MANCHESTER, England - Tami Peterson's letter raises a number of important questions in understanding the fight for Irish self-determination. Ireland is one country subject to two governments, artificially partitioned since 1921. The question of self-determination has to do with the entire Irish nation - all 32 counties.
As the letter indicates, there was a mass, democratic revolution in Ireland in 1920 that made substantial headway in establishing Irish independence. This, by the way, is what led to the independence of Eire, not the formal withdrawal from the British Commonwealth. But this revolution was met by a ferocious capitalist-led counterrevolution, and stopped short of completing the struggle for independence. Instead, while a weak capitalist state was established in the South, the six northeastern counties were separated and remained directly under the colonial boot of Westminster within the UK.
The aim of partition, however, was to divide the working class of Ireland as a whole, and thereby to salvage for continued exploitation the whole of Ireland by British imperialism, along with its junior capitalist partner in Dublin. To this day the republic in the South remains economically dominated by London, just like other semicolonial nations oppressed by imperialism.
In other words, there was not a separate democratic revolution in the 26 counties. The republic came into being as the result of the frustration and interruption of the revolution in Ireland as a whole.
Every fight for democratic and social rights, in both North and South, is hindered by the division of Ireland. Divorce today is still illegal in Eire (although this might change with the November 24 referendum). Homosexuality was decriminalized only in 1993. An important legal precedent was set in 1992 for the right to travel to seek abortion, but the procedure remains illegal in Ireland in most cases.
So long as the national question remains unresolved and the Irish nation remains divided, progress even on these questions will be limited. In that sense working people in the North and the South face the same tasks today. Likewise, the victory of the struggle against British rule and for a united republic will help open the road to a socialist revolution in Ireland as a whole.
The letter asks if "apartheid" and "police state" are accurate descriptions of what exists in Northern Ireland today. While similarities can be drawn, it's important to recognize that apartheid South Africa was the product of unique historic conditions.
Firstly, Northern Ireland is not an independent state but constitutionally part of the United Kingdom. London's rule has been maintained through the force and violence of the British army and the local cops of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, as well as pro-British paramilitary outfits. It is built on systematic discrimination against workers who are Catholic. But it is not the same as apartheid South Africa, where the entire state structure institutionalized and enforced the relegation of Africans to the condition of a caste, with no rights of citizenship. For example, every citizen in Northern Ireland has the right to vote - a gain of the mass civil rights struggles of the 1960s and early 1970s. In South Africa it was impossible to win this right without abolishing apartheid itself. Unlike South Africa, what is posed in Ireland is ending colonial rule.
Similarly, if what is meant by a police state is one where the pretense of bourgeois democracy has been completely replaced with rule by executive order and naked state violence, such a label is not accurate for Northern Ireland. It would also imply that the working class has suffered shattering defeats, whereas in reality Northern Ireland is marked by the unbroken resistance of working people to British rule. - ANNE HOWIE