Return to Left Curve no. 23 Table of Contents
A Report from Northern Ireland
by Dennis DeMaio
& Photographs by Pamela Vossenas
Editor's Note: In this section we are pleased to present a verbal/visual report of a trip to Northern Ireland by Dennis DeMaio and Pamela Vossenas this past September, 1998. In July, Mr. DeMaio contacted me to ask if he and Pamela Vossenas might publish the results of their planned visit to Ireland in Left Curve. I naturally agreed knowing full well the historic importance of the developing peace process in N. Ireland. Ireland's struggle against British domination had been going on for over 800 years and the Good Friday Agreement of April 10, 1998 signalled that it may finally be coming to an end. We publish below the texts sent to us by Dennis DeMaio and our selection of photographs taken by Pamela Vossenas during their visit.
by Dennis DeMaio
Belfast, Northern Ireland: As I walk the mural-filled streets of the republican Falls Road area of this city, I get the feeling that the ghost of Michael Collins mingles among these walls. Like in the Irish folk ballads where ghosts come back to conduct unfinished business, perhaps the ghost of Collins seeks redemption for his "stepping stone" decision in 1921 to accept the partition of Ireland.
After a civil war fought over partition (1921-1923) and 75 years of continuing conflict, these residents are hopeful that the Good Friday peace agreement can finally end the violence. The majority of Protestant and Catholic residents here in Northern Ireland feel that the agreement is the only way out of the crisis that continues to plague their society.
Certain factions within the unionist parties, which favor continued ties to Britain, have erected a roadblock to peace. This faction, which was behind the unsuccessful "no" vote to the agreement, now argues that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) must relinquish their weapons before the peace process can move forward.
David Trimble, the political leader of the largest unionist party, and the recent co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, seems to be caving in to the "no" forces within unionism. Trimble is the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. He is also the First Minister in the new Northern Ireland Assembly which began to meet while I was in Belfast in September.
Trimble said, "If Sinn Fein is allowed to hold on to its weaponry, it will destroy the process."
Trimble refuses to permit two Sinn Fein representatives to sit on the Executive until the decommissioning issue is resolved. The October 31st deadline under the peace agreement for setting up the Executive has come and gone without the Executive being put in place. Republicans and nationalists argue that this is a violation of the terms of the agreement.
In an interview with me in Belfast, the president of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, discussed Sinn Fein's perspective on decommissioning. He told me, "This is not a decommissioning process. This is a process of conflict resolution. As part of that process, you will get disarmament. But you will get that when people have some confidence that the whole process is working."
Objecting to the unionist fixation on decommissioning to the exclusion of other important aspects of the agreement, Adams continued, "We are focusing on the whole agreement, saying, 'Look - you signed up for it. The Executive should have been in place by now. Let's get it in place, because there are no pre-conditions. Let's get the social, economic, cultural and political details done.'"
Surrendering arms prior to progress under the agreement is not a popular sentiment in the nationalist community here in Belfast. This community remembers the pogroms of 1969 where unionist death squads invaded their communities. These death squads burned Catholic homes and murdered non-combatant civilians.
During the 1969 pogroms in Belfast, the IRA came under severe criticism from nationalists for not being properly armed to defend Catholics under siege. According to author and historian Tim Pat Coogan, the total IRA armament on Falls Road in Belfast in August of 1969 consisted of five handguns. Disgruntled nationalists at the time scrawled "I Ran Away" graffiti on walls in Belfast as a knock against IRA unpreparedness.
The social and economic details Mr. Adams talks about have a lot to do with privilege. The root causes of the troubles here in Northern Ireland are about who has privilege and who does not. Religious divisions are a side issue to the reality that a privileged unionist class has carved out a six county gerrymandered state to protect its economic interests.
As I walked down the Falls Road area in Belfast to another interview, I sensed the feeling of a community under siege. Metal cages cover windows and doors. I remember the Falls Road pub where patrons showed me the divot on the outside wall. A unionist death squad missed the window with a bazooka round and took a section out of the concrete wall.
I reached the Sinn Fein press office. Security cameras hover above. A fortress-sized steel door swung open to let me in. Sinn Fein spokesperson, Jim Gibney, greeted me outside his office.
"What you have in this society," Gibney told me, "is a form of economic apartheid. It would be easy to understand if our skin color were different or if we spoke a different language."
Gibney continued, "The unionist people have privilege over the nationalist community on the question of employment and economic power. When this state was set up in 1920, it was set up by a unionist elite. They set it up in such a way that it would continually re-invent itself in perpetuity."
Gibney went on to describe the "endemic and systematic unemployment" that the nationalist community faces in light of job discrimination against Catholics.
"The best method of disempowerment is impoverishment," Gibney said. "Impoverishment means that you do not have the same opportunities in employment and across every sector in this society."
The politics of privilege is routinely demonstrated by the Protestant Orange Order in the Northern Ireland town of Portadown. Under the guise of "preserving their culture," a euphemism to protect privilege, the Orange Order organizes annual marches to commemorate the 1690 Battle of the Boyne.
When the Orange order was denied a permit by the Parades Commission this year to march down the Catholic section of Garvaghy Road, they turned with a vengeance on the nationalist community. Catholic shops were burned. Catholic women were pelted with rocks and bottles while walking with their children. Since July, Catholic citizens have been effectively shut out of downtown Portadown.
"Portadown is a microcosm of the problems that exist today in the six counties," Breandan MacCionnath told me in a recent interview. "It is a direct result," he says " of the discrimination which is endemic in this state since its inception."
MacCionnath, as an independent candidate, was elected to the city council in Portadown. He also represents the Garvaghy Road Resident's Coalition, a community organization that was set up to protect the civil rights of residents in the area.
MacCionnath says the unionist government in the area concedes that there is systematic discrimination in the town. MacCionnath says that the government has promised to address these concerns, but they tell the nationalist community that "there is a price to pay." Residents on Garvaghy Road would have to accept Orange Order marches through their community.
"It is a completely unjustifiable stance by government," MacCionnath said. "In order to solve a number of injustices, you have to live with another form of injustice."
Another injustice that Portadown Catholics are forced to live with is a political representative who refuses to embrace minority rights in Portadown. First Minister David Trimble represents the Garvaghy Road area in Portadown, but he refuses to answer letters from Catholic residents. MacCionnath and many other Catholic residents in the area have repeatedly written to Trimble and petitioned him to make a statement in support of minority rights. According to MacCionnath, the Nobel Peace prize winner has yet to answer any of their letters.
The benefactors of the sectarian strife in Northern Ireland are the powerful British corporations which exploit the situation to preserve British imperial interests. To broaden the concept of Dylan Thomas a bit, fading empires never go gentle into that good night. They rage against the dying of the light by reinventing their imperial ways.
Although the colonial days when the British expropriated land in Ireland, prohibited the Irish to vote and outlawed the Irish language are long over, British imperialism is still alive and well in Northern Ireland today. Neo-colonialism there today has nothing to do with these outmoded methods, but it has a lot to do with advancing the interests of British corporations.
A highly educated work force in Northern Ireland, coupled with sectarian strife that sabotages the development of effective trade unions, present prime opportunities to drive down wages in the entire region. What better way is there to "discipline" your mainland work force than to utilize cheap labor across the Irish sea?
A prime example of this imperial wage shopping is Northern Telecom Limited (NTL), the British telecommunications company. Having recently announced a $47 million expansion to their facility near Belfast, NTL pays a minimum of 10% less wages in Belfast than it does on the British mainland. It also has the benefit of picking from 650 software engineers that local universities graduate each year.
Other British industries that feed at the low wage trough in Northern Ireland are corporate concerns in automotive components, electronics, computers, medical equipment and textiles. The agency representing British imperial concerns, the Industrial Development Board for Northern Ireland, sums up the matter quite succinctly for their clients. They boast, "Highly skilled labor and extremely competitive wages are attractive inducements" for firms to invest in Northern Ireland.
One of the most widely used corporate consultants around the globe, Coopers and Lybrand, recently released a survey that stated, "Northern Ireland is the fastest growing, most dynamic region of the U.K."
The study went on to inform its corporate clients that Northern Ireland is "one of Britain's and Ireland's most competitive inward investment locations, outpacing the other British regions in new international jobs."
Since 1993, multinational corporations have invested over $3.2 billion in new and existing plants in Northern Ireland.
Adding to the favorable corporate climate of low wages and a vibrant economy, Northern Ireland also offers tax abatements, the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe, and subsidies up to 25% of total investment. Given the fact that sectarian strife has contributed to the disempowerment of organized labor in the region, this begs some important questions:
Do British imperial interests ever want to see the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland end? If Catholics and Protestants stop fighting one another, might they turn their collective energies against the bosses who pay them significantly lower wages than in other regions of the area?
What scares British imperial concerns more than any rhetoric coming out of the lethargic British Labor Party today is the discussion taking place now within Sinn Fein about the role of multinational corporations in the future of Ireland. With socialist roots far to the left of the British Labor Party, Sinn Fein is posing some thoughtful discussions about the development of an egalitarian economy in a future Ireland. This policy discussion focuses on local economic autonomy and a diminished capacity for multinational corporations to exploit communities.
While Northern Ireland unionists use the decommissioning argument to protect privilege and block progress on the Good Friday agreement, British imperial concerns are interested in stoking the coals to keep Sinn Fein marginalized. These imperial forces know that they can continue to demonize Sinn Fein and block fundamental change as long as they portray Sinn Fein as the party protecting those who hold the guns. When that issue goes away, can they effectively demonize the egalitarian economic policies Sinn Fein present to society?
Despite the fact that loyalist and imperial forces in the region use sectarian conflict to protect privilege and advance imperial interests, the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland are determined to move the peace process forward. Large majorities in the North and South of Ireland continue to support the Good Friday agreement, but they are now being forced to watch helplessly from the sidelines as some of their elected officials refuse to implement the terms of the agreement the Irish people voted for in such large numbers.
The path to peace here in Northern Ireland involves the dismantling of injustices and inequalities. This can be accomplished by faithfully setting up the institutions guaranteed under the Good Friday agreement. The North-South Council, the Executive, a non-sectarian police force, the equality agenda, the Civic Forum - these are all the keys to a just and lasting peace in the region.
If any of the parties to the agreement are permitted to duck their responsibilities under the agreement, then the prospects for peace here are dismal. If these parties do not take advantage of the window of opportunity that now exists, then it will not be the ghost of Michael Collins they see when they look through the window every day. It will be the ghosts of their own children.