IRSCNA: Easter Greetings

Easter 2002

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America

Easter Greetings from the IRSCNA's North American Coordinator

A chairde,

We send you our revolutionary greetings on the occasion of the
upcoming 86th anniversary of the revolutionary rising of the Irish
Citizen Army, under the leadership of James Connolly, on Easter
Monday, 1916.

Each year at this time, Irish republicans reflect on those who have
fallen in the struggle for Irish national liberation and draw
inspiration from the example of our martyrs. Relative to our
movement's size, there may be no other Irish organisation so bathed
in the blood of martyrs than is the Irish Republican Socialist
Movement. This reflects the far greater threat to the interests of
British imperialism and Irish comprador capitalism provided by the
IRSM's fusing of the struggle against partition and for Irish
national liberation with the class struggle of Irish working people,
which cannot be accommodated within the confines of the Dublin neo-
colonial regime, promised civil rights reform in the six county
statelet, or any other alternative than a 32 county Irish socialist
republic. Accordingly, we bear the blood-stained bandage with pride
and respect for those who have fallen in this struggle.

So too we bear forward the banner of the Starry Plough with pride.
This flag of the Irish working class was first flown by the Irish
Citizen Army, when they were first formed as a workers' militia
organised to defend striking and locked out industrial unionists. Its
present, simplified form, was adopted in the late 19-teens and 1920s,
when it was used by working class organisations as varied as the
trade unions, socialist and communist parties, syndicalist and
anarchist organisations, spontaneously forged workers 'soviets,' as
well as various republican and republican socialist groupings. We
bear the flag today as the banner of our movement and of our entire
class and we are ever mindful of the sacrifice made by those who
passed the banner on to us.

Like our martyrs, our prisoners of war provide us with inspiration
and the strength to carry the struggle forward. They have, and do,
face tremendous hardships because they were courageous enough to do
what they knew needed to be done for their nation and their class.
They have, at times, been the backbone of the movement and are always
the movement's soul. We rededicate ourselves to their support and
must especially focus our attentions on the present campaign to win
freedom for our comrade Dessie O'Hare, who has been the victim of a
clearly discriminatory extension of his imprisonment far beyond the
early release that he was entitled to as an Irish National Liberation
Army volunteer and prisoner of war under the terms of the Good Friday
Agreement. The slogan "One Out, All Out!" well expresses the just
demand for Dessie's freedom that we must continue to campaign for.

At this time, we remember the many leaders of tremendous stature our
movement - and the Irish working class - have lost: Seamus Costello,
Miriam Daly, Ronnie Bunting, Patsy O'Hara, Mickey Devine, Ta Power,
Dominic McGlinchey, Gino Gallagher; these were among the best
revolutionary minds of their era, all snatched away from our movement
and the Irish working class far too early. Ultimately, however, it is
not great leaders who will guarantee the success of the socialist
revolution; it is the masses of the working people of Ireland,
particularly those having the greatest degree of class
consciousness. The duty of revolutionaries in such circumstances
is to ensure the survival of a vehicle to enable the self-
organisation of our class and will keep aloft the banner of
revolution, especially in those times when the revolution seems most
distant. It is to this task that we, who find ourselves struggling in
the overly large shoes left behind by our fallen martyrs, must
rededicate ourselves. It is to that task that we rededicate ourselves
now. We ask that you bear witness to this pledge, but, moreover, we
ask that you join us in this commitment.

The goal of a 32 county Irish socialist republic will not be won
through anyone sitting on the side-lines of the struggle as an
observer. Those who are unwilling to join a revolutionary party until
they find one that is free from blemishes, contribute to the
inability of such a party to emerge. A revolutionary party is nothing
more than a living embodiment of its members - it cannot be more
active than the efforts of its members enable it to be, it cannot be
larger than the numbers who are prepared to join it and build it, it
cannot be more revolutionary than the its members provide it with the
capacity to be. The person who claims to support the struggle for a
32 county Irish socialist republic, but does nothing to build
a revolutionary organisation of Irish workers with that as their
clear and immediate goal, provides no support for the struggle she or
he claims to embrace. Holding an opinion is certainly each person's
right, but it should not be mistaken for actually being a part of the
struggle of the Irish working class for its liberation. So, as you
join us in reflecting on the sacrifice of those who have come before
us in the Irish republican socialist struggle, ask yourself how your
support for that struggle is being demonstrated and what tangible
effect your support is having in the lives of Irish people. If you
should then feel that you would like to increase that effect; that
you would like to be a participant in the Irish republican socialist
struggle, rather than a spectator or commentator, join us. Join in
creating the only fitting tribute to the sacrifice of our martyrs,
the construction of a workers' republic on the entire island of
Ireland.

Happy Easter.

Peter Urban
IRSCNA North American Coordinator
irsp@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.irsm.org/irscna/


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--Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31

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