THE bomb went off in Brighton, just before three o’clock in the morning; the radio alarm went off in some student digs in Leytonstone, only four hours and a few minutes later.
I was still half awake, perhaps reflecting on that day’s lectures, or maybe panicking about some unfinished essay or simply thinking about cleaning my teeth. But I still recall the shock I felt that day in October 1984, as they newsreader described what had happened at the Grand Hotel while I had been sleeping.
Nobody had yet claimed responsibility. But whoever the perpetrator, it was clear that somebody had tried to wipe out a sizeable proportion of the Conservative Party with a massive improvised explosive device. Ultimately, five people died and 34 were injured, some of them crippled for life.
No rule of thumb singles out which politicians fall to the assassin’s bullet or the madman’s frenzied knife attack. It has happened to Lincoln, Ghandi, Kennedy, Allende and Palme, and it has happened to Dollfuss and Sadat and numerous minor league caudillos and miscellaneous military strongmen. Good guys, bad guys, right, left and centre.
But attempts to slaughter entire governments at one stroke at rare indeed. I’m sure there must be other historical examples, but none come instantly to mind as I write this post.
Remember, too, the social context. We were in the middle of the miners’ strike. The phrase ‘period of heightened class tensions’ was a simple description of reality, and not just a Marxist textbook cliché. Had the attack reached its intended targets, the declaration of a state of emergency, perhaps even outright military rule, would have been at least a possibility.
The next day, the Irish Republican Army owned up:
Mrs Thatcher will now realise that Britain cannot occupy our country and torture our prisoners and shoot our people in their own streets and get away with it. Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no more war.
Twenty five years ago, I was a member of a small Trotskyist organisation, operating on the premiss that its actions were somehow laying the groundwork for smashing the British state. In retrospect, it is difficult to see how selling a few thousand papers every fortnight while popping up sporadically to propose sweeping resolutions at Labour Party general management committee meetings were supposed to attain that end.
But that is how people like current defence secretary Bob Ainsworth, right wing SNP journalist George Kerevan, and I – all associated with the International Marxist Group in the early 1980s – thought at the time.
We also offered ‘critical but unconditional support for the IRA’ and its ‘armed struggle’, on the argument that ‘Ireland’s permanent revolution’ would spark a ‘crisis of the British state’ and so aid the working class seizure of power. This attitude had a resonance with some sections of the Labour left.
Certain rival Trot outfits were straightforward cheerleaders for Irish republicanism, and put a positive case that the IRA’s chief failing was if anything a certain lack of resolution in not making its military campaign yet more effective.
The IMG equivocated, as we did on every other act of terrorism that claimed civilian lives. You have to understand that the root of the problem is the British military presence on the island of Ireland, we would say. The Irish people have the right to armed resistance, and on the mainland too, if they deem that necessary. And what about Bloody Sunday, eh? What about Bloody Sunday, comrade?
Would I feel like that now? Would Ainsworth or Kerevan? My former comrades can speak for themselves. For me, the distance accorded by a third of the average lifetime is enough to put the matter in perspective. Humanism arrives to temper the abstractions.
Senior figures in the IRA then are senior figures in the Northern Ireland Executive today. Was the Brighton bombing necessary to achieve that? Nationalist diehards argue that Adams and McGuiness are sell-out merchants who have got where they are on account of the Armalite as much as the ballot box.
But a united Ireland does seem likely at some point in the next few decades. The contemporary parallel is obvious; one day the foreign troops will withdraw from Iraq. I suspect that in 2030, the idea that 7/7 was justified by Britain’s military presence in that country will show itself just as superseded by subsequent events, although this will not now be intuitive to those younger people who currently adhere to such a stance.
Meanwhile, survivors of the blast, led by Norman Tebbit, met at the scene of the explosion yesterday to unveil a plaque in memory of the victims. Although I could not have imagined myself saying this in 1984, Tebbit obviously now has the moral high ground.
Patrick Magee, who planted the bomb, was released in 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement, and today spoke at a meeting in the House of Commons, hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues, chaired by a Tory MP. Tebbit, whose wife has been bedridden since the bombing, is reportedly furious.
All of us said what we said then, because we believed what we believed then, and because the circumstances were what the circumstances were then. The convenient form of words everyone uses to brush any unpleasantness under the carpet is that ‘people have moved on’, and yes, moving on means never having to say you are sorry. But some of us now have no logical choice but to admit we were ultimately in the wrong.
Posted at 15:00, 13 October 2009
Comments (88)
Fascinating post.
Out of interest, what was the reaction of your comrades - if that's not too loaded a word - to the bombing itself? You don't really go into any detail on that, perhaps understandably, but I'm genuinely curious.
Good post, Dave.
I remember being saddened that Tebbit and Thatcher had survived and that 'innocent' people had been killed.
While I think this attitude was perverted in some ways, Tebbit is still a collosal compassionless pile of horseshit.
(Hope that not libellous)
But attempts to slaughter entire governments at one stroke at rare indeed. I’m sure there must be other historical examples, but none come instantly to mind as I write this post.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
Great post Dave, wanted to blog on this today - but just couldn't capture the ambiguity of feelings I have to this day, well not without sounding like a complete nutjob... Thanks
There have been other attends to wipe out governments such as the IRA again in 1991 who mortared a cabinet meeting (but missed), the Cato St conspiracy, and more.
But I remember that attempt in 1984 very well. It is seared into my consciousness, for ever.
No shock, a little surprise maybe, but overwhelming exuberance. Maybe even Thatcher was dead (it was a while until I knew the sad truth). All our Christmases almost came at once and a great memory, to this day (along with “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once”).
Despite all Tebbit’s bravado, it was actions like this, and also the tremendous financial cost of things like the City of London bomb (I saw quoted a ‘£1bn cost’ to the UK gov), that brought the government to the negotiating table. They never talk to animal rights people, but they would if they burnt down enough shops and couldn’t be otherwise stopped.
I did expect a clampdown after Brighton; I don’t know, maybe just for a moment, I had visions of martial law, or something. But the game plan didn’t seem to change much. The strapping on of the jackboots has occurred a lot more under Labour.
Which shows the lie in all that cowardly talk, from Lefts and more – ‘don’t be too extreme, you will only provoke a reaction and they we will all suffer.’
I also had a view that the pace of history may be quickening; big events may be coming. I still think they will but know better now that the timescale is unknown.
The IMG were not less steadfast in their correct support for armed national liberation movements, such as the IRA, than most others. Red Action, the RCP and RCG were more supportive (and so were some very small Trot groups e.g. WIL); the SWP, WRP, SO and of course, Militant, a lot less so (or not at all).
I believed what I believed then as I believe it now. Partition is an undemocratic act undertaken to maintain foreign rule over a part of Ireland and it is legitimate to resist it by all means necessary.
If Denmark conquered again the Danelaw and ruled it from Copenhagen, then even the Daily Telegraph would support armed actions there, and here, against the Danes, even if the population of East Anglia and Lincs grew to love crispbreads and patterned jumpers.
So I’m not tuning. Let all manner of rapscallions, backsliders and those who run for the hills when their ‘own country’ is attacked scatter. You turn if you want to.
Tiocfaidh ár lá
Avoiding the possibility of innocent deaths is in no way cowardly. Shit, I'm firmly against the death penalty for *convicted* criminals- why do some people think they have the right to be judge, jury and executioner of the unconvincted?
I can't stand Thatcher or Tebbit or the Tories- but to support their murder?
A very thoughtful and honest post, for which I salute you.
And I agree with MikeSC - the deaths of the innocent are always wrong, no matter what the cause. You have a fight, take it to the enemy.
I take it that you are a pacifists, Mike and Richard?
I mean every single war means the death of the 'innocent' (by any sensible definition). Good wars, bad wars, in all the innocent die. And if you ever support a side in a war, you are endorsing the killing of the innocent.
I can respect the view of a pacifist. No violence under any circumstances. You want to go and kill me, I won't resist. I think they are just stupid.
But at least they are not hypocrites, and I'm sure you're not that, are you both?
Oh - and Norman Tebbit - 'innocent'?!
(and Gandhi, not Ghandi).
There's quite a long history of the IRA trying to assasinate governments. They were going to machine gun the front bench in 1918-19 if conscription to the British army was introduced in Ireland. The War ended first.
The Bulgarian communists tried to assasinate the Bulgarian government, and indeed military leadership, when they blew up a service in Sofia Cathedral in 1925.
America (and Britain) also tried to kill Gadaffi, of course.
The Brighton bomber when on to do a PhD in the Maze.
(The Trot grouplet I was in back then opposed the IRA's armed campaign).
So according to Southpawpunch, the problem is that not enough people have been murdered in pursuing the heroic struggle to determine which particular right wing politician will rule in Belfast.
As for the quest for a united Ireland - given what we now know of the horrors of rule by the Catholic Church, what sane northerner would want to join the Republic?
In response to Southpawpunch:
I am not a pacifist, and I believe that violence is sometimes justified. Nor am I a hypocrite, I hope. In a 'just war' there are indeed civilian casualties, but they are a regrettable side-effect. In a terrorist incident, they are the main event. There is a significant difference. I know that 'regrettable' sounds lke weasel words, but if you can't see the difference between killing an enemy's soldiers and targetting their civilians, then I can't help you.
Richard B,
I am not having any of this. When a cluster bomb is dropped in a civilian area the perpertrator knows full well that huge loss of civilian life will happen. They are in full knowledge of that fact and do it anyway.
For example the main event in Israels attack on Gaza was huge CIVILIAN losses.
So called terrorists don't always go after civilians but also attack soldiers, as many of the attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan show.
You live in a computer game reality of conflict, where 2 sets of armies meet each other on the battlefield and the only people involved are soldiers.
Richard B said,
"And I agree with MikeSC - the deaths of the innocent are always wrong, no matter what the cause. You have a fight, take it to the enemy."
then he said, not one hour later,
"I am not a pacifist, and I believe that violence is sometimes justified. Nor am I a hypocrite, I hope. In a 'just war' there are indeed civilian casualties, but they are a regrettable side-effect"
By this sudden conversion you must support the IRA actions as they targeted the Tory government, a government they were at war with! They didn't go after the soldiers but the generals!!!
The deaths of innocent people were a regrettable side-effect.
Both an hypocrite and thoroughly dishonest.
Fuck 'em. That particular administration were pitiless, compassionless bastards who well deserved what they got. The I.R.A. were bang on then (no pun intended;-)) and it's only a shame they sold out since. When I heard the news and realised they'd 'missed' my emotion was one of overwhelming frustration. So close yet so far.
'Tiocfaidh ár lá', Southpawpunch? You better believe it, comrade.
Ok, let's just cut a lot of the crap that will, inveitably, spew from this thread and pose one, simple question:
"Do we stand with the oppressed or the oppressors? Marxism 101, guys. Not rocket science...
Is propaganda of the deed a Marxist thing? I thought he was bitterly opposed to it?
Do you really think that wiping out a Cabinet is necessary? Do you think a handful of people really matter in the grand scheme of things? Is a useless gesture worth deaths?
Questions, questions.
MikeSC, Irish history had shown that assassinations were often a much better tactic when dealing with the British state than insurrections.
Where the 1916 uprising failed, Michael Collins' terror campaign succeeded.
To the point of a Menshevik government anyways.
@H: "Do we stand with the oppressed or the oppressors? Marxism 101, guys. Not rocket science..."
Marxism is always about oppression.
Dave said:
"All of us said what we said then, because we believed what we believed then, and because the circumstances were what the circumstances were then."
and
"But some of us now have no logical choice but to admit we were ultimately in the wrong."
Not sure what 'ultimately in the wrong' means here. Does it mean proven by events to be wrong or wrong in principle?
Bathwater and babies comes to mind.
"To the point of a Menshevik government anyways"
Can you tell me what you think the government of William Cosgrave had in common with the Mensheviks?
Dave
Your explanation for why you gave some level of support to the IRA seems rather scant. The point was surely not that the 'armed struggle' was going to kick off a revolution (a bit barmy and clearly not on the cards) but that the IRA actually represented a large section of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland. Something that the Tories and press denied outright at the time. Subsequently everybody has accepted that this was and is the case. The cost of such Tory propaganda has been massive.
I thought Marxism was, at base, more about standing with the exploited than the oppressed. And which 'oppressed'? Girls in Magdalen homes? Imperial Typewriters strikers? Short Brothers shop stewards? Whatever.
At the time, I remember being conflicted - I hated the cabinet, but I didn't support the IRA either, and I wondered whether blowing up the government was, in the long run, the best way to go about changing it.
Looking back, the interesting thing is that the Tories didn't declare martial law, pass spectacularly draconian 'anti-terror' legislation, or re-introduce internment. I've got to retrospectively hand it to them, unlike the conpeople, shysters and cowards who had their hands on the various relevant tillers in 2001.
Chris,
Chris,
No the Tories just instructed the secret army to eradicate Catholics.
As for Marxism not standing for the oppressed, thats a good joke.
Blowing up your political enemies in a parliamentary democracy is the strategy of the asocial loser.
Northern Ireland remains part of the union because the majority of people there wish it to be so. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister because she and her party won elections.
The way to change these facts would have been through mass action: persuading the majority of people of the justice of your cause. When your ideology claims to represent the interests of the 'masses' this should surely be simple.
The Provisional IRA prioritised violent nationalism over democratic politics. It's odd how some sections of the far-Left got so turned on by their 'struggle'. I reckon it's something to do with having a penchant for men wearing balaclavas and showing off their big guns.
Somehow I suspect that blowing up MPs in general, say at parliament when they were all inside, might not be that unpopular right now. Now who was it had that idea? Another catholic movement wasn't it?
Note to MI5, said in jest and I have no plans to do it right now.
Temping as it might be to cheer an attempt on Thatcher, the only true terrorist worthy of support was Fanya Kaplan. If only she could shoot straight
I agree Dave. But we not just ultimately wrong, but wrong on principle.
We were moral cretins for a long time.
I remember in the IMG flogging Red Weekly with its front page going, 'Victory to the IRA' not long after the Birmingham pub bombings.
I can only relate the reaction of myself and those around me at the time. I was a trade union activist in the civil service (a dole office) and an SWPer who had faced threats of violence for proposing "Troops Out" motions at our branch meetings. One of our supervisors, a well-known Orangeman, came up to me and said "Trust the IRA. The one time I've been cheering them on and they missed the bastards".
That was pretty much the reaction of a lot of colleagues and family. Generally they didn't support the RA but for once they thought they'd chosen the right target. But then I lived and worked in a mining area.
As the bombing didn't help win the Miners Strike or reverse Tory policies on Ireland, the economy or anything else it was obviously a failure but instead of bemoaning the loss of "innocent" lives a lot of us would have cheered if they'd nailed Thatcher.
My cousin was sacked during the Miners Strike for crossing a line painted on the road outside Bilston Glen Colliery. He was blacklisted and barely worked for the next 15 years. In dire poverty and having just just been rejected for yet another job interview his wife and kids walked out. He jumped in front of a train. When can I expect Tebbit to lay a wreath for him and all the other innocent victims of their war on my class? Or even to say sorry?
"THE bomb went off in Brighton, just before three o’clock in the morning; the radio alarm went off in some student digs in Leytonstone, only four hours and a few minutes later." (sic)
Totally f********* HILARIOUS, Dave!
Are you going for some kind of award here? The "most absurdly tenuous, self-regarding link award, 2009"? Some really stiff competition, Dave. You and I both know that Jenni Russell and Madeline Bunting can do this stuff blindfold. But that, "...only four hours and a few minutes later." Does it for ME everytime…a killer!
Brilliant... even for you. More, More More!
Jako
'Northern Ireland remains part of the union because the majority of people there wish it to be so.'
The NI border was delineated specifically to ensure a unionist majority and to frustrate the democratic will of the people of the island of Ireland. It didn't follow any historical boundary or geographical feature.
For 50 years, until the nationalist people could take no more, the province was an affront to any notion of democracy.
'Too long a suffering can make a stone of the heart'
Partition clearly was not ideal. But I think we all know what would have happened if Northern Ireland had not been allowed to opt out of the Irish Free State. There would still be this sectarian bollocks between the different religious communities (De Valera's 1937 constitution gave special position to the Catholic Church) and there would still be terrorists blowing people up as part of their struggle for self-determination (except it would mostly have been Loyalists targetting the government in Dublin I imagine).
"the province was an affront to any notion of democracy"
Come on, loyalists would equally claim that ignoring their desire to remain part of the union would be undemocratic.
Methinks more effort should have gone into addressing poverty, inequality, and other genuine affronts to social justice in Ireland rather than the campaign to force the majority of people in Northern Ireland to submit to the IRA's uncompromising nationalist crap.
The ideal of a united Ireland is not worth placing bombs in pubs, shooting young soldiers, and all the other terrorist nonsense perpetrated by the PIRA and their scumbag descendants.
I see Southpawpunch's insatiable (if vicarious) lust for violence has reared it's head again.
Do others suspect Mr Punch was bullied at school?
Thinking back cooly and rationally, one realises that Norn Iron should have become a fully independent country back in the 1920s.
No doubt there would have been distressing scenes of ethnic cleansing for a while, as there were in other parts of Europe in the aftermath of the Dissolution of Empires, but an Independent Ulster would have been no poorer in the 1920s than, say, Poland or Romania.
Even in 1969, an Independent Ulster* would have been a perfectly sensible idea. The traitorous minority-of-a-minority were greatly emboldened when Stormont was suspended and the B-Specials were disbanded; from those two insane and disgusting Sir-Humphrey-of-Whitehall decisions all the succeeding catastrophes stemmed.
So far commentators have avoided mentioning the PIRA bombing campaigns against civilians in Ireland and the U.K. and have rubbed their hands with glee remembering the Brighton bombing and decided that - for example - the Birmingham bombing deserves to be airbrushed from the official history.
* One fully realises that historic Ulster includes Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan but the majority tribe of the Occupied Six Counties are fond of the term 'Ulster' and would have kept it as the name of their own country.
Anon of 12.51 is wrong.
The Border followed the county boundaries faithfully and does so to this day.
There was some discussion of altering the county boundaries, but in fact the Six Counties correspond to those county borders. The Protestant majority was assured by leaving out three counties of Ulster, not by redrawing the counties themselves.
Socialrepublican's little anti-Lenin gibe suggests he does think "individual terror" works, which is revealing. Actually, there was a wave of attacks on others besides Lenin. Two leading Bolsheviks (Uritsky and Volodarsky) were killed, Bukharin was injured by a bomb which killed a number of other people, and someone shot at Trotsky. The main effect was to provide an excuse for the Red Terror. I don't think it is an iron rule that all such attacks merely call down repression, but that was certainly the case in 1918.
Nonetheless, such attacks have occurred in some surprising quarters. Under Tsarism, a member of the Bund had wounded a Tsarist official in an individual attack, and was hanged for it, according to Wikipedia. Not SR, not anarchist, but the Bund...
To understand Ireland, read Kevin Myers:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/ira-collusion-tale-is-a-bloody-black-comedy-1287491.html
@Scratch, if you are going to use big words think what they mean first. 'Vicarious' - so you have to be bombed first to form a view? (although I did hear two - Caterham and London Bridge station).
And Bill Scott, is the lack of mentioning of Bloody Sunday, in the comments above, selective amnesia on the part of defenders of the Union? No, the question was about Brighton.
Bill Corr sums up well the common reaction - where I was, among racist and clan-like Cockneys - it was "stupid typical Irish, can't they do anything right and get the bitch."
Frankly if you weren't a Left who jumped for joy on hearing the news, or is excited about reading it now if you weren't born then - you are, in fact, a Tory.
And it is heartening to read, in the above comments, for various reasons and to various degrees, the main thrust is in favour of the action. The article is written as though such people have been left behind with history, small sample that it is, but it would appear that Dave mistakes his own personal capitulation to capitalism for some fictitious change to the underlying contradictions of exploitation to some new, fluffier version.
You don't have to be a pacifist to put forward the view that the IRA blowing up pubs and shopping centres on the mainland was unjustifiable. Not only on moral grounds but also because it was part of a crass strategy supposedly to put pressure on the British governemnt via a cowered or outraged populace. As if Thatcher and her gang gave a shit about us oiks. Having said that if it was just Thatcher and the cabinet who'd copped it, I wouldn't have batted an eye - good riddance to the scum. The problem is, what about the staff who worked there and others with no connection with the Tory leadership? Is that supposed be tough shit, that's collateral damage? That sounds like the mentality of people with no concern for innocent humans - not very socialist in my view.
There's a world of difference between planting bombs knowing full well innocent civilians will be killed or maimed and the type of violence that's unavoidable (with civilian deaths etc) when mass struggle occurs at critical moments against one or more repressive arms of the state.
@Racist adn clan-like Cockneys'. You left off the 'humorous and chirpy' part of the discription. Perhaps that's why they didn't like you?
Before the attack on Lenin, there was an interesting assassination, which also contributed to the Bolsheviks ruling as a one-party state. This was the assassination of the German ambassador to Soviet Russia, Count Mirbach, in July 1918. It was carried out by two Left SRs, whose party was in alliance with the Bolsheviks. The two were in fact members of the Cheka. It seems to have been a declaration of war on the Bolsheviks, an attempt to embroil Russia in war with Germany again, or both. Whatever, it ended the alliance with the Left SRs.
@Scratch, if you are going to use big words think what they mean first. 'Vicarious' - so you have to be bombed first to form a view?
No. You have to, in this instance, thrill to the idea of violence being done by and to others.
Here, have a definition..."felt or enjoyed through imagined participation in the experience of others: a vicarious thrill."
(although I did hear two - Caterham and London Bridge station).
Really? Gosh.
Practically what you are saying Doug is, 'IRA don't fight, just take the blows.'
Certainly no 'spectaculars' e.g. City of London bomb (was one person killed, but if not they could have been - so nothing like that or Canary Wharf) Or Brighton.
So attacks on army or RUC barracks? Well, no there may be cleaners etc (as there were in Aldershot).
OK, So those armoured patrol cars they have in NI? But you can't see inside them, maybe they are showing a journalist around.
Hmm ok then. Well individual RUC members - bomb under the car? Well, no, the wife might take it out.
OK. OK. So if we are watching and see he drives it?? Well, no, next door may be walking past.
So just go home then? Yes.
Yes, leave the RIC (as they will be), the British Army lording it over from their barracks in Dublin, Limerick (as will still remain), the endemic poverty that has never changed (although few now starve), the denial of votes in the still gerrymandered areas and BBC Radio Kerry broadcasting about the crowds of loyal wellwishers turning out to see the Queen (even though you passed by, and saw just a few schoolkids who had been dragged down there) because the Free State never happened because the IRA got 'morals' and disarmed but, oddly enough, the state never did.
@Scratch. You appear to have a comprehension problem; you can't use 'vicarious' here, so for example, to support nuclear weapons vicariously, would mean you would need to be thrilled by the idea of being blown up by them.
But, Scratch is right. You are getting a vicarious thrill out of the idea of other people planting bombs and blowing people up. Anyway, supporting something vicariously does not necessily mean being thrilled by it. You cn support nuclear weapons vicariously by believing Iran or Russia have the right to own them. Or do you have your own personal neutron bomb?
Struggle is messy.
I saw recently on DVD the 1967 Soviet film "I Am Cuba" (director: Mikhail Kalatozov). In one scene, a young Cuban student with a rifle prepares to assassinate a Batista police chief when he suddenly notices, through the telescopic sight, the chief, who is relaxing on his balcony, holding one of his children. The student can't bring himself to pull the trigger. Later the police chief leads a raid and kills one of the student's friends. The student later confronts the police chief as the police are attacking a demonstration, and is killed in his turn.
The film is a little ambiguous. It seems to be saying that mass action is needed, not individual, but you are left wondering whether what happened later might have been averted if he had pulled the trigger.
....Or you can be against Nuclear bombs by believing the USA or Britain or Israel shouldn't have them.
I think unless you are an out and out pacifist the moral argument should be left at the door.
The questions should be on the conflict itself, how should the nationalist community have responded to the oppression and discrimination they faced?, To what extent did the British state facilitate the divisions within the two communities in the North of Ireland? etc etc etc
I.e. focus on the issue at hand and get off the moral high horse. (Unless you are that out and out pacifist and if you are please state that you are).
The point about the delineation of the border is that it was so drawn to frustrate and defeat the democratic will of the people.
It was designated as it was to include enough land to make the province a viable unit but at the same time ensure a built in unionist majority for the (then) foreseeable future.
The totally artificial unit was then run by the unionists for the unionists. It was not a democracy.
To object to physical force republicanism on the grounds that NI was a democracy is just daft.
I presume Southpawpunch can only take such glee in the Brighton bombing beause he has never seen what bombs and bullets do to human bodies.
If, on hearing the news, we didn't jump for joy, we must be tories, SPP accuses. What a profoundly stupid remark!
My immediate thought after the bombing was that it would ensure a huge sympathy vote for the tories at the next election. Anybody on the left associated with the IRA would have found it more difficult than ever to talk to the bulk of ordinary citizens who, even if they despised Thatcher, were (and are) repelled by terrorist violence.
SPP would have us believe that the Provisional IRA was some kind of liberation movement fighting imperialism. In fact, it was a deeply reactionary nationalist movement, quite as happy to shoot working class Irishmen of the wrong religion as British soldiers or police.
As for the iniquities of the border. I'm afraid history is full of borders drawn in the wrong places, and of groups of people who think they're in the wrong country. And trying to redraw all the borders so that they are more to our ideological,liking is a recipe for endless warfare.
While I'm not against the use of violence in and of itself (a violent system justifies violence to end it/sometimes doing nothing is the most violent thing of all), and I'd not shed a tear for Thatcher getting blown to pieces, certainly some on the left fetishise it in a worrying way.
Direct action is of course needed when representative democracy leaves so much to be desired, but I don't see why we have to jump right to killing people. What about the free breakfast program undertaken by the Black Panthers? What about strikes? What about activists breaking into army bases and smashing up planes?
In today's world, the first organizational task of socialists has to be winning back those who have been turned off politics, and convincing the mass of working people that socialism is still relevant. Action which immediate improves living conditions, saves jobs, damages corporations, is what the way to do this.
This one's gonna run and run so only a couple of points I wanna make. Firstly, Southpawpunch sharply, and correctly, identifies the logic of of avoiding civilian casualties. Bottom line is you end doing nothing but sitting there taking the state's attacks because any fightback runs the risk of 'innocent' people dying. Inredible reasoning. Bottom line is it's our duty as Marxists to explain that the responsibility for innocents dying is the state's problem! Stop murdering rebels, remove your foreign army of occupation and the problem reduces massively, if not goes away altogether.
Secondly, the whole 'individual terror' argument is a nice convenient way of avoiding supporting oppressed peoples while retaining some sort of orthodox Trot saintliness. Besides which, who says the I'R.A. didn't have mass support? Of course the class enemy trumpeted this at every opportunity but, as has been noted above by someone, this was *not* the case. They *did* have mass support from their people and their communities so even from an orthodox Trot view that argument barely stands two minutes scrutiny.
If and/or when a revolution ever does break out on this Isle it'll be interesting to see how many 'Marxists' oppose it on the basis of some of the moralistic bollocks outlined earlier.
There is nothing bloodthirsty or thrilling about this. Frankly, it scares the shit out of me but when a showdown occurs you can fight back with and on behalf of our class or you can cowardly sit it out while your pseudo-intellectual arguments fall on the ears of the dying.
I say again: fuck 'em. A more deserving target than Thatch and her boot boys is virtually impossible to find. They tick all the boxes and deserve all they got/get.
National liberation struggles should be supported. end of. And no, it doesn't mean you climb into bed with the Catholic church or agree with every dot and comma of their programme. sort that out later when the common class enemy is defeated but while the struggle rages we support it. Anything else is class treachery and cowardice.
Revolutionary greetings, H.
"I think unless you are an out and out pacifist the moral argument should be left at the door"
Well a lot of bizarre ideas have been expressed in the course of this discussion, but the idea that only "out and out pacifists" are allowed to advance ethical arguments concerning the use of violence is perhaps the oddest.
'the Provisional IRA..... quite as happy to shoot working class Irishmen of the wrong religion as British soldiers or police.'
paul fauvet
That is simply not true.
Mongrel,
The reason I say
"unless you are an out and out pacifist the moral argument should be left at the door"
is firstly the moral issue gets in the way of debate and secondly you end up getting people like Richard B who on the one hand moralise about the IRA's actions but then claim
"In a 'just war' there are indeed civilian casualties, but they are a regrettable side-effect.".
And you end up wasting debate on this proposterous hypocrisy.
Sorry H, but I think there was always an element of vicarious hard on in the far left's support for the IRA.
The British working class won't find? Never mind, those Paddies will.
Compared to Thatcher and Brown Mc Gee was an amateur when it came to killing people.
http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/big-bombers-and-little-bombers/
"the moral issue gets in the way of debate"
Exactly. Who would want moral issues to get in the way when you are debating killing people? Do you seriously believe that all acts of violence are equally justifiable providing one is not "out and out pacifist" (or that the distinctions that might exist between acts of violence are entirely pragamatic and value free)? Richard B believes that although just wars exist, the IRA were not waging one. What is hypocritical about that? The vast majority of Irish people agree, and agreed, with him. Like others, I suspect that the vast majority of those enthusing over the killing of Irish people here have never so much as been to Ireland in their lives.
If a revolution broke out in part or even the whole of the currently constituted UK, I agree a lot of "Marxists" would be opposed to it. It probably would not be under any left group's leadership, it might be accompanied by excesses and it might well not fit the templates laid down in the textbooks.
There are parallels in the past - look at all the enthusiasts for the French Revolution in Britain who turned into conservatives, even reactionaries? Some were reacting to the French excesses, but it is also probable that repression in Britain scared them. Joseph Priestley's Birmingham dinner to mark the Revolution anniversary was attacked by a "church and property" mob as early as 1791 - well before the Terror.
Re the IRA, the state knew it had mass support. I read a tome on "terrorism" c.1979 which included an essay by the academic Paul Wilkinson. As I remember it, Wilkinson concluded that about a quarter of the Catholics in the north were committed IRA or INLA sympathisers, and perhaps another quarter had some degree of sympathy with them. This was at a time before the 1981 hunger strikes, when the British media fostered the idea that armed republicans were a tiny handful of thugs without any kind of support, and before Republicans stood in elections in any consistent way in the north.
Andrew Coates:
"I agree Dave. But we not just ultimately wrong, but wrong on principle.
We were moral cretins for a long time.
I remember in the IMG flogging Red Weekly with its front page going, 'Victory to the IRA' not long after the Birmingham pub bombings."
This kind of breast-beating means nothing. What 'principles' were wrong? Make the case.
"As I remember it, Wilkinson concluded that about a quarter of the Catholics in the north were committed IRA or INLA sympathisers, and perhaps another quarter had some degree of sympathy with them."
Yes, the point is that the IRA/INLA posed as national liberation movements representing the whole of Ireland, and were accepted as such by sections of the British left, yet support for their armed struggle among "the Irish people as a whole" was always miniscule. And on what basis does the support of a quarter of a section of the population mandate you to pursue armed struggle?
The Brighton bomber should have had a couple of limbs amputated prior to his release.
And every British soldier fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq should have their eyes gouged out by that logic Freddy.
Mongrel, it's hard to argue with your logic here without trying a few examples,
"Who would want moral issues to get in the way when you are debating killing people? Do you seriously believe that all acts of violence are equally justifiable...Richard B believes that although just wars exist, the IRA were not waging one."
Because just saying Richard B believes that just wars exist but the IRA were not waging one is another way of saying one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter and we are back to my point that people should get off their high horse when spouting that kind of logic.
So Mongrel please list examples of your 'Just wars' and 'just killings' say in the last 10 years so I can evaluate your logic more clearly.
The issue of morality is a red herring. It is as much a question of legality. The whole point about terrorist/guerrilla/insurgents etc is that they are irregulars, they are informal soldiers, and as such they are not bound by the law of warfare. Regualr troops and armies are. The horrible remark Dean made above shows what a vindictive person he is. The soldiers are follwoing orders. You may disagree with the presence of the troops in X country, or their tactics, but they are not the ones who decide them. Regular armies are held accountable and are sueable, some people have recieved large compensation payments for mistreatment or injuries judged to be outside the scope of law. That is not the case with irregular armies. No-one has been able to sue the IRA High Command for injuries or deaths sustained through bombing. The best they can hope for is that the British State picks up the tab. If 'freedom fighters' or whatever you want to call them, had a structure of accountablity and followed legal guidelines, then obviously it would be different. It's power without responsibilty.
Dean, perhaps it would be simpler if you could list examples of what in your view were unjust wars and unjust killings over the last 10 years so we can evaluate whether your own view is that everybody is entitled to kill anybody else if they feel strongly enough about something.
Sue R
'You may disagree with the presence of the troops in X country, or their tactics, but they are not the ones who decide them.'
So rather than kill the soldiers you kill the ones who dictate the policy under which they operate?
Or does one consult with one's legal advisers and issue a writ?
How terribly, terribly civilised.
More tea, vicar?
I can see now from the mealy mouthed justifications on this thread how the Stalinists had no problem executing Trots and anarchists in Spain. Most workers would be appalled at your contempt for human life. What did the old man call terrorists - reformists with a gun.
From the mealy mouthed justifications on this thread I sense the mindset of the Cheka recruit and Stalinists in Spain. I suspect most workers would be appalled by the contempt for human life but then again I suspect people like SSP wouldn't even have the guts to argue what he does with normsl people. In any case, what did Trotsky call terrorists - reformists with a gun.
"Most workers would be appalled at your contempt for human life. What did the old man call terrorists - reformists with a gun."
Actually I think you will find that the old man dismissed respect for human life as "Papist-Quaker babble".
Mongrel,
Israels attack on Gaza
The US attack on Iraq
Georgia's attack on South Ossetia
The Al-Qaeda attack on New york.
to name but a few.
Now please do the courtesy of listing your justified killings and wars so we can judge your contempt for human life or otherwise.
On what grounds do you think the attacks you listed were wrong? Apart from the Georgian one, they were very effective and achieved their objectives. Surely you aren't saying they were morally wrong in some way?
If you want to know about just war theory there is no point in coming to me, there is a very extensive literature from St Augustine onwards to consult and I am sure you can find a potted version on Wikipedia. Or you could ask an Irish person - very few participants in the Irish conflict would disown adherence to a moral framework(it may be true of some of the ultra left kind of INLA people who were responsible for some of the worst sectarian massacres, like Kingsmill or Darkley).
Should point out that I am not accusing INLA of responsibility for Kingsmill, it was the Provos under the instigation of the "socialist" Brian Keenan.
Seriously, if you want to know my opinion about what is permissible in war and what isn't I think the recent Goldstone report on Gaza reflects my own feelings pretty broadly.
Kingsmill did stop the murder of Catholics by loyalist death squads at the time though didn't it?
I realise that probably didn't mean much if you were a student radical in London.
It probably meant something to Catholics in NI though.
"When an awesome fire ripped through the Palace of Westminster (i.e. Parliament) on 16 October (1834), a gleeful crowd whooped and cheered as fire burned the vast majority of the building to the ground...As word of the blaze spread across London, crowds gathered on the banks of the River Thames.
One diarist caught the mood on the banks of the River Thames: "The crowd was rather pleased than otherwise; whistling when the breeze came as if to encourage it; 'There's a flare-up for the House of Lords.' 'A judgement for the Poor Law Bill!', 'There go their acts!'. Such exclamations seemed to be the prevailing ones. A man sorry I did not anywhere see."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8309103.stm
I presume the crowd didn't know whether MPs or Peers were roasting inside or not (sadly I don't think any did), but still they were full of glee.
If the cops hadn't cordoned off the front in Brighton, I would have expected similar scenes.
"Kingsmill did stop the murder of Catholics by loyalist death squads at the time though didn't it?"
In a word, no. And in any case I don't find the murder of innocent Protestant workers by Catholic death squads any more palatable, though you plainly do. And I have never been a student radical living in London, you prick.
I think it's about time the "sensible left", just like the Rev Dave (The new vicar of Pangloss), apologised for just EVERYTHING.
It's really time the bloody Miners deeply apologised to Baroness Thatcher - she was just doing what was objectively "necessary" (Will Hutton), and the 80's 4m plus unemployed should equally plead "grace" to Saint Tebbit (our new moral loadstone). Cos everthing works out right (tidy) in the end if you only sit tight and wait. US troops out of Iraq - 2034. Whatsa your f/king problem, you crazy Iraqis? United Ireland - anyday soon! Fenians - f/ck off! Socialism? Hey, later...Gordon's busy.
Today's sermon ~ "there's a train leaving soon for Euston".
Mongrel,
Still no list from you of just wars or just killings, I am suspecting another neo liberal who spouts horror at the actions of terrorists but sees no problem with a million Muslims wiped off the face of the earth.
Did the war in Iraq achieve it's objectives? Please enlighten us.
Apart from getting Bush another 4 years in office, what did 9/11 actually achieve?
Did the attack on Gaza help the Palestinians achieve their objectives?
"I am suspecting another neo liberal who spouts horror at the actions of terrorists but sees no problem with a million Muslims wiped off the face of the earth."
Yes, you have me bang to rights, you don't work for Scotland Yard by any chance?
Actually I can't think of any wars, assassinations or communal bloodbaths that have particularly enthralled me over the past ten years, maybe you can propose a few that I should have enthused over?
Actually I have just picked up something written by Fred Halliday which sums this whole thing up far better than I ever could: "the greatest failure of socialism over its 200 years, especially in its Bolshevik form, was the lack of an ethical dimension in regard to the rights of individuals and citizens in general, indeed in regard to all who were not part of the revolutionary elite, and the lack of any articulated and justifiable criteria applicable to the uses, legitimate and illegitimate, of violence and state coercion. That many of those who continue to uphold revolutionary-socialist ideals, and the potential of Marxist theory, today appear not to have noticed this, that they indeed reject, when not scorn, the concept of "rights", is an index of how little they have learned, or have noticed the sufferings of others."
I am wondering where the ethical dimension was in the Atlantic slave trade, the potato famine in Ireland or the Industrial Revolution? In the case of the potato famine, the "Times", the British bourgeois paper of record, had this to say in 1846:
"For our part, we regard the potato blight as a blessing. When the Celts once cease to be potatophagi, they must become carnivorous. With the taste of meats will grow an appetite for them; with the appetite, the readiness to earn them."
Mark,
I am wondering what the hell your commment has to do with anything I, or indeed Halliday, said?
GREAT STUFF!
The daftest comments here far exceed in daftness the daftest comments on the SOCIALIST UNITY site; some people are trapped in a time warp.
An independent Norn Iron in the twenties or the sixties would have dealt with the traitorous minority-within-a-minority briskly and decisively.
Anyone interested in forming LABOUR FRIENDS OF SOUTH OSSETIA ?
If Mongrel Fox is in funds s/he can track down Halliday's 'ARABIA WITHOUT SULTANS' which contains the line "...the Imperialist attack on Korea ..." which is a real giggle now - but very recently Saint Peter Tatchell wrote a piece which included a splendidly anachronistic reference to
"American invaders" in Vietnam, a country in which the Vietnamese were - it seems - waging a "national liberation struggle."
Sure, tell THAT to the boat people!
So the Americans were indigenous to the region then?
Noam Chomsky convincingly puts forward an argument somewhere that the war is best characterised as an American attack on South Vietnam.
On the post, I don't see why the left should apologise for the blowback against rulers who cause more death and misery than terrorists ever do.
I realise you need to think outside the box a little bit, but the "amorality of Marxists" crowd don't tend to look at the amorality of capitalism. Hence my comments. And I brought the thread back to events in Ireland, which you strayed from. Sorry I had to spell it out for you.
I see. So if I say that Marxism lacks an ethical dimension, you think it a judicious response to point out that the slave trade didn't have one either. And if I express dismay at sectarian killings carried out by the Provisional IRA, you think it germane to quote an article from the Times on the potato famine. I suppose "thinking outside the box" is a good euphemism for an utter disregard for basic logic, though. Abd at least you didn't say "what about Bloody Sunday".
Good piece Dave and your contextualizing your circumstances at that time was useful journalistic shorthand not a sign of decadent egotism. It’s strange how people reacted to that event then and how they feel now.
I was heavily into Buddhism at the time and once had to deal with a fellow Sangha member who had the hots for the Irish band The Pogues while my understanding from my family back in the ould sod, was that whenever that band played local venues, audience violence inevitably followed.
Brits it seems to some extent, vicariously live out their wilder fantasies through the Irish. That was true then of both enlightenment seeking Buddhists and world transformation seeking socialist revolutionaries.
As for Ireland today the amalgam of unspeakably corrupt politicians and business elite which have saddled the Republic with economic ruination and the prospect of 40% cuts in healthcare spending are still extant. Wouldn’t be surprised that if someone put a bomb in some their bathrooms an even bigger cheer would go up in certain pubs and maybe Pogues gigs, than ever did after Brighton 1984.
Indeed, what about Bloody Sunday?
Britain has no right in Ireland and never had any right in Ireland. It is interesting that there was a potato blight throughout Europe in the mid-1840s. It caused hardship in many places. Only in Ireland was it a famine. What does this say about British rule, and its - *cough* - morality? The Times was just one example of the callous British response, blame the victim writ large.