Bill O’Brien, text of speech delivered at Athens conference in 2014; first published in The Pensive Quill blog and sent to Rebel Breeze.
(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)
In May 2014, the week following the Odessa massacre, a small group of mostly non-aligned antifascists in Ireland organized through word of mouth and through social media a successful demonstration in Dublin.
We rallied against the fascist atrocity and described it as part of an imperialist anti-Russian agenda in the EU and we called for support in Ireland for the struggle against the Ukrainian army in Donbas.
There was very little reporting on the atrocity in the mainstream media.
Unfortunately, it was complemented by virtual silence from nominally anti-imperialist, socialist organizations in the country, despite the fact that a massacre had occurred the day after Mayday, the historical day of workers’ solidarity and that it was committed by openly fascist groups inside a trade union hall.
What seemed surprising to us at the time was the fact that the Irish trade unions had issued no statements at all on the tragic event of May 2nd.
There were no messages sympathising with the loss of life or condolences to grieving families sent by the union hierarchy, no expression of solidarity as one would have expected.
There was no condemnation, or even any acknowledgement from the trades union movement that a horrendous crime had been committed against young anti-fascists who had sought refuge from an armed fascist mob in the Odessa House of Trade Unions.
When we raised the question of this silence with members of groups associated with the Left in Ireland, we found that most were hardly interested in addressing a threat that even some right-wing commentators had been drawing attention to – i.e. the re-appearance of Nazism and the support fascism was receiving from the Ukraine government – in a part of Europe that was aspiring to join the EU.
To the extent that these leftists mentioned Odesa at all, they argued that the massacre took place in the context of a war in Ukraine between forces aligned with two equally regressive imperialist regimes.
That is between supporters of the EU / NATO on the one hand and supporters of a paramilitary Russian nationalism aligned to Russian “imperialism”, which was attempting to redraw the Ukrainian borders.
Those who died or suffered injury in the Odessa massacre were portrayed, when they were mentioned at all, as unfortunate victims of inter-imperialist rivalry.
The successful resistance and defeat of fascist brigades in Donbas earlier this year – by “tractor drivers and miners” as Putin put it – halted a march to the right that was taking place across the whole of Europe. That defence gave the world time to face reality.
Social media and non-Western media sources have allowed us the space to counter much of the propaganda. We have received support from trades unionists as well as from those political groups that are not tied to the pro-UK line followed by most of the official Irish media.
But we have found that attempts to oppose a pro-imperialist narrative are too often treated as affronts to the unity of the Left political project in Ireland. Political discourse of the sort that insists on a precise understanding of the meaning of words is too often dismissed as sectarian or divisive.
In the lexicon of much of the Left, the concretely understood word “imperialism” has been replaced by words taken from the language of “humanitarian” intervention that has been promoted by groups such as Amnesty.
When we say that Russia is not an imperialist country for instance we get accused of introducing what are termed “sectarian ideological squabblings.” Bono’s latest political musings seem to outdate Lenin’s formulation on any matter!
According to the humanitarian Left words like ” imperialism” get in the way of a united strategy that should be aimed at electing progressive left-wing representatives to the Irish parliament institution that is largely powerless in the face of austerity measures dictated by international finance.
Left unity that is based on the abandonment of principles can only weaken the fight against imperialism. This has been demonstrated in the Irish “humanitarian” Left’s responses to the present conflict in Syria and the current refugee crisis.
The influential Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine wrote correctly this month about how Russian involvement in Syria is inextricably linked to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Such links have to be understood and taken fully into account in the building of a genuine internationalist movement against imperialism.
The Odessa massacre, as we know, occurred on May 2, 2014. Sightly over a month later, the Zionist onslaught against Gaza began – on 7 July 2014.
The responses in Ireland to the two events were totally different – almost as if two tragedies were simultaneously taking place on different stages on different planets.
In response to Gaza, a pro-Palestine demonstration was called in Ireland’s capital city, Dublin, for Gaza; it was attended by something in the order of 10,000 people. Those ordinary citizens at the march had undoubtedly been moved by an act of incredible brutality by a Western-backed regime on a defenceless Palestinian people.
Those speaking on the Save Gaza platform did not ever mention the Ukraine bombardment of civilian areas – supported by the US and its allies – that was taking place in Donbas at exactly the same time as the Israeli military strikes on Gaza were occurring.
The same people had supported the Maidan coup. The bombardment of Donbas was also supported by the US and its allies so wouldn’t it have been sensible for the Gaza rally organizers to mention Donbas?
At exactly the same time as Gaza and East Ukraine were under attack, the US and its allies were organizing proxy “rebel” forces in Syria aimed at the destruction of the nation’s secular state and its replacement by a pliant regime.
The Syrian crisis did not get mentioned at the Gaza rally either on account of the opportunist alliances between leftists who dominate the anti-war movement in Ireland and the Muslim Brotherhood.
We have been working since 2014 with members of the Ukraine and Russian communities in Ireland and called demos in support of Donbas.
We visited trades union headquarters in Ireland and helped Russian and Ukrainian leftists in Ireland bring the Odesa massacre photo exhibition to the country’s major cities – Dublin, Cork and Belfast.
We have held events to coincide with the showing of the photos, which have been attended by sympathetic trades union leaders, members of the Russian and Ukrainian communities and Irish republicans and socialists.
We were very pleased that our limited endeavours in Ireland have been well-matched across Europe and beyond and we draw strength from this international solidarity.
End.
Rebel Breeze COMMENT:
The events in Ukraine were well known at the time, following a US-instigated coup in 2014 (the true date of the start of the armed conflict, not February 2022).
The USA wanted Ukraine to join NATO, its bloc against Russia but the Ukraine government was more interested in staying connected to the East and in particular to Russia, having lots of linguistic and other cultural connections there.
The coup launched not only a change of government but a wide-scale attack on supporters of the previous government and on Russian-speaking communities across Ukraine, particularly in Eastern Ukraine (Donbas and Crimea).
Monuments of the War Against Fascism were torn down wherever the fascists got control.
Communities in most of the threatened areas mobilised to defend themselves against the armed attacks of the Right Sektor and the Azov Battalion (now incorporated into the Ukraine’s National Army), some with more success than others .
Mariupol fell to fascist forces but was retaken by Russian forces last year.
Crimea defended itself successfully, called an early referendum and as a result joined Russia. Other areas that were not overrun remained in defensive fighting for the next eight years, mostly with no running water or electricity, under artillery bombardment until the Russian invasion.
The demonstrations, public meetings and exhibitions to raise awareness in Ireland of the Ukrainian fascist attacks in 2014 were successful to a degree but not enough to move the major part of the Irish Left, in particular the PBP and the SP – or the trade union leaderships.
Their inability to see the true nature of events there has intensified since the Russian invasion.
A national hero of the Ukrainian state now, which Right Sektor and Azov were promoting even before 2014 is not one of the Ukrainian partisans who fought the Nazi invasion and occupation.
No, it is Stepan Bandera, not only an anti-semitic anti-gypsy fascist but a Nazi collaborator during WW2, an allied organisation of his responsible for massacres which peaked in July and August 1943.
“The massacres were exceptionally brutal and affected primarily women and children.[7][2] The UPA’s actions resulted in up to 100,000 deaths.[8][9][1]
“Other victims of the massacres included several hundred Armenians, Jews, Russians, Czechs, Georgians, and Ukrainians who were part of Polish families or opposed the UPA and sabotaged the massacres by hiding Polish escapees.” (Wikipedia).
The following reference is posted to show that the attacks and their fascist connections were well known across the West but also to show how the report twists what happened to make the victims appear as the causes of the attacks.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/02/ukraine-dead-odessa-building-fire
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