Ógra Shinn Féin
The last number of weeks we have seen a number of pieces on the blog and elsewhere by prominent republicans on the recent attacks by dissident republicans.
Excellent and worthy contributions, but I feel that an Ógra point of view has been lacking. Our voices are as valuable as theirs are, there cannot be any hierarchy of opinion in republicanism and we must remember that opinions are right because they are right, not because of who they come from.
In looking at theses actions, impartial observers have asked why are these attacks different to those of the IRA during the most recent phase of struggle?
Surely it’s an expression of the exact same attitude the IRA had in the past?
In fact, is Sinn Féin speaking out of the two sides of their mouths?
Absolutely not.
Then what distinguishes these attacks?
Some have volunteered popular support as a difference, pointing to large support networks of support in communities for the IRA, and the election of Bobby Sands and Kieran Doherty in 1981.
In my opinion, this merely confuses the issue.
Popular support is not relevant to the constitutional issue, or at least insofar as it relates to the right of resistance.
If it was where would our revolutionary forbearers have started from? In 1916, was there a popular mandate? Did Sean South have a popular mandate? Did Robert Emmet, or Wolfe Tone have a popular mandate?
Even in the most recent phase of armed conflict, only after the armed campaign ended did Sinn Féin overtake the SDLP in terms of popular support. Selective use of mandates only injures our own arguments.
A mandate is important for a government to able to justify economic policies, or to sanction its international policy, or other such actions, but not relevant to the integrity of the nation. Ireland is Ireland, and will always be Ireland, and no amount of elections can change that.
As long as Britain maintains a presence in Ireland, the right of the Irish people to oppose that presence, will remain. Irish republicanism is based on this premise, that the Irish people will always have the right to be masters of their own destinies. We must never forget that.
But surely, you might say, this excuses the actions of the RIRA and CIRA of late?
I don’t see it that way. The difference is this – now, there is an alternative. Now we have the opportunity to finally succeed in our goals by peaceful and democratic means, through the opportunities of the Good Friday Agreement.
The orange state, which refused civil rights to Catholics, would never brook any possibility of power sharing, or all Ireland structures, and Thatcher’s Britain would never accept that Britain ought to have no selfish or strategic interest in Ireland – indeed she thought the north was ‘As British as Finchley’.
We are now progressing to a United Ireland, in a way which costs no lives, and under such circumstances no armed actions can be justified.
As long as Britain maintains a presence in Ireland, the right of the Irish people to oppose that presence, will remain. Irish republicanism is based on this premise, that the Irish people will always have the right to be masters of their own destinies. We must never forget that.
But surely, you might say, this excuses the actions of the RIRA and CIRA of late?
I don’t see it that way. The difference is this – now, there is an alternative. Now we have the opportunity to finally succeed in our goals by peaceful and democratic means, through the opportunities of the Good Friday Agreement.
The orange state, which refused civil rights to Catholics, would never brook any possibility of power sharing, or all Ireland structures, and Thatcher’s Britain would never accept that Britain ought to have no selfish or strategic interest in Ireland – indeed she thought the north was ‘As British as Finchley’.
We are now progressing to a United Ireland, in a way which costs no lives, and under such circumstances no armed actions can be justified.
It really is that simple.
Only when a democratic and peaceful route is blocked by force and impossible does the right to oppose become a right to armed and violent opposition, and only then is it legitimate.
In short what was different then? There is a litany of symptoms –
‘A protestant state for a protestant people’, No ’one man one vote’, Bombay Street, Internment, Pogroms, Bloody Sunday, B Specials, Ballymurphy massacre, Burntollet, the murders of Aidan McAnespie and Pat Finucane and many others likewise, Diplock courts.
The list is endless, I could go on, but the point is clear.
Sinn Féin will continue along this path it has chosen, of peaceful and democratic means, until we achieve our goals, despite any obstacles that come our way, and be aware - this is by no means the first or the greatest.
But Ógra has its role to play as well.
These groups will do their best to target young people, to attempt to win them over to their ideas, with dubious invocations of the past, with some romantic notions of war and armed resistance.
Older activists who have experienced armed struggle will tell you it is nothing romantic or glorious. Necessary maybe, at times, but always horrific.
In short what was different then? There is a litany of symptoms –
‘A protestant state for a protestant people’, No ’one man one vote’, Bombay Street, Internment, Pogroms, Bloody Sunday, B Specials, Ballymurphy massacre, Burntollet, the murders of Aidan McAnespie and Pat Finucane and many others likewise, Diplock courts.
The list is endless, I could go on, but the point is clear.
Sinn Féin will continue along this path it has chosen, of peaceful and democratic means, until we achieve our goals, despite any obstacles that come our way, and be aware - this is by no means the first or the greatest.
But Ógra has its role to play as well.
These groups will do their best to target young people, to attempt to win them over to their ideas, with dubious invocations of the past, with some romantic notions of war and armed resistance.
Older activists who have experienced armed struggle will tell you it is nothing romantic or glorious. Necessary maybe, at times, but always horrific.
But the young people who can barely remember the ceasefire will be a targeted as recruits for these groups.
It is our job to get out there first, into our communities, and promote our way to them, and as a radical youth group show them how they can play their part in changing this nation, achieving unity and establishing a socialist republic.
Ógra ought to be at the forefront here, and I have no doubt it will be.
It is our job to get out there first, into our communities, and promote our way to them, and as a radical youth group show them how they can play their part in changing this nation, achieving unity and establishing a socialist republic.
Ógra ought to be at the forefront here, and I have no doubt it will be.
10 comments:
We'll the Greens are an All Ireland party insofar as they have a national exec which covers 32 counties, and we should encourage this.
Colleen
Sorry my last comment was for the 'Youth Wings Unite' post ;)
Good piece though.
Colleen
Good article an IRELAND vote on unification should solve any unparliamentry partitionist problems and give Ireland democracy once and for all.
The Good Friday Agreement is no different from Sunngdale in the 1970's - infact articles 2 and 3 didnt have to be removed through Sunningdale - so the premise that there was never an alternative to armed insurrection before the GFA is historical revisionism.
Secondly - the Good Friday Agreement can not progress the struggle for Irish Reunification - it embeds within it the Unionist/British veto. You will never convince a majority of unionists to join a unified Ireland.
The reason militant Republican groups still exist is because the GFA has been proven to fail. We cant get an Irish language act through, we couldnt get the maze stadium, the mess of the 11+ or the entire policing and justice hanlon.
The unionists still have a veto therefore it is a unionist state.
As long as this vacum remains there will be those who will fill it with military activity.
I do not support it, but I wouldnt call them traitors either.
great post
Sunningdale is often brought up in suhc a context but it is a absolute canard, yet one that curiously seems to be bring ruari o bradaigh and seamas mallon together.
For a start it made no difference what attitude republicans took to it, the UWC and many in the unionist establishment would see to it that it would never happen. Shades of the curragh mutiny perhaps. Sunningdale was not as good as the gfa by a long chalk imo(and the gfa is in itself by no means perfect), but I would submit that it might have been considered more if there was actually a real possibility of it coming in to place. The condidtions were not there for a peaceful settelement
I love the way people who claim to be republicans who oppose our strategy are bending over backwards to state that
1. War was not a last resort,a democratic opportunity for real change existed within the orange state.
2. The IRA had no support during the armed struggle and were treated like the micro's today as pariahs by the nationalist community on masse.
Neither of these are true and they also are arguments which attempt to undermine republicanism as a legitimate political movement and resign it to the category of wing nut psychos.
The IRA and republican movement were never this and you (micro's) will never make it that way in the future.
These nutters seem to have confused their right to take up arms in opposition to brit rule, with their moral responsibility to act in the best interests of the people they claim to represent.
If their (micro groups) means of opposing the british occupation stands zero chance of success compared to the presence of a realistic alternative strategy, then the have a duty (if they are true Republicans) not to stand in it's way and to give it a chance!
True soldiers of the Republic gave their lives at times when it was neccessary to give an armed response to brit injustice. It is not now neccessary.
Seán g
Excellent post for a debate that was well needed.
Calling other Republican grops traitors has caused a divide in Republican communities and this needs to be addressed. Whether politics or armed struggle is the strategy we must remember we are all aiming for the same thing, a unified Irish Republic.
Republicanism is divided and the Brits have won on their aim of dividing the Irish people! I welcome ógra's debate on this issue as I personally have left the party over these recent statements made by Sinn Féin leadership.
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