Revolutionary socialist & anti-imperialist; Rebel Breeze publishes material within this spectrum and may or may not agree with all or part of any particular contribution. Writing English, Irish and Spanish, about politics, culture, nature.
Late Tuesday night and early hours of Wednesday morning an operation with large numbers of Gardaí and their helicopter circling overhead disturbed residents in the north Dublin city centre area of Berkeley Road and surroundings.
It looked like drug bust, hostage rescue situation or siege, but it was none of those things, instead being an eviction of four housing activists.1
Supporters of the occupation by the RHL gathered at short notice by Berkeley Road during the Garda operation but were roughly pushed far back by Gardaí from the building under attack (Photo: RHL)
The building had been “acquisitioned” by the Revolutionary Housing League which for a couple of years has been occupying buildings lying empty around Dublin in order to house homeless people and to inspire people to take over empty buildings to end the homeless crisis.
One of those buildings was the red-brick building on Eden Quay and corner of Marlborough Street; it had been operated by the Salvation Army as a night shelter for homeless young people but left empty for years after losing funding.
Supporters in front of James Connolly House occupation over a year ago. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
On 1st May 2022, RHL2 activists ‘acquisitioned’ the building, renamed it James Connolly House and repaired a leak in the roof. In the early morning of 9th June 2022, an estimated 100 Gardaí (some reportedly armed) stormed the building with a Garda helicopter circling overhead.
Two RHL activists performing overnight security on the building were arrested and brought to court, where they declined to be bound over or to give an undertaking that they would not return to the building.
The Salvation Army said that they were renovating the building in order to house Ukrainian refugees. Not only was there no evidence of that in the building when it was occupied but it is empty still, over a year after that eviction3.
Garda evictions have taken place around other acquisitions of empty properties and RHL activists have on each occasion refused to commit to an undertaking not to occupy other properties.
Rather, the RHL has called for empty buildings to be occupied around the country.
The eviction this week
The massive Garda operation this week, including road-blocks, to evict RHL occupants of the Berkeley Road house. (Photo: RHL)
After the eviction in Berkeley Road, four RHL activists were taken to Court where they followed the previous pattern of refusing to be bound over or to promise not to occupy other buildings. Nevertheless they were released with a threat of jail-time if they re-occupied.
The lessee of the building, advertising as Cabhrú and formerly Catholic Housing Aid Society (Chas), has faced allegations of improper use of that building and another, Fr. Scully House on nearby Gardiner Street, some of which were borne out in an investigation by Charities Regulator.4
Supporters of the RHL occupiers outside the High Court (Photo: RHL)
The housing crisis
The numbers of homeless people in the the Irish state passed 12,000 for the first time in May this year and over 4,000 of those are children,5 nor do those figures include people defaulting on their mortgage loans, sleeping on the street or ‘sofa-surfing’ with friends and relations.
According to figures published in April this year, there are over 100,000 empty homes within the Irish state, not counting holiday homes (the Berkeley Road one was empty for three years).
Housing the homeless on the face of it can be accomplished without the revolutionary overthrow of the State and its Gombeen6 ruling class. All that is necessary is a public housing program financed by the State, which it could easily accomplish.
However, the stubborn clinging of the Gombeens to keeping a wide high-return market for property speculators, bank funders and big landlords, year after year as the housing crisis worsens, seems to indicate that a revolutionary remedy is necessary.
This week the Taoiseach,7 Varadkar, inferred that a contributory cause of the housing crisis was that homeless people had turned down alternative accommodation, a nonsensical claim since one person’s declined accommodation could just be offered to the next.
Addressing him in the Leinster House parliament, Sinn Féin TD8 Pearse Doherty9 took him to task for inferring that the homeless were to blame for their situation, in response to which Varadkar denied accusing the homeless and ungraciously amended his statement to “some homeless people”.
He went on to say that homelessness has a number of causes but neglected to name the principal one, viz. that the State does not supply funds to municipal authorities to provide public housing, leaving property speculators, banks and big landlords free to exploit the housing ‘scarcity’.
According to media reports, Doherty neglected to take this opportunity to point out the real cause of the problem and the solution, which confirms the doubts of those who say that his party is “Fianna Fáil Mark II”,10 with no intention to fundamentally alter the economic system in the state.11
Revolutionary Housing League flag on top of the occupied building during the massive Garda operation (Photo: RHL)
In conclusion
The housing crisis shows no sign of being resolved and the ruling class have ridden high-profile ‘shaming’ token occupations such as that of Apollo House in January 2017 without changing anything. RHL occupations do seem to show a way forward if they are widely emulated.
Heavy Garda operations on the one hand and comparatively light treatment by the courts on the other seems to indicate a determination not to tolerate this kind of direct action on homelessness while at the same time moderated by a fear of creating housing action martyrs.
Meanwhile the numbers of homeless grows by the month without any other credible solution in sight.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1This is the police force that has been described by its chief, Commissioner Drew Harris (formerly Asst. Commissioner of the colonial gendarmerie PSNI and therefore also MI5), as his “gang” but which seems unable to prevent serious assaults in the city centre, even in its main street.
2Originally Revolutionary Housing Union, later became RHL.
4Some of those included a friend of the charity’s Chief Exeutive being accommodated in the building allegedly providing only for the elderly, rooms being let to short-stay students without proper guarantees or rights and one of the houses being used as a business address.
8Teachta Dála, member of the Irish Parliament, equivalent to “MP”.
9Deputy leader of the party in the Irish parliament. Holly Cairns, leader of the Social Democrats also attacked Varadkar on the statement.
10Fianna Fáil is one of the two main government parties; originally a split from Sinn Féin led by De Valera, it has been in government more than any other party in the Irish state.
11A number of SF party leaders including its current president have publicly stated that big business has nothing to fear from their party.
(This article is reprinted from Socialist Democracy by kind permission of the author Gearóid Ó Loingsigh)
(Reading time: 3 mins.)
The USA has announced that it will supply cluster bombs to Ukraine as part of its support for the war against Russia.
On one level the move is not surprising, on another it reveals some fundamental truths about the course of the war and US intentions.
They are banned by international treaty, one which has not been signed by Russia or Ukraine, and of course, neither has it been signed by the US. The US has always dragged its feet on the question of the banning of certain types of weapons.
Cluster bombs, are simply put bombs that break up into smaller components leaving small explosive devices scattered over a large area of land. They are a
…conventional munition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions…
These weapons are designed for use against massed formations of troops and armour or broad targets, such as airfields. Cluster submunitions, however, sometimes fail to explode on impact and can kill or maim civilians who later come into contact with them. These unexploded submunitions may remain dangerous for decades.(1)
Cluster bomb capsule (Photo sourced
They have all the potential to leave Ukraine like the US left Cambodia and Laos in the 1970s.
According to Cluster Munition Monitor 23,082 casualties were confirmed by the year 2021, with around 18,426 resulting from unexploded munitions.
Biden has a long and chequered history on the use of the weapons.
His ambassador to the UN had condemned their use by Russia, stating they had no legitimate place on the battlefield, though two days later the State Department censored the official transcript of her intervention to remove the phrase.
Biden had criticised the use of and access to such weapons in the past. (2)
Whilst it is all very interesting and even of humanitarian concern that the US would wish to turn Ukraine in another Laos and Cambodia, though unlike Kissinger they will be telling no lies about their bombs, it is of greater interest what it says about the war.
Biden’s official reason is that Ukraine is running out of munitions and they need the cluster bombs. We have been told from the word go that this war is winnable, i.e. that Ukraine can win it.
This of course ignores that Ukraine is not the only warring party fighting Russia; NATO is part of the war, although it is not putting many boots on the ground, though it clearly has had a hand in some operations.
Every week we hear announcements that the counter offensive will smash Russia, almost there, one more push, the Russians have run out of weapons, their army is demoralised and deserting etc. Now it turns out that Ukraine needs these weapons or else.
These weapons are very useful in halting advances by your enemy, they are not as necessary in situations where your enemy is routed, unless you think it may regroup and retake the initiative.
Ireland has wholeheartedly supported the war in Ukraine, confirming to those who wish to see that it is not a neutral country. It has had little to say on the issue of these banned weapons.
They will make parts of Ukraine uninhabitable and make agriculture a dangerous profession as sowing and reaping become potentially life-threatening activities. If Biden will go to these lengths, what else will he do?
Children view unexploded cluster bomb sub-munition near their village, Laos, 2019 (Photo cred: Sarah Bronstein)
Despite the media talking about Putin’s willingness to use nuclear weapons, it really has to be asked whether the US is willing to go that far as well.
What then of the former leftists running round chanting victory for NATO, or as they would put it for Ukraine? None of them have said much either on Biden’s choice of weaponry. Is there no length to which the US will go that marks a turning point for them? The answer is no.
Should Biden propose facilitating large scale rocket attacks on Moscow they are as likely to cheer them on as to remain silent. What they will not do, ever, is oppose the escalation of the war. Modern day Kautskys.
A broad group of socialist Republicans gathered at the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone on Sunday 2nd July to honour his memory and to reiterate their commitment to an independent and socialist Ireland outside of imperialist military alliances.
Wolfe Tone’s grave in the Bodenstown Church graveyard has been a place of pilgrimage for Irish Republicans at least since the days of Thomas Davis1 of the Young Irelanders of the 1840s, who wrote of his own visit to the grave and composed the song “In Bodenstown’s Churchyard”.
The late 1960s saw huge numbers of people in attendance at annual commemorations there near the village of Sallins, Co. Kildare, including not only Sinn Féin2, who led them, but many political and social organisations, GAA clubs, along with many non-aligned people.
Over the years, the voluntary and unfunded National Graves Association has improved the site comprehensively and sensitively, leaving the ruins of the Protestant church as they are but building a stage attached to one side, fronted with plaques and commemorative flag stones.
Commemorations currently are usually organised around a Sunday near the date of the patriot leader’s birthday on 20th June but have to be managed between different groups wishing to hold their own commemorations.
Speeches, songs and Garda harassment
The Annual Wolfe Tone commemoration organised by the Wolfe Tone Commemoration Committee took place over the weekend with members of a number of groups and Independent Republicans in attendance.
A Socialist Republican Colour party led the march up from the bottom of the road, turning in to the graveyard through a side gate and taking up positions in front and to one side of the monument, at ordú scíthe (parade rest) position but with flags held high.
Colour party in front of Wolfe Tone monument, Bodenstown Churchyard (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Behind the colour party followed a crowd carrying banners bearing the legends “Irish Republicans against NATO”, “We serve Neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland” and an assortment of flags including green-and-gold Starry Ploughs, Irish Tricolour, Palestinian and Basque national flags.
The event was chaired by a young Socialist Republican who spoke about the importance of the event before introducing a representative of a midland Republican commemoration group who read a short message of solidarity.
This was followed by a socialist republican accompanying himself on guitar singing The Three Flowers.3
The main oration was delivered by veteran Independent East Tyrone Republican Margaret McKearney who linked the past with the present, including the current housing crisis, the British occupation and the Irish State’s push to join PESCO and NATO military alliances.
Musician performing The Three Flowersat the Wolfe Tone monument (Photo: Rebel Breeze)Veteran Republican from Tyrone delivering the oration at the commemoration event (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
There was a clear message at the event that the push towards NATO will be energetically resisted at every turn by the people of Ireland.
Wreaths were laid and a minute’s silence was observed, while the colour party lowered the flags in memory of all those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the ongoing struggle for Irish Freedom. The event was brought to a close with the musician playing and singing Amhrán na bhFiann.
A handful of Gardaí4 in uniform and in plainclothes (Special Branch, the political police) were parked outside the graveyard watching people arriving and leaving but at that point having no direct interaction with those attending the event.
Part of long tail-back cause by Garda checkpoint very near to Bodenstown Churchyard after the commemoration event (Photo: Rebel Breeze)Gardaí in uniform and Special Branch in plain clothes harassing and attempting to intimidate people who had attended the commemoration event (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
However, once the event concluded, the Gardaí set up a checkpoint at the bottom of the road and began to harass and attempt to intimidate drivers of vehicles, stopping them, asking for identification, where they were from etc, causing a long tailback.
This is part of the regular harassment of Irish Republicans by police on both sides of the British Border.
“The Father of Irish Republicanism”
Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798) was formally a member of the Church of Ireland5 congregation (Anglican), in his time the dominant religious group in England-occupied Ireland but also one of the smallest.
No-one could be elected to the Irish Parliament unless of that congregation.
In the early 19th Century a section of the Irish bourgeoisie, nearly all Anglican or of the other Protestant churches, “dissenters”, wished to develop the Irish economy free of interference, control, patronage and bribery associated with being an English colony.
Many of them understood the need for a strong base in the population, for which they recognised the need to include representation for the majority population in the country, the Catholics, along with the most populous of the Protestants, the Presbyterians.6
When the liberal but pro-English Crown Henry Grattan brought the issue to a vote in the Westminster Parliament, his motion failed due to many MPs’ sectarianism or vested interests, a situation which continued for decades afterwards.7
That seemed to point to revolution as the only logical way forward.
Theobald Wolfe Tone was one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen in October 1971, the first broad Republican organisation in Ireland, which soon developed a comprehensive revolutionary agenda, for Irish independence and a Republic based on universal male suffrage.8
In order to accomplish a successful uprising, they invited assistance from Republican France and planned a simultaneous uprising across Ireland, with particular concentration on Antrim (largely Presbyterian and Anglican), Wexford and Wicklow, Midlands and Mayo (largely Catholic).
Colour party leading a march towards the Wolfe Tone monument (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Spies and informers working for the English occupation betrayed some of their plans and most of the Leinster Directorate of the United Irishmen, including Wolfe Tone, were arrested, a disaster for uprising plans in Dublin but also for overall leadership in Leinster.
The 1798 Rising had initial great success in the south-east, particularly in Wexford but was quickly and bloodily suppressed in the Midlands and in Antrim. Mayo rose when a too-small detachment of French soldiers arrived under Humbert in Kilalla but they were outnumbered and beaten.
Tone was was unapologetic at his trial, was sentenced to death by hanging but appears to have attempted to take his own life while awaiting execution, surviving for a few days in great pain before dying on 19th November 1798 as British and Orange loyalist repression swept the country9.
Wolfe Tone Monument by Edward Delaney (d.2009) at S.E entrance to Stephen’s Green, Dublin city centre (image sourced: Internet)
Many leaders of the United Irishmen are honoured in song, writing and in commemorative events to this day but Theobald Wolfe Tone is still the most widely remembered of them all.
End.
The Colour Party and some of the participants line up for a group photo by the monument (Photo: AIA)
FOOTNOTES
1Thomas Davis (1814-1845), journalist, author of the song A Nation Once Again and other works, also co-founder of The Nation newspaper.
2Prior to its split resulting in Provisional Sinn Féin and the later split resulting in the Irish Republican Socialist Party.
3Composed by Norman G. Reddin, a Republican ballad honouring the memory of three United Irish leaders, Robert Emmet, Michael Dwyer and Wolfe Tone. Both Tone and Emmet were sentenced to execution, the latter carried out in 1803 on Thomas Street in Dublin. Dwyer was transported to exile in Australia where he was later accused of planning an uprising in New South Wales for which he was twice imprisoned and tried but exonerated, became Police Chief in Liverpool, Sydney in 1813 but was imprisoned again in 1825 for alleged non-payment of a £100 debt, contracted dysentery, was released again and died very soon afterwards.
5A branch of the Church of England, the state religion of the UK of which their Monarch is the titular head (in addition to being the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces).
6“Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter”, as Wolfe Tone famously called the alliance.
7In May 1808 Grattan proposed emancipation in the House of Commons, with certain qualifications, but his motion was defeated by 281 votes to 128. In June 1812 the Commons accepted, by 225 votes to 106, a motion in favour of considering Catholic claims. An emancipation Bill, introduced in February 1813, received a second reading but was lost in committee by a narrow margin. Frustration at this lack of progress led to the formation of the Catholic Association in 1823 (of which Wolfe Tone was an active member). Parliament passed an Act to restrict the Association’s activities two years later.
8Very few radical or revolutionary individuals, not to mention movements of the 18th (or even much of the 19th or early 20th) Centuries proposed universal female suffrage, one reason why the 1916 Proclamation of Irish Independence is such a remarkable document, beginning its address with the words “Irishmen and Irish women”.
9Which many, in particular Protestants, fled the country to escape, some settling in the United States and in Canada. The great Catholic emigration from Ireland did not occur until the Great Hunger of the mid-19th Century and later.
ANOTHER FAILURE OF THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT
“Today in Ireland, migrant workers earn 22% less per hour than their Irish counterparts (ESRI, 2023), while migrant women earn 11% less than their male counterparts and 30% less than Irish men (ESRI, 2023). Here is another fact. According to the latest Discrimination Report in Ireland, the workplace is the second place where discrimination and racist incidents occur, as also documented in the previous reports (INAR, 2023).”
The paid work migrants do is a coin of two sides, one bright and the other dark.
On the bright side, we know that, in Ireland, the employment rate among the migrant population is higher than that of the national population (71.6 and 76.4, respectively). But, simultaneously, the unemployment rate is lower among migrants (4.6 and 5.9, respectively). In other words, compared to the national population, the migrant population has more working and fewer unemployed migrants.
This is good news and bad news. Because on the one hand, we can all see that migrants are making a necessary and important contribution to local economies through their work (often taking essential positions in the food and agri industry and other low-paid jobs that do not attract the national population). Still, on the less visible side of the coin, we can also see that it is in the work environment where most…
¿Sabrías decir cuál de los tréboles silvestres que crecen en Irlanda es el trébol ‘genuino’ (Seamair óg)?
Acercamiento del trébol en flor, Glasnevin, Dublín. (foto: D.Breatnach)
Ahora, mientras todavía está en flor, es un buen momento para ver la planta, las hojas más pequeñas y la flor amarilla (buí) en ella es lo que realmente la distingue de sus primos los tréboles, con sus hojas más grandes y flores en blanco (S . Bhán, T. repens) o rosa-rojo-púrpura (S. Dhearg, T. Pratense).
¿Cómo sabemos que el Seamair Bhuí (Trébol menor, Trifolium dubium) es el auténtico “trébol”? Bueno, tal vez no podamos estar seguros, pero en la década de 1890, a partir de una encuesta de opinión en una sociedad irlandesa todavía bastante tradicional, T. Dubium surgió como la primera opción.
Foto: El trébol, Seamair Bhuí/ Trifolium dubium/ Lesser trefoil, de tamaño real, fotografiado en la ciudad de Dublín con hierba creciendo a través de él. (Foto: D. Breatnach)
El botánico y zoólogo aficionado Nathaniel Colgan (1851-1919) pidió a personas por toda Irlanda que le enviaran especímenes de lo que creían ser un trébol irlandés, de los cuales los dos más comunes eran el trébol amarillo seguido por el blanco.1
Cien años después, el Dr. Charles Nelson repitió el experimento en 1988 y descubrió que el trébol de flor amarilla seguía siendo el más elegido.2 Según Wikipedia, el trébol amarillo es la especie nominada por el Departamento de Agricultura de Irlanda como el trébol “oficial” de Irlanda.
Si deseas elegir tu propio trébol para el Día de San Patricio, deberás aprender a identificarlo por sus hojas, ya que en Irlanda no florecerá en marzo. Sin embargo, puedes reconocerlo actualmente por sus flores y crear una imagen mental del tamaño de sus hojas para retenerla en tu memoria.
LOS IRLANDESES Y EL TRÉBOL
¿Qué pasa con el trébol y los irlandeses de todos modos? La historia infantil sobre el misionero cristiano Patricio usando la hoja para explicar la Santísima Trinidad cristiana es solo eso, una historia ficticia, aunque mencionada en una de las entradas de Wikipedia para “trébol”.
Ni los celtas en general ni los gaélicos en particular necesitaban que nadie les explicara una deidad tres en uno, ya que tenían sus propias trinidades paganas (Éiriu, Fódlha, Banba; las de la Mór-Righean/ Morrigu). Los investigadores no han encontrado ninguna referencia a la importancia del trébol antes de 1681.3
El propio Patrick, en lo que se considera su genuina Confessio autobiográfica, nunca mencionó el trébol ni una sola vez. Mi sospecha es que la fábula del trébol-cristiano-trinidad fue creada fantasiosamente por colonos británicos como el botánico Caleb Threkeld o por cristianos irlandeses nativos alrededor de 1726.4
Aunque algunas fuentes en por el Internet han afirmado propiedades medicinales o uso druídico para el trébol, nunca citan las fuentes originales reales, lo que puede indicar que las referencias no son confiables u oscuras, si es que verdaderamente existen.
Curiosamente, en el periodo previo a la Rebelión de 1798, un vecino de Drogheda llamado John Sheil, que era presbiteriano y miembro de los United Irishmen, utilizó el trébol como una metáfora para representar una trinidad diferente: la de los católicos, los protestantes (anglicanos) y los disidentes (todas las denominaciones protestantes no anglicanas).
“….. la planta de tres hojas….
son tres en uno
Para probar su unidad
en esta comunidad
Que aguanta con impunidad
A los Derechos del la Humanidad.”5
Sin embargo, el verde era el color de los Irlandeses Unidos y, en momentos de represión por parte de las fuerzas de ocupación y por la Orden Leal de la Naranja, una ramita de trébol en el Día de San Patricio podría ser una forma útil de indicar resistencia y al mismo tiempo afirmar que era un reverencia inofensiva a un santo cristiano.
Sin embargo, incluso usarlo el día de San Patricio podría haber sido peligroso en algunos sectores, como cuando The Wearing of the Green informó, en referencia al trébol, que
“… Es el país más angustioso que jamás hayas visto
Porque están ahorcando a hombres y mujeres por llevar el verde.”
3 “Thomas Dinely, un inglés que viajó por Irlanda en 1681 notó que personas de todas las distinciones usaban cruces para conmemorar al santo en este día, pero notó que solo los vulgares, como él los llamaba, usaban tréboles”. https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/News/From-shamrock-and-rosettes-to-Patricks-Pot
5 Los Derechos del Hombre, por John Sheils. El aire con el que se canta más comúnmente es el de la canción en lengua irlandesa Eanach Cuain/ Anach Cuan, pero he compuesto un aire original para él y lo canto un poco más rápido que la canción sobre la tragedia del hundimiento del barco.
A recent article appearing briefly on breakingnews.ie was packed with some of the typical anti-Russian propaganda of the current western mass media but also, unintentionally, revealed the purpose of the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine.
Whether one is pro-NATO, pro-Russia or of some other position, it can be instructive to dissect this mass media propaganda to which we are subjected daily in western states.
Let’s take the headline first, which serves not just as an ‘attractor’ or ‘hook’ to draw the reader but also as a statement in itself and, in this case, very definitely as propaganda.
“NATO prepares military plans to defend against bruised but unbowed Russia” is the headline. So straightaway we are being told that NATO needs to defend itself against Russia, which is turning truth completely on its head.
Firstly, where in the world is the Russian Federation attacking NATO? In Ukraine? But then the Ukrainian state is not actually in NATO, is it? Unless what is meant is US/NATO’s plans to get the Ukrainian state into NATO, of course, which they’re generally vague about.
But if not there, where? Nowhere, of course.
Who threatens whom?
As to reversing reality, one look at a map of Europe with NATO states indicated makes it clear that it is not NATO that needs to defend itself but Russia — and bears out the Russian line that one of the reasons they went to war was to stop their encirclement by NATO.
Map of European states currently in NATO (Image sourced: Internet)
Then, we need to consider that NATO is not a country or one region in the world that could need defence. No, it is a military alliance of European states with the United States. And if it ever was a defensive alliance, that ‘reason’ for its existence disappeared with the fall of the USSR in 1991.
Far from scrapping NATO or even freezing its expansion then, US/NATO started collecting former USSR states into its alliance until nearly every state on Russia’s eastern borders had joined the alliance or was friendly towards it and hostile towards Russia.
The former Ukrainian regime was friendly towards Russia until the coup in 2014 by pro-NATO elements, which are the regime now in power and responsible for a decade of cultural attacks on – and artillery bombardment of – the ethnic Russian population of the Donbas area.
Moldovan troops in joint NATO military exercise in Ukraine, 2017. (Image sourced: Internet)
Only a propaganda-blinded fool or a liar could deny that Russia has been and is under threat from US/ NATO, rather than the reverse.
We could do with looking at the record of states in invasion of – and interference in – other countries.
The USA is the founder and leader of NATO; since the end of WWII, the USA has beeninvolved in 34 armed actions against smaller nations, not including coups and proxy wars. This includes initiating 81% of all global armed conflicts from 1945 to 2001.
The United Kingdom is a major NATO member and, with direct involvement in 35 armed conflicts since WWI, has exceeded the USA’s tally by one and France’s tally of 33, also an important NATO member, by two.
How many Russian Federation armed conflicts since it came into existence? Thirteen, mostly on or around its own state’s territory, whereas the armed conflicts of the USA, UK and France were mostly outside their own territories and far from their borders.
So who has more reason to fear attack from whom?
“What we see in general is that the Russians are careful around NATO. They are not seeking a conflict with NATO. I think that is a sign that they are very, very busy,” the article quotes NATO Chairman, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer saying. “Busy” with what, is he inferring?
Nuclear weapons
“NATO, as an organisation, does not provide weapons or ammunition to Ukraine and has sought to avoid being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia,” states the article.
True, as far as that goes but how many NATO states are supplying the Ukrainian state with military equipment? It would be quicker to list how many are not supplying it!
In that quoted sentence, there is almost an admission that were it not for Russia’s nuclear weapons, the US/ NATO forces would be willing to intervene directly to attack and invade Russia.
Indeed, they may still do so. NATO Chairman, Admiral Rob Bauer, in briefing the press, “laid out the biggest revamp to the organisation’s military plans since the Cold War” (of course for purely defensive reasons!).
“US President Joe Biden and his Nato counterparts are set to endorse a major shake-up of the alliance’s planning system at a summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, next week,” we are told.
“About 100 aircraft take to the skies in that territory each day, and a total of 27 warships are operating in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, with those numbers set to rise. In new plans, NATO aims to have up to 300,000 troops ready to move to its eastern flank within 30 days.”
Of course, weapons and military transport require funding (a big source of profits for the arms industries). “In 2014, NATO committed to move towards spending 2% of GDP on their military budgets by 2024” (2014 was the year of the US/NATO-inspired coup, 8 years before the invasion).
“At their July 11-12 summit, the leaders will set the 2% figure as a spending floor, rather than a ceiling to aim for.”
“Russia bruised but unbowed”
When wishing to force the enemy to surrender, it may be sufficient to bombard it from the air and sea. But in order to extract its riches, the situation requires either invading troops on the ground or a compliant regime.
In this context it is significant that Admiral Baur commented that of Russia’s ground forces, around “94% is now engaged in the war in Ukraine”, meaning that the state’s principal ground defence forces are already engaged in war and presumably taking casualties.
But Russia’s armed forces are “bruised but by no means bowed” in the war in Ukraine, commented Admiral Bauer, which looks very much like an admission that pushing Russian forces into a proxy war in the Ukraine was intended to sap Russia’s military strength.
So that Russia can be invaded, carved up into US/NATO dependencies, its rich natural resources plundered for the benefit of western imperialist states? No, surely not, the USA, UK and France would never go to war for imperialist plunder, would they?
Una multitudinaria reunión pública en el centro de la ciudad de Dublín el sábado escuchó y aplaudió a personas destacadas que hablaron en contra de que el Estado irlandés se convierta en parte de alianzas militares, ya sea PESCO1 (“OTAN a escondidas”2) o la propia OTAN.
El panel de oradores de alto perfil presidido por la eurodiputada irlandesa Clare Daly contó con la participación de su colega eurodiputado Mick Wallace, Sevim Dagdalen (MP Die Linke), Medea Benjamin (fundadora de Code Pink) y Anne Wright (ex comandante del ejército de EEUU pero opositora a la Guerra en Irak).
El célebre rapero antiimperialista Lowkey también participó como orador, al igual que Yanis Varoufakis (ex-Syrza)3, quien se dirigió a la reunión mediante un video grabado desde el extranjero y aplaudió a los irlandeses por su larga resistencia al colonialismo y los instó a estar orgullosos de la neutralidad de su estado.
El video del discurso grabado de Yanis Varoufakis se proyectó en la reunión de Neutrality Who Cares el sábado (Foto: Rebel Breeze)
FONDO
Existe un impedimento constitucional para que el estado irlandés participe en una asociación de guerra con otro estado y durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial la posición oficial del estado fue la neutralidad.
Sin embargo, siempre fue una neutralidad pro-aliada con los aviadores británicos derribados que podían cruzar al territorio del Reino Unido y los militares estadounidenses a menudo cruzaban la frontera del Reino Unido para visitar el “sur”, mientras que los aviadores alemanes derribados eran internados durante la guerra.
El impedimento no es absoluto y generalmente se lo conoce como el “Triple bloqueo”, que enumera las tres condiciones que permitirían al gobierno enviar más de 12 tropas al extranjero:
En los últimos años, algunos políticos y comentaristas públicos han planteado la idea de que el estado irlandés podría reincorporarse a la Commonwealth británica y, desde la guerra en Ucrania, ha surgido un discurso de que el estado debe unirse a una alianza militar externa para protegerse de la Rusia.
Sevim Dagdalen, diputado del partido Die Linke, hablando en la reunión de Neutrality Who Cares el sábado (Foto: Rebel Breeze)
La encuesta Irish Times/Ipsos de abril, en medio de críticas por no seguir las mejores prácticas en su diseño e incluso acusaciones de tratar de incitar a los encuestados a favor de unirse a alguna alianza militar externa, arrojó dos tercios claramente en contra de que el Estado irlandés haga tal cosa.
La propaganda rusofóbica ha especulado sobre las actividades de los arrastreros rusos en el Mar de Irlanda. Esto es completamente una alarma y una discusión agitadas sin el más mínimo fundamento, ya que Rusia nunca ha presentado la más mínima amenaza, militar o políticamente, para el pueblo irlandés.
Por otro lado, Gran Bretaña ha invadido y ocupado Irlanda durante más de 800 años y todavía está en posesión de una quinta parte de su territorio y tiene importantes intereses económicos y financieros en el país como, más recientemente, los Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea.
La Royal Navy del Reino Unido entra con frecuencia en aguas nacionales irlandesas y el Estado ha permitido regularmente que sus barcos, junto con los buques de guerra de otros países de la OTAN, atraquen en puertos irlandeses. Y también la Royal Air Force, ha surgido recientemente, para patrullar el espacio aéreo territorial irlandés.
Medea Benjamin, fundadora de Code Pink, hablando en la reunión de Neutrality Who Cares el sábado (Foto: Rebel Breeze)
Como parte de esta falsa alarma y discurso, el Gobierno irlandés5 fundó recientemente el Foro Consultivo sobre Política de Seguridad Internacional que tenía previsto reunirse la semana pasada en Cork y Galway, y luego durante dos días en el Castillo de Dublín.
El presidente del Estado, Michael D. Higgins, en una intervención inusual durante una entrevista con el Examiner expresó su preocupación por lo que percibía como la “deriva hacia la OTAN” y criticó la composición de los oradores y presidente de esta organización por ser pro- OTAN.
Michael D comentó sobre “los almirantes, los generales, la fuerza aérea, el resto” y describió a su presidenta, Louise Richardson, como una persona “con un DBE muy grande – Dama del Imperio Británico”.
El presidente Higgins se disculpó más tarde por lo que calificó como “un comentario trivial” sobre Richardson, pero no retiró sus comentarios sobre la composición general del Foro, que de hecho ha sido criticado por otros, incluidos Richard Boyd Barrett TD6 y la senadora Frances Black.
LA REUNIÓN EN DUBLÍN
Varoufakis se refirió a Irlanda como si la nación hubiera ganado su independencia, como sucedió con todos los oradores que siguieron (con la excepción de Lowkey).
Se escuchó a un miembro de la audiencia comentar irónicamente a otro que estaba agradecido de haber asistido ya que hasta ahora no había estado al tanto de la “independencia” de Irlanda.
Lowkey, Rapero antiimperialista de bajo perfil de Londres, hablando en la reunión en Dublín. (Foto: Rebel Breeze)
Lowkey, el rapero radicado en Gran Bretaña, hizo trizas la ilusión de la neutralidad del estado irlandés al relatar el uso de los aeropuertos irlandeses no solo para los vuelos del Ejército de los EE.UU en el territorio estatal.
El rapero expuso la ‘neutralidad’ del gobierno irlandés en el entrenamiento de soldados que iban a luchar en Ucrania y también en su continuo apoyo al Estado de Israel y fue aclamado cuando declaró que, como iraquí, estaba orgulloso de que su país hubiera “pateado el culo de los británicos”.
En un ejercicio magistral de crítica respaldada por la investigación, Lowkey pasó a despojar de la pretensión de independencia e imparcialidad del “Foro Consultivo” fundado por el gobierno, exponiendo los antecedentes imperialistas e incluso de la OTAN de los principales miembros del panel y su presidente.
Todos los miembros del panel de Neutrality — Who Cares fueron oradores efectivos e hicieron puntos útiles, aunque fue curioso escuchar a uno de ellos denunciar a los “fascistas rusos” sin comentar sobre las unidades fascistas en el ejército nacional del régimen ucraniano.
Fue Lowkey quien clavó los clavos más largos y afilados en la crucifixión verbal de la campaña del gobierno irlandés hacia la OTAN y quien provocó los vítores más fuertes de su audiencia, en su mayoría irlandesa.
Incluso el célebre orador Daly no estuvo muy cerca, aunque ella también expuso la propaganda del Gobierno y las porristas pro-OTAN. El eurodiputado desmintió la excusa de proteger los cables de comunicación subterráneos, señalando que el 25% de ellos están fuera de servicio regularmente.
La eurodiputada Clare Daly hablando en la reunión de Neutrality Who Cares el sábado (Foto: Rebel Breeze)
El eurodiputado irlandés también satirizó la idea de que cualquier cable submarino esté protegido por la OTAN, ¡teniendo en cuenta dónde reside la responsabilidad de la voladura del gasoducto Nord Stream!7
Finalmente, advirtió a la audiencia que esté atenta a un intento de eliminar el Triple Lock bajo algún tipo de excusa como un primer paso para permitir que el Gobierno ingrese a una alianza militar.
UNA PARTE DE IRLANDA YA EN LA OTAN
Se dejó a un joven miembro de la audiencia en la sección de preguntas y respuestas, leyendo una declaración en nombre de la organización Acción Antiimperialista, señalar que una parte de Irlanda ya está en la OTAN, a saber, los Seis Condados, ocupados por Gran Bretaña y una parte del Reino Unido.
El joven llamó a un frente amplio para unirse en torno a la oposición a formar parte de una alianza militar externa y el imperialismo (ver declaración completa en el apéndice). Antes se habían distribuido pequeños volantes que abogaban por el mismo curso de acción dentro de la reunión.
El partido People Before Profit también distribuyó folletos en contra de unirse a la OTAN a las personas que asistieron a la reunión.
De hecho, es difícil ver por qué la presencia de la OTAN en una parte de Irlanda debería estar tan ausente de los discursos del panel. Dado que no puede haber sido accidental, debemos reflexionar sobre cuál podría haber sido la razón de su omisión.
¿Están de acuerdo los del panel con la ocupación colonial de una parte de Irlanda? Eso parece difícil de creer, al menos para algunos de ellos. O tal vez creen que su discusión sería una distracción del tema de la neutralidad y, de ser así, ¿cómo puede ser eso?
¿O es que buscan el apoyo de sectores de la sociedad irlandesa que se sienten cómodos con la continua ocupación y partición de Irlanda? Si es así, están tratando de construir el movimiento contra el ingreso irlandés en la OTAN en términos que consideren aceptables para los tímidos sectores de la clase media.
Cuando se hace necesaria una acción resuelta o cuando la reacción comienza a hacer mella, esas secciones se desvanecerán del movimiento anti-OTAN. Por razones tanto prácticas como ideológicas, la campaña debe atraer a la clase obrera sobre una base descaradamente anticolonial y antiimperialista.
Pancarta de protesta en la reunión del Foro Gubernamental para la Seguridad Internacional en Cork mientras Tánaiste (Viceprimer Ministro, en el extremo izquierdo de la foto) hablaba (Foto obtenida: Internet)
Dondequiera que ha ido el Foro del Gobierno, ha encontrado oposición pública. Hubo piquetes en sus sedes de Cork y Galway, mientras que dentro de la primera se desplegó una pancarta contra la OTAN y muchos en la audiencia denunciaron la dirección del Gobierno.
Incluso después de que sacaron a los manifestantes, otro se puso de pie para denunciar el discurso del presidente antes de que él también fuera maltratado.
En el Castillo de Dublín, sede del Foro el lunes y martes con una larga historia como centro administrativo de la ocupación británica, personas contrarias a la OTAN, la guerra o el militarismo ya favor de la independencia irlandesa desplegaron pancartas y pancartas de protesta y enarbolaron banderas nacionales.
Manifestantes dentro de un patio del Castillo de Dublín contra el Foro Gubernamental sobre Seguridad Internacional celebrado dentro del complejo esta semana. (Foto fuente: Acción Antiimperialista)Tweet del AIA en el que aparece la cadena de televisión nacional RTÉ citando los comentarios ridículos de los líderes del gobierno irlandés sobre la exhibición de banderas republicanas irlandesas por parte de los manifestantes frente a la entrada peatonal principal al Castillo de Dublín en el centro de la ciudad.
EN CONCLUSIÓN
El silencio general de los medios de comunicación sobre la reunión de Neutrality Who Cares en Dublín y la minimización de las protestas contra el Foro en todos sus lugares es parte de la campaña de la clase irlandesa Gombeen para unirse a la OTAN, a pesar de la conocida oposición de la amplia población irlandesa.
No se olvida que cuando decenas de miles atestaron las calles de Dublín marchando contra la triple imposición de impuestos del servicio de agua y la privatización, cómo los medios de comunicación informaron de la participación simplemente de “varios miles” o incluso “cientos”.
Sin embargo, los comentarios del Presidente del Estado y las declaraciones de algunos periodistas en los medios de comunicación revelan que incluso en sus propias secciones, los Gombeen no se salen con la suya. En la población general, sin embargo, el estado de ánimo es claramente de no militarización de Irlanda.
Si el movimiento anti-OTAN permanece activo y militante y adopta una postura antiimperialista generalmente amplia, yendo a la mayoría de los sectores de la sociedad pero especialmente a la clase trabajadora, el impulso de los Gombeen hacia la participación en PESCO y la OTAN será derrotado de manera decisiva.
Fin.
NOTAS AL PIE
1 Cooperación Permanente Estructurada es el extraño nombre de esta alianza militar propuesta para toda la Unión Europea.
3 Syriza es un partido de coalición socialdemócrata de izquierda que fue elegido para el gobierno de Grecia en 2015 con la promesa de implementar las reformas sociales y económicas necesarias frente a la UE y otras resistencias imperialistas. Sin embargo, una vez que la UE y el BCE comenzaron a apretar las tuercas, la resistencia de la dirección del partido se desintegró. Varoufakis había sido nombrado ministro de Finanzas y, para darle lo que le corresponde, trató de reunir a sus colegas del gabinete en torno a un programa de incumplimiento de los dictados de la UE, pero no tuvo éxito. Aunque sigue siendo la principal oposición socialdemócrata en Grecia, el partido ha seguido perdiendo popularidad en las elecciones desde entonces.
4. Las fuerzas irlandesas de mantenimiento de la paz de la ONU que superaban los 12 efectivos han sido enviadas al extranjero con esas tres condiciones satisfechas a muchos conflictos por todo el mundo, sobre todo al Líbano, donde han sufrido algunas bajas y al Congo, donde han sufrido muchas.
5. El Gobierno irlandés es una coalición de los dos principales partidos de oposición tradicionales, Fianna Fáil y Fine Gael, con el Partido Verde. El Partido Laborista no tiene una posición notablemente diferente sobre la alianza militar externa y el Sinn Féin recientemente abandonó su oposición de décadas a la membresía irlandesa en la OTAN y la UE.
6. Barrett es Teachta Dála (miembro del parlamento irlandés) y miembro del partido político de izquierda People Before Profit. Frances Black, con una exitosa carrera como cantante, es una senadora independiente en el mismo parlamento que ha patrocinado un proyecto de ley para prohibir los productos de los asentamientos ilegales israelíes. El Proyecto de Ley de Control de la Actividad Económica (Territorios Ocupados) de 2018 fue aprobado en su totalidad por el Senado en 2018 y pasó su primera votación en el Dáil Éireann a principios de 2019. Luego se envió para un escrutinio detallado en el Comité Selecto de Asuntos Exteriores y Comercio del Oireachtas. Esta revisión se llevó a cabo durante varios meses, escuchando el testimonio y los aportes de expertos, y en diciembre de 2019 el Comité también votó a favor del proyecto de ley. Desde entonces el Gobierno está tardando en sacarlo adelante.
7. Aunque aún no se dispone de pruebas directas, la evidencia circunstancial apunta hacia la responsabilidad de las fuerzas armadas estadounidenses y el periodista Seymour Hersh (ganador del premio Pullitzer por exponer la masacre militar estadounidense en Mai Lai, Vietnam y su posterior intento de encubrimiento) ha confirmado la responsabilidad de las fuerzas armadas estadounidenses sobre la base del conocimiento de sus contactos internos.
APPÉNDICE
Traducción del texto de la declaración leída durante el período de preguntas y respuestas de la reunión pública Neutralidad – a Quien Le Importa? en Dublín el 24 de junio de 2023:
Acción Antiimperialista Irlanda mantiene la posición revolucionaria de que Gran Bretaña, la OTAN y cualquier otro poder imperialista no son bienvenidos en Irlanda. La Acción Antiimperialista se ha mostrado activa en la oposición a todas las formas del imperialismo en Irlanda y ha estado en primer plano en la oposición a la OTAN.
La OTAN es una gran amenaza para Irlanda y el pueblo irlandés, y al darnos cuenta de ello, instamos y llamamos a todos aquí a oponerse abiertamente a la presencia de la OTAN en Irlanda, ya sea uno activista contra la guerra, un republicano socialista, un anti- Fascista, sindicalista o simplemente en contra de la presencia de una potencia extranjera en Irlanda, apoye esta posición y asegúrese de que sus hijos e hijas no sean enviados a ser masacrados en guerras ilegales de conquista.
Si bien todo el enfoque se ha centrado en el impulso hacia la OTAN para los 26 condados, no podemos olvidar que los Seis Condados ya están ocupados por la OTAN en virtud de la ocupación ilegal de Gran Bretaña. Solo un amplio frente militante de fuerzas progresistas en los 32 condados puede oponerse firmemente a la presencia de la OTAN en Irlanda. Todos tienen un papel que desempeñar en tan amplio frente que Acción Antiimperialista y otras se esfuerzan por establecer.
Rechazar la OTAN. ¡Gran Bretaña y la OTAN fuera de Irlanda ahora!
Recently the Taoiseach1 of the Irish State criticised people protesting the Government’s plans to slide the state into external military alliances of “misappropriating” the Irish Tricolour and, incredibly, even of “weaponising” it.
The Irish tricolour was a weapon from the moment it was sewn – a psychological weapon, laden with political meaning, sewn by French revolutionaries, presented to and flown by Irish Republican revolutionaries from generation to generation.
Painting by Philoppoteaux depicting the revolutionaries of the French 1848 Revolution outside the Paris Town Hall and Lamartine rejecting the Red Flag in favour of the French Republican one. Women participants in this revolution presented the Irish Tricolour sewn in silk to Young Irelanders including Thomas Francis Meagher (Source photo: Wikipeda) [When Paris rose again in 1871 under the Paris Commune, the preference was for the Red flag.]
Prior to the advent of the Tricolour, the Irish Republican flag was typically the gold harp on a green background2 but when a group of Young Irelanders went to Paris in solidarity with the revolution of 1848 there, the Tricolour sewn in silk was presented to them by revolutionary French women.
The symbolism of the Tricolour was firstly in its form; the French Revolution adopted a tricolour in opposition to the monarchist Fleur-de-Lison a blue background and different tricolours became popular as flags of new republics.
In the Irish Tricolour, the ancient Irish and the Norman-Irish, basically Catholics, were represented symbolically by green, with orange for the settlers (after William of Orange) of one sect or another of the Protestant faith; the colour white, symbolised peaceful national unity in an Irish Republic.
And it presented an equal unity, as opposed to the unity of Scotland and Ireland with England but under the clear domination of the latter, as represented in the Union Jack, which incorporates the St. Andrew’s and St. Patrick’s crosses with the English one of St. George.
THE TRICOLOUR UNFURLED IN IRELAND
The Irish Tricolour we know was first unfurled by Thomas Francis Meagher “of the Sword” at the Wolfe Tone Club in Wexford on 7th March 1848 and in Dublin in Lower Abbey Street on 13th April 1848.
Meagher’s nickname was due to his renunciation of the Gombeens of his day trying to deny the right to resort to arms if necessary to win freedom3.
Meagher and other Young Irelanders were arrested around the failed uprising of 1848, just after the worst year of the Great Hunger and, after wide-scale international and domestic protests at the sentences of execution, transported to penal colonies, from which many escaped.
Taking his Republicanism and inclusivity seriously, both in Ireland and abroad, Meagher raised and commanded the Irish Brigade (composed of five regiments4) in the United States, fondly nicknamed Mrs. Meagher’s Own, to fight for the Union against the Confederacy and slavery.
As the years of struggle progressed, the Tricolour took its place among the ranks of Irish Republicans alongside the older Harp on Green or, for some Fenians, the gold or orange Sunburst on a blue background and so it was in the 1916 Rising when it began to be the most chosen.
Other flags were flown during the 1916 Rising also but the Tricolour was one of two erected on the roof of the GPO, headquarters of the Rising and became the most prominent during the War of Independence (1919-1921).
The Irish Tricolour in modern times flying over the General Post Office building in Dublin City’s main street (Source photo: Internet)
During the Irish Civil war by the British-supported, armed and provisioned Free State Army against the Republican movement (1922-1923), it was flown by both sides. Even after the defeat of the Republican movement and repression, it was not immediately named the state’s flag.
Though it was displayed by the Free State when joining the League of Nations in 1923, and denounced by the Republican movement as an usurpation, it did not seem that the new state was too attached to it5 and some Irish ships flew the British Red Ensign until 1939 and WW2.
The first time the Tricolour was formally adopted by the Irish State was in the 1937 Bunreacht (Constitution) which was brought in by De Valera’s Fianna Fáil6 Government and even then it was under a pretence of Republicanism with claim laid to the whole of Ireland.
Display of the Tricolour was suppressed in the Six Counties colony from 1922 and officially banned under the Flags and Emblems Acts (1954). Many a battle was fought with the colonial police by people asserting their right to display it, the Act not being repealed until 1987.7
“A FLAG OF INCLUSIVITY, MISAPPROPRIATED BY A MINORITY”
One must agree with Varadkar that the flag signifies inclusivity and was misappropriated by fascists and other racists in recent years but it is shameful of him to attribute similar exclusivity to Republicans, who in many cases fought those same fascists to which he referred.
Leo Varadkar, current Taoiseach of the Irish Government, who accused protesters for Irish neutrality of “weaponising” the Irish Tricolour (Source photo: Internet)
Not only fought them in recent years but also back in the 1930s, when Irish fascists were called the Blueshirts. Surely Varadgar is familiar with the latter’s history also, since they were one of three reactionary groups that joined to create Fine Gael – yes, Varadkar’s own political party.
And the first Irish Republicans, the United Irishmen, sought the unity of “Catholic, Protestant (Anglican) and Dissenter (other Protestant sects)” for an independent Republic, an ideology carried on by all Republican groups thereafter and given expression in the 1916 Proclamation.
But this is not the first time that people in authority have tried to equate Irish Republicans with fascists, as a few years ago Garda Commissioner Drew Harris issued a press statement in which he accused Republicans of having organised a far-Right demonstration — which he later recanted.
One would think Drew Harris, ex-Assistant Commissioner of the British colonial police force, the PSNI8, well-known for their sectarianism and collusion with the colonial brand of fascism, the Loyalists, would be able to distinguish between Irish Republicans and fascists with ease.
Varadkar is ridiculous in accusing Republicans of “weaponising” the Tricolour since it wasalways an ideological weapon from the moment of its creation and then eventually used by the State to try, with monumental lack of success, to deny it to Republicans.
But Varadkar is right in that the Irish Tricolour has been misappropriated by a minority; but rather than Republicans, that minority is the Gombeen ruling class, foreign-dependent, neo-liberal, selling out the country’s resources and networks to foreign capitalist monopolies.
And causing homelessness, or rent and mortgage hopelessness, emigration and austerity for the vast majority of the people in the Irish state, both native and immigrant, for the benefit of a tiny minority of parasites incapable of even developing a viable Irish national economy.
Republican groups, like all groups are minorities but so are the elites, though even smaller. But in representation? Republicans, whatever faults they may have from time to time clearly represent a much larger and wider section of society than do the Gombeens.
This has been evidenced by the militant opposition of wide Irish society to triple water taxation and privatisation, repugnance for the celebration of British occupation forces and the wide opposition to joining a military alliance, all projects pushed by the Gombeens in different governments.
The Irish Tricolour has been commented upon in a number of Irish Republican songs, sometimes even in the song title: White, Orange and Green and Green, White and Gold.
Probably it is most appropriately referenced in the chorus of a song directed at the Gombeens, the very minority who have misappropriated it:
Take it down from the mast, Irish Traitors, It’s the flag we Republicans claim; It can never belong to Free Staters For you’ve brought on it nothing but shame9.
End.
The Irish Tricolour that was flown over the GPO in 1916 (Source photo: 1916 Rebellion Tours)
FOOTNOTES
1 Currently Prime Minister of the Coalition Government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens.
2 Flag of the Society of United Irishmen, who led insurrections in 1798 and 1803.
3 Daniel O’Connell’s son intended to force a motion of that kind on the Irish Repeal Association founded by his father and also sought to have the motion passed without debate. O’Meagher said that while he did not exalt violence, neither would he allow his sword to be taken from him in case it should be needed. He and others such as Thomas Davis left the Association at that point and became known as “the Young Irelanders”, first mockingly and later with pride.
4 Including the 69th New York Infantry or “Fitghting 69th”. 7,715 men served in the brigade, 961 were killed or mortally wounded and around 3,000 were wounded. (Wikipedia The Irish Brigade)
5 A 1928 British document said: The government in Ireland have taken over the so called Free State Flag in order to forestall its use by republican element and avoid legislative regulation, to leave them free to adopt a more suitable emblem later. (Wikipedia)
6 The party was a split from the losers of the Civil War of which De Valera had been leader, formed in order to participate in elections for Government and presented itself as Republican. The 1937 Bunreacht also laid claim in Articles 2 & 3 to the whole of Ireland which were removed in
7 During a period of direct rule by the British Government.
8 The colonial gendarmerie, formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary for the Six Counties, preceded by the Royal Irish Constabulary for the whole of Ireland.
9 Soldiers of ‘22 by Brian Ó hUigín, acclaiming the Republican resistance to the counter-revolution of the Free State during the Civil War.
A packed public meeting in Dublin city centre on Saturday listened to and applauded prominent people speaking against the Irish State becoming part of military alliances, whether PESCO1 (“NATO by stealth”2) or NATO itself.
The high-profile panel of speakers chaired by Irish MEP Clare Daly featured fellow MEP Mick Wallace, Sevim Dagdalen (MP Die Linke), Medea Benjamin (founder of Code Pink) and Anne Wright (ex-US Army Major and opponent of the US-Iraq War).
Celebrated anti-imperialist rapper Lowkey was also a speaker as was Yanis Varoufakis (ex-Syrza)3 who addressed the meeting by recorded video from abroad and applauded the Irish for their long resistance to colonialism and urged them to be proud of their state’s neutrality.
Yanis Varoufakis’ recorded speech video screened at the Neutrality Who Cares meeting on Saturday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
BACKGROUND
There is a constitutional impediment to the Irish state’s participating in a war partnership with another state and during WW2 the state’s official position was neutrality.
However, it was always a pro-Allied neutrality with British downed airmen allowed to cross over into UK territory and US servicemen often crossing the UK border to visit the ‘south’, while German downed airmen were interned for the duration of the War.
The impediment is not absolute and is usually referred to as the ‘Triple Lock’, listing the three conditions which would enable to government to send more than 12 troops overseas:
In recent years some politicians and public commentators have floated the idea that the Irish state could rejoin the British Commonwealth and, since the war in the Ukraine, a discourse has arisen that the State needs to join an external military alliance in order to protect itself from Russia.
Sevim Dagdalen, Die Linke party MP, speaking at the Neutrality Who Cares meeting on Saturday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The Irish Times/Ipsos poll in April, amid criticisms of not following best practice in its design and even accusations of trying to steer respondents towards favouring joining some external military alliance, delivered two thirds clearly against the Irish state doing any such thing.
Russophobic propaganda has speculated on the activities of Russian trawlers in the Irish Sea. This is entirely a whipped-up alarm and discussion without the slightest foundation in fact since Russia has never presented the slightest threat, militarily or politically, to the Irish people.
On the other hand, Britain has invaded and occupied Ireland for over 800 years and is still in possession of one-fifth of its territory and has substantial economic and financial interests in the country as, more recently, have the USA and European Union states.
The UK’s Royal Navy frequently enters Irish national waters and the State has regularly permitted its ships, along with warships of other NATO countries, to dock in Irish harbours. And also the Royal Air Force, it has recently emerged, to patrol Irish territorial air space.
As part of this false alarm and discourse, the Irish Government5 recently founded the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy which was scheduled to meet last week in Cork and Galway, then for two days in Dublin Castle.
The President of the State, Michael D. Higgins, in an unusual intervention during an interview with the Examiner expressed concern at what he perceived as the “drift towards NATO” and criticised the composition of the speakers and chairperson of this organisation as being pro-NATO.
Michael D commented on “the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it” and described its chair Louise Richardson, as a person “with a very large DBE – Dame of the British Empire”.
President Higgins apologised later for what he said was “a throway remark” about Richardson but did not withdraw his remarks about the overall composition of the Forum which has indeed been criticised by others, including Richard Boyd Barrett TD6 and Senator Frances Black.
THE DUBLIN MEETING
Varoufakis referred to Ireland as though the nation had won its independence, as was the case with every speaker that followed (with the exception of Lowkey).
A member of the audience was heard to remark ironically to another that he was grateful he had attended as heretofore he hadn’t been aware of Ireland’s ‘independence’.
Lowkey, the British-based rapper, tore the illusion of Irish state neutrality to tatters by recounting the use of Irish airports not only for US Army flights under Air America through Shannon, but also airlines run by the CIA and others using other airports in Irish state territory.
Lowkey, anti-imperialist rapper from London, speaking at the meeting in Dublin. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The rapper exposed the ‘neutrality’ of the Irish government in training soldiers going to fight in Ukraine and also in its continued support for the Israeli State and was cheered when he declared that, as an Iraqi, he was proud that his country had “kicked the ass of the British”.
In a masterful exercise in research-backed criticism, Lowkey went on to strip the pretence of independence and impartiality from the Government-founded “Consultative Forum”, exposing the imperialist and even NATO background of the main panel members and its chairperson.
All the members of the Neutrality Who Cares panel were effective speakers and made useful points although it was curious to hear one of them denouncing “Russian fascists” without commenting on the fascist units in the Ukrainian regime’s national army.
Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, speaking at the Neutrality Who Cares meeting on Saturday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
It was Lowkey who drove the sharpest and longest nails into the verbal crucifixion of the Irish Government’s drive towards NATO and who brought the loudest cheers from his mostly Irish audience.
Even celebrated speaker Daly did not come very close, though she too exposed the propaganda of the Government and pro-NATO cheerleaders. The MEP debunked the excuse of protecting underground communication cables, pointing out that 25% of them are out of action regularly.
The Irish MEP also lampooned the idea of any underwater cable being protected by NATO, considering where the responsibility for the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipeline lies!7
Finally she warned the audience to be on the look out for an attempt to remove the Triple Lock under some kind of excuse as a first step to permit the Government to enter a military alliance.
Clare Daly MEP speaking at the Neutrality Who Cares meeting on Saturday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
A PART OF IRELAND ALREADY IN NATO
It was left to a youth member of the audience in the Q&A section, reading a statement on behalf of the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation, to point out that a part of Ireland is already in NATO, viz. the Six Counties, occupied by Britain and a part of the United Kingdom.
The youth called for a broad front to unite around opposition to becoming part of an external military alliance and imperialism (see full statement in appendix). Small flyers advocating the same course of action had been distributed inside the meeting earlier.
The People Before Profit party also distributed leaflets against joining NATO to people attending the meeting.
Indeed, it is hard to see why the presence of NATO in a part of Ireland should be so markedly missing from the panel’s speeches. Since it cannot have been accidental we must ponder what the rationale for its omission could have been.
Do those on the panel agree with the colonial occupation of a part of Ireland? That seems hard to believe, at least of some of them. Or perhaps they believe its discussion would be a distraction from the neutrality issue and if so, how can that be?
Or is it that they seek the support of sections of Irish society who are comfortable with the continued occupation and partition of Ireland? If so, they are seeking to build the movement against Irish membership of NATO in terms they think acceptable to timid sections of the middle class.
When resolute action becomes necessary or when reaction starts to bite, those sections will fade out of the anti-NATO movement. For practical as well as for ideological reasons, the campaign must appeal to the working class on an unashamedly anti-colonial and anti-imperialist basis.
Protest banner at Government’s Forum for International Security meeting in Cork while Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister, on far left of photo) was speaking (Photo sourced: Internet)
Wherever the Government’s Forum has gone, it has encountered public opposition. It was picketed at its Cork and Galway venues, while inside the former, an anti-NATO banner was unfolded and many in the audience denounced the Government’s direction.
Even after the protesters had been hustled out, another stood up to denounce the chairperson’s speech before he too was manhandled away.
In Dublin Castle, venue for the Forum on Monday and Tuesday with a long history as administrative centre of British occupation, people against NATO, war or militarism and for Irish independence displayed banners and placards of protest and flew national flags.
Protesters inside a Dublin Castle courtyard against the Government Forum on International Security held inside the complex this week. (Source photo: Anti-Imperialist Action)
AIA Tweet featuring National TV broadcaster RTÉ quoting Irish Government leaders’ ridiculous comments on the display of Irish Republican flags by protestors outside main pedestrian entrance to Dublin Castle in the city centre.
IN CONCLUSION
The general mass media silence on the Neutrality Who Cares meeting in Dublin and in downplaying the protests against the Forum at all its locations is part of the Irish Gombeen class drive to join NATO, despite the well-known opposition of the wide Irish population.
It is not forgotten that when tens of thousands thronged Dublin streets marching against triple water service taxation and privatisation, how the mass media reported participation merely by “several thousand” or even “hundreds”.
Nevertheless the comments of the President of the State and remarks by some journalists in the mass media do reveal that even in their own sections, the Gombeens do not have it all their own way. In the general population, however, the mood is clearly for non-militarisation of Ireland.
If the anti-NATO movement remains active and militant and adopts a generally broad anti-imperialist stance, going to most sections of society but especially to the working class, the Gombeens’ drive towards participation in PESCO and NATO will be decisively defeated.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1Permanent Structured Cooperation is the strange name of this proposed European Union-wide military alliance.
3Syriza is a Left social-democratic coalition party that was elected to government in Greece in 2015 on a promise to implement necessary social and economic reforms in the teeth of EU and other imperialist resistance. However, once the EU and the ECB began to tighten the screws, the resistance of the party’s leadership disintegrated. Varoufakis had been appointed finance minister and to give him his due, he tried to rally his cabinet colleagues around a program of non-compliance with EU diktats but was unsuccessful. Although it remains the main social-democratic opposition in Greece, the party has continued to slide in popularity in elections since.
4Irish UN peacekeeping forces exceeding 12 personnel have been sent overseas with those three conditions satisfied to many conflicts around the world, most notably Lebanon, where they have suffered some casualties and to the Congo, where they suffered many.
5The Irish Government is a coalition of two traditional main oppositional parties, Fianna Fáile and Fine Gael, with the Green Party. The Labour Party does not have a noticeably different position on external military alliance and Sinn Féin recently dropped their decades-long opposition to Irish membership of NATO and the EU.
6Barrett is a Teachta Dála (member of the Irish parliament) and member of the People Before Profit left-wing political party. Frances Black, with a successful career in singing, is an independent Senator in the same parliament who has sponsored a Bill to ban products from the illegal Israeli settlements. The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 was passed in full by the Senate in 2018, and passed its first vote in Dáil Éireann in early 2019. It was then sent for detailed scrutiny in the Oireachtas Select Committee on Foreign & Affairs and Trade. This review took place over several months, hearing from expert testimony and input, and in December 2019 the Committee also voted in favour of the bill. Since then the Government is delaying bringing it forward.
7Although direct proof is not yet available, circumstantial evidence points towards US armed forces’ responsibility and journalist Seymour Hersh (Pullitzer Prize winner for exposing the US military massacre in Mai Lai, Viet Nam and its subsequent attempted cover-up) has confirmed the US military’s responsibility on the basis of inside knowledge from his contacts.
APPENDIX
Text of statement read out during Q&A period of Neutrality – Who Cares public meeting in Dublin 24 June 2023:
Anti Imperialist Action Ireland hold the revolutionary position that Britain, NATO and any other imperialist power is not welcome in Ireland. Anti-Imperialist Action have been active in opposing all forms of imperialism in Ireland and have been to the fore in opposition to NATO.
NATO is a great threat to Ireland and the Irish People, and in realisation of that, we urge and call on everyone here to vocally oppose the presence of NATO in Ireland whether you be an anti-war activist, a Socialist Republican, an anti-Fascist, a trade unionist, or just against the presence of a foreign power in Ireland, get behind this position and ensure that your sons and daughters aren’t sent off to be slaughtered in illegal wars of conquest.
While all the focus has been about the push towards NATO for the 26 Counties we cannot forget that the Six Counties are already occupied by NATO by virtue of Britain’s illegal occupation. Only a militant broad front of progressive forces all across the 32 counties can make a firm stand against NATO’s presence in Ireland. Everyone has a part to play in such a broad front which Anti-Imperialist Action and others are working hard to establish.
rebelbreeze 