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Open Letter to International Revolutionary Socialist, Communists, Anarchists, Anti-Globalists, Anti-Capitalists, and Anti-Imperialists:
During William Jefferson Clinton's visit to Derry, North of Ireland, on Wednesday, 23 May 2001, Lord Mayor Cathal Crumley of Sinn Fein welcomed the former president of the United States. When Clinton gave his speech on the continued "peace process" on the stage in Guildhall Square in the middle of Derry, Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, shared the platform with the former president of the United States. In the audience stood anti-capitalists, anti-globalists, anti-imperialists, and members of the Irish Republican Socialist Party, holding placards and banners calling for an end to sanctions against Iraq, and calling for increased international pressure on the the brutal regime in Turkey, which has borne witness to a 200+ day death fast which has now claimed over 22 lives, especially symbolic to the Irish working class, now commemorating the 20th anniversary of the deaths of 10 brave volunteers on hunger strike in 1981. The party of mainstreamed republicanism, Sinn Fein, welcomed Clinton to Derry. The party of mainstreamed republicanism, Sinn Fein, shared a platform with Clinton. This is a clear and definite picture of the differences in ideology between Sinn Fein, long feted by the international Left, and the Irish Republican Socialist Party. Notwithstanding their actions in Derry on Wednesday, in word and in action, Sinn Fein has chosen to stand with the American war machine, with American imperialism, and with global capitalism, things to which the IRSP, historically, stand proudly in opposition. The IRSP stand proudly with fellow travellers calling for an end to sanctions on Iraq. The IRSP stand proudly with fellow travellers calling for the repudiation of the brutal Turkish regime. The IRSP stand proudly with fellow travellers who call on the release of American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier and former Black Panther/MOVE activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, both class prisoners locked deeply in the belly of the beast. The IRSP stand with fellow travellers calling on a complete and total cessation of U.S. military training on Vieques. In short, the IRSP stand proudly alongside the working class -- Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Basque, Breton, Cuban, Puerto Rican, African, Caribbean, Latin American -- because the IRSP is part of the working class, and the working class, as a class, is truly international. Our struggle is your struggle, and your struggle is our struggle. Up the working class!
Eric Hayes-Patkowski |