Sunday, 27 November 2011
SRSM John MacLean Commemoration 2011
Saturday, 12 November 2011
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
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
Saturday, 5 November 2011
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.
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.”
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.”
Friday, 4 November 2011
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
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