Lets keep our eye on the ball!

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday March 03, 2003 02:46 by Billy

We can attack eachother all day long, but wouldn't we be better off focusing on the upcoming War?

The IAWM and the GNAW are at eachothers throats, meanwhile the likes of the Labour Party, PANA etc are willing to accept a war if the UN Security Council does. The fact that a UN resolution won't stop bombs killing civilians doesn't seem to register. The media and government try to talk up a Red Menace, with the potential to infect decent law abiding citizens, who everyone admits are anti war but seemingly not anti-government.

It's a pity that both actions in Shannon didn't gather more numbers, and I suppose that at this stage its pretty obvious that there's some seemingly irrevocable differences between both sides but maybe instead of a fallout we should try and step back and see if the different groups can somehow work together. Divide and conquer only serves the State.

The IAWM are saying that the GNAW cost them numbers, meanwhile PANA etc are trying to sideline anyone with revolutionary politics and are claiming that the turnout on Feb15 was down to the involvement of mainstream groups like themselves. They are like a mirror image of Mary Harney, a 'loyal opposition' trying their hardest to whip up a red scare, claiming that all the anti war sentiment is in line with their policies, and no-one else’s (Bertie tried something similar when he said that the marchers were broadly supportive of the government position). Dev used to claim that when he wanted to know the will of the Irish people he just had to look into his heart, they're trying the same thing.

Most of the media coverage of the GNAW plans was actually fairly decent, by and large they just reported the details of the plan. The real scare was whipped up by PANA who sent out press releases and went on the radio and television to warn people about the imminent violence, and was added to by the cynical withdrawal of Labour, the Greens, SF etc. Their lack of support for even the IAWM march in Shannon shows that the reformists are as eager to stick the knife into the IAWM as much as the GNAW, all they want is an excuse.

The people involved in the GNAW support a diversity of tactics, obviously the IAWM doesn't (or doesn't at the present moment). While I obviously disagree with that position I can accept it, I'm not even asking that people accept my belief that direct action is important, I'm just saying that I think we still have room to cooperate, to find some kind of common ground. Lets at least not stoop to the level of some of the more opportunistic groups and rather than attacking each other through the media lets see if there’s any way we can increase the pressure on the government.