Ireland: It's a War, Not a Question of Human Rights

REVOLUTIONARY CUMMUNIST TENDENCY

IRELAND: IT'S A WAR, NOT A QUESTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

FOR REPUBLICAN PRISONERS

¡Sunday 9 July 1978 2.30pm Speaker's Corner, Hyde Park The British lefü - not to mention the Church of England - has been struck with a sudden concern over Ireland. Amnesty International's long-awaited report on police interrogation techniques in the Six Counties shoul: have surprised no-one. It merely related a few of the brutal methods that the British state must employ in fighting the Irish war. The left however was quite overcome. Socialist Challonge called it 'a truly damning document' (15 June 1978); Socialist Worker wrote of shattering new evidence of torture! (17 June 1978); even the pro-imporialist Conmunist Party of Great Britain was moved to take up the issuc; the Morning Star demanded 'a public and impartial inquiry with the full powers required to expose the whole truth of torture in Northern Ireland' (14 June 1978).

In a similar spirit many left organisations are now backing the 9 July demonstration in support of political status. The fact that the DEMONSTRATION IN SUPPORT OF POLITICAL STATUS war is one which is unfortunately absent from unpublinan prisonent made punity for the naton.

The left is anxious to make it known that innocent people may have been imprisoned as a consequence of forced confessions, and that the government appears to havo forgotten the traditions of British justice and fair play. But what effect will these 'facts' have? Can they raally lead to the building of an effective movement in solidarity with the national liberation struggle in Ireland?

In the crisis the bourgeoisio has proven very capable of drawing all classes in British society behind it, leaving the working class disarmed against attacks on its living standards. Labour movement support for wage restraint, nationolisation, planning agreements and import controls all express this identification with its 'own' nation state.

However radical cortain British solutions to the crisis may sound, they do not advance an independent class position which can defend the working class. So too with the question of Ireland. The Six Counties is accepted as an integral part of the United Kingdom. The British state therefore appears to have a legitimate right to impose 'law and order' there, even if the methods employed are occasionally considered a little excessive, This is all that the rocent extended coverage of torture in the left press represents - a concentration on the more brutal aspects of British rule and an inability of the bourgecisie to keop the lid on the ware

The bourgeois characterisation of the war as the activity ¡criminals' is not opposed in the labour movement. Instead its organised voice calls on the British state to introduce democracy and a Bill of Rights as the way of bringing about peace. This notion that the British state can implement a 'domocratic' solution to the Irish war - must be destroyed if revolutionarios are to begin to build an anti-imperialist movement in Britain. The British stato's solution to the Irish war demands an all-out attack on the national liberation movement: the withorawl of political status in 1976 and the 'criminalisation' of Irish prisoners of war are aspects of this campaign. Why must the working class in Britain support the Irish people's struggle and demand political status for republicans: Is it simply because the techniques of repression used against Irish workers today will be used against British workers tomorrow’ Such an argument is totally insufficient. The ceal danger is that the absence of opposition to the oppressive rolo of the British state in Iroland consolidates the political weakness of the British working class. By leaving the 'national interests of the British working class.

interest' unchallenged, it leaves the labour movement defenceless against bourgeois attacks today• Support for the demand for political status cannot mean support for abstract justice; it cannot mean a display of humanitarian sentiment.

Gestures such as one-off demonstrations do not represent real working class solidarity with the struggle for national liberation in Ireland.

The prisoners 'on the blanket' in Irish jails are the enemies of British imperialism. In order to build genuine support for the political status campaign, revolutionaries must bring home to the labour movement that the war in Ireland against British imperialism advances the independent independent class intarests of British workors is Support for the campaign therefore means open confrontation between the ruling and working classes in Britain. Such a blow to class collaboration and the dominance of ruling class ideas is in the interests of the working class in both Ireland and Britain. The recognition of the indepencent class interests of British workers is a precondition both for the social emancipation of the working class in Britain and for building a movement which can give genuine solidarity to the Irish struggle. This is the revolutionary significance of the demand for political status for republican prisoners - a demand which follows directly from that of self-detormination for the Irish poople• The British bourgeoisie does not deny Amnesty's charges of prutality: it justifies of violencer them as a necessary part of the campaign against the men - the IRA. Ihe Daily Telegraph was not worried by the findings: 'Amnesty fails altogether to come to grips with the truth that interrogation is in its nature a harsh and unpleasant exercise and that the borderline between legitimate pressure and bullying is not casily drawn. It also fails to recognise that

the State, while not condoning brutality, must have regard to as well as to the rights of suspected terrorists' public safety (15 June 1978). Interrogation may be a nasty business: but when 'public safety' - that euphamism for the survival of British imperialism and its state - is threatened, what other methods can be employed?

Without the political arguments to oppose Britain's occupation and administration of the Six Counties, the labour movement remains powerless to oppose the consequences of this - a necessarily brutal and repressive war against the nationalist population. When the British left refuses to confront reformism over the question of Ireland it does, no ‘more than express ‘sympathy f for ‘the. ‘Trish. “Unless” ‘work is directed towards laying the basis for an anti-imperialist movement in Britain, all the fine words about 'solidarity' become empty. Inability to recognise the importance of the political domination of Ireland by the British state is ingrained on the left. Following the recent murder of Brian Maguire in a Castlereagh cell, Sociclist Worker reported the death as if it had happened in Birmingham: its headline was 'Belfast police kill trade unionist!. Tho left fails to appreciate that the fight for an anti-imperialist position on Ireland is central to combatting the chauvinism of the British labour movement and creating a vanguard trained in the spirit of internationalism.

The radical moralism of those organisations who do formally recognise the demand for self-determination is little better. By themselves, exposures of interrogation techniques, forced confessions and facts about the prison conditions of republicans do nothing to break the labour movemont from allegiance to its own' state• Such facts can only be interpreted from a class point of view - from the side of those struggling for self-determination or from the side of British imperialism.

Good intentions are not sufficiont to build solidarity. Effective solidarity must entail breaking sections of the working class politicolly from reformism in order to lay the brsis for an anti-imperialist movement.

This is the task to which revolutionary communists must turn. It involves explaining the nature of events in Ireland as a war between the Irish SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE IRISH PEOPLE people and British imperialism. It means showing that men and women are held in Long Kesh and Armagh prisons because they are the enemies of the British state - not because of an infraction of human rights which can be rectified by a public enquiry or an international tribunal. It means demonstrating that the British state must continue to operate in a ruthless and brutal way if the interests of capital are to be safeguarded.

In this way the British working class will begin to understand the nature of ruling class domination and recognise its common interests with the struggle of the Irish people• We therefore urge support for the demonstration called by the Prisoners' Aid Committee and its demand for political status for republican prisoners on Sunday 9 July 1978 at 2.30pm, Speaker's CornCI.

Corner, SELF=DETERMINATIGN FOR THE TRISH PEOPLE TROOPS OUT NOW

POLITICAL STATUS FOR IRISH PRISONERS OF WAR

FREE ALL ANTI-IMPERIALIST IRISH PRISONERS

Revolutionary. Communist Papers No 2, published by the Revolutionary Communist Tendency, contains a Marxist analysis of the Irish crisis today and a polemic against the Internctional Tribunal on Britain's presence in Ireland, which it exposes as an opportunistic manoeuvre supported by many organisations on the radical left.

Revolutionary Communist. Papers No 3 examines the unfolding of the crisis in Britain during the past decade. It analyses reformism and explains why the working class has accepted the Social Contract.

This assessment of recent struggles of the working class contains important lessons for the movement.

Each Journal costs 50p plus 15p postage. Cheques and postal orders payable to RCT Association.

We will be holding a dayschool on 5 August 1978 to discuss the ideas contained in these two Journals.

In addition we are planning a series of forums in the autumn and winter to develop furthor the analysis in Revolutionary, Communist Papers No 2 and draw out the revolutionary significanco of Ireland for the British working class. If you wish to purchase any of our propaganda or attend these mectings, write to us at BM RCT, London WC1V 6XX. BM RCT, London WC1V SXX• påp Revolutionary Communist Tendency, 8M RCT, London WC1V 6XX.