INTERVIEW WITH BERNADETTE DEVLIN

By Barbara Winslow

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, revolutionary and former member of the British Parliament, was in the United States in October on a two-week speaking tour for the International Socialist Organization. The purpose of her tour was to discuss the recent events in Ireland in the wake of the IRA assassination of Mountbatten and the increased repression by the British government. McAliskey was interviewed for What She Wants.

Most people know little about what is going on in Ireland. They think there is no reason for it except that they are Irish and they've been doing it for years. There has been violence in Ireland ever since the British came 800 years ago.

Between 1964 and 1968 we tried every conceivable constitutional method to lobby the Protestants, to lobby the British, and we received absolutely nothing in return. Then, inspired by Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, we, the non-political students at Queens University in Belfast, got involved in the Civil Rights Movement. We could see that black people in the U.S. weren't afraid and were willing to fight for their rights, and so should we. I had no political experience, but happened to be at the meeting where the People's Democracy was formed. We agreed upon the idea of having a march, but there was a problem. The person who signed for the marchtook responsibility for it--was usually the one who went to prison after it was over. No one else would sign for the march, so I did. And that eventually led to my being the one to run for Parliament.

The civil rights demonstrations were allowed as long as they were small and contained, but thousands of people took to the streets and soon our protests became illegal. That was when the British troops came in, in 1969. And make no mistake about it. The British troops did not come in to protect Catholics. Where were the troops in the 30's, 40's and 50's when Protestants attacked our communities? The British came into our streets because for the first time we were organizing and fighting back. We were bringing the government of Northern Ireland to its knees.

I was arrested and spent six months in jail for helping to defend my community, the Catholic communi-

WINS

WJRZ

Jason LaurePix

Bernadette Devlin airs her views

ty, from Protestant violence. I know that the role of the British Army is not to save lives. The army is there to enforce the rule of law that oppresses the Catholics.

The press and the British government like to say

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that the IRA has been defeated. But the IRA cannot and will not be defeated. They will fight to the last person and until every Briton is out of Ireland. The British Army is finding it difficult to fight the IRA. And I will not condemn the IRA for violence as the press keeps asking me to do. Mountbatten was a target not only because of his ties to the royal family, but also because he represents the English in so many ways. I don't know how people can be so affected by the death of one man and never shed a tear for the lives of the young people who are killed. The press talked about Mountbatten's courage, his devotion to his country. Well, many young people in Northern Ireland have shown greater courage and greater devotion. And the English shed no tears when the army guns them down.

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Right now I am active in the prisoners movement and the troops out movement. I am in an organization called Women Against Imperialism formed several months ago by mothers, wives and sisters of the political prisoners. By any standards-by Amnesty International, by the European Court of Human Rights the British government violates human rights. You can be taken to prison and held for seven days without a lawyer, without access to your family, without access to a doctor. You appear in court with your name signed on a confession. And on this evidence alone you can be convicted and sentenced to thirty years. Prisoners show up with lacerated ears, with severe bruises on their genitals, necks and backs. And then the police lie in court and say the prisoners did it to themselves.

Some of the prisoners have been hunger striking and refusing to wear prison uniforms. They are demanding the right to be treated as political prisoners. Do you know how many political prisoners there are in Northern Ireland? Over 5,000 in a country with a population of one and a half million. The men refuse to wear the prison uniforms, and in return are not allowed to leave their cells to go to the bathroom or to exercise. For years now a group of men have eaten, slept and urinated on their cell floors in defiance of the prison laws which say they cannot be considered political prisoners.

1 decided to run for the European Common Market election last summer, not because I believe in the Common Market-I don't-but because I wanted to expose conditions in the prisons. The planks of my campaign were the immediate withdrawal of British troops, amnesty and political status for prisoners. We wanted them to know that the solu-

tion of the problems would come with the end of British rule.

The IRA did not support me. They argue that they won the election of 1918 which called for a united Trish republic, and that's the only election they'll sup port. The English refused to abide by that election. So my supporters, and they were mainly women, had to argue the campaign not only against the guns of the British troops, but also against the arguments of the IRA. We heard of prisoners telling their mothers not to vote, and the mothers would get word back to the sons that they were supporting me. I got about 38,000 votes, and while I went heavily into debt, it was worth the effort. I am hoping that when I get back, there will be further unification of the various organizations,

I never identified strongly with women's liberation until fairly recently. As a socialist I always supported it. But it was not until I had children that I began to understand the reality of women's oppression. Also, it was the press that pushed me into a strong women's position. They would come to my house and never write about my ideas or political opinions. All they were interested in was my children, the color of the curtains or if I was a good wife. We also face a lot of male chauvinism with the movements. But wives and sisters of prisoners are joining together and won't stand for such treatment by the men much longer. The battered wife issue is important here; the women say that if they won't be beaten by British troops, they won't be beaten by their husbands.

Women have always played an important role in the Irish struggle. Constance Markevicz was second in command of the 1916 Easter Rising. She's never mentioned because she's a woman, but she remained loyal to Marxist ideas all her life.

I, and hundreds like me, didn't start off as revolu tionary socialists. It was the struggle, the repression by the British, that turned us into socialists. Fam confident that I will live to see a free, united socialist republic of Ireland. Unless the British are thrown out, my children and my grandchildren will have no other recourse but to pick up the gun. But young people are moving to socialist ideas in a phenomenal way. There is even a socialist faction within the IRA today.

We are better off in 1979 than we were ten years ago. It has been worth the struggle, worth the price we have had to pay in the lives of our young people. After these ten years there has never been greater determination. We will see a united and free socialist Ireland.

NYC Anti-Pornography March

By Hanna Lessinger

On October 20, about 7,000 people participated in the Women Against Pornography (WAP) march on New York City's Times Square, the heart of the city's "adult entertainment" district. The march was part of WAP's 9-month-old effort to mobilize women and men against the $4 billion pornography business in the U.S. Similar marches have recently been held in other U.S. cities. But New York, with one of the country's largest and most concentrated pornography and prostitution districts, is a major target. The march and rally drew participants from the entire spectrum of the women's movement, although most of the march participants were white and middle-class. The march also attracted a wide range of support from groups including the following: the Gray Panthers and the National Lawyers Guild, contingents of women students and teachers from colleges in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, women's groups from as far away as Pittsburgh and Rhode Island, Lesbians Against Por-

nography, actresses from the Actors and Directors Laboratory and the Screen Actors Guild, The Amalgamated Clothing Workers Local 69 and the United Hebrew Trades ACWA.

In the early stages of the march, the reception from crowds on the sidewalk was interested, even friendly. But as the march drew into Times Square and then swung cast on 42nd Street, the mood of both marchers and onlookers changed. The marchers' chanting took on an angry edge and was soon mixed with yells and war-whoops as the pimps and hustlers loitering outside the dozens of porn shops began to heckle demonstrators,

Speakers at the Bryant Park rally which followed the march explained in detail WAP's position on pornography, women's rights and the censorship" issue. March organizers inclulded speakers who presented a lesbian perspective on the issue of pornography, in part because a New York lesbian group had objected to the march on the grounds that an

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