Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Punk PicAuthor(s): Robert JohnstoneSource: Fortnight, No. 175 (Mar., 1980), p. 17Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25546783 .

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March 1980/17

covering five historical periods from 1921, that

the book's claim to originality lies. The focus

of the analysis is the state and the social forces

which came within its ambit. The theoretical

argument is buttressed by liberal use of written source material, in particular cabinet papers for the period up to 1947. After that the Belfast

Newsletter assumes the mantle of objective

empiricism. The theoretical foundation of the book is

that the class struggle in Northern Ireland is

determined by the state. The emergence of the

state as a central preoccupation has been a

key element in the revival of Marxist theory in

recent decades and an analysis of the state in

Ireland has been long overdue. But why this

exercise should be linked to a dismissal of every other attempt to study the problem is far from

clear.

The authors claim to be 'reading' their texts more fully by looking for gaps and unstated

positions which reveal an underlying ideology. The same technique, applied to their own

work, suggests that they are mainly concerned to show that imperialism had nothing to do

with happenings in Ireland. This is linked to a

claim that internal as opposed to 'abstract and

malignant external' factors were dominant in

Northern Ireland politics. The evidence for this is carefully marshalled. Once again we are

confronted by the reality of a state which was

repressive, sectarian and divisive?the creation of men, in the words of Seamus Heaney, with

minds like traps. The value of this exercise is

undeniable and the authors have rightly focused on the internal tensions of the Unionist bloc with its populist and anti-populist tendencies. Unionism was not a stable alliance across class lines, but a coalition of interests which eventually fell apart.

It does not follow from an exposition of the internal politics of the state that external factors were irrelevant to what happened. That cannot be established by an abstract critique of

imperialism or by showing that British

politicians were disinterested. The inherent weakness of the "internal" argument is visible in the short discussion of Catholic politics in the book. Here the argument is a mixture of economism?the grievances of the unskilled Catholic working class?and Marcusian

marginal group theory?the role of People's

Democracy. Republicanism is introduced as an

"undertow" lurking beneath the surface. A more plausible starting point would be the

effects of post war reforms and social

democratic ideology on the Catholic

population. The universalistic ideology of

social democracy presented a challenge to

Unionism. It tried, and failed, to submerge social democratic reforms, which it was forced to accept because of the organic link with the

British state, into a sectarian framework. For

Catholics, social democracy offered a means of

challenging the state which transcended

republicanism: the state could now be accepted if, and only if, it would implement the

universalistic politics of reform. When the state

proved unable or unwilling to transform its

sectarian practices, the form which opposition took was the civil rights movement?the

demand for a social democratic state. The

crucial contradiction here was the relationship between N.I. and the central state, and this

contradiction, external in nature, triggered off

the slide to the collapse of Stormont.

Jim Smyth

PUNK PIC Shell Shock Rock is a documentary about Punk in Belfast, punks' attitudes to their surround

ings, their night-life, their music. It includes

groups like The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers and Rudi.

One of the many interesting things about it is that it was made by Holywood Films (of County

Down) and directed by former art teacher John

Davis, with some financial help (?2,500) from the

Community Arts Committee of the local Arts Council.

That turned out to be a wise investment, for Shell Shock Rock has won a Silver Prize at the 1979 New York Film and Television Festival, and

has aroused interest in Britain and America. Two and a half thousand pounds is very little

towards the cost of producing a fifty minute

picture. Directors always shoot several times the amount of footage they will finally use, and the

editing on this film must have been an intricate and time-consuming labour. Then there was the

recording, mixing and dubbing of songs. In fact, a lot of people believed in the project and were

prepared to work for nothing, and that was how it

got made. This attitude is reflected in the finished article,

a good humoured and unpatronising look at

young people making up their own entertain ment in a place where that's the only alternative.

Many older, straighter people who see this film will understand for the first time that Punk,

amongst the punks, and not in the papers or TV, is a positive response to deprivation. As Shell

Shock Rock shows, it is not so much protest as

rejection. The people in the film reject, in the

music, their behaviour and the interviews, things like sectarianism, paramilitary violence, the

notion that they should be content with the

prospect of dole or crummy jobs, the notion that

they should be quietly miserable. The punks interviewed are a likable lot?naive

and confused perhaps, but in comparison with the hippies of my day, a lot less airy-fairy, less self

absorbed, less pretentious. It says a lot about the state of our society, not

just in the special circumstances of Northern

Ireland, that the public media (and the public) should have been so surprised when another

generation began to invent, in default of

anything better, their own subculture, and tried, in fashions and in the making and selling of their

music and magazines, to avoid being absorbed into the markets of big companies.

It says something about Northern Ireland that Punk should have been so vital in Belfast and

. .. ....... Derry. Although fun and friendship seems to flourish within their ranks, it's difficult to

imagine a more alienated group of people. But then they especially have a lot to be alienated from.

On a cinematic level, Shell Shock Rock is excellent. It's a stylistic mixture of TV

documentary, cinema verite and Arthur Pennebaker. The editing is done with loving care, and some sequences have a strange beauty?the drive through central Belfast at night, for

instance, or the musicians leaving a bus to go to a

gig. If parts are superior to most television, there are also some lapses. For example, I though the street interviews with shoppers, though funny here and there, failed to make their point. The interviewer seemed to be encouraging the

response she expected. But overall this is an important and enjoyable

film. It leaves me with some hope in the resilience of those who have had to spend most of their lives in the present troubles, and with some hope for local film makers too.

Shell Shock Rock was to have been shown at last year's Cork Film Festival, but only a couple

of days before the screening it was withdrawn,

despite having been accepted six weeks

previously. The Selection Committee thought it wasn't 'up to standard'. Having seen it at

Queen's Film Theatre, I can report that the Selection Committee of the Cork Film Festival didn't know their arts from their elbows.

Robert Johnstone

You don't think about what you say, You believe everything you hear every day, !

You don't know if what you're saying is true Because none of it was thought out by you.

I don't wear the clothes, Pm a weekend punk, I don't wear the pins, Pm a weekend punk, I don't do what you say, Pm a weekend punk,

Pm a weekend punk every day. [

You can't think for yourself You leave that to somebody else. Then you start telling me

About how you want to be free.

Do you sit in a cupboard all day? Do you go away on holiday? [ You're a puppet on a string, You dance to the tunes your masters sing. |

ONE CHORD WONDERS, Weekend Punk'

I could be a soldier, go oat there and fight to save this land,

Be a paper soldier, paramilitary gun In hand. I won't be a soldier,

| I won't take no orders from no one.

| Stuff your fuckin army,

Killing isn't my idem of fan.

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

_ Wasted Life'

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