Editor’s Note: The following speech was delivered on May 10, 2024 by Sinn Féin National Chairman Declan Kearney to the Global Anti-Apartheid Conference on Palestine held in Johannesburg, South Africa.
I am honoured to have been invited to address this conference in Johannesburg on the development of a Global Anti-Apartheid Campaign on Palestine and the support of Palestinian national and democratic rights.
I have never visited South Africa before, but the historical significance of Johannesburg resonates strongly with me
Where Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo established their joint law firm.
The resting place of Joe Slovo and Chris Hani; revolutionary leaders of the armed struggle.
The birthplace of Joe Modise who not only commanded MK forces, but managed their integration with SANDF.
And, it is also the home of my friend and comrade, Ronnie Kasrils, who remains as committed to political struggle today as when he first joined the national liberation, and became part of its collective leadership.
I also think of Soweto, which was so central to achieving the freedom of South Africa.
The connections between South Africa’s liberation struggle and Ireland are historic, and endure to this day.
MK and the IRA maintained close links and provided mutual support to each other.
That political and military relationship was directly overseen by Joe Slovo and Joe Modise.
Sinn Féin, and Irish Republicans generally, were deeply committed to the campaign to end apartheid here.
When democracy was finally achieved, the new Republic of South Africa and the ANC became important partners, as well as touchstones for Sinn Féin, in the development of the Irish peace process, and shaping the path to self-determination and national reunification in Ireland.
The political and fraternal links between Irish Republicans and the Palestinian national liberation cause have also existed for many decades.
Palestinian and Irish freedom fighters shared a special bond of solidarity.
Sinn Féin’s commitment to our Palestinian sisters and brothers is absolute and unbreakable.
Just as we stood by those who struggled against apartheid in South Africa, we remain in active support with the Palestinian people who struggle against the apartheid and illegal Zionist occupation imposed upon all of Palestine.
Ours is an internationalist commitment to all those who have and are struggling against repression, exploitation, and for freedom in pursuit of a better, equal, and democratic world.
Whether that has been the townships of South Africa; the refugee camps of Palestine; the mountains of the Basque Country; and the Sierras of Cuba; or, the barrios of Latin America.
History did not commence on the 7 October, but that date has now become a watershed, not only for Palestine itself, but for the entire international community.
It has raised existential issues for the most powerful states which dominate, and for global multilateral institutions, about how international law is implemented, and the dynamics of our multipolar world are democratically managed.
Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza, its aggression in the West Bank, and the collective punishment and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, has posed explicit questions specifically for that cartel of Western governments which control the global north about:
Their actual commitment to international law and primacy of the UN charter;
Their attitude to geopolitical relations with the global south;
And particularly, their moral compass towards international relations, and the actual value they confer on Palestinian humanity, and the national rights of Palestinian people.
The war in Gaza and continued oppression of the Palestinians has laid bare the moral hypocrisy of the big Western powers.
Their imperialist and colonialist histories casts a very long, dark, contemporary shadow over their decisions and actions.
Their stances on Palestine are absolutely untenable, from opposition and equivocation to the calling for a ceasefire, to continuing to fund and arm the Israeli murder machine, and refusing to enforce sanctions.
These positions are incompatible with universal democratic principles, multilateralism, and peaceful coexistence.
Israel’s genocide, ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and settler colonialism may yet become a seminal point for global diplomacy and how it is conducted.
As an Irish Republican party, Sinn Féin is dedicated to the sovereignty of all people.
That is, democracy in its fullest sense.
Our Republicanism is an expression of our progressive internationalism.
Our Republican ideology is internationalist by definition. Its genesis rest in the ideals of the American and French revolutions of the 18th century.
We are committed to the universality of peace, equality, social justice, national self-determination and democracy for all peoples.
Our approach to international relations is governed by adherence to international law, the UN Charter, military neutrality and nonalignment, diplomacy, multilateralism and peaceful coexistence; and also an opposition to imperialism in all its forms.
We bring a struggle perspective to how we engage the world.
We stand for the independence of all nations and peoples, including our own.
Progressive nationalism, not narrow chauvinism.
I believe that national self-determination is the essential, international struggle of our time.
The world we live in is dominated by this issue; the national democratic struggle; the aspiration and right of peoples to determine their own destinies and relations with other nations.
The UN Charter expressly establishes the right to self-determination in Article 1, Paragraph 2.
The denial of that right goes to the heart of Israel’s apartheid of, and occupation in, Palestine.
The struggle for national self-determination in Ireland is centuries old.
Its roots lie in English colonialism eight centuries ago.
Just over 100 years ago British imperialism imposed the partition of Ireland; creating a one party, apartheid state with an inbuilt unionist majority.
Four years previously, the Balfour Declaration established doctrine of a Zionist state, later to emerge as the state of Israel.
Since then, the rights of Palestinians have been repeatedly subjugated by Western imperial interests, in collusion with Zionist colonialism.
When World War II ended in 1945, there were some 45 states in the world.
Today there are nearly 200 as the old colonial empires broke up and new nation states emerged.
Consider the straight lines on maps which marked the boundaries of most African and Asian states.
These were drawn by the rulers of European empires and 19th and 20th century colonial powers – the products of imperialism and colonialism.
Churchill drew the boundaries of Iraq – locking the Kurds into a political prison.
Bismarck cantonized Africa.
Lloyd George oversaw Ireland’s partition.
And Balfour foreshadowed the breakup of Palestine.
Throughout the 20th century, the Palestinians have been dispossessed, displaced and exiled.
Israel state strategy systematically hollowed out the Oslo Accords.
It has sought to put the prospect of Palestine in national sovereignty beyond reach.
All of this has been done with the active complicity and acquiescence of Western powers.
Yet, modern history has also been progressively shaped by anti-imperialist and national liberation struggles.
Only two weeks ago, South Africa celebrated Freedom Day.
Thirty years ago the national democratic revolution came into existence.
Four years later, in April 1998, Ireland’s peace settlement, the Good Friday Agreement, was signed.
The Irish peace process was formalized and a line was drawn under political conflict.
A framework was negotiated to oversee the democratic reform of the northern state.
And critically the right to self-determination was built into the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.
Change has been slow and protracted.
Challenges remain, but today Ireland and especially the north, once a militarized war zone, has been transformed.
The permanent unionist majority has disintegrated and Sinn Féin is the largest party in Ireland.
We now lead the power sharing coalition in the north, and real potential exists to lead government in the southern state.
Constitutional change is on the political horizon.
While nothing is ever inevitable, today we are closer than ever to Irish unity.
The historic changes achieved in South Africa and Ireland emerged from the changed context created by revolutionary armed struggle, which then gave way to negotiations, and ultimately negotiated settlements.
The ‘Four Pillars of Struggle’ in South Africa provided strategic direction and cohesion to the people’s war and mass struggle to end apartheid.
The implementation of our ‘National Strategic Objectives’ by the Sinn Féin leadership guided the Republican struggle from the phase of armed struggle; into multi party talks; the achievement of the Good Friday Agreement; and, it must be said, successive phases of negotiations since then.
Negotiations is a permanent site of struggle.
The ANC and Sinn Féin leadership learned from, and supported each other, throughout these dramatic periods.
Together, we prioritized the primacy of political strategy and leadership, and the centrality of unity and cohesion among the forces of struggle.
These objectives were essential to building political strength.
We did so by taking strategic initiatives, making strategic compromises, and at all times asserting the primacy of politics.
However, neither national democracy in South Africa, or peace in Ireland, would have been achieved without the development of international strategies.
Both the ANC and Sinn Féin successfully internationalized our respective struggles for national democracy and self-determination.
The global anti-apartheid campaign against the Afrikaner regime realigned world opinion and shifted the position of key Western powers, including the USA.
It was a cumulative process of international pressure built up over many years until its momentum was unstoppable.
In Ireland, young striking workers in the mid-1980s changed the policy of the Irish government towards trade with the apartheid government.
Sinn Féin’s peace strategy identified the strategic importance of the Irish diaspora in North America.
We successfully ‘greened’ the U.S. White House in the early 1990s.
The Good Friday Agreement itself was the result of positive international engagement by the U.S., EU, Canada, South Africa, and other international stakeholders.
World government and popular opinion embraced the objectives of ending apartheid in South Africa, and the ending of the war in Ireland, through a peace settlement and a negotiated process of democratic change.
The war in Gaza has become a lightning rod for mobilizing popular global opinion against Israel’s apartheid occupation in Palestine.
The solidarity of ordinary people for Palestine across the global north is unprecedented.
The actions of students, particularly in the U.S., but also in Ireland, Britain, and Europe are reminiscent of the student movement against the Vietnam War.
Students in the U.S. have ensured Israel’s war is now at the center of the Presidential election contest.
The inherent contradictions within Israeli society have never been more sharply exposed.
A pro-peace movement is growing and the state administration of Israel is divided.
The ground-breaking legal action at the ICJ in The Hague by South Africa is not only courageous; it has directly impacted upon the policies of other international governments.
Even though key Western powers have taken outrageous positions in backing Israel, because it serves as a proxy to secure their security and economic interests in the Middle East, the fact is that the West and Europe are not monolithic.
Consider the advanced positions taken by Spain, Portugal, Malta, Belgium, and Ireland. They have all stepped away from the prevailing consensus in the EU.
In addition, clear divergences on policy in Palestine exist within the White House, U.S. State Department and National Security Council.
All of these factors are relevant to the development of the global anti-apartheid campaign which is now essential to securing Palestinian national self-determination, sovereignty and statehood.
Of course there are lessons to be applied for the international interventions which were so important in South Africa and Ireland.
However, the focus of this initiative must be clearly aimed at the complete political, diplomatic and economic isolation of Israel until a complete ceasefire is achieved, and the apartheid occupation is finally ended.
That will mean influencing the balance of power relations and forcing in policy positions of all Western and regional powers towards Israel and the Middle East more generally.
The aim must be delivery on the national and democratic rights of Palestinians, as indemnified in international law.
I believe the global landscape is changing.
A properly calibrated global anti-apartheid strategy can affect and maximize opportunities within that evolving context.
There is now a moment.
A strategic and political opportunity is emergent.
That should not be lost on the Palestinian leaderships.
The South African anti-apartheid campaign provides an historic point of reference with regard to economic divestment and sanctions, diplomatic and multilateral pressure, and political objectives.
However, this cannot be addressed in isolation from the imperative of establishing Palestinian national unity and political cohesion between all national movements and parties, and with civic society.
For the success of a global campaign to be fully maximized, there must be a resolution of divisions within the Palestinian national struggle.
Make no mistake; there is no alternative to an agreed national liberation strategy.
The resistance and reluctance to develop a strategic consensus, embrace political unity, and provide united leadership, is both a strategic failure and weakness.
A united Palestinian leadership which commands overall popular support will give positive impetus to a global anti-apartheid campaign.
A paradigm shift is required within the Palestinian struggle.
An integrated political strategy with properly defined objectives should be agreed, and both generate and direct political momentum within Palestine itself and internationally.
Israel will never defeat the Palestinian spirit of resistance.
There is no military victory for any side.
But the Palestinian struggle needs to equip itself with the cohesion, capacity, and strategies to win.
More of the same is no longer an option. Passing the torch of struggle to future generations is not tenable.
This moment must be seized.
A new phase of struggle is needed.
Progressive and democratic international pressure must be geared to introduce positive initiatives and interventions to deliver a full ceasefire; inclusive talks; followed by fully representative negotiations; an irreversible peace settlement; and achievement of Palestinian national determination and full sovereignty.
The South Africa Freedom Charter, the Harare Declaration, and the principles and provisions of the Good Friday Agreement are political resources which can assist with that paradigm shift.
This war will eventually end.
A new phase will open.
The Palestinian struggle and its component leaderships need to prepare now for the negotiations table when that time finally arrives.
The domestic and international experience of Ireland and the Sinn Féin leadership is available to that end.
We are committed to supporting the development of a Global Anti-Apartheid Campaign for Palestine, while at the same time helping to achieve national unity and development of an agreed political strategy for national democracy and sovereignty.
Declan Kearney
Declan Kearney is the current National Chairman of Sinn Féin. Kearney has been active in republican politics in Northern Ireland since 1980 and has been a key member of Sinn Féin’s national leadership since 2003.
With gratitude to Mondoweiss for facilitating the day after. World attention is an asset to be capitalized on. Self-determination for Palestinians is an imperative.