Sinn Fein turns on protestors

by Gerard Wed Jul 28, 2010 17:38

Fair play, decent article, hits the nail on the head

by éirígí Sligeach Thu Jul 29, 2010 17:16 eirigisligeach at gmail dot com

This article appeared in the Andersonstown News from éirígí's West Belfast Chairperson John McCusker

by Jamie S Fri Jul 30, 2010 21:20

Why is this such a shock to some people.
The Shinners turned their back on their own beliefs and on their supporters and on their country.
This is just more same old same old.

by Columb Mon Aug 02, 2010 21:40

Sinn Fein - soon to be renamed the ANUP - The All New Unionist Party.
Headed by Gerald Adams and seconded by Mervin McGuiness.
They will be starting a flute band and marching on the twelth next.

by wonderer - anarcho friendly Tue Aug 03, 2010 12:21

so eirigi did land in with other bussed in elements to Ardoyne etc. Just what is the link with eirigi and CIRA "new leadership" and the RIRA.

Sure everyone knows that Sinn Fein have long been a capitalist freindly bunch, but lets face it, so are the CIRA, RIRA. eirigi are walking a fine line of trying to build up political credibility, and macho miltarism in the background. Theres only a few ways that can play out, and given the relativily quick jump into electoral politics in the 26, its not a line that can be kept steady for very long

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue Aug 03, 2010 13:36

Give it fifty years and Sinn Fein will be New Fine Gael while the jackboots that set that shit up in Derry last night will be Fianna Fawlty Nua.
Or, as HG Wells put it, " Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe".
Ninety years on, the odds seem to be on the latter.

by Who will stand next year? Wed Aug 04, 2010 15:38

Never mind ANUP or a Stoop - Shinner Merger or the realignments Tom Kelly wrote of in yesterday's (2/8/20) Irish News sit well with the positioning PSF have taken over the past 20 years while tipping the cap to Cuba and the Basque Country the 'we're just like SA' branding is particularly pertinent. Our man in Cape Town had the following to say:

The first housing that you see driving into Cape Town from the airport is what are now called ‘informal settlements” in South Africa. In most other places they’d be called shanty towns and the average English garden shed looks like it would provide warmer, drier accommodation for a family than many of them. But, as is the way of these things, it is now possible to take a guided tour as part of the tourism industry. The city has been left with a massive new football stadium which can look forward to a future of hosting Bon Jovi concerts. Setting aside prejudices against both soccer and stadium rock you do have to wonder if, in a city where an estimated 500 000 people don’t have access to toilets or running water in their homes that was the number one priority. The lead story in the local paper a couple of days ago was about people in the settlements being charged about a quid to use neighbours’ toilets and others having to use a grass verge by a main road as their facility. An inside story was about the construction of new homes without ceilings, a fairly obvious oversight. What is absolutely apparent is that the African National Congress is a party with a straightforwardly bourgeois programme. It’s wrapped up in the language of national liberation, black empowerment and the rainbow nation and the party’s roots in struggle it to retain utter hegemony. Nevertheless while creating a small black middle class it is not offering even the most modest reformist benefits to its own base. As an example, the local press reports that infant mortality is higher than it was twenty years ago and the increase is attributable to diseases caused through inadequate sanitation.

Let’s take one example of the party’s evolution. Cyril Ramaphosa used to be a leading trade union militant and was secretary general of the ANC. He is now described as a business magnate and has just joined the board of platinum minining company Lonmin as a nonexecutive director. He’s also involved in a multi-billion dollar deal in the Congo which seems to have the smell of fish. Ramaphosa is typical of a lot of the ANC’s senior cadre. Don’t take my word for it. What follows is a local press report based on an internal document which sets out how pervasive the corruption has become. The document’s weakness is that it is not able to disentangle the problem of corruption from the party’s bourgeois programme. It still makes for interesting reading. By a bit of a fluke a pre-prepared post on Leninism and the degeneration of parties in the Marxist tradition will be popping up next week. The ANC’s experience is a contemporary illustration of the issue. The ANC has just released a brutally frank appraisal of leadership within the movement, saying some members have lost their way since the party came into power in 1994. In discussion documents released ahead of the party’s national general council in Durban in September, the ANC describes a new winner-takes-all culture and a lack of dialogue and debate among rival factions. The conference will be the first opportunity to thoroughly review the impact of party chief Jacob Zuma’s leadership, which outsiders have called weak and uninspired. The discussion document on leadership calls for a comprehensive campaign of renewal to lead the ANC back from opportunism, exploitation and corruption towards its roots.

“The many challenges of discipline and leadership since 1994 have begun to erode (the) unique character (of the ANC),” the party warns. “At each national conference since the moment of entry into government, leadership transitions became increasingly problematic. Each conference highlighted new tendencies and practices, progressively worsening and infecting all aspects of our organisational pillars and work,” the National Executive Committee says. In a possible criticism of the factionalism in the party’s Western Cape division and in the ANC Youth League, the document mentions this as a handicap to progress: “NEC interventions in provinces, dissolving PECs because the organisation and governance became paralysed by divisions, establishing interim leaderships and having to organise early conferences. “The practice of dissolving elected leadership, which initially was regarded as a last resort, has indeed become a norm across our movement,” it says.

The document renews concern first raised by former party leader Thabo Mbeki about members who join to advance their personal and business interests and not to work for the poor and disadvantaged. “Disturbing trends of ‘careerism, corruption and opportunism’, alien to a revolutionary movement (are) taking root at various levels, eating at our soul and with potential to denude our society of an agent of real change,” it says. Looking for a way forward, the document poses this challenge:

“In pursuit of this central objective of using state power for the greater good of society and to transform power relations, progressive movements and parties had to find ways of dealing with the following issues:

Patronage and neo-patrimonialism: including how to ensure deployment to governance based on competency and commitment to the vision of transformation, instead of deployment based on factional interests or for accessing resources; how to prevent the channeling of public resources to party structures, leaders or members; avoid the shaping of political and economic institutions to benefit narrow interest groups and preventing undue influence of those with money, connections and resources to influence elections, lobbying and access, in the process seeking to shape the national agenda. Bureaucratisation of political movements: blurred distinctions between movement and state; social distance between leaders, members and mass base; arrogance of power and bureaucratic indifference; demobilisation of members and mass base;domination by technocratic elites and the professionalisation of politics and a decline of activism.

Statist approaches to social transformation: the people and citizens as passive recipients of government delivery and development; challenges to approaches of government seen as challenges to the legitimacy of government or transformation; movement and civil society structures seen mainly to suppor government; a paradigm of ‘good governance’ vs democracy.

Corruption: theft of public resources; abuse of position to extort bribes or kickbacks; services in exchange for bribes; business and public office conflicts of interests. Erosion of progressive values and organisational culture: hegemony of greed and consumption or ‘we did not struggle to be poor’; the nature of social change and growth of inequality; undermining internal democracy by limiting or seeking to discredit debates on alternatives; changing organisational culture and discipline,with enforcement of rules, increasingly for expediency rather than principle.”

The document calls for a more reflective future. “The drive for the organisational renewal of the ANC should help pave the way for critical reflection and debate, creating an atmosphere where we can collectively find lasting solutions to these very difficult problems. This requires leadership to lead honestly, humbly and decisively, and for membership and cadres to ensure that we take responsibility for the health of our movement.”

by Naomi . - Diamonds are forever . Tue Aug 10, 2010 07:24

all political wannabees end up the same , they have spent their lives preaching to the
electorate , when the wannabees become the elected represented members of the dail
its then that the real fun begins , they then show their true colours , pocket the shilleros ,
run around the clinics , view the holiday brochures , go abroad , come back and preach
about our ailing economy and then settle into their nice cosy 'job' for the rest of their cosy lives . they should be paid 20 grand a year , given a mobile fone and a bike , a McDonalds
voucher ( from dunnes stores receipts) and get their hair cut in the 5 euro barber shops which are sprouting up all over the city that can never sleep .

by re:sinn fein part of the bourgeois?! Wed Aug 11, 2010 15:55

Back in the north where the troubles were at their peak,sinn fein could not be accused of being militant they were a POLITICAL WING ..GIVING POLITICAL SUPPORT.

And as for sinn fein joining what you call the bourgeois is beyond ridiculous,they have done more for ireland north and south than the british government could ever be capable of doing.They have joined political forces with the likes if ian paisley(a man who not only incited hatred but called for the murder of catholics who he refferd to collectively as terrorists,there were murder houses and social clubs on the shankill,where innocent catholics were skinned,often times alive,some of these guys are still in the orange order and active in politics).Sinn fein have done the impossible,given the political climate in the 80's and 90's.No other political party has done what gerry adams(and martin mcguiness) has done.

Sinn fein were the only political party that had the courage to stand up for those who COULD NOT BE HEARD AMONGST THE CROWDS OF CORRUPTION BETWEEN THE MI5,THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT AND THE ''POLICE FORCE'',AND WERE NOT ONLY BLATANTLY IGNORED BUT KILLED!

They have done more for this peace process than the british could ever do anywhere in any country that was previously and unsuccesfully COLONISED.

by Trigger , - Tony chestnut Wed Aug 11, 2010 22:43

couldn't agree more, ''no other political party has done more than gerry adams and martin mc.guinness has done'' . none of them , absolutely none of them , thanks be to god for that .