====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
Before giving my, somewhat random, thoughts on the Adams arrest, let me recommend that everyone read Joe Craig's post. Its characterization of Sinn Féin is very convincing IMHO. I was also hoping that Phil might contribute a comment, as no one on the list knows more about Irish politics, than he does. Firstly, as Joe points out, this arrest had to have been given the go ahead at the very highest of levels. Sinn Féin knows this as well. Their initial response, that the arrest was designed to limit the Party's performance in the EU elections was also pretty accurate, in all probability. Sinn Féin retreated from this position when they advanced a conspiracy theory of the "dark side" inside the police force. That such a rump exists goes without saying and Sinn Féin have always known of its existence. Always. They also know that the dogs were let out by the Cameron Govt with an ok from the Obama administration. But the question remains "Why?" Why did they take the gamble? (The 'they' would be the ruling elites in the North, the South, and in Britain.) My immediate response is, that, in these cases, there is always an element of they did it to show they could. At a deeper level, we can ask were they asked to do this by the Southern Irish govt worried at the rise of Sinn Féin in the South? Possibly. The arrest was never a serious exercise in crime investigation. Without the aid and assistance of the torturers, they would have known that Adams would never break. They have merely served to restore some of his lost revolutionary credentials, in the North that is. But I am inclined to the view that the audience, they were aiming for, were the Southerners. To be labelled as a murderer of the mother of 11 children, was the setting up of a red line, and telling Adams that they did not want him to cross it, at the current level of compromise. The whole affair also demonstrates the lengths that Sinn Féin will go to stay part of the government in N. Ireland. Therefore, we should not be at all surprised if additional compromises were not forthcoming from Sinn Féin. As Joe's post more or less acknowledges, the Irish situation remains locked in a stasis. But that situation is almost world wide. The missing historical agent, the working class, stubbornly refuses to take centre stage. Within N. Ireland, though, no one should doubt their loyalty to Sinn Féin. What will break the current stasis? I have repeatedly predicted a European uprising, and I think that even I have stopped listening to myself. But it remains true, that only a genuinely class-for-itself uprising, will transform the current conjuncture. comradely Gary ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
