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The Plough
1) Editorial
2) UNDERSTANDING THE IRISH PEACE PROCESS (Part One)
3) UNDERSTANDING THE IRISH PEACE PROCESS (Part Two)
4) What’s On?
Editorial This edition of the Plough is devoted entirely to an article about understanding the Irish peace process. It totally cuts the ground from all those who claim that process as a success. It is neither a model for the Basque struggle nor indeed a model for the Irish struggle. This article should be required reading for the international left, Irish republicans of whatever persuasion, and those socialists anywhere who ever had illusions in either the provisional movement or in the so called “peace process”. It totally exposes the fact that the Emperor despite fooling many of his followers has indeed no clothes.
UNDERSTANDING THE IRISH PEACE PROCESS: PART 1 British interference in Ireland is a barrier to democracy. The problem is that the people of Ireland cannot determine their future democratically as it is the British state which determines the parameters on how self-determination should be exercised: there will be no change to the constitutional status of the North unless a majority there agrees to. In diplomatic jargon, this is called "the principle of consent". Republicans reject the principle of consent because in practice, it means that 12% of the people of Ireland can have a veto over the other 88%. Any political changes to the constitutional status have to be acceptable to the 12% of the people who are Unionists before they are enacted. Republicans reject this as anti-democratic and therefore call the "principle of consent" a "unionist veto". It is necessary 'to break the British connection' because an alien government divides a minority from the majority and erects obstacles upon the resolution of differences. A minority should certainly have rights, but should not have a veto over the majority. It is the rejection of the "principle of consent" which mainly distinguishes republicanism from constitutional nationalism. Constitutional nationalism also believes in self-determination, that the people of Ireland should be able to determine their own future. However, it accepts to operate within the existing constitutional parameters and therefore recognises the "principle of consent" that there won't be any changes unless they are acceptable to a majority in the North. Constitutional nationalists believe that constitutional politics should be the only means used to achieve self-determination.
Republicans were unambiguous in their view of constitutional
nationalist parties such as the SDLP as 'partitionist
nationalist'. For republicans, the gap between 'partitionist
nationalism' and republicanism was unbridgeable. In the eyes of
Gerry Adams in 1986, the SDLP was "a fully fledged catholic
partitionist party"(1). The IRA emphatically rejected out of hand the various constitutional initiatives and the 1974 Agreement, viewing them as British attempts to marginalize Republicanism and isolate the Irish freedom struggle. The British government's March 1973 White paper which set out its alternative was immediately rejected by the IRA (2). For the then Sinn Fein president Ruairi O Bradaigh, 'the Green Paper solves nothing', 'it merely seeks to perpetuate Britain's grip on Ireland'; the White paper was devised 'to stabilise the situation and perpetuate her own control over the area', the Sunningdale Agreement 'constitutes a step backwards rather than an advance' for the liberation struggle (3). The Provisionals opposed the Sunningdale Agreement and when it failed to secure necessary unionist support and was brought down by the May 1974 Ulster Workers‚ Council strike, this was praised by the Provisionals. Constitutional nationalists who accepted the Sunningdale Agreement and saw it as a stepping-stone to a united Ireland were denounced. Gerry Adams accused the SDLP, because it had endorsed the arrangement, of being the first Catholic partitionist party.
However it is worth pausing for one moment to reflect upon the many
political characteristics that are common to both Sunningdale and
the subsequent 1998 Belfast Agreement. Both Agreements were founded
upon the unionist veto and both sought to establish power-sharing
executives within the six-county state, which were designed to
co-exist alongside minimalist cross-border institutions. While
bearing these similarities in mind, perhaps we should also remind
ourselves of the fact that hundreds of republican prisoners have
served thousands of years in jails across Ireland and Britain
between 1973-1998 and we must also never forget the graveyards
across Ireland that are filled with republican dead who fell on
active service during this period. When one considers these facts
one must ask oneself: how in 1998 could the Provisional leadership
morally justify their acceptance of the Belfast Agreement, which was
procured at so great a human cost, while its political equivalent,
the Sunningdale Agreement, was rejected in 1973? (4)
"What incidentally was the 'martyrdom' of nearly 300 IRA volunteers
about? What did it achieve that could not have been achieved through
political means alone? More specifically, what advance does the Good
Friday Agreement of 1998 represent on the Sunningdale Agreement of
1973? Yes, there are some differences. The Good Friday Agreement
envisages a reversion of responsibility for security and policing to
the Northern Ireland executives, Sunningdale did not provide for
that but left it open. But what else? Sunningdale provided for power
sharing and all-Ireland institutions...Do the 'advances' of the Good
Friday Agreement, beyond what was agreed at Sunningdale 25 years
previously, justify the loss of a single human life, be that of an
innocent civilian, a member of the security forces or of an IRA
volunteer?"
(5) After Sunningdale, the IRA was therefore "fighting the wrong
war" (6).
Malachi O Doherty (7) correctly summed the IRA strategy as "a
strategy of vetoing an internal settlement through the narrowing of
options". Its purpose is the prevention of any settlement on
Britain's terms: "The campaign does not primarily force the
British to leave Ireland through making their presence too costly,
but it sets limits to their ability to resolve the conflict
internally." The armed struggle Narrow the political options the
British government had for settling the violence. "The British
would continue to resist the option of withdrawal until all
alternatives had been tried and proved not to have brought peace."
"Republicans saw their campaign as narrowing the options of the
British to the point where they would have to consider withdrawal."
The Pan-Nationalist Alliance Central to the new strategy was the idea that the pan nationalist alliance of the Irish government, Sinn Fein, SDLP could pressurize the British government in a diplomatic offensive to 'persuade' the Unionists that their interest was in a united Ireland. The Provisionals spent a long time in the early 1990s building that pan nationalist coalition through secret talks with Fianna Fail, and in particular the Hume-Adams initiatives of 1993. When the Provisional movement finally succeeded to build an alliance with those other political forces, it was not on its own terms: for this 'national consensus' to be possible, it had to accept considerable sections of the SDLP and Fianna Fail's constitutional nationalist agenda. (i) The emphasis was no longer on the traditional objective of a British government declaration of intent to withdraw, but upon its recognition that "the Irish people as a whole have a right to self-determination"(8). While in appearance being in continuity with traditional republican demand, the concept represented a shift in position, because the constitutional nationalist understanding of self-determination allows for a degree of ambiguity around the means of exercising that right. For example this means that if a majority of people in Ireland as a whole decide that there will be no united Ireland until a majority of people in the North decide to, that constitutes national self-determination rather than a partitionist compromise. (ii) Consequently, the Provisional movement now stated that the exercise of self-determination is a matter for agreement between the people of Ireland. This signaled a profound change. The 23 April 1993 Hume Adams statement contained the following two crucial sentences: "The exercise of self-determination is a matter for agreement between the people of Ireland. It is the search for that agreement and the means of achieving it on which we will be concentrating." (9) Never before had the republican movement stated publicly that there had to be agreement on the exercise of self-determination. That meant that any accommodation had to be based on terms acceptable to the Unionist community. It meant that the unionist community had a veto over whatever was to happen. In other words, it was the Unionist veto rewritten. (iii) The Provisional movement now recognised that the consent and allegiance of Unionists are essential if a lasting peace is to be established. While still arguing that the unionist veto must go, they were "seeking to obtain the consent of a majority of people in the North"(10). However, the difficulty with this is that the unionist right to consent is precisely what republicans have always claimed constituted that veto: unity by consent of the majority of the North of Ireland was nothing more than a partitionist fudge. (iv) Last but not least, the Provisional revised its analysis of the British presence. Rather than being seen as the cause of the problem it was now seen as part of the solution, the British government now given a neutral if not a positive role by "joining the ranks of the persuaders" (11) and convincing the Unionists that their future lies in a united Ireland. However, the British state's main strategic objective has always been to render ineffectual the military capacity of the IRA to effect political change, not convincing the Unionists to change. Thus it is not the Dublin government and the SDLP that had come to the Republican position, but rather the Provisional movement, which had moved to the constitutional nationalist position that Irish self-determination would have to be achieved with the consent of the people of the North.
Republicanism had become subsumed within a partitionist nationalist
project. The price of the inclusion of Republicans in the pan
nationalist alliance was the exclusion of Republicanism. By relying
on elements who had always been much more hostile to the IRA than to
British involvement in Ireland, the Provisional movement's
anti-partitionist thrust could only be seriously weakened. In
seeking an alliance with parties who accept the unionist veto as the
foundation of any political settlement, the Adams leadership was
implicitly acknowledging that any future political arrangement would
be a predominantly internal one, leaving the constitutional status
of the six-counties unaltered.
"the British government’s departure must be preceded by a sustained
period of peace and will arise out of negotiations"
(12). In 1993, Martin McGuinness signaled this major compromise on
the objective of 'Brits Out' when at Bodenstown; he spoke about
'interim arrangements', implying that armed struggle might end
short of British withdrawal. (13) Those interim arrangements would
provide a transition (duration unspecified) into the ultimate
objective. The thing Provisional no longer had any specific
timetable for British withdrawal. Later, in early 1995, Gerry Adams
spoke of a 'transitional phase' in which there must be
'maximum democracy', 'equality of treatment' and
'parity of esteem'. (14) Those statements signaled that the
Provisional leadership would inevitably attempt to sell any future
political agreement as transitional, while ignoring the absence of
any concrete transitional mechanisms for democratic political
change, thus representing a de facto recognition of British rule in
Ireland. The longstanding Provisional demands were never serious runners for all party talks. And none of them appeared in the final Belfast Agreement.
"What the British were allowing republicans - by permitting them
into all-party talks where they can argue for a united Ireland
without the remotest possibility of securing it - is an opportunity
to dig a tunnel to the moon."
(16) By negotiating with the Provisional movement, the British state
was signaling to the IRA a way out of its armed campaign rather than
a way out of Ireland for itself. CEASEFIRE
So
on 31 August 1994, it declared a cessation. For the Adams
leadership, preserving the unity of the movement was crucial. It had
to avoid at all costs elements skeptical of the peace strategy
splitting away. The message given internally was that the
Provisional movement was in a 'win-win' situation. Either the
movement's objectives could be won through the 'unarmed strategy',
or it could go back to war. However, the problem was that the
Provisional movement would find itself in a situation in which it
could neither win its objectives through the unarmed strategy nor go
back to war and its traditional political agenda. The 1994 IRA
ceasefire lasted until February 1996 and broke down because of a
growing number of preconditions to inclusive negotiations, which
were unacceptable to the Provisional movement. The Provisional
movement had invested too much and had gone too far in the peace
process to do a u-turn at this stage. On top of that, the disastrous
nature of the 1996-1997 campaign showed that it was difficult to go
back to war. The movement had not prepared a 'plan B' and thus was
stuck in the process. The worst was that the movement had paid a
very high price to be included in a process, which brought it few
benefits.
After the 1997 ceasefire, the Provisionals downgraded the republican
political agenda to the point where Gerry Adams now wrote about
'renegotiating the Union' rather than ending it. (17) In January
1998 the London and Dublin governments published the Heads of
Agreement Paper, which provided the blueprint for the subsequent
Belfast Agreement. To conclude, one can only agree with Bernadette
Devlin-McAliskey that the whole 1990s peace process was
'ideologically wrong as well as strategically and tactically
stupid'. Its central purpose was 'to demobilise, demilitarise
and demoralise the republican people of Ireland -and it has done all
three.'(18) Those parameters stipulated that partition was a legitimate state of affairs, that Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution were illegal claims of sovereignty over part of the United Kingdom and that the right of the Irish people as represented by the 32 counties to self determination without external impediment is non existent. The Agreement was not 'freely negotiated’, as the price of participation in the negotiations was the acceptance of their pre-determined outcome through the British imposed pre-condition that all participants concede to the principle of "consent". The premise for any agreement was partitionist. The fact that the British government, democratically unaccountable to any Irish constituency, insisted on this precondition renders any assertion that the ensuing referenda could in any meaningful way be described as an act of self-determination by the Irish people.
What the referenda actually represented was an exercise in how the
British government believed the Irish people should vote, leaving
itself insulated from any objections the Irish people may have
because such a vote is subordinate to the 'consent' pre-condition.
This is why the option of Irish unity was not presented to the Irish
people in the dual referenda. There were two referendums held in two
different states for different purposes and different sets of
questions. The fact that they were held concurrently did not make
them a single event and even less an act of self-determination. The
"act of concurrent self determination" was nothing more than
a rubber-stamping of British demands. Just because there's a vote
doesn't mean it’s democratic; the facts bear scrutiny. (1) Voting
statistics must be further considered in light of a mass media
campaign sponsored by the British and Irish governments in the
months and weeks preceding the vote, in which a "No" vote was
equated in the public mind with a vote for violence and a "Yes" vote
as a vote for peace. Reasonable and thought-provoking discussion and
debate was utterly quashed in a total media blackout of dissenting
voices, such as those of Marian Price, Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey,
Anthony McIntyre and others; many of whom agreed with the peace but
not with the process. The fact remains that the unionists will determine when the north will join a united Ireland. This represents the best deal unionists could possibly have won. In the words of Anthony Blair, the British Prime Minister: "This offers unionists every key demand they have made since partition eighty years ago...The principle of consent, no change to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland without the consent of the majority of the people, is enshrined. The Irish constitution has been changed...A devolved assembly and government for Northern Ireland is now there for the taking. When I first came to Northern Ireland as a Prime Minister, these demands were pressed in me as what unionists really needed. I have delivered them all." (2)
With no end to partition, no British declaration of intent to
withdraw, no united Ireland, the outcome of the peace process had no
identifiable Republican content. It was a partitionist fudge‚.
"In trade union terms, the republican leadership had secured a
six-day week and lower wages." (3) Nevertheless, the Provisional leadership still maintains the myth of an undefeated army. The Provisional movement claims that the Belfast Agreement does not represent a defeat but an honorable compromise. Gerry Adams stated that it was "a historic compromise between nationalism and unionism" (6). The problem is less that it is a compromise than the fact that it is a bad compromise. (i), First is that it was Nationalism that did all the compromising. It accepted the principle of unionist consent on the national question (ii),the maintenance of British sovereignty (iii), deleting Article 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution claiming the North (iv), the retention and not the abolition of the Northern Ireland police force (v); the resurrection of Stormont. All in exchange for six cross border bodies and British government appointed commissions on the equality and human rights agendas. To get a measure of how little has been ceded by unionists -and by implication how much by republicans- we need only view it through the following prism: "If, for example, through the Good Friday Agreement, the unionists had signed up to a British declaration of intent to withdraw from the North and a Dublin declaration of intent to annex the six counties, no amount of wordplay and casuistry would have permitted this outcome to be regarded as anything other than a resounding defeat. Small consolation it would have been to them to have won outright on Strand One matters, such as keeping the RUC intact or the prisoners locked up. Unionism would have lost on the great philosophical question of consent." (7)
It looks more like a Republican Versailles than a honourable
compromise. Second, there had been a better deal on offer in
1973-1974. For example, Austin Currie, a minister in the 1974
power-sharing executive actually feels that the Sunningdale
Agreement was a better deal for nationalists than the Belfast
Agreement. (8) The Provisional movement had rejected Sunningdale,
denounced it as a sell-out, and finally settled for less than the
SDLP got in 1973. Legally, the Agreement does not shift the balance of constitutional forces towards reunification. The only significant constitutional shift went in the opposite direction; the British state retained sovereignty in the North and the consent principle was embedded, whereas Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution were deleted. In the words of Prime Minister Blair, the settlement "is not a slippery slope to a united Ireland. The government will not be persuaders for unity." (13) As to dividing and destabilising Unionists, Provisional supporters misquote James Molyneaux, the UUP leader at the time of the first IRA ceasefire. Molyneaux merely claimed that the ceasefire (and not the Agreement signed four years later) had destabilised Unionism.
"Writers
fond of citing this in favour of the 'GFA is a stepping stone to a
United Ireland' position invariably fail to tell us that Molyneaux
explained why the ceasefire was destabilising; insisting that it was
beyond his ken why republicans sold a horse and bought a saddle. Or
as Stephen King puts it, Unionism was confounded as to why
Republicans had fought so hard just to settle for so little. Eleven
years after the 1994 ceasefire and the Molyneaux observations, we
can find Eric Waugh mocking Republicans: 'the old ideal of unity is
more remote than ever. Unionists are not interested.' Even one as
hostile to the Agreement as Jeffrey Donaldson can still claim
Republicanism was 'defeated by a partitionist settlement based on
the concession of self-determination of Northern Ireland.' "
(14) "There is steady demographic, political, social and economic change, undeniably pointing in one direction, towards support for a united Ireland." (15) But do these changes really point in that direction? The first argument is that demographics show that the Catholics will soon be in a majority position in the North and will vote for a united Ireland at the earliest opportunity. (16) Partition will supposedly come to an end when Catholics reach the magic figure of 51% of the population in the North. However, the idea that a united Ireland could be brought about by demographic change has been highly disputed and dealt a blow by the most recent (2001) census figures. (17) It could be decades before the two communities will have equal numbers and before this translates into votes. On top of that, Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys indicate that 30% of Catholics would not vote for unity. The second argument is that the development of an all-Ireland economy will create a dynamic towards unification and therefore make partition redundant. Peter Hain, Northern Ireland Secretary of State, recently said on the argument that the 'all Ireland economy' is a stepping stone towards a united Ireland: "The interpretation that this is a kind of Trojan horse for a united Ireland is 100% wrong." (18) Economic exchanges by themselves will not abolish the border no more than the development of the Benelux economy merged the three countries together. Says Hain: "It has nothing to do with the constitutional future, that's entirely separate and dependent on the votes of the people and they've decided that through the referendum following the Good Friday agreement; so the border exists constitutionally, but in economic terms it doesn't; in economic terms it's about cooperating across the border and making use of best friends either side." By way of example, Hain referred to counties Derry and Donegal. It was in the interest of both to be "joined at the hip" economically and for business purposes. However, "the constitutional separation will remain unless otherwise decided by the people." (19)
The third argument is that the development of cross border
institutions will generate a political dynamic towards unification.
Cross border bodies - cannot and will not lead to reunification and
an end to British rule. In his address on 30 September 2000, Martin
Mansergh, Northern Advisor to three successive heads of 26 counties
administrations, stated that 'there is no evidence, let alone
inevitability, from international experience, that limited cross
border co-operation necessarily leads to political unification.'
Such bodies have existed for decades and have not brought a united
Ireland any closer. (20)
Prominent SDLP leader Seamus Mallon sums up the Provisionals‚
trajectory: "Sinn Féin have come on board, essentially to the
thesis that the SDLP has been promoting for over 30 years. The Good
Friday Agreement was based, by and large, on the SDLP analysis on
the principle of consent, on non-violence, and on the concept of
partnership and it is Sinn Féin who have made a substantial move
from support for violent republicanism to the polices and strategies
of the SDLP." (22) That is why he called the Agreement
Sunningdale for slow learners‚. "There is an optimism and realism in Northern Ireland today that is dissolving ancient prejudices and boosting business confidence, the essential underpinning for growth and prosperity. Belfast and Londonderry have been transformed by peace: business parks are springing up in place of derelict shipyards, while restaurants and cafés cater to a more relaxed public culture, and the walls of Derry are attracting tourists who no longer have need to be nervous." (26) However, beyond shiny appearances is another story. Jobs have been lost faster than they were created in the North -so much for a 'vibrant' economy. (27) Also, if people further up the social ladder have done well out of the peace, the gap between rich and poor is not only higher, but higher than in the rest of the UK. (28) Despite all the reforms, Catholics still experience substantially higher unemployment and poverty rates than Protestants. While Catholics make up 48.1 percent of the total population of working age, they make up 55.7 per cent of economically inactive population of working age. Equally, while Protestants make up 51.9 percent of the total working age population, they make up only 44.3 per cent of those economically inactive population of working age. Based on NIHE figures, Catholics are spending on average almost one and a half times as long on the housing waiting list as Protestants. While the absolute numbers of those on the waiting list has increased for both communities, the increase for the Catholic community has been almost double that for the Protestant community. (30 per cent and 16 percent respectively). Tim Cunningham, CAJ‚s Equality Officer, said, "Despite government rhetoric to the contrary, the reality is that the poorest members of our society, both Catholics and Protestants, are relatively worse off than they were ten years ago. Northern Ireland has the highest economic inactivity rate in the UK, so the idea that Northern Ireland as a whole is benefiting from increased prosperity and economic growth is nonsense. The situation of the "hidden unemployed" is getting worse. Moreover, government‚s own research shows that programmes such as the New Deal benefit least those who are in most need of employment." Mr. Cunningham continued,
"Rather
than genuinely tackling poverty in both Catholic and Protestant
working class communities, government appears to be sectarianising
the debate. It has disregarded major differences in labour market
trends between the two communities; failed to target investment
effectively at those in most need; and has pursued measures such as
Shared Future and the Taskforce on Protestant Working Class
Communities that at best ignore and at worst exacerbate community
differentials." (29) North Belfast is the worst affected. From 1996 to 2004 there were 6623 incidents of sectarian disorder there, including 3883 of criminal damage, 1343 of assault, 1021 disturbances and 376 riots. There has been an average of five attacks a month on Churches, GAA clubs and Orange halls. Most occur in counties Antrim and Tyrone, the fewest in Fermanagh. More people are being intimidated out of their homes. An average of 1378 people a year seek rehousing because of sectarian intimidation. About 500 people a year formally complain of religious discrimination at work. 19% of Catholic and 10% of Protestant workers say they experience sectarian graffiti, jokes, songs, ostracisation or threatened or actual violence. Up to 60% of complaints are not formally reported. There are 37 peace walls across the North; none have been removed since the ceasefires, with 18 actually built. The same reported that 42% of Protestants and 33% of Catholics prefer to live in unmixed religious areas, while 48% of young Catholics and 42% of Protestants want separate schools. This confirms the other trend: that the North is more segregated, polarised and sectarian since the start of the peace process. A report issued in 2002 by the Royal Geographical Society (33) found that sectarian divisions have worsened since the peace process began in Northern Ireland.
Prompted in part by the Northern Ireland Office's denials that
sectarianism was on the increase, Dr Peter Shirlow of the University
of Ulster interviewed 4,800 people in 12 Belfast estates, 6 Catholic
and six Protestant. The results are damning. Believing the hype
about the peace process many, mostly Catholics, moved house to areas
not dominated by their own religious denomination. The Housing
Executive report that three thousand moved between 1994 and 1996 but
sectarian intimidation forced a reverse movement of 6,000 in the
following five years. Two-thirds of the population now live in areas
which are either 90% Catholic or 90% Protestant. In predominantly
Protestant areas companies have a Catholic workforce of only 5%
while in Catholic areas only 8% of the workforce is Protestant. Only
one in five people would take a job on the other side of the peace
line. 62% in areas separated by a peace line think community
relations have got worse. 68% of young people between the ages of 18
and 25 claim never to have had a meaningful conversation with
someone from the other religious denomination and 62% say they have
been the victim of physical or verbal sectarian abuse since the 1994
IRA ceasefire. Of those surveyed, 88% said they would not enter an
area dominated by the other denomination, even by car, and 58% would
not use shopping or leisure facilities in areas controlled by the
other religion, even if they were better.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY CELEBRATIONS
Dear comrade & friends. The CPI has invited ZAHRA KHAZEM KHALDI a representative of the Palestinian Peoples Party to speak in Ireland for International Women's Day 8th March. Comrade Zahra Khaldi (Member in the Women Department of PPP) and lives in Jerusalem. We hope to have her in the country from the 6th - 10th March. She will be speaking in Dublin in the New Theatre as well as in Belfast. We hope to get her to a number of other venues around the country. Check our website for further details in the near future. Of course her visit depends upon the Israeli government allowing her to leave and granting her a visa. Yours in solidarity Eugene Mc Cartan.
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