The Physical Force debate

by Dr.Terry Robson

What I will set out to explain in the course of this short response to Liam O¹Ruairc¹s article on physical force and republicanism, is a view of the development of Irish history, which attempts to address the points raised by Liam and expose for continuing review the question of whether the issues are relevant at this point in time.
The central question addressed by Liam in his article is whether or not Irish republicanism is 'inextricably linked to the use of physical force.¹ Much of his approach is underpinned by a somewhat limited and simplistic analysis of the differences between Irish republicanism and Irish nationalism; the corollary being that the former claims the right to bear arms whereas the other does not. The problem with such an assessment is that it does not attempt to set out the specific differences between 'republicanism¹ in an Irish context and 'nationalism¹. The difficulty is that many have already asserted that there is little else to differentiate between one and the other, especially at an ideological level, hence the thrust of Liam¹s argument.
 

At a superficial but significant level our own experience in the six counties tells us that the use of the term 'nationalist¹ areas as distinct from 'loyalist¹ areas is the preferred characteristic when defining one 'community¹ or the other. For example one rarely hears references to 'republican¹ areas, whether by media commentator, loyalist or Sinn Fein spokesperson. Against that background is it any wonder that there is a widespread tendency towards confusion when faced with clear and transparent definitions. But more importantly should we be surprised when such confusion transfers itself to the debate on which of the two is in favour of physical force to achieve political reform?

But we do not appear to have advanced very far on this matter. It is not at all proven that one is in favour of armed insurrection whereas the other is wedded to solely peaceful means. Many of the 'nationalist¹ leaders were ambiguous about the question of the 'republic¹. With the obvious exception of Arthur Griffith, few attempted to articulate an understanding either in word or in speech. For example, Roger Casement was not unwaveringly opposed to the idea of a benevolent imperialism; after all he served in the British Foreign Service from 1892 to 1913, whilst Parnell was not an unreconstructed anti-monarchist. In those cases their republicanism was hesitant whilst their support for armed insurrection was at times without ambiguity.

Even Wolfe Tone, the icon of Irish republicanism, was less than clear about the nature of his 'republicanism¹. Marianne Elliott cited one instance, in a letter full of the kind of ironic wit typical of Tone, when he rejected the charge of rebellion against Great Britain, stating instead his allegiance to the 'King of Ireland¹ as a defence on the grounds that an attempt to reduce the influence of England upon Ireland¹s government was 'not treason¹ . Some of his own writings reveal many contradictions in  which his commitment to separation from England rather than an attempt to create a republic free from monarchist influences in which 'liberté¹, 'egalité¹ and 'fraternité¹ were the dominant overriding principles. He did after all, in a letter entitled 'A Liberty Weaver and the Spanish War¹ declare that he was one of 'his Majesty¹s liege subjects¹ .
 

It would be nonsense to suggest that those cited above would have had an ambiguous view on the importance of armed struggle. That is not in question. But were they all republicans? In our historical period these were, after all, the foremost Irish nationalist leaders. Whether they were 'republican¹ is a more important and more significant question. On the other hand if we take those such as Pearse and Connolly who had over time developed an unambiguously republican perspective, there were clear attempts to define the nature of 'their¹ republic.

A more fruitful discourse might, instead, be a debate on the nature of their understanding of the 'republic¹ instead of initiating a somewhat sterile debate on the link between republicanism and armed struggle. It is not clear, even today, if the 'republic¹ of Tone and that of Connolly are at all compatible, in spite of the claims by generations of republicans, that they are indistinguishable.  Insofar as it was possible for Connolly to critically assess the life and times of Tone, he comes remarkably close to an examination of the nature of the society the United Irishmen were attempting, without much success, to address:

The middle class growing up in the midst of the national struggle, and at one time, as in 1798, through the stress of economic rivalry of England, almost forced into the position of revolutionary leaders against the despotism of their industrial competitors, have now also bowed the knee to Baal. The Protestant workman and tenant was learning that the Pope of Rome was a very unreal and shadowy danger compared with the social power of his employer or landlord, and the Catholic tenant was awakened to a perception of the fact that that under the new social order the Catholic landlord represented the Mass rather than the rent roll. The times were propitious for a union of the two democracies of Ireland. They had travelled from widely different points through the valleys of disillusion and disappointment to meet at last by the unifying waters of a common suffering.¹  
 

With that statement firmly in mind it is interesting to see many years later Bernadette McAliskey beginning her contribution to Republican Voices with a discussion on republicanism. She makes the point that 'ideologically, Irish Republicanism is not of necessity a militaristic philosophy. ¹ Indeed she says that such a view is an oversimplification. Indeed, she adds this important distinction; that such an oversimplification is typical of 'that section of feminist thought which argues that women are by gender/nature pacifists, and republicanism male and violent; and indeed by nationalists who oppose the radicalism and egalitarianism of republicanism rather than its willingness to take up arms.¹

A useful starting point to this debate might be the decision of the revolutionary leaders of 1916 to take advantage of the war (1914-18) to strike against the British occupation. With the benefit of hindsight we have few doubts about the 'republicanism¹ of the leaders. In spite of our desire to see the Easter Rising as a synchronising of ideas and action in an 'alliance¹ of republicans and socialists, it would probably be more accurate to suggest that it was an alliance of, republicans, socialists and nationalists in which the common bond was a desire for action; in other words the struggle of arms, rather than a struggle of ideas. How many times in the recent past have we heard this call to action?

The Easter Rising was by any measure, a cataclysmic event in the course of the twentieth century and of special significance in the history of our people. It threw up all of the principal class forces in Irish society at that time. Whilst this alliance of bourgeois nationalists, republicans and socialists were engaged in a life and death struggle against the British forces on Dublin streets, the Catholic bourgeoisie were marching in step behind newspaper owner, William Martin Murphy. The Irish national bourgeoisie had no qualms about the use of the British firing squad against republicans and socialists and were vitriol in their condemnation of the rebel leaders. The announcement in the Irish Catholic owned by Murphy after the executions that 'what was attempted was an act of brigandage pure and simple¹ and that there was 'no reason to lament that its perpetrators have met the fate universally reserved for traitors¹ made their position clear. In that regard, at least, the Irish capitalist newspaper owners knew that their class interests were with those within the British imperialist establishment who executed Connolly, Pearse and the others.

In the post-1969 period the debate within the broad left movement about the nature of republicanism and the problem of the role of armed struggle crystallised into divisions between those who claimed to be building a movement for a social democracy and those who argued that the democracy could not be built without the expulsion of the British presence. In other words, between those arguing against the use of armed force and those who argued in favour of armed insurrection. That debate was to result in division and acrimony with few attempting to place it against the need for a discourse on the nature of the republic. Even within the fledgling IRSP in 1974 these were matters which were to be placed on the backburner of the struggle. For many the integrity of the Œrepublic¹ was not in doubt even though little had been agreed. It was the nature of armed struggle and the primacy of politics which was in question.

The very practical and candid Lenin had much to say on this matter. For him the issue was a practical one in which the issue of the nature of the struggle was determined by the imperatives of the moment rather than on any abstract and inflexible principle. But of course Lenin was a revolutionary communist and not a 'republican¹ in our understanding of the term. His revolution was an unequivocal one in which there was little room for movement. Like Connolly, he was concerned to identify the enemy within and focus his sights on his perception of the real enemy. Connolly¹s now-familiar call to the volunteers of the Citizen Army that they should retain control of their weapons was based on a recognition that not all of his collaborators were likely to share his own definition of the 'republic¹. In that regard both Lenin and Connolly were of a like mind. In that regard, also, he fully recognised that at some point others in the Easter alliance would have stopped short of the 'workers¹ and small farmers¹ republic¹.

How do those words transfer to the events of the present day and how has Liam O¹Ruairc addressed them. There is some truth in the view that the advocacy of armed struggle was 'the most adequate means to effect social and political change¹. It is widely acknowledged that the unsteady beginnings of the armed conflict after the demise of the civil rights movement was in response to a widespread, even popular, recognition that only the removal of Unionism as the cause of the conflict and the reunification of the country and its people could the social and political anomaly be resolved. In other words, the six county State was irredeemably insecure, was based on a form of majoritarianism which reinforced a unionist hegemony and was, as a consequence incapable of reform. But the state was not of itself the problem. The unionist hegemony had permeated almost every sphere of Protestant life and manifested itself, by and large, as an ideological authority. That is what has made the question of debating the 'republic¹ so problematic and why majoritarianism in the north of Ireland is a tangible and momentous manifestation of that hegemony.

Against that background armed conflict was inevitable. Not only because of the factors described by Liam or because it was led by 'republicans, but because the northern state was not a democracy, neither 'normal¹ nor 'abnormal¹. It was a 'political society¹ with all of the state¹s repressive apparatus necessary for its continuance. The Œdemocratic¹ façade was merely that and no more. Gramsci employs greater precision in describing the nature of such a state in which:
'The spontaneous¹ consent given by the great masses of population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this consent is 'historically¹ caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production.¹

So it was with the dominant merchant class that the Protestant working class found its closest alliance ­ clearly not on the basis of their common interests ­ but on the basis of the diffusion of the ideological ideas associated with Orangeism. In those circumstances the dominated minority grouping, which was not a part either of the state or of the ideological hegemony, was faced with no other choice but armed confrontation. But it could have been an armed confrontation consisting of 'nationalists¹ and arguably, at that time, probably was. In other words if there was not even the semblance or pretence of a democracy, there could be no democratic response and no democratic solution. These were the objective conditions with which 'republicans¹ had to cope. But they were not the only political grouping faced by this dilemma. Many 'socialists¹ had to face them as well.

Were all of those clamouring for access to arms, people who described themselves as republicans, and were those who did not rush to arms, non-republicans? That, as we know with hindsight, would be a nonsense. Liam¹s suggestion that the factors which existed in 1969 in which the state reacted with violence against peaceful protests alongside loyalist attacks were the reasons why physical force found an 'echo¹ amongst northern Catholics, is somewhat too hackneyed an argument. After all those same factors existed during the failed 1956-62 Œborder¹ campaign in which one of the key factors for its cessation was the singular lack of popular support for the campaign. The leadership then was fundamentally no different, ideologically, from the Provisional formation, which walked out of the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis and Army convention in the period 1969/70. With some obvious exceptions they were, by and large, the same group of people who led the 'movement¹ before and since 1962. What was central to their arguments at that time was not the question of the primacy of arms, but whether it was possible to democratise the northern State.

So, for Liam to suggest that the Œsix-counties¹ was not a 'normal democratic society¹ is less than clear. It was (and is) no more or less 'normal¹ than any other. The problem with such a statement is that it is not located on a clear definition of what a 'normal¹ democratic society is meant to be. Just as with those ill-informed members of the voluntary sector who advocate the creation of a 'civil society¹, the characterisation of a Œnormal¹ democratic society, by definition, cannot be based on any clearly identifiable model by virtue of the fact that one does not exist. What is and what is not a 'normal¹ democratic society? That merely reinforces my view that what is at issue in this debate is that the 'republic¹ rather than the reference to armed conflict is the principal question which must be addressed.

It is simply not true to state that republicanism of itself is synonymous with the use of physical force. To uncritically accept such a correlation would condemn republicanism forever to a political wilderness and render the debate on the nature of the 'republic¹ a permanently sterile one. Liam O¹Ruairc, perhaps unwittingly, stirs memories of debates long past but of continuing relevance. In doing so he has allowed an opportunity to emerge in which some of those issues can be debated once again. In the light of the arguments about the future of the six counties and the 'republican¹ decision to see through a programme of 'democratisation¹, it offers an opportunity to raise the standard of the 'republic¹ once again and look around for those who will ask what it is and where it is going to take us.

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