SPEAKING RECENTLY at the Black Delegation to the Mining Communities freedom fighter BERNADETTER McALISKEY highlighted the connection Ireland and the events of the miners' reproduce below an edite version of her speech. GM IT seems to those of us in Ireland that we don't have all have a British problem. In Irish problem', we fact, for 15 years been trying to explain that if British people do not address themselves to that problem as it manitests itself in then as sure as night follows days that problem would creep up upon them, they would find themselves unable to face it here either.
The inability of the leadership of the union movement in Britain to see the wood for the trees and stand solidly support of their comrades the total bankruptcy of the in the face LADONNY of the assault on the minerst hey, han't know shows the truth of what to They didn't know principle from col laboration.
They have had years of collaborating with British imperialism, 4110 thev've backed themselves into a corner and don't know the way out of it.
There is one thing that we clearly understand, because it's from our point of view, the case for British withdrawal. The very first simple and straightforward we have to make is that the most fundamental reason withdraw from Ireland is Should Follows all Britain's pro- there. that blems.
Not just for the past 15 years, but the past 800, Ireland has been exploited so that other people could make money. 1o continue to try to justify what is fundamentally wrong propagate it to your own people as something that is right - is crucitying but must of necessity also crucitv and distort the thinking, the rationale, the ability of that Irish between repression in strike. We Until recognises that it will never COMe LO IS with that which prevents its progress Inlal 1s, historic racism of the towards the West Indian class be it towards the community, the black or the Irish community, or to people who play football and come from a different country than they do.
It is the root-cause of violence, the root-cause of It comes from the assumpworld and those parts that Lildi the make British deserom the door.
the that Mother England set her big flat foot in our country we have known better, and resisted and been determined to get her out of it. Because that big foot prevents our acyclopment, our our peaceful existence.
Most people in this country don't see it like that, but maybe now people in ine mining communities do, because they have learned the hard school of experience what is the problem FOR A NEW RO Bernadette McAliskey we can see the wood for the trees.
At the time of World War I the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Citizen Army. under the leadership of James Connolly organised an armed resistance. They decided fight die freedom of small nations, yourself the fare to Flanders.
By the end of World War I when Britain held elections 85 per cent of the Irish people voted for Irish They voted for response to the will of the people expressed peacefully legitimately LIONS the ballot box - was to send gun-boats up the Liffey, declare war on Ireland. At the end of that war Ireland was partitioned. and the is per cent ot the national minority have SUGA against It's not that we don't do things through normal political channels. We do. We get these bursts every now and again of trying the normal political channels once again.
But every time we win through the normal channels, the eleventh commandment of the British ruling class is: fair means or foul we will "Thou shalt not win. still allow you to lose' We started campaigning peacefully within the democratic channels. They changed the law to make our civil rights movement and the things we were doing illegal. So we went to prison.
It got to be a farce. Hundreds of people were queuing up for threemonth sentences. Things were getting out of hand. So we had internment, peculiarly British phenomenon.
Terrorism doesn't mean terror. It means any act carried out by those who are opposed to the establishment. Miners going on strike is terrorism.
Miners frighten scabs. Black peoorganising against racist attack frighten racists. But it's somehow not terrorism if people are taken to police stations terrorised. That's reasonable use of force to protect the country against terrorism.
It has come to the point witte peopie In Lnis coll try have got to face reality.
of the British have taken every democratic 'ight that we hac In the Tamil refugees recently arrived in Britain