Republican Movement, one must be very careful about hailing the turn of the "Officials" toward the espousing of revolutionary politics. This if anything is the contradiction. Maureen De Burcha talks about using Dail Eireann as a means of furthering the cause of revolutionary socialism in Ireland. This is a bit ironic since in fact the Dail has had the role since the sellout of the Free State of accommodating British imperialism in Ireland. Do these Republicans think that by sitting in the Dail that they are going to make an impression on the reactionaries like Lynch and Cosgrave? Perhaps they think that they will swing (God save us!) that great Irish socialist, Brendan Corish and his pale-pink social democrats in the Labour Party to the cause of socialist Ireland.
Maureen De Burcha should not forget that Sinn Fein's "parliamentary successes" in the past have been based on the very fact that its deputies refused to sit in Dail Eireann. They were elected by people who saw the treaty as a farce and the so-called seat of democracy an insult to the people of reland.
One can understand the frustrations of people who know that parliamentary procedures have done nothing to impress British imperialism down through the hundreds of years of Irish history. Redmond's big mouth talked for ever about the reasonableness of British democracy and gloated about how it would be persuaded to concede political independence for its offshore colony. Yet it wan't the efforts of the Redmondites which initiated the movement of liberation. It was the people like Connolly who knew that the barrel of a gun was the only kind of diplomacy which spoke with effect.
If Sinn Fein is not careful it will find itself taking the road of the revisionist parties of the West, if indeed it is not already going that way. In trying to make the prospect of a socialist Treland respectable it might achieve a complete sellout of the ideals to which it supposed to subscribe Does S n Fein think that it can capture the idealism of youth by waving at them the images of umbrella and walking stick? What impressed me at Easter when in reland was the great appeal which the Provisionals seem to have for younger people. Although they may be regarded in many ways as being politically naive, their approach with regard to British imperialism is unequivocal. Being certainly in no way in sympathy with the narrow concept of nationalism which ones somethimes finds in Provisional circles, I nevertheless find myself commending their approach to the removal of imperialism from Ireland. There is simply no other way.
When right-wing mobs were murdering and pillaging in Belfast three years ago, what positive help did the defenceless get from Dail Eireann? or indeed where was the expected hlep from parliamentary republicans of Sinn Fein?
These arguments surely are powerful and yet there are comrades who wallow in the belief that Leinster House is to be the crucifix on which imperialism in reland will expire.
Sean Hill, 23 Craven Avenue, London W.5.
Lancaster University Dear Mole, Unfortunately, there is already a sequel to the article on the student-worker unity at Lancaster University. As soon as the students had left for the summer, the management broke its verbal agreements completely, denied that it had ever negotiated, and made an offer reduced only. Apart from the dishonesty involved, this offer was intended to split the workers. If the women cleaners accepted it, the men cleaners would be angry, and unity, and thus union strength reduced. If they rejected it, the women catering staff, who would get the increase, and who are not yet in the union, would be alienated. At the present time, the cleaners have decided to instruct their official to accept the offer towards equal pay, on condition that this does not in any prejudice their claim for free transport. If the management refuses to progress the claim as seems only too likely, the students will Black on red, red on white: £1.05 each including postage from:
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