Below is a letter I would have submitted to AP/RN (SF's old paper) in the past, but AP (their new one) doesn’t publish letters so I’m doing it here and also on a politics discussion board here (UPDATE 10/17/23 That discussion forum seems to be dead). It is addressed to SF but I would love to see everyone else also take part in the discussion. The web-site for Friends of SF in the US is here. A few very relevant posts are here. And one more where I talk about the bigger picture of SF and America is here.
Although I infrequently express some criticism of SF, I am mostly a supporter and since 1997 I have occasionally had a small to moderate degree of success supporting SF and/or the nationalist community in general. For example in 1999 I was fairly involved with bringing Rita O’Hare to speak on the CU-Boulder campus.
I have a suggestion about your work in America. On one hand, I am partly motivated to support republicanism because I’m Irish-American. However I know or know of a LOT of Americans who aren’t Irish and have done a fair amount or a lot to support SF and/or the nationalist community in general (for example, Bill Fletcher Jr. who has held senior positions in the labor movement and is the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum; or, the well-known professor, Angela Davis). With that in mind, I was disappointed to see that on the “About Us” page of the Friends of SF USA site, you refer only to Irish-America and the links page only links to SF or Irish-American groups. Because of this and some other similar things about your allies here in America I’m concerned it will deter at least some, probably most and maybe all, interested people of color from getting involved in one way or another (i.e. joining Irish Northern Aid) or even from just educating themselves about the conflict and the Peace Process. This focus I believe unintentionally denies the contributions made by people of color in the past and present and implies that in the present and future Irish-American contributions are more important than those of people of color.
I do know that in Ireland SF is INCREDIBLY anti-racist and that you and your American supporters have occasionally done things to reach out to people of color here, but on that you need to do more, or at least use more inclusive language.
Besides being the right thing to do, it will help in some other important ways:
1) With a good response from people of color, this may have an impact on racism among Irish-Americans. It might also work like that with nationalists and republicans in Ireland.
2) Greater diversity in, for example, INA will also probably attract more white allies, further affecting Irish-American racism.
3) There will be more supporters of SF and/or the nationalist community in general.
Although I believe that I’ve covered a fair amount of this subject, I’d be interested in discussing these issues further.
Sincerely,
Tom Shelley
Boulder, Colorado USA
P.S. I have a true story about this. In the late 1990s I was circulating a petition addressed to the US Government about the former Volunteers facing extradition or deportation. I took it one day to an anti-prisons protest and at one point went up to two men, one white, one black. I told them what the petition was about and the white guy said “I’m Irish-American, but I don’t support the IRA” and declined to sign it. The black guy said “I’ll sign it.”
Showing posts with label ancient order of hibernians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ancient order of hibernians. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2014
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
In The Spirit of Malcolm X
"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation... It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a racial conflict of Black against white, or as a purely American problem. Rather we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter."
(Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 232-233) January, 1965.
(when typing this, for various reasons I often said "to-the-right-of-center." I might change that, but earlier I got in the habit of, when thinking about this topic, thinking of it pretty much that way)
(I forgot to mention this, but I should say I'm fairly familiar with this subject 1997-2005; 2006 to 2009 I was slightly familiar with this subject; Before and since I wrote this I have found some additional things which confirm my thoughts about this subject; If I have somehow missed some stuff and SF and their American allies are doing more or less what I suggest in this post, then this is meant to encourage them to continue with that)
I've complained on this blog before about Sinn Fein's approach to America. They focus too much on Irish-America and partly leave behind their left-wing beliefs when they travel from Ireland to America. I imagine this is because A) the focus on Irish-Americans comes somewhat naturally and B) they don't want to scare off people with money and/or power. The first part is not even that offensive, but is, as I'll explain, very stupid. The second part, depending on what issue SF is compromising on, is either very offensive or slightly offensive. The former would be cases involving bigotry, the latter, getting too chummy with corporate America and to-the-right-of-center politicians.
First, SF is a party whose political center is center-left. Based on large amounts of research (I was reading about 100 articles a week on average from Irish news sources 1997-2005), I would say that four years ago SF membership looked something like the figures below. I have enough information about the last four years to more or less confirm my belief that it's very unlikely SF has shifted more than a tiny bit, if at all, in the wrong direction. These figures would be pretty much the same, unless noted otherwise, the last 30-40 years. You can find more details at the posts I link to, below.
*SF is pretty consistentent in standing up for economic justice. Probably somewhere around 50% of SF are socialist, and the rest are probably mostly progressive and a small minority are conservative. (Since some will say that yes, SF is socialist, NATIONAL socialist, you should read "The Brown and the Green"). They have frequently raised issues of health-care, unions, etc. In the 2002 General Election in the Republic, about 1/3-2/3 of their candidates were either, members, staff or leaders of trade-unions. In the European Parliament SF is a member of the European Parliamentary Group “European United Left/Nordic Green Left.” In elections to the South’s Senate in 2007, SF and Labour had a voting pact.
*SF is pretty consistent in standing up against racism. (see "Anti-Racism and Republicans")
*SF is pretty consistent in standing up against homophobia. (see the post "Invisible Comrades") (30 years ago it was nowhere near as good as this)
As far as the kind of anti-semtism that generally are associated with the Right, SF is very consistent in standing up against it. There is a problem with probably some small majority having the wrong attitude about the IRA and the Nazis ("Fuck Fascism Before It Fucks You"). Probably some small minority support the Palestinians with the wrong attitude towards Jews (SF overwhelmingly supports the Palestinians, so this a small minority of such people). You might want to read "The Spirit Of Robert Briscoe".
*Overall SF is very feminist. As far as I can tell, looking over the last 12 years back to the 1998 Assembly elections and giving weight to the more senior positions and offices, some very large minority of SF officers and elected politicians are women, and probably no more than a very large minority of the membership is female. (UPDATE 10/18/11 two years later and I'm looking at the results of the 2011 General Election in the South, and I have to report that out of 14 MPs (in the Dail, in Dublin) only two are women, which negatively affects what I wrote about woman among the officials and elected representatives)
Probably the best way to defend the statement that they're feminists is to describe their record on abortion and explain that there's got to be some large minority of SF members who are pro-life but besides that, feminist. I mention this because it would help attract American feminists who might otherwise have no desire to help SF and/or won't listen to what SF has to say.
The following is evidence that there is probably a large minority that is pro-choice.
1) In 1985, although it was apparently a very unrepresentative vote, it did, for one year, adopt a pro-choice position.
2) The paper I was responding to in the post "The Brown and the Green" refers to SF supporting a DUP motion in the Assembly in 2000, which opposed the extension of the Abortion Act to N. Ireland (abortion is something like 95% illegal there). What the paper ignored is that a member of the Women's Coalition proposed an amendment that would have radically changed the resolution so that it simply referred the issue to the Health-Care Committee for further research, discussion, and debate. SF members spoke (starts half-way through, you'll want to look at this to see who's who) and voted in favor of this, and when they spoke, they made it clear their party is not fully committed to the pro-life position.
3) In 2004 (possibly 2003, but I'm pretty sure 2004) SF Youth came within one vote of adopting a pro-choice position.
4) SF's current abortion position is that they believe in choice when the life or health of the mother is at risk, in cases of rape or incest (in the 2002 Abortion referendum in the South, SF also supported choice when the woman is suicidal). They also feel very strongly about not criminalizing women who have abortions. UPDATE 3/8/15 they now also support allowing terminations in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.
5) UPDATE 10/20/11) 5) They support “comprehensive sex education, full access to child-care and comprehensive support services, including financial support for single parents.”
UPDATE 6/9/13 6) SF also blocked a pro-life measure in the N. Ireland Assembly in March 2013. See this.
UPDATE 8/23/13 7) In July 2013 Sinn Fein's significant parliamentary party in the Republic voted in favor of a law that would legalize abortion in more situations than had been the case (the law was passed) (I believe SF had 14 TDs, one voted against and was suspended and is no longer an SF TD). See this. (UPDATE 2/9/14 the 14th SF TD is no longer suspended)
Those are the most relevant issues, although I should say that on issues outside the U.S. and Ireland, SF is generally very good (for example, on the Palestinians).
But when SF comes to America and their allies do work in America, they play down these left-wing/progressive/liberal politics. They also focus almost exclusively on Irish-America. There's almost no talk about people concerned about social justice, human rights, or anti-imperialism in a broader way than just looking at N. Ireland. So they are not reaching out to people who would be motivated to work on that issue out of a concern for social justice- that is, it's not explained to people that, adjusting for the fact that Catholics/Nationalists went through a nightmare 1968-2007 (well, it was less bad towards the end) (about 1/4 of the evidence for that statement is that about 825+ Catholic civilians were killed by either the security forces or the loyalist paramilitaries when each year of the period the average for the Catholic population would have been about 600,000) and adjusting for geographic proximity, that if they're concerned about racism and homophobia and religious bigotry in America, they should be concerned about sectarianism in the North. And they're also not appealing to people who are concerned about imperialism and would be motivated to work on N. Ireland from that perspective. Although this is less of an issue (this raises the spectre of socialism, and I'm more or less okay with SF keeping that under wraps in America), they also don't say much about the economic and class aspects of the conflict. I've heard that some people become interested in it when the class part of it is explained- how the Nationalist community is overwhelmingly working-class and the republican movement even more so. The fact that the political center of the unionist community is center-right and that of the nationalist community is centre-left is left out of SF's pitch. Crucially, the way that ending partition will strengthen liberal, progressive, left, and working-class movements (as I explain towards the bottom of the post "Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter") should be explained as it will mobilize the left.
In combination with that, I should explain something about the demographics and politics of America. But first an update on SF's approach to this. One of the posts that I will be updating with a link to this post is "The Black and Green," you might want to read that. I have nailed down more on how much Irish Northern Aid, SF's support group in America (not counting Friends of SF and groups that are significantly less officially in support) has been focusing on Irish-America. I looked closer at their web-site and I-As get a lot of mentions, didn't notice any talk about people of color, LGBT, the Left; nothing about advocates of social justice, advocates of economic justice, opponents of imperialism (that is, in general, without adding the word "British"). There used to be a links page in the 1990s which included two links to American Indian sites and one to a site called "Radical History And Politics." There seems to be no links page on the national site, thus no links to such sites. I've also surveyed the sites of local units of INA and found nothing to change my mind about this problem, the focus on Irish-America.
Irish-Americans are about 12% of the population (UPDATE 5/05/09 I have left out Scotch-Irish, who are another 1.5%, but that barely affects what I'm saying). Some people might think that if they keep up with focusing on this, they'll get such a large chunk of Irish-America that it'll make up for that. That won't happen. Irish-Americans are roughly as political as the average American. Many/most of those counted do not identify as Irish-American strongly. Also, many Irish-Americans who are progressive or leftist, and probably many who are liberal, have bought into the exaggerated estimates many have of how conservative and/or bigoted the average American interested in N. Ireland from a republican and/or nationalist and/or human rights perspective is.
The remaining 88% of the population is unlikely to be motivated to care about this simply by talking constantly about Irish-America. Some, probably a small minority of those interested, might even feel unwelcome, especially people of color. But the more political and liberal/progressive/left people will be motivated if you talk about social justice, economic justice, and imperialism (in a way that clearly places the struggle in the context of a global reballion which has included in recent decades the Palestinians, East Timor, Apartheid S. Africa, and Chiapas). Although it's kind of stupid for liberal-left people to think that all Americans interested in this are white and it's very stupid of them to then abandon the nationalist community based on that, it would help if SF and their American allies would reach out to people of color more- even if the response were only a small increase in the diversity of the political community we're talking about, reaching out more (it happens some, but not much) would erode the idea that it's just for white people.
(my estimate, based on my activism in Boulder, CO; some stuff in Denver, CO and elsewhere; and giving a little weight to the Internet, is that a very large majority of that political community (people interested from a republican and/or nationalist and/or human right perspective) is I-A, a tiny minority is white but not I-A (probably about 1/5 of that part is Jewish) and a tiny minority are people of color) (that's probably roughly the same if you look at SF supporters, although the % that is non-I-A would probably be a little higher and the I-A part smaller)
The thing is, taking a more progressive approach will probably only result in a small number of the to-the-right-of-center I-As with-holding support from SF, as SF is the largest party in the nationalist community (for many, the fact that SF still enjoys a relationship with the IRA is also relevant) and they support the Peace Process and most will hold their nose and continue to support SF. Those that leave SF will probably still do some stuff to support the nationalist community on human rights and equality stuff and call for British withdrawal and might support some other group- possibly the Social Democratic and Labour Party, which is actually to the right of SF, or some new grouping, possibly a splinter from SF that doesn't support the more progressive approach. So, although SF will lose some support, they'll gain probably even more from elsewhere and the cause in general won't lose hardly any support.
I'd estimate that about 20% (I found a survey indicating that around of 20% of Americans write letters to the editor) of teen and adult Irish-Americans are part of that community (those who are interested in NI from a republican/nationalist/human rights perspective) (not just SF supporters, who are probably only something like 2/5 of that community) (I'm including people who do nothing more than signing a petition or going to an event once a year and people who don't do that but would if given the opportunity and write letters to the media or politicians instead). That might be a little high, but I get the impression that in recent decades on average, voter turn-out among I-As has been something like 65% in recent years, plus there's probably another 5% of adults not voting but still interested in politics (anarchists, certain types of socialists, felons), so assuming that almost 1/3 of these at least slightly political I-As are interested enough to be counted seems pretty reasonable and more or less matches my experience. So, that's 20% of 12%, which is about 2% (of the 13+ the general population). Looking at the remaining 88% (all of this is about teens and adults), I'll assume that the percentage who are at least slightly political is the same (70%), although I wouldn't be surprised if it's a little higher. Almost half would be liberal-left (adjusting for the fact that the mostly centrist/to-the-right-of-center Irish-Americans are not being counted and the fact I'm not counting the centrists and Clintonites and libertarians who would be less likely to respond positively to this approach than most liberal and almost all progressives and leftists), so that would be about 30%. Probably something like 1/4 are potential or current (overwhelmingly potential) members of that community. That would be about 7% (of the 13+ the general population).
(when I say "political" I mean at least slightly political, and the lower figures (7% and 20% instead of 70%) is partly based on the fact that lots of people who vote do nothing else political at all)
So, the nationalist/republican/human rights cause could have 9% instead of 2% (obviously these figures are not super solid and might be high but they're probably accurate and the gap of about five times is almost certain to be accurate). As far as SF's support, if SF were approaching this the way I'm suggesting, they would probably get almost all of the increase and only lose a tiny amount of their current support.
Some SF members/supporters will say that a more progressive approach will alienate people to the right of center. As I explained, the I-A ones will almost universally stick around for the cause and probably most that are SF supporters will stick with SF. But what about the non-I-A ones who will be scared off and won't stick around for "Old Ireland?" WHAT non-I-A ones? As far as I can tell, very few of them are interested in this from the right perspective. For one thing they don't have their family tree compensating for their knowledge that the IRA tried to kill their hero Margaret Thatcher and the occasional talk about the IRA being commie scum (most of them ARE "commie scum" : )), and they probably read too much into the name of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and are turned off- I mean, apparently the entire nationalist community is to the left of center (only some very large majority are) (non-I-A people to the right of center are more likely to be influenced by talk of SF being left-wing than anyone else). Some will suggest that they can be won over, but this ignores the fact that to the right of center you don't find much support for anti-imperialist efforts. Members of the GOP were more likely to support the Apartheid regime than the ANC; to the right of center, something like 95% of people who support the Palestinians are anti-semites and/or Arab- and/or Muslim-Americans. Some will say, "but what about the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan resistance to the Soviets?" I wouldn't be expecting them to make a movie called "Peter King's War" (Peter King is the most prominent GOPer to support republicanism). Even if left-winger Ken Livingstone becomes Prime Minister of the UK, there's at least two reasons (which work in combination) why the right won't support the republican and/or nationalist and/or human rights cause. First, few people to the right of center will become more than slightly hostile to the country that has been America's most important ally in the world for about 70 years. Second, there's too much information out there indicating that the political center of the republican family and to a lesser degree that of the nationalist community is center-left. I realize that's not well known in America, and there's some information going the other way, but there's enough information indicating center-left to greatly undermine any effort to describe the IRA as Irish Contras. As far as human rights, in general these people are inclined to dismiss talk of human rights unless it is solidly associated with an official enemy of the U.S. which they perceive to be left-wing or which they have some bigotry against.
So, there will be very few non-I-A people to the right of center who are anywhere near likely to get involved. SF should stop worrying about keeping on board the I-A ones when there is so much room for growth on the left.
(I've been neglecting the Clintonites and others who are neither liberal/progressive/left nor to the right of center, but most of what I've said about people to the right of center more or less (in some ways, definitely less) applies to those people as well)
Another aspect of this is that, even if SF continues to downplay the economics, if they get closer to 100% in terms of talking about social justice and anti-imperialism, odds are more and more people will learn that SF is much closer to socialist than capitalist. When that happens, SF might see some of their bigger donors walk away, and even if the economy turns around, that loss might not be made up for by a larger number of smaller donations. I imagine SF would be worried about their ability to conduct elections without the money that would be lost. But if they successfully mobilize a much larger number of Americans to put pressure on the British government and unionist politicians (directly or via the US government), the Nationalist community and a lot of people in the South would probably reward them with votes. And as far as the influence that Americans with money have on the US government, SF might be exaggerating how much America is one-dollar-one-vote instead of one-person-one-vote. Going from 2% to 9% in terms of people should more than compensate for the loss of support from CEOs. There's also some rich people who, adjusting for everything, will find SF more attractive in terms of the anti-racism and gay rights.
Which raises two good and very important examples of how SF needs to change it's approach. The first is the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parade. I'm tempted to give a summary, but I'll instead just point you to the post "Invisible Comrades" (reading the whole thing is a good idea, but the most relevant part is about half-way through where I start talking about the parade).
There's a similar thing with racism, although it's probably safe to say that SF stick to their anti-racist guns while in America more so than their anti-homophobic ones. The thing is a significant part of SF's support network in America is the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a fraternal, male, Irish-Catholic organization. Irish Northern Aid frequently works closely with them. The thing is, it seems accurate to call this organization slightly-significantly racist. That's based on the following, plus one huge thing I'll save for last.
1. Statements by credible sources, including Eamonn McCann.
2. If we accept that the different degrees of racism are overwhelmingly found to the right of center (you have to give extra weight to the white supremacists to say overwhelmingly, but that makes sense), and AOH's political center is center-right (in all fairness I wouldn't be surprised if something like half are friendly to labor, but they're not socialists, and that's only one issue, and only half), it raises a red flag that they have this idea of having an organization which people of color can't join.
3. I feel safe assuming that they support the McBride Principles (they do) in the North but not Affirmative Action in America (odds are they don't), and on discrimination the situation facing people of color in America and that facing Catholics in the North has been roughly the same in recent decades.
On the other hand, I knew an AOHer who was married to American Indian woman and who, as a grad student, was working for one of America's top scholars in American Indian studies, Vine Deloria Jr. I'd say, there's probably some very large minority of the AOH that is racist, the next very large minority would probably be more accurately called non-racist, and probably some very small minority have pretty good anti-racist credentials.
Going back to evidence of racism, there's one big thing. The AOH, as they should, feel strongly that Orange Order marches through Catholic areas of the North should not happen, so strongly that many/all of them more or less support rioting as an appropriate response (it more or less is) (in the last few years they may have changed their opinion about the rioting as the situation has improved fro nationalists). Contrast that with the attitude of Bill Fetherston, Colorado State President of the AOH who marched in the 2003 Denver, CO Columbus Day Parade and defended the parade and attacked the group protesting it- a group which also makes an effort to stop the parade by blocking it's route. The last 9 years (00-08) the protests have been something like 99-100% non-violent. That's not really the case with nationalists in the North- one night, this young boy asked me if I was "up for a riot?" But that response to a parade similar to the Columbus one doesn't seem to bother the AOH as much as the non-violent opposition of people in Denver does (can you imagine what they would say if the Denver protesters did riot?). There are two things that make this even worse:
1. What the Columbus Day Parade stands for is significantly or much worse than what the Orange marches stand for. Info on the latter is here, and here, and roughly the middle 1/5 of this (not all of that post is directly relevant to this issue, but about half of it is and the rest is relevant to this post). Info on the former is available here, and here (lots of links to good sources). American Indians experience very high levels of poverty (lowest per capita income among racial groups in America) and unemployment (50-90%) , per Wikipedia, which is in line with what I've read from better sources in the past 10 years (UPDATE 8/4/11 Apparently the figures I found on Wikipedia are a bit off- the % of American Indians who were EMPLOYED in the first half of 2007 was 58.3% according to the Economic Policy Institute). As far as I can tell, from 1968 to 2007, American Indians have had it something like two times as bad as Northern Catholics have had it during that time (that's based on a sort of scientific comparison I made involving all people of color, and then making a lazy adjustment for the fact that American Indians seem to have had it worse during that time than all other people of color; the figure of two is probably fairly accurate). And according to Ward Churchill in "From A Native Son: Selected Essays On Indigenism 1985-1995" the population of American Indians inside the current boundaries of the United States in 1890 might have been as low as around 2% of what it was in 1492. With the Famine in Ireland, at the worst the population of Ireland was, at the end, around 70% of what it had been at the beginning. Depending on what you adjust for, that's either nowhere near as bad or roughly no worse than the experience that American Indians had the first 400 years of "contact" with Europeans. Than there's the genocide of the Tainos that Columbus was overwhelmingly directly responsible for, as described in the first Columbus day link just above.
Overall, the Columbus Day parade stands for something significantly or much worse than what the Orange Order parade stands for.
2. There's been a fair amount of support for Irish republicanism among the leaders of those protesting the parade.
A: Glenn Morris, the main leader of the protests, spoke at an event I organized with Students for Justice in N. Ireland in 1998.
B: Ward Churchill, another senior figure associated with the protests, has expressed support for the IRA.
(In 2000 I was arrested for blocking the parade with about 141 other protesters)
I bring this up because if SF is to alter their approach, their close relationship with the AOH might make it difficult to attract people of color and anti-racists. I'm not sure exactly what I would advise them to do, probably telling the AOH to fuck off isn't an option. Maybe SF' could indicate that they are different from the AOH by expressing support for the protests of the Columbus Day parade (considering the similarity with Orange parades, it would be appropriate, especially considering what I wrote about some of those centrally involved in the protests). There might be other things on an anti-racist theme that would be appropriate for SF to do to distinguish themselves from the AOH to increase the odds of them attracting people of color and anti-racists (that is, beyond the small amount of work they've already done on that).
I'd say something similar about the NY City St. Patrick's Day parade and also acknowledging that the IRA were wrong to accept aid from Nazi Germany, something I discuss in the January 2009 post "Fuck Fascism Before It Fucks You."
Briefly, this shift in approach will in different ways have an effect on the political opinions of a segment of Irish-Americans, over time, and especially on future generations who will be receiving a much better political signal than is the case now. That will be the case, crucially, with regards to homophobia (reaching out and the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parades), and racism (reaching out and the Columbus Day parade). Something similar will happen with fascism and anti-semitism (accepting aid from Nazi Germany), possibly sexism (obviously women are already involved, but more could be done to involve organizations and more individuals that are explicitly feminist) and possibly other issues if they become relevant (I decide on a case-by-case basis which ones I believe are, but here are some that I will probably NEVER consider relevant- abortion, taxes, regulation, military spending).
This shift will, at least temporarily until the GOP adjusts (for example, on homophobia) result in some people not voting for the GOP when they normally would. Considering it's history and it's admiration for Thatcher and informal relationship with the British Conservatives, the GOP is not as good on the North as the Dems are. Bush was very harsh on SF over policing and decommissioning, and his Immigration people had Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey deported. Reagan was best buddies with Thatcher. On the other hand, Clinton, as disapointing as he was on this and everything else, was the first one to allow Gerry Adams into the US after about 10 years of excluding the leader of a party representing something like 60% of the poorest, most oppressed half of the Nationalist community.
A few notes:
1) Although I have firmed up my understanding of the focus on Irish-America, it's possible that to some degree in the last four years things have improved (compared to the period 1997-2005 when I was very familiar with this and there was definitely a problem) as far as how SF and their allies are trying to drum up support. In which case this is to encourage them to not go back and to instead go further.
2) Some people, most outside that political community, possibly some on it's fringes and possibly some well inside, will say it doesn't matter at this point. This would have been better 10-20-30-40 years ago, but getting Americans to work on this is still needed today. There are still human rights and equality issues there involving sectarianism, Nationalists wouldn't complain if London were persuaded to start the process of ending partition sooner instead of waiting for a majority in a referendum, more pressure starting now will make it less likely that the British will refuse to leave when they're supposed to, more pressure will get the British to be honest about what happened to the Nationalist population (and their role in it) (which will erode sectarianism among Protestants), etc.
3) As I've described elsewhere there are things that are beyond SF's control that are about 2/3 of the explanation for why progressives and the left in America didn't do what they should have done on N. Ireland in recent decades. Those might still be there, although there are some things that might have eroded them in recent years. The candidacy of Catholic John Kerry, and the fact that our current Vice President is a Catholic liberal Democrat, might have had some effect on anti-Catholicism among progressives and on the Left. It's possible that Obama having a good relationship with things Irish (he's part himself, he declared March Irish-American Heritage Month, and so far he seems to have a good attitude on N. Ireland in general and SF specifically) will erode the idea that there's a whiff of racism about this issue. Also, Stephen Colbert is a Catholic and that might also erode hostility towards Catholics among liberals, progressives, and leftists.
On the other hand, the remaining 1/3 of why progressives and the left didn't do what they should have done is mostly made up of SF's approach, and that of it's allies, to generating support in America. So, bearing in mind what I wrote above about the changed situation (Kerry, Biden, Obama, Colbert), if SF changes it's approach (and as I explained, they will need to back up their words with actions like doing the right things on the NY City St. Patrick's Day parades) the progressives and the leftists will probably respond.
UPDATE 10/4/11 SF members and many of their American supporters will say that factors affecting the liberals, progressives, and leftists mean that such an effort will simply alienate the Irish-American moderates and conservatives without attracting anyone. I believe that what would happen would be that the first efforts by the mostly I-A groups supporting SF will attract some of the former group, those who don't need much convincing. That will result in the left of SF supporters being more visible than they are now. THAT, in different ways, will attract MORE of the former group, and that change in the membership of SF support groups will have a similar effect on many of the remaining sceptical liberals/progressives/leftists. This will be repeated probably several times, as the republican/nationalist/human rights efforts become more and more attractive to those members of the broad left who have resisted being won over to this cause. (I should also make clear that, for the foreseeable future, I don't expect the liberals, leftists, and progressives to do much on the issue at all, and of course I would welcome the large number who who spend not their organizing time on this issue, but will help in other ways (attending events, wearing shirts, signing petitions, etc.))
Also, if SF visibly takes this approach in America, that will have an effect on liberal/progressive/left forces in other countries and those people will be more likely to do stuff.
UPDATE 10/13/10 One last benefit of SF adopting the approach I've suggested is that it will lessen the attacks on SF from the Irish Left. At some point in the late 1990s Joe Higgins (who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2009) of the Socialist Party said that SF is left-wing in the South, right-wing in America, and in-between in the North.
So, if SF and it's allies change their approach to America, they and their cause will benefit greatly in many ways.
(Although I am not very familiar with what's going on right now with SF and America, I know, as I explain in the post "The Black and Green" that there was a serious problem 10 years ago which I think has gotten worse (I did a lot of activism on this 1997-2004); more recently I have looked at much of the content of the links pages of Irish Northern Aid web-sites (and some other pages of those sites) and was disapointed by what I found. I also know two senior American leftsts, one very senior, who are SF supporters, have recently given me the impression that there is still a problem. Lastly, if there wasn't a problem anymore, I have been reading a fair amount of liberal-progressive media recently, and the change would have been reflected there, and it hasn't)
(one new note on the current situation. There's a report on the SF web-site about the second of two conferences that were held to discuss how to advance the United Ireland agenda. It indicates that a strong focus on Irish-America remains, although there is vague talk of "community organizations" and one conference participant talked about the need to reach out to other ethnic groups) (I also read a recent article by a senior member of Irish Northern Aid talking about generating support for SF's agenda in America and overall it didn't change my opinion about this problem)
UPDATE 2/2/15 More on the race aspect of this issue here.
UPDATE 6/22/16 One last note (at some point I might re-do this post and better integrate all the notes and updates). The African National Congress embraced the American progressive community (sort of the left but a lot more than that) and THEY WON. I'd say the goal of a united Ireland is comparable to the goal of dismantling Apratheid- I'm not saying that REFORMING the North isn't a good thing and as a result of the peace process, to a small degree N. Ireland has been transformed- to a small degree. But the main goal was unity with the South, and that hasn't happened. Maybe SF should learn something from the ANC. Also, the ANC didn't embrace the black community here like SF embraces the (99% white) Irish-American community (and if they did it would be less offensive than what SF is doing)
UPDATE 5/12/17 I AM going to clean up this post and integrate these updates into the correct paragraphs, etc. but for now I'll just do this as an update. In Jan. or early Feb 2003 my independent CU-Boulder student group Students for Justice in N. Ireland organized an event to mark the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. We showed a movie about the conflict and myself and a (locally) fairly well-known progressive activist named Steve Nash both talked for about 15 min. each and then we had a discussion. There was supposed to be a third speaker. Ward Churchill has expressed some interest in N. Ireland and is very familiar with struggles for national self-determination and agreed to speak when I asked him. He didn't show. For some reason I didn't remind him before the event and I didn't ask afterwards what happened, but his name was on the publicity materials. There were probably about 50-75 people in the audience, and normally at events with a similar publicity budget we had an average of about 25-30 people in the audience.
And one more update for 5/12/17. When SF focuses on making moderate appeals to Irish-America, they turn off a lot of the most left-wing 1/3 of that community. One guy responded to me raising the subject by saying he was sick of rich and racist Irish-Americans.
(Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 232-233) January, 1965.
(when typing this, for various reasons I often said "to-the-right-of-center." I might change that, but earlier I got in the habit of, when thinking about this topic, thinking of it pretty much that way)
(I forgot to mention this, but I should say I'm fairly familiar with this subject 1997-2005; 2006 to 2009 I was slightly familiar with this subject; Before and since I wrote this I have found some additional things which confirm my thoughts about this subject; If I have somehow missed some stuff and SF and their American allies are doing more or less what I suggest in this post, then this is meant to encourage them to continue with that)
I've complained on this blog before about Sinn Fein's approach to America. They focus too much on Irish-America and partly leave behind their left-wing beliefs when they travel from Ireland to America. I imagine this is because A) the focus on Irish-Americans comes somewhat naturally and B) they don't want to scare off people with money and/or power. The first part is not even that offensive, but is, as I'll explain, very stupid. The second part, depending on what issue SF is compromising on, is either very offensive or slightly offensive. The former would be cases involving bigotry, the latter, getting too chummy with corporate America and to-the-right-of-center politicians.
First, SF is a party whose political center is center-left. Based on large amounts of research (I was reading about 100 articles a week on average from Irish news sources 1997-2005), I would say that four years ago SF membership looked something like the figures below. I have enough information about the last four years to more or less confirm my belief that it's very unlikely SF has shifted more than a tiny bit, if at all, in the wrong direction. These figures would be pretty much the same, unless noted otherwise, the last 30-40 years. You can find more details at the posts I link to, below.
*SF is pretty consistentent in standing up for economic justice. Probably somewhere around 50% of SF are socialist, and the rest are probably mostly progressive and a small minority are conservative. (Since some will say that yes, SF is socialist, NATIONAL socialist, you should read "The Brown and the Green"). They have frequently raised issues of health-care, unions, etc. In the 2002 General Election in the Republic, about 1/3-2/3 of their candidates were either, members, staff or leaders of trade-unions. In the European Parliament SF is a member of the European Parliamentary Group “European United Left/Nordic Green Left.” In elections to the South’s Senate in 2007, SF and Labour had a voting pact.
*SF is pretty consistent in standing up against racism. (see "Anti-Racism and Republicans")
*SF is pretty consistent in standing up against homophobia. (see the post "Invisible Comrades") (30 years ago it was nowhere near as good as this)
As far as the kind of anti-semtism that generally are associated with the Right, SF is very consistent in standing up against it. There is a problem with probably some small majority having the wrong attitude about the IRA and the Nazis ("Fuck Fascism Before It Fucks You"). Probably some small minority support the Palestinians with the wrong attitude towards Jews (SF overwhelmingly supports the Palestinians, so this a small minority of such people). You might want to read "The Spirit Of Robert Briscoe".
*Overall SF is very feminist. As far as I can tell, looking over the last 12 years back to the 1998 Assembly elections and giving weight to the more senior positions and offices, some very large minority of SF officers and elected politicians are women, and probably no more than a very large minority of the membership is female. (UPDATE 10/18/11 two years later and I'm looking at the results of the 2011 General Election in the South, and I have to report that out of 14 MPs (in the Dail, in Dublin) only two are women, which negatively affects what I wrote about woman among the officials and elected representatives)
Probably the best way to defend the statement that they're feminists is to describe their record on abortion and explain that there's got to be some large minority of SF members who are pro-life but besides that, feminist. I mention this because it would help attract American feminists who might otherwise have no desire to help SF and/or won't listen to what SF has to say.
The following is evidence that there is probably a large minority that is pro-choice.
1) In 1985, although it was apparently a very unrepresentative vote, it did, for one year, adopt a pro-choice position.
2) The paper I was responding to in the post "The Brown and the Green" refers to SF supporting a DUP motion in the Assembly in 2000, which opposed the extension of the Abortion Act to N. Ireland (abortion is something like 95% illegal there). What the paper ignored is that a member of the Women's Coalition proposed an amendment that would have radically changed the resolution so that it simply referred the issue to the Health-Care Committee for further research, discussion, and debate. SF members spoke (starts half-way through, you'll want to look at this to see who's who) and voted in favor of this, and when they spoke, they made it clear their party is not fully committed to the pro-life position.
3) In 2004 (possibly 2003, but I'm pretty sure 2004) SF Youth came within one vote of adopting a pro-choice position.
4) SF's current abortion position is that they believe in choice when the life or health of the mother is at risk, in cases of rape or incest (in the 2002 Abortion referendum in the South, SF also supported choice when the woman is suicidal). They also feel very strongly about not criminalizing women who have abortions. UPDATE 3/8/15 they now also support allowing terminations in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.
5) UPDATE 10/20/11) 5) They support “comprehensive sex education, full access to child-care and comprehensive support services, including financial support for single parents.”
UPDATE 6/9/13 6) SF also blocked a pro-life measure in the N. Ireland Assembly in March 2013. See this.
UPDATE 8/23/13 7) In July 2013 Sinn Fein's significant parliamentary party in the Republic voted in favor of a law that would legalize abortion in more situations than had been the case (the law was passed) (I believe SF had 14 TDs, one voted against and was suspended and is no longer an SF TD). See this. (UPDATE 2/9/14 the 14th SF TD is no longer suspended)
Those are the most relevant issues, although I should say that on issues outside the U.S. and Ireland, SF is generally very good (for example, on the Palestinians).
But when SF comes to America and their allies do work in America, they play down these left-wing/progressive/liberal politics. They also focus almost exclusively on Irish-America. There's almost no talk about people concerned about social justice, human rights, or anti-imperialism in a broader way than just looking at N. Ireland. So they are not reaching out to people who would be motivated to work on that issue out of a concern for social justice- that is, it's not explained to people that, adjusting for the fact that Catholics/Nationalists went through a nightmare 1968-2007 (well, it was less bad towards the end) (about 1/4 of the evidence for that statement is that about 825+ Catholic civilians were killed by either the security forces or the loyalist paramilitaries when each year of the period the average for the Catholic population would have been about 600,000) and adjusting for geographic proximity, that if they're concerned about racism and homophobia and religious bigotry in America, they should be concerned about sectarianism in the North. And they're also not appealing to people who are concerned about imperialism and would be motivated to work on N. Ireland from that perspective. Although this is less of an issue (this raises the spectre of socialism, and I'm more or less okay with SF keeping that under wraps in America), they also don't say much about the economic and class aspects of the conflict. I've heard that some people become interested in it when the class part of it is explained- how the Nationalist community is overwhelmingly working-class and the republican movement even more so. The fact that the political center of the unionist community is center-right and that of the nationalist community is centre-left is left out of SF's pitch. Crucially, the way that ending partition will strengthen liberal, progressive, left, and working-class movements (as I explain towards the bottom of the post "Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter") should be explained as it will mobilize the left.
In combination with that, I should explain something about the demographics and politics of America. But first an update on SF's approach to this. One of the posts that I will be updating with a link to this post is "The Black and Green," you might want to read that. I have nailed down more on how much Irish Northern Aid, SF's support group in America (not counting Friends of SF and groups that are significantly less officially in support) has been focusing on Irish-America. I looked closer at their web-site and I-As get a lot of mentions, didn't notice any talk about people of color, LGBT, the Left; nothing about advocates of social justice, advocates of economic justice, opponents of imperialism (that is, in general, without adding the word "British"). There used to be a links page in the 1990s which included two links to American Indian sites and one to a site called "Radical History And Politics." There seems to be no links page on the national site, thus no links to such sites. I've also surveyed the sites of local units of INA and found nothing to change my mind about this problem, the focus on Irish-America.
Irish-Americans are about 12% of the population (UPDATE 5/05/09 I have left out Scotch-Irish, who are another 1.5%, but that barely affects what I'm saying). Some people might think that if they keep up with focusing on this, they'll get such a large chunk of Irish-America that it'll make up for that. That won't happen. Irish-Americans are roughly as political as the average American. Many/most of those counted do not identify as Irish-American strongly. Also, many Irish-Americans who are progressive or leftist, and probably many who are liberal, have bought into the exaggerated estimates many have of how conservative and/or bigoted the average American interested in N. Ireland from a republican and/or nationalist and/or human rights perspective is.
The remaining 88% of the population is unlikely to be motivated to care about this simply by talking constantly about Irish-America. Some, probably a small minority of those interested, might even feel unwelcome, especially people of color. But the more political and liberal/progressive/left people will be motivated if you talk about social justice, economic justice, and imperialism (in a way that clearly places the struggle in the context of a global reballion which has included in recent decades the Palestinians, East Timor, Apartheid S. Africa, and Chiapas). Although it's kind of stupid for liberal-left people to think that all Americans interested in this are white and it's very stupid of them to then abandon the nationalist community based on that, it would help if SF and their American allies would reach out to people of color more- even if the response were only a small increase in the diversity of the political community we're talking about, reaching out more (it happens some, but not much) would erode the idea that it's just for white people.
(my estimate, based on my activism in Boulder, CO; some stuff in Denver, CO and elsewhere; and giving a little weight to the Internet, is that a very large majority of that political community (people interested from a republican and/or nationalist and/or human right perspective) is I-A, a tiny minority is white but not I-A (probably about 1/5 of that part is Jewish) and a tiny minority are people of color) (that's probably roughly the same if you look at SF supporters, although the % that is non-I-A would probably be a little higher and the I-A part smaller)
The thing is, taking a more progressive approach will probably only result in a small number of the to-the-right-of-center I-As with-holding support from SF, as SF is the largest party in the nationalist community (for many, the fact that SF still enjoys a relationship with the IRA is also relevant) and they support the Peace Process and most will hold their nose and continue to support SF. Those that leave SF will probably still do some stuff to support the nationalist community on human rights and equality stuff and call for British withdrawal and might support some other group- possibly the Social Democratic and Labour Party, which is actually to the right of SF, or some new grouping, possibly a splinter from SF that doesn't support the more progressive approach. So, although SF will lose some support, they'll gain probably even more from elsewhere and the cause in general won't lose hardly any support.
I'd estimate that about 20% (I found a survey indicating that around of 20% of Americans write letters to the editor) of teen and adult Irish-Americans are part of that community (those who are interested in NI from a republican/nationalist/human rights perspective) (not just SF supporters, who are probably only something like 2/5 of that community) (I'm including people who do nothing more than signing a petition or going to an event once a year and people who don't do that but would if given the opportunity and write letters to the media or politicians instead). That might be a little high, but I get the impression that in recent decades on average, voter turn-out among I-As has been something like 65% in recent years, plus there's probably another 5% of adults not voting but still interested in politics (anarchists, certain types of socialists, felons), so assuming that almost 1/3 of these at least slightly political I-As are interested enough to be counted seems pretty reasonable and more or less matches my experience. So, that's 20% of 12%, which is about 2% (of the 13+ the general population). Looking at the remaining 88% (all of this is about teens and adults), I'll assume that the percentage who are at least slightly political is the same (70%), although I wouldn't be surprised if it's a little higher. Almost half would be liberal-left (adjusting for the fact that the mostly centrist/to-the-right-of-center Irish-Americans are not being counted and the fact I'm not counting the centrists and Clintonites and libertarians who would be less likely to respond positively to this approach than most liberal and almost all progressives and leftists), so that would be about 30%. Probably something like 1/4 are potential or current (overwhelmingly potential) members of that community. That would be about 7% (of the 13+ the general population).
(when I say "political" I mean at least slightly political, and the lower figures (7% and 20% instead of 70%) is partly based on the fact that lots of people who vote do nothing else political at all)
So, the nationalist/republican/human rights cause could have 9% instead of 2% (obviously these figures are not super solid and might be high but they're probably accurate and the gap of about five times is almost certain to be accurate). As far as SF's support, if SF were approaching this the way I'm suggesting, they would probably get almost all of the increase and only lose a tiny amount of their current support.
Some SF members/supporters will say that a more progressive approach will alienate people to the right of center. As I explained, the I-A ones will almost universally stick around for the cause and probably most that are SF supporters will stick with SF. But what about the non-I-A ones who will be scared off and won't stick around for "Old Ireland?" WHAT non-I-A ones? As far as I can tell, very few of them are interested in this from the right perspective. For one thing they don't have their family tree compensating for their knowledge that the IRA tried to kill their hero Margaret Thatcher and the occasional talk about the IRA being commie scum (most of them ARE "commie scum" : )), and they probably read too much into the name of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and are turned off- I mean, apparently the entire nationalist community is to the left of center (only some very large majority are) (non-I-A people to the right of center are more likely to be influenced by talk of SF being left-wing than anyone else). Some will suggest that they can be won over, but this ignores the fact that to the right of center you don't find much support for anti-imperialist efforts. Members of the GOP were more likely to support the Apartheid regime than the ANC; to the right of center, something like 95% of people who support the Palestinians are anti-semites and/or Arab- and/or Muslim-Americans. Some will say, "but what about the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan resistance to the Soviets?" I wouldn't be expecting them to make a movie called "Peter King's War" (Peter King is the most prominent GOPer to support republicanism). Even if left-winger Ken Livingstone becomes Prime Minister of the UK, there's at least two reasons (which work in combination) why the right won't support the republican and/or nationalist and/or human rights cause. First, few people to the right of center will become more than slightly hostile to the country that has been America's most important ally in the world for about 70 years. Second, there's too much information out there indicating that the political center of the republican family and to a lesser degree that of the nationalist community is center-left. I realize that's not well known in America, and there's some information going the other way, but there's enough information indicating center-left to greatly undermine any effort to describe the IRA as Irish Contras. As far as human rights, in general these people are inclined to dismiss talk of human rights unless it is solidly associated with an official enemy of the U.S. which they perceive to be left-wing or which they have some bigotry against.
So, there will be very few non-I-A people to the right of center who are anywhere near likely to get involved. SF should stop worrying about keeping on board the I-A ones when there is so much room for growth on the left.
(I've been neglecting the Clintonites and others who are neither liberal/progressive/left nor to the right of center, but most of what I've said about people to the right of center more or less (in some ways, definitely less) applies to those people as well)
Another aspect of this is that, even if SF continues to downplay the economics, if they get closer to 100% in terms of talking about social justice and anti-imperialism, odds are more and more people will learn that SF is much closer to socialist than capitalist. When that happens, SF might see some of their bigger donors walk away, and even if the economy turns around, that loss might not be made up for by a larger number of smaller donations. I imagine SF would be worried about their ability to conduct elections without the money that would be lost. But if they successfully mobilize a much larger number of Americans to put pressure on the British government and unionist politicians (directly or via the US government), the Nationalist community and a lot of people in the South would probably reward them with votes. And as far as the influence that Americans with money have on the US government, SF might be exaggerating how much America is one-dollar-one-vote instead of one-person-one-vote. Going from 2% to 9% in terms of people should more than compensate for the loss of support from CEOs. There's also some rich people who, adjusting for everything, will find SF more attractive in terms of the anti-racism and gay rights.
Which raises two good and very important examples of how SF needs to change it's approach. The first is the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parade. I'm tempted to give a summary, but I'll instead just point you to the post "Invisible Comrades" (reading the whole thing is a good idea, but the most relevant part is about half-way through where I start talking about the parade).
There's a similar thing with racism, although it's probably safe to say that SF stick to their anti-racist guns while in America more so than their anti-homophobic ones. The thing is a significant part of SF's support network in America is the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a fraternal, male, Irish-Catholic organization. Irish Northern Aid frequently works closely with them. The thing is, it seems accurate to call this organization slightly-significantly racist. That's based on the following, plus one huge thing I'll save for last.
1. Statements by credible sources, including Eamonn McCann.
2. If we accept that the different degrees of racism are overwhelmingly found to the right of center (you have to give extra weight to the white supremacists to say overwhelmingly, but that makes sense), and AOH's political center is center-right (in all fairness I wouldn't be surprised if something like half are friendly to labor, but they're not socialists, and that's only one issue, and only half), it raises a red flag that they have this idea of having an organization which people of color can't join.
3. I feel safe assuming that they support the McBride Principles (they do) in the North but not Affirmative Action in America (odds are they don't), and on discrimination the situation facing people of color in America and that facing Catholics in the North has been roughly the same in recent decades.
On the other hand, I knew an AOHer who was married to American Indian woman and who, as a grad student, was working for one of America's top scholars in American Indian studies, Vine Deloria Jr. I'd say, there's probably some very large minority of the AOH that is racist, the next very large minority would probably be more accurately called non-racist, and probably some very small minority have pretty good anti-racist credentials.
Going back to evidence of racism, there's one big thing. The AOH, as they should, feel strongly that Orange Order marches through Catholic areas of the North should not happen, so strongly that many/all of them more or less support rioting as an appropriate response (it more or less is) (in the last few years they may have changed their opinion about the rioting as the situation has improved fro nationalists). Contrast that with the attitude of Bill Fetherston, Colorado State President of the AOH who marched in the 2003 Denver, CO Columbus Day Parade and defended the parade and attacked the group protesting it- a group which also makes an effort to stop the parade by blocking it's route. The last 9 years (00-08) the protests have been something like 99-100% non-violent. That's not really the case with nationalists in the North- one night, this young boy asked me if I was "up for a riot?" But that response to a parade similar to the Columbus one doesn't seem to bother the AOH as much as the non-violent opposition of people in Denver does (can you imagine what they would say if the Denver protesters did riot?). There are two things that make this even worse:
1. What the Columbus Day Parade stands for is significantly or much worse than what the Orange marches stand for. Info on the latter is here, and here, and roughly the middle 1/5 of this (not all of that post is directly relevant to this issue, but about half of it is and the rest is relevant to this post). Info on the former is available here, and here (lots of links to good sources). American Indians experience very high levels of poverty (lowest per capita income among racial groups in America) and unemployment (50-90%) , per Wikipedia, which is in line with what I've read from better sources in the past 10 years (UPDATE 8/4/11 Apparently the figures I found on Wikipedia are a bit off- the % of American Indians who were EMPLOYED in the first half of 2007 was 58.3% according to the Economic Policy Institute). As far as I can tell, from 1968 to 2007, American Indians have had it something like two times as bad as Northern Catholics have had it during that time (that's based on a sort of scientific comparison I made involving all people of color, and then making a lazy adjustment for the fact that American Indians seem to have had it worse during that time than all other people of color; the figure of two is probably fairly accurate). And according to Ward Churchill in "From A Native Son: Selected Essays On Indigenism 1985-1995" the population of American Indians inside the current boundaries of the United States in 1890 might have been as low as around 2% of what it was in 1492. With the Famine in Ireland, at the worst the population of Ireland was, at the end, around 70% of what it had been at the beginning. Depending on what you adjust for, that's either nowhere near as bad or roughly no worse than the experience that American Indians had the first 400 years of "contact" with Europeans. Than there's the genocide of the Tainos that Columbus was overwhelmingly directly responsible for, as described in the first Columbus day link just above.
Overall, the Columbus Day parade stands for something significantly or much worse than what the Orange Order parade stands for.
2. There's been a fair amount of support for Irish republicanism among the leaders of those protesting the parade.
A: Glenn Morris, the main leader of the protests, spoke at an event I organized with Students for Justice in N. Ireland in 1998.
B: Ward Churchill, another senior figure associated with the protests, has expressed support for the IRA.
(In 2000 I was arrested for blocking the parade with about 141 other protesters)
I bring this up because if SF is to alter their approach, their close relationship with the AOH might make it difficult to attract people of color and anti-racists. I'm not sure exactly what I would advise them to do, probably telling the AOH to fuck off isn't an option. Maybe SF' could indicate that they are different from the AOH by expressing support for the protests of the Columbus Day parade (considering the similarity with Orange parades, it would be appropriate, especially considering what I wrote about some of those centrally involved in the protests). There might be other things on an anti-racist theme that would be appropriate for SF to do to distinguish themselves from the AOH to increase the odds of them attracting people of color and anti-racists (that is, beyond the small amount of work they've already done on that).
I'd say something similar about the NY City St. Patrick's Day parade and also acknowledging that the IRA were wrong to accept aid from Nazi Germany, something I discuss in the January 2009 post "Fuck Fascism Before It Fucks You."
Briefly, this shift in approach will in different ways have an effect on the political opinions of a segment of Irish-Americans, over time, and especially on future generations who will be receiving a much better political signal than is the case now. That will be the case, crucially, with regards to homophobia (reaching out and the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parades), and racism (reaching out and the Columbus Day parade). Something similar will happen with fascism and anti-semitism (accepting aid from Nazi Germany), possibly sexism (obviously women are already involved, but more could be done to involve organizations and more individuals that are explicitly feminist) and possibly other issues if they become relevant (I decide on a case-by-case basis which ones I believe are, but here are some that I will probably NEVER consider relevant- abortion, taxes, regulation, military spending).
This shift will, at least temporarily until the GOP adjusts (for example, on homophobia) result in some people not voting for the GOP when they normally would. Considering it's history and it's admiration for Thatcher and informal relationship with the British Conservatives, the GOP is not as good on the North as the Dems are. Bush was very harsh on SF over policing and decommissioning, and his Immigration people had Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey deported. Reagan was best buddies with Thatcher. On the other hand, Clinton, as disapointing as he was on this and everything else, was the first one to allow Gerry Adams into the US after about 10 years of excluding the leader of a party representing something like 60% of the poorest, most oppressed half of the Nationalist community.
A few notes:
1) Although I have firmed up my understanding of the focus on Irish-America, it's possible that to some degree in the last four years things have improved (compared to the period 1997-2005 when I was very familiar with this and there was definitely a problem) as far as how SF and their allies are trying to drum up support. In which case this is to encourage them to not go back and to instead go further.
2) Some people, most outside that political community, possibly some on it's fringes and possibly some well inside, will say it doesn't matter at this point. This would have been better 10-20-30-40 years ago, but getting Americans to work on this is still needed today. There are still human rights and equality issues there involving sectarianism, Nationalists wouldn't complain if London were persuaded to start the process of ending partition sooner instead of waiting for a majority in a referendum, more pressure starting now will make it less likely that the British will refuse to leave when they're supposed to, more pressure will get the British to be honest about what happened to the Nationalist population (and their role in it) (which will erode sectarianism among Protestants), etc.
3) As I've described elsewhere there are things that are beyond SF's control that are about 2/3 of the explanation for why progressives and the left in America didn't do what they should have done on N. Ireland in recent decades. Those might still be there, although there are some things that might have eroded them in recent years. The candidacy of Catholic John Kerry, and the fact that our current Vice President is a Catholic liberal Democrat, might have had some effect on anti-Catholicism among progressives and on the Left. It's possible that Obama having a good relationship with things Irish (he's part himself, he declared March Irish-American Heritage Month, and so far he seems to have a good attitude on N. Ireland in general and SF specifically) will erode the idea that there's a whiff of racism about this issue. Also, Stephen Colbert is a Catholic and that might also erode hostility towards Catholics among liberals, progressives, and leftists.
On the other hand, the remaining 1/3 of why progressives and the left didn't do what they should have done is mostly made up of SF's approach, and that of it's allies, to generating support in America. So, bearing in mind what I wrote above about the changed situation (Kerry, Biden, Obama, Colbert), if SF changes it's approach (and as I explained, they will need to back up their words with actions like doing the right things on the NY City St. Patrick's Day parades) the progressives and the leftists will probably respond.
UPDATE 10/4/11 SF members and many of their American supporters will say that factors affecting the liberals, progressives, and leftists mean that such an effort will simply alienate the Irish-American moderates and conservatives without attracting anyone. I believe that what would happen would be that the first efforts by the mostly I-A groups supporting SF will attract some of the former group, those who don't need much convincing. That will result in the left of SF supporters being more visible than they are now. THAT, in different ways, will attract MORE of the former group, and that change in the membership of SF support groups will have a similar effect on many of the remaining sceptical liberals/progressives/leftists. This will be repeated probably several times, as the republican/nationalist/human rights efforts become more and more attractive to those members of the broad left who have resisted being won over to this cause. (I should also make clear that, for the foreseeable future, I don't expect the liberals, leftists, and progressives to do much on the issue at all, and of course I would welcome the large number who who spend not their organizing time on this issue, but will help in other ways (attending events, wearing shirts, signing petitions, etc.))
Also, if SF visibly takes this approach in America, that will have an effect on liberal/progressive/left forces in other countries and those people will be more likely to do stuff.
UPDATE 10/13/10 One last benefit of SF adopting the approach I've suggested is that it will lessen the attacks on SF from the Irish Left. At some point in the late 1990s Joe Higgins (who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2009) of the Socialist Party said that SF is left-wing in the South, right-wing in America, and in-between in the North.
So, if SF and it's allies change their approach to America, they and their cause will benefit greatly in many ways.
(Although I am not very familiar with what's going on right now with SF and America, I know, as I explain in the post "The Black and Green" that there was a serious problem 10 years ago which I think has gotten worse (I did a lot of activism on this 1997-2004); more recently I have looked at much of the content of the links pages of Irish Northern Aid web-sites (and some other pages of those sites) and was disapointed by what I found. I also know two senior American leftsts, one very senior, who are SF supporters, have recently given me the impression that there is still a problem. Lastly, if there wasn't a problem anymore, I have been reading a fair amount of liberal-progressive media recently, and the change would have been reflected there, and it hasn't)
(one new note on the current situation. There's a report on the SF web-site about the second of two conferences that were held to discuss how to advance the United Ireland agenda. It indicates that a strong focus on Irish-America remains, although there is vague talk of "community organizations" and one conference participant talked about the need to reach out to other ethnic groups) (I also read a recent article by a senior member of Irish Northern Aid talking about generating support for SF's agenda in America and overall it didn't change my opinion about this problem)
UPDATE 2/2/15 More on the race aspect of this issue here.
UPDATE 6/22/16 One last note (at some point I might re-do this post and better integrate all the notes and updates). The African National Congress embraced the American progressive community (sort of the left but a lot more than that) and THEY WON. I'd say the goal of a united Ireland is comparable to the goal of dismantling Apratheid- I'm not saying that REFORMING the North isn't a good thing and as a result of the peace process, to a small degree N. Ireland has been transformed- to a small degree. But the main goal was unity with the South, and that hasn't happened. Maybe SF should learn something from the ANC. Also, the ANC didn't embrace the black community here like SF embraces the (99% white) Irish-American community (and if they did it would be less offensive than what SF is doing)
UPDATE 5/12/17 I AM going to clean up this post and integrate these updates into the correct paragraphs, etc. but for now I'll just do this as an update. In Jan. or early Feb 2003 my independent CU-Boulder student group Students for Justice in N. Ireland organized an event to mark the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. We showed a movie about the conflict and myself and a (locally) fairly well-known progressive activist named Steve Nash both talked for about 15 min. each and then we had a discussion. There was supposed to be a third speaker. Ward Churchill has expressed some interest in N. Ireland and is very familiar with struggles for national self-determination and agreed to speak when I asked him. He didn't show. For some reason I didn't remind him before the event and I didn't ask afterwards what happened, but his name was on the publicity materials. There were probably about 50-75 people in the audience, and normally at events with a similar publicity budget we had an average of about 25-30 people in the audience.
And one more update for 5/12/17. When SF focuses on making moderate appeals to Irish-America, they turn off a lot of the most left-wing 1/3 of that community. One guy responded to me raising the subject by saying he was sick of rich and racist Irish-Americans.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Invisible Comrades 12/27/14 UPDATED
** In the Winter 1991 edition of The Captive Voice, a publication by and for IRA POWs, an article was published with the title: "INVISIBLE COMRADES: GAYS AND LESBIANS IN THE STRUGGLE." It was written by a gay Volunteer who was calling on the Republican Movement to recognize the contribution made by gay and lesbian Volunteers.Although there is, of course, homophobia in both parts of Ireland, it's not nearly as bad as most would think considering the island-wide Catholic majority, and most would be surprised to learn where the greatest source is.
First, in the Republic of Ireland, the Parliament is on the verge of creating Civil Partnerships, and both Sinn Fein and the Green Party support gay marriage. In Northern Ireland, Civil Partnerships exist. UPDATE 6/15/17 About two years ago same sex marriage was legalized in the Republic of Ireland.
In the Republic, the President (who is associated with Fianna Fail), who is in the middle of her second 7-year term, was supportive in the 1970s of the movement to decriminalize homosexuality. I'm not too familiar with the details, but about 10 years ago an American socialist said that gay rights in the Republic were better than they were in America. In recent years all political parties have expressed support for civil partnerships and a majority of Irish people in polls have supported gay marriage.
**Here’s a summary of the current status of gay rights in Ireland.
**In Northern Ireland, the situation is probably a bit worse for LGBT people. First, here’s a summary of the current status of gay rights in the UK.
The thing that might surprise people is that the Nationalist community (which is almost the same thing as the Catholic community) is actually much less homophobic than the Unionist/Loyalist (basically Protestant) community. In a 2008 N. Ireland Life and Times survey, the answers to the question, is it wrong for two people of the same sex to have sex? broke down like this:
-----------------Catholic Protestant
Always wrong--------31%--------58%
Almost always wrong 5%--------10%
Wrong only sometimes 8%-------6%
not wrong at all----31%--------14%
Can't choose--------25%--------12%
On the Catholic side:
1. During the 1981 Irish Republican Hunger-Strike, a credible source says that there was an LBG (I doubt the T was added back then) caucus among supporters of the hunger-strikers, and this source, who was a member, said nothing about them being unwelcome. The source also says, and I don't think this is true, that Sinn Fein's pro-gay rights position dates back to that point. UPDATE 2/3/09 My source on this tells me that in 1981, SF expressed opposition to homophobia in their newspaper.
2. At the very latest, SF adopted a pro-gay rights position in 1996. Today they support gay marriage.
3. Gearóid Ó hEára was the SF Mayor of Derry in 2004 and was known at some point to have been a big supporter of the Rainbow Project.
4. At some point, I think in 1999, the SF Deputy Mayor of Belfast did something along the lines of meeting with gay rights activists.
5. In 2002, when I attended the National Conference of SF Youth (or Ogra Shinn Fein as they're known), I criticized SF for marching in the NY City St. Patrick's Day parade (there's a boycott of the parade because LBGT organizations are not allowed to march- as far as I can tell, almost all Democratic Party politicians boycott it). Afterwards 2-3 people who were senior memebers told me they agreed. Also, although this might have had more to do with something, else, I was invited to attend the private part of the conference, suggesting that most/all of them agreed with me.
6. In 2001, Gerry Adams, President of SF, gave some introductory remarks at a gay rights event in West Belfast. He was supposed to leave after his remarks, but stayed to participate fully in the panel.
7. Someone involved with the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization in 1999 (at the time, the main or only such group in NY City) told me that there were reports of gay ex-POWs (former IRA members) being harrassed.
8. Just recently I learned of a situation in a Catholic part of Derry where two gay men were being seriously harrassed- a SF leader was speaking out against it.
9. Around 2001/2002, when a Priest in republican West Belfast came out, he announced he was retiring. Some significant chunk of his parishioners asked him to not resign.
10. A search on the web-site of SF's paper An Phoblacht found 171 pages that include the word "gay." Their archive probably goes back at least 10 years.
**11. In a disusssion on this subject on Irish Indymedia (which is far from dominated by SF members and is basically a left-wing forum), the general consensus was that, besides the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parade, SF is perhaps the best party in Ireland on gay rights.
12. In a recent gay pride parade in Belfast 2 senior SF members, I believe it was both of their MEPs, marched.
12. Although they seem to be a step or two behind SF all the time, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (the more moderate party which until 2001 was the larger of the two) is okay-good on gay rights. In 1994 their MPs refused to support lowering the age of consent for gay sex so it would be equivelent to that for straight sex. I would also be surprised if they support gay marraige. And, sometime around 1999, someone wrote a letter to the Irish News suggesting John Hume (who lead the SDLP from the 1979 until 2001) viewed gay people as having some kind of disease. On the other hand, in a recent Belfast Gay Pride parade, their youth wing carried a banner. A search of their web-site found 17 items with the word "gay," a few of which clearly supported gay rights (they probably all did, but I didn't look at all of them). They're also a member of the Socialist International, and even though they don't really belong there (I'll probably do a post on that soon), the support for gay rights in the SI has probably rubbed off on them. (UPDATE 11/17/12 in all fairness and to mark his passing, see this about a veteran NI gay rights organizer who was also in the leadership of the SDLP)
On the Unionist side:
1. In 1977 the Democratic Unionist Party (who, at the time represented about 20% of the Unionist/Loyalist community and today represents about 60% of that community) launched a compaign to unsuccessfully counter an effort to decriminalize homosexuality in N. Ireland. The campaign was titled "Save Ulster From Sodomy."
2. In 2004, Tony Blair post-poned a vote in the British Parliament on gay marraige so that the six MPs from the DUP could attend- they all planned on voting against, and really didn't want to miss the vote.
3. In June 2008, Iris Robinson, who is a DUP MP and is married to the Leader of the DUP, Peter Robinson, said that homosexuals should seek counseling and that homosexuality was more vile than child sexual abuse. (In relation to this incident, one of her critics was a leading SF member, Catriona Ruane).
4. In 2005, a DUP candidate for the Northern Ireland Assembly, Paul Berry was suspended from the party and later resigned. There was a report that he had met a man for a massage, a man he had allegedly met through a gay chatroom.
5. I'm not aware of anything specific about the Ulster Unionist party. There's not a single page on their web-site that mentions the word "gay" or the word "homosexual."
6. The Progressive Unionist Party who represent something like 1-2% of the Unionist/Loyalist community, have expressed opposition to homophobia, and there are two such items on their web-site (although in some ways they are better than the two main unionist parties, they are connected to a loyalist paramilitary and I wouldn’t send them any money or anything).
Now that that's over with, I wanted to address an aspect of this that has concerned me greatly. SF, despite being offically in support of gay rights, have had senior members march in the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade.
I should say at this point that it is not real clear to me if SF have had people marching in the parade in recent years. The last four years I have only read an average of about 50 articles from various sources a week in relation to Northern Ireland and/or SF (overall, the last 12 years it has been about 125 a week). I've done internet searches on this subject and am waiting to hear back from an NYC group called Irish Queers. If I find out for sure, I'll post it as an update at the top of this article.
Even if SF has stopped marching, I am still going to address this, partly because a small part of it has nothing to do with SF and partly because something could change that would see SF go back to marching in the parade- and if they have stopped marching, is it just a scheduling issue (or is it a boycott?); have they issued a statement in support of the boycott? Are they attending the alternative, inclusive (and progressive) Queens parade? After doing some searching it seems like they have issued no statement, nor are they attending the Queens parade.
So here goes.
First, I have supported the boycott four times and three of those times I criticsed SF for marching in the parade. The first time, in 1999 I had a letter published in the Irish News (the largest paper read by the Nationalist community), in which I criticised SF. Then there was that thing in 2002 at the National Conference of OSF. In 2003, the group I had going at CU-Boulder, Students for Justice in N. Ireland, adopted a statement supporting the boycott. That statement is at the bottom of this. We also put out, along with copies of the statement, some gay rights buttons I had left-over from something else. In 2004, I also criticised SF on this on Irish Indymedia.
I should say that, with three exceptions, I have little trouble with SF ditching their left-wing politics when they interact with Americans (which they sometimes do). The first exception was in 1997 when I made an ass of myself by over-reacting to SF being less than socialist in one incident. The other two I don't appologize for criticizing them, and one of those is this parade issue. It's about civil rights (if the organizers say they're a private organization, I would point to the effort to desegregate restaurants in the American South), it's about bigotry, it's about whether or not you can be Irish and gay at the same time.
To those who say (and although I didn't have much of a response at the time, I have heard this) that the parade is about conservative Catholicism, and therefore it makes sense to exclude gays, I'd say this. First, I'm not sure I believe that the parade organizers, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, actually do define it in those terms, I think it's just an excuse to exclude Irish people they don't like. Also, if it is defined by religion, it has to be the ONLY St. Pat's Parade like that in the whole world. Lastly, if it is defined by conservative Catholicism, what is SF doing in the parade? SF isn't defined by religion and it certainly isn't conservative. It supports gay rights, includes Protestants, and is overwhelmingly secular.
Having said that, I feel like stepping up my criticism of SF on this. As I've said, I've looked into this, and the odds that I've missed something and SF are doing the right thing is pretty low, and even if they currently are, I want to make sure that doesn't change. Recently I became, if possible, even more passionate about opposing bigotry. (I should also mention that I've done a ton of work to support SF (and even more that was about supporting the Nationalist community in general), some evidence for that is on two (old) web-sites you can find via my profile on this blog))
Some SF supporters in America are gay- for example, as far as I can tell, the Irish LGBT groups in NYC are overwhelmingly Irish republican, probably for the most part in support SF. When SF marches in that parade, they send a signal to their American supporters, including people who aren't familiar with SF's actual position on gay rights. Conversely, boycotting the parade would send a much better signal.
Lastly let me explain that SF can't really claim to want to stay out of it. First, in practice if not on paper, they're an internationalist party. Second, they've already involved themselves by marching in the parade in years past and have done damage that needs to be made up for.
UPDATE 3/25/09 As far as SF and internationalism, I want to say something now that I was going to save for discussion. When SF allows their internationalism to stop at the shores of America, as they do some of the time (perhaps about 1/2 of the time), they probably think that all Americans are spoiled brats, so that's okay. Well, that's not true. To offer a sort of extreme but relevant example, there are working-class gay people of color, who are not spoiled. Many Irish-Americans (and especially Irish-American supporters of SF who are homophobic and might abandon that homophobia in connection with the parade being organized inclusively and/or SF sending the right signals on this) interact with these working-class gay people of color, and that interaction often doesn't work out so well for the gay working-class people of color.
Also, whatever support SF loses as a result of a boycott would probably be made up for by more support from gay people, liberals, and leftists. UPDATE 2/21/09 Odds are that a lot of the homophobes will stay around because of the national liberation struggle/Peace Process, so SF will probably come out ahead.
For more on SF's support, see the related post here.
UPDATE 5/18/09 I was just told by Irish Queers, one of the NYC Irish LGBT groups, that SF has not marched since the late 1990s (apparently because of preassure from LGBT activists in Ireland) (I know they marched in '99). The thing is, when I assumed they were still marching when I was at the 2002 Nat'l Conference of OSF and I raised this issue, no one said they had stopped. Same thing in 2004 when this was an issue on indymedia.ie. I feel a little stupid for part of this post and a related one that talks about the parade, but I can sort of blame that on how the OSFers responded, and how the Indymedia discussion went. Also, I feel more confident at this point that they have not called for inclusion and marched in the Queens event. If they haven't marched since 1999, I'm almost tempted to say otherwise, but I have a theory that when you do damage you need to make up for it, by, in this case, calling for inclusion and marching in the Queens event (I could easily say that about the statements I made in 2002 and 2004, which more or less also referred to those two actions, and between late 2001 and 2005 I was following events involving SF so much (an average of 150 articles a week) that it was fairly safe for me to assume that if SF WERE taking those two actions I would have heard- based on what people said at that conference and on Indy and some recent research I have done, I am almost certain that they are not taking those two actions, but would appreciate being corrected if I'm wrong). (another part of this is that I had assumed that if SF decided that marching in the parade was wrong, they would make up for the damage they had done by doing the right things on calling for inclusion and attending the Queens event- and I would have heard about that, at the very least in 2002 or 2004)
I think that's it. Below is the SJNI statement (at the time, I think there were two Irish LGBT groups, but I must not have been aware of the second one (Irish Queers) when I wrote this). (I'm not real sure, but I think the statement at one point leaves out a term that I probably should have included- transgendered)
UPDATE!!! 12/27/14 There has been, starting last Spring, some good news about this, read about it here.
UPDATE 3/15/15 I got a little too excited about the inclusion a gay group that isn't part of the Irish and Irish-American communites in NYC. See this for some more about that.
UPDATE!! 2/20/17 It sounds like it's finally over. See this.
Statement on the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parade and Homophobia
Students for Justice in N. Ireland
For more than a decade now the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) has been barred from participating in the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade. This has been the policy of the parade organizers, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an American Catholic fraternal order which is exclusively Irish-American and male.
We believe this is based exclusively on homophobia and as such we reject it. Even worse, the AOH is essentially saying that you cannot be Irish and non-heterosexual, they are effectively stripping many Irish and Irish-Americans of their national, ethnic, and cultural identities. St. Patrick's Day is supposed to be a celebration of Irish heritage. It is not and should not be defined by Catholicism. Many different groups and prominent individuals are invited to participate, some of whom are neither Catholic nor Irish. Certainly an organization representing a part of the Irish community as ILGO does should be included. In Ireland itself, there is visible participation by the LGBT community in St. Patrick's Day celebrations.
As a group that works to promote human and civil rights in N. Ireland we admire the spirit and work of Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey in her past leadership of the N. Ireland Civil Rights Movement. We also admire her willingness to stand up to those Irish-Americans who supported civil rights for Catholics in N. Ireland but not for African-Americans. We cannot be silent in the face of homophobia which attempts to strip Irish and Irish-American gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals and transexuals of their national, ethnic, and cultural identities.
We would also support the City of New York taking over the organization of the parade. Considering the broad appeal the parade has, it's extensive use of City resources (streets, police, street clean-up, etc.) and the exclusive nature of the AOH, this would make sense and would almost certainly resolve this issue in favor of inclusion.
The AOH should organize the New York City St. Patrick's Day parade in an inclusive way that values all Irish people, in the spirit of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Until this issue is resolved in favor of inclusiveness and equality, we support the calls for a boycott of the parade.
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