Recognition of Palestine in Two-States – A Solution Only for Imperialism

On October 29, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, irish history, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, PalestineLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

A wave of “recognitions of the State of Israel” have occurred around much of the world. Though at first glance these appear politically progressive, in fact they are all tied to supporting the colonial alleged “Two States Solution.”

This is quite apart from the fact that not one practical step is being taken by any of those states in order to prevent the ongoing genocide and massive displacement of Palestinians which many of the states are actually aiding.

*The fourth image is what is available for the Palestinians in the imperialist two-state plan.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Soon all but 30 member states of the UN will have recognised the Palestinian state (yet to exist) and they include western imperialist states such as Australia, Canada, France, Spain, the UK, supported by political parties both in government and opposition,¹ all proposing a ‘two-state solution’ (sic).

This proposal involves accepting the ‘right’ of a European colonial settler regime to invade and occupy a land,² subjugate most of the indigenous people, racially discriminate against them, set up an ethno-state, then carry out ethnic cleansing, genocide and further expansion.

This while simultaneously proposing 20% of the land with least water as a reservation for the indigenous people, under the guns and surveillance of the genocidal Occupier, with its borders, water and electricity supply all under the Occupiers’ control.

Many liberals and social-democrats will support the imperialist ‘solution’ being foisted upon the Palestinian people of the occupation of Gaza by a client regime and the creation of a formal Bantustan³ colony – the “Palestinian State” (sic).

This ‘solution’ was insisted upon at the three-day UN Conference in July, mandated by the UN General Assembly through resolutions ES-10/24 and 79/81 and sponsored by France and Saudi Arabiab, backed by the General Assembly President, Philémon Yang.

Also by Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, stating that the “… only just and sustainable path forward is the establishment of two independent, democratic States – Israel and Palestine – living side by side in peace and security, with Jerusalem as the capital⁴…” ⁵

Firstly, we’d have to say that there is nothing “just” about that path and secondly ask why is that the ‘”only sustainable solution?” Why cannot a democratic state of the entirety of Palestine, as pre-1948, be sustainable? Is it because the Zionists and their imperialist won’t let it be?

Then we’d be entitled to ask whether Guterres and Yang speak for the world or instead for the imperialist states and their clients and allies. In fact, since there can be no peace without justice, a democratic state of Palestine on pre-1948 territory is the only just and sustainable solution.

This scrambling to recognise the ‘Palestinian State’ within a “two-state” framework was also reflected in the recent United Nations vote for a ceasefire, which was tied to the acceptance of the two-state solution, emphasising that it has nothing to do with justice but is all about management.

The imperialist states and their allies, with the particular exception of the US and Israel, are very worried that the legacy of the current genocide will threaten their interests in Western Asia in the near future, including the regimes they depend upon to control the Arab people.

To some extent the western states are also concerned at the exposure of their regimes to their own populations in terms of collusion with genocide, financial implications , suppression of information and, in many cases, repression of democratic rights to protest.

The western states want to save West Asia for imperialism and they think that the USA and current behaviour of Israel are endangering it.

The two-state plan is not at this point supported by the Zionist state and the chief imperialist, the USA, though the plan seeks to impose what they also want: stability within the imperialist system.

Recently another international conference was held to discuss the way to resolve the situation of Western Asia and crisis in Palestine, this conference organised by Qatar following Israel’s bombing of their capital Doha in an assassination attempt against the Hezbollah negotiating team.⁶

The Iranian representative pointed out at the conclusion that although they supported some of the resolution adopted they could not agree to recognition of a Palestinian state within or adjacent to Israel, since that meant de facto recognition of the right of the genocidal Zionist state to exist.⁷

Recognition of the Palestinian State as is being done now is also recognition and acceptance of the totally unrepresentative and undemocratic Palestinian Authority and in fact, Palestinian Embassies (such as the one in Dublin) and Consulates are run through the Authority.

*Leaflet issued by an Irish solidarity organisation for a picket of the Palestinian Authority Embassy last year – subsequently there was a broad protest held outside.* (Image sourced: *from my archives*)

Although Palestine has been officially occupied by a Zionist colonial settler regime since 1948, it has had an imperialist and Zionist client Palestinian regime since the conclusion of the Oslo process (overseen for US imperialism by Bill Clinton): the Palestine Authority.

What would one expect from such a client regime? Collusion, spying, pacification? Certainly, the PA came to represent all those things. But in addition: bullying and brutal suppression, along with widespread corruption. It was managed by the Fatah leadership through the PLO.⁸

Whatever we may think of the Fatah leadership, they were by far the majority choice of the Palestinian people in the legislative elections of 1996. But by the time of the next elections in 2006, most of Palestine society had become sick of Fatah and elected Hamas instead.

A 2007 decree by President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas disqualified from election any party that did not recognise the leading role of the Fatah-dominated PLO, thereby disqualifying Hamas which denounced the decree as undemocratic and illegal.

There is a long history of imperialism choosing tame representation for occupied peoples, including British colonialism doing the same thing in Palestine.⁹

Fatah, unprepared to accept the loss of their power and corruption opportunities, refused to leave their governing positions until they were helped to leave by Hamas in a short, sharp struggle in 2007.¹⁰ Whereupon the Zionists blockaded Gaza and imperialists paid their grants instead to the PA.

However Hamas did not force the issue of their election in the West Bank, which continued under the rule, not to say dictatorship of the Palestinian Authority.

The corruption of and repression by the PA is not an opinion of the Palestinian resistance organisations alone but is widely acknowledged by all kinds of western observers, including enemies of the Resistance,¹¹ which is one reason the imperialist are calling for its ‘revamping’.

Meanwhile Abbas, ‘President’ of the PA since its inception in 2003 (and ensuring no elections since) is already laying out how democratic the rule of the PA in Gaza would be. Unlike two decades ensuring no elections in the West Bank, Abbas has been enthusiastically preparing for them in Gaza.

He seems to feel quite confident in the outcome of elections which is perhaps not surprising since he has stated that only those in agreement with the imperialist positions and the traitorous one of the PA will be allowed to stand or field candidates.

Regarding weapons, Abbas’ statements have seemed a bit contradictory. On the one hand he said that the Palestinian State alone should hold weapons while on the other he declared that the Palestine State will be unarmed.

However we can understand this to mean that Abbas and his types will ensure they are armed so as to control the Palestinians but will never use weapons against the Zionist Occupation. Even had we not the record of the Palestinian Authority to draw upon, this is clearly not a deal to support.

But it will be supported – in the first place by most of the imperialists and their client states and perhaps later by the Zionists who fear even a mention of a Palestinian State and also by those ‘friends of the Palestinians’ among the liberals and social democrats because it will bring ‘peace’.

And for them, hopefully eliminate or reduce the influence of Muslims (in particular those who are sworn to resist colonisation and imperialism). And isn’t it after all better than genocide by starvation and bombing? And so on.

We in Ireland know – or should know – that such patch solutions don’t work for the people. Our nation’s similar makeover in 1921 resulted in civil war and, within the colonial statelet, pogroms, greater poverty than anywhere in the UK, civil rights marches and sectarian assassinations.¹²

And of course, internment and an ultimately unsuccessful national resistance war of three decades. On the other side of the British Border, it meant years of underdevelopment, emigration, clerical domination and imperialist appropriation of natural resources, labour and infrastructures.

The alternative being offered to the Palestinians was summed up by a patriot at his trial, where he was convicted and sentenced to hang:

“If we are to be indicted as criminals, to be shot as murderers, to be imprisoned as convicts, because our offence is that we love our land more than we value our lives, then I do not know what virtue resides in any offer of self-government held out to brave men on such terms.

Self-government is our right, a thing born in us at birth, a thing no more to be doled out to us, or withheld from us, by another people than the right to life itself, than the right to feel the sun, or smell the flowers, or to love our kind.

It is only from the convict these things are withheld, for crime committed and proven, and my land, that has wronged no man, has injured no land, that has sought no dominion over others, my land is being treated today among the nations of the world as if she were a convicted criminal.

If it be treason to fight against such an unnatural fate as this, then I am proud to be a rebel, and shall cling to my ‘rebellion’ with the last drop of my blood.

If there be no right of rebellion against this state of things that no savage tribe would endure without resistance, then I am sure that it is better for men to fight and die without right than to live in such a state as this.

Where all your rights have become only an accumulated wrong, where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs, to gather the fruits of their own labours …

and, even while they beg, to see things inexorably withdrawn from them then, surely, it is a braver, a saner and truer thing to be a rebel, in act and in deed, against such circumstances as these, than to tamely accept it, as the natural lot of men.”¹³

It seems to me that throughout history there have been people that it was crucial for the dominant system to defeat but of which their resistance was difficult for the system to overcome.

The culture of these people resisted domination and, like grass flattened by passing footsteps, sprang up again. And again and again.

Perhaps it was the strength of these peoples’ cultures, the way their stories of themselves could not be supplanted by the stories of the invader, of the occupier, or perhaps it was some special quality of their leaders.

Perhaps it was their ability, as leaders and as people, to draw others in under the banner of resistance.

These people fought their occupiers, occasionally winning, often defeated in battle but rising again and again. Where leaders compliant to the Occupation arose, they were overthrown or sidelined, the people again taking the road of resistance. As a people, they rejected ‘peace’ in bribes or chains.

The examples of such people that march and flock into my mind as this thought occurs to me include in ancient times perhaps the Gauls, certainly the Irish and in modern times the Irish again, the Indigenous American Cheyenne, Sioux, Apache – and the Palestinians.

It is something to see now, all the European imperialists and the imperialist client regimes of the Arab world in a united front to try to pacify the Palestinians, to occupy Gaza and to force the resisting Palestinians under their client manager of the ‘Palestine’ Authority.

It is doubtful that they will succeed and we should hope that they don’t, not only for the sake of the Palestinians and other people of West Asia (the ‘Middle East’) but for our own sakes, fighting the oppression of imperialism and colonialism and the exploitation of our labour by capitalism.

For as observed earlier, the struggle of the Palestinians has destabilised the imperialist system, exposed the fraud of an international humanitarian legal system and in its member states exposed the frauds of capitalist democracy, free press and government representing the will of the people.

Solidarity with the Palestinians and outrage at Zionist genocide and imperialist collusion has brought millions of previously uninvolved people into street action which bodes well for the future and ill for the imperialist system. It’s been an education we need to continue.

End.

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Footnotes

1Within the Irish state this is also the position of Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Social Democrats and Labour.

2Commenting on this and in particular on the Australian Prime Minister’s statement on the question, Ali Albunimah of the Electronic Intifada podcast on 25/09/2025 pointed out that the question of ‘right’ was only mentioned once, and that was in reference to Israel’s alleged ‘right to self-defence’, never with regard to the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination (a right recognised in the UN Charter, unlike the ‘right of a state to self-defence’ which does not exist).

3AI summary: A bantustan was a politically created territory for black Africans in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) during the apartheid era, officially termed “homelands” or “black states”. The policy aimed to segregate and control the black population by granting them limited self-governance within these ethnically defined areas, which were never recognized internationally and were reincorporated into South Africa in 1994. The term “bantustan” was a critical term coined from “Bantu” and the Persian suffix “-stan” (meaning “land”).

4 “… based on pre-1967 lines and in line with international law and UN resolutions.”

5 https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165509

69^th December 2025.

7 https://www.iranintl.com/en/202509165715

8The Palestine Liberation Organisation, in its time comprising the secular liberation organisations of Fatah, PFLP and DFLP. The PA has repressed alternative resistance organisations and suppressed freedom of speech, even to arresting people for criticising it or posting other material on social media. Its forces have killed a civilian critic and a Resistance fighter.

9See https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-recognising-palestine-rewards-israels-pa-collaborators-not-palestinian-people

10Mass media sources usually represent this as the “Hamas takeover” which conceals the fact that they were elected to replace the previously-elected Fatah administration, whose officials refused to concede the popular will.

11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Palestine

12In case of misinterpretation, innocently or otherwise, let me state that by ‘sectarian assassinations’ I mean those carried out by British colonial proxies, i.e. Loyalist murder gangs.

13This was part of the speech of Roger Casement at his trial; my only change was to substitute the words “my land” for his own: “Ireland.” Casement’s was the 16^th execution arising out of the 1916 Rising in Ireland though he received a criminal trial instead of military court and was hanged instead of being shot by firing squad, as were the earlier 15.

Sources

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/annex-new-york-declaration-06aug25/

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165509

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202509165715

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-recognising-palestine-rewards-israels-pa-collaborators-not-palestinian-people

SUPERIORITY ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX AND RACIST IDEOLOGY

On August 31, 2025August 31, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Sovereignty, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 3 mins.)

A video clip of Tom Barrack, US Ambassador to Turkiye giving a press conference in Lebanon, in which he accused the journalists of ‘animalistic’ behaviour and threatened to be ‘out of there’ if they continued has led to much criticism.

I’d imagine Tom Barrack was tired and his patience thereby more easily stretched – I know myself how that can be. But in that circumstance, his diplomatic training stalled and out slipped his real inner attitude to the people to whom he had been sent as ambassador – the Arabs.

The journalists accepted it meekly but according to reports, the Lebanese Press Editors Syndicate called on US envoy Tom Barrack and the US State Department to issue a public apology to the Lebanese media. Some Lebanese politicians and ordinary civilians reacted even more angrily.

Lebanese in the south held a protest rally and scrawled on the ground in large letters that “Barrack is animal” and reportedly had baskets of tomatoes ready to throw at this man who is not only the USA’s Ambassador to Turkiye but is in fact also their envoy to much of the region.

*Protest at Barrack’s comments in southern Lebanon where he had been intending to go but then cancelled his visit.* (Photo sourced: *Online*)

As a result Barrack had to cancel trips to other Lebanese regions. Most media reporting and criticism has focused on Barrack’s description of the reporters’ behaviour as ‘animalistic’ but his following words were actually more insulting and had wider implication.

“This is the problem with what’s happening in the region,” he said. In other words, the allegedly “animalistic behaviour” of the reporters was symptomatic of the Lebanese in general, in Barrack’s opinion and further, one can reasonably speculate Barrack meant, of the wider Arab world.

Of course in Barrack’s mind the USA is the epitome of civilisation, the standard by which to judge all others. A European settler colony of 250 years built on genocide of the indigenous inhabitants through massacres, disease, starvation, ethnic cleansing and racist culturecide.

The USA built up an extensive agricultural plantation system maintained on slave labour, both kidnapped and imported and also raised domestically.

The colony expanded aggressively to the lands colonised by other settlers, such as the Spanish, French and the Mexican Empire, bringing legalised slavery to lands where it had been abolished, then declared the whole southern sub-continent a sphere of influence for itself alone.

This epitome or high point of civilisation is $1.8 trillion in a debt¹ that rises annually, has among the highest prisoner per population ratio in the world,² one of the highest ratios of murders³ and of number of fatal gunshot incidents per population and of regular massacres by lone gunmen.

Most of the citizens of this state will be unaware of these facts: surveys have revealed time and again the low level of geographical, political and historical awareness of even high school students in the USA.⁴

*Tom Barrack (centre, next to US Ambassador to Lebanon) in meeting with President Lebanon, Joseph Aoun in June 2025.* (Photo: *Reuters*)

So where does this attitude of superiority in an ambassador of this state come from? The USA became a world power after WWI through its industrial and military power, its oil and gas reserves and possession of the Atom Bomb. Might is not only right but the right – the right to decide!

The right to decide for others whether and how they should live. And inevitably with that must accompany the attitude of the unfitness of others to make those decisions for themselves. Not just ‘manifest destiny’ for the USA but to decide the destiny of the rest of the world.

Of course, there are categories among the unfitting and, since the settler colony was of Europeans, all other ethnic groups are even less fitted, in the US imperialist mentality. Hence the attitude toward Arabs, which annoyingly are sitting on even more oil and gas reserves than are the US.

The contribution to this attitude by the despised themselves is not to be underestimated. The ruling elites of nearly all Middle Eastern/ Eurasian states, by their servile and self-interested complicity, have contributed to the superior feeling of the rulers of the USA exhibited by Tom Barrack.

The behaviour Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Foreign Minister Joe Rajijehplays to the feeling of USA superiority. While Israeli planes bomb their land daily, drones assassinate people, troops invade, on what are they focused? Why on what the US wants, the disarming of Hezbollah!⁵

The first report on the Barrack meeting with Aoun from the Lebanese Presidential Office was of glowing servility and did not mention Barrack’s insulting behaviour,⁶ while a second statement reacting to the outrage apologised on Barrack’s behalf without mentioning him by name.⁷

Everybody who has played the servile yet threatening ‘nigger’, the drunken and dangerous ‘paddy’, has justified the superior attitude. All who abandoned their language and aped their conquerors did so too. But it is a process that can be reversed – at least by and for the subjugated.

You’ll be able to recognise those reversing the process by their descriptions in the western mass media – they will be the ‘militants’, ‘diehards’, ‘extremists’ and even the ‘terrorists’. They will usually also be described as ‘proxies’ of some state to which the Imperial West is opposed.⁸

End.

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APPENDIX

Tom Barrak is the son of Lebanese immigrants to the USA and has built his career initially around law, then property and other investments and politics, as a political and business fixer for high-level Saudi and US interests.

He has never been mistaken for a friend of the people, as opposed to of ruling circles, whether in the US or in the Middle East.

Whether a sense of shame at his origins and wanting to aspire to the values of the modern USA or his sense of entitlement as a US Government official is the cause of his attitude to the Arab Middle East world is unknown.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-deficit/

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2020/04/24/why-kids-know-even-less-about-history-now-and-why-it-matters/ and https://thepigeonpress.org/american-students-flunk-geography/ along with many other sources.

5The US-backed Israelis, whose daily violations of the Lebanon-Israel truce (guaranteed by the US!) have reached thousands, want areas of South Lebanon for permanent occupation and want the Lebanese Government to resettle their populations, according to reports of recent talks.

6President Joseph Aoun received a US delegation, which included Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Representative Joe Wilson, in the presence of US envoy Tom Barrack, Ms. Morgan Ortagus, and US Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson.

The meeting reviewed the situation in Lebanon and the region, as well as the outcomes of the delegation’s tour, in addition to the talks held by Envoy Barrack and Ms. Ortagus in Israel and Syria.

During the meeting, President Aoun renewed his gratitude to the US administration and Congress for their continued attention to Lebanon and their commitment to assist it, in line with the directives of US President Donald Trump.

He was also briefed by the delegation members on the results of their visit to Damascus, expressing great satisfaction with what they conveyed regarding Syria’s readiness to establish the best possible relations with Lebanon. He emphasized that this reflects a shared will and desire between the two countries.

President Aoun also reaffirmed Lebanon’s readiness to immediately address outstanding bilateral issues in a spirit of brotherhood, cooperation, good neighborliness, and the historic ties between both peoples, stressing Lebanon’s full support for the unity and territorial integrity of Syria. (Reported by The Cradle)

7The Presidency of the Republic regrets “the words that were inadvertently spoken from its podium by one of its guests today. It emphasizes its absolute respect for human dignity in general, and wishes to reaffirm its full appreciation for all journalists and accredited media correspondents in particular, extending to them its greetings for their efforts and dedication in carrying out their professional and national duties.”

8An old trope to rob the opponents of their own motivation and legitimacy. The insurgents of 1798 and 1803 in Ireland were described by the British as agents of France; the insurgents of 1916 as agents of Germany.

SOURCES

https://t.me/thecradlemedia/41608

Occupied Territories Bill: Too Little, Too Late, if Ever.

On July 28, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Trade unions, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (18/07/2025)

(Reformatted entire for publishing in Rebel Breeze from article of same title in his Substack

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

The saga of the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB) has been dragging on for years now. It was first put forward by Senator Frances Black in 2018 and was approved by both houses of the Oireachtas (parliament) but never enacted.

The Irish capitalist class that is resolutely on the side of the Israelis, despite the illusions of many and the odd PR stunt, dragged its heels on the issue, even boasting that it had effectively blocked it.

Simon Coveney who was the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time said during a visit to the Zionist state in 2019 that:

We don’t believe that it is legally sound because trade issues are EU competence as opposed to national competence in Ireland. And because we don’t believe it’s legally sound we have effectively blocked the legislation from moving through parliament as it normally would…

It’s essentially frozen in the process and it isn’t making progress. And I don’t expect that it will make progress, either, unless the government supports it, and the government won’t be supporting it.¹

A demonstration outside Leinster House, parliament of the Irish State recently. (Image chosen and sourced: by RBreeze on line)

This came as no surprise to anyone paying attention. Ireland is not an independent capitalist state; it is what Marxists term a neo-colony with 88% of all corporate tax paid by foreign companies and just three companies accounting for 38% of all corporate tax.

Foreign corporate tax in turn represents 29% of the total tax take in the country.² It is entirely dependent on the US and also the British state.

Many months prior to Coveney’s boast, the then Taoiseach (prime minister), Leo Varadkar had written a grovelling letter to Joe Biden to apologise for the behaviour of Irish politicians who had voted for the bill. In it he stated:

The Government has consistently and strongly opposed the Bill on both political and legal grounds and will continue to do so… Can I take the opportunity to reiterate my deep appreciation for the strong bonds of friendship between Ireland and the US, including our growing and mutually economic ties.³

There is no world in which the Irish state will stand up to the US. It won’t stop US planes shipping arms to Israel through Shannon Airport, just like it allowed the US to use the airport during the Iraq war.

Putting the OTB to parliament was not a bad idea, believing that is how we would achieve something concrete was.

They are now attempting to water it down further and exclude services from its remit, limiting it to only goods. (Note: at the time this article was written campaigners were still fighting an attempt to limit the bill in that way – Rebel Breeze)

IBEC (the Irish Business and Economic Confederation) came out with a statement that it would harm the Irish economy to enact the bill, whilst paradoxically accepting that trade in goods with Israeli “settlements” in the West Bank only amounted to €240,000.⁴

On the radio the Government reminded us that we are a trading nation, as if any of us thought that everything we buy in the country was made here and we exported nothing.

The reason they can make these statements of course, is because of the limited scope of the bill itself and the intentions of those pushing for its enactment.

The Irish government was at great pains to say that it would only apply to the territories occupied in 1967 and not to Israel itself i.e. not to the territories occupied in 1948 during the Nakba and the foundation of the Zionist state.

If you accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel or if you are one of those liberals still prattling on about a Two State Solution then all of this makes sense. It could have even been argued when it was first proposed that it was a stepping stone to a wider boycott of Israel, not that any of them said that.

*For those who believe in the two-state solution (sic) the map shows what’s available for a Palestinian State (sic).* (Image chosen and sourced: *by RBreeze on line*)

Events have overtaken our liberal friends and they shudder at the consequences. There is no longer any case to be made for a bill that limits business dealings with modern Zionist invasions of the West Bank.

Francesca Albanese in her recent report made it abundantly clear that many companies doing business with Israel are profiting from or contributing to the genocide.⁵ Now is not that time for half measures. Israel, just like the Nazis is carrying out a genocide.

Asking for a boycott of goods from the Warsaw Ghetto, rather than Nazi Germany would have seemed stupid at the time and actual calls for a boycott of the Nazis were portrayed as anti-German.

Some Jewish organisations opposed the boycott and the US government response to violence against German Jews was that the

U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull issued a mild statement to the American ambassador to Berlin complaining that “unfortunate incidents have indeed occurred and the whole world joins in regretting them.” He expressed his personal belief, however, that the reports of anti-Jewish violence were probably exaggerated.⁶

We know how this ended. The Nazis in the face of the timorous and timid response from the US and other western powers would eventually enclose Jews in ghettos, then camps and then push six million of them through the ovens.

Now is not the time to repeat history but to be bold and decisive. Now it is equally ridiculous to meekly petition, those who grovelled to Genocide Joe in 2019, to restrict goods from the West Bank.

In the midst of a genocide there is only one option on the table: a complete and total severance of all trade, military and diplomatic ties with Israel. There are no “settlements” without the Nazis in Tel Aviv, without the Israeli military, without the companies that keep Israel going.

*A Banner on the IPSC National March 19th April 2025 in Dublin, appearing to show a believed organic connection between the enacting of the OTB and ending the Zionist genocide in Palestine.* (Image sourced and chosen: *R.Breeze*)

Total isolation of the entire regime is needed. Not an orange, not a single electronic component, not a kilobyte of software. Such isolation should continue not just till the acts of genocide have ceased.

They will cease when the repugnant reality that Israel has run out of Palestinians to murder comes to pass.

Israel should be isolated until all those involved have been tried, had all their assets confiscated, given lengthy prison sentences or hung until dead, depending on the actual degree of participation.

This is not an outrageous proposal, it is what was theoretically done at Nuremberg, though many of the businessmen were given back their assets after a number of years and only a handful of Nazis got the actual death penalty and most never saw the inside of a jail.

No such leniency should be shown to the Zionists.

Those campaigning on the OTB will never make such a call. They will continue to petition the government. They do have another weapon to hand in fighting the Nazis in Tel Aviv, but they won’t call for that either.

The Irish Council of Trade Unions denounced the government’s handling of the OTB and called on the Oireachtas to reject the “business lobby scaremongering” and to pass the OTB.⁷

Of course, the unions don’t need to persuade the Zionists who dominate the coalition parties, they could just have told their members in 2018 to refuse to handle all products coming from the Occupied Territories, or indeed the entire Zionist state and that would have settled it.

They would have to organise that and back all their members who engaged in such boycotts. But under no circumstances will the fat cat bureaucrats ever confront the government over this issue.

If they are not prepared to fight for decent wages, a proper health system, public housing etc, all of which directly affect their members, less still will they fight for Palestinians. They are traitors to their class and also betrayers of the Palestinian people, despite all their lofty statements.

The OTB was a nice propaganda measure whose time has passed. It is, in the midst of a genocide, no longer fit for purpose, neither is a solidarity movement which limits itself to half measures. We need to be bolder.

End.

NB: For more articles by Gearóid see https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com

NOTES

1 The Times of Israel (03/12/2019) Visiting Israel, Irish FM says he’s open for ‘new thinking’ on peace process. Raphael Ahren. https://www.timesofisrael.com/visiting-israel-irish-fm-says-hes-open-for-new-thinking-on-peace-process/

2 Reuters (30/04/2025) Ireland’s reliance on foreign multinational taxes grew in 2024. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/irelands-reliance-foreign-multinational-taxes-grew-2024-2025-04-30/

3 The Irish Times (22/03/2019) Economics should not trump ethics when it comes to Occupied Territories Bill. Suzanne Mulligan. https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/economics-should-not-trump-ethics-when-it-comes-to-occupied-territories-bill-1.3834221

4 The Irish Times (17/07/2025) ‘No real evidence’ Ocuppied Territories Bill would cost Ireland dearly, Amnesty Chief says. Colm Keena & Mark Henessy. https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/07/17/ibec-head-labels-occupied-territories-bill-symbolism-and-moral-positioning/

5 UN (2025) From economy of occupation to economy of genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Francesca Albanese. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session59/advance-version/a-hrc-59-23-aev.pdf

6 Feldberg, M. (n/d) U.S. Policy During World War II: The Anti-Nazi Boycott. Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/1933-anti-nazi-boycott

7 ICTU (17/07/2025) Oireachtas must reject business lobby scaremongering and pass the Occupied Territories Bill. https://ictu.ie/news/oireachtas-must-reject-business-lobby-scaremongering-and-pass-occupied-territories-bill

ECHOES FROM SHANNON: “SOVEREIGNTY FOR IRELAND NOW!”

On October 15, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Róisín Nic Ghiolla Ír

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

On Saturday 12th October, thousands of people descended on Shannon Airport^¹ in an organic action to protest our land and airspace being used in the transport of U.S. munitions bound for Zionist Israel.

Demonstrators arriving in buses and cars were immediately met with Garda pushback at checkpoints about 2 kilometres from the entrance of Shannon Airport.

The diverted protestors were led down side roads and cul-de-sacs away from the mini roundabout area where regular anti-war protests occur. Such diversions epitomise government strategy perfectly: Divert. Distract. Divide.

The protestors were met with a hostile environment of steel barriers erected to separate and divide them upon entering the airport from all directions.

The weather was not so unkind, as the sun emerged around noon in time for the beat of the drums striking up an atmosphere of resistance and bold defiance.

*Drums, placards, flags and chants at Shannon Airport Saturday* (Photo source: *Participant*)

As the crowd descended, the silence was broken by Social Rights Ireland with a number of speeches given addressing Ireland’s connection with Palestine’s struggle for liberation, whilst our banners, “Break the Chains of Zionism” and “Sovereignty for Ireland NOW!” acted as a backdrop.

Various chants ensued, such as, “From Ireland to Palestine, occupation is a crime!”, “Resistance is an obligation in the face of occupation!” and “Saoirse don Phalastín!” Overall, the protest was peaceful and lasted several hours.

Two arrests were made under Section 6 of the Public Order Act following some pushing at barriers where protestors were gathered.

As we know, genocide has been ripping through Palestine, devastating an entire population. Reports of the most brutal and dehumanising acts have forced people of conscience from all corners of the earth to confront the questions: how can this happen?

Why is no government or institution able to stop this Zionist terrorism?

For the first time in human history, a government has openly declared and is conducting a live-streamed genocide. This government also claims it is civilised, democratic and an upholder of human rights.

What started as a war of displacement has turned into a war of total obliteration. Meanwhile, the Irish people look on aghast, lost for words and running out of ideas as to how to make it stop.

The Free State^² watches too, unwilling to act but feigning concern and placating the masses with saccharine-coated words and vacuous gestures.

On the 9th October 2024, Fine Gael blueshirt,^³ Simon Harris^⁴ declared, “I think the world in general has failed the children of Gaza,” speaking in abstraction as if he is indeed not “part of the world”.

Not only is this an expression of abdication of responsibility, this admission to the people of Ireland confirms that he knows he is indeed powerless, a mere subject of his U.S. imperialist masters. Whether most Irish voters realise this, is debatable.

Allowing U.S. weapons to pass through our civilian airport, while claiming to be a neutral country and letting on to be concerned about the children of Gaza, is not simply an example of Fine Gael’s hypocrisy or gaslighting.

It is also blatant testimony to Harris’s and the state’s complete unwillingness to cut any ties with the U.S. Today the Free State is a tool of the Zionist ruler, it cannot fathom a future that is not connected to U.S. imperialism.

It is important for the Palestinian solidarity movement to not confuse solidarity and sovereignty.

How can Irish voters fully and genuinely express solidarity with the oppressed and work hand in hand with the oppressor? How can Irish voters call for an end to genocide whilst continuing business as usual?

How can politicians feast with genociders and sympathise with the starving?

Those who understand how oppression works know instinctively that hypocrisy is inbuilt to the psyche of politicians and the ruling class. The idea that politicians or the ruling class can be appealed to is pointless.

The façade of Western democracy has completely unravelled. European values have been dismantled and replaced by E.U. interests best illustrated in the rise of Zionist leaders such as Ursula von der Liar and fascist governments across the E.U.

Anti-genocide protestors must stop trusting, appealing to, working with or appeasing the oppressor, be that Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Green fascist Party, or indeed, so-called opposition parties on the neo-liberal Left.

While those who descended on Shannon had a common, collective demand for the government to STOP THE PLANES! STOP THE BOMBS! what is still missing from our collective conversation is the topic of Ireland’s sovereignty.

To question WHY the U.S. or indeed the British forces can use our land, sea and air ports is of vital importance. Socialist Republicans understand that only a 32-county socialist workers’ republic can be truly sovereign, free from the chains of imperialism, free from Zionism.

We know Ireland’s long history of oppression. We know occupation, dispossession and genocide. We know what displacement means and being stripped of our land, our resources, our mother tongue.

However, the slow erosion of our identity as a people through persecution, plantation, genocide, occupation and pacification is not always grasped by the Irish population following the successful assimilation process which still has a tight grip on our people.

This process is mediated through a pervasive neo-colonial mindset which continues to infect many in our places of work, education and society more generally.

Yes, since October 2023, the Irish people have turned their outrage in action, mobilising in local communities and workplaces to take a stand against genocide.

Yes, many have applied pressure to the government via petitions, rallies and calls to support bills in government that they believe will effect change.

In response, the Irish government agreed to recognise the state of Palestine, but of course, this action means nothing for the people in Palestine who continue to be bombed, brutalised and slaughtered. But nothing tangible has happened.

If anything, the situation grows worse as the threat of nuclear confrontation becomes imminent.

Trying to quell the rising anger on the streets, the Free State government has attempted to placate Irish voters by deceiving them in the run up to election time.

Real action begins with expelling the Zionist Ambassador from Ireland. Real action begins with stopping U.S. war planes from using our airports. The Free State’s social control mechanism via its fake support for Palestine may fool some voters and placate neo-liberals, just in time for the general election.

In the words of Connolly,^⁵ “Yes, ruling by fooling is a great British art – with great Irish fools to practice on.”

*Section of the protest at Shannon Airport on Saturday* (Photo cred: *Mostafa DarwishAnadolu via Getty Images*).

End.

Footnotes

1Located in Co. Clare in the west of Ireland, one of two international airports in the Irish state and has been the target of protests over the years due to documented cases of US military planes landing and taking off from there and Irish Government refusal to inspect alleged non-military US planes for military personnel, materials or indeed prisoners subject to ‘extraordinary rendition’ to CIA dark sites in client states.

2This was the name the neo-colonial state adopted when it was formed in 1921 and the name stuck particularly among the abandoned nationalist population of the occupied Six Counties colony.

3A pejorative term for Fine Gael, recalling its founding from a coalition of three parties, one of which was the fascist Army Comrades Association, commonly known as the ‘Blueshirts’ which described a part of their uniform.

4Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the current 3-party coalition government of the Irish state: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party.

5James Connolly, revolutionary socialist worker intellectual, historian, journalist, song-writer and trade union organiser, born and raised in Edinburgh, one of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of Irish Independence and Dublin Commandant of the Rising, executed along with the other signatories after the surrender of the Rising in Moore Street.

Further information

Take a look at Social Rights Ireland 🇮🇪 🇵🇸 (@SocialRightsIRL): https://x.com/SocialRightsIRL?t=kHRYLef3m64BX-x2MfPwBw&s=08

WHY BOMB DUBLIN AND MONAGHAN?

On May 17, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Film Review, History commemoration, Ireland, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Massacres, Poetry, Political Analysis, SongLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

Thirty-five people were killed by bombings on 17^th May 1974, the most in one day during the recent 30 Years War but outside of Ireland and even within it, most people are unaware of that fact. That’s because the perpetrators were not the IRA.

And probably also because the victims were killed not just in Ireland but within the Irish state. Also no doubt because the perpetrators were Loyalists led by British Intelligence.

*Section of westward end of attendance at event as President Michael D Higgins approaches (just out of view)*(Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Three bombs exploded on that day in the middle of a rush hour in Dublin City Centre: Talbot Street, Parnell Street and South Leinster Street. Somewhat later, a bomb exploded also in Monaghan Town. Altogether 35 were killed¹ and “about 300”² injured, some permanently.

*The names of some of the victims being displayed at the premiere of the Anatomy of a Massacre documentary.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Within days and perhaps hours a number of suspects among Loyalist murder gangs had been identified but they were not arrested or even questioned about the atrocity – no-one ever was. Despite that, the Gardaí closed the case investigation seven months afterwards that same year.

A new documentary on the atrocities by Fergus Dowd was premiered in Dublin on Friday to two full screen auditoria in the Lighthouse Cinema, Smithfield, featuring interviews with witnesses, victims and relatives of victims, a former Taoiseach and a former State forensic scientist.

May-17-74 Anatomy of a Massacre is directed by Joe Lee and produced by Fergus Dowd.

The forensic expert had been given very little of the remains of cars containing the bombs since most had been sent to the RUC (colonial police) for their analysis (!) from which nothing useful emerged but he was able to determine that a high amount of amatol had been used.

At that time only the IRA among “paramilitary organisations” had the expertise to develop that explosive material which leads commentators to believe that the Loyalists received the necessary quantities from those seized from the IRA and held by the British armed forces.³

Given that many of the Loyalists involved were members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, a British Army unit, on the face of it the explosives could have been directly supplied by the British Army or indirectly obtained through the UDR as members of the British Army.

Nothing adverse is known about the Garda Commissioner who sent the exploded car remains to the colonial police but his Deputy and successor was Ned Garvey and whistle-blowing British spook Fred Holroyd claimed Garvey was a British Intelligence “asset” and to have met him in Dublin.

Confronted with this exposé years later Garvey admitted having met Holroyd but not to being a British spy – though he had not informed his superiors of his meeting with a foreign secret service agent. ⁴ Sadly this is not alluded to in the documentary.

As documented in Anatomy there had been a Loyalist bombing campaign of Dublin since 1969,⁵ with those in 1972 and 1973 killing between them three transport workers and no-one had been arrested by Gardaí or extradition sought in connection with even those fatal explosions.

No documentary about the bombing was made by RTÉ, the Irish broadcaster until 2004, thirty years after the atrocity.

However a much earlier documentary was by British company Yorkshire Television on ITV in 1993⁶. RTÉ had declined the offer of joint screening and many people in Ireland who did not have access to ITV at the time missed it or had to go to a friend or relative to view it.

The British documentary was mentioned only in passing by one of the interviewees in Anatomy but without reference to RTÉ’s declining of the offer of joint screening.

British spook whistleblower Colin Wallace states that he was obliged to report on every meeting he had with Loyalists or others and his erstwhile bosses would have kept those papers, as they would have for the MI5 operatives who steered the bombing gang for Dublin and Monaghan.

The existence of MI5 documents that would throw much light on the bombings was referred to a number of times in Anatomy and the Justice for the Forgotten campaign keeps seeking them. Irish Government ministers regularly state that they have requested them but are always refused.

Missing from the documentary was what is now known of the secret contemporary memos of Arthur Galsworthy, British Ambassador to the Irish state: It is only now that the South has experienced violence that they are reacting in the way that the North has sought for so long …

… I think the Irish have taken the point.

Galsworthy also noted that the Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Garret FitzGerald told him that “the government’s view was that popular hostility appeared to be directed more against the IRA“.

In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, both Liam Cosgrave for the Government and Jack Lynch for the Opposition sought to widen the blame to include Irish Republicans.⁷

VIEWING THE DOCUMENTARY

Two screens at the Lighthouse cinema were fully booked to view the premiere.

The documentary is fascinating and some of the witnesses and relatives really excellent in their descriptions and commentary. Others interviewed pulled no punches in castigating successive Irish governments for closing the investigation and allowing it to remain closed.

Some, too, alleged a conjunction of interests between the Irish and UK states in ensuring the truth about the perpetrators and the Irish State’s reaction never surfaced.

Many people prominent in Irish political circles at different ends were present to see the premiere and after a few words from Margaret Unwin, Coordinator of the Justice for the Forgotten campaign, along with filmaker Dowd, the Resistance Choir sang their song composed about the bombing.

*The Resistance Choir performing their song about the bombing massacre* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Section of crowd from the Monument eastward* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Justice for the Forgotten organise a commemoration of the atrocity every year at which some music and poetry is performed, along with speeches by politicians representing the Irish State, and the local authority Councils of Dublin City and Monaghan and another individual or two.

Some of what is said there I have welcomed and some disliked but most of all I detest Ministers in the Irish Government coming there to tell us how they want the British State to release their secret documents regarding the event but never have any action to pressurise its Ministers in mind.

*Cormac Breatnach playing low whistle at event* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

This year, the 50^th anniversary, the event took place after noon on Friday 17^th May with a large crowd but only one speaker listed, President of the Irish State Michael D. Higgins, with traditional Irish music from Cormac Breatnach and Eoin Ó Dillon, a duo performing at the event for years.

Eoin Ó Ceannabháin sang The Parting Glass and poet Rachel Hegarty performed her poem about the bombing. But there was a surprise speaker also, an Italian from Breschia who also referred to state collusion in a bombing against an anti-fascist rally in his home town the same year, a few weeks later.

*Poet Rachel Hegarty performing her poem about the event* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The MC of the event, Aidan Shields, son of fatal victim Maureen, told the audience to applause that Justice for the Forgotten would be sending a delegation to Breschia for the 50^th commemoration of the atrocity in their town.

*At left, Aidan Shields, son of fatal victim and MC at event*, *with Monument to the victims centre* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

WHY THE BOMBING?

Trainee journalists are told to answer the ‘Five Ws’ in their reports: who, what, where, when and why.

The answers to four of those questions have been known for decades: Dublin and Monaghan is where; 17 May 1974 was the when; the bombing atrocity was the what. The who were the Loyalists and British Intelligence. But nobody seems to attempt to answer the why – or even to ask that question.

For the earlier 1972 bombing, the “why” is clear: to get the Irish parliament to vote for the Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act.

And they were successful in that since, all logic to the contrary, some of the Opposition decided to believe that the bombing was the work of Irish Republicans. So we now have that no-jury political court and senior Gardaí can give ‘evidence’ unseen by the accused from Garda “secret files”.

Apart from the guidelines of journalism, there are also those with regard to criminal investigations, which outline the importance of motive and opportunity. The British secret service certainly had opportunity – but what was their motive?

A bombing such as that in Dublin on 1974, in the Irish State’s capital city, is a message to the Irish ruling class (though the victims be different) were the. And from the British state through their intelligence service, which would hardly dare to carry out such an attack without at least the endorsement of their masters.

So the message was … what? “We will bomb your capital city if you don’t do what we want or if you do what we don’t want”? But the Irish ruling class was already cooperating about as fully as possible with the occupation in the Six Counties and repressing resistance in the Twenty-Six.

A similar campaign occurred in the 1980s, in the Basque Country within the French state (mostly). The Spanish Government waged a terrorist campaign⁸ of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations against suspected activists of the armed Basque liberation group ETA.

It seemed that what the Spanish authorities wanted was for the French to turn over Basque activists who were on the “French” side of the Border to the Spanish authorities, something the French had been unhappy to do, the Guardia Civil believed to be torturers even after Franco’s death.

After some of those bombings, the social-democratic French Government led by Mitterand began to hand over Basque activists to the authorities across the border, sometimes without even going through the official extradition procedures.

The Irish State did also permit extradition of Irish Republicans to the Six Counties (and later to Britain too) after the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, but not until ten years later, with Dominic McGlinchy, which hardly looks like the effect following its cause.

The Sunningdale Agreement had been signed in December 1973 which proposed some kind of power-sharing between nationalists and unionists with a role for the Government of the Irish state against which the Loyalists of the Ulster Workers’ Council had organised a general strike.

A British whistleblower, Colin Wallace claims that the bombing was a warning to the Irish ruling class to keep their fingers out of the colony.

VICTIMS AND RULING CLASS

Apart from not answering or even seeking the motivation for MI5 to arrange and oversee the bombing, I have not seen any discussion of the class nature of the locations. The bombings of 1972 and 1973 targeted transport workers.

But the bombings on the north side of the river in areas to the east of O’Connell Street also took place in areas where working and lower middle-class people worked, shopped and got on to the public transport buses. This hardly seems accidental.

*Aftermath in Talbot Street facing westward with Connolly Station tower in far background* (Photo: PA)

A part of MI5’s message could have been: “This time it was mostly the kind of people nobody (who are in power) cares about, so be thankful. Next time we might hit the north-east centre around Henry Street, or areas around Trinity College, Dame Street and Grafton Street on the south side.”

One other point that is rarely made is that the bombing and the State’s reaction to it showed the totally craven and foreign-dependent nature of the Irish ruling class, to allow their capital city to be bombed by another state without seeking revenge or even restitution.

The French state made a deal with the Spanish after some bombs exploded in territory to which it laid claim but does anyone believe the result would have been the same if the Spanish terrorist groups had bombed Paris?

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 Some accounts give a total of 34 or 35 dead from the four bombings: 34 by including the full-term unborn child of victim Colette Doherty, who was nine months pregnant; and 35 by including the later still-born child of Edward and Martha O’Neill. Edward was killed outright in Parnell Street.

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Monaghan_bombings

3 Whether as a gift or stolen from the stores.

4 When Fianna Fáil came into government, they sacked Garvey but presumably not wanting to expose British Intelligence penetration of the Irish State’s management upper echelons, gave as a reason only that they had no confidence in him. This opened the way for Garvey to claim wrongful dismissal and win, giving him a payout and retaining his pension. Garvey was also important in running the notorious “Heavy Gang” within the Special Branch.

5 The Wolfe Tone Monument in Stephens Green had been blown up and the O’Connell monument, the Glasnevin ‘Round Tower’ had also been bombed.

6 “Yorkshire Television broadcast a documentary entitled ‘Hidden Hand – the Forgotten Massacre‘ made as part of its ‘First Tuesday‘ series. The programme dealt with the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974. [The programme came to the conclusion that the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) would have required assistance to carry out the bomb attacks. There was speculation as to where such assistance might have come from. While no firm conclusions were reached, it was suggested that the security forces in Northern Ireland were the most likely source of help. Allegations concerning the existence of a covert British Army unit based at Castledillon were considered; as well as alleged links between that unit and Loyalist paramilitaries. It was shown that Merlyn Rees, the former Secretary of Sate, had known of the unit’s existence. On 15 July 1993 the UVF issued a statement in which it claimed sole responsibility for the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings.]” https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/dublin/chron.htm

7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Monaghan_bombings (The Aftermath)

8 Mostly using the GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación [sic]) cover name.

SOURCES& USEFUL LINKS

Justice for the Forgotten campaign: https://www.patfinucanecentre.org/projects/justice-forgotten

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Monaghan_bombings

https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/dublin/chron.htm

Breschia fascist bombing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_della_Loggia_bombing

LEGACY OF MANDELA AND THE ANC – A BROKEN SOCIETY

On January 8, 2024January 8, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Africa, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Massacres, National Liberation, peace processes, Police Violence, Political Analysis, South Africa, Sud AfricaLeave a comment

News & Views No. 14 Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

We need to be careful when elevating people from our ranks to the status of heroes – especially if they are alive and can renounce or betray the principles they originally fought for.¹

And we have the right to be suspicious when those heroes are also acclaimed by the capitalists and imperialists, those who are certainly not our friends. But most of all, it is by their fruits that we can best evaluate people, whatever their past actions.

The society bequeathed after years of heroic struggle to the South African masses is broken. Housing and homelessness crisis,² unemployment, poverty,³ prostitution, lack of medical care, inadequate sanitation and soaring crime, including violent crime – is not what the people fought for.

And this is occurring in a country rich in natural resources⁴ which are being extracted daily by imperialism, while the few on top — the earlier white settler bosses now joined by the corrupt black bourgeoisie – live in luxury.

CRIME & POLICING

Anton Koen, a former police officer who now runs a private security firm that specialises in tracking and recovering hijacked and stolen vehicles believes that “It’s not getting better, it is getting worse”, with the murder rate the highest it’s been in 20 years.

In crime-ridden societies, the poor suffer the most and are of course also recruited into crime.

There were 27,494 killings in South Africa in the year to February 2023, compared with 16,213 in 2012-2013. South Africa’s homicide rate in 2022-2023 was 45 per 100,000 people, compared with a rate of 6.3 in the US and around one in most European countries.

Those who can afford it, hire private security, which is a booming business with South Africa’s security industry — one of the largest in the world, with more than 2.7 million registered private security officers registered in the country, according to the regulating agency, the PSIRA.⁵

“People with money make up a very small percentage of South Africa, said Chad Thomas, an organised crime expert who has worked more than 30 years in police work and now in private security.⁶

“That means that the vast majority of South Africans don’t really benefit from this security industry … If you live in a traditional township environment, or if you live in an informal settlement …⁷ security patrols in those areas are few and far between because they don’t have paying customers.”

Thomas, like many, ties the high levels of violent crime in South Africa to anger over the country’s deep problems of poverty.⁸

Private security companies are paid a monthly fee to patrol neighbourhoods and for providing armed response to their clients’ alarm systems. Tracking and car recovery can be part of the service, often resulting in getting involved in high-speed chases of car thieves and hijackers.

According to the PSIRA, the number of security businesses in South Africa grew by 43 per cent in the past decade, while the number of registered security officers has increased by 44 per cent. Meanwhile there are 150,000 police officers for the country’s 62 million people.

It is hardly surprising that the SA police force has difficulty in recruiting numbers. It is a force used to violently repress people⁹ and culpable in the worst massacre of working people in South Africa’s modern history, killing 40 striking miners over a couple of days.

That slaughter occurred in 2012 at the British-owned Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, when miners wished create a new union and to leave the National Union of Mineworkers which, they said, was more in favour of their employers than the workers.¹⁰

Cyril Ramaphosa, the millionaire ex-President of the NUM was widely suspected of having organised the massacre and he’s now President of the ANC and of the South African Government. At the time, Jacob Zuma was President, now in the process of being tried for financial corruption.

But Mandela was still alive and at liberty when the massacre occurred and did not condemn the atrocity nor those responsible. Long-time anti-apartheid campaigner (and Mandela’s friend) Bishop Tutu once famously commented that “The ANC stopped the gravy train – long enough to get on it.”¹¹

IMPORTANT

Is it important whether this person or that were truly the heroes they are reputed to have been? I think it is, not only because we tend to erect them as models for our behaviour but also because their lives and their choices present us with historical lessons.

The South African regime during the struggle was a white European settler state and like all of those, undemocratic and racist too. The masses rose up several times against it but people did not risk beatings, torture, imprisonment and death merely for the right to vote.

The struggles were so strong and the minority settler regime so emphatically opposed to reforms that its imperialist partners felt it vulnerable to revolution. They eventually convinced the regime to enfranchise the majority black population.

But what if the black masses went on kick out the imperialists?

The change had to be managed and the leadership of the ANC, the NUM and the Communist Party of South Africa proved willing to control their supporters. However, something else was needed, as in similar circumstances: a known face, a hero, to be the figurehead before the masses.

*Representative of USA, chief imperialist country and Nelson Mandela after latter’s release.*

Mandela proved to be that man, not only for his long imprisonment for guerrilla action but because he had been tested among the political prisoners on Roben Island and was judged the most suitable, so he had been separated from the other political prisoners to a new jail for grooming.

Mandela, after a huge publicity buildup around the world, was released in 1990 and began a series of negotiations with the settler minority’s leadership. In 1994, with universal suffrage, Mandela was easily elected head of the ANC and of the new government of South Africa.

Of the wave of pacification processes that swept around the world starting in the very early 90s with Al Fatah in Palestine, the South African process turned out to be the only one that delivered any of the objectives of what was promised¹² — and that was the vote for everyone.

But it had the potential beyond that gain: of national liberation, the possession of all its natural resources and of a progressive social order, a beacon for the rest of Africa. It was important for imperialism to prevent all that and, with the help of the leaders of the ANC, NUM and CPSA, they did so.

The immediate result was a drop even further in the standard of living of the masses and an increase in the rapacious grip of imperialism on the natural resources, while municipal services declined further and crime at the bottom took off, matching corruption at the top.

The broken society there now is the cumulative result and should serve as a lesson about pacification processes, negotiations during struggle and our choices of heroes – or those chosen for us.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1As we in Ireland can testify, with the lionisation of Michael Collins, for example, for his role in the War of Independence (1919-1921) but who, a little later, acted on behalf of the Irish colonial bourgeoisie and their British masters to launch the Civil War (1922-1923) to prevent the establishment of a 32-County Republic.

2 https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/fire-engulfs-illegal-housing-block-killing-73-in-south-africa-4353926

3 As of 2023, around 18.2 million people in South Africa are living in extreme poverty, with the poverty threshold at1.90 U.S. dollars daily (see Statista in Sources & References).

4See Sources & References

5The Private Security Industry Regulatory Agency.

6 https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/private-security-firms-fill-void-in-crime-riddled-south-africa-1572546.html

7Ibid.

8Ibid.

9For examples see series of articles in https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/police-brutality-in-south-africa

10It was notable that those popular organisations deeply implicated in pacification processes either reported with great restraint on the massacre or failed, like the Left-Nationalist Basque trade union LAB, to comment on it at all (to say nothing of sending a solidarity message to the striking workers or denouncing the State).

11 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/anc-boards-the-gravy-train-john-carlin-in-johannesburg-on-the-underdogs-who-have-become-fat-cats-in-a-few-months-1379001.html

12For example Palestine, Ireland, the Basque Country, Turkish Kurdistan, Colombia, Sri Lanka …

SOURCES & REFERENCES

Crime and private security firms: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/private-security-firms-fill-void-in-crime-riddled-south-africa-1572546.html

SA police: https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/police-brutality-in-south-africa

SA Housing: https://rebelbreeze.com/2023/09/30/pacification-kills-too/

https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/fire-engulfs-illegal-housing-block-killing-73-in-south-africa-4353926

SA Poverty: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263290/number-of-people-living-in-extreme-poverty-in-south-africa

Click to access 15%20Mineral%20Resources.pdf

ANC corruption: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/anc-boards-the-gravy-train-john-carlin-in-johannesburg-on-the-underdogs-who-have-become-fat-cats-in-a-few-months-1379001.html

IRISH MEDIA WITH BRITISH & NATO PROPAGANDA

On December 21, 2023December 21, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Ireland, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, NATO, Political Analysis, US Imperialism2 Comments

News & Views No. 11 Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

The Irish State is one of four of the European Union which are not also members of the US/NATO military organisation¹ but the Irish national ruling class keeps up propaganda to get its citizens to accept the “need” for membership.

The UK’s colony of Six Counties is included in NATO which means that over one-fifth of Irish land is already formally a part of the imperialist military alliance.² In addition, successive Irish State governments have long been collusive in permitting US military use of Shannon Airport.

The ruling class’s propaganda is emitted not only by politicians’ statements and pro-NATO conferences³ but also through media articles. In this article⁴ the headline clearly gives the impression that the UK is rendering Ireland needed protection from Russia:

“UK had to come to Ireland’s aid with Russian submarine hovering off Cork harbour”!

Image shows two RAF Typhoons sitting off of the wing of a Voyager tanker after taking on fuel. A multitude of Royal Air Force aircraft flew in-support of Exercise Joint Warrior 2020, most notably 617 Squadron F-35B’s who flew alongside US Marine Corps (USMC) VMFA 211 Squadron F-35B aircraft. (Image sourced: *Internet*)

WITH ‘PROTECTORS’ LIKE THAT …!

In fact, throughout the history of the existence of the Russian entity, whether as kingdom, empire, socialist or capitalist state, not once has it caused or even threatened the Irish people (and during the 1916 Rising and war of independence its leaders praised the Irish struggle for independence).

On the other hand, the rulers of England, being cast as our protectors, have invaded and colonised Ireland, stolen our natural resources, exploited and massacred our people, repressed our resistance, undermined language and culture, sabotaged our economy and finally partitioned our nation.

To obliterate that reality from Irish popular consciousness is far from easy but first the English and then the Irish national ruling class or bourgeoisie has been at work on that project for centuries.

In 1366, less than two centuries after invasion, the Statutes of Kilkenny sought to end the cultural integration of its colonists, whom the English rulers called “the degenerate English” and whom they accused of having “become more Irish than the Irish themselves”.

During the 16^th and 17^th centuries the English Crown carried out a number of wars in Ireland to force the indigenous Irish and many of its colonists to accept the Crown’s religion as their own and even exported Irish people as slaves to their American and Caribbean colonies.⁵

They also organised a number of settlement colonies on Irish land from which they had expelled the natives, requiring the settlers to be English-speaking, non-Catholics, to build house and town for defence and not to employ Catholics.

In the 1780s the English occupation created an Irish colonial chivalric order, the Order of St. Patrick, with a red saltire, to which Irish settlers and Irish were encouraged to belong. That saltire, along with St. Andrew’s, is worked along with the cross of St. George to make the Union Jack.

Towards the end of the 18^th Century the English founded the Orange Order to foster division between those of Catholic faith and adherents of the various Protestant sects; then repressed the Republican rising and instituted a reign of terror.

They followed that up at the turn of the Century by organising the dissolution of the Irish Parliament and repression of another Rising. Later that century they oversaw the elimination of a third of our population once again through starvation, disease and forced migration.

Their colonial education service spread the English language further, penalised Irish-speaking children and encouraged children to think of themselves as “English”: ‘Indeed, the following verse was to be hung in every national school:

“I thank the goodness and the grace
That on my birth have smiled,
And made me in these Christian days
A happy English child.“’⁶

In the early decades of the 20^th Century the English ruling class, by now of the UK, suppressed another rising and sent thousands off to die in imperialist war, outlawed an Irish popular democratic parliament and fought a war or repression and terror against the Irish people.

Following up on that, the Crown subverted a section of the nationalist movement and instigated a civil war against Irish Republicans, arming and clothing the army of the neo-colonial Irish Free (sic) State which executed formally and informally over a hundred Republicans.

During the 1970s British intelligence service agents and proxy militia terrorists carried out a number of bombings in Ireland, the one in 1974 killing 34 people (including a full-time foetus) in Dublin and Monaghan,⁷ the highest toll of any day during the whole three-decades war.

In the final three decades of the last decade the UK waged a direct military and proxy terrorist war against the Irish nationalist people in their colony.

MASS MEDIA PROPAGANDA

As noted earlier, the Gombeen (neocolonial) Irish bourgeoisie has been trying to obliterate the deep consciousness of that history by promoting equivocation and doubts through reactionary historical revisionism and even removing significant sections from the history curriculum.

The mass media is another important leader in this work. In the featured piece we see that it is the headline that delivers the NATO-and neo-colonial conditioning message, albeit without mentioning those and indeed by adding material that cannot be read in the actual text of the article.

*British nuclear submarine* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

“Security and defence analyst Declan Power said Britain often finds out about these things before we do.” Yes, we can be sure that it does!

“What exactly was the Russian submarine doing there? It should be looked at in the broader array of defence arrangements in that the Russians will be regularly testing the defence responses of Nato nations… in particular the UK.”

“Because the UK and the Scandinavian countries have responsibility for monitoring an area known as the Icelandic gap.”⁸ The piece concludes with a suggestion of threat to Ireland, stating that the incident occurred “south of the entrance to Cork Harbour.

Perhaps but over at least 12 miles away, so in fact it would’ve also been in a line west of Devon and Wales in Britain and line north-west of France! The article concludes by stating that “Russia has been regularly testing British air defences off Irish shores in recently (sic) years.”

Yes, “testing BRITISH air defences” and the UK is no doubt doing the same to Russia. Britain, as the UK, is a member of US/NATO, which is not only opposed to Russia but has been encircling it for decades before instigating a proxy war against it.

Far from protecting Irish people, British military manoeuvres around and over⁹ Ireland, its bases in the Six County colony and US military uses of Shannon airport actually place us in great danger in any wide conflict in Europe or in world war.

And then of course, there’s the little matter of colonial occupation of a part of our nation and neo-colonial domination of the rest through our compliant national ruling class. The UK military is no friend of people anywhere — and least of all a friend of the Irish people.

End.

Footnotes

1The other three are Cyprus, Malta and Austria. As of yet nor is Sweden but the expectation is of joining very soon.

2There are 32 counties in the whole Irish nation and the names of all but three in English are corruption of Irish words (including all of the Six in the colony).

3 https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/06/24/anti-war-groups-in-ireland-disrupt-security-conference-at-cork-university/

4 https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/uk-had-to-come-to-irelands-aid-with-russian-submarine-hovering-off-cork-harbour-1563754.html

5Later also as indentured labour.

6 https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Protestants_in_Ireland_their_impact_on_society_and_the_family

7And injuring around 300.

8“responsibility” to whom? Presumably to US/ NATO!

9 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/05/09/raf-jets-may-have-entered-irish-airspace-martin-says/

Sources

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nato-countries-maps-list-membership-requirements/

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/uk-had-to-come-to-irelands-aid-with-russian-submarine-hovering-off-cork-harbour-1563754.html

Anti-war groups in Ireland disrupt security conference at Cork University

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Protestants_in_Ireland_their_impact_on_society_and_the_family

The St. Patrick’s Saltire and Order of St. Patrick: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-36846914

PACIFICATION KILLS TOO

On September 30, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Africa, Basque Country, Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, National Liberation, peace processes, Political Analysis, South Africa, Sud Africa1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach – previously published in the Pensive Quill

(Reading time main text: 6 mins.)

At the end of last month, in Johannesburg, South Africa, over 76 residents perished in a fire sweeping through one of a number of “illegal” buildings, home to some of the city’s poor who are desperate for somewhere to live.

How is this possible we may ask. Didn’t the South African people win their struggle after many years of sacrifice? Didn’t Mandela and the ANC lead them to victory in 1994?

The huge South African majority people fought a long and hard struggle against the domination and exploitation of a European settler minority and institutional racism. But they also fought against capitalist exploitation and imperialist plunder of their rich natural resources.

Some of the results of the Sharpeville Massacre, 1960 after South African police opened fire without warning at unarmed black people protesting the pass (apartheid) laws. In total, 69 people were killed and more than 180 people were injured, mostly shot in the back as they fled the violence. A later report would state over 700 bullets had been fired, all by police. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Despite the riches of those natural resources in gems, precious metals and minerals,¹ most non-white Africans² in South Africa lived in abject poverty with poor health care, scarce or non-existent infrastructures and services, including education and training.

In the decades leading up to the fall of the formal apartheid system, that struggle was led by the ‘triple alliance’ of the (banned) African National Congress,³ the National Union of Mineworkers (of S.A.) and the (banned) Communist Party of South Africa.

*Township in South African photographed in 2018, over 20 years after enfranchisement and ANC government* (Photo credit: *Andrea Lindner/ Getty Images*)

Their struggles defeated the apartheid system and in April 1994 all residents of South Africa were enfranchised. National elections brought 1990, was elected President of the country.

Yet shortly after that great change, it was noted that the living standards of the mass of people were even lower than before, that the settler capitalists continued to reap their profits and that imperialism had actually intensified their penetration of the South African economy.⁵

Today approximately 55.5 percent (30.3 million people) of the S.A population is living in poverty at the national upper poverty line (~ZAR 992) while a total of 13.8 million people (25 percent) are experiencing food poverty. Municipal services to the huge ‘townships’ are unreliable at best.

Almost one in every three of work-available people is unemployed and only 95% of the population have basic literacy, which means that one in 20 doesn’t have it.

It is in that context that we can begin to understand hundreds of people living in an “illegal” building without even a fire escape, obliged to take the risk of such accommodation, in a land that continues to be rich in great wealth which however, never comes near the mass of people.

PACIFICATION PROCESSES

In the 1990s a number of people began to promote processes to resolve a number of long-ongoing conflicts around the world, mostly where imperialism or colonial settlers were oppressing the people of a country. The promoters called them “peace processes”.

Palestine was the first of those in which a “peace process” was introduced and South Africa was next in 1994, followed by Ireland in 1998. As it took root in one country, former resistance activists went from there to other conflicts to encourage people there to embrace the process too.

In fact the progress of this process seemed like the US imperialist ‘dominoes’ theory, only in reverse: rather than ‘communism’ in one country influencing people in another to go the same way, capitulation in one country was used to infect the next.

Palestinian and South African delegates attended Sinn Féin congresses to promote their ‘peace process’ to the party’s membership; subsequently SF delegates in turn joined South African ones in selling the process to the Basque national liberation movement.⁶

Arnaldo Otegi (centre photo) foremost of the Basque movement’s ‘official leadership’ and EH Bildu party in 2019 – the banner behind asks for “one further step” in Castilian (Spanish) and “yes” in Euskera (Basque). (Photo cred: *EFE*)

Some movements declined to imbibe the process wine but those that drank it found their movements split, their leaderships increasingly accommodated to their people’s exploiters and nowhere at all were any of the movement’s principal objectives achieved.

Except, that is, in South Africa, where at least the people were enfranchised. But the right to vote is intended to help shape the polity for improvement and that has not happened in South Africa. The ANC, NUM and CPSA of the ‘triple alliance’ have become part of the system instead.

THE OPPOSITION BECAME THE SYSTEM’S GUARDIANS

Western imperialism recognised the vulnerability and isolation of the minority settler regime, convincing its leadership to concede mass enfranchisement rather than suffer revolution. And in order to prevent the mass going ‘too far’, they brought the resistance leaders into the deal.

Bishop Tutu⁷ once remarked that “The ANC stopped the gravy train just long enough to get on it”, which angered his friend, Nelson Mandela. But when forty striking miners were murdered by police of the ANC Government with NUM collusion in 2012, Mandela did not condemn them.

*The* kopje or hillock at Marikana, near the Lonmin mine, South Africa, where the striking miners were massacred by police of the ANC government in 2012. Over a decade later, plans for a memorial park have still not borne fruit. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

This corruption did not grow overnight. Jacob Zuma,⁸ while President of the ANC, has been formally accused of rape, indicted a number of times and eventually convicted of financial corruption. Winnie, Mandela’s ex-wife led a clique accused of political corruption and murder.

Cyril Ramaphosa, now President, was a millionaire even during the apartheid regime while General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers and, because the striking mineworkers in 2012 were rejecting the NUM as corrupt, is widely believed to have organised the massacre.

There should have been many signs of this corruption in the ANC prior to entering government – and there were.

The ANC ran concentration camps notably in Angola, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda where they punished and even killed “dissidents”.⁹ And in South Africa perhaps they had their own ‘Steak Knife’¹⁰ to organise “Pirelli necklacing”¹¹ for alleged informers.

Mandela knew about the camps and the “necklacing” but did not condemn them, possibly out of mistaken solidarity or ‘the greater good’ theory, as acted upon by some of the solidarity movement abroad.

Ronnie Kasrills, a senior member of the Communist Party of SA and formerly on the ANC’s National Executive Council, who now criticises the pacification process, claims they were concentrating on the political process and took their eye off the economic one.

And no doubt many at home and abroad thought all this could be sorted out once the domination of the white settler regime was broken and African majority had the vote. But political plants grown in contaminated soil do not grow healthy fruit.

And so we come to 76 or more poverty-stricken dead and well over a hundred injured by fire in a building owned by the City, which is run by a black South-African administration that doesn’t care, in a state run by a corrupt black South African government in partnership with the settler class.

*Plastic-shrouded bodies of some of the 76 fatal victims of the fire in the housing block in Johannesburg, South Africa.* (Photo cred: *Jerome Delay/AP* )

Armed resistance campaigns, uprisings and revolutions kill but they have in their favour that they are striving for a better world. Pacification processes kill without any chance of achieving a substantial improvement.

Pacification processes murder dreams but kill physically too: in massacres and avoidable disasters but also by overwork, ill-health, work injury, despair, substance abuse, suicide, and the many ways in which the capitalist-imperialist system causes misery wherever it lives.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1South Africa holds the world’s largest reported reserves of gold, platinum group metals, chrome ore and manganese ore, and the second-largest reserves of zirconium, vanadium and titanium. In 2021, South Africa’s diamond production amounted to 9.7 million carats, an increase on the previous year’s 8.5 million carats. The country ranked fifth among the world’s largest diamond producers by volume.

2The racialcategories introduced by the Apartheid regime remain ingrained in South African society with South Africans officially continuing to classify themselves, and each other, as belonging to one of the four defined race groups (Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and Indians).

3Banned by the South African settler government from 1960 until early 1990; now a mass party in government.

4The ANC is still in government at the time of writing, without a break since 1994.

5See The Shock Doctrine – the rise of disaster capitalism by Naomi Klein (2007).

6Palestine faded as a promoter of the pacification process since it had failed spectacularly there, its mass rejection resulting in the resistance upsurge of the Second Intifada followed by the fall of Al Fatah and the Palestinian Authority from their leadership position and the huge turn to the Islamist Hamas by a society generally voting along political rather than religious lines.

The Spanish ruling class was interested only in crushing the Basque resistance and made little attempt to sweeten the surrender of the leadership (Arnaldo Otegi and company) who nevertheless capitulated. Other areas where the process landed or attempted to do so were Colombia, Sri Lanka, Turkey (Kurdish national liberation movement), India, Phillipines (both latter agrarian movements). Only in Colombia was it adopted by both the rulers and the resistance and proved a disaster for the latter.

7A Christian bishop and campaigner for most of his life against the rule of the settler minority.

8South African politician who served as the fourth President of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. Zuma was a former anti-apartheid activist, member of the ANC’s military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, and president of the ANC from 2007 to 2017.

9See Sources.

10MI5 codename for senior Provisional IRA member Freddie Scappaticci who led the guerrilla organisation’s internal security department, which tortured and executed alleged informers.

11A car tyre, doused in flammable fuel, was placed over the terrified victim while still alive and set alight, often in front of a crowd.

SOURCES

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/01/grief-and-anger-in-wake-of-deadly-johannesburg-blaze

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/factbox-what-are-johannesburgs-hijacked-buildings-and-why-do-people-live-there-2-1521491.html

ANC concentration camps: https://www.amnesty.org/es/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/afr530271992en.pdf

NEW POSTAGE STAMP CELEBRATES PARTITION OF IRELAND AND DOMINATION OF COLONIES

On September 6, 2023September 6, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History, Imperialism, Ireland, National Liberation, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time maint text: 7 mins.)

The Irish State has issued a new commemorative stamp to celebrate its joining the League of Nations in 1923 to which its representative referred as commemorating “the significance of Ireland taking our place among our fellow nations.”¹

Well, sorry to poop on your party, Gombeen Government and to point out your lie. The truncated Irish State was admitted to the League of Nations, not “Ireland”, of which one-fifth was held in arms by the British occupier – who was one of the founders of the League.

Furthermore, the Gombeen state’s management committee entered the League as the victors in the Civil War – Britain’s proxy war in Ireland – dripping in the blood of those who fought for Ireland’s freedom. But that was not unfitting for the League was full of blood-drenched governments too.

The League was formed in 1920 and though the true government of the Irish nation, the First Dáil,² applied for membership, its emissaries were not even received. At the Paris Peace Conference, US President Woodrow Wilson did not even reply to the Irish Delegation’s letter.³

*Irish nationalist media commentary on the exclusion of Ireland by Lloyd George from the Paris Conference* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The original permanent members of the League’s Executive Council (it had four non-permanent members too) were Britain, France, Italy and Japan and its languages reflected those of the dominant European and American powers: English and French.

Britain came into the League with its Empire of allegedly independent states: Australia, Canada, India (which incorporated present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh), New Zealand and South Africa.

*Map showing empires and colonies in the world in 1920 but there were also areas of influence apart from colonies.* (Image sourced: *Wikicommons*)

PEACE?

Allegedly about peace, the League was formed as a club to discuss the areas of the world owned by the European colonial powers and to create a space where the losers and winners could discuss those lines, over which they had just fought a four-year bloody war.

Henceforth, there would be many, many wars, but mostly of colonial conquest and repression of resistance – but the European powers would not war among themselves, leastways except by finance and diplomacy. Until another 19 years, that is.

In fact, one of the major causes of WWII was the Treaty of Versailles, containing the crushing and humiliating WWI reparations demanded of Germany by the British and French imperialist powers. That Treaty was incorporated into the terms of the League of Nations.

*The Big Four that framed the Treaty of Versailles; L-R: Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow Wilson of the U.S.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Ireland would see short armed liberation struggles in the 1930s, 1940s and of three decades from 1969. Hundreds of armed liberation struggles would break out across the rest of the world, in every continent except Antartica. And yes, including Europe.

The League of Nations was a club, chiefly of European colonial powers in which the conquest and suppression of a huge number of other nations was agreed and ratified. It was followed by the hugely-expanded United Nations after the next World War.

The UN has much the same role and of its 193 members, its only binding decisions are made by five Security Council Permanent Members voting without dissent: USA, UK, France, Russia and China. The vast majority of the other states are clients of one or other of those five.

The Irish state joined that earlier League not as one of the colonial powers but as a defeated nation, a neo-colonial client regime, an experiment in native self-government under external colonial control, one to be adopted by the other imperial powers and replicated across the world.

The Irish state joined the United Nations in December 1955 in exactly the same client relationship to its old masters but over time the yearly tribute has been shared among new part-masters, first the USA and then EU imperialism.

Neither the state’s advent to the League of Nations nor to its successor, the United Nations, has anything whatsoever of which to be proud. An opportunity for Irish real independence and world friendship of nations was squandered.

The new stamp should carry a black border in mourning.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Words of Mícheál Martin, the Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) of the Irish Government quoted in numerous media reports.

2The First Dáil was founded in January 1919 in defiance of British occupation, based on the results of the UK’s December 1918 General Election results in Ireland which returned 73 MPs of the newly-reconstituted Sinn Féin party out of a total of 101 MPs elected in Ireland. The SF members set about organising an Irish Government and, though declared illegal by the British occupiers shortly afterwards, continued to operate as a government until it split over whether to accept the terms of the British offer in 1921, which led to the Civil War of 1922-1923.

3 See https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/how-the-plea-for-irish-independence-made-its-way-to-paris-1.3742328 . Though interestingly, Wilson did reply to the young Ho Chi Minh’s in respect of Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh, while working in Britain, had commented admiringly on the Irish capacity for resistance at the time of Mac Swiney’s funeral march in London from Brixton Jail to Southwark Cathedral). Most of Indochina at the time was a French colonial possession.

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/new-stamp-marks-irelands-admittance-to-league-of-nations-1523570.html

https://www.dfa.ie/about-us/ourhistory/100years/1919-1929/1923/

https://www.dail100.ie/en/long-reads/message-to-the-free-nations-of-the-world/

Text First Dáil Message to the Nations of the Free World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_to_the_Free_Nations_of_the_World#:~

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_League_of_Nations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles

JUSTICE FOR THE IGNORED?

On December 3, 2022December 6, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Event Report, Human Rights, irish history, Massacres, Political Analysis, Trade unionsLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 6 mins. main text, total 9 mins)

At noon on Thursday 1^st December around a hundred people gathered in a side street off Dublin city’s main street to commemorate the killing of three public transport workers¹ by British Loyalist bombs in 1972 and 1973.

The event was organised by the Justice for the Forgotten group that grew out of relatives seeking accountability for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in 1974. However, the campaign group might well consider replacing the word “Forgotten” with “Ignored”.

In the early 1970s, as people – mostly but not all of of nationalist background – were marching for equal civil rights in the British colony of the Six Counties, British Loyalists began exploding bombs, not all but mostly in Dublin.

Some were aimed at symbolic Irish monuments such as the O’Connell Tower in Glasnevin cemetery (17 January 1971)and the Wolfe Tone monument in Stephens Greeen (8^th February)²but the bombings of 1972, ‘73, ‘74 and ‘75 were clearly intended to kill civilians.

British Intelligence Services have been implicated in collusion with Loyalists and, along with agents within the Irish State³ have been implicated at least with regard to the 1974 bombing of Dublin and Monaghan, resulting in the largest loss of life in any one day during the 30 Years War.⁴

Posters of the names of three public transport workers killed in two bombings by British Loyalists (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Wreaths and the plaque commemorating the atrocity (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

THE COMMEMORATION PROCEEDINGS

A temporary canopy had been erected with a lectern and amplification in Sackville Lane, between busy O’Connell and Marlborough Streets, next to a plaque set in the pavement commemorating the bombing and its victims there. More than a hundred had gathered around to witness the event.

Tom Duffy, son of Tommy Duffy, one of the victims of the 1972 bombs chaired the event. He is also the designer of the commemorative sculpture ‘A Fallen Bouquet’, inlaid into the pavement which was unveiled in 2004⁵.

Chairing the event, Tom Duffy, son of the murdered Tommy Duffy (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Tom never met his father; Tom had four months to go before birth in his mother’s womb when his father was killed; his sister does not remember her father either.

Margaret Urwin, of Justice for the Forgotten campaigning group, read out biographies of Bradshaw, Tommy Duffy and Tom Douglas (see Appendix), detailing their origins and recollections of their bereaved loved ones.

Margaret Urwin of Justice for the Forgotten campaign, organisers of the commemoration event (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

The origins of the victims and partners showed that as well as being a tragedy for Dublin the bombings were also that for other parts of the country and the diaspora, in particular Achill (Mayo), Belfast, Castlebar (Mayo), Fethard (Tipperary), Kilkenny and Stirling in Scotland.

Urwin said they also wished to remember John Hayes, whose 47th anniversary had occurred two days previously and she read a short biography of him too. John was employed at Dublin Airport and was killed by a bomb placed in a toilet on the Arrivals floor on 29 November 1975.

Current Lord Mayor of Dublin (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

The Lord Mayor of Dublin⁶ gave a short speech in which she underlined the need for remembrance while also decrying that the guilty had escaped so far and that proposed legislation, currently going through the Westminster Parliament, sought to prevent such perpetrators being brought to book.

Finance Manager of Dublin Bus (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

The Finance Manager of Dublin Bus spoke also, saying among other things that the company would never forget and that it was like one big family. However the absence of employees of the company present in uniform and the lack of awareness of many gave the lie to her words (workers tell us that the event had not been advertised internally by the company).

The Education Minister Norma Foley, TD spoke at length about the atrocity and need for all actions to take place within “the rule of law”, in the context of which she went on to castigate the British Government for its proposed 30 Years War legacy legislation to limit inquests and litigation.

Foley went on to state the opposition of the Irish Government’s to the proposed legislation, along with that of the opposition parties, with united faith leaders, all parties in the British colony and the US Government.

Somehow she and other speakers however managed to avoid mentioning the British Loyalist origin of the bombers or that these were chronologically leading up to the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, with a death-toll of 33 in one day.

Minister of Education (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Or of the fact that the 1973 bombings had been used to push repressive legislation through Leinster House, including the founding of a no-jury Special Criminal Court, targeted not at British Loyalists but instead specifically at Irish Republicans!⁷

The omission of this important and relevant information, referred to in Ronan McGreevy’s report for the Irish Times (see link in Sources), though not unexpected on past Government performance, was indeed ironic coming from the Minister with responsibility for education.

Wreaths were laid, including some by relatives of the murdered. A priest also recited a prayer.

MUSIC AND POETRY

Poet Rachael Hegarty, who has also composed and performed a longer poem about the Dublin & Monaghan bombing, performed her composition for this event about the loss of husbands and fathers in the killing of public transport workers.

In between some of the speeches, musicians from the Shillelagh Northside Ukelele Group⁸ performed Simon & Garfunkle’s The Sound of Silence and Bobby Darin’s Things (including the lines “memories are all I have to cling to”).

During another speeches interval, Cormac Breatnach on high whistle & Eoin Dillon on uileann pipes performed Táimse I Mo Chodhladh and later to conclude the event, The Lark in the Morning. The first piece, no doubt chosen for its lament nature, would do well also as political commentary⁹.

Large group of Northside ukulele players in foreground (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

IGNORING AND FORGETTING

The age profile of the vast majority of those present meant that the atrocities had occurred within their lifetimes, which is natural; however the near absence of representation of the following two or three generations is not.

It might be observed that this absence is a natural part of passing time but one could also comment that the ignoring of this atrocity is causing an unnatural fracture in the historical memory of a people and a workforce, a result of a conscious decision to prevent the transmission of that memory.

The titles of three of the musical pieces may be seen as comment on that.

Cormac Breatnach playing low whistle (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Eoin Dillon playing the uilleann pipes (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Yes, the JFTF organisation continues to hold events to mark the bombings and the Lord Mayor and a Government Minister attend. But not only will nothing serious be done to bring the perpetrators to light – never mind justice – but the memory will be allowed to die out among the living.

The Clery’s building site near the commemoration was at work throughout the event with noise of drilling, banging and shouting, the workers no doubt in ignorance of the event or of its significance. Workers in Dublin Bus uniform passed by regularly from their nearby canteen building.

Two of the latter who stopped in curiosity on the outskirts of the crowd and were engaged in conversation, stated that they had no knowledge of the commemoration or of the atrocity. They opined that their union should have informed and mobilised them to attend.

TARGETING WORKING-CLASS PEOPLE

The bus workers’ canteen is in Sackville Street and it is noticeable that other fatal bombings were targeted at areas more associated with working-class shopping and away from the more affluent ones such as the Grafton or Henry streets. That could be have been due to class prejudice but also to hurt those with less political power.

This made it all the more important for the organisations and parties that have been built by the working class to respond to them. The Labour party, founded by James Connolly, is complicit with the Irish Government in this forgetting and ignoring.

The trade unions, even those of the specifically targeted public transport workers are also colluding with this silencing and forgetting.

From a ‘national’ perspective, the Irish State has permitted a foreign (and occupying) power and its proxies to bomb its capital city on a number of occasions, including the massacre of its civilians. Nothing could more clearly point to the neo-colonial foreign-dependent nature of the Irish elite.

Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, when the Irish trade unions were less compromised than they have allowed themselves to become, perhaps it would have been possible to shut down the building site near to the commemoration for the duration of the ceremony.

Perhaps city bus drivers could at least have stopped everywhere at a given time for an announced minute of silence. Ranks of bus workers could have attended the commemoration event in uniform, supported perhaps by the city’s municipal workers.

Are such gestures still possible? Can we make them so? The working class, far from tolerating this occlusion and deletion of historical memory, needs to mark the atrocity and to mark it strongly, in solidarity and for its own dignity as a class.

End.

Section of the crowd in attendance (Marlborough Street in the distance) (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

APPENDIX – THE BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF FOUR VICTIMS

GEORGE BRADSHAW

George, a native of Fethard, Co. Tipperary, was a young man of 30 when he was so brutally murdered in this street 50 years ago. He had married Kathleen, a nurse from Belfast and they had two small children, Lynn and Rory. He had met Kathleen when she was visiting relatives in Fethard and she was the light of his life.

George was employed as a bus driver with CIE and the family had moved from Tipperary to Dublin less than two years before tragedy struck on 1 st December 1972. He had worked previously in South Tipperary Farmers’ Co-op for 10 years.

George had big plans for the future – he was an ambitious man and was attending night-classes in business studies at the time of his death. His favourite hobby was dancing and he also loved to play darts. He was cheerful, fun-loving and an extrovert and is greatly missed by all his family.

TOMMY DUFFY

Tommy, a native of Castlebar, Co. Mayo was almost 24 years old when he was killed on 1 st December 1972. He was married to Monica, who was pregnant with their second child, Tom. They already had a small daughter, Caroline. They had met on the 29A bus when Monica was 17 and Tommy 19. Monica quickly fell in love with this witty young man so full of life and mischief.

Tommy worked as a bus conductor and had several hobbies. He loved to play traditional Irish music on the mouth-organ and spent lots of his free time tinkering with cars. He would buy old wrecks, repair them and re-sell them to make some extra money. He had a Yamaha motor-bike which he loved and also had a flair for carpentry. During the summer months, he liked nothing better than to return home to Mayo to help on the farm, especially with saving the hay.

On the day he died, he was due to work an early shift but had changed to facilitate a co-worker. Monica remembers him as a generous, kind and hard-working young man. She is pleased that their son, Tom, was the designer of the commemorative sculpture ‘A Fallen Bouquet’, which was unveiled in 2004.

TOMMY DOUGLAS

Tommy, a native of Stirling in Scotland was only 21 when his life was so cruelly taken from him in this street on 20 th January 1973. He, along with his brothers and sister, was raised in a Scottish mining community. He was an intelligent, fun-loving, outgoing person with a positive outlook on life. He liked swimming and was a fervent supporter of Celtic soccer team. He had a love of nature and enjoyed hill-walking. He also loved music and attending live concerts.

The family had strong leanings towards Ireland and had spent their childhood summers in Achill Island, the native place of their mother. Tommy loved all things Irish and most of the songs he knew were Irish songs.

When he left school, he served his apprenticeship as an electrician and, after he qualified, decided to move to Dublin. He had been living in Dublin only a few short months and had taken a job as a bus conductor while he hoped eventually to find work as an electrician. His fiancée had joined him a very short time before his death.

After his death, his family learned of his many acts of kindness to those less fortunate than himself. He was a devout Catholic but had many Protestant friends, indeed his fiancée was of the Presbyterian faith. His siblings are proud of him as a brother and thank God they had the pleasure of having him with them for 21 years. They only wish he was with them still.

JOHN HAYES

John Hayes’ 47th anniversary occurred two days ago. John was employed at Dublin Airport and was killed by a bomb placed in a toilet on the Arrivals floor on 29 November 1975. John was a hard-working family man with a wife and three children – twins Brian and Karen (aged 11) and Brendan (aged 3). In his free time he enjoyed a pint of Smithwick’s and was an avid Kilkenny fan. He was an ordinary man, devoted to his family.

The gathering breaking up at end of event, with portrait of famed uilleann pipes player Séamus Ennis in the background above the Pipers Corner pub at the end of Sackville Place and glimpse of LUAS tram to the left. (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

FOOTNOTES

1The State public transport system was called CIE (Córas Iompair Éireann) prior to breaking up into sections for easy privatisation in the ruling neo-liberalism of the 1980s onwards. The Dublin Bus company is one of the carved-up parts, competing with other privately-owned bus companies around Dublin.

2While the targeting of a monument to Daniel O’Connell “The Liberator” (his monument in O’Connell Street was also bombed), a campaigner for the repeal of the anti-Catholic Penal Laws might seem as an act of pure religious sectarianism by Protestant bigots, the blowing up of the Wolfe Tone monument was essentially political. Theobald Wolfe Tone was a leader of the revolutionary United Irishmen, a Protestant as were most of his leadership colleagues and is often described as “The Father of Irish Republicanism”. Only the head survived the explosion but it was attached to the recasting of the statue.

3See the Wikipedia entries on the 1972, ‘73 and ‘74 Dublin bombings.

433 people and a full-term unborn child were killed in that day’s bombings.

5See Sources.

6 Caroline Conroy of the Green Party holds the position in annual rotation this year.

7The proposed Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act in 1973 was heading for trouble in Leinster House until the bombings apparently stampeded some of its opposition into supporting it. As a result the no-jury Special Criminal Court was established which until very recently, with one exception, tried exclusively Irish Republicans, able to jail them mostly on the word of a senior Garda officer. This undemocratic piece of legislation has been thoroughly condemned by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties; Sinn Féin regularly opposed its renewal until a few years ago when it began abstaining and this year at its congress voted that such legislation is required “in some circumstances”.

8The name of the group was collected from participants but searching on FB and Google has failed to find a link for them.

9“I am asleep and do not wake me”, an Aisling poem/ music in Irish, origin contested between Ireland and Scotland, played in the 18^th Century but date of composition unknown.

REFERENCES

‘It’s like yesterday’: Dublin city centre bombings remembered 50 years on – The Irish Times

‘A Fallen Bouquet’ — Thomas Duffy Art

Justice for the Forgotten campaign group: Justice for the Forgotten | The Pat Finucane Centre

The fatal Dublin bombings:

1972 and ‘73: 1972 and 1973 Dublin bombings – Wikipedia

1974 Dublin and Monaghan: Dublin and Monaghan bombings – Wikipedia

Other Dublin bombings: Incidents in Dublin during the Troubles (1969-1994) | Come Here To Me!

British legacy plan for Northern Ireland is wrong, Taoiseach says – The Irish Times