Beyond the road map: Preparing for power
Date: 2nd Sept '02
Name: RM Irish news article
Beyond the road map: Preparing for power
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Sinn Fein's Declan Kearney delivered the main address at the John
Joe McGirl commemorative weekend last month. In a
thought-provoking contribution, he addressed the crucial issue of
republican strategy for the achievement of a United Ireland. ----------------------------------------------------------------
"To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the
conmnection with England, the never failing source of all our
political evils and to assert the independence of my country -
these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to
abolish the memory of all past dissentions and to substitute the
common name of Irishmen in place of denominations of Protestant,
Catholic and Dissenter - these were my means."
So said Wolfe Tone, and so it remains for us today. When looking
for our historical and contemporary reference point to define the
purpose of our struggle, Tone's words crystallise the core of
republican ideology and the ultimate aims it espouses.
His words are as relevant today as they were in the past, and
especially so, as we reflect on the theme of this commemorative
weekend, "Seeking the route to the Ireland of Equals".
Republican aims have remained constant in our struggle because
the historical work of securing democracy, equality and national
sovereignty remains unfinished business.
The core values of republican ideology and thinking have woven a
golden thread throughout the struggle, spanning the decades and
linking generations of republican activism. We are commemorating
John Joe McGirl, one republican who exemplifies for all that
thread of struggle, and the ideological and political continuity
that makes modern republicanism the most potent political force
in Ireland today.
Revolutionary role model
This evening, I want to focus my remarks on a notion that
underpins your weekend's theme. It is timely to suggest that we
are now in a phase which requires us to look beyond the concept
of the Road Map to the Republic, and begin the process now of
Preparing for Power. There are strategic issues that will require
us all to become longheaded revolutionaries and activists in the
coming years if we are indeed to secure power in Ireland. The
nature of these issues is key to the quest for the route to the
Ireland of Equals.
John Joe McGirl was no stranger to tackling the issues central to
sustaining our struggle. He not only epitomised continuity; he
also had an acute sense of what was needed to organise for
victory. Martin McGuinness described him as a progressive
thinker, always prepared to consider, propose and support new
ways. He recognised that ideas alone were insufficient, unless
they were linked to strategy, viable organisation and good
leadership. These are the elements, which will place and keep our
struggle on a trajectory towards our ultimate aims.
Older comrades in leadership today speak of John Joe's sage-like
qualities. They say that he, in very conscious, mature and
strategic terms, stepped aside to facilitate the emergence of new
leadership people, whilst remaining ever available to impart his
wisdom on the strategic progress of the struggle. By anticipating
future needs, encouraging flexibility with tactics, promoting
political change, and at all times remaining uncompromising in
his ideological convictions, John Joe's legacy to us is as a
revolutionary role model.
The strength and popularity of our struggle today derives from
such qualities of comrades such as John Joe McGirl. We are where
we are, and command the strength we do, because of the leadership
of older activists. Yet if we consider that republicans have been
travelling on a journey through all the various phases and
campaigns and acknowledge the distance we have come, today we
still have a distance yet to go.
Plans and strategies
My intention here is to reflect on our remaining journey and what
it is we need to do. I believe in an historical sense we are on
the home straight. Today's republicans stand on the threshold of
the Republic, but have yet to open the door.
From roughly 1984, we developed a number of frameworks to
illuminate where our struggle has been positioned in periods
relative to our ultimate aims and to detail what tactics and
strategies we should deploy to become stronger and proceed
further. These include the analogy of the Bus to Cork; the
discussions on the Broad Front; the inception of the Peace
Strategy; the introduction of the 11 strategic objectives; and,
within the last two years, our thinking on the Road Map to the
Republic.
All of these have evolved seamlessly, adding to and interlocking
with each other. They emerged from the context of the armed
struggle, the electoral strategy, the cessations and
negotiations. Each sought at different times to define our
position, based upon assessing our own strengths and weaknesses
as a party relative to those of our opponents, and each proposed
methods for building the struggle and achieving new political
strength.
What was common to each was the recognition that the republican
struggle needed to be strategically driven at all times. Power of
conviction was crucial, but not enough to sustain the struggle
against the power of our enemies and their alliances. We required
plans and strategies to outmanoeuvre the strategies our enemies
had in place to defeat us.
The politics of power
In recent times the idea of the Road Map has stimulated a healthy
debate within republicanism on current strategy. But I want us to
look beyond that this evening. We need to start to get a sense
that republicanism has historically arrived with regard to the
politics of power in Ireland.
I remember standing in O'Connell Street for the 70th anniversary
commemoration of the Easter Rising in 1986 and listening to Joe
Cahill saying, "the Provos are a force in this country". Sixteen
years later, can anyone doubt the evidence of Joe's assertion?
Sinn Fein is the third largest political party on the island. We
are the only national political organisation, and the fastest
growing at that. Our public representatives sit in government in
the Six Counties, and our share of seats in Leinster House is
disproportionately less than our actual electoral strength in
this state.
The politics of this island have been permanently moulded by our
growth in recent years, and still we have not maximised our
political strength. If electoral support is a measure of the
growing popular momentum of republicanism, we have still not
peaked.
We are arguably on the cusp of delivering on the Republic.
But, what does this mean for us as a struggle?
What do we collectively have to do?
How do we conceptualise bringing into being an Ireland of equals?
What does delivery mean?
Dangerous phase
It is my belief that we are entering a profoundly revolutionary
phase for the republican struggle. This hinges on the prospect of
Sinn Fein building new political strength; becoming more involved
in the institutions of government North and South, so generating
still further strength. All of this has the potential to act as a
catalyst for Sinn Fein sitting in government in a future
Republic.
However, the onset of our endgame means we are already in and are
facing an even more dangerous phase. As our activist base applies
itself to finishing the unfinished revolution, the seeds of the
counter-revolution are already been sown. The reality of our
arrival in government in the Six Counties has triggered hysteria
in the establishments North and South.
This reality lies at the root of the coordinated offensive
orchestrated in the North by the loyalist death squads and the
securocrats. The present crisis and instability in Ulster
Unionism derives from tactical divisions within broad unionism
over how to combat Irish republicans and maintain power unionist
power in the North. Moreover, the strategy of the British
establishment and the NIO is presently predicated upon the
politics of continuing to prosecute its war against Irish
republicans, except by other means.
And in the 26 Counties, the media's reaction to Sinn Fein's
recent electoral breakthrough reflected the Southern
establishment's fear of a growing radical republican alternative
in this state. Their hysteria stems from our challenge to the
complacency of gombeen politics, which has reduced counties like
Leitrim to pale shadows of their potential. They are right to be
fearful of Sinn Fein's challenge in the next Udaras, Local,
European and Leinster House elections. Our struggle must aim to
develop the same dynamic in the 26 Counties as it has assumed in
the North.
So this is the context against which we should look beyond our
Road Map and begin methodically preparing ourselves for power.
The struggle now needs to keep one eye on present requirements
and the other on future direction.
Key priorities
Our preparations in the coming period are a collective job of
work and will have to address key priorities. These are:
* to continue building our political strength throughout Ireland;
* to grow electorally and increase public representation;
* to use our positions in the transitional institutions where we
sit, as training camps to skill up our personnel;
* to deepen our capacity for assuming government responsibility;
* to build Sinn Fein nationally and regionally and to strengthen
the role of local leadership;
* to create new alliances for Irish unity;
* to get us all thinking as activists and supporters about the
work of the struggle; and
* to concentrate our minds on developing the fabric of republican
politics in order to firewall our core ideas against being
compromised by pragmatic realities of realpolitik.
Sites of struggle
Addressing ourselves to these tasks throws up a vast multitude of
different sites of struggle to be waged; from internal party
building through to the public representation of the party and
everything in between. These sites of struggle arise from
immediate, albeit transitional, programmes of work.
Sinn Fein faces a process of slow, laborious, long-term activism,
with a potential 15-20 year trajectory. There is no fast track to
the Ireland of equals. We need to take cognisance of the
certainty that new and complicated realities will confront
republicans in the future, with their own particular
implications.
For example, we will have to adapt to managing the Six-County
economy in all its aspects for the foreseeable future. This means
finding the money from a dwindling pot to fund the ministries we
manage. In time, if and when the legislative, political and
practical conditions are fully met, we will have to assume roles
in the oversight of the Six-County policing service. And, with
growing political strength and continued diffusion of 26-County
political forces; according to the right strategic circumstances,
the party may face the prospect of sitting in coalition
government in this state also: with all the institutional
implications this scenario would bring.
Staging posts
All of these future scenarios, and more, arise beyond our Road
Map, and before we achieve the Republic. But as activists in
struggle we must see them as opportunities to move steadily
forward. The republican struggle is not threatened by any of
these situations if our activists and base are absolutely clear,
from a revolutionary republican point of view, why we enter such
sites of struggle and then how we strategically organise our
approach.
This means we will have to ensure none of us get blinded by the
political dust created by the immediate and transitional activity
republicans will have to undertake. The Six-County Assembly, The
Six-County policing boards, Leinster House and other scenarios
are by their nature staging posts.
Our job is to bring a clearly focused republican approach to this
work. We need to push all these institutions to their democratic
and radical limits and constantly seize on the strategic
opportunities to maximise cross border cooperation and advance to
a united Ireland.
One important aspect of this work resides in the All-Ireland
implementation bodies. Sinn Fein is the only political force that
will seek to maximise these institutions as engines for Irish
unity. Our job is to strategically push their limits, while
others are, and will, strategically resist our efforts.
Our role in the councils, Leinster House and the Assembly are
other equally important dimensions of this site of struggle. And
while these arenas must be understood as staging posts, they are
also opportunities for republicans to build beachheads from which
to popularise republicanism, continue growing in national
strength and learn the craft of efficient government.
And it is vital that while this site of struggle continues apace,
a strong and organised base of activists and supporters is built
on the outside to be active in all other spheres of work.
Strategy, activism, debate
As we navigate our way through the complexity of this period,
there are three political and interlocking dynamics that will
keep the struggle focused and ideologically centred. These are:
the role of strategy, the role of the activist and the role of
political debate.
In recent years, comrades from the ANC have constantly advised us
that the revolutionary must always stay ahead of his or her
opponents by seizing the strategic initiative; strategy is not
rocket science, it is the method by which to plot our path from
one point to the next. Our strategy will trigger counter strategy
from our enemies, so strategy is never cast in stone or static.
It must be adapted and revised according to the given need at the
given time.
Clear and coherent strategy is the framework into which all forms
of our activism should be placed and organised. Strategy needs
always to be based on the reality of the existing situation. It
is the means by which to outmanoeuvre opponents and develop new
political alliances. In the coming period, our immediate
strategic projects should be to continue building political
strength in the 26 Counties and make genuine outreach to, and
seek dialogue with, the Protestant community nationally to
discuss our shared future.
Strategy provides the armour for our ideology. If we get our
heads around the use of strategy, this struggle can accomplish
anything. Without strategic thinking, we expose our work to the
dangers of being diverted and deflected by our enemies and
opponents. Strategic thinking is not an abstraction; it is
critical to realising republican aims. The successful prosecution
of the struggle will depend on us all developing our collective
strategic instincts.
The management of this period will also be conditional on the
role of our activist base. When the Bus to Cork analogy was first
used in the early to mid 1980s, one of its preoccupations was
with passengers who may leave or join the journey. Insofar as
this analogy has a resonance today, then republican activists are
the drivers, navigators and mechanics who maintain the vehicle.
Now, more than ever, activists need to be longheaded and
strategic thinkers, capable of providing political leadership
within all the sites of struggle we occupy. Specifically, we need
to focus upon integrating all aspects of the struggle and ensure
we put in place structures that can carry the weight of our work.
We need to be concerned with creating the space for the activist
and support base to take ownership of modern republicanism. In
practical terms, this should mean giving new comrades the
confidence to step forward, encouraging older comrades to become
reinvolved and fostering a culture of self-confidence in us all,
to play full roles.
The development of future strategy and definition of activist's
work needs to come from debate and discussion within our base.
This struggle cannot afford the luxury of constantly relying on a
leadership to take initiatives or bring forward the strategic
issues. Over-dependancy on leadership by activist should be
anathema. Republican strategy needs to be the political and
intellectual property of all activists, but the only people who
can take ownership are ourselves. All activists and supporters
should accept the responsibility to become involved in debate on
the future. Without such input, the struggle is weakened.
However, with mass participation in debate from within the
republican family, our internal cohesion and political unity is
guaranteed, and in the process we bring a collective genius to
the big issues. Three of these are:
* How we protect the revolutionary integrity of the struggle in
this lengthy transitional phase.
* How we get a balance into our future activism between being
radical, inventive and properly anchored in reality.
* How we design a radical and popular model of democracy and
equality for a new Ireland.
Criticism of leadership driven strategy may well have some basis;
but the only credible alternative is an activist driven approach,
and this can only develop when we take the role of political
debate seriously.
Everyone is a stakeholder
Everyone here is a stakeholder in the Ireland of Equals; we are
its guarantors, because no one else will do it for us, but that
responsibility must be shared by many. The alternative to not
accepting this responsibility is to cod ourselves and be
deflected by pretenders to the struggle, or fall victim to the
counter-revolution of the establishments, North and South. But
accepting the responsibility to become involved or do more in the
struggle means we must also recognise the challenge to our
patience; the demands upon us to think strategically and act
accordingly; and the importance of seriously preparing ourselves
for power in all its aspects.
Today in Cuban society, youngsters often proclaim "We will be
like Che", so enduring is the influence that revolutionary
figures such as Guevara have had on that country's struggle, even
to the present day. We are richer for the contribution of
comrades like John Joe to our struggle. He is one role model we
can all seek to emulate as we move towards the Ireland of Equals.
c. RM Distribution and others. Articles may be reprinted with credit.
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