Tag: Capitalism

CIMARRON: GOING FERAL AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Cultural Comment, Guerrilla Action, History, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Language Treasure Chest, Natural History, Plants, Religious Sectarianism, Spanish State, Traditions & Folk Custom6 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 15 minutes)

LANGUAGE IS A TREASURE CHEST – 2

I observed in Language Is a Treasure Chest 1 that it is full of wonders but that it has some horrors in it too. And I found it to be so again.

I was reading a novel in which the word “Cimarron” appeared and, doing some quick research on the word, I came across a 2004 query in an email website or page called Word Wizard:

What is the etymology of the word cimarron? I’ve always been told that it means “runaway slave” in Mexican Spanish. Can anyone verify this?

The reply is dated the same day:

From Greek. It refers to people who live in perpetual
mist and darkness, akin to the ‘land of the dead’.
Latin ‘Cimmerius’, Greek ‘Kimmerios’, Assyrian
‘Gimirri’ even the bible ‘Gomer’ Gen.10:2 and
Esk. 38:6.
In Western United States it refers to a stretch of 
land that gets rainfall when other near by areas are 
desert year round.

Apart from the topographical reference, I thought the expert’s explanation highly dubious. And in fact I happen to know something about the Spanish-language origins of the word.

The searcher replied:

Thanks, Jim. I just wonder what connection this word has to Hispanics of Mexican origin because it shows up in their surnames (although not as common as Lopez or Vargas or Garcia). Is it just Mexican in origin or did that also come from Spain? So the “runaway slave” theory has no foundation then?

The expert’s reply did come back with a Spanish-language connection and he may be on to something with the topography, though I think he has it the wrong way around (as we shall see).

The “runaway slave” theory is not so obsolete.
Mexico did not have slaves (Outlawed in 1810)but
American slaves who fled to Mexico had to pass
through lands with water, or else parish (sic).
When relating their tales of woe to the locals
the word ‘cimmaron’ arose to describe their flight
through the South West desert.

Very curiously, there was no further contribution to the discussion. I tried to leave my own but had to register, which I have done (though wondering if worth the trouble) and am now awaiting confirmation1.

A view of the Cimarron National Grassland, the largest piece of public land in Kansas, a 108,175-acre property in the southwestern part of the state. It was recovered from the Dustbowl ecological devastation by soil recovery and management practices. (Photo source: The Armchair Explorer – Kansas)

THE FOLK MEMORY WAS TRUE

          Continuing with a little light online research I find that the Castillian-language (Spanish) origin is the explanation most often given, with rarely a reference to Greek or other classical or archaic languages. For example, in yourdictionary.com:

American Spanish cimarrón, wild, unruly ( from Old Spanish cimarra, thicket): probably origin, originally referring to the wild sheep (bighorn) found along its banks

While in Wiktionary:

cimarrón (feminine singular cimarrona, masculine plural cimarrones, feminine plural cimarronas).

  1. (Latin America, of animals) feral (having returned to the wild)

  2. Synonyms: alzado, bagual, feral

  3. (Latin America, of people) rural; campestral

  4. (Latin America, of plants) of a wild cultivar.

But …. what about the “runaway slaves”? Under the title Cimarron People, Wikipedia has this to say: The Cimarrons in Panama were enslaved Africans who had escaped from their Spanish masters and lived together as outlaws. In the 1570s, they allied with Francis Drake of England to defeat the Spanish conquest. In Sir Francis Drake Revived (1572), Drake describes the Cimarrons as “a black people which about eighty years past fled from the Spaniards their masters, by reason of their cruelty, and are since grown to a nation, under two kings of their own. The one inhabiteth to the west, the other to the east of the way from Nombre de Dios”. (location in Panama — DB)

While we may indulge ourselves in a sardonic smile at commissioned pirate Francis Drake talking about the cruelty of others, or about slave-owning by a country other than England in 1570, we remember also that at the time Spain was the main competitor with England in the rush to plunder the Americas – and had got there well before them.2 Both colonial powers were already plundering Africa for raw materials and slaves.

The meanings of animals having gone “feral” or “returned to the wild” would easily have been applied by the society of the time to escaped African slaves, a society which, despite evidence to the contrary including agriculture in Africa, would have considered indigenous inhabitants of Africa as people living in the “wild”. Once escaped and no longer under European control, they would be seen as “returning to the wild”.

So what happened to the Cimarron People? Their settlements were subject to punitive raids by the Spanish, killing people and burning crops, so that in the end they came to a treaty with their old enemy. The Wikipedia entry says no more except that the “Cimarrons” and the English quarreled (not surprising, given that they were of no further use to the latter). I believe some of their settlements in Florida were raided and burned by US “pioneers” and soldiers and that the remainder became part of the Seminoles, a native American tribe that resisted the USA in the longest and most costly of the USA’s wars against the indigenous people, the Native (North) Americans. The Seminole had many tribe members of part-African origin in their midst.

And here – a surprise: The word “Seminole” is derived from the Muscogee word simanó-li, which may itself be derived from the Spanish word cimarrón, meaning “runaway” or “wild one”!

So, in line with what that on-line searcher back in 2004 had heard, no doubt a folk belief, the word cimarron is, in Mexico (and in the USA), of Castillian (Spanish) language origin and is connected to escaped slaves of African origin.

Some of the sources for “cimarron” also give us “marron” or “marrón” which is also related to escaped slaves and, in English, became “Maroons”. The Maroons, escaped slaves who inhabited mountainous regions of Jamaica and elsewhere became a great problem to the English settlers (after they took the island from the Spanish) which they failed totally to quell, the Maroons emerging victorious in many military engagements. In the Cockpits area of Jamaica, I have read, there is a place called Nanny Town, which is believed to be one of the settlements of the Maroons; their chief was said to be a woman called “Granny Nanny”3, whether because of her former slave occupation or for other reason4. In the end, like the Spanish with the Cimarron People, the English had to treat with them. Sadly the treaty required the Maroons to return newly-escaped slaves, which they did and for which they received payment.

Marroons in treaty with the British, shown here in a reversal of the actual power relations in the “Pacification with Maroons on the Island of Jamaica, by Agostino Runias (1728-96).
(Source image: Internet)

However if instead of being a voluntary escapee to go to a wild place you were forced by people or circumstance, well then, like Alexander Selkirk’s “Crusoe”, you’d be “marooned”!

Well then, what about the “cimarron strips” in the southwest of the USA? Could the word refer to strips of land “gone wild”? Or could the expert replying to the question in 2004 have been on to something?

If the slaves escaping through the desert from the USA to Mexico did indeed make their way through strips of watered land (not just for the water, as the expert speculates but for vegetation to conceal them), then there is a connection between escaped slaves and these strips of land. But not as the expert sees it, rather the other way around: since the escaped slaves, the “cimarrones” were travelling the strips, they would be called by those who knew about it (escapee hunters, escapee helpers and just observers), “cimarron strips”, i.e “those strips through which the runaway slaves travel.”

CHRISTIAN ETHNIC PREJUDICE

          However, if the word comes from Castillian (Spanish) what were the origins of the word in that language?

Perhaps a year ago, I was reading a book that described the Spanish State as having been characterised, contrary to many other European states, by mass expulsions and exiles on a number of occasions throughout its history5. Naturally enough, first on the list of expulsions was the well-known example of the Moors and the Jews. Those who were not slaughtered by the forces of the “Christian Monarchs” of Ferdinand and Isabella in the “reconquest” were obliged to convert to Christianity or to leave “with only the clothes on their backs”. This also occurred in Portugal.

Those Jews who left were the Sephardim or Sephardic Jews, who spoke Ladino, an archaic kind of Iberian Romance6 language with Aramaic and Hebrew words, along with the Moors, who spoke an Iberian-Arabic mixture or Arabic. The key of their houses or gates have been handed down to this day in families of both groups.7

Many converted, often referred to by Christians as “conversos” (Jews) or “moriscos” (Arabs) but were constantly under suspicion of reverting to their old religion even with the threat and constant trials and torture of the Spanish Inquisition. According to what I have read they too were sometimes called “marronos”, i.e in the eyes of the Spanish Christian ruling class, those who had been “domesticated” (Christianised) but had “returned to the their wild way”, (Moslem) i.e “gone feral”.

Forced conversions that had to appear genuine: “The Moorish Proselytes of Archbishop Ximenes”, Granada, 1500 by Edwin Long (1829–1891). (Image source: Internet)

Wikipedia on Marrones in Iberia confirms: The (Spanish) Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing their faiths secretly. They were respectively called marranos and moriscos. However, in 1567 King Phillip II directed Moriscos to give up their Arabic names and traditional dress, and prohibited the use of Arabic. In reaction, there was a Morisco uprising in the Alpujarras from 1568 to 1571. In the years from 1609 to 1614, the government expelled Moriscos.

THE BUSH FROM THE NUT?

          And is “ci” or “cy” in “cimarron” then merely a prefix? The word “marrón” exists as a colour in Castilian and a number of Romance languages and came into English as the colour “maroon”. Its development is taken as originating from the colour of the large ripe chestnut, rather than given to it later. Of course there are a number of words for colours or tints which have a botanical origin, “orange” being an obvious one.

Castanea Silva, the edible or Sweet Chestnut.
(Image source: Internet)

Alright, then the nut and tree might have been associated with uncultivated or “wild” areas, similar to those to which the “cimarrons” would escape. But where did the “ci” suffix come from? Somewhere in the midst of what I have been researching I came across an explanation, derived from Latin, meaning “towering”, “high” etc. But can I find it now?

The online sources are telling me that the relevant pages are up for deletion and I can join the discussion. No thanks, I do not have anything like sufficient knowledge to enter a debate on that, nor the patience of an academic to research it thoroughly.

But “high” and “wild” could easily correspond, given that valleys and plains lend themselves more easily to cultivation, as a rule, than mountainy areas, which might remain wooded or with with thick undergrowth. And that might also give us the “bush” or “thicket” referred to in a number of references for “cimarron”, which in turn might describe the “cimarron strips”. In parts of Latin America (and for all I know, in all of them) such as Chile, a “cimarra” is also a thicket or densely-grown area. The article in the Language Journal (see reference) comments that the “arra” cannot be a Romance language word-ending but even if true it seems to me that the author (or authors quoted) might be unaware that among those from Iberia who colonised or settled in the Americas, Romance language speakers were not alone. There were also Basques who spoke Euskera/ Euskara and for evidence, they applied a number of toponomics and left family names from the Basque Country (Basque descendants make up to 10% of the population of some Latin American countries). And “-arra” would be a common enough suffix or word-ending in Euskera.8

Opening title for the weekly TV Western series Cimarron Strip, starring Stuart Whitman, Judy Gleeson, Percy Herbert and Randy Boone. Though popular, only a years’ worth of episodes were screened.
(Image source: Internet)

OKLAHOMA PANHANDLE AND THE CIMARRON STRIP

          In the 19th Century wars between the Mexican Republic, the USA and the Native Americans in the area, it was carved up with less and less left to the Native Americans.   Prior to the American Civil War, white Texas wanted to join the Union as a slave state  and due to a US federal law prohibiting slavery north of 36°30′ parallel north, white Texas surrendered a strip of land north of that latitude. The settlement (temporary of course), left a strip as “Neutral Territory” (one can only imagine the temptation for African slaves in Texas to make for there).  After the Civil War big cattle ranchers moved in, disregarding treaties and named the area the Cimarron Strip.

Map of Oklahoma territory and “Neutral Strip” before the American Civil War.
Image source: Wikipedia, Texas Panhandle.

But that was because the word Cimarron was already in the area, from the “Cimarron Cutoff” leading to a crossing of the  Cimarron river.  And yes, there was a popular 1967-1968 TV series called “Cimarron Strip”, starring Stuart Whitman.  But, though I used to watch it, that is only faintly related to the story of the word that set me out on this journey.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Which days later had still not arrived – perhaps the site is no longer in operation, which would explain the silence after those two posters.

2Columbus voyage to America 1641 and Spain’s first colonial settlement 1565 (now Florida); Mayflower expedition to America with English settlers 1587 (now Virginia). However, Europeans had founded settlements much earlier, as with the Norse in the 10th Century and very likely Irish monks in the 6th Century. But it was the English and Spanish who conquered most, the Dutch, French and Portuguese less. The descendants of the English settlers after gaining independence from England completed the seizure and colonisation of most of the North American continent, while English colonists remaining loyal to the English Crown seized land to form what is now Canada.

4All the folk tradition, albeit conflicting on some points, declares that she had not been a slave which leaves one to wonder how she might have reached Jamaica from Africa without having been enslaved.

5 I borrowed the book from the public library and cannot remember its title at the moment.

6“Romance languages” is the name give to the group on Indo-European languages such as Castillian (Spanish), Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian and French. They are sometimes called “Latin-based” or “Latin Languages” but there is some dispute about the origins and developments of these languages.

7 Ironically, the door or gate “key” is also a symbol of return for Palestinian refugees driven from their homes by Zionist massacres, threats and fear during the founding of the State of Israel.

8 Among toponomics of North America’s southwest Durango (Colorado and Mexico), Navarro and Zavala Counties (Texas) are perhaps the best known; while Aguirre, Arana, Bolívar (Bolibar), Cortazar (Kortazar), Duhalde, Echevarria (Etxebarria), García, Guevara (Gebarra), Ibarra, Larrazábal, Mendiata, Muzika, Ortiz, Salazar, Ugarte, Urribe and Zabala are but some among a host of family names of Basque origin from the American south-west to Latin America. And of course the country of Bolivia, from Simon Bolívar, a Basque surname from a Basque toponomic.

SOURCES, REFERENCES:

http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?t=1342

https://www.yourdictionary.com/cimarron

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cimarr%C3%B3n

Excerpt on-line from Language journal, Linguistic Society of America, Leo Spitzer, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Apr. – Jun., 1938), pp. 145-147: https://www.jstor.org/stable/408879?seq=1

Cimarron People: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimarron_people_(Panama )

Seminole People: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminole

Marrons, Marrónes, Maroons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_Maroons

“Marronos” in Iberia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors#Etymology

Marooned: https://www.etymonline.com/word/maroon

Marrón/ maroon as a colour, derived from the nut: https://www.etymonline.com/word/maroon

Basque diaspora to Latin America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_diaspora

Family names of Basque origin in Latin America: https://www.academia.edu/7889462/Basque_legacy_in_the_New_World_on_the_surnames_of_Latin_American_presidents

Basque words ending in -arra: https://www.ezglot.com/words-ending-with.php?l=eus&w=arra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Panhandle#Cimarron_Territory

 

DESPITE HOSTILE PROPAGANDA, SINN FÉIN IS JUST ANOTHER IRISH POLITICAL PARTY

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Mass Media Criticism, Peace Process, Political Analysis2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 minutes)

“Sinn Féin is not like other Irish political parties” goes the propaganda campaign against the party  by media commentators and rival mainstream politicians during the elections. What nonsense! It is exactly like the other main Irish political parties – and that’s the problem.

          Their opponents’ main objection seems to be that Provisional Sinn Féin was widely seen as the political wing of the armed resistance group Provisional IRA and, although the IRA have dissolved and decommissioned their weapons, the party still carries that mark in the eyes of its detractors (and, it must be said, fondly in the eyes of some of its supporters).

This propaganda campaign is acutely unhistorical. A few short lessons in Irish history might be of use here.

The Irish Labour Party was founded by, among others, the revolutionary socialist James Connolly and anarcho-sindicalist Jim Larkin. In 1913 both advocated arming union workers to resist armed police attacks. In 1916, the Irish Citizen Army they founded was part of the armed Rising and two of their leaders were among the 16 executed by British firing squads.

The party stayed neutral during the Civil War and was an opposition party to the Cumann na nGaedheal government. Since then, the Labour Party has been in Government only as a coalition partner – most times with the right-wing Fine Gael party. Except for it links with trade unions, the party has little claim to having “Labour” in its name and has turned away from everything if which its founders believed.

Fine Gael was formed in 1933 when two smaller groups joined Cumann na nGaedheal, which had been the governing party of the partitioned Free State from 1923 up until the merger. Michael Collins and his followers were the kind of people The founders of Cumann na nGaedheal were among the pro-Treaty and Free State supporters, i.e people who until then had been active in leading or supporting a campaign of armed resistance to the occupying British forces, including assassinations, ambushes and robberies. The Free State began the Civil War in 1922 by an artillery bombardment of Republican positions in Dublin and over the next few years carried out repression on the civilian population, torture, summary executions of prisoners of war as well as State executions – and assassinations.  The victors handed the reins over to Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923.

The parties that joined Cumann na nGaedheal in 1933 were 1) the National Centre Party, essentially a big farmers’ quasi-fascist party and 2) the Army Comrades Association (the fascist “Blueshirts”). Of the mainstream Irish political parties, Fine Gael has stayed truest to its founders and base.

Fianna Fáil emerged from a split from Sinn Féin in 1926; interestingly, much of what is being said against Sinn Féin by establishment political commentators now – and worse — was said then about Fianna Fáil: “murderers”, “revolutionaries” (and even “Communists”!). The party first entered power in 1932, its leader De Valera having been — little more than a decade previously — a leader of the Republicans during the Civil War, opponents of the Treaty and of the Irish Government of the time.  It freed the Republican prisoners locked up by the Cumann na nGaedheal government, also having a special police force (“Broy’s Harriers”) to persecute the Blueshirts, who aspired to taking power as had Fascists in Europe.

Cumann na nGaedheal (forerunner of Fine Gael) poster against Fianna Fáil during 1930s.
(Image sourced: Internet)

By 1939, the Fianna Fáil government had introduced the savage repressive legislation of the Emergency Powers Act to intern republicans without trial and after a successful habeas corpus challenge by Seán McBride (one of the founders of Amnesty International), the Government brought in the Offences Against the State Act, was re-arresting Republicans and interning them without trial again (around 2,000). Two Republicans died on a hunger strike protest in Mountjoy Jail. Under Fianna Fáil the State executed six Republicans and some more are alleged to have died as a result of their treatment in the concentration camp.

In 1957, a Fianna Fáil government once again brought internment without trial into force, the colonial administration of the Six Counties having done the same the year previously. The last prisoner was released by FF in 1959.

Left: Cumann na nGaedheal poster urging votes against FF because of the party’s history. Right: Fianna Fáil poster appealing to the working class and small farmers.
(Image sourced: Internet)

From having been seen as the main political party of Irish Republicanism, Fianna Fáil became in a short time the preferred party of the Irish capitalists (the “Gombeen” class) and has been in government more than any other party, more often indeed than the party that won the Civil War and set up the State.

JUST LIKE ANY OTHER IRISH PARTY

          There is no historical basis for saying that Sinn Féin is very different from the other Irish mainstream political parties. It has traversed a similar path to all those others, perhaps most similarly to Fianna Fáil – it’s just a more recent arrival on the mainstream scene. It is already very like other main Irish political parties and is getting to be exactly like them.

Leader of the Sinn Féin party, Mary Lou McDonald, at the launch of the party’s manifesto. With no intention of overthrowing capitalism it promised reforms for working people.
(Photo source: Internet)

That is not a compliment.

This is a party that, in recent decades, had a revolutionary Irish republican – or at least nationalist – position. It strongly opposed the partition of the country and the colonial occupation of one-sixth of the nation’s territory. With the latter came — naturally enough — opposition to the colonial police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary but this was much more than an ideological opposition: the RUC was an armed force created specifically for the repression of Irish Republicans and acted consistently against the Catholic minority in the Six Counties, which SF sought to represent and among which it organised.

The colonial Statelet itself, with its gerrymandering of electoral boundaries, sectarian allocation of housing and employment and its Special Powers Act, was the sworn enemy of the Sinn Féin party. And when British troops were sent in 1969 to repress the civil rights uprising, of course Provisional Sinn Féin and Provisional IRA fought them too.

The Provisional IRA gave up armed struggle against the British in 1998 and, although it maintained its armed force for control of its community for some time afterwards, eventually dissolved its organisation. By then it had already decommissioned its weapons.

Martin McGuinness (right) of SF, formerly of the IRA, as Deputy Prime Minister of the British colony of the Six Counties. He partnered the Prime Minister Ian Paisley (left), a rabid religious sectarian, Christian fundamentalist and homophobe. They were dubbed “the Chuckle Brothers”.
(Photo sourced: Internet)

In 2007 the SF party became part of the British colony’s administration in Stormont, with Martin McGuinness, former chief of the IRA in Derry, partnering Ian Paisley, notorious Loyalist religious sectarian and social bigot.

That same year the party agreed to support the armed and sectarian police force and in the reorganisation of the RUC had the name changed to “the Police Service of Northern Ireland”. The essence of the force, naturally, remains the same.

All the austerity measures inflicted on the working class by the administration since the party entered joint government of the colony have been approved by Sinn Féin MLAs.

Martin McGuinness publicly shaking hand of British colonial Queen when SF officially opposed the visit. However SF did not demonstrate against her visit and Gerry Adams later approved of it.
(Photo sourced: Internet)

In 2011, despite an official SF policy of opposition to the visit of the Queen of England, Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces, to the 26 Counties (the Irish state), leaders greeted her (one in person) and urged no protests be made against her visit.

In 2019, SF welcomed Prince Charles on a two-day visit to the colony and to the State; this man is not only son of the English Monarch but ceremonial commander-in-chief of the Parachute Regiment, authors of the massacres of Derry’s Bloody Sunday (14 dead) and Ballymurphy (11 dead) for which not a single soldier or commander has ever been tried. The SF Mayor of Derry, however, refused to meet him.

Gerry Adams shakes hands with Prince Phillip, titular head of the Parachute Regiment (the SF Mayor of Derry refused to meet him).
(Photo sourced: Internet)

This year, 2020, the Six-County part of the leadership of Sinn Féin joined others in publicly seeking recruits for the PSNI, while the 26-County leadership withdrew from its previous position of seeking abolition of the repressive emergency powers of the Offences Against the State Act.

In the 26 Counties, SF long ago indicated its willingness to join in a governing coalition with some one of the other mainstream political parties: i.e capitalist, neo-colonial political parties.

On so many occasions, it has shown itself to be like the other parties and prepared to ditch formerly-declared principles for what it considered a political advantage, proving itself a “safe pair of hands” to the rulers of the system.

Yes, Sinn Féin is indeed a party like any other Irish mainstream political party: capitalist, neo-colonial, undemocratic and supporting State repression. As to the latter, why not? It won’t be SF that the State will be repressing — it’ll be Irish Republicans. And if SF ever get where they want to, into majority control of government – they’ll have plenty of opponents themselves to drag before those non-jury courts.

End.

L-R: PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne, Anne Connolly, Chairperson of the NI Policing Board, Gerry Kelly MLA, Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy Chief Constable elect, Mark Hamilton at recruitment launch for the colonial police force.

MORE INFORMATION LINKS

“Sinn Féin is not a conventional democratic party”: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/sinn-f%C3%A9in-is-not-a-conventional-democratic-party-this-is-undeniable-1.4161818?

The most vicious of unhistorical attacks on SF, although from an alleged historian: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/ruth-dudley-edwards/sinn-feins-rise-akin-to-that-of-nazis-in-1930s-and-is-a-threat-to-democracy-on-this-island-38940177.html

Internment without trial under Fianna Fáil 1957: https://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/19806

Sinn Féin shares in administration of the British colony for the first time: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/sinn-f%C3%A9in-endorses-psni-by-overwhelming-majority-1.1292110?

Sinn Féin accepts the colonial police force: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/sinn-f%C3%A9in-endorses-psni-by-overwhelming-majority-1.1292110?

Relatives of people murdered by Crown forces and allies object to SF support for the PSNI: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/209838/posts/2580601201

Sinn Féin leader McGuinness welcoming Queen of England to the colony despite SF official policy against her visit: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queen-publicly-shakes-hands-with-sinn-feins-martin-mcguinness-after-historic-meeting-7892750.html

SF leader Gerry Adams commenting favourably on Queen’s visit to the Irish State despite official SF policy: https://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/27/world/europe/uk-queen-northern-ireland/index.html

Sinn Féin welcoming Prince Phillip: https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2019/05/22/news/duchess-1625989/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44474996

Gerry Adams meeting Prince Phillip: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-32786393

Sinn Féin recruiting for the colonial police force: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/sinn-f%C3%A9in-presence-at-psni-recruitment-event-seismic-and-historic-1.4161267?

Sinn Féin and the Special Criminal Court: https://www.thejournal.ie/special-criminal-court-explainer-4993281-Feb2020/

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/sinn-fein-call-for-review-not-abolition-of-special-criminal-court-976322.html

February 2020 Election results: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/irish-general-election-everything-you-need-to-know

DIMINISHING FAR-RIGHT DEMONSTRATORS BEG GARDA PROTECTION

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Fascism, Human Rights, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Police Violence, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 minutes) )

After weeks of propaganda and whipping up their support, a much-reduced turnout of the Irish far-Right lined up in front of Leinster House on Saturday 1st February and were confronted by an anti-fascist, anti-racist opposition a little smaller in size but which had been convened by word of mouth alone. There were some scuffles and a couple of arrests and the far-Rightists begged for a Garda escort to leave their protest after little more than one hour.

Confronting one another across Kildare St, far-Right and anti-fascists, seen from a little distance (Photo: D.Breatnach)

“FREE SPEECH”?

          The far-Rightists had called the demonstration allegedly in defence of “free speech”, protesting legislation proposed recently by Fine Gael against “hate speech”. Apart from the fact that the detail of the legislation has not been published yet, most on the non-institutional Left in Ireland and perhaps especially Irish Republicans, would be extremely wary of such widely-framed legislation, known to have been used in other administrations primarily against people denouncing the police, political parties, politicians and even royalty.

However, most Republicans and the non-institutional Left would not agree with the “right to free speech” which the far-Right is seeking, which is the “right” to spout virulent and lying material in the course of their racism, islamophobia, LBGTphobia, attacks on women seeking pregnancy termination or campaigning for the right to choose. In fact, we can trace the public start of the far-Right concern with “free speech” in Ireland to July 2019 when Gemma O’Doherty had her Youtube account suspended and then closed by Google, due to complaints that her racist rants were violating Google’s own standards. A similar case occurred in January in Spain when the relatively new far-Right Spanish party Vox had their Twitter account suspended, after they had accused a municipal education program on equality of “using public funds to promote paedophilia”. (see also FAR RIGHT CHANTS OF “PAEDOS” below for more on this issue).

The far-Right demonstrators with Leinster House in the background.  They fly a lot of Tricolour flags in an attempt to convey themselves as ‘patriotic’.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Even thinking about the issue for a few seconds will make it clear that there is not and never has been an unfettered right to say whatever one wants in public. Long before there were modern laws against defamation of an individual based on lies, it was forbidden by the Brehon laws (the oldest surviving codified legal system in Europe) which laid down punishment for the offence. Judaic and Christian traditions have it forbidden in the Ten Commandments as have those of many other cultures. The issue is not that all speech should be free but what kind of discourse should be permitted and which should not. And it is precisely that racist discourse, LBGTphobia, Islamophobia and attacks on the rights of women that the Republicans and non-institutional Left oppose, partly for its own sake and partly because it is along those lines that fascism seeks to build itself and split the working people in order to come to rule — in a dictatorship that will soon ban any criticism whatsoever of those in power.

Some confused or misguided Asian anti-blasphemy laws protesters among the far-Rightists, despite the common anti-migration and racist discourse of the far-Right.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

FAR-RIGHT CHANTS OF “PAEDOS”

          Among the exchange of insults between both sides, at one point the far-Rightists were heard to chant “paedos” at their opposition. The word is an abbreviation of the word “paedophiles”, which describes people who sexually abuse children for their own twisted gratification.

Imagine if some of these far-Rightists were in one’s neighbourhood and began to accuse an anti-fascist of being a paedophile! This is one of the ways in which they abuse any right to free speech.

But in any case, what is the basis for this chant? Do they really believe that their opponents are all paedophiles? No, like the Spanish far-Right party Vox referred to earlier, they count LGBT people as equal to paedophiles, i.e people who sexually abuse children. That is how sick their thinking is. Nor do they believe that all their opponents are LGBT themselves but according to the far-Right, the fact that we uphold the right of people to decide their own sexuality and for consenting adults to choose their relationships, makes us the equivalent of those who sexually abuse children!

View of the anti-fascist, anti-racist demonstrators, at the Molesworth St. intersection, viewed northward down Kildare St. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

SURGE, SCUFFLES AND ARRESTS

          At one point, a surge developed among the anti-fascists towards the south of their numbers and the general Gardaí and Public Order unit (the Gardaí are the police force of the Irish state) charged the anti-fascists with batons drawn, with which they struck a number of antifascists. A man reported to be a fascist, on the steps outside a building on the same side of the street as the antifascists, was seen lashing out downwards, presumably at antifascists, with a pair of crutches. At that point the Gardaí restrained him and later it seems arrested him but apparently they had already arrested an anti-fascist. Most of the police dived at the anti-fascists during this brief episode and a few activists were rescued from police hands. However, a fascist who crossed the road from the Leinster House side with a stick, who took a number of swings at anti-fascists, was escorted back across the road by Gardaí, apparently without any attempt to arrest him.

The man seeing striking out at anti-fascists with crutches before being restrained by Gardaí. An antifascist was arrested during this incident.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The far-Right rally had been scheduled for 1.00pm and at 2.15 pm they left, having begged the Gardaí for an escort, with which they were provided. Meanwhile, the riot police prevented the anti-fascists from following them.

However, a brief encounter on the quays a little later between small numbers of both groups necessitated the Gardaí once again to protect these “nationalist” warriors.

Yellow Vest Ireland fuhrer Glen Miller seeking escort from senior Garda officer.
(Photo source: antifascist participant)

DIMINISHING AND DESERTED BY LEADERS?

          Those who fancy themselves as the public leaders of the motley crew of the far-Rightists left their acolytes deserted, for apart from Yellow Vest leader and islamophobe Glen Miller, they did not attend. Neither Gemma O’Doherty nor Justin Barrett were to be seen there and the ex-British Army soldier Rowan Croft made only a brief appearance before vanishing.

As mentioned earlier, although extensively publicised in advance, the numbers of the far-Right were significantly down on previous events outside Leinster House, which may point to a limited reservoir of activists in the far-Right in Ireland, also to some inability to sustain an extended program of public events (after all, keyboard activism has been their main activity until recently).

On the other hand, their opponents, using personal contact only to mobilise from among Irish Republicans, Socialists, Anarchists and general Anti-Fascists of different organisations and none, were able to put together a counter-demonstration of a size approaching that of the far-Rightists.

However, it would be unwise to relax. The far-Right is on the rise across most of Europe; the capitalist system world-wide is heading for crisis and at such times turns to fascism to force the working people to pay for the crisis through austerity. In addition, in Ireland we are already in part of an austerity program with the bank bailout draining our taxes, our health service in crisis and no public housing program to counter spiraling homelessness and mortgage debt.

The Gombeens and foreign capitalists who feed on our sweat and blood will hesitate before taking on the working people in this country in an open fight. But with fascists and racists splitting the working people and diverting them from the cause of our woes, that would be a different matter. Continuing vigilance is required, along with mobilisation to counter their public events. But also, education of the people and giving genuine leadership in fighting for a decent life for working people of all ethnic backgrounds in Ireland.

End.

Cropped photo D.Breatnach)

USEFUL LINKS & SOURCES:

Dublin Republicans Against Fascism: https://www.facebook.com/Dublin-Republicans-Against-Fascism-104013457786981/

Anti-Fascist Action Ireland (they published a report from which I took some of the information here, the rest being based on my observation): https://www.facebook.com/afaireland/?

GOVERNMENT SATISFACTION — OR ELSE

On By rebelbreezeIn Creative writing, Current Affairs Comment, Ireland, Satire, Socialist Revolution1 Comment

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Citizen,

Thank you for taking our Government satisfaction survey. Your opinion is important to us.

Please bear with us while we give you an opportunity to recheck your answers.

You indicated a satisfaction level of 0% with the current Government. Yes/ No

You indicated a satisfaction level of 0% with the previous Government. Yes/ No

To the question “Which past or current government did you approve of to a level of 50% or over?”

you entered “None.” Yes/ No

To the question “What, if any solution do you propose?” you entered “Revolution.” Yes/ No

In the event of having indicated “No” to any the questions above, please repeat the questionnaire again with more care.

In the event of instead having answered “Yes” to all, you need do nothing more. Our Satisfaction Team will shortly be with you to discuss matters further. Please do not leave the location at which you currently find yourself. Please do not switch off your phone or Satnav.

Thank you for taking the time to complete our questionnaire. Your opinion is important to us.

DELIVEROO RIDERS ARE EMPLOYEES DESPITE EMPLOYER CLAIM

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Capitalismo, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Lucha obrera, Spanish State, Trade unions, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

JUDGEMENT OF SPANISH SUPERIOR COURT IN FAVOUR OF THE WORKERS

Report in Publico.es by Pilar Araque Conde.Translation from Castillian by D.Breatnach.

https://www.publico.es/sociedad/deliveroo-tsjm-falla-deliveroo-reconoce-532-riders-trabajadores.html

Deliveroo riders, treated as self-employed workers responsible for their own insurance, without sickness or holiday pay — but in reality employees.
(Photo source: Internet)

Yet another repeat: the nth judicial victory of the riders against Deliveroo. On this occasion, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) ratified the ruling in favor of 532 deliverers of the digital platform by recognizing them as employees and not as freelancers, as the Labor Inspection of the capital had ruled.

The TSJM dismissed the appeal filed by Roodfoods Spain S.L.U., the holding company of Deliveroo, against the ruling pronounced on July 22nd last year by Madrid’s Social Court No.19. Back then, the court had concluded that the distributors were workers of the company.

“In the provision of services by the deliverers affected by the process, during the period to which the liquidation act refers, labor conditions prevailed, which leads to the judgement of the demand”, states the text accessed by this media. (Trans: ??)

FIRST GREAT COLLECTIVE VICTORY OF THE RIDERS AGAINST DELIVEROO

          Therefore, the TSJM insists on the relationship between the home delivery company and the riders: “The details or characteristics of an employment relationship concur when assessing the existence of habituality, periodic retribution, dependency and subject to orders and business instructions, alienation of benefits and risks and very personal nature of the provision of service”.

A Labor Inspection report estimated that the deliverers were false self-employed and that Deliveroo “covered up” an ordinary labor relationship with them. The General Treasury of Social Security took up the challenge and filed a lawsuit, which was decided by the judge. The oral hearing, held on May 2019, had the testimony of more than 500 riders.

Deliveroo Riders received judgement in their favour in Valencia, Spanish State, last year, displaying placards saying “WE WON” in Catalan on Deliveroo-type background.
(Photo source: Publico.es)

The workers’ lawyer, Esther Comas, highlights the “importance” of the sentence. Not only because it affects 532 workers, “but because it makes a very exhaustive examination of the conditions of employees who, in turn, can be extrapolated to other colleagues in the same company and even from other platforms [Glovo and Uber Eats]”, the member of the Madrid Ronda Collective pointed out to Publico.

Also, the UGT union welcomed the decision of this court: “We consider this judgement very important since it summarises everything that we have been fighting for and which coincides, in its conclusions, with another ruling by the Madrid TSJ on Glovo’s working model,” UGT explained in a press release.

The collective fight of the riders adds another victory. In June 2019, Social Court No.5 of Valencia also ruled in favor of the delivery riders. Delivery riders in cities like Barcelona or Zaragoza await an oral hearing for the law to recognize them as employees, based on the judgements pronounced against Deliveroo and Glovo.

A rider for Just Eat, on similar arrangements to Deliveroo riders, treated as self-employed workers responsible for their own insurance, without sickness or holiday pay — but in reality employees.
(Photo source: Internet)

And, despite the infinity of reports prepared by the Labor Inspectorate in different provinces, digital distribution platforms continue to operate without a regulation that guarantees the rights of their workers. Also, taking into account that the number of employees in the sector is around 14,337 people, UGT estimates that Social Security lose up to 76 million euros, according to the report on digital distribution platforms by Work, presented last September 6th.

end

FURTHER READING:

https://www.independent.ie/life/dublin-deliveroo-worker-i-fell-off-my-bike-when-i-rang-the-call-centre-the-first-thing-they-asked-was-if-the-food-was-okay-35090382.html

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/deliveroo-riders-say-they-are-deliberately-targeted-for-violent-attacks-1.3802955

 

APPEAL TO ACT IN SELF-RESPECT – an open letter

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Dublin Lockout 1913, Gender Equality, Guerrilla Action, History, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-'21, National Liberation, Police Violence, Trade unions, Workers' Struggles1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Friends and Comrades, self-respecting people of all organisations and none, Irish or migrants, who understand what it is to resist colonialism and imperialism and exploitation of labour: this is an appeal to act in defence of our self-respect.

As you must all be aware by now, the current Government of the Irish State plans to hold an event honouring the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police in Dublin on the 17th of this month. Some at least are probably already considering how to react to this shameful event; I hope you are and if so, that you will give my suggestions some consideration. If you have not yet decided to respond to this event then I hope all the more that you will consider what I have to say.

The need to protest this event in a large and unified way is great. It is a matter of our self-respect as a nation, as a colonised people (and colonised peoples) that never ceased resisting, as workers, as trade unionists, as Irish Republicans and all varieties of the Left in Ireland.

The RIC and the DMP were not only the eyes and ears of the English colonist regime but also its first rank arm of repression after the British Army; they were the enforcement bodies of the landlords and bosses.

RIC still on site after assisting an eviction — see the battering ram that was used by the bailiffs to demolish much of the wall. (Photo source: Internet)

ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY

          Formed in 1822, the armed nationwide Irish Constabulary got the “Royal” appellation from Victoria, the Famine Queen herself, in recognition of that organisation’s role in the suppression of the Fenian uprising of 1867. During the evictions of poor peasants and agricultural labourers from their lowly cottages and huts, the RIC attended every one, having become the FIRST RANK force of repression in Ireland, the Army being relegated to their backup should it be required. The RIC was the ever-present force of repression during the Tithes War, the Great Hunger and the Land War and was the main force responsible for the suppression of the Young Irelanders in 1848. On 5th May 1882 in Ballina, Co. Mayo, there were children among the slain when the RIC opened fire on a demonstration celebrating the release of the Land League leader prisoners.

RIC constables assisting eviction of Thomas Considine and family, Moyasta, Co. Clare 1767.
(Source photo: Internet)

During the 1916 Rising, the RIC again played its part in repression of the resistance movement, particularly outside Dublin and it was they who attacked the Kent house in Cork, killing one son and arresting two others, including Thomas Kent which the British colonial regime executed, being one of the Sixteen the British killed in reprisal for the Rising. The RIC was the principal organisation supplying the names of non-participants in the Rising to be arrested and interned in jails and concentration camps in Britain.

After the Rising, the RIC continued one of its main roles as the eyes and ears of the British occupation in Ireland, collecting information on anyone who sang patriotic songs, spoke for independence or against the landlords, joined an Irish cultural organisation, agitated for women’s suffrage, organised a trade union branch ….

It was largely due to this role that the armed Republican forces made the RIC its first target in the War of Independence and in fact, the very first shots of that war were fired at the RIC in Soloheadbeg, killing two of them – this very month, 21st January 1919, 101 years ago and only four days after the date upon which this quisling State plans to honour that force.

RIC assisting bailiffs carrying out an eviction. The defenders have blocked the door with thorn brush and are throwing hot water out on their attackers.
(Source photo: Internet)

When the “Black and Tans” and “Auxiliaries”, the RIC Special Reserve and the RIC Auxiliary Division to give them their official titles, were dispatched in March 1920 at Churchill’s initiative to terrorise and murder Irish people, outside Dublin they became part of the of the RIC and from then on, the existing RIC became responsible not only for its prior crimes but for those of the ‘Tans and Auxies too, such as the many murders, including those of the Mayors of Cork and Limerick; the torture of suspects and violation of women; the burning of farmhouses and cooperatives and even of villages and towns: Tuam, Trim, Balbriggan, Knockcroghery, Thurles and Cork – among others.

In 1922, while the RIC ceased to exist in the ‘Free State’, they became the Royal Ulster Constabulary in the Six Counties, with their even-more murderous reserve, the B-Specials. The B-Specials were incorporated into the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1970 and the RUC was renamed the PSNI (Police Force of Northern Ireland) in 2001. Both organisations have been active in carrying out or in collusion with sectarian murders, acting as members or in collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries and under British intelligence operatives.

Bailiffs using battering ram to gain entry to evict a family in Ireland. The RIC are present to protect the bailiffs. (Photo source: Internet)
RIC King Street barracks after attack during War of Independence.
(Photo source: Internet)

DUBLIN METROPOLITAN POLICE

          The DMP was the colonial police force specifically responsible for controlling Dublin, the capital city of the colony. During the 1913 Lockout it showed itself capable of serving Irish capitalists, whether native or of colonist background, without discrimination. Indeed the leader of the Dublin 400 capitalists out to break the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, was an Irish nationalist, Catholic and owner of The Irish Independent: William Martin Murphy.

Apart from any others this force of tall thugs may have killed or fatally injured with beatings in their cells, the DMP killed a number of workers during the eight months of the struggle, raided houses and sent many to jail. Two workers, James Nolan and John Burke, died of their injuries within days of the DMP’s baton charge on a street meeting in Eden Quay just by Liberty Hall on 30th August 1913. The following day, in what became known as Bloody Sunday Dublin 1913, the DMP was in action again on O’Connell Street and in Princes Street, mercilessly beating people there (including those already knocked down), during which they knocked unconscious Patsy O’Connor, a young Fianna boy of 16 giving first aid to one of the wounded. Patsy died two years later from his injuries at the age of 18.

The DMP in action on O’Connell St on Bloody Sunday 1913, the second day of police riots in Dublin, early during the Lockout.
(Photo source: Internet)

In a rage at the defence by the residents of Corporation Flats of people fleeing the police charge on Eden Quay, the DMP returned there on the 31st, leaving hardly a door or stick of furniture unbroken or person unbeaten, including women and children.

The special political secret police in Dublin were the G Division of the DMP, spying and compiling files on active nationalists, republicans, socialists, suffragettes, Irish speakers, pacifists. After the Surrender of the 1916 Rising, it was they who came among the prisoners to identify them for the British Army, leading to many receiving death and jail sentences. During the 1916 Rising it appears that three DMP officers were killed by the Irish Citizen Army – while many hid in their cells.

Arrest of Jim Larkin by DMP, shortly before the rest of the DMP present attacked supporters and onlookers.
(Photo source: Internet)

During the War of Independence, the DMP G Division spied on and targeted Irish Republicans and other dissident groups. The Irish Republican Army of course targeted this force and killed a number of them. On the day when the IRA mobilised in Dublin to eliminate the special British Army counterinsurgency intelligence network, the DMP and the Auxiliaries seconded to them had already murdered Conor Clune and Volunteers Peadar Clancy and Dick McKee in Dublin Castle.

Later that day, the DMP and RIC went down to attack the GAA and murdered 14 unarmed people, including two players on the field, also injuring 60-70 people.

Aftermath of DMP baton attack on Sinn Féin public meeting in front of ruins of Liberty Hall to arrest Cathal Brugha and George Snr. Plunkett. Inspector John Mills was struck on the head by a hurley and died later in Jervis St. Hospital. His assailant was a member of Na Fianna and he was never apprehended. Mills was the first DMP officer killed after 1916 and the blow was probably not intended to be fatal. A number were shot with intention to kill during the War of Independence.
(Photo source: Internet)

AN ADEQUATE PUBLIC RESPONSE IS NECESSARY

          It is not only appropriate but absolutely necessary, as a matter of self-respect, that we mobilise a public opposition to this disgusting honouring of the spies on our people and the murderers of our martyrs.

There are many ways that this can be done but I would humbly suggest that two in particular are necessary:

  1. A mass public demonstration near the day of the ceremony (or at least near it) and near Dublin Castle (where the event is to be held);

  2. An electronic petition something along the lines of “Self-Respect: Against honouring colonial spies and murderers of our martyrs”.

          Although our people have achieved a number of successes in struggle over the years, we have often failed too. In particular we failed to give an adequate response to the visit of the British Queen (and Commander-in-Chief of the Paratroopers) to Dublin, or to Wall of Shame in Glasnevin Cemetery. There were some other visits of notable imperialists which also did not receive an adequate response.

Failure is not fatal and we can recover from it – but we cannot build on failure. We can only build on success. This public response needs to be a success and in order to achieve that it cannot be the response of one organisation or of two but needs to be a broad one in which anyone can take part who are not racists or fascists. In order to achieve that, the organising committee should be broad enough to include activists from across the oppositional spectrum who are not part of a party of government (or part of previous government) in either jurisdiction in Ireland. Such an organising committee should be able to include representatives of socialist and republican parties and collectives and also trade unionists.

A broad demonstration of that kind should be free of paramilitary displays which would represent only a section and quite probably alienate another. But all Irish and migrant community and trade union flags and banners should be permitted (with the exception of racist or fascist ones) and the broad banner on the front should spell the general theme of the demonstration.

I am conscious that I am nobody in particular to make this call but given that I think such a response is necessary and that I really want to see this, I make the call anyway and pledge myself to help.

End.

FURTHER INFORMATION LINKS

Report on planned commemoration by the Government: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/ric-and-dmp-policemen-to-be-commemorated-for-first-time-by-state-1.4128214

Collection of letters protesting whitewashing of the RIC and DMP to the Irish Times in 2013 found on Internet: http://www.inc-cne.com/RIC-DMP.pdf

NO CHRISTMAS CHEER BUT WORKER FEAR AT IVY RESTAURANT

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Civil Rights, Current Event Report, Ireland, Irish Left, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading and watching time: 2 minutes)

The Ivy Restaurant in Dawson Street Dublin, which steals part of its workers’ tips to make up their wages, continued to do so despite protests throughout 2019 and their only response to the campaigning has been to install and lower blinds whenever the protesters gather outside. Two members of staff were sacked for protesting the theft of tips (which customers assume are going to the staff) and trying to organise a trade union at their workplace.

View northward along Dawson St. in front of the Ivy Restaurant
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

          The Stop Tips Theft Campaign has been focusing on the Ivy not only in order to rectify the injustices there but also in order to clamp down on the practice in some other eateries and to prevent it spreading.

On 17th December 2019, the campaigners again picketed the restaurant for the last time for 2019, mixing serious calls for justice with songs with adapted lyrics and many wearing Christmas regalia.

It is scandalous that tips are being taken from these workers in what is now called the “hospitality sector”, who tend to the least-union-organised and also the worst paid and treated – which is exactly why the Ivy owners and management think they can get away with this.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

End.

Joan Collins TD, a regular at these protests, with megaphone.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

 

 

 

 

 

 

FURTHER INFORMATION:

https://www.facebook.com/SupporttheIvyWorkers.ie/

 

POWERFUL PROTEST AGAINST VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

On By rebelbreezeIn America Latina, Anti-Fascism, Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Gender Equality, Human Rights, Latin America, Official Corruption, Police Violence, Song, Song in Struggle, WomenLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 1 minute; watching time: 3 minutes per video)

 

A choreographed protest against violence against women is sweeping the world.  It was first seen on International Day Against Violence Against Women, 27th November in the centre of Santiago, the capital city of Chile. Organised by feminist group La Tesis, it formed part of the popular resistance to the the Sebastián Piñera regime and its repression, since accusations of rape and other sexual violence against the repressive forces have, according to a number of human rights agencies, amounted to 15% of the total (at least 70 separate cases in the first month of protests).

Source: Internet

The lyrics chanted were, in translation:
Patriarchy is a judge who judges us for being born
and our punishment is the violence that you don’t see.
It’s femicide, impunity for my murderer,
it’s disappearance, it’s rape.
And it wasn’t my fault, where I was or how I was dressed.
The rapist is you.  The rapist is you.
It’s the police, the judges, the State, the President.
The oppressive State is a macho rapist.

This was an extremely powerful and effective protest and caught the imagination of others, with videos spread by social media and also appeals across borders by feminist networks.

No doubt the continuation of the protest will take place in other contexts but it remain a powerful and innovative call.

As with other protests in Chile, those congregating in the area were attacked by forces of the State soon afterwards — the same forces against which the protest had been organised.

end.

SOURCES:

Various but chiefly https://theconversation.com/the-rapist-is-you-why-a-viral-latin-american-feminist-anthem-spread-around-the-world-128488?

A COWARD’S CURSE

On By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Anti-War, British imperialism, Capitalism, History, Ireland, National Liberation, Poetry, Rhyming Rapping & Ranting3 Comments

A poem by Scarecrow.

“No need for a blood sacrifice”, I hear you say…

“Unnecessary violence. Dead innocent children of

a badly thought-out revolution.

Home rule was on the way.” Really?

Defeated three times by those who made the promises …

What trust you must have in our oppressor!

An Englishman’s empty hollow word, and his deeds … full,

Dublin’s main street, then Sackville, now O’Connell, showing British artillery and fire damage 1916.
(Image sourced: Internet)

Ripe with Irish blood and you trust them.

As still, to-day, our North, a thousand years, lies wrapped in chains.

 

You, in your suit — and your middle class condescending education.

may sound profound in your leafy suburban period home:

Well fed, well watered, well waxed and shod.

 

You dare to preach: “No mandate”. For a revolution?

Plauseless re-writing of history

To suit an establishment bent on bending

To the power that was, and still does.

When did power ever concede willingly?

When did power ever concede to power?

When did power ever concede without blood?

Never, is the answer.

 

Yet pundits heap plaudits upon our enemy.

Praise at every turn. Entertain us with lies. Re-write history.

Ensure the next generations forget, and fall into

a slumber of cheap aristocratic swaddling.

Devoid of meaning, soothing unsettled questioning minds.

Endless obfuscation with mirrors and smoke to thwart newcomers

to this one truly remarkable moment of Irish life.

It was “doomed to fail”…. Did I hear you right?

So, don’t even try? Sit and wait, for the greediest hand

To throw crumbs at you? Give up, let the rot eat

Deeper into the psyche, burn into the soul.

 

Easy …. condemning, from your comfort, fools for company ….

Sweeping, arrogant, baseless statements …

by fat, lazy, unburdened donkeys …

Always the carrot, never the stick … and preach.

Fat, and warm, surrounded with servant-jesters,

Condemn those who have provided the foundation to build this new Nation.

From which you stand today and look, mealy-mouthed … across the water.

at the old empire for guidance on how to think.

 

Inhabitants of Dublin tenement house
(Image sourced: Internet)

Not a word from you about starvation. The death toll.

The mortality rate. The worst poverty on all this planet,

in this falling squalid Empire you speak of so lovingly.

Never the smell of fetid flesh, falling, rotting and falling

from living children even before they die … for want of a piece

of bread, from your mouth.

The squalid rancid overcrowding in crumbling Dublin.

As the poorest and lowest, coughing themselves to death.

100 souls in a single house, a toilet, a tap, no furniture, sleep on the floor.

Enough straw for only a cat …. in England’s ‘Second City’…

is four-star accommodation, by your records.

 

Festering dysentery, cholera, typhus and tuberculosis, every dying breath laboured.

The endless hungry crying of little children…the eternal ‘slumber song’ of the slum.

… And worse again, how horrible that sound, in the silence …. when even they give up…

 

”It’s safer in Flanders Fields, than in Dublin’s slums”

was your recruitment cry …

Where the strongest Irishmen bartered themselves to

serve their enemy, for a meal, and committed murder for the Crown.

Won your war for you….Won all your bloody wars for you…

Cost them their souls,

their dignity, sanity, their families, their heritage… Hunger, hunger, hunger…

Died in thousands .. Two of every Three Irishmen, in the English Army …

No condemnation from you for the sea of Irish blood spilt by the Crown?

For the Crown?

Soldiers of British Army, WW1, blinded by gas.
(Colour-enhanced image sourced: Internet)

 

“No need for blood sacrifice”?

What fool today preaches such compliance,

Washing centuries of Irish blood from England’s hands?

Blood: Imperial currency.

What ignorance today speaks such nonsense?

Those who condemn the oppressed. And exaltation for the oppressor?

The agitator, dictator, the sadist, savage, the sick cruel impostor.

Clothed in Ermine and Fur … Dripping in stolen gold and poached Diamonds.

Ignore the strains of ‘Our nearest neighbour’ to

strip all wealth, dignity, labour, song, dreams and aspiration,

from every beating Irish heart, no matter the cost, no matter the pain,

no matter the suffering. Empty the fields. Steal the food from the mouth

Of a hungry nation. Watch as millions starve, while you

… dine on our bounty.

 

It’s easy, stand back and act like you slew a giant —

when that giant is already dead

which took an empire to bring down.

 

What callous fool will today condemn those who sought to better their lot:

to stand tall, bear arms against their barbaric persecutors.?

To bring an end to their own subjugation and slavery.

End their tormentor’s grip. Their torturer’s whip.

End the deliberate impoverishment of their own lives ..

What fool would dare condemn any man or woman this right?

What person would judge guilty, this father, mother son or daughter …

who sought a better life for all, at the risk of losing his own?

 

I’ll tell you:

A coward.

The kind of man who licks the boot that kicks him.

Kisses the foot on his neck.

A man with no blood in his veins, or heart beating in his chest.

A man who thinks that power comes from the Throne and not his own people.

A man who would sacrifice all for a clap on the back from a gloved hand.

Or kiss, on bended knee, a stolen ring.

A compromised man, a weak crawling man.

A man without empathy for his own people.

A man who would see his own suffer, if he would gain

just a little affection from his oppressor ….

A traitor.

 

Scarecrow May/2016.

DUBLIN COUNTER-RALLY OUTNUMBERS RACISTS AND FASCISTS

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Fascism, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Racism, Song in Struggle1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

On what was an extremely cold day, faith groups joined with migrants and community groups, Irish Republicans, socialists, communists and anarchists to oppose a mobilisation by racists and fascists outside Leinster House, which houses the Oireachtas, the Irish Parliament. There were a couple of moments of surges towards the right-wingers but these were contained without arrests.

          The anti-racist demonstrators responded to a call for the counter-rally and occupied the space from 12.00 noon on 14th December 2019, which left the racists and fascists having to face them from the other side of Kildare Street, at the junction with Molesworth Street but, in any case, they were outnumbered at about ten to one by the anti-racists and anti-fascists. The call came from SARF (Solidarity Alliance against Racism and Fascism), Islamic Foundation of Ireland, United Against Racism and Irish Network Against Racism (INAR).

The two opposing groups facing one another seen from the northern end of Kildare Street. The anti-fascists are to the left of photo.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

“FREE SPEECH”

          The right-wing group had called for a rally to protest about the legislation proposed by the party in Government, Fine Gael, against “hate speech”. Ironically, Fine Gael are themselves a right-wing party which was formed in part out of the 1930s Irish fascist organisation, known colloquially as “the Blueshirts” (a name by which Fine Gael are known to this day by many). Earlier this year, Gemma O’ Doherty’s Youtube account was suspended and then terminated by Google because of its anti-migrant content, which gave the racists another issue: censorship of “free speech”.

Historically fascists, when their movement is weak, have often mobilised under the banner of “freedom of speech”. This has meant not only freedom to speak out against the government in power (which many anti-fascists would also wish for) but also the freedom to demonise targeted social, ethnic and religious groups and to call for their restriction, expulsion, jailing — or even death. Immediately upon gaining power, fascists restrict the freedom of speech of all others: not only of the social, ethnic and religious groups they targeted but also of their critics, the political opposition and trade unions. In this of course they are not so different from some socialist, communist or Irish Republican groups that rail against suppression and censorship only subsequently to silence criticism within their own ranks by threats, expulsions and censorship in the media they control. The point however is not to be fooled by the “free speech” demands of fascists and racists.

Section of the anti-racist mobilisation seen from a facing northward position. Beyond the irish Tricolour in the foreground, the Catalan estelada may be seen in the background, also Anarchist and Communist flags.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

All the same, this does not mean that we should support the proposed Fine Gael legislation either. “Anti-Hate Speech” legislation elsewhere was passed in capitalist states under the guise of protection of vulnerable minorities but then at times used for the protection of capitalists, royalty, government ministers and the police. If racist or homophobic incitement is the supposed target, why not specify that? Is hate itself necessarily a bad thing, if the hated object is racism, state suppression, exploitation?

Section of antifascist rally (left of photo) and most of racist rally (right) seen from facing southward position. Those wearing pink hi-viz vests are stewards.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

A BROAD RIGHT-WING, RACIST COALITION SHELTERING FASCISTS

          The origin of this right-wing coalition seems to have coalesced around former anti-corruption journalist Gemma Doherty who, some time subsequent to being fired by her newspaper after she exposed some aspects of the financial dealings of the paper’s owner, apparently underwent a transformation into a rabid anti-immigration racist. People opposed to legislation legalising gay marriage and permitting greater access to abortion gathered around her, as did others against the State’s problematic child and family agency TUSLA and some others. Accordingly it is a broad but small, generally right-wing movement of many who feel a sense of their values being ignored or undermined. How disparate at times can be judged by their demonstration at the Department of Justice building a little over a month ago, when among their signage was a banner attacking TUSLA and abuses by the Catholic Church, while a woman among their number shook a set of rosary beads at the counter-demonstration!

Viewed from near the southern end of the crowds, the right-wingers across the street to the left of photo, anti-racists closer in foreground.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The confusion was illustrated yesterday too when a woman among the right-wingers could be seen flying an estelada, a flag of Catalan independentists. From a number of people from among the counter-demonstrators who spoke to her, including Catalans and other people from the Spanish state, it appears that she equated the demonstration with demanding free speech, which she rightly stated was being denied by the Spanish state to many, including Catalan independentists.

Such groups are often believers in bizarre conspiracies (nor are they alone in that) and current among some of them is a belief that the EU plans to replace Irish people with migrants. For that reason the EU, which many Irish Republicans and socialists also oppose for very different reasons, is one of the targets of this right-wing coalition.

Organised fascists, who are currently a tiny group in the territory of the Irish state (but much larger, in the shape of Loyalists, in the British colony in Ireland, the Six Counties) find themselves generally isolated in society within the Irish state and no doubt threatened too. Therefore they try to infiltrate broader anti-government groups, as they did with a brief emergence of an Irish “Yellow Vest” movement, mostly in Dublin (see https://rebelbreeze.wordpress.com/2019/02/16/irish-yellow-vests-and-questions/) – in which they do not reveal their fascist project but present themselves as being against the Government, against corruption, for remedy of homelessness and as Irish patriots. And of course for free speech.

Nor are organised fascists the only opportunists, as a small number of politicians seeking election (or reelection) have been known to whip up fear of migrants and racist sentiment against Irish Travellers (originally a nomadic group). These offenders very recently have included an Independent TD (parliamentary delegate) from Galway and a Fine Gael candidate seeking election.

At some point of course, if they intend to come to power in society, fascists need to reveal some of their agenda but before they can do that they need to train some of their stormtroopers, public speakers and organisers and they need to command the street, at least in some areas. That was the reason for the 1930s rallies and attempted march on Dublin of the Blueshirts in Ireland, Mussolini’s Blackshirts March on Rome, the rallies and street-fighting of the Brownshirts in Germany and Moseley’s Blackshirts’ failed attempt to penetrate London’s East End. In the Spanish and Portuguese states, the fascists needed a military coup to aid them and, in the former case, the logistical and personnel assistance of the already-fascist states of Germany and Italy (a military coup was feared by the young Fianna Fáil government in 1930s Ireland too). In 2016, the need for a street presence was the reason for the attempted Dublin city centre launch of the European islamophobic organisation Pegida, which was defeated by mass mobilisation and physical opposition (for which some Irish Republicans are still being processed through the Irish courts).

Although Gemma O’Doherty and her supporters had been confronted before in Ireland, yesterday’s was the first large mobilisation against their racist anti-immigration message and it vastly outnumbered that of the racists.

Another view of both sides, mostly the anti-racists, from facing southward position.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

POLICE AND STEWARDS SAVE RACISTS AND FASCISTS FROM A TROUNCING

          Generally the two opposing forces seemed content with shouting and chanting across the street at one another, apart from the occasional anti-fascist wandering over to verbally confront the opposition. The anti-racists who in the opinion of the police got too close to the racists were sent back by the police but one of the antifascists had to approach the Gardaí (Irish state police) to remove one of the racists who had embedded himself among the anti-fascists. This seemed dangerously like asking the police to deal with the fascists whereas police bias at least is generally against the antifascists. Surely the crowd could have easily expelled him (at least) unaided?

As has been the custom with them and their intention to appear patriotic, the racists and fascists were displaying a host of Irish tricolours but this time there were a number of these also among the antifascists, along with a number of green-and-gold Starry Plough flags, as well as some communist and anarchist flags.

However, when a small group among the right-wingers pulled out the blue-and-white version of the Starry Plough, flag of the Republican Congress of the 1930s, along with the Sunburst flag of the Fianna Éireann (Republican youth group of past generations) and began waving them, a section of Irish Republicans surged forward in outrage and for a few moments the stewards and the Gardaí struggled to contain them.

Those who had brandished those particular flags were clearly delighted with the reaction they had provoked. Since at previous demonstrations of the racists and fascists they had never displayed those particular flags and, since they only made an appearance later in their rally yesterday, it seems clear that they had displayed them solely for the purpose of provocation.

A little later there was another surge from a different point which was again contained.

It was understandable, given the broad composition of the anti-racist rally, that the organisers would wish to prevent physical fighting breaking out from among their ranks on this occasion. However, there is a danger of this kind of stewarding becoming collusion with the State – or at the very least being seen to be so by sections of anti-fascists.

MIGRANTS AND IRELAND

          The bubble expansion of the Irish economy for an unexpectedly long period from the late 1980s to the beginning of this century, provided employment opportunities which could not be filled by the low level of the Irish population (a result of two centuries of heavy migration from Ireland to other countries). These employment opportunities, mostly in construction and services, tended to be availed of by migrants, mostly from European states with declining or stagnant economies but also by some from states in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and China.

Although Ireland had seen foreign colonisation from Britain for centuries, it had only experienced small emigration from elsewhere, which also tended to restricted to certain periods, for example Huguenots at the end of the 17th Century and Italians in two waves, following each World War. The change in population composition in some areas at the end of the 20th Century was startling and difficult for some to which to accustom themselves (though welcomed by others). When combined with the subsequent bursting of the Irish economic bubble and cuts in public services, severe housing crisis and a health service failing spectacularly, migrants became a handy scapegoat for some people and a useful target for fascists.

Some of the migrant communities in Ireland were represented among the anti-fascists but apart from a sprinkling of black faces, were not so easy to identify. A Catalan estelada (yes, another one) revealed a small group of Catalans representing CDR Dublin and a representative of Asamblea Nacional de Catalunya Ireland also spoke from the PA system earlier in the day. Some Spanish were in evidence and a Basque Antifascist flag could also be seen but undoubtedly the largest migrant antifascist contingent was Italian. Many of these were supporters of the Sardine movement against Italian right-wing populist politician Salvini and which welcomes migrants. Perhaps a hundred strong, they sang antifascist songs, including of course the Bella Ciao and made speeches in Italian and in English.

Section of the Italian ‘Sardine’ movement supporters.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

THE FUTURE?

          As increasingly around the world governments become more right-wing and fascist organisations mobilise, anti-fascists need to organise too. The thesis that fascism is capitalism in crisis seems well-proven which means that antifascists should not nor cannot rely on the forces of the capitalist State to prevent the growth of fascism or to protect the social and ethnic groups targeted by fascists and racists.

Although the Catholic Church in Ireland no longer has the power it had in the Irish state since its creation in the 1920s and the fascists cannot rely on its heavy backing as in the 1930s, there is no room for complacency in Ireland or anywhere else.

Mobilisation against the fascists and racists to deny them public spaces from which to recruit and to organise is essential. And a broad anti-fascist and ant-racist unity in action needs to be built, similar to what was seen yesterday although within that broad movement there also needs to be struggle against liberal ideology. But one cannot combat sickness purely by countering infection – care needs to be given to cultivation of a healthy body too. The Ireland body is sick: sick from cultural and physical colonialism, sick from territorial partition, from racist Loyalism and native gombeenism, from underdeveloped economy and plundered resources, from housing and health crises. While these remain unresolved we can expect at least sporadic outbreaks of fascist and racist infection and quite possibly an epidemic. It is not only in the struggle against fascism that unity is needed.

end

POSTSCRIPT

          From information either not available to me or unconfirmed at the time, the blue-and-white Starry Plough which had been used to provoke anti-fascists was actually seized by the latter in the scrimmage.  There was apparently another, which was allegedly seized by Republicans after the right-wingers had left for which two men were arrested and handcuffed.

According to reports, one of the right-wing women attempted to kick one of the arrested men while he was handcuffed and she was also arrested.