancing, they would have been stillborn. The Irish language despite being taught generally in southern schools and in catholic schools in northern Ireland, is only spoken by a relatively small minority of people and, as a devotee of Irish traditional music, I have to admit that despite its popularity, it very likely runs second to American country and western in Ireland.

Finally, I would say to the Calverts workers, without any fear of contradiction, that there is only one organisation in Northern Ireland which puts a clear and unambiguous case for socialism. That organisation is the World Socialist Party and one of the greatest impediments to our efforts is the existence of the IRA.

Richard Montague

Letters: Political health warning? (1988)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political health warning?

Dear Editors

So, after 84 years of uncompromisingly putting the case for Socialism in war and peace, against enemies and betrayers, the Socialist Standard has finally been forced to succumb to the undemocratic arrogance of its current printers.

Presumably, since your printers have not previously felt the need to dissociate themselves from any other article published in the Socialist Standard, their political health warning on my article, HATE AND ITS CAUSES, in the March issue, implies their agreement with everything else they have printed in the journal. Or is this the precedent that will establish Calvert's right to impose their imprimatur willy-nilly in the future?

What really intrigues me is what awful thing I have written that so offends Calvert's. Where I live, opposing legal and illegal terrorism, as did my article. involves some little degree of risk. It is a risk, however, that we Socialists have to take if we are to be faithful to our principles.

No such risk is involved for Calvert's. They can come out of their funk-hole and tell me and your readers what exactly in my article was so disturbing that they felt obliged to use the power of their property in a crude attempt at censorial refutation.

Of course they might simply refuse to allow you to publish this letter.

   Yours for Socialism

Richard Montague

Belfast

Dear Editors,

I note that your publishers have added a disclaimer at the end of the article "Hate and its Causes" in the March '88 issue of your paper. I know that the issues raised by the conflict in Northern Ireland are the subject of endless argument among declared "socialists". I have never noticed such a disclaimer previously and would be interested to know what it was in the article that so offended Calvert's Press.

   Yours faithfully.

Alan Tait 

Huddersfield

Reply:

Having typeset the article "Hate and its Causes" which appeared in the March issue of the Socialist Standard, Calvert's Press contacted the editors to voice their disagreement with the ideas contained in that article. They asked for a 'right of reply' and the SSPC stated that any disclaimer or reply which they may wish to make should be in the form of a letter to be printed, at the editors' discretion, on the Letters page. However. Calvert's Press did not send us any such letter but instead printed the disclaimer that appeared at the end of the article. This was added after the typesetting and lay-out stages and hence without the Editors having seen it prior to publication.

The Editors

Calvert’s reply

Dear Editors.

The article "Hate and its Causes" (Socialist Standard March 1988) contains inaccuracies and unsubstantiated generalisations concerning the republican movement in Northern Ireland. The members of Calvert's Press who have written this letter do not, though, wish to enter into a political debate with the Socialist Party about socialism, whose broad aims and principles we agree with, nor are we interested in whose version of socialism is "right", as we are aware that our and Sinn Fein's views would not completely correspond with your own. However, we would like to point out some of the inaccuracies in the article, to answer the patronising comments about our assumed (mis)understanding of socialism and to refute the hysterical accusation of censorship caused by our disclaimer.

1. The article says that Sinn Fein is a nationalist group who don't care whether their government would be capitalist or not, so long as it was "green", and that they have no knowledge of or interest in socialism. This is based on a quote from an issue of Eire Nua which must be at least five years out of date (we found it in a 1971 edition). This booklet has been superseded by a series of policy documents, including the one from which we quote:

   ". . . we believe that the present system of society is based upon the robbery of the working class and that capitalist property cannot exist without the plundering of labour; we desire to see capitalism abolished and a democratic system of common or public ownership erected in its stead. The democratic system, which is called socialism, will, we believe, come as a result of the continuous increase of power to the working class. Only by this means can we secure the abolition of destitution and all the misery, crime and immorality which flow from that unnecessary evil." (Sinn Fein Policy. 1986)

2. The writer claims that the IRA and its supporters dream of a "fairyland" where Unionists are silenced forever.

Must it be pointed out that British capitalism and colonialism can only be maintained in Northern Ireland with the collaboration of the puppet Unionists? In fact, the very existence of the Unionists is due to the British colonialists. The nationalist community in N.I. well understand this and the nature of this colonialism and its function: it divides the Irish and British working class, nullifies the power of trade unionism and maintains Ireland as a NATO base for Britain. Until British occupation of Ireland, backed up by Unionism, is eliminated, the Irish know there will be no way of realising socialism.

3. The writer says that poor conditions are "marginally worse" in Catholic working-class areas.

Recent figures give unemployment in the Catholic community as at 80 per cent. Catholics are four times more likely to be unemployed than Protestants. Furthermore, Catholics are subject to daily harassment by the RUC, UDF, British army etc., have their funerals noisily surveilled by helicopters continually circulating above, are stopped and searched when they enter or leave the country, cross a border or just walk the streets, have their doors kicked in by British soldiers . . . the list could go on.

4. The IRA are said to practise sectarian killings of Protestants, because they don't recognise their class identity.

This is offensive and untrue. There is not a policy of killing Protestants because of their religion. Members of the RUC, UDR etc are assassinated because of their political role in maintaining British colonial rule in Northern Ireland. (The two men in the car who were killed likewise. If you didn't catch any of the photos in the establishment press — let alone in An Phoblacht/Republican News — of the guns pointing out of the car window, we can oblige you with some.) On the other hand, there are killings of Catholics which can be described as racist or "sectarian", as well as the harassment of the Catholic community at large in the ways described above.

We would question the "sectarian" analysis. British imperialism uses this to justify the use of horrifying methods of brutality and repression without protest, and to uphold its colonial occupation — you will still hear people from both countries asking: "Who will keep the peace if Britain withdraws from N.I.?".

We do not agree that the IRA and Sinn Fein are anti-Protestant. The first 3 articles in their suggested charter of rights from the 1986 document state:

1. All citizens are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Every person is entitled to the rights of citizenship without distinction of any kind, such as distinction of race. sex. religion, philosophical conviction. language or political outlook
2. Every person has the right to life, liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.
3. Every person has the right to freedom of conscience and religion and the open practice and teaching of ethical and political beliefs. This includes the right of assembly, peaceable association, petition and freedom of expression and communication.

5. The Provisional IRA, according to the article, emerged in 1969 as a result of housing problems and unemployment.

Of course they didn't emerge in their present form in 1969. with no prior history of struggle against Britain! The history of the IRA and the nationalist struggle against their economic and cultural oppression can be found in many books (we are sure most people realise that Britain has been in colonial occupation of Ireland for 800 years or more). But this point raises a more serious question. because it seems that the writer is implying that if a Unionist/capitalist government could provide jobs. housing etc. for all, then there would be no trouble from the Catholic community at all! The Socialist Party's analysis says that there is no reason for this or any other war in the world other than control of markets and economy. However, in most cases the cultural element is not just the superficial reason behind an oppressed people's desire for self-determination; in Ireland and most of the countries you cited, the people are oppressed as a people. We feel the writer is saying "how foolish of the natives to want their own language, culture, religion, farming methods, sport — why can't they all see this as narrow-minded and backward? If they were truly socialist they wouldn't care what language they spoke, whether they played hurley or football, and would abandon their religious beliefs quickly when it was explained to them [by clever us?] that there's no such thing as god(s)" We feel that to oppose liberation movements on these grounds, is to collaborate with the colonial class and to practise a kind of cultural imperialism.

In the past, some of the nationalist community may have been guilty of a narrow nationalism, but the white, English community continues to ignore the growing internationalism in the republican movement, and the links forged with oppressed people of other nations which share a common history of colonial repression.

There are other points we could make, but time & space may not permit. Some of us do not support the IRA in everything they do, some of us are pacifists. However, like it or not. they have the support of most of the nationalist community in N.I., who have no other organisation fighting imperialism there. Most of us agree that Britain should withdraw from N.I. and that the people there should be allowed to determine their own socialist future.

Two last points arising from last month's letter about our disclaimer: we apologise for the last minute addition of it. Due to an initial misunderstanding in the co-op, it didn't get submitted till artwork stage. But we had been given permission by the editor to put one in and/or to write a letter. Finally, we are relieved that readers do not associate the printer with what they print. Unfortunately, many of us do.

Some members of Calvert's Press

Letters: Were we censored? (1988)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Were we censored?

Dear Editors.

Following the article "Hate and its Causes" (Socialist Standard, March 1988) I noted the comment: "The views in this article are not necessarily those held by Calvert s Press".

My first reaction was "So what!! They're printing the paper, not editing it!" Quite often a printer disagrees with what a paper says. Then, I asked myself: "Why the comment anyway? Are your printers trying to censor the Socialist Standard?"

My second reaction was: "It is very sad, after all this time printing the paper, that they do not agree, particularly as the article is such a clear condemnation of capitalism in Ulster, the "men of violence" and the local politicians who, if anything, tend to make a bad situation worse".

It is also a pity that the printers do not agree with a socialist analysis, since for much of its existence, the Socialist Standard was set up and printed by people sympathetic to socialism — Jacomb, Taylor and even, to some extent. Brocks.

     

     Yours,

Peter E. Newell 

Colchester, Essex

Sexual harassment

Dear Comrades

In the February Standard Janet Carter asks why we attack insecure, immature males for sexual harassment at work, instead of "passive, compliant females who are far greater in number". By the same token, perhaps we should attack defenceless pensioners for getting themselves beaten up by active, young muggers. Sexual harassment is a problem facing many women workers as a direct result of their economic position; if it's the boss touching them up they can't afford to say no. The trade union movement has shown signs of taking this issue much more seriously, and it is entirely appropriate that the Socialist Party should.

To say that the destructive behaviour of individuals should be left to Ben Elton is to miss the point that it is in such behaviour that they reveal their acceptance of existing social relations. If we ignore all the different problems of different working groups, they will continue to ignore us.

     

     Yours for socialism.

Keith Graham 

Bristol

Hate and its Causes (1988)

From the March 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the difficulties facing terrorist organisations is the fact that they leave their dead and their maimed on the spot to repel their supporters and anger and increase the resolve of those who oppose them.

That is one essential difference between the act of dropping bombs from aeroplanes onto "enemy" cities and planting duffle bags stuffed with lethal manure. When aircraft crews dropped their bombs over Germany or Britain, during the last war, despite the fact that they were doing exactly the same thing — in a much bigger way, of course — as the IRA are currently doing, and for the same imagined reason, it was easy for the people at home to laud them as heroes. Not only had the population at home been hyped up with hate propaganda based frequently on lies that government would not have to admit to until thirty or fifty years had passed, but the corpses, the maimed bodies and the wrecked homes that the local population witnessed were the work of "the enemy" and, as such, reason enough for "our boys" to retaliate.

Neither we, nor the Germans, were exposed to the handiwork of our respective "heroes". The sight of innocent people slaughtered needlessly, the vision of dead children and maimed people condemned to live would not have been in keeping with the view that the war was between good and evil.

IRA bombers have no such protection from the consequences of their bloody deeds. Incidents like Enniskillen leave them openly exposed as brutal killers. The barbaric incident at Enniskillen not only brought horror and sadness to the Unionist community in Northern Ireland, it brought remorse and genuine grief to the great majority of the nationalists and it had an undoubted effect on the level of support amongst the latter for the IRA. But it brought more — the most cynical exploitation of the dead and the injured who became a mere propaganda ploy in the hands of the government and the leadership of the Ulster Unionists.

With the active assistance of the media, the idea was promoted that Enniskillen was the definitive horror, a new dimension in the magnitude of terror. As a matter of bloody record, of course, there was less than half the number of casualties at Enniskillen than there was on the occasion when the UDA bombed Dublin and Monaghan and less than on the occasion, in Derry, when an obviously calculated political decision was taken by the British government to stop embarrassing protests once and for all by allowing paratroopers to open fire on innocent protest marchers.

The utter hypocrisy of politicians, like Paisley and Molyneaux, was revealed a few weeks after Enniskillen when they publicly mourned the death of an assassinated leader of the UDA — the IRA's opposite number in terror and the perpetrators of murder by both the bullet and the bomb.

Every week, since Enniskillen, brings its quota of victims of murder or maiming from one "side" or the other. But without exception, all the victims are from the ranks of the working class. The politicians may breathe fire from their protected homes and their armoured cars but all the active participants in this remorseless war of attrition are people whose life is governed by the need for a job or by the meagre limits of state hand-outs. All are members of the working class.

Shorn of the callous hypocrisy, the tribal slogans and the insidious righteousness of the politicians, this surely is the central point. If the conflict, that draws on the loyalty and sacrifice of its working class participants and is fuelled by the murder and maiming of people who share a common class identity, serves any purpose, that purpose must be the belief that victory will bring some benefits, at least to those in whose name the victors claim to act.

Members of our class are dying; members of our class are being maimed; members of our class are being sentenced to long periods of imprisonment; members of our class are becoming increasingly imbued with bitterness and hatred of other members of our class.

Like the people who cheered on "our boys" during the war. without being exposed to their handiwork, so there are those in Britain and elsewhere, who have never heard a bomb go off, never seen a bullet-riddled corpse and never seen the smashed knees or the hooded body of a kid sentenced by a terrorist court for "anti-social" behaviour. It is easy for such people to have notions about a revolution in Ireland and to fit such notions into their crazed jig-saw of revolutionary romantics. Such nonsense might prove ego fodder for the left-wing heroes of the public bar. But, surely, it behoves workers here, in Northern Ireland, and especially those workers who give active or passive support to the political violence of any "side", to examine the options and. especially, to look at how victory for one side or the other will affect their way of life.

The nationalists have their dreams. The Provisional IRA leadership may try to translate those dreams into the politics and economics of a modern welfare-capitalist republic but their followers, and most of their active cadres, know even less about the economics of capitalism than their leaders. To the followers, the Republic is a Brit-free fairyland where the unionists, if they stay, are for evermore silent.

Poverty, jobs, economic crisis, homes, crime, all the social problems that are present in every state of capitalism, including so-called "socialist" republics, are not on the agenda. In the cultural euphoria of a victorious tomorrow, there will be solutions; Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison will come up with answers that no politician, alive or dead, has so far come up with to solve these problems.

The hated RUC will be gone. If the new police are modelled on the current IRA custodians of law and order, hooded corpses and youthful cripples will be commonplace. But that won't happen. The new force that would succeed the RUC would have different uniforms and different personnel, but their work and their methods would be exactly the same: ensuring that the laws on which capitalism's property rights are founded were rigidly enforced on the working class.

Sinn Fein's social and economic policy consists of a number of statements airing Sinn Fein aspirations for the future. Fortunately for Sinn Fein and the IRA. their supporters and most of their activists accept the bait of sectarian and racist propaganda and are not too concerned about the social realities of life in a future Sinn Fein Ireland. According to Sinn Fein, those social realities would be based on "a social and economic system which would strike a balance between Western individualistic capitalism with its poor and hungry amidst plenty on the right, and Eastern Soviet state capitalism (or any of its variations) with its denial of freedom and human rights on the left"! (Eire Nua p4)

So Sinn Fein policy for the future of its supporters and the people of Ireland is a synthesis of “free" capitalism (which Sinn Fein, rightly, claim allows poverty amidst plenty) and Russian-style, state-capitalist tyranny. It is for this, an even more brutal and even less democratic form of capitalism than we endure now. that men, women and children have had to die; for this that men and women are imprisoned; for this that Enniskillen happened!

If the loyalists, like the republicans, have their dreams then either their hopes for tomorrow are dismally limited or their memory of yesterday seriously flawed! Unlike the republicans, who think they can go forward to an Alice-in-Wonderland future where economic realities will be blotted out by ubiquitous tricolours and street names in Irish, the dream of those who lead the loyalists is to go back!

The ambition of both the Unionist Party and the megalomaniacal Paisley is to see Northern Ireland return to the method of government that existed before the troubles. Doubtless Molyneaux and Paisley each see themselves as Prime Minister and each is prepared to make certain concessions to the nationalists in order to achieve their political ambitions.

Amazingly, despite the fact that it is less than twenty years ago since the Unionists did rule at Stormont, they have managed to create the myth among many working-class Protestants that those were the good old days. Were they? What exactly was Northern Ireland like during the period when it was ruled by the Unionist Party?

Perhaps the most attractive memory for those hardened into sectarian prejudice by the troubles is the naked bigotry of successive Unionist governments. The brutal, repressive laws may not have affected those who supported the Orange state; they may have been as oblivious of the evils of sectarianism and repression as the law-abiding South African white is of the evils of apartheid. But, even the most case-hardened bigot must now realise that it was fifty years of sectarian posturing, of discrimination and vote rigging, that prepared the ground for the savagery of the Provisional IRA.

Nor were the working-class Protestants of Northern Ireland the beneficiaries of the vicious sectarianism promoted by Unionist politicians. Certainly, some puny peripheral rewards were handed out to working-class supporters of the government in order to feed the illusion that they were looking after those workers who were Protestants.

The facts were different. Unionist Ulster had a poorer standard of living than that endured by workers in the rest of the UK Unemployment was higher, the anti-trade union Trades Disputes Act was retained long after it was scrapped in Britain, slums were the worst in western Europe and the Unionist Party showed its distaste for social welfare legislation when its Westminster representatives opposed the extension of British welfare schemes to Northern Ireland.

The staunchest Unionist working-class supporters have only to look at the wee streets of the Shankill and Newtownards Road, at the rural slums of south Antrim and north Armagh to realise the contempt and neglect that they received from the successive Unionist governments for their loyalty and support. Slums, unemployment, and general poverty may have been marginally worse in Catholic working-class areas but these miseries were general and any working-class Protestant who thinks the Unionist state conferred any real benefits on him or her must surely suffer from an acutely impoverished imagination.

The Unionist Party was guilty of promoting bigotry and distrust among the working class but. contrary to the fictions generated by nationalists and republicans, the general poverty of working-class life in Northern Ireland was not caused by the Unionist Party. It had the same cause as poverty in the rest of Ireland and elsewhere; capitalism. The bigotry and the fictions surrounding it were simply part of the varying strategies that governments employ to conceal that cause.

Northern Ireland is just one of the many trouble spots of capitalism. The Lebanon, Israel, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Korea, Nicaragua, to mention but a few, are others. The slogans and "cultural" battle-cries may be different but behind these is the poverty that gives validity to the aspirations of the contending forces.

Irish and British politicians and their obedient servants in the media refer to the "two traditions" in Northern Ireland and that idea has been promoted into general acceptance by the public at large. Certainly, the political and, more particularly, the economic history of Ireland has created illusions of traditional differences that have a grim reality in the events of the present. That those “two traditions" did arise largely from economic causes is borne out by the present phase of political strife.

The Provisional IRA was not born out of popular consensus among northern Catholics for an all-Ireland gaelic state. On the contrary, it was the rejection of the demand for jobs and homes and a widening of the franchise, to put them on a basis of perceived equality with Protestants within the northern state, that created the conditions out of which the Provos emerged.

The government did abolish the property qualification that limited local government franchise — a qualification that discriminated against working-class Protestants as well as Catholics. Even if the government had had the will, there was no way in which, within capitalism, it could have provided jobs and homes for everybody.

In other words, had the Unionist government been able to abolish unemployment and solve the disastrous housing problem in 1969. the Provisional IRA would never have emerged and incidents like Enniskillen would never have happened.

The various Unionist governments that ruled Northern Ireland repeatedly showed their contempt for the working class as a whole. They can hardly be blamed, however, for failing to solve the poverty problems which underpinned the present troubles. These are the normal, insoluble problems of capitalism; the problems that governments of all political complexions throughout the world have repeatedly failed to solve.

That is something that workers in Northern Ireland should bear in mind when the politicians, green or orange, or the hard men of the paramilitary organisations, canvass their support or assistance.

Richard Montague

The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Calvert's Press

Blogger's Note:

The Calvert Press Workers' Co-operative were the typesetters and printers for the Socialist Standard at this time.

See Also:

• Letters: Were we censored? (April 1988)
• Letters: Political health warning? (May 1988)
• Letter: IRA again (June 1988)