2008 Winter Fourthwrite

              Issue No. 34 Winter 2008 Price £1.50/€2
A
SIMPLE SPARK
Well, what have I been saying
all this time?
Fourthwrite
For a Democratic Socialist Republic
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
2
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
3
It is with a sad heart that I read
Tommy McKearney’s article, “For
or against Tommy”, lamenting the
split in the Scottish Socialist Party.
In 2003, the SSP rode on the crest
of a wave, winning 6 MSPs in the
Scottish parliamentary elections.
The combination of the mass anti-war
movement, steady work in the
unions and communities, and the
recently achieved socialist unity,
were the main factors behind the
SSP’s success. Yes, non-aligned
socialists and socialist republicans,
former Labour Party and SNP mem-bers,
as well as current Militant,
SWP and Communist Party of
Scotland members, were all in the
same party! Certainly this impressed
many socialists throughout Europe
and beyond.
Tommy Sheridan’s high pro-file
at Holyrood, on the TV, and in
the press, undoubtedly contributed
to the party’s success. How was the
state going to deal with this? Was
this another case for their ‘dirty
tricks department’? No, instead we
saw ‘the discrete charm of the bour-geoisie’.
The media promoted the
‘Tommy and Gail Show’. Tommy
used his undoubted talents and
became a celebrity, but it was
always going to be on the media’s
terms. Therefore Tommy
McKearney is quite right when he
states that, “The SSP should never
have become so dependent on
Tommy Sheridan.” We certainly
learned that lesson the hard way.
But how do socialists in
Scotland proceed from here? One
certain dead-end was the path cho-sen
by Tommy and his supporters to
split from the SSP and form another
organisation. Tommy always had the
option of a full and frank debate at
the specially arranged post-trial con-ference.
Running away from this
debate strongly suggests an unwill-ingness
to be accountable for one’s
actions and a refusal to learn les-sons.
Last year’s electoral wipe-out
of all socialist representation at
Holyrood highlights this grave error.
After two difficult years, the
SSP has hopefully turned the corner.
We have just had a constitutional
conference, after a period of prior
consultation with the membership.
The single-leader model has been
abandoned. Furthermore, despite,
the appaling behaviour of two of the
now departed platforms - the SWP
and Militant – the conference voted
unanimously to maintain platform
rights, seeing this as essential in an
open democratic party. This shows
a considerable political maturity.
However, the SSP has also decid-ed
to organise a meeting, later
this year, for socialist republicans
from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and
England. At present we are all up
against the united UK and Irish gov-ernments.
Both support US-initiated
imperial wars. Both want to create
the best political conditions for the
global corporations to maximise their
Socialists look forward
Allan Armstrong, International Committee, Scottish Socialist Party wrote this reply to an
article by Tommy McKearney reflecting on difficulties faced by the Scottish party
profits on these islands. Close UK-Irish
government collaboration,
through the ‘Peace Process’ and
‘Devolution-all-round’, are the main
political mechanisms to achieve their
aims. Social partnerships are pro-moted
to convert trade unions into a
cheap personnel management serv-ice
for the bosses, leaving ordinary
workers without any effective organi-sation.
We must try to achieve even
greater socialist unity for the future,
covering all four nations on these
islands, if we are to counter ruling
class plans. This means an end to
the old sectarian division and a ‘top-down
internationalism’ (the two often
go hand in hand, in our experience).
We need to unite English, Irish,
Scottish and Welsh socialist republi-cans
on an ‘internationalism from
below’ basis. We hope Tommy
McKearney and Fourthwrite will
support this initiative.
A Republican
Communist
pamphlet
by
Bob Goupillot
&A
llan
Armstrong
The Republican
Communist Network
is a platform of the
Scottish Socialist
Party
This pamphlet cost
£1 and is available
through
PO Box 6773,
Dundee. DD1 1 YL
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
4
EEddiittoorriiaall
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Disturbances in Reykjavik as
Icelanders protest against a
government that has allowed
the economy slide into an abyss
from which few know how it might
emerge. Dublin cabinet ministers
shouted down by angry old age pen-sioners
and forced into a U-turn
within days of announcing budget
cutbacks on health care. And over in
Scotland, bankers have taken to
offering apologies to distraught (and
financially damaged) shareholders.
Quare times indeed. The New World
Order is not shaking on its founda-tions
just yet but it’s difficult to avoid
noting the old observation that
poison spreads form the extremities
to the centre. Ireland, Iceland and
Scotland were never capable of
becoming influential hubs of capital-ism.
They do not have the popula-tion
size or quantities of natural
resources or strategically important
locations that allow countries
become major players on the global
stage. What they did have was suffi-cient
flexibility and autonomy to
thrive as capitalism’s camp followers
during the frothy last decade of an
unsustainable and hollow free mar-ket
boom. As with all camp followers
during a route, they are first to feel
the impact of a reversal of fortunes.
It has been pointed out
frequently over the recent past that
small countries are not able on their
own to alter the onset or depth of a
worldwide recession. That is true
but it is also equally true that these
small countries are like birds carried
in the past by miners to warn of a
build-up of toxic gasses under-ground.
The bird’s death was the
signal of impending danger in the
mine-shaft. Similarly, Iceland and
Ireland’s problems are a hazard light
flashing to warn of pitfalls ahead.
The question of course is
what the governing powers will do
about the problem.
Barak Obama has promised
to create two and a half million jobs
in the early days of his presidency.
This could have a significant and
beneficial impact but much will
depend what form the programme
takes and on how the package is
rolled out. If new jobs are of the out-door
relief sort and pitched at mini-mum
wage level, there will be scant
improvement in the situation.
America’s large community of poor
will benefit little by being made to
work for their food stamps. What is
required is a radical transfer of
wealth and resources to those who
have been unable to buy into the US
economy. Time will tell whether this
happens under the new president or
if instead, as one might suspect
from looking at the people now
being appointed to his administra-tion,
there is more noise than
movement.
Capitalism in difficulty
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
5
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Britain’s Chancellor of the
Exchequer has, meanwhile,
announced his intention to cut VAT
in an attempt to stimulate the econo-my
through retail spending.
Encouraging British people to go
shopping may sound fine. However,
the British economy is now heavily
dependent on its financial sector and
is short of a strong electronics-man-ufacturing
sector where a VAT cut is
most likely to impact. Chancellor
Darling’s initiative is, therefore, just
as likely to boost imports as it is to
increase employment and with
France and Germany refusing to
match his cuts the risk is very real.
On continental Europe the
outlook is bleak. French president
Nicolas Sarkozy is determined to
inflict his brand of neo-liberalism on
the country as he endeavours to
force workers remain in employment
beyond the current age of retirement
and introduces a raft of Thatcherite
‘reforms aimed at undermining work-ers
rights. The Germans and Italians
are committed to similar policies of
so-called fiscal rectitude in spite of
weak attempts currently being sug-gested
for re-floating the wider
European economy.
Nowhere is there evidence
in the developed world of a funda-mental
reappraisal of the nature of
the problem. Nowhere are there
signs of an understanding of what
has led them to their current difficul-ties.
Even the most progressive (a
very relative concept when talking
about many of these people) talk
about Keynesian style fiscal stimuli
almost as if it were a simple matter
of applying a bandage to a cut.
Nowhere do we hear of those in
power pointing to the need for a total
transformation of the economic fun-damentals
that have caused the
present difficulty - and that is the
basic inability of capitalism to do
anything other than create periodic
and destructive crisis. The fact that
the ruling class remains unaware of
the nature of their problem is
reminiscent of those important
occasion in the past when the peo-ple
took matters into their own
hands and propelled history forward.
It’s far too early to predict the
demise of the New World Order but
its substructure - neo-liberal
capitalism- is seriously damaged.
Time to get ready.
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
The USA has long replaced
England as the biggest foreign
economic player in Ireland1
and Ireland’s entanglement in the
current and inevitable financial crisis
lies back in the decisions taken in
1950’s to move in a new direction. It
may be time to move in another one.
To chart the path of
America’s now waning economic
interest in Ireland it may be helpful to
stand beside a working man, trying to
keep pace with the conveyor belt or
‘flowline’ of Chrysler or Ford in 1958.
You may listen to the other car work-ers
of Detroit grumble about how
their ideas on production were no
longer needed, how their minds were
losing a sharpness, their hands los-ing
skill, how work wasn’t the same
since they’d been split up and spaced
out across the factory floor. You may
have shared their worry when the
bills came and the wages could not
meet them.
In time, your voice may have
joined others as the grumble found its
way onto placards and onto platforms
where it became concrete demands
by the trade unions who were win-ning
concessions, higher wages and
better conditions at a time of labour
shortage in the USA. You may have,
with them, removed your overalls and
refused to work at the speed of the
flowline. There may have been digni-ty
with or without your pay slip on
that Friday afternoon.
You might have turned up the
following Monday to received
notice that you were no
longer needed, that the
plant was closing and
that the big car compa-nies
were seeking to
restore their profit margin by
heading abroad. Detroit is now an
industrial wasteland. The
Americans are here. It’s 2008, the
factories are closing again.
Back then the emerald isle
looked good: politically stable and
conservative- a prospector was more
likely to run into a priest than a pro-testor;
the trade unions were kept at
arms length; an educated and work
ready rural population with little expe-rience
of industrial activity or organis-ing,
and that was growing in sufficient
numbers to keep down wages; a gov-ernment
not too bothered about the
environment, with lax laws on pollu-tion
and safety in the abundant inland
and coastal sites2.
While Vietnam and Korea
fought against this ‘neo-Fordist’
expansionism and refused to be
peripheral producers of parts for the
US machine, the leaders of this now
well behaved island Europe’s
doorstep saw the resolution of unem-ployment
and emigration (and possi-bility
of social revolt) in a fistful of
American dollars. Protectionist
measures evaporated in a courteous
bow to the Americans, membership
of the World Bank was duly taken out
and the language of foreign direct
investment and export orien-tated
growth replaced the murmurs of
sovereignty and nationalism that left
on the lips of the 400,000 emigrants,
1951-61.
The government waved those
migrants safely off across the
Irish Sea and neatly pirouetted round
to the Atlantic to welcome the
Yankees with a basket of goodwill
promises: a lack of state constraints
on profit destination, no demands on
employing locals, tax holidays for
banks who made loans for exported
produce. Generous grants and tax
allowances for foreign firms soon fol-lowed
and so while Ford’s turnover in
the 1960’s was four times greater
than the entire Irish state revenue,
the Dail was still making payments
for the company to come and play
here. So the starry plough was furled
up neatly as materialism replaced
republicanism, the native business
owners were convinced that the
incoming dollars would stave off revo-lution
and after some deliberation,
even the church in the mould of the
Bishop of Clonfert found it had
reached the ‘end of our patriotic
duties’
There it was. In time it
looked rosy. Between 1981 and
1993 the value of GNP grew by what
seems a staggering 61%3 and over
90,000 jobs were created within the
foreign-controlled manufacturing sec-tor4.
By the 1990s US firms con-trolled
75% of Irish manu-facturing
industry. The 40% of
growth in national income 1987-1993
was accounted for by Transnational
corporation (TNC) driven exports that
doubled during this period. In 1998
the average rate of profit for foreign
firms in Ireland was 31.7% compared
to 12-13% in other European coun-tries.
What did this mean for people,
people who don’t deal in percent-ages?
Ascratch beneath the surface
showed
Σ While not committed to employing
skilled, local people, in addition to tax
breaks worth IR£4.2 billion5 foreign
firms received further non- repayable
cash grants to encourage their
employment. In return for £1.6 billion
in grants to the manufacturing sector,
7,000 jobs were created in 1980’s6
Σ Productivity was promoted by more
intensive work rates that meant it did-n’t
translate into sustainable employ-ment
opportunities and jobs have
tended to close within 3-10 years.
Σ 15% of total wealth and 60-70% of
Large cat shipwrecked
6
Brian Garvey
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
7
Foreign Direct Investment was leav-ing
country, meaning for every job
created, three were destroyed.
Σ In fact employment in the 848 for-eign-
owned manufacturing compa-nies
(excluding drinks, food and
tobacco) between 1980 and 1992
actually fell by 35.5% at the same
time they received £222.4 million in
additional grants.
Σ 1983-1994 long term unemploy-ment
rose from 40% to 64%7 and
despite EU Structural Grants forming
11.4% of GDP 1989 and 1994,
employment participation rate in early
90s was still almost 10% lower that
EU average8.
Σ Staggering growth rates for the
economy of 5% (EU average 1%)
were accompanied by 6.3% fall in
average domestic incomes during
90s9 and purchasing power of aver-age
consumer fell over this time.
For the working person noting the
headlines of prosperity yet finding
the weeks wage did not stretch how it
did before, whose young brother
could not find work, this raised ques-tions.
If she had had time to look
closely at the figures she may have
also noticed that in 1998 the top per-forming
ten Irish companies
employed over 56,000 workers and
created over IR£7,202 million. The
top ten foreign companies employed
just over 5,000 people yet created
£1R 4,200 million10 How does 10%
of workforce create 58% of output?
Enter transfer pricing…
Google develops a new
product to replace its old one. It sets
up an operation in Ireland to avail of
its low tax system and to avoid US
corporate tax. It develops its new
product and attributes all cost and
development work for the new
product to Ireland; therefore,
ownership and all income from
licensing can legally be held in this
tax haven. Profits gained in US or
from other affiliates across the globe
can similarly be attributed to its
Ireland base, as they’re very hard to
trace, which then shows up as output
from the Irish economy.
So not only does the firm
avoid paying a 35% US levy (in this
way US multinational corporations
have built up profits of $750 billion,
much of it in tax havens in Ireland,
Bahamas, Singapore11) but the fig-ures
falsely attributed to Irish econo-my
overvalue profit, overvalue cur-rency
and we have no idea how
strong the economy is until it is test-ed.
And as we have seen very
recently, that is, not very.
Unravelling of the dream
The precarious nature of this reliance
on foreign industry was clear long
before the recent headlines revealed
turmoil in Wall Street. One quarter of
the 712 foreign owned plants who
located in Ireland between 1981 and
1992 with help of IR£479 million had
closed by 1992 with almost 16,000
people out of work. Sixty-six per cent
of manufacturing industry was con-trolled
by chemical , cola, and com-puters-
large companies that have
flexibility and few scruples, so when
the grants run they head elsewhere
and the battle for contracts between
towns, between peripheral nations
continues.
The redundant Detroit worker may
have paused for the 256
unionised Coca Cola workers in
Drogheda who watched the firm
close up and move to Ballina where
pay and conditions were “far inferior”,
and spared a thought for the poor
prospects of labour rights in these
new sites (half of unionised US
transnationals in Ireland do not
recognise a union at all of their new
sites). He may have watched
Scotland first learn from its Celtic
neighbour and then bid against it to
attract the Digital plant away from
Galway for Ayr in 1993, and finally
shake his head for those who find
themselves, like he did that day,
unemployed.
Like those in Detroit they find
less to fall back on in the harder
times. The government minister, serv-icing
a national debt of 98% in 1998,
trying to control inflation and replac-ing
public spending on welfare with
those grants to business, may have
chosen to ignore the homeless on his
way to work. That’s tricky though,
because their number has doubled in
five years13. He justified the
reduced spending on welfare,
because ‘we need investment’ and
the Americans were here. But they’re
going, and the worker in Detroit, the
woman in Ballina, the Galway man,
can’t relocate jobs to a lower tax
economy; can’t easily bank abroad.
While the companies avoid their tax
duties, it’s these people that shoulder
the government’s tax and income
shortfall. It’s they who have bailed
out the banks. And they know it. And
they ain’t happy.
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
8
Watching the Scannal
programme as I write,
staring at me from the
screen is an old newspaper headline
‘The scandal of our schools’ with the
by-line of Pat Holmes. As I am not
paying any great attention, merely
making use of the opportunity it
provides to kick-start an article, I
don’t know the date of the piece. But
it sure helps to create a feel that the
way education is promoted in Ireland
has long been scandalous and not
just a recent phenomenon foist upon
the sector nationwide by Sinn Fein
and Fianna Fail.
If we didn’t know them any
better we might be gasping in bewil-derment
at Sinn Fein kicking up a
fuss over the current state of the
education system in the Republic.
Senator Pearse Doherty and MEP
Mary Lou McDonald have been at
the forefront of the party’s charge
against Fianna Fail and the Greens
who between them have hacked
away at the intellectual future of the
Republic in Budget 2009.
In warning the government
parties that there would be an elec-toral
price to pay for their refusal to
reduce classroom sizes, Senator
Pearse Doherty predicted: ‘It is my
view that Fianna Fáil and the Green
Party will be punished for their sav-age
attack on pupils, teachers, par-ents
and the entire education sector
at future polls.’ Sinn Fein criticising
any party for breaking promises is a
bit rich, but that failed to dissuade
MEP Mary Lou McDonald from hit-ting
the chutzpah bull’s-eye with her
comment that:
“In advance of Budget 2009 Fianna
Fáil and the Green Party promised
to protect the vulnerable and front-line
health and education services.
But they have in fact delivered is
one of the most inequitable budgets
in recent memory.”
Absolutely true but how eas-ily
does any of it actually sit with
party colleague Catriona Ruane
serving as British micro minister for
education in the North with a most
undistinguished record on the very
things her southern colleagues com-plain
about? Pearse Doherty may
indeed make calls for ‘the public to
continue in their support for the
teachers, the unions and the educa-tion
partners and not to support a
wage cap on teachers' salaries’ but
it tends to look ludicrous when it is
A Ministry
in need of
a little
education
by Anthony McIntyre
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
9
considered that his party with
Catriona Ruane at the helm shafted
the classroom assistants in the
North only a year ago because
Peter Robinson’s budget demanded
it. A very partitionist approach to
budgets is it not? A right wing
assault on education facilities in the
North and left wing resistance in the
South.
It is hard to escape the con-clusion
that Sinn Fein’s sabre rat-tling
all amounts to a bit of envy,
really, that Fianna Fail and the
Greens rather than their own lot are
in a position to shaft our schoolchild-ren.
Par for the course with Sinn
Fein: do a lot of shouting about poli-cy
when all it is they really want
changed is people. Their people in,
other people out, the type of change
that means things remain as they
were. Careerist politics, no more, no
less. This gives the critique of
Fianna Fail and the Greens a vacu-ous
ring, meaning it will most likely
wither on the vine rather than bloom
into electoral success for Sinn Fein.
Given that, in terms of its own
self image as both the cutting
edge of Northern nationalism and
the driving force behind any move-ment
in the direction of a united
Ireland, calamity follows back to
back on debacle, there is a view that
Sinn Fein has lost its way, is devoid
of all strategic direction and flails
around hopelessly waiting for some
unspecified cavalry to ride over the
hill and pull it out of the hole it has
dug for itself. Those of this view find
no shortage of material for their cri-tique
in the North’s ministry of edu-cation.
At no point in her ministerial
career has Catriona Ruane scaled
the heights of Mount Competence.
In the North the education minister
and her advisors are widely regard-ed,
even by British officials, as being
inept bunglers who think acumen is
an alien body that must be zapped
at all costs. Ruane’s handling of the
academic selection controversy is a
case in point. Her determination to
end the 11 plus may indeed be laud-able
but nobody seems to know
what it is she wants to replace it
with. And because of indecisiveness
she has allowed a head of steam to
build up which is causing much of
the turbulence her ministerial flight is
experiencing.
Writing in his own blog a
northern Protestant nationalist blog-ger
claimed that ‘Catriona Ruane
seems to know absolutely nothing
about education.’ It is a challenge to
find evidence to contradict him. She
seems concerned more with finding
scapegoats than solutions. Last year
she hit out at radical proposals for
improvements in the education sys-tem
on the grounds that there was
not enough finance. Her opponents
on the matter were accused of being
‘ostriches with their heads in the
sand’. The British who were
responsible for the amount of money
given to the department seemed to
have not been subject to her oppro-brium.
Ruane takes the view that the
media is behind the difficulties faced
by her department. ‘Look at who
controls the media and in whose
interest the media works … there is,
and I am putting this in inverted
commas, the old boys’ network and I
think that is what you are seeing.’
Mediocrats out to destroy
the education process. Aye, right. It
might be more plausible to argue
that because of the nepotism that
saturates the Stormont career struc-ture
she sits astride a jobs-for- the-boys
network and as a result has
been denied the input of competent
advisors.
Despite the intellectual ema-ciation
of the Sinn Fein body politic
Ruane’s policies paradoxically would
make any future merger between it
and Fianna Fail much easier to
implement. And the more disastrous
education policy becomes in the
South who better to run it than
Ruane and her advisors? They can
hardly claim lack of experience.
At no point in
her ministerial
career has
Catriona Ruane
scaled the
heights of
Mount Competence
‘
Northern Ireland Education Minister, Catriona Ruane
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
10
Amonth has now passed since
the controversial British mili-tary
‘homecoming parade’ in
Belfast. While there was consider-able
media hype in the run-up to the
2nd November military display there
was a noticeable lack of any in-depth
analysis as to why the parade
was organised in the first place.
Instead the corporate media
ran endless stories on the potential
for ‘trouble’ and ‘clashes’ between
those who supported the parade and
those who did not. In focusing on
this angle journalists were only
regurgitating the spin of the PSNI
and the larger political parties. In
the days running up to the parade
talk of ‘troublemakers’ and ‘dissi-dents’
planning every manner of
mayhem filled the column inches.
When that mayhem failed to materi-alise
the media quickly moved on,
without ever questioning what the
true purpose of the military parade
actually was.
So what was the real agen-da
behind the military display of 2nd
November? The answer is simple.
Those who invited the British military
into Belfast city centre used the
cover of a ‘homecoming parade’ to
further the long-standing strategy of
Challenging
Normalisation
on the Streets
of Belfast
When the British government
announced that it intended to parade
Royal Irish Regiment troops through
Belfast in order to celebrate their
campaign against the people of
Afghanistan, the socialist republican
group éirígí organised a protest
demonstration that was attended by
other republians. In this article, éirígí
chairperson Brian Leeson,
reflects on the 2nd November
protest.
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
11
‘normalisation’ in Ireland. What after
all could be more normal than the
British army marching the streets of
a ‘British’ city? It should be remem-bered
that the original plan for this
parade would have seen hundreds
of armed troops marching while mili-tary
aircraft performed a fly-over
across the city. What more powerful
image of normality could there have
been?
This is the context in which
éirígí announced its intention to
oppose the parade when the idea
was first mooted in August of this
year. Had it taken place without
opposition it would have represented
much more than the illusion of nor-mality;
it would in fact have demon-strated
a high degree of actual nor-mality.
Thankfully this did not hap-pen.
The parade was opposed and
not only by éirígí. By the time the
RIR and other British military units
marched onto the streets of Belfast
a number of political parties, victims
groups and other progressives had
come out in opposition to it. At four
separate locations across the city
hundreds of republicans and social-ists
attended protests opposing the
triumphalist display.
While the parade went
ahead despite these protests it only
did so by mobilising the entire spec-trum
of unionism and in doing so
demonstrated the fundamentally
abnormal nature of the Six Counties.
In the weeks running up to the
parade ‘mainstream’ unionism in the
form of the DUP and UUP, ex-British
soldiers associations and the union-ist
death squads all worked tirelessly
to mobilise their respective support-ers.
In many unionist areas the
literal writing on the wall encouraged
people to demonstrate their support
for the British Army and its exploits
in Afghanistan and Iraq. In cyber
space a virtual call to arms was
issued across social networking
websites. On the morning of 2nd
November thousands of supporters
of the RIR lined the route of the
parade. Among the crowds the city
councillors who extended the invite
to the British Army stood shoulder to
shoulder with members of Britain’s
death squads.
Notorious sectarian killers
from Britain’s unofficial militia were
lauded as heroes as they sauntered
down the street just minutes ahead
of their comrades in the official mili-tia
passed by. Members of the
PSNI stood nonchalantly as hun-dreds
of thugs chanted sectarian
slogans and hurled the vilest of
abuse at the victims of British state
violence.H
undreds, possibly thou-sands,
of PSNI members manned a
security ring around Belfast city
centre to ensure that no protester
could get close to the parade.
Surveillance helicopters buzzed
overhead, providing up to the
minute information for the riot-gear
clad paramilitary police on the
ground.
While this show of combined
strength was nominally in sup-port
of soldiers returning home from
Afghanistan, it was actually intend-ed
to send a message to nationalist
and republican Ireland. And the
message was clear. Forty years
after the civil rights movement was
suppressed by Stormont, the RUC,
B-Specials and Paisleyite mobs it
was still business as usual.
Despite all of the superficial
changes of the last forty years it was
clear on November 2nd that nothing
has really changed. When faced
with the prospect of peaceful
protests against imperialism Britain
responded with the mobilisation of
both its official and unofficial forces.
The images of heavily armed PSNI
members facing unarmed protesters
while sectarian mobs howl in the
background was reminiscent of the
black and white footage of four
decades ago.
In an ironic twist those who
hoped to further the ‘normalisation’
agenda have only succeeded in
highlighting just how abnormal life in
the Six Counties actually is. Those
who planned a propaganda coup of
‘Ireland at peace’ instead got a prop-aganda
disaster.
The hoped for fly-by of the
RAF was replaced by hovering sur-veillance
helicopters. The hoped for
television footage of crowds cheer-ing
the British Army was replaced by
footage of yobs jeering victims.
While the damage to ‘nor-malisation’
caused by 2nd
November should not be overesti-mated
it would be equally wrong to
underplay it. The events of that day
clearly demonstrated how relatively
small numbers of people can chal-lenge
the ‘normalisation’ strategy
and in the process expose the con-tinuing
abnormality of the British
occupation.
The challenge now facing
republican is to follow 2nd
November with other initiatives to
re-build popular opposition to British
rule. éirígí is intent on playing its
part in this initiative.
When faced with the
prospect of peaceful
protests against
imperialism
Britain responded
with the mobilisation of
both its official and
unofficial forces
‘
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
12
Impact of October ‘68
Miss Beattie took possession of her
house on the 13th June. She was 19
years old, a Protestant, and
secretary to the local Councillor’s
Solicitor, who was also a Unionist
Parliamentary candidate living in
Armagh. The Councillor’s
explanation for giving her the house
was that in effect he was rehousing
her family who lived in very poor
conditions; also he had expected her
to be married before she took
possession of the house. In fact she
did marry soon afterwards.
In concentrated form the sit-uation
expressed the objections felt
by many non-Unionists to the pre-vailing
system of housing allocations
in Dungannon Rural District Council.
By no stretch of the imagination
could Miss Beanie be regarded as a
priority tenant. On 18th June, within
a few days of Miss Beattie taking
possession, the Goodfellow family,
squatting next door, were evicted
with full television coverage.
Cameron Report 1969
The squatting and subsequent
eviction was such a blatant
piece of discriminatory housing
allocation that it provoked a sizeable
protest march planned to culminate
in Dungannon in August of 1969.
Unlike a more normal democratic
society that had been alerted to
wrongdoing among its public ser-vants,
the NI government did not
respond to the Dungannon march by
ordering an investigation to be fol-lowed
rapidly by correction. Instead,
the minister with responsibility for
security ordered the police to stop
the protest march entering the town,
ostensibly in case it might provoke a
violent reaction from a right-wing
counter demonstration organised by
the Rev. Ian Paisley.
There appeared little likeli-hood
that a follow-up protest march
organised for Derry to highlight simi-lar
behaviour by the local authority
there would achieve any greater
success than that in Co. Tyrone.
Old school republicans were scepti-cal
of the ultimate value of a totally
democratic and constitutional
attempt to change the fundamentals
of the Northern Ireland state and
society. As far as they were con-cerned,
the unionist regime had an
unchanging commitment to retaining
power at all costs and would not lis-ten
to a well-presented case for
democratic reform if for no other
reason than they never done so in
the past.
As people moved towards
the assembly point in Duke Street
they fell into conversation with oth-ers
on their way to join the march
that was describing itself as a civil
rights demonstration. The funda-mental
weakness of the Stormont
regime, they were saying, was its
inability to accommodate democratic
reform. A well-supported campaign
demanding that everybody in
Northern Ireland receive the same
standard of treatment as people in
the rest of the UK would prove
impossible for a regime claiming loy-alty
to London to refuse. It was a
plausible argument but the Unionist
government in Belfast was not
known to subject itself to so-called
British standards of behaviour. More
to the point, some people asked,
what happens if the march is
banned and we just go home as we
did in Dungannon? Does anybody in
Britain or American or even our
neighbours in the Republic of Ireland
care what happens in the northern
part of Ireland?
An hour later, as the police
riot squad began to viciously beat
the marching demonstrators, it
seemed to some old style republi-cans
that their fears and scepticism
were well justified. Perhaps it even
appeared to the RUC men carrying
out the beating that everything was
as it should be in their own bailiwick
as they lashed out at those that
dared defy the ruling authority. The
Catholic minority, they believed,
tended to get out of control from
time to time. Those tasked to protect
the state were, therefore, called
upon from time to time to administer
the type of punishment and retribu-tion
that would remind the minority
that they only remained in Ulster on
tolerance of the province’s ruling
class – the Unionist Party.
All would have been as normal in
Northern Ireland that Saturday if
a camera crew from RTE in Dublin
had not turned up rather unexpect-edly
to cover the event and subse-quently
broadcast scenes of unre-strained
police violence around the
world. Amazingly, at the time
Unionism and its police force didn’t
recognise the damage it had inflicted
upon itself. Only a truly reactionary
ruling clique could be so unaware of
the message it was sending to the
rest of the world but that was what
the old Unionist regime was – a
reactionary group, more typical of
19th Century Empire than of 1960’s
Britain.
Northern Ireland was a cold
and hostile place for Northern
nationalist in those years. A deep
running and widespread sense of
alienation from the state permeated
most of the nationalist population.
The depth of ones alienation
however, often depended on a per-son’s
social class and status. It was
easier to put up with relative discrim-ination
if someone was prospering
and had a comfortable middle class
lifestyle. Those at the bottom of the
scale and dependant on public
housing found the impact of discrimi-nation
more immediate and much
more difficult to cope with.
Not that religious and politi-cal
discrimination was confined to
the rude rustics of Fermanagh and
Tyrone. Queens University in Belfast
was not above bending the rules
and was still being found guilty of
such practices into the 1990’s. BBC
in Belfast was to all intents and pur-poses
blind to what was going on
around it and lived in a world more
resembling the English Home
Counties than the 6-Counties.
County Down for example won the
All-Ireland football final in 1960 and
1961 but GAA supporters who
couldn’t travel to Dublin’s Croke
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
13
Park were never to see the match
on television. They were however
treated to extensive coverage of the
two cup-final victories by London
club Tottenham Hotspurs in those
years.
Alienation from the northern state
had created a situation where
the nationalist population lived not
invisibly but in a quiet parallel world.
Nationalist had acquired their own
schools, often lived in separate
areas, worked in different occupa-tions
and on occasions had a differ-ent
cultural existence of Gaelic foot-ball,
traditional Irish music, history
and literature. It did not though
appear on the ‘official programme’
where lord lieutenants, royal visits,
state sector education and Eton
educated Prime Ministers created
the picture of a society seamlessly
integrated into the British system.
Deep bitterness and resent-ment
was the common experience
among many nationalists. Yet for
decades an all pervading fear had
kept much of this anger bottled up
and typified in the title of the Tommy
Sands’ song, ‘Whatever you say, say
nothing’.
Unsurprisingly therefore,
when the RUC cleared Derry’s Duke
Street of peaceful Civil Rights pro-testers
on 5th October 1968, many
northern nationalists felt a sense of
weary resignation. It reinforced their
long held belief that it was impossi-ble
to change or reform the northern
state. It was pointless even engag-ing
with the state, they thought.
Many thought the only viable alter-native
was the old dogmatic republi-can
policy of smashing the state
was a view they both held but one
they equally believed to be verging
on the impossible. Southern Ireland
was hostile to the notion of a north-ern
uprising and the failed 1950’s
IRA campaign showed that a majori-ty
of northern nationalists were
reluctant to take on the well-armed
and aggressive northern state.
The despair was justified by
history but it failed to take account of
the impact television pictures of gra-tuitous
police brutality would have
on the situation. Years of silent
humiliation, forcibly contained by an
authoritarian administration were
going to have an airing on the
world’s stage and that would have
consequences.
RUC attack civil-rights demonstrator in Derry Oct 1969
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
14
It is impossible to escape from the
reality that Ireland and the world
in general is in the throws of an
economic crisis or ‘credit crunch as
it is somewhat euphemistically
dubbed. It is for that reason that the
26 county state recently braced itself
for the most punishing budget in
years. Of course while this ‘emer-gency’
budget was identified as
being particularly harsh, in many
respects it was the same old story.
Yet again it was the workers
who got the raw deal. Whereas in
more positive economic times it was
the case that it was those well off
who were rewarded disproportion-ately
with generous tax-breaks and
by a blind eye being turned to their
negative industrial relations prac-tices,
these days, it is the workers
who make the biggest sacrifices. In
hard times.
The 1% levy on all workers
who earn under E100,000, will mean
that those earning less than the
average industrial wage, will pay as
much of a percentage as those
earning a comfortable 90,000 a year.
Those earning over the magic
100,000, will only be hit by an extra
1%, regardless of how much over
that upper limit they make.
Elsewhere, cuts were the
name of the game for a government
which has neglected public services
since entering office. While the
hastily laid plans to make medical
cards unavailable to most pension-ers
had to be abandoned due to the
furore.
Cuts on public services and
especially education, threaten to
create a bleak future for Irish school-children.
While recently mooted sug-gestions
that third level fees may be
introduced, have generated fierce
criticism, it is in reality, the latest
education cuts that most threatens
the future of education in Ireland.
While the desirability of free
third level education is not some-thing
I would dispute from an ideo-logical
point of view, the discourse
concerning ‘free’ third level educa-tion
has been very misleading.
Led by many ‘soft left’ mid-dle
class commentators, the impres-sion
has been created that the aboli-tion
of third level fees made it easier
for people from working class back-grounds
and especially for those
from disadvantaged areas to go to
third level, even a brief look behind
the rhetoric shows that this is not the
case.
Going back to times when fees did
exist, the thresholds set meant that
fees were not expected of people
from areas like Mayfield or Moyross
or Ballymun or from working class
families in general, therefore, the
benefit of the abolition of fees was
not felt by the working class. What
the abolition of fees really meant is
that those whose parents could
afford it, no longer had to pay. This
is not necessarily an argument for
the re-introduction of fees, rather it
is a plea for a more honest assess-ment
of the educational problems
facing disadvantaged areas.
This is where the proposed
education cuts can really prove
damaging. With the shedding of
Education Crisis
Southern budget give hope to no sector
by Donal O’Driscoll
It was not big business
which was targeted
in the budget,
it was
yet again the
public services,
most significantly,
the education services
‘
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
15
some 1200 jobs in the education
sector ready to propel the average
pupil teacher ratio to 28:1 in primary
schools, the chances of pupils’ indi-vidual
needs being identified is less-ened
significantly. This is the real
challenge facing schools in working
class areas.
In working class areas
where parents cannot afford to pay
for more one to one private educa-tion,
the large pupil to ratio, makes
the quality of education received
automatically undermined.
Such pressures at primary
school level, make the chances of
pupils falling off the radar very possi-ble.
The disenchantment of pupils
at such a young age makes it harder
to keep them interested as they
progress up the educational ranks.
Make no mistake about it,
by not putting proper investment into
primary education especially in the
most economically disadvantaged
areas, the powers that be are mak-ing
the issue of affordability of third
level, a non issue for people in cer-tain
communities. If the government
is seriously interested in increasing
third level participation in areas
where it is currently negligible,
removing primary school teachers is
most certainly not the way to go.
While the government has
justified this tough budget by refer-ence
to the current economic cli-mate,
it has once again shown
where priorities lie. It was not big
business which was targeted in the
budget, it was yet again the public
services, most significantly, the edu-cation
services, that were affected.
By limiting the resources of primary
and secondary schools, it is clear
that the political establishment have
no long term commitment to a suc-cessful
and equitable education sys-tem.
That the long term future of
third level education in Ireland is
bleak is not as much about the pos-sible
re-introduction of fees
(although that would be a retrograde
step), rather it is a chronic lack of
vision in depriving schools of the
resources required to ensure maxi-mum
future participation at third
level. Students should by all means
protest student fees, but should also
consider standing alongside their
former schoolteacher in opposing
these disastrous cutbacks.
The first of several planned health meetings of union representa-tives
from front line services, recently took place to discuss the
severity the £340m 'comprehensive spending review' cuts are
having on services.The meeting was organised by the Mid-Ulster
Trade Union Council and brought together shopstewarts and
health Union reps' from the main hospitals(general and mental),and com-munity
care.The meeting involved rank and file members of Unison,Nipsa,
Unite and also senior representatives of the newly formed health Union
Universi.
Contray to the statement by NI Essembly health minister Micheal
McGimpsy,that the 3% cuts, will not effect front line services;reports from
Union reps' tell a different storey. The centralisation of key services like
human resorces,the Nurse 'Bank' system,catering and many administration
services is causing havock.To nurses, overtime pay in several Hospitals
has ceased.As part of the 2500 planned job losses,community psycriatric
nurses are not being replaced and nurses in the RVH are expected to carry
out domestic duties in order to cover for staff thats not being replaced.
Mental Health is expected to be severly effected;Personal hygiene materials
for patients in Residental mental and Learning disability settings have
been eroded,leaving residents to purchase there own.Transport for patients
to visit relatives has all but stopped.
These cuts are only the beginning. Acute A/E services at the Mid Ulster is
earmarked for closer.Whiteabbey Hospital is been rundown to a 60 bed
unit.Staff wages are being cut for new recruits.
Dispite these drastic cuts, 2 Private finance (PFI) hospitals have been
anounced for Enniskillen and Omagh,£262m and £190m respectively.This
collousal waste of privately built and run health facilities, where money
appears to be no object,goes on at the expense of public NHS services.
As Union leaders sit back watching the distruction of the NHS,their mem-bers
are fighting to save it.
Health cuts in North
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
16
Whatever emerges from the
apparently failed power-sharing
deal between
Robert Mugabe and Morgan
Tsvangirai attempted in September,
Patrick Bond argues it is time for a
closer examination of the Bretton
Woods Institutions’ historic and cur-rent
role in Zimbabwe, as these will
be the crucial indicators of how
many socio-economic compromises
are ultimately made in a political set-tlement.
(A version of this paper was
originally published by www.amand-la.
org.za);
Along with the United
Nations Development Programme
and donor governments, the Bretton
Woods institutions of the World
Bank and International Monetary
Fund are exploring economic relief
for an economy suffering a nine year
long depression and the world’s
worst-ever recorded inflation. Civil
society - especially those involved in
the historic February 2008 Peoples
Charter - have been asking whether
Robert Mugabe’s foreign debt
should be repaid; do orthodox
“Washington Consensus” strategies
work and should new grants and
loans be conditional upon neoliberal
policies; and how might social forces
be reorganised to ensure a deeper
democratic transition and socio-eco-nomic
justice?
Progressive civil society
made a variety of demands for a
genuinely new Zimbabwe, in the
February 2008 “National People’s
Convention Charter”. In addition to
political democratization and human
rights, the People’s Charter spoke of
“the national economy and social
welfare” in a unified, unifying way:
“Because the colonial and post colo-nial
periods resulted in massive
growth in social inequality and mar-ginalisation
of women, youths, peas-ants,
informal traders, workers, the
disabled, professionals and the ordi-nary
people in general, we hereby
make it known that our national
economy belongs to the people of
Zimbabwe and must serve as a
mechanism through which everyone
shall be equally guaranteed the
rights to dignity, economic and social
justice.”
To this end, the People’s
Charter included worthy demands
for
• People-centered economic plan-ning
and budgets at national and
local government levels that guaran-tee
social and economic rights
• public programmes to build
schools, hospitals, houses, dams
and roads and create jobs
• equitable access to and distribu-tion
of national resources and land
for the
benefit of all people of Zimbabwe.
• the right of the people of
Zimbabwe to refuse repayment of
any odious debt accrued by a dicta-torial
government.
• Free and quality public health
care including free drugs, treatment,
care and support for those living
with HIV and AIDS
• a living pension and social secu-rity
allowances…;
• decent work, employment and
the right to earn a living
• affordable, quality and decent
public funded transport and housing
• food security and the availability
of basic commodities at affordable
prices,
• free and quality public education
• fair labour standards and
removal of all obstacles on the right
of small traders, small scale produc-ers
and vendors to trade and earn a
living.”
Zimbabwe’s New Democracy
Can the Bretton Woods Institutions reverse the Economic Crisis?
by Patrick Bond, Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society,
Durban, South Africa
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
17
As for the threat of transnational cor-porations,
the Convention insisted
upon
• Protection of our environment
from exploitation and misuse,
whether by individuals or compa-nies.
But notwithstanding August 2007
reports that an IMF “fishmongers
plan”
would offer non-conditional finan-cial/
donor aid of $3 billion over five
years, it is much more realistic to
anticipate extreme pressure by the
IMF and Western donors along pre-dictable
lines:
* mass civil service firings and
parastatal privatization;
* dramatic cuts in social spending;
* US dollarisation/randisation of
basic commodities, so that those
earning Z$ must do black market
currency exchange;
* increased capital flight on the one
hand, and denationalisation of
national assets through foreign
investment on the other hand;
* repayment of Mugabe’s $5+ bn in
odious debt to the Bretton Woods
Institutions and other creditors;
* restructuring of agricultural power
relations against the interests of
rural people; and
* liberalisation of a variety of state
regulations.
Zimbabweans have been weak-ened
by the retreat of key oppo-sition
cadres into exile, or their
killing, disappearance, victimisation
and intimidation. If they are to legiti-mately
demand a rapid and relative-ly
painless economic turnaround,
they will need to forcefully mobilize
against both the Mugabite parasitical
bourgeoisie and the
Tsvangirai-supporting neoliberals
who will describe People’s
Convention demands as “unrealistic
expectations”.
What activists might be able
to unite around, however, is a pro-gramme
to
contest orthodox ideas such as free-ing
up of markets, liberalised trade,
fiscal contraction and neoliberal
reform of parastatals (generally
meaning the commercialization and
privatization of services )
The civil society groups may
instead demand a much bigger state
in order to undo the enormous social
and economic damage done at the
behest first of the IMF and World
Bank during the 1990s and from the
late 1990s by Mugabe and his
cronies as a desperate gambit to
hold onto power.
Two questions arise: can the econo-my’s
weaknesses be turned into
potential strengths, and how to pay
for the People’s Charter? In 1999,
the UN Development Programme’s
Zimbabwe Human Development
Report, copublished by the
Zimbabwe Institute for Development
Studies and Poverty Reduction
Forum, acknowledged: “The people
of Zimbabwe can, once again,
assert their primacy and with sober
and deliberate intervention in nation-al
matters bring back the state and
economy to serving first and fore-most
the interests of the people
based on people’s efforts and
resources, and not one based on
foreign dependence”
Yet nine years later, the UNDP
became the main force to articulate
the neoliberal agenda in Zimbabwe,
issuing a 250-page report:
Comprehensive Economic Recovery
in Zimbabwe.
Aside from the UNDP and
Bretton Woods Institutions, the most
dangerous of the external advisors
is the Cato Institute, a libertarian
Washington thinktank. Cato senior
researcher, Professor Steven Hanke
- whose work was discredited in
Argentina when the currency board
crashed in 2001-02 - recommends
the removal of monetary sovereignty
from Harare, in favour of the printers
of US dollars (the Federal Reserve)
or perhaps the South African rand
(the Reserve Bank). That would
mean little or no subsequent ability
on the part of a future democratic
government in Harare to set interest
rates, control financial inflows/out-flows,
or direct credit to reindustriali-sation
strategies.
Hanke’s case rests in part
upon a fib: “Prior to the introduction
of central banking, the country had a
rich monetary experience in which a
free banking system and a currency
board system performed well.” It did-n’t.
There is a well-documented his-tory
of financial crises, inflation and
foreign domination that Southern
Rhodesian small capitalists and
farmers/workers suffered under the
system Hanke recommends and that
required replacement by a central
bank more than half a century ago.
Another unsatisfactory strat-egy
by neoliberals is to emphasise
capital inflows as the solution to the
investment problem, yet Zimbabwe
is Africa’s third worst case of capital
flight in relative terms, suffering $24
billion in (inflation-adjusted) capital
flight from 1978 to 2004. That figure
is more than five times Zimbabwe’s
external debt, and in Africa is only
exceeded by Nigeria and Angola.
Afew weeks prior to the faltering
elite deal, the Congress of SA
Trade Unions announced “a week-long
trade boycott and refusal to
handle goods from and to
Zimbabwe”, and is awaiting word
from the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions about carrying out the
threat. A few months earlier, in April
2008, the SA Transport and Allied
Workers Union refused to handle
three million bullets being shipped
via Durban to Zimbabwe. The result-ing
rise in solidarity movement
awareness was formidable, although
Zimbabwe civil society never fully
agreed upon sanctions or other
external pressure points.
The time to have those
debates within regional civil society
may be near, as Zimbabwe once
again lurches towards a political cri-sis
associated with an exhausted
hypernationalism that is bandaided
over again by Mbeki in coming
weeks, and if the Bretton Woods
Institutions join the UNDP, the Cato
Institute, the Adam Smith Institute,
and South Africa’s Brenthurst
Foundation (all of which have issued
documents about Zimbabwe after
Mugabe), the more profound crisis
looming is neoliberalism, for which
the People’s Charter appears to be
the main antidote.
... the new
government will
need support to
make the case for
foreign intervention.
Adam Smith Institute, 2007. 100
days: An agenda for Government
and Donors in a New Zimbabw.
‘
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
18
The journey from Tel Aviv was
intriguing and full of
unknown expectation. It was
in the middle of the night as the
taxi driver drove along the unlit
barren roads to Ramallah.
As we approached the city
of Ramallah I noticed the familiar
sight of a prison which stretched
alongside the road. I asked the
taxi driver “Is this a prison?” In
perfect English he told me it was
Atranout Prison. I later learned it
was a place which also holds
those who dare cross the many
borders without permission to try
and make a living.
We entered Ramallah City
and were stopped at a checkpoint,
no hassle though, a military style
figure shone the torch into the taxi,
viewed the two Western women in
the back and signaled for us to
proceed. It was a Palestinian mili-tary
police checkpoint.My col-league
and I were here in a pro-fessional
capacity to attend a con-ference
organized by Gaza
Community mental health
Programme (GCMHP) and the
World Health Organization (WHO).
The theme, Siege and Mental
Health Walls v Bridges. As mental
health clinicians we were present-ing
a paper to the conference
highlighting how siege has impact-ed
on the mental health of a num-ber
of individuals in Belfast.
The Israeli authorities
denied hundreds of international
clinicians, medics and academics
entry to Gaza to participate in the
conference. The day before the
conference was scheduled to
begin many of the conference par-ticipants
assembled at Erez/Gaza
Crossing to protest Israel’s denial
of academic expression, freedom
of speech and the entry of health
care professionals from all over
the world to Gaza.
I feel overwhelmed by the
whole experience of Palestine, a
place I could only read about and
be privy to images on our TV
screens. ‘Seeing is believing’ I
noticed that the work force in this
social and economic deprived
country were predominantly male.
In the hotel where I stayed, waiters
and cleaners were male, a job
mainly reserved for women here in
Ireland and more recently migrant
workers. I was struck by the heavi-ly
fortified concrete wall which sep-arates
and imprisons the people of
Gaza. I wanted to see beyond that
wall. One must ask what are the
Israelis trying to hide?
As we were protesting a
small number of people and chil-dren
were waiting to get back in to
Gaza. They had been given spe-cial
permission to leave. One man
had been given leave for medical
treatment. I saw a woman sitting
on a concrete slab just looking
ahead with no expression in her
eyes. One of the most moving
aspects for me personally was the
sight of little children playing like
children in any other part of the
world but without the colour and
facilities that awakens the young
imagination. As they waited with
their mother in grey concrete sur-roundings
in a Middle East land-scape
they were oblivious to the
draconian measures imposed on
them because they know nothing
Not even the little birds are free in Palestine
a personal account by Patricia Campbell
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
19
else. Attracting much international
media attention conference organ-izers
had a plan B and the confer-ence
went ahead as planned by
video link from Ramallah City in
the West Bank with Gaza.
The conference itself was a
huge success. The thought
provoking workshops and art exhi-bition
leads the way to maintain
and build the strong bonds estab-lished
between the international
delegates, participating on com-mon
ground, health, peace and
human rights. The way is clear for
us to exchange knowledge, experi-ences
and ideas for the future. I
believe this is a new beginning.
From Gaza a 15 year old
girl gave a moving account of how
she was taking on role as mother
to her young siblings, her mother
imprisoned in appalling conditions
and gave birth there. They long for
the day when they will reunite and
get to know their little brother.
There was another account of how
the Israeli authorities continue their
dehumanization policy by imposing
closed prison visits, which means
there is no human contact
between the prisoner and their
loved ones. Colour is being added
to the screen which separates the
prisoner and visitor so that the
prisoner appears the same colour
as the screen.
At another workshop the plight of
prisoners in Abu Ghraib,
Guantanamo Bay, and those who
are electronically tagged and
under house arrest in England was
heard. The impact of torture and
imprisonment on their mental
health was addressed. I made the
point that of the small number of
patients from Belfast my colleague
and I were presenting, all of whom
have serious mental illness post
conflict, the majority of them were
imprisoned and report similar
experiences to those prisoners
mentioned.
Powerful concluding
remarks from two Psychiatrists,
Gaza based Dr Ahmad Abu
Tawahina and London based Dr
Derek Summerfield speaking from
Ramallah were heard by all dele-gates.
Dr Ahmad’s address,
‘Besieging Hatred’ was significant.
He spoke of the need for health
care professionals to promote the
empowerment of people. He gave
an analytical account of how the
superiority complex of the Israeli
regime influences Palestinians. He
explained, there is a constant
attempt to frustrate and humiliate
Palestinians and a total disrespect
for Palestinian Ministers who are
kept waiting at checkpoints.
Palestinians may internalize this
and unconsciously adopt the inferi-or
role. For me this was poignant. I
have always shared the view it is
absolutely imperative to empower
our young people because they
are the future negotiators in every
aspect of conflict and life. If one
negotiates from a position of weak-ness
and inferiority then one is
more likely to compromise and
produce bad outcomes.
Dr Summerfield
spoke about ethics
in conflict zones.
He described how
doctors were bound
by ethics of
responsibility and
ethics of
conviction...
some doctors
ignored and
colluded with
practices of torture
and how
their ethics of
conviction overrule
ethics of
responsibility
‘‘
Author of this article ,Patricia Campbell picture with friend protesting at the
refusal of Israel to allow conference take place in Gaza
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
20
Driving along the country lanes
of Donegal to reach the town
of Dungloe with my daughter,
Stephanie, I wondered how the night
was going to pan out. I was due to
debate the 1981 hunger strike with
former hunger strikers, Tommy
McKearney and Laurence
McKeown.
Tommy McKearney and I
had given our views on the 1981
hunger strike to the local Donegal
radio station, Radio Highland the
previous day, and Tommy had sur-prised
me by saying that he
opposed my synopsis of the hunger
strike.
Laurence McKeown’s oppo-sition,
on the other hand, had been
undisguised. When my book
Blanketmen was published in 2005,
Laurence launched a savage, per-sonal
attack on me in his Daily
Ireland column, and since then he
has been in the vanguard of the fight
to discredit me.
McKearney opened the dis-cussion
by defining the British plan
to criminalise the late twentieth-cen-tury
republican struggle for Irish
independence, by removing political
status from republican prisoners,
and treating them as common crimi-nals.
He outlined the conditions
which prevailed during the prison
protest.
Hunger
Strike
Author of ‘Blanketmen’
Richard O’Rawe,
reflects on a debate that
took place recently in
Dunloe, Co. Donegal.
Dr Summerfield spoke
about ethics in conflict zones. He
described how doctors were bound
by ethics of responsibility and
ethics of conviction. The former
being accountable and responsi-ble,
the latter a version of deeply
held personal values. He highlight-ed
how some doctors ignored and
colluded with practices of torture
and how their ethics of conviction
overrule ethics of responsibility.
My colleague and I visited
Jerusalem. Palestinians must
have permission to enter this
beautiful City with its eight gates. A
checkpoint controlled by Israeli
soldiers enforces Israeli policy. As
we sat waiting in traffic at the
check point I couldn’t help but
compare it with Aughnacloy
Checkpoint which was situated on
the Tyrone and Monaghan border
in Ireland, separating the British
controlled part of Ireland from the
Republic.
Brought up in Northern
Ireland, waiting at check points is
not a new experience for me. I
continued to observe. To my right
were large rocks surrounded by
garbage, empty drinks cans and
food wrappings, an indication of
people distain for this restricted
area, The rocks were topped with
winding and tangled razor wire. A
little bird flew into the wire and got
caught. As it tried to escape I
looked away to avoid witnessing
its inevitable fate. I thought, not
even the little birds are free in
Palestine.
The walls and military
presence in Palestine were all too
familiar, many of the stories and
experiences too. I realize just how
besieged the people of Palestine
are. Their movement and choices
restricted and their human rights
constantly abused
Before departing from Ben
Gurion Airport we spent an
evening in Tel Aviv. In a short
space of time I learned so much
about the Israeli way of life. We
met an Israeli of duty solider and
heard his story. We met young
men who had just completed their
three years military service. They
all shared the same view,
“Palestinians are terrorists and
we need to protect ourselves”.
We visited Jaffa and saw the
church which was under siege,
making news headlines around
the world in 2003.
The Ben Gorian experi-ence
was shocking. It’s the
place were many are strip
searched, interrogated and kept
waiting for hours. My colleague
and I are registering a complaint
with our perspective Embassies.
We were subjected to harass-ment,
interrogation, theft of per-sonal
belongings and excessive
security measures. We were
asked to produce our confer-ence
badges which they referred
to as a ‘peace conference’ and
then a ‘human rights’ confer-ence,
one could be forgiven for
believing they are threatened by
both peace and human rights.
We were escorted to flight check
in and then separated. We were
only able to find each other in
their Maze of systems and secu-rity
because we were both fortu-nate
to have roaming network
mobile phones otherwise we
would have missed our flight.
The airport is staffed by
a mainly young work force. They
appeared programmed and
robotic as they performed their
duties. At the impressionable
age of 18 young men and
women of Israel embark on a 3
year compulsory military service.
The regimented youth of Israel
then join the workforce.
This was a very impor-tant
journey for me, personally
and professionally. Earlier when
I addressed my fellow delegates
at Erez Border I made the point,
“I am here in a professional
capacity. I am bound by a code
of ethics. There is nothing more
ethical that being here today.
This is my opportunity to
express my humanity”. After lis-tening
to Dr Summerfield I am
confident that I not only exer-cised
ethics of responsibility but
also the ethics of conviction. I
call on all health care profes-sionals
to do likewise. We have
a responsibility to do what is
right.
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
21
protesting wings knew that, because
Bobby Sands told us.
Finally, I referred to
Laurence McKeown’s claim that the
British would have had to go into the
prison to explain, and authenticate
any offer, before that offer could
have been accepted or rejected by
the hunger strikers. Bik McFarlane
said as much on the 31 October
2008 RTE Kenny Show, ‘The British
opened a back door conduit to the
IRA through an MI5 agent in the
North [Mountain Climber], and
opened a possibility… a way… to
bring about a conclusion to the
entire situation. Now, what they
were told, quite simply: if they pre-sented
an offer to the hunger strik-ers,
they would decide what was
acceptable, and what wasn’t.’
To counter this twaddle, and
demonstrate the true nature of the
decision-making process, I concen-trated,
during the debate, on the
second bout of Mountain Climber
negotiations, which began on 19
July 1981, and which broke down on
21 July 1981. On 22 July 1981,
Gerry Adams wrote to McFarlane,
telling him of the break-down.
McFarlane wrote back to
Adams on the same day, saying,
‘You can give me a run-down on
exactly how far the Brits went.’
(Page 330 Ten Men Dead) This
time, it was McFarlane who could
not have put it any clearer: he did
not know what Adams and Morrison
had rejected on behalf of the prison-ers
that he commanded – and nei-ther
did the hunger strikers. But
Adams and Morrison knew. They
did the rejecting. They, and their fel-low-
committee members, ran the
hunger strike.
Tommy’s central problem
with my account and analysis of the
hunger strike seemed to be that he
believed the British would not have
honoured any offer, or arrangement,
to honourably end the hunger strike.
It appeared, in Tommy’s view, that
Perfidious Albion could never be
anything other than perfidious.
Unfortunately we will never know if
Tommy was right or wrong, because
the Mountain Climber offer was
never tested, and had been rejected
twice by the committee.
Laurence McKeown started by
covering the same ground as
McKearney vis-à-vis criminalisation
and prison conditions. He then
referred to the ending of the 1980
hunger strike, where he echoed the
propaganda line that the British had
reneged on a deal to end the fast.
Because of this alleged duplicity,
Laurence contended that the British
would have had to send a represen-tative
to the hunger strikers to
explain the nuances of any offer,
before it could be ratified or rejected
by them. Laurence said that as the
British did not do that before the fifth
hunger striker, Joe McDonnell died,
then they had not been genuinely
trying to end the hunger strike.
I began by calling for an
impartial inquiry into the running of
the hunger strike. I did not think that
this would be a contentious matter;
after all, why would the hunger strike
committee not jump at the opportuni-ty
to answer the question of whether
or not they had presided over the
unnecessary deaths of the last six
hunger strikers? I then sketched the
controversial parts of my book,
which were that the Mountain
Climber had contacted two veteran
intermediaries from Derry, and had
presented them with a set of propos-als,
aimed at ending the hunger
strike. The intermediaries gave
these proposals, or offer, to the
hunger strike committee in Belfast,
on the understanding that this
process remained top-secret, or else
the contact would cease. Danny
Morrison relayed the particulars of
the offer to the prison O.C., Bik
McFarlane, and he in turn informed
me. McFarlane and I agreed to
accept the offer and he let the com-mittee
know of our acceptance, but
Gerry Adams penned a communica-tion
to us, which said that the offer
was insufficient to validate the
deaths of the first four hunger strik-ers.
During the debate, I touched on
Laurence McKeown’s contention
that the British had reneged on a
deal at the end of the first hunger
strike in 1980, but only briefly, given
the limitations of time. But if we are
to get to the nub of this matter, we
must travel back to 18 December
1980, to the prison hospital, in the
immediate aftermath of the first
hunger strike ending. Bobby Sands
came on the hospital wing, and
Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes, the
O.C. of the hunger strikers, told him,
‘We got nothing, I called it off.’ (Page
300, Bobby Sands: Nothing but an
Unfinished Song) Hughes could not
have put it any clearer. This busi-ness
of the British reneging on a
deal was a propaganda device, a
smokescreen which was designed to
disguise the fact that the hunger
strike had collapsed. Laurence
knew that. Everyone in the
Participating in the Dunloe debate,(L.toR.) Micheal McGiolla Easpaigh, Laurence McKeown,
Tommy McKearney, Richard O’Rawe
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
22
God, these elections are great
craic, they should have
them every bloody year’ Leo
said to his wee brother as they
headed for the music. Mind, the
wee brother wasn’t so wee any
more. Fifteen and like the
Incredible Hulk. Beside him his big
brother looked like Danny de Vito on
a diet. The new fella was elected
first time out and they were cele-bratin.
‘Didja ever vote yourself, like,
Leo?’
‘Course I did...twice... mind, first
time it didn’t do me any good.’ ‘Did
your man lose, then, Leo?’ ‘No, the
bastard won, he told me if I voted for
him he’d give me a job the next time
one was goin, so I did, then when I
went down to get the job, he just
laughed and told me to feck off.’
‘how did ja vote, Leo?’ ‘Janey, it
was hard, that first time, but the next
one was easy, I knew how.... go to
the bloody school, get a bit of paper
from the old biddies there and then
hide behind a wee box to write
it...they even have the bloody pencil
tied with a string to the box....they
don’t trust anyone, those ould bid-dies.....
a Guard there an all......but
they didn’t say nuthin to me...they let
me vote all right.’’ ‘And they didn’t
say nuthing to you?’ ‘Nah, they did-n’t
even bid us the time of day back
then – they wouldn’t talk to knack-ers’
‘And your fella won that time,
too, Leo?’ ‘Aye, but he didn’t prom-ise
me anthin....his family was
always good to ours, helped to get
the house for us, so I told him ‘don’t
worry, you’ve got my vote’....I met
him on the way out of the school
after voting and jay, he was delight-ed
when I told him I voted for him
and no one else and in case he did-n’t
believe me I even wrote me
name on the paper so he’d know it
was me and I was tellin no lie.’ ‘Well’
he says ‘thanks very much, Leo,
that’s great entirely’. He was really
delighted.....’Did he win it, Leo, did
he?’ said Johnno. ‘Yeh, he did, that
was years ago now, Johnno, years
ago, and every time I see him he
tells me that my vote made a differ-ence.
We got a lot since from that
man, so when it comes your time
you be sure to vote. And always
sign your name so he’ll see it….You
see, our people didn’t vote for years,
it was too hard, really…and they
were all ould gombeens going up,
promise the sun moon and stars and
then send the posse out to shoot up
the caravans if we made any noise
after they got in’. The music was
louder now they were getting close
to the Square. The streets were full
round the square, everyone in good
humour. Johnno was gob smacked
‘Jasus, Leo, look at them all, they
musta come from everywhere’.
‘You’re right there, boyo, its bigger
than any funeral I’ve ever been to.’
Leo’s eyes travelled the crowds,
amazed, not a drunk to be seen,
everyone happy – even the famous
feudin families. ‘Well, Johnno, I
never thought I’d see the day….isn’t
it great they’re goin all round the
country like this?’ ‘Sure they had to,
Leo, we still couldn’t go to Dublin
without getting into a lot of trouble,
now, could we? Deya member
when I was wee and we were all
going up to the Pavee and what
happened?’ ‘Be God, things are
changed now, then, no more shoot-ing
up the vans or trying to burn us
out. We can go anywhere in the
country now we’ve got our own
Travellers in the Dail and the
Councillors elected every-where……
and we owe a lot of it to
those refugees coming here a lock
of years ago. ‘Refugees, what’s
that?’ ‘They’re the poor buggers
had to run from their own countries
and came here. Sure God help
them when they arrived some peo-ple
tried to treat them the same as
us…..tried…but it didn’t work after a
while. Everyone started talking
about rights, travellers rights, human
rights, all that, and things began to
change…so here we are now, just
look at them…. . Johnno looked up
at the platform, male, female,
weirdos some of them, all of them
shakin and movin to the music, big
smiles on the white, brown and
black faces…..Leo grasped his
shoulder in a quick gesture of pride
‘that’s what votes do, Johnno, they
get people like us elected.’
Look at who is in there now
Clarrie Pringle looks at the value of using your vote
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
23
Over the past decade, Anthony
McIntyre has been one of the
most consistent and insight-ful
of Sinn Fein’s critics. As a histori-an,
a former member of the IRA and
a onetime party activist with exten-sive
contacts in the organisation,
few have been better placed than
McIntyre to examine and evaluate
the transformation of a political
movement from armed insurrection-ist
to tame reformists. That he regu-larly
published these observations
on his website or in the press
ensured his uninhibited opinions
were routinely available to the public
and just as routinely annoying to his
former comrades.
That the Provos and Sinn
Fein found the McIntyre commentary
irritating was due in part to his unde-niable
analytical skills and in part to
his outrageously flamboyant and
provocative writing style.
Unrestrained by ambition for a
media career or held back, as were
so many able journalists, by an
Establishment leaning editorial poli-cy,
he told the story as he saw it.
As a former and long serv-ing
activist, he was shocked and
then angered by the disingenuous-ness
of those leading the Sinn Fein
movement. McIntyre did not dis-agree
with ending armed struggle
nor did he deny his old friends the
right to plot a new course albeit one
he did not support. It outraged him,
however, when he realised that the
republican grass roots was not being
told what was happening. And what
infuriated him most was the pres-sure,
usually discrete but often
forceful, placed upon those who
insisted on pointing out the inconsis-tencies
involved in setting out to
smash a state and eventually set-tling
for a part in its administration.
Whatever else may be said
about him, Anthony McIntyre
never succumbed to any pressure to
desist from airing his views. He
often cut a lonely figure as he held
to frequently unpopular positions.
Time after time, when no one else
was prepared to challenge the
received wisdom, McIntyre took his
pen to make a case for the alterna-tive.
His biggest achievement may
lie in the fact that he now feels suffi-cient
work had been done that he
can retire from this arena.
This collection of McIntyre’s writings
should not be read as an academic
analysis of the last ten years. The
author was too close to the events
he commented on and too commit-ted
to his subject for these essays
and articles to be dispassionate or
balanced, and yet this book benefits
from that. The reader is getting an
informed and honest view from the
centre of the action at all times.
There is too an intensity and a pas-sion
mixed with an amusing irrever-ence
in McIntyre’s writing that
places some of his best pieces in
the rascally company of other Irish
enragés such as Swift and Shaw
and Behan. Some of his Sinn Fein
readers probably wish that he would
also join them.
Advertisement
Book review
Tommy McKearney
Fourthwrite Summer 2008
24
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Hunger
Above: A scene from the film Hunger by Steve McQueen, which won a prize at the Cannes film festival for its fright-eningly
accurate portrayal of the H-Block struggle. The film is not light entertainment but is nevertheless an
extremely worthwhile piece of work reflecting the realities of the time.