Re: Good Friday Agreement

[Philip Ferguson <PLF13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

James D:
> Two questions to Philip, and the second also to Michael Keaney.
> 1.  Where are the "ordinary Prods" who are not an enemy to
> Republicans?
> 2.  When is Britain going to "exit" and leave behind a united Ireland?

> Notes to questions.
> 1) Remember Trimble's sneer when Adams and McGuinness took their rooms
> in Westminster: "How are they going to sell that as a step towards a
> united Ireland?"


Not sure why the first question is specifically directed to me as I have
never held the view that "ordinary Prods" will support Irish unity.  I
hold to the traditional republican view that class unity is only
possible through breaking the connection with Britain.

I do think, however, that in the course of struggling against British
imperialism, the republican forces need to continually appeal to
Protestant workers to abandon their support for British rule and try to
show them that their class interests are best-served in the long-term by
uniting with the nationalist working class for independence and
socialism.  As far as I am aware, this view would be a basic part of the
legacy of Seamus Costello and a pretty commonplace position in the IRSP,
of which James was a leading member in the late 70s and early 80s.



> 2) Danny Morrison's approach may be oriented too much to military
> rather than political thinking, hence his analysis that Britain is
> trying to turn what was a military stalemate into a surrender by the
> IRA.  But Philip's dismissal of his complaint is too cavalier.
> Britain has allowed the loyalists -- I make no distinction between the
> ex-Vanguard (UDA front) Trimble, hero of (as his Medal spelled it) the
> * Seige * of Drumcree (Portadown's Garvaghy Road) and other unionist
> thugs -- to redefine the situation from being a peace process to being
> a choice of Cabinet by a "democratic" First Minister (forgetting that
> the "majority (one-party) rule" six county entity was set up by
> violence).  This degeneration was not politically a priori inevitable
> or even predictable, in the way Philip claims.  But it was in fact
> built into the disgraceful approach of Tony Blair who lied to the
> British House of Commons when he sold the agreement by giving an
> undertaking that the Republicans would have to disarm before joining
> the executive (which was not part of the agreement).  Interviewed the
> day after the all-night session in which the agreement was signed the
> cowardly bully revealed which side he was on when he said " It was
> exhausting.  I said to Gerry Adams 'You're not leaving this building
> until you sign that document!' "



James, above you make it sound as if the main conflict in Ireland is
between republicans and Unionists, with Blair taking the side of the
Unionists (as you put it, "revealing which side he was on. . .").

I would've thought your view would be/is that the conflict is between
the republicans (representing the historic aspiration for Irish
independence) and British imperialism, with the Unionists as subordinate 
players.

My dismissal of Danny Morrison's whinge is not really cavalier.
Regardless of what they might have said to Adams and co in private, the
imperialists were always going to act as if they had won and insist on
IRA disarmament.  People like Bernadette pointed out, right back in
1993, where this was all heading.  Morrison, who went along with it all
and attacked anyone opposed to the GFA, including some fairly appalling
attacks on former comrades of his who continued to stand by their
principles, has no business whining about it now.

The republican leadership did a deal with a rabid dog and they've got
rabies as a result.  All frustratingly and sadly predictable.

In relation to the BBC item on loyalist intransigence, the reality is
that the Brits could pull the plug on the loyalists if they wanted to.
The loyalists are useful these days, it seems to me, mainly as a means
of completing the house-training of the republicans.  The Brits use them
as a threat in order to get the republican leaders to further and
further modify their politics and lower their horizons and then sell
this to the nationalist population.

Fianna Fail possibly have an interest in having some kind of good
relations with the Unionists as they're worried about the electoral
threat of Sinn Fein in the south and see containment of SF in the north
as assisting electoral; containment in the south.

If the Brits can thoroughly house-train the republican leadership and
that leadership can sell the increasingly lowered horizons to the
nationalist population in the six counties, then the Brits could dump
the Unionists.

In any case, the main thing right now is to try to bring together all
the radical forces which understand the connection of the national and
social questions in Ireland.  There is an urgent need to build an
alternative to SF, so that something positive can come out of the
present situation.  Hopefully this is what the IRSP is trying to do.

Philip Ferguson