Kevan Saoirse Hunter
EDPS 474
2 February 2007
Insight #3
Reading the article by Battiste, “Enabling the Autumn Seed,” I was reminded of something I had
read previously, about Bobby Sands, who was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike of Irish
political prisoners in British jails. He and nine other prisoners died of starvation.
To quote from the article, by Tony Seed:
“James Connolly of the Easter Rising and the H-Block Hunger Strikers shared another
vision; the renewal of An Ghaeilge, the ancestral Irish language as the right of an
oppressed nation and the vessel of Irish thought and outlook, and the philosophy of Irish
freedom....
“For Bobby Sands, language, culture and heritage was not something iconically detached
from the Irish people -- all the people of Ireland -- nor as something nativistic, and its
renewal was linked with freedom and empowerment. Throughout the course of his
political development, he opposed the cosmopolitan, nihilist culture of British
imperialism which, with related edicts as the Statutes of Kilkenny (1649) and the
consequent dispersal of the Irish clans and the dismantling of the Irish system of
communal land ownership, aimed to destroy the Irish nation, assimilate and Anglicise the
Irish people, disinform their world outlook, foster sectarianism and make Ireland "loyal"
once and for all. Bobby Sands saw language renewal as a prominent component in the
project of nation building of a united Ireland based on equality, justice and peace, and to
empower and inspire the Irish people to reclaim their national identity regardless of age,
class, creed or political outlook.”1
Sound familiar? I think peoples all over the world who are undergoing the process of
decolonization and embarking on nation-building projects have a lot to learn from each other.
Language is the vehicle for thinking, the foundation from which thought material can be
developed. Eliminate a language, and you eliminate the ability of a nation to think its own
thoughts. The second element is that the British sought to eliminate those societies which have
given rise to forms which opposed colonialism. The land systems of the Irish and of First
Nations, though diverse, were in opposition to the British conception of private property, and
were attacked on that basis.
Today, when various Aboriginal nations are affirming their sovereignty, pressure is being put on
Aboriginal nations that in order to be granted the right to “self-government,” they must accept
the European nation-state form. Education is a part of that – bands can control the school boards,
but they must recognize the European curriculum. The irony is that this nation-state form was
developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, at the same time as colonization was taking place.
Seed, Tony. “Honouring Bobby Sands and James Connolly: A Reflection.” The Marxist
Leninist Daily. May 5, 2006. Online: http://www.cpcml.ca/Tmld2006/D36074.htm#1
1
To continue with Tony Seed:
“Here is the real spirit of the Irish, for whom education under the Conquest was an
offence against the law, where a price was put upon the head of a schoolmaster who was
hunted as eagerly as a wolf and the priest. Still, in the depths of the Long Kesh and
Armagh prisons the hunger for learning persisted, and overcame the most dehumanizing
brutalization of the British occupiers and the Loyalist screw. In their solitary cells, deep
in these militarized fortresses, young Irish men and women, garbed only in a blanket,
deprived of clothes and later even of washing and toilet facilities, strove to snatch
illegally the education and language denied them by the British occupier.
“Bobby Sands who himself learned Irish in his first term in Long Kesh, indefatigably
taught his mates their national language in prison hellholes without the benefit of any
writing material or tapes. It was not only a means of communication impenetrable by
prison screws but to reclaim a stolen heritage. This too was a source of great spiritual
strength. Says Gerry Adams, a leader of the H-Block campaign in 1980-81, cell-mate and
friend: "the Irish language was one of the few aspects of prison life that helped the
prisoners lift their spirits above the horror that was all around them and helped them
resist the brutal oppression that was being inflicted upon them."2
I think this speaks for the tenacity of the human desire for learning, and cultural life, that even
among these conditions, people keep on affirming their language and culture. Even within the
institutions created to undermine the peoples’ resistance, resistance sometimes develops further.
Malcolm X went to prison as a common criminal, and emerged politicized. Residential schools,
for all the damage they did, helped form the generation that would challenge Canadian policies
in the courts and meet with lawmakers. This is not to give a ‘colonialist alibi’ as Brownlie and
Kelm3 would put it, but to say that while colonialism can be very damaging, it won’t win.
2
Ibid.
Brownlie, Robin and Mary-Ellen Kelm. “Desparately Seeking Absolution: Native
Agency as Colonialist Alibi?” Canadian Historical Review 74 (4), 543-556.
3