IRSP: Costello Commemoration 2003

[Danielle Ni Dhighe <danielle@xxxxxxxx>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

5 October 2003
Irish Republican Socialist Party

Costello Commemoration 2003

Speech by IRSP Ard-Chomhairle Member Paul Little

Comrades and friends, we gather here in Bray today to not only
remember our founder and political visionary - Seamus Costello - but
also to celebrate the political legacy that he left to us,
the Irish Republican Socialist Party and Republican Socialism.

Over the past few years, former INLA prisoners, many who are here
today, through Teach Na Failte have embarked on a program of erecting
suitable memorials to our fallen comrades across the country. That
work is ongoing and will continue until all are recognised for what
they were - Republican Socialists, Soldiers, in a volunteer
revolutionary army that fought with great courage the mercenary
forces of British and international imperialism.

Over the past few years the INLA, whilst adhering to its ceasefire,
has had to take defensive measures in defence of the Irish working
class which has come under attack from the reactionary sectarian
campaign of loyalists. The INLA, whilst not relishing this role, will
not leave vulnerable working class communities unarmed or undefended.

We salute the courage of each and every man and woman who makes a
contribution to the struggle!

Today the IRSP has to face into the struggle for a socialist republic
based on democratic principles, equipped with the integrity of
republican socialist politics. This alongside our determination to
achieve Irish freedom, full social equality for all, and self
government are the arms required for today's struggle. The political
conditions not only in Ireland but also internationally in 2003
demand that our response is measured and tailored to achieve victory,
not wallowing in a self-righteous indignance, engaged in a fruitless
armed campaign that our enemies long ago learned how to minimise and
negate.

Times and conditions change, that the Republican Socialist Movement
moved with those times and conditions is a political imperative. We
serve notice on our opponents today - in armed struggle the RSM was
tenacious,determined, ingenious, and confident. In peace, we are
equally tenacious, determined, ingenious, and confident. These were
the attributes of Seamus Costello and we are proud to have inherited
them.

Whilst the political conditions and the combined will of the Irish
people expressed in 1998 demand that we use only peaceful methods it
would be wrong for our opponents to see this as a defeat or weakening
of republican socialism.

We listened to the combined wishes of the Irish people, which is
more than the current Irish government did when it enabled the
Anglo/American invasion of Iraq. An invasion that has led to the
decimation of the Iraqi people and the plundering of their country's
collective wealth, all to satisfy the lust of Anglo/American
capitalism.

We listen to the Irish people in regards to the morality of war,
not George Bush, Tony Blair, or Bertie Ahern. Hypocrites one and
all. Unlike them we have no fear of peaceful political struggle
or democratic principles, indeed, armed with republican socialist
politics it is our strength and we look forward with confidence to
the future. The question is can they cope with a confident and
successful republican socialist program without resorting to their
old trusted methods of subjugation, oppression, exploitation, and
marginalisation? We shall see!

The IRSP are determined to present a real choice to the Irish working
class, the choice between social equality and prosperity for all and
the present class system which condemns millions to poverty and
misery with the crumbs off the table of the greedy.

Have no doubt, comrades, we do not only want the loaf of bread but we
mean to take the entire bakery. The demolition of capitalism,
exploitation, and the class system was and is our aim!

Our opposition to the Good Friday Agreement is well documented
and the present bartering of democratic institutions against long
silent Provo weapons is but the latest example of the failure of real
politics in the failed entity that is the North.

If the current batch of wannabe 'statesmen and women' that
represent 'politics' in Ireland represent the future, then God
help the Irish working class. Sure we know they can talk the talk but
precious few, if any, know how to take a single step.

We recognise the new political climate that the agreement has
created. It has created space and room for dialogue that in the end
can only be for the common good.

We also recognise the bad, whilst the creation of sectarianism can
not be laid at its door its rapid development throughout society as a
whole in the North cannot and should not be ignored. Sectarianism is
through society as a whole but its violent manifestation has maximum
effect in working class communities and is the cause of much
secondary discrimination in the areas such as employment, housing,
education, and health provision.

In North Belfast there is housing crisis for the Catholic community.
The statutory social housing provider the housing executive if it was
honest would admit that it has no real strategy to combat this
discrimination in housing provision, it cannot even get the language
correct it calls North Belfast 'an area of high housing need', no its
not, its an area of poor social housing provision because of
sectarianism.

The IRSP are extremely concerned at secondary discrimination and its
effects on securing a peaceful future for all. We do not remember any
exclusion clauses in the Good Friday Agreement and if any people
deserve peace it is the good people of North Belfast, an area in
which one quarter of all the deaths in the conflict lost their lives
in one square mile.

In Coleraine this week, a Catholic family was forcefully evicted
from their home of twenty years after having the audacity to fly a
Tyrone GAA flag in celebration of that county's success at Croke
Pairc last Sunday. For this they had their windows smashed and a
volley of shots fired into the house, they are now housed elsewhere
the local media inform us. Nobody asks why? Anymore, it is easier to
brush it under the carpet and try and get the big house up in
Stormont working. Well, we in the IRSP are asking not only why but
what the hell are they going to do about it! The current wave of
attacks on schools and school children across the North is abhorrent
and we call on them to cease immediately. Only the cause of sectarian
hatred is promoted by these attacks.

Across the country IRSP personnel are involved in working class
issues that have real effect on ordinary people's lives, from the
campaign against the introduction of a 'bin tax' in the South to the
campaign against the introduction of water charges in the North, you
will find the IRSP. We commend Socialist TD Joe Higgins for his
principled stance on the 'bin tax', but one can but wonder if he
would have been sent to prison if he held an offshore bank account!
Lying, corruption, bribery, embezzlement, and tax evasion all seem to
be the passport to power in Ireland under the Celtic Tiger.

The IRSP are also to be found in the trade unions, them community
associations, and in every working class issue you will find an Irp.
Not bad for a group of people that our enemies had written off as
social misfits, profiteers, psychotic murderers, and a ragtaggle
band of braggarts whose only concern is personal gain. I know of no
current Irp who has profited from their membership of this
organisation, indeed personal sacrifice for the collective good has
always been our way and so it shall remain.

Seamus Costello founded the RSM, a volunteer army, and a subscription
based political party. The IRSP is self funded, we are not in the
pocket of any self interest group or foreign government. We are what
we say we are - a working class political party, we serve no other
interests only those of the Irish working class.

Those who see the lack of personal ambition of individual members of
the IRSP for the baubles and titles of 'Western democracy' as a
weakness in our movement are wrong once again, it is our strength. We
remain uncorrupted by the lure of the easy life paid for by the
honest toil of others. Whilst we may not lust after the 'baubles and
titles', we do possess a collective ambition and determination that
by far out strips any personal ambition. Republican Socialism
represents the opportunity for the maximum amount of personal freedom
within a collective responsibility.

Like our founder and the man we remember here today, Seamus Costello,
the only title that we crave is that of all free workers in a free
society, the highest accolade of all, that of - comrade citizen !

Comrades, we have much work to do. Go out and preach the blessed
gospel of discontent! Organise! Onwards to victory!

###

Republican Socialist Publicity Bureau
392 Falls Road, Belfast, BT48 6DH, Ireland
Tel: 028 90 321024 Fax: 028 90 330786
http://www.irsm.org/irsm.html



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