Gerry Adams speaks
WE REPRODUCE below major extracts from the speech by Gerry
Adams, president of Sinn Fein to the recent ard-fheis.
It is no accident that the Dublin government finds common ground with Thatcher and Reagan in their attitude to liberation struggles. Dublin's attitude on these issues is but an extension of its attitude to the British presence in this country. The natural and logical place for Ireland is alongside the Palestinians, the Chileans, El Salvadoreans and the Nicaraguans. A government which truly represented the Irish people would be in opposition to Reagan's backing of repressive regimes in Central America, in opposition to Israel's policy of genocide against the Palestinian people, and in opposition to the British partition and occupation of this country ...
I also take this opportunity to congratulate all of you on our electoral successes since the last ard-feis. Contrary to the predictions of our opponents, and despite harassment in both states - plus new British anti-voting legislation in the Six Counties and Section 31 in the 26 Counties - we emerged from the local government elections with a more efficient organisation and with a new middle leadership in the election of 98 local representatives.
In the border counties and in Dublin we made significant breakthroughs relative to the consistency of our work in these areas and in a limited contest our vote held, with significant potential being identified in many districts throughout the 26 Counties.
The performance of our councillors on local government bodies in the Six Counties has totally vindicated our decision to take seats on those councils. Not only have our representatives shown their ability to participate in an intelligent and consistent manner, even within the restricted powers of the councils, but we have exposed the undemocratic nature of unionism and the passivity of the SDLP [the bourgeois nationalist Catholic Party].
Isn't it strange that despite a long involvement by the SDLP in the councils there was never any real hullabaloo until republicans took their seats? Is it any wonder that the nationalist electorate is asking: What have the SDLP been doing all those years?' It is also worth recalling John Hume's often repeated assertion that his party would not talk to us. As is now well-known, the May elections were hardly over before the SDLP and Sinn Fein representatives were engaging in talks.
We applaud our councillors in the front line in the chambers of Belfast, Craigavon and other little unionist citadels. We thank those who voted for us, whether in the Six or 26 Counties. We congratulate our newly-elected councillors, and our returned councillors, whether in Dublin, Derry, Monaghan or Donegal, and we thank all our candidates and party workers on their election campaigns. A special word of thanks must go to the stalwart people of Fermanagh. They have built well on Bobby Sands' election victory and in that county and in Omagh district, Sinn Fein now holds the chair of these councils, an achievement equal to Mac Swiney's and Mac Curtain's lord mayorships of Cork city. (1)
It is this continued consolidation of our base and the obvious potential for further expansion which the British and Irish establishments perceive as confirmation of their fears about the political threat which Irish republicanism represents to their interests.
They are not so much afraid of Sinn Fein as afraid of the inherent soundness of the Irish people. They realise that they have made such a mess of this country and failed miserably to satisfy the aspirations of ordinary people that the people, cynical of the posturing of establishment politicians, represent a threat to establishment interests.
It is that threat, as yet unrealised, it is that fear that the people will become organised and that Irish republicanism - always a potent and radicalising force in Irish polities - will become a catalyst for a reawakened and militant alternative to the present mess which masquerades as government in both this state and the British colony in the Six Counties. It is this fear that fuels Dublin, unionist and London paranoia about Sinn Fein. And they have a right to be afraid.
No working-class person in this country - whether in the ranks of the unemployed or the public sector, whether small farmer, PAYE [Pay as you earn] employee, housewife or industrial worker - could be satisfied with Irish society.No Irish schoolleaver today can look with confidence to the future. And little wonder.
On every front the ordinary people are being squeezed. In the Six Counties by the continual British military occupation and all its related social and economic deprivations; in the 26 Counties by identical monetarist policies and similar social and economic deprivations ...
The British occupation of the Six Counties is one of political imperialism which has weakened the Irish working class, North and South, because of the absorbing and divisive nature of partition, and which created powerful vested interests in the unionist and Irish establishments which have a real affinity with Britain.
Successive Dublin governments inherited a tradition of neutrality -in practice, the battered concept of which they have often stretched. Nevertheless, neutrality is a principle which coincides with the instincts and mood of the Irish people who do not want to be drawn into any imperialist nuclear nightmare and who support the concept of an independent foreign policy and improved relations with the developing nations.
It has been mooted - and the SDLP deputy-leader, among others has welcomed the idea — that the principle of neutrality be bartered in return for British concessions on the national question.
Not only would such a move be taking the 26 Counties back into the *United Kingdom' so called but in joining with the NATO powers Ireland would be joining the club of imperialists and former colonial nations notorious for their oppression of people across the globe.
Irish foreign policy should be based on a policy of neutrality and non-alignment which includes the promotion of nuclear disarmament, the promotion of peace internationally, and independence in political, economical and ideological matters ...
Finally, it is worth recalling that this party was formally established eighty years ago this month at a convention in the Rotunda on November 28, 1905. Since then, this country has undergone many changes and in terms of social composition and policies Sinn Fein is a different party. The nature of British rule is different now also, but two fundamental things remain unchanged: the British government still denies us our freedom and we, like the republicans of that period, remain resolute in that struggle for freedom ...
1. Mac Swiney and Mac Curtain were both Sinn Fein supporters who died for their country. Mac Curtain was killed by masked raiders presumed to be Brta and Terence Mac Suiney died in a Brit gaol following a hunger strike. International Viewpoint 25 November 198E