Ireland's OWN: History

 

Northern Ireland and a Colonial Framework —by Liam O Ruairc  The following essay will be solely concerned with the adequacy of a colonial model to the politics of Northern Ireland. It doesn't deal with the so-called Republic of Ireland, and will not attempt to draw a better or alternative model. The first part of this essay deals with colonialism and Ireland in general, and the second part deals specifically with Northern Ireland. Before looking if a colonial framework is adequate to explain the political situation in Northern Ireland, a few general considerations should be taken into account. There are both conceptual and historical difficulties involved with a colonial framework in general and its application to Ireland ­ not to speak of Northern Ireland specifically- in particular. The first thing is what is meant by colonialism"?  The term "colonialism" or "colonisation" can be used in a very broad sense: for example, a good number of French people (as the French media demonstrates) believe that the Americans are trying to "colonise" Europe in general and France in particular through fast-food chains, internet, television programmes etc. If used in such a broad sense, then colonialism can mean anything at all involving some form of foreign presence in a country. Such a view of colonialism is far too loose to give any "concrete analysis of a concrete situation" and can support absurd views such as "Ireland is being colonised by Blacks and Eastern Europeans". "Colonialism" can also be used in a too specific and restricted sense, for example Belgian colonialism in the Congo. This would give a too narrow view of what colonialism consists of, identifying it with its 19th and early 20th century form. Such a restricted interpretation of colonialism is too narrow and for example "the colonisation of the West Bank by Jewish settlers" couldn't enter into its framework.  Another major problem ­ far more important in my view- is how different is "colonialism" from words such as "invasion", "imperialism", "domination", "oppression", "conquest", "occupation" etc. The major problem lies in the fact that those type of words are often seen as being more or less synonymous with colonialism when they are not. For example, France and Belgium were invaded by the Nazis in 1940, but they were not colonised by the Germans. Or Colombia is dominated by imperialism (of course the concept has to be defined) but is not a colony. Around the globe there are plenty of "national questions", from the bloodless ones of Alsace -Lorraine / Elzass-Lotheringen or South Tyrol to the wars in the Caucasus and the Balkans, but very few would be seen as being colonial in nature: for example no one would have seen Croatia as being a "colony" of Serbia even if there were plenty of massacres over the centuries like the Irish were massacred by the English. Similarly, there have been huge number of Russians settlers in places such as Kazakhstan, but they are not "colonists" or even the local version of Ulster Protestants. It should also be noted that there are/were some colonies like Hong-Kong or Macau, that although being colonies, their "colonial status" didn't pose too much of a problem to their "natives". It should be evident by now that what is meant by "colonialism" or "colonial model" is extremely problematic. The application of a colonial model to Ireland also poses many difficulties. It can hardly be said that from 1171 to 2001 Ireland has always suffered from "colonialism". To put policies as diverse as the Elizabethan wars of conquest or Majorie Mowlam's direct rule under the common denominator of "colonialism" is to give the same identity to things that have little or nothing in common. To speak of Ireland as being solely a victim of something called "British colonialism" presupposes a continuity in British policy that is inexistent and fails to grasp the discontinuity of British policies.  There is a succession of British interventions in Ireland but they are not the product of some kind of transhistorical essence called "colonialism". And British "imperialism' in the specific Leninist sense only began in the late 19th century, while British presence in Ireland predates it. It can also be debated whether British policies are/were coherent. That Ireland has been over the centuries dominated economically, politically, culturally and militarily by England is unquestionable. The whole debate is to delimit when the British presence in Ireland was (or has ever been, some would say) specifically colonial (and not "simply" dominated by England), what is meant by that, when has it started and when did it (or has it? others would say) finish.  Another question that can be asked is whether Irish nationalism can be characterised as an "anti-colonial" or a "decolonisation" movement. Grattan, Tone, O'Connell, Parnell, Collins, de Valera, Hume and Gerry Adams are all Irish nationalist leaders, but not all of them would consider themselves as being "anti-colonial", and not all would have said that "Ireland is a colony of England". It is important to note that to want independence is not the same as to be anti-colonial. Flemish nationalists want independence, but they are not anti-colonial. To presuppose that to want Irish independence and to be anti-colonial is the same is to reduce the diversity of Irish nationalism to one form. Can the politics of Northern Ireland be grasped through a colonial (and anti-colonial) model? A number of substantial objections might be raised against it. The first objection is that the British Government does not claim Northern Ireland as part of its Empire (which doesn't exist any longer) but as an integral part of the United Kingdom state and the European Union. In this sense, the British government cannot withdraw from Northern Ireland anymore than it can from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as no state can withdraw from itself. But Northern Ireland is a bit of an anomaly, as the British government is prepared to let Northern Ireland reunite with the Republic of Ireland if a majority decided to. This is an official recognition that Northern Ireland is a "special" place within the United Kingdom framework. And some comments from British government officials (such as Mr. King who drew an analogy with Cyprus in 1989) clearly suggest that Northern Ireland is a place apart (some British people probably think that Northern Ireland is not just another country, but another planet…). And the Irish government has made it clear that it did not consider Northern Ireland to be place to be "decolonised". For all those reasons, Northern Ireland cannot be a colony in a formal, legal sense. If Northern Ireland is not a colony in any formal sense of the term, that doesn't mean that a colonial framework is totally irrelevant: Northern Ireland might not be a colony, but its problems are colonial in origin (but not in nature), and its people are trying to overcome a colonial legacy.  Assuming that Ireland has been colonised (with settlers being brought in etc.) in the 16th and 17th centuries, the origins of the current problem can be found in that period; but this is not to say that the problems in Northern Ireland today are the same that those in the period of colonisation. A second and more decisive objection ­ the main reason why we are sceptical as to the virtues of a colonial model for Northern Ireland- is that the actions of the different parties involved in the conflict as well as the "concrete analysis of the concrete situation", cannot be accounted for with a "colonial" model. Up to a certain point, the British government could be said to be trying to "decolonise" Northern Ireland by offering to withdraw if a majority of the Northern Ireland population agreed to. It wants to pull out after withdrawing from Cyprus, Aden, etc. But the analogy stops here. A problem is that very few commentators deal with British policies regarding Northern Ireland other than those to do with the national question. British policies in fields such as the economy, housing, the environment etc. are far more "metropolitan" than "colonial" in nature (just compare how the British government and NIO deal with the Province with how the French government deals with the Départements d'Outre-Mer: the differences are striking). If we deal with British policies regarding Northern Ireland in their totality (and not just those of "terrorism", national question, etc.), they could be better characterised as "ghetto policies": Northern Ireland is a larger version of Brixton (although with a national question) rather than a smaller version of India and Cyprus. What about the Unionists? Are they "colonial settlers ", like say Rhodesian whites or Pieds Noirs? They are certainly the descendants of colonial settlers; but that was centuries ago. To say that they have attitudes that are very similar to colonial settlers does not give a ground to infer that they are therefore colonial settlers as such. It has often been said that the I.R.A. and the I.N.L.A. were the Irish version of the Algerian FLN, and therefore an anti-colonial liberation front. As Anthony McIntyre has made it very clear, the Provisionals (it could be argued the same for the Republican Socialist Movement) are more a product of the particular conditions faced by the Nationalist "underclass" in Northern Ireland (a diet of economic marginalisation mixed with political and cultural exclusion) than a reaction to British colonialism. As the so-called Good Friday Agreement proves, the Nationalist "underclass" will settle for far less than "decolonisation". The SDLP type nationalists have never presented themselves as being the representative of "colonised" people. And when it comes to explain concrete conjunctures (Sunningdale, the Anglo-Irish Agreement or GFA for instance) and specific actions of agents involved in the conflict, the colonial model is of no great help. Does all this mean that a colonial framework is totally irrelevant? Certainly not. One cannot totally exclude and put out of the equation a colonial framework; as it is impossible to understand and explain the politics of Northern Ireland if no references are made to the history of British colonialism and oppression in Ireland. To do so would be to abstract the current politics of Northern Ireland from a historical context and legacy and references that still influences and shapes the thinking of agents involved in the Northern Ireland conflict (the way the give meaning to their action and events). Historians might contest that Ireland was colony ("History is written by the winners" ­ Walter Benjamin), but this will make no difference to the ordinary people. It is ordinary people, not historians that are the agents of historical change. To conclude, a colonial framework is conceptually and historically too problematic to explain the present politics of Northern Ireland in an adequate way. However the historical context and the way the understanding of the agents of the conflict is shaped makes it very difficult to avoid any references to a colonial model. Page updated 25 Jan 2009 Ireland's OWN Logo by Eamann Website Design and Celtic Background by Míchealín Daugherty Copyright © 2009 Ireland's OWN All Rights Reserved.