AUT: Re: Re:Linebaugh/Ireland/Sinn Fein

["David Officer" <david.officer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I am perplexed by the discussion of Sinn Fein in Ireland - when were they
not first and formost a nationalist movement?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Neil (practical history)" <practicalhistory@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 9:11 PM
Subject: AUT: Re:Linebaugh/Ireland/Sinn Fein


> Chriss forwarded item about Sinn Fein stopping a delegation to Death Row
in
> order not to offend relations with George W Bush can be read simply as
> another moment in the integration of national liberation movements into
the
> capitalist state, as in Palestine or South Africa.
>
> But there are also more specific factors at work which relate to some of
the
> issues we have discussed about racism and class composition, and are
> explored in Peter Linebaugh and Redikers Many Headed Hydra.
>
> This book proposes that in the early days of slavery, Irish, African and
> British slaves laboured together, and rebelled together. Later, in
response
> to this, slavery was explicitly racialized, with white (Irish and British)
> workers given a privileged place in the labour hierarchy as, for instance,
> supervisors.
>
> As the US developed, the Irish diaspora became very much part of white
> America  some getting rich and powerful, others remaining working class
but
> again sometimes with privileged positions (e.g. the historical association
> with Ireland in the New York Police Department).
>
> In the North of Ireland and Britain however, Irish workers have
historically
> been treated much more like black people with a common experience of
police
> repression and discrimination (expressed in the notorious 1960s landlords
> sign No blacks, no Irish, no dogs).
>
> When Irish proletarians have confronted the state, as in the North of
> Ireland after 1969, there have been two tendencies, not always explicitly
> distinct from each other. On the one hand the possibility of relations of
> solidarity with struggles in the US and elsewhere. Through my former
> involvement in supporting Irish prisoners I met people who were inspired
by
> black radical politics in the US, such as the LA uprising, and the
American
> Indian Movement (there was a big pro-native American mural in Belfasts
> Whiterock Road). At the same time this resistance has been hegemonised by
> Irish nationalists appealing for solidarity from the US not on the basis
of
> class but of a shared nationality with an (often racist) Irish American
> cross-class lobby.
>
> This contradiction has certainly been resolved on the one hand by Sinn
Fein
> jettisoning any pretence of internationalism and seeking only to win the
> support of the US ruling class for the consolidation of its position
within
> the state. It would be interesting to see if a practical critique of this
> develops, independent of Sinn Fein and of the Real IRA peace process
> refuseniks. After all there is no reason why a delegation to Death Row
> couldnt be organised by people from Derry without the permission of Sinn
> Fein.
>
> Neil
>
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