For Lefties too Stubborn to Quit
As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.
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so, is the ULA kicking Clare Daly out? What’s the latest news re. this
Anybody else had a mysterious small deduction from their credit card by Ryanair recently?
A strange Portuguese site which has a bit of old Irish Left material
http://ephemerajpp.wordpress.com/category/org-irlanda/
Also has a ton of other material from around the world.
Which in turn led me to this which might be of some interest.
http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMOtherArchivesScottishVanguard.aspx
Home at last
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ruthdudleyedwards/
While ye are all tearing wach other apart over Clare Daly/Mick Wallace, ye might have missed that there has been three nights of rioting and sectarian clashes in north Belfast. At the end of the month there’s supposed to be a huge Orange parade to mark 1912. The PSNI are suggesting that someone will be killed if this shite goes on.
message to the left: what have you got to say?
well, if a PSNI officer gets killed, no loss. If an Orange Order member gets killed, no loss. If an innocent person gets killed, then that’s a loss.
“well, if a PSNI officer gets killed, no loss. If an Orange Order member gets killed, no loss.”
Charming
don’t think its the psni or their predecessors manners or civil rights record that make them a target in militant republicans eyes, its the role they play. they are the manifestation of british authority in ireland. they both, in force it and represent it. its about recognition of the right to a monopoly of violence. if you don’t agree that the british government should have or do have any rights in ireland then at some point you are going to come in to conflict. those tensions between your opinions of the british state in ireland and the british state in irelands opinions of you will resonably play out around the police. wether its you attacking them in the modern pase by most likly being obstinate or them attacking you through stop and searches and arrests. may be a bit crude to say a dead psni man is no loss but its more mocho with a bit of context.
Mods, please delete Rory’s comment. Please.
It’s well out of order – no doubt about it, I’m in two minds though about deleting it if only because it’s a prime example of how not to think through a situation. What do others think.
It reflects widely held views in Belfast and elsewhere. Unfortunately.
Agree with Joe.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I wouldn’t allow any further comment like this, but as an example of the worst stuff in this line i wonder should we let it stand?
A regular commenter on this site recently described a murdered PSNI man as ‘fair game’, without any such condemnation.
How is it out of order? The Orange Order are a bunch of sectarian bigots, no different from the AOH, KKK, etc. They are quasi-facist. They believe in supposed racial and religious supremacy. The PSNI, and the old RUC, are still up to their eyeballs in collusion with loyalist factions. Since when did the left defend the police and state violence, and since when did the left start supporting the Orange Order? Will you all be defending the South African Police now in their recent murder rampage? Are you happy to associate with far-right groups such as the Orange Order? Is it one rule for bigots up in Northern Ireland and another for bigots in the Southern States?
Don’t associate with anyone like that, so that’s a straw man argument from the off. And there’s no point in trying to compare 2012 with 1982 or 1968 or 1924. They’re not the same. Nor is the North in 2012 like South Africa under apartheid.
The problem is someone who thinks in a society like ours that loose talk about people ‘getting killed’ is appropriate.
I don’t think the answer to bigotry is the death of bigots be they KKK, Orange Order or whoever. I don’t think the answer to police repression (and I use the term repression advisedly because let’s be clear the PSNI is not equivalent to previous police forces in the North) is death either. I don’t think because someone holds a ‘belief’ that is a license to see them dead either.
If that’s the sum total of your political analysis perhaps you should think again about your dividing line between bigotry and non bigotry.
BTW crocodile, who was it who said the PSNI were fair game. If I’d seen it that would have been dealt with too.
Think I know, but not 100 per cent sure, so won’t name a name. It was about six weeks ago and I wrote an objection at the time, but didn’t get around to posting. I am no admirer of the PSNI. Nor am I suggesting any editorial negligence on the part of the CDL. It’s just that I can’t square any profession of left-wing values with an attitude to human life that countenances expressions like ‘fair game’ or ‘legitimate target’.
If you remember drop me a line by email, thanks.
WbS, for republicans there’s actually very little difference between the PSNI and its previous incarnations. Except that police have become fairly brazen in their daily harassment and intimidation of republicans and their friends and families (including kids) because they think that now they have Sinn Féin as their cheerleaders that republicans really are isolated and vulnerable. The cops think they can lord it over them, and what’s been really surprising is the level of restraint by republicans not to get baited by this behaviour.
(By republicans, I mean actual political activists and not kids who are getting involved in rioting for whatever reason.)
Sorry, you misunderstood me – I wasn’t comparing Northern Ireland (even in the bad days) to South Africa, I lived there long enough to know that was never true. I was making the point that the left should not support the police, the South African reference was a reference to the latest most atrocious police action, but I could equally say the police in Egypt, Spain, Hungary, Greece, Mexico, etc. The PSNI are not the RUC, but they’re not the angels that some people want to suggest they are, pretty much the same personel under new management. Facists have no right to life, just ask any victim of facism. It’s irresponsible and Utopian to think that they do. My dividing line is this – if you are left, you oppose state violence and facist violence – violently if necessary. Not to do so is to allow the state and facists to walk all over the left and those the state and facists target.
Now you’re eliding state violence and fascist violence and police and fascists. It’s all grand to accuse others of Utopianism but a serious political analysis, and particularly a class based one, will fairly immediately identify problems with your line.
the class based argument is this – in any given society a section of the working class will ally itself to the reactionary power bloc (the view of Luxemberg, Mother Jones, Clara Zetkin, Lenin, etc.). The Orange Order (a predmoniately working class, lower class organisation) is a prime example of this. Patronised by Ulster capitalism they were assured primary access to jobs, housing, etc. in return for loyalty to the state. Our duty is to oppose those elements of the working class that are reactionary (again, the typical left view, of Luxemberg, etc.).
Only leftist piece I’ve seen on the matter so far: The Orange Frankenstein marches forth again
Would progressive politics at the moment be served by the death of a cop or an orangeman? In my view, no. Secondly, cheering on hypothetical deaths from behind a keyboard is sad. Do you live in north Belfast- were you out rioting? Were you fuck.
The fact that working class kids are spending their nights fighting each other in Belfast is a disaster. If you think the average nationalist thinks the PSNI is anything like the old RUC then your off your nut. Funny how the sniff of sectarian conflict drives people into cheer-leading mode.
You could be civil. Not, I don’t riot – never have. Yes, I lived in Belfast and Derry – I daily saw police harrassment and orange order harrassment, and I am a Southerner and was shocked by the extent of it – it opened my eyes. Yes, I have opposed the police in Dublin, at the student marches, the anti-cut marches, when I saw the gardai battoning people. You should read the Stevens Inquiry – and the average Nationalist and Republican up North do recognise that the PSNI is the RUC under new management, I’ve rearly met any one in Ulster who disagrees. It’s not a sectarian conflict, it’s an imperial / colonial one. People are not rioting up there about whether the Calvin or the Pope is right – they’re rioting because of the legacy of empire. I would prefer if kids weren’t rioting, or adults, but the Orange Order cannot be argued with – they are, in the main, inherently right wing and anti-democratic. Hopefully that will change, and their dimishing numbers would suggest that it will.
Just thinking about your point about colonial as against sectarian. Perhaps on paper you’re correct but in real terms in regard of self-identification although Calvin and the Pope aren’t front and centre at all times those are the badges of identification to distinguish the self and the other. Now it’s tough enough to shift national identities, but when religion is threaded through a national identity it becomes immeasurably more difficult.
By ‘republicans’ you mean dissident republicans. Who have been shooting and blowing up PSNI members for the last five years. (Remember Peadar Heffron?) So harassment comes with the job I think. As for ‘restraint’ give us a break.
Most nationalists of my acquaitance think targeting the police is absolutely mental.
no – by republicans i mean republicans, in the broadest sense, as in all socialists prefer a republican polity. i don’t agree with the dissidents, never have. but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t oppose tehe orange order or the Northern Ireland state just because the dissidents do. why should we leave the field to them? we should follow left thought – oppose bigotry (whether orange, kkk or neo-nazi) and oppose it very strongly.
and ps. nationalists up north of the SDLP variety are not left, well, they’re as left as Labour down here, so not left at all. We shouldn’t be listening to nationalists.
The Orange Order should be banned until it becomes an inclusive organisation i.e let’s Catholics join.The OO remains probably the only clearly accepted sectarian organisation in the North. The Whigs had no problem banning it in the 1830s.
But I wonder in this more pluralist age if that’s possible. In the South IIRC golf clubs are able to bar women from full membership. The thing being that if they’re not public organisations in the full sense of the term then they’re not covered even by equality legislation. And then of course because of the religious component they probably will be covered as well.
Though I agree that this could have been nipped in the bud a long long time back.
“IIRC golf clubs are able to bar women from full membership. The thing being that if they’re not public organisations in the full sense of the term then they’re not covered even by equality legislation”
Technically they are covered by the equality legislation, albeit only if they have a drinks licence, and only to the extent of affecting that drinks licence. However, the Supreme Court has stripped that part of the equality legislation of any bite.
The law contains the following exemption: “a club shall not be considered to be a discriminating club by reason only that if its principal purpose is to cater only for the needs of (i) persons of a particular gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religious belief, age, disability, nationality or ethnic or national origin, (ii) persons who are members of the Traveller community, or (iii) persons who have no religious belief, it refuses membership to other persons…”
The Supreme Court in the case of Equality Authority v Portmarnock Golf Club found that Portmarnock Golf Club is not primarily a golf club but is actually a gentlemen’s club and covered by the exemption.
There is a constitutional right to freedom of assembly, and the ban on discriminating clubs was found not to breach that (because the members can still associate, just not have a drinks licence).
That’s a great clarification. Much appreciated. Looks like there are plenty of loopholes. Sure the Orange Order wouldn’t have a sniff of a problem.
By ‘nationalists’ I meant what’s called the nationalist community, which includes SDLP, SF and people who voted for nobody. (Plus some vote WP or independents). Very, very, very few of those people think the PSNI is just the RUC with a new name.
Anti-agreement republicans think this- but that is to justify their political position. It’s like thinking that the IRA have been the real government since 1938 or whatever. Deep down most of them know its bullshit. However targeting and trying to kill PSNI officers gives them the excuse to continue with militarised searches, special powers etc. My objection to killing them is political not moral.
Are the PSNI unpopular in some areas- yes, no doubt. They are rejected in some working class nationalist and loyalist areas, but that is the universal hostility of some young people to cops, anywhere. A lot of the kids rioting in north Belfast are the same kids the IRA would have kneecapped for anti-social activity 10 years ago.
Even during the 1980s people in nationalist areas would go to the RUC over child abuse cases etc.
Killing an orangeman would simply lead to the deaths of Catholic civilians (as the last 30 years proved, the IRA could not really defend individual Catholics) further sectarian rioting, more misery for people.
As for imperial- 100 years ago yes. Not now.
The majority of republicans you refer to as ‘dissidents’ don’t support the continuation of any kind of armed struggle. But thanks for elucidating the extent to which political dissent in the Six Counties has been and continues to be criminalised.
btw, two more lefty pieces…
http://www.wsm.ie/c/outbreak-violence-north-belfast
http://www.swp.ie/node/4716
The centre-left and nationalist Parti Québécois has gained a narrow victory over the ruling centre-right and “Unionist” Liberals in Québec’s election for the National Assembly. The PQ will almost certainly form a minority government in La Belle Province with an independence referendum back on the country’s agenda. However a PQ rally in Montréal being addressed by party leader Pauline Marois was later attacked by a lone extremist from the Anglophone community, leaving one man shot dead and two others hospitalized.
Given the PQ’s close ties to Alex Salmond’s SNP it will make for interesting politics over the next three years in both Canada and the UK.
This would be the same Parti Québecois that is “proposing regulated language tests for elected politicians [which] just smacks of authoritarianism and must be surely counter-productive in terms of the anglophone, indigenous or allophone communities” and which wants a secularist crusade that would ban civil servants from wearing hijabs, yarmulkes or Sikh turbans (but not crucifixes, strangely enough).
Hopefully the SNP will sup with a long spoon. The PQ has more in common with Slovakian or Serbian nationalists than with the more civic Scottish variety.
The PQ, incidentally, despite running against a corrupt three-term Liberal Party government with dodgy ties to the construction industry (no similarity to this country, then) and running the flag-waving and minority-baiting campaigns mentioned above, managed 1% less of the vote than last time and gained only three seats in spite of a bigger fall in the Liberal vote. Time for a rethink of strategy.
The language tests idea seems to have cost the PQ badly come election day with both Francophone and Anglophone voters, as did the secularisation push with ethnic minority voters. Marois’ lacklustre leadership and campaign performance didn’t help either.
PQ also faced strong challenges from other separatist or autonomous parties that cost it votes.
However the overall “Nationalist” vote in Québec (political or cultural) still remains at around 60% plus at National Assembly level.
The Serbian nationalist analogy is an unfair one. PQ, like the smaller separatist parties, are thoroughly democratic in nature and culture. Despite occasional bouts of idiocy like the proposed language tests and restrictions on educational choice!
The SNP “civic nationalism” thing is just a sound-bite devoid of real meaning. British Unionist politicians in the north-east of Ireland use the exact same phrase, as do British nationalists when they single out British nationalism as somehow being different from all the world’s other nationalisms because it is “civic nationalism” and “civic unionism”. Just like the British Empire was the “good empire” while all the rest were the “bad empires”.
Sorry, I just don’t buy into that.
However the overall “Nationalist” vote in Québec (political or cultural) still remains at around 60% plus at National Assembly level.
That really depends on how you define “nationalist”. CAQ made it clear that they wanted to put the debate to one side and QS had more pressing priorities. Only the PQ seemed to be obsessed by it and paid the price in terms of votes if not seats.
The Serbian nationalist analogy is an unfair one. PQ, like the smaller separatist parties, are thoroughly democratic in nature and culture. Despite occasional bouts of idiocy like the proposed language tests and restrictions on educational choice!
Serbian might be slightly over the top on my part, but Slovakian isn’t. The PQ seems to be all about putting the Anglos – the perceived former rulers – in their place at every opportunity and reminding them not only who are maîtres chez eux but who are the unwelcome guests there only on sufferance. Throwing in a couple of lines into a victory speech in English about shared histories doesn’t convince anyone. The dog whistles about hijabs and kippahs (because let’s face it, the introduction of Sharia law is a real worry in backwoods Quebec) just reinforces the impression.
The SNP “civic nationalism” thing is just a sound-bite devoid of real meaning.
I don’t have the impression that the SNP view themselves as being the political wing of the Rangers Supporters Club (at least not any more they don’t) or that they try to imply that the Pakistani population of Glasgow are an existential threat to the Scottish way of life. If they did then you would be looking at real problems with a 20% or so culturally Catholic population in Scotland.
http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article26267 Useful article
I would include the centre-right CAQ within the “Nationalist” camp, albeit as a regionalist party rather than a strictly separatist one (analogous to Plaid Cymru in Wales, at least until Leanne Wood’s recent election as leader). Certainly when it comes to the French language and building upon Bill 101 or opposing federal control there is little difference between CAQ and PQ.
Both the left wing parties of QS and ON would fall in on the Nationalist side, though QS does wraps its nationalism up in the “internationalist” thing.
PQ seems to have done better attracting the student youth activists who have made such an impact in recent months. And who may form the next generation of politicos.
Yes, PQ has made mistakes, and frankly Marois is a very poor leader and politician (or at least I believe so). The present leadership and recent infighting has left the party in a poor state (and the shock electoral smackdown of the Bloc Québécois contributed to that). Yet it has still gained a victory, however marginal.
Civic nationalism is such a nebulous concept that the small print often defies definition, and it is often little more than a claim to mask something else. Would you compare Plaid Cymru under Leanne Wood to Serbian or right wing Flemish nationalists? Cultural nationalism can be just as valid, or progressive, as any other nationalism – or any other -ism
may be of interest to some of you ‘Politics in Kerry’
http://politicsinkerry.blogspot.ie/
Urgh. I come across that clown’s column in the Kerryman newspaper every week. Interesting to see he worked with the LP for a few years…
His politics are totally naff.
There’s a couple of things about this that strike me. Ciarán and shea, I accept entirely that there’s a belief abroad that nothing has changed in certain circles though I’d be dubious about them representing the totality of ‘Republicans’. But in a way that’s not the point, what’s the point is as branno noted, is left politics served by the death of either group mentioned, now or at any likely time in the future. And it isn’t. And I’d always add and this is my single transferable line on this which I’ve said numerous times, one of Republicanisms great failings is a past inability to get to grips with the reality of the situation it finds itself in, ie a deeply divided and contested society where for example Orangism (which I’m no fan of in the slightest) is going to exist for some time to come. Calling them quasi fascist (as James did in the OP) is pointless (and also ahistorical not least because organisations and societies do change and such beliefs of supremacy weren’t unknown on the Nationalist side either albeit in different forms) and a sort of diversion from engaging with Unionism and not in an Eoghan Harris like way but something substantive that will lead to genuine change on the island. I don’t know how that works, but loose talk about the death of orangement and PSNI members doesn’t seem to me to be anything other than empty rhetoric.
Harold Wilson, of all people, called the Orange Order quasi-facist. It’s hardly ahistorical – that’s splitting hairs. Facism is a historical trend that has antecdents (see Wallerstein, Zinn, E. P. Thompson, etc). I’m not a nationalist, and would agree that the AOH (which supported Franco) are quasi-facist too, as were early FG, etc. I would agree with engaging with working class Unionists, I have no problem with that – but, as Dawn Purvis found out unfortunately, trying to move the Orange Order into dialogue is impossible. I couldn’t care less if Ireland were 26 or 32 counties, I do care that a very large section of the people in Northern Ireland still suffer because of Orange Order and State violence (including, of course, progressives, such as Purvis, in loyalist communities). As for violence, speak to any victim of facism and state violence and they will tell you that they would prefer that such people did not exist.
wbsm don’t know about people believing nothing has changed but think that militants view some of the fundamentals as still the same. i accept it doesn’t represent the totality of the republican position. SF profess that they hold no truck with that thinking anymore. personally iam a bit stumped at how they can be so forthright in that position. i don’t devalue or dismiss the senserity of their intentions of where they want to be but the route they have chossen to get their is a bit confussing from an ideological point of view. just playing devils advocate here.
agree the orangeman comment was poor. have heard a few similar comments in dublin lately framed in the same way against racists. liberal tolerance being a slur when you make the counter argument. worrying.
That’s true shea, and I don’t mean my comment to seem to be getting at you.
Of course one doesn’t want there to be fascists or examples of state violence, but that’s completely different from saying the death of a PSNI member is no loss or that members of the Orange Order shouldn’t exist.
I’m no pacifist (for example I believe that there was strong legitimate reasons for extending armed struggle for a longer period than the OIRA and defensive violence after that again as necessary) but be that as it may, I think there’s something a bit reductive about your analysis.
How does painting the police as fascists benefit the working class community I live and am active in or any working class community on this island? How when having sat in meetings between the police and community representatives can I say that the police are a class enemy in the context of day to day interactions? And more importantly – whatever the suspicion the police are sometimes held in notwithstanding – how do you think such a message would be received when at every instant where there’s violence or theft or worse it is the police almost inevitably who are approached to ameliorate things. That’s class politics too.
And it undermines your point about not wanting people to exist. Of course in an ideal world we’d all be lovely and love each other, but it doesn’t and we have to deal with the world as it is. That means that – again to use my own direct experience – being realistic that working class people don’t want criminals around them and will call upon the police to do something about it.
Of course overt state violence is a different matter and has to be resisted where it occurs, though I’m uncertain as to what your definition of same might be.
As for the quasi-fascism of the Orange Order, they seem to be much more a manifestation of sectarianism which is simply a different thing to fascism and has to be treated as such. When they had a political vehicle – something they don’t in the contemporary period – there’s an argument they were closer to traditional fascism, but that’s to ignore their roots and rationale which comes from distinctly different sources.
I don’t think the Orange Order today, however grim, is the same as it was three generations ago and I don’t think it will be the same in three generations as it is today. I don’t have to like it, I can – as I do – believe that it has played a reprehensible role in the formation and prolonging of the conflict, but I think there’s nothing inevitable about it always being reactionary.
And to be honest it is a diversion away from engagement if we are to say, can’t engage with the PSNI (or any police force in a reasonably functioning society which for all its faults the North is), or with the Orange Order – even if the latter doesn’t reciprocate yet. At some point the changing nature of advanced capitalist society will force it out of its corner.
BTW, none of which is to be read as an acceptance that the OO has a ‘right’ to sectarian displays etc… or that the PSNI is a saintly and angelic crew, but a bit of reality has to enter this discussion.
In fairness I think your analyses are a lot deeper and more thoughtful than perhaps the way you articulated them in your original comment and I’m not sure it did you any justice at all.
Let me just make clear that while I see no substantive difference between the PSNI and RUC (and that’s a view that’s shared by many political activists and I’ve no doubt by a majority of the community in my own area – considered by many a working class republican heartland in west Belfast – and in similar areas), I don’t support or condone the shooting of cops or of Orangemen. I don’t think I’ve made a single post in this thread that would imply otherwise, but I’ll state it clearly anyway.
I disagree with the censorship policy being proposed by some people above. If you (plural/in general) agreed with the poster’s political perspective would describing someone as a ‘legitimate target’ be ok? Were US soldiers in Vietnam ‘legitimate targets’? Or are you saying supporting violence is wrong in itself for any reason, which I doubt as I don’t think anyone here is a pacifist, or just for causes you disagree with? Where do you draw the line in censoring someone for supporting violent political action? Did you support section 31? Should any posts supporting the war on Iraq be deleted?
I think dissident republicans are wrong as is individual terrorism in general, but banning them outright from expressing their views only reinforces their self-portrayal as radical voices being marginalised by everyone etc. which is part of what makes them attractive to a certain kind of young person.
It would be different if dissidents started repeatedly posting long tirades inciting violence as then the CLR would be giving them a platform, but automatically deleting any references to support for such actions would be over the top and I think WbS is right to leave it up but criticise it- which isn’t hard given how tactically and politically wrong it is.
I’m also generally wary of any automatic refusal to engage with the ideas of violent groups, simply because they espouse violence, when this is one of the major means used by a hypocritical, violent capitalist establishment to discredit radical challenges to it. Historically, force has been necessary to overthrow oppressive regimes (not that I’m saying the north is necessarily more oppressive now than other capitalist states), so any suggestion violence is wrong in and of itself should be avoided – which I think censoring comments that support violence would do.
dmfod, it’s early in the day and I may be reading you incorrectly but is there not an inconsistency in your comment there? I would agree with your comment that force has been necessary historically, and I suspect will continue to be necessary at some future point, so the argument is not about pacificism etc. The question of whether some forms of politically motivated violence are more (I’m searching for an appropriate adjective here!) “acceptable”, surely has to rest on the politics underlying it, how could it be otherwise? For the Left that means glorification of certain violent events and acts, and condemnation of others, at a very superficial level those motivated by revolution ve those by reaction. If we accept that differentiation, that there is acceptable violence and unacceptable violence, then the step to censoring those who advocate unacceptable violence is a small step, and in the grand scheme of things presents no moral dilema. So yes, US soldiers in Vietnam were legitimate targets, posts supporting imperialist war (which do so in an simplistic aggressive sense without engaging ina more sunstantive discussion of the issues) would be questionable etc., but the acts of the anti-Fascist volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and “no pasaran” form a foundation of the Left’s story of itself. In the specific context of the shit going on in Belfast, the original comment above adds nothing to the discussion, it serves no purpose other than to expose the idiocy of the mindset from which it originated, which of course makes a certain case for leaving it up, but better altogether to consign it to the rubbish bin.
LatC, I think the censorship issue is our key point of disagreement, not whether we would support/oppose violence in many of the same instances. As you say, whether or not the CLR allows posts like the one above to stand is trivial in the grand scheme of things, but the political basis of supporting any censorship should always be clear.
On general freedom of speech (as a useful liberal concept to be defended by the left because it gives it a space for activism) and tactical grounds, I’d oppose censoring pretty much anyone apart from a fascist, including people that advocate violence for reasons I disagree with – because they advocate violence.
The violence aspect does seem to be central to your call for censorship, unless you would want any comments that expressed dissidence without directly advocating violence banned as well.
I’m torn over absolute freedom of speech, being a child of the European Enlightenment etc. As you point out, there are tactical reasons to favour a liberal approach, but but but…
Drawing the line is the difficult bit. We can agree to disagree on this particular one.
I don’t have a sense for the absolute logical rules which should come into play in deciding whether this or that should be censored. My gut feeling is that subjectivity must come into play, I’m not convinced that an objective set of conditions can be specified to meet all circumstances. In other words I’m not sure that one can make a principled case for or against censorship, other than the principle being that a particular political project should dictate the rules in the conditions that exist at the time.
That’s exactly the principle I’m working on – violence is part of the Left – and the left should oppose the Orange Order and state violence forcibly. Why do certain Irish people consider the anti-imperial struggle in Vietnam as justifiable, but not in Northern Ireland. The double standards are shocking. No to facism, no to state violence.
” Why do certain Irish people consider the anti-imperial struggle in Vietnam as justifiable, but not in Northern Ireland.”
Because they don’t agree with the political project which underlies the violence in NI.
So you agreed with the Vietnamese establishing a Stalinist dictatorship? You agreed with that project? Seriously.
Well we probably have different views about what the project involved, but if you’re looking for a one word answer, yes.
great – so we’re broadly in agreement – you support the most progressive force – opposing orangeism and state violence is the most progressive force. i don’t agree with the dissidents, but i don’t think we should name every one who opposes the orange order as dissidents. the left needs to oppose the orange order and the Northern Ireland state.
Broadly agree, if people have reasoned analyses up up and including armed struggle I’d be loath to dismiss or censor them, albeit would not want them clogging up the place, however much I think they’re incorrect in the current and most likely future context. That said the original comment was just glib and throwaway in a way that understandably got people’s backs up.
There is a time and a place for everything including armed struggle. The Fenians had a strategy of not doing it when England was not involved ion another war. Armed struggle is just a strategy not a religious duty. Selling newspapers might be the best thing at the moment. Privildging one form of of struggle above all others is meaningless and elitist. For the time being ( I would say decades but we will see) armed struggle is a diversion filling the jails to no good effect. I say this as someone who thinks the national struggle is not over. I would also challenge the Black Bloc on the same or similar basis. Opposing the Orange order is far more effective with civil disobediance. And opposition to Imperialism isolated in a part of the occupied North cannot win. Part of the anti Imperial struggle is now opposition to the Troika.Moral appeals for support is not enough. We need a strategy which shows how all the struggles come together. Part of the answer lies in ULA and in other such bodies. Eirigi shows promise in part because it has avoided the siren call for a shortcut.The dissidents offer nothing but the prison or the grave and to no good purpose.
Bill Clintons Speech last night to the Democratic Convention.
Presume Fine Gael will adopt those ‘Middle Class First’ posters.
Haven’t had a chance to watch that yet, but on the point about “Middle Class First”, in the US everybody is apparently middle class, I think I may have even read some stuff from the CP-USA which fudges the class lines in a way that doesn’t sit well with the type of European class analysis we’re used to here. So in that context, is the Democrats are saying “Middle Class First”, then does it become a radical statement that the interests of the majority of (self-describing middle class) people should come before the interest of the “others”, where those others are the 1%? I can’t see FG adopting that message, although warping the words into the Irish context would sit very easily in a Irish Times editorial for sure. Sarah Carey where are you when you’re needed?
Am watching now. Maybe not so much for the left leaning inspiration but for the masterclass in speech making – Bills got game.
Flip side of this is that while middle class first might be a crap slogan from our perspective the reality on the ground in America is that arguing for the mid 60% is where the fight is right now in America. Contrast to the Republicans and their goal and its reasonable fight.
FG wont pick it because the battle here is marginally different at the moment.
American democracy in full flow:
Meanwhile in Greece…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/06/us-greece-police-idUSBRE8850IW20120906
‘The Orange Order should be banned until it becomes an inclusive organisation i.e let’s Catholics join.The OO remains probably the only clearly accepted sectarian organisation in the North. The Whigs had no problem banning it in the 1830s.’
The AOH only lets Catholics join- should it be banned too?
History Ireland ran a Hedge School up in Cavan a while back and I found myself sitting next to an actual, living, breathing Hibernian.
My granda was in the Belfast IRA during the pogrom, this is what a man from the same Company as him had to say about the Hibernians at that time:
“… it was quite clear to me that some of our Catholic neighbours were not reliable – particularly the AOH brand and this is a point which I should like to emphasise. The 3rd Northern were always up against a situation where the Unionist elements, plus the AOH elements … were very antagonistic and were prepared to give information to the authorities.”
Part of me still feels I should’ve decked that guy, just on principle, like.
My (catholic) great-grandfather was an RIC man in Belfast during the pogrom.
Maybe it depended on which authorities they were giving information to?
Just saying, like.
Good point. Catholic RIC men were one of the key sources of intelligence on the north for Collins and co.
The AOH, now, totally different kettle of fish. I was going through archives of the Irish News from 1934 a while back and when Joe Devlin died in January of that year, the obituary notices, which in those days were on the front page, ran for columns and columns over days on end. In terms of public ritual obsequioussness, the nearest parallel I can think of is the recent outpourings of grief in nNrth Korea when the Great Leader died.
On a Slightly related note, I was looking at old copies of the Anglo Celt a while back looking to see if my grandparents , were mentioned.
One place I found them was listed among the attendees of a Bishops funeral. The funeral naturally had a lot of coverage but there was a two page spread listing who had attended the Funeral Mass. Everyone in the congregation got a mention.
In its profile of Ruairi Quinn in the latest issue, The Phoenix thinks that 4 ‘WP’ TD’s joined Labour in 1999. Really?
Quebec students win, for now
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/07/quebec-students-lesson-protest-politics?newsfeed=true
Gerry Kelly giving a very honest appraisal of Loyalist provocation in the Carlisle Circus / New Lodge in the past week.
I read The Third Policeman this week. Good God, what a fantastic book.
Glad you got to it! (A sort of review here.) It’s one of the consolations of middle age, the thought that there are still great books in one’s future. I think that’s the main reason I haven’t read The Master and Margarita, just to know I’ve still got it to look forward to.
“In reality he left it on the sideboard in his dining room, in plain view to him every day as he ate, for 26 years.”
Christ
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