Re: [Marxism] Re: Irish belief in God falls to 87 percent in Irish freestate

["Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I am not sure as to the accuracy of James' assessment that the British State
originally (when?) wanted to leave Ireland. Perhaps I am fundamentally wrong
myself here, but it seems quite unlikely that Britain has desired to leave
Northern Ireland at any time. Has the British *desire* to remain in Northern
Ireland changed since 1949, when the British Labour Govt. stated, "Indeed,
it seems unlikely that great Britain would ever be able to agree to this
[i.e. withdrawal from and unification of Ireland] even if the people of
Northern Ireland desired it" (Norman Broook, Atlee's Cabinet Secretary)?

I am quite unsure as to what other choice republicans/nationalists might
have had than 'dancing a stately cotillion' around the issue of British
withdrawal. Surely armed unionists and their demagogic representatives have
been quite unwilling to negotiate in any way toward this end, and have
instead sought to target republicanism and catholics generally for their
ever-increasing economic and territorial decline? In such a situation,
intensely volatile in particular areas of Northern Ireland over the past few
years, the police seem to have been quite unwilling in many (although not
all) instances to tackle organised unionist violence head-on. (Indeed,
British State collusion with the latter, by all accounts, seems to have
continued relatively unabated in the last few years).

Thus, it seems to me that there is scarcely a possibility at present in the
North of Ireland for anything other than some sort of piecemeal reform
process. I quite agree that dressing up this reform in the language of
academic 'consociationalism' or 'conflict resolution' is quite inadequate
and fundamentally ideologically wrong. Such language ignores the reality of
class division and the class composition of supposed ethnic strife
completely. The consequences of academic liberal lingo (culture, ethicity,
religion, etc.) being used to understand and describe conflict in Northern
Ireland, for example, has lead to burning issues such as public housing
expenditure (slashed under M. Thatcher) and class based
emigration/immigration from communities to vanish from the political
picture. One further factor preventing the establishment of a basis for
British withdrawal is, surely, the activity of armed loyalist gangs. Indeed,
much of the constraints put upon class-based (??) dialogue taking place
between working class communities in Northern Ireland are directly
attibutable to the incessant campaigns waged against communities by Loyalist
gangs.

In such grim circumstances, it seems wrong to expect too much.

sincerely.


JAMES DALY WROTE:

> If anything, I would say that the British state originally hoped to leave
> Ireland, but that the US, the British, the Irish state, the Unionists and
> republicans politically have all danced a stately cotillion of traditional
> British/ Irish gradualism around the issue, hoping to bore it to death with
> bourgeois "conflict resolution".
> Comradely,
> James Daly

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