Sham politics in a sham state

The ongoing soap opera, which we will laughingly refer to as the 26-County Presidential Election is an obscenity in terms of the cost estimated at €20 million and the fact that it is being used by the political elite as a very convenient distraction from the harsh economic realties faced by Irish people the length and breadth of the 32 Counties.

The office itself is a meaningless and empty position carrying no political weight. It was a position created by Éamon De Valera to replace the old position of Governor General when he introduced his 1937 Free State Constitution.  The blandness of the rhetoric coming from the candidates reflects the shallowness of the well-paid position they are all jockeying for.

Martin McGuinness tells us he wants a “New Republic”. Perhaps Martin could enlighten us as to how he will “lead us to the Republic” from the Vice Regal lodge.

Martin has said he will fearlessly uphold all the institutions of the 26-County State – including its army and police force. Well at least here he is consistent, as he has already made a similar pledge to uphold the institutions of British rule in the Six Counties. It seems if Martin is going to uphold partition it’s a case of all or nothing!

This election is a parody of democracy a case of fiddling while Rome burns. The political class are playing their little games hoping that the people will be distracted enough not to notice that their country and the future of their children is being sold off. All the elements that go towards creating a civilised society – access to health at the point of need – equal access to education – social protection of the young – the old – those with special needs either physical or mental are being sacrificed. The effects of this will be felt not just by this but also by future generations.

So as the rhetoric flies and the platitudes are trotted out by the various candidates  telling us they “believe in people” or want to “encourage and inspire” or God preserve us “build bridges” just remember you can register your disgust and protest at this sham politics in a sham state. Either stay at home on polling day or if you do feel the need to go to the polling station write an appropriate slogan across the face of the ballot paper and send them your own message of protest and your aspiration for a truly New Ireland.

Beware false prophets

A time of economic crisis provides a moment in time when the revolutionary can more readily get the ear of the people. At such times people are open to the possibility of radical change. It is of such a juncture that Lenin wrote: “A revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation” however he also warned “not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution”.

A climate of economic crisis not only opens up possibilities for the genuine revolutionary but also for the false prophet of racism and fascism. Germany in the 1920s and early 30s is an oft-quoted example of the kind of conditions that breed such hateful ideology. The pattern is the same the world over however: find a scapegoat for joblessness, poverty, cuts in social spending etc. Such a scapegoat will usually differ from the majority in skin colour, religion, language culture, nationality or gender. These false prophets then go to work on increasing paranoia and bigotry among the majority against the minority based on the false premise that salvation of the majority lies in the destruction of those that differ from the rest. The purpose is always the same to climb to a position of political power and hold it by creating fear among the population towards each other thereby ensuring their control by the state.

All of this is anathema to the very ethos and philosophy of Irish Republicanism. When Wolfe Tone, Thomas Russell, Samuel Neilson and others came together to found the Society of United Irishmen they were explicit as to what its purpose was to be: “This Society is likely to be a means the most powerful for the promotion of a great end.  What end?   The Rights of Man in Ireland.  The greatest happiness of the greatest number in this island, the inherent and indefeasible claims of every free nation to rest in this nation. . .  The greatest happiness of the greatest number – on the rock of this principle let this Society rest; by this let it judge and determine every political question, and whatever is necessary for this end let it not be accounted hazardous, but rather our interest, our duty, our glory and our common religion.  The Rights of Man are the Rights of God, and to vindicate the one is to maintain the other.  We must be free in order to serve Him whose service is perfect freedom.”

This is why it is all the more reprehensible  when those who masaqurade under the banner of Irish Republicanism attempt to hide their hideous mantra of hate, bigotry and intolerence under such a noble standard. People should be awake to those who attempt this sleight of hand  and treat them with the same contempt and suspicion one would any imposter or confidence trickster. Indeed I would argue even more so for such characters are worse than any fraudster because by their words and deeds they bismirch the very name of Irish Republicanism.

Irish Republicanism is no narrow insular dogma – it is an international philosophy of freedom and democracy drawing on the best and noblest instincts of human nature rather than the lowest. Our cause is the cause of humanity. Again we are back to Tone: “Let the nations go abreast.  Let the interchange of sentiments among mankind concerning the Rights of Man be as immediate as possible”. It is a philosophy which invites people into the brightness of  enlightment and progress rather than the shaows of fear and intolerence.

Voices of the POWs must be heard

The release of Brendan Lillis was welcome news and is a testament to the tireless and unrelenting campaign for his release led his partner Roisin Lynch. However it should also be noted that Stormont ‘Justice’ Minister David Ford ominously dangled the ‘Sword of Damocles’ over Brendan Lillis with a warning that if his health improved the original charges could be brought again. There seems to be no end to the pettiness and vindictiveness of the British and their surrogates here in Ireland. 

However we have no time to rest on laurels but focus must now return to the POWs currently on ‘Dirty Protest’ in Maghaberry prison. All this year we have been marking the 30^th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strikes. The fact that thirty years later young Irishmen are being forced to engage in a similar protest against an attempt by the British State to criminalise them and by extension their cause tells us we have not travelled very far. The very presence of political prisoners in the Six-County State is a declaration for all who wish to see that it is an abnormal state.

The big obstacle faced by all campaigners for the Republican prisoners is the paper wall of silence, which Westminster, Stormont and Leinster House have erected around Maghaberry, and the wider issue of political prisoners. Since the right of political status in the Six Counties was signed away under the terms of the 1998 Stormont Agreement the official line is that there are no political prisoners in Ireland. In the years since 1998 their willing messengers within the media peddled this line to such an extent that among the mass of people it has become an accepted fact. Thus the big lie is repeated over and over until it is believed. The first hill to climb consequently is to establish in the public consciousness the very fact that today in the Ireland of 2011 there are political prisoners in both the Six and 26-County States and why they are there.

Breaking this artificial wall of silence around Maghaberry will allow the voices of the POWs to be heard and disturb the cosy consensus of the elites.

Release Brendan Lillis now!

The refusal of David Ford to release Brendan Lillis exposes the shallowness of Ford and his ilk when they talk about human rights and civil liberties. When Ford opens his mouth again with more sanctimonious sermonising his words should be dismissed for the weasel words that they are. Brendan Lillis is suffering from a very serious disease called ankylosing spondylitis, which leads to a curvature in the spine and causes the body to produce excess bone mass.  To leave the politics of the issue aside for a moment on purely humanitarian grounds Brendan Lillies should be released immediately.

One can only judge a state or a society by how it treats its most vulnerable. In the 26 Counties we have witnessed the litany of reports of ill treatment of the both the young and the old. In the Six Counties the case of Brendan Lillis is just another example of how for all its boasting about its championing of the rule of law and human rights when it comes to dealing with the Irish people Britain just can’t break the habits of the coloniser when dealing with the colonised. Imprisoning Brendan Lillis even from the point of view of Stormont and Westminster (something I find very difficult to do) serves no purpose whatsoever. It is purely vindictive and a case of extracting the last pound of flesh from a man who in the distant past had the temerity to assert his country’s right to national independence.

On a political level the treatment of Brendan Lillis speaks louder than any words we could write or speak about the true nature of the Six-County State and its relationship with the nationalist people. The Provisonal spin-doctors have written countless words about the “new dispensation” and a “new police force”. All of this is merely dross to hide the fact that it is all a sham. What we have is the same old British wolf dressed up in the lamb’s clothing afforded it by the 1998 Stormont Agreement. The bottom line here is that the Six-County State is fundamentally sectarian and undemocratic. All of its institutions will reflect this including its police force no matter what name it is given. This is true of any state.

But to return to the issue at hand. The bravery and unstinting commitment shown by Brendan Lillis’s partner Roisin Lynch is a testament to the strength of an ordinary person when thrust into extraordinary circumstances. The case of Brendan Lillis is the human side of all of this. His continued imprisonment is above politics and is a question of one of the most basic rights – the right to life and dignity as a human being. Release Brendan Lillis now!

Unholy alliance of Church and State

First things first. The recent Cloyne Report just like the Ferns and Murphy reports are a shocking indictment of the institutional Catholic Church and its response to the heinous crime of child sexual abuse carried out on the children under its care. These reports paint a picture of an institution more concerned with its own protection than the well-being and protection of the young and innocent victims of clerical abuse.

However we must not allow the shrill grandstanding of Enda Kenny in Leinster House regarding the relationship of the 26-County State with the Catholic Church and the Vatican blind us to the reality of the 26-County State’s culpability in all of this.

Kenny can rant all he likes about the “industrial-school Ireland or Magdalene Ireland, where the swish of a soutane smothered conscience and humanity and the swing of a thurible ruled the Irish-Catholic world.”

The reality is that Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and the rest of the 26-County political establishment were more than happy to use the Bishops’s crosier and the clerics collar to whip people into line within their state. Need we remind you of the various Bishops Pastorals used to condemn Irish Republicans over the decades?  In 1929 in Dungloe Co Donegal  the Garda Superintendent spoke to the local Catholic clergy about the Anti- Land Annuities campaign. This resulted in the Bishop of Raphoe William McNeely delivering a withering condemnation of the campaign while administering confirmation in the parish. The Gardai reported it had “a good effect locally”.

In an unholy alliance with the Catholic Church a “Gulag Archipelago” for the poor of Ireland was run through a system of industrial schools and Magdalene laundries. The Ryan Report of May 2009 merely skimmed the surface of this dark chapter in our history. Church and State rigorously applied the policy of ‘out of sight out of mind’ when it came to the children of the poor and dispossessed.

Enda Kenny gets no plaudits for slaying a dragon that expired a long time ago and one, which in the past he and his ilk were more than willing to use against their own people.

Carpe Diem - Seize the Day

 

The recent furore caused by Enda Kenny, James Reilly and Eamon Gilmore reneging on “election pledges” given during the recent 26-County Election regarding Roscommon A&E and other hospitals sums up the worth of the political class  presiding over this ‘failed political entity’.  The ‘Bard’ wrote: “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”; in this case it is the state that is rotten.

Before the last 26-County election Republican Sinn Féin pointed out that the election was meaningless as it entailed merely replacing one set of gombeen politicians with another. Within less than a month of the formation of the new 26-County Administration it was clear for all who were willing to see that the real political and economic masters were in Brussels and Frankfurt and not in Dublin. Kenny and his cohorts fell over themselves to sign up to the austerity programme agreed by their predecessors. It seems it was Frankfurt’s way after all!

The political and economic reality is that the denizens of Leinster House and Merrion Square are merely managers of a programme, which has been set out for them by the EU/ECB and IMF. Today the ‘Troika’ tell us that the 26-County State is “on track”. But on track to what? you well may ask, ‘hell in a hand cart’ is one answer that springs to mind. The most vulnerable and marginalised in society are in the sights of this political and economic elite not just in Ireland but also across Europe. In Greece the people have been told they must pay the debts of the financial elite at the cost of the ownership of the very land beneath their feet. Here the old, the young, the unemployed and those with special needs are to be the fodder used to bolster up a failed currency and the failed political project that is the EU.

Enough is enough! Tinkering around the edges is not the answer. People need to seize the moment themselves and in doing so reject a political and chattering class who will never let go of this failed system because it will never be in their own self-interest to do so. People need to get out and get radical just as the people of Greece have shown. We must demand a real Republic an All-Ireland Republic. One that is worthy of the definition given to us in the 1916 Proclamation. On Bastille Day we remember the very roots of Irish Republicanism: Liberté, égalité, fraternité. It is time to cast off the shackles of the old imperialism of London – in occupation of part of our country - and the new imperialism of the EU/ECB/IMF.

Finally I would like to pay tribute to the late Liam Cotter of Co Kerry. Liam brought the same unselfish commitment and dedication to everything he did, whether it was for the Republican Movement or the GAA. He was a stalwart of both. Liam Cotter was very conscious of the proud Republican tradition of his beloved Kerry and lived up to that tradition throughout his life. He never faltered or wavered from the straight road to the All-Ireland Republic. When we march to the dawn light of freedom you will march with us Liam. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

You can lock up the messenger but not the message

It is almost two weeks since my last post but a lot has happened in that time. Fergal Moore and myself experienced at first hand the ‘hospitality’ of the RUC/PSNI in Lurgan barracks last week. We were arrested and charged with participating in a march calling for the release of Republican Martin Corey in Lurgan on January 23 last. Martin, by the way was the longest serving Republican prisoner in Long Kesh serving 19 years. He was released in 1992. He was interned without trial in April of last year and has been held in Maghaberry prison ever since.

The arrest of the President and Vice President of Republican Sinn Féin marks the culmination of a clear pattern of harassment by both partitionist states with the clear intention of silencing our organisation. Within a month of the ‘Free Martin Corey March’ in January the British Colonial Police issued a letter accusing me of participating in an “illegal parade”.  Similar letters were issued in relation to other members of Republican Sinn Féin in the Lurgan and Armagh areas. This was followed up a number of arrests.

In May Cait Trainor a member of our Ard Chomhairle along with Sean Maloney a former POW and member of the Thomas Harte Cumann in Lurgan were arrested and charged with “glorifying terrorism” in an interview given to Channel Four News in September of 2010. This is reminiscent of the kind of draconian legislation used by the Spanish State in the Basque Country. This was followed by the arrest of the Runaí of Dublin Comhairle Ceantair Diarmuid Ó Dúbhghlais and another member during the visit of the Queen of England to the 26 Counties on May 20. And finally on June 30 last the newly appointed national Publicity Officer Geraldine McNamara had her home raided by the 26-County Special Branch.

Its obvious Republican Sinn Féin has something to say which Westminster, Stormont and Leinster House don’t want to hear or more importantly don’t want the rest of the Irish people to hear.  What we have to say is simple. British Rule in Ireland and its various institutions are an obstacle to a New Ireland and a lasting settlement. Our message has roots deep in the psyche of the Irish people. It is the same message delivered by Wolfe Tone, Emmet, Davis, Lalor, Pearse, Connolly, Mellows and Sands. In short we want:  “To break the connection with England the never failing source of all our political evils.” You can lock up the messenger but not the message.

Ends.