APPROPRIATE MEMORIAL FOR MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES VICTIMS: CAMPAIGN WINS IMPORTANT BATTLE IN DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL

On September 15, 2018September 15, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, History, Human Rights, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, WomenLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Dublin City Councillors at their meeting on Thursday (13^th September) voted by huge majority not to sell the former Magdalene Laundry building in Seán McDermott Street in the city centre. Deputy City Manager Brendan Kenny had earlier announced the possibility of the Council selling the building at an expected price of €14.5 million to a Japanese company that planned and hotel and supermarket on the site.

A campaign group called Separate Church & State had lobbied for the building to become a memorial to the suffering of the inmates of the Magdalene Laundries. The group called people to support an event outside City Hall to coincide with a motion being put forward to prevent the sale of the building. A range of people attended, seeming mostly Left social and political activists independent of any party and a sprinkling of People Before Profit activists.

The motion was propose by Gary Gannon, a Councilor of a very small political party (with only one member on the Council), the Social Democrats. However the motion was supported by the overwhelming majority of a Independent councillors (i.e of no party) and those belonging to a number of other parties and was passed with 37 voting in favour, eight against and two abstentions.

Campaigners and supporters in front of Dublin City Hall from across the street
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The successful motion called on the Council not to sell the building and land and that instead those who suffered abuse there should be commemorated with a memorial. Other than preventing the sale, exactly how the memorialising might be put into effect remains to be outlined and agreed. There is talk of the State taking it over but whether by donation of the Council or sale has not been clarified. There are very few memorials to the Magdalene Laundry victims and all but one of them are small.

The Sean McDermott building appears to have been the last of the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland and was closed in 1996. It is also the last of those buildings in the possession of Dublin City Council.

The significance of the victory is greater than that of elected representatives versus unelected City Managers, the former being more responsive to public pressure than to the demands of high-ranking officials who seem happy to hand over much of the city centre to property speculators, shopping centres, hotels and large student accommodation complexes.

The terms in which the issue was raised are an attack on the legacy of the Catholic Church’s grip on secular society and its relationship with the State. The campaigners clearly see the Council vote as a victory, though a moral one, against that legacy. And they are planning to press ahead with the offensive in the terms indicated by the title of their campaign, indicating further targets such as the national health and education services, along with legislation to follow on the national referendum’s rejection of Amendment 8 of the Constitution outlawing abortion.

The Magdalene Laundries – some brief background

The Magdalene Laundries were a major institution of the Irish Catholic Church from the 18^th to the late 20^th Century. There were some Protestant parallels too in the Six Counties (“Northern Ireland”) run by the Anglican and Presbyterian churches but the vast majority of the Irish population were of the Catholic faith. The Laundries took in and accommodated women who were considered “fallen women” which at first meant sex workers but later included unmarried women who had a child or children or even women whose behaviour was considered immoral or flirtatious (or even whose beauty attracted male attention) and they were put to work in the laundries for no pay. Ostensibly at first a charitable initiative, their title drew on the New Testament story of Mary Magdalene who, from being a “morally loose” woman, after meeting him became one of the most ardent supporters of Testament’s Jesus.

But if the name was associated with the alleged mercy and lack of judgementalism of the Christ, it also implied moral sin and judgement. In the extremely conservative Catholic Church that it became after the Great Hunger, the main element was likely to be punishment and, when allied to an also socially reactionary political class, the Laundries became an institution of social control of the Catholic Church in Ireland and of the new Irish State.

The Magdalene laundries soon became known to their inmates as places of hard work and ill-treatment, mostly of a psychological nature but also physical. If women left them without permission, they were pursued by the police and brought back. Continuous escapes could lead to jail sentences.

During their time in operation an estimated 30,000 Irish women were kept in these institutions in Ireland, approximately 11,000 after the State was created in 1922.

The horrors of these “charitable institutions” began to be revealed to the public during the last decade of the 20^th Century, notably in 1993 after a mass grave of 155 corpses was uncovered in the north Dublin convent grounds which housed one of the laundries and the last Laundry was finally closed down in 1996. The Church never accepted any financial responsibility for reparations.

The Irish State set aside a sum of up to €58 million (about half of which has been paid out – see Links) but the religious institutes concerned, the Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd and Sisters of Charity refused demands from the Irish Government, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee against Torture, along with other groups in Irish society, to contribute to the compensation fund for the the surviving victims, an estimated 600 of whom were still alive in March 2014 (see Wikipedia in Links).

The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Irish State apologised publicly and emotionally in the Dáil (Parliament) in February 2013 but the State never accepted any legal responsibility, its representatives saying that they did not control the Church. When they were reminded that the victims had washed not only clothes and vestments of priests and nuns but had also done laundry service for such state institutions as Aer Lingus, the Irish Army, the Gárdai, the State’s representatives declared that the Laundries were like any other contractor in that regard and that the State could could not accept responsibility for how contractors treated their “employees”. But it is known that State courts sent a number of women to the Magdalene Laundries. And it was the State that allowed the Catholic Church to dominate social care, health care and education, areas which are usually considered the responsibility of the State.

The general story of the Laundries is fairly well-known in Ireland now through media coverage and the testimonies of victims and even abroad in some countries through the 1992 Peter Mullan film Magdalene Sisters (see Links) and a number of documentaries for TV. Mary Coughlan sang a fierce attack on them too the same year as the film, composed by J.Mulhern (see Links for a Youtube video).

View of the protesters outside the meeting (some were inside) looking eastward.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

There are very few monuments to the suffering of the victims of the Magdalene Laundries and they are all of a small size except the statue in Ennis which aroused some local controversy.

The monument at Forster Street, Ennis, Co. Clare, dedicated to the Magdalen women and a subject of some controversy.
(Photo: Mike Shaughnessy)

Despite the duration of their existence and numbers involved and the international coverage, the Pope claimed when tackled by some survivors on his recent visit to Dublin that he had no knowledge of the existence of the institutions.

Sale of Council buildings and land – the legal position and some background

Due to a legislative change some years ago, Dublin Council Executives such as the City Manager and Senior Planning Officer can make major decisions without consulting elected Councillors and even against their expressed wishes. In this way, for example, the planning permission for the Shopping Centre Plan over the Moore Street Battleground and Market quarter was firstly agreed and secondly, even after the High Court judgement that it is a national monument, was renewed in 2016 by the Chief Planning officer of the time, Jim Keogan.

Many feel and have felt since such decisions that this is an unhealthy state of affairs, with no democratic controls and leaving key officials open to suspicion of bribery from developers influencing their decisions.

Fortunately however when it comes to the disposal of Council assets, the Councillors must agree by majority. This prevented the “land swap” proposed in 2014 by Joe O’Reilly of buildings in Moore Street, which if successful would have enabled his company to demolish half the 1916 Terrace: responding to campaigners and interested elected Councillors, the Council voted the proposal down against senior officials’ recommendations in November of that year.

Links:

Separate Church & State campaign group: https://www.facebook.com/separatechurchandstate/

Short article on the Dublin Council lobby and vote in Look Left: https://www.lookleftonline.org/2018/09/dcc-votes-not-to-sell-off-ex-magdalene-laundry-site/

Closing of the Magdalene Laundry on Sean McDermott Street: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/last-days-of-a-laundry-1.89388

Proposed sale of the Sean McDermott Street building: http://www.thejournal.ie/sean-mcdermott-magdalene-laundry-3941031-Apr2018/

State compensation package: https://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0626/458868-magdalene-report/ and https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/flanagan-257m-paid-out-to-682-magdalene-laundry-survivors-462711.html

The Magdalene Laundries on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland

The Pope “had no knowledge”: https://www.buzz.ie/latest/pope-magdalene-laundries-297205

Film The Magdalene Sisters, Peter Mullan (1992): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magdalene_Sisters

Song Magdalene Laundry by Mulhern and sung by Mary Coughlan (Sentimental Killer album (1992)): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHWsLYtxzz0

Irish TV (RTÉ) cameraman filming the protest (Photo: D.Breatnach)

THANK YOU YOUR HOLINESS

On August 31, 2018August 31, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn Abortion, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Education, Fan Letters, Fan Letters, Human Rights, Ireland, Satire, social commentary2 Comments

YOUR HOLINESS,

Thank you so much for visiting our island (well, the independent part). It was a wonderful experience and its effect upon us, the faithful, was at one and the same time energising and calming. And for sure we needed that, needed it so badly.

These past few years have seen this state sinking into greater and greater godliness, between different lifestyles on the one hand and the terrible revelations of what went on in some of the religious charitable institutions on the other.

Years ago we lost the battle on condoms and the Pill but our Church survived that. And to be honest, if some of the priesthood were going to engage in immorality then it would have been better if they had indeed used condoms, God help me for saying that – but certainly in the case of a certain Galway bishop it would have been useful …. for the Greater Good, of course.

But then legal divorce, and we survived that too. It seemed hardly had we managed to coexist with those travesties than we had marriage between homosexuals legislation, now flaunting their sinful ways not only publicly – but legally married! And now, worst of all by far, abortion legalised! Well, up to three months of pregnancy but we all know, the faithful and the sinful, that once that door is wedged open ….!

Of course the abuse in the institutions run by religious orders was shocking, both in its content and extent. But people want to throw the baby out with the dirty bathwater! Or the dirty laundry water, perhaps. And knowing what people are like and the enemies the Church had and has, of course it was necessary to cover it up. The first duty of any institution is to survive and therefore to protect itself. Why do people find that so hard to understand? Have we not seen political parties and governments doing the same for years? Why do people find it so strange?

So anyway, we badly needed some comforting, some reassurance and it was wonderful that in our hour of need, Your Holiness came. How wonderful to see the gold-and-white Papal Colours fluttering on flagpoles, on bunting festooned! To see so many youngsters bussed in to Dublin from other parts of Ireland, their faces aglow with the excitement (and not just because of a day out in other adolescent company, or in the excitement of youth overnight “camps”, as the cynics have commented). So what if they were somewhat incoherent or illogical when interviewed about their reasons for attendance! The brilliance of the Holy See is enough to bring incoherence to anyone!

And I understand, Your Holiness, understand perfectly why it was necessary to say Your Holiness had not known about the Magdalene Laundries. How could the mass of ordinary people be expected to understand the balancing act of the Holy See, between Perfect Good and Necessary Evil? To balance things in favour of the Greater Good? What a field day the media vultures would have had if Your Holiness had tried to explain the intricacies to them! And the unbelieving hyenas too would have gathered to the feast on our dying bodies, to crunch the bones of our faith.

Sure where else would the Irish priests, bishops and nuns have had their laundry done? Not to mention Áras an Uachtaráin, Guinness, Clery’s, the Gaity Theatre, Dr. Steevens’ Hospital, the Bank of Ireland, the Departments of Defence, Agriculture and Fisheries, CIÉ, Clontarf Golf Club and several leading hotels! In the end there was altogether too much dirty laundry washed in public really.

A Magdalene Laundry (Photo sourced: Internet)

Considering that the story involved the whole Irish church and was publicly recorded going as far as the US, and a film about it went right around the world, I thought it was very brave of Your Holiness to deny all knowledge. Only by the grace of God surely could Your Holiness have kept a straight face. I could not have managed it for a second myself but sure I am but a humble sinner.

Of course Your Holiness’ visit did not take place in the same society as we had in 1979, when your predecessor-but-one His Holiness John Paul the 2^nd visited Ireland. One in ten boys born in 1980 were named John Paul in his honour. All the same, we can look forward to a crop of baby boys named Francis this year and next, though it’s unlikely to be anything like one in ten this time. We’d be lucky to reach one in thirty, if you’ll forgive my gloominess.

Still, even Francis — and we’ve had a crop of them over the years anyway, named after the two Saints of that name and maybe even after Frank Sinatra or – God help us – Frank Zappa! Yes, believe it or not, some parents were capable of doing that in the Sixties, Seventies and even the Eighties.

I was going to say, even Francis would be a mile more likely than your Holiness’ original names. I don’t imagine that many male Irish children born this year will be baptised “Jorge Mario”. I shudder to think of the damage done to that first name in Ireland. Horhay, would be the best attempt, I’d guess but for sure there would be Horjays, Georgeays and Georgies. Your Holiness doubts this? Your Holiness has yet to hear mothers calling a “Sor-tchah” in for their tea, instead of the actual centuries-old Irish name, “Sorcha”. Or to hear of a male or female child being proudly introduced as “Sheersheh” instead of “Saoirse”, which means “freedom” — but not the freedom to mangle Irish words, God help us!

Without wishing to be in the least insulting to Your Holiness but with a name like Mario ….. well, not many Irish or migrants are going to want to sound as though their children are Italian – except of course in the Irish-Italian community. Then also, how many would want their child’s name to remind people of a popular 1980s video game, perhaps imagining all kinds of things about the parents, what they were doing when the mother conceived, etc …. And Princess Toadstool! I ask you! Pagan erotic symbolism for sure!

Forgive me, Holy Father, I have digressed.

Anyway, I hope the visit did not tire Your Holiness out too much and hope the ten thousand or so oppositional marchers did not even impinge on Your Holiness’ consciousness. To us however that showing was worrying – a couple of decades ago, only a score would have dared and they would not even have been allowed on the street!

There are signs that soon we will face a battle over the Church’s control of the primary and secondary educational institutions in Ireland. The Godless have the bit between their teeth now and it seems they will shy at no obstacle. Sorry, that’s a riding metaphor; does Your Holiness ride?

It seems we are in danger of losing the gain for which the Holy Mother Church has been striving since the mid-1800s, and which even that Protestant fornicator Parnell championed for us. If we lost control of the schools, Catholic baptisms and marriage ceremonies would cease to be required to get on the premium enrollment lists. Then religious sacraments would be confined to the truly religious and Holy Communion and Confirmation would slowly disappear out of the schools. Losing Education would mean losing most of the population of this state and already the Godless are circling. I shudder to think of it.

Poster with principles of Education Bill being promoted in Ireland
(Photo sourced: Internet)

Would it be wrong of us to pray for a religious spectacle, Holy Father? Some kind of miraculous apparition, such as with the young wans at Lourdes or at Fatima? It does seem as though only a miracle might save the Church here in the long run.

Yours in faith and humble obedience,

Pious O’Madaun.

THE CONNEMARA SKULL — DARK SECRETS AND FUN

On August 16, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Ireland, Play1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Martin McDonagh’s play, A Skull in Connemara, one of his Leenane Trilogy, directed by Andrew Flynn, is currently playing at the Olympia in Dublin’s Dame Street. With a cast of four the play takes us on a hilarious tour of hidden secrets and gossip in a rural community but with a dark side hinted at and growing towards the end. Despite the buildup, there is more than one surprise – and shock even – in store.

What one might call the central character is Mick Dowd (Pat Shortt) a gravedigger with a difference: his job is to dig up old graves and to collect the remains to transfer to another location. The population is outgrowing or outbreeding the available graveyard space. He is visited by a Mary Johnny, a local elderly woman (played by Maria McDermottroe) whose grandsons appear later, the youngest being Máirtín (Jarlath Tivnan), with an unhealthy interest in the macabre and wishing to be the gravedigger’s apprentice. His brother is local Garda Tom Hanlon (Patrick Ryan), who aspires to promotion as a detective.

The dialogue is fast at times while at others, silence or sparse words are used effectively. It is hilarious but the shadow of secret is never very far from the sunshine. In terms of acting, one must complement them all but Jarlath Tivnan as Máirtín really stands out. He was, it is true, given some marvelous dialogue (though perhaps a little irritating at the beginning) and acting lines, but he makes the best of it and his physical acting is extraordinary.

I didn’t see the previous production four years ago at the Gaiety, when it got a bad review from John McKeown in the Irish Independent but I’d have to disagree with his opinion of the script.

The sets, or really one set that converts into another, combined with the lighting, are really excellent. It takes some imagination to convert a house into a graveyard and some skill to convince the audience that they have moved from one to the other but this is achieved; one can see why the designers Owen McCarthaigh and Sinead McKenna are winners of the Irish Times Theatre Award.I

McDonagh gained fame (and some controversy) with his West of Ireland trilogies, some plays more than others but he is the author of another four plays and the film script for Six Shooter, for which he won an Academy Award in 2004.

Adverse criticism of A Skull? A little. As indeed the title informs us A Skull in Connemara is set in the West of Ireland, as with the rest of McDonagh’s Leenane Trilogy and also his Aran Trilogy but, in reality, it could be anywhere in rural Ireland. Some would say this is its strength but I regret that the only concession I noted to the Irish language was that the woman carries the name of a parent attached to her own, as is the custom in the shrinking Irish-speaking districts … and that one of the characters is named Máirtín.

And, though most of the time not noticed, one does wonder what the reason for the huge cracks and the cross etched into the house walls are about, making it appear perhaps as a set for the Mexican Mission in a play about the Alamo.

Whether you agree with those criticisms or do not, you will I feel sure enjoy it. The audience last night did and many, perhaps most, gave it a standing ovation. A Skull in Connemara is set to run to September 1^st.

Link:

http://www.olympia.ie/whats-on/a-skull-in-connemara/

THEY DON’T BELIEVE IN REVOLUTION

On July 23, 2018July 23, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Socialist Revolution, Workers' Struggles4 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

Most people here in Ireland and probably in large parts of the world, don’t believe in revolution, i.e in the act of overthrowing the social class in control. It’s not so much that they are against it, although a minority might fear the consequences or others might think that whatever gains they’d make would be transitory; it’s that they don’t believe it’s possible. Or they think it might be but in some distant future.

This is not surprising because if they did, if the mass of ‘ordinary’ people believed that a revolution was not only necessary but possible, it would already be occurring or at least well on the way.

What is surprising is that so many revolutionaries, or individuals, parties and organisations who think of themselves as revolutionary, or who would, if pressed, claim that they were – they don’t believe in it either!

By that I mean that they don’t see revolution as somewhere down the road, within sight if not necessarily close now, something to be moving towards that could well be reachable within their lifetimes. They might argue that it is not so, that they study revolutionary theory, try to conduct themselves according to revolutionary principles, study revolutionary struggles in history, organise, propagate revolutionary ideas ….. In general, I would not refute those claims but I would still say: They don’t believe in revolution.

And what’s more, that applies equally but in different ways to Irish socialists and to Irish Republicans.

I remember attending a small discussion group once organised by one of the small Irish socialist parties (small are the only kind we have in Ireland) at which the topic being discussed was the H-Blocks campaign. At one point, a prominent member of the organisation declared that the Republicans believe in armed struggle and that their party did not believe in that. Of course I pointed out Lenin’s position on this and the person backtracked but still …..

That was but a small indication of the general malaise but significant all the same. Both socialists and Republicans declare that they are not merely for reform but for the overthrow of the Irish native and colonial ruling classes. Objectively they would acknowledge that this endeavour would require an enormous effort and sacrifice. They would also concede that the ruling classes would not go quietly and, if pressed, would admit (some more readily than others), that the ruling class would resort to imprisonment, repressive legislation and, ultimately, armed power in order to prevent their overthrow.

If they believed the above and also believed a revolution was not only necessary but possible, they’d be preparing for that – but they are not.

Clearly an understanding of the theory of class, history, economics, culture etc. are all necessary. Principles of personal conduct and of organisation are very important too. But the application of principles of revolutionary organisation, the organisational preparedness for conflict and repression, the bringing of the objective into view as attainable – where is that? In the socialist camp, it is generally nowhere to be seen. In the Republican camp, it is visible only in very limited and restricted forms.

ORGANISATION

Socialists accept on a theoretical level that the revolutionary organisation of at least a large section of the working class is necessary in order to achieve a socialist revolution. Many Republicans would probably agree. But the overall practice of both camps is in clear contradiction to that principle.

We can see that clearly if we investigate a little how the working class needs to be organised as a fighting movement in which a large section can become revolutionised, conscious of itself as the leading class of the revolution and not only preparing for but engaging in struggle to that end.

Clearly, an actual mass workers’ organisation is required, a mass organisation based on workplaces, industries, communities where workers live. For the moment, I don’t wish to discuss whether that mass organisation be a party, a movement, a trade union, or a federation of collectives — nor do I think it necessary to specify type in order to develop the point I am making.

OK, so what are the Republicans or socialists doing to achieve that mass organisation of the working class?

In Ireland the most readily-understood and ready-to-hand mass organisations for workers are the trade unions. They are led for the most part by bureaucrats from the top down to shop steward and often even there, the dominant societal ideology is some level of reformist social democracy, the higher leadership is dominated by careerists and opportunists, often linked to a political party of the capitalist system and, as if that weren’t enough, all those tendencies brought them into two decades of formal social partnership (sic) with State and Employers which totally atrophied whatever fighting muscle they may once have had.

Yes, all that. And even so, it is the place to begin.

On the whole, except for some exceptional individuals and perhaps some very short historical periods, Irish Republicans have not bothered with trade unions. Certainly, the Republican movement as a whole has not considered it an important area of struggle for the movement.

Socialists, on the other hand, have generally rated the importance of struggle in the trade union movement very highly. They have participated in elections to become shop stewards, organised industrial resistance action, at times combined to try to elect more militant higher officials, produced leaflets for and about workers’ struggles, sold papers on picket lines and brought speakers from strikes to speak at public meetings. But all those efforts have not produced a revolutionary or even a militant workers’ movement.

A shop steward represents the members who elected her and, her personality apart, they will have a range of views about her political ideology. A more militant trade union higher official may push for more militant action with more or less success – or may increasingly become part of the problem. Some workers may find an interest in some of the ideas expressed in newspapers of the Left and may or may not join this or that party. None of that is organising a worker’s mass movement.

How about then, organising a broad worker’s movement, across many different workplaces?

Now, that has actually been done. Such organisations have been given titles like “Broad Left” or “Grassroots”. And in terms of building a workers’ organisation, they were a colossal failure, the experience of them probably enough to put most workers off socialist politics for a long time, if not forever. The main reason for their failure is that various socialist organisations or parties used them as forums to fight for the dominance within the broader organisation of their party, their organisation, over others.

In one kind of work or large organisation, one of those parties became dominant while another party claimed dominance in another. Sometimes control of one “grassroots” union organisation shifted backwards and forwards, year after year, between different political Left parties as the latter’s fortunes waxed and waned, as they suffered splits, as they formed different alliances.

Pickets outside the Dublin depot of the Greyhound waste collection company in a 14-week dispute in 2014. Community and political activists organised support but there was no workers’ grassroots movement do the same.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Still, it does seem to me, as one who has been a worker in both the manual and what might be called the clerical types of work, as a revolutionary and active trade unionist, that the grassroots model is the one to follow, in order to create the nucleus for the mass workers’ movement. It needs to be based not in one union, not organised around electing different officials (though it may do that from time), certainly not around parliamentary electoral politics in general and not to be the fief or plaything of any political party or parties of the Left. It needs to be based in general on active resistance, on struggle, on solidarity across unions, across workplaces and across industries. It can develop participative democratic forms of membership and representation, its own mass media and in time, cultural and education groups, mutual aid etc, extending into the whole life of the working class.

But who is undertaking that work? Nobody.

REPRESSION & UPRISING

Moving on to another area of preparation for revolution, if we accept that the revolutionary path necessarily incurs repression from the class (or classes) that we seek to overthrow, then we’d need to know something about street fighting, about being interrogated in detention, and prison life, right? At least here we find quite a few Republicans nodding in agreement. But the socialists? Blank looks from them.

Deviating from the rich literature on the Irish Republican jail experience, this is about the prison struggles of John Barker, an English political prisoner jailed with social criminals in British jails in the 1970s. (Image source: Internet).

However, not all is well here among the Republicans, either. Not all will be having any kind of training in resisting interrogation and hardly any at all in discussion of theory and practice in street fighting. Due to traditions in particular from the 1970s onwards, prison for Republicans in Ireland usually means segregation from people convicted of social crimes and segregation from other Republicans too, according to organisational membership or alliance. Still, a lot of experience has been accumulated in that kind of environment and extensively written and talked about in the Republican movement. But next to nothing about street fighting, unless we include in that the use of firearms or at least the construction of a Molotov cocktail. The engagements envisaged in that respect are of a hit-and-run nature, skirmishes and small battles ….. and not at all a popular uprising in which extended conflicts will become the rule, at least until revolution occurs or the ruling class, at least temporarily, gains the upper hand.

Two sides of street fighting — the people and the forces of repression — the Battle of the Bogside, Derry 1969. (Image sourced: Internet)

CONCLUSION

If the areas I have pointed out are crucial areas of revolutionary preparation, we can perhaps agree on some principles:
A revolution in a developed capitalist society is not possible without a mass, militant and socially-politicised workers’ movement.

A revolutionary struggle entails physical confrontation, including large-scale street fighting and must expect repression; therefore revolutionary preparation must include training revolutionaries in conducting the first and resisting the second.

Those who are not undertaking work around those principles above, or at least considering how to do so, no matter how energetic or militant they may be, cannot be said to really believe in revolution; at most they can only see it as some distant thing, which perhaps another generation will undertake, some kind of life after their death.

And if they don’t believe in it, how can they expect others to believe?

End.

SHOWING THE BRITISH ROYAL COUPLE AROUND DUBLIN

On July 13, 2018July 13, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Ireland, irish history, National Liberation, Satire2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

English Prince Harry Windsor and his bride Meaghan were in Ireland this week and were shown around Dublin.

“Ah yeah, this is where we fought yez in 1171 ….

“Our people were banned from the city for a while after that. Yes, security … quite ….

In 1366 yez got in a strop wit yer own people for starting to talk Irish, wearing Irish clothes, playing Irish games …. Called them ‘the degenerate English’ … said they’d become ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves.’ Yes, a few of them got hung.

There’s where some of our chieftains’ sons escaped your jail in 1592 after you took them hostage — some never escaped of course, ha, ha and their heads remained on spikes. Yes, a bit gruesome.

Then in the 1640s again because yer people wouldn’t change their religion (nor us, as it happens). Yes, old Oliver. I know, your family’s not too fond of him either ….

“This used to be ours, Meaghan.”
Prince Harry Windsor and Meaghan in Dublin Castle, July 2018.
(Photo source: Internet)

Yes, Trinity College, founded by yer own Queen Elizabeth. What, no, bless me, not her Majesty now — the first one! Well, to educate yer people here in the Protestant faith because they were being sent off to Catholic countries to be educated.

Just down the hill there’s where yez arrested the Leinster Directorate of the United irishmen in 1798. No, mostly Protestants …

And the bridges there, where yez hung a lot of their followers, putting their bodies in Croppies’ Acre afterwards, just across the river there. No, not a graveyard as such — a mass grave, just a hole in the ground. There are quite a few songs about that period. Yes, still sung today.

And across the road there is where the irish Parliament was — well, Anglicans only — abolished to precede the Act of Union in 1801. Yes, that was when all of Ireland became part of the UK.

….. Back up there, Robert Emmet was hung and beheaded two years later …. Yes, there is a song about that too.

Ah yes, and just down from the Castle, which was yer Headquarters, is where the The United Irishman newspaper was suppressed in 1848 and its editors and writers sent to Australia and Tasmania. No, not for a holiday — as convicts.

Now, across the river … Worker killed there during the 1913 Lockout and many injured by police the day after too. Oh, it lasted about eight months. Yes, it is a long time, your Highness. But they had some help from England. Oh, not from the Government, not at all, bless your Highness. From British trade unionists. Yes, a few songs about that Lockout also. Yes, we are very musical, thank you.

Oh yes, Bachelor’s Walk Massacre over there, 1914 …. No, nothing to do with stag parties — though sometimes …. No, not by the IRA — by the Scottish Borderers, British Army.

1916 Rising fighting post there …. there …. over there to the East …. further back there to the west…. and south …. and there. Yes, fourteen executed in the Kilmainham Gaol Museum …. no, it wasn’t a museum at the time … Oh, many, many songs …

Now, over there was where Kevin Barry was hung … Yes, there is a song about that as well, your Highness.

One of the RIC G-men shot there by our people… and another over there … Ah, the RIC? Well, sort of like yer PSNI up north now …

Civil War, yes, 1922 -’23. Yes, Collins was glad of yer cannons for that.

Dublin Bombings …. yes, in 1974. The IRA? No, bless me, not at all! Yer own intelligence service and loyal allies. Yes, it was …. biggest number of deaths in one day during the whole recent 30 years war. No, strangely, not one arrest ……

No, the British Embassy’s not in the City Centre anymore, Your Royal Highness Meaghan …. not since 1972. Well it got burned. No, not accidentally — a big crowd burned it after Bloody Sunday up in Derry, you know, when 14 were killed by your father-in-law’s regiment ….

end

‘PEACE’ PROCESS LESSON FROM THE PALESTINIANS

On June 30, 2018July 8, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, Colombia, Current Affairs Comment, History, Human Rights, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, Kurdistan, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, South Africa, US Imperialism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

The ongoing slaughter by Israeli soldiers of Palestinians demonstrating at the border of the Israeli State for the right to return to their homeland has rightly received media attention and, after a motion condemning Israel in the UN Security Council was blocked by the USA, the General Assembly passed another by a huge majority. The shootings demonstrate the total disregard of the Zionist authorities for Palestinian life and also the degree to which, by refusing to condemn and by supplying finance and equipment, the USA and major European states stand in support of Israel and are therefore complicit in its murderous actions. But the whole history of the right of return of Palestinians raises another issue of international importance and provides a historical and political lesson applicable widely, far beyond Palestine or even the Middle East.

A Palestinian woman brandishes a key, symbol of the house her family left behind when forced out of Palestine. Ironically Sephardic Jewish families were forced out of medieval Spain and some still keep a key to their ancestral home.
(Photo from Internet)

Negotiations, Agreements and ….?

Back in 1993, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was in secret negotiation with Israel in Oslo, with Norway in the ‘honest broker’ role (but a later Norwegian Foreign Office investigation concluded that the Norwegian participants had acted as “Israel’s errand boys” – see link). Later it was to be the USA playing the ‘facilitator’ role — yes, bizarre, given the USA’s major economic and strategic interests in the Middle East and its role in supporting Israel. But then, perhaps the PLO figured they’d best have both their enemies there at the same time, both tied to whatever agreement was hammered out.

What had brought the parties to the negotiation table was the First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. This uprising had begun on 9^th December 1987 and had been characterised by repeated street fighting, barricades, refusal to work for the Israelis and strikes and boycotts, along with refusal to pay taxes. The Israeli state had replied with arrests and shootings, killing over 1,600 Palestinians as against 277 Israelis killed. Between 23,600–29,900 Palestinian children required medical treatment from Israeli Occupation Force beatings in the first two years (Wikipedia).

Palestinian youth throwing stones at Israeli military during First Intifada (Photo: Internet)

Palestinian women confront Israeli soldiers during First Intifada (Photo: Internet)

After signing the Oslo Accords in Washington, Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the PLO and Yitzak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, were photographed there shaking hands with US President Bill Clinton looking on approvingly, arms almost around them, like a big friendly uncle making peace between nephews. Yizhak Rabin, Shimon Perez and Arafat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 (a prize already devalued ever since it had been awarded to notorious warmonger Kissinger).

Rabin, Clinton and Arafat, Washington, after signing of the Oslo Accords.
(Photo: Internet)

Much was made of the Oslo meeting and the Accords (including later meetings and agreements) in the international media with talk of coming peace in Palestine and a resolution to the conflict etc signposted and not too far ahead. These prediction proved false and hopes were dashed.

But anyone examining the situation cooly would not have been surprised. Leaving aside other issues such as whether a two-state solution was justifiable, or viable even then, or whether the legitimacy of Israel should ever have been agreed to, the right of return of Palestinian exiles had been set aside by the PLO in the final Oslo agreement, a postponement, along with a number of other big issues, such as illegal settlements, to be discussed later. The Palestinian diaspora is today estimated at 9.6 million people (see link).

Since the omissions were of issues fundamental to any solution even within the parameters of the dubious two-state solution, it would have been obvious to anyone who had their eyes open that the Oslo Accords were no solution nor even a step towards a solution. So why were they agreed by the PLO?

A belief in the Accords as a stepping-stone would not have been sustainable on its own (except for wishful-thinking liberals) and the partial withdrawal of Israeli armed forces insufficient, given that Israel controlled all borders (except the Gaza one with Egypt, in which that state colluded with Israel). In addition, the Israeli troops had the capacity to return whenever they wished (and did so many times).

The motivation has to have been status or money.

The PLO, although containing a number of Palestinian organisations at that time (but not Islamic Jihad or Hamas), was dominated by Al Fatah, a secular Palestinian national liberation organisation. Fatah had the prestige of long existence and of having withstood the Israeli armed assault at Karameh in Jordan in 1968 during which, at a huge cost, it had forced the Zionist army to retreat. The following year Fatah had reportedly racked up 2,432 guerrilla attacks on Israel too — for a population with the Zionist jackboot on its neck, that counted for a lot.

Concluding an agreement with the Israelis, who previously said they would not talk to the Palestinian resistance, might have seemed like a status-raising event to Fatah. And setting up the Palestinian Authority, which of course they would run, would definitely give them status in the eyes of many outside and even inside Palestine.

But running the PA, which would be in receipt of funds and in charge of their distribution, also managing employment, would also provide myriad opportunities for corruption and nepotism, unless the organisation were to be rigorously monitored either externally or internally. That monitoring did not happen and corruption among Fatah was rife. Only the people on the ground seemed to mind, the ones who wanted strong opposition to the Israeli occupation and whatever development could be brought about in the infrastructure and communities, along with the longer-term aims of a Palestinian state and the return of refugees and exiles. And who weren’t part of the corruption.

Failure of Agreements and Insurrection

In 2000, after the failure of the Camp David talks in the US and many failures in the Accords in the nine years of their existence, no-one seriously believed in the Oslo Accords any more and the Second Intifada began. An intifada had provided the reason to negotiate for the Israelis, however insincerely intended and now another intifada brought the negotiation period formally to a close.

As observed earlier, Fatah was the organisation to which the majority of Palestinians (certainly within Palestine) had given their support and it was a secular party (although for the first time the PLA declared the “state religion” to be Islam in 2003, where previously there had been no mention of religion whatsoever). We can assume that most Palestinians were happy to be represented by a secular organisation and perhaps even preferred it.

But in the 2005 municipal, most Palestinians voted for Hamas, a fundamentalist Moslem organisation, for the first time pushing Fatah into second place. And in the Presidential and Parliamentary elections of 2006, again. What brought about that change? Was it a sudden devotional conversion? No, it was that Al Fatah had become corrupt, was not seen to be fighting Zionism hard enough (some would have said was becoming collaborationist) and had given up on the right of refugees and exiles to return. Hamas, though not officially represented in the PLO, was running social programs, its activists seemed disciplined and it was resolutely opposing Israeli Zionism politically and militarily. And it insisted on the right of refugees and exiles to return.

Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections with a 3% lead over the incumbents. Unwilling to accept the popular will, Fatah staged an armed uprising against Hamas which, in the Gaza strip, Hamas decisively won (what the Wikipedia entry on Hamas calls a “takeover”!). For some reason, although Hamas was undoubtedly the winner electorally, they let Fatah hang on to power in the West Bank. And the US-led demonisation and isolation of Hamas in Gaza by the West began, along with a series of Israeli armed attacks from that year until 2014, including full-scale missile and air bombardments and infantry incursions, killing thousands of Palestinians including civilians, women and children and destroying much infrastructure.

Since then, the Gaza population is being squeezed with electricity supply reduced to four hours a day and hardly any fuel to run generators or transport allowed in past Egyptian and Israeli gates, its water supply contaminated by damaged sewage treatment plant, the inshore sea likewise contaminated and Palestinians fishing further out attacked by Israeli gunboats, factories bombed out ….

The message seems to be: “Get rid of Hamas, get back with Fatah and we’ll stop exterminating you.” But a delayed extermination is all it would be, as evidenced from the deeper penetration of Zionist colonist enclaves on to Palestinian land, the Zionist-only roads, the ongoing takeover of Jerusalem, the Israeli Wall, the continual theft of water and the harassment by settlers and Israeli Army of any populations of Palestinians living near to Israeli colonists.

The Processes outside of Palestine

Taking a trip back in time to 1993, we saw the Oslo Accords being hailed as a great step forward by the majority of commentators across the West. These coincided with the new interim constitution as a result of the negotiations in South Africa — so that then two major areas of conflict were being hailed as definitely on the way to a solution, to come sooner rather than later. “Peace process” became a buzz-word, firstly among the participants and some of the commentators, then in the agreed discourse of the rest of the media and politicians.

In Ireland, as the Provisionals’ leadership and the British looked at one another across the dance floor, the former wondered what they could get from the same kind of process but crucially, how to sell it to their rank and file. At the Sinn Féin Ard-Fheiseanna (annual congresses of the party), the ANC and Al Fatah (wearing their PLO hat) fraternal delegates were welcomed by hype from the SF leadership and enthusiastic reception from the floor of the hall. The ANC and Fatah of course talked up their parts of the Processes and no-one seemed to examine critically what either the South African blacks or the Palestinians were likely to get out of them.

Ramaphosa, Mandela & Zuma at Jo’burg Conference 2012. Zuma is now deposed from ANC for corruption and Ramaphosa is millionaire President of South Africa and ex-leader of the National Union of Mineworkers. (Photo: from Internet, by Walter Dhiadhia)

And the Pal-African partnership continued to attend congresses, to send fraternal messages to areas of ongoing anti-imperialist resistance, to sing their siren song with a Western chorus backing. The Provisionals joined the actors and took to the stage as they neared and finally accepted the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. But with the Palestinian conflict showing no sign of resolution (unless one considers a kind of genocide of Palestinians) or even a respite — and in particular after the 2006 elections victory by Hamas — the Palestinians were no longer quoted as a good example of the “peace process”. Various actors, including South Africans and Irish, went on to try to sell the “Process” to areas of stubborn anti-imperialist resistance: the southern Basque Country, Turkish Kurdistan, Columbia, Phillipines, Sri Lanka ….. But the Palestinians (or rather Fatah) had been dropped off the billing and bowed quietly out of the Traveling Peace Process Show. They had not even an illusion to portray any more.

Kurds demonstrating against Turkish dictatorship in Germany fly flags bearing image of Abdullah Ocalan. Some years ago he said he supports a peace process in Turkey but he needs to be freed from prison to lead it
(Photo: the Times in Israel).

However, the show must, as we are often reminded, go on. It failed to deliver in Kurdistan and the Basque Country, not because the leaders of the resistance movements were not amenable but because of the unwillingness to adapt of the Turkish and Spanish regimes respectively. However, the Basque armed organisation ETA threw in the towel a couple of years ago anyway, abandoning their fighters in the jails to seek their own individual ways out through begging forgiveness of the occupiers of their land and oppressors of their people. The Turkish and Syrian Kurds were drawn into partnership with the imperialist allies dominated by the US, in their war against ISIS but also for the overthrow of the Assad regime, though deep Kurdish contradictions continue with the Turkish regime, to which it looks like the US Coalition will abandon them and they may seek an accommodation of sorts with Assad.

The Colombian FARC and MIR swallowed the Processed bait and gave up the armed struggle for a promise of a political one but those of their leaders who are resolute are being hunted by the regime, the quasi-liberated areas terrorised by the Army and assassination squads, the resistance fragmenting and disorientated. The Tamil Tigers didn’t entertain the Peace Process Show but the Sri Lankan Army were able to surround their liberated areas and bombard them to defeat, murdering their leaders and raping, murdering and repressing their followers.

The Phillipines and India? The resistance groups in both these areas are led by a Maoist-type leadership and we wait to see.

And in Ireland, after two decades since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the colonial occupier has the leadership of Sinn Féin, the former resistance, in joint colonial government, the party’s southern arm seeking admittance to the Irish comprador capitalist club, the remaining anti-imperialist resistance fragmented and the country not one step nearer to unity and independence.

The Palestinian lesson for the world

All the issues which led to these conflicts and which the processes of pacification did not address – were never intended to address – will return again, to be struggled over anew, under new leaderships. In Palestine now, that is what has been happening. The Right of Return for exiles and refugees, put to one side by Fatah in the Oslo Accords nearly three decades ago, is being demanded again on the Israeli border, the protesters (along with the ‘collateral damage’ of journalists and paramedics) being bombarded by tear gas and shot down by Israeli snipers. The Palestinians, whose leadership nearly three decades ago were chosen by US imperialism to be among the first to accept the new round of historical pacification processes and to become complicit in being its missionaries, are teaching us the fallacy of the facile promises they were made at the time.

There is another irony here: while refusing the right of return to Palestinians who were themselves exiled or are children and grandchildren of exiles, i.e within living memory, the State of Israel offers “the right of return” (sic) to people who have never been there and cannot even prove that their ancestors were, providing only they can prove their Jewishness. And a further irony: Sephardic Jews, who were expelled by the Christian kingdoms in Spain and Portugal in the Middle Ages, were being offered a “right of return” by the Spanish Government in 2014 (see link).

Over time, the people in the other areas of anti-imperialist resistance around the world will regroup, gather strength and return to the resistance. The imperialists almost certainly know this. But they have bought themselves three decades of damage to their opposition and, since they need the people as producers and consumers, cannot eliminate the deep wells of resistance. And capitalism is not about enduring solutions – they work away at undermining the resistance on a temporary basis and as for the future, like Micawber in Dickens’ David Copperfield, believe that “something (else) will turn up”.

End.

LINKS (NB: I have deliberately chosen most background references regarding Palestine from Wikipedia, which is known to be heavily monitored by Zionist interests and also has inputs from friends of the Palestinians and therefore cannot be said to be completely favourable to either side):

Palestinian exiles and the right of return: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_diaspora

Account of the Oslo Accords: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords

The Oslo Accords negotiations and their legacy: https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/palestineremix/the-price-of-oslo.html#/14

The Palestine Liberation Organisation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization

The right of return to Palestine of Palestinians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return#UN_General_Assembly_Resolution_194

The right of return to Spain of Sephardic Jews: https://theconversation.com/spain-moves-to-right-a-522-year-wrong-but-still-overlooks-some-23526

DUBLIN PROTESTS JAILING OF ALTSASU EIGHT

On June 29, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Euskal Herria, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Spanish State1 Comment

People gathered early evening Thurday (21^st) on O’Connell Street, Dublin city’s main street, to protest the convictions and sentencing of the Altsasu Eight. They held Basque and Catalan flags and displayed placards demanding “Free the Altsasu Eight!” and another pointing out the severity of the sentences for what was a bar brawl with Spanish police.

Section of protest and conversation with passers-by
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

From the leaflet distributed: “In November 2016, during a festival in Altsasu, Nafarroa (Navarra) Province of the southern Basque Country, a lieutenant and sergeant in the Spanish Guardia Civil police force, both off-duty with their girlfriends, entered a late-night bar well-known as a place for pro-independence Basques to socialise. An altercation occurred in which the police said they were attacked by the Basque youth and claimed a fractured ankle suffered by one; others say it was just some shoving and pushing.

“The Navarran regional police force, the Policía Foral, first on the scene, treated it as an alleged assault case which is how the local court wished to deal with the issue. However the Spanish state Prosecutor intervened and, transferring the case to Madrid, accused eight youth of “terrorism” for which they could face a total of 375 years in prison. He failed to prove that but on charges of public disturbance, assault and threats alone, on 1^st this June the eight youth were variously sentenced to between 2.5 and 13 years in jail as well as fined thousands of euro.”

Leaflets were distributed to raise awareness of this injustice and many passers-by stopped to talk and ask questions. One group of interested youth was from Zaragoza, which is in Aragon province and not far from the Basque Country.

Protesters including musicians
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Live music was provided for the participants and passers-by: two women sang Txoria Txori in harmonies and a Basque sang a new song that has been composed about the Altasasu 8, while another accompanied him on guitar (hope to post the lyrics and translation). Txoria Txori is a short simple allegorical song about a man who loves a bird and says that if he cuts its wings it would stay with him but he can’t do that because then no longer would it be a bird – and he loves the bird. This song is well-known and loved in the Basque Country.

The picket was an event of internationalist solidarity, not only because it was carried out in Ireland in support of victimised youth in the Basque Country, but also because the picket line included Irish, Basque, Catalan and Italian people.

Further information in the English language on this case (and other events in the Basque Country) will be posted from time to time on https://www.facebook.com/dublinbasque/

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE PICKET AT BRITISH EMBASSY DUBLIN

On June 20, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn Britain, Civil Rights, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Mass Media Criticism, Political Prisoners, Song, US Imperialism3 Comments

CROWD AT BRITISH EMBASSY DUBLIN CALLS FOR RELEASE OF JULIAN ASSANGE

Diarmuid Breatnach

View of crowd at British Embassy from across the street (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Today, June 19^th, is the anniversary of the date when Julian Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, which he was granted. That was 2012, since which he has been confined to a few rooms in that building, unable to leave for fear of British arrest and extradition to the US, where he is wanted for broadcasting their secrets on their murderous campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq and other matters. A crowd gathered outside the British Embassy to demand Assange be set free – among them as speakers were TDs Clare Daly, Mick Wallace, along with Nobel Peace Laureate Mairéad Corrigan and musician Paul O’Toole (also another musician).

Paul O’Toole playing and singing
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

At least five Gardaí were in attendance, along with a police van.

From Wikipedia: Julian Paul Assange (born Hawkins; 3 July 1971) is an Australian computer programmer and the editor of WikiLeaks. Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006, but came to international attention in 2010, when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the Collateral Murder video (April 2010), the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), and CableGate (November 2010). Following the 2010 leaks, the federal government of the United States launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and asked allied nations for assistance.

Poster of image of Julian Assange with the flag of the USA as a gag on him. (Image source: Internet)

All the speakers outside the British Embassy made the point that Assange’s only crime is to reveal some murderous secrets of the USA and other powers and that if he can be jailed then so can anyone for speaking or publishing the truth. Clare Daly said that his crime was to be a conscientious reporter.

Paul O’Toole played two songs, one of which was The Cry of the Morning, a song about internment. The other musician played some tunes and then led the crowd in singing “All we are saying, is free Julian Assange.”

Fintan thanked all for coming and the speakers and musicians and the event came to an end.

Mick Wallace TD speaking outside the British Embassy (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Another musician supporting the event (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Section of crowd, looking southward
(Photo: D.Breatnach).

Clare Daly TD speaking outside the British Embassy
(Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Nobel Peace Laureate Mairéad Corrigan speaking outside British Embassy (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Police van & 2 of the six Gardaí that were visible (Photo: D.Breatnach)

BACKGROUND

Assange went to Sweden to talk about Wikileaks and its revelations in August 2010. A woman in Sweden wanted Assange to have a HIV test after he had sex with her. Her friend, who had also had sex with Assange in the past, encouraged her to go to the police. Assange went voluntarily to the police station, was interviewed and told he could go, there was no charge and he went back to England. Afterwards, a Swedish Special Prosecutor charged him with sexual molestation and “lesser-degree rape” (a particular Swedish charge) although the original complainant did not accuse him of rape.

By then it was becoming clear that another agenda was behind the Swedish Special Prosecutor and the two women. Assange offered to be interviewed again by Skype or in person in London or, if necessary in Sweden but only if that country guaranteed not to extradite him to the USA. The Swedish authorities refused to give that guarantee. The Prosecutor said Swedish law did not permit an interview on foreign soil but this was publicly contradicted by Swedish legal experts and the Prosecutor eventually interviewed him in London but by this time it was November 2016, by which time the statute of limitations had run out on the less serious charges. In May 2017, the Swedish authorities dropped their investigation against Assange and Chief Prosecutor Marianne Ny officially revoked his arrest warrant.

However, as a result of Sweden’s attempt to extradite Assange, he had been brought to court in London and released on bail. Due to Sweden’s refusal to guarantee him no extradition to the USA, Assange jumped bail and sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy on 19^th June 2012 and has been there since. He cannot leave for fear of arrest by the British for breach of bail conditions and extradition to Sweden, from where he may be extradited to the US, where politicians and officials have said publicly that he should be jailed and some even wanted him executed under anti-espionage laws or assassinated.

End.

BASED ON HISTORY BUT FAR FROM IT– McCann’s “After the Lockout”.

On June 10, 2018June 10, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn Book Review, Creative writing, History, Ireland, irish history, National LiberationLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

History can and should be researched, interpreted, discussed, argued and used for lessons on current questions and projections into the future. It can also be used in fiction: as the backdrop for a novel; as a way of bringing historical events to life; as a what-if speculative story.

James Plunkett (21 May 1920 – 28 May 2003) used the Dublin Lockout as a backdrop for his Strumpet City and did it wonderfully well; Walter Macken (3 May 1915 – 22 April 1967) wrote a fictionalised account of brothers in the War of Independence and the Civil War in The Scorching Wind and also did it well¹. Roddy Doyle did NOT do it well at all in his historical novel (A Star Called Henry) and sadly nor did Darran McCann in “After the Lockout”. Interestingly, the central characters in both latter books were what one might call “Left critics” of the leaders of the struggle and one is tempted to conclude that the attitudes of the central characters mirror those of their creators.

It seems fair enough that we can play with history in fiction but, when using it as a backdrop for a story, it should be accurately represented – otherwise, surely one should invent something else entirely?

Doyle did some reading on the GPO garrison’s struggle for the background of his “A Star Called Henry” but seemed to have done none for the War of Independence, in which he had his hero and heroine like a kind of Republican Bonny and Clyde living in ditches and shooting up the Free State forces. McCann seems to have done hardly any reading on the Lockout (and not that much on the GPO garrison’s fight either). Having Jim Larkin give a speech from the restaurant in Murphy’s Imperial Hotel restaurant window is bad enough – when we know he only got to say a few sentences before the Dublin Metropolitan Police ran in to arrest him – but having him then shin down a rope and get away is absolutely ridiculous.

McCann set the story of his central character, Victor Lennon, in between the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence and it has many of the elements of the story of James Gralton (17 April 1886 – 29 December 1945), the only Irish person to have been officially exiled from Ireland by an Irish government (in 1933).

The arrest of Jim Larkin after he spoke briefly from the Imperial Hotel in 1913. He did not shin down a rope!
(Image sourced: Internet)

McCann’s Victor Lennon, a communist and member of the Irish Citizen Army, gets people in his home town to build a dance hall in opposition to the local Bishop, which a mob then burns down. Gralton, a communist also, did that too, in Leitrim; however, he ran dances there and also gave talks – it was a success, to a considerable degree. The Irish Catholic Church vehemently opposed Gralton and in McCann’s novel the Bishop and local supporters also mobilise against Victor: the hall is burned down before any dance is held in it. Like Gralton’s story, there is a shooting incident around the dance hall too – a fatal one, in which Victor’s father and two IRA men are killed. But instead of being deported from Ireland, as Gralton was (illegally) by an Irish Government, which in McCann’s story had not yet come into existence, Victor heads off for Dublin to join the Volunteers in what will become the IRA and the War of Independence.

Newspaper photograph of James Gralton in the process of his deportation in 1933 (note he is described as “Irish-American” as though to justify his deportation, though in fact he was born in Ireland and did not leave for the USA until 23 years of age, subsequently returning to fight in the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence.
(Image sourced: Internet)

What actually happened after Larkin spoke briefly from the Imperial Hotel — a vicious police baton charge and indiscriminate beating of all in the area.
(Image sourced: Internet)

Roddy Doyle wrote very disrespectfully about Volunteers, Pearse and a number of other leaders and even salaciously about anonymous wives of martyred men. He did so by placing those words and thoughts in the mouth and mind of his central character, Henry Smart. McCann does somewhat the same but to nowhere near the same extent as did Doyle.

I admit to finding that lack of respect extremely distasteful but also from a historical point of view I see it as anachronistic. I find it hard to believe that those who took part in the Rising despised those who fought alongside them, no matter the difference in ideology – or that they spoke so contemptuously of their leaders, martyred or not. Disagreed, certainly – disagreed strongly, probably. But disrespect and contempt? No, that is attaching a post-Free State intellectual revisionist attitude on to participants in the Rising and in the War of Independence. Later, there would be fear and hatred, during the Civil War, but even then, none of that contemptuous and dismissive attitude.

I am not the only critic from a historical perspective, as I see from a quick Googling. Reviewing the book for the Irish Independent in 2012, Pat Hunt had this to say:

“The opening section set in Dublin reads more like a 1917 Thom’s Street Directory and a survey of political events and personalities of the time. The seediness of the red-light Monto district in the inner city does not ring true. The period feel of the city of Armagh is much better realised.

“The author’s editor has done him no favours. It was never possible to hop on a train at Amiens Street and hop off at Harcourt Street station (not unless one took a scenic route via Bray).

“The Big Wind of 1839 occurred on the Feast of the Epiphany, not Pentecost. Forecasts of wine lakes and butter mountains (concepts that emerged with the EEC and its common agricultural policy) could not have been envisioned by even the most ardent socialist in 1917.”

Hilary Mantel, who writes historical fiction, praised McCann’s book and I can only assume that she knows very little of Irish history, nor indeed should we expect that she should – her background is not Irish. Glen Patterson, novelist from the Six Counties, praised it highly too and I assume did so on the composition of the writing, turn of phrase, story-telling etc – but I sincerely hope he did not do so on a historical basis.

After the Lockout, Darran McCann, Harper Collins 2012.

End.

FOOTNOTE:

1 Though not perhaps as well as the other two books in the trilogy, those dealing with the Cromwellian war and Great Hunger periods: Seek the Fair Land and The Silent People)

DUBLIN PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATION – CROWD CALLS FOR EXPULSION OF ISRAELI AMBASSADOR

On June 6, 2018June 10, 2018 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

The regular blowing of horns by passing motorists, including taxis and buses, would have indicated that something of interest was happening in the city centre yesterday, Monday 5^th June. As people came within sight of the centre of O’Connell Street, they could also see the Palestinian flags flying, the banners and the placards.

View of the rally on the east side of the central pedestrian reservation, looking southwards. (Photo: D. Breatnach)

The Great Return March

The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign had convened a rally of hundreds in the central pedestrian reservation of O’Connell Street, main street of Ireland’s capital city, near to the Spire and opposite the historic and iconic building, the General Post Office. Billed as a rally in solidarity with the Great Return March of Palestinians, demonstrators carried placards denouncing the shooting dead by Israeli soldiers of demonstrators as well as of journalists and paramedics. The Palestinian death toll since March 30th has reached 120, with over 5,500 injured. Palestinians have also accused Israeli snipers, when they wish not to kill, of shooting young men through parts of their legs calculated to ensure permanent disability. The shooting dead of unarmed protesters, the killing of paramedics and journalists (who wear clearly identifiable clothing), are all crimes according to international law but, as Palestinians and their supporters repeatedly ask, who will hold Israel to account?

A view of part of the rally on the central pedestrian reservation, looking southwards.
(Photo: D. Breatnach)

The demonstrators being targeted by Israeli military are protesting the expulsion by Israel of 700,000 of what was then the majority Arab population of Palestine in 1948, followed by their exclusion and that of their descendants from Israeli-controlled Palestine. There are an estimated four million Palestinians ¹ barred from entry to Palestine, their lands or those of their grandparents, while anybody in the world who can prove his or her Jewishness, even though their families had not lived there for thousands of years², can gain entry and claim Israeli citizenship.

Placards held by supporters in the rally yesterday upheld the right of the Palestinians to return to their homeland. It is ironic that the Zionists since 1924 at least have been upholding that demand for people who had never set foot in the land, nor whose ancestors had not for thousands of years but are denying that right to Palestinians driven out within living memory and their descendants.

View of the rally on the west side of the central pedestrian reservation, sretching southwards. (Photo: D. Breatnach)

Speaking through a microphone, Martin Quigley thanked those attending the rally and after some remarks, introduced the Chairperson of the IPSC, Fatin Al Tamimi. Speaking about the right of return of Palestinians, Tamimi also said that she had relatives in both Hebron (West Bank) and in the Gaza strip and spoke about the privations of the people there blockaded by Israel, including contaminated water and lack of electricity. However not only is Israel guilty but also Egypt, as Tamimi alluded to when she said that Egypt had only temporarily opened the Rafah Crossing Gate, which Egypt maintains, for the feast of Ramadan, as a result of which she was expecting to be able to see her sister for the first time in seven years (the crowd cheered and applauded this news).

Marting Quigley for IPSC. (Photo: D. Breatnach)

“Expel the Israeli Ambassador and close down the Embassy!”

Two other Palestinian speakers addressed the rally, including one who had come out through that very Rafah crossing, Asad abu Shark who was introduced as from the Great March of Return and Ahmad El Habbash, introduced as representing the Palestinian Community in All Ireland³. All speakers drew attention to the Nakba (from Yawm an-Nakba, meaning “Day of the Catastrophe”, referring to the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 –), to the right of return, the terrible conditions within the Gaza strip (which place, they said, would become uninhabitable by 2020 — see link), the impunity of the Israeli authorities and the inactivity of “the international community”.

Fatin Al Tamimi, Chairperson of IPSC, addressing the rally.
(Photo: D. Breatnach)

Al Tamimi was cheered loudly when she called for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland and the closure of the Israeli Embassy, a call repeated by other speakers.

Ronit Lenten, who introduced herself as “an Israeli Jew” and representing Academics For Palestine (Ireland), also spoke briefly.

Last to speak was John Lyons, a Dublin City Councillor for the People Before Profit party, who made similar points. Referring to visit of his own to Palestine he referred to the courage and persistence of the Palestinians in merely trying to live their daily lives under the conditions of Israeli military occupation, apartheid and harassment and called on the Irish people to match that determination in taking action in solidarity with the Palestinians.

An Ireland-based Palestinian speaker addressing the rally. (Photo: D. Breatnach)

Throughout the speeches, the solidarity beeping of horns of passing car and bus drivers could be heard and occasionally shouts of encouragement from open bus or car windows.

Bill to ban imports from Occupied Territories

All speaker highlighted the importance of the BDS campaign (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and the need for Irish people to contact their elected public representatives to ask them for concrete action in support of Israel, including for a Bill to be introduced in the Seanad by Senator Francis Black, (well-known singer, also campaigner for human rights and for support for recovery from alcohol addiction). The Bill in question is the Occupied Territories Bill, the intention of which is to place a national ban on any products shown to be exported from territories under illegal occupation. The Bill, a draft of which has already been approved in committee (see link), is expected to go before the Seanad in July, though that may change and, if passed twice there, will go on to the Oireachtas for debate and, if passed there, into Irish law.

One of the IPSC’s leafleters and passers-by who have just accepted a leaflet. (Photo: D. Breatnach)

Calling on all present to stay in touch with the IPSC or with other Palestine solidarity organisation, Martin Quigley brought the event to an end by leading the rally in leading a number of chants: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” “Free, free Palestine!” “One, two, three, four – occupation no more!” “Five, six, seven, eight – Israel is a fascist state!”

Early moments as Palestinian supporters gather, view northwards. (Photo: D. Breatnach)

Argentina cancels scheduled football match with Israel. Dozens of Palestine flags defy GAA ban.

In a separate but related development, the national soccer team of Argentina yielded to calls to abandon its scheduled ‘friendly’ match with the Israeli national soccer team (see relevant link). Strong advocacy for the cancellation had been brought about by the movement for BDS both within and outside Argentina but statements of team officials to the media made it appear that members of the team had been threatened (but without producing any evidence of such).

And on Sunday, dozens of Palestinian flags were flown during a match at Omagh between Senior Gaelic Football teams Tyrone and Monaghan. The actions seemed not only to represent solidarity with the Palestinians at this time but also defiance of GAA officials who had removed flags and a banner at a previous match (see relevant link).

End.

POSTSCRIPT:

Palestinian solidarity demonstration in Dublin Friday 8th June (not organised by IPSC).
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Footnotes:

1 “Today the number who qualify for UNRWA’s (United Nations Refugee and Welfare Agency) services has grown to over 4 million. One third of whom live in the West Bank and Gaza; slightly less than one third in Jordan; 17% in Syria and Lebanon (Bowker, 2003, p. 72) and around 15% in other Arab and Western countries. Approximately 1 million refugees have no form of identification other than an UNRWA identification card.”

2Or the many Jewish converts who never had any contact whatsoever with Palestine.

3 Actually no individual or separate organisation can claim legitimately to “represent the Palestine community in Ireland or anywhere” but there does exist a Palestinian organisation in Ireland which has appropriated that title as its organisational name. A number of different organisations (and none) find support among the general expatriate Palestinian community, including Hamas, Al Fatah and perhaps the PFLP.

Links:

Expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland and statistics on refugees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_exodus#Palestinian_refugees

IPSC: http://www.ipsc.ie/ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/IrelandPSC/

Sadaka Ireland: http://www.sadaka.ie/

Frances Black‘s Occupied Territories Bill: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas-to-table-bill-on-goods-from-illegal-israeli-occupations-1.3308838

Living conditions in Gaza — “uninhabitable by 2020”:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/gaza-could-be-uninhabitable-by-2020-un-warns-1.2337255

Cancelation by Argentina of match against Israel (this report doesn’t mention alleged threats): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/palestinians-argentina-cancels-israel-game-180606113926752.html

Dozens of Palestinian flags defy GAA ban: http://www.irishnews.com/news/2018/06/04/news/dozens-of-palestinian-flags-flown-at-healy-park-despite-ulster-council-saying-they-are-banned-1346368/?param=ds12rif76F