I
recently heard a member of Sinn Fein say the current
hue and cry raised by the partner and sisters of
Robert McCartney, who was murdered by members of
the PIRA after a bar room brawl, will be on a par
with that of the Peace People.* By this comment
I suppose he meant that given time, things will
return to normal in the Short Strand, plus he was
adding a pinch of pepper by reminding us the Peace
People were quickly hi-jacked by the pro British
media and taken up by the political establishment
both in the UK and RoI, all but imploding in a storm
of personality clashes and disagreements over money.
However, for me, that such a comparison was made
by this Sinn Fein activist is yet another example
of SF's inability to react in a positive manner
to current events if they veer off script.
Even at a glance one can see that there is little
similarity between what happened to Robert McCartney
and the Maguire children, nor does the behaviour
of his loved ones in any way tally with that of
the Peace People. Indeed, the two parties are opposites.
The McCartney family are not demanding, as the Peace
People did, that PIRA cease its war of national
liberation, for the simple reason it is not currently
engaged in any war, having been on ceasefire since
1997. The McCartneys have made no attempt to place
Irish Republicanism in the dock but, as the PIRA
have admitted, IRA members were involved in the
fracas in which Mr McCartney lost his life. The
McCartneys have been demanding of the Provisional
IRA leadership that it does its duty by its own
rules and by so doing it stands with the Short Strand
community and not with its renegade members who
brutally murdered a member of that community.
No, members of the PRM have attempted to smear the
McCartneys with the Peace People tag, because they
know that the majority of the Nationalist population
in areas like Short Strand hold a low opinion of
that organisation due to how the PP eventually panned
out. By so doing they hoped that such a smear would
stick to the dead man's family. That they attempted
to do so just shows what a pretty pickle the PRM
have got themselves into over this crime. For members
of the PIRA to beat and hack one of their supporters
to death in a public place, when their bellies were
full of beer, and then call on their comrades to
help clean the crime scene is not an alpha plus
in most people's eyes. To then make matters worse
by intimidation and nasty smears only added to their
woes. Then to continue to dig further into the massive
hole their colleagues had already dug for themselves
by behaving in the aforementioned manner beggars
belief and sadly demonstrates only too clearly,
as I have already said, the inability of the PRM
to deal swiftly with situations that are off the
leadership's script.
It is worth considering why PRM has found itself
in such a frightful mess of late, for it has undoubtedly
come as a complete shock to not only them but also
much of the media; yet all the signs were there
if they were only looked for. One of the gaping
holes exposed over the last two months has been
the inability of SF intellectuals to come to their
party's aid and give the leadership adequate cover,
as is their norm. Instead we have had the pitiful
sight of the likes of Danny Morrison and Jim Gibney,
both seasoned Republicans who these days have their
own weekly newspaper columns, readily jumping, spade
in hand, into the hole only recently dug by members
of the Short Strand PIRA with the blood of Mr McCartney,
to do their own share of the digging. There is no
other way to describe their behaviour, when what
was needed from republican intellectuals was a bit
of blue water thinking that would chart a way for
the PRM out of their current impasse.
Instead all the two men could offer was more hard
labour, when they retold in their newspaper columns
the tale of the sacrifices of the hunger strikers
and how the PIRA came to the defence of the Short
Strand at the start of the troubles. All true no
doubt; but the people of the Short Strand were not
denying the courage and heroism of a previous generation
of Republicans but demanding that today's leadership
take charge of their current volunteers. Such a
history lesson not only fell on deaf ears, but further
enraged the people of the Short Strand, as too did
the former Mayor of Belfast Alex Maskey when on
the day after the murder, rather than siding with
the local community, he turned on the PSNI for having
the temerity to investigate the crime. Of all communities
in the north, the people of the Short Strand had
no need to be reminded of how to do their duty —
f or that was what they were doing when they were
protesting against Republican renegades who murdered
their friend and neighbour. What they wanted to
hear was that at long last the leadership of the
PIRA was doing their duty and standing alongside
them, as they the community in turn had stood alongside
the Republican Movement during some of the darkest
days of the troubles. Plus, they wanted to hear
how such tragic situations could be avoided in the
future.
It is not difficult to see how this sorry mess has
been allowed to develop and it almost entirely springs
from the control freakiery of the Adams leadership.
They seem to wish to control every aspect of the
PRM and the behaviour of the people who live in
the core Republican communities. No public statement,
even at the most local level, can be issued without
one of Adams' kitchen cabinet okaying it. Thus when
an event such as the foul murder of Robert McCartney
takes place, the PRM is taken by surprise, which
may be understandable, but what is less so is their
inability to deal with it in a civilised manner.
Instead every thing comes to a halt, the wagons
are circled and SF goes into rebuttal mode, as if
they were back at war. The smear and innuendo squad
are sent out to contact friendly journalists and
local members do the same over the garden gate.
Shinner speak is replicated right down the line.
However none of this worked because it soon became
clear, to almost everyone except the more gullible
members of SF, that the McCartney murder was a grubby,
disgraceful, brutal act perpetrated by members of
the local PIRA, and all decent people would rally
to the dead man's family, as there was no anti republican
agenda at work.
Or take how the PRM dealt with the recent accusations
made in a new book about the blanket men written
by Richard O'Rawe (Blanketmen: An Untold Story
of the H-block Hunger Strike). As a blanket
man himself, Richard O'Rawe played an important
role during this period as the prisoners' PRO inside
the Maze. He thus worked closely with the Provo
officer commanding Bik McFarlane. Twenty years after
the event it is hardly surprising that some of the
participants would differ on events, but instead
of recognising this the PRM has wheeled out its
big guns to vilify O'Rawe for having the impertinence
to write a book that differed with the official
line.
What this kerfuffle should have been is a difference
between former comrades; no harm done, history being
what it is, there is always bound to be more than
one version when it is retold and all the better
for us if there is. But no, for the Provisional
republican movement in its current incarnation there
is only room for one tale to be told and this is
the one sanctioned by Connolly House. The same is
true about almost all things that involve Irish
Republicanism, whether it be the murder of Robert
McCartney, the GFA, standing PIRA down, the Hunger
Strikes, Republican internet lists, etc, etc. If
someone has a version that differs or questions
the Provisional Republican Movements orthodoxy,
then according to the Adamettes, they must be motivated
by underhand, devious, or low reasons and thus open
season to slander and vilify them is declared by
this leadership.
Now this was all very well during wartime when people
were willing to sacrifice their democratic liberties
for the greater good; they were even willing, if
reluctantly, do this for a period when peace first
came about with the second ceasefire, because they
understood it takes time for things to bed down
and return to normal. But eight years down the line
the dam has burst. Nationalist/Republican communities
are no longer prepared to accept such crap on the
promise of jam tomorrow, especially when the people
who are asking them to make sacrifices appear to
be making few of their own. The fact is unless the
PRM stands the PIRA down and democratises itself,
it is finished as a mass political party and with
it will go the dreams of hundreds of thousands of
Irish Republicans. Even worse, its core working
class constituency, who have contributed and suffered
alongside the Provisional Republican Movement, will
end up with no one to represent them politically.
Once again working class nationalist areas will
have to make do with being represented by middle
class politicians on the make, who do not understand
the aspirations of these working class communities,
nor do they have their best intentions at heart.
*
An organisation that was founded back in 1976 by
Mairead Corrigan Betty Williams and Ciaran McKeown,
after the three children of Mairead Corrigan's sister
were killed when a PIRA volunteer on active service
was shot dead and the car he was driving careered
into the children, killing all three. However it
was quickly taken up by the anti republican media
and was used as a propaganda vehicle against the
PIRA.
