Wars of Decolonization and Northern Ireland.

It was said at one time that Mr Gerard Adam's version of republicanism had much more in common with Marxist-Leninism doctrine than an independent and thirty-two county Republic of Ireland, partner to all in Europe.

Mr MacGuiness, on the other hand, was fearsomely and famously a follower of copious levels of reconstruction, that being in any case necessary after he and his pals had succeeded in blowing up most of Londonderry and thereby clearing the way for it to take place.

tac

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone can find any examples of the IRA or any other republican groups drawing parallels between Northern Ireland and the many colonies which received independence from European states in the twentieth century? I'm thinking of nations such as Algeria, Vietnam and Mozambique all of which saw large scale violence in their battle for independence.

During the period of "The Troubles" - SF and the IRA had close links with the ANC, ETA, the PLO, FARC etc. They use iconic images and slogans of Connolly and Che Guevara. At the same time they got weapons from Gaddafi and sucked up to wealthy Irish-Americans who were aligned with US Imerpialism.

Of course SF and the IRA tried to draw parallels with the conflicts you mention - however, the reality is that there were no comparisons between these movements and what was happening in the North.

HansHolzel wrote: »

Look up Ho Chi Minh as a young waiter in Paris around 1920. It was then, from reading about the exploits of Michael Collins et al, that he realized a colonial power could actually be defeated.

Michael Collins and the nationalist movement did not defeat British Imperialism - they came to a compromise with Imperialism that resulted in partition of the island. The Vietcong did defeat US Imperialism because they were fighting a different war with different social forces.

Dr.Tank Adams wrote: »

BTW I really like the bit where you try to convince yourself that they had no public support, I suppose that's how they managed to stay afloat for 30 years in the face of the best efforts of the mighty British establishment

I never said that the PIRA had no public support - I said they hadn't mass public support. The PIRA and SF never had the support of anything approaching a majority of the Catholic population in the North and never had anything more than a very small level of support in the South. That is the reality.

That is actually getting away from the real point of the question. The social composition of Ireland in the 1970s and later is completely different to the social composition of Algeria in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s and Mozembique in the 1970s. Guerilla warfare is based on the peasantry - it can only succeed in achieving its objectives in countries will a large peasant population that make up large numbers of the guerilla army and that is providing mass support to the guerilla army.

By 1962 the Vietcong had over 300,000 guerillas in the field with another 500,000 of the population providing logistical support.

In Algeria the resistance movement had over 30,000 guerillas based in Morocco and Tunisia launching attacks on French forces in Algeria and up to 25,000 operating within the country itself.

Even in Mozambique, which had the smallest of these movements, over 8,000 combatants were engaged in fighting. Furthermore, in Mozambique the guerilla movement never come close to ousting the Portugese. It was the revolutionary overthrow of the fascist regime in Portugal that led to Mozambican independence.

All of these movements engaged in rural guerilla attacks on military and police installations, engaging in pitched battles with the military and having an extensive logistical supply chain.

None of these circumstances existed in the North during the Troubles (or even in Ireland 1919-1922). There was no peasantry in the North - the IRA were not a guerilla army in the sense of what existed in Algeria, Vietnam or Mozambique - it was a small urban guerilla force. The IRA never got beyond a three or hundred active combatants at most at anytime. The IRA did not engage in the same tactics are the peasant guerilla armies of the above countries - it engage in urban guerilla warfare of "individual terror" - assassinations, bombings, booby-traps etc. Unlike Algeria, Vietnam and (to a lesser extent) Mozambique, the IRA never had mass popular support from the Catholic population. Furthermore, unlike in Algeria and Vietnam, the IRA never had any prospect of victory. British Imperialism understood very quickly that it could not defeat the IRA (the Brits adopted a policy of an 'acceptable level of violence') - it took the IRA leadership 15 years to realise that it couldn't defeat British Imperialism. Just as in 1922, the only solution for the nationalist movement and its military wing was some form of compromise with imperialism - the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 and the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Last point - despite the defeat of French Imperialism in Algeria, US Imperialism in Vietnam and the collapse of Portugese Imperialsim in Mozambique - none of these movements actually resolved the national question. No ex-colonial country in the 20th century has succeeded in resolving the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. They are incapable because the native nationalist movements do not have the social weight capable of completely breaking with imperialism.

Gee Bag wrote: »

Whats your definition of peasantry?

Go and have a look at your junior cert history book - it will give you a good starting point.

HansHolzel wrote: »

My point concerned what Ho Chi Minh thought, not what you think.

The fact that Ho admired Collins (and this suggestion is only available from one source and that source questions the validity of the claim) does not in any way detract from the point I was making in relation to the difference between guerrilla campaigns in rural and largely peasant societies and the urban guerrilla warfare of the IRA in the industrially developed society that was / is Northern Ireland.

HansHolzel wrote: »

Marxism is dead.

Any assertions you want to make about Marxism are utterly irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Oh, of course, nothing skewed about those stats at all.

The point is quite clear Fred. On several occasions Sinn Fein candidates got elected. That's popular support in anyones book.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That wasn't the point.

The initial question was yours. You asked for evidence that the nationalist population voted for ira linked candidates. If Sinn Fein success does not answer your question then you will need to ask it again more clearly.

How much of SF's vote was obtained by coercion is a matter of some conjecture. Walking to the ballot box or being carried because your knees don't work any more is some choice.

Having an independent choice when the boyos come visiting your lonely little farm one night and having a 'wee word in your ear, just to make things clear' is hardly democracy as we know it, Jim.

tac

HansHolzel wrote: »

It is true to say that before the ceasefire the SDLP got more votes than Sinn Féin but this picture is complicated by the fact that in any straight contest between an Republican candidate and a Unionist, the Catholic population voted for the one linked to the IRA.

A Westminster election is a poor guide to popular support, given the inherently undemocratic nature of the first past the post system. Much as I am opposed to Sinn Fein/IRA, I would be favourably disposed to voting for them in certain circumstances in a first past the post election, if only to show my disdain and disgust at that manifestly unfair voting system.