This week Tomas Mac Giolla, president of Official Sinn Fein, is due to speak in London at meetings with MPs, invited trade unionists, and 'the public" on the situation in Ireland - gatherings organised by the Communist Party.
Normally any visit by an Irish activist to this country is welcome, and certainly Mac Giolla was correct to write in the Morning Star last week that 'people in Britain must be either apathetic, unaware or confused about events in Ireland'. Unfortunately, if the rest of Mac Giolla's article is anything to go by, his VISIE IS OnY KeE LO Sorcau MC COnLus ion and increase the apathy.
Mac Giolla begins the article by saying that the first essential in Northern Ireland today' is democracy and workers unity. He also speaks of the desirability of 'a united working class population in the 32 counties'. All good stuff -unless you ask how.
Riddle In answer to this riddle, Mac Giolla says little. All that he offers is a plea for the British Parliament to pass a Bill of Rights which 'sums up the basic legislation needed to bring democracy to Norterns re and This in itself poses a number of ques tions. Such as why lan Paisley, Brian Faulkner, and even Enoch Powell have The first essential in Northern Ireland today the Official Sinn Fein, president since 1962 of who calls for an alliance of progress" between Britain and Ireland.
ABOVE: Morning Star calls for "workers unity'. BELOW: the Loyalists' reply. re and believe this itself. Party. With the Six County state falling around tel ears, wey appear capable only of asking Britain to be nicer to But that's not quite all. For having fed the notion that Britain has a right in Ireland by saying it has responsibilities*, Mac Giolla continues this feast of British chauvinism by labelling the Provisional Republican movement as "terrorist' and 'counter-revolutionary". No doubt many readers of the Morning Star would agree with such a judgement, but they just might wonder how it is that the British state, its army, its judges and its police have murdered, tortured and interned "counter-revolutionaries" for the last six years. Perhaps this makes the British state "progressive'.....
But of course the reason why British day:
the Provisionals is that for all their errors, tney are tne only organisation in Irelanc which has offered a sustained resistance to British imperialism and its army.
Yet even the role of that army is confused by Mac Giolla. He writes: *The British Government represents the actions of the British army as peace Now a wowe certain v be news to Brigadier Kitson, the chief theoretician of the British army, who labelled his Irish campaign as 'counter-insurgency; certainly news to those who witnessed "Bloody Sunday'; certainly news to those thousands of Irish people who have been By ESTHER RANCID • LAVATORIES FOR WHITES •PRETORIA to be white by night.' It might sound incredible, but that's aparneid s latest ittle scheme. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph last Thurs "Building will start next April of hostels to house 26,000 to 30,000 Black Afri cans miles outside Pretoria the South African capital, so that the city can be "white by night". The scheme will cost millions of pounds and is due to be com• pieted py 19os. cach noster will accom modate about 1,000 men.
'All Blacks who are not considered officially to be key workers in the White area-such as those in hotels, hospitals, old people's homes, blocks of flats-will be affected. Under the plan White house. noiders will aiso lose their comestic servants at night.
What do the Blacks think about this Well, the director of the Central Bantu Affairs Administration Board was report ed as saying that 'it was difficult to consult with the Blacks about the condition: of their settlements because they were not an organised group. ny is that, wonder!
The interests of a group vital to Britain's future were preserved a few weeks ago by the prompt action of the Secretary of state tor une environment reter snore. Asked to approve a compulsory purchase order made by Durham County Council to provide a site for gypsies, he refused on the grounds of 'the proximity of the order land to land used for training valuable racehorses' (Planning, 2 July). Pity those gypsies nave nownere to stay, thougn **** But they aren't the only ones. A land worker, nis eignt monts pregnant wire ano neir two-vear-old son are about to be evicted from a tent in Suffolk-because it nas been erected on counci owned ang They have already been evicted from squats four times since moving to the area in search of work. In desperation, David Keating finally tried to make a home for his family in a shelter of blankets and sheets in a wood. The Red Cross then came up with a tent. But now Forest Heath District Council says it must evict them because 'a dwelling has been erected on council land without permission".
Strange, isn't it, how the public are always the last to benefit from what is supposedly public property?