The Other View

Republican Voices

edited by Kevin Bean and Mark Hayes.

Foreword by Bernadette McAliskey

In an article in the latest issue of Fourthwrite I attempted to make a contribution to a debate which began many more years ago than I care to remember. George Gilmore referred to it in his pamphlet on the Republican Congress and by implication, Connolly in his important work on Labour and Irish History, grasped the nettle of the 'republic' and attempted to place some meat on the bones. In this book by Kevin Bean and Mark Hayes Republican Voices a serious attempt to add some more meat is welcome news indeed.

The authors brought together a number of former republican activists and ex-prisoners in a wide ranging discussion on issues as complex as the prosecution of the 'long war', Bloody Sunday and the Civil Rights movement, prison struggles, revolutionary politics, British and unionist strategy, the 'peace' process and the future of republicanism. In doing so they have made an important contribution to the need for a debate on any or all of these issues.

The editors affirm at an early point in their overview that it was not their intention to impose 'a heavy-handed narrative' and that is what they have done. It is refreshing in such edited writings to have an opportunity to read what the participants have to say without such a methodology being used to advance the views of the editors. Indeed, the introduction of the editors is sufficiently concise and wide-ranging enough to encourage the reader to take a look at what the former republican activists have to say about their experiences.

Those contributions, consisting of a wide-ranging, comprehensive discussion, are perhaps most insightful when they examine the structure, activity and present leadership of the organisation to which they belonged – some of them holding down senior positions inside and outside the prisons. They have been critical, but constructive and they have been encouraging without being disingenuous. Whilst their 'republic' is still a long way off, they don¹t appear to lose sight of the end of the tunnel.
Against that background it is appropriate that the author of the foreword to the book should be Bernadette McAliskey. In asking if 'the Republican leaders (have) consciously decided to abandon the socialist republic?' she, perhaps unconsciously, opens a can of worms. These are important matters which have never been fully explored. This present generation of 'republicans' are not aware of the debates which took place in the early seventies; most of them outside the ranks of the movement. Many in the past asked if socialism was ever really on the table of the republican movement? Although interestingly, perhaps paradoxically, in MacStiophain¹s biography many of these questions form a fascinating study into the mindset of the early leaders of the Provisional Republican Movement, especially in those days prior to the (1969) split and in his interchange with former Chief of Staff of the 'Officials', Cathal Goulding. But this is a question which poses no real difficulty for Brendan Hughes, former leading Belfast republican, who unhesitatingly states in Republican Voices that the goal of a 'democratic socialist republic' was the primary reason for becoming involved in the first place. This discussion also prompts Mickey McMullen to recall his negative experience at the hand of a member of the staff in prison reproaching him for reading James Connolly. So, not all within the movement subscribed to a socialist perspective in this struggle to expel the Brits and reunite the country.

But, perhaps the most intriguing part of the discussion is the confusion in the minds of almost all of the participants at the apparent contradiction between 'politics' and 'war'. Somewhat simplistically, but typical of the period, was the somewhat primitive association of politics with the 'sticks' (Official IRA) and war with the 'provos'. They were not alone in this, of course, because this apparent 'ideological' division saturated both sections of the 'movement' during these critical moments in the struggle in the early Seventies. For many former 'officials' the 'provos' were an extension of the territorial ambitions of some sections of Fianna Fail. Whilst in parts of Belfast and Derry the 'sticks' were thought of as undisciplined dupes of Stalinism.
Central to many of the arguments over the past thirty years has been the problem of the irreconcilability of republicanism and unionism and central too, for some of the discussions which made this publication possible, is the question of whether there can ever be an accommodation between the two ideologies. How interesting then to see these questions continuing to be raised by republicans and perhaps for the first time, in the publication of The Other View with members of the unionist tradition. But this work by Kevin Bean and Mark Hayes in many ways has made a more fundamental contribution since it attempts through the participants to explore many of the issues which republicans, for whatever reason, in the pursuit of 'the long war' have tended to ignore.

At the very least this little book should be required reading for all members of the republican movement; can be an important addition to students of the period and a good read for anyone with even a vague interest in the events which have brought us thus far in the long and difficult road to the workers' and small farmers' republic. What a pity that there wasn't more of it.

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