SM

Firstly, Struggle or Starve does not attempt to gloss over the history of sectarianism in the north of Ireland. From the early efforts of British imperialism to stem the rise of the United Irishmen by arranging animosity between Catholics and Protestants, to the orchestrated expulsion of thousands of working-class Catholics (and dissenting Protestants) from their homes and jobs, through the decades-long state-sponsored discrimination of the “Orange state” and the murderous conflict known as the Troubles that followed, sectarianism has been a perpetual feature of Northern Irish society.

The idea that these divisions are immutable, innate even — or that they emanate from a “conflict of cultures” — has only become popular in the last few decades. It emerged as a rearguard action on the part of an embattled Unionist ascendancy; who sought to reconfigure their sectarian practices with notions of cultural identity. Irish Republicanism, too, has acquiesced to this schema.

The retreat of Sinn Féin into an accommodation strategy with the state — entering into a consociationalist arrangement with Unionism, wherein it has become the chief representative of the “Catholic community” — has led it to emphasize the need for respect for “both traditions,” the Orange and the Green, rather than attempting to unite “Catholic, Protestant and dissenter” as the United Irishmen once did. The net result is that sectarianism is considered to be an incontestable and permanent facet of life.

Today, an entire industry has developed to promote this view. This is true in the north of Ireland itself; where the state pours millions of pounds into so-called cultural projects, including the funding of events that are deeply reactionary, under the guise of identity. Not all of this, of course, is objectionable. But it does have the effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy; whereby resources are divided on the basis of assumed cultural allegiance, and then it is assumed that these identities are fixed forevermore: nationalist equals Catholic, Protestant equals unionist.

It is also true internationally, as sections of the academy and the British military-political establishment seek to turn the experience of the Northern Irish Troubles into an intellectual export through “conflict resolutions.” Here, the Troubles are portrayed as a conflict between warring tribes, only brought to an end by the careful statecraft of Tony Blair and his government. In reality, the British state holds an enormous responsibility for the creation of conflict in Ireland, and its persistence throughout the last few centuries.

And yet, by ironic paradox, it now seeks to promote itself on the world geopolitical stage as the leading light in conflict resolution. One only has to read some of the leaked correspondence between American and British military officials in the runup to the Iraq War — where the British seek to elevate their position with their imperial allies by trumping their conflict resolution experience in the north of Ireland — to realize the extent that they have bought into their own hyperbole.

Struggle or Starve does not fit neatly into either of the “two traditions” narratives in the North, nor does it sit well with the idea predominant within conflict resolutions studies, that the best we can hope for is state-managed sectarianism. Instead, the book tells the story of a united working-class movement in a hitherto divided city — led by a small grouping of communists knows as the Revolutionary Workers’ Groups (RWGs) — that culminated in a mass riot that rocked the Unionist establishment.

To repeat, nothing in the book suggests questions of identity or national allegiance are unimportant and should be ignored. And it is a modest contribution to that discussion. But it does, I think, highlight in a dramatic way the fluidity of ideas and identity, and the promethean potential that struggle from below has in overcoming division and recasting allegiance around class lines.