Fra Hughes Sinn Fein went from being a revolutionary party supporting a legitimate armed struggle against Britain's illegal imperialist military occupation of Ireland and aiming to build a socialist republic, to becoming a business-oriented party, focused on acquiring more seats in the parliament.

First Published In
Al Mayadeen English.

The slogan of 'Smash Stormont' has been replaced with make SF the 'biggest party in the Assembly'


Where did it all go wrong?

Once the vanguard of Irish republicanism and claiming to be fighting for a free sovereign socialist 32 county Irish republic SF is now a parody of its previous incarnation.

From a revolutionary party supporting a legitimate armed struggle against Britain's illegal immoral imperialist military occupation of Ireland, it is now a washed-out shadow of its former self.

SF has a long and proud history in the service of anti-imperialism in Ireland and great sacrifices were made by many of its members, leaders, elected representatives, and party officials when it bore the brunt of state repression and a murder campaign fronted by their pseudo loyalist death squads.

As the vocal representatives of armed Irish republicans, they suffered assassination, imprisonment, torture, and death.

During the twin political strategy of “the Armalite and ballot box”, the men and women of SF, some of whom were involved in the armed struggle, paid a heavy price for being the public face of militant republicanism.

Dare I judge those men and women for their heroic leadership in dangerous times?

Absolutely not.

Do I condemn their actions?

On the contrary, I voted for SF for over 30 years.

In 1998, I voted in favor of the Good Friday Agreement, voting for peace as opposed to endless conflict. I voted to end state repression, conveyer belt judicial injustice, long prison sentences, and the dirty war inflicted on catholic civilians by the loyalist death squads, used as a proxy militia by Britain's political establishment, its military and police infrastructure, and the dregs of military intelligence and special branch who used them as their counter-revolutionary assassins.

That was then, and this is now.

Did I leave SF or did SF leave me?

The once-proud promise of a socialist republic has, like snow on a ditch on a spring morning, evaporated in the light of power-sharing through the devolved regional assembly at Stormont, convening in the Northern Ireland Parliamentary building.

The slogan of 'Smash Stormont' has been replaced with make SF the 'biggest party in the Assembly.'

The graffiti on the wall that said 'not an ounce not a bullet, no decommissioning of weapons', has turned into supporting the police structures in N. Ireland, once damned as a sectarian anti-Catholic, anti-Irish militia and their new overlords in MI5.

British securocrats have primacy of control over policing here and run hundreds of human assets and paid informers, in the ranks of Republican and loyalist organizations.

Some of whom are on ceasefire, some of whom have ceased to be, some of whom continue to struggle against the British occupation in the North of Ireland, and some of whom, mainly the loyalist proscribed paramilitary groups are now little more than criminal gangs selling drugs and extorting money.

While active militant republicans can be numbered in their hundreds, loyalist paramilitaries many of whose leaders are claimed to be paid and protected state informers, claim to have 12,500 current members at their disposal.

As SF moves further into the corridors of power in both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland and is poised to be leaders in government both north and south of Britain's enforced partitioning border, we could well see reunification within the next decade or two.

But what will that reunification look like?

It could be a federal Ireland or a two Parliament Ireland with a continuation of the status quo. Two regionally elected bodies, one in Dublin and one in Belfast, or an enlarged Dáil Éireann to encompass representatives from all over the island.

One thing will remain constant throughout these future negotiations.

SF is no longer a revolutionary socialist party. It is no longer a threat to the state they once fought.

Their leaders might say, they never were?

They could rightly claim they fought the British establishment to free Ireland and it will be the people’s decision as to how the country will be governed.

At the recent annual party convention, Ard Fheis, Sinn Fein voted to endorse the emergency powers which allow the Irish state to hold non-jury trials, where Irish republicans can be sentenced up to life imprisonment, by a compliant judiciary; where state agents, state police and special branch, alongside state prosecutors and state judges will decide the fate of Irish men and women who in a real democracy should be judged by a group of their peers; where the onus is on the defendant to prove their innocence, not on the state to prove their guilt; where the burden of proof is lessened to ensure a conviction.

Internment by remand is a common feature where defendants can find themselves in jail for several years or on stringent bail conditions prior to some of the accused having their charges eventually dropped.

I mention this solely in the context of how a once-proud revolutionary political army has become part and parcel of the state apparatus they once fought; how in order to gain power, to become electable, and to hold positions in government, they have embraced the very system they set out to destroy.

As the revolutionary leaders retire into a sunset of paid pensions and second homes, the new generations of career politicians have come to the fore.

Squeaky clean, many articulate, embracing social democracy and neo-liberal politics, they embrace not revolutionary change but the status quo.

Their dream is not one of a socialist republic built on the sacrifices of generations of men and women from 1200-1916, from 1916-1922, from 1969-1998, but one of inward investment, low corporation tax, and a new Celtic tiger.

To those who fought and went to prison and died to free Ireland from British oppression and occupation but also to regain her national sovereignty, to re-own our land stolen by absentee landlords, to have full control over our finances and infrastructure, I will only repeat the words of Commandant James Connolly, leader of the Irish Citizens Army, who led the forces occupying the General Post Office in Dublin during the Easter 1916 rebellion, who was injured then executed by a British firing squad, strapped to chair in Kilmainham jail on May 12, 1916.

If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.

The irony that SF is now the government in waiting that James Connolly warned us about, is an irony many in SF and many who vote for SF would not recognize.

Sadly this is nothing new. We only need to look at South Africa to see how the revolutionary ANC embraced the neo-liberal status quo.

There were more homeless black people in South Africa, more unemployed black people, and more black families living in poverty under the ANC government than during the apartheid era.

The longed-for promise of the 'Freedom Charter' has failed to materialize.

White privilege is embedded in the state structures.

Black men and women are in government in South Africa but they do not hold the real power.

There will be no real change in Ireland.

Yes, the guns have mainly gone silent.

Yes, it is the demographics that will allow the people in the north of Ireland to vote yes to national reconciliation and reunification.

But no, there will be no systemic change.

The poor will remain poor. Ireland's growing homeless numbers will increase as public housing targets decrease.

Ireland will be a haven for the corporate banker’s investor speculators and Realtors.

The landlords are still here. Corporate finance dictates fiscal policy the class enemies of the Irish people will remain in place.

What will SF do, I hear you ask?

They will do nothing. They are focused on being populist in order to win votes, gain seats and get their hands on the levers of power.

Then they will be as compliant and as complicit as all the other parties in government who preceded them, who promised so much yet delivered so little.

Housing will not be addressed, health will not be addressed, unemployment will not be addressed. like moving chairs around the deck of the Titanic before it sank there will be no tangible difference.

The soundbites will be different the honeymoon period extended but in the end, nothing will change.

I met ex-prisoners and republicans from time to time who asked me what was it all for. 

They told me it wasn't time to have SF in government to sell out the vision they struggled for?

A literal translation for Sinn Fein into English might be 'ourselves alone', a fitting description for a party that could only rely on its own people to advance the fight for freedom … ourselves alone, well I'd say SF are not alone,

Like the revolutionary African National Congress and the Palestinian Authority they stand accused by opponents and some supporters alike of selling out to the very institutions they forswore to denounce replace and tear down...

Sinn Fein is not alone, like many others, it started out to destroy the establishment, then it claimed to reform it, and finally, it became part of it.

They are now the very people they promised to remove from office.

Could the Irish struggle for freedom and independence have ended any other way?

I think yes it could. But that as they say, is another story for another day.

SF was established in Ireland by Arthur Griffith on November 28, 1905.

𒍨The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al Mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

Fra Hughes is a columnist with Al Mayadeen.

Sinn Fein From Revolutionary Party To Constitutional Nationalists

Fra Hughes Sinn Fein went from being a revolutionary party supporting a legitimate armed struggle against Britain's illegal imperialist military occupation of Ireland and aiming to build a socialist republic, to becoming a business-oriented party, focused on acquiring more seats in the parliament.

First Published In
Al Mayadeen English.

The slogan of 'Smash Stormont' has been replaced with make SF the 'biggest party in the Assembly'


Where did it all go wrong?

Once the vanguard of Irish republicanism and claiming to be fighting for a free sovereign socialist 32 county Irish republic SF is now a parody of its previous incarnation.

From a revolutionary party supporting a legitimate armed struggle against Britain's illegal immoral imperialist military occupation of Ireland, it is now a washed-out shadow of its former self.

SF has a long and proud history in the service of anti-imperialism in Ireland and great sacrifices were made by many of its members, leaders, elected representatives, and party officials when it bore the brunt of state repression and a murder campaign fronted by their pseudo loyalist death squads.

As the vocal representatives of armed Irish republicans, they suffered assassination, imprisonment, torture, and death.

During the twin political strategy of “the Armalite and ballot box”, the men and women of SF, some of whom were involved in the armed struggle, paid a heavy price for being the public face of militant republicanism.

Dare I judge those men and women for their heroic leadership in dangerous times?

Absolutely not.

Do I condemn their actions?

On the contrary, I voted for SF for over 30 years.

In 1998, I voted in favor of the Good Friday Agreement, voting for peace as opposed to endless conflict. I voted to end state repression, conveyer belt judicial injustice, long prison sentences, and the dirty war inflicted on catholic civilians by the loyalist death squads, used as a proxy militia by Britain's political establishment, its military and police infrastructure, and the dregs of military intelligence and special branch who used them as their counter-revolutionary assassins.

That was then, and this is now.

Did I leave SF or did SF leave me?

The once-proud promise of a socialist republic has, like snow on a ditch on a spring morning, evaporated in the light of power-sharing through the devolved regional assembly at Stormont, convening in the Northern Ireland Parliamentary building.

The slogan of 'Smash Stormont' has been replaced with make SF the 'biggest party in the Assembly.'

The graffiti on the wall that said 'not an ounce not a bullet, no decommissioning of weapons', has turned into supporting the police structures in N. Ireland, once damned as a sectarian anti-Catholic, anti-Irish militia and their new overlords in MI5.

British securocrats have primacy of control over policing here and run hundreds of human assets and paid informers, in the ranks of Republican and loyalist organizations.

Some of whom are on ceasefire, some of whom have ceased to be, some of whom continue to struggle against the British occupation in the North of Ireland, and some of whom, mainly the loyalist proscribed paramilitary groups are now little more than criminal gangs selling drugs and extorting money.

While active militant republicans can be numbered in their hundreds, loyalist paramilitaries many of whose leaders are claimed to be paid and protected state informers, claim to have 12,500 current members at their disposal.

As SF moves further into the corridors of power in both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland and is poised to be leaders in government both north and south of Britain's enforced partitioning border, we could well see reunification within the next decade or two.

But what will that reunification look like?

It could be a federal Ireland or a two Parliament Ireland with a continuation of the status quo. Two regionally elected bodies, one in Dublin and one in Belfast, or an enlarged Dáil Éireann to encompass representatives from all over the island.

One thing will remain constant throughout these future negotiations.

SF is no longer a revolutionary socialist party. It is no longer a threat to the state they once fought.

Their leaders might say, they never were?

They could rightly claim they fought the British establishment to free Ireland and it will be the people’s decision as to how the country will be governed.

At the recent annual party convention, Ard Fheis, Sinn Fein voted to endorse the emergency powers which allow the Irish state to hold non-jury trials, where Irish republicans can be sentenced up to life imprisonment, by a compliant judiciary; where state agents, state police and special branch, alongside state prosecutors and state judges will decide the fate of Irish men and women who in a real democracy should be judged by a group of their peers; where the onus is on the defendant to prove their innocence, not on the state to prove their guilt; where the burden of proof is lessened to ensure a conviction.

Internment by remand is a common feature where defendants can find themselves in jail for several years or on stringent bail conditions prior to some of the accused having their charges eventually dropped.

I mention this solely in the context of how a once-proud revolutionary political army has become part and parcel of the state apparatus they once fought; how in order to gain power, to become electable, and to hold positions in government, they have embraced the very system they set out to destroy.

As the revolutionary leaders retire into a sunset of paid pensions and second homes, the new generations of career politicians have come to the fore.

Squeaky clean, many articulate, embracing social democracy and neo-liberal politics, they embrace not revolutionary change but the status quo.

Their dream is not one of a socialist republic built on the sacrifices of generations of men and women from 1200-1916, from 1916-1922, from 1969-1998, but one of inward investment, low corporation tax, and a new Celtic tiger.

To those who fought and went to prison and died to free Ireland from British oppression and occupation but also to regain her national sovereignty, to re-own our land stolen by absentee landlords, to have full control over our finances and infrastructure, I will only repeat the words of Commandant James Connolly, leader of the Irish Citizens Army, who led the forces occupying the General Post Office in Dublin during the Easter 1916 rebellion, who was injured then executed by a British firing squad, strapped to chair in Kilmainham jail on May 12, 1916.

If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.

The irony that SF is now the government in waiting that James Connolly warned us about, is an irony many in SF and many who vote for SF would not recognize.

Sadly this is nothing new. We only need to look at South Africa to see how the revolutionary ANC embraced the neo-liberal status quo.

There were more homeless black people in South Africa, more unemployed black people, and more black families living in poverty under the ANC government than during the apartheid era.

The longed-for promise of the 'Freedom Charter' has failed to materialize.

White privilege is embedded in the state structures.

Black men and women are in government in South Africa but they do not hold the real power.

There will be no real change in Ireland.

Yes, the guns have mainly gone silent.

Yes, it is the demographics that will allow the people in the north of Ireland to vote yes to national reconciliation and reunification.

But no, there will be no systemic change.

The poor will remain poor. Ireland's growing homeless numbers will increase as public housing targets decrease.

Ireland will be a haven for the corporate banker’s investor speculators and Realtors.

The landlords are still here. Corporate finance dictates fiscal policy the class enemies of the Irish people will remain in place.

What will SF do, I hear you ask?

They will do nothing. They are focused on being populist in order to win votes, gain seats and get their hands on the levers of power.

Then they will be as compliant and as complicit as all the other parties in government who preceded them, who promised so much yet delivered so little.

Housing will not be addressed, health will not be addressed, unemployment will not be addressed. like moving chairs around the deck of the Titanic before it sank there will be no tangible difference.

The soundbites will be different the honeymoon period extended but in the end, nothing will change.

I met ex-prisoners and republicans from time to time who asked me what was it all for. 

They told me it wasn't time to have SF in government to sell out the vision they struggled for?

A literal translation for Sinn Fein into English might be 'ourselves alone', a fitting description for a party that could only rely on its own people to advance the fight for freedom … ourselves alone, well I'd say SF are not alone,

Like the revolutionary African National Congress and the Palestinian Authority they stand accused by opponents and some supporters alike of selling out to the very institutions they forswore to denounce replace and tear down...

Sinn Fein is not alone, like many others, it started out to destroy the establishment, then it claimed to reform it, and finally, it became part of it.

They are now the very people they promised to remove from office.

Could the Irish struggle for freedom and independence have ended any other way?

I think yes it could. But that as they say, is another story for another day.

SF was established in Ireland by Arthur Griffith on November 28, 1905.

𒍨The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al Mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

Fra Hughes is a columnist with Al Mayadeen.

17 comments:

  1. "Could the Irish struggle for freedom and independence have ended any other way?

    I think yes it could. But that as they say, is another story for another day."

    I'd be interested in hearing about this 'other way' as we had 30 odd years of another 'way' with 3000 odd dead.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah well, Fra you can take refuge with your Ba'athist revolutionary comrades in the Syrian Arab Republic. 13,000 corpses alone from Assad's Tuol Sleng archived in wonderful technicolour in the Caesar collection. Now that is real revolutionary (national) socialism, wouldn't you agree?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gerry Adams and Gerry Kelly become their hero, Gerry Fitt.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "As the vocal representatives of armed Irish republicans, they suffered assassination, imprisonment, torture, and death." But not nearly as much as they inflicted on the Catholic population through bombs on the street, in pubs, shops and markets and through permanent disablement through beatings and knee-cappings, sometimes with two bullets through each leg.
    The writer conveniently forgets that the legitimacy of British rule in the North is recognised in the Good Friday Agreement, in which the Republic effectively abandons its claim for jurisdiction over the North.
    As for Sinn Fein's adoption of "normal" politics, anyone with any knowledge of history will see them simply as Fianna Fail Mark 2!

    ReplyDelete
  5. ‘Tonyol’ should take heed that the state that styles itself the Republic of Ireland is not the Irish Republic and that no claim on the part of the latter has been abandoned. Whatever of the Assad regime in Syria, statistics related to what occurred here in the North reveal that there were two wars during that most recent phase of conflict: the IRA’s war on the British state and the British state’s war on the nationalist civilian population. An analysis of the statistics as to who killed who bears this out, if one should take the trouble to put their bitterness aside to review such things. Only one of these wars holds any kind of legitimacy and it is certainly not the terrorist war that Britain mounted behind the figment of ‘the law’.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Alas poor Sean still believes in the Republic coming to life one day, when the sands of time have washed that incarnation away. There may well be a UI, but the Republic proclaimed in 1916 will not be it.

    And legitimacy goes out the window when the first drop of innocent blood is shed, that goes for the Brits and the Provos despite your revisionist propaganda.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sean

    The IRA's "war" had a funny kind of "legitimacy" when its political wing, or, more accurately, its cypher, could never at its height command more than 43% of the CNR electorate; it usually averaged out of 35%. Were Kingsmill, La Mon, Enniskillen and Tullyvallen parts of the "war on the British state"?

    Your reference to the Assad regime is another example of the gift that gives so prolifically on your behalf and that of fellow apologists for it like Mr Hughes as your social media is replete with craven deference to this serial criminal against humanity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barry, Stevie......

      For every Provisional 'own goal' that either of you care to mention, I could match with times the PIRA/INLA brought the conflict to the British States door step. I don't know why you both like to 'point score.'

      Have either of you (outside of chatting to a Quiller on TPQ) actually met anyone who was a volunteer of PIRA/INLA? Had a pint with a former Republican volunteer? We know I went to school with heads who signed up and have friends who's father's spent time in the H Blocks. In my experience they aren't hate filled thugs that you both try to make out. Most were the same age as the vet's who went to 'Nam in '69. They were young men (alot of teenagers) who got caught up in a conflict they didn't start.

      Stevie, how many of your school friends (or friends of friends), do you know joined the UVF/UDA? 1,2 or 3? Do you think they were sectarian thugs or teenagers/young men who got caught up in a conflict? Would you , if you bumped into a friend who was a former Loyalist volunteer would you shake his hand and buy him a pint or think he is hated filled secartian bastard and no pint?

      Delete
    2. Frankie,

      Was friendly with a Shinner worker once and shared a few pints with him. We did the odd favour for each other and I knew his Da was a player in North Belfast but think that was it.

      Not sure what you mean about point score? I do not think violence was justified from whatever corner, and will certainly not let revisionism pass me by, whether that was the insane sectarian barbaric murders people I knew committed, to those of the State and Republicans.

      I would have absolutely no problem sitting down for a pint with anyone provided they knew I was peaceful and meant no ill will.

      Understanding motivation is one thing. Glamorizing actions that resulted in death quite another.

      I am utterly disgusted by so called Loyalist drug cartels far more these days than any Republican I can think of. They are not the same as the aul hands who like you said were caught up in horrendous times. The old ones are riddled with guilt I've found.

      Off on Hols now so won't be able to respond but Happy New Year Frankie and to the rest of TPQ. Hope you all have a great new year.


      Except Man U fans obviously.

      Delete
  8. Francie

    I don't think your ability to "match with times the PIRA/INLA brought the conflict to the British States door step" cancels out their 'own goals'. In my view, IRA members killed by some error on their own part might describe an own goal but killing unarmed civilians, or non-players, in botched gun or bomb attacks were not own goals but either incompetent recklessness at best and outright wrong on many occassisions.


    I find Steve's postings here over the years are usually measured and reasonable, so much so, there is no question that he might have any of the hangups you allude to in the line of questions that you put to him.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Frankie

    I do not 'point score' but oppose violence from whatever quarter; the state, loyalist and nationalist armed groups.

    Not having met a member of ISIS or Combat 18 does not have to qualify my condemnation of these particularly repulsive armed patriarchies.

    Like Steve I have no problem with having a pint with someone with a past I would not agree with; it is the glorification of murder and the culture of paramilitarism.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Henry Joy comments

    An undifferentiated stance taken by some on this one. Though they're entitled to their moral position, it ought also be remembered and acknowledged that a campaign of the intensity and duration of which the PIRA managed to sustain, did not and could not of itself have arisen out of a vacuum. The necessary conditions for blood-letting had to have been already in place.

    Likewise, it has to be noted that attempts to criminalise captured volunteers were rejected by a substantial cohort of the electorate and won support on both sides of the border from '81 on.

    Violence and the taking of life may be idealistically classified as unjustifiable and yet sometimes in the real and lived world, the train has long left the station, and such horrors become unavoidable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Henry Joy

      None of what you say contradicts the fact that at no time until 2001 did Sinn Fein enjoy the support of the majority of the CNR electorate.

      John Hume and many others showed there was always an alternative to violence and the "unavoidable horrors" that Henry Joy talks about.

      I much prefer reading the lived experiences of volunteers on this site than I do such cant as:

      " Violence and the taking of life may be idealistically classified as unjustifiable and yet sometimes in the real and lived world, the train has long left the station, and such horrors become unavoidable."

      Delete
    2. Henry Joy Comments

      I agree Barry, Hume was a committed and courageous pacifist. And yet had he been as arbitrary and as entrenched in his positioning as you so often come across, he wouldn't have engaged with Adams, now would he?

      My best guess is that he was well familiar with Camus's summation of the French/Algerian conflict too; it was he concluded "as unavoidable as it was unjustifiable".

      Delete
  11. Anthony

    Of course John Hume had every right to engage with Adams which he did with greater integrity than the sordid secret deals with which successive British governments sweetened Sinn Fein. But in his high-mindedness he may sacrificed his party.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barry - that was Henry Joy's comment, not my own.

      Delete