PATRICIO Y EL COLOR DE LA REBELIÓN

On March 20, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Análises Político, Canción, Canción en Lucha, Comentario Cultural, DIa de San Patricio, Diaspora Irlandesa, Historia de Irlanda, Religious SectarianismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Tiempo de lectura: 6 min.)

Mucha gente sabe que el 17 de marzo es el Día de San Patricio, una fiesta nacional en Irlanda y un día festivo en algunos otros lugares del mundo donde la diáspora irlandesa ha tenido un impacto (1. ¿Pero por qué? ¿Y por qué el trébol y el color verde?

Al cristiano San Patricio, un esclavo galés fugitivo de los irlandeses que regresó como misionero cristiano a Irlanda, se le atribuye el papel principal en la conversión de los irlandeses de sus religiones paganas al cristianismo. Como tal, es venerado por las iglesias católica y protestante.

A diferencia de muchos lugares de Europa, la conversión parece haber sido en gran parte pacífica, sin evidencia del fuego y la espada con los que se impuso en muchas otras tierras. Quizás debido a esto, los monjes irlandeses registraron gran parte de la rica mitología y leyendas de la Irlanda pagana.

Pero no existe razón histórica cualquiera para asociar a Patrick con el trébol. La afirmación de que lo usó para demostrar el tres en uno de la Trinidad cristiana es una fábula y las copias de su Confessio, ampliamente aceptada como la auténtica autobiografía de Patrick, no lo mencionan.

La referencia a esta fábula no se registra hasta siglos después, pero un argumento mucho más convincente en contra de su veracidad es que los paganos tenían muchas trinidades deístas y los irlandeses no fueron una excepción, entre los cuales la diosa Mór-Righean2 en la saga Táin3 es la mejor recordada.

De hecho, parece que hay pocas razones para creer que los druidas preferían el trébol y la búsqueda en Internet hace años no arrojó ninguna referencia hasta que más recientemente apareció una sola referencia que no proporcionó la fuente de su afirmación.

Entonces, no hay una razón auténtica para el trébol, pero ¿qué pasa con el color verde? Resulta que la asociación de los irlandeses con el color verde también es históricamente reciente, y el azul tiene una asociación anterior. Incluso hoy, solo una de las cuatro provincias, Leinster, tiene verde en su bandera.

Una bandera similar a la de Leinster, un arpa dorada sobre un fondo verde, fue ondeada por primera vez e introducida por Eoghan Rua Ó Néill a la Confederación Católica, la alianza de irlandeses y colonos normandos contra Cromwell y el Parlamento inglés en 1642.

Siguieron varias versiones de Arpa y Corona en banderas, pero la primera organización republicana irlandesa de masas, los Irlandeses Unidos, volvieron a colocar el Arpa sin la Corona sobre un fondo verde para su bandera, con el lema “está recién encordada y se escuchará” al lado del arpa.

El emblema de los Irlandeses Unidos; el arpa fue reproducida dorada sobre fondo verde para la bandera. (Imagen de origen: Internet)

John Sheils, presbiteriano de Drogheda e Irlandés Unido, en su canción The Rights of Man de estilo aisling compuesta en algún momento antes del levantamiento de 1798, reunió los íconos de una Irlanda femenina, el arpa, el color verde, San Patricio y el trébol juntos en su llamado a la unidad contra Inglaterra.

Aludiendo a “la planta de tres hojas”, Sheils hace que San Patricio declame que

“es tres en uno,
para probar su unidad
en esa comunidad
que aguanta impunemente
a los Derechos de la Humanidad.”
(Traducido del inglés por DB)

El “tres en uno” es una referencia obvia a la unidad de “católicos, protestantes y disidentes4” buscada por los Irlandeses Unidos y vocalizada por Wolfe Tone entre otros líderes. Sin embargo, no hay evidencia de un uso a gran escala por parte de los ‘Unidos del trébol para significar esa unidad.

Y el verde puede haberse inspirado en el color que Camille Desmoulins pidió a los parisinos que usaran en sus sombreros como señal de revolución dos días antes de la toma de la Bastilla en 1789, aunque pronto eligieron el azul para emular la Revolución Americana.

El fracaso de los levantamientos de los Irlandeses Unidos en 1798 y 1803 fue seguido por una severa represión, lo que refleja el temor de la Corona y sus leales colonos de perder su colonia irlandesa. El débil Parlamento irlandés fue abolido por sobornos e Irlanda se convirtió en parte formal del Reino Unido.

Como festividad cristiana, el Día de San Patricio podría haber parecido un día de fiesta inocuo, aceptable para el gobernante y los gobernados, por lo tanto, seguro para celebrar y usar el trébol como algo inocuo.

Llevando el Verde

Me parece probable que en una atmósfera de represión a gran escala, las personas que simpatizan con los republicanos irlandeses podrían optar por vestirse de verde en público al menos un día al año, en forma de trébol en “St. Día de San Patricio.”

La canción The Wearing of the Green hace referencia a la represión que siguió al levantamiento de los Irlandeses Unidos de 1798 con la letra “Están ahorcando a hombres y mujeres por llevar el verde” y “La ley prohíbe que el trébol crezca en suelo irlandés“. (6) (Traducido del inglés por DB)

La Hermandad Republicana Irlandesa, formada el día de San Patricio de 1856 simultáneamente en Nueva York, EE. UU. y en Dublín, Irlanda, adoptó el arpa dorada sobre un fondo verde para su bandera, aunque también usaron el Sunburst, que se cree que es el símbolo de los legendarios guerreros Fianna.

(*Imagen procedente de: Historia de Irlanda*)

La formación de la IRB, o “los fenianos”, como se les conoció tanto por amigos como por enemigos, se produjo en una época de gran emigración irlandesa, entonces mayoritariamente católica en religión y superando con creces la de la mayoría protestantes y disidentes de finales del siglo XVIII a los EEUU y a Canadá.

Oleadas de emigrantes irlandeses siguieron a quienes lograron salir de Irlanda durante la Gran Hambre de 1845-1848. Cada vez que iban a un país o colonia de habla inglesa, los irlandeses católicos sufrían discriminación por parte de los protestantes anglosajones blancos (WASPs) que se habían establecido allí antes que ellos.

Los irlandeses que formaron un batallón para luchar contra la segunda guerra expansionista de Estados Unidos contra México (1846-48) pueden haber enarbolado la bandera verde y el arpa; ciertamente llamaron a su unidad el Batallón de San Patricio y eran conocidos por los latinoamericanos como “Los San Patricios”.

En el Extranjero

El Día de San Patricio se convirtió en uno de celebración de la identidad irlandesa, más étnica que religiosa, una forma incluso de hacer alarde de esa identidad frente a sus detractores y perseguidores. Los irlandeses que luchaban en gran número en el Ejército de la Unión lo celebraron durante la actual Guerra Civil Estadounidense (1861-65).

En su primera invasión de Canadá en 1866, los veteranos de la Guerra Civil Estadounidense organizados por una rama de los fenianos ondearon una bandera verde con un arpa y, se dice, con las letras “IRA” en ella, el primer uso de este acrónimo en historia.

Pintura representando la Battalla de Ridgeway, la invasión Feniana de Canadá, 1866: observe la bandera irlandesa (*Imagen obtenida: Internet*).

Después de la guerra, los irlandeses en los EE. UU. celebraron el Día de San Patricio en desfiles masivos con sus veteranos del Ejército de la Unión en sus uniformes de regimiento, arrojando su identidad y su contribución a los EE. UU. frente a sus perseguidores, no solo los intelectuales WASP sino también los nativista “Know Nothings”7.

Los convictos irlandeses en Australia celebraron la fiesta en 1795 y, desde que fueron sentenciados en 1798 y 1803 los Irlandeses Unidos y fueron enviados allí encadenados, probablemente celebrados a menudo después por ellos, así como por los presos políticos posteriores, los Jóven Irlandeses en 1848 y los Fenianos en 1867.

La diáspora irlandesa en Australia, que fue calumniada debido a la oposición de muchos a luchar por el Imperio Británico en la 1a Guerra Mundial, marchó en un desfile el Día de San Patricio en 1921 con veteranos de la Primera Guerra Mundial en uniforme al frente,10 pidiendo la autodeterminación de Irlanda.

Como activista de la comunidad irlandesa en Gran Bretaña, nunca hubo dudas sobre dónde estaría yo el 17 de marzo: celebraría el día de la fiesta con la comunidad en el evento que habíamos organizado, ya sea un desfile o una recepción.

Durante una época de bombardeos del IRA y represión generalizada de la comunidad irlandesa11, hubo algunos llamamientos para abandonar los desfiles de San Patricio, pero otros y yo sentimos que era más importante que nunca celebrarlos en público en un momento en que la comunidad estaba bajo ataque y lo hizimos.

James Connolly debe haber experimentado la celebración del Día de San Patricio en su comunidad de la diáspora irlandesa en Edimburgo, más tarde como inmigrante en Irlanda, nuevamente como inmigrante en Nueva York y nuevamente como inmigrante en Irlanda.

Monumento a James Connolly, Beresford Place, Dublín. (*Foto obtenida: Internet*)

En marzo de 1916, un mes antes de su conjunto liderazgo del Alzamiento por el que sería fusilado por un pelotón de fusilamiento británico, escribió apoyando la celebración por parte de los irlandeses del Día de San Patricio.

“… la mente irlandesa, incapaz debido a la servidumbre o esclavitud de la raza irlandesa de dar cuerpo y existencia material a sus pensamientos más nobles, crea un emblema para tipificar esa concepción espiritual por la cual la raza irlandesa trabajó en vano.

“Si esa concepción espiritual de la religión, de la libertad, de la nacionalidad existe o no existió en ninguna parte excepto en la mente irlandesa, es sin embargo una realidad histórica tan grande como si estuviera incorporada en un libro de estatutos, o tuviera una existencia material garantizada por todas las páginas de la historia.”

“Por lo tanto, honramos el Día de San Patricio (y su leyenda aliada del trébol) porque en él vemos la concepción espiritual de la identidad separada de la raza irlandesa: un ideal de unidad en la diversidad, de diversidad que no entra en conflicto con la unidad“.(12)
(Traducido del inglés por DB)

No pidió, y ciertamente habría repudiado, la celebración del día de la fiesta por parte de una unidad del ejército británico con ramitas de trébol o por políticos irlandeses neo-colones que lo celebraran con líderes del imperialismo estadounidense.

Al comentar sobre el viaje inverso de ese tipo cuando el presidente estadounidense Reagan llegó a Irlanda (en medio de una represión de la oposición anti imperialista a gran escala por parte del Estado irlandés), el bardo irlandés de la canción folklórica Christy Moore cantó en Hey Ronnie Regan:

Estarás llevando el verde
Abajo en Ballyporeen,
El ‘pueblo de la patata pequeña’;
Pon tus brazos alrededor de Garrett
Y cuelga tu zanahoria
Pero nunca lograrás que me une a la OTAN.
(Traducido del inglés por DB)

El poeta anglo irlandés y premio Nobel de Literatura WB Yeats escribió en una reflexión sobre el levantamiento de 1916:

Ahora y en el tiempo de ser,
Dondequiera que se use verde,
son cambiados, cambiados por completo:
Nace una belleza terrible.
(Traducido del inglés por DB)

Debería ser “terrible” solo para los enemigos de la libertad y la autodeterminación irlandesas, para los imperialistas, los colonizadores y sus partidarios fascistas y racistas, pero verdaderamente hermoso para todos los demás.

Al despedirnos, volvemos nuevamente a las palabras de John Sheils de la década de 1790 que puso en boca de Irlanda, la diosa Gráinne (traducido del inglés por DB):

Que cada comunidad
detesta la desunión;
en amor y unidad
camina de mano;
Y crée a la vieja Gráinne
Que esa orgullosa Britannia
Nunca más les robará
de los Derechos de la Humanidad.

Trifolium *dubium*, el Trebol Menor o Amarillo, an Seamair Bhuí, candidato más seguro de lista de treboles de ser el “shamrock” tradicional. (*Photo: Internet*)

Fin.

Notas al pie:

1Terranova en Canadá y la isla caribeña de Monserrat. También es el más celebrado de todos los días festivos nacionales por todo el mundo.

2Suele traducirse en inglés como la “Morrigan”, una trinidad compuesta por tres hermanas, a veces Badb, Macha (número de lugares que llevan su nombre, incluido Ard Mhacha [Armagh]) y Nemain, otras veces Badb, Macha y Anand. A veces se las representaba como hermanas de otra tríada, Banba, Éiriu (de donde se deriva el nombre del país Éire) y Fódla. Las tríadas pueden ser tres aspectos de la única Diosa en cada caso.

3Táin Bó Cuailgne/ The Cattle Raid of Cooley, parte del Ciclo Ulster Cycle de cuentos, protagonizada por el legendario guerrero Sétanta o Cú Chulainn.

4Católicos (la gran mayoría de los irlandeses), Anglicanos (la pequeña minoría pero el grupo religioso reinante) y las otras Sectas protestantes, en particular los presbiterianos, que tenían muchos más seguidores que los anglicanos.

5 Los Irlandeses Unidos fueron muy influenciados por la Revolución Francesa, por supuesto.

6 La versión más conocida es la del dramaturgo Dion Boucicault, adaptada para su obra de 1864 Arragh na Pogue, o La Boda en Wicklow, ambientada en el condado de Wicklow durante la rebelión de 1798 (Wikipedia)

7 Bandas ‘nativistas’ de los primeros colonos estadounidenses que se movilizaron violentamente contra los irlandeses y los afroamericanos; cuando fueron juzgados en la corte, afirmaron “no saber nada”.

8https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/not-just-ned/about/about/st-patricks-day

9Tal fue la oposición popular que los británicos temieron imponer el servicio militar obligatorio y, en cambio, celebraron un referéndum en el que se votó por no tener servicio militar obligatorio. Un segundo referéndum fracasó nuevamente, aunque por una mayoría más pequeña. Sin embargo, muchos voluntarios australianos de procedencia murieron luchando por el Imperio Británico.

10 Por supuesto, tal identificación con el ‘nuevo país’ de asentamiento puede ser problemática en sí misma, particularmente si ese país es o se vuelve imperialista, como de hecho ha sido el caso con los EE.UU y con Australia).

11Especialmente a partir de 1974 hasta el resurgimiento de la comunidad en apoyo de los Huelgistas de Hambre en 1981.

12Subrayado por mí, seguramente un mensaje apropiado para estos tiempos.

Fuentes:

How the harp became the symbol of Ireland | EPIC Museum (epicchq.com)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wearing_of_the_Green

(84) Judy Garland- Wearing of the Green(1940) – YouTube

https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1916/03/natlfest.htm

PATRICK AND THE COLOUR OF REBELLION

On March 19, 2023March 20, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Folk Custom, History, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Song, Song in Struggle1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Many people know that March 17^th is St. Patrick’s Day, a national holiday in Ireland and a public holiday in some other places in the world where the Irish diaspora has had an impact¹. But why? And why the shamrock and the colour green?

The Christian Saint Patrick, an escaped Welsh slave of the Irish returned as Christian missionary to Ireland is credited with the main role in the conversion of the Irish from their pagan religions to Christianity. As such, he is revered by the Catholic and many Protestant churches.

Unlike many places in Europe, the conversion seems to have been largely peaceful with no evidence of the fire and sword by which it was imposed on many other lands. Perhaps because of this, Irish monks recorded much of the rich mythology and legends of pagan Ireland.

But there is absolutely no historical reason to associate Patrick with the shamrock. The claim that he used it to demonstrate the three-in-one of the Christian Trinity is a fable and copies of his Confessio, widely accepted as Patrick’s authentic autobiography, do not mention it.

Reference to this fable is not recorded until centuries later but a much more convincing argument against its veracity is that pagans had many deistic trinities and the Irish were no exception, among which the Mór-Righean goddess² in the Táin saga³ is the best remembered.

In fact, there seems little reason to believe that the druids favoured the shamrock either and searching the internet years ago threw up no references at all until more recently one reference only surfaced that gave no source for its claim.

So, no authentic reason for the shamrock – but what about the colour green? It turns out that the association of the Irish with the colour green is historically recent also, with blue having an earlier association. Even today only one of the four provinces, Leinster, has green on its flag.

A similar flag to the Leinster one, a golden harp on a green background was first flown and introduced by Eoghan Rua Ó Néill to the Catholic Confederacy, the Irish and Norman settler alliance against Cromwell and the English Parliament in 1642.

A number of versions of Harp and Crown on flags followed but the first mass Irish Republican organisation, the United Irishmen brought the Harp without the Crown back on to a green background for their flag, with the motto “it is newly strung and shall be heard” next to the harp.

The United Irish emblem; the harp was reproduced in gold on a green background for the flag. (*Image sourced: Internet*)

John Sheils, a Drogheda Presbyterian and United Irishman, in his aisling-style song The Rights of Man composed sometime before the 1798 Rising, brought the icons of a female Ireland, the Harp, colour Green, St. Patrick and the shamrock together in his call for unity against England.

Alluding to “the three-leaved plant” Sheils has St.Patrick declaim that
“it is three in one,
to prove its unity
in that community
that holds with impunity
to the Rights of Man.”

The “three in one” is an obvious reference to the unity of “Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter⁴” sought by the United Irishmen and vocalised by Wolfe Tone among other leaders. However, there is no evidence of wide-scale use by the Unitedmen of the shamrock to signify that unity.

And the green may have been inspired by the colour which Camille Desmoulins called on Parisians to wear in their hats as a sign of revolution two days before the storming of the Bastille in 1789⁵, though they soon chose blue in emulation of the American Revolution.

The failure of the United Irish risings in 1798 and 1803 was followed by severe repression, reflecting the fear of the Crown and its loyal settlers of losing its Irish colony. The weak Irish Parliament was abolished by bribery and Ireland became a formal part of the United Kingdom.

The Wearing of the Green

As a Christian festival, St. Patrick’s Day might have seemed an innocuous feast day, acceptable to ruler and ruled, therefore safe to celebrate and wearing the shamrock as something innocuous.

It seems likely to me that in an atmosphere of wide-scale repression, people of Irish Republican sympathies might well choose to wear green in public at least one day a year, that being in the form of the shamrock on “St. Patrick’s Day.”

The song The Wearing of the Green references the repression following the United Irish uprising of 1798 with the lyrics “they’re hanging men and women for the wearing of the green” and “the shamrock is by law forbade to grow on Irish ground.”⁶

The Irish Republican Brotherhood, formed on St. Patrick’s Day 1856 simultaneously in New York, USA and in Dublin, Ireland, adopted the golden Harp on a Green background for their flag, though they also used the Sunburst, believed symbol of the legendary Fianna warriors.

The formation of the IRB, or “the Fenians” as they became known by both friend and foe, occurred in a time of huge Irish emigration, then overwhelmingly Catholic in religion and surpassing by far that of the mostly Protestant and Dissenters of the late 18^th Century to the USA and Canada.

Waves of Irish emigrants followed those who managed to leave Ireland during the Great Hunger of 1845-1848. Whenever they went to an English-speaking country or colony, the Catholic Irish suffered discrimination from the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants settled there before them.

The Irish who formed a battalion to fight the USA’s second expansionist war against Mexico (1846-48) may have flown the green flag and harp; certainly they named their unit the St. Patrick’s Battalion and were known by Latin Americans as “Los San Patricios“.

St. Patrick’s Day in Exile

St. Patrick’s Day became one of celebrating Irish identity, more ethnic than religious, a way even of flaunting that identity in the face of their detractors and persecutors. The Irish fighting in huge numbers in the Union Army celebrated it during the actual American Civil War (1861-65).

In their first invasion of Canada in 1866, American Civil War veterans organised by a branch of the Fenians flew a green flag with a harp and, it is said, with the letters “IRA” on it, the first such use of the acronym in history.

Painting depicting the Battle of Ridgeway, Fenian invasion of Canada, 1866 – note the Irish flag (*Image sourced: Internet*).

After the War, the Irish in the US celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in mass parades with their Union Army veterans in their regimental uniforms, flinging their identity and their contribution to the USA in the face of their persecutors, not only the highbrow WASPs but the nativist “Know Nothings”.⁷

Irish convicts in Australia celebrated the feast day in 1795⁸ and, since sentenced 1798 and 1803 United Irish were sent there in chains, likely celebrated often afterwards by them, as well as by subsequent political prisoners, Young Irelanders in 1848 and Fenians in 1867.

The Irish diaspora in Australia, who were maligned due to the opposition of many to fighting for the British Empire in WW1⁹, marched in parade on St. Patrick’s Day in 1921 with WW1 veterans in uniform at the front,¹⁰ calling for self-determination for Ireland.

As an Irish community activist in Britain, there was never any question as to where I would be on March 17^th – I’d be celebrating the feast day with the community in the event we’d organised, whether a parade or a reception.

During a time of IRA bombings and widespread repression of the Irish community¹¹ in Britain there were some calls to abandon St. Patrick’s parades but I and others felt it more important than ever to hold them in public at a time when the community was under attack and we did so.

James Connolly must have experienced celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in his Irish diaspora community in Edinburgh, later as an immigrant to Ireland, again as an immigrant to New York and back again as an immigrant once more to Ireland.

James Connolly Monument, Beresford Place, Dublin. (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

In March 1916, a month before his joint leadership of the Rising for which he would be shot by British firing squad, Connolly wrote supporting the celebration by the Irish of St. Patrick’s Day.

“ … the Irish mind, unable because of the serfdom or bondage of the Irish race to give body and material existence to its noblest thoughts, creates an emblem to typify that spiritual conception for which the Irish race laboured in vain.

“If that spiritual conception of religion, of freedom, of nationality exists or existed nowhere save in the Irish mind, it is nevertheless as much a great historical reality as if it were embodied in a statute book, or had a material existence vouched for by all the pages of history.”

“Therefore we honour St. Patrick’s Day (and its allied legend of the shamrock) because in it we see the spiritual conception of the separate identity of the Irish race – an ideal of unity in diversity, of diversity not conflicting with unity.¹²”

He did not call for – and would have certainly repudiated — the celebrating of the feast day by a British Army unit wearing sprigs of shamrock or by Irish Gombeen politicians celebrating it with leaders of US imperialism.

Commenting on the reverse journey of that kind when President Reagan came to Ireland (amidst widescale Irish State repression of opposition) in 1984, Irish bard of folksong Christy Moore sang in Hey Ronnie Regan:

You’ll be wearing the greeen
Down in Ballyporeen
The ‘town of the little potato’;
Put your arms around Garrett
And dangle your carrot
But you’ll never get me to join NATO.

The Anglo-Irish poet and Nobel Literature Laureate WB Yeats wrote about the colour green in reflection on the 1916 Rising:
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

It should be “terrible” only to the enemies of Irish freedom and self-determination, to imperialists, colonisers and their fascist and racist supporters but truly beautiful to all others.

In parting, let us come again to John Sheils’ 1790s words which he put in Ireland’s, Gráinne’s mouth:

Let each community
detest disunity;
in love and unity
walk hand in hand;
And believe old Gráinne
That proud Britannia
No more shall rob ye
of the Rights of Man.

End.

Trifolium dubium, the Lesser or Yellow Clover, an Seamair Bhuí, top of the candidate list for the “shamrock” title. (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

Footnotes:

1Newfoundland in Canada and the Caribbean island of Monserrat. It is also the most widely-celebrated of all national feast days across the world.

2Usually rendered in English as “the Morrigan”, a trinity composed of three sisters, sometimes Badb, Macha (number of places named after her, including Ard Mhacha [Armagh]) and Nemain, at other times as Badb, Macha and Anand. They were sometimes represented as sisters of another triad, Banba, Éiriu (from which the name of the country Éire is derived) and Fódla. The triads may be three aspects of the one Goddess in each case.

3Táin Bó Cuailgne/ The Cattle Raid of Cooley, a part of the Ulster Cycle of stories, featuring the legendary warrior Sétanta or Cú Chulainn.

4Catholic (the vast majority of the Irish), Anglican (the tiny minority but reigning religious group) and the other protestant sects, in particular the Presbyterians, which had a much larger following than the Anglicans.

5The Unitedmen were greatly influenced by the French Revolution, of course.

6 The best-known version is by dramatist Dion Boucicault, adapted for his 1864 play Arragh na Pogue, or the Wicklow Wedding, set in Co. Wicklow during the 1798 rebellion (Wikipedia)

7‘Nativist’ gangs of earlier USA settlers that mobilised violently against the Irish and African Americans; when tried in court they claimed to ‘know nothing’.

8 https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/not-just-ned/about/about/st-patricks-day

9Such was the popular opposition that the British feared to impose conscription and instead held a referendum which voted not to have conscription. A second referendum failed again though by a smaller majority. Nevertheless many Australian volunteers were killed fighting for the British Empire.

10Of course such identification with the ‘new country’ of settlement may in itself be problematic, particularly should that country be or become imperialist, as has indeed been the case with the USA and with Australia (in subservient partnership with the UK and with the USA).

11Particularly from 1974 onwards until the community’s resurgence in support of the Hunger Strikers in 1981.

12Underlining mine, surely an appropriate message for these times.

Sources:

How the harp became the symbol of Ireland | EPIC Museum (epicchq.com)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wearing_of_the_Green

(84) Judy Garland- Wearing of the Green(1940) – YouTube

https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1916/03/natlfest.htm

AN PHOBLACHT ABÚ – NEW SOCIALIST REPUBLICAN NEWSPAPER

On March 18, 2023March 18, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Housing Struggle, Imperialism, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Journalism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Socialist Revolution3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2mins.)

A new socialist Irish Republican hardcopy newspaper has appeared in Ireland in recent months. January and February 2023’s editions, believed to be nos. 3 & 4 are reviewed here.

HARD-COPY NEWSPAPERS

While today, at least in the developed world, the production of Internet media is of great importance for the revolutionary movement as much as it is for the capitalist system, the hard-copy newspaper disseminated by hand still has an important role.

Hardcopy newspaper distribution entails contact in the real world with real people, answers given to questions asked and challenges made, contacts made between the potential organisers and potential activist supporters, can go from hand to hand and be left for a random reader.

Online media has no equivalent to this.

Lenin observed that the revolutionary newspaper is an organiser, not only in its calls to action but in the necessary tasks of production and distribution. Ireland has very few revolutionary newspapers and not even one weekly one, to say nothing of daily editions.

An Phoblacht Abú is produced and distributed by Irish Republican Socialists, whose activist manifestations have been seen in the Revolutionary Housing League’s occupation of empty buildings and its calls for a general emulation of such actions.

Another manifestation has been the activities of Anti-Imperialist Action, notably in protest pickets against imperialism and neo-colonialism, antifascist actions and anti-spiking campaigns, also in commemorations of Republican martyrs, often supported by sticker and leaflet campaigns.

*An Phoblacht Abú* Front January 2023, front page.

CONTENT, FORM AND PRICE

Both issues reviewed contained 16 sides of A4 pages, composed of two A3 sheets folded in half, one inside the other. They sold at 2 euros per issue – less than one-third the price of most pints in Dublin and much longer to consume!

In general the articles are well-written and with few typographical errors. The editions reviewed here covered national and international news and the overall line in the content is of revolutionary overthrow of the ruling class and eschewing electoralism.

With regard to coverage of national issues, anti-fascism, anti-racism, building a broad front, opposition to NATO and the British occupation of the Six Counties and the neo-colonial and neo-liberal ruling class of the Twenty-Six Counties have figured prominently.

Apart from such regular themes, January’s issue documented the struggle against student fees and treachery of the student union executive in Maynooth and reported a joint Republican Prisoners’ solidarity picket in Dublin along with the release of a known Loyalist sectarian murderer.

Commemorations of Irish Republicans murdered by the Free State during the Irish Civil War/ Counter Revolution (1922-1923) figured in both issues.

In foreign news coverage, actions of peoples’ guerrilla forces in the Philippines and India, for which one would search the main dailies in vain, are covered in both issues and, in January’s, Scottish independence and John McLean and Israeli expulsion of Palestinian campaigner Salah Hamouri.

The environmental struggle in Germany figured in February’s issue.

Regarding economic questions, the rise in “cost of living” and housing crisis attacks on working people were addressed in short articles. Wider pieces on action were included on class struggle and community representation and action in the February edition.

LOOKING AHEAD

The appearance of An Phoblacht Abú is welcome and it is hoped can be sustained. Hopefully further issues will deal with questions of culture and the Irish language, the war in Ukraine (on which the Left seems deeply divided), historical-cultural conservation, trade union organisation and education of the people.

AVAILABLEat 2 euro per copy (back issues sometimes free) from sellers and supporters or from irsmedia@protonmail.com

End.

Solving the drugs issue in Colombia

On March 15, 2023March 16, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn America Latina, Colombia, Current Affairs Comment, Guerra Civil Espanola, Imperialism, Latin America, Lucha Guerillera, peace processes, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (with kind donation of photos)

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

08 March 2023

Photo Coca Plants Northern Colombia: G.O.L.

The drugs issue in Colombia supposedly occupies the time of and is a concern to the government.

It has been an important issue for all the governments and as was to be expected it is one that has come up again in the dialogues with the ELN, despite this organisation denying any links to the drugs trade.

The author (left) and Pablo Beltran, the ELN negotiator (centre) and representative of social movement in Ecuador (right) in 2017 conference in University of Simon Bolivar, Quito, Ecuador. (*Photo: GOL*)

In the peace process with the FARC, agreement was reached on the issue. What was agreed to in Point 4 of the Havana Accord was abysmal and showed that the FARC did not understand the problem nor the possible solutions.

Of course, there could be a difference between what the FARC understood and what it agreed to, as at the end of the day the state won the war and imposed the greater part of what the FARC signed up to.

Following the agreement in the declarations of the main FARC commanders there is nothing to be seen that indicates that they really understood the problem. Will it be any different with the ELN?

One of the main concerns of the ELN has been to put a distance between themselves and the drugs trade.

Whilst it is true that the ELN is not the FARC, it is also true that in their areas of influence or those contiguous there are coca and poppy crops and the USA is not going to believe them that they have nothing to with it, whether they like it or not. The ELN accepts that it places taxes on economic activities and for the USA that is drug trafficking.

So, some time ago, the ELN issued a statement where they restated that they have nothing to do with drugs and invited an international commission to visit the country to see the reality for itself.(1) They ask that a UN delegate take part in the delegation. They also make a series of proposals in relation to the issue as such.

On the first point, the ELN feels sure of itself regarding its ability to show in practice that they are not drug traffickers. The ELN correctly states that:

When the Colombian government and the USA accuse the ELN of having an active role in the trade, they are lying, but above all they are covering up for those really responsible and the deep-seated problems, which indicate their unwillingness to take real and effective measures.(2)

ELN guerrilla camp, Colombia (Photo: GOL)

But for the USA, it is not about whether they are guilty or not, it is a political tool and weapon and to give them a voice and vote in the affair is extremely dangerous. When the USA accuses the ELN of being drug traffickers, it is not making a mistake.

A mistake on their part would be to say something they believe and be wrong about it, but they accuse the ELN for political reasons on the basis of their strategic needs and the legal basis to their accusations is the least of it: it is just propaganda. By inviting them into the country, the ELN falls into their trap.

The UN participated in the commissions of investigation for supposed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The lack of evidence of such weapons wasn’t of much use.

The USA played around with supposed or real non-compliance by Saddam and did what they always wanted to do: invade Iraq. In this they counted on the explicit support of Great Britain and the tacit support of others.

There is a myth in Colombia that the only baddies are the USA and that other imperialist powers such as Canada (a country that is not seen as imperialist by many sections of the “Colombian left”), and other countries of the European Union are good, or at least not really that bad to the point they are friends of the Colombian people.

In the case of Colombia, the EU competes with the US in almost everything. The EU is Colombia’s second commercial partner and its companies are dominant in sectors such as mining, health and oil, amongst others.

The ELN also asks for the legalization of drugs. The demand is justified and quite opportune, but their counterparts i.e. the Colombian state is not sovereign in the matter and furthermore there is a need to clarify what is understood by legalization.

If by legalization they mean legalizing production for medical purposes, the bad news is that medical production is already legal. The thing is, that it is controlled. In fact, in many jurisdictions they don’t talk of illegal drugs but rather controlled substances.

Cocaine is a controlled substance. Its production for medical reasons is authorized by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and production is almost exclusively carried out in Peru. And the market is quite small, not even reaching 400 kilos per year as I pointed out in an earlier article.(3) It solves nothing in relation to Colombia.

If on the other hand, they are talking about legalizing recreational use, something which could positively impact the Colombian countryside, then it is a matter of international jurisdiction. Colombia cannot legalise it on its own.

Colombia is a signatory to the Single Convention of 1961 that holds sway in the matter and in addition there are power relationships at play.

It doesn’t matter whether it legalises production for recreational use, it will never be able to legally export it, not only without the consent of the other country, but also the whole setup of the UN and its bodies such as the INCB i.e. at the end of the day, the USA.

Even if it is legalized for internal consumption, there are other problems that have already arisen in countries such as Uruguay which legalised recreational use of marijuana or some of the states in the USA.

The banking system dare not receive funds from those legalised markets and the producers resort to old methods more akin to money laundering to deposit legal funds in legal accounts in a legal banking system.

Even in the hypothetical case of the USA and the EU agreeing, the legalisation of cocaine would go far beyond Colombian cocaine and would include other drugs such as opium and its derivatives such as heroin. It is worth looking at the drugs market and its production.

According to the UN, cocaine is produced directly or indirectly in eight Latin American countries (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia account for almost all of it), whilst 57 countries produce opium, the Asian countries being the largest producers (Afghanistan, Myanmar and Mexico dominate the market).

A bucket of opium poppy seed (*Photo: GOL*)

Cannabis, which is the most widely consumed drug in the world is produced in 154 countries.

For 2020, the UN calculated that there were 246,800 hectares of opium and 234,000 of coca.(4) They also calculate a production of 7,930 tonnes in 2021(5) and 1,982 tonnes of cocaine in 2020.(6) We are not talking about small quantities of production or land. Almost half a million hectares between these two drugs and 64 countries.

Any proposal of legalisation has to include these countries and their peasantry.

The number of drug users is also large. The UN calculates that in 2020 there were 209 million cannabis consumers, 61 million people who had consumed opiates, 24 million amphetamine users, 21 million cocaine consumers and 20 million users of ecstasy.(7)

They say that in 2020, they had calculated that 284 million people between the ages of 15-64 years used drugs, i.e. one in every 18 people in this cohort.(8)

There are consequences to this, in economic but also cultural terms regarding the use and abuse of substances. But there also consequences in terms of health. Some 600,000 people received some treatment for drug problems.(9)

So when the ELN says that “Drug addicts are ill and should be cared for by the states and not pursued as delinquents”(10) their idea is correct, however, the size of the problem is greater than the real capacity of the health systems in the countries that have large numbers of users.

Photo Opium Poppy Nariño Colombia: G.O.L.

The total number of people injecting drugs is 5,190,000 in Asia, 2,600,000 in Europe and 2,350,000 in the Americas (almost 75% of which is in north America).(11)

Of those who inject, 5.5 million have Hepatitis C, 1.4 million are HIV positive and 1.2 million are HIV positive and also have Hepatitis C.(12) These are not minor problems and are high-cost illnesses.

Of course, these figures do not include the unlawful abuse of legal pharmaceuticals. In the USA almost 80% of the overdoses are from the consumption of legal opiates such as fentanyl, which caused 78,238 deaths in 2021 in that country.

But the issue does require legalisation and not other means that the FARC aimed for. The peasants of Colombia did not make a mistake in choice of crop when they planted coca. Coca was and continues to be a very profitable crop, despite all the difficulties that it generates.

There is no need to substitute it with another crop such as cocoa or African palm etc. It is not about the crop but rather the production model and the political and economic context.

The increase in coca production in Colombia, is not due to subjective factors such as the decisions of peasants, not even of the drug barons and less still of the insurgencies but rather objective economic factors.

This is a key point. It was the decisions of northern countries that impacted the countryside and pushed thousands of peasants around the world to grow opium poppy and coca. The neoliberal cutback policies in the north also contributed to the dramatic rise in problem drug use due to the increase in misery in those countries.

Bedding, equipment and reading material in an ELN guerrilla camp, Colombia (*Photo: GOL*)

In any discussion we should distance ourselves from the idea that the drugs problem can be solved in a negotiation with the ELN, although they could negotiate some points that would contribute positively to a solution.

But the problem is political and the free trade agreements and other measures that had a negative impact on the countryside have to be looked at again.

Also, they have to reach an agreement with the Colombian government, not for some perks for peasants nor corrupt projects and budgets such as those the FARC agreed to, but rather a political agreement where the government argues and campaigns for the derogation of the Single Convention of 1961.

Notes

(1) ELN (2022) Propuesta para una política antidrogas https://eln-voces.net/propuestas-para-una-politica-antidrogas/

(2) Ibíd.,

(3) https://socialistdemocracy.org/RecentArticles/RecentColombiaDrugsAndNationalSovereignty.html

(4) UNODC (2022) World Drug Report Booklet 2. https://www.unodc.org/res/wdr2022/MS/WDR22_Booklet_2.pdfp.53

(5) Ibíd.,

(6) Ibíd., p.54

(7) Ibíd., p. 13

(8) Ibíd., p.15

(9) Ibíd., p.46

(10) ELN Op. Cit.

(11) UNODC (2022) Op. Cit., p.35

(12) Ibíd., p. 32

(13) See https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/202205.htm

THOUSANDS MARCH IN BILBAO AGAINST NATO, WAR AND FASCISM

On March 13, 2023March 14, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Anti-War, Basque Country, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Imperialismo, Internationalist Solidarity, Liberación Nacional, National Liberation, NATO, OTAN, Spanish State, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Manifesto of the organisers: Askapena¹, NATOren eta EBren Aurkako, Herri Ekimena and Bardenas Ya
(Translated from Castilian version by D.Breatnach)

(Reading time total: 6 mins. including Comment)

We began the previous manifesto talking about emergencies. We said that it was essential to reclaim an anti-imperialist and internationalist Euskal Herria².

And that urgency, that need, is what has brought together comrades from all corners of Euskal Herria here today. Well done all of us!

Capitalism is going through a systemic crisis. They speak to us of a “extraordinary period” but the truth is rather that we find ourselves in a permanent crisis. As we have supposedly departed one, they have already placed us in another.

As of 2020, moreover, we have entered a phase of exceptionality in which States take advantage to impose economic, social and disciplinary policies that point towards a war scenario. Therefore, we cannot separate the capitalist decomposition from the increase in repression and censorship.

Banner reading “Condemning us to war and misery” and section of the anti-NATO march in Bilbao 11 March. (*Photo sourced: organisers*)

The rise of fascism that is taking place throughout Europe is a direct consequence of the bourgeoisie’s fear of losing the control it exercises over an increasingly exploited and angry population.

In the field of international relations, we are also witnessing the increasing loss of hegemony of the Empire that has controlled the world practically without opposition for the last 30 years.

The bloc led by the United States and NATO, far from accepting the end of its historical cycle, seems determined to increase armed conflicts. In addition to giving a boost to the arms industry, they intend to hinder the growth of emerging powers such as China or Russia.

For this phase of confrontation, they have finally achieved the support of the lobby led by Ursula Von der Layen, the “gardener” Borrell³ and company.

Una concurrida movilización en #Bilbao reivindica una EuskalHerria antiimperialista contra la ofensiva de la #OTAN ✊🏼 @NATOri_EZ @HEkimena @bardenasya @Askapena pic.twitter.com/L1LP12KlWt
— Ecuador Etxea (@EcuadorEtxea) March 11, 2023

NATO and the EU, together with the Zionist entity that redoubles its attacks on the Palestinian people, are today the main props of this dark period in history.

As far as NATO is concerned, we have to understand that its role goes beyond being a mere military organization. It is true that it is mainly the army of the bourgeoisie (and it is demonstrating this in Donbass, as it has also demonstrated in Yugoslavia, Libya or Syria).

But it has the superior function of being the military arm against anyone who opposes the policies of capital. Today these translate into the over-exploitation and precarity of the working class (especially women and people of colour).

And changes in labour rights to deprive us of material concessions wrested through class struggle, change of laws to increase the repression of those struggles, etc.

A clear example of this is the latest General Budget of the Spanish State, supported by all the social democratic parties⁴.

The budget supports the deterioration of the material conditions of working peoples to benefit NATO, giving it more control capacity and recognizing their right to appropriate civil infrastructures to defend the interests of the bourgeoisie.

The support for these militaristic policies, at the dawn of a world war, is a real shame and demonstrates the total lack of commitment of the leadership of these parties to the future of the Working Peoples of the world.

In Euskal Herria we are well aware of what NATO represents:

in addition to the military training industrial estate in Las Bardenas or the military exercises carried out at the Araka base (Gasteiz), we have recently witnessed blatant support from the Government of Gasteiz for war industries such as SENER or SAPA.

Nor can we forget the historical support of NATO, through the Gladio network, to the Spanish and French States in their legal and illegal repression⁵ against the struggle in Euskal Herria.

If we add to this the economic and social exception measures imposed on us by Brussels (private pension funds, increase in the retirement age, dismantling of public health) …

It becomes increasingly clear to us that neither as a nation nor as working class do we have a future within NATO or the EU. The need to destroy these instruments of domination by the bourgeoisie, as well as the Spanish and French States, is more than evident if we aspire to build a future in freedom.

These are not good times, of course not. The situation is becoming more and more complicated throughout the world. And that is why we here today are calling for the activation in each town and each neighborhood of the anti-imperialist Euskal Herria.

Thirty-seven years ago we said “NO to NATO!”⁶

Today, we not only reaffirm this rejection, but we once again make an urgent call to join forces with the rest of the working peoples and oppressed nations of the world to stop the imperialist offensive promoted by this criminal organization along with its allies in the European Union.

From Chile to Donbass, passing through Laos, Mali or Vietnam…

LONG LIVE THE STRUGGLE OF THE WORKING PEOPLE!

AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST BASQUE COUNTRY!

Front of march heading towards the Bridge across the Nervión river and the old city (*Photo sourced: organisers*)

COMMENT: A GIANT STEP FORWARD

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: One min.)

The estimated 2,000 turnout in support of this demonstration must have exceeded the expectations of the organisers and greatly encouraged them. Two thousand is not a huge number in the highly-politicised Basque Country, even with a total population of less than three million, north and south.

But this is a nation which has for decades been under a political leadership, the surviving members of which have now taken the road of pacificaction, of accommodation to capitalism and the Spanish and French states, of social-democratic ‘opposition’.

This movement had a united national political leadership, an armed guerrilla movement, a daily newspaper, a trade union and smaller affiliated groups; it had café/bars/social centres throughout the southern provinces.

Though in decline and fragmented with the leadership’s embracing of the pacification process (through which, unlike the Provos, they did not even gain the release of their hundreds of imprisoned comrades), it still exercises a heavy influence on politics in the Basque Country.

That is today the ambit of Otegi, EH Bildu and Geroa Bai and neither did their parties participate in Saturday’s demonstration nor as an individual any of senior responsibility in their structures, though certainly individuals in their social and cultural sectors were seen in the march.

In that context and after 25 years of pacification, 2,000 in open attendance is a giant step forward for the Basque resistance. ‘Tús maith, leath na hoibre‘, it is said in Irish: ‘A good beginning is half the work’ and indeed, a beginning is how the organisers view the event.

“Dissident” groups such as Amnistia ta Askatasuna, Amnistia Garrasia, Tinko and Jardun have arisen in the last decade and youth have been very prominent in these and others disparate groupings, which is important for any revolutionary movement.

The photos and videos of Saturday’s demonstration show older and mature faces too, veterans of the struggle and also those active during the pacification period and this too is important, for it brings a certain continuity to the movement and the awareness of mistakes made in the past.

More than 50 organisations in the Basque Country supported the call for this demonstration.

The road ahead will not be easy (when has it ever been for the Basque nation or the working class in general?) but a giant step forward has been taken.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Askapena is the internationalist arm of the Basque movement for independence and was responsible for a number of years for maintaining a network of Basque solidarity organisations (which in some cases it founded) in Mexico and across a number of European cities, including Belfast, Dublin and Cork. In 2011 five of its leading activists were arrested on charges of supporting the guerrilla organisation ETA, through Askapena’s solidarity with political prisoners. The five defended their right to work with prisoner and internationalist solidarity and were finally acquitted in 2016 earning much admiration for their stance (in stark contrast to the 47 activists in a number of prisoner support organisations who apologised for their activity in a Spanish court in September 2019 in exchange for non-custodial sentences for the majority).

2The current Basque name for their nation, “the Basque-speaking country”, replacing the former “Euskadi”, now used to refer only to the three-province ‘autonomous’ region of Bizkaia, Araba and Gipuzkoa.

3Josep Borrell, Foreign Minister of the EU Parliament who has described the EU as “a garden”. A Catalan member of the PSOE, hostile to Catalan independence who after five minutes stormed out of an English-language interview by Tim Sebastian on the German TV program Conflict Zone regarding the struggle in Catalonia.

4This is a reference not only to the social-democratic coalition government of the PSOE and Podemos but also of the Basque EH Bildu and Catalan ERC, the votes of which MPs supported the Budget.

5A reference not only to banning of parties, organisations and demonstrations but also to routine torture and the kidnapping and assassinations of the State-sponsored GAL of the 1980s.

6In the 1986 Referendum on whether the Spanish state should join NATO, the southern Basque Country gave a majority vote against, the only region to do so (though the vote against was high in some regions), the total vote being 52.54% in favour.

SOURCES

https://haizeagorriak.wordpress.com/2023/03/11/cast-eusk-fotos-y-video-miles-de-personas-dicen-no-a-la-banda-criminal-otan-en-bilbao/

RACIST ATTACK ON DUBLIN COUNCILLOR CHELSEA FAN

On March 12, 2023March 12, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Britain, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History, RacismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: One mins.)

According to reports, a Dublin City Councillor and former Lord Mayor, Niall Ring, along with his son, were racially abused and assaulted in a pub in Fulham, a part of SW London in which the Chelsea FC stadium is located.

Ring recounted how, having a pint after watching a game at the Chelsea stadium, first his son was racially abused and then, as they tried to leave, each assaulted, requiring a hospital attendance for both.

Decades ago I was active in a building occupation for homeless families five minutes’ walk from the stadium as Fulham became gentrified and even then, though like many parts of London it had its Irish community with pubs and trad music, Chelsea FC was particularly known for its fascist ultras.

Whether affiliated to the National Front or its successor the British Movement, they took part in attacks on migrants and ethnic minorities, including the Irish and in particular on marches in Irish solidarity, when groups like AFA, Red Action and some Irish Republicans led the counterattack.

And the police usually restricted themselves to attack the Irish and antifascists.

Some years after that period in Fulham, I joined the Irish in Britain Representation Group and soon after was elected to the Ard-Choiste, which had meetings approximately monthly. Since the branches ranged from NE Lancashire to London, the meeting city venues were rotated.

Consequently I was often enough on a train journey between London and Manchester and on one occasion was unfortunate enough to share a carriage on a full train with a load of racist and fascist Chelsea FC fans returning to London.

I plugged my walkman leads into my ears to avoid getting into conversation with any of them but played no music so I could listen to what went on. In the course of that horror journey I heard racist chants against the martyred Bobby Sands and even against the population of Liverpool.

I also noted their use of the term “Fenians”, not at all common among the English, presumably learned from equally racist Rangers and Linfield FC fans. A white man walking through the carriage with a dark woman elicited hisses of “race traitor”.

This is the kind of scum that the boot-boys of fascism everywhere are and which are trying to get a foothold here in Ireland through the protests against refugees (which Ring referenced briefly).

End.

Report of attack on Niall Ring and son: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-chelsea-borussia-dortmund-racist-assault-crime-met-police-b1066301.html

2022: Busy Year for the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign

On March 11, 2023March 11, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Irish Republicanism, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign

(Reading time main text: 5 mins.)

2022 was a busy year for the anti-internment campaign organisation, involving, along with its public awareness-rising events, a reorganisation with a new constitution, a new name and expansion of membership.

Origins

The formation of an anti-internment campaign was sparked by the revoking of the licence of ex-political prisoner Marian Price in May 2011 for the “crime” of steadying the written speech of an IRA speaker during a windy Easter Rising commemoration in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast.

In addition to revocation of the licence under which Republican prisoners were released under the Good Friday Agreement, other activists were also being charged under “anti-terrorist” legislation and routinely being refused bail, if not granted it under severe restrictions.

The wait for a trial is often two years and regardless of the eventual outcome, the individuals had already spent two years in jail or at home, barred from travel or political activity and harassed by police visits to their homes.

Early banner-placard protesting the internment of Marian Price (*Image sourced: Libcom.org*)

Front section of Anti-Internment March, coming into top part of Parnell Square, Dublin 2013. (*Image sourced: IAIC archives*)

These conditions were considered to be in effect the same as internment without trial and the campaign against internment was founded as an independent one, a status it maintained despite a number of attempts to take it over or to intimidate with threats and State harassment.

Throughout its history the Anti-Internment Campaign has organised the annual Newry event (not since 2021 unfortunately), many pickets (including in protest against Amnesty Ireland) and a march in Dublin, spoken at or participated in public events in Belfast, Cork, Derry, Glasgow and Wexford.

It has also organised and hosted conferences and public meetings, for example with speakers from the campaigns for the Craigavon Two, Munir Farooqi and Tony Taylor and about the Right to Protest with a speaker from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.

Section of the annual Anti-Internment white-line picket Newry, August 2016 (*Image sourced: IAIC archives*)

Annual Anti-Internment, Newry, rallying after white-line picket, August 2019 (*Image sourced: IAIC archives*)

A busy year

As stated in the introduction above, 2022 was a busy year for the anti-internment campaign group, involving, along with its public awareness-rising events a reorganisation with a new constitution and a new name. The campaign organised nine public events and participated in more.

Most of those public events were awareness-raising pickets with placards, banners, flags and leaflet distribution. Usually the pickets alternated between the Henry Street/ Liffey Street junction and at Crown Alley by the square in the Temple Bar area, both areas busy with shoppers and tourists.

Anti-Internment picket in Henry Street, November, Dublin 2022 (*Photo: IAIC*)

The campaign carried out pickets in Henry Street on 9^th April, 6^th August and 19^th November and in Temple Bar on 5^th March, 21^st May, 2^nd July and 27^th August. On 22^nd October, with a special focus on Palestinian prisoners, we were on the iconic Ha’penny Bridge.

It has always been of particular interest to the campaign group to reach working people and large numbers of that class of all ages pass through those areas. Of interest also are people from other lands and the Basque and Palestinian flags alongside the Irish ones often stimulate discussion.

In September the campaign attended the Peter Daly commemoration in Wexford and provided a speaker at the Dublin meeting to re-launch the End State Repression campaign which our group had supported in the past but which had waned over the Covid epidemic period since.

Our campaign group also took part in the planning of and participation in the joint prisoner’s solidarity picket in Dublin on 17th December 2022.

Reorganisation

It had been clear for some time that the organisation was in need of reorganisation to facilitate expansion but the process had been difficult.

Eventually in July the decision was taken to close down the Anti-Internment Group of Ireland and to reform under another name. This was done and, after democratic consultation process a new constitution was agreed, with the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign as the new name.

According to agreed decisions, a new banner with the organisation’s new name was commissioned (though it would take some time to come to fruition). A new Facebook identity for the group was constructed with a statement explaining the development.

The new constitution, more explicitly democratically-based than had been previously the case, was published.

Anti-Internment picket in Temple Bar, Dublin, March 2022 (*Photo: IAIC*)

Year planning

In the reorganisation process, the IAIG lost one member but gained three new activists and the return of two lapsed members. With renewed energy, members began planning for the rest of the year, to conclude with participation in the annual Bloody Sunday March for Justice in Derry.

Issuing a statement to explain the reorganisation, commissioning a new banner, scheduling a number of pickets in Dublin and organising the annual Prisoners’ Solidarity Picket in Dublin December were part of the planning and most of the target actions were completed.

In December and in good time, the campaign’s members organised to purchase, sign and mail Christmas cards to all Irish Republican prisoners, also a number of non-complying Basque political prisoners and the Catalan jailed revolutionary Catalonian rapper Pablo Hasel.

The proposal to organise the annual Prisoners’ Solidarity picket in December jointly with the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Welfare Association and with Ireland Anti-Imperialist Action was agreed and the joint event went ahead on 17^th December with around 40 participating.

Section of the joint AICI, AIA and IRPWA Republican Prisoners’ solidarity picket 17 December 2022, O’Connell Street, Dublin 2022 (*Photo: IAIC*)

The picket with placards and banners, including the illuminated words of the IAIC’s “SAOIRSE” (“Freedom”) attracted attention and passers-by, both Irish and from abroad engaged leafleters and other participants in discussion. A speaker from each group gave a short statement.

The year’s programming ended with the specific scheduling of participation with a new banner in the annual Bloody Sunday March for Justice in Derry.

New Banner Aired at Bloody Sunday March for Justice in Derry

The new banner got its first public airing at the annual march in Derry, commemorating the massacre of unarmed civilians by the British Army in Derry in January 1972 and was carried as part of the march from the Creggan, through a large part of Derry and down to Free Derry Corner.

The marchers in different political parties, campaign organisations and independent individuals marched trough cold rain and strong wind-gusts through the nearly 5-kilometre walk. The members of four Republican Flute Bands played bravely throughout.

The new banner of the Ireland Anti-Internment Committee carried in the Bloody Sunday March for Justice in Derry in January 2023. (*Photo: IAIC archives*)

The IAIC will shortly begin its year-planning for the rest of the year, its calendar again probably ending at 2024’s Bloody Sunday March for Justice and meanwhile organising events to publicise the on-going undemocratic jailing of activists without trial both sides of the British Border.

The IAIC considers that the jailing of people without trial by both administrations is, in addition to political repression, a significant assault on civil rights and a threat to all opposition groups and that it is in the interests of all to unite in opposing the practice.

The Campaign welcomes the active support of all democratically-minded individuals at its public events.

End.

USEFUL LINK

Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063166633467

RUSSIAN AND BURKEAN GAS

On March 10, 2023March 10, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Ireland, Mass Media Criticism, NATO, Political Analysis, Satire, US ImperialismLeave a comment

NEWS & VIEWS No.2

10 March 2023

(Reading time: 5mins.)

The mass media is not great for accuracy or wide coverage and even less so for trustworthy analysis but it does often provide entertainment. Not always even intentionally.

Like when the western mass media reported one day that the Russians were shelling the nuclear reactor in the Russian-held sector of the Donbas area and, within hours, that the Russians were shelling from there.

We’ve all seen examples of the unreliability of the mass media (run by capitalists for the capitalist system so what can we expect, after all?) in our own country but hard to imagine more consistently unreliable and biased than its coverage of the war in the Ukraine.

Take for example the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline on 26 September last year. The undersea pipeline was delivering Russian gas to Germany; its owners are Russian in financing partnership with European companies and it cost around $9.5 Billion euros to build.

It’s a twin pipeline stretching 1,230 km through the Baltic Sea. Each line comprises around 100,000 individual pipes, each 12 m in length.

So who did the wmm (western mass media) line up to blame, or at least to suggest might have carried out this sabotage? Yep, Russia, major shareholders in the pipeline and major route for exporting of their gas for sale to Europe!

Made no sense at all but to a public marinated in msm propaganda for months …

Now, if you were a reasonable detective, you’d be asking yourself: “Who stands to gain from this?” And you’d have to conclude “enemies of Russia”. Next, who would have the capability and opportunity to do it?

Well, states near the sea there who are not friendly to Russia, obviously. Like Sweden and Norway, whose states have reportedly been investigating for months without any apparent results..

But not just them, also US NATO, who has ships nearby and who carried out the BALTOPS 22 major naval exercise not long before the explosions – including underwater exercises. Sweden and Norway had both participated in the BALTOPS 22 joint NATO exercise.

Ships participating in NATO’s BALTOPS 22 exercise last year. (*Images sourced: Internet*)

Who would point the finger of suspicion at them? Not the western mass media, that’s for sure.

However a big fly has very recently landed in the ointment. Seymour Hersh, a long-established USA journalist, who has in his CV a Pullitzer Prize for the exposure of the 1968 US massacre of the Mai Lai village in Vietnam, published a report pointing the finger at the USA.

Of course Russia jumps on that – it’s their pipeline and they consider that the US is fighting a proxy war against them in Ukraine. The US and its allies in turn accuse Russia of just using the accusation to divert attention away from their continued invasion of Ukraine and war there.

Sure, that’s possible. But the blowing of the pipeline is an acknowledged fact and it was blown up by somebody – and the US are looking more and more like the most likely suspects. But don’t expect much help in clearing this up from the wsm.

A naval diver surfaces during NATO’s BALTOP 22 exercise last year. (*Images sourced: Internet*)

Apparently Hersch’s report is not reliable because he didn’t name his inside sources. Really? He didn’t burn his whistleblowing sources on whom, apart from any considerations of decency, he might need to use in future? Or for reason to be trusted by future whistleblowers?!

Now we have a new version. No, not Russia in the frame any more but some “pro-Ukrainian group” or “anti-Putin Russian group”. And the source for this? An unnamed (but suddenly that’s not a problem any more) US Intelligence agency. Yeah, sure.

Neither wsm massaging nor US laundering is going to clean this story up. In pursuance of its drive for world hegemony, the ruling class of the US has been pushing Russia, its main obstacle in Europe, into war.

Well, despite the dangers, the European allies of the USA can go along with that, some (e.g. Poland) more enthusiastically than others, but ok overall. But to sabotage the pipeline delivering gas to Germany, the big power in the EU?

Reckless, US ruling class, reckless. And not just environmentally.

SOURCES

Spare a thought for a family being tortured by the Irish State, which has jailed one of its sons already and went and jailed another one more recently. Yes, you’ve heard of them, the Burke family.

First of all, their son Enoch who was a teacher, objected to a pupil identifying themselves by another gender.

The school required him to refer to this person not as ‘he’ or ‘she’ but as ‘they’. Oh, you can imagine the torment suffered by poor Enoch!

The Burke family leaving from one of Enoch Burke’s court appearances. Enoch is on the far left (not politically) and Simeon in the centre (not politically either). (*Images sourced: Internet*)

True, he might only have to refer to this person a dozen times in the year but … being forced to say “they”. This is a sin against Enoch’s religion! His religious rights are at stake here!

So naturally Enoch had to take a stand and naturally too had to do it in a public situation in the school, for which he got suspended while awaiting a disciplinary hearing.

Enoch’s religious principles required him to refuse the suspension and keep attending the school and to disobey a court order, for which (and for his stalwart protests in court) he was sent to prison in contempt of court.

Eventually, of course, he was sacked but he applied to the High Court to prevent that, during which attendance he and his family antagonised the judge by their interruptions and manner.

Then the younger son, Simeon, emulating his older brother, refused to be silent and accused the judge of “forcing the people of Ireland to accept transgender”, obviously an attack on his religion too.

The judge was “shoving transgenderism down the throats of the people of Ireland, not only in the schools but in the universities”, cried out the younger Burke. The judge ordered him to leave the court and when he declined, the Gardaí were called.

Young Simeon was removed, during which he was, he told the Judge, “shocked and shaken to the core” and had “been treated in a brutal fashion” by a “mob of Gardaí”. And charged with breach of the Public Order.

Left: Enoch Burke; right: Simeon Burke leaving the High Court. (*Images sourced: Internet*)

This raised unkind comments on social media from people alleging that they knew Garda “brutal treatment” in Dublin and in Rossport and that Simeon simply had no idea (some going so far as to cruelly dub him “Simple Simeon”, a reference to a similar-sounding children’s game).

Simeon was offered bail in his own name for a paltry sum and with no conditions except to stay away from the High Court but the brave young Burke refused to sign his bail form. So he went to jail too.

Simeon Burke should know something about the law, having studied it at University of Ireland, Galway. He ran for Student Union President there against the Left in general, where, according to Isaac Burke’s media, out of 2,500 votes cast, he received 482 first preference votes.

The legalisation of contraception, divorce and gay marriage are all presumably “crimes against God” too in the eyes of the Burke family and the High Court judges are sworn to protect those decisions.

Some unkind people are pointing out that if the Burkes consider the High Court to be wrong and its operation against their religion, why take their case there for adjudication? Yes, that is puzzling.

But the substantive and original issue remains: should a man of religious conviction be forced to use the third person plural pronoun to refer to any person?

And, come to think of it, did the Burkes object when Christianity was being “shoved down the throats of the people of Ireland, not only in the schools but in the universities”?

End.

SOURCES

Seymour Hersh claims US Navy behind Nord Stream 2 pipeline explosion (nypost.com)

BALTOPS – Wikipedia

Nord Stream explosions: US officials say intelligence indicates pro-Ukrainian group sabotaged pipelines | World News | Sky News

Carlow Nationalist — ‘I am not a criminal’: Simeon Burke charged with breach of peace after court incident | Carlow Nationalist (carlow-nationalist.ie)

Who is Simeon Burke, the younger brother of Enoch arrested after scenes at Court of Appeal? (msn.com)

Battle lines drawn at NUI Galway Students’ Union elections – Burke Broadcast

BESPOKE CAR ALARMS WITH VOICES!

On March 3, 2023March 3, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Creative writing, Creative writing, Satire1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Car alarms are mostly of a kind, emitting shrill noise. But why not have them use voice? And why not allow the car-owner to choose from a variety of voice alarms, find one perhaps more suited to their own personality?

Don’t forget, you saw this idea and this selection here first!

SIX CATEGORIES, VARIOUS MODELS

Insistent (2 models)

(in English public school accent – not recommended for certain areas of Ireland, Scotland, Wales or inner-city England)
You are crowding me. Please desist. In other words, stop!

B. (gradually increasing in volume)

This is not your car. You are not an authorised driver. You are performing an illegal act. There are serious consequences. You must stop now.

This is not your car. You are not an authorised driver. You are performing an illegal act. There are serious consequences. You must stop now. (etc.)

Threatening selection (6 models)

A. (in northern USA accent) Step away from the car. STEP AWAY FROM THE CAR. DO IT NOW!

B. SMILE. THANK YOU. YOUR PHOTO IS ON ITS WAY TO THE POLICE.

C. God does not like you standing too near me or trying my door handle. He sees everything you do.

D. Stand back. You are about to receive a mega electric shock. Charging …

E. SCRATCH MY CAR AND PREPARE TO DIE. (available in a selection of accents, from Russian mafia to LA Gangsta).

F. That spike you have just received from my door handle has taken a sample of your DNA and carries a powerful sleep drug. You have seconds before you collapse. Find somewhere safe to lie down.

Sinister (1 model)

Yes, come in, come in! Welcome! Welcome! I’ve been waiting for someone like you. Just like you. Never mind the bloodstains. Just an accident. Or two. Come in, come in! (Available in a variety of voices, creaky, sibilant, etc.)

Persuasive selection (2 models)

A. You’d steal a Metro? Seriously?

B. Yes, yes, listen to my voice. Breathe deeply. Lisssten to my voice. You feel com-fort-ably warrrrm and relaxed. Tot-all-y rel-axed. You don’t want to steal a car any more. Certainly not this one. You want to find a cafe and sit in it. Tot-all-y rel-axed. You will leave now.

Attention-attracting with Embarrassment Deterrence selection (5 models)

A. HELP! I AM BEING BROKEN INTO! HELP!

B. BARRRP! (Yes, a loud fart-noise. With sewer smell). BRAAPP! BARRRP!

C. I HAVE DISCHARGED A BAG OF URINE ON YOUR LEG. IT CARRIES A PERMANENT PURPLE DYE TOO.

D. EVERYBODY! THE PERSON STANDING BY THIS CAR IS A CHILD MOLESTER AND TORTURES PUPPIES AND KITTENS!

E. Ooh! Ah, stop. That tickles. No. Ahahahaha! No, please! No! AHAHAHAHAHA! Oh gosh, stop, please stop. Ahahahahaha!

Other

Think about what you’re doing. Do you really want to steal this car? Think about the conseq …

IRISH GOVERNMENT COMPLICIT IN FOREIGN MILITARY VIOLATIONS OF IRISH SOVEREIGNTY

On March 1, 2023March 1, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Ireland, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6mins.)

The Irish State nominally rules over the 26-Counties land territory and its corresponding sea and airspace. Yet these have been and are repeatedly violated by the US and UK military with Irish ruling class secret collusion.

Now a Senator in Leinster House is seeking a hearing in the High Court to have the behaviour of successive Irish Governments in allowing UK military overflights declared unconstitutional.

The Sea, oh the sea … and the air!

As stipulated by international law, a sovereign state’s area includes the sea up to 12-miles from its border¹ and therefore Ireland has a 12 mile territorial sea, a 200 mile exclusive economic zone before any additional claims are made to the continental shelf including the Rockall Bank.²

According to media report, a comprehensive survey of the Irish State’s territorial waters was not undertaken until 2014, i.e nearly a century after its foundation, which in itself is an indictment of an allegedly independent island state.

According to The Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI) says potential territorial waters stretch to 898,442km sq – an area bigger than the oil rich North Sea.³

Royal Air Force fighter jet – the Irish State is reported to have secretly agreed to allow these to overfly Irish airspace (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

Through the decades when Ireland was a fishing nation and fresh fish was eaten weekly in most homes, Irish fishing boats had to compete with those from many other states fishing illegally inside Irish sea limits.

The Irish Navy was the only policing enforcement agency and through much of that time it had only three corvettes to patrol 12 miles out from the whole coastline of the Irish state. Subsequent EU legislation then left Irish seas more open to foreign-based fishing than it did to Irish boats.

The sovereign air space of a state corresponds to that over its land and 12-miles out to sea from its coastline.⁴

The use of Shannon airport by the US military in transit of troops, weapons and prisoners has long been known and protested.

Shannon Airport protests

Over the years there have been many highly-publicised protests over the US military use of Shannon, ranging from mass protests outside the airport buildings to deliberate trespass and even damage to a US warplane.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2022/1220/1342962-shannon-stopovers-protest/

The response from the Government Minister to questions in Leinster House is always that the US is not violating Irish sovereignty, arms, military and prisoners are not being transported through there – because the US authorities have assured the Irish Government that they are not.

In February 2003 five members of the Catholic Workers’ Movement under the name Pitstop Ploughshares gained access to a hanger in Shannon Airport and damaged a USAF warplane there. They were Deirdre Clancy, Nuin Dunlop, Karen Fallon, Ciaron O’Reilly and Damien Moran.

They were jailed for up to 11 weeks awaiting committal for trial to which they were finally sent in Dublin Circuit Court in March and October 2005 on two counts of criminal damage, €100 and US $2.5 million. The faced a maximum 10 years if convicted.

Two aborted trials followed as one judge after another revealed their bias and partiality. In July 2006 after twelve days a mixed male and female jury acquitted the accused on all charges on the grounds that they had taken the action to save lives in Iraq and were justified in doing so.

In October 2012 dramatist, writer, former Republican prisoners and veteran activist Margaretta D’Arcy was arrested with Niall Farrell for scaling the fence and entering the grounds of Shannon Airport.

Four convicted Shannon Airport protestors, L-R Mick Wallace, Margarett D’Arcy, Niall Farrell, Clare Daly. (*Photo sourced: The Journal.ie*)

In June 2014 at the age of 80 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease D’Arcy was jailed for two weeks in Limerick Prison for refusal to pay the fine and remained defiant.

In July 2014 then members of the Irish Parliament Clare Daly and Mick Wallace⁵ used a rope ladder to climb over a perimeter fence and enter the grounds of Shannon Airport and made no attempt to avoid arrest.

They were both fined by a court for trespass in February 2015 and refused to pay the fine, eventually being taken to Limerick jail by Gardaí in December 2015 and released less than two hours later.

On 25 April 2017 anti-war activists Edward Horgan, a retired Irish soldier of 78, and civil servant Dan Dowling, 39, were arrested in the airport grounds and charged with criminal trespass and malicious damage (felt-tip graffiti slogan on a warplane).

In a very low-level publicity case in January this year (2023), a jury in Dublin found both guilty of trespass but not of criminal damage at the airport and were ordered to pay €5,000 each to a women’s refuge in Co Clare.

On St. Patrick’s Day 2019 two ex-USA military Ken Mayers and Tarak Kauff, now anti-war campaigners of the US chapter of Veterans for Peace, cut a hole in the airport’s perimeter fence, entered Shannon airfield with a banner and were arrested.

In May last year, a majority jury verdict found Mayers (85) and Kauff (80) guilty of interfering with the running of the airport but unanimously not of criminal damage to an airport perimeter fence and of trespassing the airport with the intent to commit an offence or interfere with property.

Ex-USA military Kauf and Mayers of Veterans for Peace (US) protesting US military use of Shannon Airport (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

The judge fined the anti-war activists 5,000 euro each. Both had spent 11 weeks in prison and had been required to spend nine months in Ireland awaiting trial, despite clear indications that they had no intention of absconding and indeed were looking forward to the trial to publicise the issue.

Senator Craughwell’s case to the High Court.

Less well-known is that successive Irish governments have for decades by secret agreement permitted permitted UK air force planes to fly over Irish airspace and to interdict, i.e. force or shoot down other aircraft. This is what has led to Senator Craughwell’s taking a case to the High Court.

The Independent Senator maintains that although not the case of a formal military alliance, granting permission to fly over Irish State airspace, unless validated by referendum, is a violation of Ireland’s neutrality and sovereignty and is seeking a number of declarations from the Court.

Craughwell, who is a former member of the Irish Defence Forces and the British Army, as well as being an ex-President of the Teachers Union of Ireland, said that his belief in the existence of a secret agreement is based on a reply from then Taoiseach Brian Cowen to Enda Kenny in 2005.

The Senator seeks High Court declarations including that the agreement between Ireland and the UK allowing armed British military aircraft to intercept aircraft over Irish airspace amounts to an impermissible dilution and breach of Articles 1, 5, 6, 13, 15, and 28 of the Irish Constitution.

He also seeks a declaration that the Government’s failure to exercise control over Ireland’s territorial waters, airspace and exclusive economic zone breaches Article 5 of the Constitution which declares that Ireland is a sovereign independent democratic state.

Craughwell further seeks an order restraining the government from bringing in legislation to give effect to the agreement, unless it has been passed by a referendum.

Aerial view of Ireland (*Image sourced: Internet*)

Irish State Neutral?

Most Irish people mistakenly believe that Ireland’s military neutrality is specifically enshrined in Bunreacht na hÉireann, the Irish Constitution. However Article 29, section 4, subsection 9° underlines the neutrality of the Irish State in respect of a military force of the EU:

The State shall not adopt a decision taken by the European Council to establish a common defence pursuant to Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union where that common defence would include the State.⁶

“This was originally inserted by the 2002 amendment ratifying the Treaty of Nice and updated by the 2009 amendment ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon. An earlier bill intended to ratify the Treaty of Nice did not include a common defence opt-out, and was rejected in the first Nice referendum, in 2001.”⁷

It is fairly clear that the citizens of the Irish state are generally in favour of retaining Irish neutrality but there are elements within the state frequently trying to undermine that policy, chiefly the native Gombeen ruling class.

The Irish State has never been truly independent; it came into existence agreeing to the partition of the nation and in waging war against the forces of national liberation, during which it executed more Irish Republicans than the British had during the War of Independence.

Subsequently, the Irish State has been characterised as neo-colonialist, dominated firstly by British capital, then by the US and finally by the EU.

There are elements within Irish upper circles who long to join the EU military and political club while some others share a nostalgia for the British Empire and Commonwealth and the kind of supporting and sharing role to which John Redmond and his Irish Nationalist Party aspired.

Finally, there are of course elements in the Irish armed forces that are attracted by career advancement through joint military operations with other armed forces along with greater weaponry, such as would be available in a joint European armed force or as part of NATO.

Worryingly, Mícheál Martin during questions in Leinster House some months ago denied that the population would have to be consulted in referendum before the State could join some military alliance.

What now?

Whatever formal position the State may take on neutrality in future, it has been undermining it for decades and doing so in secret.

Why the secrecy? Presumably because the ruling class is aware that most Irish people want to remain militarily neutral and would wish to get rid of a government that was trying to ditch the neutrality policy.

Ireland needs to be independent of all imperialist alliances. Should the Gombeen ruling class succeed in committing the State’s armed forces to some military alliance, the choice is certain to be either imperialist NATO or imperialist EU.

In the latter case, it is entirely possible that Irish troops would be sent to suppress social or national risings in Europe – for example in Catalunya or the Basque Country, with Spanish troops being sent to quell mass protests in Ireland.

Or in either case, that Irish troops would become part of some joint imperialist force in Latin America, Africa or Asia.

Meanwhile the Gombeens, because of the State’s allowing US and UK military aircraft over Irish skies and in Shannon airport, are potentially painting a target for retribution on to the Irish population.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Except obviously where it intersects with another state’s borders (see Airspace – Wikipedia)

2 Ireland’s territorial waters to be remeasured down to the centimetre – Irish Mirror Online

3Ibid.

4 Airspace – Wikipedia and obviously this currently ends at the borders of the Six County colony, whose own 12-mile UK zone also ends where it meets the Irish borders on land, sea and air.

5Now both Members of the European Parliament.

6 Irish neutrality – Wikipedia

7Ibid.

REFERENCES

Irish State’s territorial waters: Ireland’s territorial waters to be remeasured down to the centimetre – Irish Mirror Online

Irish State’s territorial airspace: Airspace – Wikipedia

Issue publicised in 2021 with reference back to document in 2016: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/secret-defence-pact-allowing-raf-jets-inirish-airspace-undermines-our-neutrality-says-td-berry-40526069.html

Current High Court challenge: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/senator-seeks-challenge-over-british-military-being-able-to-intercept-aircraft-in-irish-airspace-1438222.html

Irish neutrality – Wikipedia