Category: Current Event Report

GOVERNMENT OF ARGENTINA CREATES FAKE TERROR ORGANISATION TO ATTACK POPULAR RESISTANCE

On By rebelbreezeIn America Latina, Análises Político, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Presos Políticos, Racism, WomenLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Let us suppose that the Minister of Justice of an Irish Government held a conference with representatives of the Gardaí, the Army and the judiciary. As a result of the conference the Government created a strike force and issued a 180-page report in which the main tendency was the need to eliminate an organisation called the Irish Resistance Movement.

The mass media hails this Report and highlights the danger of the IRM.

However, Left and alternative political activists have never heard of this IRM before but we find that a Traveller activist is named as the spokesperson, Irish socialist and republican organizations are listed as belonging to it, in addition to campaigns against homelessness, the Water Charge and some smaller ones for political prisoners, human rights, civil rights etc. Some of the names of independent political activists also appear on the list.

As proof of the existence of the IRM and who belongs to it, the report shows a crowd demanding the exoneration of the Jobstown defendants, which includes a person whom a large force of police later killed in an attack on himself and a few comrades. A number of ongoing trials still not concluded are also added for good measure.

Then, the Report also claims that the “IRM” contains internationalist solidarity organisations in solidarity with the Kurds fighting ISIS and with the Palestinians and is receiving arms training from ETA.

And the “IRM” is linked to a number of demonstrations which have shut down the centre of Dublin in protest against austerity measures, protest occupations of buildings, etc.

L-R: Minister of Security Patricia Bulrich and Mapuche historian and activist Moira Millán (photos: Internet)

What would we think?

We would probably conclude that the Government was preparing the ground for a massive attack on our organisations of resistance and on the right to protest.

If in addition to the publication of the Report, the Traveller’s spokesperson, which the Minister of Justice claims to be a spokesperson for “IRM”, two months ago had a the body of a mutilated vixen left on her doorstep, we might also think that the Government might be setting her up to be killed.

Demonstration in Argentina in protest at arrest and subsequent disappearance of Mapuche solidarity activist Santiago Maldonado on 1st August 2017. (Photo source: Latin American Media)

The preceding is an approximation of what is currently going on in Argentina. On December 29th 2017 Patricia Bulrich, Minister for Security of the Nation of the Cambiemos coalition Government of Argentina held such a conference with provincial security executives and issued a 180-page report on the danger of “RAM” (“Ancestral Mapuche Resistance”). This organisation has never before been heard of but Bulrich claimed in the Report and in a televised press conference that it is coordinating the activity of a huge number of organisations and is creating a great terrorist threat to the State.

“Resistance is not Terrorism! Freedom for all the Mapuche political prisoners”! (Photo of poster from Anarkismo.net)

Linked to “RAM” she gave a long list of organisations including those of original people and resistance in the areas of trade union, community, socialist and anarchist activity. Support for the Kurds was listed as evidence against some anarchist organisations and other organisations were alleged to be funding and publicising “RAM” while the Colombian FARC was alleged to be giving them military training.

Mapuche demonstration Patagonia January 2017 (Photo: Latin America Media)

The “RAM” may be a fake organisation but the State terror threatened is real.

The Minister publicly named Moira Millan, a Native People activist of the Mapuche, as the spokesperson of this “RAM”. This in the context of the recent killing of one Mapuche activist and the disappearance of Mapuche solidarity activist Santiago Maldonado in August 2017, which events led to demonstrations of Mapuche protest.  Santiago was later found dead.

Millán lives in Patagonia, is a mother and in fact a member of two Mapuche organisations: The March of Native Women for Holistic Living and the Pillan Mahuiza Community. She writes and lectures on the history of the Mapuche, organises meetings in particular of Native women, gives traditional cooking classes, and speaks publicly on the rights of the Mapuche people. Millán has never been charged with any illegal let alone armed activity but last October, the mutilated body of a vixen was left on her doorstep. The message is both an insult — vixen in Spanish is “zorra” and is used as a moral and gender insult, particularly by the Right against female Left activists – as well as a death threat, i.e that her body will be next.

Millán’s reaction to the release of the Report and Bulrich’s press conference was quick and scathing:

“Yesterday, while I thanked the children who voted that the library of School No. 8 Luis Bernet of Parque Chacabuco should bear my name, the Minister of Security, Mrs. Patricia Bullrich, mentions me in her absurd and ridiculous report as the main spokesperson for RAM”, she said, adding that “the lady Minister – Bullrich — continues with her delirium tremens, inventing terrorists where there are none”.

“In her fevered dreams she sees herself, hooded, like the Ku Klux Klan, hunting Mapuches, assisted by the insipid and mediocre Governors of the South,” said Millán.

“Lie, lie but something will remain … ‘The lie has short legs’, says the popular saying: Are you coming for me, Mrs. Bullrich? Why are you afraid of us so much?” asked the Mapuche campaigner.

“Here I am, holding my truth as a weapon, and the wisdom of the Mapu as a shield; they have initiated ‘the hunger games’ and you believe that your government will win; make no mistake, we belong to a people that has been invaded, but never defeated”, concluded Millán.

(See further down for a way to take a few minutes to help)

End.

Links:

Video compilation of Bulrich, Millan, oppression, resistance: https://youtu.be/BIgJVa3d1iA

Original article quoting (in Spanish) Millán’s reaction to Bulrich’s statement and report: http://www.infonews.com/nota/312623/persecucion-a-los-mapuche-moira-millan

Guardian report on disappearance of Maldonado: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/06/santiago-maldonado-argentina-election-missing-backpacker

TeleSur video about finding of Maldonado’s body:

YOU WANT TO HELP?

Those who wish to express their concern at this demonisation of resistance, the killing of Santiago Maldonado and to lift the threat of incarceration or death on Moira Millan may wish to write to their local Argentinian Embassy, which is obliged to relate information back from their host countries on attitudes to Argentina.

Embassy of Argentina Dublin: 5 Ailesbury Drive Ballsbridge Dublin 4 Ireland

Phone Numbers in Dublin:
Telephone: (01) 269.1546 – Telephone (Int): +353.1.269.1546

Fax Numbers in Dublin:
Fax: (01) 260.0404 – Fax (Int):: +353.1.260.0404

Email Addresses:

General Email address: eirla@mrecic.gov.ar

Consular Section: secon_eirla@mrecic.gov.ar

Administrative Section: adm_eirla@mrecic.gov.ar

Commercial Section: comercial_eirla@mrecic.gov.ar

Cultural Section: cultural_eirla@mrecic.gov.ar

And Argentinian Ministries:

Minister of Security of the Nation of Argentina is currently blocked (for some reason). The Minister of Justice may be accessed through the Department’s page (see link), then use their email contact system:
http://www.jus.gob.ar/contacto.aspx

Minister of the Interior: info@mininterior.gov.ar

Chief of Ministries: mpena@jefatura.gob.ar

It may also help to outline concerns to the Amnesty International and Frontline Defenders organisations.

 

SINGING SONG CENTRAL

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, Ireland, Personal Blog, SongLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

 

          The text on my mobile gave me a little jolt. Treating a gentle query from a friend as a summons, I headed off to the Song Central session in Chaplin’s bar, just across from the Pearse Street Garda station (outside which on some on some occasions I’ve protested until they released some person or persons they had arrested on a demonstration on which I have been – and on one memorable occasion, even on a walking history tour I was conducting as part of an anti-G8 Dublin program).

 

So, get ready, jump on the bike — it’ll be maybe a quarter of an hour? Intention to stay in for the night blown away, I head for the shower and shave, then reheat and consume most of the Dublin coddle.

Wheeling the bike out into the hall, I hear a squelching kind of sound. Oh no! But yes – flat tire (and of course, the rear one, with the gears on the wheel)! Fair enough, it’s bus or walk.
So where’s the snow from this “Code Orange” weather warning? And how could you trust anything from the colour orange anyway? Walking across from Liberty Hall to Butt Bridge, I do actually see some snow, slabs of it apparently having fallen off the roof of a car from some snowy region out of town. Young people pounce on it delightedly and, normally, I’d be in there myself, snowball fighting given half a chance. But the session ….

It’s a long time since I’ve attended the monthly Song Central, as I was reminded by people I had not seen in quite a while. This session was started by Alan Stout around seven years ago, in a kind of split from the Bray monthly session a number of years ago (but a friendly split and the Bray parent is still going strong). As in the Bray session, you may play an instrument but only as accompaniment to a song. And it’s still popular – sometimes it’s a job to get a seat.

It’s a kind of Republic of Song with a wide allegiance: religious-type Christmas songs partnered Christmas social comment in which Jesus is a revolutionary; comic songs balance the serious, Irish trad and folk meet pop and Blues, new and self-composed songs intersperse those made familiar by well-known singers and bands. Most singing is unaccompanied and in English but a couple were sung i nGaeilge.

Remembering Christmas I abandoned my plan to sing The Glencoe Massacre (“Cruel is the snow that blows round Glencoe” — a nod to the much-heralded no-show snow) and opted instead for Arthur McBride, which is actually set in Christmas Day. Later I sang They’re Stealing Our Water, which I had debuted in that session maybe two years earlier and for which one of the participants had given me a better line than I had originally composed. The song goes to the air of The Sea Around Us by Dominic Behan and the chorus is the same, except for the last lines:
“But we’ve still got our Gombeens and a bank guarantee
and they’re trying to steal our own water!”

It’s always a risk to slip a different line into a well-known chorus because the crowd are likely to sing the one they know and not the one you’ve composed. Which did happen a bit but eventually they got it.

I heard some really good singing and some fair singing, as well as a couple of songs I’d not heard before. The session was due to finish earlier than usual in consideration of adverse weather warning (those Orangeys again!) but there were still some people there as I left. It is always a joy to attend so why don’t I do it more often? The answer is that I don’t know but in a month’s time, although I don’t plan to, it may be that once again I will give it a miss.

So on my way to the bus stop of course I pass Bowes’ pub in Fleet Street (Sráid na Toinne!) and I drop in there for a half or a pint and to listen to some trad from the Sunday night session. But what’s this? No musicians! Apparently they play 7-10pm now (but later on bank holidays) and are off playing for some more hours of the night at “the Apollo Sessions”, the barman tells me. But where would that be? Hardly in Apollo House, no longer occupied to highlight homelessness and guarded by a security firm.

Elucidation unforthcoming, it’s onward to the bus stop in Westmoreland Street where I am fortunate to get a bus almost straight away. On the top deck, a chat in Castillian (Spanish) with a Filipino woman, her Spanish partner and a lively and chatty child. And so, home … to reheat and finish the remains of that coddle.

End.

 

END DIRECT PROVISION!

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Human Rights, Ireland, RacismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

 

A lively demonstration was held in Dublin on Saturday 18th November against the Irish Government’s policy towards asylum seekers. A coalition including United Against Racism organised the demonstration, seeking the right to work for asylum seekers and the end of Direct Provision.

Children’s placard photographed at end rally in Dame Street.
END DIRECT PROVISION!

Direct Provision was introduced as a “temporary measure” in 200 but is still being used approaching two decades later. In the Irish state asylum seekers, i.e those who seek to live here to escape persecution or danger to their lives in their homelands, are obliged to live in centres while waiting years for their applications to be processed. In the meantime they are not permitted to seek employment, receive €21.60 a week and may not even prepare food to cook food in the centres where they have to live.

A view of the rally outside the Garden of Remembrance before marching
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Children of asylum seekers are obliged to live in these conditions and, when they reach 18 years of age, are denied access to third-level education.

Another section of the rally before commencement of the march.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The protest march started at Dublin’s Garden of Rembrance and proceeded down O’Connell Street, heading along Dame Street towards the plaza by the side of City Hall and in front of Dublin Castle, where speakers addressed the crowd. Along the way some drums were beaten and they shouted slogans including “One Race – the Human Race!” “We want the right to work!” “End deportations!”

Another slogan was the call of “Amandla” (“Power”, in Zulu and Xhosa), responded to by “Owetu!” (“to us”); this call-and-response was well-known in the struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The crowd comes on to the street to march.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

In the last ten years, according to a media report in July of this year, 44 people have died in direct provision, at least two of them confirmed as suicides. However, the causes of death of fifteen of those were listed as “unknown”, according to The Catholic newspaper, which obtained the figures under a Freedom of Information application to the Reception and Integration Agency, which runs the centres. At the time, the Department of Justice, under which the RIA operates, pointed out that most of the deaths occurred outside the centres but avoided clarifying that in effect this means that they die in hospital.

Veteran anti-war campaigner Margaretta D’Arcy was on the march, seen here in Dame Street.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Also in July, a report into what children in Direct Provision Centres think of their accommodation was published. The Child Law Clinic at University College Cork carried out the research, speaking to children in the direct provision system aged between 8-17 years of age. Many complained of the food and some also complained that they did not use the communal relaxation areas as young male refugee and asylum seekers congregated there – apparently there are no children-safe areas available.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan (who had but recently taken over from Frances Fitzgerald) welcomed the report but Tanya Ward of the Children’s Rights Alliance said that it is of “deep concern” that some children feel unsafe in direct provision centres.

Some Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaigners seen at the concluding rally. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

 

 

At the end of the march, Dame Street, by the side of City Hall and in front of Dublin Castle. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

 

Links:

http://www.thejournal.ie/direct-provision-cause-of-death-3517442-Jul2017/

http://www.thejournal.ie/direct-provision-children-3503111-Jul2017/

LIVELY PICKET IN DUBLIN AGAINST INTERNMENT OF IRISH AND CATALAN POLITICAL ACTIVISTS

On By rebelbreezeIn Catalunya, Civil Rights, Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Prisoners, Spanish StateLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

 

             Catalan Esteladas flew next to Irish Tricolours at the GPO in Dublin on Saturday afternoon (25 November 2017). The occasion was a picket organised by the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee to protest the internment without trial of Irish Republicans and also of Catalan political activists for independence. Placards raised the issue of internment of Irish Republicans and their treatment once in jail, as well as criticising the lack of action of Amnesty International on this question. Some placards also declared that the “Spanish State jails Catalan political activists”.

Mix of Irish and Catalan flags outside the GPO building, O’Connell Street, Dublin
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Despite the seriousness of the issue and the bitter cold, the mood was upbeat, assisted by a music player broadcasting a range of songs, from Sifre’s “Something Inside So Strong”, through Warshaw’s “The Cry of the Morning” (sung by Christy Moore) to “Els Segadors”. Some protesters sang along to the songs and passers-by could be heard joining in too.

Many leaflets were distributed. A number of Catalan young women passers-by were excited to see the Estelada flags and were ecstatic when “Els Segadors” (“The Reapers”), the Catalan national anthem, was played.

Catalan and other young women passers-by reacting to the protest excitedly borrowed some joint flags to take photos of one another.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Some people passing occasionally shouted “Viva Espaňa!” in hostility which gave rise to the response of “Viva la democracía! Viva la libertad!” On the other hand, other visitors passing by were very supportive, for example a young woman from Asturias (northern Spanish state) and an older man from Andalusia (southern Spanish state).

A spokesperson for the Committee briefly addressed the attendance at the end of the event, thanking them for attending to support Irish and Catalan political activists being jailed without trial. Referring to the few passers-by who shouted “Viva Espaňa!”, the spokesperson said that there is nothing wrong with pride in one’s country but queried why the sight of a Catalan flag brought that response and why the definition of Spanish nationhood for these people is bound up with the denial of the rights of another nation to determine its own future. The spokesperson declared that every nation has a right to determine its own future and to do so without threats and repression, pointing out that the Spanish State is attempting to jail the whole Catalan Government for carrying out their election promises and has jailed the leaders of two independence organisations without trial.

Anti-internment protesters outside the GPO building, O’Connell St, Dublin.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The spokesperson thanking the attendance once more, the event came to a close, flags were furled, banners rolled and placards put away for another occasion.

The Dublin Anti-Internment Committee was launched in 2013 and is independent of all political parties and organisations, holds regular pickets and people who support the civil and human rights of Irish Republican prisoners are welcome to attend.

End.

Link:

The Anti-Internment Committee of Ireland: https://www.facebook.com/End-Internment-581232915354743/

Short video of event and short clip of Dublin Anti-Internment Committee representative at conclusion of event:

Labi Siffre’s “Something Inside So Strong” performed by Siffre himself:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otuwNwsqHmQ

Jack Warshaw’s “No Time for Love” sung by Christy Moore with the Moving Hearts band (no longer in existence)

Els Segadors (The Reapers): https://archive.org/details/ElSegadors

PUBLIC HOUSING FOR ALL — CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED IN DUBLIN

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, social commentaryLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

The Campaign for Public Housing was launched Saturday (28th October) at a large packed meeting room in the Unite trade union building in Dublin.

Section of crowded room at campaign launch meeting in Unite trade union hall.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The demands of the campaign were announced as both long-term (in the form of a new system of universal public housing) and short-term (in dealing with the reality of the current housing crisis), as follows:

  • A new system of Universally Accessible Public Housing, based upon a cost rental model where the collective rent of tenants would fund the construction and procurement of large volumes of new public housing.

  • A tenants Bill of Rights to protect tenants in the private rental sector. This bill would control rents and provide real security of tenure.

  • A complete Ban on Economic Evictions by banks and private landlords.

  • A referendum to insert an unambiguous and legally enforceable Right to Public Housing into the constitution.

Standing room only remaining at campaign launch meeting in Unite trade union hall.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The political forces represented at the public meeting table were Éirigí (Brian Leeson), the Workers’ Party (Éilís Ryan), the Communist Party (chairing the meeting) and an individual who might be described as an independent left Republican activist (Cieran Perry). Both Perry and Ryan serve as elected councillors on Dublin City Council.

The Éirigí organisation is considerably reduced from the numbers of activists it had when it was first formed, largely by “dissidents” who left the Sinn Féin party soon after the Good Friday Agreement. The Workers’ Party is very small, having arrived at its current space through a series of splits from the original Sinn Féin (which became Official Sinn Féin after their dissidents formed the Provisionals back in 1970). The Communist Party of Ireland is also very small but owns a Dublin bookshop which also operates as a small theatre and meeting place for broader left anti-imperialist events.

At first glance, the political composition of the table may strike the observer as unimpressive in representation of numbers. However, such active forces have impacted significantly on the Irish political scene over the years and these in particular bring a wealth of political experience to the table. In addition, the audience contained a broad spectrum of left trade union and community activists, republicans, anarchists, socialists and participants who became active in recent campaigns.

According to a press statement released by the Campaign for Public Housing on 26th October, its supporters includes:
Peter McVerry (in a personal capacity, it was said at the launch)
Inner City Helping Homeless
Éirigí
The Workers’ Party
The Communist Party of Ireland
North Dublin Bay Housing Crisis Community
Cllr. Cieran Perry
D8HAC Altogether Now
Dundrum Housing Action
1916 Societies
Catherine Connolly TD
Clare Daly TD
Mick Wallace TD
(and Joan Collins TD, it was announced at the campaign launch).

THE STATE FUNDING SPECULATORS TO BUY MORE PROPERTY

Speaking while using an electronic visual presentation on a large screen at the campaign public launch meeting, Leeson presented figures drawn from statistics produced by property and housing agencies and government departments to illustrate a history of public housing in the Irish State since its creation. Though hardly impressive in the numbers of public dwellings built, the figures showed a significant initiative in that direction under the early Fianna Fáil government years, when De Valera was at its head.

Brian Leeson during his presentation,
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the ratio of public housing to private housing built was around one to one. In those years, private landlords notwithstanding, private housing was usually occupied by the owner. From the 1980s onwards, the ratio shifted to 10-1 in favour of private dwellings and huge numbers of these were no longer lived in by their owners and the ratio is much higher now. In effect, dwellings had become a commodity in which large-scale speculation was taking place, driving the rents and mortgages higher and higher, forcing people into debt for life or evictions and also into high-rent and unsuitable accommodation.

The figures also showed a state funding of the private property sector to the tune of eight billions (€8,000,000,000) – funds which the banks and other property speculators used to purchase more land and property, intensifying the housing crisis.

PUBLIC — NOT SOCIAL — HOUSING

Ryan concentrated her presentation on the need to call for public housing as a rational and necessary response, as one might consider for example public education or health service. Only public housing can solve the housing crisis, she maintained and so it is not only of moral importance but of urgent practical need. Turning to the cost of house building, Ryan pointed to the industry’s figures seen in the earlier presentation, showing that good-quality houses can be built much cheaper even under existing conditions. She was at pains to outline the differences between social and public housing: social housing is often aimed at low-income families and may be provided through a range of private or semi-private schemes. Public housing is state-funded with the rents going back to the state to reinvest in further housing provision and should be mixed in order to avoid ghettoisation.

Éilis Ryan during her presentation. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Referring to the importance that Irish people tend to give to the state’s Constitution, Ryan stated that part of the objectives of the campaign was to insert a clause that guaranteed every person a good quality, affordable-according-to-income housing unit for life.

STOP THE SALE OF PUBLIC LAND!

“We have very little power as Councillors,” said Perry “but one thing we do have power on is the veto on selling public land.” He went on to speak of how Dublin City Council had sold Council land to private developers despite his and some other Councillors’ efforts. However, social and political pressure had forced the ratio of public housing on the Devanney Gardens site up to 30% despite the wishes of some political parties but that still meant that 70% went to private speculators.

Cieran Perry during his presentation.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Perry called for support for a demonstration outside City Hall on Monday November 6th at 5.30 pm in support of a motion put forward by himself and some other councillors to prevent the sale of any Council land.

Currently Dublin City Council own 120 hectares of land – enough to build 12,000 good quality homes. “There are 20,000 people on Dublin’s housing waiting lists, and many more average income households who will never be able to afford private rent or mortgage. So why are we allowing private developers to make money off our land?”

Turning to the question of the campaign itself, Perry promised it would be democratic, transparent and not become dominated by any political party or personality and urged all to become involved, to leave their contact details on the clipboard sheets at the door and to encourage others to come on board.

QUESTIONS

The questions and contributions were overwhelmingly of an intelligent kind and included areas such as hidden homelessness by emigration, housing waiting lists and disqualification; the privatisation of education and health services despite their public appearance; the need for the campaign to include direct action; the relationship between this campaign and other housing campaigns in Ireland; the need for quality monitoring by other than the contractor if the Council is to be the builder; the shortage of building workers at the moment; changes in the court systems to facilitate evictions; the involvement in a number of evictions of a firm led by an ex-British soldier using Loyalist ex-paramilitaries; the expected opposition from the EU to bans on the sale of public land; the hidden homelessness of one partner in a relationship breakup, etc.

Those leaving the meeting seemed fairly happy with the launch though inevitably some discussion took place on what tactics the campaign might employ and whether the organisation would degenerate into electoralism, or whether it would be manipulated for politically sectional interest. Political and community activists in Dublin have a long history and such discussion would be normal among all but the most naive. But the overall mood perceived by this reporter was decidedly positive.

End

LINKS:

Contact campaign: https://www.facebook.com/CampaignForPublicHousing/

campaign4publichousing@gmail.com

Picket City Hall to demand no selling of public land: https://www.facebook.com/events/2562340743904927/?acontext=%7B%22ref%22%3A%223%22%2C%22ref_newsfeed_story_type%22%3A%22regular%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22%7D

Highlighting internment of Republican activists today — protest held in historic Dublin area

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Civil Rights, Current Event Report, History, Ireland, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Reprinted with permission from Dublin Committee, Anti-Internment Committee, Ireland (posted on their FB page 9th September 2017.

DUBLIN COMMITTEE HOLDS PICKET TO HIGHLIGHT ONGOING INTERNMENT OF REPUBLICAN ACTIVISTS 9th September 2017.

On a Saturday afternoon alternating between showers and sunshine, the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee held their awareness-raising picket at the busy junction of Thomas Street and Meath Street.

AIGI Banner 3 people
Some of the picketers with banner

They erected banners at the junction and distributed leaflets, including some about the Craigavon Two.

Tourists(on their way to and from the Guinness brewery museum) and local people passing took leaflets with interest and good humour.

Dublin Commitee AIGI activist distributing leaflets in Meath Street to passers-by. (Photo source: AIGI)

Less welcome was the Special Branch Garda (police force of the Irish state) who wanted the picketers to give him their names and addresses. Several refused to do so. The Garda went away to his car, drove back heading west, halting in the middle of the road in order to photograph the picketers and blocking the traffic coming out of Meath Street as he did so. (There was no need, Garda, we’re posting our photographs on here  ).

SB Asking DB name & address
Left of photo: Special Branch (plainclothes political police) asking a protester his name and address. (Photo source: AIGI)

The Garda then carried out an illegal and somewhat dangerous U-turn, briefly turning on his blue light and drove eastwards at speed.

The Committee refuses to be intimidated, holding regular peaceful pickets in different parts of Dublin and will be holding another one soon.

AIGI Banner
(Photo source: AIGI)

A HISTORIC AREA

The Thomas Street area, bordering on the Liberties, has a long history and is represented “in song and story”. The United Irishmen at the end of the 18th Century enjoyed much support here.

Not ten minutes walk away eastward from where the picket took place today is Taylor’s Hall, the site of the “Back Lane Parliament” and down by the Liffey, in Bridge Street, is the site of Oliver Bond’s house, where most of the Leinster Executive of the United Irish were arrested in 1798.

In hiding, Edward Fitzgerald, one of the main leaders of the United Irishmen, was moved between houses in the area, one of them being No.158 Thomas Street, where on 19th May he was located by Major Sirr through paid informers. Fitzgerald was ill but grabbed a knife and jumped out of bed, wounding Captain Ryan and Major Swan, the latter mortally. Major Sirr (who, according to folklore, was wearing a steel vest) then came in with more soldiers and shot Fitzgerald in the shoulder which facilitated his overpowering and arrest. Fitzgerald died of his wound some weeks later (4th June 1798).

A little to the east along Thomas Street is where most of the fighting in the brief and aborted Emmet uprising took place in 1803. Lord Kilawarden was heading into town for his safety but ran into the insurgency, was dragged from his coach and piked. He was found later it is believed in Vicar Street, still alive but died soon afterwards.

Further west along the street is St. Catherine’s Church, outside which the scaffold was erected in 1803 and Robert Emmet was hung in public, his head being then struck off. It is said in Dublin folklore that his relations attended the execution and shed not one tear in public, determined not to give the Crown and its followers the satisfaction of witnessing their grief.

Banners Hoarding
(Photo source: AIGI)
Obedience of citizens
Spotted by the picketers as they were leaving: Dublin City Council motto with appropriate comment by some passing citizen. (Photo source: AIGI)

Rohingya Solidarity Protest in Dublin

On By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Religious SectarianismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

I came upon this demonstration on Sunday by chance, shortly before it ended; a protest composed almost entirely of people of south Asian appearance.

Line Spire Rohingya protesters
Rohingya solidarity demonstration on central reservation O’Connell Street, Dublin, Friday 8th September. (Photo D.Breatnach)

The Royhinga people are in crisis in Burma, abused by the State army, which is using the excuse of rooting out insurgents. About one thousand have been killed by the Burmese Army, according to a UN Special Rapporteur and according to Al Jazeera 164,000 have crossed the border to escape. Villages have been burned and there are also allegations of rape and of ethnic cleansing.

The Army’s recruits are of mainly Buddhist background, while the Rohingya people are mostly Muslim. The state refuses to grant them citizenship, considering them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Reactionary opinion, for example among some extremist Buddhist monks, considers Burma to be a Buddhist country and other religions not welcome. The Army accuses the Royhingians of burning their own villages.

The State Cunsellor (position equivalent to Prime Minister or Head of Government), Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, in a recent statement talked about the attack two weeks after the crisis began. In this statement she avoided taking responsibility for the events, talking about “an iceberg of misinformation” and a problem that has years of heritage “even pre-colonial.” She has not gone there herself.

Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsillor (Head of government) of Burma and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
(Photo source: Internet)

Aung San Suu Kyi was generally supported by the West and lauded as a human rights campaigner through years of struggle against the previous regime. As a result she was awarded the Nobel Peace Priize in 1991.

Now, it seems the West is critical of the State Counsellor’s response to the crisis in the UN and in the media.

DUBLIN PROTEST TODAY

Both women and men were active in the protest today, ages mainly from late teens to young adulthood. There were some children too, cheerful and assertive. Some of the protesters apparently had come up from Carlow.

Rohingya solidarity demonstrators serving food (Photo: D.Breatnach)

At the conclusion of the protest, they served food outside the GPO to all.

This website was recommended by the organisers of the protest:http://www.thestateless.com/

 

(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Crowd shot near speaker addressing the rally; the General Post Office building to the right in Dublin’s main street, O’Connell Street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

COMMUNITY AND ANTI-FASCIST GROUPS CHASE FASCISTS OUT OF THE RAMBLAS, BARCELONA

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Event Report, Spanish StateLeave a comment

Translation by D. Breatnach of report by Nicolas Tomás in the on-line issue of El Nacional Cat. 

Additional photos and videos on

http://www.elnacional.cat/es/sociedad/enfrentamientos-ultras-antifascistas-rambla-barcelona-atentado_183771_102.html

(see also Gallery of photos by Sergi Alcazar) 

http://www.elnacional.cat/es/sociedad/galeria-enfrentamiento-antifascistas-fascistas-la-rambla_183795_102.html

(Translator’s note: These events were preceded by a number of apparently Muslim extremists driving a car into crowds in the Ramblas on Thursday, which left thirteen dead and 100 wounded, and also in Cambrils on Friday, killing one person and wounding six. A number of suspects were also killed by police).

The first act in the events was that fascist organizations like the Falange, National Democracy or Plataforma per Catalunya (Platform for Catalonia) had called people to demonstrate in the Rambla against what they described as the “Islamisation of Europe”.

A response quickly followed with the call for a counter-demonstration of community groups of Ciutat Vella (the old city) and anti-fascist organizations, under the slogan “no pasarán” (Translator: “They shall not pass!” — originally a famous slogan from the defence of Madrid during the anti-fascist resistance war of 1936-1939).

A very violent clash could have occurred, were it not for the relative proportions of those participating.

Section of large anti-fascist demonstration called at very short notice
(Photo: Sergi Alcazar)

On the seaward side of the Boqueria plaza there were between two and three hundred antifascists, of all ages, national and ethnic backgrounds, who condemned the terrorism of Islamic State and the fascism of the extreme right. On the mountain side, no more than a score of people nostalgic for past fascist regimes and a boy of no more than twenty years arguing that under Franco one did not live so poorly.

With these proportions, very soon the fascists found themselves cornered by the antifascists, who limited themselves to shouting a number of slogans such as “Nazis no!”, “The streets will always be ours!”, “Let there be not even one!” or “Fascists get out of our neighborhoods!”

Among the Islamophobes and those nostalgic for previous fascist regimes, the most conciliatory of them said that the problem is that “The outsiders come, they place a bomb and do the savagery they did yesterday, because we fight among ourselves.” Others simply shouted “A Christian Spain and never Muslim!”, “No more mosques, please!” and “Spain forever!”.

Among the demonstrators were Manuel Canduela, leader of National Democracy and known face of the Spanish extreme right. Among the anti-fascist demonstrators, CUP elected members Mireia Boya and Mireia Vehí.

Small group of fascists at the Ramblas, also called at short notice
(Photo: Sergi Alcazar)

There were moments of tension and violence. For example, when a fascist attempted to assault a group of anti-fascists, the latter responded by throwing plastic bottles, lighters and even some eggs. The Mossos d’Esquadra (Translator note: Catalonia government police infamous for violence against Left and Catalan independist demonstrators) and the Urban Guard intervened to protect the right-wingers. The cops protecting fascists outnumbered the fascists they were protecting – by at least two to one.

Young Woman confronts Nazi Ramblas 18 August 2017
Young woman directly confronts Nazi at the Ramblas during a more general confrontation (Photo: Sergi Alcazar)

Little by little, the handful of fascists left the place, escorted by the police, contemplating the failure of their call. In the end there was only one man left, around the age of forty, wearing a Spanish Army T-shirt, leather waistcoat, many tattoos and an aromatic small cigar (Trans: ? ”un aromatico purito”). “I am neither a Nazi nor racist: I am Spanish,” he argued.

A Muslim girl, in a bandana, opposed his arguments against “the Islamization of Europe”.

“I am against those who kill us,” he told her.

“As are we,” she replied.

A fascist is led to safety from the Ramblas by Mossos d’Escuadra, notorious police of the Catalonian autonomous government. Moments earlier he had been restrained by them as he tried to take advantage of their arrival to strike an anti-fascist
(Photo Sergi Alcazar)

 

ARE THE LEFT IN IRELAND DIVORCED FROM REPUBLICANISM?

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Event Report, Gender Equality, History, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

A DEBATE to discuss the above question at the Teachers’ Club, Dublin, was organised by the United Ireland Association with Tommy McKearney and Clare Daly being the debaters on June 16th.

Tommy McKearney
(Photo: Wikipedia)

Tommy McKearney is a long-time Republican, formerly of the Provisional IRA, 1980

Clare Daly
(Photo source: Internet)

Hunger-Striker and ex-Republican prisoner.  He was, along with Anthony McIntyre, a founder of the Republican Writers’ Group which, while not advocating armed struggle, was critical of the Good Friday Agreement, of Provisional IRA and in particular of Sinn Féin. He is currently an Organiser for the Independent Workers’ Union.

Clare Daly is a long-time Socialist, a former trade union shop stewart and has been a Teachta Dála (member of the Irish parliament) since 2011, formerly as a member of the Socialist Party and now a Left Alliance TD.  She has visited Republican prisoners and raised issues about their treatment in court and in jail. Daly was also arrested for trespass at Shannon Airport, along with fellow-TD and partner Mick Wallace, protesting against the use of the airport by US military flights and for transporting of political prisoners of the US military to jails in various parts of the world.

TOMMY MC KEARNEY

Tommy McKearney spoke first and stated that there was an issue of defining Republicanism and that sometimes what was meant was the anti-monarchic Republicanism of France or the United Stated but he was going to discuss it in terms of a specific Irish-based ideology, i.e Irish Republicanism.

Mentioning a number of Left-Irish Republicans such as Fintan Lawlor and Wolfe Tone’s famous quotation about relying on the “men of no property”, Tommy developed a line of reasoning that sought to say that there was not a huge difference between Irish Republicanism and socialism and drew attention to the fact that James Connolly had founded a party by the title of the Irish Socialist Republican Party.

Going on to talk about the objective of Irish Republicans, Tommy stated that not only is a republic desirable for Ireland – it is necessary. Only a Republic that is based upon socialist principles can resolve the economic and political problems facing Ireland today on both sides of the colonial Border.

Referring to the British election results in the Six Counties, Tommy commented on the 238,915 votes and seven seats for Sinn Féin – an increase of 14,670 votes – and the rise of almost 67,000 votes for the DUP with their ten seats. Sinn Féin had been pushing a peace process which was not about peace but about normalisation; their claim to intend to bridge the sectarian divide was empty and the voting lines were drawn up along sectarian lines at least as deeply as before.

Tommy also speculated that the amount of votes cast for Sinn Féin, on a platform of refusing to take their seats in Westminster showed, among other things, the amount of people in the Six Counties who did not care to be represented in a British Parliament and presumably would want representation in a united Irish Republic. He called for an alliance of Left Republicans and Irish socialists and recalled that James Connolly had founded, as well as the Labour Party, the Irish Socialist Republican Party.

CLARE DALY

Clare was next and she in turn highlighted the difficult issue of defining the Left – did it mean the parties that defined themselves as Left, did it include the Labour Party – some would say yes, others no. For Clare it is not issue of the names we give parties or activists but of what we stand for. Clare said she stands for a socialist country and in that sense for a Republic.

Addressing the question for debate, Clare owned that maybe socialists had neglected the national question — maybe they had been put off by images of balaclavas and guns — but it could equally be said that Republicans had for decades neglected social questions such as women’s reproductive rights, women’s rights in general, gay rights …. However, in more recent times, Republicans were seen actively supporting those rights.

Over recent years, Clare said, we had seen the gains our parents fought for in terms of trade union rights and local authority and state services lost or undermined.

Clare said she saw herself as a citizen of the world but as she lived in Ireland that she stood for a Republic that was organised along socialist lines and gave equal rights to all. The real question, Clare stated, is how we are to achieve that and pointed to the swing to the Left in Britain with Jeremy Corbyn’s party receiving a big increase in votes, despite media hostility and predictions of failure. The Conservative Party could only rule now with the support of the DUP’s 10 Mps. Clare said that opportunities of a Left Front existed in Ireland too as was seen by the Right to Water mass marches with broad political party and some major trade union support.

 

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE, RESPONSES FROM THE PANEL

Included in contributions from the audience were the following:

  • Sinn Féin had seven MPs to the DUP’s 10 and should consider abandoning their abstentionism and go to Westminster to assist Corbyn in voting legislation

  • While the Labour Party in Britain had moved to the Left, Sinn Féin in Ireland had moved to the right

  • Good debate from two good speakers but also two who had put themselves out there for what they believed – Tommy McKearney in armed struggle in the past and hard prison struggle and Clare Daly in protesting US military use of Shannon Airport and also visiting Republican prisoners in jail, along with a few other Tds.

  • We need more debates like these and also to focus on Republicans with regard to where they stood with regard to socialism.

  • The Irish Left as a whole has divorced itself from Irish Republicanism, probably in fear of being associated with nationalism and/ or armed struggle. In doing so, it has walked away from continual violation of human rights, e.g of Republican prisoners in the jails and of civil rights, the right to political dissent of Republican activists on both sides of the Border.

  • The Irish Left has neglected to confront British Imperialism and left the Republicans to confront the various visits of the British Queen and the recent one of Prince Philip, when major roads were shut and even civilians impeded in going about their business or even going to their local shops or to visit their relatives’ graves in Glasnevin and a megaphone wrested by an undercover policeman backed up by a riot squad from the hands of a person about to speak to a protest demonstration.

  • Republicans are socialists and to pose the two as different categories was ridiculous.

  • There should be a broad Left front in Ireland including the trade unions and Sinn Féin.

Among the responses from the panel were that people were hung up on condemning Sinn Féin and should welcome them into a broad Left mass movement on the model of the Right to Water and Right to change campaigns (this from Tommy McKearney)

The socialists might not have done very well opposing British imperialism but had opposed US imperialism, which is one of the imperialist powers in operation in Ireland (this from Clare Daly) and a major one in the world.

 

COMMENT

The contributor who said that “Republicans are socialists” seemed unaware that historically at least this certainly was not so. Seán Mac Diarmada, the Irish Republican executed on the same day as the socialist James Connolly, had been on record as saying that no-one should support socialism. During the War of Independence, some IRA units took actions to support landless labourers and poor farmers but others took action to repress these in favour of big farmers.

The IRA had a ban on Communists through the 1930s probably up to the 1960s. Sean South, prominent Limerick IRA Volunteer killed in the Bessborough RUC Barracks attack in 1957, was a conservative Catholic, anti-Communist member of the Knights of Columbanus and of An Réalt (Irish-speaking section of the Legion of Mary).

The broad Left front being advocated by a number of people seems to be a reformist social-democratic one and, while there is nothing necessarily counter-revolutionary about fighting for reforms, clarity is needed about whether what they are advocating is a social-democratic program or fighting for some reforms while at the same time openly organising with a revolution in mind.

Clare Daly has certainly fought hard against US Imperialism but others on the Left much less so. The mobilisation against Hillary Clinton’s visit to Dublin was not great and gave up in the face of police opposition before they even reached City Hall and there was no mobilisation at all against Obama’s visit to Dublin in May 2011 and it remains to be seen how much there will be if he comes this year, as he has reportedly promised to do. But the question of oppposing British imperialism is a crucial one since a) it is the main imperialist-colonial power at work in Ireland and b) because it is the main prop of US Imperialism in Europe and in the UN.

There would seem to be fertile ground for debate on the historical and current differences between Irish Socialists and Irish Republicans, as well as for discussing possible joint action and one hopes for many more debates and discussions of this nature with a broad attendance.

End.

More Than Just a Museum

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Peace Process, Political Analysis2 Comments

by Déaglan Ó Donnghaile

(previously published in the Irish Dissent blog https://irishdissent.wordpress.com.  Photos chosen and inserted by Rebel Breeze by agreement with author)

 

On Friday, 2nd June, a protest was held at the so-called “Museum of Free Derry” in opposition to the its memorialization of British forces killed in Derry during the early 1970s. I refer to this institution as the “so-called Museum of Free Derry” because, with its commemoration of the British state’s highly paid, heavily armed and judicially-protected professional murderers – agents of state violence whose brutality peaked (but did not end) with the massacre of 14 Civil Rights demonstrators on January 31st, 1972 – it has distanced itself irrevocably from the concept and philosophy of liberation that Free Derry stands for in the popular imagination. As one protestor suggested, we should rename it “The Museum of Unfree Derry”; I would add that the title, “The Crown Forces Museum of Unfree Derry”, will reflect even more accurately the ideology that this institution serves and promotes.

The iconic Free Derry gable monument, replacing the original gable of the house in the barricaded Bogside in 1969 which bore the same announcement. One of the Bogside’s impressive murals is visible on the right of photo. (Photo source: Internet)

Free Derry was the part of Derry City, comprising the Bogside, Brandywell and Creggan districts, that had been liberated from police control following the decisive defeat of heavily-armed RUC, B-Special and Orange Order attackers by an unarmed popular insurgency, known as the Battle of the Bogside, that took place in August, 1969. Notwithstanding the efforts of Paddy Doherty to have barricades dismantled and the RUC redeployed in the Bogside, Free Derry persisted until the entire city was overrun by British troops during Operation Motorman in July, 1972. During this three-year period, Free Derry became recognized globally as a site of intense resistance to British political, military and police control.

Protest at the Free Derry Museum recently.
(Photo source: Internet)

Last week’s protest was called because the museum, which many people regard as a Sinn Féin-controlled front organization, has installed an exhibit recording the names of British troops and police killed in Derry. This has outraged a broad spectrum of people who have confronted the issue because they recognize it as contributing to the wider, decades-long policy of “normalization”: the policy whereby the aberration that is the British presence in Ireland is represented as normal, even natural. A fundamental policy of modern imperialism, normalization (also referred to during the 1970s and 1980s as “Ulsterization”) was also the key strategy behind the 2003 Iraq invasion and occupation, where it became known as “Iraqi-isation”. (1)

 

POWER AND ITS DISCOURSES: FROM BURKE TO KITSON

Burke monument in front of Trinity College, Dublin.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

These ideas and policies can be traced back to Edmund Burke’s conservative political theories, as outlined in his 1790 book, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Here, Burke described the authority of kings as “the natural order of things”, and claimed that the subjugation of people by imperial and monarchical authority was an organic, and therefore just, phenomenon. (2)  In his earlier work, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757), Burke also argued that the natural human response to displays of power should be one of surrender because power and terror, the basic currencies of political authority, were inseparable from one another.

While these ideas have influenced British imperialism and guided its coercionist policies since the late eighteenth century, they were very significantly modernized by the British army Brigadier, Frank Kitson. Having participated in and directed counter-insurgency efforts in Kenya, Malaya, Oman and Cyprus, Kitson updated the sublime object and function of imperial power by urging the state to facilitate its flow through every circuit of military, police and civilian organisation in a thoroughly integrated pattern of oppression and violence.  The key to controlling entire populations, Kitson urged in his 1971 book, Low Intensity Operations, was to ensure that the interests served by state violence should become so normalized as to be obscure, untraceable, unidentifiable, even invisible.

Frank Kitson (now Brigadier) in 1971 (Photo source: Internet)

In doing so, he brought Burke’s theory of the invisibility of power into the modern imperialist age: “To make anything very terrible,” Burke advised, “obscurity seems in general to be necessary”, (3) and state violence is no exception to this very basic rule. Whereas, for Burke, power was best administered from the Olympian position of the aristocracy, Kitson, by 1971, saw the need to co-opt local organizations directly into its grid and to create compliant front-groups (he called these “pseudo-groups”) that were loyal to the deep state. As we have seen since the ceasefire of 1994, these state-funded front organizations have spawned very rapidly, although study of their boards and memberships reveals very familiar patterns and networks of interest.

2017: A NEW START FOR COUNTER-INSURGENCY

Kitson’s policy eventually succeeded with the total integration of Sinn Féin and its party militia into the British establishment, and this is most apparent (for those who look beyond the obscuring veil of Stormont power) in the fusion of their pro-British terror tactics with official policing. However, while this objective has been achieved, total control remains the final objective and, as every reader of Orwell knows, controlling the present depends very heavily on exercising dominion over the past: this is what every colonial power pursues through means of coercion, violence, manipulation and co-option. Through various fronts disguised as “community groups” controlled by Sinn Féin, which is itself controlled by MI5, this policy has been intensively pursued since the mid-1990s on political, economic and cultural fronts. Those who remember the various “peace groups” that emerged to serve British interests during the 1970s and 1980s, many of which were directed by the Officials and their political front, the Workers’ Party, will recognize an emerging pattern here.

The Crown Forces Museum of Unfree Derry is the latest addition to this long line of front organizations working in the service of British state power. Its inclusion of British military and police personnel in its exhibitions is a significant move towards normalizing the brutality and violence unleashed on the people of Derry from the late 1960s (and, indeed, since the inception of the state in 1922), and their present activity should be considered against this longer history of normalization.

The Museum of Free Derry (sic`).
(Photo source: Internet)

Indeed, the museum’s spokesman, Robin Percival, has a long record of service to Sinn Féin front organizations since he first joined the party. Since then, he has been appointed to prominent roles within the Pat Finucane Centre, The Bogside Residents Group (from which he graduated onto the Parades Commission), the Bogside and Brandywell Health Forum, the Gasyard Centre, Cunamh and the Bloody Sunday Trust, as well as this museum. His close friend and colleague at the Pat Finucane Centre, Paul O’Connor, participates in Sinn Féin electoral videos, exposing that organization’s very close ties to the party. During last week’s protest, Percival took photographs of those who had come to voice their opposition to the memorial, and it can only be assumed that these images will be shared with his friends in Sinn Féin (these associations can be seen by checking the organizations’ boards and memberships on the Companies House website).

Robin Percival Poisonous Legacies
Robin Percival of the Museum speaking at an unintentionally somewhat ironically-named conference. (Source photo: Internet)

In a letter sent to the Pensive Quill website in 2014, Percival responded to criticism of the museum’s earlier but unsuccessful plan to build a garden that would commemorate crown forces personnel. He stated: “there never was a plan to construct a memorial garden to include British soldiers in the Bogside…. Nor are there any plans to construct a memorial to include British soldiers now or in the future. The focus of the Bloody Sunday Trust (which manages the museum) is about civilians killed by the state.” Percival publicly announced that he had “no plan to construct a memorial… to include British soldiers in the Bogside.” (4)  However, things can change very rapidly in the world of colonial doublethink, and now he is defending the projection of the names of British personnel on his museum’s walls.

 

THE LONG LINE OF COOPERATORS

Frank Kitson argued that co-option and cooperation are the basic requirements of colonial political control. Percival is among a long line of cooperators, ranging from Paddy Doherty and Brendan Duddy to the present class of professional, managerial “community representatives” and mysteriously-appointed “spokespeople”. While these figures have, largely, been involved in the political and economic management of the people of Derry on behalf of Sinn Féin, Stormont and the British establishment in London, what is novel about this museum it is dedicated to controlling the present through its representation of the past.

The normalization policy outlined by Kitson and the principles that he first proposed in 1971 are very relevant today. The museum operates entirely into line with British policy and represents a watermark of what he termed “civil-military relations” – the conscious fusion of military and civilian interests through long-term “popular projects” serving the occupier’s “single effective policy” : “the necessity for close co-ordination between the civil and the operational effort is apparent to everyone”, wrote Kitson in 1971. It remains so today because it is through this “unity of effect” that oppression becomes normalized and authority internalized by the target population, and how a people’s sense of their own selfhood is softened and eroded. It is the latest manifestation of psychological operations (still abbreviated by militaries, police forces and governments as “psy-ops”): the use of psychological means to distort and undermine a population’s sense of its own place in the world and in history, and to subvert its own understanding of itself. (5)

 

IDENTIFYING THE OPPRESSOR

The museum has a single purpose: encouraging people to identify psychologically with the British army and police, and with the colonial violence that has repressed them for centuries. The British army’s infamous Bloody Sunday Massacre of January 1972 was key to the wider counter-insurgency policy that began in August, 1969, and its impact can still be felt in Derry, over four decades later. The Crown Forces Museum of Unfree Derry is dedicated to convincing the people that they should see something of themselves in the very murderers who shot down children, women and men during this period of particularly brutal state violence. It symbolizes a false and misleading ideology of reconciliation based on the assumption that we have much in common with these professional agents of colonial violence and the structures that they serve.

Last week’s demonstration registered popular refusal to conform to this ongoing process of normalization. The philosophy and practice of liberation that was practiced and displayed four decades ago by the people of Free Derry showed the world that refusal is a very powerful weapon. This protest articulated and renewed that refusal by addressing the still current problem of state violence and the ideological coercion that accompanies it, exposing its acceptance by organizations such as this museum, all of which, ultimately, act in the interests of the state.

Michael Bridge, who was wounded in the Bloody Sunday Massacre 1972, arguing during the protest with Colm Barton of the Museum.
(Photo source: Internet)

The fundamental strategy of any empire is invasion, and this requires a considerable degree of integration on a number of levels, particularly within the cultural, political and psychological spheres. Imperialists occupy the physical territory of the countries that they invade with their military and police forces but they also work hard to colonize the minds of those whose lands they occupy with the relentless propaganda and distortions of the past that are circulated by their local agents. In Derry, however, this is being resisted because there are plenty of minds and imaginations that still remain free.

 

SOURCES:

1. See Paul Reynolds, “Rush to Iraqi-isation”, BBC News, 12th November, 2003 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3263545.stm), accessed 8/6/1017. See also “Letter (declassified): Rycroft to Baker”, 3rd June, 2003, The Iraq Inquiry(http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/212061/2004-06-03-letter-rycroft-to-baker-iraq-prime-ministers-meeting-3-june.pdf), accessed 8/6/2017.
2. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, The Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. 3 (London, John C. Nimmo: 1887), p.296.
3. Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ibid, Vol. 1, pp.131-2.
4. Robin Percival, “No Plan to Construct a Memorial Garden to Include British Soldiers in the Bogside,” The Pensive Quill, Friday, 8th August, 2014 (http://thepensivequill.am/2014/08/no-plan-to-construct-memorial-garden-to.html, accessed 31st May, 2017).
5. Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping (London: Faber and Faber, 1971, reprinted 1991), pp.51-3, 71.