On this, the 87th anniversary of the Irish Citizen Army marching into the streets of Dublin to set an example for the working class of Europe then engaged in fratricidal war against one another, to free Ireland of its long oppression and occupation, and to bring to birth an Irish Socialist Republic, I am proud to bring greetings from the comrades, supporters, and friends of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement in England, Scotland, Canada, the United States, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, and Australia. From around the world, your comrades join you in commemorating this important anniversary, the memory of the martyrs of the struggle for national liberation and socialism in Ireland, and a commitment to continue on for the liberation of the Irish nation and its working people.

For decades the government of Britain and that of the United States, as well as the corporate media of the ruling class, have lectured Irish republicans and the Irish people in general on the evils of the gun in politics. They have shaken their heads, wagged their fingers, furrowed their brows and denounced the use of armed warfare to achieve political aims. They called those who participated in the national liberation struggle "criminals." They labelled Irish republicans as terrorist, monsters, barbarians. They murmured about the "men of violence" and condemned us as blood-thirsty. Britain and the United States made these pronouncements over and over again.

For the past couple of months the government of Britain and that of the United States have transformed the nation of Iraq into a slaughterhouse.

They have turned its cities into rubble. They have littered its landscape with cluster bombs, both detonated and unexploded, still waiting to maim and murder. They have destroyed the countries infrastructure, starved its people, allowed hospitals and schools to be looted and burned. US soldiers stood by and did nothing as the relics of 7,000 years of the collective history of human civilization were stolen from the museum in Baghdad. Why should they care? What do they know of civilization?

The corporate media of the ruling class has cheered on this carnage. The media were "embedded" with the US military during this war, though they have been in bed with imperialism for far, far longer than that. Those reporters who refused to confine themselves to Anglo-American imperialist propaganda and lies were told their safety couldn't be guaranteed by the invading armies, then they shot and wounded, or even killed some of them.

Afghanistan, Iraq, perhaps next Syria or Iran, perhaps Venezuela or Korea--the British and American imperialists, who so long lectured the Irish people on the use of force, are bombing and shooting, leaving a trail of blood and devastation. They won't send in a single soldier until they have bombed the nations they claim to me liberating into near oblivion, cowards and butchers that they are. The blood of half a million Iraqi children who died from the 12-year long sanctions on Iraq and the blood of the thousands more killed and wounded in the orgy of violence they unleashed against that nation stain their hands and they cannot be made clean again by lies about "liberation" and myths of "weapons of mass destruction".

While the sovereignty of Iraq was violated and ripped apart, the sovereignty of Ireland was surrendered by an Irish government who would criminally violate their own constitution to allow war to be waged from Shannon airport by the very imperialists who still militarily occupy six counties of Ireland and who continue to hold most of the nation's wealth.

While these imperialists bombed Iraqi cities and murdered Iraqi civilians while occupying that nation, there were those in Ireland who moved ever closer to turning over the weapons which have provided a means of self-defense to the occupied Ireland. While the imperialist media spoke of "liberation" and hid the bloody reality of occupation, others continued to whitewash an ongoing occupation and its brutal repression in Ireland. While Irish republicans were told by George W. Bush, president of a foreign country, how they must behave to be admitted to the community of the world's nations, Bush and Blair ignored the opinions of the vast majority of those nations and a large section of their own citizens in waging a unilateral, criminal invasion in opposition to the United Nations and in violation of international law.

We have no more patience for such arrogance and hypocrisy. We must not seek agreements with governments whose words are but nothing more than lies. We must not put our faith and our fortune in the hands of thugs, liars, and hypocrites. We should reject the council of those who murder children and disregard the entire history of the advance of human civilization. Ireland doesn't need "liberation" such as that seen in Iraq, but a genuine liberation which places both the wealth and the power within society in the hands of the majority of its citizens, the working people of Ireland.

At Easter each year we think of it as the anniversary of the 1916 Rising, but there is another story associated with this holiday that provides an especially good metaphor for Ireland today. Comrades, I don't consider myself a Christian, I more tend to vacillate between atheism and animism (though I know somewhere there's a note in a file with me down as an "RC"), but even I can see that the powerful of today remain bent on destroying those who think the poor shall inherit the earth; that there are still those here today who are all too prepared to sell out Ireland and its people for their 30 pieces of silver; that without a doubt, Ireland's bravest and most dedicated women and men have been crucified; and that while it may not happen in three days time, you can be certain that the people of Ireland will rise again.

As fitting as the tale is as a metaphor for Ireland today, I would advocate one important change in its message. Let me say plainly, the day is long past for turning the other cheek.

There are only two choices for humanity today and those are socialism or barbarism--the kind of barbarism witnessed so recently in Iraq. The working class is the last hope for the survival of human civilization in the world today and we will not be dragged back into the dark caves of our ancestors. Our class created every penny of the wealth that exists today. It is we who operate every farm and factory, every mine and office, every boat and train, every airport and transit line. We staff the hospitals in which we're born; staff the schools that we are raised in; operate the post offices, the dole offices, the movie theaters and the stores. We cook the food, clean the rooms, pave the street, drive the lorries, bake the bread, and dig the graves into which we will all eventually be lain. With the exception of the inequity, oppression, and want, everything you see around you is the work of our class.

Let us rise now and take what is ours!

Forward to a 32-County Irish Workers' Republic!

STATEMENT ENDS