Andersontown News, 5. May 2006
We Say
And 25 years later
"In truth, it is not the shadow of the gunman which prompts unionist
politicians, Irish establishment opportunists and faceless British
manipulators to shy away from those who today espouse the same cause that
the hunger strikers died for. It is a fear of having finally to come face to
face with the courage and the spirit of 1981 – not on a ground of their
choosing with their opponents naked in a fly-blown prison cell or dying on a
hospital bed, but in a chamber of equals where the future of this island
will be ultimately decided and where right will finally win the day."
Is it really 25 years since the dread news arrived that Bobby Sands had
died? Is it really 25 years since that awful cycle of death and dying that
ended up in the death of 10 young men inside Long Kesh and the streets
outside the camp in turmoil.
It is. It is indeed. And it is a tribute to Bobbby Sands and his brave
comrades that those 25 years have passed so quickly, with the republican
struggle growing stronger and more confident and the impetus towards an
island of equals well-night unstoppable.
Of course there have been terrible times and awful setbacks, but when the
political tally is taken, when the gains are measured against the losses, it
can be seen that the fresh faces of those men who gave their lives in the
cause of justice and freedom loom ever larger in the political pantheon
while those from right across the political spectrum who callously abused
them and who cynically opposed their just demands are yesterday’s men and
women.
The wide and impressive range of events that has been organised across the
island of Ireland – and in Belfast in particular – to mark the anniversary
is testimony to the increasing relevance of the hunger strikers and their
ideals in modern nationalism and republicanism. 25 years ago to have voted
for Bobby Sands, to have taken to streets in support of the blanketmen was
to be marked down as an undesirable, to be sidelined and demonised at best,
to be attacked and murdered at worst. Nowadays, with republicanism an
ever-growing force across the island, it is those who espouse the politics
of the past, those who mouth bitter and poisonous bile, and those who fear
to step boldly forward who are seen both at home and abroad as the
impediment to peace. Those who hold the hunger strikers up as heroes and
role models are saying that this is an island that is ours to share, where
the old certainties have turned to dust, where the reactionary state and
religious forces that had us in vice-like grip no longer hold sway and where
we’re free to make our own choices and shape our own future.
Too many of us have painful and lasting memories of those dark days of 1981
when it seemed that we would never emerge from under the shroud of death and
suffering that covered us all. Today, the IRA has departed the stage as a
military force and some of those very republicans who shared cells with the
hunger strikers, who were privy to their most intimate and personal
utterances, who watched them die and who died a little bit with them, hold
elected office, waiting for the inevitable day when the essential truth of
the republican ideal can power and inform their words and actions in the
political chamber. Those people have seen too much to be beaten or even
diverted by the cynicism and fear which motivates so many of those who
oppose them and who would spurn an historic political opportunity in favour
of long years of enmity and suspicion.
In truth, it is not the shadow of the gunman which prompts unionist
politicians, Irish establishment opportunists and faceless British
manipulators to shy away from those who today espouse the same cause that
the hunger strikers died for. It is a fear of having finally to come face to
face with the courage and the spirit of 1981 – not on a ground of their
choosing with their opponents naked in a fly-blown prison cell or dying on a
hospital bed, but in a chamber of equals where the future of this island
will be ultimately decided and where right will finally win the day.
