On July Tuesday evening, a number of uniformed police officers watch the people in the road outside their police station on Via Laietana in Barcelona, the Catalan capital, many in the crowd holding placards protesting torture and impunity and a number carrying a banner.
The MC, a slim elderly woman, approaches the microphone stand, her back to the police station. Speaking in Catalan she reviews the reason for their rally which is to renew the historical memory of the Spanish State’s repression of dissent through torture with impunity.
The MC at the event speaking briefly (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)
A number of torture survivors address the crowd, sometimes experiencing difficulty in reading some passages of their notes. The crowd, mostly middle-aged or elderly, listen in silence. Some of them were victims too, many knew victims personally, many of the latter now dead.
For the past three years, the campaigners have been coming here every two weeks, renewing the historical memory and campaigning for a change of use in this building on one of the main roads of their city.
One of the torture survivors displaying the Vermella, the socialist version of the Catalan independence flag. (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)Torture survivor speaking (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)Another torture survivor speaking, Catalan independence flag visible in the crowd. (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)
REPRESSION AND TORTURE HEADQUARTERS
During the Franco fascist Dictatorship (1936-1975), this police station was the Barcelona HQ of repression and torture, its victims ranging from democrats to anarchists, republicans and communists. The Resistance methods were also varied: unarmed, industrial or armed.
The crowd takes to the street in front of the police station
After Franco’s death, repression continued through the period known as the Transition with torture as a standard police practice continuing for decades afterwards. Claims of torture were routinely ignored by judges who sentenced activists on the basis of their retracted admissions.1
On the few occasions when torture claims were investigated, it was done cursorily and on the much rarer occasions of trial and conviction for torture, the perpetrators as a rule saw no jail time.
The police station with a history of torture on Via Laietana, Barcelona, as demonstrators begin to gather in front. (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)Commemorative plaque near the police station, regularly defaced and regularly repaired. (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)
The methods are known by police and military torturers across the world: punches, slaps and baton blows through towels (causing pain but leaving no marks), forced stress positions, electrical shocks of particularly sensitive areas, simulated asphyxiation through plastic bags, simulated drowning …
In the past these included suspending victims upside down by their ankles or upright balanced on toes. Of course all tortures are also accompanied by threats to the victims and their families, humiliation (including nakedness), sometimes sexual threats and even actual penetrations.2
Crowd gathering to begin their event. (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)
IRISH SONG IN THE STREET
The MC returns to the microphone at the conclusion of the witness testimonies and asks the crowd to welcome an activist, writer and singer from Ireland. The Irishman says he is honoured to speak at a location of struggle and even more so to bring solidarity from one nation’s struggle to another.
Though the fact is routinely overlooked or even denied, he says there are political prisoners in Ireland and because of the recent mistreatment of one of those in a prison in the British colony, all his comrades protested and were in turn supported by political prisoners in the Irish state jail.
Wearing a Palestinian scarf, speaking in Spanish, having apologised for his lack of anything but a few words in Catalan, the Irishman highlights the role of police stations as local centres of repression on behalf of the bourgeoisie, the repression all too often including torture.
The Irishman applauds the protesters’ upholding of historical memory and also their campaign to have the building reappointed as a social centre, before continuing to introduce his choice of two short songs of resistance from his homeland, one in English and the other in Irish.
The Irishman singing (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)
The first song he sings is Four Green Fields,3 which he has explained symbolises the four provinces of Ireland, the nation represented by an elderly woman. This is followed by Gráinne Mhaol,4 the nation again represented by a woman but younger, a warrior and pirate clan chieftain.
Following the applause, the MC returns and begins to read out a long list of known police and military individuals, after each one the crowd roaring “Torturadors!”
Crowd singing L’Estaca (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)
The event concludes with the singing of L’Estaca (The Stake – a song of resistance composed by Catalan Lluis Llach during the Franco dictatorship), many doing so with clenched fists raised. Soon afterwards, the crowd begins to break up, the road open to traffic once more, shoppers and tourists going by.
Section of the crowd at the anti-police-torture event with the Cathedral of Barcelona, destination of many tourists, visible in the background. (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)(Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)
End.
FOOTNOTES 1A number of cases alleging torture found their way to the European Court of Human Rights but the Spanish State has never been found guilty of torture there (although in the case of one Basque woman, awarding her damages payment for failure of the State to investigate her allegations, the judges concluded almost in an aside that she had probably been tortured). It seems that the Strasbourg Court required the kind of evidence that could not reasonably be produced by the alleged victims. A number of judgements and payments have been recorded against the Spanish State on failure to investigate allegations of torture against political activists.
2 In the latter category two cases are well known, each suffered by Basques, one a woman and the other a man.
3 Composed by Tommy Makem who regularly performed with the Clancy Brothers folk group.
4 Composed by Pádraig Mac Piarais/ Patrick Pearse but structurally based on a much older Irish traditional song welcoming a bride to her new home. The heroine of his song is Gráinne Ní Mháille, a 17C clan chief in Co. Mayo.
SOURCES AND USEFUL LINKS
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A Zionist march and rally was organised for Dublin today as an “Israel solidarity” event by the Ireland Israel Alliance. Despite prior publicity and drawing from around the country the attendance numbered only a few hundred.
Around a hundred anti-zionists with flags, banners, amplifier and loudhailer occupied the announced destination of the Zionist rally an hour prior to the scheduled arrival of the IIA march and had to wait even longer as the Zionist groups arrived at Stephens Green.
One of the banners displayed by among the anti-zionists outside Leinster House on Sunday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
During the week the IIA issued a statement in line with the Israeli state’s Foreign Minister that “Ireland rewards Palestinian terrorism with a State”1 in response to the announcement by the Irish, Spanish and Norwegian states that they intended to formally recognise the Palestinian state.
Palestinian solidarity supporters in Dublin organised at short notice a counter-rally. “It’s a bit rich for Zionists who set up their settler state with terrorism”, said one in Dublin today, “claiming that Palestinian statehood rewards Palestinian ‘terrorism’!”2
One of the banners displayed by among the anti-zionists outside Leinster House on Sunday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Although Palestinian Christians are suppressed and killed by Israeli armed forces, the IIA were supported by right-wing Christian Zionists, among them the All Nations Church, the Irish branch of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and the TJCII.
According to advance releases to the press, the newly inaugurated Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Yoni Wieder was to speak at the zionist rally.3
Some Gardaí in Molesworth Street, stacked crowd barriers not yet erected at that point and contractor staff awaiting instructions. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The anti-zionists organised their event at a day or two’s notice and according to some sources the IPSC4 had called on its branches not to counter protest the Zionist event but around a hundred Palestinian supporters attended, mainly Irish but also with Palestinians and a sprinkling of others.
In their prior publicity the Zionists trotted out their usual claims that Palestinian solidarity is based on anti-Semitism and that Jews are being victimised,5 ignoring the fact that zionism does not equal judaism and that in fact a substantial number of Jews have opposed zionism.6
The population of Ireland went from being largely supportive of ‘Israel’ in 1948 to being mostly pro-Palestinian from the 1970s onwards because of their observation of the genocidal and ethnic cleansing actions of the Israeli state.
Placard displayed among the Palestine supporters (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
There was a fairly high Garda presence at the events and after some delay crowd barriers were erected across the east end of Molesworth Street with a second line of barriers a little further west beyond which the Zionists were setting up a stage.
The anti-Zionists in front of Leinster House awaited the arrival of the pro-Israel march which when it got going could be seen passing the Stephens Green end of Kildare Street, eventually coming down Dawson Street and turning into Molesworth Street.
View in distance of the zionist rally location before the arrival of their march from Stephens Green (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
As they arrived the Palestinian solidarity people attempted to move across the road but the Gardaí pushed back, individual Gardaí at times viciously shoving and being resisted; here and there an arrest seemed threatened but was evaded by solidarity action around the targeted person.
With the Palestinian supporters pushed to a couple of feet in front of the pedestrian pavement of Leinster House, the Gardaí stopped and by then two vans of the Public Order Unit had arrived and were deployed but some time later stood down, got in their vans and were driven off.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)View northward in Kildare Street outside Leinster House on Sunday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)View southward in Kildare Street outside Leinster House on Sunday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)The arrival of a Garda prisoner transport van in Kildare Street outside Leinster House on Sunday raised tensions among some of the anti-zionist demonstrators (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
There could have been some confused impulses among the Gardaí given the public symbolic positions of the Government in recognition of the Palestinian state and the sharp and public diplomatic language flying between the Irish and Israeli states.
Two Garda vans were parked in front of the entrance to Molesworth St, partially blocking the views of the zionists and their opponents. The latter however stood with banners and flags on top of barriers and an amplifier was also strapped to a pole to better carry the message to the Zionists.
Palestinian supporters attaching an amplifier speaker to a pole outside Leinster House, directed at the Zionist rally in Molesworth Street (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Despite the IIA having recommended its supporters to bring Israeli and Irish flags, only one Tricolour could be seen among their blue-and-white Israeli flags. One placard depicted the whole of Ireland covered with a menora, the traditional Jewish multi-candlestick.
Some of the Zionists’ placards repeated the debunked accusations of programmed mass rapes by the Palestinian resistance on October 7th last year, for which no evidence whatsoever or known victim exists despite Israeli state propaganda parroted by some of its western media supporters.
Zionist marchers arrive at their rally point in Molesworth Street, with two sets of barriers placed between them and the Palestine supporters (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Among the Palestinian supporters the Palestine national flag was very much in evidence, also a couple of the PFLP7 and one in the colours of the anti-fascist Popular Front Government of 1930s Spain bearing the words “Connolly Column”, honouring the Irish who fought fascism there.
Here too there was only one Tricolour to be seen.
Flag of the PFLP seen against the trees (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
There were intermittent rain showers during the events, often persistent and somewhat heavy, streams running northwards along the road and pavement edge down Kildare Street but the demonstrators remained without shelter, many also without specific rain gear or umbrellas.
Women (mostly) speaking through amplification led the slogans that have become common on Palestine solidarity demonstrations in English, Irish and Arabic but with a few additions, including “Zionist scum – Off our streets!” Also “West-Brit Blueshirt scum – Off our streets!”
View of the rain’s ‘river’ running down between the Leinster House pedestrian pavement and the road. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)View of small section of Palestinian supporters’ line with police line in front and the rainwater swirling around their feet. The Zionist rally is taking place behind the police line and beyond two lines of metal crowd barriers. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
At intervals Arabic resistance music was played and sections of the Palestine solidarity crowd began to sway or even dance, including one young woman from Gaza who seemed accomplished in traditional dance. Irish patriotic songs were played for a period also.
Among the Palestinian supporters the Zionist chants or speakers could not be heard, nor can one know how much of the Palestinian solidarity chants could be heard by the Zionists. Eventually the Zionists left to jeers from their opposition, a Garda helicopter watching over them in the sky.
The Gardaí left and the Palestinian supporters did too, mostly leaving together in a group.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
AFTERMATH – FIGHT IN PARNELL/ O’CONNELL STREET
That was not all however for perhaps an hour later a fight developed between what seemed to be a far-Right man against a group of Palestinian supporters in Parnell Street. According to some people, the man had approached them aggressively about their Palestine solidarity activism.
Disliking their response, he punched one of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators in the face and when the women in the group protested, struck a couple of them too. Another male in the group then launched at the Far-Right man and gave him a bloody face.
When observed by this reporter, the man was covered in tattoos, stripped to the waist and shouting about being “for the Irish” (which for some reason the Far-Right assume Palestinian supporters are not — though many have a far better track record in that respect than do Far-Right activists).
In Palestine that same day the zionist air force bombed a tent town of displaced people in northwest Gaza, which they had declared a safe area, murdering over 30 and injuring many more, some of whom will die. They also bombed 10 UNRWA displacement centres.
2The zionists had a number of terrorist organisation pushing the formation of the Israel State: Haganah, Irgun, Palmach … Haganah became the core of the Israeli armed forces.
Irish media on Thursday 9th reported that the authorities removed the tents of refugees and asylum-seekers from along the banks of the Grand Canal. These had set up there after being removed from the vicinity of the IPO1. Where could they go?
Apparently they are dispersed to Newmount Kennedy (where we’ve seen – if not fascist mobs, certainly mobs containing some fascists), Dundrum, Crooksling and City West. Hopefully they will get a roof, showers and food, though thrown out to outskirts without any plan of integration.
The tents were dismantled when Harris said they were unacceptable and that accommodation was now available. However, despite four dismantling actions by government, on each occasion many asylum seekers were not provided with accommodation, thus causing a new camp to be established each time.(Photo: SRI)
In the four months since January a thousand have applied to the International Protection Office. They get issued with a Temporary Residence Card2 (known as the “Blue book”) and not much else; if they lose that documentation (e.g during eviction) they are in trouble.
Photo ID is issued to them when they make their application for asylum at IPO. Finger prints are taken, statements recorded etc. All evidence is cross-checked with relevant authorities including Interpol. Hence, the notion that men are “unvetted” or “undocumented” is inaccurate.
They are told there is no accommodation available which is why they end up in tents, since clearly they cannot afford to rent, much less take out a mortgage to buy a property. But Róisín McAleer of Social Rights Ireland questions whether the IPO have been telling applicants the truth.
“We’ve got video showing empty beds inside Direct Provision Centres at City West and Dundrum” the activist says. The IPO admits that they have 5,000 empty beds but says that they have to keep those empty beds available in case they have to cater for women and children.
The response of the Irish Government has been to blame the refugees and remove their tents from their locations, while simultaneously funding NGOs who have recently supplied them with identical-type tents and “may provide access to meals, access to showers during the day.”3
“Taoiseach Simon Harris said that neither he, nor the Government, would accept tented encampments in the city” and “hundreds of tents were destroyed when two encampments were removed … in the capital in multi agency operations in the past week.”4
A slogan attacking the Green Party’s role in the Irish Coalition Government (Photo: SRI)(Photo: SRI)
A common line in discourse is that the refugees and asylum-seekers are “undocumented” apart from whatever documentation they are issued here, which they often are, of course.
What documentation would one expect to have when fleeing war, persecution or natural disaster, always on the move, crossing mountains, deserts, rivers, seas, national boundaries?
In some places, the ‘wrong’ documentation can get you killed, marking you as the ‘wrong’ religion, nationality, tribal group … Thousands of us emigrated undocumented too and what’s more, worked undocumented as well.
Yet Helen McEntee, Justice Minister of this Government, who will never have had anything like the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers, throws around the “undocumented” word, straight from the playbook of the Far-Right, whipping up fears, hinting at some kind of menace.
“Everyone fleeing persecution or serious harm in their own country has the right to ask for international protection. Asylum is a fundamental right and granting it to people who comply with the criteria set in the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees.”5
It “is an international obligation for States parties, which include EU Member States.”6 While applicants are waiting for a decision on their application for international protection, according to EU legislation the Irish State is required to supply accommodation, food and medical care.7
Róisín McAleer for Social Rights Ireland stated that the Irish Government was in breach of its EU obligations which oblige all states to provide seekers of asylum with accommodation at the point of presentation. A number of agencies have pointed out this serious breach.
Protest outside Dublin City Council’s main offices. (Photo: SRI)
McAleer states that SRI had been trying to get solicitors to take a case against the Irish Government under EU law but had found difficulty in doing so, some saying that immigration law was not their forte. “This is a case of human rights, not immigration law,” stated the interviewee.
What about Lawyers for Palestine, have they contacted them? “Yes,” is the answer “but no reply.”
THE FAR-RIGHT’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST REFUGEES
Not only the Irish Government but the Far-Right also have been working to mobilise public opinion against these refugees and asylum seekers. And at times actually physically attacking them also, going as far as to burn an encampment area in South Dublin dockland not far from the IPO.
Masquerading as “patriots” who “want to put the Irish first”, they repeat foreign-origin racist stories and false conspiracy tales,8 spread lies, false news and misinformation. Chief among those is that “Ireland is full”, which is untrue as even a little knowledge of our history will show.
In fact, being far from “full”, Ireland is UNDER-populated. The population of the whole of Ireland in the mid 1800s was 8 million but now hovers just over 7 million.9 Do those pushing that false story care about the real facts? If they don’t, then what is their real agenda?
One of the nastiest calls to action has been to “get them out” – no, not the Government, nor the ruling Gombeen class, not the British colonial occupiers. No, not any of the justifiable targets (but which might involve risk). No, they mean refugees, asylum seekers and really any migrants at all.
And why? Who are these groups harming? Well, apparently it’s because the Government should “house the Irish first”. But … how would evicting refugees from tents, repurposed buildings or Direct Provision Centres get any Irish person housed any quicker?
It wouldn’t of course, nor be of even the slightest help to people struggling to pay high rents to landlord companies, or to pay their mortgages to banks, or about to be evicted by vulture funds.
(Photo: SRI)
But the fascists and racists manipulating their followers don’t care, that’s not what they are there for. If they really did want to get ‘the Irish’ housed, they could occupy empty buildings to pressure the system, like the Revolutionary Housing League have been doing and calling on others to do.
No, the Far-Right prefer to torch buildings, including one in the south docklands that was earmarked for general homeless people.
Ironically, near the tents’ location a national liberation battle was fought around Mount Street Bridge in 1916 and the Commandant of that garrison was a migrant, as were many others, including two of the 1916 Proclamation’s Seven Signatories — of which another two were sons of migrants.
Mount Street Battle Monument on the Bridge over the Grand Canal. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In April, according to the Department of Housing, 13,866 people were in emergency accommodation in the Irish state, including 4,147 children, with many others sleeping on the streets, others in hotel rooms, hostels or sofa-surfing with friends and relations.10
But of course, the Far-Right don’t occupy empty buildings, having no intention of taking on the powerful financial interests that are making money out of all this misery. In fact, the Far-Right are helping those parasites, by diverting attention from them on to refugees and asylum seekers.
“SINGLE, MILITARY-AGE MEN”
Yes, the men are alone, whether they left a partner and children behind to find a way out for them or indeed are single. And yes, they are “military age” – 18-45 years of age, just like most male migrants that left Ireland for work in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada …
That is the usual profile when the migrant is male. Because they can work and then send money back to family. And because in a risky endeavour they are generally less at risk and more willing to take the chance than females.11
(Photo: SRI)
But we never used that kind of description of our own emigrants, did we? We just said “young men” mostly. Where did that terminology come from, with its implied threat? From the USA, the hatchery of most Far-Right religious fundamentalism, conspiracy and racist theories and memes.12
We do have our own home-grown fascists of course with quite a high concentration of them among the Loyalists in the Six County colony. But also a few small crews this side of the British Border, well-linked to Loyalists and British fascists like Tommy “Robinson” and Nigel Farage.
The threat of sexual attack from foreigners is a version of that US fear propaganda, especially fear of black rape of white women — which is ironic since it was white slavers, slave-owners and plantation managers who raped black slaves and their children.
If we go through the media reports of court cases concerning rape, sexual assault and child sexual abuse, we find that by and large it’s the “indigenous Irish” who are the culprits. A minority of the population of course but Irish nevertheless.
How do volunteers working with the tent-living refugees experience them? “Respectful …. grateful” says one volunteer. “Quiet …. modest” is another description. “Some have high hopes of the values of western society but find themselves in shock and incomprehension at some of their treatment.”
Where have they come from? “Mostly Nigeria, Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria, Palestine …” Interestingly from an Irish point of view, all countries that the British have invaded at one time or another.
What causes waves of emigration from one area of the world and immigration to another? High on the list of causes are domestic unemployment, wars and natural disasters. Irish people have left Ireland pushed by all those factors.
Wars of occupation and ethnic cleansing, i.e plantations by England along with domestic resistance have sent Irish people outward from the 17th century onwards. In the mid-19th Century the natural disaster of the potato blight amongst imposed impoverishment flung out millions of migrants.
Throughout most of the decades of the Irish State’s existence, unemployment was the main driving force of emigration, so much so that until the years of the “Tiger economy”,13 Ireland remained underpopulated but with stable population figures despite a high birth and survival rate.
The factors that drive migrants to our shores are no different. When it comes to foreign wars of imperialism however, ironically the Far-Right deride socialist Republicans and socialists for protesting against those wars, going so far as to call them “traitors” for doing so.
When people are neglected, they often resent any focus on others. “What about me?” is their cry, whether voiced out loud or not. There is no doubt that many communities in Ireland have suffered government neglect, even been devastated by substance misuse and social crime.
Resolution of those social problems can only come about through organising against the culpable authorities and their pandering to the banks, property speculators and big landlords who benefit from the current situation – never by “punching down” on even more vulnerable people.
Homeless refugee tents along the Grand Canal, Dublin, before they were removed by the authorities. Simon Harris, Taoiseach (equivalent to Prime Minister) said that homeless tents in Dublin are not acceptable – however, homelessness apparently is. (Photo: SRI)
LIKE US
I called this article “emigrants and refugees like us” to make a number of points. One is that we too have been emigrants and refugees for centuries (and many still are). We went to Britain for seasonal work in the harvests and later for work on canals, roads and in factories.
We went to the USA too, Canada, Australia, New Zealand …
That’s about economic emigration. But we went as refugees too, fleeing religious and political persecution, fleeing ethnic cleansing, genocide and famine. Gaelic clans found asylum in Spain, Italy, France, Austria … Republicans found asylum in France and the USA …
Message in Irish to Roderic O’Gorman, Minister of Integration (and other social responsibilities). (Photo: SRI)
It wasn’t always easy. We faced racism, yes real anti-Irish racism14, slurs that we were dangerous, dirty, carrying disease, taking jobs of locals … And we had the cheek to organise ourselves and to make alliances with a number of other discriminated-against groups to win some power!
We fought racists like the “Know Nothings” and the Ku Kux Klan,15 Blackshirts and National Front16 on the streets. We fought rich mine, factory and railroad-owners, formed trade unions and associations and we were clubbed, shot, jailed and executed. And we clubbed and shot back too.17
There’s another reason I called this article “emigrants and refugees like us”: We are ALL descended from migrants or refugees. The Irish nation is composed, apart from the “native Irish”, of Viking, Norman, Scottish, English, Flemish, Dutch and Italian blood (remember, fish and chip shops, ice cream and cafés) before others came from further away.
And the “native indigenous Irish”? The Celts? Yes, migrants too, from central Europe, with iron tools and weapons. Before them? The bronze-metal people. And before them again? The Neolithic people who built the likes of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth in the Boyne Valley.
The human race did not evolve in Ireland. We are all descended from migrants.
The third reason I called this article “emigrants and refugees like us” is because, like us, they are human. The feel hunger and fear just like we do. They need safety and warmth just like we do. If we deny them those things we diminish our own humanity in doing so.
That might seem a bit wishy-washy but to me, our humanity in its best sense is worth everything and if need be, it’s worth fighting for.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1 International Protection Agency, the Irish State’s agency with responsibility for processing refugees and people seeking asylum in the state.
2 This is photo ID issued to them when they make their application for asylum at IPO. Fingerprints are taken, statements recorded etc. All evidence is cross-checked with relevant authorities including Interpol. Hence, the notion that men are “unvetted” or “undocumented” is inaccurate.
8 Such as the “white replacement” conspiracy theory from settler colonies like South Africa and Rhodesia, then via white supremacist groups in the USA and through social media to Ireland.
14 Not the rubbish “racism” of which the Far-Right claim they are the “victims” whenever anyone calls out their racism or homophobia.
15 The “Know Nothings” were mostly white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant settled nativists in the USA who organised against other European migrants such as the Irish and when brought to court for murder or riot, they would claim to “know nothing”. The Ku Klux Klan was set up primarily to suppress freed slaves and other black people in the USA but they also organised against the Irish. British fascist groups: Blackshirts (British Union of Fascists) in the 1930s and after WW2 and National Front in the 1960s and 1970s, later replaced by the British Movement.
16 Both British fascist organisations: the first from the 1930s and resurrected after WWII for a period; the second from the 1960s, later superseded by others (British Movement, EDL etc).
17 Not just in the Molly Maguires but also in the IWW and the Knights of Labor.
President Michael D Higgins speaks during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Memorial to the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings on Talbot Street in Dublin, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. (Photo cred: Brian Lawless/PA Wire)
Fifty years ago, on May 17th bombs exploded in Dublin and Monaghan killing 34 people. The anniversary was marked in Talbot St. Dublin beside the monument erected in memory of those murdered on that day.
The attendance at the anniversary was addressed by Michael D. Higgins, the southern president.(1)
He made a number of points in his speech, mixing his praise for the Good Friday Agreement and Elizabeth Windsor’s visit to Ireland with calls for the rights of the victims to know the full truth, oblivious to the inherent contradictions in his statement.
He did acknowledge that there were huge problems with the subsequent investigations and cited the Barron Report.
The report compiled by the late Judge Henry Barron, published 10th December 2003, provided some of the answers, pointing as it did to systemic failures at State level, one that included possible collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries.
Also featured was the disappearance of important forensic evidence and files, the slow-motion conduct of the investigation, a reluctance to make original documents available, and the refusal to supply other information on security grounds.(2)
There is nothing surprising about this. The dust had barely settled in Dublin and Monaghan and the Irish Government and the Opposition rushed out to deflect and suppress any debate.
Both the Taoiseach at the time, Cosgrave (Fine Gael) and the Opposition leader Jack Lynch (Fianna Fáil) both issued statements that were remarkably similar.
In them they broadened out responsibility for the attacks to anyone who had been involved in any violent act; i.e. they blamed the IRA by implication and failed to mention loyalists at all. This was not accidental. It was deliberate.
The nature of the bombings, the coordination, technology used all indicated the involvement of the British secret services, coupled with the fact that the loyalists never again showed the same capability ever.
Under no circumstances was the southern establishment going to accuse the British of anything.
Just over two years earlier, following the murder of 14 people on the streets of Derry by the Parachute Regiment in full view of TV cameras, an angry nation protested and burned the British Embassy in Dublin to the ground. Cosgrave and Lynch sought to avoid a repetition of that.
As the Barron Report pointed out the Garda investigation was poor, forensic evidence was destroyed, the team set up to investigate it was wound down after just two months and the murder inquiry itself was closed after seven months.
All of this shows clearly that they had no interest in getting to the bottom of it. So much so, when the RUC informed them that they had arrested some suspects in relation to the bombing, the Gardaí did not follow it up.
Years later when Judge Barron carried out his investigation, it was not just the British who were uncooperative. The Gardaí and the Department of Justice didn’t provide him with any information, their files were “missing”.
So, any call for truth means demanding the southern government reveal what it knows and also who shut down the inquiry, why, what happened to the files etc.
It was ironic that the Taoiseach, Simon Harris, the former Taoisigh, Micheál Martin (Fianna Fáil) and Leo Varadkar (Fine Gael) who were present and laid wreaths represent those who covered up the bombings.
If we are going to talk about truth, then a starting point should be that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil covered it up and bear part of the blame for the failure to prosecute anyone.
But when Higgins and others demand the British hand over files and information, including the information offered at the time but not sought by the Gardaí, a question arises. Why would you ask the British government for information and files on a bombing that took place in Dublin?
There is only one possible answer: the British were involved in the bombing.
So, a good starting point would be not so much to talk euphemistically of full disclosure, but rather for them to admit their guilt and tell us all what they did and how and provide all the documentation relevant to their admission of guilt.
No Irish politician has ever demanded that the British own up for it. The demand is they give over information on those who carried it out, as if they were not serving members, at the time, of the British security forces.
The Irish state deliberately failed the victims of the bombings and continues to do so, to this day.
It is telling that the Barron Report on the bombings in not available on Irish government sites but rather on a site set up by victims of the bombings, Justice for the Forgotten (http://www.dublinmonaghanbombings.org/home/).
The Irish state has little interest in talking about the issue or of informing the Irish public, most of whom were born after the bombings.
Though Higgins criticised the Legacy Act, which puts a time limit on prosecutions, the Good Friday Agreement was always about drawing a line under what had happened. The GFA rewrote history to portray the British as honest brokers in a tribal sectarian conflict and not as an imperial power.
Acknowledging their role in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings would undermine that carefully crafted and now universally accepted lie about the British role in Ireland. The British will not release the files as to do so would be an admission of what their role in Ireland is.
The southern establishment despite its occasional calls for clarity and truth, dreads the British even considering such a move, as again it would undermine their role in the conflict as well and their responsibility for the ensuing cover up.
There is no doubt that the ghost of Joseph McCarthy wanders the earth through many a hallowed university hall, newspaper editorial room, police headquarters around the world and of course the cabinets of many western governments.
Censorship when it raises its ugly head, does so in a similar fashion to its past incarnations, though with new twists and turns that perhaps take us by surprise.
However, it should come as no surprise to see that voices on Palestine are being shut down, though the recent German police assault on an international conference in Berlin was a major escalation in government attempts to criminalise those critical of the genocidal regime that holds sway in Tel Aviv and the white supremacist philosophy that is Zionism.(1)
Various issues are thrown into the mix.
Palestine and Palestinian demands are presented as hate speech by governments and right-wing media, but so too is any defence of women’s spaces, though in this latter case the right-wing governments find some support from sectors of the Left.
These think that when they argue for censorship and the suppression of freedom of speech that somehow it will never be applied to them.
The German police stormed the three-day event as the first speaker was addressing it.
They claimed they did so to prevent antisemitic statements being made i.e. not only are we in McCarthyite land of criminalising certain ideas by labelling them as antisemitic but we are in the land of Minority Report(2) where thought crimes can be punished in advance, before they have been committed.
This is not that far removed at all from the Irish Hate Speech Bill that some on the Left have given support to, as the Police may inspect computers and phones and you may be charged with possession of material that may be used to commit hate speech.
It was laughable and ironic that one of the photos of the police intervention of the Berlin event was the arrest of a young Jewish man, wearing a kippa, who was there in solidarity with Palestinians. Following the event a number of Jews were charged with antisemitism.
Not only that but some of the speakers were banned from entering the country, amongst them Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah who was an eyewitness to what was happening in Gaza and is also the Rector of the University of Glasgow.
The former Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis was also banned from entering Germany and both were warned that they could not participate even by Zoom from another jurisdiction, an unlawful extension of German jurisdiction and a suspension of the free movement of European citizens within the EU.
This is part of a wider criminalisation of protest and the criminalisation of thought.
Though some on the Left in Ireland such as People Before Profit T.Ds like Paul Murphy who support hate speech legislation believed in the benevolence of capitalist leaders when restricting commentary on women’s rights would never be extended to them, it has and for obvious reasons.
Most right-wing governments, particularly those that claim some liberal kudos on certain social issues have taken advantage of the defeat of workers, critical thinking and any opposition at all to capitalism to advance right-wing hate speech legislation and restrictions on academic freedom.
This includes the dismissal of staff, limitations on the right to voice opinions that go against government policy and in the process have garnered the support of many liberal currents and of course major NGOs who depend on government largesse to finance themselves.
The German event is not an isolated incident. Over the years various lecturers in the US have been suspended or not had their contracts renewed for speaking out about Palestine.
Zionists were the original cancel culture specialists who managed to turn spoilt students whining into action, getting staff sacked and silencing other students.
Recently, a professor of 30 years standing at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the US was suspended over a contribution made to a blog.
In their suspension of the employee the president stated that “I find her comments repugnant, condemn them unequivocally, and want to make clear that these are her personal views and not those of our institution.”(3)
It was liberals, the wokerati and even some Marxists who pushed for employers to take action against employees for their personal views and activities outside of the workplace and now it has come back to bite some of them, though not all, as many liberals and wokerati in the US are Zionists.
Some of those who had been targeted were vile racists who shouted “Jews will not replace us” as they marched with torches. But you fight Fascism, you don’t give employers control over employees’ lives, ever.
As Trotsky once quipped, if you can’t convince a Fascist, acquaint their head with the pavement. He didn’t say give your boss and the state more control over you and beseech them to act in your interests.
A few days prior to that, Columbia University had suspended six students for allegedly participating in a panel discussion on Palestine.(4)
And in a further sign that jackboots are once again goose-stepping through Germany, the University of Cologne rescinded a job offer to Nancy Fraser, a Jewish American professor of philosophy, over her condemnation of killings in Gaza.(5)
They will not stop at that and it is not limited to issues such as genocide, but even local domestic politics.
In April 2023, a French journalist Ernest Moret was arrested by British anti-terrorist police due to his involvement in protests in France against the Macron government’s pension proposals.
He refused to give the police access to pass codes for his electronic devices and was charged with obstruction.(6)
There are other precedents for this, one of them being the arrest of David Miranda, Glen Greenwald’s now deceased partner, in Britain when returning from a meeting with another journalist who had also worked on the files released by Edward Snowden.(7)
The courts later upheld his detention to be lawful. Police held him and demanded access to his electronic devices.
Then there is the jailing and punishing of Julian Assange. The charges against Assange were dressed up in various disguises.
The first of them was the now discredited rape charges in Sweden which were dropped and also espionage charges when the real reason for jailing Assange is that he, as a journalist, exposed US war crimes in Iraq.
The message is clear, censorship is the order of the day as is the hounding of journalists who hold unpopular views and expose the crimes of the state. Assange did not receive the support he should have, due to the trumped-up rape charges, with many on the Left, like cowards running for cover.
Even today, when the rape charges have been exposed for the lies they were and have been dropped there are those who refuse to speak out on his behalf for this very reason.
There is no world in which right wing governments suppress freedom of speech, academic freedom, freedom of assembly and criminalise broad opinions that they label as hate speech and don’t target the Left. It has never happened and never will.
When they stood aside on Assange, they prepared the way for the assault on the Berlin Conference. When they harassed and tried to silence women defending women’s spaces they prepared the ground for the assault.
When they advocated and supported right-wing governments’ attempts at introducing hate speech legislation they paved the way for the criminalisation of solidarity with Palestine.
When the Hate Speech Bill comes back before the Irish parliament, they should take note and do the correct thing and oppose it, unequivocally.
Leftists who advocated employers taking control of employees lives and opinions, those that demanded that JK Rowling and others like her be hounded from the public sphere and that what they termed hate speech, in reality thought crimes, should be punished in law have aided and abetted right-wing governments in getting us to where we are now, which is that it is now very easy to criminalise pro-Palestinian voices.
All you have to say is “Hate Speech!” Meanwhile Rushi Sunak in Britain is pushing ahead with a very broad and loose definition of extremism which will see almost everyone who does not support Sunak or Starmer in the dock.
(2) Minority Report is a Tom Cruise film in which three mutants can see the future and predict who will commit crimes and they are arrested, charged and sentenced in advance before the crime is committed. In the film the system unravels.
A large number of people gathered in Dublin on 2nd March in what was advertised as a “Stand Together” march for “Homes, Health & Rights for All”; “Against Racism, Hate & War”; to “Share Wealth and End Inequality”.
A large part of the context in which the event was organised is a high number of arson attacks on properties intended (or thought to be) for housing refugees and asylum seekers, along with an increase in mobilisations of people by the far-Right and outright fascists.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
In that context, the advertising poster for the march was insipid in colouring, using pastel shades reminiscent of a certain type of sweets. On some versions the clenched fist appeared but it was missing from many others shared on social media.
Le Chéile, the main organising or coordinating body, was formed some years ago at a time when the Far-Right was becoming increasingly visible in street events they organised and on occasion countering progressive events and a number of clashes had taken place.
The main organisers not only had been absent from most of those confrontations but deliberately chose to exclude from the founding of Le Chéile the majority of those among Irish Republicans, Socialists, Anarchists etc who had already been counter-protesting the far-Right.
Banners of CATU and Drogheda For All on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)On the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)
This may account for the absence of most Irish Republican organisations from the march (if so I understand but disagree with the decision). Dublin Communities Against Racism however contain some veteran antifascists and were present as were a group of Italian antifascists.
There was a big turnout of Traveller groups which would be welcome any time, in particular as the longest-racialised minority in Ireland, but more welcome in recent years when the far-Right have been making efforts to recruit some from that community against migrants.
Banners of Irish Traveller organisations on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Given the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli Zionist state, many Palestine flags were naturally enough seen on the march — and not only within the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s contingent.
Groups of marchers from a number of trade unions were good to see too, though the numbers were not great and the spread of unions small. One might expect trade unions to be to the fore in combating the harmful divisiveness of racism but their record is poor even on straight pay issues.
Flags of Palestinian solidarity, Unite the union (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A number of political parties were present too: People Before Profit, Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, as were a couple of faith-based groups.
Banners of religious groups and coming up behind, some trade union banners Banners of CATU and Drogheda For All on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Anti-fascist fans of Dublin soccer team Shamrock Rovers marched behind their banner with their green-and-white flags and at one point a green smoke flare was set off in their midst. The colours of some of the 134 Gaelic Athletic Clubs based in Dublin would have been good to see there also.
The earlier announced route of the march, to end at Custom House Quay, was changed for some reason and without announcement, at least from O’Connell Street and eventually ended up in north Merrion Square, with a stage set up across the street at the eastern end.
Banner of fans of Shamrock Rovers FC on the march (Photo: D.Breatnach)On stage at the rally (Photo: D.Breatnach)Poet performer at the rally (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The MC of the event on the stage, a man of colour, greeted participants in English and Irish but shocked antifascists present by advising any who felt unsafe to approach a steward or a Garda (!). There are few more likely to make people feel unsafe than that members of that very force.
Speakers from both indigenous and migrant backgrounds addressed the crowd and the cultural performances were by people from both backgrounds.
The MC at one point drew in the war in Ukraine in parallel with the Israeli genocide, which was inappropriate even if one were a supporter of US/NATO’s proxy war against Russia using the puppet Ukrainian state (which I am not).
One of the participants reads the List Of Some Migrants and Sons of Migrants who contributed to Ireland. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Also the PBP know that their view on this is hotly refuted through much of the Left and a great many of those on the march.
In the time I was there, though speakers attacked the divisiveness of racists and fascists and on occasion pointed to the real culprits in manufacturing a housing crisis, none pointed to the capitalist class need for dividing the working class and particularly so when their system is in difficulty.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)A noble call but the organisation whose placard this is did not do so and furthermore when a certain organisation, Revolutionary Housing League were actually doing so, neither this nor other organisations mobilised in support. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Not to speak of how we might organise to “Share the Wealth”, which means socialist revolution, surely, unless it refers to some liberal pipe-dream? The far-Right have risen to prominence in Ireland is because most of those who claim socialist policies have failed to fight for them.
Fighting for socialist policies means actually fighting which means going into all the battlegrounds and organising the people, providing revolutionary education and example and inevitably will mean suffering because the ruling class will not just sit back and watch.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
While some benefit can be obtained from representation in the parliaments and local authority councils, they can never be the main battleground. Street demonstrations are an improvement but nor can they be the main area for revolutionary effort.
In the clear context of general elections widely speculated to take place later this year, a speaker asked the crowd not to vote for anti-immigration candidates. Since the likelihood of anyone there doing so was nil, the inference was clearly to encourage voting for the current parliamentary parties.
In conclusion it is hard to imagine this organisation or any similar kind of coordination providing strong organisation or leadership to counter fascism and racism effectively.
This is not the kind of organisation that would have fought the Blueshirts in the 1930s or even prevented the Islamophobic Pegida founding a branch in Dublin, which a militant antifascist mobilisation succeeded in doing in February 2016.
Section of the march viewed from the Parnell Monument southward (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Anti-NATO Picket Rescues Palestine Flag from Fascist Provocateur
A more militant antifascist attitude was seen in Dublin a few hours later when a fascist grabbed a Palestine flag from a participant in an anti-NATO picket outside the GPO, the iconic building housing the headquarters staff of the 1916 Rising.
The picketers were standing peacefully with banners and flags, including Palestinian and Irish Starry Plough, distributing leaflets and engaging passers-by in conversation. The incident occurred some time into the event, the man shouting in an Irish accent, grabbing the flag and running.
Anti-NATO picket organised by the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation outside the GPO in Dublin’s main street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The surge forward in response might have caught him by surprise but, though the flag was rapidly retrieved, he continued to be aggressive in words and, as is described in slang, “throwing shapes”, behaviour that ended with his sitting in the road.
Though the population of Ireland is overwhelmingly in sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians and many in solidarity with their struggle, many in the far-Right here object to displays of that solidarity and call the solidarity activists “traitors” and demand they act for Ireland only.
Ironically, many of those same people acting in Palestine solidarity have also over the years agitated for affordable housing, against social provision cuts and British colonial occupation, in support of Irish political prisoners – while the far-Right’s only ‘contribution’ is to agitate against migrants.
Fascists in Ireland also collude with Loyalists and with British fascists; it is they who are the traitors, to the nation and to the working class, hiding behind flags the meaning of which their leaders secretly despise and which some of their lumpen followers do not understand.
End.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)List of some migrants and sons of migrants who have contribute to Ireland (including fighting and in some cases dying for her freedom) (Photo: O.Dunne)
A far-right march containing known fascists and fascist organisations opposed to immigration or to providing housing for refugees confronted an antifascist counterprotest half its size in Dublin city centre’s main street on Monday.
The counter-protest was convened for 1pm by the United Against Racism organisation (a kind of liberal anti-racist and antifascist confederation set up by the People Before Profit party) in order to confront an advertised mobilisation of the far-Right on a broad racist platform.
The racists had been building for this ‘national’ march since early January.
A view of the west side of the anti-racist gathering some time before the arrival of the anti-immigration march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The antifascists gathered on the central pedestrian reservation while a group of less than 20 strutted in front of the GPO waving Tricolours,1 an Erin go Bragh flag2 and, most unusually, a Cumann na mBan3 flag. Did they know or care that one of the founders of that organisation was a migrant?4
Or that the Tricolour was presented to us in 1848 by women revolutionaries in Paris? The far-Right in Ireland is replete with ironies, whether ignorant of them or aware while manipulating their ignorant followers in neglected cross-generational families and communities.
Among the anti-racist gathering, at first there were red, rainbow and some Palestinian flags but not one specifically Irish one apart from a white Starry Plough on a red background, until a little later when a number of Irish Tricolours made their appearance among the anti-racists.
East side of the anti-racist gathering some time before the arrival of the anti-immigration march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
This gives the unfortunate appearance that it’s the far-Right that cares about the national struggle and not the antifascists, which is untrue since the fascists have never lifted a finger for Irish freedom and unity (as pointed out by one of the placards displayed by the anti-racists).
It seemed strange that the anti-racists had not occupied the space directly in front of the GPO, thereby not only denying it to the far-Right but also giving them a position with a safe rear and only exposed from the front and flanks, as distinct from the central reservation, open on all sides.
Many Garda Public Order Unit vehicles had been seen at the Garden of Remembrance where the far-Right were rallying along with two mounted Garda, with another two of those outside the GPO and many police in ordinary uniform, along with a few POU there also.5
A strong turnout of Gardaí lined up in front of the GPO with their backs to the fascists and facing the antifascists, a formation clearly anticipating antifascists moving against the far-Right. A number of shouts were traded between the opposing forces.
Early view of section of the anti-racist demonstrators showing in the background a section of the far-Right demonstrators outside the GPO before they left to join their rally at the Garden of Remembrance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A senior Garda officer approached an anti-fascist and obliged her to remove her mask, an action that exposed her not only to Garda photographers but also to media and far-Right snaps and video.
Unlike a number of other occasions prior to and during the Covid emergency, the police restrained the fascists from crossing the road or even engaging in sustained exchanges. After awhile, the latter departed to join the others at their rally at the Garden of Remembrance
The antifascist gathering listened to speeches (or ignored them and chatted among themselves) and a number of a cappella songs about Irish emigration and anti-racism, regularly joining in slogans of “Say it loud and say it clear – Refugees are welcome here!” and “Fáilte – roimh theifigh!”
Another slogan6 shouted was “When refugees are under attack – Stand up, fight back!”
THE FASCIST MARCH
Word reached the antifascists that the far-Right had finally got into their march and the whole anti-racist gathering moved to face the east side of O’Connell Street, where stewards packed them in tighter and tighter and Gardaí lined up facing them with arms linked.
Photo taken of section of anti-racist protesters on east side of central reservation shortly before arrival of anti-immigration marchers – note the Gardai linked arms against the anti-racists, possibly out of habit before they reversed their positions as the far-Right protesters approached. The flag centre photo is of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Antifascist War. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A little later, perhaps conscious of the size of the far-Right march, the Gardaí turned their backs to the anti-racists and faced the street upon which the racists were going to march. The POU also deployed around the area and both mounted police moved across on to the central reservation.
The far-Right began to proceed southward along the street a couple of feet only away from the anti-fascists, from which the slogans in support of refugees were chanted in unison but there were also individual comments flying back and forth, along with gestures, between both groups.
Their stewards were clearly keen to keep them moving, however. At one point a large group of the far-Right mounted the central reservation and approached the antifascists aggressively but between the Gardaí and their own stewards they soon resumed their march south.
The anti-immigration marchers pause in order to hurl abuse at the anti-racist counter-protesters, some of who respond in kind. (Photo sourced: Internet)
It became clear that the racist march outnumbered the counter-protest in the order of around two to one. When banners of the National Party and the Irish Freedom Movement were seen (and placards of Síol na hÉireann)7 a roar of “Nazi scum off our streets!” emerged from the anti-racists.
There were also some cries of “MI5!” at those. Some large placards bearing the legend “Ireland is full” drew the reply: “No it’s not – you don’t know your history or your geography!”8
A racist and a fascist trope side by side: The “Replacement” conspiracy theory originated in white European settler colonies in fear of being replaced by the indigenous people, while fascists regularly demand freedom of speech for racism and lies but shut down all freedoms when they get into power. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The march passed and according to information received made its way to Custom House Quay for a rally. The antifascists were then called on to the street to march to the Garden of Remembrance in a move that puzzled some (one suggestion was that it was to “disinfect” the site!).
Later and photos from Anti-Imperialist Ireland confirmed the sighting of a number of known fascists at the racist rally, including Derek Bligh (IF), Jim Ferguson, Herman Kelly (IFM) and Rowan Croft, all with connections to British Loyalism and British Intelligence.
Four prominent fascists from different groups who were present (some as speakers) at the anti-refugee and immigration rally on Monday. (Photo source: AIA)
EVALUATION
The question must be asked how a minority of far-right and fascist parties in Ireland can outnumber the vastly numerically superior anti-fascist mass in the country at a public (and publicised) event? Clearly the counter-protest organisers failed to mobilise the wide anti-fascist masses.
View of section of the anti-immigration march. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Or the wide anti-fascist movement failed to respond to the call. Where were the Irish Republican forces, the specifically antifascist organisations, the anti-fascist trade unionists – and the broad masses that they can mobilise?
Some of those may say that they don’t trust the UAR group, that they’re not serious about confronting fascists, etc. That may be but it would be a poor and shameful excuse for allowing a successful fascist attack on an antifascist gathering.
On the other hand, when the UAR was being founded, it deliberately excluded those forces – Republicans, antifascist activists, anarchists – who had already been confronting the far-right in Dublin and had been in a number of clashes with the fascists.
A placard displayed by a migrant solidarity demonstrator. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
This is a most serious situation in which the democratic masses to be as the racists and fascists mobilise their thugs and feel the wind behind their sails while simultaneously the State surreptitiously encourages them and the capitalist system seeks to make the workers pay for its crisis.
The racist march took place in the context of a recent fascist mobilisation in the city centre burning cars and public transport and ongoing burning of buildings across the country earmarked – or just believed to be earmarked – for housing of refugees.
Government Ministers can claim shock and anger at such fascist mobilisations but how is it that the wave of arson attacks is being permitted? And how is it that communications of the culprits are not being monitored by the State’s intelligence services?
How is that there is not one case of Garda or property security being on hand and apprehending the arsonists?
We need not believe any nonsense about insufficient personnel because the private security industry employs over 30,000 people across a broad range of sectors9 and the Gardaí can mobilise 100 with helicopter back-up to evict a handful of housing activists occupying an empty building.10
The State is clearly allowing the fascists a loose rein whilst at the same time permitting an atmosphere favouring repression to build up – repression which as is usually the case will be used not against the fascists but against the antifascists and against the Left resistance in general.
We are being given warnings and it is up to all of us whether we act upon them. If we don’t not only we but our children will pay the price.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The green, white and orange flag that became the ‘national’ flag of the Irish State.
2Anglicisation for pronunciation of Éirinn go Brách (Ireland for ever!), the slogan in gold on a green background, usually also bearing the emblem of the harp in gold was a common flag seen among gatherings of the Fenians (Irish Republican Brotherhood) in Ireland, Britain and the USA during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
3Possibly the world’s first female republican military organisation, it was founded in 1914 as an auxiliary to the male Irish Volunteers founded the year before; around 40 of them participated in the 1916 Rising. Later the organisation developed more independence.
4Constance Markievicz: A founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, she took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic.
5And some in ordinary street clothes, clearly the political ‘undercover’ police (now officially the Special Detective Unit but still widely known among political activists (and some of its own officers) by their former name of “the Special Branch”).
7Three of the prominent fascist and racist organisations recently founded in Ireland, though not much of “Síol” has been seen for many months.
8Presumably a reference to the fact that in 1845 Ireland had a population of over 8 million and was not “full” even then while the population today is around 7 million.
Despite the big talk and ‘revolutionary’ posturing of fascists and other far-Rightists, once confronted with painful consequence the tendency is for all their bravado to collapse without dignity, as evidenced in many trials of the Capitol invaders of 2021.
On 6th January fascists, far-Rightists and other misguided followers of Republican Party Trump, who had lost the US Presidential elections to Joe Biden of the Democratic Party, broke through police lines, many invading the USA’s Capitol building and strutting around inside.
The incident had been fueled by Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud to deny him victory, then repeated and disseminated by far-Right conspirationist ideologues, in particular along social media networks and the invasion was allegedly to prevent confirmation of Biden’s election.
The invasion of the Capitol surprised many around the world and seemed to shock the USA’s public, while most of the fascists and far-Rightists reveled in it. The Capitol building is the seat of the US Congress, the legislative branch of the US State, i.e of its parliament.
Of course, the attack on the Capitol, despite the undemocratic nature of the participants, does not actually represent an “attack on US democracy” as claimed by many supporters of the US State. This is because the democracy of that state is entirely a fallacy.
The US State is run by a military-industrial-financial oligarchy, resulting in most State decisions and laws directly or indirectly benefiting that ruling class. In addition, the supposed ultimate decision-making bodies are composed of mostly rich people,1 some of them billionaires.
Campaigns for the Presidency itself are enormously expensive and paid for by contributions, the ‘pipers’ of course later ‘calling the tunes’. Judges of the Supreme Court are political appointees.
FASCIST MOBILISATIONS
Although many were taken by surprise by the invasion, the social and political stage had been under construction for some time.
In January 2017 in a clash between Proud Boys and antifascists ostensibly around the issue of the covid epidemic and mandatory mask-wearing, an antifascist shot and wounded in the leg one of the ‘Boys, surrendered to the police and was charged.2
Nearly 3,000 miles away in Charlottesville in August the “Unite the Right” rally was held, ostensibly to protest the removal of the monument to Robert E Lee, Civil War Confederate Army commander but also an attempt to build fascist unity against antifascist, antiracist resistance.3
Fascists and other far-Rightists after their earlier “Unite the Right” march through the campus of Virginia University surrounding counter-protesters in Charlottesville shortly before they attacked the antifascists. (NurPhoto via Getty images).
There were numerous clashes in Charlottesville with the cops standing by until one of the fascists drove his car into the crowd, killing an antifascist. In Oregon, over 2,600 miles away in 2020, an antifascist killed a fascist and was hunted down by police and shot dead in disputed circumstances.4
Before, between and after those events there were many clashes across the USA and at one time Trump declared that “Antifa” were a terrorist group and would be made illegal! Antifascism is of course an ideological position shared by otherwise disparate forces and not an organisation.
There was at least one Nazi swastika among the Unite the Right marchers and a number of fascist salutes. (Photo sourced: Internet)
TRUMP’S FOLLOWERS
While Trump himself has been undergoing trials and legal manoeuvres with regard to a number of issues, including allegations of financial fraud and unauthorised removal of documents from the White House, he is currently running for the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party.
As is usually the case with fascist leaders, it is their followers who carry the most severe consequences5 and a great many have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment in the huge number of trials following6 and, without any great evidence of protests in solidarity with them.7
On the two-year anniversary of the event, 978 had been arrested and charged with multiple crimes in relation to the attack, according to a Department of Justice database. According to research, the median age of the defendants is 39, with over 86% identifying as male.
A more recent report quoted more than 1,200 defendants having been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a judge or jury.
Approximately 750 rioters have been sentenced, with nearly two-thirds getting some term of imprisonment.8
Many of these racist, right-wing and fascist warriors have buckled under to their allegedly sworn enemy, the Federal and State police and informed against their erstwhile comrades or plea-bargained with their prosecutors.
How many? By January 2023, over half of the charged, according to the Department of Justice.
One of the most recent was Charles Donohoe, not-so-proud-now Proud Boys president of a chapter in North Carolina. He was a lieutenant of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison — the longest prison term so far in a Capitol riot case.
Last May, Tarrio and three other former Proud Boys leader, along with Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy charges for plotting to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Biden.
Rhodes was sentenced last year to 18 years in prison.
A fine example of UStater manhood posing for a photo publicising their militia. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Donohoe agreed to co-operate with federal authorities and pleaded guilty in April 2020 to two felony counts: ‘conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding’ and ‘assaulting, resisting or impeding police’ but was not called to testify at the trial of Tarrio and other Proud Boys earlier this year.
Another who pleaded, Ray Epps, was sentenced recently but only to community service. Some of his former associates accused him being an undercover agent for the State and he is suing Fox News for feeding that view. True or not, his soft sentence is unlikely to dispel suspicions.9
It will hardly help either that Federal prosecutors have backed up Epps’ vehement denials that he was a government plant or FBI operative. They say Epps has never been a government employee or agent beyond serving in the US Marines from 1979 to 1983.10 Of course, they’d tell us if he was.
The Prosecutor asked for six months jail and a non-custodial sentence certainly seems unusual considering the verbal and video evidence they had against him. On the other hand the State might have been painting a target on him to distract from real undercover agents.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of fascist and far-Right preparation for the riot and invasion some still believe that “Antifa” or the State started the whole thing in order to make the far-Right look bad (this kind of fantasy frequently features in aftermaths of fascist actions).
A more likely conspiracy is police tolerance and perhaps membership of fascist groups which, after all, are often on a similar ideological page to a lot of cops who, at the same time, tend to dislike the kind of political, ethnic or LGBT groups who most likely to be actively antifascist.
One can only imagine the response of the State if the Capitol invaders had been socialists, an ethnic minority or antifascists.
USA FAR-RIGHT & FASCIST ORGANISATIONS
Most people would be familiar with at least the name of Ku Klux Klan but there are a large number of other far-Right, fascist and racist organisations spread widely across the US State, such as the Three Percenters, Oath Keepers and Proud Boys,11 who consider themselves USA “Patriots”.12
Their activity may be on line, spreading racist and fascist ideology, along with unsound conspiracy theories but they can also be active on the street, parading their beliefs and trying to recruit members, or in seeking to intimidate or attack Left or minority groups.
According to researchers, more than a dozen different such groups participated in the Capitol riots and among those who stormed the Capitol there were participants in the fascist 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of a counter-protester.
One of those veterans was Tim Gionet, a fascist activist who goes by the online pseudonym of “Baked Alaska” and live-streamed a video of himself on DLive from inside the capitol.13Anti-Jewishness used to be a common trend then more often replaced today by anti-Muslim.
Racism is very much part of their ideology which is why they reacted with such hostility to the Black Live Matter protests. In addition they tend to be anti-feminist and against LGBT people, often enough being full of anti-immigration and imperialist rhetoric.
Remember the guy with the horned fur hat, glorifying in the riot and occupation?Jacob Chasely is his name — he pleaded guilty and for mercy too. He was sentenced to 41 months. (Photo sourced: Internet)
5 One of them, sadly misguided 35-year old Ashley Babbit, ex US Military of 14 years, was shot dead by police guard during the attack as she was boosted up to get through a window.
6 Though relatively short, it is true, when compared to what would befall Left revolutionaries under similar circumstances.
7 Which must seem like a sad reflection on one of their mottoes: “Where we go one we go all”, often abbreviated as “WWG1WGA!” being one of the most popular QAnon slogans.
10Quite a few of the rioters have past military records but it is difficult to decide whether these are disproportionate in for the militarised society which is the USA.
11These three are militias and usually turn up at events with assault rifles and wearing bullet-proof vests.
13 The fact that so many did so or posted on line of having been involved testifies to the psychological need for recognition and feeling of invulnerability of many of them.
As more information emerges — without any great help from the mass media or the political class – it completely undercuts the platform of lies constructed by the fascist manipulators of the recent rioting mob in Dublin.
The story in fact is replete with ironies – not unusual in the country called by some ‘Ironyland.’
As most people will know, the immediate story began with a stabbing attack on three children and a worker who intervened to save them outside a Gaelscoil1 creche in Dublin City centre. Riding the crest of the horror story ran a footnote alleging that the attacker was a migrant.
A recent view of the steps to Scoil Mhuire BÁC (Photo credit: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos)
The fascist manipulators and their far-Right followers quickly boosted the footnote into the main – almost ONLY — story and mobilised on social media for the next few hours. By that evening, they had gathered a few hundred in the city centre, burning police cars and public transport.
Well, the alleged target of the riots were migrants and that was certainly the message being put out by the fascist manipulators and high-profile racists. And precisely here is where we see the emerging ironies and undermining of the racist memes.
For it quickly emerged that of those who intervened against the attack on the three children and the creche worker, two — possibly three — were themselves of migrant background, with another an Irishman.
All the injured were taken for medical care to hospitals where, of course, many of the workers at all levels are also migrant workers. No doubt they too would have been targeted except that such is one step too far even for the racist foot soldiers. Up to now, anyway.
As usual, the fascists and other racists spread lies about the circumstances of the attack, alleging the perpetrator was an illegal immigrant and motivated by Muslim fundamentalism.2 For although of migrant background he had been legally 20 years in Ireland and had mental health issues.
Nothing particularly ironic about that since lying comes naturally to fascists.
But then, what is not surprising to any except racists perhaps is that one of the injured children is from two migrant parents, each from a different region. And they sent their child to an Irish-speaking creche, probably to prepare for Irish-language schooling anon.
So racists whip up anti-migrant hatred around an attack on children, one of whom is herself a child of parents of migrant background, in an incident in which two out of the three who come to the victim’s assistance are migrants and the children are treated in part by migrant health workers.
And then the racists were at it again on social media, trying to reduce the heroic roles of the people of migrant background, counterposing the heroic acts of the people of Irish background against the others, implying that promoting the role of migrants was some kind of ‘woke’ propaganda.
FASCIST USE OF “WOMEN AND CHILDREN“
The call to “protect our children, our women” is a common trick to whip up emotions without any moderating thought. It is in fact a call hearkening to the Neolithic, when such things were real needs and often enough, sadly, since then in many parts of the world.
States have used the trick to get people to join armies to kill one another on battlefields while the masters of those states are far from “where the fast bullets fly” and, when the war is won or lost, may well sit down together draw up deals, to chop up and trade lands and markets.
But the fascists use the slogans and the underclass of the city allow themselves to be used, mouthing the slogans and talking about “undocumented migrants” “of military age”, parroting their lines.
The irony here too is that fascists want to protect women only if they stay in the kitchen or at least ‘know their place’. And the children of course will be fodder for capitalist exploitation or for fighting in foreign wars, against others of their class.
And increasingly with every war, women and children form the larger part of the casualty lists, not to mention widows struggling to get by and care for their bereaved children.
When Naoinrí3 managers, workers and children’s parents were demonstrating outside Leinster House for help with a sector struggling so badly that some have closed and others are considering doing so, were these elements called there by their fascist manipulators to support the protests?
Of course not!
A protest on March 29th this year about the lack of Irish Government support for the Irish language in education, including in the Irish-language creche services. Of course no support from the fascists and far-Right for improvement in these services for “our children”, not to speak of our national language! (Photo sourced: RTÉ)
But we have not exhausted the ironies yet, there are some still to go. The Gardaí, who have drawn their batons and struck at Republicans, water protesters and anti-fascists often enough, were afraid to do so while their patrol cars burned as they awaited the arrival of the Public Order Unit.
Which has led to irrelevant calls from some quarters to reform GSOC investigations and more recruitment for the police.
Mary Lou McDonald is absolutely correct in saying that the rioting was easily foreseeable and that the fascists and their followers had been active in recent years threatening and harassing people and so they had: migrants, refugees, LGBT people and some politicians.
But there is irony here too because McDonald’s party, once the largest revolutionary opposition to the State did not at all mobilise against those fascist and far-Right thugs, not even when one of their youth wing was knocked unconscious by National Party supporters on Custom House Quay.4
But wait, this piece of irony is a real beaut! The Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, is only three years out of his previous job as Assistant Commissioner of the sectarian colonial armed police force, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary).
Why is that an irony, you ask? Well, in his previous job, Harris would have been fully au fait with the biggest collection of far-Right bigots, racists and drug-dealing violent fascists to be found in Ireland, i.e the ‘Ulster’ Loyalists, the enforcers of the Orange Order.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris being congratulated on his appointment by his former colleague in the PSNI, Asst. Commissioner Hamilton. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Did he think that the Dublin variety was as easy to control as those in the Six Counties, or that he had a similar “understanding” with them?
So what now? Well the final irony of all. The Gardaí are going to get better tooled up which of course, they will not be using primarily against the fascists and their far-Right followers at all but rather on the anti-fascists, anti-racists and Republican campaigners and protesters in general.
But they were incapable of having a Garda presence at the school a few days later when, according to reports, parents found a drunken man who had urinated himself on the steps of the school building. Prevented from attending by fear of GSOC reports??!!
End.
FOOTNOTES
1School teaching through the medium of Irish language, usually all subjects except other languages. The one in question was adjoined to the primary-level Scoil Mhuire which in turn is connected to the Secondary-level Coláiste Mhuire. There is as yet no totally-Irish-language university although there are streams and some university courses taught through Irish.
Bill O’Brien, text of speech delivered at Athens conference in 2014; first published in The Pensive Quill blog and sent to Rebel Breeze.
(Reading time main text:4 mins.)
In May 2014, the week following the Odessa massacre, a small group of mostly non-aligned antifascists in Ireland organized through word of mouth and through social media a successful demonstration in Dublin.
We rallied against the fascist atrocity and described it as part of an imperialist anti-Russian agenda in the EU and we called for support in Ireland for the struggle against the Ukrainian army in Donbas.
There was very little reporting on the atrocity in the mainstream media.
Unfortunately, it was complemented by virtual silence from nominally anti-imperialist, socialist organizations in the country, despite the fact that a massacre had occurred the day after Mayday, the historical day of workers’ solidarity and that it was committed by openly fascist groups inside a trade union hall.
Fascists and far-right Ukrainian nationalists besieged anti-fascists in Odessa trade union building on May 2nd 2014 and set fire to the building. Nearly 40 were confirmed killed, often by the mob as they jumped to escape the flames and a great many were injured. (Photo cred: Reuters)
What seemed surprising to us at the time was the fact that the Irish trade unions had issued no statements at all on the tragic event of May 2nd.
There were no messages sympathising with the loss of life or condolences to grieving families sent by the union hierarchy, no expression of solidarity as one would have expected.
There was no condemnation, or even any acknowledgement from the trades union movement that a horrendous crime had been committed against young anti-fascists who had sought refuge from an armed fascist mob in the Odessa House of Trade Unions.
When we raised the question of this silence with members of groups associated with the Left in Ireland, we found that most were hardly interested in addressing a threat that even some right-wing commentators had been drawing attention to – i.e. the re-appearance of Nazism and the support fascism was receiving from the Ukraine government – in a part of Europe that was aspiring to join the EU.
To the extent that these leftists mentioned Odesa at all, they argued that the massacre took place in the context of a war in Ukraine between forces aligned with two equally regressive imperialist regimes.
That is between supporters of the EU / NATO on the one hand and supporters of a paramilitary Russian nationalism aligned to Russian “imperialism”, which was attempting to redraw the Ukrainian borders.
Those who died or suffered injury in the Odessa massacre were portrayed, when they were mentioned at all, as unfortunate victims of inter-imperialist rivalry.
The successful resistance and defeat of fascist brigades in Donbas earlier this year – by “tractor drivers and miners” as Putin put it – halted a march to the right that was taking place across the whole of Europe. That defence gave the world time to face reality.
Social media and non-Western media sources have allowed us the space to counter much of the propaganda. We have received support from trades unionists as well as from those political groups that are not tied to the pro-UK line followed by most of the official Irish media.
But we have found that attempts to oppose a pro-imperialist narrative are too often treated as affronts to the unity of the Left political project in Ireland. Political discourse of the sort that insists on a precise understanding of the meaning of words is too often dismissed as sectarian or divisive.
In the lexicon of much of the Left, the concretely understood word “imperialism” has been replaced by words taken from the language of “humanitarian” intervention that has been promoted by groups such as Amnesty.
When we say that Russia is not an imperialist country for instance we get accused of introducing what are termed “sectarian ideological squabblings.” Bono’s latest political musings seem to outdate Lenin’s formulation on any matter!
According to the humanitarian Left words like ” imperialism” get in the way of a united strategy that should be aimed at electing progressive left-wing representatives to the Irish parliament institution that is largely powerless in the face of austerity measures dictated by international finance.
Left unity that is based on the abandonment of principles can only weaken the fight against imperialism. This has been demonstrated in the Irish “humanitarian” Left’s responses to the present conflict in Syria and the current refugee crisis.
The influential Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine wrote correctly this month about how Russian involvement in Syria is inextricably linked to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Such links have to be understood and taken fully into account in the building of a genuine internationalist movement against imperialism.
The Odessa massacre, as we know, occurred on May 2, 2014. Sightly over a month later, the Zionist onslaught against Gaza began – on 7 July 2014.
The responses in Ireland to the two events were totally different – almost as if two tragedies were simultaneously taking place on different stages on different planets.
In response to Gaza, a pro-Palestine demonstration was called in Ireland’s capital city, Dublin, for Gaza; it was attended by something in the order of 10,000 people. Those ordinary citizens at the march had undoubtedly been moved by an act of incredible brutality by a Western-backed regime on a defenceless Palestinian people.
Those speaking on the Save Gaza platform did not ever mention the Ukraine bombardment of civilian areas – supported by the US and its allies – that was taking place in Donbas at exactly the same time as the Israeli military strikes on Gaza were occurring.
The same people had supported the Maidan coup. The bombardment of Donbas was also supported by the US and its allies so wouldn’t it have been sensible for the Gaza rally organizers to mention Donbas?
At exactly the same time as Gaza and East Ukraine were under attack, the US and its allies were organizing proxy “rebel” forces in Syria aimed at the destruction of the nation’s secular state and its replacement by a pliant regime.
The Syrian crisis did not get mentioned at the Gaza rally either on account of the opportunist alliances between leftists who dominate the anti-war movement in Ireland and the Muslim Brotherhood.
We have been working since 2014 with members of the Ukraine and Russian communities in Ireland and called demos in support of Donbas.
We visited trades union headquarters in Ireland and helped Russian and Ukrainian leftists in Ireland bring the Odesa massacre photo exhibition to the country’s major cities – Dublin, Cork and Belfast.
We have held events to coincide with the showing of the photos, which have been attended by sympathetic trades union leaders, members of the Russian and Ukrainian communities and Irish republicans and socialists.
We were very pleased that our limited endeavours in Ireland have been well-matched across Europe and beyond and we draw strength from this international solidarity.
End.
Rebel Breeze COMMENT:
The events in Ukraine were well known at the time, following a US-instigated coup in 2014 (the true date of the start of the armed conflict, not February 2022).
The USA wanted Ukraine to join NATO, its bloc against Russia but the Ukraine government was more interested in staying connected to the East and in particular to Russia, having lots of linguistic and other cultural connections there.
The coup launched not only a change of government but a wide-scale attack on supporters of the previous government and on Russian-speaking communities across Ukraine, particularly in Eastern Ukraine (Donbas and Crimea).
Monuments of the War Against Fascism were torn down wherever the fascists got control.
Communities in most of the threatened areas mobilised to defend themselves against the armed attacks of the Right Sektor and the Azov Battalion (now incorporated into the Ukraine’s National Army), some with more success than others .
Mariupol fell to fascist forces but was retaken by Russian forces last year.
Anti-fascist mobilisation in Eastern Ukraine, 2014 (Image sourced: Internet)
Crimea defended itself successfully, called an early referendum and as a result joined Russia. Other areas that were not overrun remained in defensive fighting for the next eight years, mostly with no running water or electricity, under artillery bombardment until the Russian invasion.
The demonstrations, public meetings and exhibitions to raise awareness in Ireland of the Ukrainian fascist attacks in 2014 were successful to a degree but not enough to move the major part of the Irish Left, in particular the PBP and the SP – or the trade union leaderships.
Their inability to see the true nature of events there has intensified since the Russian invasion.
A national hero of the Ukrainian state now, which Right Sektor and Azov were promoting even before 2014 is not one of the Ukrainian partisans who fought the Nazi invasion and occupation.
No, it is Stepan Bandera, not only an anti-semitic anti-gypsy fascist but a Nazi collaborator during WW2, an allied organisation of his responsible for massacres which peaked in July and August 1943.
“The massacres were exceptionally brutal and affected primarily women and children.[7][2] The UPA’s actions resulted in up to 100,000 deaths.[8][9][1]
“Other victims of the massacres included several hundred Armenians, Jews, Russians, Czechs, Georgians, and Ukrainians who were part of Polish families or opposed the UPA and sabotaged the massacres by hiding Polish escapees.” (Wikipedia).
The following reference is posted to show that the attacks and their fascist connections were well known across the West but also to show how the report twists what happened to make the victims appear as the causes of the attacks.
rebelbreeze 