Irish anarchist and two nation theory

Can you distinguish between nationalism and actually existing nations. Ex-pats in Spain might be British nationalists, but they don't constitute a seperate nation in Spain. Are the Cornish a distinct nation because there are Cornish nationalists?

Well if you subscribe to one of the nationalisms then of course yes. But recognising that those nationalisms exist and condemning both is a different thing entirely.

In fairness revol talking shite on that thread and digging a hole for himself doesn't mean that its an Organise! position or analysis. ('officially' do organise have positions - i thought they just have their aims and principles)

But then maybe it is ...

I think I understand where the two nations theory comes from. Wasn't it first propagated by BICO, a Leninist (or Stalinist) group back in the 70s? They took the view that the "party" should support the national liberation struggles wherever they were and so ended up suppporting the unionists, correct me if I'm wrong.

To me it emphasized how stupid the whole Leninist support for national liberation was. They were just as logical as the SWP supporting (critically) the IRA.

However, there was also some logic, I think, to seeing Belfast as being essentially one of the northern industrial cites, the others including Manchester, Liverpool etc. Unionism did represent the class interests of the bourgoisie in the six counties, based on manufacturing and free trade. The bourgoisie in the rest of Ireland required protectionism. Hence two competing national interests.

There is, though, nothing logical in there being only one nation in any geographical area.

imho the answer is to look at the class interests of the working class and leave defining nations to the ruling class.

But it seems clear that your own opinion is that "IE as long as you need a passport it makes sense for the nationality of that passport to reflect the geographic location where you are born." unless both me and Devrim have completely misread your post.

My daughter was born in the UK, but her mum's Japanese - should she not be entitled to a Japanese passport? (actually after she's 21 she'll have to choose which one to have due to crazy Japanese laws but we're hoping that rule will disappear by then).

I'm not making an argument for removing passports from anyone, not even 3rd generation 'irish' americans.

This isn't a thread about passports but about 'nation' - I introduced the passport example as an illustration of a recent problem with cultural rather than location based systems. I probably should have been a bit clearer to prevent such uncharitable interpretations but just in case its not clear I'm not making an argument for removing passports from anyone. Can we drop this red herring now please.

i'd say the difference is that by discussing the reality of nationalisms there is no need to accept the premise of nations, any more than we accept the concept of a 'white race' when arguing the BNP. whereas to say 'two nations' means you are arguing there are two (ethno-cultural-whateverally) incompatible groups of people in one land, which is clearly reactionary.

Yes fine, I can just think of hundreds of scenarios where strict geographical criteria would be a nightmare - like a long holiday.

Yep this distinction seems like a sensible one.

like i say joe, i don't see how recognising a nationalism exists requires accepting its 'nation' does - the BNP being an obvious example.

Well this is hardly the penny drops is it? I can remember you making very similar points on these lines along time ago.
BICO has anyone here actually read any BICO? They seem to have actually had a big influence second hand though - as much left wing histories like McCann, Farrell, reference some of their writings (especially in their previous ICO incarnation).
I havn't read any despite reading an awful lot on this topic.

"The two nations idea is basically that northern protestants are a distinct nation from the rest of the island and therefore should have their own state."

- you can't say Organise! hold that position, it is the "therefore should have their own state" part that is the difference. Having not read BICO I have little knowledge of what they were saying but they would have been influenced by Stalin's writings on nations and nationalism, and Organise! isn't, this is the crucial difference. Both bodies might observe the same conditions in Ireland, and draw different conclusions from them, e.g. Organise! don't think nations should have states, BICO did.

In an article on Irish Travellers in Red and Black Revolution there is this definition of an ethnic group:
"Travellers constitute a distinct ethnic group within Irish society. They fulfil all the criteria internationally accepted as defining ethnicity:
A long shared history of which the group is conscious.
A cultural tradition of its own including family and social customs.
Descent from common ancestors - you must be born into the group.
A common language.
A common religion.
Being a minority, or an oppressed or dominated group, within a larger community."

Personally I don't think the last criteria is actually defining, nor is “descent from common ancestors”, according to the wikipedia entry:

"An ethnic group is a human population whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry (Smith, 1986). Recognition by others as a separate ethnic group, and a specific name for the group, also contribute to defining it. Ethnic groups are also usually united by certain common cultural, behavioural, linguistic and ritualistic or religious traits. In this sense, an ethnic group is also a cultural community. Processes that result in the emergence of such a community are summarized as ethnogenesis."

Do ethnic groups exist? certainly. Are they some kind of eternal objective category? no. They are a historically specific sense of identity, that is developing over time in a particular context or 'made'.
Part of that identity may be, and more likely is, "a presumed common genealogy" - but in actuality we can certainly see in Britain and Ireland that should be an emphasis on the 'presumed' (there being no genetic difference between the populations either across the border, or the peaceline, or the sea). These identities can be pretty fluid. For instance I have relatives born in Britain who are very much ‘Irish’ and ones who are ‘British’.
Are there predominantly two ethnic groups in the North with two associated nationalism? Yes.
Is two nations a useful way of putting it? Not really because the term nation is generally taken as acceptance of nationalist ideology.
Is this a news flash to anyone? Even republicans essentially have recognised this, despite the coach and four it drives through their politics, from back in the days when some advocated a colon/Algerian solution up to today when it is ’agreement among all our peoples’ (note plural).

Why is it important? Well I think it is important not to treat the ethnic identities and associated nationalisms in the North as ephemeral products of this or that material factor, especially when they can be shown to have an existence outside of the impact of those material factors.

Left wing politics has never really been able to come to terms with ethnic identity and nationalism, probably because of the irrational and not very materially based parts of ethnic identity and nationalism.

Let us remove it from the Northern context and look at the South - there are people from the South who have died for Ireland, they didn’t die for Ireland because they were marshalled behind the interests of the ruling class - who in the south have been pretty much post-nationalist in regard to traditional hostility towards Britain for several decades, they didn’t die for Ireland because they were discriminated against, or in retaliation towards this or that piece of violence against the community in which they grew up or lived.
It was an extreme expression of Irish national, or ethnic, identity, that is nationalist ideology.

Now in a context where you have two ethnic groups with two associated nationalisms, members of group a will retaliate for the actions of members of group b , and then members of group b will retaliate and a lot of other members of the two groups will line up behind their respective nationalisms out of fear, or need for protection, or because the latest atrocity by the other group shows that what the extremists always said was in actual fact true and although there are some good people in the other group their militants need to be rooted out and so on.

Now this isn’t the story of what has happened in Northern Ireland, but it is one part of it, and shows how there is a motor engine for communal conflict quite apart from the presence of the British state or this or that material factor. We are after all talking about ethnic identities which are partly defined in opposition to each other - I mean I don’t know much about Protestantism but I know its more extreme variants are quite anti-Catholic (note sectarianism in Scotland), while the “long shared history of which the group is conscious” in Irishness is all about 800 years, and the Famine and the Black and Tans.

Throw into the pot the recent 25 years of conflict, the decades of Stormont rule, the regular rioting in the C19th , etc… bloody etc…. and I reckon you have pretty strong grounds for my argument which is that communal conflict is deeply embedded into the culture of Northern Ireland and will persist irrespective of the removal of the British state or this or that material factor. Indeed is not the fact that it continued after reforms (e.g. removal of Stormont, establishment of Housing Executive, fair employment legislation) and structural changes (e.g. decline of traditional industries) which undermined Protestant privilege not something which bears that out? Likewise the fact that communal conflict existed in Belfast before the setting up of the Protestant privilege system - in the early C19th , or exists particularly between groups of similar socio-economic status.

Joe citizenship and ethnicity are not necessarily the same thing.

Joe you seem to be confusing an analysis of reality as it exists with advocacy of the existing reality.

Well I’m gonna continue “an analysis heavily based even on the recognition of two nationalisms”, I’m gonna continue making the “recognition”, cause that way we have to deal with reality rather than the perhaps more comforting ostrich route of treating communal division as an ephemeral product of this or that British state policy or this or that material factor.

I mean do you think there are not two predominate ethnic groups in the North of Ireland, and two associated nationalisms? Would this not be, just perhaps, a fairly major factor in the continuation of communal violence over hundreds of years?

So Joe would you not say that, in part, what you are describing above is an example of ethnically based prejudice?
Again it is beyond me why you jump from seeing an analysis that says ethnicity exists and can have certain ideas associated with it (racism is one) to seeing an acceptance of ethnically based politics when arguing against a theory which underpins an approach that sees being against ethnically based politics, being anti-nationalist, anti-sectarian, anti-racist, and in this context against both nationalisms, as central.

It is. Again I’m describing reality. After all one is pretty clearly opposed to the other! And yes it is the basis of communal conflict, two ethnic ‘communities’ defending themselves against each other (which of course often involves attacking).

No it is an empirically based understanding of the Northern conflict which exists to understand it, as a guide to action.

Yeah while the south maybe in some senses post-nationalist (though as your example of the citizenship referendum not all) as the song says ‘in crossmaglen the patriotic flame will never die’ and just in case you hadn’t noticed for oh about 25 years there recently there was a conflict based around two ethnic groups with two nationalisms which sought to advance the interests of one ‘community’ over the other. While support for the maximum demands (Stormont majority rule or a united Ireland) has thankfully, in a wake up and smell the coffee way decreased, ‘northern politics’ as youse say is still organised around communal division (as are other things - like housing). The maximum demands were simply the extreme expression of this - defence of the ethnic ‘community’ and its perceived interests.

Basically as far as I see it all this boils down to:
(1) Whether or not the conflict is primarily indigenous to the North of Ireland or whether it is in some fashion the product of machinations by perfidious Albion?
(2) Whether or not people have agency as opposed to being the pawns of this or that power?
(3) Whether or not culture is autonomous, relative or otherwise, from narrow material factors?

As I suggest in the other thread this set of either/or statements is no more than the suggestion that we need to choose which versions of the competiting nationalist myths is closer to the truth. None of these three questions in their local relevancy have a simple answer on either side of the choices you provide.

Exclusive – Anarchist Militant Disappears Up Own Arse

Friends of tragic platformist Joe Black yesterday told of their horror after watching him finally disappear up his own arse.

The tragedy happened on Wednesday evening after friends grew concerned for his well being and called at his apartment in Dublin. One pal who didn’t want to be named told of his shock at finding Joe naked, with his head between his legs. ‘We knew he had been suffering some pretty strong online frustration and erectile dysfunction but nothing prepared us for this. He was shouting, “where’s my lucky charms? Where’s my lucky charms?” and we didn’t know how to console him.’

George Stapleton, 25, added, ‘then all of a sudden he started saying something about a two nationist analysis of partition and before we could react, wheeup, he was gone.’

Neighbour Easter Rising, 16, said the whole community was in shock. She said, ‘It’s unbelievable; you just don’t expect something like this to happen here.’ She described Joe as ‘a quiet man who always kept himself to himself.’ Heartbroken friends yesterday lay tributes to Joe at a shrine near his home. Amongst the flowers, tricolours and Celtic scarves were many handwritten notes. One tribute read, ‘Brits out! No more arse deaths!’ Another note simply said, ‘posting a lot less in 2007.’

Police yesterday confirmed they are investigating an incident of rectal disappearance but are not currently treating the case as suspicious. Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy extended his sympathy to the family but refused to be drawn on whether the guards would now move against the WSM cult. Last week the cult was criticised in the Dáil when it emerged four members had disappeared up their arses since Christmas.

Last night community leaders were appealing for calm amid concerns Joe's death could lead to an escalation in sectarianism. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said, ‘our thoughts and prayers are with the family at this difficult time.’ He added, ‘this is a tragic reminder of the dangers associated with criticising latent Irish nationalism. The people who do this have no thoughts for the consequences of their actions.’

Inside:

Muslim seen wearing hat
Professor Gurring clones two headed worm
Kissing: Should it be legalised in Cork?
First road opens in County Kerry
Baby death: Gays to blame

Etc.

well us from the north are normally strapped.

Wayne lives in England, is from Scotland and hasn't to my knowledge been politically active for quite a few years. He only ever posts on libcom to write 'funny' stories. English literature student. Normally they are funnier then 'his head is up his arse'. And most of the WSM would never have come across him. As for revol, to be honest I hope he doesn't come to the bookfair cos I wouldn't be surprised if someone did smack him which would obviously be bad for WSM-Organise! relations.