A large number of people gathered in Dublin on 2nd March in what was advertised as a “Stand Together” march for “Homes, Health & Rights for All”; “Against Racism, Hate & War”; to “Share Wealth and End Inequality”.
A large part of the context in which the event was organised is a high number of arson attacks on properties intended (or thought to be) for housing refugees and asylum seekers, along with an increase in mobilisations of people by the far-Right and outright fascists.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
In that context, the advertising poster for the march was insipid in colouring, using pastel shades reminiscent of a certain type of sweets. On some versions the clenched fist appeared but it was missing from many others shared on social media.
Le Chéile, the main organising or coordinating body, was formed some years ago at a time when the Far-Right was becoming increasingly visible in street events they organised and on occasion countering progressive events and a number of clashes had taken place.
The main organisers not only had been absent from most of those confrontations but deliberately chose to exclude from the founding of Le Chéile the majority of those among Irish Republicans, Socialists, Anarchists etc who had already been counter-protesting the far-Right.
Banners of CATU and Drogheda For All on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)On the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)
This may account for the absence of most Irish Republican organisations from the march (if so I understand but disagree with the decision). Dublin Communities Against Racism however contain some veteran antifascists and were present as were a group of Italian antifascists.
There was a big turnout of Traveller groups which would be welcome any time, in particular as the longest-racialised minority in Ireland, but more welcome in recent years when the far-Right have been making efforts to recruit some from that community against migrants.
Banners of Irish Traveller organisations on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Given the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli Zionist state, many Palestine flags were naturally enough seen on the march — and not only within the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s contingent.
Groups of marchers from a number of trade unions were good to see too, though the numbers were not great and the spread of unions small. One might expect trade unions to be to the fore in combating the harmful divisiveness of racism but their record is poor even on straight pay issues.
Flags of Palestinian solidarity, Unite the union (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A number of political parties were present too: People Before Profit, Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, as were a couple of faith-based groups.
Banners of religious groups and coming up behind, some trade union banners Banners of CATU and Drogheda For All on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Anti-fascist fans of Dublin soccer team Shamrock Rovers marched behind their banner with their green-and-white flags and at one point a green smoke flare was set off in their midst. The colours of some of the 134 Gaelic Athletic Clubs based in Dublin would have been good to see there also.
The earlier announced route of the march, to end at Custom House Quay, was changed for some reason and without announcement, at least from O’Connell Street and eventually ended up in north Merrion Square, with a stage set up across the street at the eastern end.
Banner of fans of Shamrock Rovers FC on the march (Photo: D.Breatnach)On stage at the rally (Photo: D.Breatnach)Poet performer at the rally (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The MC of the event on the stage, a man of colour, greeted participants in English and Irish but shocked antifascists present by advising any who felt unsafe to approach a steward or a Garda (!). There are few more likely to make people feel unsafe than that members of that very force.
Speakers from both indigenous and migrant backgrounds addressed the crowd and the cultural performances were by people from both backgrounds.
The MC at one point drew in the war in Ukraine in parallel with the Israeli genocide, which was inappropriate even if one were a supporter of US/NATO’s proxy war against Russia using the puppet Ukrainian state (which I am not).
One of the participants reads the List Of Some Migrants and Sons of Migrants who contributed to Ireland. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Also the PBP know that their view on this is hotly refuted through much of the Left and a great many of those on the march.
In the time I was there, though speakers attacked the divisiveness of racists and fascists and on occasion pointed to the real culprits in manufacturing a housing crisis, none pointed to the capitalist class need for dividing the working class and particularly so when their system is in difficulty.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)A noble call but the organisation whose placard this is did not do so and furthermore when a certain organisation, Revolutionary Housing League were actually doing so, neither this nor other organisations mobilised in support. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Not to speak of how we might organise to “Share the Wealth”, which means socialist revolution, surely, unless it refers to some liberal pipe-dream? The far-Right have risen to prominence in Ireland is because most of those who claim socialist policies have failed to fight for them.
Fighting for socialist policies means actually fighting which means going into all the battlegrounds and organising the people, providing revolutionary education and example and inevitably will mean suffering because the ruling class will not just sit back and watch.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
While some benefit can be obtained from representation in the parliaments and local authority councils, they can never be the main battleground. Street demonstrations are an improvement but nor can they be the main area for revolutionary effort.
In the clear context of general elections widely speculated to take place later this year, a speaker asked the crowd not to vote for anti-immigration candidates. Since the likelihood of anyone there doing so was nil, the inference was clearly to encourage voting for the current parliamentary parties.
In conclusion it is hard to imagine this organisation or any similar kind of coordination providing strong organisation or leadership to counter fascism and racism effectively.
This is not the kind of organisation that would have fought the Blueshirts in the 1930s or even prevented the Islamophobic Pegida founding a branch in Dublin, which a militant antifascist mobilisation succeeded in doing in February 2016.
Section of the march viewed from the Parnell Monument southward (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Anti-NATO Picket Rescues Palestine Flag from Fascist Provocateur
A more militant antifascist attitude was seen in Dublin a few hours later when a fascist grabbed a Palestine flag from a participant in an anti-NATO picket outside the GPO, the iconic building housing the headquarters staff of the 1916 Rising.
The picketers were standing peacefully with banners and flags, including Palestinian and Irish Starry Plough, distributing leaflets and engaging passers-by in conversation. The incident occurred some time into the event, the man shouting in an Irish accent, grabbing the flag and running.
Anti-NATO picket organised by the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation outside the GPO in Dublin’s main street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The surge forward in response might have caught him by surprise but, though the flag was rapidly retrieved, he continued to be aggressive in words and, as is described in slang, “throwing shapes”, behaviour that ended with his sitting in the road.
Though the population of Ireland is overwhelmingly in sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians and many in solidarity with their struggle, many in the far-Right here object to displays of that solidarity and call the solidarity activists “traitors” and demand they act for Ireland only.
Ironically, many of those same people acting in Palestine solidarity have also over the years agitated for affordable housing, against social provision cuts and British colonial occupation, in support of Irish political prisoners – while the far-Right’s only ‘contribution’ is to agitate against migrants.
Fascists in Ireland also collude with Loyalists and with British fascists; it is they who are the traitors, to the nation and to the working class, hiding behind flags the meaning of which their leaders secretly despise and which some of their lumpen followers do not understand.
End.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)List of some migrants and sons of migrants who have contribute to Ireland (including fighting and in some cases dying for her freedom) (Photo: O.Dunne)
A far-right march containing known fascists and fascist organisations opposed to immigration or to providing housing for refugees confronted an antifascist counterprotest half its size in Dublin city centre’s main street on Monday.
The counter-protest was convened for 1pm by the United Against Racism organisation (a kind of liberal anti-racist and antifascist confederation set up by the People Before Profit party) in order to confront an advertised mobilisation of the far-Right on a broad racist platform.
The racists had been building for this ‘national’ march since early January.
A view of the west side of the anti-racist gathering some time before the arrival of the anti-immigration march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The antifascists gathered on the central pedestrian reservation while a group of less than 20 strutted in front of the GPO waving Tricolours,1 an Erin go Bragh flag2 and, most unusually, a Cumann na mBan3 flag. Did they know or care that one of the founders of that organisation was a migrant?4
Or that the Tricolour was presented to us in 1848 by women revolutionaries in Paris? The far-Right in Ireland is replete with ironies, whether ignorant of them or aware while manipulating their ignorant followers in neglected cross-generational families and communities.
Among the anti-racist gathering, at first there were red, rainbow and some Palestinian flags but not one specifically Irish one apart from a white Starry Plough on a red background, until a little later when a number of Irish Tricolours made their appearance among the anti-racists.
East side of the anti-racist gathering some time before the arrival of the anti-immigration march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
This gives the unfortunate appearance that it’s the far-Right that cares about the national struggle and not the antifascists, which is untrue since the fascists have never lifted a finger for Irish freedom and unity (as pointed out by one of the placards displayed by the anti-racists).
It seemed strange that the anti-racists had not occupied the space directly in front of the GPO, thereby not only denying it to the far-Right but also giving them a position with a safe rear and only exposed from the front and flanks, as distinct from the central reservation, open on all sides.
Many Garda Public Order Unit vehicles had been seen at the Garden of Remembrance where the far-Right were rallying along with two mounted Garda, with another two of those outside the GPO and many police in ordinary uniform, along with a few POU there also.5
A strong turnout of Gardaí lined up in front of the GPO with their backs to the fascists and facing the antifascists, a formation clearly anticipating antifascists moving against the far-Right. A number of shouts were traded between the opposing forces.
Early view of section of the anti-racist demonstrators showing in the background a section of the far-Right demonstrators outside the GPO before they left to join their rally at the Garden of Remembrance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A senior Garda officer approached an anti-fascist and obliged her to remove her mask, an action that exposed her not only to Garda photographers but also to media and far-Right snaps and video.
Unlike a number of other occasions prior to and during the Covid emergency, the police restrained the fascists from crossing the road or even engaging in sustained exchanges. After awhile, the latter departed to join the others at their rally at the Garden of Remembrance
The antifascist gathering listened to speeches (or ignored them and chatted among themselves) and a number of a cappella songs about Irish emigration and anti-racism, regularly joining in slogans of “Say it loud and say it clear – Refugees are welcome here!” and “Fáilte – roimh theifigh!”
Another slogan6 shouted was “When refugees are under attack – Stand up, fight back!”
THE FASCIST MARCH
Word reached the antifascists that the far-Right had finally got into their march and the whole anti-racist gathering moved to face the east side of O’Connell Street, where stewards packed them in tighter and tighter and Gardaí lined up facing them with arms linked.
Photo taken of section of anti-racist protesters on east side of central reservation shortly before arrival of anti-immigration marchers – note the Gardai linked arms against the anti-racists, possibly out of habit before they reversed their positions as the far-Right protesters approached. The flag centre photo is of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Antifascist War. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A little later, perhaps conscious of the size of the far-Right march, the Gardaí turned their backs to the anti-racists and faced the street upon which the racists were going to march. The POU also deployed around the area and both mounted police moved across on to the central reservation.
The far-Right began to proceed southward along the street a couple of feet only away from the anti-fascists, from which the slogans in support of refugees were chanted in unison but there were also individual comments flying back and forth, along with gestures, between both groups.
Their stewards were clearly keen to keep them moving, however. At one point a large group of the far-Right mounted the central reservation and approached the antifascists aggressively but between the Gardaí and their own stewards they soon resumed their march south.
The anti-immigration marchers pause in order to hurl abuse at the anti-racist counter-protesters, some of who respond in kind. (Photo sourced: Internet)
It became clear that the racist march outnumbered the counter-protest in the order of around two to one. When banners of the National Party and the Irish Freedom Movement were seen (and placards of Síol na hÉireann)7 a roar of “Nazi scum off our streets!” emerged from the anti-racists.
There were also some cries of “MI5!” at those. Some large placards bearing the legend “Ireland is full” drew the reply: “No it’s not – you don’t know your history or your geography!”8
A racist and a fascist trope side by side: The “Replacement” conspiracy theory originated in white European settler colonies in fear of being replaced by the indigenous people, while fascists regularly demand freedom of speech for racism and lies but shut down all freedoms when they get into power. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The march passed and according to information received made its way to Custom House Quay for a rally. The antifascists were then called on to the street to march to the Garden of Remembrance in a move that puzzled some (one suggestion was that it was to “disinfect” the site!).
Later and photos from Anti-Imperialist Ireland confirmed the sighting of a number of known fascists at the racist rally, including Derek Bligh (IF), Jim Ferguson, Herman Kelly (IFM) and Rowan Croft, all with connections to British Loyalism and British Intelligence.
Four prominent fascists from different groups who were present (some as speakers) at the anti-refugee and immigration rally on Monday. (Photo source: AIA)
EVALUATION
The question must be asked how a minority of far-right and fascist parties in Ireland can outnumber the vastly numerically superior anti-fascist mass in the country at a public (and publicised) event? Clearly the counter-protest organisers failed to mobilise the wide anti-fascist masses.
View of section of the anti-immigration march. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Or the wide anti-fascist movement failed to respond to the call. Where were the Irish Republican forces, the specifically antifascist organisations, the anti-fascist trade unionists – and the broad masses that they can mobilise?
Some of those may say that they don’t trust the UAR group, that they’re not serious about confronting fascists, etc. That may be but it would be a poor and shameful excuse for allowing a successful fascist attack on an antifascist gathering.
On the other hand, when the UAR was being founded, it deliberately excluded those forces – Republicans, antifascist activists, anarchists – who had already been confronting the far-right in Dublin and had been in a number of clashes with the fascists.
A placard displayed by a migrant solidarity demonstrator. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
This is a most serious situation in which the democratic masses to be as the racists and fascists mobilise their thugs and feel the wind behind their sails while simultaneously the State surreptitiously encourages them and the capitalist system seeks to make the workers pay for its crisis.
The racist march took place in the context of a recent fascist mobilisation in the city centre burning cars and public transport and ongoing burning of buildings across the country earmarked – or just believed to be earmarked – for housing of refugees.
Government Ministers can claim shock and anger at such fascist mobilisations but how is it that the wave of arson attacks is being permitted? And how is it that communications of the culprits are not being monitored by the State’s intelligence services?
How is that there is not one case of Garda or property security being on hand and apprehending the arsonists?
We need not believe any nonsense about insufficient personnel because the private security industry employs over 30,000 people across a broad range of sectors9 and the Gardaí can mobilise 100 with helicopter back-up to evict a handful of housing activists occupying an empty building.10
The State is clearly allowing the fascists a loose rein whilst at the same time permitting an atmosphere favouring repression to build up – repression which as is usually the case will be used not against the fascists but against the antifascists and against the Left resistance in general.
We are being given warnings and it is up to all of us whether we act upon them. If we don’t not only we but our children will pay the price.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The green, white and orange flag that became the ‘national’ flag of the Irish State.
2Anglicisation for pronunciation of Éirinn go Brách (Ireland for ever!), the slogan in gold on a green background, usually also bearing the emblem of the harp in gold was a common flag seen among gatherings of the Fenians (Irish Republican Brotherhood) in Ireland, Britain and the USA during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
3Possibly the world’s first female republican military organisation, it was founded in 1914 as an auxiliary to the male Irish Volunteers founded the year before; around 40 of them participated in the 1916 Rising. Later the organisation developed more independence.
4Constance Markievicz: A founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, she took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic.
5And some in ordinary street clothes, clearly the political ‘undercover’ police (now officially the Special Detective Unit but still widely known among political activists (and some of its own officers) by their former name of “the Special Branch”).
7Three of the prominent fascist and racist organisations recently founded in Ireland, though not much of “Síol” has been seen for many months.
8Presumably a reference to the fact that in 1845 Ireland had a population of over 8 million and was not “full” even then while the population today is around 7 million.
26 July 2023 (First published in Socialist Democracy, reprinted by kind permission of author)
Sinéad O’Connor has died. Her death at the age of 56 was announced on RTÉ.
The evening news programmes went into overdrive to pay tribute to an incredibly talented musician. As with all such tributes, the great and good were asked for their opinions or they offered them in any case and they were carried uncritically.
Sinéad O’Conner and daughter Roisín on anti-racist demonstration, Dublin, 2000. (Photo sourced: Internet)
You are not supposed to speak ill of the dead in Ireland, but more than that, you shouldn’t speak ill of those who seek to praise the dead, no matter how hypocritical they are.
There were many milestones in her musical career, not least her rendition of Nothing Compares 2 U. The media highlighted her musical talent, her voice, sometimes describing her as controversial and outspoken and much loved by the public.
Yes, she was loved by the public, to a point, and also by other musicians around the world. However, she was also despised by many, written off and derided by commentators. As with many artists when they die, there is a tendency to rewrite history.
Her politics were sometimes erratic and lurched from one thing to another, though she was always honest and forthright when she did so, unlike many a coward. As erratic as some of her opinions could be, there were no smug self-serving platitudes to fall from her lips. She was no Bono.
She was honest, frequently angry and went after the powerful at times.
The famous incident where she tore up a photo of then Polish Pope, Wojtla in protest at his covering up and enabling of child sexual abuse, a topic she was painfully personally aware of in her own personal life did not go down well with some of those now praising and lamenting her passing.
Bono doesn’t do tearing up photos of popes, he sups with George Bush, the late senator McCain, toured Africa with the head of the World Bank, to name just a few of the scumbags he was not only too happy to rub shoulders with but positively revelled in.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael leaders have expressed their sorrow at her death.
They weren’t expressing any support when she denounced child sexual abuse, the entire Irish political establishment were busy helping the Catholic Church cover it up, and later facilitated the institution to evade its legal, financial and moral responsibility.
Their attitude is best summarised in a typical hypocritical Irish attitude when dealing with those who make us uncomfortable that goes through phases of saying, “She’s mad, isn’t she great gas altogether, she may have a point but…, fair play to her, didn’t she speak up at the time”.
All of this without ever examining their own role in it all. The fact that, as we speak, reports of the sexual trafficking of children in care are being ignored by the government, says all you really need to know about their attitude.
If a new musician of her talent and courage were to speak out now, she would be cancelled and silenced by many of those now praising her, including some of those on the left, who have grown quite fond of not breaking ranks and clamping down on those who did.
She always spoke about mental health issues, though she became much more public about her own issues as she got older. She even broke down on a video about it, locked away in a hotel, crying. The video led to many expressing their concern, but also a bit of “there goes that one again”.
We will no doubt get many commentaries on air and in print about her struggles with her mental health, many expressing concern and sympathy with her plight. Many of them will be hypocritical.
It is true that Irish society is more open now about people who have mental health problems, though there is still a stigma attached to it.
Sinéad O’Connor (Photo sourced: Internet)
Ironically RTE followed up the news of her death with another story on the shambolic, criminal (my word, not the words of the media cowards) state of the child mental health services in Ireland (CAMHS).
Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar may even refer to her troubles in their tributes, but they never cared about them then, they don’t care now and the proof is not only the state of CAMHS, but mental health facilities in general, with long waiting lists, a rush to medication and forgetting about the patient model of care.
Her politics were erratic in many ways, though in fairness they weren’t much more erratic than others who are not judged as quickly. She flirted with republicanism, then broke with them, even applied to join the more recent incarnation of Sinn Féin in 2014, before withdrawing it.
It may be hard to take that seriously, but it was no less ridiculous than Bono condemning the IRA and then spluttering out nonsense about how he admired Bobby Sands. He didn’t, never, ever, when it mattered.
Sineád for all her failings took positions that were unpopular unlike some of the vomit inducing smug types that populate the modern music industry.
For my own part, her politics on racism were without fault. Her song Black Boys on Mopeds is excellent. It points out the hypocrisy of Thatcher criticising China whilst British Police like James Bond had a licence to kill.
“Margaret Thatcher on TV Shocked by the deaths that took place in Beijing It seems strange that she should be offended The same orders are given by her”
The song goes on to say something truer today than before.
“These are dangerous days To say what you feel is to dig your own grave”
And then a description of England, that the great and good would run a mile from.
“England’s not the mythical land of Madame George and roses It’s the home of police who kill black boys on mopeds.”
Now she will be lionised in death, praised, described as troubled, talented, controversial and much loved. We should ignore the sanitised version we will be given and remember the Sineád O Connor who was treated with contempt and disdain at times.
Aside from her incredible musical talent, that is the version that is worth remembering and celebrating, the version they weren’t too happy to celebrate when she was alive.
In Ireland we like to celebrate talented uncomfortable artists and writers in death in a manner we don’t do when alive. She deserves some coherence from us on this.
(Translated from Publico report by Danilo Albin and with comment by D.Breatnach)
A few days before Nazi bookseller Pedro Varela’s date for trial in Malaga for the continued crime of provoking hatred and discrimination, the Hitlerite activist gave a talk in which he called for founding “cells of Christian, white, and European men.”
The audience listened in silence. On stage was Pedro Varela, the great leader of Spanish neo-Nazis and one of the few Hitlerites tried in Spain for spreading genocidal ideas.1
It was the morning of Sunday, November 6, there were a few days left before another trial for spreading hate and Varela, in his usual style, had not planned to move an inch from his script.
“You go down a street in Madrid or Barcelona and you see black boys, handsome, tall, stocky, who measure 1.90. They are going to be the owners of the situation and the owners of the country. Do you think they are going to pay your pensions?”2
That was one of the statements made by the owner of Librería Europa during the conference held that day, according to a video that has just seen the light.
The Nazi activist’s speech, organized by the far-right publishing house Fides, was made on November 6 within the framework of the XVI Days of Dissidence3.
The event, which was initially going to be held in a conference room on Calle Hilarión Eslava in Madrid, had to change location after the publication of a news item about said meeting by Público4.
That change of location angered Varela, who did not hesitate to lash out at this newspaper. “As you know, lovers of freedom of expression and democracy have tried and succeeded in cancelling the room in Madrid that for years we used for this rally,” he said.
“The Público newspaper, a pamphlet from the extreme left5, announced the address where the Sixteen Days of Dissidence were going to take place, and encouraged the anti-fascist mobs to call, bother, and outrage the owners of that place so that they finally barred us access to it for holding the ‘Dissidents’,” he continued.
This veteran Nazi activist also referred to an episode of the Cuéntame series in which there was an allusion to his bookshop, located in Barcelona and dedicated to the sale of National Socialist materials.
“The propaganda against this small group of 200 or 300 people here today is tremendous. A newspaper like Público, a television program like Cuéntame, dedicate part of their efforts to combat the spread of our thought and our struggle,” he warned.
As established by Court Number 11 of Barcelona in 2010, this “thought” and this “fight” imply the crime of spreading genocidal ideas. Varela was imprisoned between December 2010 and March 2012.
In 2016, after a raid on the Nazi bookstore in which the Mossos d’Esquadra seized 15,000 books glorifying genocide, the activist spent a few days on the run until he turned himself in at a police station.
Nazi Pedro Varela attending court in Malaga, Spanish state. (Image sourced: Internet)
He then paid a bail of 30,000 euros and returned to the street. Currently he is awaiting a new trial.
The Prosecutor for Hate Crimes and Discrimination requested 12 years in prison for exaltation, justification and denial of the Holocaust and for crimes of incitement to hatred against Jews, migrants, Muslims and homosexuals, among others, as well as the permanent closure of its business, the Europa bookshop in Barcelona.
“Do not fear prison or persecution”
“Whoever had something interesting to say who has not been in prison for that? Do not fear prison or persecution, because they are medalsto your credit in the afterlife,” he said during the conference on November 6.
The latter was held a few days before he was due to face another trial in Malaga as a result of a complaint made by the Movement against Intolerance directed by Esteban Ibarra.
The prosecutor in this case – which is now pending resolution – requested three and a half years in prison for Varela for the continued crime of incitement to hatred and discrimination as a result of the content of some conferences held in Seville and Malaga.
This was given that his rallies created “an evident feeling of hostility towards the affected groups (African, Muslim or Jewish migrants, basically) that generated an objective dangerous to peaceful coexistence”, affirms the Public Ministry.
In the talk on November 6 in Madrid, Varela returned to raise similar issues. Among other things, he linked the number of migrants to the “increase in rape on the streets of Spain, including Valencia.”
“The Spanish are peaceful people6, almost all of them have a partner, a girlfriend, a family… they have a culture of respect for women, something that does not happen with these immigrants.”7
At another point in his speech, he asserted that “60 million blacks are needed to take the place of 100,000 abortions per year that Spain has.”
He also alleged out that immigrants “go to look for a partner in Spain, and if Spanish women do not decide to become their partner, what is happening happens.”
Varela not only did not hesitate to refer to himself as “National Socialist”, but also claimed the role of the ‘Napola’, the male boarding schools of the Hitler Youth that served as a school for the Nazi elites.
In these centres “they educated them in austerity, order and discipline” and offered them “a sense of mission in life”, according to his interpretation.
He encouraged the founding of “those cells of Christian, white, European men”
“What do we have to do to face this world? We cannot organize the Napola, because they are going to be banned, but yes, you can form a Napola among yourselves, in your family, in your circles of friends.”
“You have to mould the youth, your family, the children and yourselves” – he remarked – “in the character of the Napola kids”.
The Nazi bookseller proclaimed that “resistance must be not only political, ideological and human, but also familial, ethical and religious”, while encouraging his followers to have children and “found those cells of Christian, white and European men who, with respect and good neighbourliness with other races and cultures, prefers to defend his own than to succumb”.
“What Happened at Auschwitz”
He alleged that in Spain there is a “gradual loss of freedom of expression” and condemned the Democratic Memory Law8, which he compared to the German laws against Nazi apology.
“In Germany, as you know, the whole question of what happened, what did not happen or could have happened in Auschwitz is not debatable, it is not debatable,” he indicated. “Any German who claims to defend his own identity is suspicious of Auschwitz.”
In his opinion, “this dictatorship against freedom of expression also exists here. This law of historical memory and cancellation of white culture9 is carried out in all Western countries.”10
He even asserted that the legal persecution against Nazi broadcasting in Germany is a “sword of Damocles that hangs above all Germans so that any possible resistance to the cultural and ethnic invasion of the country does not take place.”
Pedro Varela addressing a fascist meeting in the Spanish state (Image sourced: Internet)
“Where do the transsexuals go?”
His speech was also loaded with transphobia. “I read a very curious joke the other day. – Hey dad, women go to the gynaecologist, right? – Yes. – And do men go to the urologist? – Yes.
And where do transgender people go? – I don’t know, kid, probably to the psychiatrist“. As can be seen in the video, the transphobic joke was followed by laughter and applause from the ultra-rightists who inhabited the room.
“This is of course a joke, because otherwise transgender people are going to sue me.11 Humour is what it is, but that is the biological reality. You can feel whatever you want, but biology says what you are.
You are a man or a woman, or to the urologist or the gynaecologist, you cannot go anywhere else,” he concluded.
COMMENT by Diarmuid Breatnach
Fascism in Spain, then and now
The first thing to take into account is that unlike anywhere else in Europe, there was no overthrow of fascism in the Spanish State.
A cosmetic job of painting over four decades of the savage Franco dictatorship with pseudo-democracy was managed by the fascist ruling class with all their politicians, senior military and police officers, judges, bishops, bankers and media moguls remaining in place.
The second thing to note is that despite antifascist laws being passed as part of that “Transition” process, fascist glorification continued to be rampant in the Spanish state with fascist salutes and iconography regularly displayed in public and on photographs and video.
Spanish fascists against Catalan independence, Barcelona January 2020. (Image sourced: Internet)
And fascist speeches too, all with impunity. Except in this case, which is why the report states that Varela is one of the few Hitlerites to be tried: not because there are only a few of them but because the State has decided to make Varela an exception to the rule.
Varela complains about the “dictatorship” that he feels being exercised against him and his rhetoric. Fascists always raise the flag of democracy, which they despise, only when they feel unable to use the mailed fist. Once in power, they give democracy to none except their own12.
It’s not a little amusing that the State is trying to close Varela’s fascist bookshop through the court because they closed Basque social centres, newspapers and social media sites merely be decree and even when their own Constitutional Court made them recant, are yet to pay a cent in compensation.
Hollocaust denial is one pretty frequent plank in the fascist platform, wherever in the world it is erected.
This too is curious, in a way because in the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis and other fascists boasted about what they were doing, in particular to the Jews in Germany, Austria and in Occupied Europe.
True, they did not admit publicly to the mass exterminations but all the rest of it, expropriations, mass round-ups, concentration camps were no secret and they corresponded among themselves and reported to authority about the rest – the story the photos, film and survivors told the world later.
Vulnerability of the fascist male ego
Varela’s worries about Spanish women’s vulnerability to men of migrant background is another area of irony, given the problem of Spanish gender violence (see below).
Whilst there have been prominent female fascists, historically the cult of the superior male has been prominent in most fascist movements. Indeed Hitler’s Nazis proclaimed the correct areas for women’s activity to be “kinder, kuche und kirke” (‘children, kitchen and church’).
Most fascist movements and organisations have denounced homosexuality and many gays and lesbians have been killed by them, including an estimated 60% fatalities of the 50-60,000 sent to concentration camps by Nazi German courts.
In their hetero-sexual male insecurity, fascists and other racists often fear “their” women being attracted to other men, specifically to men of other ethnic groups13.
Conversely, fascists regularly see themselves as the “defenders” of “helpless females” while simultaneously detesting any exhibition of female independence or assertiveness.
Those circumstances encourage acts of rape and other sexual violence towards women: last year in the Spanish state 37 women died in violence by men and 46 the previous year.
People still remember the “Manada” (‘wolf-pack’) case where five men videoed themselves raping a young woman whom they left in a doorway after they stole her mobile phone. Although it occurred in the Basque province of Navarra, all the assailants were Spanish.
What’s more, one was a Spanish policeman while the other was military and some had previously videoed themselves in a van with an unconscious woman, talking about their intentions. The “Manada” was the name of a WhatsApp group of which they were members.
Historical memory and mass graves
Many people hope that changes in Spanish law, such as the Law of Historical Memory in 2007 and more recent practical steps herald a coming to terms with the state’s fascist past.
Some mass graves of fascist victims have been exhumed and removal Franco’s remains in October 2029 and projected removal of Primo de Rivera’s from their mausoleum in the Valle de Los Caidios gives hope to some14.
The remains of General Queipo de Llano, believed personally responsible for the execution of poet and dramatist Garcia Federico Lorca in 1936, were removed from the La Macarena basilica in Seville on 2nd November this year.
Postcard of fascist General Queipo de Llano, whose remains were exhumed recently from the Macarena Basilica and reinterred in a family cemetery recently. (Image sourced: Internet)
After Cambodia, the Spanish state remains the one with most mass graves in the world and the majority of those have not been exhumed15. The names of fascists still decorate streets and, as noted earlier, fascist events continue with public displays of fascist affiliation.
The fascist political party Vox continues in existence with currently 52 (out of 250) members of the Congress (lower house) of the Spanish Parliament.
There exists a deep fascist pool which has reflected at various times the political parties Partido Popular, Ciudadanos and now Vox with the votes of the pool being divided among those parties according to the wishes of the day.
As is usually the case, Spanish fascism is combined with a reactionary ‘nationalism’ of a unitary Spain based on Castille and León but including all its current territories.
They tack on to that a fictional concept of Spain with Flamenco in Andalusia and holidays in the Balearics and Canaries but seek the suppression of any national self-determination.
The Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia have all historically declared for self-determination but all three were murderously suppressed during the Civil War and the Dictatorship, with the former two suffering heavy repression in the post-Franco ‘democratic’ Spain.
Any move towards self-determination in those nations stirs a fascist hornet’s nest to venomous buzzing and threats.
Overall, the signs are not favourable for a future Spanish state cleansed of fascism – at any rate not by moderate and peaceful means.
2A variation of the “white replacement” irrational anxiety of racists.
316 Days of activism against gender-based violence:16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign held every year. It begins on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until December 10, Human Rights Day. It is ironic, to say the least, for fascists to locate their events within this framework.
5From the perspective of fascists and far-right in the Spanish state, that on-line newspaper may seem “extreme Left” but although on the Left it is not even revolutionary.
6Oblivious to past and more recent history, obviously!
Recognition of the victims of political, religious and ideological violence on both sides of the Spanish Civil War and of Franco’s State.
Condemnation of the Francoist State
Prohibition of political events at the Valley of the Fallen – Franco’s former burial place.
The removal of objects which exalt the July 1936 coup, civil war and Francoist repression from public buildings and spaces. Exceptions may be given for artistic or architectural reasons, or in the case of religious spaces.
State help in the tracing, identification and eventual exhumation of victims of Francoist repression whose corpses are still missing, often buried in mass graves.
Rejection of the legitimacy of laws passed and trials conducted by the Francoist State.
Temporary change to Spanish nationality law, granting the right of return and de origen citizenship to those who left Spain under Franco for political or economic reasons, and their descendants.
Provision of aid to the victims and descendants of victims of the Civil War and the Francoist State.
9To Varela, there is such a thing as “white culture”, which will be a surprise at least to, let’s say Irish, Basque and Russians.
12And not even to their own, on occasion, as with the violent suppression of the whole leadership of the Browshirts by the Gestapo in The Night of the Long Knives 30th June-2 July 1934 in Germany.
13This has been nowhere more observable perhaps than in the ‘Deep Southern’ states of the USA, where black men were regularly lynched for alleged rape of white women without any proof. Conversely, the evidence of rape of black women in the same area during and after slavery is legion.
14Franco was the fascist dictator of four decades and Primo de Rivera was the founder of the fascist Falange, executed by the Spanish Republic.
15Holding the remains of an estimated 100,000 men and women.
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain to me how I am being manipulated and why I should not wear a mask. It is true as you said that fearful people are controlled more easily and what is more fearful than an invisible danger, an alleged virus?
But the thing is always of course: controlled by whom and what for?
When you explained that I was going to be controlled by Jews that was worrying but the lizards who were going to control me (as well or instead of?) were really scary. Then the Chinese Communists, with one of the permanent seats on the UN Security Council taking over those of the other four powers – that was terrifying. And then controlling the whole EU!
It’s amazing that the secret manipulators have managed to frighten or fool nearly every doctor, nurse and medical expert in the world – must be millions of them — into supporting the hoax and masking and vaccines. Thank God we have a handful of medical people spilling the beans. Still, it’s all quite terrifying.
And the plan to replace all white people through contraception, abortion, LGBT rights is frightening too – well, I’m white of course and I don’t want to be replaced. I’ve already been replaced by a machine at the checkout desk where I worked, which was easily done since most people during the pandemic – sorry, the hoax – preferred to use the machines and pay by bank card. Of course the bosses took advantage of the situation to replace some of us but nobody warned us about that.
Like you advised, I have refused to have the vaccine because I don’t want nanobots injected into me so They can control me and see where I go and what I do – even when I’m in the toilet or the shower. I can’t understand how all those controlled people are still managing to hold protests – like about housing, or people killed by police, or for the Palestinians. It’s very confusing so you’ll have to explain that to me again.
I told Brigid (remember, next door but one) about all the antifascists being pedophiles and she said does that mean all the people who fought against Hitler and Mussolini were pedophiles too? Then she said some disrespectful things like if you’re really concerned about pedophilia how come yous are always defending the Catholic Church? When I told her about Hillary Clinton running a pedophile ring from above a pizza restaurant, Brigid just burst out laughing so hard she said she’d have to go to the toilet. When she came back, she asked if John Kennedy and Bill Clinton couldn’t even keep their affairs secret from the public, how would Hillary Clinton manage to run a whole pedophile ring and keep it quiet? I didn’t know what to say and felt quite stupid. I wish you’d been there to answer her.
Brigid’s nephew has been wearing a mask in public since the authorities advised it. He got 99% in one of his exams and mostly around 90s, so I was wondering about that Dolores Cahill saying our children would end up stupid through inhaling carbon dioxide. Then I was wondering whether Brigid was lying or being manipulated. Or her brother, the boy’s father, was. Or the school, faking the results. Or the Government forcing the school to fake the results and fool the father and the son.
So anyway I’m confused and frightened. Tell me what to do, please.
“WELCOME TO REFUGEES” EVENT SANDYMOUNT 3 SEPTEMBER 2015
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 3 mins.)
On 13 September 2015, six years ago a remarkable event took place on the strand in Sandymount (Dumhach Trá) in Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath), of which I have been reminded by the Facebook anniversaries function. I wrote a short report with photos for a FB album at the time but it deserves a more easily accessible record on Rebel Breeze. Text from the album follows:
WELL OVER A THOUSAND PEOPLE (that will be just “several people” for RTÉ1), gathered at Sandymount strand today to spell out the message “Refugees Welcome” on the sand.
The day looked bad earlier with rain and, at the original time set, was still raining. But due to tide conditions, the start time had been set back an hour and the rain had stopped and there was even some intermittent sunshine as the crowds assembled.
I had to strip off rainproof clothes under which I was already sweating. Starting was slow and some singers tried to keep us entertained as we waited. We were also led in shouting some slogans — all in English (would using the word “Fáilte” have hurt?). We were each assigned to a column behind the letter we were going to spell out.
Section of the crowd standing on the wet beach, formed up in their letters. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Eventually we were led off by our letter-leader to a spot marked out in the shape of the letters by string tied to pegs stuck in the sand. We shuffled into shape obediently.
A drone flew over us filming (I had unpleasant associations with the word, especially in a US-Syria context) and then we all had to be reformed, as according to the drone operator, the letters didn’t look right. So yes, we all became reformists .
Drone in the sky — refugee-friendly one for a change (top right). (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Then it was finally right, the “heart” had to be reformed too — it was bleeding people out at the edges. Finally, we were judged to be right, waved to the drone, film was taken.
Then the organisers thought it would be good for us to “scatter” for the film effect. We did, kind of, a half-hearted scatter …. nothing like we would have done from incoming ordinance. And then we went home.
After standing in the wet sand I discovered that dubbin did not keep the water out of my boots and, no matter how much knocking of boots together, I still had some sand on them when I got home. Remember how you always managed to bring some sand home from the beach, no matter how hard you tried not to?
The event followed on the more than two thousand (“hundred” according to RTÉ) who gathered at the Spire yesterday to extend the hand of welcome to refugees fleeing murder and even sexual slavery (by ISIS); a counter to the xenophobia and especially Islamophobia which had awoken echoes of the anti-Irish Catholic rantings of Cromwell and his kind in the 15th Century. Well done to the organisers and those who turned up to support the event.
Wide view of Sandymount beach as the “letters” break up (Photo credit: uncertain)
POSTCRIPT:
A lot of organisations had put their name to the event but effectively it had been organised by a coalition of ENAR Ireland (now Ireland Network Against Racism), Migrant Resource Centre Ireland and Irish Refugee Council — maith iad in conception, planning and execution.
Section of crowd forming up on their letter-group prior to going out to form up on the wet sand for the aerial photos. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
As though their traumal from the cause of leaving and its own pain were not enough, many die in the attempt. Thousands of refugees have died trying to reach Europe, most of them in the Mediterranean. Those who survive face racism and ghettoisation.
“From January to June 2021, it was estimated that 827 migrants died while crossing the Mediterranean Sea. In 2020, the number of deaths amounted to 1.4 thousand. However, the accurate number of deaths recorded in the Mediterranean Sea cannot ascertained. Between 2014 and 2018, for instance, about 12,000 people who drowned were never found”.2
Casualties and missing people
“Worldwide, it was estimated that eight thousand people died in the attempt of fleeing their country. According to estimations, over five thousand refugees lost their lives in the attempt to reach the European shores in 2016. Therefore, the Mediterranean Sea was the deadliest migration route. Indeed, over the last couple of years, the Mediterranean Sea held the largest number of casualties and missing people”.3
Western, Central, and Eastern route
“According to migration studies, the Mediterranean Sea is crossed by a Western, a Central, and an Eastern route. Out of these routes, the Central Mediterranean route was the deadliest. In 2016, roughly 4,6 thousand people lost their lives while pursuing this route. Sadly, the identification of bodies is challenging due to the sea. In 2019 for instance, the vast majority of refugees who drowned in the Mediterranean were not identified and their country of origin was untraceable.”4
Aerial view of the letter-volunteers on the sand photographed from the drone (Photo credit: Stephen Kingston)
REMEMBER
Remember? Remember when we were migrants?
Remember when we fled murder and rapine
and many another terrible scene
When death and torture were at hand
and we sought succour in other lands?
Remember?
Remember when our little nation
was devastated by starvation.
disease and desolation,
our hope in emigration ….
Remember?
Remember when we died by
mountain, valley and sea
or we braved
the rolling waves
to go where we might be free?
Remember, oh do you remember?
Escape, the vote,
in leaky boats
in anything to float,
fear in throat,
today they launch
for our shores.
Remember?
We must remember!
Diarmuid Breatnach
End.
Side view of the crowd that formed the “heart” on the sand (Photo: D.Breatnach)
FOOTNOTES
1Radió Teilifís Éireann, the state broadcasting service.
By Geoffrey Cobb (Reprint from The Irish Echo 23 June 2021)
(Reading time: 2 mins.)
The Rev. Bernard Quinn faced opposition from the Ku Klux Klan on Long Island.
In 1983, African-American priest Fr. Paul Jervis was assigned to the parish of St. Peter Claver in Brooklyn, which had been founded in 1921 by Fr. Bernard Quinn, as Brooklyn’s first black Catholic parish. Speaking with his parishioners, Jervis was amazed to hear the stories of so many older people who still spoke of Quinn with profound reverence, even though he had died 43 years earlier.
Intrigued, Jervis began to research his predecessor and was so taken with Quinn’s life that he decided to write a biography of Quinn calling it: “Quintessential Priest, The Life of Father Bernard J. Quinn.” Jervis’s biography is an inspirational tale of a man whose love for his black congregation defined him and forged a unique community of faith.
Quinn was born in 1888 in Newark, N.J., into a large Irish Catholic family. His father, who was from County Cavan, and his County Offaly mother sent him to parochial school and young Bernard felt such a strong vocation that he entered the seminary in 1906, where he developed a lifelong deep sympathy for the poor and the downtrodden. Ordained in 1912 in Brooklyn, Quinn was assigned to diocesan parishes such as St. Patrick’s in Bay Ridge and St. Gregory the Great in Crown Heights.
SHOCKED BY RACISM IN US ARMY DURING WW1
When World War I erupted, Quinn volunteered to serve as a chaplain for front line troops. Commissioned as a First Lieutenant, Quinn served as chaplain of the 333rd infantry. Serving at the front, he became a victim of mustard gas. Though he recovered, Quinn suffered from the gassing for the rest of his life. In France, Quinn was shocked by the racism in the American army. When a white American Protestant chaplain refused to pray with a dying Black soldier, Quinn intervened and prayed with the dying soldier, but the troubling incident lingered with Quinn.
Fr. Bernard J. Quinn, c.1930 (Photo sourced: Wikipedia)
The war ended, but Fr. Quinn remained in France to minister to the wounded soldiers. After a chance reading of “The Story of a Soul, the life of St. Therese of Lisieux,” in the barracks library, Fr. Quinn discovered a spiritual hero. Learning that he was stationed in the vicinity of Alencon, not far from St. Therese childhood home, Quinn obtained permission to visit it and became the first priest to celebrate Mass there before it became a popular shrine. Intense devotion to St. Therese would define Fr. Quinn’s faith for the rest of his life.
BACK TO BROOKLYN FROM THE WAR
Quinn returned to Brooklyn in 1919. While preparing two black women for baptism, he was inspired to create an apostolate to African Americans, but his concern for Blacks was not shared by all Brooklyn’s Catholics, some of whom did not want African Americans praying in their churches. After repeated appeals, Quinn finally received permission from Bishop McDonnell to begin his mission to the Black people of Brooklyn, but finding Black Catholics proved difficult. Quinn went to the streets, asking every African American he met where he could find Catholics.
Finally, Quinn found Mr. Jules de Weever, the leader of the dissolved Colored Catholic Club, which had met from 1915-1916, seeking in vain to establish a church for Black Catholics in Brooklyn. Frustrated by the church’s indifference to their quest, the group disbanded. Quinn revived the CCC and inspired them to persevere in founding Brooklyn’s first Catholic church.
The Holy Name Band and Fr. Quinn (to far right). (Photo sourced: Internet)The Rev. Bernard Quinn with young parishioners of St. Peter Claver during a religious festival. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Quinn incessantly petitioned the bishops for permission to establish an African-American parish, reminding them that Black Catholics were being excluded from worship at Italian, Irish and German churches, but instead of agreeing, the bishops ignored Quinn’s pleas. Finally, thanks to his perseverance, they authorized the founding of Brooklyn’s first African American Catholic Church, St. Peter Claver Church, in 1921, naming Quinn pastor.
The Irish-American priest now needed a church building and the parish soon found a warehouse for trunks and baggage that had once been a Congregationalist church on the corner of Ormond Street, now Peter Claver Place, and Jefferson Avenue, in the expanding black community of Bedford Stuyvesant. Quinn and the congregation enthusiastically set to work on the herculean task of transforming the warehouse back into a house of worship. The church’s decoration celebrated black faith with murals of early Black saints, and of St. Peter Claver’s work with enslaved Africans in Cartagena, Colombia.
On Christmas Day, 1921, the cornerstone for St. Peter Claver, named for the patron saint of African peoples, was laid. By 1922, the church was ready and blessed by Bishop Thomas Edmund Molloy. Quinn soon proved to be a model pastor and quickly the kindhearted priest endeared himself to his rapidly growing flock. Brooklyn’s Black Catholics were attracted to a church that didn’t just tolerate them, but even welcomed them with open arms. The parish became more than a place to pray, helping the parish’s poor, while also setting up a clinic, a credit union, a parish school, and adult education classes. St. Peter Claver soon became famous for its large children’s choir and its band. Legendary entertainers Lena Horne and Pearl Bailey both started their singing in the church’s choir. Reputedly, it was the first African-American choir ever to sing at the prestigious Brooklyn Academy of Music.
THE LITTLE FLOWER NOVENA BUSTOP
Fr. Quinn began a temporary daily novena, a series of prayers, to his inspiration, St. Thérèse, called the Little Flower Novena, but he never could have imagined the massive reaction the novena received. People begged for the novena to continue and an estimated that 10,000 of all races a week poured into St. Peter Claver’s. Within five years an amazing 2.2 million people had attended the novena, stirring the envy of nearby white Catholic pastors who complained that it drew away their parishioners. The novena was such a hit that the drivers on the bus line near the church would call out “Little Flower Novena stop.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle soon did a feature article on the amazing success of the novena.
The novena proved to be a huge money maker for the parish, allowing Fr. Quinn to fund some of the parish projects he envisioned including a $300,000 school building, a convent, a recreation center and a Long Island orphanage that would ignite the bitter flames of racism. In 1929, Msgr. Quinn founded the Brooklyn Diocese’s first orphanage for Black children in a farmhouse in Wading River, Long Island, which at the time was still part of the diocese. A cross was burned in front of the Quinn family home in Mineola, but the priest defied the threat. Outraged racist locals contacted the Ku Klux Klan, which was very active on Long Island in the 20s and 30s, and the orphanage burned in an act of arson. The orphanage was rebuilt but burned again in the same year.
THE KLAN AND RACISM IN THE CHURCH
Undeterred, Father Quinn rebuilt the orphanage yet again, this time in stone and brick. The Brooklyn Eagle announced this with a headline, “New Fireproof Orphanage Will Defy Incendiary.” The KKK gave up, and the orphanage, called the Little Flower Orphanage, in honor of St. Thérèse, was dedicated as the Little Flower House of Providence Oct. 26, 1930. Today that organization survives as the Little Flower Children and Family Services of New York, offering adoptions and other social services in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.
Quinn became an outspoken defender of Brooklyn’s Blacks against the pervasive racism of his day. He denounced institutionalized racism and invited the Urban League, an African American advocacy group, to speak at his church. Some Brooklyn Catholic clergy spoke out against Quinn’s embrace of Black Catholics. In 1929, Msgr. John L. Bedford wrote in his Brooklyn parish newsletter that “Negroes should be excluded from this Roman Catholic Church if they become numerous.” Quinn vehemently defended his flock writing in the Brooklyn Tablet, “It seems to me that no church can exclude anyone and still keep its Christian ideals. The Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion and this, plus the fact that church property is tax exempt, ought to mean that anyone can go anyplace to worship.”
St. Peter Claver Church, Brooklyn, New York. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The strain of his herculean labors took a physical toll on Quinn. In the spring of 1940, Msgr. Quinn went into nearby St. Mary’s Hospital for surgery for an abdominal problem. He never came back to St. Peter Claver’s, dying on April 7. Brooklyn’s Black Catholics were in shock. They had lost a dear friend and their most vocal advocate. Eight thousand grieving mourners attended his funeral at St. Peter Claver, which was reported in all the New York papers including the New York Times.
In 1992, a movement to canonize Msgr. Quinn received the blessing of the Catholic Church and the long and difficult path to Quinn’s canonization has started. Decades before the founding of the Black Lives Matter movement, Fr. Quinn dedicated his life to serving Brooklyn’s Black Catholics and his life remains a shining example of the power of love to defeat hatred and bigotry.
End.
Author and teacher Geoffrey Cobb will lead a walking tour on Saturday, Aug. 7, of sites associated with the Tipperary-born Paddy “Battle Axe” Gleason, who was the last mayor of Long Island City before its 1898 incorporation into New York City. The event is sponsored by the New York Irish Center, 10-40 Jackson Ave. “Rebel Breeze” will shortly publish an article about the same Gleason by Geoffrey Cobb.
A black American traveling entertainer, boxer and trainer, soldier in two world wars for two different countries, awarded 14 French military medals, airplane pilot, nightclub owner, musician, civil rights activist, associate of famous writers and musicians.
Bullard’s biography is so amazing I cannot believe it has never been made into a movie. Like the lives of many African Americans, it is also a tale full of suffering and pain that highlights the horrible racism that pervaded America in his day. He is such a remarkable person that more people should know about the achievements of this unique figure.
Bullard was born in 1895 in Columbus, Georgia, the seventh of 10 children born to William (Octave) Bullard, a black Caribbean and Josephine (“Yokalee”) Thomas, a Native American Creek woman. Georgia at the time of his birth was a dangerous place for “uppity” African Americans and tragically lynchings were common. His father’s people were Haitians who revolted against French slavery and following the revolution, Bullard’s ancestors left the Caribbean for the United States and took refuge with the Native American Creek people.
As a young boy, he was traumatized by the sight of a white mob attempting to lynch his father over a workplace dispute. A proud man, his father imbued his son with the conviction that African Americans had to maintain their dignity and self-respect, despite all the indignities heaped upon them. Bullard fell in love with his father’s stories of France where slavery had been abolished and blacks were treated equally. At age eleven, Bullard ran away from home hoping to reach France. In Atlanta, he joined a family of English gypsies and traveled throughout Georgia with them, tending their horses and learning to be a horse jockey. The gypsies told him that there was also racial equality in England and Bullard determined to go there instead of to France.
Bullard found work with the Turner family in Dawson, Georgia. Because he was hard-working as a stable boy, young Bullard won the Turners’ affection and was asked to ride as their jockey in the 1911 County Fair races, where he was victorious. Eventually, he made his way to Norfolk, Virginia where he stowed away on a ship to England.
In 1912, Bullard arrived in Scotland and soon went on to London where he boxed and performed in humiliating racist pieces for the Freedman Pickaninnies, an African American troupe. While in London, he trained under the then-famous boxer Dixie Kid who arranged a bout for Bullard in Paris. Bullard fell in love with the “city of light” and decided to settle there. He continued to box in Paris and worked in a music hall until the start of the First World War.
Eugene Bullard showcase (Photo source: Internet)
A SOLDIER IN WWI
When the War broke out Bullard enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and by 1915 had become a machine gunner, seeing combat on the Somme front in Picardy. He served in a regiment known as the “hirondelles de la mort” (“swallows of death”) and saw combat at Verdun where he was severely wounded on March 5, 1916. During his convalescence, Bullard was cited for acts of valor at the orders of the regiment on July 3rd 1917 and was awarded the Croix de Guerre.
After recovering, he volunteered on October 2nd 1916 for the French Air Service and became a machine gunner. He joined a group of American aviators fighting for France on November 15, 1916, called the Lafayette Flying Corps and became the first African American aviator in World War I. He took part in over twenty French combat missions, and is sometimes credited with shooting down one or two German aircraft.
When the USA entered the war, The United States Air Service created a medical board to recruit Americans serving in the Lafayette Flying Corps to fly for the United States. Bullard went through the medical examination but he was not accepted, because in the segregated American military only white pilots were chosen. Sometime later, while off duty in Paris, Bullard allegedly got into an argument with a French officer and was punished by being transferred out of his combat unit and into a service battalion. Before he left the French military, the French government awarded him three different medals for his heroism in battle.
NIGHT CLUB OWNER
After his discharge, Bullard went back to Paris, where he started to play drums in a jazz band at a nightclub named “Zelli’s”, which was owned by Joe Zelli. Bullard worked with Robert Henri, a lawyer and friend, to get Zelli’s a club license, which allowed it to stay open past midnight. Zelli’s soon became the most celebrated nightclub in Montmartre because few other clubs could stay open so late. With the money he saved from playing at Zellis, Bullard traveled to Egypt, where he played with a jazz ensemble at Hotel Claridge and fought two prize fights.
Missing Paris, Bullard returned to the City of Lights where his career was about to take off. He became an entrepreneur hiring jazz musicians for private parties with Paris’ social elites, worked as a masseur and exercise trainer. Bullard then got a job managing the nightclub “Le Grand Duc”, where he hired the famous American poet, Langston Hughes. Around 1928, Bullard had saved enough money to enable him to purchase “Le Grand Duc.” Thanks to being the owner of a hot Parisian club, Bullard made many famous friends, including the dancer-actress Josephine Baker, poet Langston Hughes and jazz musician Louis Armstrong. He eventually became the owner of another nightclub, “L’Escadrille” where he got to know writer Ernest Hemingway, who based a minor character on Bullard in his novel “The Sun Also Rises.” Bullard also opened his own gym and gave boxing lessons, training successful fighters such as “Panama” AL Brown and “Young” Perez. In 1923, he married Marcelle Straumann, a striking French woman from a wealthy family. The marriage ended in divorce in 1935, with Bullard gaining custody of their two surviving children, Jacqueline and Lolita.
A SOLDIER IN WWII
When World War II began in September 1939, Bullard, who also spoke German, agreed to a request from the French government to spy on the German citizens who still frequented his nightclub. When the Germans attacked France, Bullard volunteered and served with the 51st Infantry Regiment and was severely wounded in the battle for Orleans. When the Nazis took over Paris, he slipped over the border into Spain and then headed back to the United States.
Eugene Bullard with US Army comrades, WW2 (Photo source: Internet)
Bullard spent some time in a New York hospital and never fully recovered from his wound. He missed Paris and his minor celebrity there. In New York, he had no celebrity and had to work menial jobs. He longed to return to Paris but learned that his nightclub had become a casualty of the battle for Paris. The French government gave him a financial settlement with which he purchased an apartment in Harlem.
CIVIL RIGHTS
Returning to America after World War II, Bullard was active in the civil rights movement. During one confrontation, a bus driver ordered him to sit in the back of the bus. In 1949, Bullard was a victim of one of the most notorious incidents in New York State history, the Peekskill riots. Bullard was a fan of African American communist entertainer Paul Robeson who was scheduled to sing at a Civil Rights benefit. Before Robeson arrived, however, a mob attacked the concertgoers with baseball bats and stones. Thirteen people were seriously injured including Bullard who was knocked to the ground and beaten by an angry mob, which included members of the state and local law enforcement. The attack was captured on film in the 1970s documentary The Tallest Tree in Our Forest and the Oscar-winning narrated documentary Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist. Despite photographic evidence, none of his attackers were prosecuted. Graphic pictures of Bullard being beaten by two policemen, a state trooper, and a concert-goer were later published in Susan Robeson’s biography of her grandfather, The Whole World in His Hands: a Pictorial Biography of Paul Robeson.
Eugene Bullard clubbed to the ground by rioter and cops during the racist Peekskill Riots in 1949; captured on film and photograph but no-one was arrested for this and other assaults. (Photo source: Internet)
The 1950s were difficult years for Bullard whose daughters had married and he lived alone in his apartment, which was decorated with pictures of his famous friends and a framed case containing his 14 French war medals. His final job was as an elevator operator at Rockefeller Center, where no one suspected he had once been the “Black Swallow of Death.” In 1954, the French government invited Bullard to Paris to be one of the three men chosen to rekindle the everlasting flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe and in 1959 he was made a Chevalier (Knight) of the Legion De Honeur by President Charles De Gaulle, who called Bullard a “véritable héros français” (“true French hero”). He also was awarded the Medaille Militaire, another high military distinction. On December 22, 1959, he was interviewed on NBC’s Today Show presenting his amazing biography and received hundreds of fan letters.
Eugene Bullard in military uniform (Photo source: Internet)
Bullard died in New York City of stomach cancer on October 12, 1961, at the age of 66. He was buried in the French Veteran’s section of Flushing Cemetery, where nine years later his good friend Louis Armstrong would also be interred. On August 23rd 1994, 33 years after his death and 77 years to the day after the physical that should have allowed him to fly for his own country, Bullard was posthumously commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Airforce.
End.
Unveiling of Eugene Bullard statue monument in Georgia near the USAF base that refused to enlist him as a pilot for WW2 because he was black, even though he had already flown in France.
Salaam Alikum (we hope that’s right, we had to go to a Pakistani shop and ask the staff and write it down as we heard it – that was after the Indian shop where they said they were Hindu, not Muslim; it’s all very confusing to us Catholics).
We just wanted to drop you a quick note to express our support for your tweets that the Covid19 vaccines from the USA and UK are “completely untrustworthy”. Not only that but we would like you to know ALL Covid 19 vaccines are and when you understand that hopefully you will stop Iran from producing its own.
In the first place, Covid19 is just a kind of ‘flu and the sickness and death figures are just plain made up. We don’t understand how they can get away with claiming nearly 89 million cases of infection from it in the world and two million dead! In the second place, they use the vaccine to pump nano machines in your body so they can check where you are going and control you, get you to believe anything they want, even the craziest of things. That is not what God – sorry, Allah – intended. I mean it’s not in the Bible, is it? Nor, we’d bet, in the Koran either.
Now that our World Leader is being forced to vacate the Presidency of the USA, we wondered whether you would like to be our sponsor. You’d have supporters all over the USA and in many parts of Europe.
Some Antifa, Republican and BLM terrorists may have told you lies about us joining an anti-Muslim protest last year at a celebration of Eid at Croke Park (that’s an Irish kind of football stadium in Dublin), which was accusing Muslims of making Irish butchers go halal and marrying underage girls and things. Which is just liberal-communist propaganda and anyway, anyone can make a mistake, right? And as Dee Wall (that’s the celebrity name of Dolores Webster, one of our leaders) said at the GPO, it’s not Muslims’ fault if the Government lets the GAA lend the stadium to a group of Muslims, is it? The GPO is where have our rallies without masks or “social distancing” but the Irish Guards don’t bother us – you have Islamic Guards in Iran too, don’t you?.
We hope you will consider sponsoring our world-wide movement and in particular our Irish branch. According to a number of prominent Irish people like Niall McConnell, Gemma O’Doherty, Justin Barret and Glen Miller, Ireland is full of Muslims so you’d feel kind of at home with a real Irish fáwltche (that’s Irish for “welcome”). We could even arrange for you to do a live linkup broadcast to be projected on the General Post Office building where we’ve been holding Saturday rallies. That would be just brilliant.
We hope you will give this your best consideration.
Respectfully yours,
QAnon Ireland.
Ayotollah Ali Khamnei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Photo source: Internet)
Michael Quill forever changed labor relations in the USA. The founder of the powerful union representing New York City’s bus and subway workers, Quill’s numerous achievements helped transform the lives of millions of workers by his setting national standards for equal pay for women and minorities, health benefits and paid medical leave. However, it was his leadership of the 1966 Transit Strike that made “Red Mike Quill” a celebrity, famous for defying the Mayor and a jail sentence, when Quill shut down public transportation in the nation’s largest city.
Michael Quill photographed during mass meeting of the union. (Image source: Internet)
Born in 1905 into a humble, Gaelic-speaking family in rural Kilgarvan, Co. Kerry, which was restive under British rule, Quill inherited his desire to fight for justice from his father. “My father,” recalled Quill, “knew where every fight against an eviction had taken place in all the parishes around.”
During the War of Independence, the fifteen-year-old Quill fought in the 3rd Battalion, Kerry No. 2 Brigade of the Irish Republican Army. On a solo scouting mission, Quill stumbled on a patrol of Black and Tans asleep in a ditch. Instead of fleeing, he quietly stole all their ammunition, gleefully returning home with his stolen loot.
During the war, Quill fought bravely and met almost all the top military leaders, providing him the rare opportunity of personally knowing many of Ireland’s most famous patriots. The war also started in Quill a lifelong animosity towards the Catholic Church. While on the run, Mike and his brother were gutted when their parish priest refused their request for temporary amnesty to attend their mother’s funeral.
Opposed to the Treaty creating the Free State with a partitioned British colony, Quill fought against Michael Collins’ National Army and in the conflict Kerry Republicans suffered greatly, especially at Ballyseedy, where 23 anti-Treaty fighters were murdered with dynamite by Free State soldiers. That fight’s unbelievable brutality and injustice never left Quill.
EMIGRATION
Being on the wrong side of the Treaty, Quill, unable to find work, left for America, arriving in New York the day before St. Patrick’s Day in 1926 with just $3.42 in his pocket. Through his uncle who was a subway conductor, Quill got a job on the Interborough Rapid Transit company (which ran the original subway system in New York), first as a night gateman, then as a clerk or “ticket chopper”. The IRT quickly employed many of Quill’s comrades who were also ex- anti-Treaty fighters. Moving from station to station, Quill got to know many IRT employees. He learned they craved dignity and wanted to be treated like human beings, but Quill knew this meant fighting. He said, “You will get only what you are strong enough to take. You will have to fight for your rights—they will never be given to you. And you cannot win if you fight alone.”
James Connolly was a life-long inspiration to Michael Quill (Image source: Internet)
While working night shifts, Quill, who had only attended national school, used dead time to read labor history, especially the works of James Connolly. To fight the low pay, terrible working conditions and long hours of I.R.T workers, Quinn used Connolly, the leader of the Transport Workers Union in Dublin, executed by the British for his role in the 1916 Rising, as his inspiration, and Connolly’s ideas guided Quill throughout his life. Like Connolly, Quill believed that economic power precedes political power, and that the only effective means of satisfying the workers’ demands is the creation of an independent labor party, which creates and supports strong unions. He would honor Connolly by also calling his American union the Transportation Workers Union and years later, as president of the TWU, Quill only had two pictures on his office wall, Abraham Lincoln and James Connolly.
In his union-organizing activities, Quill got the cold shoulder from many established Irish-American organizations. “When we first started to organize the union, we asked for help from the Knight of Columbus and the Ancient Order of Hibernians”, he said. “We were booed and booted out. The Irish organizations did nothing for us, and the Church campaigned actively against us.”
Rejected by mainstream Irish Americans, Quill was embraced by the American Communist Party, which helped him obtain the money, the mimeograph machines and the manpower to launch the Transport Workers Union. Quill, though, merely used the Communists, while knowing he wanted no part of them. When they thought he should attend “Workers School” for indoctrination, Quill told them he needed no indoctrination and soon left the party.
Fearing anti-union informers, Quill organized the TWU, using the methods of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret Fenian society dedicated to a violent rising against British rule. Employing cells of five so that no man knew the names of more than four other workers in the organization, messages were also sent in half-Gaelic and half-English to confuse company spies, known as “beakies.” One night, the “beakies” attacked Quill and five other activists in a tunnel as they were returning from picketing the IRT’s offices. Falsely arrested over the incident for incitement to riot, Quill gained huge notoriety amongst his fellow workers and the charges were eventually dismissed. On April 12, 1934, fighting back against 12 hour days, six days a week, at 66 cents an hour, Quill and six other men formed the T.W.U.
Quill soon became union President and succeeded in getting his union into the American Federation of Labor. He then began unionizing the other transportation companies of New York. In January 1937, the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Coorporation dismissed two boiler room engineers from their power plant in Brooklyn for their union activity. Quill immediately called a successful sit-down strike and the BMT had to reinstate the men, which further raised Quill’s standing amongst the rank and file.
ANTI-RACISM
At a time in American history when bigotry and discrimination were commonplace, Quill became famous for fighting prejudice. An ardent opponent of the pro-Fascist Fr. Coughlin, Quill said, “Anti-Semitism is not the problem of the Jewish people alone. It is an American problem, a number one American problem.” He also fought for African Americans against the prejudice of many in his own union. He explained, “The bosses hired you and the same bosses hired the blacks. You are on one payroll; you come to work and leave through the same gate; you punch the same time clock. Unless there is one union to protect all of you, the employer will train these men and use them to displace you—at half your wages.”
Quill became an early ally of Martin Luther King who referred to Quill as “a fighter for decent things all his life” who “spent his life ripping the chains of bondage off his fellow man.” Quill once asked, “Do you know what I’m most proud of? That in TWU we have eliminated racial discrimination in hiring and in promotions and within the union’s ranks. Blacks, Hispanics, Orientals, American Indians and women are holding appointive and elective office.”
STRIKE AND JAIL
Perhaps Quill’s finest hour was during the Transit Strike of 1966. Newly-elected patrician Mayor john Lindsay wanted to get tough with Quill and the TWU. Journalist Jimmy Breslin summarized the conflict succinctly: “…[Lindsay] was talking down to old Mike Quill, and when Quill looked up at John Lindsay he saw the Church of England. Within an hour, we had one hell of a transit strike.”
Quill attacked the Mayor just as if he were a British soldier, chiding Lindsay for his “abysmal lack of knowledge of the fundamentals of labor relations.” He castigated Lindsay as “a pipsqueak, a juvenile” and jested: “We explored his mind yesterday and found nothing there.” To add insult to injury Quill intentionally repeatedly mispronounced the mayor’s name as “Linsley,” proving that even in the heat of battle Quill never lost his sense of humor.
Then Lindsay made a fatal mistake, jailing Quill, who defiantly said, “The judge can drop dead in his black robes!” While in prison, Quill suffered another heart attack and was sent to the worst of city hospitals. The only person who called Mrs. Quill asking if he could help was Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York. No other politician inquired about the stricken Quill. While Quill was in the hospital a deal was reached granting the TWU a 15% wage increase along with improvements in the health, welfare and pension systems. In all, it was a great victory. The strike over, he was released from police custody, but just three days later Quill died at age sixty with many claiming that the stress of the strike led to his premature passing.
Quill tearing up the court order banning the strike.
(Image source: Internet)
Mike Quill left an enduring legacy. Today the Transport Workers Union is composed of an estimated 60 percent minorities and Quill is still revered within it. He had an inclusive vision of labor, which minority workers respected, strengthening the movement. Pete Seeger dedicated a ballad to Quill and producers Macdara Vallely and Paul Miller have made a biographical film about Quill entitled Which side are you on?
(Image source: Internet)
(Image source: Internet)
Aerial view Mike Quill Centre with feature in the shape of Ireland. (Image source: Internet)
End.
POSTSCRIPT: Mike Quill and Vice-Admiral Nelson
In the Dublin City Centre, in the middle of its main street, is a curious steel erection which most people call “The Spire”. But from 1809 until 1966, something else stood there: a granite column with the English naval hero Nelson atop it, very much in the style of the one that stands in London’s Trafalgar Square today.
British soldier standing beside ruined GPO building (left) and Nelson’t pillar is visible (right), post-Rising 1916. Quill’s offer to Dublin City Council to demolish he Pillar and replace it with a monument to an Irish national hero was refused but the dissident group Saor Éire blew it up in 1966 in advance of the annual Easter Rising commemorations. (Image source: Internet)
About 50 metres away from what was colloquially called “The Pillar” stands the General Post Office building, which operated as the command HQ of the 1916 Easter Rising and is therefore a traditional gathering place for State and other commemorations of the Rising.
As the 50th Anniversary of the Rising drew near, Mike Quill contacted Dublin City Council and offered to have the statue removed for free and replaced with a more suitable monument. Quill’s first choice was a statue of Jim Larkin, who led his and Connolly’s Irish Transport and General Workers Union in resisting the 8-month Dublin Lockout – the tram crews had walked off their vehicles once they reached the Pillar and Dublin Metropolitan Police had run riot against the people in O’Connell Street shortly afterwards on Bloody Sunday 1913. But Quill offered the Council other options too. A private trust and not Dublin City Council owned Nelson’s Column, he was informed and there the matter rested. Until, on 8th March 1966, the Pillar was blown up by Saor Éire, a socialist split from the Irish Republican Movement, in advance of the 50th Anniversary commemorations.
The Jim Larkin monument in O’Connell Street today (Photo: D.Breatnach)
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