*****
Bernadette McAliskey, a close friend of and comrade of Seamus once said, “the war is over and the good guys lost”. Since those words were spoken we have spent a long time analysing and debating the way ahead. We have spent enough time being distracted by our anger it is time to think with our heads and not with our hearts.All anti-GFA republicans need to take a step back and engage with each other, those not on cease-fire need to call a cessation to their campaigns. Put simply it is not working, there is no support within the working class community for armed struggle.
Within the north British intelligence are playing republican volunteers like pawns in a Kitsonian game of chess. British intelligence is so much ingrained in these organisations on the ground that they have no strategy at all.
We need to consult the prisoners and we need a united voice, we the honourable republicans, undefeated and we need to engage with each other.
These groups have got to get back to politics. For these republicans to retain their dignity, they have to call a ceasefire now.
Their pretence of an armed struggle has clouded issues affecting working-class communities. They are in danger of letting the republican cause down by further action.
They are not alone in having misgivings about the Good Friday Agreement and there are many who believe it will not lead to a lasting settlement but armed struggle is not the way to go about bringing change.
It is for purely tactical reasons that I make this public call for cessation of military activity. Leadership needs to be shown. Retain the dignity of the republican struggle.'
- Eddie McGarrigle, Seamus Costello commemoration 2005, speech delivered by Tomas Gorman
Sources: Radical North Belfast and Irish Republican News
'Those who no longer bother organisationally hanker after a past which will always remain there. Those who believe they are fighting a war seem never to realise that they have killed as many agents of the British crown as the Alliance Party. Yet if David Ford were to pronounce himself Alliance chief of Staff, the laughter would echo from Belfast to Brisbane.
There is an expectation that the dynamiters be put out of business. London and Dublin will pursue them with a vigour rarely displayed in tackling organised crime. Armed rebellion against a Northern state endorsed by Sinn Fein will be as strategically futile as an armed campaign against the Dublin government. The physical force tradition bequeathed to the island of Ireland the Omagh bomb. At that point it should have been evident to us all that the solution had grown worse than the problem.
George Monbiot in a different context argued that "those who would take us to war must first shut down the public imagination." Physical force republicanism, incapable of either shutting down or winning that imagination, seems certain to achieve pariah status. While it is correct for the physical force tradition to claim that no republican died to ensure what Sinn Fein achieved, equally so none died so that republicans could become pariahs.'
- Anthony McIntyre, A Bleak Future, The Blanket, 2005
- Sometimes the truth hurts and is hard to accept. But the fact is that out of these initiatives no credible military or political alternative has emerged that would justify any of the sacrifices made in its name.
It would appear that something of a debate is opening up within republican circles regarding the place of anti–Good Friday Agreement (GFA) organisations. Speaking as an individual and not claiming to represent anyone other than myself, I wish to make a short contribution to that debate.
Firstly, the emergence of anti–GFA military initiatives was a manifestation of a principled republican stand against a settlement that was seen to usurp Irish sovereignty and devalidify the righteousness of armed struggle.
Looking retrospectively, one cannot pinpoint exactly the reason for the collapse of these military initiatives, so complex and varied are their nature, but collapse they have, of that there can be no doubt.
Perhaps it is safe to say that the structures around which these initiatives were built simply couldn’t bear the pressures of what such an immense task brings. Ultimately what made the structure fragile was an absence of popular support. Again this is merely a broad analysis and may be rejected by both friends and enemies alike. Nevertheless, the credentials and intentions of those originally involved were sound, their political analysis was valid. The consequences of the decision to re-organise has gradually proved for the greater part to be tragic.
Sometimes the truth hurts and is hard to accept, but the fact is that out of these initiatives no credible military or political alternative has emerged that would justify any of the sacrifices made in its name. What presently exists is something between an illusion of war and an aspiration to wage war, but there is no war.
Until relatively recently the negative consequences have been felt mostly by the participants, the innocent and their families in the yards and visiting rooms of the various prisons which hold us.
However as the political landscape shifts and changes around us the continued pursuit of the illusion of war not only discredits our original analysis but also throws something of a lifeline to unionism and to intransigent British government elements who now resourcefully exploit our stance to validify their own.
If this is the extent of our capacity to disrupt the GFA then it says more about the cunning instincts of our enemies than our own pro-active capabilities.
Furthermore, as support dwindles, already fragile structures will further weaken and with this the ability to ward off negative influences which presently, and which will continue to, plague all militant Irish groups.
It is in these circumstances that organisations gradually become relevant only to themselves and to those who wish to exploit them, eventually their very origins are remembered only by a small few.
Somewhere inside this negative transition the decision to place the lives and liberty of young republicans at risk stops being merely wrong and becomes immoral.
What was once called “sacrifice” is now simply “a waste”. All well-meaning persons who entered into these initiatives deserve to emerge with dignity and their integrity intact but this relies on having the grace to accept reality.
There is no shame in admitting and accepting the truth, but to ignore it is to misrepresent original aspirations and can lead only to disgrace.
The vast, vast majority of republicans now believe that the war as we have known it is over, for what it is worth I and many more of my imprisoned comrades agree.
While many young republicans hold valid doubts regarding peace initiatives they should not in 2005 be led via polished dogma into the pursuit of an illusion that now offers absolutely nothing. This is the simple truth.
It is up to other republicans of all persuasions to find space to accommodate everyone’s respective analysis and to utilise talents together.
As always this will involve rigorous debate and most likely some argument but we have overcome bigger obstacles in our history. Above all people should be given the opportunity to speak out and should feel empowered to do so.
Ciaran Mac Lochlainn
Republican Prisoner,
Maghaberry
14 October, 2005
its hard to disagree with the sentiments in this article. Every republican has someone close to them, friends or family who was killed or incarcerated. This fact makes sinn feins strategy hard to take for most, downright treacherous for some. I think the reason the youth is enchanted by physical force is politically their is no real alternative to sinn fein and i think that is on all republicans. We can not just let our struggle slide into obscurity. Also i think the name calling has to stop across republicanism i do not see who it helps we need to be constructive. Just listening to comments posted on the quill tells you there is enough intelligence in republicanism to take us forward we just need unity of purpose. The more articles like this the better.
ReplyDeleteA proper political party is the way forward. An alternative to SF. Planting these tiny bombs and shooting at the police every now and again is counter productive and does nothing for the true meaning of Irish Republicanism. Protestant, Catholic and dissenter. Unite the people, not divide.
ReplyDeleteCalls for cessations from former prisoners and the left are nothing new and within them no doubt much merit is contained. Lacking in the most recent arguments for a ceasefire has been certain elements of truth which undoubtedly influence much of the analysis but which must be held back as these critiques are provided by people independent of structure who cannot be seen to criticise the leadership or membership of armed groups wildly beyond their general stated strategy.
ReplyDeleteThese components have been discussed in previous calls for a halt to armed strategy i.e. Criminality, professionalism, intent, commitment and schism.
Missing from the recent articles were the critic’s explanation of their alternative or their own strategy. I understand and appreciate that in the case of Anthony (McIntyre) and Tommy McKearney the work and commitment to what they view as the way forward speaks for itself and that apart from that work they both articulately expound and record what they believe is the way ahead regularly and publicly however it is the absence of those records in a criticism via the unionist media that the air of an old condemnation resounds. This brought the calls to the den and then into the trap of alienating people who may very well agree with the criticisms but because of their presentation felt under attack and began to resist.
The most experienced and academic contributors to the Republican struggle seem to have all unanimously agreed the lack of revolutionary, people based politics in an era of post-defeat despair is facilitating self harm through militant futility.
Here that unity seems to end and from this point on no-one seems to agree on a way forward and so we meet the futile fractured left. From the outside looking in the various forums and debate clubs are about as useful as the various splinter gangs of splinter groups pipe bombing motor way roundabouts and they will move the British just as far, as in no distance at all at all.
Critiques on Republican terms view the current futility of armed action as much of an assault upon sovereignty as the occupation itself. This analysis however would seek reorganization or at the least would seek these cessations by engaging directly with the leaderships of the armed groups in a comradely manner.
Calls for cessations are not always on these terms. I refuse to wear the Brit media definition of “dissident” it’s no different to me than Masons “Criminal”, a Republican styled Dissident smacks of “Civilian Styled Clothing” close but no cigar and not good enough.
I am an Irish Republican Socialist. Like many others around me I was born in to a war without choice, influenced by an atmosphere that I’d neither hand nor part in building. My prison or intent before it, or now, was and it is no different than the prison or the intent of those calling me a dissident in the Unionist Newsletter. Some man, whether he was on Hunger Strike or not, calling me names and telling me the War is over through the Unionist media while my comrades suffer prison struggle horrendous now, is just plainly offensive.
“Armed struggle is not the way forward now” they say, for some of the critics it is never the way forward and they have the right to express that providing they are honest about it.
In my opinion many of those agreeing with these critiques view Armed Struggle as the only way forward and the problem is not so much found in that glaringly obvious fact but the manipulation of that fact by people who are evidently not committed to its function, welcoming of its consequence or capable of its use.
ReplyDeleteAntaine McDhomhnaill
To summarize what you say is that as "no-one seems to agree on a way forward" therefore calls to down arms are meaningless. Those calls are all the more meaningless because they were made through the wrong channels.
I don't think they are meaningless, evidently not as they have garnered quite some debate and support but in my view the criticisms lack positive element, or a what to do route becoming condemnations and have alienated, deliberately or not, many of the people that would be required to deliver such decisions.
ReplyDeleteYou talk out of your hole Carrie and you sound like Gerry Kelly there "no support" ect. An armed campaign can't happen without a network of support, as you can see operations are happening for the armed groups so there must be support out there for it.
ReplyDeleteunited16,
ReplyDeleteIs it any wonder support is on the wane if that's all people like yourself can offer as a logical response ?
Antaine Mc Dhomhnaill
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the time and thought you put into your commentary.
I would view the present nipping at the heels of the British as being misrepresented and misleading.
It reminds me of the history of the Titanic proud invincible and determined to reach its port.
Perhaps the mighty vessel might have done so under a different captain who might have paid heed to the warnings of icebergs.
It appears that our own mighty captains are now on course to strike a proverbial iceberg. Keep in mind that the gaping hole left by the Provisional’s surrender was and is beyond repair.
Since then militant republicanism has been listing in the provos wake.
Does it matter which quarter for or against come from is it not long overdue an honest debate on the relevance of continuation.
Whilst I hear and read the term “armed struggle” and understand its meaning it is however misleading as it is used in a symbolic nature.
The on the ground facts would prove different as there is no effective military campaign.
The armed factions cannot claim they are waging a successful winnable campaign as the Brits always appear to be two steps ahead of them.
The M.O.D remain confident that the PSNI can and have contained the militants even the recent spike in militant activity hasn’t made a ding never mind a dent in the M.ODs forecast on the militants.
They are embarrassing militant republicans treating them as more of a nuisance rather than a threat to their national security.
This is one protracted campaign they will be happy to control and make no mistake they are in control.
The mistake made was staying on the sinking ship continuing that which was soundly and irreversibly defeated we can thank Gerry & Co. along with those in the leadership for not only assisting but ensuring the Brits received not only the physical victory but the more devastating psychological one that we still feel the affect of to this day.
Militants are entitled to wage a campaign even this token resistance but British Intelligence knows every trick in the arsenal of PIRA/INLA.
It is not so difficult for them to keep tabs on militants they seem to do it with great ease.
Even if they did manage to wage a successful war they face insurmountable odds.
The Brits are far superior with technology on their side which means there would be fewer troops on the ground but the only way to get the BA to return is by destroying the cities which will result in the needless murder of innocent Irish people.
As I said elsewhere today’s militants would have to achieve if not surpass the levels of violence of 72.
The younger generation didn’t miss much and shouldn’t look forward to becoming a victim or seeing their family or friends become victims.
Not to speak down at the youth but the reality of the past is death and destruction.
When we learn to accept defeat then and only then can we think clearly with objectivity.
A military campaign is only as effective as its support base keep in mind the enemy have a far greater army with a far greater support base.
The vast majority of the people of the north do not want another protracted war can militant republicanism fight against the wishes of the people.
United 16
ReplyDeleteIn life in general there are times when it is necessary to talk out of one’s hole as
In the land of thousand arses in the land of a thousand tits where who flung dung was murdered by his brother who flung shit.
You certainly make a great case for armed struggle where do I sign up?
Your manner is a show of weakness your anger a display of defeat and you misrepresent in a very poor fashion any fundamental principles of Irish Republicanism.
I sincerely doubt you hold the mental capacity to debate the issue as you prove nothing by making a personal attack on Carrie and ignore the context.
Obviously given your reaction to the article the truth does hurt your manner and approach is typically dull and boorish which you are entitled to why not use your mind and take a stab at deconstructing the article and point out why you feel it is flawed and is misrepresenting republican identity?
Insert subliminal message: Send in the clowns!
Tain Bo
ReplyDeleteOuch!! You are vinegar to the wounds of all that hurt!
Tiarna,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the observation admittedly it brought a laugh though I did find myself questioning my comment too harsh perhaps then noticeably too lenient.
There are times when opposable thumbs and the ability to reason fail miserably.
As you are well aware there are classic examples all over the place United 16 is part of that rule and not the exception.
Whilst entitled to opinion it predictably voids itself when leveling personal insult.
I think it would be a safe wager to suggest the article was given no consideration judging by the anger and obviously the comment was meant to assail the messenger and not the message.
I may be the vinegar but it is merely the fool who deserves to feel the sting of a self-inflicted wound.
I find Carrie’s contributions well thought out and genuinely sincere in encouraging debate.
When debate gives way to personal insult the wise rightly ignore it I make the mistake of challenging not the insult but the motive.
Tain Bo
ReplyDeleteSometimes you gotta swat the flies from your brow even though you know that the one swipe is never enough.
Yes I think Carries piece is well placed and delivered.