Establishing the Republic
BY GERRY ADAMS
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We approach the new millennium undefeated and undeterred. We have
grown wise in the ways of struggle
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When this century began Britain had an Empire. As Empires go it could
swagger about the planet as well or better than most other Empires.
Now it swaggers no longer. The Empire is finished.
The first real blow against imperialism this centiry was struck in
ireland when the children of the famine, especially those survivors
who fled to the USA, built for revolution in Ireland. Great movements
were built from within the Dublin workers, the ruiral peasants, the
language enthusiasts, intellectuals and a range of radicals. Their
agitationary efforts were trumped by unionists led by a Dublin
barrister and supported by English Tories.
But in 1916 they had their day. An Irish Republic was declared. The
proclamation of that republic equals any of the great Addresses or
Proclamations in modern history. It was egalitarian, democratic, and
visionary. It was also deemed to be unlawful and seditious. The
British suppressed the 1916 Rising with great brutality. The rest is
history.
The execution of the leaders robbed the revolution of its social and
republican thinkers and strategists. It also created the momentum for
the growth of Irish republicanism and the IRA and for the endorsement
for the Sinn Féin position and the ratification of the proclamation in
the 1918 elections. But in politics every positive has a negative and
Irish unionism was in the ascendency also. So that in 1921, when the
British were defeated militarily, they regrouped behind the partition
of the island, consolidated their control in the north east and
continued to exert their influence everywhere else. They also
succeeded in dividing the revolutionary forces, in halting a national
struggle and aborting its social dimension.
There are numerous lessons for An Phoblacht readers in all of this.
These are lessons which were learned by people in struggle throughout
the rest of the Empire. We Irish must have been doing something wrong
for all the years of the conquest because others throughout the
colonies moved to the point where they won their independence much
quicker than us. Or maybe it's a matter of geography. Maybe we had the
misfortune of being too close to the Imperial power. Not that that
matters much nowadays because the Imperial power is no more. The
Empire has gone except in the minds of the Little Englanders who think
they still have an Empire. And we're it!
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The big lesson for those of us who are part of the reconquest of
Ireland is that it can only be accomplished by the people of the
island. It is our historic task to create the conditions in which this
can be achieved
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In an interview about a book which spanned this century, I heard the
RTE broadcaster Marian Finucane reflect with some feeling her reaction
on being reminded that Dublin was under British rule for the first 20
years of this century. That is something of which nationalists from
the north are always conscious. I dare say that is a feeling which the
unionists share with us. But for different and opposite reasons.
1916 was also part of the international movement that ran totally
contrary to the imperial wars. But the defeat of that time and the
awful legacy of the Irish civil wars, south and north, killed any real
progressive effort for decades. Emigration ruled in the south, while
unionist domination did its bit in the north. And two conservative
states grew up on the island, each in their own ugly way the exact
opposite of the 1916 Proclamation. Of course, there was progress and
there were movements to improve social and economic conditions, and
there were also constitutional changes in the south, but all within
the context of partition.
It is impossible to understand anything about the Irish in Ireland,
north or south or scattered throughout the globe, unless we understand
ourselves in the context of the colonisation of this small island and
of the conquest of Ireland by the English. Shameful things, which
disgraced humanity, occurred here. Of course they are but a shadow of
the awfulness which occurred on a global scale throughoput this
century, for example, in the second Great War. But revelations this
decade of child abuse, of the existence of such obscenities as the
Magdalene Laundries, and the perpetuation of poverty and disadvantage
on a nationwide scale is evidence of the power and the control of
conservative elites in church and state.
The end of the century closes on a more promising note. There are
still huge things wrong on this planet. The rich continue to shaft the
poor and wars and famines, from Kosovo to Sudan, continue
unchallenged. The official Irish worldview apes that of the big
powers. The reconquest of Ireland has yet to affect those in high
places. Not yet. But changes are coming. Unionism as we have known it
is finished. The face of Britain's involvement in ireland as we have
known it is finished also. Whether these changes amount to no more
than the modernising of British rule and as a consequence the
modernising of unionism is entirely dependent on whether we, An
Phoblacht readers and others, are up to the challenges that are
coming.
In the last 30 years worldwide, there have been huge changes, from the
fall of the USSR, the reunification of Germany and the liberation of
South Africa. Irish republicans have been part of these phenomena. We
approach the new millennium undefeated and undeterred. We have grown
wise in the ways of struggle. Through civil rights, demonstrations,
street campaigns, prison struggles, armed struggle and hunger strikes,
we have learne dmany lessons and we have grown in our knowledge of the
machinations of our opponents, particularly those who used to have an
Empire.
The Good Friday Agreement is the biggest development in Ireland since
partition. It marks an important and transitional phase in our
struggle. It could and would have been a more decisive phase had we
greater political strength north and south. That is the big lesson for
those of us who are part of the reconquest. A real reconquest of
Ireland can only be accomplished by the people of the island. It is
our historic task to create the conditions in which this can be
achieved.
So the century ends on a more hopeful note than it began. A hundred
years is a big deal for we mere mortals. But it is only a blink of an
eyelid in the history of humanity. Yet this last few months alone I
have talked to five people who are well over a hundred years old. They
have survived all of this history. They are also all women but that's
another story. The test for the rest of us is whether we can establish
in the opening decades of the next century the republic which was
proclaimed at the beginning of this one. I think we can. I believe we
can.
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