The Issue of National Sovereignty

I want to address the arrogance of people who take the no interest in the issue of National Sovereignty on the island of Ireland. Whilst doing door to door canvassing this past two years, I have been met with the arrogance and smugness of people who feel they are superior to me on a moral basis because they vote for a "neutral" party, such as Alliance. I feel that for anyone to use the line "I want the parties to deal with real issues" to be arrogant and I personally can't have it. Let me explain why.

Firstly, anyone that votes Alliance is delusional to think that they are voting for a neutral party. Alliance are not a neutral party. On the issue of National Sovereignty, they are Unionist. They share office with Sinn Féin, but have made it clear given the choice they would rather not. They are not neutral, they are smart with words.

Secondly, the reason I can't handle that excuse is because of the obvious self interest it displays. For me, and hundreds of people like me, National Sovereignty is a real issue. It is an issue of major importance. To say you don't like the parties here because they don't deal with real issues really translates to "my real issues". If I was to state that I wouldn't vote for a party cause they are only interested in taxes and not real issues would be laughable; and it is just as laughable when one discusses national sovereignty in the same way.

It would be equally delusional to think that the parties here do not deal with real, or "bread and butter" issues. All the major parties here have proposals and mandates for the likes of general taxes, water charges, fuel charges, education, poverty, depravation etc. However the parties are also involved and have proposals for the issue of national sovereignty.

Now I feel I should address the issue of national sovereignty and why I deem it important. People that lack the interest in the issue, usually are unaware of why other people are. It is no secret to me that people deem the likes of me, as laughable paranoid fools living in the past. Very few people would take the time to ask me why, or try to find out my opinions on the issue. However I feel that if some one is going to judge me for my opinions on the issue they should at least take the time to educate themselves of what my opinions actually are.

So what are my opinions. Well it would be true that some of my issues come from the past. Having educated myself on the actions of British rule in my country I do honestly think that a free Ireland is the right thing to do. It is the only really way to get justice for our country. But it is so much deeper than that.

NOTE: This next paragraph will be the part that people will refuse as the paranoid rant of a "dissident Republican". I am not a dissident. People just don't want to admit that these things are true. Due to this fact however I will keep it to a short paragraph.

These unfair actions of British rule are still ongoing in our country. Last year, as I have stated many times before, the PSNI/RUC stopped and searched 110 people a day, including a three year old and her pram, under section 44, in Republican areas, according to their own figures. Since the European union have deemed this illegal, the PSNI/RUC have continued to use these searches. The British army where involved in a raid on the home of 3 Republicans in Derry last week. This is not speculation, they provided a document to the home owner stating who was searching the house. They only reason for this search was their membership with the 32CSM. I am not really a fan of the 32CSM, but I know that this is wrong. As was the case in 1981 (which I bring up due to its public attention), Republican prisoners in British gaols are denied political status. These same prisoners were not allowed to commemorate their fenian dead at easter when they were denied the right to wear their lily, despite the poppy being worn in the gaol every year. In republican areas, real criminals, the likes of Drug/Death dealers are more likely to receive protection from the PSNI/RUC in exchange for information on Republicans. The catch 22? The more criminals that are allowed such protection, the more people join the ranks of the armed organisations, wether it be the IRA or the likes of RAAD, who focus more on drugs than the issue of national sovereignty.

So now to address another reason I deem national sovereignty to be important. I am from a working class family. I deem the people to be important. I believe that the people, their rights and their well being should be more important than that of big businesses and banker interests. In a word I would be describe as a "socialist" and where as I use this word for simplicity, I don't really like it. I don't think their is a word to describe my political views.

I believe that governments should not be shirts and ties, and fancy cars and security and, as in the case with America, celebrities. The politicians should be working for the people, where as despite what every one of them says, we clearly work for them. I believe this is directly related to the issue of national sovereignty because whilst we live under British rule we will not be able to revolutionize the British institution in a way that will empower the people. The occupied territory is to small for any major changes to be made on their behalf. The fact that George Galloway has been removed from the house on various occasions for acting on behalf of the oppressed Palestinians shows this.

Before we can live in a truly socialist society, where by the people are empowered we must liberate ourselves from a country that still has a monarch. A single family who deem themselves more important than anyone else, for no other reason than their mother and father thought the same thing. We must liberate ourselves from a country that still has a colonial empire, by forced rule over Ireland. We need to liberate ourselves from a country that deems itself better than others. If this is the attitude of the government towards Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine or Iran, how can we expect that same government to respect the rights of six simple counties on an adjacent island? Britain believe that they have the right to have weapons, and spend huge amounts of our taxes on weaponry, and yet they somehow feel they have the right to demand that Iran does not have weapons; That Palestinians live under Israeli oppression and show no resistance.

We need to liberate Ireland, and begin to build the country imagined by all those who have died for it. An Ireland where the tricolour is not the only change to our government corridors, but the very foundations that the political institutions are based are also changed. Where everyone enjoys the same equality that Martin Luther King Jr had his dream about.

National Sovereignty is the only way we can bring the institutions right back to the beginning, and rebuild them. This is why it is a real issue, and an issue of major importance.

SDLP Westminster Manifesto

I would like to discuss and respond to the SDLP manifesto and the attitudes of the party in general.

Firstly, Ritchie begins her speech by saying Westminster is important, this doubled with SDLP denouncing abstensionism is hypocritical, considering the appalling attendance record or the SDLP in the past year. They have the lowest attendance record of anyone in Westminster, including independents. So Sinn Féin are condemned for not taking a salary or a seat, when the SDLP deem it okay to take a Salary, and may as well take no seat.

Sinn Féin do not take their seat, as they will not give any legitimacy to British occupation of Ireland. However Sinn Féin work in the corridors, where the real work is done, where the work is done for you and me.

At this stage Ritchie brings up what she calls a sectarian head count, referring to Sinn Féin's offer of a joint candidate in South Belfast and Fermanagh/South Tyrone, in response to the unionist joint candidate in the same area. Now wether one sees this as a stunt, tactic or legitimate political decision, the logic of the SDLP to this move is beyond incomprehensible.

To try and convince the electorate, that Sinn Féin's decision to pull out of South Belfast, is an attempt to seat an Unionist Politician is completely ridiculous. I honest believe that even the most hardened of anti PSF "dissidents" would find it hard to be convinced of this. I will say that in the same situation as the people of South Belfast, I would need a lot of convincing to vote for the likes of the SDLP, however I can see how Sinn Féin believe that this was a good move. It was in fact an act of "Nationalist Solidarity".

She claims she is planning for Irish unity. Now lets consider this for a second. The SDLP have no agenda or manifesto at this stage for Irish unity. The SDLP are a 6 County Party, and thus has no real understanding of the requirements, needs or desires of the people of the 26 counties of the partitionist free state. To claim any understanding of what is required for the unification of Ireland is ridiculous. This is the same party that said they are ut to "build a better Northern Ireland" and that their number one enemy was Sinn Féin. Not Capitalism, Elitism, Unionism, Loyalism or British Rule; Sinn Féin, the biggest Republican party in the Occupied Six. This statement means she deems the majority of the Republican electorate as enemies. Furthermore the SDLP are a Middle Class party, that are not in step with the people of the struggling working classes, and will not be able to instill a socialist Republic on this island.

To claim that any one party, let alone her own, can single handedly solve the economic crisis in the occupied region is actually so naive that I can't believe she believes this herself. She claims to believe in devolution but out rightly stood in the way of the devolution of Policing powers, albeit not at the same degree as the Ulster Unionists.

Quite a lot of the rest of her 12 minute talk is wrapped up in the usual political nonsense of "We will make everything better, but no I won't tell you how we plan to do it", as all Political manifestos has a habit off, that is no jibe at the SDLP.

Then she moves on to a United Ireland once again, claiming that her party believes in it. Where is the evidence of this however? And what kind of United Ireland does her party believe in? A Middle Class United Ireland? The very thing the people of Ireland rebelled against in the first place?

I mean let us get something straight, National Sovereignty for the people of Ireland, is only a single part of the Irish struggle. The struggle on our island is not so much about Dublin ruling Ireland. The struggle is about empowering the people, and empowering Ireland to be a great nation, not just economically, but socially. For the people of Ireland to live in peace in an equal society, where the money can't crush the workers. But back to the manifesto...

More of the same really.

The fact is that the SDLP has steered so far away from what they were started out to be. They no longer represent the working class, or nationalist people as a whole.

Críostóir MacAodha