Re: [Marxism] northern Ireland Occupied?

["Ian Pace" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>

> Please no one bite my head off for asking this, but is northern Ireland,
> properly speaking, 'occupied'?!
Well, I'm not sure of the fine details of international law in this respect,
but I believe an annexed territory isn't strictly speaking 'occupied'. The
whole of Ireland was of course annexed by the British by the Act of Union of
1801, passed by the Irish Parliament which could hardly be defined as
representing the democratic wishes of its people, with various seats
essentially 'bought', I believe, and bribery of Irish MPs in order to get
them to support a decision. After the creation of the Irish Free State in
1922, Northern Ireland was retained as part of the United Kingdom, with
varying degrees of autonomy from then to the present day. The majority
population of the North (arguably an artificially created entity to ensure a
Protestant majority, though this is dwindling nowadays as a result of higher
birth rates amongst the Catholic population) have continuously voted to
support the Union with Britain.

I would imagine it would be hard to use a definition of 'occupation' that
would be appropriate in this case without also applying to a very large
number of other territories in the Western world. Couldn't Alsace and
Lorraine then be described as variously 'occupied' by either the French or
the Germans at different times?

The creation of the artificial province of the six counties Northern Ireland
is not something I could ever support. However, having seen how often
right-wing Zionists bring up Northern Ireland as being equivalent to
Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, I feel it is important
to make a distinction in this respect. There are (according to bourgeois
definitions of democracy) full democratic rights for the citizens of
Northern Ireland and some provisions in various treaties for unification
with the South if the majority vote for it (not that on that basis I accept
the legitimacy of the province, though). The situation is very different to
the West Bank and Gaza, though, where the Palestinian population have no
voting rights whatsoever, unlike the Israeli settlers, and thus an
apartheid-like situation applies. Can anyone tell me what country those born
in the West Bank and Gaza after 1967 are deemed to be citizens of?

'Occupation' may be a reasonable description of the reality of Northern
Ireland but probably not really correct in a technical sense, for whatever
that's worth.

Solidarity,
Ian



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