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I
am consistently amazed at the quality of each issue
of the Blanket. I was really impressed by the
article on the Marxist philosopher attempting to expand
the borders of orthodox Marxism. In fact, the "orthodox"
interpretation actually ignores the dialectic of "base"
and superstructure central to Marxist thought.
It's ironic and amusing that the same republicans
often dismissed by trots and anarchists are putting
into practice with the Blanket what radical
socialists merely preach about.
A comment on the strange article by Newton...are you
actually arguing that Loyalists attack Catholics because
they don't participate in your beloved authoritarian
police institutions?!?!?! Please say it ain't so or
I'll die of laughter. And Loyalism is the protestant
equivelant of Republicanism? Did you know that republicanism
was started by protestants...or that true protestants
can't be loyalists and vice versa since protestentism
is a dissenting tradition? How does armed support
of a monarchy in any way equate to attempting to create
a democratic socialist republic??
The most important reason I wanted to write in was
to say that I was glad for the article by Liam O Comain.
A new false dialectic has been advanced by some self
appointed Marxist leaders and burgesoie counter-revolutionaries.
This theory goes that a republican campaign could
never win, republicanism equals authoritarian coercian,
etc. The other half of this story is that if you simply
convince the protestants that they're wrong they'll
flock to a working class revolution and there won't
be any of that nasty fighting stuff. And the forces
of occupation...I guess they'll just bugger off back
to England...
Naturally
those who don't actually advocate a platform or attempt
to implement any ideas see themselves as the only
ones who can actually create a better society. Maybe
if more "radicals" had gotten involved,
the IRA wouldn't've morphed into the AOH with armalites.
Maybe people like Ivor Bell would not have been isolated
and their arguments for enlargening the struggle into
an outright revolution would've carried farther.
"You'll never understand," so the song goes.
the Irish aren't fighting for their national rights
just because they were stolen. Ireland's native institutions
were democratic and communist. Our nationhood does
symbolize our freedom and the opportunism of some
politicians won't erase that. Even the supposedly
ultra conservative leaders like Mac Stiofain pointed
to the fact that both the English workers and the
oppressed Irish had a common enemy. Adams and McGuinness
aside, the republicans tried repeatedly to forge relationships
across the sectarian divide (don't say they didn't
- it's actually documented). It's not our fault they
preferred "cracking taigs" to gaining their
freedom.
New
evidence has shown that the campaign could've been
run much better; it was actually put down from within.
I'm not saying I completely or even mostly agreed
with the IRA's actions...but I don't believe that
the failure of a terrorist-nationalist group discredits
republican guerillaism.
Republicanism
isn't irelevent nor will it go away; it's not doomed
to failure and it's actually the greatest potential
there is for a genuine revolution (especially if it
were to link up with radical movements in Wales, Scotland
and England). But that won't matter to the ahistorical
radical cliques...they'd rather sit it out and criticize
actual struggle.
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