Britain has been in Ireland for over 800 years. During those centuries there has rarely been peace in Ireland. The Irish people have suffered from the barbarism of British kings, queens and governments; they have been driven from land they once worked, houses they once lived in; they have been denied the right to rule themselves. Irish men and women have been starved to death while the food they grew was imported to England; they have been imprisoned for years for daring to challenge the right of a forcign occupation; they have been killed in thousands for fighting the forces of foreign occupation.
During the last eight years this process has continued: ordinary civil rights were denied, men and women were locked up without trial, and as more British troops were poured into Northern Ireland, the suffering of the Irish people increased and multiplied. On 30 January 1972 fourteen men were shot dead on the streets of Derry by British paratroopers because they dared to demand that internment be ended. The innocence of those victims was later proved - the guilt of the British army and government remains: an army and a government which acts in our name.
We are often told that Ireland is a 'difficult', 'complicated' question. It is nothing of the sort. The issue has been. and remains, simple: should Britain stay in Ireland and dictate to the Irish people how they must behave? And if the question is simple, so too is the answer: end all British interference in Ireland, let the Irish people rule themselves, own their own natural resources, profit from the fruits of their own labour.
For too long the labour, trade union, and progressive movements in this country have been silent on the issue of Ireland, or have been divided amongst themselves. Through the demonstration on 1 February the Bloody Sunday Commemoration Committee aims to begin a process which will correct these failures. The slogan on which the BSCC was set up - END BRITISH INVOLVEMENT - was designed to win the broadest possible unity of all those who support the right of Irish self-determination. For too long the British imperialists have prospered by dividing and ruling the Irish working class; for too long they have prospered by dividing and ruling the British working class on the Irish issue. For too long, too many of us have stood idly by.
(from the Bulletin of the Bloody Sunday Commemoration Committee-price 5p plus 7p p&p from BSCC, c/o 1 North End Road, W.14)
Red Weekly 8 January 1976 Abortion/Equality 11