And yet it remains that a wide-ranging discussion on Irish Unity was front and centre on prime time television, which arguably should be seen in the first light as a positive.
The trajectory of demographics in the North would always, of themselves, have eventuated in an increased momentum towards Irish Unity. But the additional context that is Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, and the impact of same on efforts to ‘normalise’ the Six Counties, has only added grist to the mill.
The combined weight of both is speeding a momentum towards Irish Unity that the political establishment recognises and hopes to control. Through the artificial political constituency that is ‘civic society’, so-called, it is engaged in a lowering of expectations as to what a United Ireland should comprise.
It cannot, though, be afforded ability to do so, or at least not without challenge. While there is an obvious issue here to be countenanced, in that caution as to the agenda of others is needed, we must ensure that we don’t, in our caution, remove ourselves from the wider equation.
The tendency in Republicanism to reject all and everything, without putting forward a progressive alternative, is not going to cut the mustard. Republicans, then, need to engage the discussion with something other than the politics of rejection. The revisionist wing in the nationalist tradition will otherwise have a field day, uncontested.
The function of Republican struggle, in this context, is to build and assert pressure from below. This demands more than rejecting what we don’t like or agree with and a building of support for that we are set on: the Republic. We must win the idea that any future United Ireland must comprise the sovereignty of the Irish Republic.
As Irish Republicans, we need to embrace and engage the developing space and fill it to the best of our abilities, with Republican notions, solutions and politics and a confident assertion of same. We need to be better at promoting OUR prescription for a United Ireland: a republic based on the Proclamation. As Connolly rightly encouraged, the Irish Republic must be made a word to conjure with.
Rather than ‘rejectionism’, despite its comforts, this must be the mainstay of our forward approach. Do this and then discussions on Irish Unity, rather than a foil for revisionist Ireland, can be held for the positive that they are — as a staging point on the road to our long-cherished object. This is where things are now at.
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Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79 |
Sean - another thoughtful piece that deserves a wider reading.
ReplyDeleteI doubt any republican would list a border poll as their preferred option. But when options are limited preferences that advance your opponent's project and curb your own, have to be jettisoned.
Mike Burke had a good piece on TPQ last week in which he pointed out that right now there is a move on to delay any border poll on the premise of agreement being needed on the shape of a post-poll Ireland before the poll can even go ahead. All of this is so far removed from a republican perspective, that it underscores the failure of the republican project, no matter at whose door culpability is laid for that.
The border poll this time will be different from 1973. Nationalists will not boycott it in the main because they think they will have a chance of winning it. I am far from convinced that will be the outcome, although you seem confident - and you might be right. These things are not a science. Some republicans might boycott but that will be largely inconsequential due to the small numbers. The way their oppositional discourse will be articulated shall have no more impact than prayer. Revolutionaries will shape the outcome as much as reverends and arguably even less, given the role of fundamentalist pastors in the Unionist bloc.
What makes the border poll a Gramscian "common sense" option is that those opposed to it seem to be offering nothing other than the republican equivalent of prayers.
Republicans do not need to support a border poll in order to cast a vote against partition.