Free Marian Price from British Internment

http://irishblog-irelandblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/london-2012-olympic-hunger-striker.html

Justice For Marian Price

Concern is growing about the health of Marian Price regarding her unjustified and continued imprisonment. She is only guilty of holding beliefs and opinions unpopular with some opposed to a free democratic united socialist Ireland.

This weblog supports Marian and would support improved conditions for Republicans held in Maghaberry.

Surely it is time to come together on these issues and the rights of Irish Political Prisoners.

See Below Red Plough Vol 3-4 on unity for prisoners movement

Formation of 'National Prisoner Solidarity Committee/Movement'* which would include representatives of each aforementioned groups, to organize and coordinate campaign and turn it from being a regionalised campaign into becoming a National Campaign. Draw up a 'charter' or constitution which deals with mutual respect among representative groups., (focus on what unites us rather than what divides us).

As well as the above this weblog supports the unconditional release of Marian Price on compassionate grounds.

See website Justice For Marian Price http://www.freemarian.co.nr

Matt Lygate 1938-2012: Memoriam

Matt Lygate died this year a fellow traveler for the Freedom of Scotland Matt Lygate Jnr has written his obituary and is reproduced below with a link to the SRSM website.

Matt Lygate 1938-2012

Matt Lygate was born on 26/12/1938 in Govan Glasgow. From early on, he became an accomplished artist, orator, and thinker. He always loved the great outdoors and would often dissapear for hours up hills and down gullies to the distress of his parents. As a teenager, he moved to Sunderland with his family and became one of the best renouned tailor's cutters of his time. Matt loved his family and family life, however when ordered to join the British Army (forced conscription was still in place at that point, even after the war), Matt, like his father during WWI, refused stating he would never join an imperialist British Army. That same week, he was on a boat to New Zealand before the powers that be could abscond him. Matt had been an avid member of the British Communist Party as well as a devout Christian, believing that Christ himself was a revolutionary socialist. Once in New Zealand, Matt's fervour and passion for justice as well as adventure blossomed. In his years on the islands of New Zealand, he travelled from village to village without map or tent, taking on local hard labour jobs as he went. He was institutional in the setting up of the first railway worker's union and fought for the rights of the Maori people across the island. His travels took him from the heights of the Alps, picking deadly weeds in the snow, to the fields of grain where he worked along side many of the industrious indiginous people of the island. On leaving New Zealand to return to his family, the New Zealand secret service met him at the docs to make Matt aware he would not be allowed back any time soon. Such was the impact Matt left everywhere he went. Many took inspiration from his great work and polemics on justice, liberty and equality, others saw him as a grave threat to the established order. Matt excelled at and loved playing both the saint and the sinner in the eyes of different beholders. He was never one for cult status. He always insisted people judge him on what he said and not who he is.

On return from New Zealand, Matt's political and social work continued. He became heavily involved and a leading figure in the Scottish and Irish republican and socialist movements. He was a leading founder of the Workers Party of Scotland which was a Marxist-Leninist Republican party advocating the establishment of a Scottish socialist republic in the same tradition of John Maclean's vision. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the John Maclean Society which did much work to reserect the memory and life's work of Maclean. He believed in the emancipation of mankind worldwide. He was a true internationalist, involved in the struggle for Irish and Palestinian independence, meeting many world figures over his time. In fact when nominated years later for Glasgow University Rector, he stood down to allow votes for Yassar Arafat. Over his time he has been nominated and rejected two honourary degrees from both Glasgow and Edinburgh University. He rejected them on the political grounds that they might corrupt him and remove him from his working class route, but in truth it was also because Matt was a brutally modest man and shunned any idolisation or cult status. In 1972, Matt and 4 others were convicted of bank robbery and handed out the longest sentences in Scottish legal history for non murder crimes. During the case, Matt dismissed his defence team and represented himself. Knowing the fact he was to be tryed, not on bank robbery, but his politics, he used the court rather than to defend himself, but to attack the very system he knew aimed to destroy him. In his closing statment, he told the judge it was not his violence that had brought him to court, but that of the state against the working class. The same violence that had put 150,000 people out of work at the time in Scotland and stolen children's milk leading to the return of Rickets in Scotland. He announced that the day would come when those who judged him would themselves be judged, an announcement that Lord Dunpark did not take too kindly too. On announcement of his 24 year sentence, Matt looked to the public gallery and with clenched fist shouted "Long live the workers of Scotland" and with that began the longest bank robbery sentence in Scottish history. Although the judge himself admitted the crimes to be political and although it was proven in court, none of the alleged stolen funds went to Matt, he was not allowed political prisoner status. He was also denied appeal, a basic right in Scots law based on the statement by the presiding Judge that Matt openly supported bank robbery and so did not require appeal. A political belief in the redistribution of money in s capitalist society did not account to acceptance of guilt of specific robberies, yet the judge refused to accept this and Matt was denied appeal against his unequivically long sentence.

Once in prison, Matt's work against injustice continued and as ever, he remained a thorn in the establishment's side. On issue of a boiler suit and ID number for instance, Matt refused both. The suit did not fit nor did the shoes. He was told to like it or lump it and lump it he did, choosing to spend his first experiences in prison in solitary confinement naked and on hunger strike. Matt's flare for art and creativity never dulled at any point in his life. Many of the prison inmates were illiterate and Matt spent much of his time actively teaching some of Glasgow's most hardened criminals to read, write and paint. He would often write poems and paint minature Burns portraits and the likes for other inmates girlfriends and mothers, so much so that he was called to the Governor's office in Peterhead and told "You've outgrown this place". By this point much of the mail leaving Peterhead had Matt's imprint directly or indirectly. Matt seen this as an opportunity to address the hypocricy of a system that refused to help and educate those in need and instead punish those who tried to do so. Matt was eventually moved round from prison to prison, however not before forcing the governor to introduce reading, writing and art classes for Class A prisoners in Peterhead for the first time ever. He set up organisations to protect the rights of prisoners and object to the antiquated Victorian style prison systems where 'slopping out' and three to a cell were still common place. Despite often spending much of his sentence in solitary confinement, under constant light (even through the night which is a documented form of torture) and regular movings, Matt never capitulated or lost his passion for his beliefs. If anything, Matt only ever became stronger in the face of adversity. After 8 years behind bars, Matt was offered his first parole hearing. Matt's response was unique in denying his opportunity for parole. In a letter of explanation to the hearing, he demonstrated his view that the parole was a sham and had no intent of releasing him yet. As such he chose to not waste his time in their presence and in doing so giving his family false hope that there was ever a chance of his release at that time. Matt knew the system and was never afraid to challenge it, even (and most often) at the expense of his liberty. He had a clean record his entire time in prison and yet was kept in Class A for 8 years, much of which in solitary confinement. One lawyer once commented publically on Matt's case that he was given 8 years for robbery and 16 for his politics.

His fight against adversity and injustice continued further after his eventual release 12 years later. He reinstated the Workers Party of Scotland and began one of the biggest political movements Britain has ever seen. From humble beginnings, the anti-poll tax movement was born in Maryhill. Some of the earliest 'non-payment of poll tax' movements began when Matt and a friend tramped the entirety of Scotland, just like he had back in New Zealand. They knocked on people's doors and explained what the poll tax was and how they could resist it. The movement picked up pace, however to begin with neither the Labour party nor the Communist party nor any of the left would support Matt. They all claimed the anti-poll tax to be a Scottish phenomenon and thought nothing of it. How wrong they were.

During this period, Matt met his first love who helped create the success that was the anti poll tax movement ran initially from their small Phoenix Press shop. After the success of the anti-poll tax movement, Matt began to move out of public life and became the family man, raising 3 happy children and looking after countless others. Matt the family man was just as passionate a man as Matt the political fighter. He raised his children open mindedly and lovingly but just as they flourished into their own lives, Matt himself was struck with the onset of Alzheimer's disease. This however never for one day removed Matt's ultimate passion for life, liberty and nature. Over the next 8 or so years, Matt's short term memory slowly deteriorated, but his character remained the same as ever. He remained the firebrand optimist he ever was and every day was greeted with a smile and a laugh. Every leaf on every tree was just as beautiful and every moment just as fullfilling. Right up until Matt's final moments on this earth, he never passed another human being without acknowledging them and offering comment on how beautiful a day it was. He never walked without noticing a new colour or pattern on a bush or flower he maybe had passed every day for years. He never lost his love of nature, walking and talking. He remained a thinker and philosopher of epic proportions. Even in the latter stages of his Dementia, he could still recite Burn's quotes that could epitimise the feeling of a million words. He still loved his beloved books from the many book stores he had ran in his life, and his house was always adourned with many of the great artworks he and others had completed.

His life is a story of adversity, a fight against injustice and for the liberty and freedom of all men and women. His life is a story of love, of love for his fellow man, of every creature and living thing on earth, of his beloved partner Linda whom he shared so many of his adventures and loved so dearly, of his children who he passed so much of his wisdom and passion for life, for his beloved dog/s who saw him through to the end, sharing in his delight of nature and his epic walks, a story of love of all life itself. His life is a story of passion and adventure, adventures that spanned the globe, that influenced untold thousands, and whose ripples can still be felt today. His life is a story of hope, hope for humanity, of never ending optimism in the face of all adversity and seeming impossibilities. Hope that even in all our darkest hours, light, laughter and beauty can always be found. His life is a story of many lives, of many faces, of many chapters hardly even touched upon here.

His exit from this world in fittingly dramatic circumstances ends the final chapter in a life that touched so many, that changed so much and that even today, continues to inspire and motivate others. In that way his life lives on after a death that outlived the old enemies like the News of the World,a life that saw Scottish republicanism move from a fringe movement to the very centre of Scottish politics and watched over all of his children becoming the flourishing adults they are today.

In the end, Matt Lygate was never consumed by his disease. He died the "giant inside a small man's body" he ever was. He died a fundamentally happy and independent man on his own two feet living by no one else's but his own will. What more could any of us ask from the game of life and death?

http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMMemoriamMattLygate.aspx

SRSM Events

January 27, 2012 Republican Burns Night

Friday 27th January 7pm Upstairs lounge 'Elephant & Bugle', Maryhill Road, Glasgow. Just past the Wyndford flats, (known locally as the "Barracks" across from Maryhill Police Station). Wee row of shops and the pub is first, next corner after the barracks, on the same side,

Group: White Rose

Piper: Andrew Tennent

£10 admission. Children free

Cockaleekie Soup Haggis Champit totties and neeps Pudding undecided yet Vegetarians please notify us first for a vegetarian haggis

All welcome

February 12, 2012 Annual Glencoe Commemoration Rally

February 12th. Sunday. 1.30. pm from Glencoe Car park to monument for Speeches and back. Bus leaves immediately and stops at the Henderson Stane (next layby) for a brief ceremony.

Then on the Lomond Park Hotel, Balloch, for a Scoriach.

White Rose group

£5 admission Children free.

Bar meals optional

There is a railway station round the back of the hotel and a bus stop at the front. Both good services if anyone wishes to leave early.

Bus leaves North Frederick St, George Square (next to Queen St) 10.30 am prompt. £10. Children free.

http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMEvents.aspx

SRSM John MacLean Commemoration 2011

Gerry Cairns of the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement delivers the graveside oration for the memory of John MacLean before the march.With a large turn out at this years SRSM John MacLean Commemoration saw Republican Socialists unite Irish and Scottish with the IRSP Alba and Éirígí represented and a significant presence by other left forces such as the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG)

Also important was the large SRSM contingent which signifies they are growing in numbers probably due to the growing popularity of the Scottish Freedom message and a successfully revamped website.

For more on the Rally check out my Scottish Republic weblog very soon and more photos of the Sunday afternoon event. Also I will be publicising a copy of the speech delivered by a representative of the Northern England branch of SRSM.

SlainteLarry

IRSN Statement for John MacLean Rally 2011

INTERNATIONAL REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST NETWORK STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE COMMEMORATION OF SCOTTISH REVOLUTIONARY JOHN MACLEAN

Comrades, the International Republican Socialist Network is proud to speak to those gathered today in commemoration of the great John MacLean through this statement. The IRSN was founded to increase awareness of, and support for, republican socialism as a distinct tendency within the Marxist tradition. We in the IRSN are ever mindful that it was Scotland that gave the world the two greatest activists of this tendency, Edinburgh’s James Connolly and John MacLean of Glasgow.

John MacLean’s words from 1923 still offer wisdom to the workers of Scotland, he wrote: “I’m certain London will never lead the Clyde or Scotland, so we must lead ourselves. A separate republic is justifiable as a step to keep Scotland out of the future wars involving England; and breaking up the Empire that most of all retards Communism.”

The entity known as “Great Britain,” which ceases to exist without Scotland, is not a basis for working class unity; it is an anachronism, intended to benefit the English ruling class at the expense of the Scottish people. Yes, the Scottish workers are a part of the larger working class of the entire island of Britain, but so too are they as much a part of the working class of Europe and the world. Just as residing in a nation distinct from Palestine, Venezuela, Bolivia, Egypt, or Tunisia does not impede their capacity for solidarity with the workers of those nations; the creation of a Scottish republic will provide no impediment to solidarity with workers in England, Wales, or Ireland. To the sectarian Left who deride the struggle for Scottish independence with the canard that it threatens class unity, we ask, as Engels did in his day, if they would be prepared to move their head offices to Edinburgh to demonstrate their solidarity with Scottish workers and we denounce them, as Marx and Engels did, as English national chauvinists hiding behind a mask of internationalism.

MacLean wrote further on the subject of Scottish independence, saying: “I accordingly stand out as a Scottish Republican…feeling sure that if Scotland had to elect a Parliament to sit in Glasgow it would vote for a working-class Parliament. Such a Parliament would have to use the might of the workers to force the land and all the means of production in Scotland out of the grasp of the brutal few who control them, and place them at the full disposal of the community. The social revolution is possible sooner in Scotland than in England.”

The Tories were not unearthed from their grave and restored to power on the basis of their electoral support in Scotland or Wales. For a century, working class organizations in Britain have stood on solid bases in Scotland and Wales and the forces of reaction have overwhelmed them from their bases in England. The fact that the SNP’s program stands to the left of Labour’s is a result of the sentiments of the electorate in Scotland being to the left of Labour’s electoral base in Britain as a whole. The creation of an independent Scottish republic will not only protect Scottish workers from those bastions of reaction to their south, however; by breaking apart the ancien regime of Britain, Scottish independence will mortally wound one of the world’s leading imperialist powers, thereby ultimately serving the interests of not only English workers, but working people throughout the world who suffer from the violence of British imperialism.

We would be remiss and ill-serve the memory of either MacLean, or of Connolly, were we to only aver our support for Scottish independence at today’s commemoration. Republican socialism is founded on the inseparable unity of the struggle for national liberation with the struggle for socialism. Reflecting on the contribution of John MacLean to humanity today, let us not lose sight of that reality. The struggle for an independent Scottish republic must be a struggle for a Scottish Workers’ Republic, if it is to merit the effort of Scottish working people. The current international crisis of capitalism and the endless violence of imperialism in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond should be more than enough to tell us that capitalism is now a fetid anachronism itself; one that offers no future to working people other than growing austerity and misery. So, as Connolly said to the Irish Citizen Army’s volunteers marching out during the Easter Rising, hang on to your guns because others fighting with you for independence have a different concept of the republic to be built, we say to you today, prepare for a struggle that will continue after Scottish independence has been won. Scotland will be truly independent until it has freed its economy of the tentacles of the imperialists; until Scotland’s farms, oil, industries, banks, and the rest are the common property of the nation, that is, of Scottish people as a whole.

Our class, the working class, has created all of the wealth in the world today. All the food has been harvested by workers, every structure standing was built by workers, every mile travelled is on roads laid down by workers, the trillions of bits of data that make up the reality of contemporary commerce, education, and entertainment travel on are enabled by the silicone chips and optical fibers made by workers, keyed into worker-constructed networks by workers. All of these are the creation of the hands and minds of working people and it is our right to claim them as our own. How can it be that working people go hungry, lack adequate housing, lack transport, are denied information, education, and the means to live a life of quality, when all of these things are the creation of our class? Comrades, it is long past time we be done with the system of capitalism and take back what is rightfully ours.

As those here today and the millions of Scottish working people move forward towards a Scottish Workers’ Republic, they will be creating the only truly fitting memorial to the memory of the John MacLean. Thus it is through the struggle for that republic that the spirit of MacLean stirs and rises again in our midsts, prompting me to close, with that image in mind, with the words of Hamish Henderson:

The hale city’s quiet noo,
It kens that he’s resting
At hame wi’ his Glasgow freens,
Their joy and their pride.
The red will be worn again
And Scotland will march again,
Noo great John MacLean
Has come hame tae the Clyde.



Peter Urban
Comrade, International Republican Socialist Network

Original Design of Starry Plough- €10

The éirígí shop has recently added five new items for sale as the
first part in updates which will take place this Autumn. There are
three new flags for sale- Original Starry Plough (history of this flag
provided below), Connolly Column and Four Province flags- at the
reasonable price of €10. There are also two new A3 posters available.
Both the ‘Britain Out of Ireland’ and ‘An Bhreatain Amach as Éireann’.
Over the past year the simple message of these posters has become a
common sight in Ireland on stickers, posters, t-shirts and online. Now
the posters are available to buy for €5 each.

Original Starry Plough

On the 5th of April 1914 the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) paraded their
colours, the Starry Plough, at a meeting. The flag was unlike any
other used in Ireland and is made up of an agricultural plough with
superimposed upon its structure the star constellation Ursa Major
(also called the Great Bear or Plough or Big Dipper).The flag had a
gilt edge, the background is green, the plough itself is yellow and
the stars are silver.

The original suggestion that the ICA should have its own flag came
from Jim Larkin but the actual design of the flag is credited to
Belfast artist William H. Megahy. At the time of designing the flag he
was working as a teacher in the School of Art located in Kildare
Street in Dublin. Sean O’Casey (the then secretary of the Citizen
Army) carried out research into the origins of the flag and in 1954
submitted the original drawing of the design to the National Museum.
The only major difference between this and the flag produced is that
in the drawing the flag has a blue and not a green background. The
identity of the person who decided to change the colour is not known.
It was produced by the Dun Emer Guild. In a picture of the flag
outside Croydon House, Fairview in the summer of 1915 the flag is
being carried on a pole with an red hand on the top- this is the
symbol of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.

The Imperial Hotel on O’Connell Street was probably not occupied until
the Tuesday of the Easter Rising, when a detachment of volunteers who
had previously been based on Westmoreland Street were moved into the
building. Later on in the day another section of rebels was sent from
the G.P.O. to reinforce those already there and early on Wednesday the
rebels hoisted a tricolour over the building. Later on during the day
James Connolly sent over the Starry Plough with instructions that it
be placed over the Hotel. Connolly would have been well aware that the
Hotel was owned by William Martin Murphy, who was the employers leader
during the 1913 lockout. The message from Connolly was clearly that in
the new Irish Republic that, workers would be in the ascendant over
the exploiters who lived off their sweat and toil.

After the Rising it was widely believed that the flag had been burned
along with the rest of the hotel. However it still flew over the front
of the building and remained flying there right through till the
following Saturday evening. A Lieutenant of the 9th Reserve Cavalry
Regiment then occupying O’Connell Street spotted the flag flying above
the G.P.O. With the help of a police officer he removed it and took it
as a souvenir. The National Museum acquired it from him in 1955.

In 1934 it was decided to re-establish the ICA in conjunction with the
launch of the Republican Congress. A number of the members of the
original ICA were consulted and their recollections of the design of
the original flag were recorded. Some of these differed radically.
Eventually the new Starry Plough was produced but it was significantly
altered with the agricultural plough now missing and the background
colour blue. Seven white stars which make up the star constellation of
the Plough were kept. It wasn’t until 1955 when the National Museum
managed to acquire the original and authenticate it that the
difference in the two flags was accepted.

Sean O’Casey wrote the following lines about the flag, “Be worthy,
men, of following such a banner, for this is your flag of the future.
Whatever may happen to me; though I should mingle with the dust, or
fall to ashes in a flame, the plough will always remain to furrow the
earth, the stars will always be there to unveil the beauty of the
night, and a newer people, living a newer life, will sing like the
sons of the morning.”

SRSM Annual John MacLean Rally 2011

Assemble 1pm at MacLean's Grave in Eastwood cemetery for oration followed by march from Boydston Road outside cemetry gates to the MacLean Cairn at Pollockshaws shopping centre for Rally with speakers then social nearby. Sunday 27th November All welcome. www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org

Scottish Republican Socialist News

British Army out of QUB

British Army out of QUB

A protest against the British Army presence in QUB has been organised by the Republican Congress Student Society. Having already held a public meeting regarding the murderous reality of Imperialism throughout the world the Republican Congress has now decided to take to the streets to protest against the Imperialists active on our campus. The protest will assemble in front of QUB Students Union and then proceed to confront the Imperialists.
The fact that the RIR is regularly allowed recruiting stalls on campus and that the British Army's Officer Training Corps is allowed society status in the college demands action. Murdered Irish, Afghan and Iraqi people demand that socialists, radicals and republicans help build a campaign to have these murderers kicked off campus.

Join the Protest against Imperialists!
British RIR out of QUB!
British OTC out of QUB!
British Murderers out of QUB!

Assemble in front of QUB Students Union
Wednesday 26th October
7pm

Scottish Workers Republic - Latest Edition

Hi All

The latest edition of the Scottish Workers Republic the journal for the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement is now available for purchase. This is a bumper 32 page post election special and articles include The Crisis of Capitalism: Towards a Republican Scotland - Gerry Cairns, Cultural Imperialism - Eric Canning, Lessons From the Tragedy in Libya - Peter Urban, On The Brink - Brian Quail, Hono...uring the Scots who Fought Franco - Stephen Coyle, James Connolly 1868-1916 An Unrepentant Socialist - Dr James D Young (this is a taster for his forthcoming book which will be in print soon), There is an article by Jim Clayson which looks at the possibility that he has uncovered another lost work by Robert Burns titled "To Lord Chief Justice Eyre" as well as an article relating to the Proscripton Act of 1746 which was written by Alexander MacDonald 1700-1770 who joined the Jacobite Army in 1745 and was appointed to teach Gaelic to Charles Edward Stuart. The poem is in Gaelic and English.

This edition has lots lots more, buy your copy now £3 + P+P from the SRSM, P.O. BOX 16887, GLASGOW, G11 9EP , SCOTLAND. Please make cheques / postal orders out to SRSM, payment can also be made via PAYPAL our payment address is -

info@scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org

UK postage is £1, Europe £2, Rest of the World £3