Corsican patriot Yvan Colonna died on Monday 21st March 2022 in France as a result of injuries sustained in a murder attempt by Muslim fundamentalist jihadist prisoner Franck Elong Abé, who attacked him on 2nd March while Colonna was exercising in the prison gymnasium. The attack put the Corsican into a coma from which he never recovered. News of the assault led to demonstrations, marches and riots in French-ruled Corsica, in addition to promises of concessions from the French Government, both with regard to the relocation of prisoners and the national status of the island’s governance.
Colona’s death joins the list of the deaths of many freedom fighters in jail, from Irish to Basque to Turkish and Kurdish backgrounds. On 30 Mar 2013 Basque freedom-fighter Javier Lopez Pena died in custody while other Basque political prisoners have died in Spanish jails down through the years. In defiance of widely-recognised human rights norms, both states disperse their political prisoners throughout their territories, locating them far from home and from family and friends.
Protest demonstration at murderous attack on Yvan Colonna in the French prison of Arles
News of the attack provoked an instantaneous and militant response. The four nationalist political parties (Femu A Corsica, Partitu di a Nazione Corsa, Corsica Libera and Core in Fronte) denounced the attack, and two of them (the pro-independence Corsica Libera and Core in Fronte) supported the slogan of the demonstrations: “Statu francese assassinu” (“French state, murderer”).
A mass demonstration on March 6th saw thousands of participants in Corti, mainly young students, strongly denouncing the attitude of the French government. On March 9th youths set fire to part of the Palace of Justice in Ajaccio. And on March 13th, the streets of Bastia saw the largest demonstration in recent years, called by political parties, trade unions, the University, students and other social agencies. There were serious disturbances in front of the Prefecture.
More demonstrations have taken place since including school and college strikes and when news of Colonna’s death reached the island a Corsica police spokesman confirmed that “a full security alert” was in operation, and that riot police were on standby in all major towns and cities.
CORSICAN HISTORY AND CURRENT CONDITIONS
Corsica is a nation currently under French rule but which has been occupied by many different invaders over the years – including Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Goths, Byzantine Empire and later was fought over by the Holy Roman Empire and the Saracens. The city states of Pisa and Genoa ruled Corsica for five centuries; it came under French rule in 1768 and again when annexed by the French state in 1796 in which possession it remains to this day. Among its world-famous people was Bonaparte Napoleon, who became Emperor of France.
In 1976 two groups of Corsican revolutionary nationalists joined in armed resistance and formed the FLNC (Corsican Nationalist Liberation Front) which engaged in bombing French police stations and also attacks on foreign second homes in Corsica. In 2016 the organisation declared its intention to scale down armed resistance in the context of jihadist attacks, including the Charlie Hebdo killings. Last year, however, the organisation released a video of a scene witnessed by journalists, showing a group of armed masked men with the organisation’s banner, in which one read out a statement. The content declared unhappiness with the pace of change from the authorities, criticised nationalist politicians for sitting on the electoral gains (see below), pointed out that the balance of French population against theirs militated against a pacifist campaign and also criticised French owners of second home on the island “who think they are at home on Corsican soil,” saying “our country is not yet yours – your country will never be ours”.1
A logo of the Corsican armed resistance movement (Image sourced: Internet)
The population of the 8.680 km2 island-nation is 316.250 inhabitants (2014 census) of which 40% are reported as speakers of the national language, Corsu but all speak French – the only official language. Unemployment is around 8% (but higher among youth) as are accommodation prices, driven higher by the large number of holiday homes owned by people from other countries.
For much of its French history, the island has elected MPs of the French constitutional Right or Left but this changed during the 2017 French national elections, when a coalition of Corsican nationalist parties easily took three of the four available seats.
Preceding this success, the coalition had been formed for the 2015 Corsican regional elections, following an agreement to form a coalition called Pè a Corsica made up by of two main nationalist parties, the pro-autonomy Femu a Corsica and the pro-independence Corsica Libera. The coalition took 45% of the seats as well as the Presidency of the Corsican Assembly. The coalition’s priorities include the status of the island residents, officialdom of Corsican language, amnesty for FLNC prisoners, and a native legislating power, to mention but a few.
As of 2021 the nationalist coalition has 73% of the seats in the Corsican Assembly.
YVAN COLONNA’S PERSONAL & POLITICAL HISTORY
Yvan Colonna war born He was born in Marseille, France, on 7th April 1960 but at 15 years of age his family moved to Nice, (which is on the usual route betwee France and Corsica). After completing his French high school education, Yvan studied to become a teacher of physical education and sports but broke off his studies in 1981 to go and live in Corsica. He moved to accommodation in Cargèse and his brother later opened a beach bar there. Colonna took up goat herding in the area, a common occupation in Corsica and became integrated in the nationalist ethos of the majority of the Corsican population and in consequence was no doubt under French authority surveillance.
On 6 February 1998 at 9:05 pm, the prefect of Corsica, Claude Érignac, i.e the representative of the French State in Corsica, was shot receiving three 9mm bullets in the neck, and died shortly thereafter.
Posters demanding justice for Yvan Colonna (his image around the time of his detention). (Photo sourced: Internet)
French state roundups of Corsican nationalist activists followed but Colonna fled. The hunt for Colona became the biggest manhunt in French history and eventually Colonna was detected hiding in the Corsica mountains where he was arrested on 4 June 2003. Colona was in custody without bail but not tried until November 2007, his trial taking a month. Colona repeatedly stated his innocence during his internment awaiting trial, saying that he was the victim of unfair press coverage convicting him before trial. On 13 December 2007, Colonna was pronounced guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. His later appeal was rejected in June 2011.
“Freedom for the Patriots”, i.e Corsican political prisoners (Image sourced: Internet)
At the time of his murderous assault Yvan Colonna was serving his sentence in the Arles jail, a 331 km direct journey by ship from Corsica (which is actually nearer to Italy than to France), between nearly 10 and 12.30 hours depending on the route, over land and sea. Any visits by family and friends in those circumstances necessitate considerable expense, including overnight stays to return the folowing day. Basque political prisoner support assocations have commented on the strain and streess upon the family and friends of the prisoners by this deliberate dispersal, with long motorway journeys resulting in serious and even fatal accidents. Corsicans also point out that had Colonna been serving his time in a Corsican jail, he would not have been in the same jail as the jihadist who murdered him.
LOOKING AHEAD
The murder while in French custody and rise in Corsican nationalist militancy, in particular among the youth, will make problems for French rule on the island. Already the authorities have conceded that prisoners from Corsica will serve their sentences in jails on the island and some kind of autonomy is being talked about. Independence is however out of the question from the point of view of the French State and as a result the Corsican nationalist coalition will also come under pressure, from the militant resistance movement as well as from the French authorities.
End.
Demonstration March 06, 2022 in Corte during a rally in homage to Yvan Colonna (banner declares the “French State Is A Murder). The following day the French State Prefect of Corsica declared that “The French state is not a murderer.” (Photo by Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA / AFP)
We are surrounded by propaganda: to favour this or that political and economic system, those products, accept this way of life and to reject that other, to emulate or aspire to be like those people or to reject others …. The propaganda is constant but perhaps most evident in times of conflict: social conflict and wars in particular. We cannot be free of it but we can attempt to navigate it, to reach that fabled destination, the port of Truth.
Political propaganda by Cartoon: Left, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sunak shown as superhero, saving the economy and Right, former Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn shown as a Russian, suggesting he is a communist. (Images sourced: Internet)
OUR OWN PERSONAL BIAS
Firstly, we need to be aware of our own personal bias. Are we for reasons of culture, position, location or habit likely to incline to one side rather than to the other? Of course, that might be the right (or least bad) side but ….. are we being blinded by our own bias?
Our own personal biases are formed through our familial group, our schooling, training and experiences but some are engendered through the wider society, our culture.
Our cultural bias in the western world and, in particular in the English-speaking one, is towards the USA. We watch films in which the admired characters have UStater accents and even employ UStater turns of phrase and idioms1; their life-styles are recogniseably western. These cultural products cover a range from comedy to thriller or tragedy, their situations varying from urban to rural life, their genres from romance to crime to war to science fiction. In fact, both latter genres tend to present us with war-heroes who not only speak like UStaters but evoke the armed forces of the United States, whether in past real armed conflicts or in imagined ones to come. Earlier Irish generations were familiar with the dramatised plight of European settlers in the western regions of the USA being attacked by Indigenous people, only to be saved by the arrival of the US military – in that genre, the US Cavalry.2
Another major cultural influence on the English-speaking world is the UK and, to a lesser extent3, Australia. Although in Ireland there is a certain residual historical resistance to UK acculturation, some UK cultural products gained a large enough following, particularly the Coronation Street and EastEnders series4.
In comics the characters and often their environments are identifiably Western — usually of the USA5 — and even the popular Asian-based ones tend to have their facial features shaded towards European ones. Many of the electronic games also have a Western cultural bias.
And of course, we speak English. A high proportion of the Irish population is English-monoglot and even among Irish/English bilinguals, either the English is dominant or at least easily-accessible. From childhood to adulthood we see signs in English, hear it on the street, use it daily in most places, read it, are educated and instructed through it, access the Internet through it – in fact, we mostly think in English. All of which makes the pathways for accessing US and UK cultural products easy and our acceptance of the dominant discourse more probable.
Dominant discourse is of course a fact of life, some aspects of which are necessary for our social existence but other aspects of which are laden with unhelpful cultural and even political bias. We need to be alert to those aspects and prepared to investigate and analyse them.
Sometimes it looks like just about everyone is in agreement with a particular opinion and it is also the one that accords with our own inbuilt bias. Now we need to be REALLY careful, because those are two factors working together to put us at our ease on one side of a conflict and making it very difficult for us to even investigate the fact that the dominant discourse, on at least this occasion, might be mistaken. And clearly at times in history widely-accepted views HAVE been wrong – the literal seven-day creation belief, the sun going around the earth, the divine right of monarchs, the unsuitability of women for equality, the unnatural inclination of gay and lesbian people ……
OURSOURCES
In conjunction with being aware of and taking into account our own bias and prejudices, we need to the same with our sources of information, which in industrial and post-industrial cultures – apart from educational establishments — is mostly the mass media: television, newspapers and the Internet (in particular social media).
All the owners of non-State-owned mass media that we access (and that in turn accesses us) are capitalists and not only that but monopoly capitalist. Although he has recently exited his media empire6, this was the situation six years ago: “Denis O’Brien, reputedly Ireland’s richest man, is the largest shareholder in the country’s largest newspaper publisher, Independent News & Media (INM). That company has now agreed a deal to add seven more newspaper titles to its stable by acquiring the Celtic Media Group (CMG). They include the Anglo-Celt in Cavan, the Meath Chronicle and the Connaught Telegraph in Mayo. In all, it extends INM’s footprint to five more counties.
“INM is already the major player at national level. It publishes Ireland’s two largest-selling titles, the Irish Independent and Sunday Independent, plus the Sunday World and the Dublin Herald. It also has 50% of the Irish Daily Star. O’Brien’s other media company, Communicorp, owns Ireland’s two leading commercial radio talk stations: Newstalk and Today FM. In addition, it owns Dublin’s 98FM, SPIN 1038, TXFM and SPIN South West.”7
Media companies in the USA went from 50 1984 only six conglomerates controlling 90% of the United States’s in 2011: GE/Comcast (NBC, Universal), News Corp (Fox News, Wall Street Journal, New York Post), Disney (ABC, ESPN, Pixar), Viacom (MTV, BET, Paramount Pictures), Time Warner (CNN, HBO, Warner Bros.), and CBS (Showtime, NFL.com).8
“Take the UK’s newspaper industry: in a national market of 20 daily and Sunday newspaper titles, just three companies control 90 percent of newspaper circulation. Lord Rothermere’s DMG Media—publishers of the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Metro, and the i—accounts for almost 40 percent of all national newspapers sold each week in the UK, while Rupert Murdoch’s News UK and Reach (which publishes the Mirror and Express titles) command one-third and one-fifth of the market, respectively.
“When online readers are included, the same companies control a four-fifths market share among the major newspaper groups, giving these publishers an unparalleled influence for setting the agenda across the rest of the news media.”9
“Most of the social media we use on our laptops, Iphones or tablets is owned by five conglomerates in the USA: Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta and formerly known as Facebook, Inc., …..is the parent organization of Faecebook, Instragram and WhatsApp among other subsidiaries. Meta is one of the world’s most valuable companies. It is one of the Big Five American companies, alongside Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.”10
It should not surprise us if that media exhibits a strong bias towards capitalism, for example in praising businessmen (capitalists) and businesses (exploitation operations) and in criticising or slanted reporting on strikes (workers’ resistance) or on what they might term ‘terrorism’ (but is often oppressed people’s resistance).
The State-owned media, in the UK the BBC and RTÉ in Ireland, are not of course the property of capitalists, however the states in question are capitalist states. It would be surprising therefore if such media were to take a stance in opposition to that of their state and their dominant classes and, by an large they do not. If, in times of conflict elements within the program-making sections of the State-owned media veer significantly away from the State’s line, official reprimands, cuts in funding, sackings and outright censorship may follow.11
This mass media, as well as being orientated in defence of monopoly capitalism, is also orientated towards the expansion of monopoly capitalism beyond its origins, i.e imperialism. And imperialists have their alliances, by far the largest of which is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or NATO in acronym. That alliance is led by what is still the largest imperialist superpower in the world, the USA.
We may note that the antithesis of capitalism is socialism but a capitalist or imperialist system of one state may be in contention with that of another such state which in fact often happens, even occasionally breaking out in war, as was the case with WWI, when the then-dominant imperialist alliance led by the UK and France was challenged by the weaker one of Germany and Turkey.
And mentioning socialism brings to a consideration of alternative media, including that of the Socialist and Irish Republican movements. Briefly we can note that just because they declare their opposition to the status quo does not mean necessarily a) that they are indeed so opposed, or b) that they have examined and challenged their own bias or c) therefore that their analysis is correct. Indeed both the Irish Socialist and Republican movements have made huge mistakes over the last hundred years or more and, in addition, during the height of the Covid19 pandemic we saw a plethora of misinformation ranging from the fascist and racist to the fantasticaly paranoid from sources opposed to the status quo12.
NAVIGATION
With the preparations and precautions entailed in the above completed, we are ready to sail, to navigate the propaganda ocean on board the MV Investigator. Let us take the stormy propaganda seas around the Ukraine conflict for our voyage.
According to the Russian Government, ethnic Russians were under attack in parts of the Ukraine after a coup overthrew the Ukrainian Government in 2014. Furthermore, it claims that US/NATO supported that coup and, in addition, has been gathering up states to its military alliance to encircle Russia, which it sees as a threat to the existence of the Russian state. In addition, Russia claims the Ukrainian government has fascist elements in its polity including a nazi battalion incorporated into its national military. Therefore it has invaded Ukraine in order to protect its own state and to “de-nazify” the Ukraine.
According to the Ukrainian Government and the USA, along with most Western governments, all of Russia’s claims are lies and just an excuse for it to grab land in the Ukraine, in order to extend its dominion further.
The Western media supports the Ukrainian Government and USA discourse on these issues and, on the rare occasion when it quotes the Russian one, negates it or casts doubt upon it.
So, to the navigation. The first thing is that we cannot trust the Western discourse but on the other hand can we totally discount it? We cannot trust it because it is part of a capitalist and imperialist bloc centred around the USA and NATO. On the other hand, Russia might be lying and the Western media might be correct on this occasion. After all, Russian troops HAVE invaded the sovereign state (something we usually see from the USA or NATO) of Ukraine.
Map showing Nato states in Europe (Image sourced: Internet)
So, let’s investigate! A look at the map will in fact show a large number of states in East Europe that have progressively become part of NATO and Ukraine, which shares a border with Russia, was heading that way, according to even non-Russian analysis.13 And Russia has been complaining about this for years. In addition, the elected neutral Ukrainian government WAS overthrown by a violent coup in 2014, one which was welcomed by western media. And fascists WERE active in that coup and the Azov Battalion IS full of fascists and nazis (even according to US and Canadian government circles along with human rights groups, including in Israel, only a few years ago).
But the Russian regime anti-fascist? That is something else. Far-Right groups including openly Nazi ones have proliferated across Russia since the collapse of the USSR and there is little evidence that the Russian regime has been trying to eliminate them. De-nazification should start in your own territory first, right?
So a reasonable conclusion on the available evidence is that Putin’s statement about de-nazification is mere propaganda for international and domestic consumption but his real and primary motive for the invasion is the security of Russia and the withdrawal of NATO from its borders.
Might there be an element of acquiring some more Ukrainian territory and stragic locations there? Of course there might. So how to test that? What about if NATO agrees to withdraw, Ukraine declares its neutrality but demands withdrawal from its recently-conquered territory? Russia would have to comply or to expose its supposed territorial ambitions.
However, NATO is currently refusing to withdraw from Russia’s borders and the Western media is supporting it ideologically as well as pouring arms into Ukraine; NATO denies Russia’s declared motivation but declines to put it to the test.
Mentioning “land-grabbing” also raises the issues of the Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Those regions had a high proportion of ethnic Russians — the Crimea in particular nearly totally Russian-speaking — and according to numerous sources, came under attack from Ukrainian nationalist forces from 2014. The Western media says that Russia “annexed” the Crimea; however Crimea had an autonomous parliament and voted to secede from the Ukraine – it was not overthrown in a violent coup as was the neutral Ukrainian one. Subsequently Crimea asked for Russian protection from attack by the Ukrainian military (including in particular those Azov fascist fighters). Donetsk and Luhansk regions also asked for protection, according to the Russians while, according to the West, they were also annexed by Russia.
Ethnic map of the region (however not including Gypsies, Jews and Poles). The brown peninsula bottom centre is the Crimea; two top right regions are Donestk and Luhansk. (Image sourced: Internet)
CONTINUING THE NAVIGATION
Those are the fundamental points to think about during the conflict but we will be presented with reports of “kidnapping” of thousands of civilians by the Russians from the battle-zones on the one hand, with the “rescue” of thousands by the Ukrainian military on the other. Of course, any war impacts severely upon civilians in the war zones, as we have seen in conflicts from Vietnam to ireland to the Balkans, from Palestine to Yemen. What is happening in the Ukraine is a war, with bullets and missiles being fired by both sides and, furthermore, most of the fighting is taking place in and around heavily-populated areas. But are civilians and civilian buildings really being targeted by the Russians? They may or may not be but certainly the damage and casualties would be much higher if, as a matter of course, that were the case. Are civilians being used as hostages and shields by the Ukrainian military as some have alleged? They may be but it is difficult to prove or disprove that when the battle is taking place in an urban area.
We have to seek the actual causes of the war, rather than its features, to seek a workable and hopefully long-lasting solution.
WHAT ABOUT CENSORSHIP?
The fact is that all sides are practicing censorship. While the western media was quick to tell us that Russia had banned the BBC’s news service, it took a bit of searching to find out that had occurred after the UK banned RT, the Russian broadcasting service. We now learn that China has also banned Facebook and the BBC – the latter perhaps in response to the banning of RT but Facebook perhaps for lifting its ban and Tier 1 classification14 of Azov, the neo-nazi fighters incorporated into the Ukrainian military.
Currently, as an example of Western censorship, the Oliver Stone documentary Ukraine On Fire (2016) has been taken down off Youtube and according to users, rarely lasts more than a day if posted up anew.
And Naom Chomsky, veteran US-based anti-imperialist, who would normally be widely quoted in the Socialist media, is hardly ever heard or seen. Oh, he’s talking and writing alright but his discourse does not match the dominant one in the West — nor currently in the Western Left — and therefore he is excluded from their media.
Naom Chomsky, linguist and critic of imperialism often quoted by the Western Left but mostly silenced by them during the Ukrainian conflict. (Photo sourced: Internet)
CAN WE MOVE, PROCEED, ACT?
Obviously we cannot proceed through life in a permanent doubt – that would paralyse us, make us incapable of movement in any direction. We must come to a decision, at least for the time being, to allow us to act. But while we proceed on the basis of our certainties or at least assumptions, we need to be able to keep a part of our mind alert, questioning, challenging and – at some point – ready to dissent from the ideological environment in which we find ourselves and ready to consider taking a different – even oppositional – opinion and path.
This is the way we can navigate through the sea and storms of propaganda to a the desired landing on Truth. However, we need to remember that “truth” is an approximation, that it changes shape and what was true yesterday may not be true tomorrow. It is a floating land, not necessarily where it was when last charted, even when the most recent cartographers were not dishonest. Nevertheless, we are required to act, to act in the real world and therefore must reject paralysis. We find the nearest we can to the truth, test it and act upon it – but ready to amend our understanding if necessary.
We set sail.
End.
Chart for navigating the Propaganda Seas (Image: D.Breatnach)
FOOTNOTES
1The interjection of irrelevant “like” in conversations (e.g “I was like just leaving …”), the grammatically incorrect “I’m good” response to query-greetings, ‘hip’ interjections such as “dude” and even the “OK” for positive confirmation (in our lexicon since the 1950s), have all reached us from the USA.
2That film trope has led to a popular saying regarding last-minute deliveration, probably even employed by people who are unaware of its origin: “Saved by the Cavalry”. Of course, the Indigenous, who are having their lands stolen, their way of life and other parts of their culture destroyed and their resistance massacred, never have a last-minute salvation, neither in fiction nor in reality.
3Though we still hear “No worries” in reassurance, a phrase introduced by Australian soap-operas such as “Neighbours” screened on UK television channels in the 1980s and ‘90s.
4These two in particular propagated a very biased view of working class and lower-middle class people in Britain. The Coronation Street (note the monarchical tone of even the title) series, based on the Salford area near Birmingham, despite being an area settled by successive waves of migrants such as Irish (Engels even referred to them in his 1845 Condition of the Working Class in England), Caribbean and South Asian, did not include characters of migrant background for decades and it was not until 2019 that it introduced its first Black family characters. When the British soaps first provided characters of Irish background, both Coronation Street and EastEnders produced negative types without positive Irish characters to balance them.
5In the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s the majority of the comics bought in Ireland were English, from the younger age-orientated Dandy, Beano to the older-orientated range of Bunty, Judy and June for girls and, for boys, Eagle,Hotspur, Victor and the exclusively military Commando and War Picture Library series along with the Amazing Fantasy series. The US contributed super-hero series Marvel Comics and a range of both cartoon and realistic characters in Dell Comics. There was no competition from any Irish-focused publisher (nor is there yet to any real degree).
12It is also worth noting that censorship, misrepresentation of different views and verbal abuse towards those who challenge the views of the alternative media make using them to arrive at the truth more than problematic and this has been nowhere more evident than in the coverage and discussion of the conflict in Ukraine.
13In fact we can see a similar US-led encirclement of Russia in the Middle East too.
14 A classification that included ISIS and bars users from engaging in “praise, support, or representation” of blacklisted entities across the company’s platforms.
No doubt the Russian ruling class had other motives than “de-nazification” for the invasion of the Ukraine – beating back NATO encirclement, according to some and land-grabbing according to others – but it cannot be said that the smoke is entirely without fire. Not when nine hundred paramilitary nazis are part of the official Ukranian Army and prominent boulevards of Kyiv are named after Ukrainian nazis.
The Azov Battalion is a far-Right paramilitary organisation that was incorporated into the Ukrainian military in 2015. The number of the unit’s fighters is generally estimated at 900 and the mildest description of their ideology is “far Right”. They are in fact nazi, homophobic, white supremacist, anti-Roma and anti-semitic – and they are an integral part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Azov Battalion giving military instruction to civilians in Kyiv 30 Jan 2022 (Photo: Gleb Garanch/ Reuter)
Founded from far-Right Ukrainian nationalist groups in March 2014 as Azov, they were from the beginning engaged in actions against ethnic minorities including the Russian-speaking people of the Donbas region and Roma, as well as against socialists and LBGT groups. Then-President Petro Poroshenko said at an awards ceremony in 2014: “These are our best warriors …. Our best volunteers.”1
In 2014 Azov were active in overthrowing the elected Ukrainian government of President Yanukovych. That government was characterised as friendly towards Russia and for that reason unpopular with the West; however it was trying to negotiate with both Russia and the EU, with the latter for its agricultural sector and with the former for its industrial sector but the EU insisted on an exclusive agreement in total. When it did not get what it wished the EU, under its Irish President at the time, and the USA supported the overthrow of the government in a coup d’etat.
In that coup, Azoz also carried out attacks on socialists and communists and, despite a highly-politicised debate around the facts there is no doubt that 43 people who took refuge in a trade union building from anti-Russian elements were killed when the building was set on fire.
From November 2015 to February 2016, according to a 2016 Report by the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner of the UN, Azov was responsible for incidents in which they had embedded their weapons and forces in civilian-occupied buildings, displaced residents and looted civilian properties. The report also accused the battalion of raping and torturing detainees in the Donbas region.2
Also in 2015 the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the World Jewish Congress condemned the decision to name central boulevards in Kiev after Nazi collaborators and attempts to re-write the history of Nazi collaborators in Ukraine during WWII.34
Azoz Battalion celebration of new monument to medieval Ukrainian hero Svyatosla in Mariupul, Ukraine in 2015 (Photo credit: Pierre Crom, Getty Images)
In January 2018, Azov rolled out its street patrol unit called National Druzhyna to “restore” order in the capital, Kyiv. Instead, the unit carried out pogroms against the Roma community and attacked members of the LGBTQ community. In April of that year there was a march honoring Ukrainian Waffen SS units which massacred thousands of Jews during World War II.5 In May, Azov marched through Odessa claiming that the Ukraine belongs to Ukrainians, not to Jews and that they would be ridding the country of the latter.6 In June, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor Anatoli Matios said in an interview that Jews want “to drown Slavs in blood.”7
Ukrainian International soccer player Roman Vyacheslavovych Zozulya had to be let go from Rayo Vallecano FC in 2017 because the anti-fascist and left-wing fan base of the team objected so strenuously to his being on contract. The reason for the uproar was because Zozulya has been on record as supporting Azov.
“In December 2019, a match between the Spanish teams Rayo Vallecano and Albacete (Roman Zozulya’s then-current club) was suspended, when his former club’s fans loudly accused the player of being a sympathizer of Nazi ideology, due to his known support of the Azov Battalion as well as other images he had posted on his Twitter account, which contained references to Nazi symbolism or organizations claimed to support Nazism.”8 Rayo Vallecano was fined and suspended for two games by the Spanish League (La Liga), a decision of at least questionable justice.9
“WHITE RULER”, FUNDED BY OLIGARCHS
The Azov unit was led by Andriy Biletsky, who served as the leader of both the “Patriot of Ukraine” organisation (founded in 2005) and of the Social Nationalist Assembly, a nazi organisation founded in 200810. The SNA is known to have carried out attacks on minority groups in Ukraine.
In 2010, Biletsky declared that the national purpose of the Ukraine was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen” [German Nazi term for ‘inferior races’].
Biletsky left Azov formally in order to stand for election to the Ukrainian Parliament, as elected officials must not be members of the military or police force. He was elected to parliament in 2014 and remained an MP until 2019; his nickname among his supporters is “Bely Vozd” (“White Ruler”). In October 2016 Biletsky founded the far-right National Corps party, the core base of which is Azov veterans.
It is not only Russia that has oligarchs but of course it is they alone the Western media is focusing upon. However the Ukrainian fascist forces were privately funded by oligarchs – the best-known being Igor Kolomoisky, an energy magnate billionaire and then-governor of the Dnipropetrovska region. In addition to Azov, Kolomoisky also funded other volunteer battalions such as the Dnipro 1 and Dnipro 2, Aidar and Donbas units11.
Azov also received early funding and assistance from another oligarch: Serhiy Taruta, the billionaire governor of Donetsk region12.
The presence of these nazis in the Ukrainian military is not as in many countries where individual right-wingers and fascists are attracted into the military and police but rather that an already far-Right paramilitary organisation led by nazis has been incorporated into the national armed forces. That argues for a high level of acceptance of fascism among the country’s ruling circles and indeed one finds other examples in certain statements by officials and in historical revisionism of past anti-semitism and nazi collaboration in the country’s history.13
CHANGING ATTITUDES OF THE WEST
In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced that their own forces will not support or train the Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi connections and white supremacist ideology.
However the following year, under pressure from the Pentagon, Congress lifted the ban. In October 2019, 40 members of the US Congress led by Representative Max Rose signed a letter unsuccessfully calling for the US State Department to designate Azov as a “foreign terrorist organisation” (FTO). Last April, Representative Elissa Slotkin repeated the request – which included other white supremacist groups – to the Biden administration.
Azov Battalion members (Photo sourced: Internet)
Facebook About-Face
In 2016, Facebook first designated the Azov regiment a “dangerous organisation” and placed it under its Tier 1 designation, one which includes the Ku Klux Klan and ISIL (ISIS). Facebook users praising or otherwise supporting Tier 1 groups are also banned by the social media company.
However, on February 24 this year, the day Russia launched its invasion, Facebook reversed its ban, saying it would allow praise for Azov. “While Facebook users may now praise any future battlefield action by Azov soldiers against Russia, the new policy notes that ‘any praise of violence’ committed by the group is still forbidden; it’s unclear what sort of nonviolent warfare the company anticipates,” the social media and information technology magazine The Intercept commented14.
THE UKRAINE REGIME “FASCIST”?
Opponents of the Ukraine regime (not all supporters of Putin by any means) have called the regime itself fascist, a claim which its defenders (and some others) have dismissed, citing its President and its Prime Minister being Jewish as evidence to counter the accusation. Ukraine now has the world’s third- or fourth-largest Jewish community, but estimates of its size vary wildly, ranging from 120,000 to 400,000 people, depending on who is counting15.
That the President and Prime Minister are Jewish is far from being the conclusive rebuttal that it might seem, since Zionists are known to have colluded with the Nazis in the 1930s in order to gain settlers for Palestine16. As far back as 2018, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that more than 40 human rights organisations had filed a case with Israel’s High Court of Justice to stop the Zionist state supplying the Ukrainian military because of the latter’s incorporation of anti-semitic fascists.
Azov Battalion on parade (Photo sourced: Internet)
The article also pointed out that past anti-semitic regimes had been supplied by Israel, quoting the Argentinian Generals and the Bolivian regime that included Klaus Barbie; also Israeli instructors are known to be supplying the Azov with training17.
There is certainly some fire beneath all the smoke.
Putin is no anti-fascist and, apart from the failure to tackle the growth of fascist anti-semitic groups in Russia, the Putin regime’s suppression of Muslim resistance in Chechnya contains most features of fascist repression of a population18. The irony now is that, if a video is to be believed, Azoz are dipping bullets in pig fat and telling Chechens who are part of the Russian Army that they will be barred from Muslim heaven when shot. Another irony is that Azov is attracting white fascists and militant right-wing Christians from other countries to swell its ranks, much like Muslim jihadist organisations have been attracting radical muslims from other parts of the world.
Putin has his own reasons for the invasion of the Ukraine which are to do with the interests of the Russian ruling class, whether defensive or aggressive, rather than “de-nazification” but the evidence of fascist elements in the Ukrainian military and ruling circles cannot legitimately be dismissed as supporters of the Ukrainian regime have been doing.
4Active collusion with the Nazi occupation to the extent of whole Ukrainian units fighting alongside the occupiers and wiping out Jews and civilian socialists was notable among Ukrainian nationalists of the time. However, there was also significant anti-Nazi activism, both in partisan activity and in membership of the Red Army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_in_German-occupied_Ukraine
In Dublin on Friday, prominent Catalan journalist Vicent Partal departed from the advertised subject of his Irish tour to talk specifically about the struggle for Catalan1 independence and to propound a new tactical departure for the nation in conflict with the Spanish state. In three-night speaking tour organised by ANC Ireland, Partal spoke also in Belfast and Cork, in which venues he stuck reportedly more closely to the advertised subject.
ANC Ireland is an Irish-based iteration of Asamblea Nacional de Catalonia, a mass grassroots pro-independence Catalan organisation which has been primarily responsible for the massive demonstrations on the Diada, the Catalan national Day and for the organisation and promotion of the Referendum on 1st October 2017, when scenes of Spanish police attacking voters shocked many around the world. The President of the ANC at the time, Jordi Sanchez, was later jailed by a Spanish court along with Jordi Cuixart, the President of another Catalan grassroots organisation, Omnium Cultural2.
Carles Pujol of ANC Ireland (right) introducing Vicent Partal (left)
Vicent Partal, who began his tour in Queen’s University in Belfast on the 9th continuing on to Cork University on the 10th, spoke in Dublin on the 11th in the Teachers’ Club in the City centre. Partal has been a journalist since the early 1980s, in which career he has covered the Balkan War, the Demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Beijing Students’ Protests and other events of international prominence. His publishing ventures in Catalonia progressed to the founding in 1995 of the electronic newspaper Infopista catalana that later became VilaWeb, publishing mainly in Catalan but from time to time in English also. In 2007 VilaWeb TV opened as a web TV initiative and nowadays is available as a YouTube channel and on iTunes. Partal is also Chairperson of the European Journalism Centre.
THE NEW TACTIC
In Dublin, Carles Pujol, of ANC Ireland, introduced Vicent Partal to the 50 or so of mostly Catalans in attendance at the talk on Friday in the Teachers’ Club.
Vicent Partal addressing the audience in Dublin
Partal came out from behind the speakers’ table covered in Esteladas, independentist flags, and leaning informally against it behind him, faced his audience. Instead of covering the advertised subject of “minoritised languages” and their promotion through the Internet, he addressed recent features of the struggle for independence of the Catalan nation and proposed tactics which he believed would lead to success. His audience was no doubt surprised but seemed engaged and no-one objected. Partal remarked that he had a somewhat blunt habit of stating what he believed but wished to encourage debate. He stated that the “monster” that is “the real Spain” needed to be exposed to the Catalan people and, now that has been done, needs to be exposed to the EU. Catalonia had the credit of having exposed the Spanish State as none else had done, he maintained and had stood up to the regime as none else after the fake Transition from the fascist dictatorship of General Franco.
In essence, Partal stated, a further exposure would come when the exiled Catalan Members of the European Parliament returned to Catalonia and were arrested by the Spanish State. This violation of their immunity as MEPs under the laws of the EU would be condemned by the European Court of Justice which would order their release. The exposure of the true fascist nature of the Spanish State, in addition to mobilisations on the streets would bring about irresistible pressures for the independence of Catalonia.
After the applause for his presentation had died down, Carles Pujol called for questions or statements and approximately ten members of the audience obliged, with Partal replying to each. The first question related to censorship and pressures against publication which Partal may have faced, to which he replied that pressures only work if one gives in to them. With regard to State threats he had disobeyed an instruction to the media from the Spanish State and time would tell what would be the outcome in that regard.
Another question was whether it would not be better to keep building up the numbers of votes for pro-independence parties, currently represented by 52%, in order to win independence? Partal replied that once the Spanish State had attacked a Referendum, the question of numbers for validation ceased to exist – “after that, even 5,000 people on the street for independence would be enough!” Besides, the Catalans need to return to the position they had when Puigdemont declared a Republic on 10th October (but suspended it) and to follow it through.
A scenario of increasing repression and no advance towards independence was what another person saw and Vicent replied that freedom was not without cost and that the repression needed to be faced and defeated. The Catalan journalist also denied there was anything to be gained by participation in talks with the Spanish state when independence was ruled out in advance.
Another member of the audience disagreed with the statement that Catalonia was the first to stand up in rupture from the Spanish State since the Transition, pointing out that the only region to reject the monarchist and unitary state Constitution forced on to the people in Spanish State after the death of Franco had been the Basques3, to which Partal conceded. The man also asked whether with the two main trade unions in Catalonia4 being being in favour of union with the Spanish State, effective general strikes could be organised in Catalonia. Vicent replied that he did not see the traditional approach favouring trade union organisation and action in popular protests as useful any longer. The youth in the Battle of Urquinaona5 had proved that they were able to drive the Spanish Police out and they had done so without trade union organisation, perhaps even without ever having employment to become union members.
An Irishman asked how Partal would define or describe democracy. The Catalan journalist said that there are a number of ways of looking at that question but his most basic one would be that no-one lived in fear.
To the question of what the Catalan journalist saw as an effective organisational political approach to take the struggle for independence forward, he said that all three pro-independence parties6 are now in a position of not struggling for independence and a new formation is necessary. At a recent conference, the pro-independence party with most elected members of the Catalan Government was talking about progressing to independence in 40 years! It was unclear whether the new approach should be just a platform for independence or a new fourth party but he did not at present support the latter option. It was clear that the independence movement needs to be in opposition to the Catalan Government, Partal said.
One section of the crowd in the bar area before the talk
The meeting ended with thanks to the campaigning Catalan journalist and to the meeting’s participants, along with some notifications and a request for people to get involved in Catalan solidarity work. However discussions continued informally for hours afterwards in the bar area.
End.
A small section of the crowd in the bar area before the meeting
FOOTNOTES
1Catalonia is usually understood to comprise the territory of the autonomous region of that name (Catalunya in their own language) within the Spanish state. However the region of Pau within the French state territory is often included and the term Paisos Catalans (Catalan Countries) includes not only Paul but also the autonomous region of Valencia and the Balearic Islands.
2Tried after two years in jail without bail, they were convicted of the crime of sedition and in October 2019 sentenced to nine years in jail, arising out of their efforts to manage peacefully a large spontaneous protest at Spanish police invasion of Catalan Government offices. They were pardoned in June 2021 and released.
3He might also have mentioned the decades of struggle of the southern Basque Country on military and political levels, with a huge number of Basques as political prisoners.
4Comisiones Obreras formed by the Communist Party during the Franco dictatorship but no longer under the party’s control and UGT, very much allied to the social-democratic Partido Socialista Obrero, by far the main trade unions in the Spanish state. Far behind in membership in Catalonia but growing is Intersindical CSC, a class trade union.
6Esquerra Republicana (Republican Left), Junts per Cat (Together for Cat(alonia) and CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy); the first two made up the pro-independence majority in the Catalan parliament, with CUP in opposition but supporting them with their delegates votes in clashes with the Spanish unionist parties.
The Dublin Anti-Internment Committee held a well-attended picket on Saturday (5th March) against the continuing practice of interning Irish Republicans without trial and also in support of human rights for political prisoners. At one point the picket was subjected to the unwelcome attention of the Irish political police.
(Photo: C.Sulish)
The event was in furtherance of the Committee’s advertised intention to hold monthly public events to highlight the deprivation of civil rights from Irish Republicans — on both sides of the British border — through the operation of special legislation and in particular of the no-jury political courts (Special Criminal Courts in the Irish state and Diplock Court in the British colony). The Committee has admitted that it does not always succeed in holding a public event every month and in fact its most recent public appearance was during the December festive season, in solidarity with Irish Republican prisoners, when it was supported by a number of organisations and independent activists.
(Photo: C.Sulish)
WHY THESE PUBLIC EVENTS?
The Dublin Committee holds these public events because it believes that most people are unaware of the abuse of civil rights in Ireland, the civil right to belong to an organisation that criticises the State and seeks profound change. The reaction of people receiving a leaflet at their public events would seem to bear this out.
(Photo: C.Sulish)
Choosing a couple of extracts from their current leaflet: ‘At various times in Ireland’s history, people have been rounded up and jailed without bothering with a trial – people whom the government found troublesome and wished removed. Today the same process carries on although they don’t call it “internment” now – other names such as “due process”, “remanded in custody” are used ….”
‘Even when Republican activists are granted bail, it is on outrageous conditions such as not being permitted to reside in their own home, having to observe a curfew and wear an electronic tag, not being permitted to attend meetings and demonstrations …..’
The leaflet text makes the point that one doesn’t have to agree with the politics of Irish Republicans to see that these injustices are profoundly undemocratic abuses of civil rights — and “are ultimately a danger to all oppositional movements, whether Republican or not”. One aspect of their protest was against the denial of open family visits to Republican prisoners in the jails of the British colony in the north-east of Ireland — a violation of human rights.
The surprise in learning the facts is not confined to Irish people because often it is expressed by tourists or migrants, even if they have encountered such practices in their own countries of origin.
INTERNATIONALIST DIMENSION
An example of the interest from abroad on Saturday was of a Basque man and, separately, of two young Basque women, reacting warmly to seeing the Basque flag among the picketers. The Dublin Committee objects not only to the incarceration of Irish Republicans but also of people seeking freedom in many other parts of the world, for which reason the Palestinian and Basque flags are frequently flown on their pickets, next to the revolutionary Irish workers’ flag of the Starry Plough.
A person who expressed support for the right to campaign without state repression was, interestingly, from Barcelona. However he did not wish for Catalan independence, wanting instead a unitary but democratic Spanish state – a position held by some communists and the main socia-democratic parties there. Although his position did not concur with that of the picketers, who tend to support the struggles for self-determination, the conversation was conducted without hostility.
Not so with another individual, who approached some picketers to argue for their support for the Ukrainian state in the current armed conflict there, a question that has deeply divided the Irish Left and Republican movements. He went further and announced his support for the Azov Battalion, an East European fascist organisation integrated into the Ukrainian state’s military, at which point the tolerance of the picketers for his intervention ended and he was urged to depart.
Starry Plough flags next to Palestinian and Basque Ikurrina flags at the picket in Temple Bar. (Photo: C.Sulish)
POLITICAL POLICE INTIMIDATION
Another temporary presence unwelcome to the picketers was of three members of the Irish State’s political police. These are members of what used to be called the Special Branch but are now officially called the Special Detective Unit, formerly C3 and successor to the CID when the Irish State was created. This type of political police force is modelled on the Irish Special Branch of Scotland Yard, the HQ of the British police, founded to spy on the influence and activities of the “Fenians” (i.e the Irish Republican Brotherhood) in the cities of Victorian-era Britain. However, in Dublin under British occupation, their parallel force was the G Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, known as “G-men”; it was they who identified many Republican and other prisoners of the British military after the 1916 Rising, ensuring death sentences for many (though most commuted to life imprisonment) and jail sentence for many others. During the War of Independence (1919-1921 they were identified as the intelligence service of the British occupation and many were selectively assassinated by the IRA of the time.
The Garda “Branch” (as they are known colloquially) of the Irish State have a long history of harassment of and spying on Irish Republicans, sometimes associated with violence and often with perjury in court. Their unsupported observations through the mouth of a Garda officer at the rank of Superintendent has been enough “evidence”, in the no-jury Special Criminal Court, to send many Irish Republicans to jail on a charge of “membership of an illegal organisation.”
Two picketers confront the plainclothes political police officer harassing a young leafletter on Saturday (Photo: C.Sulish)
One of these gentlemen on Saturday approached the youngest supporter of the picket, who was distributing leaflets to passers-by, identified himself as a Gárda officer in plain-clothes and demanded the young activist’s name. His accosting of the leafletter attracted the attention of others on the picket and two went quickly to support the subject of State harassment. The Branchman demanded no further information and sone moved away. However, when he had reached about half-way along the picketters, he stopped and began filming them.
At that point one of the picketers began to call out to passers-by, many of whom were tourists, that this man was a member of the secret political police, who was filming and attempting to intimidate people on a legal political protest, that this is the kind of ‘democracy’ that exists in the Irish state, etc, etc. Shortly thereafter, the Branchman departed, along with another two of his colleagues that had been observed further down towards Temple Bar.
A picketer loudly denounces the political policeman’s filming of the picketers. (Photo: C.Sulish)
According to picket participants this intervention of the political police represented an escalation of their attentions in recent times, though not in the least unusual in the past, when every picketer might have their name (and even their address) demanded and jotted down.
A spokesperson of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee stated that it is independent of any political party or organisation and that it welcomes the participation at its public events of democratic individuals, whether independent activists or members of organisations and had distributed many of its leaflets. It regrets that a number of political activists — who should have an interest, even if only in self-preservation – in defending the democratic rights to organise and to protest, decline to support their events.
As I sit down to write this there is an armed conflict occurring in eastern Europe, in the Ukraine, with the potential to escalate into a greater – and possibly even world – war. The mass media is quite clear on its position, which side it supports and which it opposes. Considering the antagonists involved and the conflict’s background, that is not surprising. What is surprising perhaps – and certainly concerning – is the confusion in the Irish Left1.
This may not have much practical effect on the conflict itself but it will indubitably affect the minds of the Irish general population and, in doing so, is highly likely to assist a move of the Irish ruling class to membership of US-led NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) or to contributing towards an imperialist EU military force. That would be an end to formal Irish state neutrality for the foreseeable future with Irish military in foreign conflicts and Ireland seen as a legitimate target.
Ukraine solidarity rally alongside the General Post Office building, Dublin City centre, 26 February 2022 (Photo: D.Breatnach)
One position, let’s call it position A, is totally or mostly condemning Russia. The invasion is seen as an attack on the national sovereignty and self-determination of a nation: Ukraine (which Putin has declared does not even exist as a nation). Furthermore it is being carried out on behalf of a capitalist Russian ruling class, is hurting ordinary working people and possibly endangering the world through war, as NATO moves to support Ukraine. Therefore Russia should withdraw from the Ukraine and we should mobilise in solidarity with the Ukrainian nation.3
(Image sourced: Internet)
Position B takes almost a diametrically opposite view: the invasion has been necessary because NATO is encircling Russia and doing so with the assistance of many former USSR states, in particular in this case, Ukraine, with which Russia shares a border. Furthermore a legitimate government in the Ukraine was overthrown by a NATO-supported coup in 2014, which led to attacks on – an protests by — ethnic Russians in the Donbas region and an armed conflict during which civilians were bombed, ethnic Russians targeted along with communists, at least 39 of which were burned to death in a trade union hall by organised fascists (a unit of which is integrated into Ukraine’s armed forces). Therefore we should call for an end to NATO encirclement of Russia.
Map showing NATO-aligned states in Europe and also the incremental increase over years. (Image sourced: The Economist journal)
Position C seeks to straddle the opposing views, condemning both the Russian invasion and NATO’s encirclement of Russia. It urges us to call for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukraine and for diplomatic negotiations around resolving the conflict between NATO’s expansion and Russian national security.4
My position is different from all of the above, arrived at by seeking to identify the fundamental causes of the conflict and proceed from there while taking into account another serious danger (to be addressed in the section below).
US military aid to Ukraine in millions of $ (Source: Defence Priorities)
The specific fundamental cause of the conflict is NATO’s expansion against Russia in Eastern Europe (and not alone there but in the Middle East also) therefore calling both NATO and Russia out equally is not only incorrect but unhelpful. Not that the Russian ruling class would listen to us anyway but if it should for some reason pull out of the Ukraine now that would only bring the situation back to the previous status quo, i.e the very situation that led to this conflict in the first place. NATO would have no reason to agree to Russian demands for its withdrawal and, indeed, it and its allies are arming the Ukraine to the teeth. NATO would in fact press its advantage seeking the total defeat of Russia and to bring it under its control.
There is not only that to consider but on a world scale too, the expansion of US Imperialism in alliance with other imperialist states through NATO is by far the greatest culprit in terms of wars and suppression of liberation struggles in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America5 and therefore ridiculous to be viewed in equal terms with Russia.
On the other hand the Russian state is a capitalist state and a (smaller) big power with its own agenda of expansion and we cannot appear to be supporting it. Nevertheless, the first step towards peace in the region has to be a withdrawal of NATO.
Danger of the Irish State joining a military alliance
There are no doubt elements in the Irish armed forces that would welcome involvement with the armed forces of NATO – interesting military exercises, the chance to use more sophisticated weapons and systems, along with probably greater chance of promotion for officers. A part of Ireland is already in NATO – the British colony of the Six Counties.
There are also elements in the Irish capitalist ruling class (the Gombeens6) who are striving to get Ireland into an EU strike force and/ or NATO. The non-military status of Shannon Airport has been repeatedly violated by the US military with clear collusion from the Irish State. Just recently Leo Varadkar, Taoiseach (i.e Deputy Prime Minister) was quoted as saying, arising out of the conflict in the Ukraine, that Ireland’s independence status might need to be reconsidered. This is of course spurious reasoning, since Ireland is a long way from Russia across a NATO-full Europe, but joining a European military alliance has been a proposition of Fine Gael politicians for over a decade7.
A small anti-PESCO (proposed EU joint armed force) demonstration outside Leinster House (Irish parliament) on 15 January 2019) with unreasonably high level of Garda security behind them.
Then there is the section of the Gombeen class that has been muttering for years about joining the UK, promoting historical commemoration of the UK’s repressive forces in Ireland and particularly in earlier decades, along with the wave of revisionist historians seeking to undermine the national history of resistance to invasion and occupation. Jumping into a military alliance is no big step for the Gombeen class, having acted historically as a broker selling Irish resources, networks and labour to foreign capitalists as well as laundering their taxes for them.
Resistance among the general population to permitting the State to merge with the UK is probably at a fairly high level but is not necessarily so with regard to NATO, as a US-led military alliance. This is not because Irish people are fond of US imperialism as such but because we have been fed so much of its mass culture as to affect how we speak and even think. And not only general mass culture but specifically representations of the military, with films showing US military in action from WWII to Afghanistan and Iraq. Futuristic films depicting the military also often present us with an imagined future version of the US military or even worse, perhaps, a solar system or wider military which is run by the US or its future projection. Spy films and novels tend to give us the CIA or some similar force; crime fiction gives us US Police or FBI heroes while the tough private investigator is often not only ex-US military but from their special forces.
If the Irish state should join a military alliance, the countdown begins to the participation of Irish military personnel in conflict, against power blocs competing with NATO and even more likely in suppression of liberation struggles, insurrections etc, whether in other parts of the world or in Europe itself. In turn that also entails Ireland becoming a target for retaliation in destruction of bases or even simply in revenge.
Needed steps forward
If we are to avoid being sucked into wars, if we are to defeat any plans of the Irish ruling class to take us into a military alliance, we need to ensure the mass of people are prepared ideologically to oppose any such moves.
We urgently need to build (or rebuild) an anti-war movement in Ireland. Such a movement needs to be
Broad, encompassing as many as possible under basic principles (which presupposes not permitting itself to be ruled by any particular political party or clique)
anti-imperialist (i.e not against liberation struggles)
specifically targeting the imperialist powers nearest to us – in particular the UK and EU
targeting also the currently major imperialist power in the world, the USA
and upholding Irish state neutrality in opposition to the state joining NATO or an EU military force.
The movement needs to be as broad as possible to include all the viable forces for alliance and to do that must be free of manipulation by any one party, organisation or clique. It cannot be one that is simply against all armed struggle (though pacifists should be free to join it), since imperialist and colonialist aggression brings many people to justified resistance in arms.
It must target imperialism, the chief cause of war for over two centuries and in solidarity with the people oppressed by it around the world and by implication we must also oppose colonialism, even had we not our own reasons to oppose it here. In that regard, our chief targets both in terms of size of threat and practical application must be the UK, NATO and any EU military alliance. Therefore, logically, we must strenuously oppose the Irish ruling class taking us into alliance with any of the aforementioned.
The application of the above principles into organisational measures will need to be developed but once some initial agreement on the need to act along those lines is taken, unity is best built in practice, in action. The need to get to work on this initiative is urgent.
Nor is this only about keeping Ireland out of wars, urgent though that need is. In the event of a revolutionary regime in Ireland at some time in the future, do we have any need to fear invasion? I would say “Yes, certainly” — unless the whole world were in revolution at that time. Where is such danger of invasion most likely to come from? From a capitalist Russia, however repressive? Hardly. From places closer? Yes, obviously: from an unrevolutionised UK, from an unrevolutionised western Europe and from NATO – should it still be in existence.
Realistically, we can exercise little influence on the decisions of either NATO or Russia. We can have an effect on the decisions made on Ireland’s behalf and for that we need a strong and informed popular movement. We have two practical self-preservation reasons to get this right.
End.
FOOTNOTES:
1 I am including the Left Republicans in the “Irish Left”.
2I have consciously refrained from identifying these positions with particular organisations or individuals on the Irish Left. I am arguing with the positions rather than targeting those who hold them in a debate which is becoming increasingly acrimonious, making agreement even further unlikely.
3This is a major position on the Left or if not, certainly the most visible. It is also to one degree or another, the position of the political parties of the State (in which I include Sinn Féin) and of the mass media.
4This is another major position on the Irish Left.
5It is US imperialism that is the fundamental cause of the current armed conflict in Iraq and was the chief cause in the war in Afghanistan, where it funded Islamic Jihadists and has been arguably the cause of the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism. The US is the chief supporter of the criminal Israel Zionist state; it overthrew the Libyan regime and tried to do the same in Syria, where another ally, Turkey, is also involved in armed action. Saudi Arabia, an ally of the US, is the chief cause of the ongoing war in Yemen. US imperialism instigated the coup in Chile to instal the Pinochet dictatorship with huge loss of life and misery for survivors; it instigated other coups and supported military dictatorships across South America and indeed Africa. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea ….
6From Gaimbíneachaí, disparaging Irish term for a middleman strata under colonialism who profited on the misfortunes of their co-nationals and after colonialism constitute a foreign-dependent ruling class.
“Wars and rumours of wars …”1 The sabres are rattling around Eastern Europe. The mass media in our latitudes largely takes the position of the USA under the guise of democracy; however with some text and the use of a few maps I hope to show that Russia’s position is essentially defensive in this regard and that the USA is the main aggressor. I hope to do that without expressing any support for the Russian regime.
WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING?
The USA sees Russia as its main opponent or competitor in Europe and has been working since the post-WWII decades to neutralise it, earlier under the guise of stopping the spread of “communism” and defending “democracy”. Since the fall of the USSR system the talk is no longer about defeating “communism” but “defending democracy” continues to used in anti-Russian rhetoric. Russia is no democracy but the notion that the US, the world superpower, the biggest imperialist power on the planet since WWII, cares about democracy should make us laugh. It would perhaps, except that the mass media keeps feeding us the USA’s rhetoric and shaping us to support it in war.
The USA is actually squeezing Russia from two directions — from Europe and from the Middle East. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is a US-led military alliance which now has the membership of most states in the EU, along with the UK and nearly every state of the former USSR to the west of Russia. A look at the map of NATO states will demonstrate that2. Nearly every state in the Middle East is also formally or informally in the sphere of influence of US imperialism3.
“Russia says it wants Western guarantees that Nato will not allow Ukraine and other former Soviet countries to join as members. Moscow has also demanded the alliance halt weapons deployments to Ukraine and roll back its forces from eastern Europe – demands flatly rejected by the West.4”
Map NATO & non-NATO countries in Europe, showing also periodic expansion (Source: The Economist)
So the Russian ruling class is naturally worried and feeling besieged. On or near their European borders they only have Sweden, Finland, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine which are not formally part of NATO and Ukraine has clearly indicated an interest in that direction. Beyond those last three aforementioned, all the states through central Europe are NATO members right through to the UK: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania actually bordering on Russia, with – heading generally westward and south-westward– Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and UK. In addition, some of those states have highly-developed military power such as Germany and two of them have nuclear armament of their own — UK and France – while the US has ready-to-launch nuclear missiles on the lands of many of the NATO states — Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey5.
Sweden, Austria and Switzerland may remain nominally neutral but are in general politically aligned with the EU and the USA rather than with Russia, while non-NATO Finland is definitely, for historical and geographical reasons, extremely wary of its Russian neighbour.
The smaller non-NATO states of the former Yugoslavia – Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Montenegro and Kosovo are in some cases friendly towards Russia (or not overly-friendly towards NATO) but they are completely surrounded by NATO states.
On its borders with the Middle East, Russia is also being squeezed. Turkey has long been a major NATO state in the region and only Georgia is located between it an Russia to the latter’s south-west, with Armenia and Azerbaijan to its south-east. Nearly all of the states in the Middle East are in formal or informal alliance with the West and therefore with the US: Cyprus, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and United Arab Emirates. Yemen is embroiled in its own Saudi and West-proxy war, while Syria is threatened by Israel, Turkey and NATO. Only Iran is fairly safe for the moment on that part of Russia’s border, which is why Russia will take its side in any conflict with the West, despite the Russian ruling class’ dislike of and vulnerability in some regions, as in Chechnya, to militant fundamentalist Islam.
Middle East states and Russia (Source: Internet)
Syria is next to Iran which is also why Russia has been supporting the Assad regime and why, during the past week, it has warned Israel about its bombing raids into Syria as the latter attacks Hizbollah bases there. In fact we may see the invasions by western alliances of Iraq and Libya as part of huge US/NATO ‘domino’ plan to attack Syria with Iran next; then the pressure on Azerbaijan and Georgia on Russia’s doorstep. While on the eastern side of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are also allies of the West ….
Further east, there is India which has long been friendly to Russia and in tussles with Pakistan — and China, which is not openly hostile to Russia as a rule but which is not a real friend either, though its competition and contention with the US keeps it friendly enough towards Russia for the moment.
What the Russian ruling class is doing is attempting to bring a halt to its encirclement by NATO at the point of Ukraine. And the US-NATO and EU are issuing a counter-threat – an open one of sanctions and a more veiled one, in the case of US-NATO, of armed action.
This week it appears that some parts of Ukraine have sought to break away from the main part, probably instigated by Russia or at least promised support if they did – which has materialised in Russian diplomatic recognition and in troop movements. This may amount to an annexation or may not but what is clear is that Russia, in the face of what it considers a threat to its existence and NATO intransigence, has decided to take some decisive action.
WHAT IS REPORTED
The western mass media reports the situation painting a picture of big powerful Russia threatening its much smaller neighbour, by threat of invasion seeking to force it into submission to Russia’s regime, in denial of the small nation’s democratic rights. And the democratic West, through NATO, is moving troops to support the Ukraine, warning Russia of consequences.
Russian Tanks and Troops Reportedly entering part of Ukraine (Photo source: The Telegraph)
The picture contains much truth but overall it is a lie. Russia is much bigger than the Ukraine and it is threatening it with troop movements. And NATO is moving troops up to counter-threaten. But to evaluate a situation properly, we need to know its antecedents, what led up to it. We also need to see the situation through the eyes of the participants, whether we agree with them or not. The mass media, apart from a couple of honest analysts tucked away inside a newspaper, far from the headlines, does not supply us with that information.
The Irish Times, one of Ireland’s main daily newspapers, on 12 February reported that “Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine and a surge of Russia’s military activity has fueled fears that Russia could invade the country. Russia denies having any such plans. However a US official has said that the US had picked up intelligence that Russia is looking at Wednesday as a target date for an incursion.”
So on the basis of the quoted paragraph, we were to draw the conclusion that Russia was threatening to invade Ukraine. OK, Russia denied it but then why the military buildup near Ukraine? Finally, the authority voice of the USA, quoting what we are supposed to see as excellent intelligence sources (which we cannot of course question), predicting a probable Russian invasion four days away. So which state are most people in this part of the world likely to believe, the Russians or the US?
Some weeks earlier, on 25th January, another Irish daily newspaper, the Examiner, reported on reactions to a Russian naval fleet exercise in the Atlantic. The Irish Government told the Russians the exercise was not welcome although not illegal6, because the area of the exercise is regarded as international waters. This from the same government that facilitates US military flights via Shannon airport, i.e on its own national territory. And NATO carries out at least one major exercise in European waters annualy, with the UK doing so twice yearly without complaint from the Irish Government.7
The Ukrainian Ambassador to Ireland, Ms Gerasko moved to take advantage of the situation “A plan to hold a major exercise by the Russian navy and air force in the Atlantic off the southwest coast of Ireland is yet another demonstration of the threat that Russia poses for the world,” she said, in a statement to the Irish Examiner.” 8
Attempts were made at the same time to whip up Irish offshore fishermen against the Russians and to whip up the Irish public in defence of “our fishermen”. The latter project failed miserably since the Russian Ambassador to Ireland met and negotiated with the fishermen, leading one of their leaders to comment that the Russians had treated his members better than their own (Irish) government.
We might expect an alternative discourse about the Ukraine crisis from Al Jazeera but its report on the 24th of January, although emphasising US military movements in the area, attached a number of articles which were generally relaying the western line. The Irish Independent carried a much more in-depth explanation, though based on the position of the UK through its premier, Boris Johnson; however it did list the Russian demand that NATO cease pushing towards them and that Russia considered Ukraine joining NATO “an existential threat” while in general still following the general anti-Russian pattern9.
Closing ceremony of Sea Breeze, NATO-Ukraine joint naval exercises in the Black Sea 12 July 2019 (Photo by US Naval Officer)
POSITION OF THE IRISH STATE
An analysis piece in its business section by the Irish State’s national broadcaster, RTÉ, concentrated on the possible economic impact of loss or drastic reduction in gas and oil exports from Russia, either as a direct consequence of conflict or through imposition of sanctions by the West. “Russia produces 11% of global oil supplies and according to David Horgan, managing director of Petrel Resources, any significant loss of Russian energy exports would result in a further spike in prices.”10
Russia is the biggest supplier of gas in the world and the largest to Europe with a third of of its gas pipeline supply to Europe crossing Ukraine. Ireland’s electricity supply is highly dependent on gas for its generating stations so any disruption will impact heavily of prices which “have already gone from $2 to about $30 per million BTU”, according to the Petrel managing director.11
It is clear that while the USA is driving the agenda through its dominance of NATO and the the threat of sanctions on Russia, which the USA regularly insists upon when teaching other countries a lesson, its own economy would suffer little as a result. However, it is a different question for the European states, which would be obliged to bear the weight of economic impact. Mícheál Martin, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Irish State felt obliged to comment on this possibility but, rather than criticise the USA and NATO’s expansionism, spoke about the need to break from their dependence on Russian energy supplies.
Micheál Martin said the EU is unified in responding “very strongly” to any Russian invasion of Ukraine and stated that in Europe’s view the huge build-up of troops by Russia on the Ukraine border is “not justifiable” in any circumstances. While calling for “diplomacy and de-escalation” he clearly sided with the USA in the conflict as both the Irish ruling class and the EU’s would expect of him.12
Despite many criticisms to the contrary, the policy of the Irish state during WWII was essentially one of neutrality in favour of the Allied forces while the government of the Six Counties was of course wholly aligned with the UK. Nevertheless Irish commercial shipping was sunk by Nazi German action and cost many Irish seamen their lives.
So far the Irish state has remained outside NATO but over the past decade there has been discussion envisaging the creation of an EU rapid deployment force made up of personnel contributed from all member states. It would hardly be surprising if such a move appealed to some within the career personnel in the Irish armed forces, envisaging taking part in wider military action, alongside varied forces, employing advanced weapons and systems and with possibly better promotion prospects. Additionally in recent weeks there has been media discussion of greater funding for those forces.
Ireland – and not only the UK’s colony here – can be dragged into war more easily than we perhaps imagine and also into being targeted for retaliatory action. Indeed, the facilitation of US military personnel and materiel through Ireland’s airport at Shannon, along with CIA transport of secret prisoners (“rendition”) has already exposed the State (and succeeding governments) to accusations of military partisanship.
Contrary to popular belief, the Irish State’s ‘neutrality’ is in general a matter of government policy rather than a requirement of the Constitution or Statute law.13
The principal statute governing the Irish Defence Forces is the Defence Act 1954, which did not oblige members of the Irish Army to serve outside the state (members of the Air Corps and Naval Service are not so excused). A 1960 amendment intended to allow deployment in United Nations Peacekeeping missions requires three forms of authorisation, since the 1990s often described as the “triple lock”:
A UN Security Council Resolution or UN General Assembly Resolution;
A formal decision by the Irish government;
Approval by a resolution of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, to which the government is responsible).
From those last two it is clear that the 26 Counties can be put on a war footing by a decision of the Irish Government or even a majority vote in favour in the Dáil. Anyone who believes that the party with most TDs would necessarily vote against such a motion is fooling themselves since the SF party has been at pains to portray itself as a safe pair of hands for Irish capitalism and recently called for greater funding for the armed forces of the Irish state; in addition it has long had an uncritically friendly relationship with the USA, in particular – though not only – with its Democratic Party.
A resolution from the UN Security Council obliging the Irish state to go to war against Russia is impossible and though such from the General Council might be possible, albeit unlikely.14
These provisions were modified in 1993 to allow for UN Chapter VII missions and again in 2006 to allow for regionally organised UN missions.
Joint NATO-Ukraine military exercise September 2021 (Photo sourced: Internet)
WHAT WE CAN DO
There seems no middle way — either NATO will back down or Russia will. No doubt the Western powers think it reasonable that Russia be the one to blink but as commented earlier, for the latter NATO creep to their borders is seen as a threat to their very existence. The same people who thought it reasonable for John Kennedy as President of the US to threaten war on the Soviet Union for the location of some missiles on the Caribbean island of Cuba think Russia should accept the advance of NATO to its borders.
In practical terms there seems little we can do in Ireland except struggle to resist the state and colony in which we live being dragged into war – for which we need to mobilise the opposition we can on the street. Sadly the anti-imperialist war movement in Ireland of years ago was allowed to deteriorate — but we should work to rebuild it.
In order to assist in this it is essential that we expose the reality of what is going on in the world. Some will say that because the USA is the main aggressor in this case and the biggest bully, we should support Russia but to do so would be a big mistake. Not long ago, while joining others in anti-fascist solidarity with people in the Donbas region in SE Ukraine, I found us being increasingly nudged towards support for Russia which I did not view as being the same thing at all.
Russia has its own crimes against people and workers and calling for support for it now will cause confusion when in future we will need to condemn it. Our position should be that while neither the USA’s regime or Russia’s is to be supported, the biggest danger of war comes from the USA and therefore it will be the main target of our hostility – besides which it is the power with which the ruling classes of Ireland and the UK are aligned. It is the biggest imperialist power in the world by far along with being the biggest military power in most of the world.
Most Irish people have no wish to be dragged into an armed conflict anywhere where they do not feel threatened. On the other hand our society is conditioned not only by decades of strong cultural influences from the USA, in particular through film but also by media reporting that is biased towards the dominant western European view and that of the USA. In that paradigm, the Russians are the bad guys, the gunfighters in the black hats, while the US and the West in general are on the side of the angels.
With the 1916 Rising in the middle of WWI, Ireland became the first country to carry out an uprising against world war15, against the dominant trend throughout Europe at the time — a tradition worth upholding. As long as imperialism exists, the world will continue to suffer smaller wars and the danger of another major war. It is necessary to overthrow imperialism and we can best contribute towards that aim by coordinating our struggles with the aim of carrying out a revolution in Ireland, thereby depriving imperialism of one of its supporters in Europe.
End.
FOOTNOTES 1“And you will begin to hear of wars and rumors of wars. Behold, do not be alarmed; for it is necessary to take place, but the end is not yet” — Christian New Testament Bible, Matthew, Chapter 24:6.
14Resolutions of the UN Security Council, the only ones binding on all member states, require unanimous agreement by all five Permanent Members: UK, France, USA, Russia and China. Forcing a vote such as this in the UN General Assembly would likely lead to the fracture of the organisation.
15The following year there were two in Russia and in 1918 another in Germany.
A maverick who denounces the political and economic establishment, Bernie Sanders is longest-serving independent in congressional history. Amazingly he came from the far Left and an urban background to win elections in one of the most rural states in the country. Serving as United States Senator from Vermont since 2007, Sanders has finished second twice in his bids to win the presidential nomination of the Democratic party. An icon of the American left, Sanders’ attacks on the rich and support for the struggles of working people have shaken the Democratic Party establishment and also earned him the adoration of tens of millions of Americans.
Born in Brooklyn to Polish Jewish parents who could not go to a college, Bernie Sanders grew up in on East 26th Street. His father, Eli, worked most of his life as a struggling paint salesman. His mother, Dorothy Sanders, was a stay-at-home mother who died young — she was 46 — the year after Bernie Sanders graduated from high school. The family barely made ends meet and arguments about money were a regular feature of the Sanders’ Home. His brother Larry Sanders recalledT that they didn’t really know whether they’d have the rent the following month. They probably would, but it wasn’t sure.:
“We had what we needed in general, but it was the fact that our parents were arguing that was the problem. And I think what Bernard and I took from that is that financial problems are never just financial problems. They enter into people’s lives in very deep and personal levels.“
Educated in public schools and Hebrew schools, Sanders was taught that all people are equal and that they are entitled to be treated with dignity. Sanders grew up in an immigrant Jewish culture that stressed the importance of getting an education and doing something worthwhile in life. Sanders graduated from James Madison High School, where in addition to being a good student, Sanderswas also an excellent middle-distance runner.
Sanders spent a year at Brooklyn College before transferring to the University of Chicago, which had a smart, precocious student body that was passionate about fighting racism and achieving social justice. At the university, Sanders spent a lot of time in the library reading about politics and social issues. In 1963, Sanders traveled to Washington for the famous march where Dr. Martin Luther King made his iconic “I have a dream speech.” He became active in protesting against segregation in Chicago and did his first public speaking in rallies denouncing segregation.
While Sanders was at Chicago, he discovered the life and writings of Eugene Debs, the founder of the American Socialist Party and a five-time presidential candidate. Sanders would echo Debs’ conviction that there was something fundamentally wrong in America where so few had so much and so many had so little. Debs’ campaign focus on wealth equality and social justice would later become the central issues of Sanders’ presidential campaigns.
MOVING TO VERMONT
As a child Sanders had read brochures about the bucolic beauty of Vermont. After graduating from college, Sanders his then-wife and brother pooled their money and bought a piece of land in Middlesex, about six miles north of the state capital of Montpelier. “We had never been to Vermont in our lives; we just drove up,” Sanders told NPR. “We bought 85 acres or $2,500. How’s that? But it was woodland.”
Rural Vermont was vastly different than the intellectual, activist scene that Bernie Sanders experienced seven at the University of Chicago, but Sanders enjoyed life in Vermont. Sanders became an activist in Vermont’s tiny, radical, Liberty Union Party, which opposed the Vietnam War and was trying to become a viable third party in Vermont. The state was seeing an influx of young people, a demographic shift that later became known as the “hippie invasion.” Sanders ran for United States Senator on the Liberty Party line in 1971, as well as a 1974 race for Senate and a 1976 race for governor, never breaking more than 6%. In 1979, he broke with the Liberty Union. In his book, Outsider in the House, Sanders said it was a painful decision, but that the small third party wasn’t attracting members, energy or leadership.
Though Sanders had lost four elections in Vermont, undeterred Sanders ran in 1980 as an independent for mayor of Burlington, Vermont’s largest college town. Burlington was economically depressed and the city’s Democratic mayor did little to address the housing affordability crisis that the city was grappling with. During the campaign, Sanders turned his attention to local concerns including unplowed streets and a City Hall that listened to business and developers more than ordinary people. The mayor dismissed Sanders as a fringe candidate and did not campaign vigorously against him. Sanders shocked not only Burlington, but also America when he won election as mayor by a ten-vote majority. Sanders became the only mayor in the entire country who was neither a Democrat nor a Republican, and one of the few self-described socialists to gain public office. Burlington’s political establishment was aghast, but Sanders proved himself to be a competent mayor who could fashion bipartisan coalitions to achieve results. Sanders was re-elected mayor three times, laying the foundations for his later campaigns for statewide office.
In 1986, Sanders ran as an independent for governor, losing to the Democratic incumbent as well as the Republican, Peter Smith. In 1988, Sanders faced Smith again, this time in a race for Vermont’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Smith won, but Sanders surprisingly received more votes than the Democratic candidate Paul Poirier.
Bernie Sanders on election campaign trail (Photo sourced: Internet)
THE LONE INDEPENDENT IN CONGRESS
In 1990, Sanders again challenged Smith, who made some costly political miscalculations, including support for a ban on assault rifles. Sanders then won the endorsement of the National Rifle Association and the election, shocking the national political establishment.
Sanders was the lone independent in Congress. He had never been a legislator previously, and also had no party affiliation. At first, the Democrats refused to let him caucus with them but, after they lost control to the Republicans in 1995, they decided they needed Sanders’ vote. Ever since, Sanders has caucused with the Democrats and earned seniority in the congressional system, even though he was not a member of either party. Sanders took extremely controversial positions by opposing the War in Iraq and supporting normalization of trade with China.
In 2006, when Sanders ran for an open U.S. Senate seat, he garnered more than twice as many votes as his opponent. In 2012, he was re-elected with 71 percent of the vote. On December 10, 2010, Sanders rose to speak against President Obama’s extension of tax cuts for the rich. Speaking for more than eight hours, so many people tuned in to Sanders’ filibuster that the Senate’s web servers crashed.
PRESIDENTIAL RUN
In 2015, Sanders announced he was seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. His run for the White House was described as quixotic, and pundits have labeled his goals as unrealistic and unachievable. Sanders and his policies however attracted millions of voters and amazingly he won 23 primaries and caucuses and around 46% of pledged delegates before losing the nomination to Hillary Clinton. A feature of his campaign was his supporters’ enthusiasm. He also stood out from other candidates for rejecting large donations from corporations, the financial industry, and associated political action committees.
Bernie Sanders campaigning for the Democratic Party’s Presidential Nomination (Photo sourced: Internet)
Though he lost again four years later to Joe Biden, Sanders continued to articulate his social and economic justice platform. Sanders showed that he has had more influence on American politics than almost any other failed presidential candidate in the country’s history. Many of his ideas, which were once considered fringe concepts, became part of the party’s platform, including Medicare for All, tuition-free college, and the Green New Deal.
Recently the Queen of the UK and Commonwealth regions reached the 70th year of her reign, called by convention the “platinum jubilee” and has received congratulations from the heads of imperialist, colonial and neo-colonial states around the world. In Ireland, she has also received the congratulations of the head of a formerly Republican party now aspiring to neo-colonial government. When Mary Lou MacDonald, President of Sinn Féin praised Elizabeth II for her “long service” we should ask: service to whom and to what? We are also entitled to compare her words to those of James Connolly, Irish revolutionary socialist and republican, in reference to the British Monarchy.
WHAT THE PRESIDENT OF SINN FÉIN SAID
Mary Lou McDonald, President of Sinn Féin was widely reported reacting to the news that a tree is to be planted in the grounds of Parliament Buildings at Stormont to mark the anniversary.
“I think it is important that we are respectful of the identity of our citizens who are British,” she said on Thursday.
“I think that is entirely appropriate and I welcome that decision.
She was reported wishing well to those who will celebrate the jubilee, and said she believes those who won’t “are now big enough, bold enough, generous enough to acknowledge the identity of others.”
“Can I also extend to the British Queen a word of congratulations because 70 years is quite some record,” she added.
“That is what you call a lifetime of service.”
Any logical consideration of those words should quickly find some problems with them. What does “respecting the identity of our (Irish) citizens who are British” or “acknowledging the identity of others” actually mean? One would imagine that respecting the identity of others would involve primarily not subjecting them to discrimination, racism or religious sectarianism. Does respecting the national identity of any people give them the right to seize with armed force and occupy a part of the nation? Because that is what constitutes the basis for the British colony of the Six Counties in Ireland and the administration of that colony is the purpose of the Stormont Parliament and Executive. Furthermore, discrimination and sectarianism is precisely what is suffered by a huge part of the population of that colony – from the very institutions being upheld by SF and by its President.
Stripped down to its essentials, we are only “big enough, bold enough, generous enough” if we accept the partition of our small nation, the forcible retention of a colony and pay our respects to the Head of that state and the Commander-in-Chief of its armed forces.
This is a monarch who has presided over her armed forces’ participation in at least 24 wars or interventions since her inauguration, two of them in our national territory. Her armed forces invaded foreign lands, bombed and shot down those who resisted, carried out massacres, tortured prisoners and she has personally decorated the leaders of those armed forces, including those who murdered Irish people. The very least one could expect from an Irish politician with any dignity would have been silence or “no comment” on the occasion.
A poster calling for retired Army officer General Sir Mike Jackson to be jailed and advertising a march commemorating Bloody Sunday, on display in the Bogside area of Derry, Six Counties. Jackson was one of many military murderers to be decorated by the British Queen. (Photo by Niall Carson/PA Images via Getty Images).
This is far from the worst thing that the Sinn Féin leadership has done with regard to the British Monarch, for in May 2011 they called for no protests against her while she desecrated the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin and while the Gardaí attacked “dissident” Republican protesters nearby and outside her state reception in Dublin Castle, the old seat of her royal enforcers in Ireland. The following year, Martin McGuinness, prominent in the leaderships of both the IRA and Sinn Féin, welcomed her to her colony and shook her hand.
Martin McGuinness, in leadership of Sinn Féin and the IRA, welcomes the British Queen to visit her colony in 2012 (Photo sourced: Internet)
WHAT JAMES CONNOLLY SAID
James Connolly on occasions too referred to contemporary British monarchs – but in markedly different terms to those from the leadership of Sinn Féin in recent decades.
“What is monarchy? From whence does it derive its sanction? What has been its gift to humanity? Monarchy is a survival of the tyranny imposed by the hand of greed and treachery upon the human race in the darkest and most ignorant days of our history. It derives its only sanction from the sword of the marauder, and the helplessness of the producer, and its gifts to humanity are unknown, save as they can be measured in the pernicious examples of triumphant and shameless iniquities.
“Every class in society save royalty, and especially British royalty, has through some of its members contributed something to the elevation of the race. But neither in science, nor in art, nor in literature, nor in exploration, nor in mechanical invention, nor in humanising of laws, nor in any sphere of human activity has a representative of British royalty helped forward the moral, intellectual or material improvement of mankind. But that royal family has opposed every forward move, fought every reform, persecuted every patriot, and intrigued against every good cause. Slandering every friend of the people, it has befriended every oppressor. Eulogised today by misguided clerics, it has been notorious in history for the revolting nature of its crimes. Murder, treachery, adultery, incest, theft, perjury – every crime known to man has been committed by some one or other of the race of monarchs from whom King George is proud to trace his descent.
…………………….
Two completely opposite attitudes to British Monarchy: Mary Lou McDonald (L) and James Connolly (R)
“Fellow-workers, stand by the dignity of your class. All these parading royalties, all this insolent aristocracy, all these grovelling, dirt-eating capitalist traitors, all these are but signs of disease in any social state – diseases which a royal visit brings to a head and spews in all its nastiness before our horrified eyes. But as the recognition of the disease is the first stage towards its cure, so that we may rid our social state of its political and social diseases, we must recognise the elements of corruption. Hence, in bringing them all together and exposing their unity, even a royal visit may help us to understand and understanding, help us to know how to destroy the royal, aristocratic and capitalistic classes who live upon our labour. Their workshops, their lands, their mills, their factories, their ships, their railways must be voted into our hands who alone use them, public ownership must take the place of capitalist ownership, social democracy1 replace political and social inequality, the sovereignty of labour must supersede and destroy the sovereignty of birth and the monarchy of capitalism.
“Ours be the task to enlighten the ignorant among our class, to dissipate and destroy the political and social superstitions of the enslaved masses and to hasten the coming day when, in the words of Joseph Brenan, the fearless patriot of ’48, all the world will maintain
“The Right Divine of Labour To be first of earthly things; That the Thinker and the Worker Are Manhood’s only Kings.”2
SUPPORT FOR SINN FÉIN
Most followers of the Sinn Féin party, who are by long tradition anti-monarchist and desire a reunified and independent Ireland, tend to regard those kinds of heretical statements by the party leaders as no more than some kind of camouflage to get them into power. Once there, they imagine, their party will lead them to the hallowed objectives of Irish independence and unity. In fact, the same kind of attitude that was that of the early followers of Fianna Fáil, “the Republican party”3.
The blindness, or more accurately the ability of self-deception exhibited by these followers is amazing. The majority continued to believe the leadership when it publicly abandoned armed struggle against British colonialism and declared it would never return to that (believing that to be a fake position) and even when it had most of its arms decommissioned. Then the party not only fielded candidates in elections in the partitioned Irish state but also in the colonial one and, in arguably its greatest betrayal of its previous position, participated in the running of the colonial state which it continues to do. Since then its leaders have sought support for and even assisted in recruitment for the sectarian and colonial gendarmerie4 and, more recently, declared its acceptance of non-jury special courts, a clear reference in particular to the no-jury Special Criminal Courts of the Irish state5, condemned by a number of civil rights organisations6 and of which the party’s own supporters have been frequent victims.
The attitude of the larger mass of instinctively pro-independence people, mostly working-class or lower middle-class is that they might as well give Sinn Féin a turn in government – after all they can hardly treat them worse than the other gombeen7 parties that have been in government since the creation of the Irish State. Such attitudes account for the rapid growth in the party’s electoral base in recent years when it became the first party in terms of elected representatives so that two other neo-colonial parties, with a long history of hatred for one another, were obliged to join and form a coalition with a third8 in order to form a government excluding the new kid on the block.
General Jackson with Prince Charles, heir apparent to the throne of England and Commander-in-Chief of the Paratroop Regiment (Photo sourced: Internet)
The attitude expressed by the President of the SF party runs not only completely contrary to the traditions of Irish Republicanism but even to its own history. It is more than that, it is an expression of the lack of dignity and craven forelock-tugging attitude of the neo-colonial Gombeen class that has ruled the Irish state since its inception.
While socialists and republicans rightly condemn that mentality and its practical applications, we should place our hopes in another outlook, as outlined by Connolly over a century earlier, and in the practical expression of that outlook today and in the near future. It is surely appropriate then to end this commentary with Connolly’s own words on another British royal jubilee, Queen Victoria’s in 1897:
“….. It is time then that some organised party in Ireland — other than those in whose mouths Patriotism means Compromise, and Freedom, High Dividends — should speak out bravely and honestly the sentiments awakened in the breast of every lover of freedom by this ghastly farce now being played out before our eyes. Hence the Irish Socialist Republican Party — which, from its inception, has never hesitated to proclaim its unswerving hostility to the British Crown, and to the political and social order of which in these islands that Crown is but the symbol — takes this opportunity of hurling at the heads of all the courtly mummers who grovel at the shrine of royalty the contempt and hatred of the Irish Revolutionary Democracy. We, at least, are not loyal men; we confess to having more respect and honour for the raggedest child of the poorest labourer in Ireland to-day than for any, even the most virtuous, descendant of the long array of murderers, adulterers and madmen who have sat upon the throne of England ….
“The working class alone have nothing to hope for save in a revolutionary reconstruction of society; they, and they alone, are capable of that revolutionary initiative which, with all the political and economic development of the time to aid it, can carry us forward into the promised land of perfect Freedom, the reward of the age-long travail of the people.”9
End.
APPENDIX:
List of armed interventions and wars by British Armed forces under Queen Elizabeth II:
1In Connolly’s time, the term “social democrats” covered most revolutionaries in Europe in addition to reformists whereas today it is confined to describing only the latter.
3Fianna Fáil was a 1926 split from Sinn Féin led be De Valera, based on participating in elections within the Irish State, initially supported by many Irish Republicans in elections and when voted into Government in 1932 released Republican political prisoners jailed by the Government of pro-Treaty forces. Subsequently however a FF Government banned the IRA and jailed and even executed some Republicans.
4A gendarmerie is an armed state-wide military-like police force, such as for example the ones in the Spanish, Italian and Turkish states, typical of a State endeavouring to impose central rule on subject nations or regions where recurrent resistance may be expected. In Ireland the English occupation had the Royal Irish Constabulary which after 1922 in the colonial statelet became the Royal Ulster Constabulary, later changing its name to the Police Force of Northern Ireland. It has always been a sectarian (anti-Catholic) and repressive force.
5Both the Irish State and the colonial statelet have no-jury courts to jail political dissidents on low evidential requirements and under emergency legislation. The position SF’s elected representatives since 1972 has been to vote against the existence of the Special Criminal Court until two years ago, when it began to abstain and finally this year at its Ard-Fheis (annual general meeting), after an extremely poor debate, the party voted to accept such a court.
6Including the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and Amnesty International.
7A term of contempt dating from the years of the Great Hunger to describe capitalists who are happy to use the colonial system to amass personal wealth at the expense of their compatriots; its source is in the Irish language (an gaimbín/ gaimbíneachas — https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gombeen)
8Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. The first two have been the major parties of the State almost since its inception, with the Greens being a smaller and more recent phenomenon. Fine Gael are the political representatives of the neo-colonial class that supported the partition of the country in the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1921 for which they fought a Civil War (1922-1923) against the Irish Republicans (chiefly the IRA and Sinn Féin). Fianna Fáil led a major split in the Republican movement to form an Irish Government and soon attracted support (and later domination) by a section of native capitalists, soon becoming the favoured choice of the neo-colonial Irish capitalist class, alternating in government from time to time with Fine Gael (the latter in coalition, several times with the social-democratic Labour Party). However, since 1981 no Irish political party has commanded an absolute majority in elected representatives and all governments of the State since then have been coalitions of one kind or another.
9https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1897/xx/qundimnd.htm Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Day, 22 June 1897, was marked by Connolly and Maud Gonne with protests on the streets of Dublin. Connolly dumped a symbolic coffin into the River Liffey and shouted “to hell with the British Empire”, for which ‘crime’ he spent the night in jail.
Queen Elizabeth II / Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald
Mary Lou McDonald, the current president of Sinn Féin, surprised a few, just a few, with her recent comments thanking the English queen, Elizabeth, for her service. She stated that “Can I also extend to the British Queen a word of congratulations because 70 years is quite some record. That is what you call a lifetime of service.”(1)
Why someone who describes herself as a republican would want to heap praise on a monarch and refer to the reign of the monarch as service is bewildering. However, it is not that strange in the context of the Irish peace process. It is part of the long road of Sinn Féin’s accommodation to the British state that was laid out in the Good Friday Agreement. Sinn Féin at that time abandoned any pretence of having a critique of imperialism and capitalism.
The agreement signed basically stated that the British had no selfish interest in Ireland and the conflict was a communal one. Putting it in blunt terms, two savage tribes agreed to settle their differences, the British state was not one of those savage agents in the conflict.(2)
Exactly what service has the English queen given and to whom? As a monarch she has blessed every British military adventure since her coronation in 1953, including the savagery of the British repression of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, various other colonial wars, not to mention her awarding of an OBE to Lt. Colonel Derek Wilford the man responsible for Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972. In 2019 she stood over her behaviour when she stated that the British government would “bring forward proposals to tackle vexatious claims that undermine our armed forces, and will continue to seek better ways of dealing with legacy issues that provide better outcomes for victims and survivors”.(3) The massacre of Bloody Sunday was placed in the category of vexatious claims.
Part of the service that McDonald now lauds includes this and many more such incidents. Though it is not unexpected. It can only surprise those who pay no attention to the outcomes of peace processes around the world. Yasser Arafat spent more time repressing Palestinians than he did fighting the Israelis after the Oslo Accords. In South Africa, the former mining trade union leader Cyril Ramphosa became a mining magnate, whose company was involved in the massacre of 34 striking miners at Marikana in 2012.(4) He and the ANC made their peace with white capitalists and obtained a share of the wealth, in Ramphosa’s case a very substantial amount which some estimates place around $780 million dollars. In El Salvador, the FMLN eventually gained power, but did not implement a single thing they had ever fought for and their former commander Joaquín Villalobos is now a consultant to right wing forces on how to defeat left wing movements and contributes to the right-wing think tank The Inter-American Dialogue, which includes such illustrious figures as Violetta Chamorro from Nicaragua and former head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, to name just two unsavoury characters.(5) In Colombia, the ink hadn’t even dried on the agreement and the FARC commander Timochenko declared that the Colombian armed forces would be allies of the FARC in building a new country. The murder of just over 300 members of the FARC since the signing of the peace agreement has not caused him to change his evaluation of the Colombian armed forces, in fact he has doubled down on his position.
It is in the nature of the beast. In every peace process that has happened, the former enemies of the state reconciled themselves to the regime and the system, without exception. McDonald’s declarations are just a confirmation of that and also a sign that it is a bottomless pit and there is no level of political depravity that Sinn Féin will not sink to.
rebelbreeze 