At the time of writing a young man, emmett shiels, is lying in a morgue with a bullet wound in his stomach because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shot at point blank range because he dared to take on a group of local youths who proclaimed to be Republican and fighting for the betterment of their neighbourhood. A tragedy of this magnitude should encourage the Marxists and Republicans in Irish society to start asking themselves how and why something like this can occur. In a part of Ireland which finds itself at the other end of a lenghty and bloody national liberation struggle, this murder should not have happened and strikes deep and hard into the memory of the local masses.
There are two questions that need to be answered in relation to this. Firstly, why is it that a group of youths find it necessary to organise on military lines under the banner of republicanism to defend there neighbourhood? And secondly, why do these youths believe that militarism is the way to defend their neighbourhood?
Without considering the militarist aspect to the defending/organising of this group of youths lets firstly ask ourselves why they might feel the need to defend or organise at all?
These youths are between the ages of 17 and 23 so they don’t have the same memories of the struggle as older members of that community have, but yet they still seem to want to go back to what the provisional movement were doing 20 or so years ago. Why is this? It seems that the largest republican bloc (PSF) have let these youths down. The direction of PSF has not encouraged these youths to take on board their political persuasion, infact the only people seeming to go along with the direction of PSF are the older people of the community. Is this because there memories of armed resistence are different than those of the youths? The last thing these people want is a return to war, they have seen that it was a futile attempt at the time and it would be a futile attempt now. Any political strategy that wasnt fascism would be embraced by the people of the bogside just for the sake of peace. This surely isn’t the singular reason for the older generation in accepting the petty-bourgeoisie politics of the provisional movement, but it is a strong argument and one we cant ignore in relation to this tragedy.
The youth still find it nesecarry to be active in the national liberation struggle simply because that struggle has been left alone by PSF. The GFA is a defeat for PSf when it comes to the unification of Ireland, and the youth can see this. This is the failing of PSF, they have taken with them the battered and war weary of their own generation, but they have left the progressive youth behind. We can atleast take one fact from this, if the youth are still trying to organise-even in the wrong way- then the policy of PSF has failed. If there was even a possibility that the national liberation struggle could be tackled from within the framework of the GFA (good friday Aggreement) then the youth would not feel the need to organise in their communities under the banner of republicanism.
The militarist nature of this organisation on the other hand cannot be solely blamed on the provisional movement. The IRSM were also very active during the national liberation struggle so any problems we may have with the militarist nature of this group of youths has to be directed at the IRSP/INLA aswell. The national liberation struggle didnt have to be a militarist one, but the PIRA and INLA took on the idea that it had. Lets not assume it was the wrong decision or that the national liberation movement had much choice after the behaviour of the British establishment during the civil rights movement but if we can agree that it wasnt the only option available at the time it would be enough for this discussion.
Militarism has turned into a cancer in Northern Ireland society. The tactics of the Republican movement have changed little since the days of the 1916 rising. The IRA’s support would rise and fall with the particular societal circumstances it found itself in but its tactics would never change. It has always been about trying to win the support of the masses for armed resistence and not about changing the tactics of republicanism to gain the support of the masses. This had not changed up untill the provisional leadership started to move away from militancy, through socialism and into neo-liberalism. The tag of socialism was only taken on board by the provisional movement because they needed a transition of radical ideology. They couldnt see the prospect of hopping from militarism to neo-liberalism so they fooled the membership into thinking they were radical by assuming a “socialist” position during the late 70’s. This enabled them to move towards neo-liberalism because the threat of having there own guns fired on them was dealt with and also because they failed,purposely, to instil a solid socialist theory into the grass roots during there “socialist” stage.If there “socialist” stage was honest then they would have found it impossible to move the grass roots in the direction they have taken.
This transition by PSF is an embarrasment to Republicanism but it is the first time the republican movement moved away from militarism. What we understand form this is what follows.MIlitarism is not radicalism. Adams knew this so he encouraged the idea that the party had a radical theoretical position to fool his party into being confident with the direction of the party. However when this is applied to the other militarists of the national liberation struggle,the IRSM, who already consider themselves not only socialist but marxist, you realise that this supposed radical position is not there because of their un-willingness to abandon militarism. Militarism represents radicalism for the vast majority of the grass roots membership of the IRSM and it is the nervousness of this membership to abandon it which highlights the lack of any real radicalism in the party. If the IRSM was ideologically sound they would see no need to continue on in the militaristic way that they do,because militarism is so out dated in relation to the Irish struggle that it is holding the IRSM back to the point of possible collapse. What is missing from the IRSM is a real radical position and theoretical base. If it had this it would disown militarism (even for now) and it would flourish.
So how does this all tie in to the tragedy of the murder of Emmett Shiels? Look at it logically. The youth still feel a need to organise towards a united Ireland so the GFA position of PSF has failed them. The militarist history of the PIRA and the current militarist position of the INLA,CIRA and RIRA are to blame for the structure of this organisation. If you let a mess like that to fester,and openly allow this organisation to arm itself in your community and swan around acting like its 1916 then this tragedy was bound to happen someday. Its a tragedy for republicanism aswell. Because of the failure of the republican movement to curb this cancer it could mean the rejection of the anti-GFA bloc of republicans in the city of Derry and the herding of the masses towards the politics of the neo-liberalist PSF. The politics of republicanism has let down Emmett Shiels, can that group of people now begin to put things right so it wont happen again? I look forward to hearing your opinions.
