Frankie Quinn ★ Kearney alluded to everyone being permitted to commemorate their dead.
While this, of course, is true, there is a distinct difference between a volunteer of the Irish Republican Army and soldiers of the British imperialist forces who are paid killers and are employed by governments to terrorise, brutalise, maim and murder the occupied population of their invaded target country, all in the interests of their imperialist conquests.
A lot of the working-class lads and lassies who join this barbaric army are of course unaware of this fact. Hence the youthful age at which one can join the British army - 18 years old. The conduct of British imperialist forces is widely held as the worst in history, the world over; perhaps only surpassed by the cowardly murderers and rapists of the monstrous IDF.
In 1920, the British Empire ruled over a quarter of the world – 26 percent of it, with a population of over 449 million people. Their bloodthirsty rule by all manner of murderous methods and barbarism is well documented and even as early as last year, here in Ireland, they were found guilty of the torture of Irish republicans, namely the hooded men. Additionally, there are still political prisoners being held in Irish prisons; this is, in effect, internment without trial.
Even more far-reaching draconian laws are being introduced to crush any intention of rebellion. It is not a matter of agreeing with some of the strategies these people adopt, but the principal of states undermining, breaking and manipulating the law to serve their own warped purpose. When those who make the law, break the law, then there is no law.
So, with that said, we return to the insult of comparison of our resistance fighters, who SF placed in the same category, next to hired killers and mercenaries. By far and away, most Irish republican freedom fighters, who were involved with different organisations, were decent, normal people placed in an abnormal situation, against their will.
They found themselves involved in a revolutionary movement, in resisting the occupation and invasion of their country by brutal foreign forces in a reign of terror. These were ordinary working-class people, men and women trying to survive and etch out a living for themselves and their families. This, in itself, was extremely difficult amidst a unionist dominated country, deliberately created by its invasion and partitioning by the British, at the point of a gun, to control their own imperialist interests, and to this day, still maintained at the point of a gun.
The soldiers and volunteers of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army were of the people, for the people. Supported and covered by the people. They were volunteers - no wage, no financial gain involved. When a person became a member of the movement, as a volunteer, they were told there was only three ways this could end; imprisonment, death, or life on the run, and all three for some.
This is about dignity, pride and a thirst for freedom, sovereignty and a 32-county socialist republic. We were not even given the dignity by the oppressor to bury our dead - comrades who gave their lives so we, the Irish people, might be free and independent, running our own affairs without British interference.
So, as a comrade of mine pointed out the other day, under the hustle and bustle of the Remembrance Day rubbish, the Shinners slipped in another conformist betrayal by attempting to lump our fallen resistance fighters into the same category as British mercenaries and paid killers.
Our volunteer soldiers invaded no one’s country and stole no one’s land; they fought for a free and independent socialist republic. This, to benefit all the people of Ireland. And, of course, everyone can commemorate their dead. But, for a once revolutionary party to give full military honours to our oppressor and the most brutal imperialist forces in the world is totally wrong and we will not accept it.
We Remember Our Fallen Resistance Fighters With Dignity And Pride.
⏩ Frankie Quinn is a former republican prisoner who is now a community activist. He is the author of Open Gates, a book of poetry.
No comments