PUBLISHER’S NOTE
World Political Innovators pro les some of the most in- The text of the essays is divided into the following: novative political leaders from around the world The Early Life provides facts about the individual’s individuals have been selected for their dedication to upbringing and historical context their country By studying the lives of these in uential Life’s Work, the heart of the article, consists of individuals, researchers will gain new points of refer- a straightforward, generally chronological, ac- ence and a deeper understanding for how each of them count of how the individual gained recognition, changed history, for better or worse emphasi ing their most signi cant endeavors, achievements, and failures SCOPE OF COVERAGE Sidebars explore a speci c political party or World Political Innovators features biographies of group that the individual identi ed with individuals who have had a signi cant in uence on the Personal Life includes post-achievement activi- global political landscape since the 40s Biographies ties or positions, family life, and topics of gen- represent a strong multi-ethnic, cross-gender focus n eral interest addition to historical signi cance, leadership s ills, and Further Reading provides a starting point for patriotism, you will discover that many of the pro led additional research political leaders demonstrated new and different ways of thin ing for the time in which they lived, often im- SPECIAL FEATURES pacting today’s political landscape ur criteria also in- Several features distinguish this series from other bio- cluded the individual’s appeal to high school and under- graphical reference wor s The bac matter includes the graduate students, as well as general readers following aids, appendices, and indexes: Annotated Timeline presents a comprehensive ESSAY LENGTH AND FORMAT list of milestone events in the evolution of poli- Each biographical essay averages 4,000 words in length tics since the 40s and offers standard reference top matter: Party Website Directory for ma or political The name by which the individual is best nown parties Birth and death dates, followed by locations of Geographical Index lists political innovators by those events as available the country where they had the most impact olitical party s or group s that the individual Index provides a detailed A-Z list of political has been af liated with gures, parties, etc Synopsis of the individual’s historical political importance, and why he or she should be studied Salem ress would li e to extend its appreciation to all today involved in the development and production of this wor
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FM_Innovators in World Politics_Vol_1.indd 9 7/28/16 10:03 AM World Political Innovators Gerry Adams
GERRY ADAMS Irish Political Leader
Born: October 6, 1948; Belfast, Ireland Group Af¿liation: Sinn Féin Political Party
INTRODUCTION 7KH,ULVK5HSXEOLFDQ$UP\DQGLWVSROLWLFDOZLQJ6LQQ )HLQ ³2XUVHOYHV$ORQH´ LQ ,ULVK ZKLFK OHG WKH 5H- SXEOLFRI,UHODQGWRLWVLQGHSHQGHQFHIURP*UHDW%ULWDLQ HDUOLHULQWKHFHQWXU\ZHUHUHERUQDVWKH3URYLVLRQDO ,5$ DQLOOHJDOHQWLW\ DQG3URYLVLRQDO6LQQ)HLQ QRZ OHJDO LQ1RUWKHUQ,UHODQGRU8OVWHUZKHQWKHFXUUHQW SKDVHRI³WKH7URXEOHV´EHJDQLQWKDWSURYLQFHRIWKH 8QLWHG.LQJGRPLQ *HUU\$GDPVZKRZDVERUQ LQWRUHSXEOLFDQDFWLYLVPLQ%HOIDVWVSHQWVHYHUDO\HDUV GXULQJWKH VLQWHUQHGZLWKRXWWULDOLQWKHFDXVHRI DQ ,UHODQG XQLWHG DQG IUHH RI %ULWLVK FRORQLDOLVP 7R- ZDUGWKHHQGRIWKDWGHFDGHKHDQGRWKHU\RXQJQRUWK- HUQ 3URYLVLRQDOV EHJDQ WR GLVSODFH WKH ROGHU 3URYR OHDGHUVKLSZKLFKKDGFRPHFKLHÀ\IURPWKH5HSXEOLF WRWKHVRXWK,QWKHHDUO\ V$GDPVPRYHGIURPWKH YLFHSUHVLGHQF\WRWKHSUHVLGHQF\RIWKHSDUW\ZKLFKKH VWLOOKROGV)URP WR KHZDVWKHPHPEHURI 3DUOLDPHQWIRU:HVW%HOIDVWZLWKRXWHYHUDFWXDOO\WDN- LQJKLVVHDWLQWKH+RXVHRI&RPPRQVDW:HVWPLQVWHULQ *HUU\$GDPV NHHSLQJZLWKWKHUHSXEOLFDQUHIXVDOWRVZHDUDQRDWKRI OR\DOW\WRWKH%ULWLVK&URZQ $V WKH PRVW YLVLEOH RI WKH LPSODFDEOH IRHV RI WKH in Belfast, the capital of County Antrim and of Northern %ULWLVKSUHVHQFHLQ1RUWKHUQ,UHODQG$GDPVLVUHJDUG- Ireland itself. Northern Ireland is also known as Ulster, HGLQVRPHTXDUWHUVDVDQDSRORJLVWIRUWHUURULVPHYHQ although it comprises only six (Antrim, Armagh, Down, WKRXJK KLV LQÀXHQFH ZLWKLQ UHSXEOLFDQLVP DSSDUHQWO\ Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Londonderry, called Derry by ZHLJKV LQ IDYRU RI SROLWLFDO VROXWLRQV DQG DJDLQVW GH- republicans) of the nine counties making up the historic SHQGHQFHRQPLOLWDU\DFWLYLW\DORQH,QDGGLWLRQWRKLV province of Ulster. Irish history (which for Adams be- FRQWURYHUVLDOSROLWLFDOUHSXWDWLRQKHKDVHDUQHGUHFRJ- gins with the rise of Celtic civilization in the fourth and QLWLRQIRUWKHZULWLQJWKDWKHGRHVLQKLVZRUGV³MXVW following centuries), and especially the historical back- DV D KREE\´ +H KDV SXEOLVKHG ¿YH ERRNV LQFOXGLQJ ground of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, ¿lls several Pathway to Peace WKHPHPRLUVFalls Memories chapters of Adams’s autobiographically focused )DOOV DQG Cage Eleven DQG The Street and 0HPRULHV “In 1177 the [predominantly Celtic] prov- Other Stories +LVVWRULHVDUHZDUPDQGKRPH\ ince of Ulster was granted to John de Courcy by the SRUWUDLWVRIWHQYHUJLQJRQWKHVHQWLPHQWDORIWKHSHR- English monarch on condition that he conquer it . . . ,” SOHRI:HVW%HOIDVWLQZKLFKKHWULHVWRVKRZKRZWKRVH he wrote. “Belfast [became] the scene of many pitched SHRSOHKDYHHQGXUHGDORQJQDWLRQDORUGHDOZLWK³DIDLU battles between the dispossessed Irish and the English DPRXQWRIGLJQLW\DQGJRRGKXPRU´ [until] Hugh O’Neill [the Ulster Irish chieftain also known as the Earl of Tyrone] was forced to surrender in EARLY LIFE 1603. . . . The power of the Ulster chiefs was broken and Gerry Adams was born Gerard Adams on October 6, their lands, the last in Ireland to be conquered, were now 1948 in West Belfast, the working-class Catholic ghetto open to the English. . . . In 1607 the Flight of the Earls
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A_Innovators in World Politics.indd 9 06/07/16 11:01 AM Gerry Adams World Political Innovators
saw the ¿nal collapse of the Ulster chieftains and the “was always eager to be Irish, to learn Irish, to play the way was cleared for wholesale plantation.” The Ulster Irish sports.” Adams himself has recalled that he and the “plantation” was the British Crown’s systematic con¿s- Protestants of his age with whom he sometimes social- cation of Irish land in what is now Northern Ireland in ized when he was growing up “never discussed politics the seventeenth century and the resettlement of that land or religion except in a joking or bantering fashion.” Ad- by Protestants from England and Scotland. The loyalist ams (who calls himself an “Irish Catholic,” rather than hegemony in Ulster remained unaffected by the Anglo- a Roman Catholic), like other republicans, has always Irish treaty of 1921, which created the Irish Free State, perceived the Protestant/Catholic/Dissenter polariza- the predecessor of the Republic, in the south and at the tion as, at root, more explicable in terms of class, eco- same time partitioned north from south. nomics, politics, and British colonialism than of reli- Adams was one of thirteen children, three of whom gion—a sectarianism deliberately seeded by the British died at or soon after birth. His father, Gerry Sr., a day in the Ulster plantation and solidi¿ed in the partition of laborer and IRA member, had been shot and imprisoned 1921. In )DOOV Memories he wrote: “Belfast Presbyteri- by the Royal Ulster Constabulary. His mother, Annie, ans [once] fought alongside their Catholic neighbors for was a Hannaway, a near-legendary name in the annals national independence and political democracy. ... Yet of Irish nationalism, going back in the Fenian move- within two generations the majority of Presbyterians ment to the 1860s. Her father was William Hannaway, had abandoned their revolutionary principles, embraced a labor leader and a friend of the martyred socialist the politics of the Tories, and developed a deep-rooted revolutionary James Connolly and of Eamon de Val- antipathy towards their Catholic neighbors. This trans- era, the revolutionary who became the most prominent formation is one of the most disturbing facts in Irish Irish statesman of the twentieth century. Adams’s uncle history. It was caused directly by the forces of reaction, Dominic Adams was IRA chief of staff during World supported by the wealthy landlord class, who feared the War II, and his uncle Al¿e Hannaway was a republican union of Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter. As Hugh activist. Gerry Adams’s brother Patrick is also involved Boulter, Lord Chief Justice, warned the London gov. in the nationalist movement. ernment in the eighteenth century, such a union would The Falls Road intersects the heart of the working- mean µfarewell to the English inÀuence in this country.’” class neighborhoods comprising West Belfast, where When still in his teens, Adams worked as a bartend- most of Belfast’s Catholics live. Among those neighbor- er at the Ark Bar, a pub on Old Lodge Road in Belfast hoods is Ballymurphy, where Adams grew up and where with a largely working-class Protestant clientele. “The he attended schools run by the Christian Brothers, re- crack [banter] was always good,” he recalled in )DOOV ceiving his primary education at St. Finian’s School and 0HPRULHV “Politics were seldom discussed, and sec- his secondary education at St. Mary’s. “In the turbulent tarianism only raised its head openly as the twelfth of years before the winning of independence for twenty- July drew near.” Later he worked at the Duke of York, a six of Ireland’s thirty-two counties, the minority Catho- pub on Donegal Street in downtown Belfast frequented lic population in Belfast had been under siege from the by politicians and journalists. According to David Rem- majority Protestant one,” Colm Keena write in $%LRJ- nick, writing in the 1HZ 10 A_Innovators in World Politics.indd 10 06/07/16 11:01 AM World Political Innovators Gerry Adams along the Falls Road led to clashes between the Royal Affiliation: Sinn Féin Political Party Ulster Constabulary and local residents. At around the same time, Adams joined Sinn Fein, the political party, Sinn Féin is an Irish Republican political party and is then outlawed, that had been formed in the south in considered left-wing. The phrase “Sinn Féin” is Irish 1895 with the aim of winning Irish independence from for “ourselves.” The goal of the party is to be united Britain. After the twenty-six southern counties compris- and independent from Britain. The party backs the ing four-¿fths of the island of Ireland developed into 1998 Good Friday Agreement and through its lead- an independent Eire beginning in the 1920s, Sinn Fein ership maintains its goal of peace as part of its agenda had a continuing reason for being: to work toward the for change. merger of Eire and Ulster into an independent, united Sinn Fein is the leading nationalist party. It sup- Ireland comprising all thirty-two counties. ports the creation of a “Minister for Europe” and is “By the end of 1964,” Adams recalled in )DOOV supportive of the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestin- 0HPRULHV “I was . . . an interested part of a small group ian conflict. Other key political agendas include which gathered in a dingy room in a Cyprus Street legal same-sex marriage and a national health plan. G.A.A. Club to learn about Fenians and Fenianism, Gerry Adams has been president of the party since colonialism, neocolonialism, partition, and British im- 1983. Most of the party’s supporters are relatively perialism. Sinn Fein, then an illegal organization, was young. beginning to expand [in the north, whereas previously its strength had been chieÀy in the south], and I was happy to be part of this new expansion. The Special Powers the exclusion of armed struggle. Those opposing that Act [a martial-law measure, dating from 1920, allowing policy broke off from the “Of¿cial” IRA, calling them- imprisonment without trial], the ban on Sinn Fein and selves “Provisionals” and moving into the fray in Bel- on the 8QLWHG,ULVKPDQ newspaper, the lack of adult suf- fast with a spirit reminiscent of the IRA’s 1919-21 war frage, discrimination in jobs and housing, the gerryman- of independence against Britain. On the other hand, dering of local government boundaries, and the sectarian British army troops dispatched to Northern Ireland as divisions which were built into the Stormont [provision- peacekeepers soon found themselves mired for the long al government] structures all became real and deeply felt term in a situation in which they were, and still are, per- grievances.” In the late 1960s Adams helped organize ceived by republicans as the occupying force of a for- the West Belfast Housing Action Committee, the West eign power. That perception solidi¿ed on “Bloody Sun- Belfast Unemployment Action Committee, the Northern day,” January 30,1972, when British paratroopers killed Ireland Civil Rights Association, and the Central Citi- thirteen unarmed Catholic protesters and injured 150 in zens’ Defence Committee. In 1968 various groups began Londonderry. In March 1972 the British government to mount demonstrations in Belfast and Londonderry suspended the Ulster constitution and the parliament at against Àagrant and demonstrable inequities in housing, Stormont and imposed direct rule of the province from employment, voting, and government services. The civil London. rights demonstrators were often threatened by violent “Orange” opposition on the part of organized paramili- LIFE’S WORK taries and ad hoc vigilantes, and the Royal Ulster Con- Adams has never admitted to membership in the Irish stabulary was conspicuous in its failure to protect them. Republican Army, but British intelligence sources be- When the violence escalated into urban warfare in 1969, lieve that he was the commander of the IRA’s Belfast Adams joined the self-defense teams protecting the brigade in the early 1970s and later a member of the Catholic ghettos against invasions by unionist mobs. At Army Council and chief of staff. Whatever his rela- the same time, the Irish Republican Army, which, along tionship to the IRA, it was obvious that he favored a with Sinn Fein, had all but disappeared in Ulster, re- more aggressive republican strategy. During much emerged, originally under leadership transplanted from of the 1970s he was either on the run or in custody. Dublin, under schismatic circumstances. Arrested and interned without trial under the Special In the mid-1960s the Dublin leadership had be- Powers Act, he was held in a succession of facilities, come dominated by the inÀuence of the Communist including the prison ship H.M.S. 0DLGVWRQH berthed Party of Ireland, which advocated political tactics to in Belfast harbor, and Long Kesh, a prison camp near 11 A_Innovators in World Politics.indd 11 06/07/16 11:01 AM Gerry Adams World Political Innovators Belfast. “Those who knew Adams during his stints at convention in Dublin in 1986, would break off into the Long Kesh remember him as the promoter of discus- republican Sinn Fein. The Provisional IRA, previously sion sessions—the jailhouse professor who talked for structured into brigades, battalions, and companies on a hours about the Cause, about strategy, about Irish his- geographical basis, was reorganized into a more tightly tory and the per¿dy of the British,” David Remnick controlled and yet more elusive organization, struc- wrote in his New 12 A_Innovators in World Politics.indd 12 06/07/16 11:01 AM World Political Innovators Gerry Adams for Peace,” which was reinforced with the document to democratic and peaceful methods of resolving our “Towards a Lasting Peace in Ireland” (1992). During political problems.” 1988 he and John Hume, the leader of SDLP, the ma- Meanwhile, in the general election held on April jor Ulster Catholic party, in attempted secrecy (because 9, 1992, Adams, with 16,826 votes, or 42.1 percent of they were so uncompromisingly at odds in their pub- the total, lost his Westminster seat to Dr. Joe Hendron lic positions) held the ¿rst round in a series of peace- of SDLP, with 17,415 votes, or 43.6 percent. Fred Co- directed discussions that have continued to the present. bain of the Ulster Unionist Party ¿nished third, with Commenting on a somewhat cryptic statement made by 11.0 percent, and the extreme left-wing Workers Party Adams regarding the subject of the talks, David Hearst candidate trailed a distant fourth, with only 750 votes. wrote in the *XDUGLDQ (September 4, 1988): “Decoded, Adams’s loss was attributed to Protestant voting strat- this means that if Britain came to deal with . . . the Irish egy, not demographic change or Sinn Fein defections. prime minister and with John Hume . . . about a hando- Knowing that it was the practical way to hurt Adams, a ver of the North into a new status, which included the large number of Protestants voted for the Catholic Hen- withdrawal of British troops, and a new form of sover- dron instead of their own Fred Cobain. eignty, then everything would be changed.” Under pressure from the British government, the The Hume/Adams talks led to a protracted dia- American government had denied Adams’s requests for logue involving in some way John Major, the British permission to visit the United States eight times over a prime minister, Albert Reynolds, the prime minister of period of eleven years, beginning in 1983. Finally, on the Republic of Ireland, and representatives of the re- January 30, 1994, the Department of Justice, imple- publican movement, led by Martin McGuinness. News menting a decision by President Bill Clinton, issued Ad- of the circumspect discussions surfaced in November ams a two-day visa, effective from the evening of Janu- 1993, and the following month Prime Minister Maj or ary 31 to the evening of February 2, so that he might issued the Downing Street Declaration, a public decla- speak at a foreign-policy conference in New York City ration of willingness to engage in peace negotiations on on February 1. The brief visit provided Adams with a condition that the leaders of Sinn Fein and the IRA per- publicity bonanza, through high-saturation print cover- manently renounce violence. In April 1994 Adams said age and radio and television appearances, including an that he had faxed Major a letter asking him to authorize interview on CNN’s /DUU\.LQJ6KRZ Such appearanc- a representative of his government to contact Sinn Fein. es have been virtually impossible in his homeland. On “Let him do that and then all of these things will become October 19,1988 the British Home Of¿ce had issued a easier to resolve.” decree, which was in operation until the fall of 1994, re- Little progress was made on the peace front stricting broadcast interviews not only with members of throughout the better part of 1994. The nadir appeared outlawed Irish paramilitary groups, including the Irish to come on July 24, at a convention over which Gerry Republican Army, but also with of¿cials of the legal Adams presided, when Sinn Fein formally rejected key Sinn Fein party, including Adams. Under those restric- points of the Downing Street Declaration, including the tions, Adams’s words could be heard verbatim but only requirement that the IRA renounce violence as a pre- indirectly on radio or television broadcasts. When a tape condition to its being invited to participate in peace of him being interviewed was played on television, for talks. Paraphrasing the reactions of of¿cials and ana- example, his words were heard in a voice-over done by lysts in Ireland and Northern Ireland, James F. Clarity an anonymous reader. observed in 7KH1HZ 13 A_Innovators in World Politics.indd 13 06/07/16 11:01 AM Ahmad bin Yahya World Political Innovators however, also a world of tension. . . . The book’s politi- McArdle since 1971, Adams has three children. His cal subtext is clear. ... If Adams has anything to learn family life, while dear to him, must be adapted to the as a writer, rather than as a politician, it is to give his exigencies of security, such as the necessity of con- opponents better lines. . . . About all the stories there is stantly changing his abode. (His family home was the a certain elegiac quality, a sense that something is slip- target of a terrorist bomb in 1993.) He travels outside ping away, being lost.” nationalist areas only rarely, and then with great care Adams won a seat in the Northern Ireland Assem- and as much secrecy as possible. “But watching Ad- bly in 1998 and served for more than ten years. In 2011 ams in nationalist Belfast,” Ronan Bennett observed in he won a seat on the Irish Republic’s House of Repre- the *XDUGLDQ(February 7, 1994), “one sees a different sentatives. In 2009 Adams attended the inauguration of man: relaxed, warm, humorous . . . loved, even revered. President Obama as the guest of a US congressman and There is no other way to describe it, and to say anything in 2015 shook hands with Prince Charles, which was less would give a misleading—though comforting to described as a symbolic gesture. some—impression of the man and the community that sustains him.” PERSONAL LIFE Gerry Adams is tall, lean, black bearded, well groomed, FURTHER READING and bespectacled. During his recent visit to the United *XDUGLDQ S ' ¶ SO ) ¶ SRU 1 < 'DLO\ States, one New York journalist described him as “remi- 1HZVSO20U¶SRUVS)¶ SRUV 7KH1HZ niscent of Clint Eastwood,” the rough-hewn American AHMAD BIN YAHYA King and Imam of Yemen Born: June 18, 1891; Alohnom, Ottoman Empire H[FOXVLYHRLODQGPLQHUDOFRQFHVVLRQLQLWVKLVWRU\WRDQ Died: September 19, 1962; Yemen $PHULFDQFRPSDQ\WKH 14 A_Innovators in World Politics.indd 14 06/07/16 11:01 AM