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| Sinn Fein and Le Pen national | miscellaneous | news report  Thursday May 16, 2002 03:10 by Con Lee - Saor Eire Nationalism and ignorance By comparing Sinn Fein to Le Pen, Ruairi Quinn conflates the anti-imperialism of the republican movement with the ultra-nationalism of European imperialism. He shows his ignorance of Irish history and the deep, organic connection to that history of Irish republicanism, especially its struggle on behalf of those dispossessed by the genocidal depradations of English imperialism. To-day the Travelling people in Kerry have publicly supported Martin Ferris. The racist Immigration Platform has singled out Sinn Fein for criticism because of Sinn Fein's support for refugees and immigrants. Fat-cat Quinn purports to lead a 'Labour' Party, but his ignorant remarks show that the republican movement is the true repository of the radical, republican, socialist anti-imperialism of James Connolly, whilst Quinn and his party are on the side of the propertied, possessing, priveleged class,- to which Quinn himself belongs.
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Comments (26 of 26)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26Who was hanging around with the capitalist fat cats in new york not too long ago?
The great "revolutionary" politician gerry thats who!
Well said Tony. The great anti-imperialists have no problem being part of the Queen's sovereign government of Northern Ireland, taking it's queen's salaries and sitting in Stormont (NEVER! - remember) and demanding offices and payment from Westminster.
Sinn Fein are nationalists - not republicans and certainly not socialists. The likes of Peter King wouldn't touch them with a bargepole if he thought otherwise.
Don't kid yourself, Con Lee. SF is a far right nationalist party who only dresses up the differences between them and le Pen with woolly sounding lefty language that makes them seem more acceptable. You of course also will note they are the richest party in Ireland so your idea of who are the fat cats ill-informed to say the least.
Well said Tony.
sinn fein are clearly far left, read their leaflets and listen to their concillours and leaders. As for being the richest party? wrong. they received the largest amount of corporate political donations in this financial year.
Big difference.
Fianna Gael recieved no corporate donations whatsoever, and are hardly the poorest party.
P.S. you dont have to be banckrupt to be left wing.
I know SF all too well, they may be new to some folks in the south but their far left rhetoric is just that, rhetoric to get votes. They are a far right party, extreme nationalists and if you vote for them you get what you deserve.
By the way you are very naive about their financial health.
You say that SF received the largest amount of corporate political donations in this financial year. Can you explain how corporate donations fit into your left wing politics? Does funding from Coca Cola balance out the connections with drug runners FARC?
If a party stands on a platform of increased health spending, tolerance to immigrants and minorites and has stood shoulder to shoulder with anti-imperialist groups around the world I think they desevre to be called turely Left-wing.
Could you people possible get off your middle class ultra-Left bangwagon and get behind a movement how many actually bring change to this country.
Of course Sinn Fein are not perfect but that's the real world and not your cosay liberal fantasy.
also Lar Kin to I sense a bit of supposed oppersion superoity complex leaking into your diatribe.
Contrast their promises in the south to how they run things in the north and you may begin to understand how full of shite they are.
Oppression superiority complex? That went over my little working class head you will have to explain it to me.
Good article Con,
Ruari Quinn is a laughing stock, left wing Labour ? I don't think so. More interested in fat salaries and position rather than representing working class demands for a fairer education, tax and health system. I guarantee you won't see Mr. Angry from Sandymount queing in the casualty ward awaiting attention.
Good luck to the Shinners on Friday, the views of the those three stooges above are typical of the usual ignorant begrudgers and should be ignored.
It doesn't matter how many coats Ruari wraps around him(Labour/Democratic Left/Workers party) looking for an identity, he needs to start establishing relevant left leaning policies that he won't barter at the drop of a hat for a government ministry.
Is Mise,
Ruari Quinn is pissing in his pants at the prospect of SF taking overt as the main party of the urban working class.
SF and the Greens are the only parties with TDs who have consistently supported the rights of reugees. In many cases SF activists have intervened personally to assist immigrant families receiving hassle. Quinn's claims are pure claumny - slander. From the labour party, who tighetened border controls and signed the Dublin Convention!
Fuck you!
Look SF are a broad church they contain within their party people with strong socialist views and other who hold quite right wing views. The leadership of sinn fein are following a 2 fold strategy in ireland. UP north they are trying to present a stable party of goverment image hence we have seen their commitment to PFI especially in the area of health and education. (much to the anger of some of their members who can quite rightly ask 'did our boys die for this'They stay with SF because of the legacy of british imperalism) While in the south they present a left image talking about taxing the rich, more funding for services, welcomming refugees. While at the same time pushing the irish language. I think we must essentially for the moment see SF in the south as a leftish party, but remember if they get in coalition with FF or anybody esle, their pro business side will come to the fore.
I write this post on the Dublin Sinn Féin computer. It's five years old and our internet access was cut off last week as we hadn't paid the bill. There is one computer and phone between five people working here full-time on the election.
We can't afford full colour posters of our candidates, we can't afford billboards, we can't afford bus advertisements. In short, we're not the richest party in Ireland. Not even close. Our books will be open after this election as will everyone elses and the information will be clear.
We do raise a lot of money in the States, a lot of it from working class Americans, but the bulk of our money, the overwhelming bulk is raised in working class areas in Ireland and by working class people using collections, social functions, the almost endless streams of raffles, selling Republican merchandise, by our TD(s) and Assembly members and MPs paying the majority of their wages (They only take average industrial wage) into the party.
If Irish people who emigrated and made good want to put some money back I'm not going to turn them down and I'm sure as Hell not going to change party policy for them. We opposed, and continue to oppose the 'War on Terror'. We have maintaned our links with Cuba, Basque separatists, Turkish hunger strikes, Kurds, Palestinians etc. in the face of their wishes that we do otherwise. I do not suggest other parties and organisations do not have similar links, merely to confirm that we have them too.
If the micro-left had any real support in working class communities they would be able to emulate us but clearly they have failed to effect change in working class areas and to build the base we are in the process of building.
I am a socialist and I am proud to be a member of Sinn Féin, as are most Sinn Féin members. I agree with one poster who made the point that we are a broad church. I'm not going to claim every member of Sinn Féin has ploughed his or her way through Marx or quotes Connolly in COnways but the overwhelming majority, North and South, grassroots and leadership, make up the only viable force for radical and progressive change in Ireland and it is for this we will be rewarded for on Friday.
We're not the Irish version of Le Pen. We're the only people who can stop such a thing.
Your dedication is to be admired. However, do not be surprised when SF drops yet more of their principles to get votes - mark my words and remember. The words may be dressed in warm cuddly lefty language but they are Ireland's le Pen. The leadership you follow will betray you yet.
My dedication is no more than most other republicans and, indeed, probably most other people posting to this forum. As for your prediction, I've heard so many such thigns i no longer pay attention. For almost three years I have been told again and again by the micro-left about our plan to go into coalition with FF and, three years later, I see no such thing.
I've been a member of Sinn Féin for seven years and have been involved at every level of our Dublin organisation and in a variety of other national and international aspects of our work. I flatter myself that I know my party and the republican community I am a part of very well. So, while your analysis is noted, and stored away with the similar turgid prose that appears in the Socialist Worker, whose obsession with us is more than a little disturbing, I strongly doubt its accuracy.
If you are posting on the Dublin SF office computer, and the internet access was cut off a week ago because you had not paid the bills, how are you able to post from the Dublin SF office?
Also I hope the forgetfulness towards paying bills is not an indication of things to come when SF takes office. -smile-
SF and the Greens are not the only parties to support refugees and combat racism. The Socialist Party have been prominent in protests against deportations and in fighting against racism. We should, despite our political differences, co-operate in the struggle against racism.
You are an insult to the mans name. Of course there will be right and Left in a nationalist movement but Sinn Fein are now trying to get beyond that, like the PUP, and more power to them.
Vote for Left wing LABOUR if they are in your area then Sinn Fein.
JOE COSTELLO NO 1
Don't tell me there's ANOTHER splinter group?
i have been a Shinner all my life, and i am quite surpised to learn that i am actually a far-right winger! so, for that matter, would ANYONE who has ever known me. I've seen Sinn Fein demonised plenty in the past, mostly for having the nerve not to support the (capitalist) status quo-but this insult is simply too much for me to bear. I will be pro-active in my response-when i stop pissing myself laughing, i will have a pint and marvel at the sheer creativity (although rather pathetic, really) of the Anti-Shinners. thanx for the chuckle, Lar Kin, if you ever decide to buy a clue, i will be happy to donate!
i suppose SF supporting 500 euro a year in sligo for the bin tax is against the status quo
Perhaps not, having the best record of any political organisation or party against the Bin Charges in Dublin though, most certainly is. Certainly it is a lot more effective than SWP members standing outside with their all-purpose placard, a vague look in their eye and the sheep like repetition of meaningless slogans shouted by whichever loudspeaker wielding member is considered the most imaginative sloganiser while the more devout and less politically educated wander about pushing their literature with all the enthusiasm of a junkie on his first fix and with just as positive results. I wouldn't go so far as to say your opinion and party was completely meaningless but it's quite close.
The bin tax issue is important - it was not defeated in Dublin corporation by the Sinn Fein vote, so therefore this was a protest. It did pass in Sligo due to Sinn Fein support so this was their action.
Funding for our public service in the Republic will not be determined or even v. heavily influenced by the Sinn Fein policies - in the north it is and PFI is being introduced.
The list could go on - but it doesn't need to because we've been through this before in the South. When Fianna Fail entered the Dail, they were on ceasefire for a shorter time than the provisionals are currently. They came in with a fairly radical agenda (Catholic but economically radical) which did see a lot of state companies being set up. But they gradually morphed into the party we have today and in the meantime flirted with corporatism and at least two cults of the personality type leadership.
This is why people are nervous about Sinn Fein - the quality and commitment of many of the activists does give hope that they will be an agent for change.
SF voting for the bin tax in sligo shows that their opposition to it in Dublin is for electoral reasons. After the election who knows what they will do. And in any case their opposition to the bin tax has almost completely been confined to party building activity rather then trying to build a broad movement. Rather then distribute litreature by the Dublin campaign that have chosen to distribute SF anti bin tax litreature for instance (although there may be exceptions to this that I'm not aware of).
However voing Labour, SP or SWP is no alternative to this. It only means hoping these other organisations are going to be more honest. The only alternative is building independent organisations in communites, unions etc that are not tied to any one political party. Otherwise your forever looking at moving from one to the next as success brings 'betrayal'.
Our opposition in Dublin was not motivated by electoral reasons but by Sinn Féin policy which is to oppose the introduction of Bin Charges. This remains party policy and such policy can only be changed at Ard Fhéiseanna. And yes, I am aware of the decision by Sligo Sinn Féin to vote for estimates which include bin charges. This was a decision they made locally.
We prefer to distribute our own literature and run our own campaign in almost any circumstances. While Sinn Féin opposed and campaigned against the Nice Treaty, the Abortion referendum and the War in Afghanistan for example, we did so without allying ourselves with any movement or organisation claiming to be a broad front but by ourselves. This is as a result of bad experiences with certain groups and people in attempts to do so in the past. Frankly, we don't trust other people to do a proper job of it or not attempt to use any 'broad front' for their own reasons.
As for your suggestion that we build organisations in communities, we're doing it. We've been doing it for decades.
Justin thinks that Sligo Sinn Fein's decision to support estimates containing bin charges is OK because the decision was 'made locally'. What kind of logic is that?
Then there's last year's embarassment when two Provo Councillors didn't turn up to vote against the bin charges in Dublin. (Word is that a deal was done with the provos the Labour party and others to make the numbers right and save the council seats).
The provos are two faced and can't be trusted.
SF have the best record fighting the bin charges?
Give me a break. Do you honestly believe that? Ask anyone in Dublin two names they think would be associated with fighting the bin charges and I think you'll hear them mention Joe Higgins and Claire Daly. Do you know what party they are in? Of course you do but pulling the wool over peoples (even their own) eyes was never a problem for the opportunist Sinn Féin. Your record in Drogheda on bins is nearly as bad as your record in Sligo!
Tell me something, what about Barbre De Brúin's hospital closures? What about Martin McGuinness's refusal to pay holiday money to term time relief workers? Socialists my arse!