(The results of the phone poll were 61% for the statue to stay and 31% sectarian bigots for it to be removed.)
The Irish Republican Socialist Party while welcoming the results of the phone poll that was carried in Friday's edition of the Derry Journal wish to express reservations on the fact that a phone poll was used at all. Although we did have reservations on the fact that this serious issue was trivialised and we have concerns that at no time were any of the volunteers families or our views sought to in relation to running this poll, in fact we didn't even know that any such poll was going to be run until it appeared in the paper, we do nonetheless welcome the fact that the majority of callers expressed their opinion that the statue must stay. We never doubted that for one minute as all right thinking people would agree with our view that, as Republican Socialists, we should have an equal place in this society. Therefore as equals, we have the right to remember our fallen comrades in the INLA as legitimate soldiers who took up arms to fight a war. The logic should follow that if they fought a war and died in that war then we have a right to remember them in a war memorial. Although the results may be described as a victory for the Republican Socialist Movement, the over-riding factor is that this phone poll trivialised a very sensitive issue. The fact that the vast majority voted for the statue to stay could be described an irrelevance. The statue would not be moved no matter what the outcome of this poll. Considering the sensitivities surrounding this issue at present and the high feelings of offence towards dead volunteers families caused by the likes of Gregory Campbell and Mary Bradley this was a most inopportune issue to run in a trivialised phone poll. Mary Bradley claimed last week that memorials such as this were not allowed under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. We must remind her that the IRSP is not a signatory of that agreement as we see it as something that actually promotes sectarianism. |