Category: Imperialism

Trump, Ramaphosa and White Power

On By rebelbreezeIn Africa, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Police Violence, Political Analysis, South Africa, Trade unions, Uncategorized, US Imperialism1 Comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (reprinted intact from his substack and reformatted for Rebel Breeze)

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Once more Trump has acted like the lunatic he is and ambushed the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, stating that the country was undergoing a real genocide of whites.

Many have commented on the effrontery of Trump to talk of a fictitious genocide of whites in South Africa, whilst his main ally Israel is carrying out one in real time every day on the news shows.

Trump used images from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country more than 4,500 kilometres away, to show that they were killing whites in South Africa.

Trump also lied about the land question in the country, accusing the government of stealing the whites’ lands when the reality is that the whites continue to be the owners of the greatest part of the land in the country.

It is worth saying that Ramaphosa defended himself partially, and only partially as behind the new legislation on the matter there is the hidden failure of the peace process when it comes to resolving the land question.

When the Apartheid regime was ended, the country was one of the most unequal on the planet and the whites were the owners of the greatest part of the agricultural lands. Around 60,000 whites were the owners of 86% of all the agricultural lands, some 82 million hectares.[1] 

The agrarian reform proposed by the ANC in its White Paper of 1997 was a market-driven reform, i.e. the voluntary sale and purchase with some help from the government without the government being a buyer.[2] Blacks could also ask for the restitution of lands stolen by racist laws since 1913.

A whole land bureaucracy was set up, not unlike what Colombia has, Land Claims Courts where all those who registered could make their case with three possible outcomes, the restitution of the land, the handover of alternative land or a financial compensation.

In 1992, the ANC had put forward a document in which they argued for the expropriation of lands and other non-land market mechanisms. But by 1997 they had accepted neoliberal discourse and adopted the land market as the cornerstone of their policy.[3]

Initially the ANC government had proposed handing over 30% of the agricultural lands held by whites to blacks within five years. But they kept postponing it.

By March 2011, they had handed over 6.27 million hectares, and of that 45% was not agrarian reform, properly speaking, but rather land restitution.[4] The government didn’t just fail regarding land, but on everything. Inequality rose since the fall of Apartheid.

The Gini[5] rose following the end of Apartheid in 1994 and now is situated in 0,67 making it the most unequal country on the planet in terms of income, where just 3,500 people own 15% of all the wealth of the country.[6] 

SA President Ramaphosa looks on while US President ambushes him publicly with alleged ‘evidence’ of persecution of white people in S. Africa (Photo cred: Kevin Lamarque Reuters)

There is also a high concentration of land. “Currently 72% of farms and agricultural holdings are owned by white individuals, who make up 7.3% of the population, while black Africans, constituting 81.4% of the population, own only 4% of the land.”[7]

The whites continue to be the owners of the land, the black middle class through Black Economic Empowerment programmes reached agreements with those whites and the companies in the agricultural sector to integrate themselves into the neoliberal economy.

This is the so-called ‘white capitalism’ and South Africa became a leading country in the agribusiness sector of the continent. In 2015, of the 10 largest agribusiness companies on the continent, eight were South African.[8]

Ramaphosa himself is an excellent example of the new South African businessmen, the former fighters against capitalism who now profit from the blood and sweat of those who were once the grassroots militants of the organisations they led.

Between 1994 and 1998 he acquired a portfolio of more than 40 million Rand[9] (some 8 million dollars at the time) and ended up as an extremely wealthy man (some 700 million dollars) thanks to his controversial investments and acquisitions in the mining sector.

Ramaphosa is also the owner of the McDonalds franchise in the country. The former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers became a magnate in the sector.

In 2013 the Police murdered 34 miners in the midst of a strike at Lonmin, one of the companies where he was a director, being the owner of 9.1% of the company. [10] 

South African police move forward to kill more striking miners at Lonmin 2012 while in background other police stand over miners killed already(Photo cred: Sephiwe Lebeko/ Reuters)

And just like in the times of Apartheid, the Farlam Commission, those charged with investigating the Marikana Massacre found nobody guilty. Nobody! Blood is washed from the hands of a black capitalist just as easy from those of a white capitalist.

When he took over the presidency of the country, there hadn’t been any great advances made regarding agrarian reform there. The failure to meet the promises of the transition and the political programme of the ANC cost them electoral support.

So much so that they now govern the black masses with the support of a white party, the Democratic Alliance, a right-wing party that strongly opposes any expropriation of land without compensation and in practice is opposed to any great change in land policy.

It is in this context that Ramaphosa launched his new campaign and new land law. The ANC say they want to implement the Freedom Charter, but it is not so. Mandela himself had discounted that in his speech to Davos.[11] 

He didn’t explicitly refer to the document but he never again spoke of the nationalisation of resources such as mines and land.

Ramaphosa’s law proposes various measures that already exist in almost all capitalist countries, the expropriation of property with compensation for public purposes or where there is a public interest i.e. the compulsory purchase or as they say in the USA, the heart of capitalism, eminent domain.

These norms exist in almost the entire world. As is the case in many capitalist countries, it also includes elements to reduce the amount of compensation or not pay it.

It is another thing to believe that Ramaphosa aims to do what the ANC never wanted to since the first government. He does not want to fight with so-called white capitalism as he knows that so-called black capitalism is the same thing and one depends on the other.

What Ramaphosa is about is a public relations manoeuvre to strengthen a weakened and discredited ANC. There will almost certainly be more such initiatives. But the ghosts of Marikana tell us that this traitor has no intention of doing anything for the black masses.

Trump talks of a genocide that only exists in the sick mind of Elon Musk and of a land theft that Ramaphosa does not want. If he steals the whites’ lands, who will he sip cognac with then? White power is still in control of South Africa.

It dominates the economy in alliance with the not so new black bourgeoisie, the black apparatchiks that control the scaffolding of the state, and the growing presence of foreign capital.

We all recognise Trump as the enemy and idiot that he is. The problem is that sometimes we acknowledge those he attacks as friends when in reality they are the same enemies, except some are more intelligent, cultured and refined.

Ramaphosa when he was a trade union leader said “There is no such thing as the liberal bourgeois. They are all the same. They use fascist methods to destroy workers’ lives.”[12]

Workers’ blood is washed from the hands of all the capitalists, blacks, whites, Russians, Arabs or Yanks: Ramaphosa in Marikana or Trump everywhere. The whites in South Africa, the Elon Musks have no reason to fear their friend Ramaphosa, despite the stupidities from Trump.

End.

NB: For more articles by Gearóid see https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com

NOTES

[1] Lahiff, E. & Li, G. (2012) Land Redistribution in South Africa: A Critical Review. WB.p.3 https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/28ccc35a-31cd-58ba8d0e-1b65b74b275c/content

[2] Ibíd., p.5

[3] Ibíd., p.8

[4] Ibíd., p.9

[5] The Gini is a measure of inequality where 0 = absolute equality and 1 = absolute inequality.

[6] Valodia, I (2023) South Africa can’t crack the inequality curse. Why and what can be done. https://actsa.org/the-facts-land-reform-in-south-africa/

[7] Actsa (19/02/2025) The Facts: Land Reform in South Africa. https://actsa.org/the-facts-land-reform-in-south-africa/

[8] See ACB (2015) Africa an El Dorado for South Africa’s Agribusiness Giants. https://safsc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SA-Agribusiness.pdf

[9] Bond, Patrick (2000) Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa, London & South Africa, Pluto Press and UNP, End Note No. 7, Chapter 2 page 266.

[10] The documentary Miners Shot Down can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch

[11] See https://www.weforum.org/stories/2013/12/nelson-mandelas-address-to-davos-1992/

[12] Cited in Miners Shot Down.

PKK FINALLY SWALLOWS THE PACIFICATION PILL

On By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Ireland, Kurdistan, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, South Africa, Trade unionsLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The Kurdish group, the PKK announced on Monday that it has disbanded its armed organisation of the last nearly 50 years.1 The change was carried out on instruction or request of their leader Abdullah Ocalan who’s been in a Turkish jail since 1999.

Supporters in Dusseldorf November last year defy German ban to demonstrate and call for release from Turkish jail of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the PKK (Photo credit: AP)

The marxist-leninist PKK set up its armed organisation in 1978 to resist the Turkish state repression of the Kurdish independence movement. The Kurdish area is of huge strategic importance, encompassing parts of what are now Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Azerbaijan.

The population of Kurdistan is estimated at between 30 and 45 million, with up to another two million in its diaspora. The PKK waged armed struggle in Turkey until 1999 then again as the YPG and SDF in Syria, against the Assad regime and against ISIS.

PERSONAL CONNECTION

I was for a time in London myself active in solidarity with the Kurdish national liberation struggle and, as a result, part of a trade union delegation to Turkish Kurdistan around 1991/92, organised through a Kurdish community centre in North London.

The trade union activists participating were required to raise the money for the flights from their union organisations and I was successful in obtaining the necessary funds through the Lewisham Nalgo/ Unison local government branch and through the Nalgo/ Unison Irish Workers Group.2

Our delegation flew to Istanbul and from there to Batman province where the driver, supplied by the Petro-Is trade union took the three of us and our interpreter and photographer to many parts in the region, including to the border with Syria and seeing the oil being smuggled across the Iraq border.

Evidence of the ongoing war between the PKK and the Turkish State was plentiful, including Turkish gendarmerie checkpoints, bullet-riddled walls in towns and a shell hole in the wall of my bedroom in one hotel in which we stayed.

Much worse was the visit to an outlying village house burned by German flame-throwing tank of the Turkish Army and viewing the photos of the children immolated inside.

Turkish secret police visited our driver’s house while he was away, commented to staff of one hotel that we were not tourists (declaring ourselves a trade union delegation would have been asking for trouble) and on our last day kept driving past us and even followed us on to the plane.

Even then I was very concerned at what seemed to me like near deification of Ocalan. Years later, in Bilbao as part of a panel of speakers on national liberation struggles, off the platform the speakers on the Irish, Palestinian and Kurdish resistance discussed issues in the liberation movements.

The Palestinian and I became concerned by the almost violent agreement of the Kurd with everything that Ocalan did or said. We had to abandon all attempts to discuss and debate with him.

PACIFICATION PROCESSES

Pacification processes of various types have been around for centuries but a particular wave of them began to be deployed in the early 1990s, starting with South Africa and Palestine,3 then spreading to Ireland, the Basque Country and Colombia, each affected subject infecting in turn the next.

Typically the subject was told they had to disarm and disband their armed organisation, after which they would be accepted into the system and could organise politically for admission to the ruling political circles through the standard electoral process.

Portraits of eight martyrs of the YPG announced fallen in battle in Afrin against ISIS (note two are female) December 2019 (Source: YPG media)

Of course each subject would have to renounce even the idea of armed struggle or revolution. And would be required to control their own fighters and denounce their dissidents.

It is somewhat surprising that it has taken this long for imperialism to land the PKK fish since Ocalan swallowed the baited hook back in the late 1990s. The war in Syria I suppose extended their armed organisation’s life for a while beyond that which it would have had if confined to Turkey alone.

But their role in Syria in the YPG, whether it began as an independent Kurdish national liberation struggle or not, soon degenerated into leading a US/NATO proxy force, the SDF.4

This March the SDF agreed to integrate into the imperialist proxies’ army of ISIS types led by Ahmad al Shaara (i.e the ‘former’ ISIS leader Jolani), currently being embraced by imperialist leaders while his forces continue to carry out sectarian murders of Syrian Alawites and Druzes.

More recent reports have them, while agreeing to disarmament in Turkey, refusing it in Syria, which makes sense from a self-preservation stance alone, given the nature of the new state’s forces.

We can imagine the imperialist-driven virtual “Pacification Express” in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as it left South Africa and Oslo-Palestine, calling on Ireland and from there to the Basque Country and outward bound to Colombia. Turkish Kurdistan was one of the planned stops.

In not one of the areas of national liberation struggle passed through by the Pacification Express did the liberation organisation win that for which they had declared they were fighting, or indeed anything apart from in some cases the freeing of political prisoners.5

In S. Africa they did at least get ‘majority rule’, so that the leadership of the liberation organisations could form a corrupt imperialist-serving government.6 The Irish travelling on that Express got their prisoners freed but the Kurds and Basques on board did not receive even that.

Supporters YPG and other militias and parties protest threats from Turkey in Afrin, Aleppo province, north Syria 18 Jan 2018 (Source: YPG Press Office/AP)

Whoever the leaders of the Kurds are now, they claim that they continue on the track to democracy and Kurdish national liberation.

Of course they do. The passengers on the Pacification Express always declare that sovereignty and self-determination are the train’s destinations, even if it shows no sign of heading there. And that some of the stations passed on the way are quite clearly on another line completely.

end.

Footnotes

1https://apnews.com/article/turkey-kurdish-militants-disarm-9f4347a04cba48ceb509d2e82023a19e

2This was one of the self-organised groups of NALGO (National Association of Local Government Officers), now subsumed into UNISON but which the union’s leadership refused to recognise and worked to undermine. I had been a founding member. The union leadership tried to get us to change our founding principle of self-determination for the whole of Ireland and when we refused, they worked against us.

3The ‘Oslo process’ which set up the Palestine Authority and the popular rejection of which led to the Second Intifada.

4Even though some anarchist groupings and at least one Irish socialist Republican group refused to see this and focused instead exclusively on the YPG’s anti-ISIS fighting and their federal administration of ‘liberated’ Rojava.

5But not in Turkey or in the Basque Country, nor of the ELN in Colombia.

6As Bishop Tutu, who supported the Process said of Mandela’s ANC: “They stopped the gravy train long enough to get on it.”

Sources

https://apnews.com/article/turkey-kurdish-militants-disarm-9f4347a04cba48ceb509d2e82023a19e

https://thekurdishproject.org/kurdish-ypg-to-lead-new-syrian-democratic-forces/

TO BE LIKE BONO OR KNEECAP?

On By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Song, ZionismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

NB: Edited by Rebel Breeze for formatting purposes

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Kneecap, the Belfast Irish language rap group, have found themselves at the centre of what is an artificially contrived furore dreamt up by people with little sense of real moral outrage.

The basics of the story are well known. They finished off their act at the Coachella event projecting pro-Palestinian statements. Given the band’s history and well-known politics, it could hardly have come as a surprise. Perhaps it was more that the fans welcomed it that upset some.

They were denounced by the non-entity known as Sharon Osbourne, a reality star famous for being the wife of Black Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne and also the mother of another reality star, her daughter Kelly Osbourne.

Kelly to her credit did carve out a brief musical career on the back of her reality tv exposure.

Sharon as part of the wider Zionist attempt to silence all those who criticise the genocide called for their visas to be cancelled, which in effect happened following the decision by their promoter and sponsor to drop them.

She also called for them to be more like Bono. Kneecap responded with a humorously devastating comeback that they would rather be Rangers fans than emulate Bono.

Bono still has some credibility in certain parts, mainly where they haven’t a clue about the man’s actual politics and obviously amongst the clueless, witless, gutless glitterati like Sharon Osbourne. But what would it mean to be like Bono?

Is he actually some sort of reasonable counterweight to Kneecap?

Well, first of all, in relation to Palestine, Bono is a Zionist, so even before the genocide began, he, unlike them, was already on the wrong side of history. Not for the first time, mind you. Bono has a habit of cropping up where he is not wanted like an ugly cold sore (my apologies to the virus).

He has, as Harry Browne, the author of The Frontman: Bono in the name of power, pointed out dedicated a lifetime to the service of imperialism and was rewarded with a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Genocide Joe.[1] 

I am sure it will go well on his mantle piece alongside his KBE (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), for which he was fulsome in his praise of Her Majesty’s Ambassador, as he put it, and grinned like a cheshire cat during the ceremony.[2] 

The claims made by Blair and others about Bono’s achievements were exaggerated, of course. But he is, if nothing, an equal opportunities imperialist and will get around to doing his bit for the others.

The idea that Kneecap would prostrate themselves before the British king is laughable and they wouldn’t be the first artists to reject one, were the Brits ever to mistakenly consider them for it.

The late black poet Benjamin Zephaniah was offered the lesser award of OBE (Order of the British Empire) by the same Tony Blair. He turned it down stating:

I get angry when I hear that word “empire”; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised…

Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire…

If they want to give me one of these empire things, why can’t they give me one for my work in animal rights? Why can’t they give me one for my struggle against racism? What about giving me one for all the letters I write to innocent people in prisons who have been framed? I may just consider accepting some kind of award for my services on behalf of the millions of people who have stood up against the war in Iraq. It’s such hard work – much harder than writing poems.[3]

He also referred to his brother’s death in police custody and to Lizzie II as Mrs Queen, not Her Majesty. A display of dignity.

He pointed out that those who accept such awards, the Queen’s Shilling, though he didn’t use that archaic military expression for those who enlist in the British armed forces to put down uppity types in the colonies, always sell out.

However, calling Bono a sell-out, presumes he was ever anything other than a fan of empire. He tied his mast to the pro-British politics of the Irish chattering classes in the 1980s.

His song Sunday Bloody Sunday was always introduced with the line This is not a rebel song, lest someone think Bono actually had something interesting to say.

The song is quite vacuous though clear in saying he “won’t join the battle cry,” i.e. denounce those who had massacred 14 people on the streets of Derry. The British army is not mentioned once in the song.

You wouldn’t know who had done what, but you know not to point the finger “Cause tonight we can be as one”. John Lennon on the other hand, shortly after the massacre did not hold back.

Is there any one among you
Dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding
When they nailed the coffin lids![4]

Bono couldn’t bring himself to condemn the British army for a televised massacre, so it comes as no surprise that he has little to say about a live-streamed genocide.

He hobknobbed with neoliberals such as Jeffrey Sachs, various presidents of the World Bank, promoted pharmaceutical companies in Africa and of course was on the side of Bush in the Iraq War, at least in practice and helped whitewash the reputations of many of those involved.

He hedged his bets a bit on Iraq, not wanting to seem too hawkish, saying the war was justified but the US should get UN backing for it. He then went on to endorse Clinton and Blair time and again. Jim Kerr from the Scottish band Simple Minds put it succinctly at the time.

How can Bono, having graced concert stages for over two decades, draped in the white flag of peace and screaming ‘No More War’ [sic] at the top of his lungs contemplate praising and back slapping Tony Blair? … I can’t believe that anyone could fail to identify that no matter what gesture Blair may make towards African debt relief, his slippery hands are currently dripping in the fresh warm blood of Iraqi men, women and children.[5]

Bono of course, could and did, and wined and dined with such hawks as Senator McCain. There were no depths to which he would not plummet, which brings us to Palestine.

Shortly after October 7th he endorsed the Zionist genocide by changing the lyrics of his song about Martin Luther King, Pride (In the name of love)[6]to “Early morning, Oct 7, the sun is rising in the desert sky… Stars of David, they took your life but they could not take your pride.”[7] 

As part of the introduction to the reworked song he state “our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence… But our hearts and our anger, you know where that’s pointed.” Not at the Zionist occupiers was the answer. Roger Waters lambasted him for it.[8]

Not only that, he was criticised by Irish singer Mary Coughlan for his links to Israeli companies.[9] He did not fly out to Gaza as he had done in Ukraine, nor did he have much to say.

When he eventually did mention Gaza, he was always careful to lay the blame on Hamas for starting it all, ignoring history since the Nakba in 1948.

A good example of that is his piece in The Atlantic after receiving his Medal of Freedom from Genocide Joe.[10] An exercise in saying nothing, whilst attempting to sound profound, something Ireland’s most famous poisonous dwarf never pulls off.

Kneecap on the other hand have been clear from the word go about their support for the Palestinian cause. It didn’t take a genocide for them to take note. They have consistently been on the side of the oppressed, in this case the Palestinians, against the oppressor the Zionists.

So, Sharon Osbourne should probably stick to what she knows best, which is precious little.

As for Bono, as Harry Browne points out, perhaps nothing sums him up quite so succinctly as a piece of graffiti in Dublin that appeared following the scandal when they moved one of their companies to the Netherlands for tax purposes, “Bono is a poxbottle”.

We need more like Kneecap who stand with the oppressed, and a lot less of Bono and the likes who can’t condemn the powerful ever.

At best you can expect some “We are all guilty type” of fudge, which was the preferred slogan of the Irish trade union bureaucracy when the British or their proxies in the UVF or UDA ever did anything, coming as no surprise that they have also done next to nothing on Palestine other than issue the occasional banal statements.

I fully expect them to turn up with Bono somewhere to chastise Kneecap.

End.

NB: For more articles by Gearóid see https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com

NOTES

[1] Rebel News (07/01/2025) This Song is not a Rebel Song. Harry Browne. https://rebelnews.ie/2025/01/07/bono-this-song-is-not-a-rebel-song/

[2] U2 (29/03/2007) A Knighthood for Bono.  https://www.u2.com/news/title/a_knighthood_for_bono_2110/

[3] The Guardian (27/11/2023) ‘Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought’. Benjamin Zephaniah. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/27/poetry.monarchy

[4] See https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/de82dedc-5090-458f-9212-e894fa53ed21

[5] Browne, H. (2013) Bono The Frontman: In the name of power. London. Verso. Para 8.116

[6] See https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/9b7d1452-8d25-4992-8f18-9e29589b6ce4

[8] The Independent (21/02/2024) Roger Waters brands Bono ‘disgusting’ over Israel speech. Kevin E G Perry. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/roger-waters-bono-israel-gaza-b2498979.html

[9] The Sunday World (13/05/2024) Mary Coughlan ‘lost all respect’ for Bono over alleged links to Israeli companies. Eugene Masterson. https://www.sundayworld.com/showbiz/irish-showbiz/mary-coughlan-lost-all-respect-for-bono-over-alleged-links-to-israeli-companies/a2101784646.html

[10] The Atlantic (04/01/2025) The Gorgeous Unglamorous Work of Freedom. Bono. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/the-gorgeous-unglamorous-work-of-freedom/681212/

[7] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6sD5Lnh4YY

[8] The Independent (21/02/2024) Roger Waters brands Bono ‘disgusting’ over Israel speech. Kevin E G Perry. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/roger-waters-bono-israel-gaza-b2498979.html

[9] The Sunday World (13/05/2024) Mary Coughlan ‘lost all respect’ for Bono over alleged links to Israeli companies. Eugene Masterson. https://www.sundayworld.com/showbiz/irish-showbiz/mary-coughlan-lost-all-respect-for-bono-over-alleged-links-to-israeli-companies/a2101784646.html

[10] The Atlantic (04/01/2025) The Gorgeous Unglamorous Work of Freedom. Bono. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/the-gorgeous-unglamorous-work-of-freedom/681212/

RALLY AND MARCH AGAINST GARDA REPRESSION IN DUBLIN

On By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, NATO, Palestine, Police Violence, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Hundreds gathered Wednesday night near the rear entrance of Leinster House, home of the parliament of the Irish state, in a demonstration organised by Mothers Against Genocide to protest the police attacks on demonstrators of the previous week.

Background

Over four days the previous week the Gardaí, police force of the Irish State, had attacked demonstrators in a number of different locations in Dublin. On Monday the MAGS group at the front entrance of Leinster House was attacked as they neared the end of their overnight vigil there.

The women were calling for Government action to match the will of the Irish population by preventing military supplies sent to Israel through Irish airspace and airports, to end processing Israeli bonds through Irish banks and to institute sanctions against the Zionist Occupation.

MAGS banner in Grafton Street later in the evening. (Source: Participant)

Eleven women and three men were arrested and taken to different Garda stations where a number of women were strip-searched, including one in an apparent cavity search; three men were charged under the Public Order Act and women pressured to accept an official caution.

Two days later, at a protest organised by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Society of the Dublin City University against the official opening visit of the Taoiseach (‘Prime Minister’) to a University building, Gardaí arrested a student for knocking on the window of the building.

On Friday, Gardaí attacked six protesters engaged in a protest at the front entrance to the Belgian Embassy in Dublin, where NATO is represented. The Anti-Imperialist Action protest was against the Irish elite’s attempt to slide the State into membership of the military alliance.

Those protesters were pepper-sprayed into their eyes, forced to the ground, handcuffed and treated so violently that the ankle of one man was broken; the breast of one woman was also grabbed. Two more picketing outside were also arrested, all again distributed around different police stations.

On public order charges, six also on trespass, all eight were brought to a special late court sitting that early evening where a crowd of supporters gathered.

All were bailed on a range of bizarre bail conditions including banned from protesting at Government buildings and a requirement to give 12 hours notice to the Gardaí with details before attending an embassy protest.

Wednesday night’s Leinster House protest

The mood of the crowd of over 500 last night in Merrion Street was militant, being addressed by a woman on behalf of the Mothers group. The crowd was joined by a group flying Starry Plough1 and Palestinian flags, bearing a banner of the AIA and a hand-painted one against NATO.

View of the rally in Merrion Street before the march. (Source: AIA)

The speaker introduced Aileen Malone, mother of Dara Quigley, a well-known blogger some years ago who appeared naked in public while suffering a mental ill health episode. One of the Gardaí dealing with the incident took a video of her and circulated it widely on social media.

Following that public shaming, Dara had taken her own life. Her mother pointed out that the offending Garda, instead of being dismissed, had been allowed to resign and keep his pension. She also condemned the Garda treatment of the women while extolling their courage in resistance.

Another speaker, introduced as representing Jews for Palestine Ireland spoke against the Irish State adopting the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism, the function of which, he stated is to protect the state of Israel against any criticism including regarding its genocide against Palestinians.2

He regretted the diversion from Palestine solidarity entailed in this focus, pointing out that genuine anti-Semitism is to be found among the far-Right while anti-racists and anti-fascists in Palestine solidarity, far from being anti-Semitic are on the contrary active against that variant of racism.

One of the banners at the rally in Merrion Street. (Source: Participant)

A woman from Mothers Against Genocide in Belfast spoke about the history of Irish resistance to colonialism and solidarity with Palestine which had no relation to the Irish Government, vehemently insisting also that being anti-genocide and for human rights is far from anti-Semitism.

Ruth Coppinger, Socialist Party TD, had signalled she wished to speak and was invited to so. She commented on Wednesday’s session in Leinster House when the Garda attack was defended by Mícheál Martin in respect of the right of access to Leinster House.3

A member of the Mothers in Dublin read a solidarity poem she had written and introduced the Resistance Choir, who sang Gonna Let No-one Turn Me Around, a lively song from the US Civil Rights4 movement of the 1960s, followed by slower lament about the Zionist slaughter in Gaza.

The energy in the crowd was dissipating by this point, almost an hour having elapsed and at last the direction to march was given. But where to? It was unclear. Earlier indications had been that one of the Garda stations would be the destination but now the Dept. of Justice was being mentioned.

The slogans shouted were those usually heard at Palestine solidarity events, with calls supporting the Intifada increasingly popular, and even one to Globalise the Intifada! US Warplanes out of Shannon! was another and NATO out of Ireland! was also heard.

Very appropriately also: One, we are the people! Two, We won’t be silenced! Three, Stop the bombing now, now, now, now!

Some banners during the march, seen here on the east side of Stephens Green. (Source: AIA)

The march proceeded, chanting, up Merrion Street, then into Merrion Row, turning left at the Huguenot Cemetery, then along the east side of Stephen’s Green, stopping briefly at the Dept. of Foreign Affairs building, then along the south side to the Dept. of Justice building.

But soon it was on the march again, perhaps heading for the Kevin Street Garda station … But no, along the west side of the Green now, past the Unitarian church where Edward Fitzgerald was married to his French revolutionary wife and then on again down through Grafton Street.

A meeting here was addressed mainly by one speaker, for some reason the crowd repeating his sentences. Not one speaker had yet referred to the attack on the anti-NATO protesters on Friday, much less their bizarre and repressive bail conditions. But perhaps we were heading for the GPO?

No, left and into Dawson Street, up to the Green again, then down Kildare Street to the front of Leinster House. There at last the crowd was addressed on behalf of the Anti-Imperialist Action group regarding the Garda attack on the anti-NATO protesters at the Belgian Embassy.

His talk was interrupted by cries of ‘Shame’ directed at the Gardaí and State. The speaker continued, referencing the resistance history of Irish Republicans and concluded by calling for unity of the Left against repression of any aspect of the Resistance, a call vigorously applauded.

To conclude the evening’s events a display concerning victims of Garda violence was presented, this including the case of Terence Wheelock, a working-class youth who died in Store Street Garda Station as a result of their violence, a crime then covered up by the State.

In Retrospect

It was important and a good act of resistance to organise an emergency protest5 this week and the eventual attendance of around 700 at such short notice was excellent. It is essential to meet repression of resistance with more resistance.

It was noticeable how low the numbers of Gardaí were and although uniformed and a number of plainclothes Special Detective Unit members followed the marchers, at no point did they attempt to stop the marchers or even to line up in numbers to protect the Government offices.

Most of the speakers at the commencing, intermediate and final rallies were clear that the Irish State had made a conscious decision to crack down on solidarity actions the previous week, using physical and sexual violence against activists, and of the need to continue solidarity and resistance.

The commencing rally was however too long and dissipated some of the energy. The lament as the last song just before that march, though no doubt appropriate in some contexts, continued that dissipation.

Coppinger, as a leading member of the Socialist Party was inappropriate as a speaker at the event. The party in the past has opposed boycotts against Israel and South Africa on the spurious grounds that it harms the oppressed people and works against solidarity between progressive settlers.

The Socialist Party also supports the Two-State proposal which would concede 80% of Palestine to the Zionist settlers. Coppinger personally and her party have also publicly condemned the Palestinian Resistance breakout operation of 7th October 2023.

The marching seemingly for ever, at times to symbolic but empty Government buildings was not helpful and most of the people already detest the Government. A good destination would have been at least one of the Garda stations where activists had been held the previous week.

Marching from and to an essentially closed Leinster House and Government buildings runs the risk of replicating the routine marches every month or so of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The value of the Mothers has been their departure from that increasingly sterile practice and continuing in that vein would be a useful contribution to the solidarity movement and resistance in general.

Unity against repression is a historically-proven necessity and, as called for at the final rally last night, increasing unity between newer and longer-lived elements of the Resistance is also needed.

End.

An excellent riposte in the poster slogan/ meeting title. The design is based on the poster against strip-searching Republican women in the 1970s, design by Oisín Breatnach. (Source: Mid-Ulster IPSC)

Footnotes

Sources and further information

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/02/05/ireland-is-signing-up-to-a-definition-of-anti-semitism-that-has-been-used-against-irish-politicians/

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/wexford/wexford-district/demonstration-at-wexford-garda-station-over-alleged-strip-searching-of-mothers-against-genocide-protestors-in-dublin/

1Flag of the Irish Citizen Army, first produced in 1914, the design is based on the Ursa Mayor constellation, including a plough in gold colour, with a sword instead of the ploughshare, all on a green background. A later version of the Republican Congress represents only the stars of the constellation in white on a blue background. The green and gold version was the one flown by the AIA.

2https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/02/05/ireland-is-signing-up-to-a-definition-of-anti-semitism-that-has-been-used-against-irish-politicians/

3This was a spurious defence by the Taoiseach: a) It was before 7am and the Mothers were leaving at 7.30am; b) the pedestrian entrance was not blocked; c) the gates at the rear of the building were not blocked.

4But, like many of those songs, based on an earlier Christian song.

5There had also been an emergency protest outside Leinster House on last week’s Wednesday morning, Kildare Street being blocked for an hour without Garda action.

IRISH STATE RAMPS UP REPRESSION

On By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, NATO, Palestine, Police Violence, Political Analysis2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In the space of four days, Dublin has seen 23 activists in peaceful protests arrested and assaulted by Gardaí as the activists protested the slide of the Irish Gombeen1 ruling class towards NATO and their complicity in the Genocide in Palestine.

Mothers’ Day protest against genocide – 14 arrests

The Mothers Against Genocide group organised a vigil for Sunday night of Mothers’ Day outside Leinster House, seat of the Irish parliament and Government. The intention was to hold the event that evening but for some to remain there overnight, leaving at 7.30am.

At the gates of Leinster House, Kildare Street entrance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Plasticised printed photos of murdered Palestinian children were laid out on the ground with children’s shoes, toys etc spread around symbolically against the main gates with battery-powered ‘candles’ lit among them. Nearby a refreshment stall was set up.

By the advertised starting time of 7pm many had arrived and more kept coming, a very large crowd by nearly 8pm when there were some speeches, a few songs and a poem performed by different people, then a projection was being arranged after 9pm at which point I left.

Crowd at the event as dusk falls, approximately 8pm. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The event was dignified, without even chanting. Policing was very sparse and low-key.

Despite the organisers’ commitment to leave at 7.30am and apparent agreement from the Gardaí present not to interfere with that arrangement, at around 6.00am more Gardaí2 arrived and demanded the clearing of the gates by removal of the icons to the murdered children.

In protest, some of the participants lined themselves up in front of the gates. The Gardaí approached the women, trampling over the photos and symbolic children’s items and began to remove the women, some of them quite violently, resulting in their arrests and those of three men also.

Banner of the organisers at Leinster House wall, Kildare Street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The 14 arrested were taken to different Garda stations where some women were strip-searched, an invasive psychological weapon used extensively by the British Occupation against Irish Republican women during the 30 Years War and still used by them against male Irish Republican prisoners.

All the women were obliged to choose right there and then between accepting a caution under the Public Order Act or to be charged and, under pressure, the women all seem to have been cautioned.

The three men were charged under the Public Order Act and will be obliged to attend the court to be processed. On Tuesday in Leinster House a number of TDs (elected parliamentary representatives) protested the treatment of the arrested. The Gardaí denied having carried out strip-searching.3

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties issued a brief statement to their network in response to the events, outlining the right to protest according to the Irish State’s Constitution:

We’ve heard from a lot of people who are worried by the Garda response this week to a peaceful vigil by Mothers Against Genocide. The fallout from this response along with potential new policing and public order laws and with the prospect of increased surveillance through facial recognition technology, risk undermining this fundamental democratic freedom. Today, as threats grow to restrict protest rights, defending this fundamental democratic freedom is crucial.

Protest isn’t the problem – it’s the solution:

  • You can protest – The Irish Constitution and European law protect peaceful assembly
  • You can film – Documenting interactions with Gardaí is allowed
  • You can’t be moved on without reason – Gardaí must give you a reason when asking you to move

The Irish Constitution guarantees your right to freedom of assembly, subject to public order. However, recent commitments in the Programme for Government have raised alarm.We continue to highlight how measures – including the expansion of police powers, banning face coverings at protest and the introduction of facial recognition technology into Irish policing – endanger our rights and freedoms. 

The display outside the gates of Leinster House, Kildare Street entrance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

On Wednesday morning a protest, composed mostly but not completely of women, at the treatment of people on Monday morning blocked the street outside Leinster House for a period of at least an hour4 without action by the Gardaí.

Protest at complicity of Irish Government in Dublin City University – another arrest

On Thursday evening Tánaiste (equiv. ‘Prime Minister’) Mícheál Martin’s visit to publicly open a building at the Dublin University Campus, accompanied by a heavy Garda presence was met with a protest organised by the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions campaign branch of the University.

One of the students in the protest was arrested apparently for knocking on the window to convey the anger outside to those inside, Gardaí claiming at the time that he was damaging the window. The activist was released on bail amidst a crowd gathering in his support at the Garda station.5

Protest against NATO in the Irish State – 8 arrests

On Friday, a protest against attempts to push Ireland into joining the NATO military alliance was held at the latter’s representative facility in Dublin, the Belgian Embassy. Gardaí were very quick to respond and indeed had accosted and assaulted two of the participants a little earlier.

Protesters and Gardai in doorway of Belgian Embassy just before the attack of the latter on the former. (Photo source: Anti-Imperialist Action)

Six protesters lined up against the Embassy entrance at the Anti-Imperialist Action event were pepper-sprayed into their eyes and brutally assaulted, as were another two outside. As with those arrested on Monday morning, they were held in three different police stations in the city.

One of protesters, face down on the ground with his arms handcuffed behind his back, had his legs forced up behind, breaking his ankle.

(Photo source: Anti-Imperialist Action)

Supporters arrived to picket the police stations. After a few hours the arrested were taken to court, where supporters congregated also as the detained were processed for a late sitting of a judge. The charges were of criminal trespass or Public Order Act violation, both together for some.

In court they had legal representation and all were bailed in their own recognisance of 500 euro, which seemed fairly routine but the bail conditions were anything but. They were required to give 12 or 24 hours’ notice to the Gardaí of attending an embassy protest, supplying the details of the event!

(Photo source: Anti-Imperialist Action)
(Photo source: AIA)

The conditions for some included a ban on attending any state’s embassy in Dublin or demonstrating at any Irish Government building, while another is required to give notice – also of 12 hours — if crossing into the State from the Six Counties.

Facing a prospect of being locked up for the weekend otherwise, they did not decline the conditions for the moment and were released to meet a crowd of supporters outside the court in the early evening. As they lined up for a photo, all sang part of the Irish language Gráinne Mhaol song by Patrick Pearse.

The arrested and supporters outside the court after the former were released on bail. (Photo: D. Breatnach)

Repression of Palestine solidarity throughout the Western World

Throughout the Western world the response to the genocide being carried out in Gaza has had similar features: The complicity of the ruling classes, solidarity with the Palestinians of sections of the masses and the consequent repression by the ruling elites.

Within the territory of the Irish State the response of the masses has been marked in active solidarity with and public sympathy for the Palestinians, with little repressive action by the Irish State despite the proven collusion of the Irish ruling class.

The indications from this week are that the latter situation is changing and repression is being ramped up. This in turn indicates that the neo-colonial Irish ruling class feels threatened by action in Palestinian solidarity, other than routine marches through Dublin every month or so.

It is removing the liberal gloves and revealing the underlying sharp claws of a class that gained a state created in collusion with the British occupation to divide the country and to repress and control the insurrectionary forces upon the backs of which that neo-colonial class rode to power.

During the Civil War,6 the Irish state executed many more revolutionary fighters than had the British during the War of Independence7 and has executed a number since. Huge numbers have been imprisoned over years and it has colluded in covering for the bombers of its own capital city.

Where there is oppression, history teaches us, there will also arise resistance but that in turn usually results in more repression. Resistance rises to meet that repression and the movement must organise to educate, organise and unite that resistance, going forward until the masses achieve victory.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES & FURTHER INFORMATION

Press: https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2025/04/01/women-protesting-outside-leinster-house-strip-searched-one-subjected-to-cavity-search/

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-deny-woman-was-cavity-searched-after-leinster-house-gaza-protest/a711142261.html

DCU University Times: https://universitytimes.ie/2025/04/dcu-student-arrested-during-campus-protest-against-taoiseach-micheal-martin/

Mothers Against Genocide: https://www.instagram.com/mothersagainstgenocide

AIA https://anti-imperialist-action-ireland.com/blog/2025/04/06/republican-anti-nato-protest-violently-attacked-by-free-state-in-dublin/

1A term somewhat equivalent to ‘carpetbagger’ describing opportunists amassing wealth through taking advantage of people’s misfortunes. Its origins are in the Irish language Gaimbín, applied to such Irish capitalist financiers during and in the wake of the Great Hunger of the mid-19th Century, now used to describe the neo-colonial capitalist Irish bourgeoisie.

2 The (mostly) unarmed police force of the Gombeen Irish ruling class.

3https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2025/04/01/women-protesting-outside-leinster-house-strip-searched-one-subjected-to-cavity-search/

4Though underplayed in the report by the Irish Independent, which also sought to bolster Gardaí denial of strip-searching: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-deny-woman-was-cavity-searched-after-leinster-house-gaza-protest/a711142261.html

5https://universitytimes.ie/2025/04/dcu-student-arrested-during-campus-protest-against-taoiseach-micheal-martin/

61922-1923

71919-1921

IRISH GOMBEEN RULING CLASS STEPS UP REPRESSION

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Police Violence1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Twenty-three activists arrested at three different Dublin events between Monday and today (Friday). Three women reported being strip-searched. Six activists were pepper-sprayed into the eyes.

Oppression leads to resistance; the system responds with repression. But repression can also lead to resistance.

Reports to follow.

PACKED PICKET PROTESTS IRISH GOVERNMENT MILITARY ALLIANCE AGENDA

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Mass Media Criticism, Song, Song in Struggle, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

A packed picket yesterday evening protested plans of the Irish Government to sidestep the “Triple Lock” in the Irish State’s Constitutionin order to proceed to committing the State’s armed forces to a western imperialist military alliance.

Contrary to the belief of many, the Irish State is not constitutionally bound to neutrality but there is a constitutional defence against a Government making an executive decision to send its armed forces into a foreign conflict and it is this that is known as the “Triple Lock”.1

As things stand at present, in order to send more than 12 Irish armed forces on a military mission abroad (e.g. as peacekeepers), the conflict response would need to be approved

  • not only by the Irish Government but
  • also by the Oireachtas (the Irish Parliament)
  • and by the United Nations.

However legislation of the Cabinet is being drafted to change the number from 12 to 50 which many see as the thin edge of a wedge to gradually widen the gap through which the Armed Forces can be employed in conflicts abroad alongside imperialist forces of NATO or the EU.

I joined the protest yesterday evening for a little over an hour. Most of the participants were packed behind banners on the southern side of the main gates of Leinster House so that photos don’t perhaps give a true impression of the numbers.

The main and very long banner bore the slogan We serve neither King nor Kaiser, recalling the words on a banner displayed on the Irish Transport and General Workers’ HQ, Liberty Hall, in 19142. More problematic were the United Nation flags waved by a few, some also wearing blue berets.3

In addition there were a number of Palestinian flags and, indeed, the politicisation and drive to activity of the Palestine solidarity movement does seem to be having a spill over into other issues in Ireland. Surprising perhaps was the number of flags of the Social Democrats party.

Another banner called for “Peace keepers, not military groups”. “Peace-keeping” in UN deployment can often mean stabilising the imperialist status quo in regions and the inaction of the UN leadership in response to the genocide in Palestine by some of its members has been shocking.

On the northern side of the gates there were two protesters in hospital scrubs, displaying a Palestine national flag and a large placard bearing the image of Dr. Abu Safiya, Director of Kamala Adwan Hospital in Gaza who was taken from there on 27 and January and disappeared for a time.

Dr. Abu Safiya was later traced to the notorious Sde Teiman Detention Centre in Israeli custody, then Ofer Prison where his lawyer finally gained access to him and reported recently that the Doctor has a number of broken ribs and was being refused treatment for his heart condition.4

On 25th March Dr. Abu Safiya’s sentence of six months administrative detention, effectively internment without trial, was confirmed by an Israeli Court on the basis of alleged documentation that, as is the rule in such cases, neither Dr. Abu Safiy nor his lawyer were permitted to see.5

On 25th October Dr. Abu Safiya’s 15-year-old son Ibrahim was killed by an Israeli drone strike on the hospital’s entrance.

One can only imagine the furore to which such a case would give rise if the detaining authority were one of which the Western Powers did not approve: A Doctor? Head of a Hospital arrested? Broke his ribs? Sent him to jail without a trial or allowed to see the evidence? Murdered his son?!

Vigil in hospital scrubs presumably for Dr. Abu Safiya’s safety and release. Also numbers of Gardaí in response to the main demonstration. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

No doubt many who would have joined the health workers in solidarity protest were in the other group protesting an attempt to have the Irish state join imperialist war ventures.

JOINING NATO

The crowd were kept lively with songs, speeches and a series of caller-and-response chants of which I can only recall the following:

Caller: From Letterkenny to Killarney —
Crowd: We don’t want your EU army!
Caller: From Dublin, Cork or Donegal —
Crowd: No to NATO, No to War!

Caller: You can’t fool us with your lies —
Crowd: We won’t send our kids to die!

TD6 Paul Murphy of the People Before Profit – Solidarity party addressed the crowd at one point. Among the songs performed by Jimi Cullen were You Fascists Bound to Lose and his own We Are All Palestinians and I sang Pearse’s verses of Gráinne Mhaol, the crowd joining the chorus.

Jimi Cullen performing his We Are All Palestinians; in the background Fae Clarke who also sang. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Government, some other politicians and the media have for some time been building up a propaganda picture depicting Ireland as vulnerable to invasion by the Russian Federation and this has intensified with the USA’s Trump Administration’s comments about its contribution to NATO.

Even the blowing up of the Russian Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany7 – clearly an action that most benefited the USA, which also had the most opportunity and means to achieve — was used by the media to whip up fears of Russian (!) attacks on subsea cables to and from Ireland.

The war in the Ukraine was also used not only to drum up support for the US/NATO proxy Kyiv regime but to whip up fear of the Russian Federation and to suggest that rather than defending itself against US/NATO encirclement, the aim was to gradually invade all of western Europe.

The presence of a Russian Trawler in the Irish sea was also used in this regard with the assumption that it was spying on Ireland. If indeed spying, why could it not have been on the UK? Anyway, we are being intensely spied upon daily by at least the UK and USA as it is.

The irony of seeking to join the Irish State with NATO, of which the UK is a prominent member, seems to have escaped the intelligence of the Irish elite: a state which has been at war with the Irish people for 800 years and is currently in armed occupation of one-sixth of its territory.

The only Starry Plough flag I observed, here held by myself. ((Photo taken by a participant)

Indeed it may occasionally occur to some that Ireland could easily be thought of as Ironyland as on-line Irish-based media The Ditch not long ago revealed that the Irish Government secretly agreed to have the UK’s Royal Air Force patrol Irish skies for the State’s protection.

The Government refused to confirm or deny this even to an FOI request by a Senator Craughwell, who sought and was granted leave on 18 March to challenge that refusal in the High Court, despite an Irish Government defence that boiled down to: We don’t have to tell if we don’t want to.

More will come to light on this as time goes on and perhaps also about another Ditch revelation, i.e about arms for the genocidal Zionist state being flown through Irish airspace. And of course there is the open secret scandal of US military flights being refuelled at Shannon International Airport.

Another view of a section of the protest showing how closely they were packed. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

EU INSTEAD OF NATO?

The softer option to NATO might seem to join some European joint military organisation but the EU is dominated by imperialist states such as Germany — which is second supplier in quantity of arms to ‘Israeli’ Zionism’s genocide in Palestine — and France has colonies in parts of the world.

In addition, France, Spain, Italy and the UK contain other conquered nations which have at various times agitated for greater or total independence and it is standard practice since Imperial Roman times to send troops from different areas to quell unrest in regions.

Irish troops in an EU joint force could be sent to put down uprisings in Catalonia, the Basque Country or Sardinia, while Spanish, French or Italian troops might be deployed on our streets in protests upon which Irish soldiers might be reluctant to fire.

Or all could be happily deployed together against the oppressed people of the Middle East, Africa or Asia, in all of which most EU states, if not all, have economic, political and strategic stakes.

This struggle against the incorporation of the Irish State into western imperialist armed forces has been going on for years, alternating between greater and lesser periods of intensity but it may that for reasons in the international arena it is once again entering an intense phase.

At last week’s Wednesday evening’s protest there were less than 20 participating throughout; last night there were a couple of hundred present, some at quite short notice. The organisers announced tthat they intend these protests to take place daily for the near future.

End.

View northward close along the protest. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

FURTHER INFORMATION

https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2025/0305/1500465-triple-lock/
https://www.thejournal.ie/state-loses-bid-to-block-senators-case-over-secret-air-policing-deal-with-royal-air-force-6652574-Mar2025/

1Article 29, section 4, subsection 9° of the Irish constitution:

The State shall not adopt a decision taken by the European Council to establish a common defence pursuant to Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union where that common defence would include the State.

While Article 29.4.9° does not explicitly mention a referendum, the constitutional framework as a whole ensures that the government cannot join a common defence system without the consent of the Irish people, as expressed through a referendum.

This was originally inserted by the 2002 amendment ratifying the Treaty of Nice, updated by the 2009 amendment ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon. An earlier bill intended to ratify the Treaty of Nice did not include a common defence opt-out, and was rejected in the first Nice referendum, in 2001. (Wikipedia)

2The Irish Citizen Army was photographed in 1914 drawn up in front of Liberty Hall beneath the banner reading: We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland.

3The United Nations is a profoundly undemocratic and imperialist-dominated institution. Its only enforceable decisions are those made by five Permanent Members of the Security Council: the UK, France, United States, Russian Federation and China, each of which can nullify a decision by use of its veto. Its failure to act to prevent the genocide in Palestine, in which two of its members, the UK and USA are directly assisting, has been a disappointment to many.

4On 11 February 2025, Abu Safiya was allowed to meet his lawyer in Ofer Prison, located in the occupied West Bank. During their meeting, he reported being subjected to various forms of torture and abuse, including being forcibly stripped, tightly shackled, and forced to sit on sharp gravel for hours. He also endured violent physical assaults, such as beatings with batons and electric shock sticks. Abu Safiya described being held in solitary confinement for 25 days, during which he was subjected to nearly constant interrogation for 10 days. Despite multiple requests for medical care, Israeli authorities denied him treatment for his heart condition.[12][13]

5https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250326-israeli-court-upholds-6-month-detention-of-dr-abu-safiya/

6Teachta Dála, elected public representative to the Irish Parliament.

726 September 2022.

DUBLIN SEES LARGE PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MARCH ALSO FASCIST PROVOCATION AND GARDA REPRESSION

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, Police Violence, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Dublin city centre on Saturday witnessed another giant Palestine solidarity march with a breakaway group; also a picket against internment of Irish Republicans; fascist provocations and Gárda repression resulting in the arrest of a demonstrator.

The national demonstration march had been called by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign as part of a solidarity and protest pattern that included fortnightly Dublin marches last year but is now generally monthly and at times with other events in addition.

One of the banners just having crossed O’Connell Bridge on the IPSC-organised march (Sourced: IPSC Facebook)

Numbers on these marches in a city of only around 1.5 million population are impressive, though they draw on some participation from outside Dublin but there also regular local pickets and demonstrations of much smaller numbers at locations of high visibility or of specific significance.1

The march set off from the Garden of Remembrance in the north city centre proceeding towards Leinster House, seat of the parliament of the Irish State, near O’Connell Bridge passing a picket with an anti-Internment banner organised by the Anti-Imperialism Action organisation.

Anti Imperialist Action displaying a banner against extradition to the passing Palestine solidarity march. (Photo sourced: Anti Imperialism Action Leinster FB page)

As the march reached the non-pedestrianised stretch of Grafton Street a half-dozen fascists made their presence felt on the sidelines by throwing insults at a section of the marchers, who responded with louder From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! and antifascist slogans.

Not just the Irish state but fascists and other far-Right elements in Ireland have a real problem with Palestine solidarity, claiming that’s because the protesters should be marching for Ireland. However those elements for the most part have zero track record in marching for Irish independence.

No, for them ‘Irish nationalism’ consists of demonstrating against immigration and burning buildings intended – or which they believe intended – for housing refugees. Clearly as fascists and far-Right what they detest about marches such as these is internationalist solidarity itself.

Placard calling for what is surely the minimum we have the right to expect from the Irish Government, followed by some of the placards of Mothers Against Genocide. (Photo sourced: IPSC FB page)

Incongruously for those who want only internal causes upheld, the fascists of the Loyalist variety in the occupied Six Counties uphold the Zionist state of ‘Israel’ and those inside the Irish state, as was seen in Dublin on Saturday too, laud and uphold as an example Donald Trump!

BREAKAWAY2

Mock Icon of Irish Central Bank carried against processing Israeli Bonds (Source photo: IPSC FB page).

Very shortly after the verbal exchange with the fascists, a section of the march diverted to walk up the pedestrianised section of Grafton Street. A couple of Gardaí, reinforced by the fascists, attempted to prevent this but the marchers flowed around the obstruction to continue up the street.

On Wednesday evening, some of those present had marched down that very street on their way to occupy O’Connell Bridge, bringing traffic in both directions to a halt for half an hour.3

Further along the pedestrianised street the breakaway, including Ireland Action for Palestine and Saoirse Don Phalaistín groups, joined with another section of marchers who had earlier broken away from the IPSC march, this one led by the Mothers Against Genocide banner.

The shouted slogans from what were broadly two differing sections tended to merge with regard to calls to stop the bombing, opposition to genocide and broad support for Palestine but differed in that one section was also calling for support for the Palestinian Resistance and resistance generally.4

Content of slogans from the groups differed less markedly in calling for Irish Government intervention in support of Palestine, with the ‘Mothers’ mostly demanding the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill5 and others condemning Government collusion in Shannon Airport.

The whole breakaway mass marched along South Stephens Green and turned north into Dawson Street, to pause inside the junction with Molesworth Street, where the tail of the main march, was already beginning to reduce although speakers and artists were performing on the IPSC platform.

Molesworth Street facing Dawson Street after the breakaway sections arrived and before the later incidents. (Source: R. Breeze)
View of the IPSC-organised march at its destination, the Garda barriers in Molesworth Street across the road from the entrance to Leinster House. (Photo: R. Breeze)

On Dawson Street, across from the junction, the fascists had installed themselves, including a man in a red ‘Trump’ hat waving a “Make America great again” flag.

Two known fascists from the group trying to harass Palestine solidarity marches from Grafton Street to Dawson Street. (Photo sourced: AFA https://www.facebook.com/afaireland)

The Palestine solidarity protesters here – some distance from the diminishing main march crowd,6 with some IPSC stewards standing watching nearby, responded to the fascists’ jeers and Trump fan with jeers of their own, slogans and some bursts of song.7

According to a report form Anti-Fascist Action observers nearby and posted later that day, a senior Garda officer approached one of the fascists and had a quiet word with them, after which the fascists packed their banner and went away quietly smiling while the Public Order Unit arrived.

Soldiers of the master race (ehem) packing up after notification from their friend in the Gardaí that the POU would soon be deployed against some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators. (Photo sourced: AFA Ireland)

These then began to aggressively push the demonstrators back towards Molesworth Street and as a demonstrator remarked it was the POU that were now blocking Dawson Street to traffic.

Soon the Gardaí seemed to decide to arrest one of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators and charged into the crowd, shoving, knocking down and even punching people who resisted strongly or just held on to the intended victim as long as they were able to.

A woman struck back at a POU man who had seized her by the throat but even so it took the intervention of one of his unit to get him to release his hold. The marks of his hand on her throat could be seen afterwards. Interestingly a press report later stated the Gardaí denied there was any incident.

( https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/cofounder-irish-government-dublin-ireland-international-holocaust-remembrance-alliance-b1218253.html)

Eventually the Gardaí succeeded in their intent and the protester was taken away to chants of Let him go! Numbers of the main march were dwindling greatly by this point but so were those of the breakaway section and people there were concerned to support their arrested comrade.

One of three police stations was the likely destination: Store Street, Pearse Street or Kevin Street. It was established that he was held at the latter station and was later released, given a few days to decide, under the Public Order Act whether to accept a caution or to be charged and face trial.

More confrontations of various sorts are likely as the Zionist genocide in Palestine ratchets even higher and frustration mounts at the Irish Government’s persistent refusal to end their collusion with the Zionist state and with its main supplier, US imperialism.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Mostly by organisations not part of the IPSC.

2Breakaway actions by groups often take place when they seek another target to that of the march organisers or to spread the visual and auditory impact of the demonstration or to break the ‘normalisation’ pattern, as when protesters feel the IPSC leadership is organising set marches of minimum disruption, on routes agreed with the Gardaí (which is not legal requirement in the Irish state).

3See https://rebelbreeze.com/2025/03/21/dublin-traffic-clogged-up-as-palestine-solidarity-protesters-march-around-city-centre

4There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime!

5 Agreed years ago in the Irish Parliament before but prevented from enactment by successive coalition Governments.

6As soon as the IPSC march arrives numbers always begin to leave, either to commence return home journeys or because they feel they are not going to hear anything new and their contribution was to be part of a visible mass, which they have now done.

7The Irish-language Gráinne Mhaol and English-language Come Out Ye Black n’ Tans.

DUBLIN TRAFFIC CLOGGED UP AS PALESTINE SOLIDARITY PROTESTERS MARCH AROUND CITY CENTRE

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Evening traffic in Dublin’s southside city centre came to a halt as Palestine solidarity demonstrators, frustrated by the collusion of the Irish Government with the Zionist genocidal massacres, marched from Leinster House to block O’Connell Bridge.

The early evening protest for Wednesday at Leinster House was called by Collective Action for Palestine. It is not certain whether this is an actual organisation or a flag of convenience for a collection of solidarity groups and certainly many of those present were identifiable from different groups.

An early view of the Wednesday evening rally outside Leinster House (see in the background), home of the Irish Parliament. (Photo source: Journal)

This included, from their banners, Mothers Against Genocide and Irish Jews Against Genocide but among the hundreds present, activists of other organisations such as Action for Palestine Ireland, Saoirse don Phalaistín, Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland and Social Rights Ireland were in evidence.

The People Before Profit party, which would usually mobilise strongly for marches called by the IPSC, did not have a noticeable present, which may reflect a lack of contact with the organisers of yesterday’s event or a lesser ability to mobilise quickly.

Irish Republican organisations were also not noticeably present, with the exception of the AIA mentioned earlier.

The protesters’ rage and frustration was lit by images of dead and injured Palestinian children in the return to genocidal bombing of Gaza by the ‘Israeli’ armed forces, once again violating their ceasefire agreement, along with besieging and ethnic cleansing of cities of the West Bank.

The previous night Zionist state bombing had killed 414 Palestinians, including 174 children, and hospitalised over 550 more.

The marchers called for action from the Government, such as imposing sanctions on Israel in general and enacting the rather mild Occupied Territories Bill, approved by both Houses of the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) but seven years since, still sitting in a drawer; awaiting enactment.

Those calls have been repeated week after week, month after month in the final months of 2003 and throughout last year but only words of concern from Government ministers resulted, followed by friendship visits to the very supplier of the Zionists’ weapons of genocide.

Successive governments of the ruling class of the ‘neutral’ Irish State have actively colluded too in genocide through refusing to bar Irish airspace to Zionist military supply flights1 or to monitor and prevent US military flights through Shannon airport.

Still as true today, unfortunately, as it was in August last year.

MARCH AROUND SOUTHSIDE CITY CENTRE

From outside Leinster house the protesters proceeded southwards up Kildare Street, turning right to flank Stephens’ Green, where they paused to chant more slogans and display banners and placards to stopped Luas trams before then turning northward into Grafton Street.

The solidarity protest rally becomes a march, proceeding southward up Kildare Street. (Source photo: Irish Independent)

In that pedestrianised shopping street the march stopped near one of the many buskers regularly performing there, apparently Italian who launched into an amplified rendition of a celebrated song from the Italian antifascist tradition, Bella Ciao, with many of the marchers joining in.

The northward march continued with stops up Westmoreland Street, where the clientele of a pub came out to cheer and applaud the marchers. Then on to the southern end of O’Connell Bridge, occupying both southward and northward-bound lanes with traffic blocked in both directions.

Indeed the traffic was soon backed up southward around Stephens Green and to the north, up to Dorset Street. On the Bridge, flares were lit and the crowd heard speeches of protest interspersed with solidarity slogans. Many passers-by expressed support, some stopping to participate.

A protester lights a flare as the march proceeds northward along Grafton Street. (Photo source: Participant)

What was most unusual indeed was that during the half hour or so that the marchers remained there, no angry beeping of horns nor shouts of impatience were heard from drivers of private cars or from passengers in public transport buses.

The crowd left, marching west along Dame Street, northward at Georges Street South and Aungier Street, then left to march along Stephens Green North, pausing outside the HQ of the Department of Foreign Affairs, where the Gardaí scuffled with some protesters.

Section of the protest on O’Connell Bridge. (Photo source: Participant)

The protesters then returned to Kildare Street to the seat of the Irish Parliament, Leinster House where they concluded the evening’s event.

A couple of hundred protesters had achieved, one might argue, more than many thousands on regular national marches of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, in terms of public exposure and paralysis of city traffic in several directions, therefore putting pressure on the Irish Government.

Section of the march in Grafton Street. (Photo source: Participant)
Grafton Street: Gardaí wondering where the marchers are heading and what going to do. (Photo source: Participant)

As a tactic this has much to recommend it. My opinion is that one has to time the length of remaining in each location just right to maximise the disruption while reducing the impact on people at each spot to a tolerable degree.

The movement needs to further awake people and to shake the elite but it also needs to minimise the impatience of people returning home from a day’s work or indeed travelling to begin their night shifts, or hurrying to meet others by arrangement.

They are not the enemy nor do we wish to make them so.

A narrower view of the temporary occupation of O’Connell Bridge. (Photo source: Participant)

I would also criticise the reciting of an amplified prayer on O’Connell Bridge. The solidarity movement is secular and no section of it has the right to impose prayer upon all or to represent the whole as religious –whether Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu or any other.

SLOGANS

All or most of the slogans one hears on Palestine solidarity demonstrations in Dublin (and endorsed by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign) were shouted but so were others in addition such as There is only one solution – Intifada Revolution! And No peace on stolen land!

A group of Anti-Imperialist Action photographed during the O’Connell Bridge occupation. (Photo source: Participant)

Others included Resistance is an obligation – in the face of occupation! From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! Brick by brick, wall by wall – The colonies will fall! It’s hard to imagine the IPSC leadership, whatever they might think privately, endorsing those slogans in public.

Although the last slogan might not be seen as specifically referring to Ireland, there was also one in the Irish language which is now common among native Irish and many of migrant background, Saoirse don Phalaistín! And the unequivocal From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime!

Ceasefire now! resurfaced from time time and though a good call when the Resistance is calling for it, can be problematic when they are not, as with the end objective being liberation, do we have the right to call on the Resistance to cease fighting, even if the Occupation ceases temporarily?

Another problematic call for example is Mícheál Martin, do your job! because in fact members of the Irish Government are doing exactly their job, which is to manage the contradiction between the peoples’ wishes and the needs of the neo-colonial Gombeen ruling class in favour of the latter.

Sanctions Now! is a call with very wide support across revolutionary and non-revolutionary sectors – the division is more around whether periodic marches to Leinster House for example is likely to achieve that or whether more radical action is necessary to pressure the elite to enact them.

The march pauses along Stephens Green North (the Green is out of sight to right of photo). (Photo source: Participant)

The demands of the Government, i.e representing the ruling class, are not revolutionary or even huge: to apply sanctions (economic, cultural and political) against the genocidal entity and to cease permitting Irish airports and neutral Irish airspace to be used in supporting genocide.

The genocidal entity cannot hurt the Irish state much directly. Of course, its main backer, the United States, is another matter. But then, if principle is not enough, the Irish elite could calculate that during the current split between the EU and the USA might be the best moment to take that step.

End.

FOOTNOTE:

1https://www.ontheditch.com/as-idf-resumed-bombing/

Demonstrators scale an ornamental lamppost during the O’Connell Bridge occupation, erecting a Palestine national flag bearing the legend “Saoirse Don Phalaistín” (‘Freedom for Palestine’). (Photo source: Participant)

DUBLIN COURTS INCREASINGLY TRYING POLITICAL CASES

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Housing Struggle, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The CCJ (Criminal Courts of Justice) in Parkgate Street, Dublin, are seeing an increase in political cases in recent weeks with activists in housing and Palestine solidarity as well as Irish Republicans fighting extradition to the British colony.

Eoghan Ó Loingsigh, who made the mistake of asking a Garda for his badge number while they were carrying out an eviction, appeared there in February only to see his case thrown forward to June.

Picket anti-extradition display by Anti-Imperialism Action outside Heuston Station in February. (Photo: R.Breeze)

Another housing activist’s charge of attempting to break into an empty property was dismissed. The property in question, empty for a number of years is leased to the Salvation Army and three years ago two RHL1 activists were evicted from it by 100 Gardaí (some armed) with helicopter support.

Jack Brazil, a Palestine solidarity activist whom the Gardaí are trying, believe it or not, to tie into the racist and criminal riots of November last year, had yet another appearance in court without trial as he’s still trying for CCTV footage from Gardaí to support his alibi for the night.

At least the remaining bail restriction on Brazil was lifted: at the outset he had to sign on at Mountjoy Garda station once every week, observe a curfew of 12am-6am and not to loiter at any point in the Dublin city centre (D1 and D2). His case is now remanded to 26 March.

Jack Brazil (in the suit) and other Palestine solidarity activists outside the CCJ after Brazil’s most recent appearance there. (Photo: R.Breeze)

Jim Deneghan had a number of court appearances fighting extradition to the Six Counties on foot of charges alleging an act during the 30 Years War there – fifty years ago. He was unsuccessful and it appears that the only avenue open to him now would be to challenge it in the High Court.

Should they even grant him leave to do that which is not always the case.

Some of the AIA-organised anti-extradition banner drop on the Fairview pedestrian bridge hold up placards against extradition. (Photo: R.Breeze)

Another extradition case has been dealt with in the Special Criminal Court, which is located within the same building as the CCJ, distinguished from other courts by the glass-enclosed reception ‘box’ through which one must pass to gain entry, first satisfying ‘security’ provisions.2

Sean Walsh has been fighting extradition to the UK’s Irish colony, the Six Counties on a charge of membership of an armed Republican organisation, which is deemed illegal on both sides of the British Border. He is in custody in Portlaoise awaiting a decision from the ECHR in Brussels.

Independent Dublin Republicans organised solidarity pickets outside the court on the mornings of Denneghan’s appearances, while Anti-Imperialist Action held a picket against extradition outside the nearby Heuston Train Station and a more recent banner drop on the Fairview Pedestrian Bridge.

Picket organised by Independent Dublin Republicans outside court where extradition of Jim Deneghan (Centre, next to State Harp) was being decided in February. (Photo sourced: IDR Facebook page)

The CCJ courts, in particular those on the ground floor are extremely busy with what seems at times like industrial-scale processing of setting further dates for court appearances, granting or refusing bail, requiring ‘discovery’ and other documentation from the Gardaí and some sentencing.

The human subjects of these proceedings are mostly from what might be termed the under-class of Dublin with some migrants added for good measure. Most face charges of possession of drugs, anti-social behaviour, threatening behaviour, theft and breach of bail conditions.

A huge amount of court, lawyer and Garda time is taken up with processing people accused under these charges. On the other hand the processes also interfere hugely with the normal lives of those charged and in addition, in the case of political activists, disrupt some of their legal activity.

And can cost them loss of pay and even threaten their employment. Which might be deliberate on the part of the system or if not, at least something those who manage it will not regret.

Banner drop by AIA from Fairview pedestrian footbridge. (Photo: R.Breeze)

The sheer number of that social group being processed through the courts daily is an indication of something really wrong with Irish society and which worsens even through generations, while the major reaction of the State is to maintain the social conditions and repress its victims.

By and large the middle class only come into contact with that element of society when they are prosecuting or defending them in court, or professionally dealing with them in hospital or social services environments.

It is also where many of those who are trying to change the prevailing social and economic conditions, i.e political activists, will first rub shoulders with that group while next to them on court seating benches. Unless the political repression goes a step further and they meet in jail.

End.

1Revolutionary Housing League which had renamed the building, on Eden Quay, ‘James Connolly House’.

2The non-jury SCC was established under an Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act, pushed through Leinster House by Fianna Fáil amidst collapse of its opposition during a panic caused by (British Intelligence) terrorist bombing of Dublin in 1972 killing two and maiming many. The scene of many unjust decisions, its most famous was the conviction of the innocent ‘Sallins Four’ when the SCC was based at Green Street, appropriately enough the scene of many injustices under the British occupation, including the death sentence on Robert Emmet after his famous speech. The existence of the SCC is opposed by Amnesty International and Irish civil rights organisations and, until a few years ago, by the majority political party in Ireland, Sinn Féin, which no longer opposes it.