Republican News · Thursday 3 April 2003

Re-imagining Ireland

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Phoblacht columnist PAUL O'CONNOR reflects on last weekend's Ard Fheis, the success of which provided a measure of how far republicans have come. He argues that the only boundaries to what we can achieve are the boundaries of our own imaginations

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More people on this island vote for Sinn Féin than at any time since 1921 - and their number is increasing every day. The Republic is no longer an aspiration. It is a viable goal that only needs hard work and determination to achieve.

Through all the debates at last weekend's Ard Fheis ran the sense of a party determined to present a viable alternative to the status quo - determined also to build the political strength that will deliver change. The section on the all-Ireland agenda provided an opportunity to think through the details of Irish unity. The motions and speeches gave a picture of how the dream of a united Ireland may be translated into fact across the diverse spheres of healthcare, infrastructure, education, and economics.

Important discussions also took place around the economy, the European Union, and housing. In particular, the adoption of the policy document "Educate that you may be free" and a policy document on critical engagement with the European Union, marked important stages in the elaboration of republican ideals into policies that are both sophisticated and radical.

This is an exciting time to be a republican. Sinn Féin is a party in transition, developing its programme and structures and expanding its appeal as never before. The numbers of young people and women in attendance, and the quality of debate, testified to the vibrancy and health of the republican family.

Media coverage concentrated on the prospect of the party joining the policing board and on Gerry Adams' declaration he could envisage a future without the IRA. What it did not cover was the evidence of the hard work going on to ensure that Sinn Fein continues to build political strength and is able to transform its vision of a new Ireland into a reality.

The presence of Joe Cahill - a man who personifies the indomitable spirit of Irish resistance to British rule - underlined the continuity of the republican tradition. Like every previous generation of republicans, we are faced with the challenge of updating and revising the strategies by which we pursue our goal. But whereas in the past such rethinking often took place from a position of weakness and retreat, today's republicans can look confidently toward the future from a position of almost unparalleled opportunity and strength.

A hugely significant realignment of politics on this island is under way. After decades of marginalisation and exclusion, boxed in by censorship and repression, republicans are seizing the high ground of Irish politics. Already Sinn Féin has replaced the SDLP as the voice of the nationalist people of the Six Counties. The effect of this may be gauged by comparing the current round of negotiations with those leading up to the Good Friday Agreement. To an extent unseen before, republicans are taking the lead in talks, and republican issues, republican concerns, are dominating the agenda.

But even these gains are dwarfed by the potential for republicanism in the 26 Counties. The most important result in the 2002 elections was not the re-election of the government, but the election of a new opposition. Fine Gael has now significantly less seats than the combined forces of Sinn Féin, Labour, Greens and the Independents, while Labour itself is outpolled by the 'Technical Group', dominated by Sinn Féin and the Greens.

In this, I believe, we see the outlines of a reshaping of 26-County politics that future elections will only reinforce; a reshaping that will set a right-wing, neo-liberal bloc of Fianna Fáil and the PDs against a new left-wing opposition, of which Sinn Féin is the natural leader.

Fianna Fáil has abandoned even a rhetorical adherence to the principles of republicanism, neutrality, and social justice. Under Bertie Ahern, it has become a party of the free market, indistinguishable from the PDs. It has abandoned its traditional supporters to secure the votes of the upper middle classes enriched by the Celtic Tiger - and as those supporters realise their betrayal, they will look for a new political home.

Like a headless chicken running around and flapping its wings, Fine Gael is dead, but has yet to realise the fact and lie down decently.

Under its new leader, Labour has bought into the delusion that popularity among the pol-cors that hang around Leinster House translates into popularity among the electorate, and that catchy soundbytes can substitute for radical policies and activism in the community. The next election will see them disabused.

Both Labour and Fine Gael are bankrupt morally and ideologically; bankrupt both of principles and ideas.

The vote for Sinn Féin - as well as for Greens, Socialists and Independents - at the last election revealed the hunger of increasing numbers of people for a new vision: for a politics which says there is more to governing a country than managing an economy, which sees other measures of a society's welfare than the indices of production and consumption. It is the same hunger expressed by anti-globalisation protesters and community activists throughout the world - a hunger manifest on the streets of Seattle and Genoa, and in the votes which propelled Chavez and Lula to power, in Venezuala and Brazil, respectively. It is a hunger which republicans are better poised than anybody else on this island to fulfil.

Progress will always be opposed by the vested interests that profit from the status quo. But an even greater obstacle comes from apathy and cynicism: from the mindset that sees it as useless to hope for change, the failure of the imagination to conceive another and a better world. It is this mindset that has gelded much of the European left, including the Irish Labour Party.

Republicans, on the other hand, have always had the courage to imagine what others dismissed as foolish or impossible - have spent their lives, in the words of Pearse, "attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil". For every Irish man and woman who supported Tone, or Davis, or Pearse in their dream of an independent Ireland, there was another who dismissed that dream as impossible.

Who could conceive that a tiny, impoverished nation could take on and defeat the mightiest empire in the world, or survive afterwards as an independent state? Even Mazzini, the prophet of European nationalism, dismissed Ireland's claim to nationhood. Yet millions have lived (albeit imperfectly) the freedom that was once only a dream.

There was a time - not long ago - when the resolution of conflict on this island appeared an impossibility. Republicans thought otherwise, and today peace is within our grasp. There was a time - not long ago - when Irish unity was dismissed as a pipe dream. Republicans thought otherwise, and today newspaper commentators ponder the when, rather than the if, of a united Ireland.

There are many who dismiss the vision of an Ireland of equals- where social policy is determined by considerations of justice rather than profit, and world-class healthcare, education and housing are available to all - as an unrealisable aspiration. They appeal to economic "reality" and mutter darkly about the dangers such policies would pose to "enterprise" and foreign investment. They too will be proved wrong.

The task, and the opportunity, for republicans is clear. We can - and we must - write the agenda for future political discussion on this island. We must provide leadership to those hundreds of thousands of Irish people crying out for an alternative to the heartless and failing policies of the governing coalition and unable to find one in an opposition void of ideas.

We must mould dissent and yearning for change into a cohesive movement that can build a 32-County republic as worthy of the suffering and sacrifice offered in Ireland's cause as the 26-County state is not. Above all, we need confidence and self-belief if we are to achieve our potential.

This Ard Fheis provided a measure of how far we have come. We have further to go, and a great deal more to do, on the road to the Republic. But that road lies open before us; and the only boundaries to what we can achieve are the boundaries of our own imaginations.

We must mould dissent and yearning for change into a cohesive movement that can build a 32-County republic as worthy of the suffering and sacrifice offered in Ireland's cause as the 26-County state is not