Hedley Derry Boy

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-3-944203-80-5
Verlag: Lola Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 262 Seiten

Described by the right-wing media as 'the most dangerous man in Britain' because of his uncompromising socialist views, Steve Hedley, born in Derry (Ireland), tells the story of a massacre in his hometown and other significant events that shaped his ideology. Steve shares his memories of the hunger strikes, the poll tax, his participation in militant antifascism and trade unionism which led him to be elected to second in command of the RMT union. He explores the limitations of trade unionism and advocates a return to class politics tied to environmental and global socialist goals. This is an exciting thought-provoking book which sparks a debate about the state of the left in Britain and the necessity of employing the power of the working class to combat catastrophic climate change and war.

Steve Hedley, born in Derry (Ireland), is a militant antifascist and trade unionist. He had been elected to second in command of the RMT union.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hedley, Steve

Leseproben

1 BOGSIDE “BRED”

People were crowding into my Granny’s hallway wearing handkerchiefs over their faces to protect from the CS gas which stung the eyes and choked every man, woman and child in the Bogside. I could smell the terror, people were screaming and panicking, crying uncontrollably and then the unimaginable happened and my Granny swore. Those words are seared into my mind “Jesus Christ, the bastards”. I was gobsmacked: Granny Mc Laughlin never swore, she was always scolding people who swore, including my Granda who would push the envelope and say “buck” when he had the backing of a few Guinnesses. Granny was a staunch Catholic and had that old-school, working-class sense of respectability, demanding we all say the rosary every night and never ever swearing. This was strange indeed. The living room became packed as people gathered around the Radio Rentals black and white TV, jostling to get a view of the latest reports of the atrocity. It seemed every few minutes more people were being reported murdered by the British army as the world’s media gathered in Derry that day to report on a civil rights march. The Brits couldn’t cover this up like they had Ballymurphy or several other massacres of civilians; “Bloody Sunday” as it became known was broadcast across the world exposing the vicious brutality of the murderous British state for all to see. I was three and a half years old, and this was one of my earliest memories.

I lived in Creggan about ten minutes’ walk from Granny’s and already hated the Brits. They killed my budgie by firing CS gas indiscriminately into the flats where we lived. In retrospect, their actions were pure counterproductive sadism, they achieved nothing but to engender more hatred. They stopped people in the street and humiliated them, sometimes beating them, sometimes arresting and torturing them for weeks and months at a time. Night-time raids were frequent as people were turfed out of bed in the early hours, their houses ransacked, furniture smashed, property stolen and if there were any young men in the house, arrests and subsequent beatings frequently took place. We hated them, the whole community hated them, and they hated us back.

Shortly after Bloody Sunday, we moved to Tyrconnell street two doors away from Granny’s and with the other kids or wains as we were known I often stood guard at the barricade at the top of the street, which was meant to keep the army out of “Free Derry”, the autonomous zone that had sprung up after the battle of the Bogside. When army Landrovers and pigs made incursions into our area we threw stones, bottles, and anything else we could get our hands on, this was often accompanied by the cacophony of women banging bin lids to alert IRA volunteers, who we idolised as our only protectors, that the Brits were about.

These were heady times, the Catholic population of the Bogside and the whole of the occupied six counties of Ireland had risen up after over forty years of oppression, discrimination in jobs, housing and even voting rights. Inspired by the Civil Rights movement in the United States, young activists like Bernadette Devlin and Eamonn McCann with their comrades in people’s democracy had effectively broken the stranglehold of the ultra-conservative Nationalist party, with their brand of Marxism based on empowering the community and self-organisation. The orange state had reacted to peaceful protest by attempting to, quite literally, beat people into submission, with the sectarian police force and orange mobs setting upon the mainly student contingents: Mere girls and boys who dared protest institutional anti-Irish racism were beaten to a pulp.

It is worth giving a whistle stop tour of Irish history to understand how we got to this situation where Catholics and progressives were systemically discriminated against and beaten off the streets for the most reasonable demands. “British rights for British citizens”, yes, seriously that was one of the demands of the Civil Rights movement.

Ireland’s English problem began in the 12th century with the Norman Invasion, which initiated centuries of Irish resistance to rule from England and resulted in Irish rule throughout most of the country, except an area around Dublin known as the Pale. In 1541 Henry 8th declared himself King of Ireland. In order to maintain control, Henry initiated a plantation of English settlers in Irelands. Irish people were dispossessed of their lands, and this was given to the settlers.

King James 1st led a far larger plantation in Ulster, which was by far the most rebellious province, by bringing in thousands of Protestant settlers from Scotland and England between 1606 and 1609, forcefully taking the best land away from Catholics and giving it to the newcomers. This ensured that the settlers who had benefited by the immiseration of the native population, and divided from them by religious difference, would be loyal to the crown in order to maintain their stolen lands and privileges.

Resistance continued and Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland between 1649 and 1651, driving Catholics out of Ulster, Munster and Leinster, and banishing them to Connaught on pain of death. “To hell or Connaught” was not a slogan but a terrifying reality for Irish Catholics. The Penal laws outlawed Catholic priests and clergy and forbade Catholics from higher education, professions and owning land. By 1778 Catholics held only around 5% of the land in Ireland.

In 1789, Theobald Wolfe Tone, one of the leaders of the United Irishmen, the fathers of Irish Republicanism, who were almost exclusively Protestant, led a rebellion to end British rule.

The Famine (1845–1851) saw the genocide of Irish people, mainly Catholics, with 2 million starving to death or forced to flee the country whilst the English were helping themselves to thousands of tonnes of Irish grain and massive amounts of cattle and other livestock. Various other rebellions took place, all unsuccessful, with Irish resistance vacillating between armed resistance and constitutional parliamentarianism.

The 1916 Easter Rising and the subsequent murder of its leaders saw nationalist sympathies multiply to such an extent that in 1918 Sinn Fein won the vast majority of parliamentary seats in Ireland. The years 1919 to 1921 saw the Irish Republican Army wage a War of Independence. This led to the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 which saw the Irish Free State emerge in 26 counties, while Northern opted out. The Free State became the Republic of Ireland in the 1940s and was formally recognized by the United Nations.

From its inception Northern Ireland was to be “a Protestant state for a Protestant people”. Its institutionalized discrimination against Catholics, was designed deliberately and transparently to protect Protestant supremacy. The choice of a six county statelet with an inbuilt Protestant majority was meant to ensure unchallenged domination for generations. It also engendered a siege mentality where paranoia was fed to gain political advantage for ambitious politicians.

Easter 1966 was the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916 which ultimately led to 26 counties of Ireland gaining their freedom from British rule. The commemorations were very much a peaceful affair celebrated with parades and marches. One exception was the blowing up of a statue of Admiral Nelson in Dublin. The IRA was in mothballs after a disastrous border campaign in the 1950s and posed no military threat to Britain. This did not prevent unionist paranoia growing, given voice by the demagogic Reverend Ian Paisley, a Protestant bigot who was virulently anti-Catholic. Paisley and other extremists set up the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee (UCDC) which had a paramilitary wing, the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV), to defend Protestant supremacy.

Paisley distrusted the Northern Ireland Premier, Terrence O’Neill, whose views he deemed far too liberal. Paisley and his acolytes’ wild rhetoric had really appalling consequences as a new Loyalist terrorist group styling itself as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF, after an organisation created in 1912 to oppose Home Rule) was founded in the staunchly loyalist Shankill road in Belfast. The UVF was led by Gusty Spence, an ex British soldier, and although it was relatively small, many of its members were also part of Paisley’s UPV. The UVF unleashed a campaign of terror against Catholics, burning down houses, businesses, and even Catholic schools. A UVF petrol bomb attack killed an elderly Protestant lady, Matilda Gould. The terrorist attacks escalated with the murder of John Scullion, a Catholic who had no political connections. The murderous sectarian atrocities continued with three Catholics shot by the UVF as they came out of a pub, one of them, Peter Ward, being murdered in the process. The UVF were banned in Britain and Ireland after this cowardly murder.

At the same time the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association were campaigning to end discrimination against Catholics in jobs, housing and voting and to reform the sectarian RUC, a police force that was less than 10% Catholic, and routinely brutalised the Catholic community using the Special Powers Act to jail people without crime or trial.

Protestant politicians explicitly wanted to preserve Protestant privilege and their paranoia was inflamed by NICRA who they saw as a Republican front. Some Republicans were NICRA members, but they were small numerically in the organisation and not influential in its decision making.

An important event occurred on 24th August 1968,...