IRISH NEUTRALITY – WHO CARES?

On June 28, 2023July 5, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Ireland, Mass Media Criticism, NATO, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time main article: 6 mins.)

A packed public meeting in Dublin city centre on Saturday listened to and applauded prominent people speaking against the Irish State becoming part of military alliances, whether PESCO¹ (“NATO by stealth”²) or NATO itself.

The high-profile panel of speakers chaired by Irish MEP Clare Daly featured fellow MEP Mick Wallace, Sevim Dagdalen (MP Die Linke), Medea Benjamin (founder of Code Pink) and Anne Wright (ex-US Army Major and opponent of the US-Iraq War).

Celebrated anti-imperialist rapper Lowkey was also a speaker as was Yanis Varoufakis (ex-Syrza)³ who addressed the meeting by recorded video from abroad and applauded the Irish for their long resistance to colonialism and urged them to be proud of their state’s neutrality.

Yanis Varoufakis’ recorded speech video screened at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

BACKGROUND

There is a constitutional impediment to the Irish state’s participating in a war partnership with another state and during WW2 the state’s official position was neutrality.

However, it was always a pro-Allied neutrality with British downed airmen allowed to cross over into UK territory and US servicemen often crossing the UK border to visit the ‘south’, while German downed airmen were interned for the duration of the War.

The impediment is not absolute and is usually referred to as the ‘Triple Lock’, listing the three conditions which would enable to government to send more than 12 troops overseas:

a mandate from the United Nations
a Government decision
and a Dáil vote ⁴

In recent years some politicians and public commentators have floated the idea that the Irish state could rejoin the British Commonwealth and, since the war in the Ukraine, a discourse has arisen that the State needs to join an external military alliance in order to protect itself from Russia.

Sevim Dagdalen, Die Linke party MP, speaking at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

The Irish Times/Ipsos poll in April, amid criticisms of not following best practice in its design and even accusations of trying to steer respondents towards favouring joining some external military alliance, delivered two thirds clearly against the Irish state doing any such thing.

Russophobic propaganda has speculated on the activities of Russian trawlers in the Irish Sea. This is entirely a whipped-up alarm and discussion without the slightest foundation in fact since Russia has never presented the slightest threat, militarily or politically, to the Irish people.

On the other hand, Britain has invaded and occupied Ireland for over 800 years and is still in possession of one-fifth of its territory and has substantial economic and financial interests in the country as, more recently, have the USA and European Union states.

The UK’s Royal Navy frequently enters Irish national waters and the State has regularly permitted its ships, along with warships of other NATO countries, to dock in Irish harbours. And also the Royal Air Force, it has recently emerged, to patrol Irish territorial air space.

As part of this false alarm and discourse, the Irish Government⁵ recently founded the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy which was scheduled to meet last week in Cork and Galway, then for two days in Dublin Castle.

The President of the State, Michael D. Higgins, in an unusual intervention during an interview with the Examiner expressed concern at what he perceived as the “drift towards NATO” and criticised the composition of the speakers and chairperson of this organisation as being pro-NATO.

Michael D commented on “the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it” and described its chair Louise Richardson, as a person “with a very large DBE – Dame of the British Empire”.

President Higgins apologised later for what he said was “a throway remark” about Richardson but did not withdraw his remarks about the overall composition of the Forum which has indeed been criticised by others, including Richard Boyd Barrett TD⁶ and Senator Frances Black.

THE DUBLIN MEETING

Varoufakis referred to Ireland as though the nation had won its independence, as was the case with every speaker that followed (with the exception of Lowkey).

A member of the audience was heard to remark ironically to another that he was grateful he had attended as heretofore he hadn’t been aware of Ireland’s ‘independence’.

Lowkey, the British-based rapper, tore the illusion of Irish state neutrality to tatters by recounting the use of Irish airports not only for US Army flights under Air America through Shannon, but also airlines run by the CIA and others using other airports in Irish state territory.

*Lowkey, anti-imperialist rapper from London, speaking at the meeting in Dublin.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

The rapper exposed the ‘neutrality’ of the Irish government in training soldiers going to fight in Ukraine and also in its continued support for the Israeli State and was cheered when he declared that, as an Iraqi, he was proud that his country had “kicked the ass of the British”.

In a masterful exercise in research-backed criticism, Lowkey went on to strip the pretence of independence and impartiality from the Government-founded “Consultative Forum”, exposing the imperialist and even NATO background of the main panel members and its chairperson.

All the members of the Neutrality Who Cares panel were effective speakers and made useful points although it was curious to hear one of them denouncing “Russian fascists” without commenting on the fascist units in the Ukrainian regime’s national army.

Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, speaking at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

It was Lowkey who drove the sharpest and longest nails into the verbal crucifixion of the Irish Government’s drive towards NATO and who brought the loudest cheers from his mostly Irish audience.

Even celebrated speaker Daly did not come very close, though she too exposed the propaganda of the Government and pro-NATO cheerleaders. The MEP debunked the excuse of protecting underground communication cables, pointing out that 25% of them are out of action regularly.

The Irish MEP also lampooned the idea of any underwater cable being protected by NATO, considering where the responsibility for the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipeline lies!⁷

Finally she warned the audience to be on the look out for an attempt to remove the Triple Lock under some kind of excuse as a first step to permit the Government to enter a military alliance.

Clare Daly MEP speaking at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

A PART OF IRELAND ALREADY IN NATO

It was left to a youth member of the audience in the Q&A section, reading a statement on behalf of the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation, to point out that a part of Ireland is already in NATO, viz. the Six Counties, occupied by Britain and a part of the United Kingdom.

The youth called for a broad front to unite around opposition to becoming part of an external military alliance and imperialism (see full statement in appendix). Small flyers advocating the same course of action had been distributed inside the meeting earlier.

The People Before Profit party also distributed leaflets against joining NATO to people attending the meeting.

Indeed, it is hard to see why the presence of NATO in a part of Ireland should be so markedly missing from the panel’s speeches. Since it cannot have been accidental we must ponder what the rationale for its omission could have been.

Do those on the panel agree with the colonial occupation of a part of Ireland? That seems hard to believe, at least of some of them. Or perhaps they believe its discussion would be a distraction from the neutrality issue and if so, how can that be?

Or is it that they seek the support of sections of Irish society who are comfortable with the continued occupation and partition of Ireland? If so, they are seeking to build the movement against Irish membership of NATO in terms they think acceptable to timid sections of the middle class.

When resolute action becomes necessary or when reaction starts to bite, those sections will fade out of the anti-NATO movement. For practical as well as for ideological reasons, the campaign must appeal to the working class on an unashamedly anti-colonial and anti-imperialist basis.

Protest banner at Government’s Forum for International Security meeting in Cork while Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister, on far left of photo) was speaking (*Photo sourced:* Internet)

Wherever the Government’s Forum has gone, it has encountered public opposition. It was picketed at its Cork and Galway venues, while inside the former, an anti-NATO banner was unfolded and many in the audience denounced the Government’s direction.

Even after the protesters had been hustled out, another stood up to denounce the chairperson’s speech before he too was manhandled away.

In Dublin Castle, venue for the Forum on Monday and Tuesday with a long history as administrative centre of British occupation, people against NATO, war or militarism and for Irish independence displayed banners and placards of protest and flew national flags.

Protesters inside a Dublin Castle courtyard against the Government Forum on International Security held inside the complex this week. (*Source photo:* Anti-Imperialist Action)

AIA Tweet featuring National TV broadcaster RTÉ quoting Irish Government leaders’ ridiculous comments on the display of Irish Republican flags by protestors outside main pedestrian entrance to Dublin Castle in the city centre.

IN CONCLUSION

The general mass media silence on the Neutrality Who Cares meeting in Dublin and in downplaying the protests against the Forum at all its locations is part of the Irish Gombeen class drive to join NATO, despite the well-known opposition of the wide Irish population.

It is not forgotten that when tens of thousands thronged Dublin streets marching against triple water service taxation and privatisation, how the mass media reported participation merely by “several thousand” or even “hundreds”.

Nevertheless the comments of the President of the State and remarks by some journalists in the mass media do reveal that even in their own sections, the Gombeens do not have it all their own way. In the general population, however, the mood is clearly for non-militarisation of Ireland.

If the anti-NATO movement remains active and militant and adopts a generally broad anti-imperialist stance, going to most sections of society but especially to the working class, the Gombeens’ drive towards participation in PESCO and NATO will be decisively defeated.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Permanent Structured Cooperation is the strange name of this proposed European Union-wide military alliance.

2As described by Clare Daly.

3Syriza is a Left social-democratic coalition party that was elected to government in Greece in 2015 on a promise to implement necessary social and economic reforms in the teeth of EU and other imperialist resistance. However, once the EU and the ECB began to tighten the screws, the resistance of the party’s leadership disintegrated. Varoufakis had been appointed finance minister and to give him his due, he tried to rally his cabinet colleagues around a program of non-compliance with EU diktats but was unsuccessful. Although it remains the main social-democratic opposition in Greece, the party has continued to slide in popularity in elections since.

4Irish UN peacekeeping forces exceeding 12 personnel have been sent overseas with those three conditions satisfied to many conflicts around the world, most notably Lebanon, where they have suffered some casualties and to the Congo, where they suffered many.

5The Irish Government is a coalition of two traditional main oppositional parties, Fianna Fáile and Fine Gael, with the Green Party. The Labour Party does not have a noticeably different position on external military alliance and Sinn Féin recently dropped their decades-long opposition to Irish membership of NATO and the EU.

6Barrett is a Teachta Dála (member of the Irish parliament) and member of the People Before Profit left-wing political party. Frances Black, with a successful career in singing, is an independent Senator in the same parliament who has sponsored a Bill to ban products from the illegal Israeli settlements. The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 was passed in full by the Senate in 2018, and passed its first vote in Dáil Éireann in early 2019. It was then sent for detailed scrutiny in the Oireachtas Select Committee on Foreign & Affairs and Trade. This review took place over several months, hearing from expert testimony and input, and in December 2019 the Committee also voted in favour of the bill. Since then the Government is delaying bringing it forward.

7Although direct proof is not yet available, circumstantial evidence points towards US armed forces’ responsibility and journalist Seymour Hersh (Pullitzer Prize winner for exposing the US military massacre in Mai Lai, Viet Nam and its subsequent attempted cover-up) has confirmed the US military’s responsibility on the basis of inside knowledge from his contacts.

APPENDIX

Text of statement read out during Q&A period of Neutrality – Who Cares public meeting in Dublin 24 June 2023:

Anti Imperialist Action Ireland hold the revolutionary position that Britain, NATO and any other imperialist power is not welcome in Ireland. Anti-Imperialist Action have been active in opposing all forms of imperialism in Ireland and have been to the fore in opposition to NATO.

NATO is a great threat to Ireland and the Irish People, and in realisation of that, we urge and call on everyone here to vocally oppose the presence of NATO in Ireland whether you be an anti-war activist, a Socialist Republican, an anti-Fascist, a trade unionist, or just against the presence of a foreign power in Ireland, get behind this position and ensure that your sons and daughters aren’t sent off to be slaughtered in illegal wars of conquest.

While all the focus has been about the push towards NATO for the 26 Counties we cannot forget that the Six Counties are already occupied by NATO by virtue of Britain’s illegal occupation. Only a militant broad front of progressive forces all across the 32 counties can make a firm stand against NATO’s presence in Ireland. Everyone has a part to play in such a broad front which Anti-Imperialist Action and others are working hard to establish.

Reject NATO. Britain and NATO out of Ireland now!

SOURCES & FURTHER INFORMATION

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/irish-people-overwhelmingly-support-military-neutrality-in-latest-poll-1290604.html

Anti-Imperialist Action statement on line: https://anti-imperialist-action-ireland.com/blog/2023/06/21/the-free-states-imperialist-circus/?fbclid=IwAR27Y7HSZOJKgLe_oivFx828jHfUMFa4mNXADUY1jhFh1KaDsoxGmsxhN1Q

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230622-ireland-s-debate-on-neutrality-derailed-by-anti-nato-protest

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/06/22/ireland-should-not-be-squeamish-over-security-issues-micheal-martin-tells-ucc-forum/

https://www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/e2a6b-consultative-forum-on-international-security-policy/

COLLAPSE OF BUILDING KILLING TWO GIRLS COMMEMORATED

On June 13, 2023June 14, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History commemoration, Housing, Ireland1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

The collapse of multi-occupation buildings in Dublin’s Fenian Street killed two girls. A day from the anniversary of the tragedy sixty years later, local residents in a working-class block of flats organised a moving and informative commemoration.

On 12^th June 1963, Marion Vardy and Linda Byrne, returning from a shop were killed when the buildings collapsed.

After another two people were killed in a Bolton Street collapse, a galvanised Dublin City Council inspection condemned many other buildings in the city and 155 families were rehoused immediately, though some in Army barracks.

And a number had to camp out for some days in the street. But it was not the first fatal building collapse in Dublin. On 2^nd September 1913 (with the epic Lockout struggle only days old), two adjacent buildings had collapsed in Church Street, killing seven people.¹

All the buildings in question were privately-owned with working class people paying rent to the owners. Emergency inspections by Dublin City Council inspectors in 1963 resulted in the condemning of 156 Dublin buildings as too dangerous for residence.

For years, other buildings in the Dublin inner city could be seen braced on a side by a massive timber frame.

*Organisers’ panel photographed by D.Breatnach*

COMMEMORATIVE EVENT

A display of panels describing the tragedy and panels of photos had been erected around the entrance to St.Andrew’s Court block of flats in Fenian Street, where a crowd had gathered for the well-organised commemoration.

Paul McKeown chaired the event speaking eloquently when he could be heard (there was no public address facility) about the actual tragedy and the context of housing provision for working class people in the inner city.

Paul McKeown, who chaired the event, speaking. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

As a Catholic priest had performed the religion’s Last Rites over the bodies of the girls in 1963, McKeown invited a priest to recite some prayers at the event, which he duly did, after which the MC introduced a representative from the Henrietta Street Tenement Experience.^²

The Henrietta Street speaker provided interesting snapshots of what past life was like for working people of the inner city in terms of occupation, accommodation and schooling. Some women sewed shirts in a factory while others sold items in street markets, such as Moore Street.^³

Speaker from the Henrietta Street Tenement Museum. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

The floors in the poorest homes had no covering and toilets were very few, their use often shared by a great many residents. Although virtually all children would end schooling at the age of 14, the eldest boy often left years earlier to work, as a newsboy or shop messenger, for example.

Labouring on the nearby docks and carting would be the main employment for the men. No doubt emigration, almost a constant in Irish history, played a part too. Rats and mice were endemic in the buildings.

Though alternative and eventually new housing was found for all, it was to Dublin’s outlying areas, breaking up communities and their ways of life, separating them from services used, employment, etc. Many felt isolated and took the long journey to return to the city centre for social contact.

ATTACK ON NEARBY REFUGEES

The local flats overlook the location in Sandwith Street that in May had seen an attack by fascists on refugees who had been living in tents because the nearby International Protection Office, a State body, had failed to allocate them accommodation while processing their applications.

A few locals might have joined in and certainly some had attended the crowd but the fascists were imported (as indeed were the refugees and subsequently their antifascist defenders). Some locals at least resented the way they were being portrayed in some social media subsequently.

Refreshments, some of which were provided by Dublin City Council, were served by residents in the inner courtyard after the speeches. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

“We’ve had generations of Travellers^⁴ in the flats and migrant people too,” commented one. “We’re more ethnically diverse than Dalkey,” he added. “Middle class people don’t talk to us, they talk down at us,” was another comment.

They claim that they have been neglected for generations by all the government parties but also by small left-wing parties, also by people who were quick to criticise them and to see them in negative stereotypes. “Nobody talks about class prejudice”, commented McKeown.

The inner city working class population has been moved out of much of the city and this area, which was previously seen as the least valuable real estate in Dublin, as McKeown observes, is now attracting property speculators for gentrification.

Some of the residents and others in attendance in the inner courtyard after the speeches. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

McKeown feels his people are not wanted in the area and he’s probably right. It’s not just that they are not the typical users of the wine bars and coffee bars of gentrified areas but that their current location would take in big rents after construction of hotels and upper-market flats.

Past the site of the attack on the refugees there is a new block of apartments, two bedrooms for 3,000 euro a month, one bedroom for 2,000. An empty bloc across the road which people say was well-maintained, remains empty since Dublin City Council moved the residents out 5 years ago.

The local residents say that they have been promised that a new block of apartments will be built on the latter site and that all the units will go for “social housing”, presumably meaning for affordable rent.^⁵They want that to be true but are not sure whether they should trust the authorities.

After the speeches of the commemoration people were invited to partake of food and music in the inside square of the flats which contains minimal playground facilities.

Shay Connolly (centre) and friends performing at the event (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The music was provided by a trio including Shay Connolly playing ballads with the food served by local residents, in a relaxed atmosphere. The area at the back of the flats had become a sun-trap and while some soaked it up, I and some others eventually fled the heat.

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

The commemoration of historical events can be of great importance. The event in 1963 forms part not only of an older story but also of the present, which is the lack of decent housing provision for the population of Ireland, in particular for those living in the inner cities.

Working and lower middle class people were wanted in the inner city to work its industries and its shipping port and to service the houses of higher social classes. As industry and port declined and the higher social classes moved out, the need for their work declined.

When their poor areas are seen instead as development prize areas, there is even less demand for the people who have lived in these areas for generations.

One can see this as the inexorable play of impersonal market forces or as the operation of finance and rentier capitalism in a capitalist economy and more, a Gombeen capitalist state where everything is done for the foreign capitalists and as little as possible for the working classes.

From the latter viewpoint, voting different political parties in to government will make no essential difference; what is needed is a fundamental change in the economy which can only be brought about by an organised, conscious and militant working class seizing their rightful inheritance.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 I recall reading that a number of Dublin City Councillors, including Nationalist ones, were slum landlords.

2 It is open for visits from Wednesdays through to the weekend, I am told.

3 The market and area are subject to a long war between property speculators and conservationists (see smsfd.ie)

4 An Irish indigenous nomadic ethnic group of at least five centuries existence, much discriminated against.

5 “Social housing” is often understood as provision for people unemployed and on state welfare provision. Perhaps “Public housing on affordable rent” is a better description, housing both people working and those on benefits, the rents adjusted to means. This was widely built in the middle of the last century but none has been built in Dublin for decades, all governments insisting that the “private sector” (i.e big landlords, property speculators and vulture funds) can solve the problem while the housing crisis intensifies year after year.

SOURCES & OTHER READING

1963 Collapse: https://www.rte.ie/archives/2023/0531/1386694-fenian-street-homes-collapse/

The tenement crisis in Dublin, 1963.

1913 Collapse: https://www.historyireland.com/the-church-street-disaster-september-1913/

Tenement conditions 1913: https://csu1916.wordpress.com/lockout/dublin-1911/tenements/

2023 DCC failure to enforce standards on landlords: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41080388.html

https://www.fm104.ie/news/fm104-news/tathony-house-landlord-rejects-councils-attempt-to-buy-the-property/

BUILDING BRICS

On June 12, 2023September 11, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, US Imperialism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

For decades the US Dollar has dominated financial transactions across the world – backed not only by the USA’s industrial and agricultural output but by its imperialist domination of many economies and its military power.

But perhaps no longer, for now there is a serious competitor in the field, one with the acronym BRICS, from the first letter of the states that created it (in order of no significance): Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

Apart from the backing of powerful economies with more applying to join, this currency standard is based on the price of precious and semi-precious metals. The UK’s Sterling (and the Irish state’s, for a while) was based on silver but the Dollar has for many years been backed by … debt.

A currency is based on the assumption that every unit will be payable and backed by a unit (e.g. gold) of the declared value. But if the value unit markers of the US Dollar, in coins, notes, cheques and credit transfers were to be presented to the US Treasury, it could never pay them.^¹

In fact, it could not even pay a significant percentage of them and has been running a national defaulting on debt currency for many years, this year once again deciding to continue doing so to the tune of $31.5 trillion.

But is it really “redeemable” if all are presented? (*Image sourced: Internet*)

The USA has been able to continue doing this to date because so many of the world’s economies have been dominated by US Imperialism or in alliance with it; they fear that calling in the debt would lead to the collapse of the USA system and to their own interlinked financial structures.

BRICS consists of a financial alliance of economies of which their leaders for one reason or another feel in their interests to end the world dominance of the Dollar.

Previously, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said that there are 12 countries interested in joining the initiative.

Of the 12, she mentioned seven countries specifically, namely Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Algeria, Argentina, Mexico and Nigeria. In March this year Russia announced its support for Algeria’s bid to join BRICS.

In April the expansion of that list interested in joining to 19 states was announced with formal applications from Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

And with expressions of interest from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

COMMUNICATIONS, COMMON CURRENCY & LENDING BANK

Plans for an optical fibre submarine communications cable between BRIC members – partly motivated to avoid US National Security Agency spying on telecommunications in and out of the USA – have not advanced far since first discussed in 2012 but have not been abandoned.

Likewise, discussions of a common currency have not come to fruition yet either. However that may be more imminent.

As challengers to Western-led international currency, BRICS “in the order of the scale of GDP, now collectively outweigh not only the reigning hegemon, the United States, but the entire G-7 weight class put together” (former White House senior advisor Joseph W. Sullivan).^²

The same commentator believes that such a common currency has a much greater chance of stability than the Eurozone, because of the geographic diversity of its members, which enables a broader range of goods and services.

The biggest attraction for applicants to join is probably access to loans from the New Development Bank to members for infrastructure projects, which is the NDB’s main advertised purpose. Heretofore, the IMF and the World Bank have been the main external lenders.

Both the latter institutions have imposed harmful changes on borrowing economies, often driving them further and deeper into debt and into greater dependency on western imperialism. Those lending institutions have also supported corrupt and oppressive regimes.

The NDB has authorised lending up to $34 billion annually, with South Africa the HQ for the African continent with a starting capital of $50 billion ($10 billion from each of the five founders) and so far has 53 projects underway worth around $15 billion total.

Should the NDB prove its ability to issue loans to nationally-desired projects without the penurious and destructive conditions currently attached to IMF and World Bank funding, many, many regimes in the underdeveloped world are likely to apply to BRICS for membership.

And should client regimes currently dependent on western imperialism refuse to jump across to BRICS, they may well face coups from more nationally-ambitious sections of their elites or insurrections from below.

IS BRICS A GOOD OR A BAD THING?

Some anti-imperialists, including some socialists, have been celebrating the creation of BRICS, some even proclaiming it as the financial reflection of a new anti-imperialist order.

Of the five founding economies, only one claims to be socialist. Capitalist economies, we know, tend to develop into imperialist ones, sometimes but not always invading the countries of other economies but always exporting surplus capital there to exploit labour and natural resources.

So some or all of the capitalist economies in BRICS currently are likely to become imperialist also.

That apart, having much or even all of the world’s economies divided between two blocs may give weak economies opportunities they would not otherwise have or at least a choice and perhaps the opportunity to bargain for the conditions of their relationship to world finance.

In other words, a return in many fundamental ways to the division of the world before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

*A breakthrough the current financial structure to a new one?*

THREAT OF WAR?

But does this bring the threat of world war, arms race, etc, as seemed to be always present between the USA and the USSR?

Possibly but the threat of world war is already very much with us, as US/NATO uses the Ukrainian regime as a proxy in its decades-long threatening encirclement of Russia, and also in its posture (not unrelated) towards Iran and the USA’s world competitor China.

The working class in countries that are part of BRICS will still be exploited and will need to overthrow their respective national ruling classes if they are to end that exploitation and also save the environment from destruction.

Imperialism always means war whether direct or by proxy, small or large, against competing economies or people resisting domination and exploitation. Since the end of WW2 alone the USA has been involved in 201 military interventions in 51 regions.^³

In the same period, the UK has carried out 28 military interventions in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Caribbean and Europe^⁴ and France 32 in similar regions.^⁵ Competition for world resources between Germany and the UK and with France led to WW1 and again to WW2^⁶.

BRICS has been created anyway, whatever our opinion and is set to grow significantly, causing some big changes in the world as a result. In the short term this development is likely to be to the advantage of the smaller economies and even nations struggling for independence.

End.

FOOTNOTES

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

2. Writing for American magazine Foreign Policy

3. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2345663/us-initiated-81-global-armed-conflicts-from-1945-to-2001

4. https://www.historyguy.com/british_wars_1945present.htm

5. https://www.historyguy.com/french_wars_1945-present.html

6. Other states were of course involved, including the imperial competition for the Pacific and Asia between the USA/ UK and Japan in WW2 with the SE Asian peoples, in particular communist-led Chinese fighting Japanese imperialism and of course in Europe the mighty contribution and sacrifice of the USSR against the fascist powers. But the initiation of both world wars was competition and contention between Germany, France and the UK.

SOURCES

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

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

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65784030

A BRICS Currency Could Shake the Dollar’s Dominance

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2345663/us-initiated-81-global-armed-conflicts-from-1945-to-2001

https://www.historyguy.com/british_wars_1945present.htm

https://www.historyguy.com/french_wars_1945-present.html

News & Views No.4: IRISH POPULATION STATISTICS MISSING MILLIONS

On June 1, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Environmental, Imperialism, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Mass Media Criticism, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

The media announces that “the population of Ireland has reached 5 million … for the first time in 170 years”. Interesting – and a barefaced lie! The population of Ireland passed 5 million some time ago and is actually around 6.5 million now.¹

Ireland remained with negative population growth until near the end of the last century – mismanaged for most of the population first by the British occupiers of the whole of the island, then by a combination of the native neo-colonial bourgeoisie and of the settler colonial ruling class.

Filling in a census form from which population statistics can be extracted (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

For more than a century the population of Ireland stood at around 5 million, static despite a high birth rate. This was mathematically possible only through continual massive emigration – mostly to English-speaking regimes: Britain, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

But it is true that 170 years ago it was more than 5 million – in fact it was around 8.5 million. And it is worth reflecting on how they were able to produce enough food domestically to feed that entire population while now, with a smaller population, we import as much as 80% from abroad.²

It was the Great Hunger that wiped out much of the earlier population, statistics somewhat hiding the pain and sorrow of millions of Irish in death, disease and emigration — and the great transfer of land for cultivation (and rent) to pasturage, with its dangerous environmental impact.

It provided an opportunity for growth of the Catholic Irish capitalist class, the Gombeens, huckstering money-lenders buying up the lands of afflicted neighbours.

The kind of class that the British could depend on in 1921 to manage the neo-colony and to murder and jail those of national liberation³.

Emigration kept population stats steady and, combined with unemployment, ensured a low internal home market for development. An educated workforce and natural resources could be developed but the Gombeen class opened it all to foreign multinationals rather than develop it themselves.

Even with foreign exploitation of the workforce at home, the education system turned out mostly emigration fodder: the Irish tax-payers funded an education system to provide a literate and numerate English-speaking workforces for capitalist exploitation abroad.

No wonder the Irish political class declined to give the Irish abroad a vote in the Irish state – unlike for decades any other state in the European Market. Yet during the 1930s through to the 1960s, money sent home by Irish migrants accounted for an estimated 30% of the Irish State’s economy.⁴

The Irish state remains a neo-colony with low taxation and other incentives for foreign companies to take over our few industries⁵ and local and foreign property speculators to rake in profits out of the despair of homelessness or of struggling to meet rent or mortgage payments.

A neo-colonial market for produce of foreign companies and to plunder not only our labour force, not only our natural resources on land, sea and wind and but even our infrastructures in transport and communication, energy, health service, water supply and even our city sanitation.

TRUNCATED

The announced statistics were truncated, appropriate perhaps for a truncated country, with the history behind those statistics not so much truncated as obliterated.

That is our present and our past but not how the future has to be – we can write our own future but we won’t do it by putting a mark on a ballot paper.

FOOTNOTES

1Worst of all the statistics were quoted from the State’s Central Statistics Office. The reality: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ireland-population

2The highest estimates: https://www.export.gov/apex/article2?id=Ireland-Agricultural-Sectors#:~:text=Ireland%20imports%20around%2080%20percent,from%20its%20premier%20trading%20partner. And most of all, incredibly – potatoes!

3The Irish Civil War or Counterrevolution, 1922-1923.

4I have read this in the past but am unable now to find the reference; however I have posted some references on the figures of remittances from Irish emigrants.

5 For a few examples of foreign takeover: Irish stout, beer and lagers (Guinness, Smithwicks, Harp); Irish whiskey (Paddy, Jameson, Bushmills); cigarettes (Afton); preserved vegetables (Erin); aviation (Aer Lingus); public transport (Transport for Ireland; LUAS); sugar (Irish sugar beet replaced by subsidised cane sugar from the USA); woodlands (Coillte).

SOURCES

Population: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/census-2022-shows-irelands-population-over-five-million-people-1482478.html
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ireland-population

Ireland not feeding itself: https://www.export.gov/apex/article2?id=Ireland-Agricultural-Sectors#:~:text=Ireland%20imports%20around%2080%20percent,from%20its%20premier%20trading%20partner.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-ti/irelandstradeingoods2017/food2017/
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/agribusiness-and-food/why-does-ireland-import-44-000-tonnes-of-british-potatoes-each-year-1.3721341

Remittances from emigrants: https://www.theirishstory.com/2019/02/08/invisible-income-remittances-from-the-diaspora-sustained-ireland-for-over-a-century/#:~:text=to%20emigrate%20themselves.-,The%20money%20that%20emigrants%20sent%20back%20to%20Ireland%20ensured%20the,and%2020th%20century%20Ireland.
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/rural-ireland-would-not-have-survived-without-money-being-sent-home-by-emigrants-1.4081919
https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-emigrant-remittances-uk-1405087-Apr2014/

The Irish Ruling Class Celebrates Its Defeat of Democracy and Independence

On May 31, 2023June 2, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Catholic Church, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Executions, Gender Equality, Health Service, History commemoration, Housing, Human Rights, Irish Civil War, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Irish Language, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The Irish State recently commemorated the end of the Irish Civil War but what it was really doing was celebrating its victory over the democratic national liberation forces.

The Irish national bourgeoisie, the Gombeen ruling class, armed and supplied by British Imperialism and colonialism, in 1922 launched a war against the forces that had brought the British Occupiers to the negotiation table.

In that short war or counterrevolution, the Irish State formally executed over 80 Irish Republican Volunteers – many more than had the British during the War of Independence 1919-1921. It also shot dead and blew up surrendered Volunteers and kidnapped, tortured and murdered others.

The Irish government of the day put the financial cost of the Civil War at 50 million sterling which today would be near to 3 billion euro.

A curtain of repression settled over Ireland, in the Irish state and in the colony in the Six Counties (in particular from the RIC re-baptised as RUC and the State-armed Loyalists of the B-Specials). Many Republicans were in jail and if not, could not find work and so emigrated.

The political party allegedly representing the Republicans, Fianna Fáil, led by a former leader of the forces attacked by the State, joined the Gombeen system and became in fact the preferred party of the Irish ruling class.

Though the Republican forces recovered and returned to the struggle in the 1930s (with the Communists against the fascist Blackshirts), again in the 1940s and onwards, they never again came close to winning control over the State.

What the Irish State has given us since its inception, even after the Civil War, has been generations of underdevelopment; unemployment and emigration; a huge decline in the Irish-speaking areas; inequality and social repression of women and LGBT people.

The latter was due to Catholic Church domination in every sphere of life, resulting in institutional physical, mental and sexual abuse, along with censorship in printed, audio and visual media and in banning of contraception.

The ruling class of the Irish State, the Gombeens, tolerated the foreign occupation and control of more than one-fifth of the island’s land mass and abandoned the large Catholic minority in the colony to discrimination and pogroms.

It tolerated also institutional and media racism against the Irish diaspora in Britain, the repressive legislation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the jailing for long sentences of a score of innocent Irish people in five different cases in the 1970s.

The Irish State tolerated Loyalist/ British Intelligence bombing inside its territory, failed to protect its citizens from terrorist bombing in the 1970s and covered up its complicity, for example with regard to the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings.

In addition, it used a Loyalist bombing to disarm the opposition to repressive legislation, not against Loyalists but against Irish Republicans, sending Republican activists to jail on the unsupported word of a senior police officer.

More recently this Irish State that we inherited has given us a housing crisis while it makes the territory a rich hunting ground for property speculators, bankers, landlords and vulture funds and also sells off/ gives away our natural resources, public transport and other infrastructures.

The selling-off includes our health service which is also in crisis while the private companies chop off parts of it and sell service back to the State at a profit. And a country that was able to feed 8.5 million prior to 1845 (and export foodstuffs) cannot now feed 5 million without huge imports.

They have given us nothing to celebrate but as always, there is a choice. We can bemoan the situation or we can “take back the nation they’ve sold” (Soldiers of Twenty-Two). And that cannot be done through electing any party or parties into the system.

End.

CATALONIA: THE C.U.P DECLARES DEFIANCE AHEAD OF THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

On May 27, 2023May 27, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Catalonia, Catalunya, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, National Liberation, Spanish State2 Comments

Text from ONA FALCO@ONA_FALCO in Publico.es
(translator D.Breatnach note: CUP = United People’s Candidature)

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The head of the CUP-Alternativa candidate list for Barcelona, Basha Changue, declared this Saturday that, after “four years out of the City Council”, but “fighting from the streets”, they will return to the assembly on May 28.

They intend to “retake their place” and to “combat the lukewarm policies” developed, in her opinion, by the (regional Catalan) government of Colau.

Once inside, says Changue, anyone who seeks their support (trans. note: e.g for a coalition) will have to be in favour of “a Barcelona committed to national and linguistic rights”, for the “decrease in tourism” and the “radical defence of housing”.

“Gentlemen and Ladies Maragall, Trias, Colau and Collboni, there are no half measures: it is the capital or the neighboring ones”, she declared.

Her voice was heard by dozens of people in Barcelona’s Can Fabra square, in the Sant Andreu district, in the central act of the campaign for the municipal elections on the 28th.

Carles Riera, the Deputy in the Catalan Regional Parliament has indicated that “the only candidature for independence in the Catalan Countries is the CUP” and that “they will return to the Barcelona City Council to combat big capital and the bosses’ agenda”.

“Junts (trans. note: Puigdemont’s party) has renounced the independence movement in its program: it wants to go back to being Convergència i Unió” (Convergence and Unity, right-wing Catalan nationalist party preceding formation of Junts – trans. note) — Carles Riera.

Riera was combative, encouraging the public to mobilize for a “vote to confront the State, the vote that does them the most damage.”

He also accused the parties Junts per Catalunya and ERC, “which are the construction force”, those behind the “macro-projects that carve up the territory” – citing the Winter Olympic Games, the Quart Cinturó, the expansion of the airport and the tourist complex of the Hard Rock.

*04/2023 – The leader of the CUP for Barcelona, Basha Changue.*

Basha Changue: “Barcelona is designed to be projected as set for Instagram, not for those who live in it.”

She added that they already understood “why Junts has renounced the independence movement in its program: it wants to go back to being Convergència i Unió and wants to put the town halls at the service of big capital in exchange for power.”

28^th MARCH AS A “TURNING POINT”

Deputy in Congress Mireia Vehí pointed out that they are “the alternative to the model that replaces the public with the private, that stands up to the Trias of the red carpet and the Collboni of the shop window”.

Referring to the voters who are dissatisfied with the pro-independence parties, she assured that “free Catalan Countries are also made from municipalism” and that “voting for the CUP is a vote of pride and revolt”.

The CUP wants to guarantee its presence in plenary session and reverse the results of most of the polls that leave them out of the assembly.

CUP ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN

*The CUP candidate in Barcelona, Basha Changue; Member of Congress Mireia Vehí and Member of Parliament Carles Riera, Barcelona, 05/20/2023— Jordi Pujolar / Marta Vidal / ACN*

Changue stated that the CUP are made “invisible” because those in power are “afraid”.

The candidate added that the transformation of Barcelona “will not be possible as long as those in power continue to open the doors of the institutions to fascism and whitewash their speeches in the town halls and in the parliaments”.

Along the same lines, the number two on the list in Barcelona, Jordi Estivill, has emphasised that there is “a strategy” to silence them, but that they will respond “with more determination and a vote of punishment, which will bring miseries to the centre”.

04/25/2023 – The Deputy in Catalan regional Parliament Laia Estrada and the mayor of Sant Boi, Jordi Barbero, in the presentation of the CUP campaign for the municipal elections.

The event in the Can Fabra square, where the number three in Barcelona, Adriana Llena, and the mayor of the CUP in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Marco Simarro, have also appeared, took place simultaneously to another act of the CUP in Palma.

Parliamentary Deputy Eulàlia Reguant made it clear: “We are at a turning point. We are going all out. We are in San Andreu and Palma because the CUP has faith and we are Països Catalans.” (the Catalan Countries’, which includes Valencia, Balearic Islands along with Pau in the French state – trans. note).

BACKGROUND

Translator: The nominally pro-independence Catalan parties in the regional part-autonomous Catalan Parliament include ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia) which is currently in government; Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), a varied coalition to which Puigdemont belongs, formerly more militant than the ERC); along with the CUP, a more left-wing coalition which has voted for independence motions but declined to join with ERC in coalition or with the previous Junts/ ERC ruling coalition.

After the vote for independence in the 2017 Referendum and Spanish police attack on the voters, it was Puigdemont as previous President of the Parliament that declared Catalan independence but almost immediately suspended it, to great Catalan confusion.

Apparently this was on a promise of support from within the EU which was reneged upon and Puigdemont has since declared his regret for the suspension.

Subsequently the Spanish State tried and jailed a number of ERC and Junts Members of Parliament and officials of the Catalan Government while others, including Puigdemont and a CUP leader, went into exile in the EU and UK.

The Spanish State unsuccessfully tried to extradite them to face charges of “rebellion and fraud”.

Hundreds of Catalans, including municipal officials, elected representatives and protesters face Spanish state charges and possible jail arising from those days of mobilising for independence and in protest at police repression.

End.

Original article: La CUP se proclama “la única candidatura independentista” y se muestra convencida de volver al Ayuntamiento de Barcelona | Público (publico.es)

IRISH STATE PREPARES TO INCREASE REPRESSION

On May 23, 2023May 23, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Political Analysis3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: mins.)

While the Gardaí face accusations of treating far-Right violence too lightly, the State plans to increase the maximum sentence for assault on members of the force to 12 years in jail, nearly double the current maximum of seven years.¹

Minister for Justice Simon Harris was seeking approval today for the increase as amendments to the Criminal Justice (Miscelaneous Provisions) Bill which has passed all stages in the Irish Parliament and is now going through the Seanad.

Irish Government Minister for Justice, Simon Harris (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

The increase in maximum sentence lumps emergency services such as paramedics and firefighters with State repressive forces of police, prison officers and armed forces.

This is a disguising measure since forces of repression are not the same as those of emergency services, even if in the event of a disaster all may be employed together. The State expects increased resistance from working people and therefore feels a need for increased repression.

According to some media reports there have been complaints that the Gardaí have been failing to respond adequately to crimes committed by fascists and other far-Rightists, including threatening behaviour and arson.²

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, former British colonial police (PSNI) Assistant Commissioner³ responded that getting tough with the far-Right would be playing into their hands and that the Garda response is measured appropriately.

One must wonder how permitting threats of violence, acts of assault and arson against refugees and their supporters can be considered appropriately measured from any viewpoint other than that of the perpetrators.

Much harder Garda responses have been seen through the years to striking workers, water-meter and housing protesters, Irish Republican events and – yes – antifascist counter-protests against fascists and other far-Rightists.

Not giving the fascists the confrontation they’re allegedly looking for might disappoint some of them but on the other hand many will be encouraged and get to feel that they can do more or less what they like without repercussions from the Gardaí.

According to Saturday’s Irish Times, some of the criticism of Garda tolerance of far-Right crimes comes from confidential sources within the force itself.

The discourse that policing these protests is ‘complex’ is a distraction from the fact that vulnerable people who are harming no-one are entitled to live without fear of violence to their person or to their meagre belongings, about which there is nothing ‘complex’ at all.

Having to live on the street due to the failings of the State is bad enough without being subjected to additional threats.

On a number of occasions Gardaí have attacked and threatened antifascists confronting the far-Right, revealing where the general sympathies of the State lie, despite condemnations of the far-Right by Government Ministers, politicians and the Garda Commissioner.

Garda not going lightly here but then it’s directed at ANTI-fascists counter-protesting Irish Yellow Vests on Custom House Quay, after they were attacked by fascists armed with metal and wooden clubs, many disguised as flags (note the captured Tricolour) 22 August 2020.(*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

Historically, capitalism has turned to fascism to suppress the resistance of the working class to being made to pay for crises in the system. And fascists have often enough been found within the police force themselves.

Indeed, in Ireland it was the ex-Commissioner of the police, Eoin O’Duffy, who led the fascist Blueshirts, while the religous sectarian, racist and murderous nature of the colonial police in the Six Counties is a long established fact.

The police are the first physical force agency of the State and the armed forces its second. Increasing the penalty for assaults on these means the State is anticipating an increase of assault charges in days to come, quite probably as people defend themselves from police attack.

In fact, it is well known that if the police assault people, they regularly charge their victims with assault, so that the police can explain the injuries of their victims as inflicted in ‘self-defence’ or in measures taken against a person ‘resisting arrest’.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Sentences for assaults on gardaí to rise, Irish Times, 23 May 2023.

2 https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2023/05/20/why-are-gardai-so-passive-when-policing-the-far-right/

3Far right ‘not growing’ says Garda Commissioner, Conor Lally, Irish Times 23 May 2023.

SOURCES

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/05/23/maximum-sentence-for-assaulting-gardai-to-increase-under-plans-due-before-cabinet/#:~:text=The%20maximum%20sentence%20for%20assaulting,Minister%20for%20Justice%20Simon%20Harris. Irish Times, 23 May 2023.

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2023/05/20/why-are-gardai-so-passive-when-policing-the-far-right/?, Conor Lally, Irish Times, 20 May 2023.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2023/05/23/far-right-not-growing-says-garda-commissioner-as-number-of-protests-halves/

No Irish Need Apply to British Communist Party History

On May 20, 2023May 20, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, History, Irish Diaspora, Journalism, Political Analysis, USALeave a comment

I have been sent this article from The Morning Star, newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, a reprint from The People’s World, like-minded newspaper from the USA.

The article is about the removal by right-wingers in the USA of a marker commemorating worker organiser, women’s suffrage campaigner, anti-racist and anti-fascist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn in her home town of Concord, Massachusetts, USA.

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/60-years-after-death-elizabeth-gurley-flynn-still-scares-right

An omission in the article, which the Morning Star chose not to correct, is the Irish background of the article’s subject, class fighter Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Is this important? It certainly was to the subject herself who, in her biography, emphasised her Irish background.

Cover of her biography (*Source photo: Internet*)

She wrote of the importance to her of claiming both Irish family names in her ancestry and always used them both: Gurley and Flynn. But in particular for the CPGB, operating in a state that is oppressing Ireland, it should be of importance how Irish people are represented.

Especially in a culture with a deep and long streak of anti-Irish racism.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn speaking at a mass meeting in the USA (*Source photo: Internet*)

The CPGB never supported the armed struggle by Irish people against its masters nor stood up for the defence of the Irish diaspora in Britain, subject to racism in the media, to police persecution and to judicial and legal racism in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.

This is despite the enormous contribution of the Irish diaspora to the trade union and socialist movement in Britain in shop stewards, activists and leaders.

International Workers of the World (‘Wobblies) organisers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (centre) next to Big Bill Haywood (right). (*Source photo: Internet*)

With Bronterre O’Brien and Fergus O’Connor, the Irish diaspora gave the British working class two leaders of the first mass movement of workers in Britain, the Chartists. The anthem of the class, The Red Flag, was composed by Jim Connell from Co. Meath (though they used the wrong air).

And the classic novel of the class, The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, was penned by Robert Tressel, pen-name of Robert Noonan, born and reared in Dublin.

The CPGB in fact has a long association with British colonialism and its very title is an indication of that.

End.

Left: Famous photo of Gurley Flynn as a public speaker. Right: The marker in her hometown now removed by right-wingers there. (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

REFERENCE:

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/60-years-after-death-elizabeth-gurley-flynn-still-scares-right

The Rebel Girl: An Autobiography, My First Life (1906-1926). New York: International Publishers, 1973.

ANTI-FASCISM, HOUSING AND REFUGEES

On May 16, 2023May 16, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Housing, Human Rights, Ireland, Racism3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Refugees living in tents on streets in Dublin were targeted last week by fascists and antifascists have confronted the latter in defence. Shelters of refugees have been torched.

There’s been some anti-immigrant discourse in Ireland, especially promoted by fascists and racists for a few years but it really took off during the Government’s handling of the Ukrainian refugee influx.

The Irish Government for pro-NATO reasons prioritised these over other refugees, also placing the Ukrainians in empty buildings in working class areas already low on social infrastructure and without consultation with the local community, some of whom reacted angrily.

The Irish Government handed the fascists and other racists a great opportunity and they grasped it.

After that issue had died down a bit, the fascists were looking for something to take its place and found it again in other refugees, this time those who were NOT being housed by the Government and were instead living in tents on streets around the IPO office in Mount Street.

Refugee tents near the International Protection Office (left of photo) in Dublin recently (*credit Sasko LazarovRollingNews.ie*)

The International Protection Office was supposed to organise to provide for the basic needs of refugees – in fact are legally obliged to – while their cases were being processed and had been failing to do so, hence the people it had failed living in tents around the area.

FASCISTS GO TO ATTACK THE REFUGEES

The refugees got some sympathetic coverage in articles in the Cork Examiner and Irish Times¹. Perhaps it was this that stirred up well-known fascist Phillip Dwyer (known hater of women, migrants, LGBT and Muslims) to go and attack those people living on the street.

On Thursday 11^thDwyer turned up with his “security” people, i.e fascist goons, thinking to run the refugees out of there and perhaps do worse. But he was met with resistance including some people helping the refugees, two of the goons got hurt and they backed off.

According to a statement on Revolutionary Housing Action’s Twitter account, one of the defenders was ambushed when he went to collect his bike and while fighting them off, they threw a bike at him. Dwyer and his fascist hounds promised to be back.

Streetlink homeless service stated that on Friday, they were threatened and their outreach van pummelled while they packed refugee belongings and then boxed in so they had to suspend their outreach service for that evening, handing on outreach contacts to other services.

On Friday 12^th Dwyer was back with a larger mob but met by a broad group of antifascists, including RHL, AIA, PBP, CATU, CYM, DCAR and independent antifascist activists² (AIA statement onTwitter, Saturday 13 May). Dublin Republicans Against Fascism were there too.

Section of antifascists in the foreground on Friday, police in the middle distance and fascists and the curious beyond. (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

The violence against persons was now turned on the pitiful shelters and belongings which, on Friday night were set on fire.

On Saturday 13^th, the fascist Irish Freedom Party held their rally on Custom House Quay against hate speech legislation being considered by the Government. From there they marched, not against the Government but against the homeless refugees.

According to local sources, the fascists distributed leaflets asking people to be electoral candidates and promising to help the inexperienced.

What was the connection between a protest allegedly about ‘free speech’ and a march on homeless refugees? Absolutely none, except the standard fascist agenda of targeting minorities to divide the working people and scream about free speech while using violence against their targets.

But in a cunning move, the NP who have never helped any area, were there afterwards cleaning up the area and placing flowerpots there.

Meanwhile, on Thursday night, the Revolutionary Housing League stated that they had opened one of the many empty buildings in Dublin to house the targeted refugees. The RHL have been opening up empty buildings for over a year now and encouraging others to do so.

Subsequently, Leo Varadkar, of the very Government that set up the conditions for this to happen, declared how unacceptable the attack on the refugees was. And following strong criticism from the Refugee Council, the State suddenly found it could house most of the refugees.

If true, hopefully good for those refugees but the fascists will now bleat about how “foreigners are getting treated better than the Irish” to the gullible and, also among themselves, be commenting that violence brings results.

The fascists have been stirring up local community fears with allegations that some of the refugees are paedophiles on the run from justice in their own countries, for which there is not a shred of evidence.

Ironically, while they attacked LGBT people as “paedophiles” some of the far-right have for decades been defending the Catholic Church hierarchy in Ireland from criticism and accusations of abuse of children and women in their institutions.

Lies spill from fascist lips as a matter of course: “immigrants are rapists and paedophiles, LGBT people are paedophiles, migrants are rapists, migrants are being treated better than the natives, the whites are being replaced by people of colour, muslims are taking over”, etc, etc.

THE GARDAÍ AND THE FASCISTS

The Gardaí, including the Public Order Unit, stood between the antifascists and the fascist-led mob on Friday, then kettled the antifascists for awhile, then followed the antifascist contingent up Pearse Street with fascists tailing along. When the antifascists dispersed, some of them were attacked.

The Irish Times on Monday 15^th reported on a complaint from the Garda Representative Association that they are unable to police these events, don’t know about refugees, need training, etc.³

What is there to know? Refugees are as entitled as anyone else to be kept free from violence and the Gardaí could have arrested a number of fascists, had they wanted to, under the Public Order Act, which they regularly use against left-wing protests.

In September 2020, when unarmed antifascists went to counter-protest a Yellow Vest⁴ rally against masking⁵ and were attacked by masked (!) thugs recruited by the National Party with wooden and metal clubs, the POU understood enough to draw batons and attack – the antifascists!

Scene on Butt Bridge in September 2020 after armed fascists had attacked the unarmed counter-protesters at Custom House Quay and then the Public Order Unit had attacked them also, pushing them back off the Quay with raised batons, threatening to strike. (*Photo: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism*)

The following week, the Gardaí allowed NP fascists in Kildare Street to jostle and threaten a handful of LGBT campaigners and to club one of them to the ground. The Gardaí then ordered the woman, blood streaming from her head, to leave.

On both occasions the Garda press office issued statements saying that there had been no serious incidents. But the videos of the woman being assaulted and then ordered away went wide on social media and within a few hours, the Gardaí had changed their story.

In September 2020, longtime fascist and member of the National Party Michael Quinn (left, carrying wooden club disguised as Irish Tricolour flag) attacked veteran LGBT campaigner Izzy Kamikaze while she observed fascists in Kildare Street. The Gardaí forced Izzy to leave and later told the media nothing of any note had occurred, later having to change their press statement after the circulation of video footage. Quinn was later convicted of the attack and jailed for two years. (*Images sourced: Internet*).

However, it was ‘up to the victim’ whether she made a complaint (for an armed attack in a public place seen on video?)! She did, and eventually the particular assailant, Michael Quinn of the NP, was jailed for two years.⁶ But for Gardaí collusion with fascists and lying to the press? Nothing.

WHAT NOW?

Given the wars instigated by US/NATO and EU around the world and deprivation by foreign exploitation of people’s natural resources, refugees and other migrants will continue coming to Europe, including Ireland.

The fascists will continue to target minorities and wave their fake patriotism and social concern while they recruit for their parties, diverting attention from the housing profiteers and the facilitating ruling class while they strive to drive wedges into the working people.

The local working class residents, for example in the block of flats overseeing the site of the conflict, will gain nothing except an undeserved bad reputation for what happened in their area and in which perhaps a few teenagers were opportunistically involved.

Already the recently-completed block of apartments just down the road from them is advertising one-bed apartments for 2,000 euro a month and two-beds for 3,000. None of the local working people of course will be renting those.

The cause of the housing crisis in Dublin will continue: property speculators, vulture funds and multi-unit landlords will continue to rake in profits because the Government won’t build housing for affordable rent in case it should compete with them.

Unless, that is, a real hard struggle including militant occupations and defiance of court orders is taken to them forcing a change, be it reform or revolution. This is a task for the Left which of course can never be carried out by fascists.

But hopefully many anti-fascists have learned or had reaffirmed the need for unity in a broad front against fascism and that confrontation and preparedness for physical defence against fascists is needed, while also discussing the most appropriate tactics for different situations.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/05/04/homeless-asylum-seekers-its-hard-sleeping-outside-its-cold-its-wet-its-no-life/

2Including anarchists.

3 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/05/15/gardai-have-sufficient-resources-to-stop-violence-against-refugees-harris-says/

4The Irish Yellow Vests were a right-wing populist organisation, led by Ben Gilroy and Glen Miller, fascists and islamophobes.

5The rally was on Custom House Quay, scene of the NP’s rally last Saturday.

6 Man who used wooden post to strike a woman during an anti-lockdown rally is jailed (thejournal.ie

SOURCES

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/05/04/homeless-asylum-seekers-its-hard-sleeping-outside-its-cold-its-wet-its-no-life/

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/05/15/gardai-have-sufficient-resources-to-stop-violence-against-refugees-harris-says/

Man who used wooden post to strike a woman during an anti-lockdown rally is jailed (thejournal.ie)

FASCIST-LED MOB THREATENS MIGRANT ENCAMPMENT IN CITY CENTRE

On May 13, 2023May 13, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland1 Comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: mins.)

On Thursday evening fascist Phillip Dwyer and a number of other known fascists led a mob in threatening migrants encamped in the Mount Street/ Fenian Street/ Sandwith Street area on the north reaches of Dublin City Centre.

Dwyer, formerly of the fascist National Party and some of his cohorts had been there the previous night too but in smaller numbers, when he was met with opposition.

Migrants have for some time been camped out in that area near the International Protection Office of the Irish State which has a brief to help refugees. Those living in the tents say that little is being done in reality to help refugees and their encampment is an illustration of this.

On Thursday night Phillip Dwyer had brought a mob to at least intimidate the refugees but was faced off by antifascists. He had declared his intention to return.

On Friday in Sandwith Street, a number of people in ordinary clothes could be seen in confrontation with another group, with yellow-jacketed Gardaí and dark blue Public Order Unit between them. An Irish Tricolour and green Starry Plough waved on one side and a lone tricolour on the other.

The view some time after the arrival of fascists and supporting mob. The antifascists are where the green Starry Plough flag may be seen, in a short laneway and in a group in front of the lane’s mouth.
(*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Local people and some passers-by watched.

People who received a callout for antifascist support but arrived late experienced difficulty in getting into the antifascist sector, which was where the Tricolour and Starry Plough could be seen, due to the police line between there and the confronting mob.

It seemed that neither antifascists nor fascists would be permitted to get in this way. (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

For many antifascists it was a novel experience to be facing the backs of the Public Order Unit, normally drawn out against them, often with batons drawn (none of that seen on this occasion).

The dominant chanting was from the antifascist side, mostly of “Say it Loud and Say it Clear: Refugees are welcome here”, interspersed at times with “Homes for Need, not for Greed!” and another.

Section of antifascists before moving, Gardaí further away and hostile mob further still. (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Though these slogans outline socialist positions they don’t directly address what the fascists were doing and some slogans need to be developed for that, for example pointing out that the fascists are dividing working people and assisting capitalism.

It was difficult to make out what the mob were shouting but individuals at times threw accusations of paedophilia at the migrants and antifascists. This is a common lie by fascists in Ireland and there has not been a single case among this refugee group to justify the accusation.

Section of antifascists before moving, viewed from short laneway mouth, Gardaí further away and hostile mob further still. The new block of expensive apartments is in the left background. (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

The refugees camped around there are actually causing nobody any harm, except perhaps embarrassment for the IPO and the Irish State. Journalists for the Cork Examiner and the Irish Times have both written sympathetic pieces about them recently (probably to the ire of Dwyer).

The area includes working-class flats complexes and higher-market-end housing, including a newly-completed block nearby where the rents are reportedly 2,000 euro a month for one-bedroom-units and 3,000 per month for two bedrooms.

And it is said that some low-rent units were promised but never delivered.

Of course, the Fascists and their followers don’t mobilise against that problem, caused by failure of the State to supply quality affordable housing units lest they compete with the property speculators, big landlords and financiers, although that would make general housing sense.

Fascists are an arm of the capitalist class, not its enemy and for their followers, it’s infinitely easier to pick on vulnerable refugees and other migrants than the rich and their State.

Antifascists kettled by Gardaí after agreement to move. (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Some investigation carried out locally ascertained that although some local people were being fooled by the far-Right discourse, others blamed the Government. Some also said that a lot of the anti-refugee crowd were just in it for the fight and were not even locals.

However one should not underestimate the potential for fascists to mobilise disadvantaged people to split the working people as fascism and racism has done in the past.

Rear section of antifascists after kettling by Gardaí. (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

A light moment occurred when one of the mob threw a plastic water bottle at the antifascists. As the missile arced towards them, a hand rose out of the crowd and caught the bottle in the air, followed by applause, congratulatory for the catcher and derisory at the thrower.

Since the refugees had been moved earlier there seemed little reason for the anti-fascists to remain except to shout slogans at the opposition and perhaps to deny them a feeling of victory. However, they would have to leave at some point.

A couple of individuals who seemed to be in some kind of leadership role began to discuss with the police their desire for everyone to leave together. At last, to the relief of many, the crowd began to move in the direction of Pearse Street. But not for long, as they were stopped by some POU.

The antifascists were now strung out along the pavement and much more vulnerable than they had been in their previous position in the small lane entrance. Police vans moved up, ostensibly for protection but the actual result was the kettling of the antifascists for a while.

Dissatisfaction was expressed among the crowd – a lot!

The Gardaí might present it as a protective measure but in effect it was part of the kettling of the antifascists for a period after agreement to leave. (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Eventually they began to move again, and a local elderly man wished the antifascists well and “safe home”. One of the antifascists was heard to reply: “Thank you; go raibh maith agat!”

The route was through a narrow passage under a railway bridge and on to Pearse Street, heading for Tara Street but strung out and not at all in good defensive form, with members of the mob regularly screaming hatred at them from a metre or two away.

The temptation to knock out one individual nearby who was spitting at antifascists was strong but apart from the danger of arrest, that might have sparked a general assault with the whole group exposed and badly strung out along the pavement.

It is clear that the fascist and far-right threat which was so much in evidence during the Covid Lockdown and which received a couple of important setbacks since has not disappeared and the National Party has planned a rally for Custom House Quay today.

Responses to fascist threats will need to be more widespread and probably better organised in future.

Subsequently the revolutionary Housing League issued a brief statement that they had opened up an empty building in Dublin to accommodate the displaced (again!) refugees. It was learned today that some antifascists were assaulted as their group dispersed.

Misguided people from disadvantaged working class communities the followers of the mob may be but there is no excuse for harassing and threatening vulnerable people who are living rough on the street.

End.