Bernadette Devlin speaks on International Women's Day

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I0 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1989 In British-occupied Northern Ireland, women as well as men are imprisoned for struggling to free their country from a foreign invader.

It has become a tradition for women and men to rally on International Women's Day, March 8, at the gates of Maghaberry Women's Prison outside Belfast. This year, Socialist Action staffwriter Hayden Perry joined the several hundred Irish nationalists who massed at the prison gates to shout encouragement and support for the Republican women incarcerated there.

A band made up of very young people, playing traditional tunes of Irish struggle, led the marchers before the prison gates. Ai an impressive moment in the demonstration, a leader intoned the names of the political prisoners confined behind the walls. As each name was called out the crowd shouted, "We support you. We are with you."

A number of speakers addressed the rally. Among them was Bernadette Devlin McAlisky, who helped found the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland 20 years ago and has been fighting for a united socialist Ireland for two decades. Excerpts from her speech are printed below.

San Francisco Two-day conference on 'Feminism and Revolution' Fri., April 14, 8 p.m.

Film: 'How we got the vote' Sat., April 15, Three sessions: 11 a.m.: Stephanie Coontz on 'The Origins of Women's Oppression' 2 p.m.: Film on reproductive rights around the world 4 p.m.: Panel Discussior on 'The Women's Movement Today;

Speakers: Linda Castro, Zakiya Somburu, Carole Seligman, and others.

All sessions at 3435 Army St., Rm. 308. For more info. call 821-0458. on Women's Rights Boston What's Next for the Women's Beyond the April 9 March' Panel:

Ellen Convisser Pres. Boston N.O.W Alexei Folger, Socialist Action Other speakers to be announced.

Fri., April 28, 7:30 p.m.

Cambridge YWCA 7 Temple St.

For more information call 497-0230.

It seems to me, standing at the gates of the prison, all of us women together, that this is a measure of how far we as women and as sisters have come. Our being here today-and our making noise today-is for our sisters, the women inside the prison, who will know and hear some way that we are here.

When we started in the Civil Rights Movement, we did not know where we were going. All of us believed it would not be very long. We innocently believed that we would get civil rights and some degree of justice, and then go back to where we came from and get on with the rest of our lives.

The development of the struggle was clearly seen in the demands that we made.

There was not a voice in Ireland raised in objection to the slogan, "one man, one vote.

But if this demand were granted we would be no better off-because we were not men. We learned as we went along.

The work of ordinary women The leaders of the early civil rights period were not people like Bernadette Devlin, but people whose names were not known then, and are not known now. They were ordinary women who fought their battles of evictions Los Angeles 'Defend the Right to Choose!

Today's Fight for Abortion Rights and Reproductive Freedom' Speakers:

Carol Downer, Exec. Dir., Feminist Women's Health Clinics Dr. Betty Brooks, Moderator of Feminist Susan McGreivy, Feminist attorney for women's and gay right!

Tybie Marton, Sor cialist Action Fri., April 28, 7:30 p.m.

L.A. City College Music Bldg, Stud. Ctr., 855 N. Vermont and organizing protests.

Before the Civil Rights Movement was started, there were four years of solid work being done-in the main part by women. Once the committee got formed, one or two token women were elected to it.

That is where we were in terms of women's equality 20 years ago. We did not even have time to find out if we were oppressed. I was was very honest at the time was, "I haven't the time to find out."

I was oppressed because of my class. I was oppressed because of my community. And someone wanted me to deal with another layer of oppression, no thanks! I didn't have the time.

But I found out it made a difference. When internment was introduced, we sometimes benefited from sexism. Women avoided the death penalty. The majority of people interned were men.

That meant the bulk of the work outside was done by women, who were the wives or sisters or friends or daughters of people who were interned—or their comrades.

The development of the struggle was un... Thousands march (continued from page like when women died from botched illegal abortions, and they don't intend to find out by personal experience.

Delegations from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Norway are expected to join the marchers in Washington. Women in these countries face similar battles to keep abortion legal and accessible.

San Francisco action

In San Francisco, organizing for the April 2 March for Women's Equality/Women's Lives met with similar success. Busloads of pro-choice activists from as far away as Sacramento and Redding are joining the demonstration.

Organizations which traditionally shy away from mass action-such as chapters of the League of Women Voters—not only endorsed the march, but are organizing contingents as well. Organizers predict April 2 will be the largest pro-choice demonstration in many years in San Francisco.

All this activity means that women are ready to fight back. Tired of relying on backroom lobbying and letter-writing who never speak at meetings, who are the backbone of any struggle. The women who do the social and community work. The women who concentrate on looking after the other sisters. Or engage in the broad political work. Or take up the military struggle. None of them do it for kicks. None of them do it for excitement. And none of them do it to be personally uplifted.

We have come to the prisons, and we have seen young lives ruined. We have seen, over 20 years, such tears and such sorrow, such suffering. If anybody had told us 20 years ago that was what lay in the road for us, don't you think in our innocence and naiveté we would have gone home?

But we go on. And we learn from that sorrow, and we learn from that strength. And in all our uneven development, all we ask of our sisters who support us is to grow with us, and share with us. We know what is in front of us.

Do you really believe that the British capitalist state is going to stand by quietly while we try to build an independent workers' republic in this country? Do you really believe that the British capitalist state has done its worst on us?

They have not even started to crucify us. And we know it. And yet these women are here. And that prison has young women in it. And young women just coming out of it. Because after all we have suffered you could not beat it out of us with a stick.

There is a strength, and a caring and sharing in us, because we know how to say, "I am strong and I hurt," and not feel that those two things are contradictory.

campaigns, women are taking to the streets to demand their democratic rights. The women's movement is shaking off the effects of the demoralizing defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982 and moving forward.

The unity forged among the diverse groups building these marches demonstrates both the potential for the women's rights movement and the correct strategy for winning our democratic rights. The leadership of the pro-choice movement, like the leadership of the trade-union and civil rights struggles, often uses mass action only when efforts at lobbying Democratic and Republican politicians fail.

But the interests of women, like the interests of the working class as a whole, are diametrically opposed to the interests of capitalist politicians. The rights we fought for 15 and 20 years ago are being taken away by courts and members of Congress who are more interested in profits than in human lives.

The real test of the leadership of the pro-choice movement will be what happens after April 9. For the sake of the thousands of women who will be doomed to die from illegal abortions, the movement must remain visible in the streets to safeguard abortion rights and to restore Medicaid funding and repeal all the parental-consent laws now on the books.

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