JM Thorn 

4 November 2008

Last Sunday’s (2 Nov) military parade and protests in Belfast provided a powerful symbol for the peace process  - imperialist triumph and republican impotence.  This was best illustrated at the point where protest met parade when relatives of the victims of state violence were attacked by loyalists.  About twenty members of the Relatives for Justice, who were a component of the Sinn Fein protest, came forward to offer symbolic opposition to the parade.  As they did so they were met with a barrage of abuse from a baying mob of loyalists across the street.   Some of them had scaled the scaffolding of a building opposite from where they threw fireworks and bolts.   They chanted "Scum, scum, scum," in football terrace fashion, marking the rhythm by stabbing fingers pointing towards west Belfast from where the republican protesters had marched.   Chants switched from "The Famine is over - why don't you go home", "Take a bath you f***king scum," and "Do you want a chicken supper Bobby Sands".    The venom of the loyalist mobs even took some journalist observers aback.   Dan Keenan of the Irish Times described it as “the type of ugly, spitting behaviour that had powered long years of physical violence.”  This is particularly ironic given that most of the commentary in the run up had talked up the threat of violence from protestors. 

These scenes of raw bigotry were played out within the sight Sinn Fein leaders and cadres who had participated in and marshalled the protest.  For them the military parade and the treatment of protesters was a humiliation.   What made it particularly embarrassing was the role played by the British government in the whole event.  While unionists had been demanding parades for RIR soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they could not organise such events themselves, these could only be orchestrated by the British.   The parade in Belfast illustrates this well.   Here unionist councillors, with the support of the supposedly anti-war Alliance Party, had managed to pass a motion calling for a reception for the RIR.  While Sinn Fein and the SDLP voted against, they also made clear that such an event was acceptable.   It was the MOD that sought confrontation with an application for a military parade – the original plans for which envisaged a RAF flypast over west Belfast and hundreds of armed troops marching past the nationalist Markets area.

This was nothing more than an imperialist coat trailing exercise.  But it did not provoke an immediate response from Sinn Fein.  They only moved after the republican splinter group eirigi announced that it was to hold a demonstration against the parade.  Not wanting to be outflanked Sinn Fein applied to the Parades Commission to hold its own march and demonstration.  At the same time it made an appeal to the British for compromise.    In this Gerry Adams tried to distinguish between the MOD who may have been “oblivious oblivious to the sensitivities involved” and the the Secrratay of State who should have realised such an “event is ill-advised.”  He again pointed to the comproise of  a “civic reception and a religious service.”  Through this formulation Adams was trying to distinguish between the British military and politicians, as if one is progressive and the other reactionary.  This is a constant theme in the political arguments put forward bySinn Fein.  Indeed, their whole strategy rests on the British Government bringing about reform in the north.  The problem for them is that it has no basis in fact. 

Throughout the history of the northern state, and right up to the present, the British have backed the most reactionary elements in society as the best means for stability and control.   In the case of the home coming parade the British were not just backing unionist reaction they were orchestrating it.   For example, in a response to a question from the DUP leader the Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the Commons that he fully supported the homecoming parade and that “our armed forces” deserved the support of every community.   He went on to claim that there had been parades in towns and cities across Britain that had attracted large numbers of people who wanted to “give support to our troops and ensure that they have the confidence of the British people."  This was a clear invitation to unionists and loyalists to turn out for the parade in Belfast; and also an assertion that Belfast was a British city where British troops should be welcome.   It should be noted Brown’s claim that military parades had taken place in cities across Britain was false.  Given the unpopularity of the wars amongst the public, and the potential for such events to attract elements bent on racist violence, no major city in Britain has hosted a military parade of the scale of the one that took place in Belfast. 

The MOD’s only gesture to the sensitivities of nationalsists was to cancel the fly past, have the troops on parade without guns and to change some of the tunes being played.  In response Sinn Fein rerouted its own protest march.  So there’s the compromise - a slightly less triumphalist parade as republicans watch on from the sidelines.  Even this was too much for unionists who claimed that the parade would be “diluted” without all the military paraphernalia.  However, this did not deter them turning out for the event.   On the day about twenty thousand unionists, ranging from the dregs to the respectables, came out to support the parade.  All the unionist political leaders were present, including DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson who the previous day had told his annual party conference that there would be no concessions to nationalists.   For the British and the Unionists the event was a resounding success.   As the first military parade to take place in Belfast in fifty years it was a clear demonstration of British control.  A senior British Army officer expressed satisfaction that a parade that would have been impossible just five or ten years ago had passed off with so little incident.  For him this was progress, but for anyone from an anti-imperialist perspective it can only been seen a major setback.

It is also a major setback for the Sinn Fein strategy of relying on the British Government to force reform in the north.   The orchestratation of unionist reaction by the British exposes this to be totally baseless.  The uncertain response of Sinn Fein to the parade also serves to reveal a fracturing of its own support base.  This went in two directions  - those who wanted to challenge the British provocation and those who wanted to ignore it.  This first strand was represented by eirigi and the other republican groups who organised their own independent protests.  It was fear of being outflanked that prompted Sinn Fein to call its protest.  The second strand was articulated by the Andersonstown News, which before coming back onto the leadership message ran an editorial calling for all protests to be cancelled for fear that any confrontation could destabilise the political settlement.  The growing divisions between those disillusioned with the peace process and those who want to stick with it no matter what will make it increasingly difficult for Sinn Fein to hold its support base together. 

The eirigi protest provided some indication of the growing opposition within republicanism.   The first comment to make is on its size. With 350 militants it was a respectable fraction of the 2000 on the Sinn Fein demonstration and marks a weakening of Sinn Fein's hegemony in Belfast.  However, this positive aspect of the eirigi protest was outweighed by the negatives.  For example, the only political organisation to speak was eirigi. Other republican groups were told that only eirigi banners and placards were allowed. It does not appear that the group has plans for republican unity, let alone the broader working class unity that would be required to build an alternative to imperialist dominion.  There were very strong indications that the organisation saw its task as being to rewind the clock and re-launch an essentially unchanged physical force republicanism.  At a more minor tactical level eirigi declared as a principle that it would not approach the parades commission. While the commission is completely undemocratic, holding only illegal marches seems a poor tactic.

A final observation to make about the military parade and protests was the silence of the left and the so-called anti-war groups.  Despite the obvious connection of the military parade to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan neither the SWP nor the Socialist Party made a protest or even issued a statement.  This stands in stark contrast to their vociferous opposition to the visit of George Bush to Belfast earlier this year.  For them it is much easier to bash Bush for US actions in the Middle East than confront imperialism in their own country.  Indeed, some of them even fail to recognise that imperialism is a factor in Ireland.  Most important of all they find it impossible to deal with an issue, such as the military parade, that breaks down along community lines.  This is because their concept of workers unity depends on avoiding divisive issues - particularly those that challenge the prejudices of Protestant workers.  But this really is building on sand.  For this form of workers unity, as we have seen from the history of the northern state, will collapse when confronted by sectarianism.  It is only by taking on the divisive issues, most centrally the role of British imperialism, that socialists have any hope of building a working class unity that will survive.