The capitalist media tries to show only the anger and retaliation of the oppressed. But every worker who has been on a picket line, every youth who's been arrested on a Saturday night, every farmer who's come into court against the banks can see the truth - it is the occupying troops and armed police force organized by London that are the source of violence in Ireland.

British secretary for Northern Ireland Majorie Mowlam, who unleashed the troops and their thousands of plastic bullets, whines that she represents some third side in the conflict just as every colonial servant has done. The game, as always, is to present the oppressor as a disinterested party shouldering enormous pressures to keep the uncivilized tribes apart. No one should buy such arguments for one minute. Mowlam did not bow to the pressure of a bunch of lawless Unionist hoodlums. Her government organizes the most powerful Unionist hoodlums - the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). She calculatedly carried out the decision made two weeks earlier to allow the rightist march to go through and to `make the croppies lie down.' The Unionists may wear sashes not hoods, but no one should doubt that they march in order to plant their burning cross on the lawn - much like the Klan.

But the nationalist people of Northern Ireland refuse to lie down. The crisis of the British ruling class is that they have been unable to quell, split, or corrupt enough of the Irish fighters and their leaders. So London will not negotiate with them. The rulers of the United Kingdom understand what the recent election results in Britain revealed: working people in Scotland, Wales, and England do not accept the attacks on their wages, living standards, and working conditions. The workers at British Airways on strike this week are the first, not the last, to fight back.

Joining the Irish peoples' fight for independence, and their resistance to the attempted insult to their dignity by the Orange marches, will only aid the struggles of workers in Britain and elsewhere.  
 
 
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