Opinion: How the Provos 'sold out'
Opinion: How the Provos 'sold out' - Local & National, News - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk
By Henry McDonald
Wednesday, 19 November 2008

...................The purpose of my latest book, Gunsmoke and Mirrors, was and is to challenge recent attempts to re-write the history of the Troubles, to re-cast the ‘armed struggle' as somehow the logical extension of the civil rights movement, to create a new myth, namely that the campaign of sabotage and assassination would somehow lead to Catholic equality within the Northern Ireland state. .....................
The idea that thousands would have to die and thousands more go to jail or themselves lose their lives so we could have an Irish Language Act or the control of policing and justice powers WITHIN the Northern Ireland state is a gross, deliberate distortion of history.

The book highlights the ideological gear changes Sinn Fein went through to reach the current political accommodation with unionism. ............................

.............Of all the ideological flip flops the republican movement has undergone the most important is its attitude to unionism. For almost three decades the Provisionals dismissed unionism as a real political entity preferring to portray it (using an old Marxist phrase) as ‘false consciousness.' During this period the ‘British presence' was portrayed simply as the British soldiers from across the Irish Sea who patrolled the streets and the mandarins at Stormont who directed UK policy. .................. by signing up to an accord which enshrined the principle of consent, that is that there would be no constitutional change in Northern Ireland without a majority within that state saying so.

..........Therefore, those old republican mantras about breaking unionist vetoes, refusing to accept the legitimacy of what they regarded as an artificial state, the begrudging recognition that the ‘British presence' is those that see themselves as British; all this adds up to a 360 degree turn in mainstream republican ideology.

In essence the Good Friday agreement and latterly the St Andrews Agreement represent the victory for constitutional politics over revolutionary armed action. The outcome of the Troubles thus resembles a modern day political version of Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare....................

Gunsmoke and Mirrors: how Sinn Fein dressed up defeat as victory, by Henry McDonald, Gill and Macmillan, £16.99, OpenDNS macmillan.ie

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Opinion: Liam Clarke - Political three-card shuffle or surrender by republicans?
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/columnists/ … 4701864.jp
Published Date: 18 November 2008

Unionists will take great heart from two books which have hit the shelves just in time for Christmas.
They are: Gunsmoke and Mirrors, by Henry McDonald, the Guardian's man in Belfast, and Good Friday: Death of Irish Republicans, by Dr Anthony McIntyre, a former IRA prisoner.

Between them, they give a convincing account of the final retreat of the Sinn Fein and IRA leadership from the ideals and aims for which they had fought for generations. McIntyre sees it as surrender, whereas McDonald regards it as the political equivalent of the three-card shuffle.

McDonald's book, a sustained polemic, records most of the milestones of their journey and unearths many quotes and incidents that Sinn Fein's born again Stormontistas would rather forget. Martin McGuinness's toes must curl with embarrassment when he is reminded of how he told a Sinn Fein Ard Fheis that "partition has failed and there can be no return to a Stormont regime. Sinn Fein's attitude to Stormont is one of abstention".
.
.................McIntyre's central thesis is that partition has not failed at all – it is the IRA campaign which didn't work and had to be abandoned.

"The major question that historians will ask, is not why the republicans surrendered, but why they fought such a futile long war," he writes. It is an impressive statement coming from a man who served 18 years in jail for his part in what he now sees as a futile war.

Sinn Fein avoids the S word, but what else can you call it? Today the British Army is free to recruit not only in Northern Ireland but also in the Republic. The IRA is still an illegal organisation, even though it has dismantled its structures and decommissioned its weapons.

It is all a far cry from the mood after the 1994 IRA ceasefire when hundreds of republicans took to the streets convinced by Sinn Fein's rhetoric that they had won. McDonald remembers some revellers stopping reporters from covering the celebrations and shouting "don't go to work. Today's a holiday. They will be calling it St Gerry's day in a few years time."

Republican social clubs sold beer at 25p a pint and the black taxis in West Belfast gave free rides. The assumption was that there had been some secret deal, that the IRA had only abandoned its campaign after its traditional terms had been met and Britain had agreed to make an orderly withdrawal. It was assumed that the full details would become clear later, and this illusion was fed by McGuinness's hollow assurances to the Sinn Fein faithful.

What republicans would consider, he told his followers, was “transitional arrangements which are linked by a clear commitment by the British government to end British jurisdiction in our country.” It didn’t happen.

..............As I wrote at the time, unionists were too stupid to know when they had won and republicans were too clever to admit that they had lost.

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It's really funny that one.

In real life, when negotiating any business deal, anyone canny complains he's being ripped off, conned, taken to the cleaners and so on.

That's the way to get concessions.

It's a fool who crows about how clever he's been, and what a bargain he got, and so on.

Paisley got his victory which he dressed up as a defeat, whereas Adams got his celebrations without a victory.

Well might as well ask the same question of every uprising, every battle fought by the Irish throughout history to eject the British presence. In this case (though i suspect it will be deliberately played down by those who write history) you would need to look at living conditions for nationalists and Catholics in their own country as the logical explainer as to why they 'fought such a long war'.

Some people will never do that though because they must then acknowledge that after the Troubles civil rights issues for Catholics had improved (as a result of the Troubles) and that even though Sunningdale came about - it was actually shot down by the Protestant workers strike so is actually completely irrelevent.

If it was a victory for Britain and Unionists it was a pyrrhic one in many ways.

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Kilsally, you editted that well to take out the stuff that showed the Brits and unionists in a bad light. Here's the whole piece.
Opinion: How the Provos 'sold out'

By Henry McDonald
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
There were many actors in the tragedy played out in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1994.

Each of them contributed to the carnage that pushed this society right to the edge of civil war.

They included the pre ’69 unionist establishment which resisted civil right reforms until it was too late. There was the rising evangelical wing of unionism led by Ian Paisley that, falsely, portrayed the civil rights struggle as an existential threat to the Northern Ireland state.

And there was British security policy that in the early part of the Troubles drove thousands of young men (and some women too) into the ranks of the emerging Provisional IRA. The Falls Curfew, Internment, Bloody Sunday, the torture of the ‘hooded men', the intransigence of the Thatcher government during the hunger strikes all contributed to the maelstrom the north of Ireland endured for three and a half decades. All bear some responsibility for the wasted lives and the spent opportunities for peace and progress. Then there was the Provisional movement itself emerging not only from the burnt out streets of the Falls and the Bogside but also from a plot to split republicanism and launch back into the ‘unfinished business' of re-claiming the Fourth Green Field. This would be done through a reckless and ruthless campaign of economic vandalism (the car bombs destroying Belfast and Derry's commercial centres for example) and targeted killings of the security forces.

Contrary to current orthodoxy the Provisionals were not just fired with a thirst for revenge against the loyalist assaults of late summer in 1969.

For the older men, many of them southern based, who tapped into this raw anger this was their heaven sent chance to achieve Irish unity by force of arms and finally realise the goals of physical force republicanism.

The purpose of my latest book, Gunsmoke and Mirrors, was and is to challenge recent attempts to re-write the history of the Troubles, to re-cast the ‘armed struggle' as somehow the logical extension of the civil rights movement, to create a new myth, namely that the campaign of sabotage and assassination would somehow lead to Catholic equality within the Northern Ireland state. Nor should this political and social turmoil be seen as the inevitable consequence of the atmosphere of those times, as inexorable as air turbulence in bad weather. Those that launched and directed the ‘war' were free agents who had alternative peaceful paths to choose, which they ignored and ridiculed.

The idea that thousands would have to die and thousands more go to jail or themselves lose their lives so we could have an Irish Language Act or the control of policing and justice powers WITHIN the Northern Ireland state is a gross, deliberate distortion of history.

The book highlights the ideological gear changes Sinn Fein went through to reach the current political accommodation with unionism. These major shifts in ideology have gone relatively unnoticed or reported in the mainstream Irish media, most notably in broadcasting. This is because in these times of dull, managerial politics, where elections are akin to consumers choosing which of two or three banks they should lodge their money with, the importance of ideology is lost upon those in the 24/7 media.

Of all the ideological flip flops the republican movement has undergone the most important is its attitude to unionism. For almost three decades the Provisionals dismissed unionism as a real political entity preferring to portray it (using an old Marxist phrase) as ‘false consciousness.' During this period the ‘British presence' was portrayed simply as the British soldiers from across the Irish Sea who patrolled the streets and the mandarins at Stormont who directed UK policy. Since the signing of the Belfast Agreement 10 years ago that analysis has altered radically — by signing up to an accord which enshrined the principle of consent, that is that there would be no constitutional change in Northern Ireland without a majority within that state saying so.

Therefore, those old republican mantras about breaking unionist vetoes, refusing to accept the legitimacy of what they regarded as an artificial state, the begrudging recognition that the ‘British presence' is those that see themselves as British; all this adds up to a 360 degree turn in mainstream republican ideology.

In essence the Good Friday agreement and latterly the St Andrews Agreement represent the victory for constitutional politics over revolutionary armed action. The outcome of the Troubles thus resembles a modern day political version of Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare.

For in the end, if ever there is to be Irish unity, it will be achieved through a slow, drawn out long term process of social and economic fusion rather than through an instant revolution imposed through the barrel of the gun and the far leftist simplicity of the ‘Troops Out' solution advocated by the likes of Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone. The two accords mark the victory of the Tortoise and the defeat of the Hare.

Gunsmoke and Mirrors: how Sinn Fein dressed up defeat as victory, by Henry McDonald, Gill and Macmillan, £16.99, OpenDNS macmillan.ie

I edited it so as not to post the whole article as the forum doesnt like it..copyright issues etc..so I posted the bits I felt most relevant to the topic header.

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It all depends what you consider "defeat" and what you consider "victory". SF/IRA were never going to achieve their aims by the bullet and the bomb. When (after Warrington) the people of this country began to demonstrate that they had had enough, then SF/IRA were defeated. They had not only lost the war but also the battle for hearts and mines.

From that position, they made the best of a bad lot, with the help of John Hume. They are now the biggest nationalist party in N.I. and have 4 TDs in this country, something unimaginable while they were murdering people, in the name of Ireland.

What have they lost in real terms? There was never going to be a united Ireland so recognising that fact, by supporting an agreement that enshined the Principle of Consent into the Irish constitution is not a huge compromise.

Who were the real winners in the "peace process"? The people or Ireland, north and south. In N.I., people can now go about their business without the constant threat of terror. In this country we've shown that we can apply common sense to solve a problem that was left over from the time we left the UK.

The real losers are those like aphabetti IRA. People who still haven't realised what everyone else knew a long time ago.

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Could agree with that Keith.

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The provos were always clueless from day 1. Only the stickies had any understanding of how Irish unity could have been achieved.

Tell that to the people of the loyalist ghettos who live in fear of loyalist paramilitary drug barons armed by your beloved Britain.
Britain still has done nothing to reduce this threat and they've had 14 years.
You should meet Raymond McCord.