Our struggle is also Internationalist.

Go dti bua!

Whilst reading through the Ógra blog I was disheartened to see an anonymous post stating that Ógra should forget about international struggles and concentrate on our own struggle. Whilst I agree that our own struggle must take priority over all else I disagree with the sentiments echoed in the post.

Who knows whether the anonymous poster was an Ógra activist, republican supporter or either a loyalist or akin to ‘stir up the pot’ so to speak. However if they sat back and looked at Ógra policy and strategy they are certainly out of step.

Ógra Shinn Féin are Republican, Socialist, Feminist, Environmentalist, anti-racist and last but certainly not least internationalist. We make no apology for being so.

You only have to look at the foundation of Sinn Féin Youth (later reconstituted as Ógra Shinn Féin) to see the huge influence our international comrades had on our movement.

The Basque Youth movement of that time, Jarrai, the fore runner to Segi were instrumental in the establishment of Sinn Féin Youth. Many young activists of that time learned the skill of political activism from the well established and organized group in the Basque Country. This included exchange visits of activists from Ireland to the Basque country and vice versa.

The first national campaign, launched at the first Sinn Féin Youth congress, was ‘Young and Independent’, again this took its origins from a similar campaign which was running in the Basque Country. Incidentally at that congress Ógra were joined by international comrades from Euskal Herria, Catalonia, Wales, Scotland, England, Germany and Denmark.

If you also look at the ANC in South Africa they have been of enormous support to our movement. They have demonstrated that change is possible no matter what odds are against you. There are massive lessons to learn for our own struggle when looking at the changes brought about in South Africa.

Who would have thought when Sinn Féin were protesting against the apartheid regime in south Africa many years ago that we would one day have strong fraternal links with the now ruling party in south Africa, the ANC?

So whilst I agree that our struggle should take priority I am totally opposed to the sentiments echoed that we should forget about international struggles.

I will leave the closing remarks to Matt Carthy who brought the 1^st Ógra congress to a close. He was the incoming National Organiser for Sinn Fein Youth at that congress. Closing the congress he said;

`To advance our republican aims and objectives it is crucial that we continue to struggle through campaigning and mobilising, our peace strategy, advice centres, local constituency work, councils, education and international work. Only when these areas of struggle are placed together can we have the force and capacity to achieve our goals'.