IRSCNA Message for African Liberation Day

[Danielle Ni Dhighe <nidhighe@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sisters and Brothers, it is my great honor to bring you greetings of
solidarity from the Irish Republican Socialist Party for this celebration
of African Liberation Day.  As always, we would like to give thanks to the
indigenous people of this hemisphere for the use of their land to bring you
these remarks and for having provided us with a resting place in our
diaspora.  We also thank the All-African People's Revolutionary Party for
having invited us here today.  The All-African People's Revolutionary Party
remains among our closest allies in the struggle against imperialism and we
are always proud to stand with them in solidarity and to stand with them as
comrades in opposition to our shared adversaries.  We applaud them for
carrying on the struggle to liberate the whole of Africa under socialism
and with them, we remember the many lessons we have learned from our
departed brother, Kwame Ture, no longer among us bodily, but always living
on in our hearts.

The focus of the celebration of African Liberation Day this year is
appropriately the role of Neo-Colonialism and this is a topic the Irish
Republican Socialist Movement has long had experience with.  Capitalism is
not a static system, but one that constantly changes in an attempt to
maintain itself in the face of working class opposition.  When capitalism
expands beyond the boundaries of the Nation-State, it first does so through
the institutions of colonialism, including settler-colonialism.  Ireland,
ever the testing ground for systems of exploitation, saw the first
successful example of settler-colonialism with the Plantation of
Ulster.  This colonial experiment, masquerading as religious sectarianism,
remains a pressing concern for Irish revolutionaries today in the struggle
to end British domination of the six Irish counties known as "Northern
Ireland."

In the 19th century, with the growing dominance of finance capital,
capitalism brought forth imperialism.  This takes the form of domination
and exploitation through military intervention, as seen in Iraq today, as
it is in Ireland's six county occupation.  It also takes the more common
form of economic domination, for example, in the crushing foreign debt of
Latin American nations like Mexico. Chile, and Argentina and in the
complete domination of the Irish economy by foreign multi-national
corporations.

In the 20th century, a new weapon in the arsenal of capitalism appeared,
neo-colonialism.  What distinguishes neo-colonialism from earlier forms is
the appearance of the face of the overseer of colonial domination.  Whereas
previously the overseer was an easily identifiable foreigner, with
different ethnic, religious, language or other characteristics, which set
him apart from the native populace; in neo-colonialism, this role is
assumed by one of 'our own.'  Because the overseer tending the interests of
imperialism appears to be one of us, some of us may be fooled into
believing we have gained sovereign control over our destinythat we have
achieved national liberationbut those who rule under neo-colonialism
continue to rule in the interests of those have traditionally exploited our
labour and resources for the benefit of another nation, another class.

Recognising the dawning of this new form of exploitation, the great Irish
Marxist James Connolly wrote:

"After Ireland is free, says the patriot who won't touch Socialism, we will
protect all classes, and if you won't pay your rent you will be evicted
same as now. But the evicting party, under command of the sheriff, will
wear green uniforms and the Harp without the Crown, and the warrant turning
you out on the roadside will be stamped with the arms of the Irish
Republic. Now, isn't that worth fighting for?

"And when you cannot find employment, and, giving up the struggle of life
in despair, enter the poorhouse, the band of the nearest regiment of the
Irish army will escort you to the poorhouse door to the tune of 'St.
Patrick's Day.' Oh! It will be nice to live in those days!

"With the Green Flag floating o'er us' and an ever-increasing army of
unemployed workers walking about under the Green Flag, wish they had
something to eat. Same as now! Whoop it up for liberty!

"Now, my friend, I also am Irish, but I'm a bit more logical. The
capitalist, I say, is a parasite on industry; as useless in the present
stage of our industrial development as any other parasite in the animal or
vegetable world is to the life of the animal or vegetable upon which it feeds.

"The working class is the victim of this parasitethis human leech, and it
is the duty and interest of the working class to use every means in its
power to oust this parasite class from the position which enables it to
thus prey upon the vitals of labour.

  "Therefore, I say, let us organise as a class to meet our masters and
destroy their mastership; organise to drive them from their hold upon
public life through their political power; organise to wrench from their
robber clutch the land and workshops on and in which they enslave us;
organise to cleanse our social life from the stain of social cannibalism,
from the preying of man upon his fellow man."

It was with these same sentiments that when Connolly led his small workers'
militia, the Irish Citizen Army, out into the streets of Dublin alongside
the non-socialist Irish Republican Brotherhood, he told the ICA's
volunteers to "hold upon to your guns."  Because, he told them, when this
initial fight against the British Army was over, they may well need to use
them against the IRB, whose vision of an Irish republic was very different
from the workers' republic envisioned by the ICA.

Sadly, Connolly was killed at the close of that fight with British
imperialism and far too many forgot his advice when 26 counties of Ireland
wrested nominal independence away from Britain.  But, Connolly was right,
the new capitalist rulers of Ireland's 26 counties soon found that their
interests were completely intertwined with those of the their imperialist
big brothers in Britain.  Virtually from the start, they ruled Ireland in
the interests of the British imperialists, as this was the only way to
preserve their own class interests as capitalists.

Today, the remaining six counties under British occupation are said to be
witnessing some form of transition, and this is true.  They are witnessing
the transition from colonial occupation and settler-colonial control to a
form of neo-colonialism.  Today, two members of the modern version of the
IRB, the Sinn Fein party, hold positions in the executive responsible for
administering the British controlled statelet in the north of
Ireland.  And, the nationalist working classas well as loyalist working
class, whose 'own representatives' dominate that executivehave won the
right to speak in the Irish language in the substandard housing of their
communities.  They have the ability to comment on the shape of the police
force, which will enforce a sectarian divide among the people while
ignoring the drug lords flooding their communities with poison.  They can
hold their heads proudly erect and proclaim their support for Sinn Fein or
Progressive Unionist Party members of the assembly, which is now
responsible for providing them with meager dole payments because there is
no work to be had.  They are free to sing The Soldier's Song or The Sash,
while the labour of those lucky enough to find work is purchased for among
the lowest wages in Europe by foreign multi-nationals who will repatriate
the profits thereby made to their own home nation,

People will wonder, why we are not satisfied with this.  They will ask,
what more do you want?  They will want to know, why aren't we excited by
projections that Sinn Fein will increase their seats in the legislative
bodies of both the six and 26 county statelets on the island of Ireland in
the coming elections.

And, we will have to tell them; we don't give a damn who participates in
our exploitationwe want to be free.  We don't care a bit if Sinn Fein
becomes the biggest nationalist party in the six countieswe want an end to
Ireland's partition.  We don't care if Sinn Fein holds the balance of power
in the 26 counties and joins a coalition governmentwe don't have any
interest in the government, which controls the majority of the island of
Ireland to ensure that it remains available for imperialist
exploitation.  We could care less what the composition of the ruling class
of Ireland iswe only care if Irish workers gain control of Irish economic
wealth and political institutions.

The war, waged most recently in Ireland for nearly three decades, wasn't
fought to gain peace; it was fought to gain national liberation and social
justice.  The struggle that we've been engaged in was not directed at
providing minister positions for members of this or that party; it was
directed at providing the working people of Ireland with control over the
nation's destiny and their own lives.  The martyrs of the Irish National
Liberation Army did not die so that some politicians could get big houses
in Donegal and impressive titles; they died for freedom and socialism.  Our
prisoners of war did not languish in British jails so that Gerry Adams
could sip tea with the US President; they did so in order to ensure the
interests of the masses of Irish people would be met first and foremost,
not those of foreign corporations.

Whether in Ireland or Guatemala, whether in South Africa or the
Philippines, whether in Palestine or Nicaragua, the working people of this
world have suffered, struggled, and died for liberation.  It is liberation
they will have and we will not be satisfied by the ruse of placing a native
masque over the face of our imperialist exploiters.

In closing, I turn again to the wisdom of James Connolly.  When told that
his demand of a Workers' Republic was to extreme and that he needed to pull
his head down from the clouds and be reasonable, Connolly told his critics
plainly: we want for the working class the control over all the means of
production, distribution and exchange; we want all the wealth of the nation
which was built up through our toil and our toil alone; we want the workers
to exclusively hold the reigns of power to direct the course of the state
and civil society; we want the whole fucking world! And, nothing could be
more reasonable!

ENDS