The Andersontown News comments on the new Northern Ireland Secretary of
State, Paul Murphy:
Andersontown News, October 31, 2002 - http://www.irelandclick.com/
Comment:
Empire building and the causes of war
The talk about Mr Paul Murphy, the latest representative of the British
government in Ireland, has been about whether he is suitable, able,
friendly, religious, partly Irish, etc.
But all this is not important. The important thing is that nobody has any
right to be in Ireland with such powers as he has except through the
decision of the Irish people. No outside power or nation has any right to
impose on us anyone who claims such dictatorial powers as are claimed for
English government representatives in Ireland.
That said, we are under obligation to treat him courteously. We may
unfortunately also be in the unhappy position of seeing him, at a word from
Mr Blair, destroy everything we have built up towards a political settlement.
No English person in Ireland should have such power unless the Irish people
give it to him. But until we can change it we have to work with the
situation as it is.
There is ample evidence that Blair has no commitment to our peace process in
Ireland and Mr Murphy will have to do what Mr Blair dictates, not even what
Mr Murphy wants.
That is a bad situation because like any absentee landlord Blair can make
demands which are so much against our interests that even his local agent,
in this case Mr Murphy, can see that. It is like in a multinational company
– decisions which affect our future and even our life are made far away in
London, Washington, Brussels or Hong Kong and even the local managers have
no say in them. The only people who have the right to wield such powers as
Blair will wield through Mr Murphy are Irish people.
Hasten the day. One of the most significant aspects of all this is that
people in general are being deprived more and more of the power to say
anything effective about their own affairs.
In Britain the backbenchers in Westminster have practically no power left.
They can shout during parliamentary sessions, but they cannot create
policies, they can vote for policies as they are directed by what they call,
correctly, their whips, but if they dissent they can be thrown out of their
party.
British home policy is directed by national power groups through Mr Blair.
British foreign policy is directed from Washington through Mr Blair.
Economic policy is directed both by power groups in Britain and by
Washington and world trade groups outside. The power Blair has is the power
to impose such policies on his own people whether they believe in them or
not.
He does not have the power to change the policies or to act differently from
the ways dictated by arms makers and other power groups within and arms
wielders and other power groups outside.
Meanwhile we are well on the way to the formation of the United States of
Europe which will be one trading bloc, have one foreign policy, one army,
one set of rules about the limitation of human rights. This European trading
and power bloc will then stand proudly in the face of other trading and
power blocs, centred on the Americas, Japan, China and whatever groups have
the ability to unite.
In other words, there will be less need now for wars to create enormous
empires as the Germans, English, Dutch, French and others waged them in the
past. Countries can be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers, money and
armaments as the great trading blocs develop their various powers and set up
leaders like Mr Bush to wield them.
And if one trading bloc gets into serious disagreement with another, then
stand by for a war which could be worse than any seen so far. And none of
our European parliamentarians have talked to us about all this – some of
them hardly even attend the European Parliament.
So it is more and more necessary for us to talk and keep talking about our
present and our future. About who has the power and why, and who should have
it and why. Our difficulties in Ireland have often made us forget that in
England successive British governments treated their own people with great
cruelty and when riches were flowing into England from other countries as
the British Empire grew in power and greed, the poor people in England were
often driven to starvation and despair and even the beginnings of revolution.
1840 in England for example was a dreadful time, and that is only one year
among many. What British governments did in other people's countries was a
reflection of what they were doing to their own people at home.
So let us remember all this when we think of the new English secretary in
Ireland. We need the power, not him. And we need to have the power
especially to decide where we are going and why.
Who in their senses would ever freely consent to have a representative of
another country and nation – whatever his personal roots, uprightness or
religion – decide whether we should have a parliament or not ?
No European country would and we should make it clear that either he does
what we want and we need, or he goes home.