Peadar
O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum.
This
month a group of socialist and republican activists from a variety of
backgrounds throughout Ireland came together in Dublin to establish the Peadar
O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum. The concept of the forum arose from a
series of seminars that in turn had their origin in a symposium on
“Republicanism in the Twenty-First Century” hosted by the Communist Party in
September last year.
The aim
of the forum is to promote the ideas of socialist republicanism, as best
expressed by James Connolly, Liam Mellows, and Peadar O’Donnell. The forum is
named after Peadar O’Donnell in recognition of his outstanding role as a union
organiser, republican soldier, author, enemy of fascism, friend of the worker
and small farmer, committed socialist, and lifelong activist for peace and
against imperialism.
At a time
when our people are being ground down daily by the brutalities of the bankrupt
capitalist system and the inability of the two failed states in Ireland to
provide any solution to their problems, the Peadar O’Donnell Forum believes
that the time has come for a decisive break with the present system—or, as
Connolly so memorably put it, to set about the reconquest of Ireland.
All
Ireland is under the domination of global capitalism and imperialism, which
exercises its control through the machinery of the European Union and IMF, the
direct intervention of the British state, and overt and covert US influence.
This control is exercised at every level and in every area of
life—economically, socially, politically, ideologically, culturally, and
environmentally—and is welcomed, endorsed and facilitated by the domestic
capitalist class, north and south, who have long ago given up any thought of
creating a society
that
would “cherish all the children of the nation equally.”
Our
children emigrate in their tens of thousands, while their parents labour
ever-longer hours for lower wages—not to maintain jobs, health, education and
essential social services for the people but to sacrifice those to further bolster the
obscene wealth and protect the super-profits of global finance
capital, the source and cause of the crisis.
The
Peadar O’Donnell Forum believes that ways and means must be found to challenge
this reality, to devise and develop campaigns and policies that take account of
all these factors and that mobilise the people to take control of their own
destiny and bypass corrupt politicians and the failed systems that they
represent and to set about building a 32-county
socialist
republic.
Towards
this end, the forum has set itself the initial task of organising a number of
seminars around the country, which can provide an opportunity for those who
subscribe to the principles of the forum to come together and discuss the application
of socialist republican ideas to the problems that confront us. It is also
intended to publish the papers from the original seminars.
Support
for these ventures is sought from all those who subscribe to the principles
underpinning the forum and those that reflect the debates and discussion
that have
taken
place:
• active
opposition to the rule of imperialism in Ireland, whether exercised through the
diktats of the European Union and IMF over Dáil Éireann and through the British
state and its client assembly in Belfast;
• support
for the maintenance and protection of Irish neutrality, and solidarity with all
those struggling against imperialism for peace, independence, and social
progress;
• recognition
of the essentially anti capitalist nature of our struggle: capitalism cannot
and will not solve our problems;
• understanding
that change can be brought about only by people themselves, in the first place
by actively defending their immediate interests but more importantly by
confronting and defeating this system and the forces and structures that defend
it;
• accepting
that, in the conditions existing in Ireland today, there is no place for
militarism or the use of armed force and that the continued recourse to
violence is harmful to the development and furthering of mass politics, playing
into the hands of those who are
opposed
to Irish independence and unity;
• believing
that our vision of a united socialist Ireland can be brought about only by the
unity in action of the people, north and south, Catholic, Protestant, and
Dissenter; this necessitates active opposition to all forms of sectarianism and
racism and the promotion of equality at all levels of society;
• recognition
of the centrally important role of the trade union movement, uniting as it does
within its ranks half a million workers of all religions and none, north and
south, in public and in private sector employment; it must be won for active
resistance to the current austerity and a return to the radical policies of
Connolly and Larkin.
Finally,
we strongly affirm our
belief that the unity we seek is fundamentally a unity of the people and not
merely the territorial integrity of the island.
Contacts
Tommy Mc
Kearney 087 239 0750
Hugh
Corcoran 0044 77 06391 728
(Belfast)
Eugene Mc
Cartan 087 7525051
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