Tag: Palestine
Dublin Solidarity with Jailed Palestinian Teenager
Clive Sulish
A wet Saturday afternoon saw a large crowd attend a protest picket organised by the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation; it was in specific solidarity with Palestinian Teenager Ehed Tamimi, jailed in December last year by the Israeli Zionist occupation — but also with all Palestinian political prisoners.
Ehed Tamimi lives in Nabi Saleh, a West Bank village approximately 20 kilometres northwest from Ramallah. A December protest against further expansion of illegal Zionist settlement near Ehed’s home village attracted the Israeli Army who seriously injured a Palestinian, Ehed’s cousin Fadl al-Tamimi, by firing a rubber-coated steel bullet at close range into his face. Three female members of the Tamimi family, including Ehed, though unarmed, attacked the soldiers. After video of the incident circulated widely, the Israeli occupation force raided the Tamimi household and arrested Ehed. She was held without charge for thirteen days and then charged, along with her mother, with assault, incitement to violence and throwing stones. She remains in custody awaiting trial.
The detention of Ehed, a minor in law, by the Israeli state violates a number of articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the right to remain with her family.
In past protests at her village, half the number of residents had been injured over a number of years and two killed by Israeli soldiers, including a member of the extended Tamimi family.
Born into an activist family, Ehed Tamimi is 17 years of age and has been in struggle against the Israeli Occupation Force more or less since she was she was able to walk. According to the British newspaper The Guardian, Ahed’s siblings—Waed, Mohammed, and Salem—and parents “have known only a life of checkpoints, identity papers, detentions, house demolitions, intimidation, humiliation and violence; she is part of the second generation of Palestinians to live under the occupation.”
Ahed gained international fame through being photographed or filmed confronting Israeli soldiers, her courage remarkable and pale features and long blond hair making her stand out among protesters. The first of these occasions to reach an international audience was when she was 11 years of age, in August of 2012 as she tried to prevent the arrest of her mother and later that year, waving her fist at an Israeli soldier twice her size as he arrested her older brother.
WIDE SUPPORT FOR PICKET
The Dublin picket on Saturday attracted the support of a wide section of the Republican and Socialist Left: the Independent Workers’ Union banner was in evidence as were a number of painted banners previously seen on pickets by the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, along with independent Irish Republican activists. Fatin al-Tamimi, Chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Committee and a number of that organisation’s activists were also present, some distributing IPSC leaflets, as were a number of activists associated with campaigns against the Water Charge, against the demolition of Moore Street and in support of ending homelessness. Fatin al-Tamimi, who although bearing the same family name is not related to Ehed’s family, will not in future be permitted by the Israeli state to visit her relatives (see item on Israel’s public blacklist below).
Among the passing shoppers and tourists a number indicated their support for the picket, many taking photos and some asking to be photographed among the protesters. Drivers of a number of passing vehicles also tooted their horns in support.
RELATED: ISRAEL PUBLISHES BLACKLIST OF PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY ACTIVISTS ABROAD
The Israeli Government consolidated its secret blacklist of people to be barred from entry to territory controlled by the State into list of organisations which it made public on 6th January 2018. The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Committee was named as one of the 20 organisations, the leaders and activists of which will not be permitted entry to Israeli-controlled territory. The move was widely interpreted as a reaction to the increasing effectiveness of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the State and its anti-Palestinian policies. The publication was also seen by many as marking its further alienation from much of the rest of the world even as the USA, in President Trump’s order to relocate the US Embassy to the city, publicly endorsed the previous Israeli completion of its seizure of Jerusalem in June 1967 and its ongoing Israelisation and de-Palestination of the city.
Most of the organisations on the blacklist are European but a number are US-based. “The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization honored with the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize for assisting and rescuing victims of the Nazis, is among the list of groups whose activists Israel has announced it will bar from entering the Jewish State. On Saturday it was revealed that the left-wing organization Jewish Voice for Peace was on the list.” Also on the list is the BDS South Africa organisation.
REFERENCES
Ehed Tamimi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahed_Tamimi
Israeli blacklist of organisations: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.833502
Summary of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: (https://www.childrensrights.ie/sites/default/files/information_sheets/files/SummaryUNCRC.pdf)
INTERNATIONAL WORKERS’ DAY IN DUBLIN
Clive Sulish
May 1st, International Workers’ Day was celebrated in warm sunshine in Dublin with a parade and rally organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions and a later event organised by the Independent Workers’ Union.
The DCTU-organised event met at the Garden of Remembrance at 2pm and set off at nearly 3pm, with numbers although still small by European standards nevertheless larger than has been seen for some time in Dublin, according to the organisers filling O’Connell Street, the city’s main street throughout its whole length (500 metres or 547 yards).
Seen on the parade were trade union banners, those of some political parties, also of campaigns and community groups.
As it has been doing for years, the parade ended in a rally in Beresford Place, in front of Liberty Hall, the very tall building owned by the SIPTU trade union, where the audience were addressed by speakers from trade unions and campaigns and NGOs.
Curiously, soon after arrival the comparatively strong showing of Sinn Féin flags, the green one with their logo and the blue and white version of the Starry Plough, were nowhere to be seen.
The issues of lack of affordable housing, of public land being sold for private housing and speculation, of precarious employment, of financial speculation and cuts in services were addressed by speakers, with a mention also of solidarity for the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike. A number of speakers also addressed the treatment of migrants and in particular the conditions suffered by refugees in the Direct Provision hostels of the state’s welfare service.
Somewhat later, the Independent Workers’ Union held their own event, marching with a colour party from their offices to James Connolly monument, also in Beresford Place and across the road from Liberty Hall.
Damien Keogh chaired the event and introduced veteran campaigner Sean Doyle who gave a short and to the point speech about the situation in which working people find themselves today and ending with a quotation from James Connolly, in which the revolutionary socialist castigated those who claimed to love Ireland but could tolerate seeing poverty and deprivation among its people. Doyle also sent solidarity greetings to the Palestinian political prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails.
Paul Bowman was then introduced and in a longer speech covered Connolly’s time in the USA, his membership of and activities of the IWW (“the Wobblies”); the Haymarket Incident in Chicago which led to the choosing of May 1st as International Workers’ Day and the state murder of the Haymarket Martyrs; the principles and attitude of the IWU today.
Damien then introduced Diarmuid Breatnach to sing “We Only Want the Earth” (an alternative title to the original of “Be Moderate”). Breatnach explained that the lyrics had been composed by James Connolly and published in a songbook of his in New York in 1907 without an air. As a consequence the lyrics have been sung to a variety of airs but Breatnach said he sings it to the air of “A Nation Once Again” (composed originally by Thomas Davis some time between 1841 and 1845). This arrangement provides a chorus and Breatnach invited the audience to join in the chorus with him, which they did.
“We only want the Earth,
we only want the Earth,
And our demands most moderate are:
We only want the Earth!”
A wreath was laid at the monument on behalf of the IWU by Leanne Farrell.
The chairperson then thanked those in attendance, speakers and singer and invited all back to the offices of the IWU in the North Strand for refreshments.
End.
THE GLOBAL-HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 1916 RISING
This is a timely and interesting article by Liam Ó Ruairc about the significance of the Easter Rising beyond our little parish.
Apart from that, it would seem to suffer a little from a terminology problem with regard to “imperialism”. In the world today this is not an insignificant issue. At the time of the 1916 Rising it was common for commentators to conflate the words “colonialism” and “imperialism” — and why not, since we had the British Empire, the French Empire etc. However, that same year, VI Lenin completed his work “Imperialism — the final stage of capitalism” which he published the following year but exchanging, for the censor, the word “highest” for “final”. Lenin described imperialism as the merging of finance with industrial capital and its export to the underdeveloped world and also explained how its colonialism was undermining British industrial capacity and competitiveness by starving it of capital which was instead being invested in the colonies for quick return of superprofits.
He showed that imperialism could be practiced where the developed state did NOT have colonies but instead had influence.
Decolonisation was indeed one of the big processes of the early to mid-21st Century, as quoted in the article, but it was accompanied by an increase in imperialist expansion, with the USA becoming the world leader and displacing the former colonial powers of Britain and France. By and large this was achieved without occupying countries and setting up colonies of UStaters within them.
Lenin also showed that imperialism leads to war; colonialism did too but not on the scale that imperialism has. Colonial wars were largely limited by the amount of people available to occupy colonies whereas imperialism fights most of its wars through proxies (with some notable exceptions such as Vietnam, Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, involving large committal of its troops but even there, proxies have been/are also used).
Those regimes that imperialism cultivates were later classified by national liberationists as “comprador (buyer) capitalists” or “neo-colonials”. Such an analysis of Ireland today would have to conclude that the Six Counties are a remaining British colony and the Twenty-Six a neo-colony.
In the “comment” section of the article there is a reference to another article on the same theme of international importance which is also of interest.
by Liam Ó Ruairc
In less than six months, the one hundredth anniversary of the 24-29 April 1916 Easter Rising will be commemorated throughout Ireland. What is striking about the so-called ‘Decade of Commemorations’ is how insular its outlook is: the 1912 Ulster Covenant, the 1916 Rising or the setting up of Northern Ireland are seen as a purely Irish phenomenon, divorced from global trends. As Edward W. Said once noted, while the Irish struggle was a ‘model of twentieth-century wars of liberation’, “it is an amazing thing that the problem of Irish liberation not only has continued longer than other comparable struggles, but is so often not regarded as being an imperial or nationalist issue; instead it is comprehended as aberration within the British dominions. Yet the facts conclusively reveal otherwise.”[1] This article will argue that the significance of the 1916 Easter Rising lies less in its
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DUBLIN REPUBLICAN MEETING HEARS KURDISH REPRESENTATIVE, INDEPENDENT TD, GARVAGHY ROAD VETERAN AND REPUBLICAN PARTY LEADER
Diarmuid Breatnach
Breandán Mac Cionnaith, Erdelan Baran, Clare Daly and Brian Leeson took turns to address a meeting in Wynne’s hotel on Saturday. The speakers addressed a large audience in the open part of the conference following the internal Ard-Fheis (annual congress) of the Éirigí Irish Republican party and covered the Garvaghy Road campaign, the history of the Orange Order, the Kurdish struggle (in general and in Rojava/ Kobane in particular), Garda corruption, military use of Shannon airport by US imperialism, theft of Ireland’s natural resources, international imperialism and capitalism versus socialism. The meeting was chaired by Angie McFall.
Breandán Mac Cionnaith is General Secretary of the éirigí party and prominent as a residents’ activist and leader in resisting Loyalist parades through nationalist areas, in particular the Garvaghy and Ormeau Roads and with regard to the Drumcree siege. Until 2007 he was prominent in Sinn Féin but left the party that year after SF had agreed to support the colonial police force, the PSNI (formerly the RUC).
Preceded by the screening of a video of resistance to Loyalist marches in the Garvaghy Road, Mac Cionnaith gave an account of the formation of the Orange Order and its role from the inception of the Order and through its development. He also gave a detailed account of the long history of Orange marches through the Garvaghy Road and other areas, the siege of Drumcree and the people’s resistance, answered by sectarian murders of Catholics in the area.
The talk revealed that the Orange Order had been created at a time of revolutionary unity between sections of Protestants and of Catholics and that its purpose was to fracture that unity, which it carried out. It was from the beginning a sectarian, reactionary organisation serving the interests of the colonial ruling class in Ireland.
Along with its allied organisations such as the Apprentice Boys, the Order has a long history of provocation of Catholic areas through triumphalist marching, a practice defended by the colonial police force and in modern times until recently by the British Army. In one confrontation, Mac Cionnaith used available statistics to demonstrate that two British soldiers had been deployed for every resident of the area.
After the break, the Cathaoirleach welcomed and introduced Erdelan Baran, a representative of the Kurdish National Congress. Erdelan’s command of English is excellent and he presented his talk well, using a few slides on an electronic display to emphasise his points, including a map showing the Kurdish population and its spread over the borders of the states of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran.
The audience heard that the religion of most Kurds had been Zoroastrianism but that this had been reduced by Islamicisation. The Kurds had not been recognised as a separate nation or even really as a separate ethnic group by regimes ruling them and had suffered much repression in each of those states.
Erdelan Baran focused in particular on the development of the PKK, a party founded in 1978 by Kurdish students led by Abdullah Ocalan in a village not very far from the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in the south-east of the Turkish state. The party named itself The Workers’ Party of Kurdistan and combined communist ideology with struggle for an independent state. It was subject to repression which increased dramatically after the 1980 right-wing military coup d’état, with imprisonment and executions of its activists and others fleeing to Syria.
The PKK developed its armed struggle which included women’s units (Erdelan showed a slide of PKK women in uniform bearing arms).
Oҫalan was captured in 1999 and imprisoned on an island in the Turkish state. He since called for a change in objectives, i.e for the movement to seek confederalism instead of a state, a system of self-determination for each area and not based on any ethnic group or national territory. Erdelan pointed towards the administrations which had been set up in Rocajava as an example of this and also of equality towards women – 80% of representation was required to be in equal gender balance.
Since the emergence and attacks of ISIL in Syria, the YPG, a development of the PKK, has been fighting fierce battles against ISIL and established liberated areas in which other groups such as the Yazidis and Turkmen have taken part in defence and administration.
Erdelan mentioned very briefly the peace process espoused by the PKK and the refusal of the Turkish government to engage in it.
Erdelan finished his presentation to strong applause and the Cathaoirleach indicated that there was limited time for questions. Four people addressed comments and questions from the floor one of which criticised aspects of the PKKs policy and three of which were complimentary (see final part including Comment for further details), to all of which Erdelan responded,
A break was called again by the Cathaoirleach and when the conference reconvened, she announced that Clare Daly and Brian Leeson would speak one after the other, without time for questions from the floor.
THE BARREL OF ROTTEN APPLES
A short video about popular opposition to the water charges was played showing éirigí in action before the Cathaoirleach introduced Clare Daly as the next speaker, referring to her as an Independent socialist TD. Daly took the lectern, joking that she was obviously “a warm-up act for Brian Leeson”.
Clare Daly spoke with passion about a long history of cases of Garda corruption, saying that an earlier perception of there being perhaps “a few rotten apples in the Garda barrel” had changed over the years and that now perhaps instead people believed that there might be a few good apples in a rotten barrel. Daly pointed towards the forced resignations of Alan Shatter (as Minister for Justice) and of senior Garda officers and to the whistle-blowers within the force who had used the issue of exemptions on penalty points to highlight corruption within the Gardaí. She predicted that there would be further scandals.
Daly commented on how when in the Dáil she and Mick Wallace began to expose Garda corruption they were treated as some kind of shockingly disgusting people and that even those TDs concerned with civil liberties counseled them not to take on the Gardaí. But the perception of the Gardaí publicly has now changed and this has had its impact on the Dáil. It was the struggles of the people – in particular perhaps around the water charge – and the behaviour of the Gardaí against local communities resisting – which had led to the general change of public opinion. This had facilitated and been strengthened by the exposure of a number of scandals.
Turning to the use of Shannon Airport by the US Military on its way to invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, in violation of Irish neutrality, Daly gave examples of some of the evidence available, not only from observers outside the airport but also from staff inside. One of these declared that he had stolen a gun from a plane in US military use at Shannon and of course, he could not be arrested for that since “How could he have stolen a gun from a plane the Irish Government claims is not carrying any weapons?” The planes in use are not only military planes but also chartered civilian ones and Daly gave statistics on the huge amount of US military traffic of weapons and soldiers through the airport, quoting also from a US document (part of the Wikileaks) confirming the importance of Shannon airport to their Middle Eastern military operations.
Daly accused the Irish Government of complicity with US imperialism and its war crimes. A lot of the evidence outlined and more was presented in the trial of Daly and Wallace following their arrest on 22nd July 2014 as they went on to restricted areas of the airport without permission from the authorities. They were there to carry out an inspection of US planes but were arrested and despite the evidence, in April were fined €1,000 each or 30 days in prison. Both declared then and Daly reaffirmed in her talk that they had no intention of paying the fine and await their arrest at any moment.
“There’s not much a small group of left-wing TDs can do in the Dáil to change what’s happening in the country”, said Daly, although she declared herself satisfied with the opportunity to use that forum to publicly expose a lot of what has been going on. Daly declared however that it was with the people that real impetus lay and hailed their resistance, including that of people in the room, in recent years.
THE NEED FOR SOCIALISM
Clare Daly finished her talk to a storm of applause as Brian Leeson, introduced by the Cathaoirleach as Chairperson of the éirigí party, rose to take her place at the lectern, joking that rather than being “a warm-up act” for him, Daly had “stolen his thunder”.
Leeson began his speech by outlining the need for a socialist society and suggested those who say that “Socialism doesn’t work” should be asked whether they think capitalism is working. He pointed to continual economic and financial crises, unemployment, housing crises in various forms, cuts in social welfare and health care …. and war. Wars, Leeson declared, were an inevitable part of imperialism, which is capitalism’s struggle to control natural resources and markets.
“This hotel and these rooms have an important place in our history” said Leeson, relating that a decision to found the Irish Volunteers had been taken in Wynne’s hotel in 1913 and in 1914 Cumann na mBan had been founded there. Commenting on recent and forthcoming centenary commemorations, Leeson said that it was people like those in the room and outside in resistance who had made that history and that the state set up in on the back of those struggles did not represent either the ideals the people had fought for or the wishes of the majority of people in the country now.
Going on to attack the economic policies of the Northern Executive in the Six Counties, Leeson castigated Sinn Féin and the SDLP who he said had given up the only area of financial control that they had and passed the buck on to the British Government. They had the opportunity, he said, to stand resolutely for a budget against social welfare and health care cuts but they passed the buck to the British Government, which implemented those cuts instead. It was essential that the Northern Irish Executive should not collapse, apparently. Leeson questioned why this should be thought so – surely the only justifiable reason to be in any government or Executive was to represent the ordinary people and the disadvantaged!
Leeson also talked about the theft and giving away of our natural resources such as oil and the planned privatisation of water which he said belonged to the people and that no government had the right to give them away nor any company the right to own them.
Leeson paid tribute to Clare Daly who was prepared to advocate for Irish Republicans in prison and had given much support to Stephen Murney and Ursula Ní Shionnaigh. He also made a particular point of welcoming Erdelan Baran and of supporting the struggle of the Kurdish people.
Commenting on discussion around a forthcoming general election in the Irish state (the 26 Counties), Leeson criticised those who talked of campaigns to elect some kind of left-wing alliance. The conditions did not exist for that to be viable project, he said, and to raise people’s hopes only to dash them was cruel and would be demoralising. People should continue their resistance and éirigí would continue their part in that as they had done up until now.
The audience gave Brian Leeson strong applause as he concluded his speech.
There were no questions and answers called for afterwards and the meeting concluded, people standing around talking, purchasing from the merchandise stall, departing or retiring to the nearby bar which had just opened.
COMMENT
Attendance, Organisation, Speeches, Participation
The room was large and full, with accents to be heard from across the country and éirigí will probably be pleased with the level of attendance. The public meeting appeared to be well organised with door security (an invited/ registered list on which my name was not but thankfully I was recognised by several and that formality waived) just outside the meeting while inside, merchandise stall, chairperson, ushers, seating, projector and screen for videos and slides, sound amplification, and professional banners (one bilingual and one in Irish only).
I saw only one photographer whom I assumed to be éirigí’s and, thinking other photos of the attendance might not be permitted, restrained myself to photographing the banners only.
Mac Cionnaith’s talk was somewhat over-long in my opinion and he is also softly spoken, which makes parts difficult to hear – and I was in one of the front seats. He also speaks without a great deal of inflection or emphasis in his delivery which militates against giving him continuing close attention. This is a pity because the content was extremely interesting and contained a lot that was new to me. I was also impressed by the amount of information that he clearly had in his head, since he rarely had to consult his notes.
Such a long talk however is unlikely to be followed by questions and answers and this proved to be the case, with the Cathaoirleach calling a break at the conclusion of Mac Cionnaith’s talk, to be followed by the next speaker on resumption of the conference.
Mac Cionnaith told me later that he usually gives this talk in two parts and with a break between them. I urged him to write and publish it as a pamphlet and I sincerely hope he does so.
Clare Daly’s and Leeson’s talks were clearly audible and well-presented and the meeting was in general well-chaired. I would offer the criticism that the time-tabling did not permit sufficient audience participation in terms of questions and answers or contributions which only occurred, briefly, after the Kurdish speaker – i.e none after the other three speakers.
All the speeches had interesting content and were relevant to political life in Ireland today. Given the organisation’s policy on abortion I would not have expected a talk on that subject, albeit the issue is a very important ongoing one in Ireland. A stranger important omission I thought was the issue of repression of Irish Republican activists both outside and inside the prisons, including the practice of internment by false charge and remand. Stephen Murney, himself an éirigí activist in Newry, had been an important example of victims of this abuse of civil rights.
Another factor was the total absence of spoken Irish from the panel of speakers or the Cathaoirleach (even to the ritual “cúpla focal”) and I am aware that some éirigí activists did express their disappointment at that (both Leeson and McPhall are Irish speakers) after the meeting.
Ideology & Political Policy
The internal part of the meeting had taken place earlier and I was not present at that so these comments refer only to the open public part of the meeting.
It was understandable perhaps that, addressing a conference organised by a party known to have rejected that process in Ireland, the Kurdish speaker skated quickly over the question of Ocalan’s and the PKK’s espousal of a “peace” process. What is less understandable is that from éirigí, no-one rose to criticise it, that being done only by one contributor from the floor, who – after thanking Erdelan in Kurdish — pointed out that such processes do not bring peace and are instead pacification processes, traveling from people in struggle from one country to those in another, subverting their struggles as with South Africa, Palestine, Ireland and now being proposed for the Kurdish people, the Basques, the Colombians, Filipinos …1
The same contributor, while expressing his great admiration for the struggle of the Kurdish people over the years, in support of which he had travelled to Kurdistan in the early 1990s as part of a trade union delegation, raised another two issues of concern to him, which were what he perceived as the elevation of Abdullah Ocalan to iconic status within the main Kurdish movement and that the YPG had declared themselves in alliance with the western coalition in Syria. Making it clear that he was not a supporter of Assad, the contributor asked the speaker whether he thought the imperialists would hand over control of the country when their current enemy had been defeated?
The contributor’s remarks and question were greeted with scattered applause from the audience.
,Erdelan made no reply at all on the issue of a peace process but replied at length to the issue of Ocalan’s leadership and the use of his image and to a lesser extent to question of alliance with the imperialist coalition.
“Ocalan does not seek to be a leader,” said Erdelan, “and has often said ‘If anyone else wants to take on this job let him have it.’” Aside from the fact that Ocalan’s leadership per se had not been criticised except in promotion of a peace process, this reply and subsequent arguments did not address the issue of the proliferation of Ocalan’s image within the movement, the issue that had been raised by the contributor from the floor. Furthermore, the Kurdish speaker must have been aware that Ocalan had publicly argued against his threatened execution by saying that a peace process was necessary with the Turkish state and that only he could lead the movement towards it. Going on to talk about Ocalan’s 15 political publications, as Erdelan did if anything served only to confirm the adulation in which his person is held by many in the movement. The policy of confederalism is also one developed by Ocalan while in captivity, after he renounced the policy of seeking a Kurdish marxist-leninist state and, subsequently, also renouncing the policy he developed of seeking Kurdish regional autonomy within the Turkish state.
In his reply on the issue of alliance with imperialists, Erdelan was likewise quite disingenuous. He emphasised the success of the fight against ISIL and the gender equality which their administration had brought to their liberated areas, which had been in part lauded already by the contributor from the floor but which did not directly address the issue in any case. Moving on, he referred to the need for survival of the Kurds and beleaguered people and their need for weapons.
After some more of this the contributor objected to the “arms for defence line”, saying that the overall military commander in the Rojava area had publicly stated that the YPG were not only joining the coalition for arms for survival but were going to join in an offensive to overthrow the Assad Government. At this point the Cathaoirleach silenced the contributor from the floor, pointing out not unreasonably that there were others waiting to speak.
The next contributor from the floor welcomed Erdelan to Ireland. He lauded the struggle of the Kurds and the leadership of Ocalan and stated that he and a few others had picketed the Turkish Embassy when the Kurdish leader was under sentence of death. He stated that in Ireland we also often display images of leaders and heroes such as James Connolly and that we do that in order to display our support for their ideals. He lauded the administration of the Rojava areas and stated that he wished to disassociate himself from the comments the previous contributor from the floor had made. He received strong applause.
This contributor seemed unaware of the difference between the way and the degree to which images of James Connolly are displayed in Ireland and the way in which images of Ocalan are displayed among Kurdish supporters of the PKK. He also missed the most important difference – Connolly is dead and Ocalan is alive. Whatever errors a dead leader made he can make no further ones whereas a living leader can make many more (as history in general and ours in particular has shown) and the iconisation of a living leader makes challenging his/her mistakes within a movement extremely difficult and viewed as something in the order of sacrilege.
Another contributor from the floor asked for some more explanation of the policy of confederalism. In the course of his reply, Erdelan said that it was a democratic system that would preclude territorial expansion and that, for example, the issue of whether someone wanted a nuclear reactor in their area would be entirely a local decision. This reply in fact outlined one of the problems of confederalism in this stage of history since if local people voted in favour, for example with promises of safety and cheap power, the decision would nevertheless potentially affect everyone within a radius of thousands of kilometres – but no-one seemed to pick up on that.
The same member of the audience, responding, enthusiastically commended the Kurdish organisation on their confederalism policy and said that we should have the same here in Ireland. He (and certainly at least some in the audience) appeared unaware that a type of confederalism had been a central part of Sinn Féin’s and Provisional IRA’s progam for many years. The “Éire Nua” was such a program, originally proposed by then SF’s President Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Dáithí Ó Conaill and strongly supported in practice by Des Fennel. This policy had encountered some opposition within the Provisional movement, particularly from supporters in the Six Counties who feared being left under regional domination of — or in constant contention with — Unionists.
The “Éire Nua” policy was overturned at the 1982 Ard-Fheis (annual conference) of Sinn Féin in what was seen by many as a victory of the Adams group within the leadership over the Ó Bradaigh one. Subsequently the policy of Sinn Féin has been for a united 32-County state and that is also part of éirigí’s policy today. Only Republican Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan among Republican organisations in Ireland today retain a federal policy.
Overall, it seemed that the majority of the audience either did not feel equipped to engage with the issues in a critical fashion or felt that they would be going against their party (or hosts) to do so. It was highly unlikely that the majority supported the aspiration for a peace process and there must have been at least some disquiet on the issue of joining an imperialist coalition. But they remained silent. There was also of course the cultural issue of hospitality to an invited guest which may have played a part.
However, these are serious questions affecting the revolutionary movements around the world and need to be engaged with critically.
End.
FOOTNOTE
1 Is mise a rinneadh sin. I also took part in actions for the removal of the execution threat to Ocalan while having a number of discussions with Kurdish activists on the issue of iconisation. In general I worked for a number of years in London in Kurdish solidarity with people who supported the PKK and some who did not, including submitting motions to trade union branches and going on that delegation around much of northern Kurdistan in the early 1990s when it was still a war zone there. In Ireland I took part in a few pickets with Kurdish comrades and was discussing setting up a solidarity network here but some of the principal activists left the country.
While I was conscious that some others who I know would have had similar views to the concerns I expressed kept away from me, some activists did approach me during the break to express their approval of my comments, in particular on the issue of making an icon of a living leader. They had experienced a similar process with the promotion of Gerry Adams within Sinn Féin before leaving the organisation to join éirigí or to become independent activists. Nobody likes isolation and I was grateful not only for their comments but for visibly approaching me in the meeting area in view of anyone who cared to see.
PALESTINIAN TELLS DUBLIN MEETING ABOUT TEN YEARS OF BDS SUCCESS AGAINST ISRAEL
Diarmuid Breatnach
A Palestinian speaker recounted ten years of success in the BDS campaign against the Israeli Zionist State and asked people to continue with it and, if possible, to step it up.
Riya Hassan addressed a crowd at the Pearse Centre in Dublin’s Pearse Street, just off Dublin City Centre, on Wednesday night. She spoke about the history of the oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli state and the ten-year history of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, explaining its origins in Palestinian society and charting its growth and successes. The three basic aims of the BDS campaign are to pressure Israel to end the colonisation and occupation of Palestinian land, to give equal rights to Arab-Palestinians citizens in the Israeli state and to agree to the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.
Riyah Hassan is European Coordinator of the BDS campaign, herself a Palestinian and, as she later explained when talking about the Israeli destruction of villages in the Negev, from near that area herself. Talking about the current refugee crisis in Europe, she pointed out that many of the refugees taking to sea in what she termed “death boats” (echoes of our own “coffin ships” during the Great Hunger) are in fact Palestinians. They are from refugee camps in Syria and are being made refugees for the second, third or even fourth time.
Speaking on the Palestinian refugee issue, a huge and outstanding one since 1948, Riya Hassan mentioned that their right to return home had been surrendered by the negotiators of the “peace process” at Oslo in the 1980s but that Palestinian society had not accepted this abandonment, whether in Israel, the occupied territory or in the refugee camps elsewhere.
Among a list of successes of the BDS campaign, Riya Hassan mentioned Veolia, a company which had been setting up the transport networks between settlements helping to carve up Palestine, had lost millions due to BDS – as a result, the company has pulled out of Israel (Veolia, by the way, runs the LUAS trams in Dublin). G4 Security, which runs surveillance on Israeli prisons, where there are currently well over 6,000 Palestinian prisoners, have said that they will pull out in 2017 but Riya said they should pull out now and called for pressure to be increased upon them. Another target should be our own Government, which has spent €14.7 million worth of arms and military components from Israel over the last decade (while Irish-based companies have exported €6.42m worth of military and ‘dual use’ hardware to Israel over the past five years). Riya reminded us of the complicity in murder entailed in buying equipment from the Israeli arms industry – an industry which boasts as a marketing point that its deadly equipment is “field tested”!
Among the measures of the impact of the BDS campaign on Israel and abroad, the audience were told that Netanyahu in addressing the recent AIPAC conference in the USA had given a quarter of his speech to attacking the BDS campaign and campaigners, in contrast to the early days when Zionists tended to dismiss the campaign as insignificant. More extraordinarily, perhaps, Hillary Clinton has given a promise, as part of her campaign for the Presidency of the USA, to do what she could against BDS.
Riya Hassan is eloquent, with excellent command of English and spoke clearly and confidently. If anything, she spoke for too long overall. It is hard for a visitor to judge what a typical Irish audience might know or what our cultural expectations are but the room was warm and after about 45 minutes one could hear some people shifting in their seats, a situation that did not improve as the talk extended well past the hour.
However, when the Chair of the meeting turned to the audience, it did not seem that anyone had missed an opportunity to ask questions or to comment and some even took several bites of the cherry.
As chair of the meeting (and of the IPSC) Martin Quigley drew the meeting to an end, he announced a boycott action of Tesco supermarkets for this Saturday and, for those in Dublin, asked them to meet at the IPSC office at 12 noon.
Riyah Hassan sets off over the next few days for Belfast and Cork before leaving our shores again and we wish go néirí an bóthair léithe!
end
INIGO CABACAS KILLED BY POLICE – RELATIVES AND FRIENDS WAITING THREE YEARS WITHOUT JUSTICE
INIGO CABACAS KILLED BY RUBBER BULLET FIRED BY BASQUE POLICE IN 2012 — STILL NO JUSTICE FOR FAMILY OR FRIENDS
Diarmuid Breatnach
Most Basques and especially supporters of their most popular football team, Athletic Bilbao1, were very happy in the early evening of 5th April 2012 .
Their team had beaten a football giant in the UEFA cup twice and another premier European team once. The fans were expecting Athletic to win or at least draw again that evening, in which case Athletic Bilbao were through to the second leg of the quarter-finals. They had no idea that the evening would end with a police riot squad firing rubber bullets into a festive crowd, causing the death of a young fan.
The high expectations of that evening in Bilbao were the result of a run of wins for the Athletic team. On March 8th 2012, Athletic Bilbao beat Manchester United 3-2 on their own ground, at Old Trafford.
One needs to know a few population statistics to understand what an achievement that was. Manchester United is a football team on the world stage, based in a city with a population of 2.55 million – that is not far from the population figure for the entire Basque Country. In addition, Manchester United’s players are drawn from around the world; Athletic recruits only Basque players from a total population of the Basque Country of less than 3 million.
A week after their win in the northern England city, on March 13th, Athletic faced Manchester United again, this time on the Basque team’s home ground, San Mames, in Bilbao. Manchester Utd. were beaten 2-1 and it seemed that the Basque lions2 were unstoppable.
These wins created a huge interest in the next game, which was with FC Schalke 04 on March 29th at the German team’s home ground. Schalke plays in the top tier of the German football league and have won many championships including one UEFA League. With around 130,000 members, Schalke 04 is the third-largest sports club in the world in terms of membership, behind their compatriot rival FC Bayern Munich and Portuguese club SL Benfica.
Athletic Bilbao is not a sports conglomerate – it is a football club which is owned by its 40,000 members (remember, this is a small country – that’s nearly 1.5% of the whole population! It’s also around 11% of the population of their home base, Bilbao). The management board is elected by the membership.
At Schalke 04’s home ground on March 29th, the Bilbaino team beat them 2-4. The interest was therefore at fever-pitch for Athletic’s return match with the German team at Athletic’s home ground, San Mames on 5th April. The result was a 2-2 draw but Athletic were ahead 6-4 on aggregate and the fans were delighted. Bilbao was, as they say, buzzing.
After matches, young fans especially go to different pubs around town. Inigo Cabacas and many others went to an Herriko Taberna (a “Peoples’ Tavern”, i.e. one managed by the Abertzale [Basque pro-Independence] Left) which is located in an small “square” with planters, connected by alley with Licenciado Poza street. This small “square” is off the María Díaz de Haro street near the stadium; it runs parallell with the San Mames street itself, an area of bars well-known as a destination for fans after a game at the stadium.
The Herriko is too small to accommodate all those who gathered there but that was no problem for the area outside took the overspill. Early in the evening a few people were seen scuffling there and the rest of the crowd around them told them to knock it off, this was a time for celebration, etc. The scuffle ended and the festivities continued.
Some time later, a van load of police arrived. These were the Ertzaintza, a Basque Police force of 7,500 created in 1982 which has had numerous clashes with Basque strike pickets and with the Abertzale (pro-Independence) Left. Supporters of the Abertzale Left and many others refer to the Ertzaintza as “zipayos” (i.e. “sepoys”, local soldiers recruited by colonial occupiers). The Ertzaintza are responsible to the Basque Autonomous Region Government (CAV), a semi-autonomous entity covering three of the four southern Basque provinces.
Some of the youth perceive the arrival of the masked and helmeted police as a provocation and begin to throw bottles at the van.
The police officer in charge of those in the van asks for reinforcements and these are sent. The police emerge from their vans and begin to fire rubber bullets3 at the crowd at quite close range (the “square” is less than 45 metres at its furthest from the street) and everyone scatters except for a small group who are throwing bottles at the police but even they eventually dive for cover. People are sheltering in doorways, huddled up against the walls on each side of the “square”. Some are inside the pub wondering what is going on. A local shop-manager has raised the shutter over his doorway and people crowd in there. Some people are sheltering behind the wooden planters that are in a line down the centre of the narrow square.
After some time three young men walk towards the police with their hands in the air, asking them to stop firing rubber bullets; the police strike them with batons. Meanwhile it comes to the attention of some in the crowd nearby that a person is lying on the ground, apparently unconscious with blood coming from his ear and the rear of his head. People go to his aid and one of his friends recognises Inigo Cabacas. He gets his mobile phone and rushes towards the police telling them that someone has been seriously injured and to call an ambulance. A police officer tells him to drop the mobile. Inigo’s friend repeats his urgent request and the police officer tells him again to drop the mobile and hits him with a truncheon. The man drops his mobile and retreats from the police.
The police advance into the area and reach the injured man who has some people around him; a women is rendering first aid. A policeman tells her to move away. She tells him the man needs and ambulance and that she is applying pressure to stop the bleeding. He says he wants to see for himself and pulls at her arm but after awhile desists and goes away.
Eventually an ambulance arrives and takes Inigo Cabacas, still unconscious, to hospital, where he lies in a coma.
(video of the scene of the incident and interviews with friends and witnesses with English subtitles)
The news runs through a city, a shock in the midst of its celebrations and soon afterwards throughout the Basque Country. The first official reaction is given by the Interior Minister of the Basque Autonomous Regional Government, who declares to the press that the Ertzaintza acted properly and in line with their procedures, although he regrets the unfortunate death of they young man. He also repeats the first line of defence given by the Ertzaintza, that they were called to help someone injured in a fight and that the crowd was preventing the ambulance in attendance from rendering assistance to the injured.
When eye-witnesses give their version and the reporters of some newpapers begin to gather information, it becomes clear that the Minister could not possibly have investigated the incident in the time available. Furthermore, it emerges that no ambulance attended until after the incident with the police and that it appears that no call for one had been made earlier. Furthermore, according to the woman who attended to Inigo at the scene, the ambulance paramedic told her, when she complained at their delay in arriving, that the police had delayed their entrance. Under a storm of criticism from civil society and from the Abertzale Left party, EH Bildu, the Minister promises a full investigation.
Inigo Cabacas dies after three days without having recovered consciousness.
Some time later, a recording of the police communications on the night is made available by GARA, a pro-Independence Basque daily newspaper. The following becomes clear from the recording:
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The Controller at Ertzaintza HQ calls a police van leader and directs him to attend the Herriko, saying that a fight has occurred there and that someone is injured.
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The van leader reports that they have arrived and that some are throwing bottles at them, that they require reinforcements. No mention of ambulance.
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The Controller confirms reinforcements are being sent.
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Reinforcements arrive. One of the van leaders now reports that nothing is happening, everything is ok.
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The Controller replies that he wants the police to go in and take possession of the area and make any arrests necessary. He emphasises that he wants to be understood clearly, that they are to “go into the Herriko with everything we have”, to take control of the area “and then everything will be ok.”
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The van leader replies that the order is understood and soon shots are heard (the firing of rubber bullets).
The family employs a solicitor. A judge is appointed to carry out the investigation but is required to do so along with her other duties. Immediately, the police investigation ceases (according to the family’s lawyer, ithe file contains just three pages), using the excuse of the judicial investigation.
A number of legal applications are made, e.g. for all the police at the incident to be obliged to make a statement, for all police who fired a rubber bullet gun to be identified, for the Controller to be obliged to make a statement, but all are refused by a judge, giving a number of reasons4. Little is established over the following three years, except that three police voluntarily admit to having fired rubber bullets and the identity of the Controller on the evening becomes widely known. There is widespread outrage when the senior officer on duty the day of Inigo’s death is appointed Chief of the Ertzaintza. At a recent press conference, the Cabacas family’s lawyer, Jone Goirizelaia, announced that they had possibly identified the officer who had fired the fatal shot.
It emerged during the campaign by supporters of the Cabacas family that no recognised procedure was followed by the police with regard to the incident: debriefing statements were not taken from each of the police participants, guns were not examined to identify which had been fired, no inventory was taken of the number of rubber bullets fired. No attempt was made to contact witnesses after the event to gain a picture of what had occurred. Indeed, some witnesses who approached the police station to give statements were told to go away (see video link posted earlier in this article). It further appears that the Ertzaintza have been issued with no specific operational instructions with regard to the firing of rubber bullets.
According to some sources, the rubber bullets should only be fired at knee-height and at no less than 50 metres from the target. The “square” is, according to locals, less than 45 metres at its furthest from the street and therefore the police from the moment they began firing, were in serious breach of the minimum distance requirements. In addition, the Ertzaintza have frequently been seen aiming their rubber bullet guns at protesters’ faces from as little as a metre or two and also firing from the shoulder with the muzzle parallel to the ground, i.e. directed at head or chest-height of the target. Also, the rubber-coated steel balls bounce uncontrollably.
Rubber bullets against Palestinians
Rubber bullets are regularly fired by the Israeli army at Palestinians. A Palestinian source reports: “Israeli professor Michael Krausz and colleagues at the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa analysed the medical records of 595 casualties admitted to hospital during the October 2000 protests by Palestinians living inside Israel (typically described as “Israeli Arabs” by the media). Of those, 152 were found to have been injured by rubber-coated metal bullets. Injuries were distributed randomly across their bodies but were most common on the patients’ arms and legs, and on their head, neck and face.
“The doctors said their findings dismissed the theory that “rubber bullets” were safe. Rubber-coated metal bullets with some of their rubber coating removed, revealing their hard steel core. Fired at speeds of what must be several hundred feet a second, these are munitions that cause enough damage that their manufacturers feel compelled to describe them as only ‘less lethal’.
“Writing in the Lancet, they said firing the bullets at civilians made it ‘impossible to avoid severe injuries to vulnerable body regions such as the head, neck and upper torso, leading to substantial mortality, morbidity and disability.’ They added: ‘We reported a substantial number of severe injuries and fatalities inflicted by use of rubber bullets ….. This type of ammunition should therefore not be considered a safe method of crowd control. “The study, ‘Blunt and penetrating injuries caused by rubber bullets during the Israeli-Arab conflict in October, 2000: a retrospective study’ (The Lancet, Volume 359, Issue 9320, Page 1795), also highlighted previous research which suggested that even plastic bullets may not be safe and may cause more severe head injuries.” (Sourced at http://electronicintifada.net/content/misleading-terminology-rubber-bullets/4000)
Rubber bullets against the Irish
Seventeen people were killed in the Six Counties (“Northern Ireland”) by rubber and plastic bullets fired by British soldiers (11) and colonial police (6) during the 30 Years War. A number of people were also blinded. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/rubberplasticbullet.htm
It emerged in 2013 during a compensation case taken by a Derry man blinded in 1972 that the authorities knew that the missiles were potentially lethal even before they issued them. (http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/11/mod-rubber-bullets-lethal-records) It is clear also from a wealth of evidence that the missiles were regularly fired by soldiers and police not only at close range but also aimed at chest or head. In addition, a deadly ‘game’ was played by some British soldiers. Knowing that rubber and plastic bullets were collected by children as mementoes and objects to sell to tourists, soldiers would fire some into an open area and wait for children to run forward to collect them, then see if they could hit the children with subsequent rounds.
Rubber bullets in the Spanish state
The Spanish state continues to allow its police forces to carry and to fire rubber-coated metal bullets, in particular at protesting Basques and Catalans (see video link at bottom below article). Recently, the EU expressed concern at Spanish police firing at migrants attempting to swim into the Spanish state from Morocco, an occasion when 11 of the migrants drowned. But no international protest criticises them for firing potentially lethal missiles at their own citizens. Police in the Spanish state enjoy impunity and none more so than in the Basque and Catalan countries as well as with regard to African migrants. This week, a motion was put to the Basque Parliament to ban the use of rubber bullets in the area under its control (CAV). Instead a proposal was accepted to “restrict” the use of the missiles to “situations of grave danger” to the police, and to “definitely seek a replacement” for them. The Spanish right-wing PP, the liberal Spanish unionist UPyD, along with the PNV (Basque Nationalists), currently in power, voted for it, along with the Basque version of the Spanish social-democrats, the PSE. The only party to vote against the amendment was EH Bildu, party of the Abertzale (pro-Independence) Left; they had proposed the original motion, seeking a total ban and the removal of the missiles.
Among those in the public gallery at the discussion were the parents of Inigo Cabacas. Afterwards, in the corridor outside, they confronted the spokesperson of the PNV, Joseba Egibar. During the exchange, another PNV parliamentarian, Luke Uribe-Etxebarria, tried to prevent its filming by the Basque TV station ETB. That attempt will be the subject of a complaint to the President of the Parliament by EH Bildu; they view it as particularly serious since Uribe-Etxebarria is also on the management board of the TV station and the filming was taking place in areas open to the public.
“I’m never coming to this Parliament again …. I feel cheated,” said Manuel Cabacas, father of the deceased, speaking about the majority decision. “My son is dead …. I only wanted to ensure that it would never happen to anyone else ….”
On the third anniversary of the killing of Inigo “Pitu” Cabacas, among many commemorative vents in the Basque Country, 10 minutes’ silence was observed in the San Mames stadium. Alongside Inigo Cabacas; many are also remembering Aitor Zabaleta, fan of the Real Sociedad team, murdered in Madrid in 1998 by fascist ultras of Club Atletico Madrid. Many Basques around the world will be conscious of the three years that have passed since Inigo’s killing without anyone being even charged in connection with his death or any noticeable change, whether in Basque police behaviour, procedure or their use of rubber-coated steel projectiles. A change of political control of the Basque Regional Government from the social-democratice party of Patxi Lopez to the Basque Nationalist Party . (PNV) of Urkullu has had no effect.
It is true that for ordinary people, in capitalist society, the wheels of justice move very slowly; in this case it is hard to see that they are moving at all.
End.
NB: DUBLIN: A group of Basques plan to hold a commemorative event on Tuesday 28th April, on the day of a Basque derby, Bilbao Athletic v. Real Sociedad. They plan to hold a protest picket at the O’Connell Monument in Dublin’s O’Connell Street at 7pm for a short while and afterwards to go to watch the Basque derby (kick-off at 9pm) at the Living Room bar, Cathal Brugha St. Some Dublin-based Irish people have undertaken to support the Basques by participation in both events. Poster for event: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153291310864390&set=gm.1624681737767253&type=1&theater
Short but shocking Guardian video of Catalan police using rubber bullets and the testimonies of victims who have lost an eye to the missiles:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/30/catalonia-police-banned-rubber-bullets
Footnotes
1 Based in Bilbao, it is the most popular and most successful (two things that often go together) but not the only football team; there are also Real Sociedad, based in Donosti/San Sebastian and Osasuna, based in Iruña/ Pamplona.
2 A roaring lion is the emblem of the team, arising from the legend of St. Mames, to whom the local church is dedicated and which gives its name to the area, street and stadium. English-language football commentators persisted in calling the team “the Spanish lions” or “the Spanish cavaliers” (??!), in total ignorance, one hopes, of quite how insulting that would be perceived by the players and their fans. The Basque Country is not even politico-geographically Spain, it is divided between the Spanish and French states. And Bilbao Athletic is most certainly not, nor has it ever been, a Spanish team. When the Spanish King attends finals or semi-finals between Barcelona and Athletic in, yes, a Spanish football league, and the Spanish national anthem is played, the stadium fills with howls of derision, hoots and whistles from the supporters of both teams.
3 These are about the size of a tennis ball, perhaps a little smaller, of steel and coated in rubber.
4 E.g., the Controller could not be held responsible for the shooting by the police; individual police would have to be accused of firing the fatal shot if they were to be obliged to make a statement …
JE NE SUIS PAS CHARLIE (I AM NOT CHARLIE)
By José Antonio Gutiérrez Dantón / Friday 9 January 2015 (translated from the original in Castillian)
To begin with, let me make it clear from the outset that I consider the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to be an atrocity and that I do not believe that it is justifiable under any circumstances to make a military target of a journalist, no matter what our opinion on the quality of his journalism may be. The same is valid in France, as it is in Colombia or in Palestine.
Also, nor do I identify with any fundamentalism, whether it be Christian, Jewish or Muslim, nor indeed with Frenchified mock-secularism either, which makes a goddess of the “République”.
I present these necessary explanations since no matter how much the high priests of politics insist that we live under an “exemplary democracy” with “great liberties”, we all know that Big Brother is watching us and that any speech outside the script is severely punished. But I believe that to condemn the attack on Charlie Hebdo is not the same as celebrating a magazine that is, fundamentally, a monument to intolerance, racism and colonial arrogance.
I cannot view with equanimity the constant symbolic aggression that has as its counterpart a physical and real aggression, which is the bombing and military occupation of countries belonging to this cultural horizon. Nor can I happily these cartoons and their offensive texts with a light heart, when Arabs are one of the most marginalized, impoverished and exploited sectors of French society which has historically been brutally treated.
I do not forget that in the early 1960s, in the Paris Metro, the police massacred 200 Algerians by clubbing, just because the latter were demanding an end to the French occupation of their country, which had already led to a total of a million dead “uncivilized” Arabs.
This is not about innocent cartoons drawn by free thinkers but rather about messages produced by mass media (yes, though in an alternative posture, Chalie Hebdo is part of the mass media), loaded with hatred and stereotypes reinforcing a discourse that considers the Arabs as barbarians to be contained, uprooted, controlled, represed, oppressed and exterminated. These are messages the implicit purpose of which is to justify the invasions of Middle Eastern countries as well as the many interventions and bombings orchestrated in the West in defence of the new imperial map. The Spanish film actor Willy Toledo controversially commented, no more than was obvious, that “The West kills every day. Silently.” And that is what Charlie and his black humour hides under the cover of satire.
I do not forget the front cover of Charlie Hebdo issue N°1099, in which it trivialized the massacre of more than a thousand Egyptians by a brutal military dictatorship which has the approval of the USA and of France, carrying a cartoon with a text declaring “Slaughter in Egypt. The Koran is shit: it doesnt stop bullets.” The cartoon showed a Muslim man riddled with bullets that had passed through a copy of the Koran, with which he had been trying to protect himself. Perhaps some find this funny. In their time too, the English colonists in Tierra del Fuego, Argentinia, thought it funny to have photographs of themselves taken, with wide smiles and rifle in hand, a foot on the corpses of the still-warm and bleeding bodies of the native people they had hunted.
Rather than funny, that cartoon to me seems violent and colonialist, an abuse of the fictitious and manipulated western freedom of the press. How would people react if I were to design a magazine cover bearing the following text: “Slaughter in Paris. Charlie Hebdo is shit: it doesn’t stop bullets” and made a cartoon of the deceased and gunned-down Jean Cabut holding a copy of the magazine in his hands? Clearly that would be outrageous: the life of a Frenchman is sacred. The life of an Egyptian (or Palestinian, Iraqi, a Syrian, etc.) is “humoristic” material. For that reason I am not Charlie, because for me, the life of each one of those Egyptians pestered is as sacred as is any of those caricaturists assassinated today.
We already know what to expect now: there will be speeches defending press freedom from countries which in 1999 gave their blessing to the NATO bombing of the Serbian public TV station in Belgrade, calling it “the Ministry of Lies”; countries that remained silent while Israel bombed the Al-Manar TV station in Beirut in 2006; those that respond with silence to the murders of Colombian and Palestinian critical journalists.
After the beautiful pro-freedom rhetoric will come the liberticide action: more McCarthyism, disguised colonial “anti-terrorism”, more colonial interventions, more restrictions of those “democratic guarantees” threatened with extinction and, of course, more racism.
Europe is consumed in a spiral of xenophobic hatred, islamophobia, anti-semitism (in fact, the Palestinians are Semitic) and this atmosphere has reached unbearable levels. The Muslims are already the Jews of 21st Century Europe and neo-Nazi parties are becoming respectable again, 80 years later, thanks to this detestable feeling.
Because of all this, in spite of the feelings of repulsion engendered in me by the Paris attack, Je ne suis pas Charlie.
Note on author:
José Antonio Gutiérrez D. is a libertarian political activist living in Ireland, where he participates in the movements of solidarity with Latin America and with Colombia, a contributor to the CEPA (Colombia) magazine and to El Ciudadano (Chile), and also to the international web page www.anarkismo.net. He is author of “Problemas e Possibilidades do Anarquismo” (in Portuguese, Faisca ed., 2011) and coordinator of the book “Orígenes Libertarios del Primero de Mayo en América Latina” (Quimantú ed. 2010).
MASS MEDIA MANIPULATION – REPORTING ON THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT
Diarmuid Breatnach
Palestinian supporters and other critics of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza have long complained about the western mass media’s reporting of the conflict in Palestine. The complaints have outlined reporting slanted in the Israeli state’s favour and/or specifically against the Palestinians and their representatives.
Umberto Ecco once defined language as a system of communication through which one could tell lies. There is no doubt but that our mass media uses language. Their editors and reporters herd us as sheep are herded by trained dogs, sometimes with barks and snaps of teeth but more usually through nudges and subtle changes of posture. They direct us to the pen where we are wanted or, at the very least, away from freedom.
In order to demonstrate the techniques used I have taken an example of reporting on the conflict and analysed it. The piece chosen is far from being one of the worst pro-Israeli or anti-Palestinian pieces of journalism – it is actually quite mild and even points out the statistical imbalance in the killing of civilians by Israel’s armed forces on the one hand and by Palestinian guerrillas on the other hand. The report is by the Irish on-line newspaper The Journal and was put up by them in the middle of August 2014.
The piece opens by saying that “Palestinian negotiators have been considering an Egyptian proposal to end the month-long Israel-Hamas war as the latest 72-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is due to expire.”
This first of all says that the conflict is a war which also implies some kind of equal balance in fighting forces and also a share in blame. But it is not a war between any two sides; if it can be called a war at all, it is a war by Israel only. Israel is the fourth-largest military power in the world, with an army, navy and air force equipped with some of the latest armament and surveillance equipment. The Palestinians have a number of guerrilla groups, operating as infantry and no air or naval force at all. Their “artillery” are low-level rockets and mortars which cause very little damage to Israeli civilians and even less to the Israeli armed forces (except at close quarters, if Israeli soldiers invade territory held by the guerrillas). Israel’s armament causes huge damage to Palestinian infrastructure, huge loss of civilian life and does cause some damage to the guerilla groups.
The phrasing also suggests that Hamas is the only opponent of Israel on the Palestinian side. However, Israel has been in conflict with the Palestinians since the very day it came into existence and long before Hamas appeared on the scene. Even today, there are a number of Palestinian political and military organisations that are opposed to Israel and its actions and all together they represent the whole of Palestinian society inside the occupied territories, inside the 1948 borders of the state of Israel and in the refugee camps and settlements. In the sense that one could say that there is a war going on, it is Israel waging war against the Palestinian people.
The very next paragraph in the Journal’s piece says that “Since the truce, which will expire at midnight, went into effect on Sunday, Israel has halted military operations in the coastal territory and Gaza militants have stopped firing rockets.”
We see presented here that on the one side we have “Israel” and on the other, “Gaza militants”. As in bourgeois media reporting “militants” usually has a negative connotation, this is already tending to turn the reader against the Palestinians in Gaza. On the other hand, we have “Israel” which we can interpret either as “a legitimate state” or as the Biblical “promised land of the Jews”. And that is being opposed by “militants” in Gaza. The phrasing legitimises the status of one side while de-legitimising the other.
We are also told that Israel has halted “military operations”, two words that hardly convey the sustained bombardment of Gaza’s civilian houses, schools, mosques, civil administration facilities, power plant, water treatment plant, factories, hospitals and emergency vehicles in recent weeks. It does not bring to mind the slaughter of over 2,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians and including 430 children. Not to mention the 9,567 wounded, including 2,878 children and hundreds of injured jamming the remaining ill-equipped hospital treatment centres.
The paragraphs states that in return for the cessation of “military operations” by the Israelis, the Palestinians have “stopped firing rockets”. Actually, if this report had just gone into a little detail, how pitiful by comparison with Israeli deadly ordnance would be the Palestinian rockets! Nevertheless, it is the rockets that are recently used as propaganda excuses by Israelis (before them it was something else) to justify the unjustifiable, the terrorising and collective punishment of a largely civilian population. So it is very rare indeed that western media reports omit any mention of the rockets.
“The ceasefire was meant to give the two sides time to negotiate a more sustainable truce and a roadmap for the coastal territory.”
Again, “two sides” gives the impression of some kind of equal antagonists in balance. The “roadmap” may be a vague reference to some future deal but may also be a reference to something that was much bandied about in Clinton’s time as President of the USA. This “roadmap” was supposed to lead to a two-state solution and, apart from the fact that it completely supported the supposed right of the European settlers who created the state of Israel to steal Palestinian land, has now been rendered completely inoperable. This is due to the continuing Israeli Zionist greed for land and building of illegal settlements throughout much of what was imagined as being part of the Palestinian state. And besides, the “roadmap” did not apply to the Palestinian refugees, who were given no right to return to their land. But it is useful for zionist-friendly propaganda purposes to pretend that this “roadmpap” ‘solution’ still exists and is viable.
“A member of the Palestinian delegation to Egyptian-brokered talks in Cairo said today that his team was considering an Egyptian proposal, which was tabled yesterday. Egyptian mediators have been ferrying between the Palestinians and their Israeli counterparts in an attempt overcome the differences between the sides.”
While it is true that Egypt has been “brokering talks”, that state is hardly an innocent bystander. Egypt has kept the Rafah Crossing, the only official exit point from Gaza not entirely controlled by Israel, closed or constricted. Egypt has also worked to destroy the tunnels which the people of Gaza used to smuggle in those items of daily life and, no doubt the arms they need, which Egypt is preventing from getting through the Rafah Crossing. The Egyptian state could nullify much of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, merely by opening their crossing into Gaza for normal traffic 24 hours a day.
The Egyptian armed forces, the real power in that country, are clients of the USA – another power which is hardly innocent but which on occasion tries to present itself as impartial in the conflict, despite its massive funding of the state of Israel. But those are not facts that the western media wish to disclose about the USA, Egypt or the conflict in Palestine.
Another thing, notice that while Egypt is “brokering”, it is “ferrying” between the Palestinian and Israeli negotiators. Clearly the antagonists are not face-to-face. If we think about that at all, as readers we are left with a feeling that maybe each side hates the other so much that they can’t bear to be in the same room. Or we might even think that Hamas, since it doesn’t recognise the right of Israel to exist, might not deign to speak to them directly. But actually, the reverse is true — as throughout most of its history, Israel is refusing to speak to the Palestinians directly. But no point telling the readers about that, is there? Who knows what they might come to think of such an attitude and behaviour of the Israeli state?
“The Egyptian proposal calls for easing parts of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, bringing some relief to the territory, according to Palestinian officials in the talks. But it leaves the key areas of disagreement, including Hamas’ demand for a full lifting of the blockade and Israeli calls for Hamas to disarm, to later negotiations.”
This is a bald enough statement which seems neutral but notice the unchallenged call for Hamas to disarm. From a state that is granted legitimacy to an insurgent force often painted as illegitimate, such a call seems reasonable. It has been and continues to be the basis for “peace (i.e. pacification) processes” throughout the world. But is there a call for Israel to disarm? Of course not. Yet it is the most heavily-armed power in the Middle East, the only one in possession of a nuclear arsenal and the one which has most often attacked its neighbours (not to mention the Palestinians). And the piece above leaves us to draw the conclusion that the lifting of the Israeli blockade may require Hamas disarming — a ‘fair exchange‘. And a reasonable reason, if Hamas does not comply, for Israel to continue its blockade on the whole population of Gaza.
“The Palestinian negotiator said he had some reservations about the proposal and would try to improve it. “We would like to see more cross-border freedom, and also to have the question of a Gaza seaport and airport discussed,” he said.
Note no reason is given for the Palestinian wishes – they seem trivial almost and no reason not to agree to a truce. “Cross-border freedom” might seem like being free to go on shopping trips or holidays abroad. “Gaza seaport and airport” likewise may facilitate daytrips and holidays, or tourist traffic or imports of luxuries. Maybe even exports of craftwork, or olives from remaining trees not destroyed by Israel. Such phrases and word do not give us a picture of over 1,816,300 people locked into a piece of land of 5,046 square kilometres (13,069 square miles), under permanent hostile control and sporadic bombardment and invasion, short of clean water and with other water polluted, destroyed infrastructure, destroyed hospitals, schools, mosques and churches, ruined industries and agriculture, infrequent power supply for lighting and heating, hardly any transport, a polluted coast and Israeli attacks on fishermen.
During the existence of the USSR and its satellite states, the western media regularly attacked them for their restrictions on most of their citizens’ travel beyond their borders. They never did then — nor do they now – inform their readers of the much stricter Israeli control on travel by Palestinians, not only beyond Israel’s 1948 borders but also beyond the borders of Palestine occupied by Israel in the years since. In fact, even travel within the occupied territories is extremely difficult for Palestinians.
The next four sentences of the Journal’s piece are unproblematic enough as far as reporting goes although it could have commented on why lifting the blockade on Gaza might have been of such concern to Hamas and to the people of Gaza:
An Israeli government spokesman had no comment on the negotiations.
In recorded remarks broadcast on Hamas radio, Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader in the region, said that “achieving a permanent truce can come only through lifting the blockade on Gaza”.
Amid the ceasefire, an Associated Press video journalist and a freelance Palestinian translator working with him were killed today when ordnance left over from the war exploded as they covered a story about the conflict’s aftermath.
Italian national Simone Camilli, 35, and Ali Shehda Abu Afash, 36, died when an unexploded missile believed to have been dropped in an Israeli airstrike blew up as Gazan police engineers worked to neutralise it in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.
However, the report could have gone on to tell us that the explosion also killed the four Gaza police engineers trying to neutralise the explosives and that another four people, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa, were badly injured. Unimportant details? News that might make us think worse of the Israeli armed forces? Or sympathise with courageous Palestinian police and at-risk civilians?
But it is not long before the more suspect reporting reemerges:
“The war began on July 8 with Israel’s air campaign against Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whom Israel blamed for the kidnapping and murder in June of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Nine days later, Israel sent in ground troops to destroy Hamas’ underground cross-border tunnels constructed for attacks inside Israel.
Here Hamas are presented as “rulers”, as distinct and opposed to – once again – the state of Israel, conferring legitimacy on one party to the conflict, the aggressor, while subtly suggesting that the other antagonist is anything but legitimate and perhaps even despotic.
But the paragraph goes beyond that and suggests that Israel has a legitimate claim that Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers. The three were in fact kidnapped and murdered and, although Israel wrongly accused Hamas of responsibility, its intelligence organisation Shin Bet later admitted that it no longer believed that. It may have been some other smaller Palestinian group or even individual members that carried it out but it was not the Hamas organisation nor its leadership. But this paragraph leaves us with the impression that Hamas’ culpability was a reasonable supposition by Israel and a reasonable cause of it going to war against Gaza.
The paragraph goes on to accept Israel’s public rationale for the bombardment and invasion, viz. “to destroy Hamas cross-border tunnels for attacks inside Israel”. Israel first quoted the deaths of the three teenagers as their reason for attack and now it is the “Hamas tunnels”. So if the stated reasons change, doesn’t that suggest that they are suspect, not to be relied on, with maybe the real reason unspoken? No comment from the media. Where are the tunnels? Which “border” are they crossing (putting aside for the moment the fact that Israel has never defined its borders)? Where are they attacking “inside Israel”? When was the most recent Hamas attack “inside Israel”? If this is a reference to the paltry rockets Hamas has fired, Israel has never claimed that these were fired at it from “inside Israel”. If it is not a reference to the rockets, then to what? We are not told but instead left with a feeling that Israel’s concerns could somehow be legitimate.
“The fighting has so far killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, Palestinian and UN officials say. On the Israeli side, 67 people have died, all but three of them soldiers.
This is an unadorned statement of the shocking facts and we could not fault this paragraph.
But how about the very next sentence?
“The latest outbreak of fighting is the third between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza since Hamas took over control of the densely-populated territory in 2007.”
Here we have a repeat of that formulation which we saw earlier: the conflict, we are being asked to see, is between the ‘legitimate’ state of Israel on the one hand and “Palestinian militants” on the other. And it is “fighting” between the two sides, rather than the truth: the attack of Israel’s military force upon the population of Gaza and the Palestinian guerrilla forces’ attempts to reply with their meagre resources.
Also, we are told that “Hamas took over control” of Gaza in 2007. In an invasion, perhaps? A coup d’etat? The fact, uncomfortable for the western media, is that it was in a democratic general election while Israel and western agents poured out anti-Hamas propaganda. And Hamas won not just in Gaza, incidentally – but in the West Bank too, although others are currently in power there. Are we told that Israeli political parties in government “took over control” of Israel? Of course not.
Continuing, the report states that“Hamas has been consistently pushing for an end of an Israeli Gaza blockade, which Israel says is necessary to prevent the group from gaining access to weapons and munitions it deploys against Israelis.”
In this sentence, we learn that Hamas wants an end to Israel’s blockade but not why. We are not told that it is so that they can have sufficient fuel for heating and transport, food, medicine, clean water, industrial and building materials, teaching and learning materials, spare parts, etc, etc. Nor are we told that Gaza could then actually export products and gain some self-sufficiency. Nor are we told that Israel is illegally holding monies, such as tax revenues, that belong to Gaza. But we ARE told why Israel wants the blockade — “to prevent the group from gaining access to weapons and munitions it deploys against Israelis.” Well, there you are – that’s only reasonable, surely? !!
end.
rebelbreeze 