The
most basic of principles, thus revolutionary duties
of any radical political activist, is to show solidarity
with those who are engaged in struggle against our
common enemy. This duty is not negotiable, the more
so when it involves challenging one's own government
or governmental administrations who have in the
past, or may in the future, be beneficial to our
struggle. That is why communists who stood out against
the USSR's invasion and suppression of the Hungarian
revolution in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 are
to this day rightly regarded with respect, despite
being pilloried at the time. The same goes for those
English and French socialists who opposed their
nations' Empire building, and stood alongside the
Liberation Movements who were struggling for their
freedom and independence. This is especially true
of those French and English nationals who gave support
to the Irish Republican Movement and the FLN during
their years of armed conflict. In the USA it is
those who organized and demonstrated against the
Vietnamese war on the streets of US cities who were
the true US patriots, not those who supported all
out war against that small south-east Asian country
and its immediate neighbors by sending other people's
sons to war.
Nelson
Mandela understood this duty clearly when, soon
after his release from prison, he refused to join
with the USA in condemning Fidel Castro's Cuba,
Libya and the PLO, along with other nations who
had given the ANC shelter and material support during
their long struggle against the South African apartheid
State.
Contrast
this behavior with that of Gerry Adams today, who,
far from following in this tradition and doing his
duty as an Irish Republican revolutionary by showing
solidarity with Hizbullah and the dispossessed it
represents, issued a
statement via the SF web site in which he refuses
to squarely place the blame for the bloodshed in
Lebanon where it belongs, with the government of
Israel and that nations benefactor, armorer and
financier, the US administration of GW Bush. Instead,
Adams issues a statement worthy of a flimflam G8
politico who is ever on the look-out for the main
chance to ingratiate himself with Bush and his doormat
Blair.
Adams,
in his statement, drivels on about the need for
the United Nations to come to the aid of Lebanon,
when he is well aware there is not a hope in hell
of this happening as the USA and UK would veto it
at the Security Council of the UN, preferring to
send Nato troops into the region, their purpose
being to police the border on behalf of Israel and
pressurize Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Iran to
accept US hegemony in the middle east.
Instead
of recognizing that the actions of Hizbullah were
designed to take the pressure off the democratically
elected Palestinian government and the people of
Gaza, Adams uses the exact same language as Bush
and his moron doormat Tony Blair, and talks about
Hizbullah kidnapping members of the IDF (nevermind
Israel holds hundreds of Lebanese prisoners some
of which have been in Israeli prisons for over 20
years). Adams' implication is clear to all;
like the Thief in Chief in the White House, Adams
is telling his US supporters that if Hizbullah had
not 'kidnaped' the two Israeli soldiers, the IDF
would not at this very moment be murdering innocent
civilians within Lebanon. Which is nonsense, as
even the Israelis are now admitting their true purpose
is to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure in an attempt
to annihilate from the face of the earth the Hizballah
organization, its militants and leadership. Indeed,
in his statement nowhere does Adams condemn this
act of attempted annihilation; his only comment
is that it may not succeed. For someone who claims
to be an Irish Republican to make such a statement
is not only shameful but denies the whole history
of Republicanism.
Compare
Gerry Adams' behavior with that of Hizbullah's comrades
in Iran during the IRA prisoners hunger strikes
of 1981, which was led by Bobby Sands. They immediately
recognized a commonality between the two struggles
despite having both political and religious differences
with the PRM. They understood revolutionary solidarity
and renamed the street in which the British Embassy
in Tehran is situated from Winston Churchill Street
to that of Bobby Sands Street. This name change
reverberated around the Islamic world and beyond,
resulting in mass demonstrations, etc., in support
of the Republican prisoners and their struggle.
Plus it was a tonic and fillip to the Republican
prisoners suffering in the cages of Long Kesh prison.
These
militants in Tehran understood their revolutionary
duty, and it was not to cosy up to the exploiters
by not offending them, but to use the opportunity
to appeal to the masses over their heads in an attempt
to gain support for the Republican prisoners and
their struggle against the British State. A lesson
Mr Adams clearly needs to re-learn if he is to play
any constructive role in the future in building
an Ireland of equals.
