Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1130
July 13, 2018
Princely Visits
From the Uri Avnery Column a look at the recent visit by British royalty to Israel.
He seems a likable person. He looked like a prince should look, did all the right things, said all the right things, and even ate a watermelon with our mayor on the sandy shore of Tel Aviv.
If the British had not left Palestine 70 years ago, William would now be my prince, too. I remember having a day off from school on his great-grandfather's birthday.
The British had obtained the League of Nations "mandate" over Palestine by posing as the protectors of Zionism (with the famous "Balfour Declaration). But they did not like us very much. The picturesque Arabs, gracious hosts by nature, attracted them much more strongly.
My Own relationship with the British crown has always been a bit complicated.
When I was 14 years old, the economic situation of my family compelled me to go to work. I found employment at a lawyer's office. The boss had studied at Oxford, and all our business was conducted in English, a language I had to learn in a hurry, and that I have loved ever since. Some of our clients were members of the British administration.
A few months later, the British hanged a young Jew who had thrown a bomb at an Arab bus. I decided to fill his place and got in contact with the Irgun underground. I was instructed to present myself at a certain school building at a certain time.
When I approached the building, it seemed totally deserted, except for a young couple kissing in the doorway. I was shown my way in the dark and ushered into a room, where I was seated facing a dazzling light. I felt, rather than saw, people around me.
A voice from the darkness asked me several questions, and then it asked: "Do you hate the Arabs?"
"No'" I answered truthfully. Working in the courts I had met a number of Arab colleagues, and they seemed nice people.
For a moment, the people behind the projector were dumbfounded. Then a young woman's voice asked: "Do you hate the British?"
Foolishly, I told the truth: "No! I rather like them."
Behind the projector, there was a deep silence. Then the female voice asked: "If you don't hate the British, why do you want to join the Irgun?"
"I want them to go back to Britain and leave us alone." I answered.
Somehow, this answer seemed to satisfy them, and a few weeks later I was received into the organization.
Why Did the British leave Palestine? There are several possible answers.
Former members of the Irgun and its smaller sister, the Freedom Fighters (known to the British as "the Stern Gang") are convinced that it was their daring assassinations and bomb attacks that did the job, including their bombing of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, which served as a British HQ. Ninety-one persons of both sexes, British, Arabs and Jews, were killed there on July 22, 1946.
However, the official Zionist leadership believed that it was their clever application of political pressure that did the job.
I believe that it was the general change in the global situation. After WWII the British Empire was weak. It could not keep its hold on India, the jewel of the crown, and without India the Suez Canal became less significant. British Palestine was a fortress for the defense of the Canal, and lost its importance without it. With all the violence in the country, the British thought that it was just not worth the candle.
When the bus of my comrades and I in the pre-state army was on its way to our first battles, we sometimes passed buses of British soldiers on their way to Haifa harbor. The usual obscene jokes were exchanged. And that was that.
While The British prince was touring the country and uttering the fitting phrases about a "just peace", another prince from overseas was doing the same. Jared Kushner, the Jewish son-in-law of President Trump, was also touring the country. He was accompanied by Jason Greenblatt, another Jewish emissary from Trump. This holy pair, who make no secret of their utter contempt for the Palestinians, is supposed to make peace.
How will they succeed where dozens of other initiatives have failed? Why should they have more chance than the dozens who preceded them?
Well, they have a Big Plan. A Plan so Big that cannot be refused. A Secret Plan.
Secret from whom? From the Palestinians, of course. Binyamin Netanyahu was a partner in shaping it. If not actually its author.
Years ago, we had a celebrated theater critic. Once, at the premiere of a new play, he got up after ten minutes and made for the exit.
"How can you write a review if you have not seen the whole play?" demanded an actor.
"I don't have to eat the whole apple to know that it is rotten," the critic answered.
The same is true of a Big Plan. The details that have already leaked quite suffice.
It is not a plan to be accepted by the two sides. It is a plan to be imposed on one side. The Palestinian side.
When The British left in 1948, there was already a UN plan in place.
Palestine was to be divided into a Jewish and a Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as a neutral unit, all these parts united in a kind of economic federation.
The Palestinians rejected the plan. They considered the whole country their homeland, and hoped to regain it with the help of the Arab armies.
The Jewish side accepted the plan without hesitation. Like everyone who was alive in the country at the time, I remember the wild jubilation in the streets. But David Ben-Gurion did not dream for a moment of remaining satisfied with it. He knew that a war would break out, and hoped that our side would enlarge its territory decisively. As indeed happened.
The day after the 1948 war ended, the Partition Plan was dead. A new reality had come into being. The war had partitioned Palestine into three units: Israel proper, the West Bank - which was now a part of the Kingdom of Jordan - and the Gaza Strip, which was governed by Egypt.
Today, several wars later (who is counting?), Israel dominates in different ways all of historical Palestine. And peace seems far, far away.
In Theory, what are the alternatives?
Right after the 1948 war, in early 1949, a tiny group of young people in the country, including a Muslim Arab, a Druze Arab and myself (curiously enough, all three of us later became members of the Knesset) devised a plan for the solution: the so-called Two-State Solution. One country, two states – Israel and Palestine, Jerusalem as a joint capital, open borders between all parts, a joint economy.
We found no takers. Everybody was against it: the government of Israel, the Arab states, the USA, the Soviet Union (until 1969), Europe, the Muslim world.
That was 70 years ago. And see the miracle: today that is almost a world consensus. Everybody is for the "two-state solution". Even Netanyahu sometimes pretends to be.
There is no third alternative. It's either two-states or a colonial Jewish state in all the country.
Yared Kushner may well be a genius, just like his father-in-law. But even his brilliant Jewish brain will not find another solution. And all the power of the United States will not suffice to keep the Palestinian people down forever. The Big Plan is just another prescription for eternal war.
I wish that Europe, including the post-brexit Britain, were willing and able to prevent this catastrophe. If I had met the prince on the sandy seashore, I would have told him just that.
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist.
He writes @ Gush Shalom
He seems a likable person. He looked like a prince should look, did all the right things, said all the right things, and even ate a watermelon with our mayor on the sandy shore of Tel Aviv.
If the British had not left Palestine 70 years ago, William would now be my prince, too. I remember having a day off from school on his great-grandfather's birthday.
The British had obtained the League of Nations "mandate" over Palestine by posing as the protectors of Zionism (with the famous "Balfour Declaration). But they did not like us very much. The picturesque Arabs, gracious hosts by nature, attracted them much more strongly.
My Own relationship with the British crown has always been a bit complicated.
When I was 14 years old, the economic situation of my family compelled me to go to work. I found employment at a lawyer's office. The boss had studied at Oxford, and all our business was conducted in English, a language I had to learn in a hurry, and that I have loved ever since. Some of our clients were members of the British administration.
A few months later, the British hanged a young Jew who had thrown a bomb at an Arab bus. I decided to fill his place and got in contact with the Irgun underground. I was instructed to present myself at a certain school building at a certain time.
When I approached the building, it seemed totally deserted, except for a young couple kissing in the doorway. I was shown my way in the dark and ushered into a room, where I was seated facing a dazzling light. I felt, rather than saw, people around me.
A voice from the darkness asked me several questions, and then it asked: "Do you hate the Arabs?"
"No'" I answered truthfully. Working in the courts I had met a number of Arab colleagues, and they seemed nice people.
For a moment, the people behind the projector were dumbfounded. Then a young woman's voice asked: "Do you hate the British?"
Foolishly, I told the truth: "No! I rather like them."
Behind the projector, there was a deep silence. Then the female voice asked: "If you don't hate the British, why do you want to join the Irgun?"
"I want them to go back to Britain and leave us alone." I answered.
Somehow, this answer seemed to satisfy them, and a few weeks later I was received into the organization.
Why Did the British leave Palestine? There are several possible answers.
Former members of the Irgun and its smaller sister, the Freedom Fighters (known to the British as "the Stern Gang") are convinced that it was their daring assassinations and bomb attacks that did the job, including their bombing of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, which served as a British HQ. Ninety-one persons of both sexes, British, Arabs and Jews, were killed there on July 22, 1946.
However, the official Zionist leadership believed that it was their clever application of political pressure that did the job.
I believe that it was the general change in the global situation. After WWII the British Empire was weak. It could not keep its hold on India, the jewel of the crown, and without India the Suez Canal became less significant. British Palestine was a fortress for the defense of the Canal, and lost its importance without it. With all the violence in the country, the British thought that it was just not worth the candle.
When the bus of my comrades and I in the pre-state army was on its way to our first battles, we sometimes passed buses of British soldiers on their way to Haifa harbor. The usual obscene jokes were exchanged. And that was that.
While The British prince was touring the country and uttering the fitting phrases about a "just peace", another prince from overseas was doing the same. Jared Kushner, the Jewish son-in-law of President Trump, was also touring the country. He was accompanied by Jason Greenblatt, another Jewish emissary from Trump. This holy pair, who make no secret of their utter contempt for the Palestinians, is supposed to make peace.
How will they succeed where dozens of other initiatives have failed? Why should they have more chance than the dozens who preceded them?
Well, they have a Big Plan. A Plan so Big that cannot be refused. A Secret Plan.
Secret from whom? From the Palestinians, of course. Binyamin Netanyahu was a partner in shaping it. If not actually its author.
Years ago, we had a celebrated theater critic. Once, at the premiere of a new play, he got up after ten minutes and made for the exit.
"How can you write a review if you have not seen the whole play?" demanded an actor.
"I don't have to eat the whole apple to know that it is rotten," the critic answered.
The same is true of a Big Plan. The details that have already leaked quite suffice.
It is not a plan to be accepted by the two sides. It is a plan to be imposed on one side. The Palestinian side.
When The British left in 1948, there was already a UN plan in place.
Palestine was to be divided into a Jewish and a Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as a neutral unit, all these parts united in a kind of economic federation.
The Palestinians rejected the plan. They considered the whole country their homeland, and hoped to regain it with the help of the Arab armies.
The Jewish side accepted the plan without hesitation. Like everyone who was alive in the country at the time, I remember the wild jubilation in the streets. But David Ben-Gurion did not dream for a moment of remaining satisfied with it. He knew that a war would break out, and hoped that our side would enlarge its territory decisively. As indeed happened.
The day after the 1948 war ended, the Partition Plan was dead. A new reality had come into being. The war had partitioned Palestine into three units: Israel proper, the West Bank - which was now a part of the Kingdom of Jordan - and the Gaza Strip, which was governed by Egypt.
Today, several wars later (who is counting?), Israel dominates in different ways all of historical Palestine. And peace seems far, far away.
In Theory, what are the alternatives?
Right after the 1948 war, in early 1949, a tiny group of young people in the country, including a Muslim Arab, a Druze Arab and myself (curiously enough, all three of us later became members of the Knesset) devised a plan for the solution: the so-called Two-State Solution. One country, two states – Israel and Palestine, Jerusalem as a joint capital, open borders between all parts, a joint economy.
We found no takers. Everybody was against it: the government of Israel, the Arab states, the USA, the Soviet Union (until 1969), Europe, the Muslim world.
That was 70 years ago. And see the miracle: today that is almost a world consensus. Everybody is for the "two-state solution". Even Netanyahu sometimes pretends to be.
There is no third alternative. It's either two-states or a colonial Jewish state in all the country.
Yared Kushner may well be a genius, just like his father-in-law. But even his brilliant Jewish brain will not find another solution. And all the power of the United States will not suffice to keep the Palestinian people down forever. The Big Plan is just another prescription for eternal war.
I wish that Europe, including the post-brexit Britain, were willing and able to prevent this catastrophe. If I had met the prince on the sandy seashore, I would have told him just that.
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist.
He writes @ Gush Shalom
Premature Smilies
Via The Transcripts Martin Galvin speaks to former IRA Volunteer and former Sinn Féin activist now author and political commentator, Matt Treacy, via telephone from Belfast, who provides comment on Sinn Féin as it’s 2018 Ard Fheis is underway.
Matt Treacy RFÉ 16 June 2018
Radio Free Éireann
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
New York City (begins time stamp ~ 31:27) .
Martin: Alright. With us on the line we have Matt Treacy. Matt, I’m just sorry – you know, we were doing one of my favourite songs, The Foggy Dew, and we just got you too soon – I would have liked to have listen to that a little bit more but I can listen to that on the way home. Welcome back to Radio Free Éireann.
Matt: Thank you.
Martin: Alright, Now, Matt, you are, were a member, you’re the author of the book, A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army . You, that book, describes you as somebody who was a member of the IRA for thirty years, you spent four years in Portlaoise; you were released after the 1994 ceasefire. And you were somebody who also worked with Mary Lou McDonald, Michelle O’Neill, you worked with Martin Ferris – you were assistant to him, you wrote hundreds of speeches, many speeches, for members of Sinn Féin – and in fact you were one of the people who worked on Mary Lou McDonald’s first successful election campaign. So we wanted to go to you as somebody with a long history of Republicanism, personally, as well as a family history that goes back generations in Republicanism. Your book, by the way, has a picture of Martin McGuinness shaking hands with Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth, as Peter Robinson looks on, A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army, so we wanted to get your perspective as you saw this week Gerry Kelly, Martin Ferris, Michelle O’Neill, Mary Lou McDonald all lining up at various times to shake hands with Charles Windsor. How did that make you feel? What’s your reaction to it? And do you think this brings us closer to the cause for which you joined Sinn Féin and joined the Irish Republican Army to advance – that of a united Ireland?
Matt: Well, on one level I suppose it’s common courtesy but on the other hand these courtesies shouldn’t be extended to members of the British royal family until the objective of the Republic has been achieved. It’s not about meeting the president of France or the president of the United States, you’re meeting, you’re greeting the figureheads of a state that still occupies part of our country so I think it’s a bit premature to be ‘taking smilies’ with them, to be honest.
Martin: Well when people see them meeting with, shaking hands, greeting, smiling at Prince Charles doesn’t that give an impression, may give an impression that they are a normal political party – but – you have, he is still I believe, the ceremonial head of the British Paratroop Regiment, if I’m not mistaken, which was responsible for Bloody Sunday, responsible for Ballymurphy. He is a representative of a government that still claims six of Ireland’s counties. He is still somebody who represents British rule – prisons are there, Her Majesty’s Prison, in the name of their British royal family – doesn’t it just give the impression, generally, that everything is fine. Everything is okay. We have now accepted British rule and we don’t have to worry about changing it, ending it – and you’re standing up, not as equals giving courtesy to somebody who’s leaving your country, you’re there shaking hands, normalising, not just yourself as a political party, but normalising British rule in The North?
Matt Treacy Photo: An Phoblacht
Matt: Yeah well, I think it’s part of the whole Orwellian fantasy that they’ve constructed that, as you say, gives the impression that everything has been solved. Now they keep going on about a border poll – that’s in the gift of the Northern Ireland Secretary – it’s not going to happen any time soon and even if it did it would be defeated. So you know they’re stuck within the strictures of the Good Friday Agreement and I think the whole border poll thing it’s a kind of a charade to convince people that they’re still moving forward towards a Republic when that’s not actually the reality of the situation and then meeting the royal family convinces people – because it’s all done within the parameters of: ‘Oh! Look how happy everybody is now! We’ve achieved peace and these people are our friends.’ stuff.
Martin: Alright. Now last night at the Ard Fheis there was an important decision made. There was a change in, well there was a proposal adopted which had been amended, which you consider to be very important in terms of getting Sinn Féin into government and coalition. Could you tell us what happened and why it was important?
Matt: Well up until last night the position of Sinn Féin was that they don’t go into coalition unless they were the largest party or in alliance with parties which basically set their own policies. Now last night, they voted to give the leadership, basically, the power to enter into negotiations after the next elections with any party and it’s still going to be the minority partner in the coalition so it’s a complete change in party policy in that light but not only that the most likely coalition partner is Fine Gael. And, as you know, the history of Fine Gael and Republicans isn’t particularly, how would you say? – positive? – going back to the Civil War but even more recently, in the ’70’s with the Heavy Gang, the 1980’s with the Good Friday Agreement, extradition and so on. Fine Gael are the most anti-Republican party in the Twenty-Six Counties and for Sinn Féin – like if somebody told you ten years ago that Sinn Féin were considering going into coalition with Fine Gael and not only going into coalition with Fine Gael but going into coalition as a junior partner where they’re going to get two or three ministers and where Fine Gael are going to be making foreign policy and all the major economic decisions – you’d have been sectioned, you know? But this is where they are going. It’ll happen if the numbers stack up so it’s – but not only that they banned or stopped any outright opposition motions to coalition and this one fairly mild motion – they persuaded, in the various cummain, the Dublin cumann, which put that motion forward to amend it, to allow them to say they would have no restrictions on what they negotiate on.
Martin: Alright. Now, I should explain just to the American part of the audience – I know we have a large audience in Ireland which understands what you’re talking about: In the Twenty-Six Counties the government is like the British system. You have the majority of elected members of the Parliament, whoever controls that gets elected Taoiseach, or head of the government, and you have to maintain that majority. So what Matt is talking about is a situation where Fine Gael, as a majority, added to the seats that, whatever seats, Sinn Féin wins could maintain a majority. And that would put Sinn Féin in a position where it was defending policies that the senior partner, Fine Gael, would make – it would have to vote for them, endorse them, usually Fine Gael, the major party, would set policy, including on foreign policy, especially on foreign policy, and it would put Sinn Féin in a position of supporting those policies and defending them, being part of them and part of implementing them. Now…
Matt: …it’s quite, it’s quite an extraordinary development over the last couple of years. If you think back to what Republican’s, what the Republican critique was of say of Fianna Fáil or Clann na Phoblacht or the Workers’ Party, that they were compromising themselves and the core of the Sinn Féin party have overturned almost every single facet of what used to be ‘Republican politics’ even to the extent that they support Fine Gael on Brexit. Now there are practical reasons why they would oppose Britain leaving the EU but it’s only in the last four of five years that Sinn Féin’s accepted the fact that Irish sovereignty should be surrendered to the European Union – and it’s completely overturned that without any votes, without anybody being consulted and now they have exactly the same policy as Fine Gael on that so there are no real barriers preventing them from going into coalition.
Martin: Okay. Now you have a blog – I’ll spell it out – brocaire books dot ie (Martin spells out) and in the blog you mention, in one of the most recent entries, you mention that there is a core group, what you call a core group, in Sinn Féin and that they basically hold the real power. They are the ones who control policy and, what you say is, they tell everyone what to do and whatever they say everybody else follows and they can make whatever policies they want. Could you explain who this core group is? How they’re able to wield such influence that there could be such changes within Sinn Féin from the the party that you joined, that you supported as a member of the Irish Republican Army to the party it is now?
Matt: Well, I never actually joined Sinn Féin. I was only in the Irish Republican Army. And I was at the last meetings when the Army was disbanded. And the people who disbanded it were the then IRA Army Council. That Army Council is now the core group within Sinn Féin and every other rung there was stood down but they’ve maintain themselves as a group within the Republican Movement. They’re un-elected. The Ard Chomhairle’s elected at the Ard Fheis and then these people are appointed. Nobody ever elects them. And they sit-in on meetings and they control every aspect of Sinn Féin policy. And the cynicism of the whole thing is that these were all highly respected IRA Volunteers and they would, some of them would, when you talk to them, they would say to you, ‘Oh yeah well, this is all just a charade, you know’ – same as the Workers’, same as people like Seán Garland used to tell members of the Official IRA when people like Rabbitte and Gilmore were taking over, that: ‘Oh, this is only ‘smoke and mirrors’ that we’re still out to achieve a Republic’ – but that’s – we saw with the Workers’ Party – that’s not the way things work out. And yeah these people, basically, tell everybody else what to do.
Martin: Alright. And you have mentioned to me, one of the concerns that you have, is the effect of the economic prospects for areas like West Belfast, for Doire City, areas where Sinn Féin has a great control – that that’s one of the things that concerns you. Could you tell the audience about that?
Irish News
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Matt: Yeah well I was watching the televised section of the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis on television this morning and the Belfast Lord Mayor, who’s a Sinn Féin member, was boasting about the great progress being made. In various surveys, including the latest one in 2013, West Belfast was found to have the second highest level of child poverty of six hundred and fifty Westminster constituencies and Foyle, which includes Doire City, is/was in the bottom five or six. Now, I brought that up at meetings when I was in Leinster House and people would say: ‘Oh! That’s because of years of British policy’ – which has the same validity – but also it ignores the fact that in West Belfast Sinn Féin have run everything for the last thirty years – they’ve had the MP for thirty-five years, they’ve had the majority of councillors and they were in coalition for ten years with the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) but they did absolutely nothing – not only not to help to improve the situation of people who supported the IRA during the war years but the situation for people like that has actually ‘dis-improved’. And one of the major factors in that is that because the level of anti-social behaviour and crime and drug abuse has greatly because there’s no longer anybody there to curb those sort of activities. And at the same time, parallel with that, there’s a small group of people who have become vastly wealthy within the Republican community and various cummain. And, you know? The betrayal is on so many levels you would hardly know where to begin.
Martin: Okay. Well were one of the people who helped elect Mary Lou McDonald to her first election, brought her to her first election victory. You’ve known her for a lot of years. Could you tell us your insights into her? What do you expect from her as president of Sinn Féin?
Matt: I actually like her. I met her last year and even after I left and she’s quite pleasant – she’s a pretty intelligent, smart woman. But she’s not really from a Republican background. She only joined Sinn Féin in 2003. I was on the election directorate that got her elected to the European Parliament in 2004 – there was five of us, and none of the five of us are still in Sinn Féin – we were either thrown out or left – and it’s sad…
Martin: …Alright. What do you expect her to do in terms of Republican politics? In terms of advancing the goal of a united Ireland?
Matt: Well as I say, all of the, I’ve no personal animosity to Mary Lou but I don’t believe she’s any real emotional commitment or intellectual commitment to establishing the Republic which means that it just becomes another normal political party that will compromise on its policies and doesn’t have any core principles, really.
Martin: Okay. And one of the other people you worked with is Michelle O’Neill and Michelle O’Neill made a big speech that Mary Lou McDonald would be the first – they need a woman Taoiseach and Mary Lou McDonald should be the first woman’s Taoiseach in the Twenty-Six Counties. What do you think of Michelle O’Neill? What’s your impressions from working with her in terms of advancing the goal of a united Ireland?
Matt: Well, I didn’t really work with her but I met her at a number of meetings because she was Agriculture Minister and Martin Ferris was the spokesperson for agriculture in Leinster House and we used to have joint meetings – again, pleasant woman. She’s from a good Republican family in Tyrone. But I just get the impression that she’s going to be the figurehead for – you know, it’s part of the image that they want to project, now that’s no reflection on her, I’m not saying she’s stupid or anything like that she’s, you know, whatever with them – actually I was listening to her today as well and on one of the motions she made a statement and said, and I’m quoting: ‘It is not right that I or anybody else should seek to impose our outlook on anybody else’ which is rather ironic given the fact that a large number of Republicans in Tyrone have been either thrown out or forced to resign because of the intolerance to their opinions so for Michelle O’Neill, who is from Tyrone, to make a, you know, where she’s signaling about being tolerant and tolerating other people’s opinions is ironic to say the least.
Matt: Okay. Now, in your book, A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army, I’m going to ask you how we can get that. I know you’re doing a revised edition. But how did you choose that title?
amazon UK
amazon USA
Matt: I got it from an article that Anthony McIntyre wrote in 1997 or ’98, I think, and he compared what the leadership were saying about how the Good Friday Agreement was going to advance us towards the Republic as being a claim to building a tunnel to the moon – which is just an image that stuck with me at the time. But you understand that I’m not making myself out to be some sort of martyr – I stuck with it for a long time. Because when I came out of prison I thought that as being far from this objective ‘getting out of prison early’ that I still thought that maybe this is going somewhere but as the years went on I just realised this was just – you know – you had decommissioning, recognising the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), going into coalition with the DUP and then not achieving anything it’s just – you know gradually – it’s like a tree – the leaves just keep gradually falling off. Some people saw it happening earlier – a lot earlier than I did but and then it’s gotten to the stage now where I was just looking at the Ard Fheis today – I hardly recognised anybody there whereas ten years ago I would have known everybody.
Martin: Alright. I’m afraid we’re going to have to leave it there. It’s ironic you would have chosen a photograph for your book cover, A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army, as Martin McGuinness shaking hands with a member of the British royal family, the Queen, and now this week you could have had several different pictures of members of Sinn Féin shaking hands with her son.
Matt: I could have had a whole coffee table photo album!
Martin: There you are. Alright. On that note how do we get a copy of the book?
Matt: I think it’s still on amazon but I’m revising it and hoping to get a bigger publication spread so.
Martin: Alright. The book is: A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army , which is on amazon dot com. For Matt Treacy’s blog – but you know I have to tell you: As somebody whose family is from Offaly I don’t like a lot of it because it’s all about Dublin winning out in Leinster in All-Ireland finals but other than I really like the blog and it’s brocairebooks.ie. (Martin spells out) The author is Matt Treacy; you’ve been listening to him, his inside analysis and he is the person who helped deliver Mary Lou McDonald’s first election victory and look where she is now – all thanks to you, Matt.
Matt: (laughs) I’m sure I’ll get a pension out of it!
Martin: There you are. Alright. You’ve been listening to Matt Treacy. We’re going to have to leave it there. I’m hoping we’ll have you on, especially when you get that new, revised edition completed, we’ll have you on back and a lot of what you said was right a year ago and you’re getting more right as time goes on. Thank you very much, Matt Treacy.
Matt: Thank you, Martin. Bye.
(ends time stamp ~52:57)
The Transcripts, Of Interest to the Irish Republican Community.You can follow The Transcripts on Twitter @RFETranscripts
Matt Treacy RFÉ 16 June 2018
Radio Free Éireann
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
New York City (begins time stamp ~ 31:27) .
Martin: Alright. With us on the line we have Matt Treacy. Matt, I’m just sorry – you know, we were doing one of my favourite songs, The Foggy Dew, and we just got you too soon – I would have liked to have listen to that a little bit more but I can listen to that on the way home. Welcome back to Radio Free Éireann.
Matt: Thank you.
Martin: Alright, Now, Matt, you are, were a member, you’re the author of the book, A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army . You, that book, describes you as somebody who was a member of the IRA for thirty years, you spent four years in Portlaoise; you were released after the 1994 ceasefire. And you were somebody who also worked with Mary Lou McDonald, Michelle O’Neill, you worked with Martin Ferris – you were assistant to him, you wrote hundreds of speeches, many speeches, for members of Sinn Féin – and in fact you were one of the people who worked on Mary Lou McDonald’s first successful election campaign. So we wanted to go to you as somebody with a long history of Republicanism, personally, as well as a family history that goes back generations in Republicanism. Your book, by the way, has a picture of Martin McGuinness shaking hands with Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth, as Peter Robinson looks on, A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army, so we wanted to get your perspective as you saw this week Gerry Kelly, Martin Ferris, Michelle O’Neill, Mary Lou McDonald all lining up at various times to shake hands with Charles Windsor. How did that make you feel? What’s your reaction to it? And do you think this brings us closer to the cause for which you joined Sinn Féin and joined the Irish Republican Army to advance – that of a united Ireland?
Matt: Well, on one level I suppose it’s common courtesy but on the other hand these courtesies shouldn’t be extended to members of the British royal family until the objective of the Republic has been achieved. It’s not about meeting the president of France or the president of the United States, you’re meeting, you’re greeting the figureheads of a state that still occupies part of our country so I think it’s a bit premature to be ‘taking smilies’ with them, to be honest.
Martin: Well when people see them meeting with, shaking hands, greeting, smiling at Prince Charles doesn’t that give an impression, may give an impression that they are a normal political party – but – you have, he is still I believe, the ceremonial head of the British Paratroop Regiment, if I’m not mistaken, which was responsible for Bloody Sunday, responsible for Ballymurphy. He is a representative of a government that still claims six of Ireland’s counties. He is still somebody who represents British rule – prisons are there, Her Majesty’s Prison, in the name of their British royal family – doesn’t it just give the impression, generally, that everything is fine. Everything is okay. We have now accepted British rule and we don’t have to worry about changing it, ending it – and you’re standing up, not as equals giving courtesy to somebody who’s leaving your country, you’re there shaking hands, normalising, not just yourself as a political party, but normalising British rule in The North?
Matt Treacy Photo: An Phoblacht Matt: Yeah well, I think it’s part of the whole Orwellian fantasy that they’ve constructed that, as you say, gives the impression that everything has been solved. Now they keep going on about a border poll – that’s in the gift of the Northern Ireland Secretary – it’s not going to happen any time soon and even if it did it would be defeated. So you know they’re stuck within the strictures of the Good Friday Agreement and I think the whole border poll thing it’s a kind of a charade to convince people that they’re still moving forward towards a Republic when that’s not actually the reality of the situation and then meeting the royal family convinces people – because it’s all done within the parameters of: ‘Oh! Look how happy everybody is now! We’ve achieved peace and these people are our friends.’ stuff.
Martin: Alright. Now last night at the Ard Fheis there was an important decision made. There was a change in, well there was a proposal adopted which had been amended, which you consider to be very important in terms of getting Sinn Féin into government and coalition. Could you tell us what happened and why it was important?
Matt: Well up until last night the position of Sinn Féin was that they don’t go into coalition unless they were the largest party or in alliance with parties which basically set their own policies. Now last night, they voted to give the leadership, basically, the power to enter into negotiations after the next elections with any party and it’s still going to be the minority partner in the coalition so it’s a complete change in party policy in that light but not only that the most likely coalition partner is Fine Gael. And, as you know, the history of Fine Gael and Republicans isn’t particularly, how would you say? – positive? – going back to the Civil War but even more recently, in the ’70’s with the Heavy Gang, the 1980’s with the Good Friday Agreement, extradition and so on. Fine Gael are the most anti-Republican party in the Twenty-Six Counties and for Sinn Féin – like if somebody told you ten years ago that Sinn Féin were considering going into coalition with Fine Gael and not only going into coalition with Fine Gael but going into coalition as a junior partner where they’re going to get two or three ministers and where Fine Gael are going to be making foreign policy and all the major economic decisions – you’d have been sectioned, you know? But this is where they are going. It’ll happen if the numbers stack up so it’s – but not only that they banned or stopped any outright opposition motions to coalition and this one fairly mild motion – they persuaded, in the various cummain, the Dublin cumann, which put that motion forward to amend it, to allow them to say they would have no restrictions on what they negotiate on.
Martin: Alright. Now, I should explain just to the American part of the audience – I know we have a large audience in Ireland which understands what you’re talking about: In the Twenty-Six Counties the government is like the British system. You have the majority of elected members of the Parliament, whoever controls that gets elected Taoiseach, or head of the government, and you have to maintain that majority. So what Matt is talking about is a situation where Fine Gael, as a majority, added to the seats that, whatever seats, Sinn Féin wins could maintain a majority. And that would put Sinn Féin in a position where it was defending policies that the senior partner, Fine Gael, would make – it would have to vote for them, endorse them, usually Fine Gael, the major party, would set policy, including on foreign policy, especially on foreign policy, and it would put Sinn Féin in a position of supporting those policies and defending them, being part of them and part of implementing them. Now…
Matt: …it’s quite, it’s quite an extraordinary development over the last couple of years. If you think back to what Republican’s, what the Republican critique was of say of Fianna Fáil or Clann na Phoblacht or the Workers’ Party, that they were compromising themselves and the core of the Sinn Féin party have overturned almost every single facet of what used to be ‘Republican politics’ even to the extent that they support Fine Gael on Brexit. Now there are practical reasons why they would oppose Britain leaving the EU but it’s only in the last four of five years that Sinn Féin’s accepted the fact that Irish sovereignty should be surrendered to the European Union – and it’s completely overturned that without any votes, without anybody being consulted and now they have exactly the same policy as Fine Gael on that so there are no real barriers preventing them from going into coalition.
Martin: Okay. Now you have a blog – I’ll spell it out – brocaire books dot ie (Martin spells out) and in the blog you mention, in one of the most recent entries, you mention that there is a core group, what you call a core group, in Sinn Féin and that they basically hold the real power. They are the ones who control policy and, what you say is, they tell everyone what to do and whatever they say everybody else follows and they can make whatever policies they want. Could you explain who this core group is? How they’re able to wield such influence that there could be such changes within Sinn Féin from the the party that you joined, that you supported as a member of the Irish Republican Army to the party it is now?
Matt: Well, I never actually joined Sinn Féin. I was only in the Irish Republican Army. And I was at the last meetings when the Army was disbanded. And the people who disbanded it were the then IRA Army Council. That Army Council is now the core group within Sinn Féin and every other rung there was stood down but they’ve maintain themselves as a group within the Republican Movement. They’re un-elected. The Ard Chomhairle’s elected at the Ard Fheis and then these people are appointed. Nobody ever elects them. And they sit-in on meetings and they control every aspect of Sinn Féin policy. And the cynicism of the whole thing is that these were all highly respected IRA Volunteers and they would, some of them would, when you talk to them, they would say to you, ‘Oh yeah well, this is all just a charade, you know’ – same as the Workers’, same as people like Seán Garland used to tell members of the Official IRA when people like Rabbitte and Gilmore were taking over, that: ‘Oh, this is only ‘smoke and mirrors’ that we’re still out to achieve a Republic’ – but that’s – we saw with the Workers’ Party – that’s not the way things work out. And yeah these people, basically, tell everybody else what to do.
Martin: Alright. And you have mentioned to me, one of the concerns that you have, is the effect of the economic prospects for areas like West Belfast, for Doire City, areas where Sinn Féin has a great control – that that’s one of the things that concerns you. Could you tell the audience about that?
Irish NewsTo read click here
Matt: Yeah well I was watching the televised section of the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis on television this morning and the Belfast Lord Mayor, who’s a Sinn Féin member, was boasting about the great progress being made. In various surveys, including the latest one in 2013, West Belfast was found to have the second highest level of child poverty of six hundred and fifty Westminster constituencies and Foyle, which includes Doire City, is/was in the bottom five or six. Now, I brought that up at meetings when I was in Leinster House and people would say: ‘Oh! That’s because of years of British policy’ – which has the same validity – but also it ignores the fact that in West Belfast Sinn Féin have run everything for the last thirty years – they’ve had the MP for thirty-five years, they’ve had the majority of councillors and they were in coalition for ten years with the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) but they did absolutely nothing – not only not to help to improve the situation of people who supported the IRA during the war years but the situation for people like that has actually ‘dis-improved’. And one of the major factors in that is that because the level of anti-social behaviour and crime and drug abuse has greatly because there’s no longer anybody there to curb those sort of activities. And at the same time, parallel with that, there’s a small group of people who have become vastly wealthy within the Republican community and various cummain. And, you know? The betrayal is on so many levels you would hardly know where to begin.
Martin: Okay. Well were one of the people who helped elect Mary Lou McDonald to her first election, brought her to her first election victory. You’ve known her for a lot of years. Could you tell us your insights into her? What do you expect from her as president of Sinn Féin?
Matt: I actually like her. I met her last year and even after I left and she’s quite pleasant – she’s a pretty intelligent, smart woman. But she’s not really from a Republican background. She only joined Sinn Féin in 2003. I was on the election directorate that got her elected to the European Parliament in 2004 – there was five of us, and none of the five of us are still in Sinn Féin – we were either thrown out or left – and it’s sad…
Martin: …Alright. What do you expect her to do in terms of Republican politics? In terms of advancing the goal of a united Ireland?
Matt: Well as I say, all of the, I’ve no personal animosity to Mary Lou but I don’t believe she’s any real emotional commitment or intellectual commitment to establishing the Republic which means that it just becomes another normal political party that will compromise on its policies and doesn’t have any core principles, really.
Martin: Okay. And one of the other people you worked with is Michelle O’Neill and Michelle O’Neill made a big speech that Mary Lou McDonald would be the first – they need a woman Taoiseach and Mary Lou McDonald should be the first woman’s Taoiseach in the Twenty-Six Counties. What do you think of Michelle O’Neill? What’s your impressions from working with her in terms of advancing the goal of a united Ireland?
Matt: Well, I didn’t really work with her but I met her at a number of meetings because she was Agriculture Minister and Martin Ferris was the spokesperson for agriculture in Leinster House and we used to have joint meetings – again, pleasant woman. She’s from a good Republican family in Tyrone. But I just get the impression that she’s going to be the figurehead for – you know, it’s part of the image that they want to project, now that’s no reflection on her, I’m not saying she’s stupid or anything like that she’s, you know, whatever with them – actually I was listening to her today as well and on one of the motions she made a statement and said, and I’m quoting: ‘It is not right that I or anybody else should seek to impose our outlook on anybody else’ which is rather ironic given the fact that a large number of Republicans in Tyrone have been either thrown out or forced to resign because of the intolerance to their opinions so for Michelle O’Neill, who is from Tyrone, to make a, you know, where she’s signaling about being tolerant and tolerating other people’s opinions is ironic to say the least.
Matt: Okay. Now, in your book, A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army, I’m going to ask you how we can get that. I know you’re doing a revised edition. But how did you choose that title?
amazon UKamazon USA
Matt: I got it from an article that Anthony McIntyre wrote in 1997 or ’98, I think, and he compared what the leadership were saying about how the Good Friday Agreement was going to advance us towards the Republic as being a claim to building a tunnel to the moon – which is just an image that stuck with me at the time. But you understand that I’m not making myself out to be some sort of martyr – I stuck with it for a long time. Because when I came out of prison I thought that as being far from this objective ‘getting out of prison early’ that I still thought that maybe this is going somewhere but as the years went on I just realised this was just – you know – you had decommissioning, recognising the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), going into coalition with the DUP and then not achieving anything it’s just – you know gradually – it’s like a tree – the leaves just keep gradually falling off. Some people saw it happening earlier – a lot earlier than I did but and then it’s gotten to the stage now where I was just looking at the Ard Fheis today – I hardly recognised anybody there whereas ten years ago I would have known everybody.
Martin: Alright. I’m afraid we’re going to have to leave it there. It’s ironic you would have chosen a photograph for your book cover, A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army, as Martin McGuinness shaking hands with a member of the British royal family, the Queen, and now this week you could have had several different pictures of members of Sinn Féin shaking hands with her son.
Matt: I could have had a whole coffee table photo album!
Martin: There you are. Alright. On that note how do we get a copy of the book?
Matt: I think it’s still on amazon but I’m revising it and hoping to get a bigger publication spread so.
Martin: Alright. The book is: A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army , which is on amazon dot com. For Matt Treacy’s blog – but you know I have to tell you: As somebody whose family is from Offaly I don’t like a lot of it because it’s all about Dublin winning out in Leinster in All-Ireland finals but other than I really like the blog and it’s brocairebooks.ie. (Martin spells out) The author is Matt Treacy; you’ve been listening to him, his inside analysis and he is the person who helped deliver Mary Lou McDonald’s first election victory and look where she is now – all thanks to you, Matt.
Matt: (laughs) I’m sure I’ll get a pension out of it!
Martin: There you are. Alright. You’ve been listening to Matt Treacy. We’re going to have to leave it there. I’m hoping we’ll have you on, especially when you get that new, revised edition completed, we’ll have you on back and a lot of what you said was right a year ago and you’re getting more right as time goes on. Thank you very much, Matt Treacy.
Matt: Thank you, Martin. Bye.
(ends time stamp ~52:57)
The Transcripts, Of Interest to the Irish Republican Community.You can follow The Transcripts on Twitter @RFETranscripts
July 12, 2018
Macbeth
Marty Flynn with a review of a novel from the Scandicrime genre.
As a huge fan (Thanks to Anthony McIntyre) of Jo Nesbo and having read almost all the Harry Hole series and some stand alone books I was over the moon to get my hands on his latest, Macbeth. l did not realise at the time of buying that this was part of the publishers Hogart Shakespeare's project, where modern novelists are invited to revisit and put their own take on his most celebrated works.
As a twelve /thirteen year old I had to study Macbeth and Julius Caesar in St Marys CBS and it didn't take long to catch on that Nesbo was indeed putting his twist on this Scottish play, Duncan Duff, Malcom, witches etc. Now Caesar was understandable in terms of plot action historical context etc, but to me Macbeth was Shakespeare on drugs, and bad ones at that.
Maybe l'm a simple soul and other than lust and quest for power some of the decisions made by Macbeth who in this yarn is the much loved leader of a police SWAT team and thoroughly decent person (well apart from the old drug habit) so how he allows his "flame haired Lady to talk him into this journey of madness is l suppose the stuff that makes nightmares come true.
Nesbo takes us to a place - the area is Fife but the action takes place in the district described as a run down industrial town, a grim place where it always "rains, and soot and poison lie like a constant lid over the town."
The action begins almost from the start and its not long before we are brought to that deep dark place Shakespeare touched upon and where Nesbo with his now well established ability as a modern crime writer takes the reader. Murder mayhem drugs etc,#. if your a fan of Shakespeare l don't think this will disappoint you.
Nesbo has produced a modern version of the "Scottish play" but it is every bit as dark and scary as the original...
Marty Flynn is a Belfast republican who has actively campaigned for prisoners' rights.
As a huge fan (Thanks to Anthony McIntyre) of Jo Nesbo and having read almost all the Harry Hole series and some stand alone books I was over the moon to get my hands on his latest, Macbeth. l did not realise at the time of buying that this was part of the publishers Hogart Shakespeare's project, where modern novelists are invited to revisit and put their own take on his most celebrated works.
As a twelve /thirteen year old I had to study Macbeth and Julius Caesar in St Marys CBS and it didn't take long to catch on that Nesbo was indeed putting his twist on this Scottish play, Duncan Duff, Malcom, witches etc. Now Caesar was understandable in terms of plot action historical context etc, but to me Macbeth was Shakespeare on drugs, and bad ones at that.
Maybe l'm a simple soul and other than lust and quest for power some of the decisions made by Macbeth who in this yarn is the much loved leader of a police SWAT team and thoroughly decent person (well apart from the old drug habit) so how he allows his "flame haired Lady to talk him into this journey of madness is l suppose the stuff that makes nightmares come true.
Nesbo takes us to a place - the area is Fife but the action takes place in the district described as a run down industrial town, a grim place where it always "rains, and soot and poison lie like a constant lid over the town."
The action begins almost from the start and its not long before we are brought to that deep dark place Shakespeare touched upon and where Nesbo with his now well established ability as a modern crime writer takes the reader. Murder mayhem drugs etc,#. if your a fan of Shakespeare l don't think this will disappoint you.
Nesbo has produced a modern version of the "Scottish play" but it is every bit as dark and scary as the original...
Marty Flynn is a Belfast republican who has actively campaigned for prisoners' rights.
July 11, 2018
Pret-A-Patriarchy – On “Modest” Fashion
Maryam Namazie with a piece on the dangers of modest fashion, first published in The New European on 31 May 2018.
“Modest” fashion is a fast growing industry with companies like Dolce & Gabbana, H&M, Marks and Spencer, DKNY, Zara and others all rushing to cash in. But while more choice is undoubtedly good, I have a problem with the labelling.
Positioning some types of clothing as “modest” is fundamentally about profiting from the view that a “good” woman is a modest one. Any talk of modesty brings with it the implicit and often explicit shaming (or worse) of those deemed “immodest”. After all, it is the immodest woman who fails to dress or behave appropriately in order to avoid the male gaze and titillation. She has no one to blame but herself for any ensuing male violence.
Modesty is always the remit of women (hence why there is never a men’s modest fashion line — though I can think of some appropriate garments if D&G are interested). And while it is often portrayed as harmless, modesty culture sexualises girls from a young age and puts the onus on them to protect themselves. It also removes male accountability for violence, positioning men as predators unable to control their urges.
Modest fashion feeds into rape culture of which the hijab is central. Women are to be either protected or raped depending on how well they guard their modesty and the honour of their male guardian. Many an Islamist has absurdly argued that modesty is an important deterrent for society’s “well being”; if unveiled women and men mix freely, women will lead men astray and will need to be stoned to death for adultery so better to prevent it from the get go with women’s modesty!
Billboards of unveiled women being compared to uncovered sweets devoured by flies and roaming gangs of morality police in Iran arresting the “improperly” veiled are some of the innumerable ways in which modesty is policed in places where the religious-Right is in power. In Europe, where Islamism’s influence is on the rise, the demand to veil and police women are sanitised and touted as “rights” and “choices” despite huge amounts of pressure, shaming, shunning and even honour-related violence. Improperly veiled women in Britain are called “hoe-jabis” and the likes of the Birmingham Sharia court insist: “In Islam hijab is compulsory and any woman who denies the ruling of hijab is disobeying her Lord and is rebelling against the Islamic law”. So much for a “right” and a “choice.”
Certainly, it is not just the Islamists but all religious-Right movements that promote modesty and punish immodesty. Examples abound, including the Christian-Right’s modesty ponchos, the Hindu-Right’s telling women not to wear jeans if they want to marry and the Jewish-Right’s erasure of women from photographs.
Modesty is central to religion’s and the religious-Right’s efforts to control women, erase the female body from the public space and put women in “her place” – at home, barefoot and pregnant.
There is nothing revolutionary about the “modest revolution” or religion’s control over women and their bodies. From witch-burnings, diagnoses of hysteria for women who had a “tendency to cause trouble” to ISIS’ use of metal clippers to tear the flesh off any woman who might have forgotten to wear her gloves, religion and the religious-Right have always played a counter-revolutionary role in the service of patriarchy and in favour of the status quo and women’s subservient status.
Of course, none of this is new. Women have been fighting modesty rules for as long as the rules have existed but what is worrying is the return to the mainstream of modesty rules, albeit packaged in a lovely silk-chiffon. A women’s place is in the home but if she insists on leaving, then she’d better dress modestly (with an “or else” as subtext usually following closely behind).
There is something truly sinister about promoting tools for the erasure of women’s bodies and sexuality as “fashion” and a clothing choice. It would be similar to touting foot-binding as footwear, FGM as piercings and the chastity belt as lingerie – though if there is money in it, I am sure D&G will oblige.
As Gita Sahgal, a veteran women’s rights campaigner, says: “Whether they know it or not, the global fashion business is marching in step with Islamists when they create lines of ‘modest’ clothing – as opposed to a range of choices for women and girls. The global fashion industry is rushing to provide uniforms that promote gender segregation and label as promiscuous those women who don’t dress with a ‘modest’ label. Islamists promote hijab for political reasons, the fashion industry complies to make money. It is a nasty alliance.”
In all religions and every religious-Right movement, the perfect “modest” and “moral” woman is the one who cannot be seen or heard in public. Whether via acid-attacks or Dolce and Gabbana adverts, the message is clear: a good woman is a modest one.
Maryam Namazie is a political activist and writer.
Follow Maryam Namazie on Twitter @MaryamNamazie
Luckily for the world at large, there are a whole lot of us from Tehran to Rojava to the capitals of Europe who are immodest and disobedient and who refuse to comply.
“Modest” fashion is a fast growing industry with companies like Dolce & Gabbana, H&M, Marks and Spencer, DKNY, Zara and others all rushing to cash in. But while more choice is undoubtedly good, I have a problem with the labelling. Positioning some types of clothing as “modest” is fundamentally about profiting from the view that a “good” woman is a modest one. Any talk of modesty brings with it the implicit and often explicit shaming (or worse) of those deemed “immodest”. After all, it is the immodest woman who fails to dress or behave appropriately in order to avoid the male gaze and titillation. She has no one to blame but herself for any ensuing male violence.
Modesty is always the remit of women (hence why there is never a men’s modest fashion line — though I can think of some appropriate garments if D&G are interested). And while it is often portrayed as harmless, modesty culture sexualises girls from a young age and puts the onus on them to protect themselves. It also removes male accountability for violence, positioning men as predators unable to control their urges.
Modest fashion feeds into rape culture of which the hijab is central. Women are to be either protected or raped depending on how well they guard their modesty and the honour of their male guardian. Many an Islamist has absurdly argued that modesty is an important deterrent for society’s “well being”; if unveiled women and men mix freely, women will lead men astray and will need to be stoned to death for adultery so better to prevent it from the get go with women’s modesty!
Billboards of unveiled women being compared to uncovered sweets devoured by flies and roaming gangs of morality police in Iran arresting the “improperly” veiled are some of the innumerable ways in which modesty is policed in places where the religious-Right is in power. In Europe, where Islamism’s influence is on the rise, the demand to veil and police women are sanitised and touted as “rights” and “choices” despite huge amounts of pressure, shaming, shunning and even honour-related violence. Improperly veiled women in Britain are called “hoe-jabis” and the likes of the Birmingham Sharia court insist: “In Islam hijab is compulsory and any woman who denies the ruling of hijab is disobeying her Lord and is rebelling against the Islamic law”. So much for a “right” and a “choice.”
Certainly, it is not just the Islamists but all religious-Right movements that promote modesty and punish immodesty. Examples abound, including the Christian-Right’s modesty ponchos, the Hindu-Right’s telling women not to wear jeans if they want to marry and the Jewish-Right’s erasure of women from photographs.
Modesty is central to religion’s and the religious-Right’s efforts to control women, erase the female body from the public space and put women in “her place” – at home, barefoot and pregnant.
There is nothing revolutionary about the “modest revolution” or religion’s control over women and their bodies. From witch-burnings, diagnoses of hysteria for women who had a “tendency to cause trouble” to ISIS’ use of metal clippers to tear the flesh off any woman who might have forgotten to wear her gloves, religion and the religious-Right have always played a counter-revolutionary role in the service of patriarchy and in favour of the status quo and women’s subservient status.
Of course, none of this is new. Women have been fighting modesty rules for as long as the rules have existed but what is worrying is the return to the mainstream of modesty rules, albeit packaged in a lovely silk-chiffon. A women’s place is in the home but if she insists on leaving, then she’d better dress modestly (with an “or else” as subtext usually following closely behind).
There is something truly sinister about promoting tools for the erasure of women’s bodies and sexuality as “fashion” and a clothing choice. It would be similar to touting foot-binding as footwear, FGM as piercings and the chastity belt as lingerie – though if there is money in it, I am sure D&G will oblige.
As Gita Sahgal, a veteran women’s rights campaigner, says: “Whether they know it or not, the global fashion business is marching in step with Islamists when they create lines of ‘modest’ clothing – as opposed to a range of choices for women and girls. The global fashion industry is rushing to provide uniforms that promote gender segregation and label as promiscuous those women who don’t dress with a ‘modest’ label. Islamists promote hijab for political reasons, the fashion industry complies to make money. It is a nasty alliance.”
In all religions and every religious-Right movement, the perfect “modest” and “moral” woman is the one who cannot be seen or heard in public. Whether via acid-attacks or Dolce and Gabbana adverts, the message is clear: a good woman is a modest one.
Maryam Namazie is a political activist and writer.Follow Maryam Namazie on Twitter @MaryamNamazie
Luckily for the world at large, there are a whole lot of us from Tehran to Rojava to the capitals of Europe who are immodest and disobedient and who refuse to comply.
July 10, 2018
Sinn Fein Bottom Line Is No Bottom Line
Via The Transcripts Martin Galvin speaks to author, historian and political commentator, Anthony McIntyre, via telephone from Ireland about recent issues in Ireland that have occurred during the station’s fund raising hiatus.
Anthony McIntyre RFÉ 9 June 2018 Radio Free Éireann
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
New York City
(begins time stamp ~ 37:23 )
Martin: … And Anthony McIntyre is, of course, he has a website, The Pensive Quill, one of the best websites if you want to keep in touch with current events in Ireland. He is an author of The Death of, the long, Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism. He is a former political prisoner – spent years in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, a former blanketman – and I think now on the line we do have Anthony McIntyre. Anthony, welcome back to Radio Free Éireann.
Anthony: Thank you very much, Martin.
Martin: Now with fund raising we’ve been off for a while and we have a lot of stories to catch up on. We call on you, as we have in the past, just to give us just a quick analysis of a number of different topics that we want to cover, bring our audience up-to-date on.
Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism
by Anthony McIntyre
The first of these is, one of the things: Being in Ireland, one of the things that is rumoured right now is that after the next election in the Twenty-Six Counties there seems to be growing signs that Fine Gael, which currently is the governing party, would go into coalition with Sinn Féin – that those two parties together may have enough seats to have a majority in Leinster House and that there seems to be a growing movement of those two parties towards each other, growing signs that after the next election they would be in coalition. And Fine Gael, of course, a very right-wing party, has been viewed as an anti-Republican party very often. Sinn Féin, of course, is viewed, styles itself, as a Republican party. Anthony, what have you heard about those rumours? What do you think it would mean for Sinn Féin and for the prospects of a united Ireland if that did happen?
Anthony: Anthony McIntyre
Photo: BBC
Anthony: Well I’m of the view, and have been of the view for a while, that the question about any coalition of that type will be determined by Fine Gael. Sinn Féin are just a party that is in pursuit of power and as Tommy McKearney once said: Sinn Féin’s bottom line is that Sinn Féin doesn’t have a bottom line. So there will be no principle involved for Sinn Féin. They will go into coalition with anybody no matter how right-wing, left-wing – Sinn Féin are not an ideological party but a party that seeks power and office. And I’m not in the slightest surprised. But this has been going on for some time and I think the changing of leadership within Fine Gael has helped to facilitate that process of just at the moment knitting together very, very loose strands. But I think that all Fine Gael’s opposition to Sinn Féin will dissipate if and they will – Sinn Féin have done so much to re-invent itself as anything other than a Republican party. They sound absolutely no different from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party) over the years, the Labour Party, so I won’t be surprised if they go in.
And what it will do for a united Ireland? Well Sinn Féin aren’t making their running on a united Ireland – that battle has long since been lost. Sinn Féin’s notion that they can coerce the British out of Ireland regardless of what the people in The North thought - Sinn Féin have now acquiesced in the Consent Principle, the Unionist veto, and that will decide whether or not there will be a united Ireland. And at the moment there’s talk about Brexit and talk about border polls but the pro-union people still seem to have a majority and if the British manage to bring about a situation where Ireland, The North of Ireland, will remain within the EU then there will no change in this position. Malachi O’Doherty had a good piece on his Facebook page about this and about the type of changes that need to take place and are likely to take place in order to maintain the union. So I don’t think, regardless of what Sinn Féin do in The South, it makes no difference whatsoever who they go into government with there will be no move towards a united Ireland and Fine Gael are not really what most people would regard as a united Ireland party anyway.
Martin: Well just – Leo Varadkar, who’s the Taoiseach, the head of the Irish government, went north. He had announced that he would be visiting the headquarters of the Orange Order, that he would go to the West Belfast Festival and it seemed that the most controversial – it was thought that those would be controversial – but it seems that the most controversial thing he did was to say that if there was a border poll (he did not think it was a good idea) but that if there was a simple majority – which is a retreat – the traditional Irish position had been that there should be one all-Ireland vote throughout all of Ireland – that of course was changed in the 1970’s – it was enshrined that it would be changed, Sinn Féin finally supported that in the Good Friday Agreement – but he seems to be going further in saying if there was a majority, even in the Six Counties alone, instead of, not an all-Ireland majority but a majority in the Six Counties, that if there was a slight majority that should not be enough. That that would cause problems. That they should go for a higher percentage and it seems like he’s making moves towards, I don’t know, a weighted majority? A much higher majority? Unanimity? It seems like they’re putting, moving the goal posts again to get a united Ireland farther away from ever before achieved by democratic means.
Anthony: I think that’s very true. And again, Malachi O’Doherty has touched on that again in the piece that he did that they will start moving towards making it sixty percent or sixty-three percent, I think, or probably sixty-six percent – they’ll go most likely around a two-thirds majority which they reckon will probably make the transition, the hand-over, that much easier and be less friction and it’s a real appeasement to Unionism on the island. And I mean, they’re playing politics here and Sinn Féin will come round to this as well, very, very easily. This is a notion that was floated quite some time ago by Jeffrey Donaldson and it has now been followed-up by the former DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) leader and the First Minister in The North, Peter Robinson, who has been saying recently (he’s been putting around the figure of sixty percent) and saying that if a border poll does come about and a border poll does go for a united Ireland there cannot be fifty percent plus one vote. It has to be sixty percent. But in order for that to happen then Unionism, O’Doherty predicts, that Unionism will have to move on issues like the Irish Language Act because when we look at this whole issue, this whole history, of Unionist opposition to a united Ireland – that opposition has always been stronger. The Unionists are pretty much a monolith in opposition to a united Ireland. The Nationalists are not a monolith in opposition to remaining part of the British state, remaining part of the UK. It would be easier to fragment Nationalism in The North on this issue and there will be a significant number of constitutional nationalists, and probably a significant number of Sinn Féin voters, who will vote to remain within the UK if The North remains within Brexit and if the Nationalists get what they consider to be a fair deal. So I see nothing coming up that will lead to a united Ireland and I think Fine Gael and Sinn Féin will settle down quite comfortably to that position.
Martin: Alright. One of the things that happened just in the last few weeks – there’s a new legacy consultation document – was released by Karen Bradley, the British Secretary for The North of Ireland. And what this is supposed to do is supposed to be new mechanisms to deliver truth whether through inquest funding, whether through new structures that were agreed in the Stormont House Agreement to allow for there to be some investigation or truth as to killings during The Troubles for people, victims’ families, who never got the truth to try and get information, try and get some sort of truth, try and get some sort of move towards justice. And one of the things that happened as that consultation document was released, Theresa May stood up in Westminster once and stood up in Westminster since then and has said that only members of British Crown Forces, the British Army or the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) or the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) of the British Army, are being investigated and it was patently unfair and this has been totally not true. I was at a recent commemoration, you had people like Ivor Bell and Seamus Kearney in the audience in Doire, who were prosecuted for past incidents of the legacy issues. You had even the Victims’ Commissioner in The North of Ireland, and others, saying that this was not true and yet the British Prime Minister continues to repeat this to present the present legacy structures as being unfair – not to Nationalists, not to families who were victims of collusion, murder, about victims who were never investigated – but that it’s only unfair to British troops. How can we trust a legacy consultation if the British Prime Minister is going to mislead Parliament and tell just deliberate misstatements of fact like this?
Anthony: Well I think it’s an indication of how little interest she has in The North and how badly briefed she is also about what’s going on in The North. Because a politician of her stature to tell – I mean, such stupid lies – I mean that sort of lie, I mean, is a lie on the same level of stupidity that we’re familiar with Mr. Gerry Adams telling and politicians tend to tell the lies that they can get away with – this is a sort of a falsehood that is so easily proven wrong, proven false, that it beggars belief that she continues with it.
To read click here
So I believe that probably less than more deliberately I think she simply hasn’t a clue. I mean she seemed pretty clueless in her handling of many situations and this is yet another one. But you’re absolutely right – we cannot trust the consultation process to deliver anything remotely resembling what people in the Nationalist community in particular are calling for. And having said that I think that the whole issue of prosecutions is a means of obscuring and suppressing the truth. Prosecutions bring you very, very little truth and this is why I think that they’re still pressing ahead with prosecutions. It’s very interesting that we had the former director of the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) in The North, Barra McGrory, saying what he should have said when he was director publicly – but he did say publicly since then, he has to be credited for it – that he believes that prosecutions for past activity should be done away with. We have a situation in Ireland where there was a war fought. The war is now over. Why, to quote my friend, Tommy McKearney, are they still intent on taking prisoners on all sides? And we know that – and I have great sympathy with people who want these prosecutions, particularly the families, they are the people who have the most interest in securing prosecutions – but I do not think that they’ve been told clearly enough that prosecutions are going to deliver a ‘scenes of crime view’ of what happened to their loved one at a particular time. It’s going to tell them absolutely nothing about the senior strategic decision-making that went into to the process that led to their loved one being killed whether carried out by Loyalists, Republicans or the British state. I think it’s a complete and utter waste of time to continue demanding truth through prosecutions. It is not going to come.
Martin: Alright. We just have about a minute or two left. We’ve now had more, about five hundred days, where there’s been no government, Stormont Administration, in The North. There doesn’t seem to be any prospects of any meaningful talks. The agreement that was proposed and which broke down gave very little to Sinn Féin – they would have gotten an Irish Language Act that would have been incorporated into an over-riding language act – it would have been under that as well as an Ulster-Scots act – and didn’t do anything in terms of legacy, didn’t do anything in terms of Arlene Foster’s position with the, in terms of the RHI, the Renewable Heat Incentive, scandal. Is there any prospect in the immediate future of talks to reconvene Stormont – getting that up and running?
Anthony: Well at the moment I think that the two sides remain pretty polarised. I mean the DUP are sitting pretty here and there’s not going to be anything, that I can see, that will happen that will change that position. The Tory government may have more room for manoeuvre if there was election and again, a significant majority, and therefore to not have to depend on the DUP. You might see them having some leverage over the DUP but at the minute the DUP have all the leverage. So I don’t see much changing until something happens – like the Tories getting a majority, which doesn’t look credible, and I mean if (UK Labour Party’s Jeremy) Corbyn comes in that would be a game changer but it wouldn’t be a game changer in terms of a united Ireland – it would just mean that we would get the same – the pressure would be brought to bear on the Unionists to get the same deal back on the table that they had previously has reneged upon. I think at the moment with Varadkar announcing these things if there’s movement towards a border poll and then this border poll is about sixty percent majority you’ll see the DUP starting to become much, much less hostile towards the idea of making concessions to the Nationalist community and making concessions to Sinn Féin but at all times they will ring fence and safeguard the constitutional attachment to the British state. And that’s not going to change.
Martin: Alright. We’re going to have to leave it there. Thank you, Anthony McIntyre, for being with us – giving us that analysis on a number of different themes.
Anthony: Thank you very much, Martin.
(ends time stamp ~ 53:15)
The Transcripts, Of Interest to the Irish Republican Community.You can follow The Transcripts on Twitter @RFETranscripts
Anthony McIntyre RFÉ 9 June 2018 Radio Free Éireann
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
New York City
(begins time stamp ~ 37:23 )
Martin: … And Anthony McIntyre is, of course, he has a website, The Pensive Quill, one of the best websites if you want to keep in touch with current events in Ireland. He is an author of The Death of, the long, Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism. He is a former political prisoner – spent years in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, a former blanketman – and I think now on the line we do have Anthony McIntyre. Anthony, welcome back to Radio Free Éireann.
Anthony: Thank you very much, Martin.
Martin: Now with fund raising we’ve been off for a while and we have a lot of stories to catch up on. We call on you, as we have in the past, just to give us just a quick analysis of a number of different topics that we want to cover, bring our audience up-to-date on.
Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanismby Anthony McIntyre
The first of these is, one of the things: Being in Ireland, one of the things that is rumoured right now is that after the next election in the Twenty-Six Counties there seems to be growing signs that Fine Gael, which currently is the governing party, would go into coalition with Sinn Féin – that those two parties together may have enough seats to have a majority in Leinster House and that there seems to be a growing movement of those two parties towards each other, growing signs that after the next election they would be in coalition. And Fine Gael, of course, a very right-wing party, has been viewed as an anti-Republican party very often. Sinn Féin, of course, is viewed, styles itself, as a Republican party. Anthony, what have you heard about those rumours? What do you think it would mean for Sinn Féin and for the prospects of a united Ireland if that did happen?
Anthony: Anthony McIntyrePhoto: BBC
Anthony: Well I’m of the view, and have been of the view for a while, that the question about any coalition of that type will be determined by Fine Gael. Sinn Féin are just a party that is in pursuit of power and as Tommy McKearney once said: Sinn Féin’s bottom line is that Sinn Féin doesn’t have a bottom line. So there will be no principle involved for Sinn Féin. They will go into coalition with anybody no matter how right-wing, left-wing – Sinn Féin are not an ideological party but a party that seeks power and office. And I’m not in the slightest surprised. But this has been going on for some time and I think the changing of leadership within Fine Gael has helped to facilitate that process of just at the moment knitting together very, very loose strands. But I think that all Fine Gael’s opposition to Sinn Féin will dissipate if and they will – Sinn Féin have done so much to re-invent itself as anything other than a Republican party. They sound absolutely no different from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party) over the years, the Labour Party, so I won’t be surprised if they go in.
And what it will do for a united Ireland? Well Sinn Féin aren’t making their running on a united Ireland – that battle has long since been lost. Sinn Féin’s notion that they can coerce the British out of Ireland regardless of what the people in The North thought - Sinn Féin have now acquiesced in the Consent Principle, the Unionist veto, and that will decide whether or not there will be a united Ireland. And at the moment there’s talk about Brexit and talk about border polls but the pro-union people still seem to have a majority and if the British manage to bring about a situation where Ireland, The North of Ireland, will remain within the EU then there will no change in this position. Malachi O’Doherty had a good piece on his Facebook page about this and about the type of changes that need to take place and are likely to take place in order to maintain the union. So I don’t think, regardless of what Sinn Féin do in The South, it makes no difference whatsoever who they go into government with there will be no move towards a united Ireland and Fine Gael are not really what most people would regard as a united Ireland party anyway.
Martin: Well just – Leo Varadkar, who’s the Taoiseach, the head of the Irish government, went north. He had announced that he would be visiting the headquarters of the Orange Order, that he would go to the West Belfast Festival and it seemed that the most controversial – it was thought that those would be controversial – but it seems that the most controversial thing he did was to say that if there was a border poll (he did not think it was a good idea) but that if there was a simple majority – which is a retreat – the traditional Irish position had been that there should be one all-Ireland vote throughout all of Ireland – that of course was changed in the 1970’s – it was enshrined that it would be changed, Sinn Féin finally supported that in the Good Friday Agreement – but he seems to be going further in saying if there was a majority, even in the Six Counties alone, instead of, not an all-Ireland majority but a majority in the Six Counties, that if there was a slight majority that should not be enough. That that would cause problems. That they should go for a higher percentage and it seems like he’s making moves towards, I don’t know, a weighted majority? A much higher majority? Unanimity? It seems like they’re putting, moving the goal posts again to get a united Ireland farther away from ever before achieved by democratic means.
Anthony: I think that’s very true. And again, Malachi O’Doherty has touched on that again in the piece that he did that they will start moving towards making it sixty percent or sixty-three percent, I think, or probably sixty-six percent – they’ll go most likely around a two-thirds majority which they reckon will probably make the transition, the hand-over, that much easier and be less friction and it’s a real appeasement to Unionism on the island. And I mean, they’re playing politics here and Sinn Féin will come round to this as well, very, very easily. This is a notion that was floated quite some time ago by Jeffrey Donaldson and it has now been followed-up by the former DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) leader and the First Minister in The North, Peter Robinson, who has been saying recently (he’s been putting around the figure of sixty percent) and saying that if a border poll does come about and a border poll does go for a united Ireland there cannot be fifty percent plus one vote. It has to be sixty percent. But in order for that to happen then Unionism, O’Doherty predicts, that Unionism will have to move on issues like the Irish Language Act because when we look at this whole issue, this whole history, of Unionist opposition to a united Ireland – that opposition has always been stronger. The Unionists are pretty much a monolith in opposition to a united Ireland. The Nationalists are not a monolith in opposition to remaining part of the British state, remaining part of the UK. It would be easier to fragment Nationalism in The North on this issue and there will be a significant number of constitutional nationalists, and probably a significant number of Sinn Féin voters, who will vote to remain within the UK if The North remains within Brexit and if the Nationalists get what they consider to be a fair deal. So I see nothing coming up that will lead to a united Ireland and I think Fine Gael and Sinn Féin will settle down quite comfortably to that position.
Martin: Alright. One of the things that happened just in the last few weeks – there’s a new legacy consultation document – was released by Karen Bradley, the British Secretary for The North of Ireland. And what this is supposed to do is supposed to be new mechanisms to deliver truth whether through inquest funding, whether through new structures that were agreed in the Stormont House Agreement to allow for there to be some investigation or truth as to killings during The Troubles for people, victims’ families, who never got the truth to try and get information, try and get some sort of truth, try and get some sort of move towards justice. And one of the things that happened as that consultation document was released, Theresa May stood up in Westminster once and stood up in Westminster since then and has said that only members of British Crown Forces, the British Army or the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) or the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) of the British Army, are being investigated and it was patently unfair and this has been totally not true. I was at a recent commemoration, you had people like Ivor Bell and Seamus Kearney in the audience in Doire, who were prosecuted for past incidents of the legacy issues. You had even the Victims’ Commissioner in The North of Ireland, and others, saying that this was not true and yet the British Prime Minister continues to repeat this to present the present legacy structures as being unfair – not to Nationalists, not to families who were victims of collusion, murder, about victims who were never investigated – but that it’s only unfair to British troops. How can we trust a legacy consultation if the British Prime Minister is going to mislead Parliament and tell just deliberate misstatements of fact like this?
Anthony: Well I think it’s an indication of how little interest she has in The North and how badly briefed she is also about what’s going on in The North. Because a politician of her stature to tell – I mean, such stupid lies – I mean that sort of lie, I mean, is a lie on the same level of stupidity that we’re familiar with Mr. Gerry Adams telling and politicians tend to tell the lies that they can get away with – this is a sort of a falsehood that is so easily proven wrong, proven false, that it beggars belief that she continues with it.
To read click here So I believe that probably less than more deliberately I think she simply hasn’t a clue. I mean she seemed pretty clueless in her handling of many situations and this is yet another one. But you’re absolutely right – we cannot trust the consultation process to deliver anything remotely resembling what people in the Nationalist community in particular are calling for. And having said that I think that the whole issue of prosecutions is a means of obscuring and suppressing the truth. Prosecutions bring you very, very little truth and this is why I think that they’re still pressing ahead with prosecutions. It’s very interesting that we had the former director of the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) in The North, Barra McGrory, saying what he should have said when he was director publicly – but he did say publicly since then, he has to be credited for it – that he believes that prosecutions for past activity should be done away with. We have a situation in Ireland where there was a war fought. The war is now over. Why, to quote my friend, Tommy McKearney, are they still intent on taking prisoners on all sides? And we know that – and I have great sympathy with people who want these prosecutions, particularly the families, they are the people who have the most interest in securing prosecutions – but I do not think that they’ve been told clearly enough that prosecutions are going to deliver a ‘scenes of crime view’ of what happened to their loved one at a particular time. It’s going to tell them absolutely nothing about the senior strategic decision-making that went into to the process that led to their loved one being killed whether carried out by Loyalists, Republicans or the British state. I think it’s a complete and utter waste of time to continue demanding truth through prosecutions. It is not going to come.
Martin: Alright. We just have about a minute or two left. We’ve now had more, about five hundred days, where there’s been no government, Stormont Administration, in The North. There doesn’t seem to be any prospects of any meaningful talks. The agreement that was proposed and which broke down gave very little to Sinn Féin – they would have gotten an Irish Language Act that would have been incorporated into an over-riding language act – it would have been under that as well as an Ulster-Scots act – and didn’t do anything in terms of legacy, didn’t do anything in terms of Arlene Foster’s position with the, in terms of the RHI, the Renewable Heat Incentive, scandal. Is there any prospect in the immediate future of talks to reconvene Stormont – getting that up and running?
Anthony: Well at the moment I think that the two sides remain pretty polarised. I mean the DUP are sitting pretty here and there’s not going to be anything, that I can see, that will happen that will change that position. The Tory government may have more room for manoeuvre if there was election and again, a significant majority, and therefore to not have to depend on the DUP. You might see them having some leverage over the DUP but at the minute the DUP have all the leverage. So I don’t see much changing until something happens – like the Tories getting a majority, which doesn’t look credible, and I mean if (UK Labour Party’s Jeremy) Corbyn comes in that would be a game changer but it wouldn’t be a game changer in terms of a united Ireland – it would just mean that we would get the same – the pressure would be brought to bear on the Unionists to get the same deal back on the table that they had previously has reneged upon. I think at the moment with Varadkar announcing these things if there’s movement towards a border poll and then this border poll is about sixty percent majority you’ll see the DUP starting to become much, much less hostile towards the idea of making concessions to the Nationalist community and making concessions to Sinn Féin but at all times they will ring fence and safeguard the constitutional attachment to the British state. And that’s not going to change.
Martin: Alright. We’re going to have to leave it there. Thank you, Anthony McIntyre, for being with us – giving us that analysis on a number of different themes.
Anthony: Thank you very much, Martin.
(ends time stamp ~ 53:15)
The Transcripts, Of Interest to the Irish Republican Community.You can follow The Transcripts on Twitter @RFETranscripts
July 9, 2018
Moving The Orange Forward
Controversial Political Commentator, Dr John Coulter, uses his Fearless Flying Column today to map the way forward for the Loyal Orders in the aftermath of the historic visit by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to the Orange Museum.
The challenge to the Loyal Orders – made up of the Orange Order, its male-only more religious Royal Black Institution and the Apprentice Boys – is how they march forward following a successful conclusion to a three-year dispute in north Belfast and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s visit to Orange headquarters.
Last October saw three Orange lodges and bands march in full regalia past the mainly nationalist Ardoyne Shops area to complete a July 12 march they had begun in 2013, but were prevented from finishing by a Parades Commission ruling not to march along the contentious route.
Loyalists set up a so-called “peace camp” near the location costing millions of pounds to police. However, after lengthy and intense negotiations between the Order and one of the two nationalist residents’ groups in Ardoyne, a solution was reached to allow the Order and the band members to complete their return leg.
The problem which loyalists face is which brand of republicanism are they dealing with when they enter talks with nationalist residents? Some residents’ groups would be dominated by Sinn Fein supporters; others by nationalist who support the dissident republican (anti-Sinn Fein) cause.
The Order still has to achieve a resolution to the notorious Drumcree dispute in Portadown, which has raged since 1995.
Orangemen and band members have been prevented from completing their return leg from a Battle of the Somme commemoration parade along a predominantly nationalist road.
The years 1995, 1996 and 1997 witnessed serious rioting after the march was forced through the road. Since 1998 – the year of the start of the peace process with the Good Friday Agreement – there has been no return leg for the loyalists.
A major problem which loyalists have faced is the changing geography of Northern Ireland. Areas which were previously overwhelmingly Protestant when traditional parades began have now become either majority Catholic or evenly mixed.
Many nationalists regard Orange and loyalist band parades through their areas as akin to the KKK holding a march through a predominantly Afro-American locality.
As well as shifts in the make-ups of communities, the Loyal Orders also face the growth of an increasingly secular Ireland on both sides of the border.
In the Republic, the clerical sex abuse scandals have smashed the influence of the Catholic Church to the point where same-sex marriage was legalised in a nation which was seen as one of the main bastions of Catholicism outside the Vatican.
In Northern Ireland, the mainstream Christian churches which had an iron grip through the so-called “Bible Belt” have seen their influence wane considerably since the peace process kicked in.
The forward march of the pluralist society in Ireland has posed a major dilemma for Christian socialism throughout the island – does it even have a role or vehicle of expression?
Many young Christian socialists have found a welcome home in the growing Pentecostal movement, founded in County Monaghan just over a century ago.
Known for their American-style “happy-clappy” forms of worship, the Pentecostalists have been increasing in popularity where traditional mainstream Christian denominations have seen their pews steadily emptying.
Perhaps the Loyal Orders need to return to their religious roots and become a movement to promote Christian socialism based on the New Testament teachings of Christ in the Beatitudes.
Ironically, on issues such as abortion, divorce, same-sex marriage and homosexuality, the Loyal Orders, fundamentalist Protestants and conservative Catholics would all share the same theological stances. What they lack is a united front to express those views.
On the issue of contentious parades, one of the most popular and least controversial annual Orange demonstrations has taken place in the County Donegal seaside town of Rossnowlagh in the Republic for decades.
Surely the Orders could find many quiet Rossnowlagh-type locations south of the border to hold their traditional parades, or even use their new political ‘love-in with Leo’ to find new locations for a new generation of parades.
In a few days, the Order will commemorate the traditional Twelfth. As the Loyal Orders also commemorate the centenary of the final year of the Great War in 1918, what better way to remember those from Ireland who served in that bloody campaign than to launch new parades south of the Irish border?
One of the Republic’s leading political parties, Fianna Fail, has unveiled plans to contest Northern elections by the end of the decade. Perhaps parade disputes could be eased if more Fianna Fail members got involved with nationalist residents groups, thereby edging Sinn Fein out of its role in such organisations.
Dr John Coulter is a former Religious Affairs Correspondent at the Belfast News Letter, a former Director of Operations at Christian Communication Network Television.
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter. @JohnAHCoulter
The challenge to the Loyal Orders – made up of the Orange Order, its male-only more religious Royal Black Institution and the Apprentice Boys – is how they march forward following a successful conclusion to a three-year dispute in north Belfast and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s visit to Orange headquarters.
Last October saw three Orange lodges and bands march in full regalia past the mainly nationalist Ardoyne Shops area to complete a July 12 march they had begun in 2013, but were prevented from finishing by a Parades Commission ruling not to march along the contentious route.
Loyalists set up a so-called “peace camp” near the location costing millions of pounds to police. However, after lengthy and intense negotiations between the Order and one of the two nationalist residents’ groups in Ardoyne, a solution was reached to allow the Order and the band members to complete their return leg.
The problem which loyalists face is which brand of republicanism are they dealing with when they enter talks with nationalist residents? Some residents’ groups would be dominated by Sinn Fein supporters; others by nationalist who support the dissident republican (anti-Sinn Fein) cause.
The Order still has to achieve a resolution to the notorious Drumcree dispute in Portadown, which has raged since 1995.
Orangemen and band members have been prevented from completing their return leg from a Battle of the Somme commemoration parade along a predominantly nationalist road.
The years 1995, 1996 and 1997 witnessed serious rioting after the march was forced through the road. Since 1998 – the year of the start of the peace process with the Good Friday Agreement – there has been no return leg for the loyalists.
A major problem which loyalists have faced is the changing geography of Northern Ireland. Areas which were previously overwhelmingly Protestant when traditional parades began have now become either majority Catholic or evenly mixed.
Many nationalists regard Orange and loyalist band parades through their areas as akin to the KKK holding a march through a predominantly Afro-American locality.
As well as shifts in the make-ups of communities, the Loyal Orders also face the growth of an increasingly secular Ireland on both sides of the border.
In the Republic, the clerical sex abuse scandals have smashed the influence of the Catholic Church to the point where same-sex marriage was legalised in a nation which was seen as one of the main bastions of Catholicism outside the Vatican.
In Northern Ireland, the mainstream Christian churches which had an iron grip through the so-called “Bible Belt” have seen their influence wane considerably since the peace process kicked in.
The forward march of the pluralist society in Ireland has posed a major dilemma for Christian socialism throughout the island – does it even have a role or vehicle of expression?
Many young Christian socialists have found a welcome home in the growing Pentecostal movement, founded in County Monaghan just over a century ago.
Known for their American-style “happy-clappy” forms of worship, the Pentecostalists have been increasing in popularity where traditional mainstream Christian denominations have seen their pews steadily emptying.
Perhaps the Loyal Orders need to return to their religious roots and become a movement to promote Christian socialism based on the New Testament teachings of Christ in the Beatitudes.
Ironically, on issues such as abortion, divorce, same-sex marriage and homosexuality, the Loyal Orders, fundamentalist Protestants and conservative Catholics would all share the same theological stances. What they lack is a united front to express those views.
On the issue of contentious parades, one of the most popular and least controversial annual Orange demonstrations has taken place in the County Donegal seaside town of Rossnowlagh in the Republic for decades.
Surely the Orders could find many quiet Rossnowlagh-type locations south of the border to hold their traditional parades, or even use their new political ‘love-in with Leo’ to find new locations for a new generation of parades.
In a few days, the Order will commemorate the traditional Twelfth. As the Loyal Orders also commemorate the centenary of the final year of the Great War in 1918, what better way to remember those from Ireland who served in that bloody campaign than to launch new parades south of the Irish border?
One of the Republic’s leading political parties, Fianna Fail, has unveiled plans to contest Northern elections by the end of the decade. Perhaps parade disputes could be eased if more Fianna Fail members got involved with nationalist residents groups, thereby edging Sinn Fein out of its role in such organisations.
Dr John Coulter is a former Religious Affairs Correspondent at the Belfast News Letter, a former Director of Operations at Christian Communication Network Television. Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter. @JohnAHCoulter
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(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
