Joan Burton, Labour Party TD, Minister for Social Protection in Fine Gael/ Labour coalition Irish Government.Enda Kenny, Fine Gael, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) FG/ Labour coalition Irish Government.
“ ‘Parliamentary cretinism’ …. a lack of intellectual capacity, stupidity, in sections of the Left with regard to their attitude to the parliament in question ……also came to be associated with idealism, in the sense that Marxists understand that term, i.e. as wishful thinking ….of basing one’s actions on an ideal view rather than on the concrete reality and historical experience. ”
Increasingly, it seems, one hears calls for the resignation of the Government, or the leaders of the coalition in power, or a certain Government Minister. This kind of behaviour is honoured by practice over time, especially when weakness in the reigning party or parties is sensed or becomes obvious. The weakened government and its representatives are attacked on political, financial, economic and even personal grounds, hoping to make them lose confidence in themselves and the confidence of others, until they finally give in or their enemies become so many and united against them that they lose some apparently big battle and resign.
And then what? Well, in our political system, inevitably, a general election. Nearly every citizen in the state will get a vote and the chance to put into parliament an alternative government. This government will be composed of one of the main alternative parties or by a coalition of parties. So based on the disposition of forces around at the moment, that will mean a government of Fianna Fáil or a coalition of that party and of Sinn Féin. There is no other alternative, based on any predictable pattern.
And that can only mean that nothing will basically change. Fianna Fáil is a capitalist party marked by corruption and, like all Irish capitalist parties, by acting as a middleman in the sale of our country’s labour power and resources to foreign monopoly capitalists. It is the party which was in power at the start of the financial collapse and, in a move that even astounded capitalists of other states, bailed out the speculator banks Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide and guaranteed the speculators against loss – decisions for which the Irish people are continuing to pay and without an end in sight.
Well, but Sinn Féin spoke against a number of the austerity measures imposed on the Irish people to make them pay for those decisions, didn’t they? Sure they did. There is a long tradition of parties in opposition attacking the government and then implementing, if not the exact same policies, at least very similar ones, as soon as they get into power themselves. In fact, Fine Gael and Labour politicians both did it with regard to the Fianna Fáil/ Green Party coalition which they replaced. To expect of that of Sinn Féin is a cynical view of the party, surely? Well, in the Six Counties they attacked the SDLP, their political rival party, for collaborating and colluding with the Unionist poltical elite and …. yes, now Sinn Féin are doing the exact same thing for which they criticised the SDLP, now that they have disposed of the other party as a viable rival.
Nor is there any reason to expect any different from Sinn Féin in the 26 Counties, particularly when they refused to condone, never mind encourage, significant acts of civil disobedience such as not registering and non-payment for the new Household and Property Taxes and the Water Charge. And their representative publicly condemns the actions of a few egg-throwers and car-thumpers against one of the Government Ministers most directly responsible for making the people pay for the finance crisis but can hardly find time to condemn the continuing violence of the state police, the Gardaí, against people resisting peacefully the instalation of water meters. This party wants one day to represent the Irish capitalist class in government and must, in the interim, present itself as “reasonable” — reasonable, that is, to the Irish capitalist class.
I said earlier that calling for the resignation of a government or Ministers is a long-standing practice with regard to parliamentary politics. But honoured by practice over time may mean nothing more than that this is, in fact, bourgeois democratic politics and standard parliamentary cretinism. “There he goes, using jargon again”, the reader may say. Well forgive me, but although jargon can be over-used and is too often used to exclude or to dominate, it has its uses too. If we were talking about motor engines, about which I know very little, I might object to such jargon as “internal combustion engine”, “camshafts”, “transmission” and the like. But it would take a lot longer to discuss if every one of those terms were broken down into sentences and if that collection of sentences had to be used every time we were referring to an object or to a collection of objects.
So, “bourgeois politics” means “the kind of politcs that the Bourgeoisie use among themselves or the kind of politics that the Bourgeoisie want the working class to follow”. “Bourgeois politics” is a much shorter term than that sentence, I feel you must agree. But “bourgeois”? “Bourgeoisie”? Well, Karl Marx and others saw society split into two main social classes, each with its own historical development, interests, ideology; they called these “the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat”. We can, and often do, say instead “The capitalists and the workers” but in terms of ideology, I just feel “bourgeois” runs better. However, if every time I say “bourgeois” you prefer “capitalist”, say it under your breath by all means.
“Cretinism” is defined as the behaviour of a “cretin” which was usually defined in turn as a person of stunted mental and physical growth, a congenital condition and it later became a term of abuse, which is why the term is rarely used by health professional these days. It was used in its pejorative sense in political discourse around the end of the 19th Century and for many decades later and one of the political writers who tied it to the qualifying adjective “parliamentary” was the Russian revolutionary socialist V.I. Lenin. As his definitions and explanations came to dominance in the revolutionary socialist movement, the term “parliamentary cretinism” became a by-word among the Left up until the 1970s and one still hears it in some quarters today.
So, it was meant to convey a lack of intelectual capacity, stupidity, in sections of the Left with regard to their attitude to the parliament in question. Although it is a different thing, it also came to be associated with idealism, in the sense that Marxists understand that term, i.e. as wishful thinking, of basing one’s actions on an ideal view rather than on the concrete reality and historical experience. But although these things are different, lumping them together actually deepens the meaning of the term “parliamentary cretinism” and makes the term more complete.
Often, when one begins to speak in disparaging terms of parliament, listeners imagine the speaker is really saying something more, such as “I don’t believe in making any use of parliaments” or “having anything to do with parliaments is a waste of our time”. However, that is not necessarily the case. For most Anarchists, it is, probably. For most revolutionary Irish Republicans (as distinct from those that have capitulated and embraced parliamentarianism) it is too. However, many socialist revolutionaries are saying nothing of the kind and “parliamentary cretinism” does not refer to having some engagement with parliament or with parliamentary representatives. What it refers to is having the illusion that fundamental change — i.e. revolutionary change — can come about through parliament. The revolutionary socialist of the kind I have in mind is saying something like: “Have no illusions about parliament; put your main emphasis on building revolutionary organisation and dissemination of revolutionary ideology; use parliamentary avenues when it suits the needs of the movement.” Of course, there can be a big debate – and there often is – about just how one judges “when it suits the needs of the movement” and I will attempt later to answer this briefly because it is not the main thrust of this article, strange though that may seem at the moment.
So now, let us look again at calls for this government’s resignation. Should revolutionary socialists join in? I don’t think so. But surely it can’t hurt? And the confusion arising out of a change of government could be to our advantage? I think it can hurt and that any benefits arising out of change of government will be far outweighed by costs to the revolutionary and resistance movements. So, what — say nothing? Actually oppose resignations? Neither.
It is the task of revolutionary leadership to direct eyes to the ultimate goal and to point to the next steps to take at any moment – and also to take necessary steps themselves. We need to talk about all those things now with specific regard to the general issue under discussion – we need to talk about “revolutionary leadership”, “ultimate goal”, “the next steps” for the movement and the “necessary steps” we need to take ourselves.
“Revolutionary leadership” is the leadership that leads to revolution or the leadership given by revolutionaries. They are not always the same thing, since revolutionaries can and do make mistakes. Everyone and anyone who aspires to revolution and says “we should do this (or that) now” is potentially part of the revolutionary leadership. This includes individuals who are independent of any political party as well as those who are part of such parties. I say “potentially” because a number of other requirements need to be met to fulfill the promise of the title “revolutionary leadership”. Such leadership must tend towards revolution rather than reform, which is not to say standing aside from all reformist demands in every circumstance. As I hope we now agree, removing one set of representatives of the capitalist class to replace them with another, is not an objective worth the striving (we shall come later to how it can actually be harmful).
Such leadership also needs to have — or to build — the confidence of the movement in it as otherwise it cannot be effective, no matter how correct its analysis and calls may be. Confidence of that kind is built by working alongside the workers and other masses so that they see the mettle of those offering leadership in struggles and that they can also see that the analysis and the calls seem to correspond to the experience of the masses in those struggles. Therefore, such leadership needs to at least appear to be correct most of the time.
Unfortunately, as we know, leaderships claiming to be revolutionary have often turned out to be their opposite; also the concern of appearing to be correct most of the time has led to suppression of criticism and concealment of mistakes. Such a leadership may for the moment fulfill all the other requirements listed but it fails the test of “tending towards revolution”. I know of no formula that we can prepare that guarantees the movement protection against this kind of leadership but history and personal experience encourages me promote certain ingredients: permit criticism up until it threatens to paralyse necessary action; be open about admitting mistakes and learn from them; do not propagate ideas of infallibility (and make gods of no living persons); educate the participants in the movement and build their confidence in themselves.
What is this “ultimate goal” mentioned earlier? Nothing less than the complete overthrow of the capitalist class and the freeing of our people from imperialism, in order to build a totally different economy and society. I don’t propose to go much further here on this topic since the type of organisation of society we should aim for is a matter of hot debate among revolutionaries but we should focus for the moment on “complete overthrow”, “freeing our people” and “building a totally different society”. Each of those and all of them together imply certain kinds of organisation, certain ideology (or ideologies) and certain kinds of actions. And nailing my colours to the mass here, they imply empowering the working class to take control because it is the most numerous class, the most used to cooperative working and the only one which has no interest to be served by compromising with capitalism (some of its individual members may but that is not the class).
So what about “the next steps” for the movement? Nobody can prescribe these much in advance since the correct next steps depend upon the situation at the moment, the balance of forces, projections into future situations of the actions of the enemy and of our own forces, available alternatives, etc. Revolutionaries must analyse those elements in order to decide and there is no guarantee that they will not make a mistake. No book on theory and no leadership can provide us with a guarantee against that. So, mistakes will be made and they must be learned from. Let us hope that they are not major mistakes from which we will take generations to recover and let us take some precaustions against them and the cost to be paid for them but, at the same time, let us be bold and daring – the stakes are high but the prize is highest.
In any event, it does seem at the moment that the Irish government is in some disarrray. Demonstrations of dissatisfaction grow, as does civil disobedience, while the repressive measures of the State and declarations by some Ministers discredit them in the eyes of the broad masses of people. Then too, the Government has offered concessions on the Water Charge involving substantial reductions on the commencing charge it had projected. It seems clear that we should at least maintain the pressure and, if we can, increase it to the limits of which the movement is capable at this time. Again, analysis, judgement and call, guided by historical and recent experience – but no guarantees. However one thing a change of government will not do in this situation is maintain the pressure on the Irish capitalist class and may well have the opposite effect.
This is a time for revolutionary leadership to make it clear to the movement that a change of government will not do, will bring no fundamental change. We cannot make that clear if we jump on the “Enda Resign” or “Joan Burton Resign” or other similar bandwagons. We can however put forward some demands that people can pressure any new contenders for, such as abolition of the new taxes on working people and increased taxes on the capitalists, in order to make up the shortfall. And that funding for needed social and health services will be at least restored. But we should put forward those demands while, at the same time, making it clear we have no expectation that a new government will deliver or that, once having got past the current political crisis, will not reinstitute austerity measures once more. And we need to maintain the pressure on any new government and, if possible, increase it. We are not here to “give them a chance” but to overthow their masters and their system.
And now we come to the “necessary steps” we need to take ourselves. We do not put our trust in parliament, not even in putting more of our own in there. No, we put our trust in revolutionary organisation. This means building fighting organisations, not bureaucracies. And yet, we need some bureaucracy too – organisations need minutes of meetings to record who agreed to what, those minutes need to be distributed, events need to be organised, leaflets and posters put together, printing done, placards made, people have to be got to certain places, money collected, paid and accounted for, etc. etc. But the main requirement is that the organisations be fighting organisations – which means that they unite people on some demands, organise defensive or offensive actions, educate their members and supporters and build their numbers, neutralise their enemies or weaken their resistance, make allies, seek to achieve some victories.
Struggles take place in communities, work-places and institutions of mass education and the Irish Left has built extensive networks in none of them, nor is there any sign that it is trying to do so, save in isolated instances here and there.
The Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union as built and led by James Larkin and later by James Connolly and their associates, may not have been a revolutionary organisation. But it certainly was a genuine resistance organisation of the Irish working class, particularly in Dublin and it gave support to a revolutionary organisation, which the Irish Citizen Army proved to be. We have no such trade unions in Ireland now and SIPTU, that into which the ITGWU developed, has proved to be, whenever effective, more of a brake on the workers’ movement than an engine for it.
Well then, can we do without trade union organisation, especially since they are not usually revolutionary organisations? I don’t think so, since no other mass organisation of workers is conceivable in the near or middle-term future. Can we create a viable alternative trade union, then? A viable organisation that will win large numbers of other workers into a fighting trade union, large enough or at least concentrated enough in certain industries or work environments (e.g. local government, health services) to be able to take effective action there? Probably not, at the moment. But we could build a fighting and solidarity worker’s network inside and across trade unions and the Left has singularly failed to attempt that. Such a network would certainly enhance the fighting ability of the class and could, in time, provide the base to build a fighting alternative trade union.
The capitalist-owned mass media is a common cause of complaint among progressive people, in that it blacks out some news items and distorts others to the benefit of the ruling class. In the years leading up to the 1913 Lockout and even afterwards, leading up to 1916, “… the Irish Worker had ten to fifteen times the circulation of the Sinn Féin paper and of Irish Freedom, the revolutionary paper backed by the IRB”1. Circulation figures are often taken as being about one-third of actual readership as newpapers get handed around and, in a population with a low level of education, as in the working class at that time, the proportion of listeners may have been even higher, as those who could, read out to those who could not. The Irish Worker was a weekly newspaper but we don’t even have a monthly newspaper of revolutionary orientation that is widely read. If in the conditions of the early 1900s in Ireland such a periodical could exist and proliferate, how is that in Ireland in the early 2000s, with fast cheap printers, photocopiers and internet sites, we have not even come close to producing anything like that?
If we want to educate ourselves, as revolutionary activists, as well as others in the resistance movement, in revolutionary perspectives, then we need to create some institutions for facilitating the reflecting and learning process. Seminars and lectures once a year or on commemorative occasions are no substitute for this at all (apart from the fact that the mass of workers fail to attend such occasions). The Irish Left is not building this kind of process either.
The “necessary steps”, as I perceive them, are building fighting organisations and the resistance movement, building a mass resistance newspaper and building education institutions for revolutionaries and for the resistance movement. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the independent activists at the very least are not prioritising the building of these components or for some reason are failing to unite around the work and that on the other hand, the Left organisations and parties have no interest in doing so.
Coming back once again to the call for the resignation of the Government or of their Ministers, can it do any harm to join the call? Well yes, it most certainly can. This is because across society as a whole, including in the working class, there is an illusion that we live in a democracy, that in some way the people rule or, at least, could rule, if only we could get good representation. This often degenerates into trying to get slightly better representation than we had in the last government. Implicit in all this is the underlying assumption that we cannot substantially change things for the better and also that the changes we need can be effected by others representing us.
These notions fly in the face of historical experience but that is no bar to the wide acceptance of such ideas. Bourgeois democracy and in particular its ‘Left’ variant, social democracy (bourgeois democracy through a Labour party with trade union involvement), may be said to be the default position in western societies. It is the widely-accepted belief, the norm, the position most people start from. It is the position too from which, in the ordinary run of things, most people do not significantly depart — except into apathy. The job of revolutionaries is to give leadership away from that default position, to establish a new position and fight for it in the resistance movement, seeking to make it the main position, a new default position. That position is that revolution is made in the streets, workplaces, communities and education institutions and never in parliament. And that if we want real change, we have to build for revolution and nothing else will do. We need to use other struggles along the way, reformist ones for better wages, living conditions, less taxation of working people, changes in the law …. only in a revolutionary way, to strengthen the resistance movement and never the ruling class. And in those struggles, we should be putting forward revolutionary ideas and principles of organisation, getting our hands dirty with organising and participating in struggles and behaving as examples in line with the principles we put forward.
So, are parliamentary representatives of the Left of any use? Yes, they can get some statements into the media. They can expose certain acts of government and of agencies outside of parliament. They can also propose certain legislative changes. Their parliamentary allowances can be used to fund some revolutionary work. Parliamentary representatives can be useful — to the extent that they contribute in some manner to the work outlined in the preceding paragraphs. But no further.
I recently went to London in order to visit my daughter and son, their partners and their children. My son and his wife Natalie had recently had a baby girl; and my daughter and her husband Irwin have a boy and a girl. It turned out for a number of reasons that I had more spare time than I expected, so with the help of a friend I got in some sight-seeing and with the help of another, attendance at quite few singing sessions. I also attended one political rally. The following is an account of those events with the least said about my family and friends since their lives are private, with the exception of my host, Jim Radford, who has a very public side with regard to political and community activism and singing.
Archictecture and Transport System
Visiting London, where I spent 30 years of my life was strange, in particular staying about ten minutes’ walk from where I had lived for about half of my time in that city. I had a sense of being an observer at a familiar place but of which I was no longer part, something like a ghost, perhaps.
Not only Kings Cross Station but the whole area around it has been redeveloped and changed so much. In the early ’90s I worked shifts as a Project Worker in a ‘wet hostel’ (one where street drinkers are permitted to continue drinking), very near to St. Pancras Hospital and about fifteen minutes’ walk from the station (if one walks very fast, which I often did to get in for my early shift). On a late shift, walking down St. Pancras Road, on my way to the Underground to head back to SE London, I would often pass a solitary sex worker or two hoping for custom. Displaying the goods on sale is a trade requirement and I felt especially sorry for them in cold or wet weather.
The area was well-known for a high level of sex work and illegal drugs – selling and buying. Four years later, after two years as a Deputy Manager in a number of hostels in other parts of London, I was back in the area again, with a different NGO, as Manager of a hostel for active drug users (most of them injecting). The area had been very familiar to me then but visiting now I could hardly recognise it. The train and Underground stations have been remodeled and an international train station connecting with the Channel Tunnel has been built. In addition the areas in front of them and to the side are unrecogniseable. A big plaza fronts the station and around the side and back is another plaza with the de rigueur converted warehouses and similar-type buildings also around the back of the station now hosting eateries and fashionable offices.
No doubt the area is much more heavily policed now in order to present a clean image for tourists and the middle class young eating and drinking there but I am sure that sex work and drug commerce continues. Perhaps much more cocaine rather than heroin or crack is sold now for the new client group. But though I was there on a weekend night, I observed many of the restaurants and winebars only half-full.
I went out to Stratford too to see the Olympic Stadium and surrounding area. I had worked in that area as a community development worker for six months and taught an adult education beginners’ class in Irish for some years there too — but again, would not have recognised the area now. Like King’s Cross, it had changed completely but unlike the former, in almost unbelievable ugliness. The shopping centre wasn’t too bad but very much of the UStater “mall” type. Apparently many people in the US spend much of their free time in such places and, indeed, there seemed little other choice in Stratford now, especially for teenagers, unless they were of the outdoor type and accessed the Lee Valley, Wanstead Flats etc.
The observation tower/ sculpture by London Olympic Stadium, near Stratford, East London. (Photo DB)
An observation tower which is also a sculpture or “installation”, apparently, stands outside the the Olympic Stadium. It was chosen in competition but aesthetics can hardly have been one of the required features. I once saw metal girders and joists twisted in the aftermath of a very hot fire – the sculpture instantly brought back the memory.
Unfortunately that was not the only ugly construction in the vecinity: almost in any direction one cared to look, other ugly and often grotesquely-shaped buildings came into view. It was in truth almost impossible to credit that not only was I in the same country but in the same city as the work that had been done around Kings Cross.
But sadly, it was not the only place for ugly buildings. Just by London Bridge I had seen a few others and indeed could see the same ones as part of the distant skyline from Stratford too. The “Shard” is one of them, looking like some kind of unsafe rocket about to take off. Another building reminds me of one of those free-standing electric fan heaters.
Some pieces of metal fell off the Shard recently – perhaps the beginning of a suicide attempt by the building, prompted by shame – and would have killed anyone they had struck. The various companies involved, both in its construction and in renting space in it, have said that there is no danger and everything is being checked again. I’m sure that is very reassuring to people working there and to passers-by.
A strange but not pleasing building near Stratford — in Dublin this would probably have earned a nickname like “The Handball Alley”. (Photo DB)A barrack-looking building near Stratford. (Photo DB)Another strange building near Stratford, East London. — Maybe it would have been called “The Cheesgrater” in Dubln? (Photo DB)View from overpass, Stratford, looking south-westward (Photo DB)London Olympic Stadium, Stratford, East London (Photo DB)
It occurred to me at some point that an Irishman taking photos of buildings around the Olympic arena could get into trouble, even these days — so took myself off inside the ‘mall’ to eat.
On a positive note about London other than the Kings Cross development, the new Overground system links up with much of the Underground and throws a public travel net around the city and outskirts, linking up a great many areas which were previously only accessible by using a combination of public transport systems often taking hours.
Irish tricolour in someone’s yard right next to an Overground station in NW London (Photo DB)
I was told about the Overground and even used it but it was some time before I noticed that both that system and the Underground use exactly the same logo design, the difference being the word written across the bar and perhaps the colour. Once one becomes used to a symbol, one no longer reads the words on it or notices anything except very different colours. That didn’t matter until the day I had to catch an Overground train at a station not organically connected to the Underground, on which I was travelling. My ticket was good for both and the Overground station was less than a minute’s walk away down the street. Seeing what looked like the same design and taking it for another entrance to the Underground station I had left earlier, I walked past it three times and once almost got on to the nearby British Rail (intercity trains) platform and wondered why everyone was giving me wrong directions!
It was going down to an Overground station in NW London that I saw a big Irish tricolour in someone’s yard, flying right next to the station.
Family
Kian, absorbed in an electronic game (Photo DB)
Although I had prepared myself, I was a little shocked at how tall my grandson Kian had become. He is (of course) a very bright lad and was doing tests and making applications for different secondary schools.
Caitlin Rose, his little sister, seemed very excited to see me and I only had to look at her to make her break out in laughter. Grandad is very funny, apparently. Sadly, they have only two living grandparents now – me and my ex-wife. Their other grandfather died shortly before Kian was born and their other grandmother only recently.
Caitlin Rose was born prematurely – I dashed to London at the time and remember holding her in the palm of my hand fpr a little while out of the incubator. She did well but was later diagnosed as suffering from cerebral palsy – the most obvious way it affected her was that her muscles spasmed and drew the tendons in her calves and feet tight, bending her legs and putting her on tiptoe so that she could hardly walk. The condition can be aleviated but so far is incurable. But she is very competitive and determined as well as being very bright (of course). In addition, she had the SDR operation in the USA, a relatively new surgical technique, after which she improved enormously. (See this incredible footage taken about a year after the operation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6SGhuYzng8, from the blog recording her progress and others in the family and promoting the SDR operation http://caitlinroseford.com)
Caitlin dancing (Photo DB)Caitlin Rose on her daily exercise treadmill in her gym, paid for by fundraising (Photo DB)
I didn’t get to spend much time during the day with my son-in-law, Irwin, who was busy figuring out how to plumb their new washing machine in to the waste water disposal system. I am not familiar with the closed system so didn’t offer too much advice. But later we went out to eat so I could chat to him a bit more.
The “plumber”, my handsome son-in-law Irwin. (Photo DB)
Eating out
We went out to a tapas restaurant not too far from where they live and I ordered the fish skewers from the menu, imagining them to be the size of pintxos in the Basque Country or chicken satay skewers one sees over here. When the skewers arrived I was shocked to see each contained three large pieces, each one the size of an individual fish portion in many expensive and niggardly restaurants, with what looked like a dagger or bayonet pushed through them, mounted on a stand.
The most surprising thing for me however was that all the staff were actually from the Spanish state1 with the exception of one from Latin America. In Dublin, I had become used to these places being staffed by people from non-Castillian-speaking countries.
In a Latin American restaurant in Camden to which a friend took me, allegedly Patagonian and with some beautiful enlarged photographs of that area on the wall, I asked our table attendant whether he knew any Welsh. There had been a Welsh-speaking colony in Patagonia, founded in 1865 and there is still some Welsh spoken there today. “Que va, hombre!” he exclaimed. “De eso no sé nada. Yo soy de Andlalucia” he concluded, smiling. (“Not at all, man! I know nothing about that — I’m from Andalucia”).
I queried some of the wines I didn’t recognise, not sure whether I wanted a glass or not, so he brought some for us to try and …. left the bottle! Of course it would have been discourteous to refuse such good fortune and, the wine being fine, we had a few glasses before he remembered and returned for the bottle. We paid for some of it, of course. I had a feeling he might have left it that long deliberately.
In a Turkish restaurant in Dalston, I wondered whether I might have a taste of a Turkish lager, which I had never previously tasted, before deciding whether to have a pint. The attendant paused and then nodded, coming back with a half-pint. I looked at her perplexed — “It’s on the house,” she said with a little smile. She was half-Scottish and half Egyptian, it turned out. I did like it and ordered some more. Turkish food is nice enough but not one of the world’s more impressive cuisines, in my experience (and I have eaten it there too, including in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan).
Food from Everywhere, apparently on sale in this shop in Dalston. The smaller lettering along the bottom of the awning, lists that the shop caters for “English, Turkish, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Greek, French” food. (Photo DB)
Stoke Newington and Dalston are multi-ethnic areas but especially prominent are Kurdish and Turkish businesses. Without a doubt however the most visible ethnic minority are the Hassidic Jews, the men with their long black coats and homburgs, boys with skull caps and side-locks. This sect is anti-Zionist and they are known, on occasion, to demonstrate against the state of Israel. However, I was shocked to learn that the women shave their heads upon marriage and wear wigs when they go out.
Family again
Elora Mae — I forgot to take any other photos of her 😦
At the other end of London from my daughter and her family and also far from where I was staying, it was great to see my son Kevin and his wife Nat and the baby – Elora Mae. London is huge and a return ticket covering the zones on Underground and train cost nearly £10 each time. The Oyster Card they are introducing, like the Leap Card in Dublin, in an attempt to eliminate cash exchanges, makes the journeys a little cheaper but I hadn’t known about that.
I’m usually OK with babies but Elora Mae wouldn’t let me hold her for long before she started to cry. On my last visit, however, she seemed ok with me (or probably my smell) and even gave me a few lovely smiles. Smiling, by the way, as well as focusing on the face, are responses genetically built in to us. Babies do not “learn” to smile, which is instinctive programming but may learn different types of smiles, as well as appropriate times for smiling.
Songs and Singing in London
I was staying with a long-time folk and shanty singer, Jim Radford and he took me along with him to his weekly singing events. In one, an “open mic” event, I was not a little disturbed at the amount of noise in the bar in which it was held. Noise is distracting and I tend to sing louder to get over it, straining my voice and maybe also singing at the wrong pitch and key and therefore not at my best. I got more and more apprehensive as my turn to sing, indicated by the MC to me, approached and in trepidation when my turn came, went up to the microphone to sing two songs as expected. I sang Danny Farrell as an Irish (and Dublin) song unlikely to antagonise anyone there and to my relief the noise level dropped somewhat. My second song was the Pat O’Donnell Ballad, which although it involves the the “Invincibles” and the British administration in Ireland, was not too confrontational, I thought. Besides, it the story is interesting as it may be the first recorded “witness protection” operation in history, though one that went very badly wrong for the “witness” (or traitor) in question.
I was asked to sing a third song, as a courtesy to a visiting guest, I thought. Into the second line of Go and Leave Me, the silence around me became profound – so much that it scared me a bit. But I took confidence from it too. The lyrics are not bad and the air is lovely, especially in my opinion when it’s sung the US version way. It’s a reasonably well-known song about love and desertion in preference for someone richer and is one in my regular repertoire. “Regular”, by the way, might mean “sung two or three times a year”, since I don’t like to sing the same song too often and, like many other frequent singers, I have quite a few others. My host has about 250 …. I might have around a hundred, built up over years. And a few discarded along the way too.
The following week, back at the venue, I was asked to sing three songs and chose the Jim Larkin ballad by Donagh Mac Donagh (son of the executed 1916 Proclamation, Thomas Mac Donagh) and The Ludlow Massacre, by Woody Guthrie. A lot connects these two songs to one another and although in general I dislike song introductions (or “spoken sleeve notes”), I briefly explained a few of those connections before singing them.
Both the Southern Colorado Coal Strike and the Dublin Lockout/Strike began in the same year, only a month apart, although the Colorado strike didn’t end until December 1914. Both strikes involved attacks by state forces and scabs on the workers resisted, in Ireland forming the Irish Citizen Army, although many more were killed in Colorado (and in turn were killed by workers fighting back too). Evictions from company houses were a feature throughout both strikes as was general media and court hostility with open collusion between the forces of the ‘justice’ system and the employers. And, of course, both strikes essentially lost in the short term but, in the longer term, the trade unions involved, the ITGWU and the UMA, far from being broken, came out stronger.
For the third song my choice was Back Home in Derry, lyrics from a poem by Bobby Sands organised into a song by Christy Moore but to my own air. With this song I break my general rule about not singing the same song often, because I want to popularise my air with the lyrics. The lyrics are currently mostly sung to the tune of Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and I thought they deserved an air of their own.
At the various events, as one would in Dublin, I heard some good singers and some bad ones and some who were not particularly good but were interesting. However the general standard seemed noticeably lower than what I would encounter in the singing circles and sessions around Dublin – I have no idea why that should be but it can hardly be due to physiological differences. Also, many read from sheets while singing, a practice rarely seen in the Dublin singing circles (although prompts by mobile or IPad are not unknown).
On this trip I heard Jim sing a number of songs and a couple I remember in particular: The Shores of Normandy, Song for Stephen Lawrence and Home Boys Home. The last of those is about horses and English rural men in WWI and based on a poem, a lovely song which I have slowly started to learn. Jim wrote the other two himself.
Stephen Lawrence was a British Afro-Caribbean youth walking home in SE London with his friend in 1993 when they were both pursued by a gang of white racist young men. Stephen was mortally stabbed and left to bleed to death. Within a week the names of the murderers were on the lips of all the young people in the area. I can personally testify to that since the daughter of a friend was attending a school in that area at that time. First the police questioned Stephen’s surviving friend, treating him as a suspect. Then they couldn’t find the culprits, they said. But it turned out that the house in which some of the racists lived had been under police surveillance for some time and was actually being video-taped inside. It was a long time before that came to public knowledge.
Eventually five men were brought to trial but the incompetence (or sabotage) of police trial preparation allowed them to escape. In a long saga of the fight for justice by the Lawrence family and their supporters, two of the five racists were finally re-tried in 2012 and convicted, receiving long sentences. In the interim the McPherson Enquiry found the Metropolitan Police force to be “institutionally racist” (which Black, Asian and Irish people had been saying for decades) and later a former undercover police officer revealed that he had been tasked by his senior officers to find material with which to discredit the family and the campaign. The Lawrence family broke up under the strain and at least one of them left to go back to Jamaica. Jim’s song contains a powerful indictment of the racist murderers and of the police.
The Shores of Normandy was written by Jim when he visited the beach that he had last seen as a teenage seaman on D-Day on 6th June 1944. Jim was a merchant seaman on a tugboat, many of which were leased by the British Navy and their crews paid merchant seaman rates (which were higher than those of the Royal Navy). Over a few evenings sharing Jim’s whiskey and tea, he told me some things about the tugs’ role. They were of great importance to Britain in the War – they accompanied convoys and towed many torpedoed ships to safety, mainly merchant marine vessels (2. After some time the tugs themselves became targeted by submarines as they were saving so many tons of shipping to be repaired and re-outfitted to go to sea once more and 24 British naval rescue tugs were sunk.
Sherman tanks landing from transporting ship on to pier assembled at Normandy beach during D-Day, WWII. The sections were towed from Britain by tugboats across the sea then assembled under fire at the beaches. (photo sourced on the Internet)
In some of the photographs of the Normandy landings one can clearly see piers being used to disembark vehicles, equipment and men. As Jim says: “Those piers didn’t drop from the sky”. (No, but death was dropping from the sky and scything across the beaches too. I thought). The piers were made of concrete caisons, hollow cubes that could float and were towed across the Channel by the tugs. When they reached Normandy they were maneuvered into position at the correct depth and the sea allowed to enter them until they sank in a line on the seabed, making a pier. All this was done under fire at least some of the time. Over a year earlier, the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk had broken the Nazi advance and turned the war in East Europe, now the Sicily and Normandy Landings combined with the advances from the East towards the liberation of Western Europe and the final defeat of Nazi Germany. The air Jim chose for his lyrics is The Dawning of the Day.
Among the events at which Jim was to sing was the launch of Confronting a Culture of Militarism by David Gee, in Housmans Radical Bookshop. The shop, a little like Connolly Books in Dublin, stores a wide variety of radical and socialist book, pamphlets and periodicals. Looking at the many different British periodicals there, I reflected how much more impact they could have if many of them were to amalgamate.
The bookshop was soon crowded, with some late arrivals having to stand. First off was what I thought an impressive monologue performance by Steve Pratt, ex-SAS and now against war, also a painter. After that, David Gee, the author, spoke – a little too long but interestingly. Finally, Ben Griffin spoke, ex-Paratroopers and also SAS but now Secretary of Veterans for Peace. Ben referred to the vilification that soccer player James McClean had endured when playing for Sunderland and Wigan, for refusing to wear the Red Poppy. (3 He spoke about a visit Veterans for Peace had made to the Six Counties of Ireland in October and how people had spoken to them about harrassment, raids and shootings by the British Army during the recent 30 Years War; Ben asked how anyone could reasonably expect someone from one of those communities to wear the Poppy? (4
Jim was plugging the upcoming Cenotaph anti-war commemoration by Veterans for Peace and sang Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, inviting the audience to attend the ceremony and to sing the song with them. He also sang Eric Bogle’s famous anti-war song, No Man’s Land (better known to us as The Green Fields of France, thanks to the Fureys); he sang it in full to underline what a speaker had earlier said about the Joss Stone song promoted by the British Legion, a truncated version that sentimentalised the war and ripped the strong anti-war heart out of Bogle’s song.
Jim singing at the launch of David Gee’s book at Housemans Radical Bookshop. (Photo DB)
Although a veteran libertarian socialist activist who considers the Royal Family to be “spongers”, Jim had accepted an invitation to sing The Shores of Normandy at the Albert Hall as part of the annual “Remembrance” concert, with members of the Royal Family present. He was wearing a Red Poppy too. I argued with him about the latter but his line is that the militarists and Royals have usurped Remembrance, which was intended to mark the terrible sense of loss after WWI with so many men dead in every town and village4.
The day after the concert, on “Remembrance” Sunday, when processions march in Whitehall and lay wreaths at the Cenotaph, Jim marched with comrades of Veterans for Peace there, with a banner declaring “Never Again!” They and their supporters sang Where Have All the Flowers Gone, an anti-war song, one recited a poem strongly attacking war and its financial foundations and they laid a wreath made entirely of White Poppies with two Red Poppies inside it. (5 Their bugler played The Last Post. I’d have been there to support them and to add my voice to the song but I was already several days back home in Dublin.
Jim brought me to a music session in The Jolly Farmer pub, right next to Lewisham Hospital. I had attended sessions there when I lived in Catford, 20 minutes’ walk away, and the pub now had another name. In those years there had been three, sometimes four weekly Irish traditional music sessions in the Borough of Lewisham, none very far from one another, in which I had played percussion and sung. There had been a few in the next borough, Greenwich, too. None of those seemed to be currently functioning.
The core of the Jolly Farmer session is formed by “Flaky” Jake on accordion, Guillermo on guitar and Jim on percussion (spoons and bodhrán), with other musicians and listeners in attendance. Jake has a huge repertoire of songs from rock to cajun, including songs in French and in Spanish. Guillermo knows some of the French ones and is from Mexico. During the course of the session we heard – and often sang – Rolling Stones, Irish ballads, Cajun songs, English shanties and music-hall, Woody Guthrie ….
The core of the Jolly Farmer session: Flaky Jake on accordion, Jim Radford on bodhrán an spoons, both facing and Guillermo, guitar, seen from behind. Each also sings. (Photo DB)Jim, Jake and violinist (whose name I can’t remember) at the weekly music session at the Jolly Farmer pub. (Photo DB)Jolly Farmer session, looking down. (Photo DB)
A few strange incidents occurred around that time in that pub. The first week, there was a man there with an undiscliplined German Shepherd dog on a leash which his owner kept yanking to get the dog to stay by him. A man entered in a wheelchair and the dog went up to him and stuck his nose in the man’s crotch, whereopon the offended man slapped the dog across the muzzle (but not too hard – the dog did not yelp but just went back to his master). The dog’s owner, who I think had not seen where the dog had put his nose, was livid and began to swear and act out how if the man were not in a wheelchair he would do this … and that …. The man in the wheelchair turned and wheeled himself out of the pub. The atmosphere continued somewhat tense for a while but eventually the man and dog left.
Later that evening, I went to the toilet and saw legs sticking out of the cubicle next to the urinal. I pushed open the door to see a man lying in there on the floor, apparently very drunk. I informed the landlady and left her to it, as she requested. Later, at a music party, we heard that after we had left the pub, there had been some kind of disturbance with a drunk breaking glasses and furniture and that the police had been called!
Another night at the music session at the Jolly Farmer. The guy on guitar there sang some interesting songs and was a good guitar player. Leaning back, black cap on head at extreme right of photo is Guillermo. (Photo DB)
The house party invitation came through afficionados of the session. Attendance at the house felt strange at first since I didn’t know the people but then I realised I did know one of them, although not well, a fiddle player. And later another person recalled that she remembered me from music sessions over a decade previously. When the music and singing got going it was great and again we covered a wide range. We went through a huge range of songs and tunes with accordion, guitar, fiddle, banjo, spoons and bodhrán. In honour of our hosts, one of whom was German, I sang Mus I’ Den and The Peat Bog Soldiers combined with Hans Beimler.
The first is a German folk song of departure by one promising to return and to be true to the other in the meantime. Such songs are fairly common and we have more than our fair share of them in Ireland. Elvis Presley’s songwriters used the tune for Wooden Heart in one of his many badly-acted and badly-scripted films GI Blues. The first of the remaining two is a song that was sung by German political prisoners in Nazi concentration camps; somewhat allegorical, it was tolerated by the guards for awhile but eventually earned a death sentence for anyone heard to sing it. Hans Beimler was a German communist who was imprisoned by the Nazis but escaped and went to the Spanish state in 1936 to fight fascism there where, like many other International Brigaders, he was killed. Because of the history of each as well as because the Beimler song is a very short one, I like to precede it with two verses of the The Peat Bog Soldiers.
It happened that the “Return to Camden Festival” took place during my London visit, spread around a number of venues in the borough, including of course the Camden Irish Centre, which is where I went with a friend. I knew the Centre from a long time past, a social and welfare agency for Irish migrants run by the Catholic Church for many years and notable through much of my time in London for steering clear of politics. Of course one can never really do that and one ends up supporting one kind of politics or another. The Centre gradually secularised itself in a time of grants for ethnic minority support work but did not raise issues uncomfortable for the British state such as the unjust murder convictions of a score of Irish people in five different cases during the mid-1970s, the iniquities of the Prevention of Terrorism (sic) Act, nor the prevalence of anti-Irish racism in treatment by many state and local authority agencies and its wide acceptance in news and entertainment media.
Gradually during the late 1980s (or perhaps early 1990s) the Camden Irish Centre was pulled into some of those issues but in an NGO-type of way and within such parameters and re-branded itself as “The London Irish Centre” (there were by then another five Irish centres in different parts of London but none claiming to be The Irish Centre). By that time the Centre’s management was connecting itself to the Federation of Irish Societies, an organisation that infamously at its AGM in 1981, as news of the death of Bobby Sands reached delegates, failed to even table a vote of sympathy for the family of the deceased. (7
The “Return to Camden Festival” at the Camden Irish Centre seemed to be owned by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (often mistakenly called “Ceoltas”), a huge largely volunteer organisation promoting Irish traditional music, song and dance. The Centre was heaving and service at the bar was quite slow. The bar staff were all young and someone told me that they were on job schemes, all employed by a contractor who manages the catering for the Centre. It was hardly suprising therefore that they understood not one word in Irish, not even go raibh maith agat.
We sat and listened to a large number of musicians playing together, some as young as eight or nine, then peeked in at the céilí, after which we set off for the singing session. It is run by a Connemara man who sings sean-nós style, who was very welcoming and encouraging; we sat in a circle and sang (or declined) in turn. Again I met people who remembered me from music sessions or from other Irish community activity. The singing was interesting and some singers were exceptional, especially a couple of young female musicians who had to leave early to play their instruments and a few others. I heard a couple of songs I had not heard before, which is always welcome, as well as some I had not heard in a long time. But after about two hours the session came to an end; time then to get something to eat and start the journey back across the city by Underground, changing to Overground at Canada Water station. Reaching Honor Oak Park and walking up to Jim’s house, I passed by foxes twice; the London ones probably became urbanised long before their Irish cousins did.
Solidarity with Kobane’s resistance to ISIS
I knew from an email notification that there was to be a Kobane solidarity demonstration scheduled for a Saturday in central London while I was there and, since this was not one of the days I was visiting grandchildren, I headed out to Charing Cross station, next to Trafalgar Square. Kobane is defended by a Kurdish guerrilla resistance organisation composed of the PKK, some Kurds within the Syrian state’s borders and the few Peshmergas who didn’t flee ISIS. There are probably some Assyrians and Yezidi involved in the defence too.
The Kurds are a huge nation of around 30 million people, spread over territory currently within the borders of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Azerbaijan, with a sizable diaspora also in parts of the US and in some parts of Europe, notably in Germany and France. The politics of the Kurds within Turkish and Syrian borders tend to be secular and the PKK has always espoused some kind of socialism. Kobane, a town in the northern part of the Syrian state, is run mostly by Kurds from there and from the Kurdish resistance movement inside Turkey’s borders. Despite the hype about the Peshmergas (Iraqi Kurdish guerrillas), it was the PKK and Syrian Kurds who rescued the Yezidi and some other religious and ethnic minorities from ISIS in Sirjan and opened up a 100-Km long corridor to bring them to safety in Rojava (Kurdish northern “Syria”). A large proportion of these Kurdish guerrila fighters are women, perhaps as much as 30%, fighting inside their own units under the overall leadership of the PKK-affiliated organisation the YPG.
Kobane is under attack and surrounded on three sides by ISIS (“Islamic State”). The fourth side is the heavily-guarded Turkish border and the Turkish state is hostile to the Kurds, both within their own borders and within Syria. Based on ISIS behaviour to date, should Kobane fall, massacre of civilians and defenders will follow, along with enslavement of women as prostitutes or concubines.
Nelson looks down from his pedestal at the Kurdish solidarity rally in Trafalgar Square. (Photo DB) (A similar column and statue in Dublin was blown up in 1966 and the “Spire” now stands on the spot.)Wide view of the Kobane solidarity rally in Trafalgar Square, London. (Photo DB)
While living in London I had been to Trafalgar Square many times for rallies on different causes that I supported (including of course Ireland, until that plaza was banned to Irish solidarity demonstrations). Nelson stands tall on a pillar there, reminiscent of the one we had in Dublin city centre until it was blown up in 1966, the 50th anniversary of the Rising. I wondered whether I would meet people I knew, either from the British Left or from Kurdish solidarity work, in which I had been pretty active during the early 1990s (8. The area was a-flutter with various Kurdish organisational flags and some from the Turkish left, also some banners and a number of placards were on display.
A speaker at the Kobane solidarity rally (identity unknown) (Photo DB)Another speaker at Kobane solidarity rally, London (identity unknown to me). (Photo DB)
Most of the crowd looked like they came from the Kurdish part of the world. The stage seemed to be taking a long time to get set up but eventually the Kurdish MCs, a man and a woman, began to announce the reason for the rally and to introduce a list of speakers to the crowd. I was suprised to hear an Irish priest, an O’Brien, I think, introduced as having been a long time active in Kurdish solidarity, although in the 1990s I had never come across him nor heard his name mentioned. I had the same reaction to a few others introduced in similar terms.
A Kurdish traditional musician, seemingly well-known, played a short percussion piece on what looked like a slim but wide bodhrán. Looking for it on Google, I would say it was the Daf, which apparently is in wide use across a number of Near and Middle Eastern regions by a number of ethnic groups. There was no song sung throughout the rally before I left.
The Irish priest introduced as a good friend of the Kurds (Photo DB)
The speakers were from a number of British Left and ethnic minority organisations, one MEP and a number of elected representatives. There was also a report from Kobane itself broadcast through speakers. Mark Thomas, a left-wing comedian, spoke emotionally on the issue. Peter Thatchell spoke strongly as well. One Left-wing woman with an English accent, in the course of her speech, attacked the SWP for supporting Islamicism in the past. The next person to speak, also a woman with an English accent, declared that she was in the SWP and that her organisation is strongly in solidarity with Kobane and with the Kurds.
Comedian and political activist Mark Thomas speaking at the rally (Photo DB)Another speaker at the rally (identity forgotten) (Photo DB). Images of the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, can be seen.
Some of the speakers praised the Kobane ‘government’, saying it was secular, egalitarian, socialistic …. The speakers all attacked ISIS and called for solidarity with Kobane. Some called for British Government intervention (to drop weapons and supplies to Kobane) while others called for military intervention against ISIS. Some called for the unbanning of the PKK and some for the release of Ocalan. The PKK was declared a “terrorist” organisation by the EU years ago, a totally unjustified action by any means of definition, since the organisation was engaged in armed resistance against the attacks of the Turkish state, which is still not a part of the EU; furthermore it was not engaged in any armed action outside its part of the world and nearly all of that within Turkey’s borders. (9
Me, holding a placard I borrowed from a Kurdish couple I had been talking to. The YPG is the Syrian Kurdish resistance, organised and led by Kurds but attracting some Arabs and Assyrians also. It contains large numbers of women fighters, organised in their separate units.Another speaker whose identity I cannot confirm. (Photo DB)
Abdullah Ocalan (pronounced “otch-al-an”) was the leader of the PKK when he was kidnapped in Nairobi by the CIA in 1999, taken to Turkey, sentenced to death and, after Turkey abolished its death penalty to gain EU entry, sentenced to life in prison. He is kept on an island prison – the only prisoner there, at least for 10 years. Prior to his incarceration, Ocalan had a position within the PKK that arguably went considerably beyond recognised leadership. Nicknamed “Apo” (“uncle” in Kurdish), his image was carried on Kurdish solidarity demonstrations and pickets by many Kurds in London and in Dublin.
Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned leader of the PKK (image sourced on Internet)
After Ocalan’s capture he declared that the Turkish government should engage in peace talks with the Kurds, that the PKK were not seeking immediate independence but some kind of regional autonomy. Furthermore, he declared that his own release was a necessary prerequisite to carry this process through. This is not too disimilar to the position of Arnaldo Otegi, of the Basque independence movement’s leadership, also of the Sortu party and of many of their new allies since they renounced armed struggle and ETA declared a “permanent and verifiable ceasefire”.
Ocalan’s change of tack surprised many on the Left; I don’t know how the PKK’s own followers reacted at first but soon they were issuing statements along the same lines, (although they have given no hint of intention to disarm). That position of the PKK and of Ocalan explains to me the relatively sudden interest in them within much of liberal and Left quarters. The other factor is the Left and liberal fear of ISIS and the fact that the only coherent and effective defence of Kobane and the rescue of the Yezidi in Sinjar is and was carried out by the PKK, not the “Peshmergas” loudly praised by the Western media (but only mentioned by one speaker at the rally) or by the US, imaginatively claimed by some media.
Another Anarchist banner at the Kobane solidarity rally in London, October 2014. (Photo DB)Anarchist banner at Kobane solidarity rally, Trafalgar Square, October 2014 (Photo DB)
The “Peshmergas” are Kurds and guerrillas, but of the tribal factions of Bardani and Talibani within Iraq’s borders. On one occasion years ago, they cooperated with a huge Turkish military operation against the PKK by attacking them simultaneously from their side of the border. During the war of the Western states against Iraq around Kuwait, the Peshmergas followed the call of the West to rise against Sadam Hussein; the Western powers then left them to be slaughtered by the Iraq military. During the Western powers’ invasion of Iraq, the peshmergas formed war bands that as well as attacking the Iraq military, looted the Iraqi hospitals, museums, commercial enterprises and people’s homes. At times they even fought among themselves and there were many accusations of murder of military and civilian prisoners, kidnapping for ransom and even of rape. Among much hype, some moved to the rescue of the Yezidi in Sinjar but most quickly withdrew after armed contact with ISIS, totally abandoning the Yazidi, although Sinjar is within Iraq’s borders.
Placard accuses Turkey of directly assisting ISIS (Photo DB)
Many speakers at the London rally denounced Turkey for their indirect assistance to ISIS by harrasssing PKK guerilla reinforcements trying to get through to reinforce their Kurdish brothers and sisters in Kobane. Some alleged more direct assistance to ISIS and called for the NATO and the EU to pressure Turkey into ceasing their obstruction of reinforcements for Kobane. Some spoke against Assad and one for him but mostly neither he, his government nor the war there were discussed.
I recognised not one of those speakers present as having been active on the Kurdish issue in London back in the early 1990s. This would be understandable of younger people who had not yet become politically active then, perhaps – but the others? No, Thatchell and others like him had not been. Back then, the PKK had been in armed struggle against the Turkish regime and was being looked to by national liberation activists around the world. But Turkey was – as it is now – an ally of the West, a member of NATO, so the EU did not want to attack it for its widescale abuse of human right among the Kurds, although it considered Turkey too unstable to admit it to the EU. The Left organisations were campaigning on other issues and had no time – or perhaps tolerance – for Kurdish solidarity.
Not a nuclear explosion over London but an interesting effect of the declining sun. (Photo DB)Contrasting flags seen from Trafalgar Square — and a spying eye in the sky (Photo DB)
But now that that the PKK has indicated a willingness to enter a “peace” process, they seem to have many friends in left and liberal quarters than they had before. They may even end up, like the Abertzale Left of the Basque Country and like Gerry Adams and Co. of Sinn Féin, having lots of capitalist and imperialist friends too. Some may say that is one important reason for entering a “peace process” but the problem seems to be that in order to keep those new friends on board one has to abandon so much of the goals about which one’s movement was that it becomes something very different, the goals hugely reduced and arguably bringing not peace but co-opting of resistance and a deferment of struggle, probably to another generation (as happened in Palestine, after Arafat’s and Al Fateh’s agreement at Oslo).
One or two of the speakers called for Western armed intervention to assist Kobane, most notably Peter Thatchell, who called for NATO intervention. It was noticeable that this call garnered hardly any applause from the crowd, as distinct from calls to pressurise Turkey to stop trying to block the PKK sending reinforcements to the beleaguered Kobane and for the EU to drop arms to the Kurdish resistance. The London Kurds seem to be quite politically sophisticated and know that NATO is far from being a friend of the Kurdish people. I expressed some of my opinions to a Kurdish couple in their 30s or early 40s and they indicated agreement, particularly the man, who confided many of his own opinions. After hearing about a dozen speakers, I shook hands with the Kurdish couple and bade them farewell, taking a similar journey back to my friend’s house as had Jim Connell, while writing The Red Flag in 1889.
The Red Flag, written by an Irishman in London
Although he had lived in the area for decades, Jim was not aware that Jim Connell, the author of the communist anthem The Red Flag, had been living nearby for many years and had in fact been on his way to his earlier address, also in SE London, by train from a Trafalgar Square demonstration, via Charing Cross, when he began to compose the song. Jim Connell was from Kells in Co. Meath and a member of the Socialist Democratic Federation and later of the Independent Labour Party. He put the lyrics to the Jacobite air The White Cockade. For some reason it began to be sung to the air of Tanenbaum, a German Christmas hymn, which upset Jim Connel: “Ye ruined me poem!” he stormed.
View of former address of Jim Connell, the house with the tall hedge, from across the road (Photo DB)The plaque commemorating Jim Connell who lived in this house for many years. (Photo DB)No. 22 Stondon Park, the house upon which outer wall the plaque to Jim Connell is affixed. (Photo DB)Lewisham IBRG influenced the wording of the plaque but unknown to them the words “Labour Party” were inscribed on the plaque. (photo sourced on Internet)
I knew a good bit about this because the Lewisham branch of the IBRG, of which I was Secretary, had been in correspondence with a local history employee of the local authority about putting a plaque on the house. The plaque had been the council employee’s idea but we had influenced the wording (10) and in 1989, the centenary of the writing of the song, attended the small unveiling ceremony outside the house. A little-known MP called Gordon Brown had spoken and never once mentioned Jim’s wish for a free Ireland or the war then going on in the Six Counties, so I felt obliged to jump up on a garden wall and in a short speech, supply the missing information. There were no police present and I was not interfered with although the applause was scattered. The event and the fact of my speech was covered in the Irish Post soon afterwards. A half-hour before I was to catch the train to Gatwick Airport, Jim drove me to Stondon Park and I found the house and photographed it and the plaque (and also Jim in front of it, for his own album).
It would probably be another year before I would see my kids, their spouses and my grandchildren in the flesh. Of course, there is always Skype ….
Back home
Waiting for either the number 16 or 41 bus home from Dublin Airport, I noted the inadequate shelters from weather, the general lack of Dublin information and the tatty state of the one map of Dublin that someone had thoughtfully sticky-taped to one of the shelters. Even the Bus Átha Cliath timetable for the 16 route was tattered and flapping in the breeze. Ireland, I do love you but sometime you disgust me too.
Tattered Bus timetable in inadequate weather shelters at Dublin Airport, Nov. 3014. (Photo DB)A tattered Dublin tourism map which someone had thoughtfully sticky-taped to the inside of one of the inadequate weather shelters at the No.s 16 and 41 route stops at Dublin Airport, Nov. 2014. (Photo DB)
I arrived home to find that in delaying paying my Eircom bill, they had without notice cut my ability to reply to emails but strangely the Facebook connection continued. I got some money together and paid my bill.
A chríoch/ Ends
Footnotes
1 I don’t like to say “Spain” as the term is objected to by people in a number of nations within the borders of that state, some of which want total independence and to create their own states.
2 Despite this, 2,426 ships of the British Merchant Marine were sunk with 25,070 men killed, including of course many Irish but also others from the British Commonwealth and many Chinese. In 1942 a special camp for merchant marine seamen prisoners was built at Westerimke ten miles north of the German port city of Hamburg. Around 5,000 men, including 2,985 from 211 British ships, were interned at this camp commonly known as ‘Milag Nord’.
4 One wonders whether the footballer is aware of John Maclean (24 August 1879 – 30 November 1923), Republican Communist from Glasgow who was jailed in 1918 for “sedition” due to his anti-war activities and force-fed while on hunger strike.
7 There had been many pickets and demonstrations in Britain to try to save Sands’ life and those of the nine hunger-strikers to die subsequently. The 1981 Hunger Strikes had a huge effect on the Irish community in Britain, breaking the terror stranglehold of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the neglect of the Federation of Irish Societies was answered by the formation of the Irish in Britain Representation Group. See https://rebelbreeze.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/how-to-silence-an-ethnic-community/
8 Including a trip in a small delegation of trade unionists in the early 1990s across much of the Kurdistan lying within Turkey’s borders.
9 From Wikipedia: “…NATO has declared the PKK to be a terrorist group;[121] Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952, and fields the group’s second-largest armed contingent. Closely tied to NATO,[122] the European Union—which Turkey aspires to join—officially lists the PKK as having “been involved in terrorist acts” and proscribes it as part of its Common Foreign and Security Policy.[123] First designated in 2002, the PKK was ordered to be removed from the EU terror list on 3 April 2008 by the European Court of First Instance on the grounds that the EU failed to give a proper justification for listing it in the first place.[124] However, EU officials dismissed the ruling, stating that the PKK would remain on the list regardless of the legal decision.[125] Most European Union member states have not individually listed the PKK as a terrorist group.” Three Permanent Members of the EU Security Council list it so but the remaining two, Russia and China, do not.
10 We had not been told that the words “Labour Party” would be affixed and only noticed it on the plaque much later.
In the lands under the direct dominion of England, i.e. the “United Kingdom”, and in some others that are part of the British Commonwealth, the dominant class has called the people to join in a cultural festival in November which they call “Remembrance”. In this year of 2014, the centenary of the beginning of World War I, there is a particular focus in the Festival on that war.
The organisation fronting this festival in the ‘UK’ is the Royal British Legion and their symbol for it (and registered trademark) is the Red Poppy, paper or fabric representations of which people are encouraged to buy and wear – and in some places, such as the BBC for personnel in front of the camera,forced to wear. In many schools and churches throughout the ‘UK’, Poppies are sold and wreaths are laid at monuments to the dead soldiers in many different places. Prominent individuals, politicians and the media take part in a campaign to encourage the wearing of the Poppy and the festival of remembrance generally and of late, to extend the Festival for a longer period.
High points in the ‘The Festival of Remembrance’ are the Royal Albert Hall concerts on the Saturday and the military and veteran’s parades to the Cenotaph memorial in Whitehall, London, on “Remembrance Sunday”. According to the British Legion’s website, “The concert culminates with Servicemen and Women, with representatives from youth uniformed organizations and uniformed public security services of the City of London, parading down the aisles and on to the floor of the hall. There is a release of poppy petals from the roof of the hall.
“The evening event on the Saturday is the more prestigious; tickets are only available to members of the Legion and their families, and senior members of the British Royal Family (the Queen, Prince Phillip, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex) and starts and ends with the British national anthem, God Save the Queen. The event is televised.
“Musical accompaniment for the event is provided by a military band from the Household Division together with The Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra.”
The money raised from the sale of the “Poppies” and associated merchandise is to be used to support former military service people in need and the families of those killed in conflict. On the face of it, military and royal pomp apart, the Festival may seem a worthy charitable endeavour and also one which commemorates very significant historical events — therefore a festival which at the very least should not be opposed by right-thinking and charitable people.
Yet the main purpose of this festival and the symbol is neither remembrance nor charity but rather the exact opposite: to gloss over the realities of organised violence on a massive scale, to make us forget the experience of the world’s people of war and to prepare the ground for recruitment of more people for the next war or armed imperialist venture – and of course more premature deaths and injuries, including those of soldiers taking part.
Video and song On Remembrance Day from Veterans for Peace lists British conflicts (including Ireland) and condemns the Church of England for supporting the wars, calling also on people to wear the White Poppy
Partial Remembrance – obscuring the perpetrators and the realities of war
The Royal British Legion is the overall organiser of the Festival of Remembrance and has the sole legal ‘UK’ rights to use the Poppy trademark and to distribute the fabric or paper poppies in the ‘UK’. According to the organisation’s website, “As Custodian of Remembrance” one of the Legion’s two main purposes is to “ensure the memories of those who have fought and sacrificed in the British Armed Forces live on through the generations.”
By their own admission, the Legion’s “remembrance”is only to perpetuate the memories of those who fought and sacrificed in the British Armed Forces – it is therefore only a very partial (in both senses of the word) remembrance. It is left to others to commemorate the dead in the armies of the British Empire and colonies which Britain called to its support; in WWI, over 230,500 non-‘UK’ dead soldiers from the Empire and, of course, the ‘UK’ figure of 888,246 includes the 27,400 Irish dead.
Cossack soldier volunteers WWI. Imperial Russia was an ally of Britain and France; the war was one of the causes of the Russian Socialist Revolution 1917. The following year, the war ended.
The Festival of Remembrance excludes not only the dead soldiers of the British Empire and of its colonies (not to mention thousands of Chinese, African, Arab and Indian labourers employed by the army) but also those of Britain’s allies: France, Belgium, Imperial Russia, Japan, USA and their colonies.
German soldiers playing cards during WWI. Photos of Germans in WWI more readily available show them wearing masks and looking like monsters.
No question seems to arise of the Festival of Remembrance commemorating the fallen of the “enemy” but if the festival were really about full “remembrance”, it would commemorate the dead on each side of conflicts. That would particularly be appropriate in WWI, an imperialist war in every aspect. But of course they don’t do that; if we feel equally sorry for the people of other nations, it will be difficult to get us to kill them in some future conflict.
A real festival of remembrance would commemorate too those civilians killed in war (seven million in WWI), the percentage of which in overall war casualty statistics has been steadily rising through the century with increasingly long-range means of warfare.
Civilian war refugees in Salonika, NW Greece, WWI
Civilians in the First World War died prematurely in epidemics and munitions factory explosions as well as in artillery and air bombardments, also in sunk shipping and killed in auxiliary logistical labour complements in battle areas and through hunger as feeding the military became the priority and farmhands became soldiers.
In WWII 85,000,000 civilians died in extermination camps or forced labour units, targeting of ethnic and social groups, air bombardments, as well as in hunger and disease arising from the destruction of harvests and infrastructure. Air bombardments, landmines, ethnic targeting and destruction of infrastructures continue to exact a high casualty rate among civilians in war areas: one admittedly low estimate up to 2009 gave figures of 3,500 dead in Iraq during the war and aftermath and another 100,000 dead from western trade sanctions, along with 32,000 dead civilians in Afghanistan. Another review up to 2011 gave a figure of 133,000 civilians killed directly as a result of violence in Iraq and “probably double that figure due to sanctions”. (1)
The number of civilians injured, many of them permanently disabled, is of course higher than the numbers killed. Most of those will bring an additional cost to health and social services where these are provided by the state and of course to families, whether state provision exists or not.
Real and impartial “remembrance” would include civilians but not even British civilians killed and injured are included in the Festival of Remembrance, revealing that the real purpose of the Festival is to support the existence of the armed forces and their activities (“shoulder to shoulder with our armed forces”) (2) contributing at the same time to a certain militarisation of society and of the dominant culture.
If the Festival were really about “remembrance”, they would commemorate the numbers of injuries and detail the various types of weapons that caused them. But that might reflect unfavourably on the armaments manufacturers, who run a multi-billion industry in whatever currency one cares to name, so of course they don’t.
Australian soldiers who survived gas attack but injured by it awaiting hospitalisation, Northern France, WWI 1916.
And if really concerned about death and injury in war, they would campaign to end such conflict – for an end to imperial war. But then how else would the various imperial states sort out among themselves which one could extract which resources from which countries in the world and upon the markets of which country each imperial state could dump its produce? So of course the Royal British Legion doesn’t campaign against war.
Partial remembrance is indeed embodied in the song chosen by the British Legion to promote its Festival. No Man’s Land, sung by Joss Stone, is actually a truncated version of the song of the same title (better known in Ireland as the Furey’s The Green Fields of France), composed by Scottish-raised and Australian-based singer-songwriter Eric Bogle. The Joss Stone version contains the lyrics of the chorus as well as of one verse and one-half of another, omitting two and-a-half verses of Bogle’s song.
Some of the British media created a kind of controversy, at the behest of who knows whom, to have the British Legion’s song included top of BBC’s Radio One playlist. The song is reproduced in entirety below, with the lines sung by Joss Stone in italics and those she omitted in normal type.
Well, how do you do, young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the great fallen in 1916,
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
(Chorus)
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
And did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Although, you died back in 1916,
In that faithful heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enclosed forever behind the glass frame,
In an old photograph, torn, battered and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?
(Chorus)
The sun now it shines on the green fields of France;
There’s a warm summer breeze that makes the red poppies dance.
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There’s no gas, no barbed wire, there’s no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man.
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.
(Chorus)
Ah young Willie McBride, I can’t help wonder why,
Do those that lie here know why did they die?
And did they believe when they answered the cause,
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying, were all done in vain.
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
(Chorus)
It’s easy to see why the Royal British Legion might shy away from the omitted lyrics, which would hardly encourage recruitment or support for war. Interviewed on video, Joss Stone herself said how important it was to be “true to the lyrics” and that “the last thing one would want to do would be to disrespect the lyric”; incredibly, she and John Cohen, the record producer, both separately claimed that they had captured the essence of the song lyrics in the British Legion’s version.(3)
Although Bogle stated that he did not think the Joss Stone version glorifies war, he also said that it did not condemn it and was ultimately a sentimentalised version.
“Believe it or not I wrote the song intending for the four verses of the original song to gradually build up to what I hoped would be a climactic and strong anti-war statement,” Bogle said. “Missing out two and a half verses from the original four verses very much negates that intention.” (apparently in a reply from Bogle to a blogger’s email and quoted in a number of newspaper reports).
The truncation of the song and the removal in particular of the anti-war lyrics epitomises partial “remembrance” and stands as a metaphor for it, the production of a lie by omission and obscuration.
If the main objective were really to care for soldiers and veterans and their families ….…
If the festival were really about caring for veterans and their families, would it not seek to allocate that responsibility completely to the State? It is the capitalist state (and prior to that, the feudal state) which sent people to fight for it, so it should be that state which cares for the military personnel and for their families. According to histories of the British Legion, one reason for its formation was the callous disregard of the British state and low level of provision for its military injured in the First World War and for the dependents of the dead. Taking that principle further, the State could impose a War Tax or Veterans’ Dependent’ Tax, say, on the big capitalists, on whose behalf the State has sent its armed forces off to fight. After all, it is those capitalists who will benefit from the plunder of resources and opening of markets for their produce, the very reasons the wars are being fought.
Millions of artillery shell casings, each designed to kill and mutilate, each produced at a profit to Capitalists.
Not only that, the capitalists directly profit from war itself; war is not merely a means of settling territorial disputes among capitalist nations – war itself is very big business. Every bullet, shell, bomb, rocket, mine was produced at a profit and when exploded, will be replaced by another, again at profit and so on, in huge production batches. Every gun, tank, armoured car, lorry, jeep, ship, plane, helicopter built … huge production, huge profits. Then uniforms, equipment, food production and packaging, deliveries …. it will be indeed a rare capitalist who does not profit from war while it is being fought.
The Royal British Legion does in fact do some campaigning around State support for armed forces personnel and their dependents. On the Legion’s website, under the section on “Campaigning”, the following appears:
“In no particular order, our top five recommendations for the next Government are to:
Enable all Armed Forces widows to retain their pension should they decide to later cohabit or remarry
Ensure that all veterans with Service-induced hearing problems can have their MOD-issued hearing aids serviced and replaced at no cost, and that working-age veterans can access higher grade hearing aids, including ‘in-the-ear’ aids
Protect the lifetime income of injured veterans by uprating their military compensation by the higher of earnings, inflation or 2.5% (the ‘triple lock’)
Offer veterans evidence-based treatment for mental health problems within a maximum of 18 weeks from referral, provided by practitioners with an understanding of veterans’ needs, in line with the Government’s commitment to parity of esteem between physical and mental health
Include spouses and Early Service Leavers in the resettlement support provided by the Career Transition Partnership”
As one can see, these are pretty minimal demands of the State and in no way impede its engagement in war and may actually assist in recruitment.
Shhhh! Suicide and PTSD among military personnell
While campaigning for mental health provision for referrals of veterans and serving personnel may help reduce suicides among this group, nowhere in the official Festival of Remembrance is the existence of this component of mortality even alluded to. It is known in the USA that statistics of suicides in their armed forces since 2003 actually exceed their numbers killed in combat.
Evidence is now emerging of suicide statistics among veterans of recent British armed conflicts too — and the statistics are rising. According to aBBC Panorama documentary last year, more British soldiers committed suicide in 2012 than were killed in action in Afghanistan (the British Army does not publish records of suicide death but Panorama’s researchers dug up the statistics from various sources).
The Ministry of Defence does keep some records of diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among its serving personnell and says the incidence is lower than in the general population but many suspect that the figures do not reflect the full reality. Also, the same statistics show that male military under 20 years of age “had a 46% statistically significant increased risk of suicide than the rest of the general population”.(4)
PTSD was not recognised by the beligerents in World War One and many of those who were shot by firing squad for “cowardice”, “desertion” or “refusing an order” “in the face of the enemy”, were sufferers of that syndrome. Their dependents were left without a war pension too.
Talking about PTSD and suicide among soldiers is hardly likely to encourage recruitment to the armed forces and so, despite its pledge to “support all members of the British Armed Forces past and present, and their families”(5), the British Legion draws a veil of silence over those aspects, particularly during the Festival.
Getting the public behind the armed services and war
Far from campaigning against war or even assigning financial and moral responsibility to the capitalists who cause war and also profit from it, the British Legion, through the promotion of the Poppy and “Remembrance”, strives to keep the public in support of militarism (6) and in readiness to support future wars.
It does this in a number of ways: it maintains a separation from the reality of war for the public, as well as a separation between the victims of the State-sponsored wars and the cause of their victimhood. It avoids mention of the causes of war and of those who profit by it. And it promotes the armed services and the conflicts in which they have participated uncritically, a promotion embodied in the Legion’s slogan in use until this year, “Shoulder to shoulder with all who Serve” (which it intends to replace with “Live On – To the memory of the fallen and the future of the living”).
War is presented in the mass media during the Festival and at other times as unfortunate but also as giving rise to uplifting heroic action and to comradeship. Feeling of comradeship is a real phenomenon among people suffering equal or similar conditions and, in the military, is most commonly seen among the lower ranks. When the British Legion was an organisation limited to veteran membership, presenting it as providing comradeship was understandable. However, the British Legion has now extended its membership not only to families but to all kinds of supporters, whether active as volunteers (for example, selling “Poppies”) or completely passive (just paying an annual membership subscription). It now promotes a different kind of “comradeship” and, under that very heading, invites members of the public to “Become part of a network of people who care about the Armed Forces family”.(7)
The British Legion is actively seeking a different kind of ‘comradeship’ or solidarity to that existing among the military or veterans. But this is not an alternative such as the comradeship of humanity nor of the working class, which would lead the workers of the opposing armies to rise up against their masters, but of “the nation”.
This of course would be a misnomer anyway since there are a number of nations in the ‘UK’, for example. But even if the comradeship were for “England”, or “Australia”, these territorial-political units are by no means homogenous. All of them are divided into classes and in each, one class rules – the monopoly capitalist class. It is that class that decides on war and it is that class that profits from it, along with smaller profits for smaller capitalists. But it is not they who will be blowing up, shooting and stabbing one another in the wars they instigate – it is the working and lower middle classes.
The military casualties in war are presented as heroic sacrifices for “the nation”, a mythical concept often represented by neighbourhood and family. Family and neighbourhoods in all the countries in the conflict will suffer but it is neither the families nor the neighbourhoods which instigated the war, nor will they profit from it. In fact, their representatives will be sent to kill one another on the battlefields, leaving desolation and loss among their families and neighbourhoods.
However, as was pointed out by speakers at the recent launch of a book against militarism in a London bookshop recently(8) the fact that the British monopoly capitalist class is having, through the British Legion and its Festival, to exert itself to seek identification with its armed forces and support for war, is a sign that public opinion is not all going the way it would like.
Left and liberal support for the Red Poppy
People enlist in imperial and colonial armed forces for a variety of reasons. Excitement and adventure of course appeal to many but there is also the push of unemployment, the pull of education and training (however doubtful the usefulness of that training may be in later life although in the USA, serving and ex-armed forces people qualify for educational funding http://www.collegescholarships.org/grants/military.htm).
Then of course there is the propaganda about the atrocities committed by enemy forces (whether real or not) and the alleged threat they pose to the population of the state doing the recruiting. The alleged threat is the propaganda reason most aggressive imperialist powers name their war ministries the Department or Ministry of Defence and that some even incorporate the concept into the title of their armed forces, viz. the “Israel Defence Force”).
British soldiers move up through a trench to begin attack at the Somme battle, Northern France, WWI
And, quite often, people are conscripted by force, as they were in Britain during both World Wars as well as for “National Service” up to 1960, as well as in other European countries (and in the USA in the draft for WWII, Korea, Vietnam). The standard punishment for refusing to join up when conscripted was a jail sentence but some conscientious objectors in WWI were shipped by the British Army to France, so that they could be shot for “desertion in the face of the enemy”. The penalty for certain acts in a war area, such as desertion, refusal to obey orders or striking an officer, could be death – during WWI, 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers were shot by firing squad, while others were executed in the armies of Britain’s allies, as well as in those of Germany, Austria and Turkey.
As an aside from the purpose of this article, it is noteworthy that the only area of the ‘UK’ where conscription was not introduced was Ireland, where opposition to it ran right across a spectrum from the IT&GWU and some other trade unions, through the Irish nationalist and republican movements to the Catholic Church hierarchy. The only area of the European-settler Commonwealth where it was not introduced, being defeated in two consecutive referenda, was Australia – where 40% of the population is said to be of Irish descent and where the Irish diaspora, with some justification, was blamed by supporters of conscription for the failure to introduce it. However, thousands of Irish and Australians did volunteer, especially in the earlier days of the war.
The issue of why and how people join the imperialist armed forces is often raised by Left and liberal advocates of wearing the Poppy or of similar commemoration festivals (e.g. Armed Forces Week in the USA, second Saturday to third Sunday of May). Another group contend that the real or original purpose of these commemorations and festivals is to commemorate the great human loss of their country or to support veterans and their families.
These commemorative events, these Left or liberal advocates often contend, have been hijacked by militarists and, in the case of the ‘UK’, by the Royals and they should not be allowed to get away with it. Accordingly, one may find socialists and anti-war people and even activists wearing the Poppy, as is the case for example with a few of the activists of the British-based group Veterans for Peace, although most of them do not wear the Red Poppy and many promote the White Poppy.
Personally, I do not believe that Left and liberal advocates of wearing the Red Poppy have correctly analysed the original purpose of those who created it. But even if they should be correct, clearly serious cognizance should be taken of how the Red Poppy symbol is being used today and what its main thrust is. It is pretty clear that this symbol and the commemorations in imperialist countries in general are being used to recruit personnel for the armed forces of those states and, above all, to swing public opinion behind not only those armed forces but also in support of their state’s armed actions against other states and in wars of conquest in other lands.
The White Poppy – in Britain, Australia, Canada and in Ireland
To counter the propaganda offensive surrounding the Red Poppy, some in the ‘UK’ and in some Commonwealth countries advocate the wearing of a white poppy symbol. The idea of an alternative and anti-war symbol was apparently first proposed in 1926 and the White Poppy was first sold by the Women’s Cooperative Movement in Britain in 1933. The following year, the major anti-war organisation in Britain, the Peace Pledge Union, began its annual sale of the White Poppy symbol. Although tolerance of the White Poppy has been pronounced by the Royal British Legion, the wearing of it has been attacked by a number of public figures in Australia and in Britain, including Margaret Thatcher during Question Time in the House of Commons.
The White Poppy Emblem, worn as an alternative to the Red Poppy but also sometimes alongside it
In 2006 the Royal Canadian Legion initiated legal action against the main Canadian distributor of the White Poppy symbol and against the Peace Pledge Union. This action gained considerable publicity in the Canadian media and, according to the PPU, “resulted in widespread support and a substantial increased sale of white poppies in Canada”(9). The PPU site also carries accounts of orchestrated hostility by the media, in church groups and schools, although some schools also provide the White alongside the Red Poppy symbol.
Reviewing the principle behind it and the history of its existence as a symbol, also not ignoring its pacifist associations (which are unwelcome to me), it does seem a progressive act for people in Britain and Australia, New Zealand and Canada to wear the White Poppy. The act of wearing that symbol is statement that the wearer dissents from the wearing of the Red Poppy and is opposed to imperialist and colonialist war.
I have no strong feeling about whether people should wear it in Ireland or not but nor do I see any reason to promote it (with the exception of within the “Unionist community”, where discussion around it could be useful, although the practice would almost certainly be dangerous). Although our whole nation was a part of the ‘UK’ during World War I, twenty-six of its 32 counties have since ceased to be so. The thrust that led to that current status was embodied in the 1916 Rising (itself an action against WWI)and the War of Independence 1919-1921, events of much greater historic national significance for us, despite their much smaller loss of Irish lives, than is the First World War. The symbol covering that period and in particular the 1916 Rising is the “Easter Lilly” (the Arum Lilly or Calla. Z. aethiopica), paper and metal badge representations of which are worn around that time, both in Ireland and in some cases abroad.
There has been a growing attempt in Ireland in recent years to have a national honouring of the Irish who died serving in the British Army and at the moment this is concentrating on the First World War period. This is far from unproblematic: they were soldiers in the armed forces of a state that was occupying our country, then a colony, and actively engaged in repression of our people – a repression which at that time had been going on for 700 years. The 1916 Rising had taken place right in the middle of WWI and had been suppressed by British troops – including units recruited in Ireland. Almost immediately after the end of World War One, the IRA had begun the War of Independence, during which its principal opponents in armed action were the British Army, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the special auxilliary forces of the latter (“’Tans” and “Auxies”).
As if that were not problematic enough, that same colonial power remains to this day in occupation of a part of our national territory. And that colonial occupation and its colonial police force is backed up by that same British Army, an army which only recently fought a 30-year war against Irish guerrilla forces in the colony. During that war, the British Army daily harassed civilians in ‘nationalist’ areas and at times gassed, arrested and beat them up or shot them dead. That same Army also colluded with sectarian assassination squads and carried out unofficial executions, i.e. murders, of guerrilla fighters and of political activists.
Given this history and current situation, it is curious that some determined efforts to commemorate Irish dead in the British Army during WWI continue. Some of its advocates may be motivated by nothing more than a genuine historical commemorative interest and some by some kind of sense of justice. But undoubtedly there exists in Ireland, as well as the unionist mentality in parts of the Six Counties, a nostalgia for the British among some in the Irish state. This is the “West Britain” mentality that never ceased to wish Ireland to be a part of the British Empire, reinforced by the desire of some other elements to see Ireland part of the British Commonwealth. For these elements, celebration of the Irish who fought in the British Army is a way of stating their claim to the past they like and the future to which they aspire. These tiny sections of the Irish population have some representation in Irish academic and public life and, one suspects, among the Irish capitalist class, a class with no sense of history but a strong sense of the quick Sterling, Punt, or Euro – whichever seems best at the time.
Uncritical commemoration of Irish soldiers who died in the British Army and particularly in WWI is not only problematic but plays into the agenda of “West British” and Commonwealth enthusiasts and for those reasons the broad Irish Republican movement is right to oppose such commemorations. But the issue goes far beyond that of “Brits Out!” — for socialists, these commemorations screen the real purpose of imperialist wars and the ways in which working people are pulled into them, to fight their corresponding working people in other countries, for the profits and strategic interests of a tiny, parasitic minority.
Certainly the Irish who fell in WWI in British military units should be remembered, as should all those working class and lower-middle class people of all countries who were sent to butcher their class brothers and be butchered in turn, along with the civilian casualties, in a dispute over territories, resources and markets between a small number of capitalists who would never fight one another in person and indeed who often wined and dined together and, not infrequently, intermarried. Those dead should be remembered as casualties of capitalism, imperialism and colonialism and their remembrance serve as part of a drive to overthrow those evils and to eliminate imperialist war forever.
End main article
Video Veterans for Peace at the Cenotaph, Remembrance Sunday 2014
1) See “Civilian war dead” links at end of article
2) Quotation from the Royal British Legion’s website (see link at end of article)
3) She may be seen and heard saying those things and a number of other inane (or dishonest) things in a number of videos entitled Behind the Scenes of the Official Poppy single with Joss Stone and John Cohen can be seen and heard saying his piece on one of those too (see video links at end of article).
4) From the British Legion’s website (see link at end of article)
5) From The Female Front Line blog (see link at end of article)
6) Members of the armed forces are recruited and maintained by successive Armed Forces Acts every five years as a specific, albeit continuing, derogation from the Bill of Rights 1689, which otherwise prohibits the Crown from maintaining a standing army. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689
7) Quotation from the Royal British Legion’s website (see link at end of article)
8) Confronting a Culture of Militarism by David Gee, in Housmans Radical Bookshop
9) Referred to, without detail, on Peace Pledge Union site, about The White Poppy (see link at end of article)
Appendices: Historical Background, Natural History, Cultural Usage, Uses.
Historical background of the Poppy symbol
(Most of this section is taken from The Story Behind the Remembrance Poppy
The symbol of the Poppy was chosen, it is widely believed, because of the prevalence of this flower on battlefields in WWI. Although it grows reasonably well in meadows, the plant grows best of all on recently disturbed ground, so that rural battlefields, where bombs and shells have cratered the land and heavy vehicles and the tramp of human feet have flattened other vegetation and churned up the earth, suit it well. It has been seen as symbolic of some kind of rebirth and of course, the colour is that of blood.
In 1855, British historian Lord Macaulay, writing about the site of the Battle of Landen (in modern Belgium, not far from Ypres) in 1693, wrote “The next summer the soil, fertilised by twenty thousand corpses (apparently more like 28,000 human and many horse corpses – DB), broke forth into millions of poppies. The traveller who, on the road from Saint Tron to Tirlemont, saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet spreading from Landen to Neerwinden, could hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet (Isaiah – DB) was literally accomplished, that the earth was disclosing her blood and refusing to cover the slain.”
Moina Michael: “The Poppy Lady”
The origin of the red Flanders poppy as a modern-day symbol of Remembrance was the inspiration of an United States woman, Miss Moina Michael. According to her memoirs, while working in Overseas War HQ of the religious charitable organisation the YMCA, she was inspired by the poem “We Shall Not Sleep” (also known as In Flanders Fields) by Canadian Liutenant-Colonel John McCrae, which she read in The Ladies Home Journal, where it was illustrated by a vivid field of red poppies. Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae had died of pneumonia several months earlier on 28th January 1918. Part of his poem reads:
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
In her autobiography, entitled “The Miracle Flower”, Moina describes this experience as deeply spiritual. She felt as though she was actually being called in person by the voices which had been silenced by death and vowed always to wear a red poppy of Flanders Fields as a sign of remembrance. She jotted down a poem in response, which she entitled “We Shall Keep the Faith”, of which the first verse read:
Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet — to rise anew! We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.
The First Poppies Worn in Remembrance
Later that day Moina found one large and 24 small artificial red silk poppies in Wanamaker’s department store. When she returned to duty at the YMCA HQ later that evening, the delegates from the conference being held there enthused about the symbols and she handed out all but one of them, which she kept for herself. The inspirations for the Poppy as a symbol then, by its creator, can be said to be religious but also nationalistic and warlike: “Take up our struggle with the foe.”
Campaign for the Poppy as a National Memorial Symbol
Thereafter Moina Michael campaigned to get the Poppy emblem adopted in the United States as a national memorial symbol, in which she was encouraged by the press.
Originally she intended to use the simple red, four petalled field poppy of Flanders as the Memorial Poppy emblem. Mr. Lee Keedick was contracted to design a national emblem and in December 1918 he produced a final design, which was accepted. This emblem consisted of a border of blue on a white background with the Torch of Liberty and a Poppy entwined in the centre, containing the colours of the Allied flags: red, white, blue, black, green and yellow.
The Torch and the Poppy Emblem
The “Torch and Poppy” emblem was first used officially on 14th February, 1919 in Carnegie Hall, New York City. The event was a lecture given by the Canadian ace pilot, Colonel William Avery “Billy” Bishop, VC, CB, DSO & Bar, MC DFC, ED. His lecture was titled “Air Fighting in Flanders Fields”. As the lecture ended a large flag with the new torch and poppy emblem on it was unfurled at the back of the stage.
However, in spite of the interest raised by the appearance of the new emblem at the time, and Moina’s continued efforts to publicize the campaign, this emblem was not taken up by any group or individual to help establish it as a national symbol.
There was so little public interest in the enterprise that eventually the emblem’s designer, Mr Keedick, abandoned his interest in pursuing Moina’s campaign.
The Poppy and Help for Wounded Ex-Servicemen
During the winter of 1918/1919 Moina Michael continued working for the Staff of the Overseas YMCA Secretaries, including doing charitable work such as visiting wounded and sick men from her home state of Georgia in nine of the debarkation hospitals in and around New York City.
During the summer months of 1919 Moina taught a class of disabled servicemen. There were several hundred ex-servicemen in rehabilitation at the University of Georgia. Learning about their needs at first hand gave her the impetus to widen the scope of the Memorial Poppy idea so that it could be used to help all servicemen and their dependants.
Official Recognition of the Memorial Poppy
In the early 1920s a number of organizations did adopt the red poppy as a result of Moina’s dedicated campaign.
1920: The American Legion Adopts the Memorial Poppy
In 1919 the American Legion was founded as an organization by veterans of the United States armed forces to support those who had served in wartime in Europe during the First World War.
In August 1920 the Navy representative promised to present her case for the Memorial Poppy to the convention. The Georgia Convention subsequently adopted the Memorial Poppy but omitted the Torch symbol. The Convention also agreed to endorse the movement to have the Poppy adopted by the National American Legion and resolved to urge each member of the American Legion in Georgia to wear a red poppy annually on 11th November.
One month later, on 29th September 1920, the National American Legion convened in Cleveland. The Convention agreed on the use of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy as the United States’ national emblem of Remembrance.
Anna Guérin: “The French Poppy Lady”
Fund Raising for France with Poppies
A French woman by the name of Madame Anna E Guérin was present at the same American Legion convention as a representative of the French YMCA Secretariat. She considered that artificial poppies could be made and sold as a way of raising money for the benefit of the French people, especially the orphaned children, who were suffering as a result of the war.
Anna Guérin returned to France after the convention. She was the founder of the “American and French Children’s League” through which she organized French women, children and war veterans to make artificial poppies out of cloth. Her intention was that these poppies would be sold and the proceeds could be used to help fund the restoration of the war-torn regions of France.
Anna was determined to introduce the idea of the memorial poppy to the nations which had been Allied with France during the First World War. During 1921 she made visits or sent representatives to America, Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.
Spreading the Message of the Memorial Poppy
1921: French Poppies Sold in America
In 1921 Madame Guérin made arrangements for the first nationwide distribution across America of poppies made in France by the American and French Childrens’ League. The funds raised from this venture went directly to the League to help with rehabilitation and resettlement of the areas of France devastated by the First World War. Millions of these French-made artificial poppies were sold in America between 1920 and 1924.
5th July 1921: Canada adopts the Flower of Remembrance
Madame Anna Guérin travelled to Canada, where she met with representatives of the Great War Veterans Association of Canada. This organization later became the Royal Canadian Legion. The Great War Veterans Association adopted the poppy as its national flower of Remembrance on 5th July 1921.
11th November 1921: The First British Legion Poppy Day Appeal
In 1921 Anna Guérin sent some French women to London to sell their artificial red poppies. This was the first introduction to the British people of Moina Michael’s idea of the Memorial Poppy. Madame Guérin went in person to visit Field Marshal Earl Douglas Haig, founder and President of The British Legion. She persuaded him to adopt the Flanders Poppy as an emblem for The Legion. This was formalized in the autumn of 1921.
The first British Poppy Day Appeal was launched that year, in the run up to 11th November 1921. It was the third anniversary of the Armistice to end the Great War. Proceeds from the sale of artificial French-made poppies were given to ex-servicemen in need of welfare and financial support.
Since that time the red poppy has been sold each year by The British Legion.
11th November 1921: Armistice Day Remembrance in Australia
A resolution was passed in Australia that from 11th November 1921 the red Memorial Poppy was to be worn on Armistice Day in Australia.
The American and French Childrens’ League sent a million artificial poppies to Australia for the 1921 Armistice Day commemoration. The Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League sold poppies before 11th November. A poppy was sold for one shilling each. Of this, five pennies were donated to a French childrens’ charity, six pennies were donated to the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League and one penny was received by the government.
Since that time red poppies have been worn on the anniversary of Armistice in Australia, officially named Remembrance Day since 1977. Poppy wreaths are also laid in Australia on the day of national commemoration called ANZAC DAY on 25th April. This is the day when the ANZAC Force landed on the beaches of the Gallipoli penninsular at the start of that campaign on 25th April 1915.
24th April 1922: The First Poppy Day in New Zealand
In September 1921 a representative from Madame Guérin visited the New Zealand veterans’ association, called the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association (NZRSA) at that time. This organization had been established in 1916 by returning wounded veterans.
With the aim of distributing poppies in advance of the anniversary of Armistice Day on 11th November that year, the NZRSA placed an order for 350,000 small and 16,000 large French-made poppies from the French and American Childrens’ League. Unfortunately the delivery of the poppies did not arrive in time to organize and publicize the first nationwide poppy campaign, the Association decided to hold the first Poppy Day on 24th April, the day before ANZAC Day, in the following year.
The first Poppy Day in New Zealand in 1922 raised funds of over £13,000. A proportion of this was sent to the French and American Childrens’ League and the remainder was used by the Association for support and welfare of returned soldiers in New Zealand.
May 1922: French-made Poppies Sold in the United States
In 1922 the organization of the American and French Childrens’ League was disbanded. Madam Guérin was still keen to raise funds for the French people who had suffered the destruction of their communities. She asked the American organization called Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) to help her with the distribution of her French-made poppies throughout the United States.
That year the VFW assisted with the sale of the poppies in America to help keep up the much needed funds for the battle-scarred areas of France. The poppies were sold before Memorial Day which was observed at that time on 30th May. This was the first time that a United States war veterans’ organization took on the task of selling the red poppy as a symbol of Remembrance and as a means of fund raising. The VFW decided to adopt the poppy as its own official memorial flower.
1923: The American Legion Sells Poppies in the United States
In 1923 the American Legion sold poppies in the United States which were made by a French company.
Remembrance Poppies Made by War Veterans
American Legion Auxiliary Pays for Poppies
The Auxiliary to the American Legion was an organization founded in 1919 to support The American Legion. It was for women who wanted to devote their voluntary services to veterans and young people. The first convention of the Auxiliary took place in September 1921 and delegates agreed to adopt the red poppy as the memorial flower for the organization.
The delegates at the convention also agreed that disabled American war veterans could make their own poppies to be sold within the United States. The Auxiliary believed that US veterans making their own poppies could generate much needed income for disabled and unemployed veterans who had no other means of earning money. The Auxiliary provided all the material for the artificial poppies and had it pre-cut to form easily into individual flowers. The Auxiliary paid a penny for each poppy that was made.
The American Legion Auxiliary continues its work to support veterans and promotes the wearing of a red poppy on the annual Memorial Day observed in May in the United States. Paper poppies are handmade by veterans who are paid for them.
The Buddy Poppy Factory, U.S.A.
Following the distribution of the red French-made poppies for Madame Guérin in 1922, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) organization formally agreed in 1923 that American veterans of the Great War could also benefit from making and selling the red Memorial Poppy.
From 1924 disabled ex-servicemen started making poppies at the “Buddy Poppy” factory in Pittsburgh. The name “Buddy Poppy” was registered as a U.S. Patent in February 1924. In the following May a certificate was issued to grant trademark rights to the VWF for the manufacture of genuine “Buddy Poppies”.
Since the 1920s there are now 11 locations where the “Buddy Poppies” are made by disabled and needy veterans. Some 14 million “Buddy Poppies” are distributed each year in the United States.
Natural history and biologyof the Red Poppy
(Taken in entirety from Wikipedia)
Papaver rhoeas (common names include common poppy, corn poppy, corn rose, field poppy, Flanders poppy, red poppy, red weed, coquelicot, and, due to its odour, which is said to cause them, as headache and headwark) is a herbaceous species of flowering plant in the poppy family, Papaveraceae. This poppy is notable as an agricultural weed (hence the “corn” and “field”).
Before the advent of herbicides, P. rhoeas sometimes was so abundant in agricultural fields that it could be mistaken for a crop. However the only species of Papaveraceae grown as a field crop on a large scale is Papaver somniferum, the opium poppy.
The origin of the Red Poppy plant is not known for certain. As with many such plants, the area of origin is often ascribed by Americans to Europe, and by northern Europeans to southern Europe. Its native range includes West Asia, North Africa and Europe. It is known to have been associated with agriculture in the Old World since early times and has had an old symbolism and association with agricultural fertility. It has most of the characteristics of a successful weed of agriculture. These include an annual lifecycle that fits into that of most cereals, a tolerance of simple weed control methods, the ability to flower and seed itself before the crop is harvested, and the ability to form a long-lived seed bank. The leaves and latex have an acrid taste and are mildly poisonous to grazing animals.
A sterile hybrid with Papaver dubium is known, P. x hungaricum, that is intermediate in all characters with P. rhoeas.
Cultural usage of the Red Poppy
(Taken in entirety from Wikipedia with addition of two asterisked sentences)
United States commemorative stamp depicting Moina Michael and corn poppies
Due to the extent of ground disturbance in warfare during World War I, corn poppies bloomed in between the trench lines and in no man’s lands on the Western Front. Poppies are a prominent feature of “In Flanders Fields” by Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, one of the most frequently quoted English-language poems composed during the First World War. It is also mentioned in one of Eric Bogle’s excellent anti-war songs, In No-Man’s Land (also known as The Green Fields of France), which has become a standard in the Irish folk-singing repertoire and part of which is being employed to opposite effect by the Royal Legion through the singing of Joss Stone.* 1
During the 20th century, the wearing of a poppy at and before Remembrance Day each year became an established custom in most western countries. It is also used at some other dates in some countries, such as at appeals for Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand.
This poppy appears on a number of postage stamps, coins, banknotes, and national flags, including:
The common or corn poppy was voted the county flower of Essex and Norfolk in 2002 following a poll by the wild plant conservation charity Plantlife.
By what seems a strange coincidence, the red poppy has been a symbol of martyrdom and/or love in a number of older cultures.*
In Persian literature, red poppies, especially red corn poppy flowers, are considered the flower of love. They are often called the eternal lover flower. In classic and modern Persian poems, the poppy is a symbol of people who died for love (Persian: راه عشق).
Many poems interchange ‘poppy’ and ‘tulip’ (Persian: لاله).
[I] was asking the wind in the field of tulips during the sunrise: whose martyrs are these bloody shrouded?
[The wind] replied: Hafez, you and I are not capable of this secret, sing about red wine and sweet lips.
In Urdu literature, red poppies, or “Gul-e-Lalah”, are often a symbol of martyrdom, and sometimes of love.
Uses:
Red Poppy: The commonly-grown decorative Shirley Poppy is a cultivar of this plant.
P. rhoeas contains the alkaloid rhoeadine which is a mild sedative.
Videos containing quotations from Joss Stone and John Cohen about how they have stayed “true to the song” or “lyric” of No Man’s Land by Eric Bogle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez1WBJaZZ7U#t=10and
Over the years I have written articles and published them, usually under my own name, in alternative publications. Some of those having been written in Castellano (Spanish) has meant that, with the help of others to check or edit them, I have been able to publish in a number of on-line publications from the Spanish state, including a number in the Basque Country. These articles have been political commentary, analyses and news reports. They come from a revolutionary socialist perspective and from one who has been politically active for many years in London and in Ireland, which is where I grew up.
I do not find it easy to categorise my politics in a short phrase. I have been an active anarchist, from which I learned much, later a supporter of a marxist-leninist party and that too has taught me a lot; I am not an anarchist now nor perhaps even a marxist-leninist (certainly not the type I was). I am opposed to the presence of British Imperialism and colonialism on Irish soil but I am not an Irish Republican (though many in my family have been). I have not found a revolutionary organisation in Britain or in Ireland that comes close to being what I want to belong to now: an organisation that is effective, learns by mistakes instead of covering them up, is honest with itself and with the class it purports to lead, is disciplined yet tolerant of internal criticism ….
As a revolutionary, I am interested in the experiences of people the world round but most of my experience has been with the Irish at home and abroad, with Afro-Caribbeans in London, with solidarity work with Irish prisoners, the Kurds, Palestinians and Basques. Of course, I have also been active in community resistance to cuts in services and grants, to fascists and racists, as well as active in trade unionism.
We live in a time when many anti-imperialist movements and organisations have grasped or are reaching out for something they call a “peace process”. But these processes are not about peace but instead are about pacification. They cannot bring peace since they do not resolve the basic issues: imperialist and capitalist exploitation. They bring instead fragmentation, betrayal, apathy and, from a small section, collaboration with oppression. Ireland and South Africa, often quoted as good examples of “peace processes”, are actually excellent examples of the real nature of these processes.
It is common these days for someone who expresses opposition to pacification processes to be accused of militarism without a political agenda, of favouring immediate resumption of armed struggle, or of being undemocratic. Often these criticisms are made by people from the very same organisations whose militarist acts and lack of political strategy I have criticised over the years. But no matter. It is easier to condemn the critic than to carry out a real analysis of what has been won and what lost through these processes.
Currently the working class (as well as other sections of society) in Europe and elsewhere are under attack by capitalist governments determined to make them pay for the losses incurred by their financial speculator friends and to ensure that the big capitalists not only lose no profits but actually increase them. In the course of that process they are plundering the public purse and stripping the states of their public assets. Energetic and determined resistance is called for but the organisations to which we might look for that have been either completely useless or ineffective. Never before have so many institutions of the capitalist class been so exposed and so reviled by the ordinary people, yet none of the European states seems to be near to revolution. The necessary preparations were not made and we are not in a position, it seems, to lead those disenchanted and angry masses to effective resistance and then to the overthrow of this exploitative system. Not yet anyway. We need to learn from this and build the bases and organs so necessary for effective resistance.
Cultural Interests
My main cultural activity is singing, mostly traditional/ folk and I attend regularly a number of singing circles of sessions around the Dublin Bay area (of which there are a surprising number). I did sometimes play percussion by hand on a dholak (type of Indian drum) in Irish traditional sessions but not since I misplaced the drum and have been unable to find it. I also sometimes compose songs (lyrics and music), write poetry and short stories, along with humorous pieces. Among my many interests is history, both recent and more ancient and I have been known to conduct walking history tours around Dublin on occasion. Another strong interest is natural history, the world of plants and animals.
I am likely to write about all those things at one time or another.
I am primarily trilingual in Irish, Castellano and English.
Ian Paisley addressing an outdoor meeting in typical style
Ian Paisley died on 12th September, five days ago. Much of the mass media portrayed him a man who participated in building peace in the Six Counties. Some of the media painted a different picture or, at least, permitted a different telling of his story. I have searched for but failed to find a photo I remember from decades ago, in the early days of the campaign for civil rights for Catholics in that sectarian colonial statelet, a photo of Ian Paisley and Ronald Bunting standing side by side. In Bunting’s right hand was a pick-axe handle. It was around the time of the Burntollet Ambush of Civil Rights campaigners (who were marched into it by the good old RUC, nowadays the Police Service of Northern Ireland). At Burntollet, the B-Specials and civilian Loyalists had pickaxe handles too, and rocks as well.
Loyalists waiting to attack Civil Rights marchers at Burntollet Bridge mingle with RUC, January 1969.Civil Rights marchers duck from hail of missiles while RUC stand by. Note clubs also wielded by Loyalists, many of them also police reservists.
In an interview around that time, side by side with Ronald Bunting, Paisley made much of how law-abiding they and their crowd were. They could afford to be, since the statelet’s laws gave it enormous powers which nullified every civil right the large Catholic minority might try to use. But illegal violence was never far from the weapons of the State and its Loyalist supporters, to which the imperial master usually turned a blind eye (as it had to the landing of weapons in 1914, including 30.000 assorted rifles with ammunition at Larne and Donaghdee for the Ulster Volunteer Force). Nevertheless, Ian spouted in public about law and order – an old trick of fascists who have their armed thugs already breaking the law … and arms and legs too.
Not long after, Paisley and Bunting went to jail for breaking the law, as the statelet’s rulers strove to control them and also to show the world how “fair” and “even-handed” they were. Unfortunately for them at that time, the world had already seen and was to see more of it – and it was not a pretty picture.
An ex-British Army Major, Bunting had his own paramilitary unit and though he was somewhat sidelined later for a decade, who knows where he might have ended were it not for the 1980 murder of his son, Ronnie, who had joined the Official IRA and later the Irish National Liberation Army. Ronnie was murdered by SAS or Loyalists and after that, the grieving father dropped completely out of politics.
Paisley broke away from his Unionist Party because he could not rise high enough in it, could not control it and so he created his own party, the Democratic Unionist Party. He broke away from his Presbyterian Church for the same reason and created his own, making himself a vicar and Moderator of it. He never joined the Orange Order, perhaps because he did not wish to be answerable to it. When Bernadette (Devlin) McAlliskey warned people not to fear the DUP but rather the Official Unionist Party (so named to distinguish it from other unionist parties), because the former represented the real colonial power in the Six Counties, she could not have anticipated that Paisley would adapt, outflank the Official Unionists and gather the support of the old colonial class and their imperial masters. (As an aside, it’s a curious fact that in Ireland, calling one’s party the “Official” version, is to invite outflanking and eventual marginalisation).
Paisley was a skilfull demagogue and those who, in Britain or in the 26 Counties, laughed at him and his rabid roaring oratory, underestimated him. For he was not talking to them, even when giving an interview on TV, but to his own die-hard Loyalist audience. And most of them loved “Big Ian” or “Bigyan”, even if some of the paramilitary leaders thought at times that he was trying to manipulate them for his own ends (for example, during the Ulster Workers’ Strike of 1974) .
But when different times called for a different act, a different Ian emerged. A man of many smiles, a man who could go back on most of what he had said to his troops when he felt the time was right, a man who could play his part in the newest game of the British Empire in their colony, that of power-sharing with Provisional Sinn Féin, just as the latter’s leadership too adjusted to play the new game, now “the only game in town” for them.
Paisley was a fundamentalist Protestant from the ranks of the “Dissenter” churches, those who opposed the established Anglican church of the imperial state and many of whom had in 1798 taken arms against that state for Irish independence. But those dissenting churches had by now been purged and were loyal servants of the Empire, though still dissenters in religion. Echoing the old Loyalist slogan from the early years of the last century that “Home Rule is Rome rule”, Paisley fulminated against any involvement in Six County affairs by the 26 County “Free State” and also ranted against the Catholic Pope, “the Scarlet Harlot”.
Those who rightly condemn the Catholic Church’s control of the Irish state often forget that the Six County state was as fundamentalist and restrictive in most things. Divorce was already party of UK law when Ireland was partitioned and was incorporated into the new statelet. Contraception was later permitted under UK legislation and entered the Six Counties largely without problem. But they drew the line at gay rights, even after the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 decriminalised sexual acts between consenting males of 21 years of age or over in England and Wales (lowered to 18 years of age only in 1994 and to 16, equally with heterosexuals in 2000). Scotland, another stronghold of fundamentalist Presbyterianism, took another 13 years to pass the same legislation. It did not become law until 1982 in the Six Counties, with Paisley leading the “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign against it. Sadly, another eleven years had to pass before similar legislation was passed in the 26 Counties. Abortion, although legal in Britain is still not legal in either part of Ireland.
It was said by many that as a parliamentary representative, Paisley was effective and represented his Catholic constituents on an individual basis equally with his Protestant ones. He also represented a Protestant constituent against the British Army and RUC. The man in question had confronted men with long hair, dressed in combat jackets and jeans and stealing a neighbour’s car. Later in the police station, he saw the same men, some without their long-haired wigs and heard them speaking in English accents, apparently on good terms with the police. The witness made an issue to the RUC of what he assumed to be a British Army undercover squad stealing a car in order to carry out some nefarious act. Some time after that a door in the man’s street was shot at, the door number of which was the reverse of his own. Whether it was a warning or a confused murder attempt is not clear but Paisley came out with a public statement, presumably to make sure the man stayed alive.
Paisley was a sectarian, authoritarian, homophobic bigot, a bully, a fundamentalist Christian, a servant of the colonial statelet masters and in turn of their British imperialist masters. The fact that he proved more adroit than most of his opponents had given him credit for changes none of that. It is entirely appropriate that he should have received an emotional tribute from Martin McGuinness, senior figure in Sinn Féin and Deputy First Minister of the colonial administration he had shared with Paisley, when the latter was First Minister. Martin McGuinness is also a man who has been different things to different men at different times, a man who has lied and also contradicted himself in public without shame or apology. Both got on so well together, at least in public, that they soon came to be described in terms of a British comedy act, as “the Chuckle Brothers”.
Palestinian supporters and other critics of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza have long complained about the western mass media’s reporting of the conflict in Palestine. The complaints have outlined reporting slanted in the Israeli state’s favour and/or specifically against the Palestinians and their representatives.
Palestinian flag flies over the rubble of a Gaza neighbourhood after Israeli bombardment 2014 (photo Antonio Olmos)
Umberto Ecco once defined language as a system of communication through which one could tell lies. There is no doubt but that our mass media uses language. Their editors and reporters herd us as sheep are herded by trained dogs, sometimes with barks and snaps of teeth but more usually through nudges and subtle changes of posture. They direct us to the pen where we are wanted or, at the very least, away from freedom.
In order to demonstrate the techniques used I have taken an example of reporting on the conflict and analysed it. The piece chosen is far from being one of the worst pro-Israeli or anti-Palestinian pieces of journalism – it is actually quite mild and even points out the statistical imbalance in the killing of civilians by Israel’s armed forces on the one hand and by Palestinian guerrillas on the other hand. The report is by the Irish on-line newspaper The Journal and was put up by them in the middle of August 2014.
The piece opens by saying that“Palestinian negotiators have been considering an Egyptian proposal to end the month-long Israel-Hamas war as the latest 72-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is due to expire.”
This first of all says that the conflict is a war which also implies some kind of equal balance in fighting forces and also a share in blame. But it is not a war between any two sides; if it can be called a war at all, it is a war by Israel only. Israel is the fourth-largest military power in the world, with an army, navy and air force equipped with some of the latest armament and surveillance equipment. The Palestinians have a number of guerrilla groups, operating as infantry and no air or naval force at all. Their “artillery” are low-level rockets and mortars which cause very little damage to Israeli civilians and even less to the Israeli armed forces (except at close quarters, if Israeli soldiers invade territory held by the guerrillas). Israel’s armament causes huge damage to Palestinian infrastructure, huge loss of civilian life and does cause some damage to the guerilla groups.
The phrasing also suggests that Hamas is the only opponent of Israel on the Palestinian side. However, Israel has been in conflict with the Palestinians since the very day it came into existence and long before Hamas appeared on the scene. Even today, there are a number of Palestinian political and military organisations that are opposed to Israel and its actions and all together they represent the whole of Palestinian society inside the occupied territories, inside the 1948 borders of the state of Israel and in the refugee camps and settlements. In the sense that one could say that there is a war going on, it is Israel waging war against the Palestinian people.
The very next paragraph in the Journal’s piece says that “Since the truce, which will expire at midnight, went into effect on Sunday, Israel has halted military operations in the coastal territory and Gaza militants have stopped firing rockets.”
We see presented here that on the one side we have “Israel” and on the other, “Gaza militants”. As in bourgeois media reporting “militants” usually has a negative connotation, this is already tending to turn the reader against the Palestinians in Gaza. On the other hand, we have “Israel” which we can interpret either as “a legitimate state” or as the Biblical “promised land of the Jews”. And that is being opposed by “militants” in Gaza. The phrasing legitimises the status of one side while de-legitimising the other.
We are also told that Israel has halted “military operations”, two words that hardly convey the sustained bombardment of Gaza’s civilian houses, schools, mosques, civil administration facilities, power plant, water treatment plant, factories, hospitals and emergency vehicles in recent weeks. It does not bring to mind the slaughter of over 2,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians and including 430 children. Not to mention the 9,567 wounded, including 2,878 children and hundreds of injured jamming the remaining ill-equipped hospital treatment centres.
Shuja’iyya neighborhood of east Gaza City during a 12-hour ceasefire on July 26 2014.
The paragraphs states that in return for the cessation of “military operations” by the Israelis, the Palestinians have “stopped firing rockets”. Actually, if this report had just gone into a little detail, how pitiful by comparison with Israeli deadly ordnance would be the Palestinian rockets! Nevertheless, it is the rockets that are recently used as propaganda excuses by Israelis (before them it was something else) to justify the unjustifiable, the terrorising and collective punishment of a largely civilian population. So it is very rare indeed that western media reports omit any mention of the rockets.
“The ceasefire was meant to give the two sides time to negotiate a more sustainable truce and aroadmap for the coastal territory.”
Again, “two sides” gives the impression of some kind of equal antagonists in balance. The “roadmap” may be a vague reference to some future deal but may also be a reference to something that was much bandied about in Clinton’s time as President of the USA. This “roadmap” was supposed to lead to a two-state solution and, apart from the fact that it completely supported the supposed right of the European settlers who created the state of Israel to steal Palestinian land, has now been rendered completely inoperable. This is due to the continuing Israeli Zionist greed for land and building of illegal settlements throughout much of what was imagined as being part of the Palestinian state. And besides, the “roadmap” did not apply to the Palestinian refugees, who were given no right to return to their land. But it is useful for zionist-friendly propaganda purposes to pretend that this “roadmpap” ‘solution’ still exists and is viable.
“A member of the Palestinian delegation to Egyptian-brokered talks in Cairo said today that his team was considering an Egyptian proposal, which was tabled yesterday. Egyptian mediators have been ferrying between the Palestinians and their Israeli counterparts in an attempt overcome the differences between the sides.”
While it is true that Egypt has been “brokering talks”, that state is hardly an innocent bystander. Egypt has kept the Rafah Crossing, the only official exit point from Gaza not entirely controlled by Israel, closed or constricted. Egypt has also worked to destroy the tunnels which the people of Gaza used to smuggle in those items of daily life and, no doubt the arms they need, which Egypt is preventing from getting through the Rafah Crossing. The Egyptian state could nullify much of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, merely by opening their crossing into Gaza for normal traffic 24 hours a day.
The Egyptian armed forces, the real power in that country, are clients of the USA – another power which is hardly innocent but which on occasion tries to present itself as impartial in the conflict, despite its massive funding of the state of Israel. But those are not facts that the western media wish to disclose about the USA, Egypt or the conflict in Palestine.
Another thing, notice that while Egypt is “brokering”, it is “ferrying” between the Palestinian and Israeli negotiators. Clearly the antagonists are not face-to-face. If we think about that at all, as readers we are left with a feeling that maybe each side hates the other so much that they can’t bear to be in the same room. Or we might even think that Hamas, since it doesn’t recognise the right of Israel to exist, might not deign to speak to them directly. But actually, the reverse is true — as throughout most of its history, Israel is refusing to speak to the Palestinians directly. But no point telling the readers about that, is there? Who knows what they might come to think of such an attitude and behaviour of the Israeli state?
“The Egyptian proposal calls for easing parts of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, bringing some relief to the territory, according to Palestinian officials in the talks. But it leaves the key areas of disagreement, including Hamas’ demand for a full lifting of the blockade and Israeli calls for Hamas to disarm, to later negotiations.”
This is a bald enough statement which seems neutral but notice the unchallenged call for Hamas to disarm. From a state that is granted legitimacy to an insurgent force often painted as illegitimate, such a call seems reasonable. It has been and continues to be the basis for “peace (i.e. pacification) processes” throughout the world. But is there a call for Israel to disarm? Of course not. Yet it is the most heavily-armed power in the Middle East, the only one in possession of a nuclear arsenal and the one which has most often attacked its neighbours (not to mention the Palestinians). And the piece above leaves us to draw the conclusion that the lifting of the Israeli blockade may require Hamas disarming — a ‘fair exchange‘. And a reasonable reason, if Hamas does not comply, for Israel to continue its blockade on the whole population of Gaza.
“The Palestinian negotiator said he had some reservations about the proposal and would try to improve it. “We would like to see more cross-border freedom, and also to have the question of a Gaza seaport and airport discussed,” he said.
Note no reason is given for the Palestinian wishes – they seem trivial almost and no reason not to agree to a truce. “Cross-border freedom” might seem like being free to go on shopping trips or holidays abroad. “Gaza seaport and airport” likewise may facilitate daytrips and holidays, or tourist traffic or imports of luxuries. Maybe even exports of craftwork, or olives from remaining trees not destroyed by Israel. Such phrases and word do not give us a picture of over 1,816,300 people locked into a piece of land of 5,046 square kilometres (13,069 square miles), under permanent hostile control and sporadic bombardment and invasion, short of clean water and with other water polluted, destroyed infrastructure, destroyed hospitals, schools, mosques and churches, ruined industries and agriculture, infrequent power supply for lighting and heating, hardly any transport, a polluted coast and Israeli attacks on fishermen.
During the existence of the USSR and its satellite states, the western media regularly attacked them for their restrictions on most of their citizens’ travel beyond their borders. They never did then — nor do they now – inform their readers of the much stricter Israeli control on travel by Palestinians, not only beyond Israel’s 1948 borders but also beyond the borders of Palestine occupied by Israel in the years since. In fact, even travel within the occupied territories is extremely difficult for Palestinians.
The next four sentences of the Journal’s piece are unproblematic enough as far as reporting goes although it could have commented on why lifting the blockade on Gaza might have been of such concern to Hamas and to the people of Gaza:
An Israeli government spokesman had no comment on the negotiations.
In recorded remarks broadcast on Hamas radio, Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader in the region, said that “achieving a permanent truce can come only through lifting the blockade on Gaza”.
Amid the ceasefire, an Associated Press video journalist and a freelance Palestinian translator working with him were killed today when ordnance left over from the war exploded as they covered a story about the conflict’s aftermath.
Italian national Simone Camilli, 35, and Ali Shehda Abu Afash, 36, died when an unexploded missile believed to have been dropped in an Israeli airstrike blew up as Gazan police engineers worked to neutralise it in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.
However, the report could have gone on to tell us that the explosion also killed the four Gaza police engineers trying to neutralise the explosives and that another four people, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa, were badly injured. Unimportant details? News that might make us think worse of the Israeli armed forces? Or sympathise with courageous Palestinian police and at-risk civilians?
But it is not long before the more suspect reporting reemerges:
“The war began on July 8 with Israel’s air campaign against Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whom Israel blamed for the kidnapping and murder in June of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Nine days later, Israel sent in ground troops to destroy Hamas’ underground cross-border tunnels constructed for attacks inside Israel.
Here Hamas are presented as “rulers”, as distinct and opposed to – once again – the state of Israel, conferring legitimacy on one party to the conflict, the aggressor, while subtly suggesting that the other antagonist is anything but legitimate and perhaps even despotic.
But the paragraph goes beyond that and suggests that Israel has a legitimate claim that Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers. The three were in fact kidnapped and murdered and, although Israel wrongly accused Hamas of responsibility, its intelligence organisation Shin Bet later admitted that it no longer believed that. It may have been some other smaller Palestinian group or even individual members that carried it out but it was not the Hamas organisation nor its leadership. But this paragraph leaves us with the impression that Hamas’ culpability was a reasonable supposition by Israel and a reasonable cause of it going to war against Gaza.
The paragraph goes on to accept Israel’s public rationale for the bombardment and invasion, viz. “to destroy Hamas cross-border tunnels for attacks inside Israel”. Israel first quoted the deaths of the three teenagers as their reason for attack and now it is the “Hamas tunnels”. So if the stated reasons change, doesn’t that suggest that they are suspect, not to be relied on, with maybe the real reason unspoken? No comment from the media. Where are the tunnels? Which “border” are they crossing (putting aside for the moment the fact that Israel has never defined its borders)? Where are they attacking “inside Israel”? When was the most recent Hamas attack “inside Israel”? If this is a reference to the paltry rockets Hamas has fired, Israel has never claimed that these were fired at it from “inside Israel”. If it is not a reference to the rockets, then to what? We are not told but instead left with a feeling that Israel’s concerns could somehow be legitimate.
“The fighting has so far killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, Palestinian and UN officials say. On the Israeli side, 67 people have died, all but three of them soldiers.
This is an unadorned statement of the shocking facts and we could not fault this paragraph.
But how about the very next sentence?
“The latest outbreak of fighting is the third between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza since Hamas took over control of the densely-populated territory in 2007.”
Here we have a repeat of that formulation which we saw earlier: the conflict, we are being asked to see, is between the ‘legitimate’ state of Israel on the one hand and “Palestinian militants” on the other. And it is “fighting” between the two sides, rather than the truth: the attack of Israel’s military force upon the population of Gaza and the Palestinian guerrilla forces’ attempts to reply with their meagre resources.
Also, we are told that “Hamas took over control” of Gaza in 2007. In an invasion, perhaps? A coup d’etat? The fact, uncomfortable for the western media, is that it was in a democratic general election while Israel and western agents poured out anti-Hamas propaganda. And Hamas won not just in Gaza, incidentally – but in the West Bank too, although others are currently in power there. Are we told that Israeli political parties in government “took over control” of Israel? Of course not.
Continuing, the report states that“Hamas has been consistently pushing for an end of an Israeli Gaza blockade, which Israel says is necessary to prevent the group from gaining access to weapons and munitions it deploys against Israelis.”
In this sentence, we learn that Hamas wants an end to Israel’s blockade but not why. We are not told that it is so that they can have sufficient fuel for heating and transport, food, medicine, clean water, industrial and building materials, teaching and learning materials, spare parts, etc, etc. Nor are we told that Gaza could then actually export products and gain some self-sufficiency. Nor are we told that Israel is illegally holding monies, such as tax revenues, that belong to Gaza. But we ARE told why Israel wants the blockade — “to prevent the group from gaining access to weapons and munitions it deploys against Israelis.” Well, there you are – that’s only reasonable, surely? !!
A suicidal woman refused an abortion, is then force-fed to preserve her embryo which is later delivered at 25 weeks by caesarian section.
Diarmuid Breatnach
A woman considered suicidal by a medical panel was recently refused an abortion in Ireland and was subsequently force-fed. Within days a call was made for a protest demonstration and was answered by a substantial number in Dublin on Wednesday night last. The protestors filled the central section of O’Connell Street from the Spire to the Larkin monument and also spilled out into the road. Numbers of protestors took up station on the pavement fronting the GPO. A weekend demonstration was also convened in Dublin and another in Cork.0
Protesters in Dublin on Wednesday evening denouncing the treatment of the woman refused an abortion and force-fed. They called for the repeal of the Eight Amendment to the Irish Constitution. (photo D. Breatnach)
The pregnant young woman, apparently under 18 years of age, was a migrant, who sought an abortion in Ireland. Some media reports say that her pregnancy arose as a result of a rape in her native country prior to her travelling to Ireland. Not all the details are clear but it seems that an Irish advice centre gave her the necessary information to travel to Britain to receive an abortion but that she was unable to afford it (there is also some question about her immigration or asylum status should she wish to reenter Ireland). It seems she then became depressed, not surprisingly, and expressed suicidal ideation. Under the Right to Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, introduced following the “X” case, a woman is entitled to receive an abortion if carrying the foetus should result in a substantial risk to her life – suicidal ideation being one of of those risks.
In accordance with the 2013 Act the young woman’s case was reviewed by a panel, consisting of two psychologists and an obstetrician. According to reporting in the mass media, the psychologists agreed that she was suicidal and that she she should therefore have the termination. The obstetrician apparently agreed that she was suicidal but argued that in a short while (two weeks has been mentioned), a caesarian could be carried out and a baby delivered alive and viable. Since the Act requires the unanimous concurrence of all three members of the panel, the young woman was refused an abortion.
It seems the woman became further depressed and stopped eating, whereupon lawyers for the hospital went to the High Court to obtain a court order permitting the woman to be force-fed, which procedure was carried out (probably intravenously). The woman is said to have subsequently agreed to a caesarian section by which method a baby was delivered. The fate of the woman is not in the public domain at this time but the baby was reportedly delivered alive and well after 25 weeks in the womb.
A number of speakers at the rally made the point that “here we are again”, i.e. that the lack of the necessary legislation has led to another case of terrible mistreatment of a young woman, a reference to other cases of refusal of abortion that have become scandals and lead to demonstrations such as about the death of Sadita Halappanavar in 2012 and the “X” case in 1992.
At the rally, all the speakers, campaigners and providers of services and a male doctor from Doctors for Choice, called for a referendum to repeal Amendment Eight of the Bunreacht (Irish Constitution). This is the amendment passed in 1983 in order to prevent abortion becoming legal. Some very telling points were made, one speaker saying that no-one in Ireland but a pregnant woman would be force-fed or bullied into submitting to an invasive surgical operation. Perhaps we cannot say that none of those things would ever happen to anyone else but it is certainly true that only in the case of a pregnant woman would that combination of coercive and intrusive procedures, clearly in violation of the Hippocratic Oath, have been considered so readily and applied in conjunction. That the woman was a migrant probably made it easier for the authorities but it is the legal position on abortion in Ireland and its moral underpinning which reduces the pregnant woman to the status of some kind of living vessel, the status of the unborn foetus being higher than that of the mother.
Men’s place in the movement
Breaking from the general trend at the rally, one of the speakers addressed many of her remarks specifically at the males present there in support. She told them “they should know their place” and that they had no right to express any opinion on the issue except to support the women. Some women applauded her and some did not.
On the Dublin march for the repeal of the 8th Amendment on Saturday. This banner was also present at the Wednesday protest rally where one of their representatives spoke. (photo Andrew Flood)
Since variations of this view have emerged quite frequently, including the view that it’s a women’s issue or that men should just follow the opinion of women in the movement, it is worth examining this a little further. The current situation on abortion in Ireland of course impacts in the first place on women but it does not affect them only. An unwanted pregnancy, especially at an early age or stage in a relationship can force decisions that may later be regretted, including marriage or abandonment. Raising a child from what was an unwanted pregnancy has long-term social and economic implications, not just for the mother but for a much wider circle – as well as for the child growing up in society. The existence of legislation on abortion and its repeal is in the realm of criminal law — but above all it is a social issue, one affecting society. The provision of abortion is also a medical and social question: medical and social structures and services will need to be put in place, funded, monitored and its practitioners trained. Therefore all of adult society has a right to a voice on it. To call on a section of society to be mute supporters is to treat them as voting fodder and should not be supported by any genuinely democratic person.
Man on the Dublin march for repeal of the 8th Amendment (photo Andrew Flood)
Also, if men, because they are not after all going to be the ones being impregnated and bearing children, should not have a voice but should only support women, which women’s opinions should they support? Why not support the many women who are totally against abortion? And even if supporting women who are for greater access to abortion, which section of opinion about which degree of access should men support?
Clearly men have to think about these issues to come to decisions. Are they to think silently, expressing no opinion and discussing with no-one, and then be expected to develop rational opinions to inform their actions and, in the case of a referendum, their voting too? Clearly the expectations expressed in such calls or statements are not only undemocratic but unrealistic too. Men not only have the right to express opinions on these issues but need to be able to do so in order to have the discussions that make it possible for them to make rational choices.
The attitude of the state and a referendum
The Dublin pro-choice demonstration on Saturday, according to observers, matched the numbers at the anti-abortion demonstration in the city on the same day – about seven hundred. The pro-choice demonstration took an unusual route from O’Connell Street and became the third demonstration to cross the Rosie Hackett Bridge (opened in May this year). The Bridge is the only one in Dublin named after a woman and Rosie was a trade union militant active in the Dublin Lockout of 1913, as well as taking part in the 1916 Rising as a member of the Irish Citizen Army. The demonstration rallied just across the river at the Department of Health in Hawkins Street (the Department under which the young woman had been refused an abortion and force-fed) and then went on to demonstrate at the Dáil (the Irish parliament).
Speaker addresses the crowd in Hawkins Street, outside the Department of Justice — Rosie Hackett Bridge is to the far right of the photo. (photo Andrew Flood)
Some supporters of a change in the law have presented the issue as though it is essential to the State and to the Catholic Church, two institutions closely linked, to control women’s bodies through refusing access to abortion, free and on demand. I do not think it is so. Certainly those forces may want to control women’s bodies (and indeed, men and women’s minds) but such control is not essential for the continued existence of the State. Many capitalist countries have either easy access to abortion or much more liberal laws than has the 26-County state. This state can afford to give that right but that does not mean that it will. When a state is able to give something but does not want to, sufficient force must be mobilised in order to convince it that yielding will cost it less than denying. Substantial pressure will need to be brought to bear on the State so that it agrees to holding a referendum.
But having a referendum does not mean that the correct and necessary outcome will be the result. We have had referenda in which the side of progress and justice was successful but also those in which it was not. The present Amendment Eight to the Bunreacht (Constitution), which the movement seeks to repeal, was the result of a referendum.
Yes, true, that was 30 years ago and opinions have changed since. In recent years, opinion surveys have shown a majority in favour of some relaxation of the law. Also, two legislative attempts to tighten restrictions on access to abortion, in 1992 and 2002, failed. On the other hand, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments, both in 1992, were successful in loosening the ban, establishing the right of a pregnant woman to travel, even if to obtain an abortion, and to be given information about abortions services abroad. However, although the numbers in favour of unfettered access to abortion have grown substantially they do not yet constitute a majority.
According to analysts of the socio-economic background of respondents to the questionnaire, the indication is that the areas of greatest resistance are among a section of the middle class and a section of the working class. That particular section of the middle class is one of generally right-wing views and not amenable to change. Besides, they have the economic resources to lessen the chances of unwanted pregnancies including, despite their ideological position against it, to send their pregnant daughters quietly to Britain, having them return after a brief holiday without the neighbours being any the wiser. Or for a wife to go on a weekend visit to a friend in Britain even without her husband knowing the real reason for the trip.
The working class is in a different situation. High social and economic deprivation in Western countries tends to be accompanied by a higher degree of unplanned pregnancies and single parenthood than is the case with other socio-economic groups. Most working class families would also struggle to find the funds to send a family member to Britain (or to the Netherlands, apparently a new trend) to have an abortion, usually accompanied by at least one friend or family member, paying for travel, accommodation and the procedure itself. And the level of care is likely to be at the lower end of the scale. Of course many, many families and friend groups do manage it somehow.
The working class has a vested interest in this reform and this is recognised among some sections of the class but not in others. Traditional obedience to the Church has broken down in many areas, for example in ideas about sex before marriage and in using barriers to impregnation. However, the opposition to abortion remains, for many, a line not to be crossed. If a referendum is to be forced from the State and, in particular if the outcome is to be such as needed, a change in the outlook of at least a substantial section of this class needs to be achieved. Most working class people outside the immediate circles of the pro-choice movement tend not to see any campaigning on the issue except after such scandals hit the headlines – then a flare-up is briefly visible until things die down again.
The pro-choice movement will need to get out on to the streets and into communities on a regular basis if it is to win. I think it also needs to counter the work of the anti-choice propagandists, particularly those who put up their stalls in public areas or picket information centres. In discussion with some activists in the pro-choice movement, they say they do these things to some degree but don’t have the numbers of activists needed to do it more regularly. I confess that I find it hard to believe that in Dublin, for example, the movement is incapable through lack of activists to put a stall – indeed a number of stalls in different areas – on the street at least once a month. Some of those in the movement have been campaigning for decades and others for many years – and yet, as so many of their speakers said on Wednesday night in O’Connell Street, “here we are again”, responding to another fatal tragedy or shocking violation of human and civil rights.
Front of the march on Saturday in Dublin (photo Andrew Flood)
Facebook organising and networking by pro-choice campaigning groups can produce quick mobilisation of substantial numbers of people. These people are already convinced. Most of the working class remains untouched by these mobilisations and certainly their overall outlook remains unchanged. If the pro-choice movement is to have its desires become reality, it needs to get out into the working class communities and promote its cause, hopefully recruiting from among those communities to better carry the message among their own. The movement needs to engage in dialogue with movements with a high percentage of people of working class background, such as – dare one say it? — the Irish Republican movement. The latter is, despite one very deep idealogical divide and the existence of a number of factions, the political opposition movement with the largest active participation of people of working class background. At the moment, the overall position of the movement is anti-choice but that is nowhere near as monolithic or as unassailable as it was even a decade ago.
The hope is that the necessary mobilisation will be done and that very soon the State will be forced to concede a referendum on the abolition of Amendment Eight. The hope is also that the necessary educational work will be done to achieve an overwhelming victory in that referendum. The activists in the movement need our support, men as well as women, in all of that.
rebelbreeze 