trotskyist theory we had gained out of our connections with the Insh Workers Group and partly be- cause that theory was contirmed in practice when we concluded that the Six County state was irreformable and There was no point in this slow stagist Democracy. They were direcily ex- pressing the influence of what they had seen on television from the Sor- bonne. That's what gave them the idea to set up that type of structure And that's also what gave them the courage to go out and repeat that demonstration - day after day after day - until they got halonned off the One furthcr example: in Decemher 1968 the then Prime Minister of Not- them Ireland, Caprain O'Neill, intro duced a paltry package of reforms. And the Icadership of the civil rights movement decided to call a truce on demonstrations. And we Telt that streets as well. "The Burntollet march was consciously modelled on the Selma Montgomery march in Alabama in 1965" Page 14
"We didn't them" foresee it weren't defend coming,we ready to JON EAR
political action" influence of movement gradually the value of continuing then a tiny "the what was left wing re-asserted mass Page 15 The nationalist minonty was supine. longer so. They have come off ibcir republican movement has moved con- scious internationalism now in the British were able to mumtain their control of the north of Treland for 50 some sort of an institution a locat tally impossible to do so. So that lett an unstable situation that the British But probably a greater gain than that. is that the minority population which was cowed and broken is no shoot-to-kill policies and torture-and have come oul the olner en steeled by that process. more determined than ever to fight on, and determined to Recause the Ideas that were im- plintell in the 196H-71 poriol - the wider ideas of internationalism. over the last 16 vears to reconstitute have begun to sprout now. The tarian state had been established and had totally crushed resistance to it. As aresult of the struggle of the last 20 ycars. the instatution whereby the years with very little trouble - the Stormont government - has been destroyed, And despite alliheirefforts government institution in the north of Ircland which would stabilise the situation there they have found it to- knees. A whole goncration of pcople have gone through prison camps, though they were forced helow the were germinating and they siderahly to the left, There is a con- goverument is not able to contret. ghettoes of the north of Ireland. fight on with a wider horizon. apathetic, cowed, fcarful. surface forasocialist republic and fighting for became impossible Perhaps more could have been done. But it was very difficult in that perod. So the struggle was forced in struggle against British imperialism in the norh of Ireland a struggle Changing Circumstances and to some degree the continuing influence of what was by then a tiny left wing movement gradually ro asserted the value of mass political action at least on issues Jike repression and against Blocks. Eventually the hunger strikes in 1981 opened up the situation again centrated only in the calhone ghet less. which - whule it didn't win the immediate demands of the hunger strikers - gave Britain its greatest blow in the north of Treland since the all of Stormont in 1972. And that has brought us up to the situation where What is the recond of the last 20 years in the north of Ireland? In some watts Tve said that the focus has nar- rowed a good deal - and that's true. dous gains that have been made. We began with a situstion in the carly six- ties and late fifties when I was grow- ing up, in which this partitioned sec to a fairly narrow focus oFanationalist which had a predominantly military and crated agam a mass movement loes, hut a mass movement noncthe- Buton the other side there are tremen This time a mass movement con the treatment of the prisoners in the H class demands SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 9 October 1988 vection of the republican movement rooted distrust of politicat action, and which was always present in the Irish republican movement but which was We moved then, afler August 1969 and after the introduction of miem- ment in 1971. to a situation where the motionebst resistance in the north of Ireland: Torture. internment without evcrything they could think of - and The mid-1970s was the periond when the loyalist death squads stalked the strecis of Belfast and the rest of the north of Ircland with complete col This led to a situation where the onthe defensive and it was a question of fighting for survival. In that setta- tion unfortunately, the type of mass politics that we tried to create in the cariier period of the strugglo became broader perspective of politics which was not restricted simply to the or to a united Ireland - but which was which developed as a resull (the st left ideology. le hegan with a marked as towards militarism - forcos of the stato - which by that time hail hecome the British state quite openly - threw everything at the trial. jailings, beatings in poles sta- resistance movement was virtually forced underground: they were forced impossible to sustain: Also. the grievances of the nationalist minority Provisionais began with a very deep accentuated hy the particular cir tions. shooting down in the strets laboration by the securily forces. murder gangs and death squads. cumstances in 1969.
British ruling class to its foundations that struggle is completed it wall be u struggle of the working class in thes country: Who could deny that a defeat for British imperialism in Ireland would shake the hegemony of the I believe that-socialist inter- he concluded with the support of the working class in Britain, In other countries in Europe and in the United States: Ar the sume time, as and when contribution. particularly, to the rationalism played an imponant part an the beginnings of that struggle and it can play an important pan in its con clusion, becausc thestruggle willonly struggle in the north of Ireland has not heen defeated. It is the first time in the history of that state that a struggle has been carried on for this length of time and has not been defcateil, We have the privilege of being able to look buck: to leam rom our mistakcs and Irish women: to try to build again. as well? mass political struggle - not only in of Ireland and the mass of the wark- ing class here in Britain and. of course, in other countries as well, hut Britain purticularly since it is the im- 20 years later we are still here, the struggle of the IRA alone can win this battle in the north of Ireland. Think either. I think it can only be won by a the north of Ireland, but by moving the mass of the working class in the south increasingly they don't believe that Joday, you have a feminist movement You have the capacity for buskling something broader again and widen- ing the horizons that were forcibly narrowed by the aggression of the I don't believe that the military impetus to the development of com- Alongside the hardened politicised cadres of the republican movement women's movement. Ti also gave an We have an cronmous privilege mediate source of the aggresston. and a community movement z stare in the mid 1970%. munity politick - came a lot of other developments: It petus to the devolopment of the Out of that struggle, no direct thanks to the leadership ‹particularly to the male leadership) at that time. was one of the things that gave an im- happen can never again feci despair. because you will always know that when the situation comes again, when there is a muse upsurge again. the people have the courage. they have the determination, they have within them the capacity to fight. That was probably the greatest gain: the liherat- ing experionce of struggle. The giving to people of a sense of their own would never forget the xperience of mass popular struggle. Pcople were prepared so sacrifice anything in that struggle, Anybody who has seen that Alongside that you can't really speak about 1968 in any of the places where there was a mass upsurge without saying that anyone who lived through that and fought through that a D un pOWUT.