Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

The Proclamation and working class politics today

BY MITCHEL McLAUGHLIN, SINN FÉIN NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON

Sinn Féin is about building an Ireland of Equals where we, the people of Ireland, will be able to determine our own destiny based on the ideals contained in the 1916 Proclamation

I don't believe working class politics has been forgotten in the debates around the national question or sovereignty, but I do believe that the social and economic debate has been adversely affected by division and conflict in our society. As long as political representatives are identified with one side or other of the sovereignty debate, it will be difficult for people to affiliate or identify with parties on their social and economic policies alone. The legacy of imperialism overshadows attempts to appeal to voters based on social policies because the question of allegiance will invariably influence voters' decisions.

Every election in the North (European, Westminster, Assembly and Local Government) is at a basic level about the 'Constitutional' issue. An analysis of election results of the past 30 years demonstrates that electors are increasingly voting for those parties that proclaim either pro-Union or pro-United Ireland options. There is a consistent 'squeezing' of the so-called 'Other' or 'Independent' candidates. This underlying influence equally can impact on other aspects of the political process, eg. the Peace Process itself, sectarian interface violence, efforts at developing political dialogue and unfortunately, on the debate about social and economic policies. The travails of the Peace Process and the divisions opening up within unionism all revolve around the question of the Constitutional future on the island of Ireland - perhaps the last great debate of the Peace Process. Only its resolution will allow the necessary discourse on bread and butter issues and political realignments and alignments.

A number of years ago, I contributed to a debate on the significance of the Easter Rising. Among other ideas, I argued that the 1916 Proclamation was a socialist manifesto. It followed a period of intense political, cultural, and social activity. After the downfall of Parnell and the accompanying swing to the right in nationalist politics, with its resultant political mediocrity, depression and inertia, there were few who imagined that within the short space of ten years, the social elite would be, if only temporarily, rocked by a revolutionary radicalism in culture and the arts, in working-class militancy and in armed separatist planning. All at once, it seemed the people of Ireland had reawakened from the apathy and despondency engendered by the moral ministrations of the anti-Parnellite elite.

In that rarefied process, which involved a relatively small number of people initially, relationships with the past and with British colonialism were re-examined in a fresh, newly confidant, and coherent way. If we are to break the bonds of conservative establishment politics ruling our lives, we need to revisit that exercise in the context of prevailing circumstances. The tactics and policies of the then dominant Irish Parliamentary Party were subjected to critical evaluation. The same critical evaluation must be applied to the tactics and policies of the present day establishment, North and South.

Sinn Féin believes that the involvement of the British government in our affairs has created the present political divisions and that the achievement of Irish self-determination will liberate and empower the proper development of social politics here. Sinn Féin has developed a series of strategic objectives to guide our politics. We have concluded that our ultimate political objective is the establishment of a democratic socialist republic; our primary political objective is national self-determination. In other words, only the people of Ireland can decide in free and fair elections and in the context of sovereignty, the social and economic profile of our society and our interface with global economics.

The maintenance of partition is detrimental to the proper development of our economy, prevents us utilising our resources to deliver health and education, inhibits development of road and rail infrastructure and creates wasteful duplication, which could be better applied to fashion conditions in which social politics could be properly resourced.

Sinn Féin is about building an Ireland of Equals where we, the people of Ireland, will be able to determine our own destiny based on the ideals contained in the 1916 Proclamation.

The Proclamation declares "the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible". It states: "The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally." It clearly eschews any sectarian overtones whatsoever, religious or political.

The signatories understood what they were about. They had declared a revolution and that revolution was socialist. The Proclamation was generous, magnanimous and politically advanced. The Irish nation that the signatories envisaged would be pluralist, egalitarian and would embrace all inhabitants and all traditions.

The Proclamation was, in essence, a political programme designed to better the economic and social conditions of the people of Ireland. It was an early and coherent recognition of, and response to, the economic and political ravages of colonialism, not to mention its modern equivalent 'globalisation'.

Allegiance to the 1916 Proclamation remains a stubborn principle for Irish republicans. But let us not be too blasé about our history. The middle-class leadership elements within the IRA during the Tan War were only too aware of the radically subversive quality of the Proclamation and while paying lip service to it, they were not swayed by its egalitarian socialism. They were not out to establish an Ireland of Equals, merely to free Irish capitalism from the restrictions of English rule. But Ireland has changed and republicanism has continued to evolve and develop.

The Proclamation is still important and vibrant today. It presents the people of Ireland, unionist, nationalist, republican and none of the above, with a real alternative to the centuries of violence, suffering and stultifying conservatism that has been our collective experience.

The dilemma facing the nationalist establishment parties is one of legitimacy. They recognise to their dismay that, unfortunately for their political postures, the only legitimising and unifying factor in modern Irish politics remains the 1916 Proclamation. Much as they may detest the revolutionary, armed insurrectionist nature of the Easter Rising, they cannot avoid it nor publicly reject it if they wish to be seen and respected within an independent Irish context. And so the Proclamation remains sacrosanct. The signatories can be glossed and sanctified out of reality. The violence of the modern IRA can be abhorred but the violence of the good 'Old IRA' can be honoured. The hypocrisy of that message, they hope, will be lost on the wider population. But the basic ambivalence about the creation of the Southern state must remain. The Proclamation was a call to arms, a call for freedom and equality, and was indeed, as FSL Lyons has said, "the point of departure... for all subsequent Irish history".

Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, the SDLP and even the Workers' Party, if they are still around, are all stuck with the Proclamation. Without denying the very legitimacy of their own independent existence, they cannot reject the Proclamation. And yet, all the alienation, indifference, and disaffection that have corrupted the heart of 26-County political life can be traced to the erosion of conscience that followed the cynical abandonment of the democratic socialist message in the Proclamation.

The Proclamation demands more of us than many might imagine. It contains and advocates a notion of freedom that is all embracing. It reminds us that freedom carries a heavy responsibility. Freedom for the signatories of the Proclamation includes the freedom to dissent, to reject, and to be different while still being cherished equally as children of the nation. That is real freedom and is as fine an aspiration as exists in any political manifesto or in any constitution on this earth. It is a message that the unionist community needs to hear again and again.

The Proclamation is not a narrow nationalist tract; it is the antithesis of reaction and conservatism. It is a generous and potent statement of the achievements possible within a free, united, socialist nation. It remains the basis for Irish unity and for the establishment of the Irish Republic. It is the duty of all republicans and democrats to help reinterpret it for today. Adherence to its ideals is to put real socialist politics into practice.