Glory to Bobby Sands - Some Mc T N points of view - A very interesting read from Saoradh "Women&Revolution" page

There is nothing much to add about Bobby Sands (R.I.P.)

About how much he did in his life, and the example he set during the Hunger Strike fight, where he lead in front and with example. For all this he is a historical figure of the Irish Republican Movement and therefore of the Irish Nation.

Here we only want to say one thing more. Bobby Sans was many things. He was an Irish Patriot and because that, and more, a Volunteer in the I.R.A., he was POW, he was a Hunger Strikers, he was a poet, he was a writer...and yes at one very particular point a TD.

For a very long time McT N wanted to say that of the the list of everything Bobby Sands was, the ones said before, a son, and Irish man, and more...been a TD is, really the last thing, even saying that was less important.

And honestly McT N think and says from a political point of view.

Many will say that thousands of people voted for him and that is important, this and that.
The votes came after Bobby Sands. After what he did.

Without been all the things he was, before hand, and doing what he was doing at that time because who and what he was ... what many voted at that point or any election would he had achieved?

Going even further: are the votes something necessary to legitimize? Because close to the System ideological towers and positions, many of the so-call left and others, will say similar things maybe not in Bobby Sands case but in others or similar. Or even if they don't say it they think it.

The answer is NO. Bobby Sands (or any of his comrades, before and after) did not  need one or one million votes to be what he was, and what he now is. Not only in the Irish Nation and for Irish People but for people in many Nations.

And this thought gains more weight, much more, if we think how elections are conducted, how voters and people can behave at some points, under some circumstances or if they are put before certain dilemmas (and this are really prefabricated in many cases, and by the system itself, that had, has and for a while will have the monopoly of prop during voting time). All this without going into say that was not an All-Ireland vote in a Free Nation.

Or can we think or imagine even of the case of Bobby Sands getting a small amount of votes? Then what? They would have gone mad, and would still repeating today things like “The Hunger Strike did not have support”, “the IRA did not have public support”, “the Armed Insurgency and Resistance of the Irish Nation have no place in a modern Ireland”  and bla, bla, bla. 

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A very interesting read from Saoradh "Women&Revolution" page

'They gave him thirty thousand votes while in captivity.'

There are events you remember vividly in your life for a number of reasons, and I remember this one like it was yesterday even though it was 37 years ago.

At the time when Bobby was elected to the Fermanagh and South Tyrone seat on the 9th of April 1981 I was working for a local Doctor.

Republicans had been on tenterhooks for days as we awaited the outcome of the Anti H Block vote.

For me though, I was sitting in a busy surgery with no access to a radio or any means of getting news, therefore I spent part of the day listening to local people coming in and out, in the hope someone knew something.

That afternoon I was sitting quietly with the patients waiting for the blood clinic when I heard a whole ruckus in the waiting room.

When I looked down the small corridor in the direction of the patients room, our family dog Lucky was running around distracted sniffing round the chairs, on spotting me she bounded up the hall, and in an attempt to climb over the desk to me she knocked down a mini switch board, tablets, samples and everything else in her way.

Seconds later my Ma appeared on the scene, clearly oblivious to the wreckage all round and the waiting patients, some bemused, some not, she announced, 'Oh Nuala, he's in. He got over 30,000 votes.'

The smiles just seemed to go on forever, even when the rest of the day transcended back to a semi normality, the feel good just went on and on.

Bobby had received 30,493 beating the UUP candidate by 1400 votes. At the time Republicans felt they were on the crest of a wave.

Sadly twenty six days later Bobby Sands would be dead, and I would be on my way back to Armagh Gaol.

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Nothing to say, very interesting and clear article.

In the W&R page there is an image of a graffiti that reads "Thirty thousands can't be wrong".

To keep the direction of the thought of the top of the post, and honestly speaking, is a mislead slogans and wrong one.

30.000 and more, many more, CAN be wrong. They were not in this case. But as said at the beginning, Bobby Sands was right with out the need of "going into elections and been able to receive votes".

With 1000 and with 1 vote and with 0 votes, still Bobby Sands was doing what is, what was right, before he was a POW, before the Hunger Strike. What Bobby Sands did was right, is right. From a human, national, social, revolutionary and political point of view. End of. As simple as that.

What Bobby Sands was, we know. We don't have to vote on it.

That election, a capitalist and colonial one by the way, passed. Changed nothing.

Bobby Sands (the coherent Irish patriot and revolutionary, the republican, the soldier, the poet, the man, the son) memory lives on.

The fight goes on.

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