| 23rd National Congress, November 2006 |
Opening speech by the general secretary, Eugene McCartanComrades, We are living in very difficult and dangerous but also challenging times. Imperialism, led by the United States, has over the last decade launched a massive military, political, economic and ideological offensive against nations and peoples. US imperialism, since it became the single superpower, has been trying to take advantage of that situation and attempting to impose its new world order, its strategy of “full-spectrum dominance,” upon the world. It has characterised and targeted states like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and others in its “axis of evil.” Where it has failed by bullying and economic blackmail it has resorted to military intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yugoslavia. Despite its military superiority, and its economic and financial power, the US, along with other imperialist centres like the EU, have not been able to completely subdue and impose their will upon the world. The United Nations, long a target of imperialism, has not completely succumbed to their financial and political pressure. Powerful peace forces across the world have emerged to challenge the United States and its allies’ war strategy. Here in Ireland we have also witnessed the mobilisation of tens of thousands of people committed to peace and global justice. Across the world the consequences of the policies of imperialism are taking a heavy toll. Millions are dying every year from hunger, famine, AIDS, from curable diseases like TB and malaria. People are dying from the lack of clean drinking water. Imperialism has co-opted the elites of many of the majority-world countries into their global economic and political strategy. Thousands will die before we finish the business of this congress, resulting from policies being imposed by imperialism. The US and the EU and other imperialist centres have been attempting to impose even more unfair trading relations upon the majority-world countries. This refining and deepening of neo-colonialism is also meeting with growing resistance. We witness the re-emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement, with Cuba and Venezuela giving it leadership and direction. The European Union is increasingly building its military potential and developing its military strategies for the future resource wars of this century, with the Irish Government signing up to and in fact joining the NATO-controlled “Partnership for Peace,” the EU Rapid Reaction Force, and now the battle groups. We have reached peak oil, and as the energy crisis begins to take effect we will witness increased wars of intervention by western imperialism to secure its control of scarce resources like oil. This will surely mean that Irish youth in the not too distant future will be dying to secure the interests of imperialism, just as they did ninety years ago in the mud of Flanders. The defeat of the draft constitution for the European Union was a major setback for the forces attempting to build a superstate to rival the US politically, economically, and militarily. The EU elites have not given up their goal of constructing a superstate free of democratic accountability. Today 80 per cent of all laws or directives affecting our lives are made by the EU. 85 per cent of those laws or directives are issued by the bureaucracy without any democratic mandate, without ever being seen by any body democratically accountable to the people. This is rule by diktat. Increasingly, more and more workers across the EU are beginning to see and understand the attacks upon their living standards deriving from the very nature of the process of EU integration and forces propelling it. The adoption by the European Parliament this week of the Services Directive heralds a new round of attacks on public services. This will have a significant impact on the jobs of public-sector workers and the service they provide. Our approach to the EU, as with other questions, must be from a class basis. At all times we have to ask the questions, ▪ Whose interests does it serve? ▪ What forces are behind and determining the process? ▪ What are its objectives? ▪ Who benefits and who loses? We don’t believe that you can construct some social-democratic superstate or empire to challenge a rogue neo-liberalist US empire. Nor do we believe that the state is neutral. The Ireland of today is a very different place from what it was ten years ago. We have gone from experiencing mass emigration of generation after generation from both north and south, tens of thousands having to leave to find work, to the situation now where we have tens of thousands of migrant workers working and living, north and south, in a variety of industries. Many of these workers are experiencing gross exploitation and racial abuse. The peace process has had a major impact and continues to have repercussions for the whole of the country. The peace process and the reaching of a political settlement has been difficult and painfully slow, with many twists and turns. Some people feel frustrated or let down, others believe that the Belfast Agreement is not working or has run its course. Is not a painfully slow peace process preferable to bombings, assassinations, shooting and killings? The slowness of the process and the many setbacks have given rise to disillusionment and frustration among some elements within the republican movement. Some are concerned about giving support to policing. That is understandable. Republicans and the nationalist community have been the victims of sectarian policing for seven decades. They have suffered assassinations by gangs run by the RUC and British military intelligence agents. They certainly have cause for concern; but so have we all. Loyalist paramilitaries continue to be organised and armed and linked to state intelligence agencies. They are still a blight and scourge in Protestant working-class communities. We have to ask, who benefits from the existence of such gangs? Certainly the concerns about who should control the PSNI are legitimate questions. Should it be London or the Belfast assembly? This is an issue that is not just of concern to Republicans but should and must be a concern for all democrats. The point of democratic accountability in relation not just to policing but also to social and economic questions has to be the concern of everyone. We are in favour of the maximum handing over of power and of decision-making to the Assembly and Executive. We once again state firmly and clearly that there is no necessity for a return to any form of military struggle. To those republicans who continue to carry out acts like the burning of shops, the planting of fire bombs or land mines, we call upon them to stop. Learn the lesson of history; if not, you are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history. We once again appeal to you to desist from this failed strategy. We are also witnessing the continued contradictions within unionism as it attempts to adapt and change and even block progress within the context of the shifting balance of political forces as new sets of relationships emerge and develop between British imperialism and the Irish ruling elite in the Republic. These new relations, of course, are not without their contradictions. The lessons of history show that unionism has great difficulty dealing with change. They were unable to deal with the demands of the civil rights movement except by the use of repression. The DUP has now assumed the leading role in unionism. Paisley has achieved what he most ardently desired; yet he is unable to stop the process. Unionism is no longer the main ally of British imperialism here in Ireland. But that does not mean that all the forces of imperialism have changed. Some still hanker after old ways and old relationships, particularly important sections in the security apparatus. The DUP’s opposition to all-Ireland economic bodies is clearly running in the face of the economic realities that exist today. It can only benefit the people of this island if there is greater economic, social and political co-operation. It is happening around us, even if Paisley can’t see it. The business elites, north and south, are in favour of it. It is in their class interests to do so. The recent St Andrews Agreement is just another stage in the process, where both governments laid out their strategy for moving the political process forward. The economic package that the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Brown, presented is not sufficient to overcome the decades of neglect and failed regional policies. It is in conditions of change that people are open to listening for different ways to move forward. We need to argue at every opportunity that it is in the interests of the working class to have greater economic and political co-operation, that Paisley’s approach is endangering jobs and living standards. Greater integration in areas like energy, health services, infrastructure and rural development, the rebuilding of the manufacturing base, the exploitation of natural resources for the common good, can contribute to breaking down divisions and sectarianism. This has the potential to change the conditions of struggle and the forces that can be mobilised. We communists do not see the Belfast Agreement as an end in itself. We recognise the importance of having a functioning Executive and Assembly. Yes, a socialist republic would be nice, but that is not on the table. We have to deal with and recognise the balance of forces as they are. We see the establishment of an effective Executive and Assembly as the focal point around which struggles can be built and waged. From our experience we know that people grow and develop in struggle, that divisions can be overcome when people find common points of struggle. The conditions and context of struggle are important. It is our view that the defence of public services, opposition to rates and water charges, poverty, unemployment, as well as alternative economic polices, must be brought into the heart of the Assembly. What is missing from the political equation and from the thinking of those within the republican movement who want to continue the “war,” those who baulk at supporting the police, or those on the left who focus narrowly on the structure of government—institutionalised sectarianism—is this. They can only see existing divisions, not potential opportunities for unity and development, the mobilisation of people around common and shared goals. Theirs is a deeply defeatist and a static approach to politics. It is by exploiting the contradictions within the political establishment that the working class can move forward. We need to drive the wedge of democracy into the cracks within the political system, to prise open the way forward. We need to expose the fact that Paisley’s new-found concern for the Protestant working class is shallow, and that Sinn Féin's narrow view of republicanism can only lead to opportunism and disillusionment. The “Celtic Tiger” has been touted across the world as the success story, which all countries should and indeed must follow. We have a society which is the most unequal after the United States. It is one of the most open and over-exposed economies in the world. We are at the mercy of world trade and international capital flows. ▪ One in every six children goes to bed hungry and lives in poverty. ▪ Housing is now beyond the reach of tens of thousands of people. ▪ It is estimated that 60,000 people are on the housing waiting-lists. ▪ One in seven newly built homes lies vacant, while the same figure in Britain is one in thirty-five. ▪ Hospital waiting-lists continue to grow. ▪ Irish workers work longer hours than their counterparts in Europe. ▪ People’s quality of life revolves around travelling long distances, spending hours getting to and from work. ▪ We have the worst pupil-teacher ratio in Europe at the first and second level. ▪ Drugs are now endemic right across the country, north and south. ▪ Armed criminal gangs now control some working-class communities. ▪ There is a growing sense of frustration, alienation and anger within many communities. Michael Casey, former chief economist with the Central Bank of Ireland, writing in the Irish Times (19 April 2006), stated: “There are probably about 10 or 12 multinationals in Ireland that could exercise extraordinary leverage over an Irish government. If one of these companies pulled out of Ireland, the economic consequences for employment and growth would be so severe that any government would probably fall.” The coffers of the Irish elites and their gombeen hangers-on are swelled by gross exploitation of the tens of thousands of migrant workers. Women migrants in particular are being abused and exploited in many different sectors of the economy. Abuse is particularly prevalent in areas such as industrial farming, mushroom-picking, chicken and pig farms. Billions of euros are invested abroad by the Irish parasitic ruling class. They are well integrated in and depend upon the power and interests of both the EU and the United States. This dependence and subservience is reflected in the use of Shannon by the US war machine, while Irish soldiers and gardaí are involved in Kosovo, Afghanistan, or now being trained under the “Partnership for Peace.” We have also witnessed the transfer of public companies, public capital, into private hands, from Telecom Éireann and Irish Sugar to Aer Lingus. The ESB has been restricted in how and what it can develop in order to allow private energy operators to enter the market. There has been a major transfer of wealth. We have growing private wealth and growing public squalor. “Social partnership” continues to hamper and restrict the working class. It sows the illusion that workers, employers and government all share a common goal. The adoption and the support for the recent partnership agreement “Towards 2016” will commit and has committed the trade union movement to supporting the Lisbon Strategy—a strategy aimed at undermining public services and opening up public services to private tendering. While the economy in the Republic has expanded to over two million workers, the concentration of workers who are members of trade unions continues to decline in relation to the expansion of the work force. This will have an increasing impact upon the labour movement. It is only in breaking free from this process that we can release the potential of working-class politics. We do not believe that it is in the interests of Irish workers or their unions to narrow their understanding or their demands to the narrow parameters that “social partnership” allows. Exploitation and low wages will not be solved by partnership with the bosses and government but only by a combination of trade union organisation and political campaigning. Yet we have witnessed the power of workers when organised. The Irish Ferries dispute showed that workers can be mobilised beyond their own immediate situation, and solidarity can be built. Workers recognised that their jobs could also be on the line in the race to the bottom. Also, the case of the Turkish workers working for GAMA Construction also provoked widespread support. Trade unions are still as necessary as ever. They are central to mobilising the workers. The wholesale offensive launched against public ownership, against the living standards of workers, against the advance made by workers over many decades right across Europe and the world in general, has been achieved as a result of the deliberate dismantling of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc. That defeat suffered by Soviet workers has had huge consequences for working people across Europe. When western European workers were negotiating with employers and governments, the unseen Soviet worker was sitting at the table by their side; socialism was a powerful counterweight, forcing compromise and gaining advances in economic and social provision. That role remains unrecognised. That attack upon and defeat of socialism not alone had an impact upon communists but had a huge impact upon social democrats, who have politically collapsed since the Soviet Union was dismembered. Comrades, Democracy is being hollowed out, with little substance remaining. Increasingly, governments are erecting barriers between themselves and the people. They have established various “quangos” and regulators to protect themselves in their efforts to remove whole sections of the economy from political struggle. Our world is crying out for change. Our world needs radical solutions if it is to survive the ravages of transnational capitalism. We communists have a proud history of principled and honest struggle. Despite our size, we have in the past made a difference. We have advanced the interests and improved the conditions of our working class. We have had an impact upon the life of our nation, whether in organising the unemployed, building trade unions, or reuniting the trade union movement on an all-Ireland basis and maintaining that unity under very difficult conditions. We helped develop the strategy and contributed greatly to the building of the civil rights movement. We have a wealth of experience to bring to the struggles of our people. The central thrust of our resolution is the necessity to build a broad, democratic anti-monopoly alliance. We know the forces that need to be mobilised. We need to be much more systematic and active in our approach. The incoming NEC must seriously set about the task of pulling those forces together. This is our longer-term strategy. The working class needs to build allies and alliances with different forces. At the heart of such alliances must remain the working class. We should set about, in a systematic way, meeting trade unions, community groups, environmental, women’s, cultural and youth organisations. Some will not talk to or meet us, but some will. It will be an opportunity to hear and exchange opinions. We need to bring our politics right down to the grass roots, to begin to listen to the people and their demands and concerns. We have to exploit and build upon the gap between the people and the elites. What is the cry we hear most from the people? “Politicians and political parties don’t listen.” Comrades, If we don’t do it, who will? Will the narrow, dogmatic economism of the Socialist Party do it? Will the will-o’-the-wisp politics of endless frenetic protesting and sloganeering of the SWP bring change? Will Sinn Féin deliver, or are they now treading the well-worn path of electoralism, reducing the working class to mere election cannon-fodder? Will a middle-class-dominated organisation like the Labour Party deliver, wedded as it is to coalition? For seventy-three years we have fought for our class. This congress will contribute to the rebuilding and reinvigorating of our party. As history has shown, without an organised working-class party the struggles of the Irish working class will not be brought to a successful conclusion. |
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