andreas
10-18-2007, 04:29 PM
The Following was a document originally drafted for International comrades
Defining The Conflict
&
Defining Its Resolution
Conflicts are primarily defined by those who take part in the conflict. Acceptable terms for a resolution to any given conflict must conform and be acceptable to the basic nature of the conflict as defined by those who take part in it. Because post colonial conflicts invariably involve powerful states attempting to rewrite their colonial history, and re-establish their powerbase within the world through different means, major political and propagandist battles need to be fought over how the nature of the conflict is to be defined. Deliberately redefining the nature of the conflict is a powerful weapon deployed by the colonial or occupying power to ensure that the terms for its resolution are equally drastically altered. The occupying power does not wish to end the occupation, they wish to redefine it, so as to sanitise it in a modern political context. In order to attain this redefinition the occupying power needs elements within those who resist them to agree to the new definition and the lure of populist power is the device they use to secure that agreement. It is the classic divide and conquer tactic.
Throughout the duration of the Anglo-Irish conflict this tactic has proved most effective. From the early days of setting Chieftain against Chieftain or in the modern era of setting constitutional nationalist against republican separatist or protestant against catholic British governments have contrived parliaments, treaties, assemblies and constitutions in their continuing efforts to maintain their interests in Ireland. The strongest political and military weapon the British possess to enable these contrivances is a divided Irish resistance, fighting over how the nature of the conflict should be defined. In broad terms this division has manifested itself into two distinct political outlooks; Home Rule, as espoused by constitutional nationalists and Sovereign Independence, as espoused by republican separatists.
The basic political ethos of Home Rule politics is the belief that Ireland should be self governing within an overall British political framework. It concedes that the British Parliament has intrinsic rights in the constitutional and political development of Ireland and as such facilitates a British dimension to influence that development. This arrangement is devoid of any democratic accountability on behalf of the British parliament to the Irish people.
The out workings of Home Rule politics in Ireland can be traced from the 18th Century with the establishment of what was known as Grattan’s Parliament, a sectarian body which catered for the legislative needs of the protestant minority in Ireland. After the Act Of Union in 1800 this Parliament was merged with the British Parliament so that in effect Ireland as a separate political entity no longer existed. Although the Act Of Union did promise Catholic Emancipation this was shelved on the instruction of the British Monarch. The principle constitutional opponent of the Act Of Union was Daniel O’Connell who led a massive public campaign opposing the Act seeking its immediate repeal. But as his interaction with the British establishment grew he moved away from a position of seeking its abolition and instead sought reform (redefinition) and although Catholic Emancipation was conceded in 1829 the financial tariffs imposed upon Catholics negated any effects of the new Parliamentary Act.
As famine and land agitation convulsed Ireland the Home Rule Movement grew under Isaac Butt who declared his aim was to forge a 'Siamese Union' between Ireland and Britain. The Home Rule Movement’s greatest leader was Charles Stewart Parnell who renamed the organisation the Irish Parliamentary Party which found itself in the powerful position of holding the balance of power in the British Parliament mainly due to its disciplined voting patterns. Parnell tactically aligned himself with both land agitators, which secured major reforms for tenant farmers, and with Irish revolutionaries which produced schism within their ranks. Parnell ultimately succumbed to scandal and Home Rule was not introduced.
His successor was John Redmond who pursued the issue of Home Rule in the British Parliament and which was bitterly opposed by the protestant minority in Ireland. Having succeeded in securing a Home Rule Bill in the British parliament it was postponed due to the outbreak of World War 1. Redmond urged Irishmen to enlist with the British Army claiming that their loyalty to the Crown in the world conflict would secure the introduction of Home Rule. Fifty thousand Irishmen died in the conflict and Home Rule was never introduced. In yielding to the pressures of the protestant minority the British government raised the prospect of partition to secure the minorities interests in Ireland. After the ending of WW1 a national liberation struggle ensued in Ireland only to be ultimately usurped because the revolutionary leaders brought Home Rule politics to the negotiations table. Ireland was partitioned with both new states under the firm hand of British influence. The conflict had not been resolved.
Republican separatism also has its primary roots in the 18th century and are ostensibly associated with Theobald Wolfe Tone, the founding father of modern Irish Republicanism. Tone immediately recognised that the British Parliament maintained its interests in Ireland by dividing the Irish people along sectarian and social lines. He recognised that the only means by which peace and equality could be established in Ireland was through complete sovereign independence and he stated the best way to achieve this independence was to ‘.. unite protestant, catholic and dissenter..’. He staged a rebellion in 1798 which ended in failure and his capture. At his trial he demanded a soldiers death by firing squad, which was denied. He took his own life in his prison cell.
Tone’s principle idea was that British occupation was the root cause of division and conflict in Ireland and he sought to resolve the symptoms of this occupation by engaging with them on the basis that their ultimate cure lay in sovereign independence. This belief that the cure for the symptom was the cure for their cause inspired other republicans who took up Tone’s challenge. Prominent amongst these was James Fintan Lalor who argued that the conflict between protestant landlord and catholic tenant in agriculture was a microcosm of the conflict between Ireland and Britain. The recognition that these divisions had a direct correlation with the national liberation struggle became a focal point of republican development. In the mid 19th century the Fenian Movement addressed one of the more problematic divisions in Irish society namely the relationship between Church and State. For although the Catholic Church and faith had been persecuted under British rule the Catholic Church invariably viewed the political status quo through the eyes of the establishment. This was done to curry favour with the establishment for the benefit of the church, not the people, whose devotion and faith were taken for granted. This manifested itself in orders of excommunication against Irish revolutionaries who sought sovereign freedom through armed struggle.
Republican separatists also sought to define our right to sovereign freedom in terms of our national and distinct culture. The Young Irelanders in particular sought to develop a cultural nationalism to bolster the case for sovereign independence. Prior to the establishment of the Fenian Movement, Young Irelanders like Thomas Davis espoused our gaelic heritage and sought its revival after a systematic British campaign to eradicate it. The pinnacle of these efforts was the establishment of the Gaelic League, charged with promoting the Irish language and Gaelic customs, and the Gaelic Athletic Association formed for the purpose of organising and pursuing gaelic sports. This cultural direction gave republican separatism a deeper sense of nationhood which went beyond political institutions and into the heart of nationhood itself, the people and their identity.
The Proclamation issued at the commencement of the Easter Rebellion in 1916 synthesized all the facets of republican separatism which were garnered over the previous century. The result of this Proclamation enabled Irish revolutionaries to come together under a clear and concise banner which led to a resounding victory in the 1918 General Election for the Sinn Fein Party, the establishment of Dail Eireann (an Independent Irish Parliament), and our Declaration Of Independence all within a four year period. When the Dail was declared illegal a guerrilla war of liberation ensued in defence of our national sovereignty. This war brought the British to the negotiations table but the Dail made the fundamental error of attending that table on British terms. Rather than defending our Declaration of Independence they sought accommodation within the British Empire. The Dail usurped its own right to exist, the island was partitioned and civil war ensued. With the military and political aid of the British government those who ratified the Anglo-Irish treaty prevailed in that war. Both partition and the British government remain in Ireland.
Having sketched an overview of both Home Rule politics and republican separatism it is easy to concur with the adage that the tree is known by its fruit. Although many prominent Home Rulers attested that they were ultimately seeking sovereign freedom their actions speak otherwise of them. When the conflict once again reignited in earnest in 1969 once again the task of defining the nature of the problem became a prerequisite to seeking its ultimate resolution. The British government at first tried to portray the conflict as a regional matter to be dealt with by the political administration in the six county area. The fact that the very existence of this statelet lay at the heart of the conflict was brushed aside by London eager to avoid the tag of colonial ruler looking after vested interests. The Irish Republican Army, almost decimated by inactivity and ideological confusion, was found wanting as regards the defence of the people and it took a split in its ranks before it mustered its forces. Constitutional nationalism’s main concern was with the issue of civil rights albeit within the existing constitutional status quo. The administration in Dublin, who since 1922 abandoned the people of the six counties, made semi loud protestations but for the most part stood idly by.
When the British government sent in its troops it was under the false pretence of defending the nationalist population from sectarian attack but it soon became apparent that its real reasoning was to defend its own interests in Ireland. These interests were many, ranging from natural resources, imperial might and strategic considerations given the Cold War scenario. As had happened previously the British toyed with the idea of puppet parliaments and direct rule and attempted to sway republican resistance toward this thinking. When the British government invited the IRA for peace talks in the mid seventies their Home Rule overtures were abruptly dismissed in place of republican demands for sovereign freedom. The talks collapsed and the war resumed. The British had decided to strategically portray itself as an independent broker whose presence was the sole aim of keeping two warring factions apart. The conflict was once again being redefined by the British government in an attempt to fashion terms for a resolution which would suit the British needs.
Constitutional nationalism and the Dublin government accepted this definition and with the assistance of the British government sought to isolate republican separatism from the political framework that they were trying to establish. In 1973 the Sunningdale Agreement was entered into which established a Regional Administration, a Power Sharing Executive and an All Ireland Council which mainly played a token symbolic role. The British Government remained as the ultimate authority. The Agreement was both rejected by republicans as a denial of freedom and by unionist grassroots who abhorred the idea of power sharing with Catholics. All attempts by the British government to fashion resolutions which did not address the true nature of the conflict failed.
In response to republican resistance to British rule the British government adopted a threefold policy of ‘Normalisation, Criminalisation and Ulsterisation’ which attempted to portray the conflict as an internal British matter. This was necessary due to the increasing attention the conflict was receiving in international quarters. The criminalisation policy was most rigorously pursued. IRA prisoners were treated as common criminals and subjected to inhumane treatment both in police custody and prison detention. To counter this policy the IRA engaged in a series of hunger strikes protesting against their treatment and demanding the status of Prisoner Of War. This led to the deaths of ten hungerstrikers in 1981 and proved a watershed in the republican struggle. The hungerstrike proved conclusively that the nature of the conflict was truly defined by those who fought in it. For Irish republicans this meant sovereign independence.
The British governments reaction to this new political dispensation was to initiate secret, covert contacts between its intelligence services and certain republican leaders. These contacts continued for some time and were mirrored by similar contacts with the southern government. Subtle overtures were made by both governments that in the event of a ceasefire in hostilities policy shifts could be taken that could lead toward a natural drift to British withdrawal and Irish unity. However this required subtle changes in the basic position of Irish republicanism to allow these policies to develop. This was the classic British snare. As the contacts seeped out into the public light the British government seized the initiative by publicly stating that it had ‘no selfish, strategic or economic reasons to remain in Ireland’. This in effect outmanoeuvred the republican contacts by removing the British presence as the core cause of the conflict and in turn invoking sectarian differences within the partitioned area as the de facto cause. The British government began a process of firstly stating that the IRA’s war was misdirected to a point where the IRA’s war was illegitimate and criminal. Thus began the process once again of fabricating a British resolution to a British defined problem. This ultimately led to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement which mirrored the Sunningdale Agreement so closely that one political representative was forced to comment that the current peace process is ‘Sunningdale For Slow Learners’.
In the mid seventies republican representatives met the British government and discussed the issue of their withdrawal. A quarter of a century later some of those same republican representatives met the British government and discussed how to implement British rule in Ireland. This is the legacy of Provisional Sinn Fein. It is all the more injurious to Irish republicanism because Provisional Sinn Fein had the benefit of hindsight yet it chose to repeat the error made by our republican forebears in 1922 in that they denied the sovereignty of the Irish people at negotiations with the British. The Good Friday Agreement recognises two sovereignties on the island when only one should exist. And like Home Rulers before them they loudly attest that their actions are stepping stones to Irish freedom, but their actions speak their truth for them.
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement is steadfast in our belief that the sovereignty of the Irish people is inalienable and indefeasible. This is the principled bedrock upon which policies and strategies are formulated to defend and promote that sovereignty. Sovereignty cannot be defended or attained by denying sovereignty. The 32CSM took this position and argued it in International Law and challenged the validity to British claims of sovereignty over part of our national territory. We have sought engagement with the British government and Provisional Sinn Fein on the issue of sovereignty which they have to date refused to do.
August 2007
Defining The Conflict
&
Defining Its Resolution
Conflicts are primarily defined by those who take part in the conflict. Acceptable terms for a resolution to any given conflict must conform and be acceptable to the basic nature of the conflict as defined by those who take part in it. Because post colonial conflicts invariably involve powerful states attempting to rewrite their colonial history, and re-establish their powerbase within the world through different means, major political and propagandist battles need to be fought over how the nature of the conflict is to be defined. Deliberately redefining the nature of the conflict is a powerful weapon deployed by the colonial or occupying power to ensure that the terms for its resolution are equally drastically altered. The occupying power does not wish to end the occupation, they wish to redefine it, so as to sanitise it in a modern political context. In order to attain this redefinition the occupying power needs elements within those who resist them to agree to the new definition and the lure of populist power is the device they use to secure that agreement. It is the classic divide and conquer tactic.
Throughout the duration of the Anglo-Irish conflict this tactic has proved most effective. From the early days of setting Chieftain against Chieftain or in the modern era of setting constitutional nationalist against republican separatist or protestant against catholic British governments have contrived parliaments, treaties, assemblies and constitutions in their continuing efforts to maintain their interests in Ireland. The strongest political and military weapon the British possess to enable these contrivances is a divided Irish resistance, fighting over how the nature of the conflict should be defined. In broad terms this division has manifested itself into two distinct political outlooks; Home Rule, as espoused by constitutional nationalists and Sovereign Independence, as espoused by republican separatists.
The basic political ethos of Home Rule politics is the belief that Ireland should be self governing within an overall British political framework. It concedes that the British Parliament has intrinsic rights in the constitutional and political development of Ireland and as such facilitates a British dimension to influence that development. This arrangement is devoid of any democratic accountability on behalf of the British parliament to the Irish people.
The out workings of Home Rule politics in Ireland can be traced from the 18th Century with the establishment of what was known as Grattan’s Parliament, a sectarian body which catered for the legislative needs of the protestant minority in Ireland. After the Act Of Union in 1800 this Parliament was merged with the British Parliament so that in effect Ireland as a separate political entity no longer existed. Although the Act Of Union did promise Catholic Emancipation this was shelved on the instruction of the British Monarch. The principle constitutional opponent of the Act Of Union was Daniel O’Connell who led a massive public campaign opposing the Act seeking its immediate repeal. But as his interaction with the British establishment grew he moved away from a position of seeking its abolition and instead sought reform (redefinition) and although Catholic Emancipation was conceded in 1829 the financial tariffs imposed upon Catholics negated any effects of the new Parliamentary Act.
As famine and land agitation convulsed Ireland the Home Rule Movement grew under Isaac Butt who declared his aim was to forge a 'Siamese Union' between Ireland and Britain. The Home Rule Movement’s greatest leader was Charles Stewart Parnell who renamed the organisation the Irish Parliamentary Party which found itself in the powerful position of holding the balance of power in the British Parliament mainly due to its disciplined voting patterns. Parnell tactically aligned himself with both land agitators, which secured major reforms for tenant farmers, and with Irish revolutionaries which produced schism within their ranks. Parnell ultimately succumbed to scandal and Home Rule was not introduced.
His successor was John Redmond who pursued the issue of Home Rule in the British Parliament and which was bitterly opposed by the protestant minority in Ireland. Having succeeded in securing a Home Rule Bill in the British parliament it was postponed due to the outbreak of World War 1. Redmond urged Irishmen to enlist with the British Army claiming that their loyalty to the Crown in the world conflict would secure the introduction of Home Rule. Fifty thousand Irishmen died in the conflict and Home Rule was never introduced. In yielding to the pressures of the protestant minority the British government raised the prospect of partition to secure the minorities interests in Ireland. After the ending of WW1 a national liberation struggle ensued in Ireland only to be ultimately usurped because the revolutionary leaders brought Home Rule politics to the negotiations table. Ireland was partitioned with both new states under the firm hand of British influence. The conflict had not been resolved.
Republican separatism also has its primary roots in the 18th century and are ostensibly associated with Theobald Wolfe Tone, the founding father of modern Irish Republicanism. Tone immediately recognised that the British Parliament maintained its interests in Ireland by dividing the Irish people along sectarian and social lines. He recognised that the only means by which peace and equality could be established in Ireland was through complete sovereign independence and he stated the best way to achieve this independence was to ‘.. unite protestant, catholic and dissenter..’. He staged a rebellion in 1798 which ended in failure and his capture. At his trial he demanded a soldiers death by firing squad, which was denied. He took his own life in his prison cell.
Tone’s principle idea was that British occupation was the root cause of division and conflict in Ireland and he sought to resolve the symptoms of this occupation by engaging with them on the basis that their ultimate cure lay in sovereign independence. This belief that the cure for the symptom was the cure for their cause inspired other republicans who took up Tone’s challenge. Prominent amongst these was James Fintan Lalor who argued that the conflict between protestant landlord and catholic tenant in agriculture was a microcosm of the conflict between Ireland and Britain. The recognition that these divisions had a direct correlation with the national liberation struggle became a focal point of republican development. In the mid 19th century the Fenian Movement addressed one of the more problematic divisions in Irish society namely the relationship between Church and State. For although the Catholic Church and faith had been persecuted under British rule the Catholic Church invariably viewed the political status quo through the eyes of the establishment. This was done to curry favour with the establishment for the benefit of the church, not the people, whose devotion and faith were taken for granted. This manifested itself in orders of excommunication against Irish revolutionaries who sought sovereign freedom through armed struggle.
Republican separatists also sought to define our right to sovereign freedom in terms of our national and distinct culture. The Young Irelanders in particular sought to develop a cultural nationalism to bolster the case for sovereign independence. Prior to the establishment of the Fenian Movement, Young Irelanders like Thomas Davis espoused our gaelic heritage and sought its revival after a systematic British campaign to eradicate it. The pinnacle of these efforts was the establishment of the Gaelic League, charged with promoting the Irish language and Gaelic customs, and the Gaelic Athletic Association formed for the purpose of organising and pursuing gaelic sports. This cultural direction gave republican separatism a deeper sense of nationhood which went beyond political institutions and into the heart of nationhood itself, the people and their identity.
The Proclamation issued at the commencement of the Easter Rebellion in 1916 synthesized all the facets of republican separatism which were garnered over the previous century. The result of this Proclamation enabled Irish revolutionaries to come together under a clear and concise banner which led to a resounding victory in the 1918 General Election for the Sinn Fein Party, the establishment of Dail Eireann (an Independent Irish Parliament), and our Declaration Of Independence all within a four year period. When the Dail was declared illegal a guerrilla war of liberation ensued in defence of our national sovereignty. This war brought the British to the negotiations table but the Dail made the fundamental error of attending that table on British terms. Rather than defending our Declaration of Independence they sought accommodation within the British Empire. The Dail usurped its own right to exist, the island was partitioned and civil war ensued. With the military and political aid of the British government those who ratified the Anglo-Irish treaty prevailed in that war. Both partition and the British government remain in Ireland.
Having sketched an overview of both Home Rule politics and republican separatism it is easy to concur with the adage that the tree is known by its fruit. Although many prominent Home Rulers attested that they were ultimately seeking sovereign freedom their actions speak otherwise of them. When the conflict once again reignited in earnest in 1969 once again the task of defining the nature of the problem became a prerequisite to seeking its ultimate resolution. The British government at first tried to portray the conflict as a regional matter to be dealt with by the political administration in the six county area. The fact that the very existence of this statelet lay at the heart of the conflict was brushed aside by London eager to avoid the tag of colonial ruler looking after vested interests. The Irish Republican Army, almost decimated by inactivity and ideological confusion, was found wanting as regards the defence of the people and it took a split in its ranks before it mustered its forces. Constitutional nationalism’s main concern was with the issue of civil rights albeit within the existing constitutional status quo. The administration in Dublin, who since 1922 abandoned the people of the six counties, made semi loud protestations but for the most part stood idly by.
When the British government sent in its troops it was under the false pretence of defending the nationalist population from sectarian attack but it soon became apparent that its real reasoning was to defend its own interests in Ireland. These interests were many, ranging from natural resources, imperial might and strategic considerations given the Cold War scenario. As had happened previously the British toyed with the idea of puppet parliaments and direct rule and attempted to sway republican resistance toward this thinking. When the British government invited the IRA for peace talks in the mid seventies their Home Rule overtures were abruptly dismissed in place of republican demands for sovereign freedom. The talks collapsed and the war resumed. The British had decided to strategically portray itself as an independent broker whose presence was the sole aim of keeping two warring factions apart. The conflict was once again being redefined by the British government in an attempt to fashion terms for a resolution which would suit the British needs.
Constitutional nationalism and the Dublin government accepted this definition and with the assistance of the British government sought to isolate republican separatism from the political framework that they were trying to establish. In 1973 the Sunningdale Agreement was entered into which established a Regional Administration, a Power Sharing Executive and an All Ireland Council which mainly played a token symbolic role. The British Government remained as the ultimate authority. The Agreement was both rejected by republicans as a denial of freedom and by unionist grassroots who abhorred the idea of power sharing with Catholics. All attempts by the British government to fashion resolutions which did not address the true nature of the conflict failed.
In response to republican resistance to British rule the British government adopted a threefold policy of ‘Normalisation, Criminalisation and Ulsterisation’ which attempted to portray the conflict as an internal British matter. This was necessary due to the increasing attention the conflict was receiving in international quarters. The criminalisation policy was most rigorously pursued. IRA prisoners were treated as common criminals and subjected to inhumane treatment both in police custody and prison detention. To counter this policy the IRA engaged in a series of hunger strikes protesting against their treatment and demanding the status of Prisoner Of War. This led to the deaths of ten hungerstrikers in 1981 and proved a watershed in the republican struggle. The hungerstrike proved conclusively that the nature of the conflict was truly defined by those who fought in it. For Irish republicans this meant sovereign independence.
The British governments reaction to this new political dispensation was to initiate secret, covert contacts between its intelligence services and certain republican leaders. These contacts continued for some time and were mirrored by similar contacts with the southern government. Subtle overtures were made by both governments that in the event of a ceasefire in hostilities policy shifts could be taken that could lead toward a natural drift to British withdrawal and Irish unity. However this required subtle changes in the basic position of Irish republicanism to allow these policies to develop. This was the classic British snare. As the contacts seeped out into the public light the British government seized the initiative by publicly stating that it had ‘no selfish, strategic or economic reasons to remain in Ireland’. This in effect outmanoeuvred the republican contacts by removing the British presence as the core cause of the conflict and in turn invoking sectarian differences within the partitioned area as the de facto cause. The British government began a process of firstly stating that the IRA’s war was misdirected to a point where the IRA’s war was illegitimate and criminal. Thus began the process once again of fabricating a British resolution to a British defined problem. This ultimately led to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement which mirrored the Sunningdale Agreement so closely that one political representative was forced to comment that the current peace process is ‘Sunningdale For Slow Learners’.
In the mid seventies republican representatives met the British government and discussed the issue of their withdrawal. A quarter of a century later some of those same republican representatives met the British government and discussed how to implement British rule in Ireland. This is the legacy of Provisional Sinn Fein. It is all the more injurious to Irish republicanism because Provisional Sinn Fein had the benefit of hindsight yet it chose to repeat the error made by our republican forebears in 1922 in that they denied the sovereignty of the Irish people at negotiations with the British. The Good Friday Agreement recognises two sovereignties on the island when only one should exist. And like Home Rulers before them they loudly attest that their actions are stepping stones to Irish freedom, but their actions speak their truth for them.
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement is steadfast in our belief that the sovereignty of the Irish people is inalienable and indefeasible. This is the principled bedrock upon which policies and strategies are formulated to defend and promote that sovereignty. Sovereignty cannot be defended or attained by denying sovereignty. The 32CSM took this position and argued it in International Law and challenged the validity to British claims of sovereignty over part of our national territory. We have sought engagement with the British government and Provisional Sinn Fein on the issue of sovereignty which they have to date refused to do.
August 2007