force and the in the early aged from a British imperialism! tion by three opt Irish ir learned s had been ise that le time that stir up the UVE, was as one of shot dead nagh around th the OffSAS were idely acceptBilly McMillthe time of alist Party that the SAS success in the ive been blown. risional IRA. • Four Square sing estate. calling at rmation. In three SAS overalls, toll of the SAS officer ental instiing and s said by the judge to have been mad since childhood.
Ah! You can find real comradeship as a servant of An earlier version of the SAS: inspection of auxiliaries, 1921 The arrival of the SAS in South ArJOHN MAGEE magh spells out yet again that the most important feature of the landscape in the Six Counties of Northern Ireland is the presence of British troops.
always the final resort of British imperialism. no matter how much it may juggle with 'power-sharing' and so on in the meantime. Furthermore, the presence of the soldiers is also the single biggest problem faced by the Catholic minority.
lusion is simple. The biggest possible contribution we can make to the struggle of the Catholic working class in the Six Counties is to build a mass movement demanding 'Troops Out Now!' to be done - there is also the defence of political prisoners like Frank Stagg, the defence of the right of free speech on Ireland in this coun try, etc. But the most important thing is to get the British Army off the back of the Catholic minority in the Six Counties.
Turn the tide Most of the time this is not an easy job. The big press campaigns bashing the Republican movement. and the silence or even hostility of most of the Labour and trade union 'lefts', mean that British workers are generally confused and apathetic about Ireland. Sometimes, as with the Birmingham bombings, it has been possible for the press to whip British workers lems.
The use of thugs like the SAS is Bickering For socialists in Britain, the conc Of course, that is not all that has TOM demands. ciples are right. up a big anti-Irish campaign amongst The Troops Out Movement (TOM) has been working for some time to turn the tide. But it has its own probFor some time TOM was crippled by internal bickering, and even now it finds difficulty in attracting people from outside the revolutionary left. The situation is made worse by the sectarian attitude of some of the groups involved in TOM, who argue, for instance, that its two demands "Troops Out Now', and 'Selfdetermination for the Irish People' - should be the exclusive basis for any activity on Ireland.
The TOM demands are both excellent. They should be fought for every where support can be won for them. But the sectarians are wrong. They are wrong because although many people can be mobilised in opposition to the British presence in Ireland, not all - - perhaps not even most - will agree with the Obviously it is necessary to debate with these people, to convince them of the role of the troops and the need to pull them out right now. But you can only have that debate if the actions are already underway. It is no use and no help at all to make your principles a barrier to convincing others that those prinFor the International Marxist Group, the main thing is to build a movement demanding "Troops Out Now' of sufficient size to force the Labour Government to backtrack on Ireland or else face a massive revolt here. This means building the TOM and fighting for its demands. But it also means building actions like this week's Bloody Sunday demonstration.
From the simple basis of opposition to the British presence in Ireland, more and more workers can be won to the demands for Troops Out Now' and 'Self-determination' Building the TOM and building one-off actions therefore go hand in hand. The point is to develop the understanding of the working class, not to scold like an ill-tempered теленет Understanding After the Bloody Sunday demonstration there will be new initiatives from the TOM, and no doubt from other bodies. These will provide new opportunities for debate.
Getting the troops out is ex tremely important for the Irish revolution - and for the British revolu tion as well. But it will need a good understanding of where we are -the weaknesses in the British working class and the weaknesses in TOM - and where we are going, the principles we are fighting over Above all, the difficult tack of building a mass troops out movement needs a real understanding of how we're going to get there.
Red Weekly 29 January 1976