RSYM Contribution Added To 'What The Proclamation Means To Me'
The Republican Socialist Youth Movement (RSYM) have contributed their interpretation of the 1916 Proclamation, to Éirígí’s 'What the Proclamation means to me' campaign.
“What The Proclamation Means To Me”
Republican Socialist Youth Movement Contribution, (Youth Wing of the IRSP)
"Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people"
The Proclamation of the Irish Republic represents a fundamental for our organisation, a guiding principle that is an absolute. The Socialist ethos of the Proclamation is evident for all to see, perhaps we owe that to the influence of Ireland's most prominent Marxist at the time, James Connolly.
The aspirations of the signatories have yet to be brought to fruition. Far from all the children of the nation being cherished equally, sectarianism and poverty is rampant. Inner-city areas especially in Dublin suffer greatly from under-funding and feelings of abandonment. Garda harassment is levelled against working class families and Republicans while meanwhile drug and gun crime has increased dramatically under successive Free State governments.
The Proclamation belongs not to those that sit in Leinster House that occasionally may pay lip service to the men of Easter week but it belongs to the Irish people as a whole. It represents hope for the future. It represents a prospect for unity and peace.
But it doesn't stop there – the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil Éireann represents another milestone. The Democratic Programme, coupled with the Proclamation fuses together the two major issues which faced
Ireland then and which continue to face Ireland – namely, the national question and the class question.
We still don't have that government "representative of the whole people of Ireland", former Republicans now serve as a comprador party which is in open collaboration with the Free State and British rule. That is their
agenda, not that of the revolutionary. They have done and will continue to solidify Britain's hold on the Six Counties.
An alternative must be found if the ideals of 1916 are to be attained. The tribal politics embodied by Stormont and partition offer no solution to the Irish working class. There is one solution – revolution.