Re: To George on SF and IRA (was Colombia and Ireland)

["George Pennefather" <poseidon@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just some a hastily written response.

Philip: I can assure you that they are *certainly not* the same organisation.  
They
are two wings of an overall movement, the Republican Movement.  The RM had
other wings as well - for instance, Cumann na nMBan, the women's group
which was fused with the IRA, although RSF now have a Cumann na mBan,
having reluanched it; Fianna Eireann, etc.  SF and IRA are the two main
wings of the Movement.

George: "Two wings of an overall movement, the Republican movement." What you 
call
"Republican Movement" includes more than Sinn Fein/IRA. It would include other
republican
organisations and individuals. To simply collapse the "republican movement" 
into Sinn
Fein/IRA is to fetishise the Provos.

I dont accept your point either that the two dont form the one organisation. 
The IRA
has
been the organisational and political basis on which Sinn Fein rests. Sinn Fein 
has
been
the subordinate organisation within the Provos. The Provos have been called 
such by
Sinn
Fein and IRA members because they know that essentially there is just one 
organisation
which is why the term Provos has been used. It has apparently been dropped 
because for
opportunist reasons the leadership of the Provies have dropped it in its 
efforts to
betray
what they claimed was their aim --32 county democratic socialist republic. 
British
imperialism and the southern Irish state are to a large extent willing to go 
along with
this attempt to separate out the two because it is in their interests to 
co-operate
with
the Provos in their strategy to betray their traditional aim.