Editorial

Ideas are the most important of weapons. In the midst of the decommissioning furore we should pause to reflect on the retention by the Workers' Party of all its weaponry. Who in the London, Dublin or Belfast establishment really cares? The Workers' Party kept all its guns including those used to shoot John Taylor. It has long since abandoned the ideas that may have acted as a base for the formation of a radical anti-systemic bloc.

The Irish Republican Writers' group encourages republicans and others to write on republicanism and related issues. It can never seek to determine what they write. For this reason the columns of Fourthwrite shall be open to all. As the writer Des Wilson argues, democracy stands to gain when people are told more rather than less. But telling them more of the same by restricting the columns to writers of one perspective is authoritarian and aimed solely at control. In this spirit Fourthwrite welcomes contributions from those profoundly opposed to republicanism such as the Unionist Stephen King. Tone's philosophy of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter has no meaning if the sole Protestant views are those we happen to approve.

Likewise, for republicans vehemently opposed to perspectives held by any of the Writers' group participants Fourthwrite is open to them also. Democratic republicanism and the conformist culture of obedient silence are mutually exclusive.