Dear comrades ... I think your article on the European elections (Socialist Outlook INo. 20) exaggerated the danger of the Dana Lana won the last seat in the poorest and most back• ward part of Ireland - hardly a prelude for sweeping back the secular gains of the last ev years, except in the imagination of the far right whose slogan is "Back to the Candidates with similar politics got minuscule votes in al other areas. he issues of the election were mainly economic and about neutrality. There is widespread concern about Ireland being frog-marched into NATO's "Partnership for Peace" (PFP).
Both Greens - who are way to the Left of most Greens in Europe - kept their seats. McKenna and Avern are far more Left than the Labour Party. And moreover they are willing to stick their necks out on "Unpopular" issues. I would also question the description of the Free State as a confessional state. It is basically a bourgeois state with religious deformations, a distorted gain of the War of Independence. To call it confessional is to put it at the same level as the Orange statelet and in essence play into the hands of those to think that Irish Nationalism is just as reactionary as Orangism. Amongst the outstanding secular struggles to be won is of course abortion from which the main parties are running scared. not just yet! right opposes contraception.
For example, Mildred Fox, a government-supporting ndependent, states she wants a decision in 6 months by Ahern on a referendum. Why not now!
Or does Mildred want virtue, but (like St. Augustine)
Ivana Bacik has begun a coalition of pro-Abortion forces. In my opinion a victory by the right will prove Pyrrhic, because the vote for Abortion will be shown as growing significantly. Like the divorce debate, the trend is one way - towards secularism. in stating this 1 am not calling for passivity out for opamism. We must campaign for secular education in the schools, Mind you. the relirious orders are pulling out o many schools as they do not have the members to even provide head teachers. The refusal of some schools to install the Stay Safe sex education program is an issue.
On medicine in general; the influence and control of the religious orders through pseudo Ethics committees must be combatted. Here again no one outside the mad As i write this i hope for a real debate on the situation and the tasks issuing from it. I am glad to know that Socialist Democracy is opposed to the Good Friday Agreement and also opposes a return to military elitism by sections of the Republican movement.
Fraternally, Jim Monaghan "carnival of reaction". Jim claims that this is not so - or at least that it is no longer so The Catholic Church was an all importantly, the Catholic Church has only lost some battles it has not been dcicaica and sull wicias con• siderable power in health and education.
The fall in numbers joining religious orders has meant that schools now often employ lay principals. This fall is due to a number of factors, one of which is the growing trend towards secular attitudes.
Another is the growth of capital. general increase materialistic want a Catholic Ireland but let some else do the dirty work However, it is precisely in education that the power of the church is felt. Despite recruiting falling numbers of teachers, the ethos of schools formerly run by the clergy continues to be Catholic and the state has introduced new legislation to ensure that rule of the hierarchy ContRass With this support from the state the church have managed to exl. cude teachers from new laws on discrimination in order to protect the ethos of such schools and their ers, single parents or people who CODES religious ethos of schools in their private arcs will not oc coverca oy the anti discrimination legislation. sional state: the Free state governof state functions to the Catholic Church and pays them to do so.
Not defeated The Catholic Church as we have pointed out has not been deleated despite all the trends and some The nature of a state is not dependent on the trends and swings in the mood of the population.
to be confessional until the confessional forces are deleated in the same way a capitalist state does not cease to be capitalist just because there has been an increase in militancy and advances made by the working class. Il takes muca more for that to happen. The working class must A column from Socialist Democracy, Irish section of the Fourth International organise and fight the capitalists and defeat them. Where are the fighting Church? Running scared of another referendum on abortion. Where was the decisive defeat of tae Churcht Nowhere To describe the Freestate as a confessional state does not nay into the hands of those who would claim Irish nationalism to be as equally reactionary as Orangeism.
The Freestate consciouse defeat of revolutionary nationalism socialists we defend the anti imperialist the PraisePas demands of nationalism, i.e United Independent Ireland.
Reactionary clements of the programme of nationalism are only our concern in that we fight categori. cally against them and oppose them at every turn.
We have always fought against them - and hence found ourselves on opposite sides of the fence to Sinn Fein in the 1983 abortion refcrendum.
We opposed it outright because of • the attack it represented on women. Sh fudeed the issuc, claiming in a Magill interview that as they didn't they couldn't take a postion on afraid of their own support in areas mentioned.
Lastly, we are surprised that Jim is glad to know that we are opposed the Good Friday (GFA) and attempts by militarists to launch a rerun of the armed struggle.
We have always opposed militarism as an option for the working class or indeed for nationalists, and as an organisation we are alone in describing the GFA as a defeat.
The Agreement has no positive aspects (as the SWP would claim, for instance an opportunity for non sectarian politics), nor indeed is it the harbinger of peace and prosperas the Socialist Party would Gearóid Ó Loingsigh for Socialist Democracy