LA INFLUENCIA DE LA CLASE TRABAJADORA EN EL LEVANTAMIENTO DE 1916

On April 9, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Análises Político, Capitalismo, Colonialismo, Contra Guerra, Ejecuciones, Historia, Historia de Irlanda, Imperialismo, Izquierda Irlandesa, Liberación Nacional, Lucha obrera, Republicanismo Irlandes, SindicalismoLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Tiempo leyendo: 11 minutos)

El Levantamiento de 1916 suele considerarse un levantamiento nacionalista de los republicanos irlandeses, quizás con alguna participación socialista.

Incluso Connolly suele ser retratado únicamente como un patriota (véase la canción James Connolly the Irish Rebel) con ideas socialistas.

De las seis organizaciones que participaron activamente en el Alzamiento de 1916 (1) sólo una de ellas pertenecía específicamente a la clase obrera irlandesa. Quizá por eso se suele pasar por alto la gran influencia de la clase obrera en el Alzamiento.

Como es bien sabido, James Connolly es uno de los Siete Firmantes (2) de ese maravilloso y progresista documento, la Proclamación de Independencia de 1916.

Sin embargo, Connolly sólo entró a formar parte del comité de planificación del Alzamiento muy poco antes de la fecha prevista (3) Siendo esto así, deberíamos preguntarnos por qué lo incluyeron.

Los Voluntarios Irlandeses tenían una organización a escala nacional con el movimiento -también nacional- Cumann na mBan como auxiliar, mientras que Connolly quizá podía movilizar quizás tres cientos de combatientes.

*Monumento a James Connolly en Chicago, EEUU.*

Se dice que lo incluyeron porque el IRB (“Irish Republican Brotherhood”, es decir, “Hermandad Republicana Irlandesa”) creía que su constante demanda de un Alzamiento durante la Primera Guerra Mundial y los ejercicios militares del Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés (ECI) indicaban que Connolly probablemente llevaría al ECI a levantarse por su cuenta y les arruinaría el calendario.

¿Qué probabilidades había de que lo hiciera? Es cierto que, como socialista, Connolly estaba horrorizado por la masacre de la guerra, en la que los trabajadores de un Estado son enviados a matar y ser asesinados por los trabajadores (4) de otro, y la lectura de sus escritos muestra que pensaba que era desesperadamente necesario un levantamiento para sabotear la guerra.

¿Habría seguido adelante sólo con los aproximadamente 300 hombres y mujeres del Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés, esperando quizás inspirar un levantamiento popular y animar a los Voluntarios Irlandeses a unirse a él, a pesar incluso de sus líderes (5)?

Es difícil creerlo pero, por supuesto, es posible.

Sin embargo, desde el momento en que los planificadores republicanos del Alzamiento aceptaron a Connolly, podemos ver un cambio organizativo significativo hacia la clase obrera en Dublín y especialmente alrededor del Liberty Hall, donde se izó la primera bandera para un levantamiento y se imprimió la Proclamación.

Liberty Hall era, por supuesto, la sede del sindicato Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union, del que James Connolly era líder en aquella época y también editor de su periódico, The Irish Worker.

Es asombroso que Connolly recibiera el rango de Comandante General siendo una persona incorporada tan recientemente a la organización.

Una responsabilidad que se tomó en serio, enviando mensajeros por todo el país e intentando dirigir los preparativos de defensa en torno a las distintas guarniciones de Dublín.

La Primera Bandera de Combate del Alzamiento

Una semana antes del Alzamiento, Connolly y el Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés habían izado una bandera republicana irlandesa sobre Liberty Hall como bandera de guerra y la elegida para izarla fue una chica de 16 años, Molly O’Reilly (6).

Merece la pena recordar las circunstancias asociadas, aunque sólo sea para ilustrar la diferencia entre el Liberty Hall de entonces y el de hoy.

Los adultos asistían allí a clases de lengua irlandesa y a actividades culturales, mientras sus hijos y los de los activistas sindicales esperaban a sus padres, asistían a clases de baile o jugaban.

Jugando, Molly O’Reilly rompió accidentalmente una ventana y, aterrorizada y avergonzada, corrió a casa.

Cuando Connolly le envió un mensaje a casa diciéndole que quería verla, ella fue al Liberty Hall esperando una severa reprimenda.

En lugar de eso, le dijo que no se preocupara, y le explicó lo que él esperaba de ella. Estaba orgullosa de hacerlo, pero era tan pequeña que tuvo que subirse a una silla para tirar de la cuerda que izaba la bandera.

*Resto de la bandera izada en Liberty Hall* (Imagen procedente de: *Museo Nacional)*

Ceremonia de conmemoración “Mujeres de 1916” con familiares de Molly O’Reilly en lugar de honor (tenga en cuenta que los uniformes son de voluntarios irlandeses en lugar de ejército ciudadano irlandés). (Foto: *D.Breatnach*)

Por supuesto, sabemos que esa bandera no era la de los trabajadores revolucionarios, sino la del arpa sobre verde, que era la de los primeros fenianos y se parecía mucho a la de los United Irishmen, la primera organización republicana revolucionaria irlandesa (7).

Aquellos primeros fenianos estaban compuestos en su mayoría por miembros de la clase obrera y su proclama de 1867 al mundo tenía en gran medida una perspectiva proletaria.

En Gran Bretaña, los fenianos formaron parte de la Primera Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores, dirigida por Marx y Engels.

Su bandera ondeó al menos en una de las guarniciones del Alzamiento de 1916, creo recordar que en la destilería Jameson de Marrowbone Lane.

*Bandera similar a la izada sobre Liberty Hall* (Foto obtenida: *Internet*)

Las otras banderas del Alzamiento incluían la Tricolor, regalada a los republicanos de los “Jóvenes Irlandeses” por las mujeres del París revolucionario de 1848, que era una de las dos que ondeaban en el tejado del GPO (General Post Office, es decir, el edificio de Correos), cuartel general del Alzamiento.

Compartiendo el tejado de la GPO con la Tricolor estaba la bandera confeccionada pocos días antes del Alzamiento con material doméstico y pintada con las palabras “República Irlandesa” en casa de Constance Markievicz, oficial del Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés.

La bandera del Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés, el Starry Plough, ondeaba sobre el edificio de Clery’s, frente a la GPO.

Desgraciadamente, hoy en día la mayoría de los irlandeses no conocen esa bandera, aunque la conciencia sobre ella y sus antecedentes están aumentando entre los irlandeses autóctonos y la comunidad inmigrante.

*El diseño del Starry Plough (El Arado de Estrellas), bandera del ICI tal como era en 1916* (Imagen obtenida: *Internet*)

El primer ejército obrero del mundo (8)

El Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés (ECI) se formó como milicia obrera durante el gran cierre patronal y la huelga de 1913-1914, para defenderse de los ataques de la policía, la primera línea física represiva de la clase capitalista; la bandera de la ECI se colocó sobre el Hotel Imperial de Murphy en Clery’s (9).

*El Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés en ejercicios en sus terrenos cerca de lo que hoy es Fairview* (Foto obtenida: *Internet*)

Aunque su constitución era más nacionalista que socialista, el ECI fue, por su composición y su finalidad, el primer ejército obrero del mundo y, cuando se reorganizó unos años más tarde, representó también el feminismo de la clase obrera, reclutando a mujeres, algunas de las cuales eran oficiales al mando de hombres.

Una vez que los preparativos para el Levantamiento se fueron a pique por la orden de anulación de MacNeil, ¿dónde se reunieron los organizadores para discutir qué hacer?

En Liberty Hall, el edificio del Sindicato Irlandés de Trabajadores Generales y del Transporte; fue allí donde se tomó la decisión de levantarse el lunes.

No es exagerado remarcar la importancia del hecho de que la decisión de seguir adelante con la insurrección se tomara en el edificio que se había convertido de facto en el cuartel general de la clase obrera revolucionaria de Dublín, con una bandera ilegal de rebelión ondeando y donde se iba a imprimir la Proclamación.

Redacción y texto de la Proclamación

Se cree que la redacción de la Proclamación fue hecha en gran parte por Pearse, pero influenciada por Connolly, incluyendo su destino a “los hombres y mujeres irlandeses” y quizás también “Declaramos el derecho del pueblo irlandés a la propiedad de Irlanda, y al control sin restricciones de los destinos irlandeses”.

Otro fragmento que podría llevar la huella de Connolly reza así: “La República garantiza la libertad religiosa y civil, la igualdad de derechos y la igualdad de oportunidades a todos sus ciudadanos, y declara su resolución de perseguir la felicidad y la prosperidad de toda la nación y de todas sus partes, apreciando por igual a todos los hijos de la nación.”

*Copia de la Proclamación de Independencia de 1916* (Imagen procedente de Internet)

Pero, quienquiera que compusiera o influyera en el texto de la Proclamación, ésta fue impresa en Liberty Hall. Un miembro del Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés fue a Stafford Street (hoy Wolfe Tone St.) a pedir a un impresor de allí las letras de imprenta para llevarlas a Liberty Hall, que estaba bajo guardia armada las 24 horas del día.

Habiendo impreso la Proclamación en Liberty Hall bajo guardia armada y habiendo decidido allí sublevarse el Lunes de Pascua, ¿dónde se reunieron los grupos de asalto a Stephens Green, Castillo y la GPO (General Post Office, es decir, edificio de Correos)?

Incluido el Batallón del Cuartel General, la mañana del Alzamiento? …. De nuevo, en Liberty Hall.

Una de las primeras víctimas no combatientes del Alzamiento fue Ernest Kavanagh (10) que dibujaba caricaturas para el periódico del ITGWU, The Irish Worker.

Por alguna razón acudió el martes al Liberty Hall y fue asesinado a tiros en la escalinata del edificio del sindicato, presumiblemente por un francotirador del ejército británico.

La resistencia armada de la clase obrera:

Una vez puesto en marcha el Alzamiento, el Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés era el principal responsable de dos zonas, la guarnición de Stephens Green/Colegio de Cirujanos y la guarnición del Castillo de Dublín/Ayuntamiento, pero también luchó en otras zonas, por ejemplo en Annesley Bridge y en la zona de GPO/Moore Street.

Todos los que lucharon junto a ellos comentaron su valor y disciplina. Tras la rendición, muchos de ellos, junto con los Voluntarios Irlandeses, fueron condenados a muerte, la mayoría conmutada por cadena perpetua.

Pero dos líderes del Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés fueron fusilados.

Una de las zonas desde las que las fuerzas británicas fueron tiroteadas durante días después del Alzamiento fue la de los muelles del Liffey, entonces rodeada predominantemente por zonas residenciales de clase trabajadora.

Una pregunta que deberíamos hacernos es por qué las fuerzas procedentes de Gran Bretaña para reprimir el Alzamiento desembarcaron en Dún Laoghaire, desde donde tuvieron que marchar casi 12 km hasta el centro de Dublín, en lugar de hacerlo en los excelentes muelles dublineses del Liffey.

Hugo McGuinness, especializado en la historia de la zona del Muro Norte, cree que los británicos esperaban que Dublín estuviera en manos de la resistencia obrera y que, sencillamente, era demasiado peligroso desembarcar allí tropas británicas, aunque las cañoneras podían disparar desde el Liffey.

Ciertamente, los británicos creían que Liberty Hall y los edificios a lo largo de Eden Quay estaban ocupados como puestos de combate por el Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés y dispararon artillería contra el edificio del sindicato desde la calle Tara, como atestiguan las fotos de agujeros de proyectiles en ese edificio y en el siguiente.

*Foto del Liberty Hall dañado por los proyectiles (primer edificio con la esquina hacia la cámara, visto hacia el norte desde Butt Bridge) como parte de un conjunto de postales conmemorativas.* (Foto obtenida: *Internet*)

Otra postal con un primer plano de los daños causados por los bombardeos al Liberty Hall y al edificio contiguo. Curiosamente, en este, Liberty Hall está etiquetado como “el Cuartel General Rebelde”. (Foto obtenida: *Internet*)

En algunos relatos históricos se habla mucho de la oposición al Alzamiento por parte de algunos sectores de la población de Dublín, durante e inmediatamente después del Alzamiento.

La ciudad era la capital de una colonia británica, y poco más de un siglo antes se hablaba de ella como “la segunda ciudad del Imperio Británico”.

Una parte sustancial de las clases media y acomodada era lealista, incluidos algunos católicos; incluso los sectores “nacionalistas” estaban comprometidos a apoyar al Reino Unido en la Primera Guerra Mundial y John Redmond, líder del partido político “nacionalista”, había reclutado abiertamente para el ejército británico.

Además, entre la clase obrera y el lumpenproletariado, muchos dependían de las “indemnizaciones por separación”, por los varones que servían en el ejército británico.

Es cierto que en algunos lugares los insurgentes tuvieron que amenazar, apalear o incluso disparar a algunos civiles que intentaron obstruir el Alzamiento (11).

Estos incidentes durante el Alzamiento no fueron muchos, pero posteriormente hubo insultos y se lanzaron objetos a los prisioneros que marchaban a la cárcel (o al pelotón de fusilamiento).

La ciudad estaba bajo la ley marcial, pero aun así un periodista canadiense informó de que los insurgentes eran vitoreados en los barrios obreros.

También hubo otros relatos de testigos individuales, como el de un hombre en un tranvía que saludó a los prisioneros en Parnell Street hasta que fue amenazado por los soldados de escolta, y el de un bombero en la GPO que hizo lo mismo.

Un año después, la mayor parte de la hostilidad anterior se había transformado en admiración y orgullo por los combatientes.

El liderazgo de la clase obrera:

James Connolly escribió y dijo muchas cosas de importancia, pero seguramente, con respecto a la lucha por la independencia nacional irlandesa, la más importante fue: “Sólo la clase obrera irlandesa permanece como heredera incorruptible de la lucha por la libertad en Irlanda”.

Con ello quería decir -y estoy de acuerdo- que todas las demás clases sociales pueden ganar algo vendiendo los intereses y recursos de la nación irlandesa, pero que la clase trabajadora no puede ganar nada con ello.

La clase obrera irlandesa se jugó la lucha por la independencia de Irlanda en 1916, pero no tuvo éxito en dirigirla y, por eso, esa lucha está aún por ganar.

Hoy en día, recordando esa larga lucha y a la clase cuyo liderazgo los socialistas revolucionarios pretenden representar y defender, declaramos la necesidad de ese liderazgo sobre un amplio frente de todos los que desean luchar para avanzar.

Al hacerlo, declaramos que lejos de que la clase obrera tenga que esperar al socialismo, en el curso de la lucha nacional también debe dar forma a sus propias reivindicaciones en torno a la economía, los recursos naturales, las infraestructuras, los servicios sociales, las cuestiones sociales, la cultura y, sobre todo, a los frutos de su trabajo.

FIN.

NOTAS A PIE DE PÁGINA:

Hermandad Republicana Irlandesa, Voluntarios Irlandeses, Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés, Cumann na mBan, Na Fianna Éireann, Hibernian Rifles.
Todos ellos fueron ejecutados por un pelotón de fusilamiento británico, junto con otros siete en Dublín y uno más en Cork. La decimosexta ejecución fue en la horca en Londres.
(Véase Fuentes: Cooption of James Connolly etc) Connolly fue un socialista de toda la vida y un revolucionario durante toda su vida adulta, autor, historiador, periodista, compositor de canciones, activista sindical; activo políticamente en Escocia, Irlanda, Nueva York y de vuelta en Irlanda.
El movimiento socialista internacional vio con horror la inclinación de los imperialistas hacia la guerra y en conferencias internacionales prometió oponerse a ella con todas sus fuerzas, incluso convirtiendo la resistencia a la guerra en revolución (“Guerra contra la guerra”). Sin embargo, una vez declarada la guerra imperialista, esa determinación se derrumbó en la mayoría de los Estados, siendo Rusia, Alemania e Irlanda notables excepciones, y en cada una de ellas se produjo un levantamiento contra la guerra, siendo el de Irlanda el primero.
Joseph E.A. O’Connell (Jnr.) sugiere una posible intención de azuzar al Estado para que le ataque a él y al ECI, lo que podría desencadenar el levantamiento general.
(Ver fuentes)
El arpa de la bandera de los Irlandeses Unidos estaba más adornada y llevaba inscritas las palabras “Está recién encordada y se oirá”
http:// www.connollybooks.org/product/irishcitizenarmy
Tenía una buena ubicación, céntrica, pero más que eso: el hotel era uno de los negocios de William Martin Murphy, principal organizador del bloque patronal para romper el sindicato Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union.
Kavanagh era partidario de los trabajadores, del voto femenino y contrario a la participación en la guerra imperialista, contribuyendo también con caricaturas a las publicaciones Irish Citizen, Fianna e Irish Freedom, y acompañando poemas de su hermana, Maeve Cavanagh McDowell.
No incluyo en esto a los tres miembros de la Policía Metropolitana de Dublín, que eran una fuerza al servicio de la ocupación británica y también de los capitalistas dublineses. El Ejército Ciudadano Irlandés, en particular, tenía buenas razones para ajustar cuentas con ellos por los ataques que les habían infligido, entre ellos las heridas mortales causadas con porras a dos trabajadores durante una carga contra una reunión sindical el 30 de septiembre de 1913 en Eden Quay y las palizas y destrozos de mobiliario en domicilios en Corporation Street un poco más tarde.

FUENTES:

Cooptación de James Connolly al Consejo Militar que planeaba el Alzamiento:

Connolly’s ‘kidnapping’

Izado de la bandera en Liberty Hall:

https://microsites.museum.ie/1916objectstories/ObjectDetail/remains-of-irish-flag

Incidente de Molly O’Reilly rompiendo una ventana:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ladies-day-for-1916-heroines/26528456.html

Impresión de la Proclamación de Independencia:

https://libguides.ucc.ie/1916Proclamation

https://www.dublincity.ie/library/blog/printing-1916-proclamation-transcript

Decisión de continuar con el Alzamiento el Lunes de Pascua:

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/easter-rising-uneasy-calm-before-the-storm-1.2575638

https://www.nli.ie/1916/exhibition/en/content/risingsites/libertyhall

“Sólo la clase obrera irlandesa sigue siendo la heredera incorruptible…” (fin de la penúltima frase):

https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lih/foreword.htm

SPIES AND INFORMERS REVELATIONS DON’T REVEAL THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS IN THE REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT

On April 7, 2024April 7, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, irish history, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Recent revelations about British intelligence services being in possession of film evidence of Martin McGuinness being a leading member of the IRA but choosing not to prosecute adds to many suspicious incidents over the years regarding this man.

Indeed this is but one additional item to add to many things that have raised suspicions over the years. He had been arrested in the Irish State in 1972 but his sentence from the Special Criminal Court was only six months; however in 1974 he received the more usual 12 months’ jail.

However, over the years in the Six Counties he received a string of convictions for assault on police and for obstruction, for which fines were his only punishment, despite the State being aware of his position within Derry’s Provisional IRA, failing even to convict him of membership in 1976.

*McGuinness leaving Belfast Court 1976 after charges of IRA membership dismissed* (Photo cred: Paul Lewis)

Nor was there ever an attempt on his life though he moved around openly in Derry; how he was awarded £2,000 damages for an incident with British soldiers at a checkpoint – a practically daily occurrence for nationalists in the Six Counties – and that he had made the claim!

Most damning of all was the very low level of armed resistance actions in the area over which he was commander of the Provisional IRA.

McGuinness went from crude militaristic outlook to belief in electoral politics and the pacification process without a clear track of his progress (unlike that of Adams). No evidence of gradual change or of Road to Damascus conversion though he was reported favourable to a truce in 1972.

McGuinness (furthest right) in the clip of The Secret Army (1972) filmed beside a car being loaded with a bomb which is later filmed destroying a building and killing people. MI5 had access to the film.

The suspicions about McGuinness can be added to the known cases of agents and informers in top levels of the military and political leadership of the Provisionals: Freddie Scappaticci, Denis Donaldson, Martin Gartland. Derry in particular had Raymond Gilmour and Frank Hegarty.

“Spies and informers” have been quoted by many over the years as the reason for failure thus far to achieve Irish independence; indeed these complaints go back at least as far as the United Irishmen and as recently as July 2020, Denis McFadden bugged meetings of the New IRA for his handlers.

*McGuinness announcing his replacement by Michelle O’Neill as SF leader in the British colony in 2017.*

THE REALLY FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS

The fundamental problems in the Republican movement go far beyond the serious enough ones of faulty security permitting influx of agents and recruitment of informers. The very strategic concept of the 30 Years War was at fault which facilitated the subsequent sellout in the Pacification Process.

If one were planning a campaign to break Ireland from colonial occupation and control by the British ruling class, a major military power, why would one largely confine it to one-sixth of the nation? And worse still, one-sixth divided between nationalist and unionist communities?

One might say in its favour as the choice of main zone that the contradictions in the British colony were the most acute there, the Catholic population being discriminated against socially, politically, economically and culturally. And they were already in struggle for civil rights.

And that might be an important reason for diverting a certain amount of resources there. But the bald fact remains that logically the struggle against the British ruling class could not succeed if it were largely confined to that area.

Yet that is what the Provisionals did as they split from the organisation that then became known as “the Officials” in 1970. Nevertheless by 1972 they were proclaiming on their newspaper’s front page that Blian an Bhua, “the Year of Victory” was at hand.

In fact they appeared so sure of the impending victory that it seems they were attracted by the film company’s plans to record them – they would have a film for general release at the same time as their victory parade, star-studded (well, McGuinness-studded anyway).

What could have induced them to think that victory was imminent? Only two possible imaginary scenarios:

That the British didn’t really want to remain and by 1972 were beginning to get a good taste of what hanging on to the colony was going to cost them, or
That the Irish national ruling class were going to step in and help ease the British out in the cause of national unification.

If they believed the first, which a lot of people believe even today, they were not carrying out a historical analysis. At every possible juncture when they could have left, the British colonialists dug in deeper.¹ Which is what they were doing in 1972, the bloodiest year of the War.

If the Provisionals considered the second a real possibility, they would have had to ignore the history and current reality of the Irish Gombeen² ruling class, a totally foreign-dependent neo-colonial class.

Of course, to fight the war to win, they would have had to extend the struggle to the whole of the country and also build alliances with movements of nations within Britain and with the British working class, in particular through the mostly working-class Irish diaspora there.

Extending the struggle to the whole nation would have meant taking on the State, its social police the Catholic Church, equality for women, right to divorce, decriminalisation of contraception and pregnancy termination, of LGB, secularisation of education, full state health care …³

No. While Adams and later McGuinness recognised the fallacy of a quick victory in the occupied Six Counties, instead of extending the struggle to the whole 32 Counties, they opted instead for “the long war” – long and unwinnable (which made it ripe for a pacification process in a few decades).⁴

But this too had to be based on one or both of the same two presumptions:

The British didn’t really want to remain and by 1972 were beginning to get a good taste of what hanging on to the colony was going to cost them, or
The Irish national ruling class were going to step in and help ease the British out in the cause of national unification.

And those presumptions were just as fallacious for a long war as they had been for a short victorious one.

The other fundamental weakness in the Republican movement that made victory impossible in this scenario and by no means confined to the Republican movement’s leadership, is that of: “the leadership is right, they know best and only trouble-makers (or cowards) question them.”

Clearly an organisation must have discipline and at certain times decisions arrived at democratically or otherwise in emergency situations have to be carried out without a debate. But they should be open to discussion beforehand if possible and certainly to review afterwards.

That was not the style of the Provisionals and people disagreeing with the leadership’s line were labelled as “troublemakers”, censored from the letters page of their newspaper and isolated by warning others not to associate with the critics – for fear they’d be considered dissenters also.

And since the leadership was ‘always correct’ it followed that the organisation was always correct too. Critics had to shut up or face the fact of exile to the cold outside the movement. And why unite with other groups in a broad front when your leadership is the only correct one`?

All this happened in the past and the Provisionals are no more, just the SF electoral party now.

However, the majority of the current movement of ‘dissidents’, far from carrying out a critical review of past operational principles, seems to have to have learned nothing and to be happily replicating the style and content of the organisation from which many split.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Even after the 1916 Rising, the electoral massacre of their client ‘nationalist’ party in the 1918 General Elections and the War of Independence 1991-1921, the British ruling class still insisted on retaining Ireland within the Commonwealth structure and even then, just in case, retaining six counties in a direct colony.

2From “gaimbín” in the Irish language, used to describe the opportunist creditors and land-buyers during and in the aftermath of The Great Hunger, now describing an Irish foreign-dependent capitalist class.

3Provisional Sinn Féin not only did not lead those struggles but in some cases opposed them.

4A long armed resistance war entails a heavy toll on the fighters (in deaths and jailings) and their community and, as the decades go by without any sign of victory, war-weariness sets in creating fertile ground for growing a pacification process.

SOURCES

Was Martin McGuinness A British Agent? – Toby Harnden Asks The Question

https://www.sundayworld.com/crime/courts/barristers-to-call-for-withdrawal-of-charges-against-dissident-republicans-arrested-in-mi5-sting/a1541598168.html

PALESTINE CHILDREN’S DAY

On April 6, 2024April 7, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, PalestineLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

In Ireland, at this time small children will be in playgroups or nursery schools (if their parents can afford them), or in primary schools fearing or looking forward to assessments and turning in homework. In Palestine there are no longer any playgroups, nurseries or functioning schools.

Post-primary students in Ireland will be preparing for the Junior or Leaving Certificates, a high-stress situation for many. Palestinian children in Gaza don’t have to work about any of that, only about whether, their parents, friends, neighbours will survive the Israeli bombings and sniper attacks.

Or get enough to eat every day and dry warmth protection from the weather. There wouldn’t be much point in sitting the final post-primary exams in Gaza anyway, even if there were somewhere safe to hold them. The Israelis have demolished all their universities.

Even before last year, what would the young do with a degree in besieged enclave of Gaza? Yes, some could get out to other countries in the West or in the Arab world but, if they did, they knew there was never any guarantee of being allowed back.

Over all, there is a horrific statistic to add to all the others of Israel’s genocide in the past six months: the zionist state has killed 13,800 Palestinian children in Gaza and injured over 12,000, which is why some people carry bloodstained white bundles or empty nursery chairs on Palestine solidarity marches.

end.

SOURCES

https://www.cso.ie/en/csolatestnews/pressreleases/2023pressreleases/pressstatementcensusofpopulation2022-summaryresultsdublin

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/one-in-50-of-gaza-s-children-killed-or-injured-in-six-months-of-

TRUTH AND LIES: REPORT ON SEVEN AID WORKERS KILLED BY ISRAELI STRIKES

On April 3, 2024April 3, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Palestine, Political Analysis, Zionism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Despite how distasteful the task it is nevertheless useful to subject media reports to a truth-and-lies analysis, which what I have done to this Reuters report in Breaking News ie.

Israel’s allies demand answers after airstrike kills aid workers in Gaza.

It is true that 1) the Israeli military killed (seven) aid workers in Gaza and 2) that allies of the zionist state have been obliged to protest strongly.

But the first lie appears in the first sentence of the report: “Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu confirmed Israel mistakenly killed seven people …” How can it be a ‘mistake’ when THREE VEHICLES ARE EACH HIT, ONE AFTER THE OTHER?

And how can Reuters report “confirmed” as though it were true?

One of the aid agencies’ vehicles showing the missile penetration hole actually through part of the logo and text identifying the agency. (Photo cred: Reuters)

WCK… said its staff were travelling in two armoured cars emblazoned with the charity’s logo and another vehicle, and had coordinated their movements with the Israeli military. Not much chance of accident then, was there?

“Unfortunately, in the past day there was a tragic event in which our forces unintentionally harmed non-combatants in the Gaza Strip,” Mr Netanyahu said in a video statement. Unintentionally? See previous paragraph.

The Israeli military pledged an investigation by “an independent, professional and expert body”. What body could that possibly be? The Israeli government has refused to cooperate with the EU investigation of events on October 7^th and instructed medical staff not to talk to them.

In fact Israel does not facilitate external investigations and accuses any organisation that does not agree with the conduct of the state of bias and even of ‘anti-semitism’.

At least 196 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza since October, according to the United Nations, and Hamas has previously accused Israel of targeting aid distribution sites. True – but not only Hamas has accused the Israeli state of that but many aid organisations and other states.

So report the list of accusers? Nope!

And they weren’t just “killed” as though by unknown persons – they were all killed by the Israeli military. Reporting commentators have noted that when it’s victims of Israel they are reported as just ‘being killed’ while if killed by Palestinians then it’s ‘Hamas has killed’ etc.

In a call on Tuesday, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak told Mr Netanyahu that UK was appalled by the deaths, which included three Britons, and demanded a thorough and transparent independent investigation, Mr Sunak’s office said.

Again, what body could possibly carry out such an investigation in Israel? If it were truly independent and intending to be “thorough and transparent”, Israel would not cooperate with it. All its own investigations conclude with a ‘not guilty’ or at best ‘inconclusive’ verdict.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, said there was no evidence Israel deliberately targeted the aid workers but that it was outraged … etc. From any logical assessment, three strikes on three vehicles seems pretty conclusive evidence of “deliberately targeting.”

Israel has long denied accusations that it is hindering the distribution of urgently needed food aid in Gaza, which it has besieged in a war since October, saying the problem is caused by international aid groups’ inability to get it to those in need.

This would seem an appropriate spot to report on the few times the Israeli authorities allow supplies to pass from the long, long line of parked aid lorries outside the Rafah crossing gates, which Israeli protesters are impeding with no action by Israel police or army and. But no mention.

Or the times the Israeli military has opened fire on deliveries or on civilians approaching aid supplies that have gone through, or Israel’s execution of the Chief and Deputy of Gaza Police who organised a recent delivery of flour without food riots or Israeli gunfire. But no mention.

The aid convoy was hit as it was leaving its Deir al-Balah warehouse after unloading more than 100 tons of food aid brought to Gaza by sea, WCK said. So it was clearly identified by logo, by prior announcement to the Israelis and by its departure point.

“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organisations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war,” WCK’s chief executive Erin Gore said. A rare and very true statement but not by the media.

The US-based charity said it would pause its work in Gaza, and the United Arab Emirates, which has financed the seaborne food deliveries to Gaza that WCK distributed, said it was putting the shipments on hold pending safety guarantees from Israel and a full investigation.

Anera, a US-based aid group that works in part with WCK, said it too was pausing operations in Gaza because of safety concerns.

In other words, another step in the starvation of Gaza achieved by the Israeli state.

The conflict began after Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7th that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures. An outright lie which does not become truth no matter how often repeated by the western mass media (which it is in every single report).

The conflict began many decades before October 7^th with the zionist settler program which intended and proceeded to carry out a program of ethnic cleansing and, from the moment of the creation of the State in 1948, an expansionist and genocidal program.

Nor was it just Hamas that attacked, nor were all the 1,200 killed by the Palestinians but that is a different discussion.

Conditions in Gaza remain extremely precarious with fighting going on in several areas on Tuesday and 71 people killed in Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours, according to Gaza health authorities.

Yes, the Palestinian resistance continues to resist heroically, with innovation and in principled manner (for example not targeting Israeli Army medical evacuation helicopters) and the Israel military continues to kill civilians, even in hospitals.

But you have to go to other sources to get that kind of information, never in the western mass media.

A final thought: If the victims had been seven Palestinians, would we be even reading about it in the western mass media?

END.

SOURCES:

https://www.breakingnews.ie/israel-hamas/israels-allies-demand-answers-after-airstrike-kills-aid-workers-in-gaza-1608933.html

Also: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/3/outrage-grows-over-israels-deadly-attack-on-gaza-aid-convoy

Beyoncé, Irish Dancing and the Nonsense of Cultural Appropriation

On April 2, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Folk Custom, Racism, Song, Traditions & Folk Custom, USALeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

2 April 2024 (Reading time: 11 mins.)

*Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter (2024)* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Beyoncé was back in the news once again for a spot of cultural appropriation. It was not her first brush with cultural Neanderthals, she has been here before for apparently “stealing” Egyptian culture by dressing as Nefertiti.

Added into the mix was a lesser-known black artist, Kaitlyn Sardin, who excels at Irish dancing and dared produce some fusion dance routines.

I have dealt with Beyoncé and Rihanna wading into the murky cesspit of the cultural appropriation debate in the past when they were accused of appropriating Egyptian culture(1) and won’t deal with it here.

This time though, the debate is clearly about music, produced by people who are still around and not the attire of long dead Egyptians with little connection to the modern country.

The fact that white country music fans are still around to complain, doesn’t make the debate any less sterile or ridiculous.

Beyoncé’s faux pas was apparently to record a country & western album titled Cowboy Carter. Apparently, some were of the view that a black artist shouldn’t record a “white” song or perform in a “white” musical genre.

Her first release from the album was a song she composed, Texas Hold ‘Em.(2) And the hounds of hell were let loose to howl and drown out the music.

Some radio stations refused to play the song, though that didn’t stop it going to No.1 in the country music charts and the debate, though debate might be too fine a word to put on it, erupted.

She is not white, she is not part of the country music scene and she should stay in her lane, is a crude but accurate summary of most of those criticising her. She is actually from Houston, Texas, not that it matters.

One person interviewed by The Guardian responded that “It doesn’t matter that you came from Texas. It matters if you’re actually living a country lifestyle. It bothers me that her song is being called country.”(3) These words might be familiar to some.

They are normally advanced by identitarians when talking about whites playing genres considered “black” and in some cases other non-whites have levelled this accusation against a whole array of non-white artists including Beyoncé.

It is reactionary rubbish with the racism, in this case, hiding just under the surface, behind a veil of cultural purity. One even went as far as to say that he would bet that Beyoncé had never been in the country saloon he was being interviewed in.

Well, many black women would steer clear of such venues, for more than obvious reasons.

Cultures are not pure, ever. None. Not now, not ever, not even going back to the stone age.

I am very sure, no stone age hunter armed with a flintstone hatchet ever shouted “You’re appropriating my culture” when he realised some other village had come up with the same invention, or even just “stole” the idea.

Country music is not pure either and to the shock and horror of many a man yearning for the days he ran around in his white bedsheets, it isn’t even that white. Blacks have made significant contributions to country music, not least the musical instrument known as the Banjo.

What would country be without the banjo? Rhiannon Giddens, the black musician has dedicated her time to reviving the banjo as a black instrument and recording some excellent music, though unsurprisingly she doesn’t quite stick to genres either.(4)

Her site describes her thus:
Singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and impresario, Rhiannon draws from many musical traditions including blues, jazz, folk, hiphop, African, Celtic, classical, and jug band. She bridges contemporary and traditional forms, and few musicians have done more to revitalize old-time influences in current music.(5)

*Rhiannon Giddens with banjo* (Image sourced: *Extra.ie*)

She composes her own songs, covers others, even ones such as Wayfaring Stranger, recorded by many white country artists, though actually written and composed by two Germans in the 1660s.

As far removed from her as from the whites who might like to claim the song as their own (Links below to Gidden’s version,(6) Johnny Cash’s(7) the Mormon Tabernacle Choir(8) and even Ed Sheeran’s(9) very uncountry version.

I have included links to all songs and routines mentioned in this article). The song belongs to whoever wants to sing it, however they wish to, though I personally think Sheeran murders the song with a flintstone hatchet, but each to their own.

So, Beyoncé is quite entitled to record in whatever style she wants. Part of what rankles some is that she went straight to No.1 and will make a fortune from the album and this is part of the ‘stay in your lane’ slogan applied to blacks and whites.

Elvis made a fortune singing what was essentially considered, at least initially, to be a black musical form and other white artists who have done this have been criticised by a black bourgeoisie who want that slice of the cake for themselves.

Some of the whites criticising Beyoncé are undoubtedly racist, some might just be musical purists, though music is one art form that just doesn’t lend itself to purity. Others, like identitarians everywhere, think that the money is theirs. Flip sides of the same coin.

Beyoncé is not the only black artist to venture into the world of country,(10) Charley Pride and Ray Charles did so back in the 1960s at times of heightened tensions in the midst of the racial violence meted out against those demanding civil rights for blacks.

When Charley Pride released his first country album, his image was not put on the record sleeve and they initially hid the fact he was black as part of their marketing strategy. He would eventually make it to the Grand Ole Opry in 1967.

He had a total of 52 top ten hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.(11) No mean feat and not a once-off foray into country music either, he was a country artist.

Linda Martell fared worse as she never hid that she was black and though she would also perform at the Grand Ole Opry in 1970, her album Color Me Country(12) never had the same success.

Ray Charles also dipped his fingers into the pond producing Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music(13) in 1962. It was a best seller, topping the charts. So, Beyoncé is by no means the only or even the first black artist to find success in the genre.

Black artists have always ventured into genres that were not considered to be black.

Others have gone the other way and identitarians tend to criticise white artists doing “black” music, though when Gene Autry, the white country and western singer, nicknamed The Singing Cowboy recorded a blues album, nobody accused him of cultural appropriation.

Though even non-whites get accused by the black bourgeoisie closely aligned to the US Democratic Party of cultural appropriation, Jews, Asians, even Africans get in the neck.

Samuel Jackson infamously accused black British actors of stealing their jobs because they were cheaper and questioned the cultural bonafides of British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo when he was cast as Martin Luther King in the film Selma.(14)

He never criticised the decision to cast the black Yank, Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in the film Invictus or Matt Damon as the white South African rugby captain in the same film.

Given the backlash against his comments he decided to keep his mouth shut when the British-Ugandan actor Daniel Kaluuya was chosen to play the black revolutionary leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton. No one is safe from the accusation.

It is a bit like the MacCarthy trials. “Are you now or have you ever been a homosexual? No, but I slept with a man who was. Have you ever appropriated a culture? No, but I hummed a tune by a man who had.”

Which brings us now to Kaitlyn Sardin, the US black Irish dancer. She has recently gone viral, though not for the first time, with her dance routines and not being as powerful as Beyoncé has come in for some vile racist abuse.(15)

She produced a new video which is what is now termed fusion i.e. Irish dance with some developments.

This is now quite common and there is a host of Irish groups producing fusion. My favourite is a routine called Freedom with the voice of Charles Chaplin and images from Belfast in the early seventies.(16)

Though the first person to do this was Michael Flatley with River Dance which not only broke many of the “rules” of Irish dancing, it even went as far as to incorporate the Lambeg War Drums in a much more positive sense than the annual announcement of Protestant supremacy for which they are used every July 12th.

Of course, Flatley, unlike Sardin is white and of Irish descent.

*Kaitlyn Sardin* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

As I said there are many fusion groups in Ireland, the one I previously mentioned and even one which is danced to classical music titled Fusion Fighters Perform Fusion Orchestra.(17) Again, all as white as the driven snow in Siberia.

There is even an all-female Fusion Fighters group from the USA that does a tap dance routine to William Tell.(18)

The particular group started off with Irish dance and moved into other styles over time, so much so that even their website acknowledges it has less to do with Irish dance than they used to.(19) It is what happens with culture. It evolves, all the time.

Again, they are white and no one said fusion is not Irish dancing and no one said anything about not being Irish, even though their Irish connections may be as tenuous as Darby O’Gill.

The term fusion is one of those designed to assuage musical purists more than racists. In reality there is no such thing as fusion music. ALL music and dance are fusion till it becomes accepted as the standard, when new deviations or fusions arrive.

Though dancing has existed in Ireland for centuries it has not been immune to outside influences such as French Quadrilles in the 1800s or other forms.

The clues are in the names, hornpipes and polkas for example are two types of music that you will find in other parts of Europe and indeed in the case of polkas they clearly originated in Eastern Europe, though most forms including reels and jigs are not exclusively Irish either.

All cultures borrow.

Most instruments used in Irish music are not Irish in origin. Some, like the flute have arisen in most cultures around the world and archaeological remains have thrown up examples everywhere of flutes and whistles made from everything, including animal bones.

Fiddles arose over a long process around the world and it is a bit difficult to pinpoint them to one country. Uillean pipes are Irish, though they too were part of a wider process in Europe with different types of pipes arising.

Though Scottish bag pipes are perhaps the most famous type of pipe, there are in fact lots of pipes throughout Europe and parts of Africa, Iran, Azerbaijan and even India.

Other instruments such as the banjo are African in origin, though the modern banjo has developed over time since it was first brought to the western world by slaves.

The piano accordion is a relatively recent European invention from the mid 1800s, a further development of the accordion, which was also a European instrument.

If we rejected all outside influences and demanded purity, we would have little in the way of Irish music or dance, were we to have any at all.

So, Kaitlyn Sardin should be celebrated. She is from the US, is black and more importantly is very good at what she does: dancing. The fact that she is not Irish or she recently produced a fusion routine is neither here nor there.

Any liberal who got lost on the internet and accidentally read this article will probably have nodded most of the way down: until now. The ridiculous statements made about Beyoncé and Sardin are generally rejected by liberals.

But when the cultural capitalists hiding behind identity politics make similar claims against white artists or indeed between other non-white artists this rubbish is taken seriously.

Culture does not belong to anyone, you don’t have to be white, black, Asian or Latin to perform in a particular style. Culture is a gently flowing river you bathe in, swimming ashore where you please along its route or letting it sweep you out into the sea.

It has always been thus and always will be, despite the attempts of cultural capitalists to appropriate culture for their own grubby money-making ends, or racists imagining some non-existent purity. It doesn’t mean that some of the commercial outings by Beyoncé and other artists do it well.

They don’t.

Beyoncé was criticised for her depiction of India as a white paradise and other artists such as Gwen Stefani, Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea have been accused of engaging in crass portrayals of the cultures they seek to borrow from(20) and in Ireland we know a thing or two about how crass Hollywood can be when it comes to depicting Irish music.

But that is another matter, many artists in particular genres have come up with really crass portrayals of their own cultures. The point is whether culture is pure, has lanes and you stick to them due to an accident or birth.

The legendary US folk singer Pete Seeger would joke that plagiarism was the basis of all culture and he was a wonderful plagiarist who introduced musical forms from around the world to a US audience at a time when there was no internet and it was not an easy feat.

He introduced the song Wimoweh to the world, which has gone through multiple adaptations,(21) some of them very good and others absolutely dire, such as that recorded by the English pop group Tight Fit in the 1980s.(22)

The original song however was quite different in style and written and recorded by the South African musician Solomon Linda(23) who was swindled out of the royalties on the song.

Had Seeger stayed in his lane, most of us would never have ever heard of Linda or the story behind his song.

Demands for cultural purity are inherently reactionary, as are demands to ‘stay in your lane’, be they levelled by whites, blacks or Asians. Culture is to be celebrated and expanded.

The accusation of appropriation would only make sense if someone like Seeger had said he wrote Wimoweh, that would be straightforward dishonesty, something he could never be accused of in his multiple adaptations of songs from Ireland, Japan, China, Indonesia, Scotland, Chile, Nicaragua amongst other places.

Beyoncé’s foray into country is perfectly fine, though personally, I don’t like her music, including her country. But that is my personal taste and has nothing to do with appropriation or other rubbish from cultural capitalists.

The Irish radio on Saturdays used to broadcast an Irish music show from the musical company Walton’s. It always finished off saying “If you do feel like singing a song, do sing an Irish one.” The exhortation was for all, not some; the point was to celebrate and enjoy music.

Let’s leave the cultural capitalists, purists, identitarians and racists to the handful of songs they mistakenly believe to be pure.

Notes

(1) See Ó Loingsigh, G. (02/05/2020) Cultural Appropriation: A Reactionary Debate. https://socialistdemocracy.org/RecentArticles/RecentCulturalAppropriationAReactionaryDebate.html

(2) See Beyoncé’s version here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=238Z4YaAr1g

(3) The Guardian (04/03/2024) I can guarantee Beyoncé has never stepped foot in here: Houston’s country saloons review Texas Hold ‘Em. Diana Gachman https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/04/beyonce-houston-country-saloons-review-texas-hold-em

(4) See for example Another Wasted Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ2_2A4vP4I

(5) See https://www.mymusicrg.org/about

(6) Rhiannon Giddens Wayfaring stranger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Z4PAZX9Bs

(7) Johnny Cash Wayfaring Stranger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIlbZAP8ASQ

(8) Tabernacle Choir Wayfaring Stranger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtgKoJ5hoZw

(9) Ed Sheeran Wayfaring Stranger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buAzVkcH4YI

(10) Vox (26/05/2024) Beyoncé’s country roots. Avishay Artsy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2uWqRZpt50&list=OLAK5uy_nOFFn9idV9uhYSC9__4r4FNW_xNb-aZK0

(11) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJQdR0ciwYg

(12) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2uWqRZpt50&list=OLAK5uy_nOFFn9idV9uhYSC9__4r4FNW_xNb-aZK0

(13) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbrvtGta1lk&list=PLgWmP-F0RTPOl1OjguwDkKwjFFiMmQZs5

(14) The Guardian (08/03/2017) Samuel L Jackson criticises casting of black British actors in American films. Gwilym Mumford. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/08/samuel-l-jackson-criticises-casting-of-black-british-actors-in-american-films

(15) Irish Central (25/03/2024) Irish dancer’s fusion choreography goes viral, triggers racists. Kerry O’Shea https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/kaitlyn-sardin-irish-dance

(16) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thjctEd7O_Y

(17) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ85iotuEso

(18) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK77a_XVzJY

(19) See http://www.fusionfightersdance.com

(20) Business Insider (14/01/2023) Gwen Stefani is only the latest glaring example of cultural appropriation in pop music. Callie Ahlgrim. https://www.businessinsider.com/gwen-stefani-cultural-appropriation-pop-music-problem-2023-1#:

(21) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y_TJ6Oht8k

(22) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRv4cdZxTdQ

(23) See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrQT4WkbNE

ANTI-IMPERIALIST ACTION HOLDS DUBLIN 1916 RISING COMMEMORATION

On April 1, 2024April 2, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, British imperialism, Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, Dublin Lockout 1913, History commemoration, Housing, Housing Struggle, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, NATO, Political Analysis, Song, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Easter is the time of year in Ireland for Easter Egg hunts and/or for attendance at religious services but for the Republican movement it is one of commemoration of the Easter Rising and its martyrs, with parades and speeches.

*The commemoration parade proceeding along Phibsboro and approaching the Cross Guns canal bridge.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

Easter Monday in Dublin saw one of those commemorations organised by the Socialist Republican organisation Anti-Imperialist Action at the Citizen Army plot in the St. Paul’s section of the famous Glasnevin Cemetery at the Republican Struggle Monument¹.

Participants rallied near the Phibsboro Shopping Centre to march from there to the Cemetery, a distance of around two kilometres, over the “Cross Guns” bridge over the Royal Canal, then passing the main entrance to the Glasnevin Cemetery on the right before turning left for St. Paul’s.

*Garda POU van parked **extremely dangerously**, hiding left turn from view of eastbound traffic, as they chat with other Gardaí and a ‘Branch man.* *As is said,* “*one rule for the people …!”*
*In the laneway between houses visible in the background, a cameraman lurked taking photos.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

In a marked departure from the previous year, the State’s political police, plainclothes Gardaí of the “Special Branch”² did not approach the participants to attempt to intimidate them and gather intelligence, demanding their names and addresses under the Offences Against the State Act.³

That had been followed up by a raid on the home of one of the leading activists. Sunday’s police behaviour was an even greater difference from Saturday’s, when a different Republican group, Saoradh, had their Easter Rising commemoration in Dublin’s city centre.

Around 300 police, including many in riot cop uniform (Public Order Unit) had harassed the participants demanding names, addresses and other information, attempting to intimidate them. At least seven police vans had been in attendance also to the bemusement of onlookers.⁴

LOCAL 1916 HISTORY

The Phibsboro/ Glasnevin area also figured in the 1916 Rising, with an insurgent barricade in Phibsboro and a Fianna youth, Sean Healy, mortally wounded at the crossroads by a British artillery shell fragment (a plaque on the ground at the SW corner commemorates his death.

Earlier, Irish Volunteers had guarded the canal bridge briefly; these were seen by the dozen Volunteers that marched along the canal from Maynooth, slept in Glasnevin Cemetery and got into the headquarters garrison at the General Post Office on Tuesday.

Later British soldiers set up a barricade on the Bridge preventing even foot traffic across and shooting dead a deaf and dumb man who could not hear their challenge.

*EYE IN THE SKY?* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

PARADE THROUGH STREETS TO CEMETERY

The parade from Phibsboro on Sunday was led by the Glasgow Republican Flute band (formerly the Garngad RFB, which is where most of them are based) playing the airs of known Republican ballads, muted to regular tocks on their drums as they entered the housing estate.

Also leading was the colour party dressed in white shirts, black trousers, jackets, berets and sunglasses, carrying the traditional flags for Republican colour parties: the Tricolour, Starry Plough, Sunburst, followed by the flags of the four provinces of Ireland: Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster.

Over the marchers the flags of the Tricolour and the Starry Plough, flag of the Irish Citizen Army flew in the breeze while those of the Basque nation, Palestine and of the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine lent an international flavour to the commemoration of the Irish Rising.

There was some beeping of passing traffic and cheering from bystanders at the entrance to the laneway that leads to the bridge across the railway tracks to the St. Paul’s section of the graveyard. The marchers filed in and proceeded to the monument.

The Chair of the proceedings welcomed the attendance before reading from the 1916 Proclamation of Independence and calling a singer to step forward. Revolutionary activist Diarmuid Breatnach introduced the two songs he was going to sing as emphasising the role of the working class in the Rising.

“The decision to go ahead with the Rising on Easter Monday was taken in Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the working class at the time,” he reminded the gathering, “which is also where the Proclamation of Independence was printed.”

He sang the “Jim Larkin Ballad”:
In Dublin City in 1913,
the boss was rich and the poor were slaves;
The women working, the children hungry,
till on came Larkin like a might wave …

*Diarmuid Breatnach singing* (Photo: *Donated by participant*)

Pausing to focus on a different key, the singer followed the ballad with Patrick Galvin’s Where Is Our James Connolly?

After applause, floral tributes were laid on behalf of Anti-Imperialism Action Ireland and of Dublin Republicans Against Fascism.

The chairperson asked for a minute’s silence in honour of those men and women who had given their lives in the struggle for freedom in Ireland. The colour party lowered their flags slowly in homage to the fallen, raising them again slowly to signify the continuation of the struggle.

John Heaney, Republican ex-prisoner from Armagh was called to give the oration for the event, which he dedicated to all those men and women who had opened their doors and their homes to fighters in the struggle, whether the latter were in hiding or just resting – his audience applauded.

The speaker also congratulated on those who came forward to carry on the struggle, youth, women and stated he was proud to see the traditions of struggle being upheld in the process to achieve the Republic for which so many gave their lives.

*The speaker, John Heaney delivering his oration.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

The marching band then played the air of Amhrán na bhFiann/ The Soldiers’ Song, verse and chorus and the formal part of the event came to an end. Band members lined up in front of the Monument for photos and a little later played the air of “Black Is the Colour” on whistles, to general applause.

SECOND 1916 COMMEMORATION FOR AIA THIS EASTER

This was the second 1916 Rising Commemoration to be attended by Anti-Imperialist Action as they had also participated in another organised by the Seamus Costello Memorial Committee in Bray on the previous day.

AIA is a young organisation, founded by socialist Republicans unhappy with the direction of the Republican organisation of which they had been members but now containing many young people.

AIA gave rise to the Revolutionary Housing League that occupied empty buildings in a campaign against homelessness and called for a general occupation campaign across the state. A number of court cases against them followed but sadly their lead was not followed.

AIA have also been very active against NATO, picketing promotional meetings and a number have been charged following a demonstration against a visiting British Navy ship in Dublin last November.⁵ They have also been active as part of the Saoirse don Phalaistín activist group.

Following the event in Glasnevin, many of the participants relaxed at a social evening in a different part of the city where many songs of struggle were sung.

OTHER EASTER COMMEMORATIONS

Other Easter Rising commemorations have been held around this time, for example: Lasair Dhearg held one in Belfast on Easter Monday, while Independent Dublin Republicans held theirs in the capital, marching from Liberty Hall to the GPO, then to Moore Street to lay a floral tribute.

On Monday too the Derry 1916 Memorial Committee held an event in its city.⁶

Former revolutionary Republican party Sinn Féin held theirs in Arbour Hill⁷ cemetery on Sunday; a large part of their President’s address was devoted to justification of support for the EU and a plea to support the party whenever the state’s general elections are held (this year or next)⁸.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Anti-Imperialist Action: https://t.me/aiaireland

Lasair Dhearg commemoration: https://www.facebook.com/LasairDhearg/

Derry commemoration: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/petrol-bombs-thrown-at-media-during-dissident-parade-in-derry/a1835461558.html?

Sinn Féin commemoration: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mary-lou-mcdonald-makes-election-plea-at-1916-event-1608211.html

1My name for the Monument in the St. Paul’s part of Glasnevin Cemetery which stands in recognition of six periods of Irish Republican-led insurrectionary activity in Ireland: 1798-1916.

2Now officially the Special Detective Unit, they were previously known as the “Special Branch”, a name they inherited from the British occupation which had set up a political intelligence unit, the Irish Special Branch, to spy on and disrupt the Fenian movement among the Irish diaspora in British cities. Most political activists in Ireland continue to call them “the Special Branch” or simply “the Branch”. Their equivalent in Britain today and in a number of its colonies and former colonies continues to officially bear the name “Special Branch”.

3As amended in 1972 after a British Intelligence bombing killing two public transport workers in Dublin but blamed on the IRA; the amendment also permitted the setting up of no-jury Special Courts which are in existence to this day.

4In the context of assaults on persons in the city centre there have been regular complaints in the media and in the Parliament about the lack of Gardaí visibly patrolling the area.

5 https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/irish-activists-shout-at-british-naval-vessel-in-dublin

6 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/petrol-bombs-thrown-at-media-during-dissident-parade-in-derry/a1835461558.html?

7Where the 14 Dublin 1916 executed were buried, now a national monument in a former prison and church graveyard around the back of the former military barracks and now National Museum of Collins Barracks

8 https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mary-lou-mcdonald-makes-election-plea-at-1916-event-1608211.html

IT’S NOT BECAUSE OF THEIR SKIN COLOUR BUT ABOUT WHERE THEY ARE

On March 30, 2024March 30, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Racism, World War One, World War TwoLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

There is a belief around that the reason that Israel is being supported by the US and getting away with genocide as far as the Western powers are concerned, is because the Palestinians are dark-skinned and that it wouldn’t happen to ‘whites’.

Those who believe that are mistaken: it would and it did. It is only marginally about skin colour but rather about where the Palestinians are.

Palestine sits in a strategic spot in the heart of the Middle East, with borders to Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, with the Red Sea to the South-east and a Mediterranean coastline to the west, connecting by sea to Europe, Africa and Asia. That made it important to old and to new empires.

The historic land known as “Palestine” in the 19^th and early 20^th Century was that which up until 1917 was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, now occupied by the zionist Israeli State and those areas recognised as Palestinian by international law including Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.

After WWI, during which the Ottoman Empire, along with Germany had been on the losing side, in the divvying up of the colonial spoils, Palestine (occupied by the British since 1917) was given by the League of Nations in 1922 to one of the War’s victors, the UK.

The UK began to invite Ashkenazi Jews to settle there as part of a European colonial and partly anti-semitic¹ project. Of course in those days “semitic” was understood to apply to the Arabs as well as to the Jews and the latter were often referred to by Europeans as “oriental”.

The British, as is the wont of colonisers in general and of them in particular, played the settlers off against the Arab majority.

And of course broke promises about restricting the number of settlers. But after WWII, a high influx of Holocaust survivors organised by Zionists began to head for Palestine and the British, fearing the destabilisation of their colony, tried to prevent unapproved Jews from landing.

The zionist terrorist militias (Irgun, Haganah, Stern Gang) began to attack the British colonial forces and Arab villages. In July 1946, Zionist group Irgun killed 91 people and injured 46 in an explosion at the King David Hotel, location of the British administrative and occupation army HQ.

*Damage to the King David Hotel after bomb planted by Zionist terrorist group Irgun in 1946.* (Photo sourced: *Wikipedia*)

The British pulled out in 1947, reneging on all their promises to the native Palestinians. The Zionists began their genocidal settler project with threats to and massacres of Palestinians and the expulsion of 700,000, mostly Muslims — and declared a Jewish State in 1948.

Thereafter the Israeli State began a program of repression and oppression of Palestinians and of colonial expansion. Naturally, this project required ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinians and aggression against Israel’s neighbours.

The USA and the USSR quickly recognised the Zionist State, the USA increasingly funding the state and supplying it with weapons while the USSR permitted its Ashkenazi Jewish citizens to emigrate to the settler colony.

In October 1956, eight years after the founding of the Zionist state, in response to Egyptian nationalisation of the Suez Canal, the Israeli air force attacked Egyptian airfields without warning while British and French Army and Naval forces invaded the country.

The invaders were forced to retreat and the USA admonished France and the UK for, in effect, not realising that the USA and not the old European colonial powers was now the boss of most of the world.

The zionist lobby (both Jewish and Christian) in the USA is often blamed for that imperialist state’s continual support for Israel’s genocidal attacks on the Palestinians.

But the US imperialists have their own reasons for supporting the only state in the Middle East that is susceptible to neither internal national liberation struggle or muslim fundamentalist uprising. It gives the US a safe foothold and also a guard dog to watch the neighbours (e.g Syria and Iran).

RACISM

The Nazis had a racist view of the Ashkenazi Jews, who were mostly fair-skinned. But they also considered the Slavic people (the majority European and light-skinned) as “untermenschen” (i.e ‘subhuman’). It’s estimated they killed at least 1.9 million Polish non-Jewish civilians.²

The Nazis also murdered millions of Russian non-Jewish civilians in genocidal ethnic cleansing of territory, in labour concentration camps, near sensitive battle formations and in reprisals for partisan resistance.

*Fair-skinned and even blonde children victims of Nazi racism and genocide.* (Source: *New Zealand Holocaust Centre “Button project”*)

The South African settler racist regime discriminated against all non-European people, in their official categories of “Native”, “Coloured” (mixed race) and “Asian” (mostly from the Indian sub-continent). Nevertheless, they also made some groups “honorary whites”.³

Racism isn’t primarily about skin colour anyway: It is a discriminatory social ideology based on ethnicity and the marker for ‘difference’ can be ‘racial’, national or religious. The Anglo-Norman invaders of Ireland in the mid-12^th Century racialised the Irish, who were generally fair-skinned.⁴

The rational reason behind the racism is to unite in opposition to the targeted groups, whether in order to wage war against them or so as to repress their resistance as slaves or as occupied people. The racists colonise their own minds and attempt to colonise the minds of their targets also.

Not quite two centuries after the initial invasion and part-occupation of Ireland, the British-based Anglo-Normans, now describing themselves as “English”, criticised most of their people settled in Ireland for ‘going native’ and passed laws against their social acclimatisation.

The Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366 attempted to prevent “the degenerate English” from speaking Irish, adopting Irish customs and laws, dressing in Irish style, patronising Irish cultural performance, intermarrying with the Irish and becoming “more Irish than the Irish themselves.”

The main purpose for the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland had been occupation by feudal lords to gather rents from the natives but it soon became a question of replacing the natives with settlers. This was not always successful since the Irish people and many clan chiefs resisted.

The cities became fortified centres of colonial occupation, administration and garrison, the colonial city of Dublin known as “the Pale” in reference to the original earthworks surmounted by a palisade; hence “beyond the Pale” signified the native Irish and barbarism to the colonists.

The earlier occupation settlements were in or around fortified constructions, castles and ‘keeps’. Later, town and villages were established with a central square or diamond, i.e in a good defensive shape and entry by natives forbidden. Settler churches were also built as defensive structures⁵.

*Pseudo-scientific racism from white Anglo-Saxon Harper’s Weekly magazine 1899 in the USA.* (Sourced: *Nothing But the Same Old Story, Liz Curtis*).

With the creation of Irish Republican Brotherhood (or the ‘Fenians’) in the 19^th Century and their activities in Ireland, the USA and in Britain, the British elite combined anti-Irish racism with pseudo-evolutionary ‘science’ representing the Irish as not quite human or childlike – but violent.

Cartoons in some British popular periodicals, in particular Punch, Fun, Judy(and Puck in the USA) represented the Fenians as monsters, in particular ape-like creatures and racist jibes and ‘humour’ were popularised, a practice which sprouted new variants during the recent 30 Years War.

*Updated British anti-Irish racism by cartoonist Cummings,* Daily Express, *London, 12 August 1970*, *depicting the colonial British Army as “keeping the peace” between the colonised Catholic/ Nationalist population and the British Loyalists.* (Sourced: *CAIN*)

ETHNIC CLEANSING AND GENOCIDE

All European settler projects imply ethnic cleansing accompanied by genocide to one degree or another: in Africa, Latin America, North America, Australia, New Zealand … but this was practiced by a European power against a European nation also: Ireland.

The British elite used atrocity stories from the 1641 uprising of the Irish to justify and encourage the genocide by Oliver Cromwell’s campaign in Ireland in 1649. Through ethnic cleansing, battle and starvation, Cromwell killed nearing 40% of the Irish population.⁶

*British atrocity propaganda image about the Irish uprising of 1641 to justify Cromwell’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, genocide and enslavement.* (Sourced: *online*).

These figures do not include those he had sent to British colonies in the Americas as slaves.⁷

The Great Hunger (1845-1848) wiped out, through starvation, well over 2 million of the Irish population of around 8 million and during that and the following decade, probably another 2 million emigrated (many of those too dying on the way or on arrival⁸).

*Monument on the Liffey quays in Dublin to the Great Hunger (1845-1852) genocide of the Irish by the British ruling class.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

DOES IT MATTER WHETHER IT’S DRIVEN BY RACISM OR BY COLONIAL EXPANSION?

Yes, it does. The difference between the two does not change the situation of the Palestinians but it does affect how the genocide may be understood and what the targets of our actions may be.

Liberals would probably prefer the issue to be primarily of racism. If that were the source of the problem we could still be pushing for economic and isolation pressure as was the focus with the anti-apartheid campaign against the South African racist regime.

That is being done now and that’s fine. But the assumption would be that with enough pressure, Israel would be obliged to change its ways and the US leaders would feel pressured to advise it to end its racist discrimination (as they did in the case of white South Africa).

But if the project is colonial expansion, presupposing ethnic clearing and genocide, it is a different situation completely.

No arguing with Israeli zionists, boycott or isolation culturally and in sport is going to change that or get ‘liberal’ Zionism to act against their Right; as Finkelstein recently pointed out, the Nakba and all the settler expansions were carried out under ruling periods of the ‘Left’ side of zionism.

Also, if this settler expansion (or supporting such at least) is part of a US imperialism project, then no amount of campaigning to expose the behaviour of the Zionists is going to be effective in persuading the ruling class of the USA to apply corrective pressure to the zionist regime.

The fact that the basic source of the problem is zionist settler expansion means that genocide and ethnic cleansing will continue as long as the Israeli zionist state exists. And US and Western imperialism will continue to support that as long as they believe it benefits their regional interests.

This makes it clear that the long-term solutions can only consist of ending the zionist project or the ending of imperialism which supports it. The former is of course a smaller objective but at the moment western imperialism is energetically defending the zionists.

*A whole neighbourhood in Gaza wiped out by Israeli bombardment months ago* (Photo cred: *WAFA agency*)

It is doings so politically and culturally, with armaments, also with propaganda from its mass media, by repression of its own populations where these are protesting in solidarity with the Palestinians – and in the course of that it is endangering all its facades of justice and objectivity.

In the longer term that is probably a good thing, helping to create the subjective conditions for the overthrow of imperialism and monopoly capitalism.

But we need to help that process along in our own struggles while also making their continued support for zionist genocide of Palestinians as costly for them as we possibly can. While we act in solidarity with the Palestinians we are acting also against our own immediate enemies.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1This may surprise some but the British ruling class was deeply anti-semitic even before Shakespeare wrote his Merchant of Venice script. Not only that, but Balfour, infamous for his eponymous Declaration that Palestine was suitable for Jewish settlement, was personally strongly anti-semitic (I am thankful to Ali Abunimah for pointing that out in one of the youtube discussions of the Electronic Intifada)

2 https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/nazi-persecution/non-jewish-poles-and-slavic-pows/

3For example, east Asians such as Japanese and Koreans with whom they wished to have good commercial and financial relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_whites

4I keep telling people struggling against colonialism and imperialism that they should study Irish history. It’s practically all there: racism, invasion, division, settlers, plantations and ethnic cleansing, recruitment of native enforcers, undermining of native culture, religious oppression, genocide (twice), partition, recruitment of sections of the elite and nationalist political parties.

5Though this also had a history in medieval Europe. The administrators of the Ulster Plantation at the start of the 17^th Century allocating grants of land specified that those who got parcels of land had to be English-speaking, be Protestant, build defensive structures and not employ Catholics.

6 https://www.historyireland.com/how-many-died-during-cromwells-campaign/

7This has become something of a controversy, with racists of Irish diaspora background claiming parity with the slavery experience of Africans in the southern USA and some anti-racists denying it, saying the Irish were indentured servants. Both are mistaken: Irish were sent in slavery by Cromwell but subsequent Irish were sent in indentured servitude which, bad as it is, is not chattel slavery and the historical slavery period of the Irish in the USA was nowhere near as long as it was for the Africans.

8Over 3,000 are buried on Grosse Isle alone, an island in the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada.

SOURCES

https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/nazi-persecution/non-jewish-poles-and-slavic-pows/

https://www.historyireland.com/how-many-died-during-cromwells-campaign/

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/nothing-but-the-same-old-story-the-roots-of-anti-irish-racism_liz-curtis/

TENS OF THOUSANDS IN PALESTINE SOLIDARITY IN DUBLIN MARCH – AND ZIONIST PROVOCATION

On March 25, 2024March 25, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Executions, Gaeilge, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Resistance Art, Trade unionsLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

Numbers approaching 100 thousand marched in Palestine solidarity in Dublin on Saturday as the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign held its 5^th national march since October, attended by people from Donegal to Cork and from the 6-County British colony.

It took place in a week in which the genocidal zionist settler state exercised its “right to defence” by its fourth attack on the Al-Shifa Hospital, massacring over 170 unarmed civilians including women and children and using others as human shields.

In addition the zionists executed the Chief of the Gaza police and a Deputy (along with the latter’s family), claiming them to be guerrillas but apparently in retaliation for their successful organisation of a recent flour delivery without riots or any civilians murdered by the Occupation Forces.

Meanwhile, the response of the colonial and zionist collaborator, the Palestine Authority, was to continue its repression of Palestinians in parts of the West Bank and to open fire on the funeral of three martyrs¹ of the heroic latest battle of Jenin, a scene of many past battles.

*The front of the march begins to enter Dublin’s main street, O’Connell Street* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The official figure for Palestinians killed in this latest genocide on screens and before the eyes of the world is now nearing 33,000 dead with well over 74,000 injured and an estimated 8,000 buried under rubble from Israeli bombing in the zionist state’s “right to defence”.

None of the leaders of the Western imperialist states seem to ask themselves whether, if this is truly the necessary cost to Israel’s ‘defence’, does that state deserve to exist at all?

*“Nakba never ended” placard seen in this section of the march in O’Connell Street* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

MARCH AND ZIONIST PROVOCATION

The march began as has become customary at the Garden of Remembrance² in the north side of the capital city from where it eventually began to make its way down through the city’s main street, its end taking nearly half an hour to pass through and to cross the river to the south side.

From there, chanting slogans that have since become well-known in solidarity of the Palestinians and their right to self-determination, in outrage at the actions of the zionist state and its imperialist supporters, the marchers made their way to rally outside the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Here many listened to speeches and performances but significant numbers shortly peeled away to make their ways back home or to relax in the city’s cafes and restaurants (after all, what were they going to hear that they had not heard and read before?).

Irish Republican organisations were not noticeably present, even those few that had been visibly present on recent demonstrations; difficult to guess at the reason, even with preparations for 1916 commemorations no doubt being undergone for next weekend and afterwards.

As usual on large demonstrations, the marchers had not experienced the insults and bizarre shouts of “Traitors!”³ by far-Rightists and racists to which smaller solidarity pickets are often subjected but, as part of the march neared Cuffe Street, a man with a large Israeli flag passed them.

From near me shouts of “Zionist! Baby-killers!” arose but he passed. Later he was seen being escorted by a Garda from the rally with his Zionist flag but also a Palestinian flag which people speculated he had taken from a demonstrator.⁴ Some more Gardaí gathered around the Zionist.

Shortly thereafter, he was permitted/ encouraged to leave the area with at least his flag pole⁵. Many commented that the outcome would have been very different if it had been a case of a Palestinian supporter provoking a Zionist rally and, indeed, I have witnessed such some years ago.

When I lived in London I regularly saw Zionists provoking Palestinian supporters and dancing Israeli dances near them. Whenever outraged demonstrators drew near to challenge them, the Palestine supporters were attacked by the London Metropolitan Police.

At a parallel Palestine solidarity march on Saturday in London, a small group of Zionists waved Israeli and Union Jack flags but were soon swamped by Palestinian and Irish – yes Irish! – flags. In London at least there have been Irish flags on every Palestinian solidarity march since October 8^th.

TRADE UNIONS

Banners and flags of Irish-based trade unions were well-represented on the march but with at most a couple of dozen marching behind them. Specific worker groups such as “Health Workers for Palestine” replied to my enquiry that they had organised the group without support from their unions.

*Banners of INTO, the largest teaching union in Ireland (primary level in the state and primary and post levels in the colony) precedes some flags of the UNITE union.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Where are the militant actions by the trade union brothers and sisters of murdered Palestinian medical staff including paramedics, journalists (for which job Palestine is the most dangerous place in the world), food distribution workers, poets and writers?

It is well past the time when it was sufficient for Irish trade unions to bring banners and flags on to the street every couple of weeks with a dozen members or so marching behind them. In October they should have been leading their members to the marches in at least their hundreds.

By November last year at least, the trade unions should have been planning actions to take in physical solidarity, moving beyond marches and pickets to sit-downs and other kinds of solidarity action. How do Israeli goods come into Ireland and how are they sold?

Clearly they are handled and administered by workers and some of those at least⁶ are unionised. Union-backed boycott actions would put pressure not only on the Israeli economy but also on other companies colluding with them, as with the supermarkets who stock their products.

Pressure on the latter would translate into pressure not only on the Israeli state but on the political management of the economic bases of states and also on the political management of the countries where they are operating, for example in Ireland.

Who knows, the unions might even boost their recruitment with such action, in a country where once most would not dream of crossing a picket line but where now many youth do not even comprehend the nature or purpose of a trade union.

REPRESSION

Meanwhile, those who ARE taking action in solidarity with Palestine are experiencing repression, not yet to the extent that is occurring in the French and German states, but repression nevertheless. Some marchers on Saturday carried a banner protesting the criminalisation of solidarity.

In recent months a number of people have experienced dawn house raids by the police, in addition to arrests in the course of demonstrations or pickets. Defence of people victimised for solidarity actions has always been an important part of solidarity movements.

Most of the political parties nor the IPSC will be organising or even calling for such defence and it is up to the ordinary people in the solidarity movement to mobilise to attend and protest the court cases and attend pickets in solidarity with victimised activists.

In the months ahead, those victimised up to now and quite possibly more still will be attending court on separate dates as their cases are scheduled to be heard. It is also important as a general principle that activists refuse to agree to refrain from solidarity actions as a condition of bail.

A number of Palestine solidarity activists recently had a private meeting with officials of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the organisation also held a recent day of sessions and workshops on civil rights for protesters.

*Campaigning organisation for housing and against evictions* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

SHAMEFUL SHAMROCKS

Saturday’s march took place a week after St. Patrick’s Day when to the disgust of many people in Ireland, representatives of the Irish Government and even of a number of Opposition political parties attended in Washington to celebrate the day with President Biden and others.

As a result, no doubt, the presence of the Sinn Féin party on the march was small and muted and the flags of the Social Democrats absent, a party recently prominent in pressure on the Irish Government to join the ICJ case against the Israeli State and even to expel their Ambassador.

One supposes that those who are in a queue to manage the Gombeen state have to show their fitness for doing so by bowing before the leader of western imperialism; whatever their private feelings may be, they need to show that they have the stomach to do what the system requires of its servants.

*“No shamrocks for Genocide Joe” placard in this section of the march* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

LESS SLOGANS and LESS IRISH?

It seemed to me that there were in general less slogans being chanted on this demonstration and that that their range was less than usual. Possibly this reflects a feeling that the demonstrations are becoming more routine and less capable of stirring emotion.

Possibly too, the sheer daily weight of zionist atrocities is oppressing people and wearing down their capacity for outrage. In either case it would seem that in addition to giant demonstrations, other actions are needed to release the latent emotional energy of the people.

On this demonstration there was much less Irish language seen in placards, flags or banners than has been the case recently and which had been growing over the months, as I’ve been commenting upon in previous reports. This is regrettable and hopefully will be remedied.

The Irish language NGO Connradh na Gaeilge had a group and banner on the march as has been the case for months, shouting among other slogans “Saoirse don Phalaistín!” A small group also had a banner in Irish declaring that they were Múinteoirí (teachers) ar son na Palestíne.

ART AGAINST GENOCIDE

The lines of baby romper suits or baby-grows made their appearance on the march again as did the bloody butcher image of Prime Minister Netanyahu, with a diabolical Biden on the reverse of the placard. A large ‘puppet’ of Biden with bloody hands was carried riding above the march.

*Tail end of Mothers Against Genocide followed by puppet of bloody-hands US President Joe Biden* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*LGBT section denounces Israeli state’s attempt to paint itself as liberal through decriminalising the LGBT community* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The A2-size beautiful coloured image of Palestinian resistance solidarity was seen again but however overall the variety and ingenuity of home-made placards seen previously had diminished.

The Mothers Against Genocide group carried their white bundles depicting the slaughter of Palestinian children and sang sentences in Arabic and Irish from Róisín Elsafty and Sharon Shannon’s song “An Phalaistín”, effectively interspersed with slogans.

The sight that brought a hush over all witnessing it was the section carrying many yellow infant school chairs, a grim reminder of the huge daily ongoing Zionist genocide inflicted on the Palestinian children in Gaza.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Mohammed Al-Fayed, Ahmed Barakat, Mahmoud Al-Fayeed (Resistance News Network on Telegram, 20/3/’24)

2Originally dedicated to those who fought for Irish freedom since the first Republican uprising in 1798 it has since been recognised as commemorating all those who gave their lives in the nation’s struggle for self-determination (though certainly officialdom would disagree with honouring those who fought that struggle since the founding of the current Irish state in 1921).

3These elements claim it is ‘treason’ for Irish people to support any other struggle than the Irish national one, which they conceive of as attacking immigrants and LBGT people. Their concept of “national struggle” has never included struggling against foreign occupation, supporting Republican prisoners, opposing multinationals’ exploitation of national resources and infrastructure or fighting for universal affordable housing.

4He might also have carried it concealed all along, with the intention of destroying it in front of the marchers; how it came into his possession is unknown to me at this point. He may have departed carrying both flags in his coat etc.

5It did not seem from a distance that the Gardaí had confiscated his Israeli flag but more likely he had been told to remove it from the pole while leaving the area.

6Despite the huge drop in the percentage of unionised workers in Ireland over recent decades.

SOME SOURCES

Latest statistics on zionist genocide: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/-palestinians-killed-by-israel-in-gaza-since-last-oct-7-near-32-000/3169468

PA Security fired on funeral of Jenin martyrs: Resistance News Network on Telegram (20/3/’24)

Al Shifa Hospital massacre: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/20/israeli-military-says-90-people-killed-in-gazas-al-shifa-hospital-raid

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/international-community-must-act-immediately-stop-israeli-armys-massacre-palestinians-al-shifa-hospital-enar

https://www.breakingnews.ie/israel-hamas/fleeing-palestinians-describe-israeli-raid-on-gaza-strip-hospital-1605671.html

The Influence of the Working Class on the 1916 Rising

On March 20, 2024March 21, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn History, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Socialist Revolution, Workers' Struggles, World War OneLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

The 1916 Rising is usually seen as a nationalist Rising of Irish Republicans with perhaps some socialist involvement. Even Connolly is often portrayed as a patriot only (see the song James Connolly the Irish Rebel) with socialist views.

Of the six organisations that participated actively in the 1916 Rising¹ only one of them was specifically of the Irish working class. Perhaps that’s why the great influence of the working class on the Rising tends to be generally overlooked.

As is well-known, James Connolly is one of the Seven Signatories² of that wonderful and progressive document, the 1916 Proclamation of Independence. However, Connolly only became part of the planning committee for the Rising a very short time before the scheduled date.³

That is true but we should ask ourselves why they included him at all. The Irish Volunteers had a nationwide organisation with the also nationwide Cumann na mBan as auxiliaries, whereas Connolly could perhaps mobilise a couple of hundred fighters.

It is said he was brought on board because the IRB believed that his constant demand for a Rising during WWI and the military exercises of the Irish Citizen Army indicated that Connolly was likely to lead the ICA to rise on their own and would spoil their schedule.

How likely was he to do that? It’s true that as a socialist Connolly was horrified by the slaughter of war, where workers of one state are sent to kill and be killed by workers⁴ of another and perusal of his writings do show that he thought an uprising to sabotage war was desperately needed.

Would he have gone ahead alone with the roughly 250 men and women of the Irish Citizen Army, hoping perhaps to inspire a popular upsurge and to encourage the Irish Volunteers to join it, in spite of even their leaders?⁵ It’s hard to believe so but of course it’s possible.

However, from the moment the Republican planners of the Rising took Connolly on board, we can see a significant organisational shift towards the working class in Dublin and nowhere more so than around Liberty Hall, where the first flag for an uprising was hoisted and the Proclamation printed.

Liberty Hall was of course the headquarters of the Irish Transport & General Workers’ union,of which James Connolly was the leader at that time and also editor of its newspaper,The Irish Worker.

And for a person brought in to the planning so recently, how extraordinary that Connolly was given the rank of Commandant General! A responsibility he took seriously, sending couriers around the country and attempting to direct defence preparations around the various Dublin garrisons.

The first battle flag of the Rising

A week before the Rising Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army had an Irish Republican flag raised above Liberty Hall as a flag of war and the one chosen to do the raising was a girl of 16 years, Molly O’Reilly.⁶

The associated circumstances are worth retelling, if only to illustrate the difference between the Liberty Hall of then and today. Adults took classes in Irish language and cultural activities there while their children and those of union activists waited for their parents, took dancing classes or played.

In playing, Molly O’Reilly accidentally broke a window and in terror and shame, ran home.

When Connolly sent a message to her home that he wanted to see her, she went to Liberty Hall expecting a severe telling off. Instead he told her not to worry and what he was asking of her. She was proud to do it but so small she had to stand on a chair to pull the cord raising the flag.

*Remnant of the flag raised on Liberty Hall* (Image sourced: *National Museum*)

*Commemoration ceremony “Women of 1916” with relatives of Molly O’Reilly in place of honour (note the uniforms are of Irish Volunteers rather than Irish Citizen Army).*(Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Of course we know that flag was not of the revolutionary workers but instead the harp on green which was that of the early Fenians and was very similar to that of the United Irishmen, the first revolutionary Irish Republican organisation.⁷

Those early Fenians were mostly composed of working class members and their 1867 proclamation to the world was largely proletarian in outlook. In Britain, the Fenians formed part of the First International Workingmen’s Association which was led by Marx and Engels.

Their flag was flown over at least one of the 1916 Rising garrisons, I believe at theJameson Distillery in Marrowbone Lane.

*Similar flag to that hoisted over Liberty Hall* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

The other flags of the Rising included the Tricolour, presented to the Irish Republicans of the ‘Young Irelanders’ by women in revolutionary Paris in 1848, which was one of two flown on the roof of the GPO, the headquarters of the Rising.

Sharing the GPO roof with the Tricolour was the flag made only days before from domestic material and painted with the words “Irish Republic” in the house of Constance Markievicz, an officer in the Irish Citizen Army, shortly before the Rising.

The Irish Citizen Army’s own flag, the Starry Plough, flew over the Clery’s building facing the GPO. Sadly today most Irish people do not know that flag, though awareness of it and its background is growing among the indigenous Irish and the migrant community.

*The design of the Starry Plough, flag of the ICA as it was in 1916* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The first workers’ army in the world⁸

The Irish Citizen Army was formed as a workers’ militia during the great Lockout and strike of 1913-1914, to defend against the attacks of the police, the physical repressive front line of the capitalist class; the ICA’s flag was placed above Murphy’s Imperial Hotel in Clery’s.⁹

*The Irish Citizen Army on exercises at their grounds near what is Fairview today* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Though its constitution was more nationalist than socialist, the ICA was in its membership and purpose the first workers’ army in the world and when reorganised a few years later, represented also working class feminism, recruiting women, some of whom were officers commanding men.

Once the preparations for the Rising were in tatters with MacNeil’s countermanding order, where did organisers gather to discuss what to do? In Liberty Hall, the building of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union and it was there that the decision to rise on Monday instead was taken.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the fact that the decision to go ahead with insurrection was taken in the building which had become de facto the HQ of the revolutionary working class in Dublin, with an illegal flag of rebellion flying and where the Proclamation was to be printed.

The writing and text of the Proclamation

The wording of the Proclamation is thought largely composed by Pearse but influenced by Connolly, including its address to “Irish men and Irish women” and perhaps “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies”.

Another section which could bear Connolly’s fingerprint reads: The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally.

But, whoever composed or influenced the Proclamation text, it was printed in Liberty Hall. An Irish Citizen Army member went to Stafford Street (Wolfe Tone St. today) to borrow the print type from a printer there to bring back to Liberty Hall, which was under daily 24-hour armed guard.

Having printed the Proclamation in Liberty Hall under armed guard and having decided there to rise on Easter Monday, where did the assault groups for Stephens Green, Castle and the GPO, including the Headquarters Battalion, meet on the morning of the Rising? …. Again, at Liberty Hall.

An early non-combatant casualty of the Rising was Ernest Kavanagh,¹⁰ who drew cartoons for the newspaper of the ITGWU, The Irish Worker. For some reason he went to Liberty Hall on Tuesday and was shot dead on the steps of the union building, presumably by a British Army sniper.

The working class in armed resistance

Once the Rising was in motion, the Irish Citizen Army had primary responsibility for two areas, the Stephens Green/ College of Surgeons garrison and the Dublin Castle/ City Hall garrison but also fought in other areas, for example on Annesley Bridge and in the GPO/ Moore Street area.

All who fought alongside them commented on their courage and discipline. After the surrender, many, along with Irish Volunteers were sentenced to death, most being commuted to life imprisonment. But two leaders of the Irish Citizen Army were shot by firing squad.

One of the areas from which the British forces were sniped at for days after the Rising was the docks area, then predominantly surrounded by working class residential areas.

A question we should ask ourselves is why the forces coming from Britain to suppress the Rising landed at Dún Laoghaire, from where they had to march nearly 12 km (approaching eight miles) to Dublin city centre, instead of at the excellent Dublin docks on the Liffey.

Hugo McGuinness, who specialises in history of the North Wall area, believes that the British expected Dublin to be in the hands of the working class resistance and that it was simply too dangerous to land British troops there, though gunboats could fire from the Liffey.

Certainly, the British believed Liberty Hall and buildings along Eden Quay were occupied as fighting posts by the Irish Citizen Army and they fired artillery at the union building from Tara Street, as photos of shell holes in that building and right through to the next testify.

*Photo shell-damage Liberty Hall (first building with corner towards the camera, viewed northwards from Butt Bridge) as one of a set of commemorative postcards.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

*Another postcard with closeup of shelling damage to Liberty Hall and to the building next to it. Interestingly, in this one Liberty Hall is labeled “the Rebel Headquarters”.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Much is made in some historical accounts of the opposition to the Rising from sections of the Dublin population, during and immediately after the Rising. The city was the capital of a British colony, only just over a century earlier spoken of as “the second city of the British Empire”.

A substantial proportion of the wealthy and middle classes were Loyalist, including some Catholics; even ‘nationalist’ sections were committed to supporting the UK in WWI and John Redmond, leader of the ‘nationalist’ political party had openly recruited for the British Army.

Also, among the working class and the lumpen elements, many were depending on “Separation Allowances” with regard to males serving in the British Army. It is true that the insurgents in some places had to threaten, club or even shoot some civilians who tried to obstruct the Rising.¹¹

These incidents during the Rising were not many but afterwards there were insults and other things thrown at prisoners being marched to imprisonment (or firing squad). The city was under martial law but even so a Canadian journalist reported the insurgents being cheered in working class areas.

There were also other individual witness accounts, such as a man on a tram saluting prisoners in Parnell Street until threatened by soldier escorts and a firefighter in the GPO doing likewise. A year later most of even the earlier hostility had changed to admiration and pride in the fighters.

Leadership of the working class

James Connolly wrote and said many things of importance but surely, with regard to the struggle for Irish national independence, the greatest of these was: “Only the Irish working class remains as the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.”

By that he meant — and I agree — that all other social classes can gain something from selling out the interests and resources of Irish nationhood but that the working class can gain nothing from that.

The Irish working class staked their claim on the struggle for Irish independence in 1916 but have not succeeded in leading it and because of that, that struggle remains to be won.

Today and in other days, remembering that long struggle and the class whose leadership revolutionary socialists seek to represent and to uphold, we declare the need for that leadership over a broad front of all others who wish to struggle to advance.

In doing so, we declare that far from the working class having to wait for socialism, in the course of national struggle it must also shape its own demands around the economy, natural resources, infrastructure, social services, social questions, culture and, above all, to the fruits of its labour.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Irish Republican Brotherhood, Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan, Na Fianna Éireann, Hibernian Rifles.

2All of which were executed by British firing squad, along with another seven in Dublin and yet another in Cork. The 16^th execution was by hanging in London.

3(See Sources: Cooption of James Connolly etc) Connolly was a lifelong socialist and a revolutionary throughout his adult life, author, historian, journalist, song-writer, trade union organiser; active politically in Scotland, Ireland, New York and back in Ireland.

4The international socialist movement viewed the imperialists’ movement towards war with horror and in international conferences vowed to oppose it with all their might, including turning war resistance into revolution (“War against war”). However, once imperialist war was declared that resolve collapsed in most states, Russia, Germany and Ireland being notable exceptions and each saw a rising against war, in Ireland’s being the first.

5Joseph E.A. O’Connell (Jnr.) suggests a possible intention of goading of the State into attacking him and the ICA which might spark the general rising.

6(See Sources)

7The harp on the United Men’s flag was more ornate and was inscribed with the words “It is newly-strung and shall be heard”.

8 https://www.connollybooks.org/product/irishcitizenarmy

9It was a good central location but more than that – the Hotel was one of the businesses of William Martin Murphy, chief organiser of the employers’ bloc to break the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union.

10Kavanagh was a supporter of the workers, of votes for women and against participation in the imperialist war, contributing cartoons also to the Irish Citizen, Fianna and Irish Freedom publications, also to accompany poems of his sister, Maeve Cavanagh McDowell.

11I do not include in this the three members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police who were a force for the British occupation and also for the Dublin capitalists. The Irish Citizen Army in particular had good reason to settle accounts with them for attacks on them including inflicting mortal baton injuries on two workers during a charge on a union meeting on 30^th September 1913 on Eden Quay and beating people and smashing up furniture in Corporation Street a little later.

SOURCES

Co-option of James Connolly to the Military Council planning the Rising: https://www.historyireland.com/connollys-kidnapping/

Raising the flag on Liberty Hall: https://microsites.museum.ie/1916objectstories/ObjectDetail/remains-of-irish-flag
Molly O’Reilly breaking a window incident: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ladies-day-for-1916-heroines/26528456.html

Printing of the Proclamation of Independence: https://libguides.ucc.ie/1916Proclamation
https://www.dublincity.ie/library/blog/printing-1916-proclamation-transcript

Decision taken to go ahead with the Rising on Easter Monday: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/easter-rising-uneasy-calm-before-the-storm-1.2575638
https://www.nli.ie/1916/exhibition/en/content/risingsites/libertyhall/

“Only the Irish working class remains the incorruptible heirs …” (end second sentence from last): https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lih/foreword.htm

Erasing Murals and Erasing Gaza

On March 15, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Satire, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 13 March 2024

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Original Latuff cartoon. West Belfast mural. Mural blacked out.

Once upon a time, Belfast was famed for its murals, so much so that even now a part of the tourist industry depends on a plastic paddy tour of the current murals on display in nationalist areas of Belfast.

It was the 1981 hunger strike and its aftermath that saw an explosion in political murals in nationalist areas. As the 1980s went on, the technical and artistic quality of them improved dramatically and the politics they sought to represent expanded.

Some of them were very militaristic, others much more political in content. On international issues, murals sprang up on South Africa, Palestine and figures from revolutionary struggles around the world were to be found on gable ends all over the city and indeed in other cities throughout the North.

Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Camilo Torres, Che amongst others looked down at the wandering revolutionary tourists who would come over in August. The message was clear: Ireland was part of an international struggle against imperialism.(1)

After the peace process the quality continued to improve, but the politics went for a walk. Twee Celtic murals abounded, young girls dancing a jig displaced images of women holding an armalite aloft for International Women’s Day.

about Imperialism were softened, when not blunted entirely or removed. So, it comes as no surprise to see what has happened to recent murals.

Sinn Féin supporters recently unveiled murals in solidarity with Palestine. They are of good quality and try to capture the suffering of the Palestinians through the images and poignant quotes.

However, they say nothing about who is causing the suffering: the US and Israel, though there are silhouette ghostly like images of soldiers standing over dead children.

There was once a mural on the White Rock Road which pictured a US Indian superimposed over a US flag saying Your struggle, Our struggle. No references are to be made now to the US role in exterminating a people. That is strictly Verboten.

However, someone decided to reproduce a cartoon from the artist Carlos Latuff in mural form in Belfast. It depicts Joe Biden, standing with bloodied hands in front of Mary Lou, who is clearly identifiable in the image, and the leaders of FG and FF, who can be identified from the initials FG and FF on their backs.

The British Army and the RUC used to deface republican murals, not any more. Very quickly, Sinn Féin, officially or unofficially (no pun intended, though it is apt) painted over the mural. It was quickly restored by others, who the artist Latuff described as real republicans.(2)

Sinn Féin are clearly uncomfortable about the issue in the run up their fest in Washington with Biden and not only are they content to throw Palestinians out of public meetings, they will now supress any public artistic attempts to draw people’s attention to the Slaughter Soirée they will have in the White House.

Many Palestinian voices such as the Electronic Intifada have called on Sinn Féin not to go to Washington, the calls in Ireland have been much more muted and tamer on the issue. However, it is a clear issue, what is colloquially called a no-brainer.

You don’t have to think very deeply to understand that Sinn Féin shouldn’t go to Washington DC, that they should tell Genocide Joe they don’t want to meet him. They will go and they will say nothing about Palestine.

Their erasure of a mural criticising them, tells you everything you need to know about their real attitude to Palestine.

Whatever you say, say nothing used to be a catchphrase about loose talk and informers, now it means never to mention Joe Biden and the Palestinians in the same breath, unless you are green washing genocide.

Meanwhile Sinn Féin does its part, emulating the British army and vandalising political murals.

Notes

(1) A selection of images can be seen on Bill Rolston’s website. Rolston has chronicled and photographed murals going right back to the 1970s. See https://billrolston.weebly.com

(2) See https://x.com/LatuffCartoons/status/1767239594083324017?s=20

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