Whither the Irish National Liberation Army?
Peter Urban, Scottish Workers' Republic, May 26 2009
It has now been more than a decade since the concluding of the Good Friday Agreement, the roaring of the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy in Ireland, and the Irish National Liberation Army’s declaration of a cease-fire. It is appropriate, therefore, to make an assessment of where that section of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement stands today.
The most significant thing to be noted regarding the INLA, after more than a decade of cease-fire, is that the organization, and the movement of which it is a part, has yet to clearly articulate the function of a paramilitary wing during an era of cease-fire or what conditions, if any, might be sufficient to return the organization to actively conducting the armed struggle. This represents an important omission, because members of the IRSM or potential members have the right to know what they are committed to. Some statements made by the Irish Republican Socialist Party have been sharply critical of the armed struggle even in the period preceding the INLA cease-fire and have declared firmly that the national liberation struggle in arms has concluded now and forever, while others have raised the possibility of a return to armed actions if certain impasses could not be overcome politically. If these seemingly contradictory statements reflect conflicting internal positions, they represent a difference to significant to leave unresolved. While this may not appear to cry out for clarification during the present cease-fire, it would not be in the best interests of the IRSM or the Irish working class, were a faction attempting to resume armed struggle to find out only at that critical juncture that a majority within the movement no longer supported such a return to arms.
The need to clarify the current function and potential future application of the INLA goes beyond the either or dichotomy of whether the IRSM supports a return to active armed struggle under any circumstances. Activists both within and outside of the IRSM have a legitimate right to ask today why support is being sought for an entire new batch of INLA prisoners, all except one of which has been jailed for actions undertaken since the INLA cease-fire. The position that I took at the time of the cease-fire declaration by the INLA, as a member of the IRSM at the time and as an independent republican socialist today, was that a cease-fire should not be construed as limiting the ability of the INLA to defend the movement itself and its members, limiting their ability to raise funds to support the re-arming of the INLA and the political efforts of the IRSP, and should not inhibit their ability to intervene in defense of Irish working class communities—whether this meant challenging loyalist death squads, taking action against hoodlums, or extended into the arena of taking action in support of striking workers and fighting against evictions of working people from their homes. While there may be others who would share my views on the matter, there are no doubt others who would support only some, or none, of those actions by the INLA. So long as the IRSM is recognized as being composed of both the IRSP and INLA, however, activists who are members or considering membership in the IRSM have every right to weigh in on this subject.
When an Opiate is Actually an Opiate
The context within which Karl Marx made is famous statement that ‘religion is the opiate of the people’ was one in which he argued that to attack contemporary religious belief was tactically short-sighted. He noted that the system of capitalism subjected working people to such misery and alienation, they were compelled to seek solace from their suffering, and religion was one of means by which they gained some relief. Accordingly, Marx advocated focusing instead on overthrowing the system of capitalism and thereby removing the source of the workers’ suffering. Once this was accomplished, Marx argued, workers would let go of their religious beliefs, because they would no longer experience the compulsion that arose out of the evils of capitalism. The same argument could just as easily be advanced today concerning that sector of the working class who find a means of dealing with the psychological and emotional trauma they experience as a result of capitalism, not from the ‘opiate of the people’, but simply from opiates, or other forms of illegal psychotropic substances. That is to say, until we overthrow the system of capitalism and the pain and alienation it creates, some within the working class will seek relief from their suffering in one or another mind-altering substance; and the revolutionary movement must reflect long and hard on whether it is of any significance politically whether the substance they choose is legal or illegal under the laws of the capitalist state.
This topic arises in discussion of the INLA because, by far the most visible, use of arms by the INLA since the cease-fire declaration of August 1998 has been actions taken against drug dealers. Such actions have been undertaken by the INLA in both the six counties and the 26-counties; in Dublin, Derry, Belfast, and beyond. These actions raise several questions; why is a person dealing illegal drugs any different than a pub owner, distiller, or pharmaceutical company? Do psychotropic substances more adversely affect the working class because the capitalists have made them illegal? And, perhaps most to the point, why does the INLA take action against drug dealers, when it has stated for years that it does not want the role of policing the nationalist communities of the six counties?
The reality is that such actions may win a modicum of bourgeois respectability for the INLA, but they do little to improve the lives of working people in Ireland. Illegal drug use is a symptom of the evils of capitalism and should not be mistaken for capitalist exploitation itself. While drug addiction can lead to the worsening of social ills in the working class community, the same can be said of alcoholism and compulsive gambling, but the latter two receive no attention from the INLA, while the former has been the INLA’s primary focus for years now. Certainly it should not be the case that a revolutionary socialist organization makes it decisions regarding where it should take action based on whether or not something is allowed or prohibited by the capitalist legal code. Instead of the INLA attacking drug dealers, in fact, it might be well past time for the IRSP to consider what its position should be on the issue of legalizing the use of cannabis and assessing whether the state already puts to much of its resources into prosecuting citizens for their personal use of psychotropic substances.
Clarifying and Contrasting
Currently the IRSM is frequently grouped with Republican Sinn Fein and the 32-County Sovereignty Committee under the broad heading of ‘dissidents’. While all three remain opposed to the GFA, the INLA is on cease-fire, while the CIRA and the Reals are not. It is increasingly important, therefore, that the IRSM be able to articulate the points around which it is able to engage in Broad Front work with these and other republican organizations in Ireland and where it has differences with them. Moreover, in articulating its points of departure from not only RSF and the 32-CSC, but eigri, the Irish Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Irish Socialist Network as well, perhaps the IRSM can again begin to provide the revolutionary leadership like it did for so many years prior to the GFA.
It has now been more than a decade since the concluding of the Good Friday Agreement, the roaring of the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy in Ireland, and the Irish National Liberation Army’s declaration of a cease-fire. It is appropriate, therefore, to make an assessment of where that section of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement stands today.
The most significant thing to be noted regarding the INLA, after more than a decade of cease-fire, is that the organization, and the movement of which it is a part, has yet to clearly articulate the function of a paramilitary wing during an era of cease-fire or what conditions, if any, might be sufficient to return the organization to actively conducting the armed struggle. This represents an important omission, because members of the IRSM or potential members have the right to know what they are committed to. Some statements made by the Irish Republican Socialist Party have been sharply critical of the armed struggle even in the period preceding the INLA cease-fire and have declared firmly that the national liberation struggle in arms has concluded now and forever, while others have raised the possibility of a return to armed actions if certain impasses could not be overcome politically. If these seemingly contradictory statements reflect conflicting internal positions, they represent a difference to significant to leave unresolved. While this may not appear to cry out for clarification during the present cease-fire, it would not be in the best interests of the IRSM or the Irish working class, were a faction attempting to resume armed struggle to find out only at that critical juncture that a majority within the movement no longer supported such a return to arms.
The need to clarify the current function and potential future application of the INLA goes beyond the either or dichotomy of whether the IRSM supports a return to active armed struggle under any circumstances. Activists both within and outside of the IRSM have a legitimate right to ask today why support is being sought for an entire new batch of INLA prisoners, all except one of which has been jailed for actions undertaken since the INLA cease-fire. The position that I took at the time of the cease-fire declaration by the INLA, as a member of the IRSM at the time and as an independent republican socialist today, was that a cease-fire should not be construed as limiting the ability of the INLA to defend the movement itself and its members, limiting their ability to raise funds to support the re-arming of the INLA and the political efforts of the IRSP, and should not inhibit their ability to intervene in defense of Irish working class communities—whether this meant challenging loyalist death squads, taking action against hoodlums, or extended into the arena of taking action in support of striking workers and fighting against evictions of working people from their homes. While there may be others who would share my views on the matter, there are no doubt others who would support only some, or none, of those actions by the INLA. So long as the IRSM is recognized as being composed of both the IRSP and INLA, however, activists who are members or considering membership in the IRSM have every right to weigh in on this subject.
When an Opiate is Actually an Opiate
The context within which Karl Marx made is famous statement that ‘religion is the opiate of the people’ was one in which he argued that to attack contemporary religious belief was tactically short-sighted. He noted that the system of capitalism subjected working people to such misery and alienation, they were compelled to seek solace from their suffering, and religion was one of means by which they gained some relief. Accordingly, Marx advocated focusing instead on overthrowing the system of capitalism and thereby removing the source of the workers’ suffering. Once this was accomplished, Marx argued, workers would let go of their religious beliefs, because they would no longer experience the compulsion that arose out of the evils of capitalism. The same argument could just as easily be advanced today concerning that sector of the working class who find a means of dealing with the psychological and emotional trauma they experience as a result of capitalism, not from the ‘opiate of the people’, but simply from opiates, or other forms of illegal psychotropic substances. That is to say, until we overthrow the system of capitalism and the pain and alienation it creates, some within the working class will seek relief from their suffering in one or another mind-altering substance; and the revolutionary movement must reflect long and hard on whether it is of any significance politically whether the substance they choose is legal or illegal under the laws of the capitalist state.
This topic arises in discussion of the INLA because, by far the most visible, use of arms by the INLA since the cease-fire declaration of August 1998 has been actions taken against drug dealers. Such actions have been undertaken by the INLA in both the six counties and the 26-counties; in Dublin, Derry, Belfast, and beyond. These actions raise several questions; why is a person dealing illegal drugs any different than a pub owner, distiller, or pharmaceutical company? Do psychotropic substances more adversely affect the working class because the capitalists have made them illegal? And, perhaps most to the point, why does the INLA take action against drug dealers, when it has stated for years that it does not want the role of policing the nationalist communities of the six counties?
The reality is that such actions may win a modicum of bourgeois respectability for the INLA, but they do little to improve the lives of working people in Ireland. Illegal drug use is a symptom of the evils of capitalism and should not be mistaken for capitalist exploitation itself. While drug addiction can lead to the worsening of social ills in the working class community, the same can be said of alcoholism and compulsive gambling, but the latter two receive no attention from the INLA, while the former has been the INLA’s primary focus for years now. Certainly it should not be the case that a revolutionary socialist organization makes it decisions regarding where it should take action based on whether or not something is allowed or prohibited by the capitalist legal code. Instead of the INLA attacking drug dealers, in fact, it might be well past time for the IRSP to consider what its position should be on the issue of legalizing the use of cannabis and assessing whether the state already puts to much of its resources into prosecuting citizens for their personal use of psychotropic substances.
Clarifying and Contrasting
Currently the IRSM is frequently grouped with Republican Sinn Fein and the 32-County Sovereignty Committee under the broad heading of ‘dissidents’. While all three remain opposed to the GFA, the INLA is on cease-fire, while the CIRA and the Reals are not. It is increasingly important, therefore, that the IRSM be able to articulate the points around which it is able to engage in Broad Front work with these and other republican organizations in Ireland and where it has differences with them. Moreover, in articulating its points of departure from not only RSF and the 32-CSC, but eigri, the Irish Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Irish Socialist Network as well, perhaps the IRSM can again begin to provide the revolutionary leadership like it did for so many years prior to the GFA.