Republican News · Thursday 22 November 2001

Empowering women within Sinn Féin

National Women's Forum 3rd Annual Conference

BY KIERAN CLIFFORD

"We are all in training for victory," said Ella O'Dwyer, 26-County Political Education officer for Coiste na n-Iarchimí. She was addressing the third annual conference of the Sinn Féin National Women's Forum in Dublin on Saturday 17 November. She was describing the function of women in the party but also citing the failure of women to capitalise on the positions already attained. Questioning the background roles many women take up, asking whether it is by choice or appointment, O'Dwyer addressed the issues of the confidence of women within the party in standing for elected seats and called for closer examination of why so few women from Sinn Féin stand for public office. While the party has increased the numbers of women in elected positions and has an ever increasing number of women in high level offices within the party, there remains a gap and women continue to join the party in far fewer numbers than men.

With the receipt of a £20,000 training grant, Sinn Féin's National Women's Forum is set to begin a programme of work to increase the uptake of leadership and elected positions by women within the party. The first step in this process is a survey of all members of the party. Over the course of the next year, the National Women's Forum will be gathering information, holding training workshops in a comprehensive programme to identify and combat the inequalities facing women in the party, politics and society.

Chaired and organised by Áine Ní Gabhann and Anne Speed and with over 60 people in attendance, the conference had a healthy mix, more men attending this year than ever before.

Speakers Orla Murphy of Ógra Shinn Féin and Robby Smyth, Sinn Féin's representative on the all Ireland body, InterTradeIreland, discussed the issues of globalisation and the critical need for Sinn Féin to take the issue up in a more substantive way.

Murphy defined globalisation as "an economic development which affects the everyday lives of every person on this planet... the natural evolution of the capitalist system, a system based on greed, profit and the denial of democratic rights."

It is the effort to concentrate economic power and in turn political power in the hands of a very few. It is the exploitation of the poor, the abuse of the weak that should inform every aspect of Sinn Féin's policies and work. The worst effects of globalisation are visited upon women, forced into low paying menial jobs, driven into prostitution by abject poverty, she said. It is women and children across the planet who are the visible victims of the multinational drive to control the world economy.

Murphy said Sinn Féin is "a party which prides itself on promoting equality and human rights, a party which has a tradition of solidarity with the oppressed people of the world and as such we should be appalled at the statistics of globalisation". But she asked "what are we really doing about it? Why have republicans failed to get involved?" She described the multinational corporations upon which so much of the developing world are dependent as the new empires.

"With every one of us buying into the corporate culture, we have to ask ourselves the hard questions, she said. Is globalisation eroding Irish culture or is it opening Irish minds? Are we as a nation, culturally stronger or does globalisation merely package Irishness for international export?"

Robbie Smyth asked how do we define our nationalism? Originally a tactic used in the effort to create a republic, there is now a need to move away from nationalism as we work to create a multicultural socialist republic where there is respect and room for all traditions and cultures. How do we defend that idea while ignoring the wider, international developments of globalisation?

Sinn Féin needs to impact every level of society and use all positions of influence it has, he said. Sinn Féin is in a position in the north, with Martin McGuinness as Education minister, to get an anti-corporate brand component into the curriculum in schools. The issue of globalisation and how it affects our children and every member of Irish society needs to be an election issue. Sinn Féin is up against a government in the 26 Counties that is a part of the capitalist machine. The issue of globalisation and the complicity in it by the current government needs to be taken to the people and Sinn Féin needs to lead the way in the fight against it.

Focusing on the role of the US in the Middle East, Sinn Féin's Mary Lou McDonald and Majella Ní Chríocháin of the Galway Anti War Alliance highlighted the need to question the motives of the United States in the war on Afghanistan and in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian state. McDonald said:" We need to highlight the hypocrisy of the Irish government and its "selective horror" at the events of 11 September but their silence as the Israelis made further incursions into Palestinian territory, their lack of leadership while chairing the UN Security Council and their complicity and alliance with those waging war."

The conference agreed a proposal to be put to the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle calling on the party leadership to take a more vocal and proactive role in the anti-war campaign.

Sinn Féin Assembly member Dara O'Hagan gave a run down of Sinn Féin's ongoing work within the context of the northern Assembly and beyond. With women an integral part of the struggle for peace, justice and equality in Ireland, she said, Sinn Féin has the largest representation of women in the northern assembly. There is a job to do and we need to go out and do it.

Tanya Carmichael, a parent of two Holy Cross children in Ardoyne, gave a harrowing description of the situation. With little being mentioned by the leaders of the 26 Counties, the unionists, the British establishment the parents of Holy Cross have been left to walk the gauntlet with their terrified children every day in an environment of hate and sectarian abuse. The children of Holy Cross are the victims of the worst kind of child abuse, allowed to happen in public daily while those in a position to do something about it turn their backs. Calling on all concerned people Tanya asked everyone at the conference to take the issue to their communities, to rally whatever support they could on every level in order to bring a semblance of normality and sanity back to the lives of the young students of Holy Cross. Sinn Féin Councillor Eoin Ó Broin described some of the negotiations that have taken place and highlighted the fact that as each demand of the loyalist community has been met, new demands have been placed on the table. With the British government rewarding them for the horrific behaviour there is little impetus on the loyalists to call off the protest. They make one gain after another, all the while destroying the lives of the nationalist community.

Dodie McGuinness called for, among other things, the multiplication of women candidates for Leinster House by the number of TDs Sinn Féin has elected in the next general election.

The conference closed with the announcement of the launch of Scéal na mBan on International Women's Day 2002. The book is comprised of interviews with and the history of the women involved in all aspects of the 1980/'81 Hunger Strikes and reflects their role in one of the most critical watersheds in republican history.