Lost Revolution

(A review of sorts)

Part I, a prologue, sort of, kind of...

(Man I wish I knew enough photo shop to put a Che beard on that guy)

It's about time I put out a real post and short of posting my piece on Pride, and Prejudice, and Zombies (which was fucking spectacular by the way), the next up on the list would be The Lost Revolution.

I read this book in two and half days. Being unemployed helped. Certainly CLR and SS have had some solid reviews. Update-SS has now gone overboard and set an impossibly high standard for discussion of this book. It won't stop me from lowering the level of that debate with this post, but...

I must admit that I was surprised when people started referring to this book as less special interest than Swan's book. Perhaps it's my removal from Ireland, or even lack of association with "Irish" America (whom I avoid as if they were lepers) but this book was no more mainstream (to me) than say Robert White's book on O'Bradaigh or Desmond Greaves book on Liam Mellows. All subjects have played roles of some importance and have been largely overlooked as people write umpteen different books on ground that has been ploughed multiple times before. I mean Gerry Adams may be an interesting figure but there are only so many books that I can handle that want to explain him and his machinations. And so while I will someday be buying Henry MacDonald's explanation of why Gerry and his cohorts are bad, bad men you all must excuse me for if I haven't busted my bank account keeping up with such musings.

Which brings us to the analysis versus narrative debate which while not really a debate is interesting none the less. I think one of the reasons why Sean Swan's book has dovetailed so nicely into Hanley's & Millar's is that it's focus on a specific period allowed it to go a little deeper on certain things. From reading Hanley and Millar's contributions on CLR and other places it is quite clear that the six hundred plus pages was most definitely a very abridged edition and that there could conceivably be multiple books produced with information gathered from the party documents they reviewed and the interviews they did. I do feel this last sentence should be actively vocalized as the sales and buzz around this book indicate a more than receptive audience. And as the authors have said, even they don't agree when it comes to the analysis part so how could they craft one for their audience? TLR strikes me as being similar Bell's The Secret Army, the "first" light shone upon a subject which had been left in a dark corner collecting dust. It will require much more analysis over time. I put the "first" in quotes because I really enjoyed Sean Swan's book and would say that the two books compliment each very well. Indeed I think that some of Swan's analysis is essential when reading the "simple" narrative in TLR. In retrospect it is also odd and somewhat disappointing that Swan's book didn't make bigger waves in the blogosphere.

As Brian Hanley pointed out over at SS on one of his latest posts about TLR, bloggers for the most part have done a much better job reviewing TLR than mainstream media. I feel that this book has for the most part brought out the best in bloggers and highlighted much about what is right with the blogosphere. That is intelligent, articulate people from all over the world discussing, debating, in a cordial manner that does put the media personalities to shame. It's also the reason why read blogs. Because lets be frank, I work construction here in Denver. I have a ten month old baby boy and I help organize with an anti-capitalist union (that's not nearly as exciting as one would think) while trying to maintain my standing within my regular trade union and doing all the things good 'ole boys do. The only people who will even put up with my ramblings are my wife and my brother. And I've had to draw them both diagrams crudely illustrating the various splits within the Republican movement (the one for my brother was drawn on a bar napkin). So one can appreciate that when I want to dive deep into this subject the blogosphere is really about it for me. And the discussions around this book make me feel very satisfied with that world for the time being.

One might wonder why I'm already three paragraph (plus) into this post and haven't even broached the WP yet. Even on many of the online reviews there seems to be the tendency to say, "my take on TLR...[insert positive/negative editorial about the WP]" with minimal reference to the book itself. Which is why having taken note of the that precedent I'm trying to layout my reaction to the book, its release and the buzz before I give my opinion on the Officials. This is also a "review" that will go up in pieces as I'm trying to pull together multiple disparate threads into one cogent narrative.

____________________________________

Who's a Republican? (yes the "ubli" is typed in white)

Certainly one of the major ideological sticking points in the Republican debate is being to claim Tone and being his true standard bearer. Everyone on the republican spectrum claims it, even the SLDP with people like El Blogador now claiming that they are the true Republicans. Probably the only other thing that everyone from the WP, FF, Sinn Fein eile (thank you very much splintered), SDLP not to mention the IRSPs, Eirigi, 32csm, and Micheal McDowell can agree on (aside from the fact that they all know that they are Republican) is that PSF are not. This very much reminds me of the frustrations ran into by Western powers when they tried to assemble a unified grouping of Kosovars to bargain with during the crisis in the nineties. All of them wanted the same thing, but due to the longevity of the conflict could hardly get them around a table without them simply trading recriminations about who was a Serbian stooge. Not exactly the same thing but anyone familiar with that scenario can appreciate that sense of WTFness in regards to certain things present in Irish politics. It must also be readily acknowledged that of course the personal is political, and modern political issues are just as much about personal relationships as about ideology, perhaps even more so than most would like to admit.

But back to Tone. There are two issues here I wish to flush out. First, the "common name" debate for which I find Swan's book extremely informative on. Secondly is the role of the Defenders and "Defenderism", two overlapping but separate things and their long suffering as a poor cousin to "proper" republicanism and how that prejudice still exists today.

So let us turn to the "common name" myth, for thats what it is.

To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection 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 past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman, in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, these were my means.

Wolfe Tone

Let us be very frank on a few simple points. Means are not an end. As I've stated before, the means will affect the ends, but should not be confused with them. Secondly, this statement is a description of his tactics, not inherently a prescription for revolution in Ireland. Indeed almost every rising, rebellion, or attempted revolution has contravened this statement and it is only in the post '69 period that people start to get finicky about which acts of armed violence they support.

One of the my problems with people is that they take a fairly buffet style preference on whom they will and will not allow into the Republican family. So the Provos are out due to the fact that they committed sectarian acts and perpetuated sectarianism as a whole (or so the argument goes). And things like Kingsmill is presented as some hitherto unknown monstrosity in republican history, except for the fact that it wasn't unknown or unprecedented. The Belfast IRA circa 1919-1922 bombed tram lines carrying Protestant workers to the ship yards for exactly that reason, they were carrying Protestant workers. The Tan war IRA and the post treaty IRA carried out multiple attacks on Protestants in Cork (Malcolm has been doing some good work on that, even if he does ruin it by bringing in Harris and WBS started a thread on it as well). The "bhoys of Wexford" of course had Scullabogue.

In these instances it is much easier to pin the blame on "Defenderesque" elements than to admit that such actions are part and parcel of the republican enterprise. And this bothers me, not only because it attempts to shift blame, but also to rewrite history. Namely that Defenders were the flip side of the coin to Orangism until the UI came along and reformed them of their backwards, reactionary antics so that they could come along and be good little foot soldiers for the UI and the Republic.

There can be no doubt that the Defenders were sectarian, but Swan makes an important distinction in kinds of sectarianism, "functional" and "intentional",

"There is a profound difference in comprehension as to what constituted 'sectarianism'. There is intentional sectarianism and functional sectarianism. The former constitutes bigotry, the latter arises when an organization or group is composed, even if unintentionally, almost exclusively of members of only one sect."

I think this is an important point to remember, and one that I'll be applying in retrospect (Swan was referring to Bernadette Devlin's election campaign). There were of course Protestant Defenders both from the UI and independently. And Tom Dunne makes the point in his book Rebellions...,

"Modern work...often accuses scholars of patronizing the poor by assuming that they had no politics. It seems equally patronizing , however to assume that the only way the poor could be politicized was by the elite ideologies from France...The colonial land, religious, and political settlements of the seventeenth century were deeply sectarian, and the Gaelic/Catholic response to them inescapably so also"

To me, the Defenders for all their shortcomings represent an indigenous republicanism in a way that the UI did not. It may also help to explain why "defenderism" so often identified as "gut catholic nationalism" has survived and resurfaced time and time again. Perhaps it is not that Defenderism represented a "truer" republicanism, but one for a group (ie Irish Catholics, especially the rural/working class) that had no where else to go so we see places where "gut Catholic nationalism" has resurfaced in the South throughout history in places there was little need for "Catholic Defenders". And that is indeed my point. Far too often that is how Defenders and Defenderism are referred to, in a literal and dismissive way of a sectarianized agrarian secret society as opposed to a mass political movement that was crucial in politicizing the "men of no property" in pursuit of an Irish nation. There is little use in lamenting the fact that Irish Catholics while more than willing to incorporate republicanism/nationalism (again, this was in the time of empire) into their identity, they were unwilling or unable to wipe the slate clean so to speak about their previous identities up to that point when Tone and the UI came down from on high and provided them with their new identities as "Irish".

This is something that brings us back to modern day and the WP in particular. The idea that socialism will wipe the slate clean of sectarianism and Catholic and Protestant workers will come together, united in their new found socialist beliefs. The problem is that just like every other belief system out there, there has to be frame of reference for it to have any meaning. There's a section in the book The Troubles in Ballybogoin where the workers from the glass plant are on strike and the union officials come out to talk to them. They give them the pep talk and tell these rural, largely nationalist workforce with a grouping of militant republicans that they must have fortitude and faith just as the doughboys from Ulster had faith when they "went over the top" at the Somme. While possibly done with the best of intentions this example shows just how far apart the frames of reference are for the various elements of the working class in NI. So to cite socialism as a way of overcoming sectarianism is to either ignore history or have a blind spot to a millenial streak a mile wide, which most socialists would scoff at in any other belief system.

One may reasonably ask why they are subjected to multiple paragraphs exploring the relationship between the Defenders and the UI when this is supposed to be a review about an book on the WP/OIRA? The answer is that I think that it's crucial to establish the fact that Tone while the "father" is far from a singularly agreeable starting point. And the ambiguity surrounding the Tone as "father" to Irish Republicanism while agreed upon in academic work has largely escaped the political discourse. I aim to rectify that. Republicanism both in its rudimentary form (which would include Enda and Micheal McDowell) and its contextualized form (WP/OIRA, SF/PIRA, IRSP,INLA, RSF/CIRA etc. etc.) is far more complex than most would give it credit for. Perhaps this the inevitable result of splits which cut so deeply that to acknowledge the fact that there is indeed ambiguity and contradiction in all positions is a bridge too far.

__________________________________________________________


Next on the list, Socialism and history.