Len Green 1930 - 2017
Leonard James Green (born 1930, died 15 January 2017 aged 86) came from Salford near Manchester, served as submariner in the Royal Navy, and married in Derry where he spent the rest of his life.
Traces of a “Red Army”-type sentiment were not uncommon among the post-War British forces. Not that Len’s calmly practical, rational and independent social outlook was particularly influenced by romantic revolutionary posturing. Having grown up in Salford in the Hungry Thirties before the social welfare reform, he was much more serious than that. His father died before he was born. He retained an interest in military matters, but it was his experience of the everyday life of his own people which made Len a life-long socialist of the practical kind.
As an ex-serviceman he was able to get employment in Derry in the telephone service, then part of the Post Office. He continued to work for British Telecom until retirement. Paul Grace from Tipperary, also ex-British Forces, worked for the Post Office. Len and Paul met two sisters in Derry, whom they married.
Civil Rights Campaign
Len and Paul took an active role in the Civil Rights campaign of the late 1960’s. As trade union activists they were accustomed to democracy, due process, rules, and organisation. And as former British military they were accustomed to rank, order and discipline. Both of them played leading roles in the vital stewarding and coordination of Civil Rights marches and demonstrations which showed the world that the Catholics were not a destructive, disorderly rabble; that they had something to say, and that they intended to be heard.
In the 1969 Stormont elections, John Hume standing as Independent Nationalist slew the giant, Eddie McAteer who was leader of the old Nationalist Party. Eamonn McCann of the Derry Labour Party made a reasonably good showing. Defeat of the Nationalist Party cleared the way for the formation of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.
At the time of that election Len Green was a member of the Derry/Northern Ireland Labour Party. Some of the membership supported John Hume’s campaign. When the dust of the election settled the Labour Party tried unsuccessfully to recover. Members who had backed Hume in the decisive struggle to overthrow McAteer had to stand up and confess their delinquency.
In Derry the SDLP was formed out of the social ferment of the 1960’s, recruiting from Tenants’ Associations, housing and unemployed campaigns, and the “university for Derry” agitation. It also inherited some of the personnel and outlook of the old Nationalist party which it displaced in the midst of the chaos and fury of 1969.
Len was active in the SDLP until the 1990’s. Subsequently he supported the election efforts of the Foyle Labour Group, and later the Irish Labour Party.
Democratic Rule?
The FLG (Foyle Labour Group) was allied to the Campaign for Labour Representation which held the British sovereign power responsible for the conflict in the Six Counties, and which sought a remedy by making this arbitrary and untramelled British power subject to democratic accountability; by making the governing parties of the sovereign British state stand for election in the Six Counties and seek a mandate to govern from the voters there --- something they had hitherto spurned.
Though the campaign brought this fundamental reality into the public spotlight, it failed in its primary objective and the underlying political reality of the Six Counties remains now as it has been since 1921. While nobody in their right mind would want the current political arrangements in Northern Ireland to revert to another 1969-type meltdown, it should never be forgotten that managed instability, permanently teetering on collapse, was and is the sovereign power’s deliberate choice for this area.
While maintaining his home in Derry, Len Green’s wife’s brother-in-law Paul Grace became a full-time national official of the Post Office trade union in England. In those days trade unions had great political influence in Britain. Though not personally connected to the Northern Ireland-based Campaign for Labour Representation, Paul independently pursued this cause up and down the highways and byways of the trade union movement in England where it was vehemently opposed by strongly entrenched, ideology-bound political factions which were politically powerful behind the scenes in those days.
With his broad Tipperary accent and formidable personal presence, seasoned Civil Rights veteran Paul Grace single handedly ground down the opposition by relentlessly asserting the obvious brute fact of British government power and agency in the Six Counties, and the need to bring it under democratic control, and by resolutely refusing to be lured into ephemeral ideological doctrinal disputes which led nowhere.
Unlike Paul Grace, Len Green was not born Catholic and he had no Irish national heritage in his Salford background. When I first met him he had completed a political career in the SDLP. Being well accustomed to the outlook of the SDLP, I was surprised when Len responded favourably to the Labour Representation message about the cleverly camouflaged role of the British state at the very heart of the structured conflict in Northern Ireland, and how this could be stopped by democratising the British state in the Six Counties.
1921: Sowing Dragons’ Teeth
In 1921 the British state delegated powers in the Six Counties --- including the power of policing the streets, homes and persons of a defenceless, unarmed Catholic minority --- to what was, in effect, an irate, excitable crowd of red-hot Rangers supporters, after first arming them to the teeth.
When you reflect on it, this seems crazy. Especially as Britain had governed the place for centuries and knew exactly what the conseqences would be. There were numerous ways of organising government and policing in the Six Counties, most of which could have produced a semi-civilised outcome. So why did Britain, in 1921, freely and for no good reason change the system which had been in operation there for decades previously? Why did it freely and for no good reason impose the worst possible system that anyone could possibly devise for the Six Counties?
Of course it was not crazy at all. Britain retained, and still retains, untrammelled freedom of action to do good or ill, as it chooses, in the Six Counties. When it suited it, it shut down its stooge parliament in Stormont overnight. Likewise its B-Specials and any other local band of goons which had outlasted their usefulness.
What constantly and permanently serves Britain’s purpose is to pose as the sane, rational, well-intentioned mediator between violent, malicious local factions who, if only they could get at each other, would destroy each other Balkans-style if Britain was not around to prevent it.
So – crazy like a fox. Why does Britain go to such lengths?
Measured instability and tension are Britain’s lever of control and management of its historic Irish backyard. When it separated from Britain the southern Irish state proved to be unexpectedly stable and successful, ever more so as separation increased in scope and depth, from 1922 through to the present. This was diametrically opposite to what Britain anticipated, planned and arranged for, from 1922-23 and through each succeeding decade. Parallels can be found around the world in other countries which became independent from Britain.
The Irish government laid claim to a form of authority in the Six Counties. With the prize of peace and stability in Northern Ireland at stake, the Irish could be lured into closer alignment whenever Britain could present itself as a benevolent actor in the Northern situation, while disguising its own fundamental role in poisoning and aggravating historically fraught community relations there. Not to mention the worldwide international need to prettify the unpleasant actuality of British power in Northern Ireland.
Citizens’ Defence Committee 1969
Len Green had a strong practical sense of the meaning and power of the state. He had been a member of the Citizens’ Defence Committee which sought to protect unarmed Catholic Derry from aggressive incursions by armed loyalists. The threat increased massively on the occasion of the loyalist Apprentice Boys activities in August 1969.
There was great public apprehension but little in the way of practical defence. A construction project was under way in the Bogside at that time, and there was a supply of scaffolding, building material and rubble available. With a military eye to the practicalities, Len undertook a personal survey of the area and its various entry points and weaknesses, and he organised a squad of volunteers to blockade the whole area by constructing barricades from the available materials.
The expected onslaught came right on cue, backed by the police. Len’s improvised barricades enabled the effective resistance known as the Battle of the Bogside. This was ended by an agreement with the British Army’s Colonel Todd, that no state forces would be allowed to enter the barricaded area. There was palpable shock in Parliament that the Queen’s authority had ceased to operate in a part of the Queen’s domain.
While Paddy “Bogside” Doherty was the public face of the Citizens’ Defence Committee in Derry, its effective leader was veteran Republican Seán Keenan who worked closely with Len Green and others. Len did not subscribe to Irish Republicanism which anyway was marginal at the time. Keenan had the confidence of the public on personal grounds, and did not seek advantage in the situation for his own political cause. His immediate aim was to damp down the trouble, not inflame it.
The Provisionals
Despite his best efforts the situation deteriorated over the next couple of years. Keenan then oversaw the development of the Provisional movement in Derry, though he rejected the 1986 Provisional departure from traditional Republican orthodoxy.
It is almost beyond belief that the Catholics remained passive for several generations after 1921. Being unarmed and defenceless probably had something to do with it. Also, the Irish government claimed authority in the Six Counties and posed as champion of “the minority”, an ultimately empty and bogus posture which proved illusory at the critical moment, causing an immeasurable amount of harm.
The latest Balkans catastrophe had not yet happened at that time. But a Balkans loomed, and anybody who cared to know about it could see it coming. Britain had sown dragons’ teeth in 1921. When would the armed men spring up out of this seed, and how far would the horror go?
Could this looming catastrophe be stopped in its tracks and reversed? Delegations of responsible individuals such as Paddy “Bogside” Doherty of the Citizens’ Defence Committee ran in desperation to their defence of last resort, the Irish government which had postured as the champion of the unarmed, defenceless minority.
But when the Irish government was challenged by Britain it promptly turned tail, and instead of mustering its considerable legal and diplomatic resources to stabilise the situation into high-level prevarication, parleys, talks, mediation, negotiations – any one of a myriad ploys that a government can use to cool things down – it panicked and made things immeasurably worse by effectively closing off all such peaceful avenues.
The CDC even went to the bat-shit crazy Dublin IRA, only to be regaled with juvenile fantasy. At best they were merely useless. At worst they threatened to add a Red Terror to the already toxic Balkans mix.
So by default, the Catholics were forced back on their own meagre resources including Len Green’s piles of rubble, and such negligible armaments as could be improvised on the ground.
The primary cause of the catastrophe was the criminal machinations of the sovereign British power. But looking beyond the primary cause, the irresponsible conduct of the Irish government makes it the most reprehensible of the secondary parties.
We are talking about grown-ups here, so there is no need to weigh up the Stormont stooges, the useful idiots, the fall guys who mindlessly accepted the poisoned cup handed to them by the sovereign power in 1921. Their leader Edward Carson, who as a lawyer had fought for the tenants against the landlords in the 1880’s Land War in Leinster and Munster, washed his hands of his witless Ulster Unionist followers when they signed their own suicide note to accommodate the British government in 1921.
Len Green and the “Bogside Police”
In the aftermath of the Battle of the Bogside and the negotiations with the British Army, the Citizens’ Defence Committee took its responsibilities seriously. Len Green’s Civil Rights stewarding operation became a police force for Free Derry, with its own due process and system of detention for offenders. Improvised local policing continued for several decades.
The CDC held regular meetings with the British Army to ensure that the terms of the agreement were adhered to. One issue was whether Army helicopters could enter the air space over Free Derry.
But there is more to a state than defence and policing. The law of the land extends into every area of everyday life. The CDC could not build a school or open a hospital. If you wanted to make a claim on your car insurance, the insurance company would not pay out without an official police report. A statement stamped by the Citizens’ Defence Committee got you nowhere.
After six weeks or so the Queen’s authority began to take effect again, although “Free Derry” was never fully re-absorbed. Everything had changed, and the first major battle of a long war had been strategically masterminded, in part, by a somewhat staid and proper and non-Republican British ex-serviceman.
The 1969-94 war was primarily the fault of the sovereign British state, with a case also to be made against the Irish government of the period. But without minimising the real and terrible tragedies of that war, why did the Balkans catastrophe which loomed in 1969 never actually happen? Why was 1969-94 not infinitely worse?
It is now quite a long time ago, but in hindsight all the Balkans ingredients were present. Anybody who was around at the time knows of neighbours, relatives, friends, acquaintances who were ready to kill and be killed in an uncontrolled war of all against all. Microgroups and individuals took up arms wherever they could get them. Young men who had previously knocked about together now set out to kill each other. This was the Balkans scenario.
The organ-grinder and the monkey
The war was long and bloody, but somehow a Balkans-scale disaster was averted. The key is the Provisional movement which, out of sheer necessity, was extemporised by Seán Keenan and his contemporaries. The Provisionals exerted control over the very dangerous mavericks who emerged out of the 1969 crisis, such as the Official IRA and others, by marginalising them, by eliminating them, or by absorbing them under its own discipline.
But, most of all, the Provisionals kept their focus on the sovereign British organ-grinder which bore responsibility for the situation.
True to organ-grinder form, Britain pursued a policy of “Ulsterisation” throughout, pitting the locals against each other while seeking always to remove itself from the spotlight of responsibility. It presented itself, not as the sovereign power which had created the whole mess, but as the benign outside mediator, protector and peacemaker between implacable local factions.
But the Provisionals, on the whole, were not diverted into making war on the local Orange monkey. In a peculiarly British fashion they kept their heads while all about were losing theirs. By resolutely keeping British responsibility in the frame, the Provisionals averted a Balkans-style catastrophe. The Irish people – and indeed the British people – should be eternally grateful to them for this.
The same can not be said for the British state which, in 1921, prepared, planted and primed the bomb which exploded in 1969, and whose policy throughout was finely calculated to inflame local animosities for its own purposes. Nor can the same be said for the Irish government which dropped the ball right at the critical moment in 1969, and which, with a few honourable exceptions, danced to the British tune in the ensuing decades.
After the Battle of the Bogside the Northern crisis went into a new phase, and Len Green’s sobre, thoughtful and humane contribution to public life resumed in the SDLP. In 1973 he was elected to the City Council, and was re-elected in 1977, 1981 and 1985, serving as SDLP Mayor in 1983-84. In municipal affairs he was a devoted and assiduous representative of the people.
Goodbye, Len, and rest in peace.
Pat Muldowney
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