West Belfast - curfews, Ballymurphy and Joe McDonnell

The Bloody Sunday report helped raise the profile of other massacres by the British army in the north, especially that of Ballymurphy in West Belfast. West Belfast was especially hard hit during the troubles and paid a heavy price. This period is the 40th anniversary of the Falls curfew and the 28th anniversary of Vol. Joe McDonnell. A reminder of the difficult times that West Belfast has undergone.

A series of anniversary vigils will take place across Belfast this Wednesday, 8th July, to mark the 28th anniversary of the death on hunger strike of IRA Volunteer Joe McDonnell.

Joe, a 30 year old married man with two children from the Lenadoon area of West Belfast, died after sixty-one days on hunger strike and was the 5th hunger striker to die.

Ex POW and West Belfast Sinn Fein MLA Jennifer McCann said:

'Joe McDonnell was a deeply committed IRA Volunteer.

'He was a loving father to his children and a good friend and comrade to many, many people.

'Joe was interned twice in the early '70s and was arrested again while on active service in 1976 along with Bobby Sands and a number of others.

'He was sentenced to 14 years and upon entering the H-blocks he refused to wear the prison uniform and joined his comrades on the blanket protest.

'On 9th May, 1981, he commenced his hunger strike, taking the place of his friend and comrade, Bobby Sands, who had died four days earlier on 5th May.

'In June 1981, during his hunger strike, Joe stood as a candidate in the Sligo/Leitrim constituency during the general election and came very close to being elected.

'Joe McDonnell was a great Irishman and today his name and the names of all the other Hunger Strikers inspire people in Ireland and across the world.

'He was a brave and courageous volunteer and that is why we will remember him with pride on Wednesday.

'I would encourage members of the community to come out and attend the vigils.'

The assembly points for the Joe McDonnell anniversary vigils on Wednesday, July 8th, are;

Falls Road Sinn Fein Centre - 5pm

Bottom of Whiterock Road - 5pm

Connolly House Sinn Fein office, Andersonstown Road - 5pm

Stewartstown Road (Front of Dairy Farm Centre) - 5pm

Top of New Lodge Road/Antrim Road junction - 5.30pm

Mountpottinger Road/Short Strand - 5pm

Community Politics, Popular Fronts and the first thing on the agenda

The Belfast Telegraph today carries a short piece on the creation of cross community politics in the north of Ireland.

It lays out a strategy of developing a Popular Front in order to unify sectional interests in both communities who would you think have much in common i.e getting ordinary working class people in both communities to recognise they have plenty in common.

The specific strategy is to establish an:

electorally focused 'popular front', consisting both of political parties and individuals. The organisation would raise funds, provide organisational support for elections, support other campaigns, and, most importantly, promote debate around developing a progressive agenda. Activists would come from all traditions and would seek support from all.

Okay but easier said than done and based on the premise that there is no party already working on building cross community politics. Even though its a short piece it does not mention Sinn Fein once.

Its very easy to write a plan on building a cross community vote but very hard to do that in practice. One of the issues that makes this so difficult obviously is the political divide. Even if working class people in both communities have common interests they also have different political aspirations that cant be ignored, though they can be persuaded to change. The Workers Party tried to build cross community politics in the north previously, and for this article its good to park the many differences with that party, but its efforts to expand into loyalist communities were unsuccessful while its reading of the political reality of the north resulted in it losing support in the nationalist communities.

The proposed "Popular Front" strategy in the Bel Tel argues that "certainly, on a local level, there's no advantage in class terms to either remaining part of the UK or becoming part of a united Ireland." Is that true though? Does that set the value people place on having a sense of national identity at zero? And in a place like the six counties where two communities have aspirations to different national identities does it mean that looking at the challenges of the north purely in "class terms" is to miss out on the realities of political life there. Is an analysis purely in "class terms" a viable option today, or for the next few years? That doesn't mean progress cant be made towards it but first ground work has to be done before its an option. Any thoughts on that?

Look at the work of Sinn Fein in East Belfast or the recent meeting of Gerry Adams and Jackie McDonald as they paid the respects at a funeral.
Cross community relations are being built and thats going to lead to cross community political relationships. Look at the warm congratulations of John Stevenson to Michelle Gildernew, the independent, left wing candidate from a presbyterian background in Fermanagh South Tyrone. Small things but thats how cross-community politics is being built.

Critics of Sinn Fein can ignore the party's work in building new political relationships with loyalist communities but ignore it or no its making a difference and will allow class poltics to develop in the north. Thats more done than any putative popular front.

Regretably in the south a different left wing group, People Before Profit, choose also to ignore the work Sinn Fein does in towns, cities and rural areas and instead launched a fairly strong attack via The Village magazine. Robbie Smith in An Phoblacht has more on the The Village article and the Rathangan Sinn Fein blog notes that while others on the left might wish to engage in such squabbles well we in Sinn Fein shouldnt care. The only thing we do care for is the welfare of the Irish people.

We have more ambition to create real change than these groups, and have more support to do just that. We can just rise above this type of stuff and keep on working.

An phoblacht's view on the recent racist attacks in Belfast

I was asked to post the editoral from An Phoblacht concerning the recent racist attacks in Belfast. It was recently stated that not enough Sinn Féin activists are reading the paper and as a result many are not aware of the party's position or thinking on current issues.

So here you go. See what you think.

Sectarianism and racism must be confronted

DESPITE all the political progress of recent years there are still some unionist politicians in the North who continue to oppose equality and refuse to confront sectarianism.

The Six Counties is a state that was established on the basis of sectarianism and inequality. It remains sectarian at its core. When Unionism was in control of the institutions of state it abused those institutions and used its political power to sustain its control.

Sectarianism is a device to keep citizens in their place. Catholics were the main target of this sectarianism and victims of state policies of discrimination.
Sectarianism also kept working class Protestants in their place, divided from their Catholic neighbours and distrustful of them even though in many cases living conditions, particularly for all poor working class people, were similar.
Because the North is a sectarian state and because unionism could not be trusted to govern fairly, the outcomes of the Good Friday Agreement and the Saint Andrews Agreement are all-Ireland in nature, particularly in their institutions.
There are also many equality and other legal safeguards built into the new political dispensation. These include compulsory power sharing and partnership political arrangements. ‘Thinking unionism’ knows that this will be the case for as long as the new dispensation lasts and fair minded unionist MLAs have slowly but surely come to terms with this reality. They fulfil their political duties in a positive way. They also appreciate that these safeguards are to their advantage as the constitutional position changes in the future.

Others, inside and outside the North’s Assembly, toy with the idea that the system of governance can be changed. If they are serious, they are living in Fantasy Land.
If the new political dispensation is to deliver for everyone, it will do so because all political parties have entered into the spirit as well as the letter of power sharing.

Any suggestion that the compulsory nature of the power sharing arrangements can be changed is dishonest and misleading. Those who argue for this position know that it is unattainable. All politicians have a duty to set their faces against sectarianism.
Recent attacks on members of the Romanian community in South Belfast and other attacks against people from eastern Europe in other parts of the North have led many people to correctly draw parallels between these racist incidents and the long history of sectarian discrimination and violence in the Six Counties. Racism and sectarianism are two sides of the one coin.The tolerance that is shown by many political leaders for sectarianism makes it inevitable that racism will thrive. It also needs to be confronted.