Basque Solidarity for Corsican Patriot Murdered in French Jail

On March 28, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Liberación Nacional, National Liberation, País Vasco, Political Prisoners, Presos Políticos, Spanish StateLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE RALLIES ORGANISED BY JARDUN IN RESPONSE TO THE MURDER OF CORSICAN POLITICAL PRISONER YVAN COLONNA (Se encuentra la versión anterior en castellano/español al fondo)

Yvan Colonna was from a young age a member of the Corsican liberation movement. After being forced to remain in hiding for four years, he was arrested in 2003, accused of participating in an action carried out by an anonymous group. The accusation was based on statements of several of the movement’s members detained at the police station, who later rejected the statements but Yvan was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Posters demanding justice for Yvan Colonna after his arrest (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

Colonna was left in a very serious coma after the beating by a jihadist prisoner in Arles prison. On Monday of this week, Yvan passed away after three weeks in hospital. During that time there were riots denouncing the role of the French state in Yvan’s murder.

Yvan was murdereded by the penitentiary policy of dispersal and the conditions of the prison. We in the JARDUN Coordination charge that the beating and death received by Yvan was a direct consequence of the penitentiary policy of the French State. Likewise, we want to underline the need to create an organisation in support of the freedom of political prisoners and the fight against oppression and exploitation.

It should not be forgotten that in Corsica, the struggle for independence has been ongoing for decades with the aim of overcoming the political-economic system imposed by the French State and fighting for a popular and democratic government that would act in favour of the Corsican people. The struggle of the Corsicans is the struggle against French imperialism, against the oppression of the local working people and against the exploitation they suffer.

In Euskal Herria (the Basque Country – Trans.) we are well aware of the repression and oppression by oppressive states and we are witnesses to the massacres committed so many times by the French State. Because we cannot forget the imperialist attitude of the French State in Algiers and other colonies, becoming, together with the United States, the main promoters of contemporary torture.

Solidarity picket in Gastheiz/ Vitoria, southern Basque Country, on Friday 25th (*Photo: Jardun Koordinadora*)

All of this shows us nothing less than the need for the organisation of the working class. It is evident that both the imperialist power and the oppressive States exercise a monopoly on violence to defend their economic interests and, in every nation, those who pay are always the working class.

It is time to denounce the fraud of social peace, it is time to denounce the warlike attitude of NATO, in Donbass, the Sahara, Palestine, today they are waging endless wars in defence of the interests of imperialism and its servants — and in view of this, it is time to awaken internationalist solidarity!

For this reason, we in JARDUN proclaim that it is time to turn to revolutionary organisation for all working people! Because only the organised people can offer real help and, as far as we are concerned, only the Basque working people can obstruct the participation of the Spanish and French States, organizing themselves in Euskal Herria to face the enemy, working for a political system in favour of the Basque working people.

We are clear that struggle is the only way and we will loudly proclaim that we have to confront the enemy, exploitation and class oppression. That is why we encourage you to join the organisation, because it is time to fight, it is essential to resist!

AGUR ETA OHORE YVAN! (Farewell with Honour Yvan!)

GORA KORSIKAKO HERRI LANGILEAREN BORROKA! (Long live the struggle of the Corsican working people!)

GORA EUSKAL HERRIA ASKATUTA! (Long live a free Basque Country!).

end.

Solidarity picket in Donosti/San Sebastian, southern Basque Country, on 26th March (*Photo: Jardun Koordinadora*)

Lectura lanzada en las concentraciones organizadas por JARDUN ante el asesinato de Yvan Colonna

Yvan Colonna era miembro del movimiento de liberación corso, en el que militó desde joven. Tras ser obligada a permanecer 4 años en la clandestinidad, fue detenida en 2003 acusada de participar en una acción llevada a cabo por un grupo anónimo. La acusación se fundamenta en la declaración de varios de los miembros detenidos en la comisaría, que posteriormente rechazaron la declaración, pero Yvan fue condenado a cadena perpetua.

Colonna quedó en coma muy grave tras la paliza de un preso yihadista en la cárcel de Arlés. El lunes de esta semana, Yvan falleció cuando llevaba 3 semanas hospitalizado. Con el objetivo de denunciar el papel del Estado francés en el asesinato de Yvan desde que ingresó en hospital, durante ese tiempo ha habido disturbios.

Yvan fue asesinado por la política penitenciaria por la dispersión vivida y las condiciones de la prisión. Desde la coordinadora JARDUN denunciamos que la paliza y la muerte recibida por Yvan ha sido consecuencia directa de la política penitenciaria del estado francés. Asimismo, queremos subrayar la necesidad de articular una organización a favor de la libertad de los presos políticos y de la lucha contra la opresión y la explotación.

No hay que olvidar que en Córcega, la lucha por la independencia se ha dado durante décadas con el objetivo de superar el sistema político económico impuesto por el Estado francés y luchar por un gobierno popular y democrático que actuara en favor del pueblo corso. La lucha de los corsos es la lucha contra el imperialismo francés, la opresión del pueblo obrero local y la lucha contra la explotación que sufren.

En Euskal Herria conocemos bien la represión y la opresión de los estados opresores y somos testigos de las masacres cometidas tantas veces por el Estado francés. Porque no podemos olvidar la actitud imperialista del Estado francés en Argel y otras colonias, llegando a ser, junto con los Estados Unidos, los principales impulsores de la tortura contemporánea.

Todo ello no nos demuestra más que la necesidad de la organización de la clase trabajadora.. Es evidente que tanto la potencia imperialista como los Estados opresores ejercen el monopolio de la violencia para defender sus intereses económicos, y en todo pueblo, su pagador, es siempre la clase obrera.

Es hora de denunciar el fraude de la paz social, es tiempo de denunciar la actitud guerrera de la OTAN, Donbass, el Sáhara, Palestina, hoy en día están dando un sinfín de guerras en defensa de los intereses del imperialismo y de sus siervos, ¡y ante eso es tiempo de despertar la solidaridad internacionalista!

Para ello, desde JARDUN proclamamos que es hora de volcarse en la organización revolucionaria para todo pueblo obrero!! ¡Porque sólo el pueblo organizado puede ofrecer una verdadera ayuda, y en lo que a nosotros se refiere, sólo el pueblo trabajador vasco puede interrumpir la participación de los Estados Español y Francés, organizándose en Euskal Herria para hacer frente al enemigo, trabajando por un sistema político a favor del pueblo trabajador vasco.

Nosotros tenemos claro que la lucha es el único camino y proclamaremos en voz alta que tenemos que enfrentar al enemigo, a la explotación y la opresión de clase. Por eso os animamos a uniros a la organización, porque es tiempo de lucha, ¡es imprescindible resistir!

AGUR ETA OHORE YVAN!

GORA KORSIKAKO HERRI LANGILEAREN BORROKA!

GORA EUSKA HERRIA ASKATUTA!

POLITICAL POLICE QUESTION AND FILM PEOPLE AT ANTI-INTERNMENT PICKET IN DUBLIN

On March 8, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Clive Sulish

The Dublin Anti-Internment Committee held a well-attended picket on Saturday (5^th March) against the continuing practice of interning Irish Republicans without trial and also in support of human rights for political prisoners. At one point the picket was subjected to the unwelcome attention of the Irish political police.

The event was in furtherance of the Committee’s advertised intention to hold monthly public events to highlight the deprivation of civil rights from Irish Republicans — on both sides of the British border — through the operation of special legislation and in particular of the no-jury political courts (Special Criminal Courts in the Irish state and Diplock Court in the British colony). The Committee has admitted that it does not always succeed in holding a public event every month and in fact its most recent public appearance was during the December festive season, in solidarity with Irish Republican prisoners, when it was supported by a number of organisations and independent activists.

WHY THESE PUBLIC EVENTS?

The Dublin Committee holds these public events because it believes that most people are unaware of the abuse of civil rights in Ireland, the civil right to belong to an organisation that criticises the State and seeks profound change. The reaction of people receiving a leaflet at their public events would seem to bear this out.

Choosing a couple of extracts from their current leaflet: ‘At various times in Ireland’s history, people have been rounded up and jailed without bothering with a trial – people whom the government found troublesome and wished removed. Today the same process carries on although they don’t call it “internment” now – other names such as “due process”, “remanded in custody” are used ….”

‘Even when Republican activists are granted bail, it is on outrageous conditions such as not being permitted to reside in their own home, having to observe a curfew and wear an electronic tag, not being permitted to attend meetings and demonstrations …..’

The leaflet text makes the point that one doesn’t have to agree with the politics of Irish Republicans to see that these injustices are profoundly undemocratic abuses of civil rights — and “are ultimately a danger to all oppositional movements, whether Republican or not”. One aspect of their protest was against the denial of open family visits to Republican prisoners in the jails of the British colony in the north-east of Ireland — a violation of human rights.

The surprise in learning the facts is not confined to Irish people because often it is expressed by tourists or migrants, even if they have encountered such practices in their own countries of origin.

INTERNATIONALIST DIMENSION

An example of the interest from abroad on Saturday was of a Basque man and, separately, of two young Basque women, reacting warmly to seeing the Basque flag among the picketers. The Dublin Committee objects not only to the incarceration of Irish Republicans but also of people seeking freedom in many other parts of the world, for which reason the Palestinian and Basque flags are frequently flown on their pickets, next to the revolutionary Irish workers’ flag of the Starry Plough.

A person who expressed support for the right to campaign without state repression was, interestingly, from Barcelona. However he did not wish for Catalan independence, wanting instead a unitary but democratic Spanish state – a position held by some communists and the main socia-democratic parties there. Although his position did not concur with that of the picketers, who tend to support the struggles for self-determination, the conversation was conducted without hostility.

Not so with another individual, who approached some picketers to argue for their support for the Ukrainian state in the current armed conflict there, a question that has deeply divided the Irish Left and Republican movements. He went further and announced his support for the Azov Battalion, an East European fascist organisation integrated into the Ukrainian state’s military, at which point the tolerance of the picketers for his intervention ended and he was urged to depart.

Starry Plough flags next to Palestinian and Basque Ikurrina flags at the picket in Temple Bar. (*Photo: C.Sulish*)

POLITICAL POLICE INTIMIDATION

Another temporary presence unwelcome to the picketers was of three members of the Irish State’s political police. These are members of what used to be called the Special Branch but are now officially called the Special Detective Unit, formerly C3 and successor to the CID when the Irish State was created. This type of political police force is modelled on the Irish Special Branch of Scotland Yard, the HQ of the British police, founded to spy on the influence and activities of the “Fenians” (i.e the Irish Republican Brotherhood) in the cities of Victorian-era Britain. However, in Dublin under British occupation, their parallel force was the G Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, known as “G-men”; it was they who identified many Republican and other prisoners of the British military after the 1916 Rising, ensuring death sentences for many (though most commuted to life imprisonment) and jail sentence for many others. During the War of Independence (1919-1921 they were identified as the intelligence service of the British occupation and many were selectively assassinated by the IRA of the time.

The Garda “Branch” (as they are known colloquially) of the Irish State have a long history of harassment of and spying on Irish Republicans, sometimes associated with violence and often with perjury in court. Their unsupported observations through the mouth of a Garda officer at the rank of Superintendent has been enough “evidence”, in the no-jury Special Criminal Court, to send many Irish Republicans to jail on a charge of “membership of an illegal organisation.”

Two picketers confront the plainclothes political police officer harassing a young leafletter on Saturday (*Photo: C.Sulish*)

One of these gentlemen on Saturday approached the youngest supporter of the picket, who was distributing leaflets to passers-by, identified himself as a Gárda officer in plain-clothes and demanded the young activist’s name. His accosting of the leafletter attracted the attention of others on the picket and two went quickly to support the subject of State harassment. The Branchman demanded no further information and sone moved away. However, when he had reached about half-way along the picketters, he stopped and began filming them.

At that point one of the picketers began to call out to passers-by, many of whom were tourists, that this man was a member of the secret political police, who was filming and attempting to intimidate people on a legal political protest, that this is the kind of ‘democracy’ that exists in the Irish state, etc, etc. Shortly thereafter, the Branchman departed, along with another two of his colleagues that had been observed further down towards Temple Bar.

A picketer loudly denounces the political policeman’s filming of the picketers. (*Photo: C.Sulish*)

According to picket participants this intervention of the political police represented an escalation of their attentions in recent times, though not in the least unusual in the past, when every picketer might have their name (and even their address) demanded and jotted down.

A spokesperson of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee stated that it is independent of any political party or organisation and that it welcomes the participation at its public events of democratic individuals, whether independent activists or members of organisations and had distributed many of its leaflets. It regrets that a number of political activists — who should have an interest, even if only in self-preservation – in defending the democratic rights to organise and to protest, decline to support their events.

Picketers and leafletters (*Photo: C.Sulish*)

End.

FURTHER INFORMATION

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

Azov Battallion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion

DUBLIN NEW YEAR SOLIDARITY GREETINGS TO PALESTINE

On January 1, 2022January 1, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Palestinian flags fluttered in the breeze over the iconic Ha’penny Bridge in Dublin City centre, while banners festooned its length on New Year’s Eve. The numbers were down from previous years, more likely from the soaring Covid19 infection rate than from any lessening of the long-running Ireland solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians. This was ironic since, unlike previous years, this was not a rally braving sleet, snow, rain or icy wind – in fact, the very mild weather raised only the amount of breeze necessary to set the flags fluttering.

Tamin Al Fatin, IPSC Chairperson, centre photo (*Photo by IPSC*))

The event is organised every year for New Year’s Eve at the same location by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and supporters, among which were Irish and Palestinians, handed out leaflets encouraging BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) of Israel, an apartheid ste. Martin Quigley, for the IPSC led some chants on a megaphone, which were taken up by people on the pedestrian Bridge, among which were that “Israel is a terrorist state”, that “Palestine will be free” and in solidarity that “we are ALL Palestinians”.

Each year more Palestinian land is stolen, more of their homes demolished or under threat of eviction, in Gaza they have periods without electricity, they are restricted in importing fuel for heating or cooking (never mind transport), or building materials (so much has been destroyed by the Israeli bombardments), they continue to be harassed and made have lengthy waits at checkpoints, their inshore sea is polluted, their fishing boats further out are attacked and harassed ….

As of 2019, more than 5.6 million Palestinians were registered with UNRWA as refugees, of which more than 1.5 million live in UNRWA-run camps.
According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer, there are currently (2021) 4,650 Palestinians held in Israeli jails in Israel and the occupied territories. Palestinians view them as political prisoners attempting to end Israel’s illegal occupation. Of those: 520 are being held without charge or trial.
At the end of September 2020, 157 Palestinian minors were held in Israeli prisons as security detainees and prisoners, at least two of whom were held in administrative detention. Another 2 Palestinian minors were held in Israel Prison Service facilities for being in Israel illegally. The IPS considers these minors – both detainees and prisoners – criminal offenders. In addition, a small number of minors are held in IDF-run facilities for short periods of time. (And the Israeli Prison Service since October 2020 has been refusing to publish figures or to supply Palestinian human rights groups with them).

BIG POWERS BACKING ISRAELI ZIONISM

The United States is the major power backing the Israeli Zionists and partly because of its position in the world and partly also for their own economic or political interests, most of the European states back the Zionists too.

In 2018 Donald Trump, as US President, moved the US Embassy for Israel into Jerusalem, endorsing the Zionist claim that the multi-faith city is Jewish and Zionist, although it is an occupied city even in international law. Shortly before he reluctantly left the office of the US Presidency, Donald Trump also endorsed Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara in exchange for Morocco recognising Israel. So far, Joe Biden, Trump’s successor, has not reversed either of those decisions.

THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD SUPPORT THE PALESTINIANS

As is usually the case, it is the ordinary people in Ireland and around the world that support the Palestinians, while the big capitalists and imperialists, while occasionally criticising the Israeli Zionists, continue to support them politically, economically, culturally and militarily. Even in the United Nations, an organisation controlled by the big powers, a majority condemned the Zionist state in 17 separate motions in 2020 and last year formally ratified another six resolutions criticising Israel.

So why has international action not been taken against this terrorist state? The answer is that although the UN has 193 member states, only its Security Council decisions have to be carried out and there are only five permanent members of the Security Council: USA, UK, France, Russia and China. And what’s more, their decisions have to be unanimous.

On the other hand, so many civil organisations around the world have declared themselves in solidarity with the Palestinians and in Ireland. Hundreds of thousands have marched in so many countries and sports people, many popular culture stars and academics have refused to perform or attend conferences in Israel. One can no longer find Israeli goods in most shops or supermarkets (and when on occasion they are on sale, their country of origin is not marked on the product).

End.

Video (playable only on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100001732057139/videos/pcb.4926773100723710/647305976619628

POLITICAL PRISONERS’ SOLIDARITY PICKET IN DUBLIN

On December 18, 2021December 18, 2021 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, irish history, Massacres, National Liberation, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 minutes)

Amidst festive season lights, passing Santa Clauses on horse-drawn carriages and hungry people being fed by volunteers in the Dublin city centre, Irish Republicans and Socialists gathered to send a public message of solidarity to political prisoners in Ireland and elsewhere.

The event is an annual one organised by the Anti-Internment Group of Ireland, an independent non-aligned group raising awareness that internment without trial continues in Ireland, through revoking of licence of ex-prisoners and through refusal of bail in the no-jury courts both sides of the British Border. The Dublin committee of the AIGI holds monthly public awareness-raising pickets in the city centre.

The annual picket on Thursday early evening was supported by activists of the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Welfare Association and of the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation, along with some independents and took place in front of the iconic GPO building, on Dublin’s main street.

The picketers and passers-by were addressed by a representative of the Anti-Internment Group outlining the participants’ presence to send solidarity greeting to political prisoners in Ireland and around the world. The speaker drew particular attention to three prisoners: Leonard Peltier, Native American, 45 years in jail and Black American Mumia Al Jamaal, 40 years in prison, both framed by police in the USA. Also highlighted was the case of Ali Osman Kose, 37 years in jail, 21 of which he has spent in solitary confinement. The speaker informed the audience that those three political prisoners, apart from their very long years of incarceration, have multiple health issues and should be released, he said on humanitarian grounds alone. “But no ….. they want them to die in jail”, he said.

Going on to speak about political prisoners in Ireland, the speaker said that they and hostages had existed almost from the moment Ireland had been invaded by its neighbour and from the defeated United Irishmen up to the Fenians, had included not only dungeons and prison cells but also penal colonies on the other side of the world, after which they had been confined in special prisons and concentrations camps.

The creation of the Irish State on a partitioned Irish country a century ago this month had not brought freedom nor an end to the struggle, the speaker said and pointed out that the Irish State had executed 80 Irish Republicans during the years of the Civil War, which was more than the British had done during the War of Independence preceding it.

“Whether we are religious or not ….. in our culture at this time of year we expect to be with our families, our partner, children and friends,” the AIGI representative said but pointed out that this opportunity is not available to the prisoners, which makes this a particularly difficult time of year for them, which is why the Group and others hold this event every year.

The speaker then called a young boy forward “to send a message to the prisoners from this younger generation who hopefully will see a free and united Ireland with social justice and equality. The young boy stepped forward and through the PA, asked all at this time of year to think of the Republican prisoners.

The Starry Plough, the Palestinian flag and the Basque Ikurrina were flown by participants and among the banners of the IRPWA and Dublin Committee of the AIGI there was also one displaying the Carlos Latuff graphic of Palestinian and Irish Republican prisoner solidarity. The centrepiece in the picket line was the word Saoirse (‘freedom’ in Irish) picked out by lights on a dark background. Appropriate music was also played during the picket from a PA system, except while being addressed by the speaker.

The event concluded with thanks to all the attendance and the singing the first verse and chorus of the battle-song Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldiers’ Song in Irish, which is also the National Anthem).

It is understood that seasonal greeting cards have also been sent by AIGI to political prisoners in prisons in the Irish state and in the colonial statelet.

End.

*Signing Christmas cards for the prisoners*. (*Photo: AIGI*)

Further information:

https://www.facebook.com/End-Internment-581232915354743

DUBLIN HOSTS TURKISH REVOLUTIONARY MUSIC GROUP

On December 3, 2021December 3, 2021 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Prisoners, Resistance Art, Song, Song in Struggle1 Comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Last Saturday in the Teachers’ Club in Dublin (26/11/21), the revolutionary music Grup Yorum from Turkey, with some Irish musician input, played to an audience of up to two hundred. In between performing different numbers from their repertoire, band members spoke to the audience of the history of the struggles of their people and of the band.

The Irish tour of the band was organised by the Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland organisation; earlier that week Yorum played in a small music venue in Belfast to around 40 people. The attendance in Dublin was so large that the location had to be changed from a large room on the first floor to the much larger hall down below.

Grup Yorum performing in Dublin (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

BELFAST

In Belfast in the Sunflower Lounge, Bobby Fields from Armagh and Séan Óg from Dublin entertained those in attendance with songs of Irish resistance followed by Grup Yorum coming on afterwards. The Grup’s performance was enthusiastically received and was followed by a questions-and-answers session to learn more about the situation in Turkey.

The Grup members toured some of the area and visited the famous international solidarity wall along with the grave of Bobby Sands, where paying their respects included singing a song at the graveside.

DUBLIN

In the large hall in the Teachers’ Club, Dublin, Séan Óg took to the stage first, playing guitar to accompany himself on guitar to sing The Killmichael Ambush, Viva la Quinze Brigada, Back Home in Derry¹ and The Internationale. Veteran activist and traditional singer Diarmuid Breatnach followed, singing unaccompanied the Anne Devlin Ballad, I’ll Wear No Convict’s Uniform² and James Connolly’s satirical song Be Moderate³. Some of the audience sang along with some of the lyrics sung by each singer.

https://www.facebook.com/messenger_media?thread_id=100003515100557&attachment_id=1086449835456584&message_id=mid.%24cAABa88PDPuiDom-n2l9cSlUXgHgd

Be Moderate, satirical song by James Connolly, sung by Diarmuid Breatnach at the event (the link can be played on Facebook).

The four members of Grup Yorum present then took to the stage to huge applause and addressed the audience in Turkish, their words being translated into English by a member of their entourage. In the performance that followed, two guitars, flute and cajón were the instruments with a male and female leading voices. Each song was preceded by an explanation placing the piece in historical and political context.

Some of the songs in particular were clearly known to Turkish and Kurdish people in the audience and at some points they sang along, often waving an arm in the air. Towards the end of their performance the crowd got more and more excited and then Seán Óg joined them for a couple of numbers.

The Grup’s interpreter made a special appeal for help from those in attendance to pressurise the Turkish authorities to release political prisoner Ali Osman Köse who has been in solitary confinement for 20 years and has multiple health issues. There are fears for the man’s life as he has had a cancerous kidney removed in May of this year without any follow-up treatment and despite everything has been pronounced “fit” to continue in jail.

This was followed by members of the Resistance Choir taking to the stage to join Grup Yorum in a rendition of the Italian antifascist Bella Ciao! Song before Diarmuid Breatnach returned to the stage to bring the evening to a close with the first verse and chorus of Amhrán na bhFiann⁴ with members of the audience joining in (including some from Anatolia)

The Resistance Choir from Dublin on stage with Grup Yorum to perform the *Bella Ciao* song (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

THE GRUP YORUM BAND

A revolutionary music band from Turkey, Grup Yorum members compose their own material and the band has has released twenty-three albums and one film since 1985. The band has suffered repression with some concerts and albums banned and members have been arrested, jailed and tortured, two members also dying on hunger strike. The band is popular in Turkey and as well as their albums selling well in Turkey and internationally, it has also given concerts in Germany, Austria, Australia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, United Kingdom, Greece and Syria.

Grup Yorum publishes an art, culture, literature, and music magazine entitled Tavir, and several group members manage a cultural centre called İdil Kültür Merkez in the Okmeydani neighbourhood of Istanbul.

Section of the crowd in Dublin saluting the Grup Yorum performers (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

FOOTNOTES:

1The lyrics and air of Viva la Quinze Brigada are by famous Irish folk musician Christy Moore, who also arranged Bobby Sands’ poem to the air of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (by Gordon Lightfoot) as Back Home in Derry.

2Diarmuid sings this song to an air he composed himself.

3Diarmuid sings this to the air of A Nation Once Again (by Thomas Davis).

4Written by Peadar Kearney originally under the title The Soldiers’ Song and sung by insurgents during the 1916 Rising, its chorus is the official national anthem of the Irish State. However, it is also sung by many who are opposed to the State, particularly by Irish Republicans. Normally only the chorus is heard, sung in Irish (translation).

USEFUL LINKS:

https://www.facebook.com/grupyorum1985

https://www.facebook.com/Anti-Imperialist-Action-Dublin-North-City-110852710835826

https://www.facebook.com/socialistrepublicanballyfermot

https://freealiosmankose.wordpress.com/

PROTESTS GREET PRESENTATION OF CHANCELORSHIP TO HILLARY CLINTON

On December 3, 2021December 3, 2021 By rebelbreezeIn Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: mins.)

Queen’s University Belfast appointed Hillary Clinton as the institution’s Chancellor¹. On 24^th September 2021 the University authorities organised an event to mark her formal inauguration; however a large and voluble crowd gathered to protest the inauguration and the authorities’ choosing her as Chancellor of the University. Among the shouts of protesters were “War criminal!” and “Hillary, Hillary, Hillary – Out, out, out!” (This story is now “old”, apologies but nevertheless worth posting for those who might not be aware of it as media coverage was muted)

Although the Belfast Telegraph’s coverage of the event made no mention whatsoever of protests, they were reported in a number of other media. The protest saw Irish Republican and Left socialist groups come together to carry out the protest, with a number of them taking turns to speak.

The speakers at the protest included Pól Torbóid of Lasair Dhearg; Aidan Moran, a former ISM activist in Occupied Palestine, on behalf of Cairde Palestine; Conal MacMathúna on behalf of the Connolly Youth Movement; Local Councillor Michael Collins from People Before Profit; and Dr. Azadeh Sobout, Scholar of Transitional Justice and Peace building and Member of Academics for Palestine.

In addition to Irish organisations’ banners and flags, the national flags of Palestine and Cuba were also in evidence.

Hillary Clinton has been a member of the USA Congress from 2001 to 2009, followed by Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, having also held the ceremonial position of First Lady during her husband Bill Clinton’s tenure as President of the USA 1993-2001. The Secretary of State of the USA, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President’s chief foreign affairs adviser. The Secretary carries out the President’s foreign policies through the State Department and the Foreign Service of the United States.

Lasair Dhearg’s Pól Torbóid, who helped organise and also spoke at the event, said, “Queen’s University’s complicity in the whitewashing of Hillary Clinton and her war crimes further epitomises the university’s role in an international framework of imperialism that sees it not only glorify warmongers like Clinton, but have immense financial investment in military contracts and companies guilty of immense environmental destruction.”

“Queen’s has facilitated the visitation of many war criminals and parasites over the years, but arguably none as big as the visit of Hillary Clinton as its chancellor. A proud Zionist and imperialist; with a war record as long as your arm, Clinton has helped oversee US bombing campaigns in over 9 countries.”

“As US secretary for war, she authorised over 400 drone strikes across multiple nations, which overwhelmingly killed civilians and even children at a proportion of almost 90%.”

“She labelled black men ‘super-predators’ when she helped lobby for the 1994 US Clinton Crime Bill, which was immensely important in creating the mass incarceration levels that exists today in the US to benefit the prison-industrial complex – which is a system of slavery by new means.”

Section of the protest as seen from the inside of the University (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

“A Zionist, Hillary Clinton has shown herself to be an enemy of Palestinian liberation, siding with the oppressor every time it mattered, like during the 2014 Israeli bombing campaign of Gaza. She increased annual US funding to Israel from 2.5billion, to 3.1 billion US dollars whilst she was US Secretary of State, and she stated that countering the BDS movement globally should be a priority for Israel’s defence.”

“All this – and Queen’s award her chancellor for her Peace and Reconciliation efforts. For all the books Queen’s have at its disposal, I don’t think their management have ever read one! PEACE IS SOMETHING HILLARY CLINTON CAN’T EVEN SPELL, NEVER MIND DISPENSE!”

Full video below (with thanks to Lasair Dhearg organisation):

FOOTNOTES

In the UK university system, the office of Chancellor is held by a distinguished individual, from academia or public life, who is not usually resident and does not hold any other University office.

SOURCES

https://www.thejournal.ie/hillary-clinton-installed-chancellor-queens-university-belfast-5557234-Sep2021/

Clinton inauguration at Queen’s University Belfast marked by protest

https://www.v-c.admin.cam.ac.uk/chancellors-role

Hillary the Hawk: A History

HOWARD ZINN — US INTELLECTUAL CRITIC AND ACTIVIST

On October 26, 2021October 26, 2021 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Civil Rights, History, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Police Violence, Popular Resistance, US Imperialism, USA, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

By Geoff Cobb

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Like many Brooklyn Jews of his generation, Howard Zinn, an icon of the American left, questioned laissez fair American capitalism and American nationalist glorification of country. He was the author of “A People’s History of the United States,” a best seller which sold more than two million copies and inspired a generation of high school and college students to rethink American history. He was also a strong supporter of the civil rights movement and an opponent of the Vietnam war, as well as being a much-loved professor. Proudly, unabashedly radical, Zinn delighted in debating ideological foes, including his own college president, and in attacking conventional ideas, not the least that American history was a heroic march toward democracy.

One of the many different jacket covers for reprints of Zinn’s most famous book — this one abridged for teaching purposes (Image sourced: Internet)

Born Aug. 24, 1922, Howard Zinn grew up in Bedford Stuyvesant. His parents were Jewish immigrants who met in a factory. His father worked as a ditch digger and window cleaner during the Depression. His father and mother ran a neighborhood candy store for a brief time, barely getting by. For many years his father was in the waiter’s union and worked as a waiter for weddings and bar mitzvahs. “We moved a lot, one step ahead of the landlord,” Zinn recalled. “I lived in all of Brooklyn’s best slums.”

“NO LONGER A LIBERAL”

His parents were not intellectuals and Zinn recalled that there were no books in his home growing up. At some point his parents, knowing his interest in books, and never having heard of Charles Dickens, sent in a coupon with a dime each month to the New York Post and received one of ultimately twenty volumes of Dickens’ complete works. He became interested in fascism and began to read about its rise in Europe and to engage in political discussions and debates with some young Communists in his neighborhood. Zinn was radicalized thanks to a peaceful political rally in Times Square, where mounted police charged the marchers, hit Zinn knocked him unconscious. Zinn explained, “From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. . . The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society—cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian.”

After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School, Zinn became an apprentice shipfitter in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he and a few other apprentices began to discuss books and strategize about how to improve their dangerous working conditions. Excluded from the craft unions of skilled workers, they formed their own Apprentice Association. On an overnight boat trip he organized to raise money for the association, he met his future wife, Roslyn Shechter, who shared Howard’s progressive views and was also a Jewish child of immigrants. Zinn joined the Army Air Corps in 1943, eager to fight the fascists, and became a bombardier in a B-17. While in the Air Force he was disturbed by the race and class inequality among the servicemen. It wasn’t until years after the war that he questioned the necessity of the bombs that he dropped. But at the end of the war, back in New York, he deposited his medals in an envelope and wrote: “Never Again.”

View of students and faculty carrying signs during a strike by faculty and staff of Boston University, on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, 1979. Historian Howard Zinn, then a professor at BU, is just visible in the centre foreground. (*Photo by Spencer Grant/Getty Images*)

“I would not deny that [WWII] had a certain moral core, but that made it easier for Americans to treat all subsequent wars with a kind of glow,” Zinn said. “Every enemy becomes Hitler.”

After the war, he went back to interview victims of the bombing, and later wrote about it in two books. His own experience and his subsequent interviews led him to conclude that the bombing had been ordered more to enhance the careers of senior officers than for any military imperative, and he later wrote about the ethics of bombing in the context of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Tokyo and Dresden, as well as Iraq.

Zinn and Roz married in 1944. While Zinn worked various jobs after the war, they lived on meager income in a rat-infested basement apartment in Brooklyn. Their daughter Myla was born in 1947 and Jeff in 1949. They moved to new public housing in 1949 and Zinn went to New York University for his B.A in history.

Thanks to the GI Bill, which paid the tuition of veterans, Zinn went to Columbia, where he earned an MA in 1952 with a thesis about a famous coalminers’ strike in Colorado, then obtained his PhD with a dissertation about the career in Congress of Fiorello LaGuardia, the reforming mayor of New York. He studied at Columbia under Richard Hofstadter who taught Zinn that American liberals were not as liberal as they thought they were, and that the two common threads in all American history were nationalism and capitalism.

PROFESSOR ZINN

In 1956, Zinn accepted a professorship at Spelman College, a traditionally black college for women in Atlanta, Georgia. Among his students were Maria Wright Edelman, the campaigner for children’s rights, and the future novelist Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple. At Spelman, he was a mentor to and later the historian of the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC), the radical student wing of the civil rights movement. Zinn took part in many civil rights protests, and he encouraged his students to join him in these marches, which angered Spelman’s president. Zinn angered the authorities at Spelman over his insistence that its students should not be trained to be ladies, but should be actively involved in politics. “I was fired for insubordination,” he recalled. “Which happened to be true.” Zinn moved to Boston University in 1964, where he quickly became an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. He angered many Americans, including Boston University’s president, by traveling with the Rev. Daniel Berrigan to Hanoi to receive prisoners released by the North Vietnamese, and produced the antiwar books “Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal” (1967) and “Disobedience and Democracy” (1968). When Daniel Ellsberg, a previously gung-ho John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson administration official, came out against the war, he gave one copy of the Pentagon Papers (officially titled United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, the government’s secret history of the war) to Zinn and his wife, Roslyn. Zinn and Noam Chomsky edited what became known as the Mike Gravel edition, published in Boston in 1971-72 by the Beacon Press.

In 1980, he published his most successful work, A People’s History of the United States, which was a highly controversial revision of American history. Instead of the usual congratulatory tone of most American history textbooks, his work concentrated on what he saw as the genocidal depredations of Christopher Columbus, the blood lust of Theodore Roosevelt and the racial failings of Abraham Lincoln. He also highlighted the revolutionary struggles of impoverished farmers, feminists, laborers and resisters of slavery and war. Bruce Springsteen said the starkest of his many albums, “Nebraska,” drew inspiration in part from Mr. Zinn’s writings.

For decades, he poured out articles attacking war and government secrecy.

When President Ronald Reagan bombed Tripoli in 1986, Zinn wrote: “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable.” He denounced the invasion of Iraq and also criticized President Barack Obama’s intensification of the war in Afghanistan. He was sharply attacked in Israel and by many of his fellow American Jews for saying that war was morally the equivalent of terrorism.

Mr. Zinn retired in 1988, concluding his last class early so he could join a picket line. He invited his students to join him. Zinn also wrote three plays: “Daughter of Venus,” “Marx in Soho” and “Emma,” about the life of the anarchist Emma Goldman. All have been produced. Zinn died in 2010.

Zinn always believed in standing up to injustice and fighting for oppression. He said near the end of his life, “Where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it’s been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn’t just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.”

End.

POSTSCRIPT from Rebel Breeze:

TRUMP ATTACKS ZINN AFTER LATTER’S DEATH

“If you want to read a real history book,” Matt Damon’s character tells his therapist, played by Robin Williams, in the 1997 film “Good Will Hunting,” “read Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States.’ That book will knock you on your ass.”

It is very unlikely that President Donald Trump knew who Howard Zinn was before he saw the name on his teleprompter. And it is even less likely that he’s read “A People’s History of the United States.” But that didn’t stop him from saying — at the White House Conference on American History on Thursday — that today’s “left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools. It’s gone on far too long. Our children are instructed from propaganda tracts, like those of Howard Zinn, that try to make students ashamed of their own history.”

Quoted from https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/09/23/rights-long-war-howard-zinn-reaches-white-house

WHO ARE “WE”?

On August 4, 2021August 4, 2021 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, National Liberation, Palestine, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: one minute)

When I read or hear someone say something like: “We should stop supporting Israel” or even “We need to stop ignoring Israel’s crimes”, my hackles rise somewhat and I ask myself “Who are this ‘we'”?

Are you turning a blind eye? No, you are not. Amy I? Are those who post the crimes of the Zionist state and all the others who have “liked” those posts, or the thousands who have demonstrated in Ireland in solidarity with Palestine? Or those who go on solidarity visits every year, braving Zionist surveillance and traveling under cover? Or the unknown thousands who don’t buy goods produced in Israel, so much so that when supermarkets display avocados from Israel they leave off the country of origin and one no longer sees herbs for Israel on sale in their shops (not in Dublin anyway). No matter the limited effect these actions have, clearly “they” are not supporting Israel and are in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Part of Palestine solidarity march in Baggot Street, Dublin, June 2021 (*Photo:* D.Breatnach)

This is more than personal protest at being lumped in with the imperialists and their collaborators or even the apathetic in the “we”. More importantly, I am making what I consider to be an essential political point.

I and “we” are not part of the oppressors (nor of the apathetic sections, those who have not yet awoken). To speak in that way is liberalism. It implies that you and I and so many others are part of a society that we order and run and that its rulers represent us. We are not and they do not.

Our society’s managers are representatives of capitalists and worse, monopoly capitalists, whose governing ethos is profit, maximisation of profit and continuation of profit, amen. In pursuit of that they compete with other monopoly capitalists and other monopoly capitalist-run states but also cooperate and collude with them when their interests coincide. Clearly for some substantial time now the interests of the rulers of the EU and other Western capitalist states coincide with those of the USA. And clearly, Israel serves US interests in the Middle East, the only state in that region which is safe from a) socialist revolution and b) take over by anti-imperialist Islamicism.

People in Grafton Street, Dublin (*Photo credit:* Stephen Collins)

So if WE are in solidarity with Palestine and WE want to see it free, WE must be against Israel. And if WE are against Israel, WE have to be against the USA. And if WE are for that people and against those powers, then WE are on the other side of a line from the Zionists and their local supporters. The greatest help WE can give the Palestinians in addition to expressions of solidarity is to overthrow the imperial powers and their monopoly capitalist allies wherever WE are.

If we think of those rulers as being part of us, as part of “We”, we are ideologically disarmed and unfit to go into battle against them. In that case, the assistance WE can give the Palestinians will be even more limited than that for which we have the potential at the moment.

end.

DUBLIN ANTI-INTERNMENT AND PRISONER SOLIDARITY PICKET SENDS SOLIDARITY MESSAGE TO MUMIA ABU JAMAL CONFERENCE

On July 18, 2021July 18, 2021 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Political Prisoners, USALeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: One minute)

A group of mixed political background held a picket this afternoon in Henry Street, one of the main shopping streets in Dublin’s city centre. The picket was protesting the continuing internment in Ireland of political activists and also expressing solidarity with political prisoners in different parts of the world – a Palestinian flag and a couple of Basque ones flew alongside the Irish ones. There are over 60 political prisoners in Irish jails both sides of the British Border.

Many people were out shopping or just enjoying the sun on what must have been the hottest day of the year so far. Up to 200 leaflets were distributed and passers-by occasionally stopped to discuss with the picket supporters.

Section of the picket displaying the banner of the organising group held by supporters. Also in the photo from left to right: Basque national Ikurrina; Basque Amnistia organisation; Irish Starry Plough; Palestinian flag. (*Photo: C. Sulish*)

MESSAGE OF SOLIDARITY TO CAMPAIGNERS FOR MUMIA ABU JAMAL

Near the end of the picket, a representative of the Anti-Internment Committee of Ireland was recorded voicing a message of solidarity for Mumia Abu Jamal, to send to an upcoming conference on Mumia and other political prisoners.

Mumia Abu Jamal in 2019 (*Photo sourced: Liberation New*)

Mumia is a political prisoner, a black United States activist and author who was awaiting execution but is now in his 40^th year in jail. He was a popular broadcaster in 1981 when he went to the assistance of his brother, who was being harassed by a white police officer. As the incident came to an end the cop was dead of gunshot wounds and Mumia was shot in the stomach.

There are so many questions about the scenario the Prosecution laid out and which got Mumia convicted of murder and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to imprisonment for life. His gun had five bullets missing but Mumia was never tested to see whether he had fired the gun nor were the tests on the bullets in the police officer conclusively proven to come from there. The crime scene was not preserved and the police were in and out of it, with Mumia’s gun while Mumia was in hospital, undergoing an emergency operation. Photos taken of the scene by an independent press photographer did not show the presence of the taxi of a witness against Mumia, who claimed he was parked there. Not to mention the later confession of a man who claimed to have killed the police officer on behalf of other police as a contract kill (the decision not to use him as a witness divided Mumia’s legal team and two lawyers resigned as a result).

As the spokesperson of the Anti-Internment Committee said, even if people believe that he fired the shots that killed the police officer, after 40 years Mumia should be freed on humanitarian grounds. The USA is allegedly the country leading the world in democracy, as the spokesperson commented, but holds a great many political prisoners, some of them for many, many years in jail.

MORE EVENTS TO COME

Eastward view of picketers in Henry Street, Dublin, facing Liffey Street (*Photo: C. Sulish*)

Pandemic permitting, the AIGI intends to hold pickets on approximately a monthly basis to protest continuing internment and in solidarity with political prisoners, such events being advertised on our social media. The organisation is independent of any political party or organisation and all who oppose the jailing of activists without trial or wish to support political prisoners are welcome.

Two of the picketers with placards (*Photo: C. Sulish*)

Westward view of picketers in Henry Street, Dublin, facing Liffey Street (*Photo: C. Sulish*)

THOUSANDS IN DUBLIN SHOUT “FREE PALESTINE”!

On May 24, 2021May 24, 2021 By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, National Liberation, Palestine, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time text: 4 mins.)

Thousands rallied in the centre of Dublin today, Saturday 22^nd May, to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their outraged opposition to the murderous attacks on them by the Israeli State. From O’Connell Street they marched across O’Connell Bridge, into Dawson Street and from there straight along Mount Street, across the Grand Canal and on to the Israeli Embassy. Speakers emphasised that the ceasefire, even if it holds, is in essence temporary, since the Israeli occupation has led to war after war and must inevitably lead to another, stating the need therefore to work for an end to the apartheid and similar policies of the Israeli state.

The event was organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which had an acapella singing group perform a few songs at the Spire and a number of speakers before they set off on the 3 km march and more speakers outside the Embassy too. Conservative estimates put the number on the march at over 5,000. The slogans shouted for the most part were: “Free, free Palestine!” “One, two, three four – Occupation no more!”; “Five, six, seven, eight – Israel is a terrorist state!” and “Boycott Israel!” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was another slogan.

The ceasefire is now in place since early yesterday (Friday). The current war began with two offensives by the Israeli Zionists on Palestinians in Jerusalem: the first by Israeli settlers harassing and threatening Palestinian residents in the Sheik Jarrah district that they are going to have them evicted because “all of Jerusalem should be Jewish only”; the other nearby in the vicinity of Al Aqsa mosque, where Israeli police harassed Muslims coming to celebrate the religious festival of Eid (this year on May 12^th– 13^th), culminating in an armed invasion of the temple by Israeli police firing rubber-tipped bullets and stun grenades at the devotees. However the dates fell close also to the anniversary of the Nakba, the Castastrophe of 15 May 1948, the founding of the Zionist state, massacres of Palestinians and expulsion of more than 700,000 refugees whose descendants are in many parts of the world today, forbidden by the Israeli authorities to return.

In the 11 days of war just past at least 232 Palestinians, including 65 children, have been killed by the Israeli forces, whilst on the Israeli side, despite hundreds of home-made Palestinian rockets fired at Israel, 12 people, including two children, have been killed. Many buildings in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza have been destroyed or part-destroyed, including hospitals and medical centres and there is major disruption to electrical service and water supply in a city which often experienced power and water flow cuts even in what passed for “normal” times in Gaza. Those killed were mostly in Gaza but Israeli forces killed 11 unarmed civilians in the West Bank also and wounded many, as they came on to the streets in solidarity with those in Gaza and in Jerusalem.

Street events in solidarity with Palestine were also held in cities and towns across Ireland, including Cork, Limerick, Galway, Belfast, Derry and in fact in most counties.

Section immediately in front of the Spire, O’Connell Street during rally and before march (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

POLICE

The police on this occasion did not carry out harassment of demonstrators¹ but in at least one instance, in Northumberland Road, stopped a section of the march to wave through traffic across it, putting uninvolved pedestrians crossing on a green light in danger. This occurred despite two marchers attempting to block the traffic, the Garda calling one a pejorative name and ordering him to stand aside.

Section of the march near just entering Northumberland Avenue, the front of the march away in the distance (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

This was a job for official stewards and in fact, there were far too few of these. I saw perhaps around 20 getting instructions from the Chief Steward before the march at the Spire, some of whom seemed inexperienced but around 50 stewards were needed for a march this size, with a core of around 30 experienced. Stewards could be seen at times enforcing the rule to wear masks, as some young people removed them to shout slogans but once the middle of the march neared the Canal it was rare to see a steward.

A section of the crowd facing back from above photo, approaching along Mount Street towards the Bridge over the Grand Canal (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

FAR-RIGHT

A Far-Right group calling themselves “Rise Up Eireann” (sic — who apparently don’t even know the official name of their country) had called for events in various parts of Ireland and had advertised the GPO as being one of the venues.

With apparent lack of awareness they scheduled theirs in Dublin for the same time as the Palestine solidarity rally, 2pm. No far-Right group was seen but one individual, a prominent QAnon activist posted a video of the Palestine solidarity marchers while voicing her disgust that the cops were not batoning or even harassing the demonstrator as they allegedly do to demonstrators demonstrating “for our civil rights.”².

SPEAKERS

Speaker after speaker at the event pointed out that Israeli massacres and other onslaughts are often followed by ceasefires and back to “normal” oppression and theft of land, until the next war. As long as Israel is an apartheid occupying state, war is inevitable and so is oppression. Some speakers urged those present to encourage people in their social, educational, community and trade union groups to sign up to boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. A much more specific direction was given by Richard Boyd Barrett TD, who urged people to write emails to their TDs (parliamentary representatives) in advance of Tuesday’s debate in the Dáil, asking them to vote in favour of the “Occupied Territories” Bill.³

Richard Boyd Barrett TD speaking at the Spire prior to the march *(Photo: D.Breatnach)*

Aisling Micklethwaite, Vice-Chair of IPSC spoke in place of Fatin Al Tamimi, the Chairperson of the IPSC, who could not be present. *(Photo: D.Breatnach)*

A young Palestinian speaker from a Jerusalem district spoke with passion and made an interesting point, that a demonstration such as this one would be labelled “terrorist” by the Israelis and people would be liable to be shot with live rounds as well as with less lethal projectiles and gas.

Clara McCormack, Trinity BDS Campaign addresses the crowd outside the Israeli Embassy, Dublin *(Photo: D.Breatnach)*

It is a terrible statistical fact that in Israeli attacks on Gaza, one quarter have been children. Outside the Israeli Embassy the crowd grew quiet as a child read out the names of the children killed in Gaza, which was followed by a call for a minute’s silence in respect. The crowd was so big that out on one of the fringes, they did not hear the call and were chanting slogans.

Other speakers included a Palestinian young woman Ola at the Spire and Mags O’Brien of SIPTU outside the Embassy, where Martin Quigley, former Chairperson of the IPSC launched into a denunciation of Israel and of the Biden and the USA’s role in Palestine.

YOUTH & STARRY PLOUGH

As with other Palestine solidarity marches recently, a significant part of the whole consisted of Palestinians and other Arabs, among which the youth were particularly noticeable with young women very much to the fore and vociferous. One group of young Arab women shouted slogans non-stop from O’Connell Street to Northumberland Road, where I parted company with them to take up another position and could hear them chanting still as they marched on.

One would hope these youth have opportunities to become organised and gain experience to be leaders of the future.

Starry Plough seen during rally in front of the Israeli Embassy after march (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

I brought two flags, a “Starry Plough”⁴ and one in Palestinian national colours, a friend carrying the ‘Plough most of the time. There was I heard only one other on the march. It is natural and proper that we carry and fly the Palestinian national colours but it seems to me that we should carry indications of Irishness too, to represent Ireland in solidarity with Palestine. This was represented in some placards but flags are more visible and it would be good to see more of them on Palestine solidarity demonstrations.

The Starry Plough flag also aroused interest with many asking what it represented and it was good to be able to tell them that it was the flag of the army of the Irish Citizen Army, the first working class army in the world, one which recruited women and that some of them were officers.

End.

Palestinian from Jerusalem speaking during rally in front of the Israeli Embassy after march (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

Section crowd to left of Zionist Embassy *(Photo: D.Breatnach, balancing on spiked railings because cops occupied the nearby steps to houses across the street)*

Section middle crowd in front of Zionist Embassy *(Photo: D.Breatnach)*

PLACARDS & BANNERS

On one side of the placard while ….. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

….. ar an dtaobh eile: (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

FOOTNOTES

1Prior to last Saturday (15th) the Irish police threatened the IPSC with intervening to stop the march and huge fines for responsible individuals under Covid19 legislation; luckily the Trinity BDS Campaign took on the risk of repercussions and called the demonstration instead. On Tuesday, for a smaller march, the Gardaí kept the Pembroke Road open despite the danger of rush-hour traffic to the crowd, then continually urged demonstrators in towards the Embassy, forcing them into close contact with others and, when this was pointed out to them, just shrugged.

2In actual fact, Far-Right groups seemed to enjoy complete impunity for months as they held rallies, pickets and marches, without wearing masks or socially distancing, including at the GPO, while nearby, people picketing is solidarity with political prisoners and Debenhams picketers were harassed by Gardaí. Also, at a Yellow Vests rally in August 2020 a mob organised by the fascist National Party attacked unarmed counter-protesters with iron bars and wooden clubs while the Gardaí, instead of arresting them, attacked the victims and drove them off the quay with raised batons and violent shoves (see “There Will Be Another Day” article on the Rebel Breeze blog). A few weeks later, the cops allowed members of the NP to attack a handful of women opponents in Kildare Street and to club one of them, then again drove the victims back. On both occasions the Gardaí told press afterwards that there had been no violence but in the second case had to amend their statement hours later and weeks later charge a fascist individual with the assault.

3Under international law, it is illegal for Israel or Israeli settlers to sell products from the Occupied territories in Palestine, since they are even by UN law illegally occupied. However, the products are exported and sold in many parts of the world including all over Europe. The “Occupied Territories” Bill, if passed into Irish law, would make it an offence to import or re-sell products from those territories and would have an economic as well as a political impact. Although the Bill was framed in 2018 and supported by all political parties except Fine Gael, the Government has dragged its heels about bringing it before the Dáil to be discussed and Tuesday’s will be its Third Reading after which, with enough votes in favour, it will become law.

4“The Starry Plough” is modeled on the shape of the Ursa Mayor constellation. The original version has a green field with a plough in gold following the shape of the constellation, with the seven stars in white or silver. The plough has a sword in the position of the ploughshare. The later version, from the Republican Congress, is on a blue field with the the seven stars only in white (or silver) following the shape of Ursa Mayor and no other feature.