why the Paris Commune despite its internal development, never marched onto Verseille.
The newspapers have tended to gloss over the overwhelming strength of the Protestants. Some simple index will illustrate the balance of forces. Of the 400 petrol bombed, less than twenty were Dius houses Protestant. If you walk up Disraeli Street, which is Protestant you walk under Union Jacks and bunting strung across the street, tied onto the houses and already bleached from the summer. Not a petrol bomb could have been thrown into the street without bringing the bunting down. The street ends at a junction with the Crumlin Road and on the other side of the Crumlin is Hooker Street, a Catholic street on the edge of a small Catholic Ghetto called the Ardoyn. The entire area around Hooker Street has been devastatca The I.R.A. built up by themselves as well as the Unionists into a bogey force of considerable fire power has proved itsell to be a miserabie ana amateurish organisation. Many Catholics bitterly resent the fact that for all its boasting it could only produce two bren guns a few german pistols and a motley collection of shot guns when their help was needed, and then only after hours of burning and fear. Since the crisis the IRA have introduced a new weapon to defend their areas, an Irish version of the Claymore mine. They have brought in gelignite and plan to fill buckets with a double sandwich of Gelignite packed down with cardboard and polythene and topped up with nuts, bolts, rivets, and screws. You point the bucket down the street and touch off the layer of Jelly in the bottom.
It would be just if this weapon was pointed at the assembled Unionist Party in Storemont and put an end that whole Dunch or squalid and bigoted mediocrities. But it is a desperate weapon of defence and its explosion signals the loss of far more Catholic Conclusion Caught in the vice of a declining client economy of British imperialism. hoth Catholic and Protestant workers have seized the period of reform to press their grievances and fears at the state of life in the North.
Desperately manocuvring to retain control over ELSDECLIC sections of the working class the Protestant and Cathole have clashed and unleashed a conflict as bloody as any in the history of the North. British Capitalism, whose interests now lie South of Belfast as well as in the North want thorough reform and an end to sectarian divisions. inc Financial Times responded to the Cameron Report by demanding the abolition of Stormont and justified this as being the "least dangerous course". For whom?) So the working class in Belfast will be told the grim truth.
They will get no economic miracle from Britain.
Inexorably they will be forced to share a common situation. It is a great opportunity for Irish socialists.
For the first time in half a century the grip of orange sectarianism over the Protestant working class will THE COMPOSITION OF THE COMMISSION LORD JOHN CAMERON: From Edinburgh establishment. Law Lord (of Scottish Sessions). Climbed from the rank of Navy Advocate. SIR JOHN HENRY BIGGART: Pro-Vice Medicine of Queen's University, Belfast. His Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of faculty at Q.U.B. has a bad record discrimination against Catholic candidates for entrance.
JAMES JOSEPH CAMPBELL: A 'Castle" Catholic Unionist. Prominent spokesman of segregated education. Attached to Department of Education.
SITUATION OF THE COMMISSION'S WORK The Commission was set up on the 3rd March as one of O'Neill's last crumbs to the masses. It began taking evidence on 18th April, ten days before O'Neill was dethroned. It reported on the 16th August, at the height of the Belfast riots. In other words, the span of the report covers the period of rapid political disintegration. So it became its task not only to analyse what had gone wrong, but to point the way sut of the mess. To simply call fe the restoration of O'Neill was inadequate. Commission, like everyone else, knew what that would mean: a return to the chaos of O'Neill's inability to deal with any of the opposing forces. In any case, O'Neill no longer possessed a base and Cameron knew it. What were the remaining alternatives? Only Chichester-Clarke's brand of reaction or the Civil Rights movement. To back Clarke would be to back another loser. Only one possibility was open - a quiet eulogy of the Civil Rights movement. And that is what Cameron represents.
THE REPORT'S FINDINGS Cameron's problem was to establish balance between making the CRA appear as the embodiment of rational progress and finding a dignified way out of Unionism. The solution adopted was to stress the NOVELTY of the CRA as its most important characteristic. This meant that it could at the same time be presented as:
1. a panacea for the future 2. an explanation why nothing was done in the past realize it is O'Neill who is being bashed. We remember that the first rule of cabinet PD is that it is undermining the CRA, not the constitution. It represents a 'complication for policy-making the danger of the situation polarizing along class-lines. The CRA is warned against letting its control slip to PD no less than Cameron is required to perform.
In order to legitimize the CRA he must confirm the real basis of their grievances, but couple of instances under the direction of the local Orange landowners and bosses. Cameron, on the other hand, blames Paisley and Bunting. . Yet they simultaneously deride the organizational capacity of Bunting, pointing out most of the organizations he claimed support trom were fictional. At the same time they describe the detailed planning that must have been necessary powers to organize. The question of real responsibility is avoided Similarly, although Unionism is credited with corruption, patronage, violence, stupidity, cowardice and bankruptcy, throughout the text it remains free from any accusation of unfitness to govern. It is tried, convicted and receives a suspended sentence. But it is warned, especially about its connection with the Orange Order (para 153).
THE CONCLUSIONS OF CAMERON Cameron examines with relish how the CRA ruptured the twin fossilized power-structures of Unionism and Nationalism, but in doing ensures the reader of the true character of the CRA's origins: 'to suppose the CRA as a function, even an aspect of religious antagonism would be dangerously superficial and erroneous and could lead and we are convinced) has led to a wholly false evaluation chronath and character of the would be a grave political and social error to regard the CRA as narrowly sectarian subversively political; it was and is a movement drawing support from a wide measure moderate opinion' (para 233). 'So far, it has obtained, and still obtains, the support of many who are neither Catholics nor interested in constitutional change, violent or otherwise, and maintain its originally designed course.' (para 193).
We quote so lengthily because the point is so important. The CRA is the only way out. But there is only room for one 'moderate' CRA That is why PD is an 'UNNECESSARY ADJUNCT. providing a means by which politically extreme and militant elements •could ... incite political disorder.' (para 229 (b 12)).
Who can neutralize both this and Orangery? What man will lead Ulster from the wilderness? Who does Cameron whitewash? The answer 1s *John Hume, of the Derry Citizens Action Committee (DCAC). Cameron writes that what is required is 'wise and courageous leadership' It gives us six possibilities (as the contending forces engaged they are Unionism, the CRA, PD, the DCAC, the Paisleyites and the hooligan element. All except the CRA and Hume's outfit are dismissed or dismiss themselves. Hume, on the other hand, is accorded a eulogy: Mr John Hume... from the beginning has taken the lead and shown himself both responsible and capable. He .. was formerly a teacher and thereafter in business and is now dedicated to the political work he has undertaken. Prior to work in the DCAC Mr Hume was closely associated with the Credit Union and the Derry Housing Association. . both flourishing and doing good work. Mr Hume's influence has been insistently exercised in favour of peacefu means... he has so far resolutely opposed violence and disorder. It was his action and initiative in particular .. which prevented a situation arising on 20th April which could have led to disasterous consequences (para 211)
Cameron is thus not merely a very selective whitewash, but a very committed king-maker It points the way past the next crisis to a Hume-O'Neill coalition. For Cameron, there are no other alternatives, no other paths open to provide the necessary condition for the survival
The Black Dwart Octover Ist 1969
----- pull-quotes -----
decisions is collective responsibility. So O'Neill is simply shielded by the attack on Craig. And we realize, too, that the brunt of the attack on
four times (paras. 150, 193, 199 & 229). And as we slowly understand the significance of this, we comprehend the incredible balancing-act
only in such a way that those Unionists who are sufficiently credible for a coalition with CRA can retain pure white political records. This in turn requires a lot of covering-up. Let's take a
First, who staged the Burntollet ambush? PD produce evidence that their march was attacked
for both Burntollet and Armagh on November 20 (para 78). In other words, Bunting is blamed for organizing acts of terrorism beyond his
it is this ballast of moderate and earnest men and women... which has enabled the CRA to