[Marxism] Questionnaire Response

["DoC" <donaloc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am doing this because I'm grateful that others have done this. I have
found the responses very interesting and useful.

1) How did you get interested in Marxism?

I was raised in a real war situation. My family were displaced as a
result of British army and Loyalist activities. I spent my early years
in a rural village which was 50-50 between pro-Independence Nationalists
and pro-Union Loyalists. It was once said by a Unionist MP in Belfast
that if civil war broke out anywhere in the North of Ireland it would
break out in my village. Our family was at the brunt of that - because
of my father's profession of support for the IRA campaign. My
grand-father and great-grandfather were both active militarily against
the British occupation forces in the war of independence and in the
1940s campaign. My great-uncle was shot in the 1950s border campaign. I
have a first cousin who spent time in Long Kesh. I guess it was natural
for me to be an Irish Republican, too.

However, I was not hugely political in my youth. I was exceptional at
school - perhaps it was my release valve. I led a very quite life -
mostly consisting of study until I went to university in England. I
enjoyed that thoroughly despite my political prejudices. It was a period
of deep politicisation. I discovered Islam and the friendship of moslem
activists. They respected my convictions and I learnt immense respect
for theirs. I lost my interest in mathematics when I took a year out
between my MA and my PhD. While waiting for my English-Jewish wife to
complete her degree and have our first child, I found that I was hugely
overqualified and couldn't find employment. That year was difficult. I
had to work at a BT phone centre. I would probably rather starve than do
that again.

I always considered myself a socialist without really knowing what that
was. The first socialist I met was an IRSP member in that war-ravaged
village. Then I met a Trotskyist in Wales when I was 10. They always
seemed very interesting and sincere people. The first time I really
talked politics to a socialist was an SWP (US) Trade Unionist who talked
to me at a protest at a British barracks on the border. He gave me a
paper and I read it from cover to cover. I met another SWP (US) man in a
Bloody Sunday march one year and he gave me another paper and sold me a
book by a guy called Jack Barnes. I read that too. I found it difficult
to understand but when I checked the reference to Ireland (by using the
index) I found he supported our struggle as an anti-imperialist one.
That was enough for me. I visited their bookstore in London one year and
they sold me a whole load of books for about 50p each. That was the
beginning.

2) How do you respond personally and politically to the apparent
"triumphalism" of the system today, the so called "End of History."

I don't feel much need to respond to it. I think that it was Marx who
was asked to sum up all life in one word and he responded 'struggle'. To
me that's the answer to this rubbish.

3) What are some of the books that have influenced your political
evolution
and what do you think other people would learn from?

As people might appreciate I started out by reading books on Trotsky and
Lenin. I still find reading Trotsky directly much more useful than
listening to most interpretations. Reading Lenin is really the best
thing though.

I have a large book collection: Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin,
Connolly, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Gramsci and Hoxha are all
very well represented. I find great inspiration from books from those
fighting revolutions in the colonial world (I have tried to collect them
but they can be expensive): Nkrumah, Castro, Guevara, Ho Chi Minh,
Cabral, Allende, Mandela, Fanon, Marighella, Ortega, Borge, Biko,
Zapata, Nyerere, Sankara and Bishop to name the most of them. There are
two other specialisms I have studied intensively: economics and
euro-communism. I like reading the monthly review.

4) What are the political conditions in the region of the world you live
in?

I have written extensively on these before. To summarise: (IMO) the Good
Friday Agreement (GFA) represents the promise of equality and has the
potential to open the way to a radicalisation of Irish politics
generally. The northern British-supported statelet cannot withstand
equality (for a range of reasons - mostly structural but also in terms
of its raison-d'etre). As such, the GFA is stalled with hardline
opponents of the GFA in the majority of pro-Unionist opinion. The
British Govt have acceded to their demand for the collapse of
institutions. Republicans have taken away any pretexts which have been
raised by the opponents of change to focus attention on the problem
lying with the British Govt and their unionist proxies. The British had
to cancel elections twice in the past year and a half and IMO the
northern statelet is under pressure on a huge variety of fronts (cuts in
the Police Reserve, Economic stagnation and the inability to devolve
power back to 'locally elected' politicians). In the rest of Ireland,
SF's growth has scared the ruling coalition so much that they're holding
highly publicised meetings to present a more 'socially-sensitive' face
(while implementing the same old policies) and they're going to have to
push harder on the Brits with the national question too.

Currently, there is a process of intense negotiations in Leeds Castle,
Kent right now but I personally find it difficult to see anything coming
out of them. The hardline (anti-Agreement) DUP appear to want the
promise of equality taken from the agreement - if that's the case, I
don't see how its going to work. I wrote to someone recently the
northern state is damned if the British do implement the agreement and
they're damned if they don't implement it.

Politically things are going well then. But there is very little
socialist consciousness - most particularly due to the inept nature of
most (ultra) left wing parties. The key question for the left is how to
drive Irish economic growth without total dependence on FDI. I believe
SF's path to political power is dependent on finding the correct answer
to that question and presenting it coherently. SF in power, IMO, could
offer the chance of a transition towards revolution.

5) What are your political activities?

I am paid to work as a Social Economy (i.e. Cooperative) Development
Worker for a programme to benefit IRA ex-prisoners and their families. I
am a member of Sinn Fein and have spoke at a number of their events.

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