1971 when internment was duced, in 1972 when Britain killed 14. unarmed demonstrators on the streets of Derry.
By that time it struck most people in the North of Ireland, or at least most Catholics, that to ask for civil rights from a government which was doing all that was no longer relevant.
Catholics lost it. Sculla was over, This is why movement to get the Brits out has spread as it has in the North of Ireland over the last four or five years.
The difference between the two positions being debated is simple. One says that when 'sectarian strife' ends British troops can be withdrawn. say that only when question is solved, only when Britain gets out, will "sectarian strife' end.
What divides the people of Ireland and what divides its working class is Britain's presence. To round and say, well at presence stops the Irish fighting about it, is like saying that at least in South Africa apartheid keeps the blacks and whites apart.
I do not claim that the immediate withdrawal of British troops and the breaking up the which that inevitably lead to would immediately solve everything. But it is true that the longer Britain has stayed — during the last ten years — the worse the 'sectarian strife' has become. The longer Britain has stayed the feelings have risen about its right to stay.
Accordingly, if the removal of troops would not immediately solve everything, that removal fundamental precondition for what we all want to see — the unity of the Irish working class.
All pictures were taken from Camerawork: Reporting Northern publication from Half Moon Photography workshop. Available 119-121 Road, London E2, work costs 60p, plus 15p p& p Changing Hritish labour movement. trade the particular, on in the North of Ireland.
the the national cies murder, then turn least that concerned, clear: that is, partition can lead to the achievement would objective. And to keep Ireland divided in 1921.
especially London or history and independent relatively easy.
also particularly nurtured and kept on system, this mass of Unionism Roman complex.
Camerathat Britain mast withdraw, shame which see on the shoulders of the people union totemen find the particular, is its persistent ignoring of the problems the Irish people face. In them.
its persistent ignoring of the repression which has been going For 50 years our labour movement has tolerated Unionist repression in North of Ireland, and particularly in the last ten years it has for tolerated a crisis which has meant accepting officially sanctioned politorture, harassment, and systematic brutality used against whole sections of the communities in the North of Ireland.
As far as the Communist Party is our aim is absolutely achieve the independence and unity of Ireland. But it's one thing to state an objective; what you also have to do is to work out ways and propose activities which of that of • big problems that we have to overcome is quite clearly the forces that were able If the barriers which had lain in the way of full Irish independence in 1921 were to be found in the City of the Westminster then I think our job — to compléte the unfinished business of achieve 32 county would be The difficulty is that those barriers itself, in Northern They lie in the system of Unionist discrimination, in the repression that that successive British governments have alive. directed political influence which has made the keep struggle for Irish independence over Above the last 60 years so difficult and Simply declaring "troops out in this particular context, simply saying that the majority of the people of Ireland have a right to rule their own country, is no answer to the practical realities and political influence of Unionism in the North of Ireland What we need to discover is a programme of political action social and economic change which, as it is implemented, can enable the OI Northern ultimately of Ireland as a whole, to capacity to oppose British rule and the effects that rule has for That means, important first step, that they also must find the desire to end British Yet at the moment the political basis on which the union has rested the last decades stronger, in many senses, than it was There is no doubt whatsoever that if one compares the political map of • Northern Ireland today with that of 15-20 years ago, reaction now has greater support in the working class.
To say that you won't overcome this situation until you have thrown out Britain is in my view to say that you won't be able to throw out Britain for a very, very long time indeed. For Britain isn't going to from the North of Ireland until it is made to go.
Of course the British government faces problems in Northern Ireland. For a long time it has wanted to replace the one party rule of the which Unionism represented with a system which more akin to that which operates in other developed capitalist states. has wanted to replace repression with what you might call political massage of the masses, but it has been unable to mould a centre force out of the sectarian monster that it has helped to create in the North of Ireland The government tolerated right-wing Unionist violence on a horrendous scale. They have done because Unionist right-wing violence and murder, whether against Protestants Catholics, helps to intimidate and divided the working all, they tolerated right-wing Unionist violence because to have opposed the forces of the UDA and UVF to any serious degree would have been to release forces for working class unity.
What about the struggles of the Provisional IRA? Is it winning its was