Fifty years ago this week, following the so-called ‘Apprentice Boys’ march on August 12, 1969, the Bogside area of Derry, which is an overwhelmingly Catholic area, was attacked by Protestant bigots, assisted by the sectarian-based ‘B-Special’ police force. The working class community of the Bogside had prepared, however, and they threw up barricades and resisted the assault on their community for five days. They resisted with sticks, stones and home-made petrol bombs.
John Throne, who was an active member of the Young Socialists in Strabane in Northern Ireland, and who participated (with scores of other Young Socialist members) in the defence of the Bogside, recently published a book, We’ll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet. In it, he described the invasion of the Bogside. The Bogside uprising, was no “skirmish”, he wrote. “Thousands of people participated, over 1000 people were injured in the fighting. Over 350 police sustained serious injuries. The Battle of the Bogside, as it came to be known, was a real mass uprising.”
During these August days, sectarian battles were also initiated in parts of Belfast and the violence showed no signs of dying down. It was as a result of their complete inability to cope with these events and the growing sectarianism that the British Government sent troops into Northern Ireland, where they were to stay for three decades. Although the so-called ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland have been cast in an almost entirely sectarian light, we can see from this bulletin that the Derry Young Socialists saw the events in clear class terms and they resisted as far as it was possible the slide into sectarian conflict that followed. We are reproducing here the ‘Barricades Bulletin’ that was produced and distributed in Derry during the fighting:
What are we defending?
We are defending the homes in the predominantly Catholic working-class area of Bogside and Creggan against either organised sectarian at the hands of the RUC or semi-organised sectarian terror at the hands of the Specials and Protestant workers who should know better.
This is why the barricades are up. The barricades must stay up until we are sure we are all safe from the state-controlled terror or victimisation.
We are not defending the social conditions of the people in the area, the low wages, unemployment, bad housing, etc.
In fact the greater part of our fight is the fight against these conditions.
Just because the barricades have to be erected around the Catholic area of Bogside doesn’t mean we believe in Catholic power, this would provide no solution to our problems. People in Protestant areas have a perfect right to defend themselves if they feel they are going to be attacked by Catholic bigots.
No-one should believe that the replacement of Stormont by Direct Rule from Westminster will provide us with jobs or houses or decent wages.
What is needed is to build a party that can defeat the Unionist Government. This would need to be a Labour Party with massive Trade Union backing, and fighting for a minimum wage, equal pay for women and working youth, and also a planned, socialist economy, which would be able to supply a decent house, job and wage for all.
Working class unity in a Labour Party on this programme will provide the only real and lasting solution to the rule of sectarian terror and the terrorist rule of rent, profit and interest.
Unionists out! Build Labour Party now!
On the special edition of Panorama tonight, a number of prominent people discussed the situation at great length. At the end of it the chairman said, “we don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”
And we weren’t because the central point was being ignored by everyone – that it is no longer a question of reform or the pace of reform which is at issue. It is the whole basis of this State which has to be called into question.
No Unionist Government will ever again peacefully send its police force into this area. That is obvious. As the article above points out, direct rule from Westminster solves nothing. The incorporation of the 6 counties into the 26 would only happen via bloodshed, and would in any rate in no way help solve our economic problems – indeed in many ways these would get worse.
The whole system of economic and political organisation will have to be changed – both North and South. We need a movement of solidarity in the South, which fights for us by fighting against the Fianna Fail regime. Only thus can we convince the vast majority of Protestant people that we are not asking them to join the Free State as it stands.
The most cursory study of the history of Ireland in this century demonstrates that British troops are not here to help protect us, the Free State army will do nothing to help us, and no Unionist government can give us what we want. So we should stop fooling ourselves.
SMASH THE UNIONIST GOVERNMENT!
NO TRUST IN TORIES!
FORWARD TO THE WORKERS’ REPUBLIC!
August 10, 2019
John Throne’s book, We’ll Take a Cup of Kindness Up, can be obtained here
