Socialist Action /December 1999
Power-Sharing in Northern Ireland - Will it Bring Peace?
The capitalist media and politicians are hailing the new "power-sharing"
government in Northern Ireland as an historic event for peace. It is indeed
a notable occasion, but one that resembles the feeding of boa constrictors
in a zoo.
The establishment of the new government represents the swallowing of
the political movement of the oppressed people in Northern Ireland by a
predominantly colonialist government dedicated to perpetuating the union
with Britain and the supremacy of the pro-British community.
In this bourgeois colonialist government, Sinn Fein, the party of the
nationalist insurgency, gets two ministers-education and health-and a few
advisors. In order to participate, it had to commit itself to disarming
the oppressed population.
For the new government to be set up, the largest pro-British party, the
Ulster Unionists (UUP), had to agree to it. David Trimble, the main pro-British
champion of "power-sharing," was able to win his party's assent
by a vote of about 58 percent of the UPP council.
The basic traditional organization of the pro-British community, the
Orange Order, which organizes Protestant supremacist marches, came out against
"power-sharing," as did the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of
Ian Paisley, the second largest pro-British party. The DUP argued that the
new authority was set up with the support of a declining minority of the
Protestant population.
In this context, terrorist attacks have continued against the oppressed
population and a new important example of collusion between the Protestant
police and the reactionary terrorists has been exposed.
Carrying out a crackdown against Protestant terrorist groups opposed
to power-sharing, the Royal Irish Constabulary operatives discovered a list
of names and particulars of 300 nationalists in an Orange Order hall. Those
on the list had presumably been picked as targets for terrorist attacks,
and the information could only have come from the police force itself.
The weapons held by the nationalists, pathetically few in comparison
with the armament of the British and pro-British forces, were collected
through the self-sacrifice and risk of thousands of persons because of the
threat of new pogroms against the Catholic population.
The historic pattern in Northern Ireland is that whenever the colonial
order is threatened the reactionary colonialist organizations launch massive
and ruthless attacks on the oppressed people. New threats to this system
will certainly arise, since it is fundamentally retrograde.
The way was opened for the establishment of the "power-sharing"
government by a mid-November statement of the IRA leadership that they would
appoint an interlocutor to discuss disarming. They committed themselves
to nothing.
But Trimble has said that if the IRA does not start handing over their
weapons in February, the whole deal, including the government with its Sinn
Fein ministers, is off. (This threat has gone unnoticed in all the effusive
coverage of the agreement in the U.S. press.)
But now the whole deal is in place-a government including Sinn Fein and
abolition of the Irish government's claim to sovereignty over Northern Ireland.
It would be very hard for the IRA to risk bringing this all down by refusing
to disarm, especially since the nationalist population has been conditioned,
with the help of the Sinn Fein leadership, to believe that "power-sharing"
is its only hope.
The right-wing colonialists are expressing pain at having to accept Sinn
Feiners into their institutions. It is not easy for boa constrictors to
digest their larger prey either. But the situation of the swallowed is definitely
more perilous than that of the swallower. -GERRY FOLEY
Socialist Action /December 1999 |