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Forty Years On
The fortieth anniversary of the historic October 1968 civil rights march in Derry took place recently on October 5th. While some of the veterans of those days were s********************ing around the Guildhall in Derry that weekend mixing with Presidents, Noble Peace Prize winners and getting insulted by DUP Minister, Gregory Campbell, two protests took place that put the so called gains of the past forty years into perspective.
On the Saturday at lunchtime outside the Guildhall (where I joined them) a small group of Republicans held a protest as the President of the 26 counties Mary Mc Aleese arrived for the civil rights celebrations. The republicans, who are referred to as “Dissidents” by those who have bought into administering British rule in Ireland, were protesting about the abuse of power by the political police in the 26 counties against four Derry republicans. I did not see any of the so-called veterans of the civil rights movement come out to join in the protest. This despite the fact that draconian laws still exist and are still used by the political police north and South of the border. Nor was there any sign of the so called socialist groups in Derry who are so quick to organise a picket, march or protest if Imperialism acts in far off countries the way it does in Ireland.
But then that is not surprising. The respectable wing of the civil rights movement never wanted any thing to do with anything that smelt of radicalism. People like Brid Rogers did not want either republicans or communists on the civil rights committees in the late sixties. John Hume advised against both the October the 5th March 1968 and the Bloody Sunday march January 30th 1972 and stayed away from both marches. However when the catholic middle classes saw the angry of the catholic working class, against the injustices suffered from even before the founding of the northern Ireland state, expressed on the streets they jumped on the band wagon before the wagon left them far behind. There were also some republicans who advised against taking part in the civil rights movement. It was a distraction from the national struggle. They went on to split the republican movement and founded the provisional republican movement. Some of them today have now false memory syndrome of the “leading role” they played in the civil rights struggle.
Those of us who argued then that the civil rights struggle was not just about the discrimination against the catholic /nationalist population but also needed to campaign against the economic barriers that bore heavier on the working classes whether unionist or nationalist, were derided as ultra –leftists. Those who denounced us were sections of the republican movement, that later took the Official Republican movement into the Workers Party, and the Communist Party of Northern Ireland who saw the political process as a linear movement going from one stage to another but only after all of one stage had been reached. So the struggle for democratic rights should not be distracted by either the struggles for national or economic rights.
Such a stance meant that the Unionist establishment could paint the civil rights movement as only a catholic front that threatened the privileges of the protestant working class then benefiting from first preferences choices of jobs in heavy industry and housing. Yet four of the five main demands of the civil rights movement were conceded fairly rapidly. The repressive Special Powers act was kept and then a whole series of repressive laws replaced it.
And yet forty years from October 5th 1968 over four hundred people took part in the second protest that weekend in 2008 when the North Belfast Civil Rights Association took to the streets on the same issue of housing that was so relevant to the civil rights movement forty years ago.
There was a large turnout of members of the IRSP and other republicans from a variety of groups as well as anarchists and those most directly affected by the lack of available housing in North Belfast. Unfortunately there was also no sign of those socialist groups such as the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party who it seems only want to protest when its safe. i.e. they don’t get identified with republicans or associated with issues that may be perceived as sectarian.
Three years ago the SDLP disclosed that people from a nationalist/catholic background made up 75% of those on the Housing Executive’s waiting list in North Belfast but only had 36% of the social housing allocation.
Today the figures for those on the housing list are nearer to 84% Catholic/ Nationalist. Areas like Ardoyne are bursting at the seams. Yet there is ample housing in North Belfast Rows of empty houses exist in North Belfast.
They are however in North Belfast nearly 25 interfaces with so-called peace walls and the empty houses are in areas that are perceived as protestant. There has been an outflow of protestant families from North Belfast. But because of the sectarian nature of politics in the North even the Housing Executive recognises these areas as “protestant” and refuses to allocate homes to Catholics. Unionist politicians have whipped up protestant fears of a catholic takeover and encroachment into “protestant” areas and created a climate of fear that inhibits genuine progressives within the protestant working class from identifying with the aims and objects of the N.B.C.R.A.
The Housing issue in North Belfast is the litmus test by which we judge if the Unionists who say they have embraced power sharing and other aspects of the Good Friday Agreement are really sincere. As yet no elected unionist has raised the chronic housing problem in North Belfast. The nature of the northern state dictates that politicians only have to cater for those “on their own side of the house”, ie catholics or protestants but not both. That is the essential reason why the IRSP rejected the Good Friday Agreement. It cemented sectarianism into the body politic. We maintain that only by the establishment of a Socialist Republic can the sectarianism that divides the working class be begun to be broken down.
But we are not afraid to take up causes that may appear to “offend” sections of the working class. The essential belief we bring to the housing issue is “need not creed.”
Communities groups working within nationalist communities have publicly expressed support for people on the Shankill campaigning for social housing in opposition to property speculators. No socialist or republican should hesitate to support working class people who are oppressed. We don’t ask their religion or the colour of their skin or what their sexual orientation is. Wherever there is injustice we should fight it.
Forty years on from the start of the civil rights struggle the same type of issues that confronted people then still exist today. It is not a time for self-congratulations as to what anyone did forty years ago, or award us medals, or plaques or badges for doing then what was right. The place for any republican or socialist or self-proclaimed Marxists is outside the Guildhall in Derry, in solidarity with political prisoners, protesting and marching against housing discrimination. On the streets in protest at the many injustices that still exist in this society. That is the real spirit of 68’.
By Gerry Ruddy
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Originally Posted by hombise
