Tag: political analysis

Dunnes Stores, South Africa, Gaza: A Tale of Two Boycotts

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, History, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, Palestine, Political Analysis, Sud Africa, Trade unionsLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

29 February 2024

Anti-apartheid activist Nimrod Sejake with some of the Dunnes Stores striker.

Reference has been made on a number of occasions to the heroic actions of the Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid strikers in 1984 who spent nigh on three years on strike because they refused to handle South African merchandise.

It has been pointed to as a success story for boycotts and one to emulate. The real story of the strike points to the difficulties we now face in implementing a real boycott of Israel.

I used to go down to the picket line at the Dunnes branch in Henry Street every Wednesday, as we had a half day at school and on Saturdays when there was no school and then more regularly once I had sat my Leaving Cert exam and was, like many young people in 1980s Ireland, unemployed.

So, I recently bought a copy of Mary Manning’s autobiographical account of the strike, Striking Back: The Untold Story of an Anti-Apartheid Striker (Collins Press).

The book brought to mind many of the instances and difficulties that they faced and it raises many questions for those who wish to point to them as an example to follow.

The strikers were implementing a trade union resolution, and at first knew little of the reality of South Africa, something they corrected relatively quickly, thanks in no small part to a South African exile, Nimrod Sejake, who turned up to join them on the picket line.

Sejake was an activist who had been arrested as part of the infamous Treason Trial. Mary Manning is full of praise for Nimrod and rightly so.

Others do not come out so well and it is worth remembering the reality of that strike as it tells us some of the things that need to happen if we want to see similar action in relation to Israel.

The first thing that jumps out of the pages, early on, is that the trade bureaucracy did not give them any support and even their own trade union, IDATU (now called Mandate) was very reluctant to support them.

What support they got was down to their official Brendan Archbold who was a stalwart in supporting them and the then head of the union John Mitchell. At every twist and turn they had to fight the executive of IDATU, whilst the rest of the trade union movement ran for cover.

There will be no similar type of action around the Zionists unless it is put to the bureaucracy and they are challenged over their inaction in the midst of a genocide.

Karen Gearon, the shop steward at Dunnes Store made a call at the National March in Dublin on February 17th for the trade union movement to stop talking and take action. It is not something that has been seriously echoed by others.

Neither People Before Profit TDs or the IPSC have ever made a clear call for action from the trade union movement. It should be a central part of any boycott movement now.

It is all well and good picketing Starbucks, but stopping the importation of Israeli goods would be more important and will only happen if the bureaucracy is pushed to it. The history of PbP is one of cowering in the shadow of the bureaucrats and never putting it up to them on any issue.

They frequently share polite platforms with the bureaucrats and never challenge them. Their calls, when made are generic and are in passing. Their website and the IPSC site is limited to a consumer boycott with calls for the government, not workers, to take action.

I was also reminded by the book how the great and good in Irish society stood by whilst these workers were on strike. The Minister for Labour at the time was Ruairí Quinn, a member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) and yet he did nothing.

He was not the only mealy-mouthed figure in Irish society, nor indeed in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement.

The head of the Catholic Bishops Aid Agency, Trócaire, Bishop Eamon Casey privately wrote to IDATU early on describing the strike as ‘economically harmful to the already impoverished Black South Africans.’

The strikers’ request for support from the Catholic Church was described as impertinent and just in case anyone doubted how he saw himself, he was of the view that both he and Trócaire should have been consulted before the strike took place.

Their currency now is much devalued in Ireland but there are others like them who also think they have a veto on decisions.

He was later forced to publicly back the strike having been embarrassed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s decision to present two strikers to the world at his London press conference en route to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize.

Though that took a while and meantime nuns proudly scabbed and crossed the picket line. Casey’s attempts at sabotage and his later hypocrisy in belatedly supporting the strike, should not be forgotten.

At the time he was seen as a moral guardian, his plundering of church funds to keep his lover and his child comfortable was not known.

There are lots of other figures like him around now, who we might expect to support workers implementing a boycott, but might not when faced with the reality of it.

Another figure who comes out badly in it is Kader Asmal, the head of the IAAM. After three months of strike action, he met with John Mitchell and Brendan Archbold and told them to call off the strike, that it had served its purpose and that he was pulling his support.

When Desmond Tutu invited the strikers to South Africa he privately told them he would not support them going as it was a breach of the cultural boycott of South Africa.

Their trip to the country and the refusal of the Apartheid regime to let them in along with their detention at the airport was a pivotal moment in the strike.

Upon their return to Ireland, Asmal was one of the people to rush to the airport and give interviews and bask in the glory, as his position opposing the trip was never made public. He comes across very badly in the book.

I recall him asking me for information on South African goods coming through the port where I had begun working and Brendan Archbold telling me not to trust him, that he was a sleiveen and would hang me out to dry. He was, and like him there are others just like that on the issue of Gaza.

The contrast with Nimrod Sejake could not have been greater.

Sejake was a working class militant who suffered greatly and enjoyed none of the middle class trappings of Kader Asmal’s life in Ireland and unlike Asmal he had never crossed a picket line, something Asmal did in Trinity College where he worked, scabbing during a strike there.

There are Palestinian equivalents to Asmal and also to Sejake. The IPSC pretends otherwise.

So, what are the lessons of the Dunnes Stores strike?

One is that it wasn’t just a consumer boycott, it was a workers’ boycott and they were left high and dry by many of those who would have been expected to support them.

If we are going to call for workers action, various people and bodies need to be challenged and would have to commit themselves publicly to it. So far this is absent. PbP and the IPSC are not putting it up to any of the institutions.

View of the protest outside Axa Insurance 14 December 2023 while others inside carried out a protest sit-in. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

In fact, the UNITE union complained about a sit-in at Axa Insurance company saying it was harmful to the workers. The sit-in was not organised by the IPSC but by CATU and Dublin for Gaza.

It turns out that UNITE is a bit like IDATU.

The union has also passed resolutions supporting the campaign of BDS and yet “according to union insiders, Axa is Unite’s insurer in Ireland – and Unite’s designated provider of hotel accommodation is the Leonardo hotel group, which is part-owned by the Israeli Fattal group.”(1)

UNITE members taking action would most likely be shunned by their own union. Just like the head of the IAAM, Kader Asmal had tried to undermine the Dunnes Stores strike, there are those in the IPSC who would run for the hills were workers to take action against Israel.

So, we do need to emulate the Dunnes Stores strikers, but we need to be clear about the challenges and the opposition we would face from the trade union movement itself, the Catholic Church (they never went away either) and sectors of the IPSC.

It is time for action, but it is also high time that both PbP and the IPSC made clear calls for action and workers are not left hung out to dry, should they take action.

Notes

(1)Skwakbox (15/12/2023) Outrage builds over Unite’s use of Israel-linked firms as protestors occupy Axa Dublin office
https://skwawkbox.org/2023/12/15/outrage-builds-over-unites-use-of-israel-linked-firms-as-protesters-occupy-axa-dublin-office/

“THEY WANT US TO MOVE OUT – BUT WE’RE STAYING”

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, City Planning, Current Affairs Comment, Dublin Lockout 1913, Education, History, Housing, Human Rights, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Song, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In Dublin’s south docklands the property developers and the corporations dominate city planning and therefore the landscape. And the working class community there feel that they’re being squeezed out.

I’ve met with some concerned people from parts of this community in the past to report on their situation and concerns for Rebel Breeze and did so again recently.

A view eastward of a section of the south Liffey riverfront, showing a very small amount of more traditional buildings squashed between or loomed over by the “glass cages that spring up along the quay”. (Photo 1 March 2024: D.Breatnach)

YOUNG PEOPLE – education, training, socialising

“There’s nothing here for our young people” said one, expressing concern over the attraction for teenagers of physical confrontations with other teens from across the river which have taken place on the Samuel Beckett Bridge over the Liffey.

A young man training as an apprentice in engineering attends a mixed martial arts club but has to go miles away to another area to attend there. Between his industrial training, travel and athletic training he has little time to spare for socialising.

I comment that those sporting activities tend to concentrate on male youth and only some of those also but he tells me that nearly half the regular membership of his club is female. A community centre could provide space and time for such training but they say they have no such centre.

St. Andrew’s Hall is a community centre in the area and there are mixed opinions in the group about it but I know from my own enquiries that the available rooms are committed to weekly booked activities (and our meeting had to take place in a quiet corner of an hotel bar).

As a former youth worker and in voluntary centre management, I know that a community centre can serve all ages across the community, from parents and toddlers through youth clubs to sessions for adults and elders.

Discussing youth brings the talk into education and training. As discussed in a previous report of mine, the youth are not being trained in information technology, which is the employment offered in most of the corporations in “the glass cages that spring up along the quay.”1

Section of the south Liffey docks showing some of the few remaining older buildings as they are swamped by the “glass cages”. The building on the far right of photo, very near to Tara Street DART station, once an arts centre, is already targeted for demolition and replacement with commercial building. (Photo sourced: Internet)

“If they’re lucky, they’ll get work in the buildings as cleaners or serving lattes and snack in the new cafes”. Some opined that the corporations in the area should be providing their youth with the training while others thought Trinity College should be doing so.

HOUSING – price and air quality

Universal municipal housing in the area has declined due to privatisation of housing stock and refusal to build more. A former municipal block in Fenian Street, empty for years is now to be replaced but the “affordable” allocation has been progressively reduced, ending now at zero.

Pearse House in south Liffey docklands, believed earmarked for demolition and site sold to property speculators. (Photo 1 March 2024: D.Breatnach)

Property speculators (sorry, “developers”) with banker support are building office blocks and apartment blocks in the areas, the latter units priced beyond the range of most local people. The average rent for a two-bed apartment in the area is €2,385;2 to buy a 3-bedroom house €615,000.3

The Joyce House site and attached ground area could provide housing and a community centre but appears planned to go to speculators.

Continuation of ‘Pearse House site’ in south Liffey docklands, believed earmarked for demolition and site sold to property speculators. (Photo 1 March 2024: D.Breatnach)

The Markievicz swimming pool near Tara Street has been closed and the local people are told they can go to Ringsend for swimming, an area which already has better community facilities than are available to the communities further west along docklands

A huge amount of traffic goes through the area and one person stated that Macken Street tested as having the worst air quality in Ireland. “I have to close my windows to keep out the noise and pollution,” said another; “the curtains would be black.”

Townsend Street side of ‘Pearse House site’ in south Liffey docklands, believed earmarked for demolition and site sold to property speculators (prospective property speculators must be salivating). The gambling advertisement coincidentally erected there seems to show the likely social types to benefit from these kinds of deals. (Photo 1 March 2024: D.Breatnach)

‘They want us out’

If some town planner were intending to establish a community somewhere, s/he would plan for housing, obviously, so the people would have somewhere to live. But a proper plan would provide also for education and training, along with social facilities — and employment.

But if someone were intending instead to get rid of a community, s/he would target exactly the same elements, whittling them down or removing them altogether. This what some local people feel is intended for their community.

“We feel we’re not wanted here,” said one and others agreed, “They want us to move out.” “But we’re not going! We’re staying,” said another, to grim nodding of heads around.

HISTORY of struggle … and of neglect

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Dublin had the worst housing in the United Kingdom and many of its elected municipal representatives – including a number of Nationalists of Redmond’s party – were themselves slum landlords.

When the Irish Transport and General Workers Union was formed by Jim Larkin with assistance from James Connolly and the Irish Women Workers’ Union founded by Delia Larkin, many of the dockers, carters and Bolands Mill workers who joined them came from the south docklands.

And when the employers’ consortium led by William Martin Murphy set out to break the ITGWU in 1913, many of those workers

… Stood by Larkin and told the bossman
We’d fight or die but we would not shirk.
For eight months we fought
And eight months we starved,
We stood by Larkin through thick and thin …4

And the women of Bolands’ Mill were the last to return to work, which they did singing, in February 1914.

They also formed part of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world,5 to defend the striking and locked-out workers from the attacks of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and which later fought prominently in the 1916 Easter Rising.6

Many also joined the larger Irish Volunteers which later became the IRA, along with Cumann na mBan,7 fighting in the Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War, supporting resistance of class and nation for decades after.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood (the Fenians) was founded in the area; Peadar Macken8 was from here and has a street named after him; Elizabeth O’Farrell9 is from the area too with a small park named after her and Constance Markievicz10 also lived locally.

The Pearse family lived in the area too and Willie Pearse and his father both worked on monumental sculpture at the same address; Connolly and his family for a while lived in South Lotts.

Home of the Pearse family and monumental sculpting business (Photo: Dublin Civic Trust)

The working class communities in urban Ireland suffered deprivation throughout the over a century of the existence of the Irish state and the colonial statelet. The communities in dockland suffered no less, traditional work gone, public and private housing in neglect in a post-industrial wasteland.

The population of Ireland remained static from the mid-1800s until the 1990s, despite traditionally large families — emigration in search of employment kept the numbers level. Married couples lived with parents and in-laws while waiting for a house or flat – or emigrated.

In the 1980s, like many parts of the world, Ireland fell prey to what has been described as the “heroin epidemic” and the neglected urban working class worst of all, with the State assigning resources to fight not so much the drug distributors as the anti-drug campaigners.

One of those in the meeting became outwardly emotional when he talked of “the squandered potential” of many people in the local community.

A workers’ day out trip on the Liffey ferry (Photo sourced: Dockers’ Preservation Trust)

The heirs of these then are the marginalised and abandoned that are targeted with disinformation and manipulated by the far-Right and fascists, to twist their anger and despair not against the causes of their situation but against harmless and vulnerable people.

But the Left has to take a share of the blame, for leaving them there in that situation, for not mobilising them in resistance. After all, issues like housing, education and employment are supposed to be standard concerns for socialists, of both the revolutionary and the reformist varieties.

Republicans cannot avoid the pointing finger either. These communities provided fighters and leaders not only in the early decades of the 20th Century but again from the late 1960s and throughout the 30 years war.

The Republicans led them in fighting for the occupied Six Counties but largely ignored their own economic, social and educational needs at home. Perhaps this is why the people are now organising themselves.

Protest placard by housing block in Macken Street protesting noise and dirt from nearby construction (Photo: Macken Street resident)

“THEY DON’T VOTE”

A number of the local people to whom I spoke quote a local TD (Teachta Dála, elected representative to the Irish parliament) who commented that most of the local residents don’t vote in elections.

Whether he meant, as some have interpreted, that therefore they don’t matter or, that without voting, they cannot effect change, is uncertain. However, community activism is not necessarily tied to voting in elections.

Protest placard by housing block in Macken Street protesting noise and dirt from nearby construction. (Photo: Macken Street resident)

As we know from our history and that of others around the world, voting is not the only way to bring about change and, arguably, not even the most effective one.

Whatever about that question, people are getting organised in these communities and those who hold the power may find that they are in for a fight.

End.

The landscape (and airscape) viewed from a housing block in Macken Street (Photo: Macken Street resident).

FOOTNOTES

1From song by Pet St. John, Dublin in the Rare Aul’ Times.

2https://www.statista.com/

3https://www.dublinlive.ie/

4From The Larkin Ballad, about the Lockout and the Rising, by Donagh McDonagh, whose father was one of the fourteen shot by British firing squad after the 1916 Rising.

5Formed in Dublin in 1913 to defend strikers and locked-out workers from the Dublin Metropolitan Police; members were required to be trade union members. The ICA was unique for another reason in its time: it recruited women and some of them were officers, commanding men and women.

6Historian Hugo McGuinness based on the other side of the Liffey believes that the reason the British troops sent to suppress the Rising disembarked at Dún Laoghaire rather than in the Dublin docks was because they feared the landing being opposed by the Irish Citizen Army and its local supporting communities.

7Republican Female military organisation, formed 1914.

8Fenian, socialist, trade unionist, house painter who learned and taught Irish language, joined the Irish Volunteers, fought in the Rising and was tragically shot by one of the Bolands Mill Garrison who went homicidally insane (and was himself shot dead).

9Member of the GPO Garrison in the 1916 Rising, subsequently negotiator of the Surrender in Moore Street/ Parnell Street and courier for the 1916 leadership to other fighting posts.

10Member of multiple nationalist organisations, also ICA and in the command echelon of the Stephens Green/ College of Surgeons Garrison. Also first woman elected to the British Parliament and first female Labour Minister in the world.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Biography Peadar Macken: https://www.dib.ie/biography/macken-peter-paul-peadar-a5227

SOUTH DUBLIN DOCKLAND COMMUNITIES ORGANISE FOR THEIR NEEDS
CLASS-CLEANSING IN DOCKLANDS

DUBLIN POLITICAL PRISONERS’ PICKET REFUTES MINISTER’S LIE

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

On Tuesday evening in one of Dublin city centre’s high-end shopping street picketers refuted colonial Minister for ‘Justice’ Naomi Long’s lie that “There are no political prisoners in Northern Ireland” (sic – she means the Six-County colony).

The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign came on to the street to highlight that yes indeed, there ARE political prisoners in Ireland – over two score between both sides of the Border. And that furthermore, they are convicted in special political no-jury judicial processes.

View of the picket and the IAIC banner in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

The IAIC states that these judicial processes are called the “Diplock Court” in the occupied Six Counties and the “Special Criminal Courts” in the Irish state and were “specifically created in both cases for the easy conviction and jailing of Irish Republicans.”

The SCC has been labelled “a sentencing tribunal” rather than a court of law by human rights campaigners. IAIC states that the Diplock Court is “now being administered by former Republicans while the SCCs have now, after years of opposition, been approved by those same people.”

View of placards on the IAIC banner in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

However, as accused before these courts are also regularly refused bail, IAIC points out they are also effectively administrators of internment without trial, jailing activists for around two years before judicial process. If bail is granted, it is always under severe conditions preventing political activity.

The IAIC, an independent group campaigning for ten years, was supported in their picket yesterday by Irish Republicans and Socialists including from the Anti-Imperialist Action and Saoirse Don Phalaistín groups, in addition to some independent activists.

Although Henry Street is a high-end shopping street of Dublin city centre, lots of working class people use it also.

A member distributes leaflets to passers-by near the picket in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

Over 100 leaflets were distributed and a number of people stopped to discuss the issues. Some queried the mix of flags flown (Irish Starry Plough, Palestinian and Basque) and participants explained that these represented some of the struggles where repression has taken prisoners.

“We thought it particularly important to refute the colonial Minister’s lie today,” commented a spokesperson for the IAIC “and we’re glad for the support we received on the picket line and from interested people on the street. We hope to do it more often this year.”

“Internment continues in Ireland, just on a different scale and more selectively than for example in the Six Counties in the 1980s”, continued the spokesperson.

View of the picket and the IAIC banner in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

The IAIC states that it is “an independent campaigning group run on a participative democratic basis” and that it “welcomes democratic people” on their pickets. The Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063166633467 is their usual public outlet for notification of events and highlighting of related issues.

End.

DUBLIN PROTEST AGAINST NATO’S ACTIVITIES IN UKRAINE

On By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Event Report, Environmental, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, NATO, Political Analysis, US Imperialism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

I learned that the Truth and Neutrality Alliance would be organising a protest on Sunday afternoon (18th) in Dublin’s O’Connell Street and attended in order to take some photos, talk to some people and report on it.

The small gathering with a banner and placards on the central pedestrian reservation in Dublin’ main street opposite the iconic General Post Office building1 included apparently Irish and East European people. They were addressed by a number of speakers.

Separately nearby was a small number of floral tributes dedicated to Alexei Navalny, right-wing anti- immigration Russian political activist and opponent of the Putin regime about whose recent death in Russian jail the Biden regime had made critical statements.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

SPEAKERS

The first speaker, who appeared to be one of the organisers, denounced the “massive censorship” about the conflict in Ukraine and said we live “in a world of lies” and that “anyone who tells the truth is accused of being a Russian agent”.

He went on to draw parallels between anti-Russian propaganda and that which had been against Syria also. “The end of the war in Ukraine is now in sight”, he said and looked forward to a democracy with full rights for all including Russian-speakers.

The speaker said that one cannot (legally, publicly) be a communist in the Ukrainian state and talked about radio stations being closed down by the Kiyv regime.

In preparation for the end of the war he said that the regime is planning sabotage groups, training terrorists to act in the post-war Donbas as they are doing currently in Russia.

He ended with a reference to “the Banderites” (a reference to followers of the memory of WWII Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera) and the antifascist slogan from the defence of Madrid during the Spanish Antifascist/ Civil War: “No pasaran!”

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Bill O’Brien spoke on behalf the Truth and Neutrality Alliance which, he said, had been founded two years previously. “The Russian intervention was necessary”, he said, to act against the carrying out “of atrocities like some in Gaza.”

He went on to refer to “proxy wars such as those in Gaza, Ukraine and Yemen which are financed by NATO” and referred to the Minsk Agreements to which the Ukrainian Government had signed but “had been told by Britain not to honour”, he said.

The Minsk Agreement had been signed twice, O’Brien said and if adhered to, “the war would be over.” He said that “we need to push for the implementation of the Minsk Agreements.”

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The speaker felt that despite the use of Cold War propaganda, the war would soon be over since the Ukrainian Army was “mainly mercenaries” and currently recruiting women and 60-year-old men.

A third speaker with an Irish accent said that he had been in the Crimea until two weeks previously and that “no-one wants to return to Ukrainian rule. NATO will never get their hands on any of it”, he said.

The Crimea was invaded by Russia in February 2014 and later annexed after a referendum in which the vast majority voted for inclusion into the Russian Federation. Though condemned by NATO allies, the result was no surprise, partly because 60% of the residents were of Russian ethnicity.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The official result from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was a 97% percent vote for integration of the region into the Russian Federation, with an 83% voter turnout and from Sevastopol where there was also a 97% vote for integration with Russia, with an 89% voter turnout.

Crimea and the Donbas region had been under threat or actual attack since the 2006 overthrow of the Ukrainian Government of Yanukovych in what many have described as a US proxy coup. As the war continued, Russia returned to invasion of other parts of Ukraine in February 2012.

The war continues in the Donbas and the Zelensky regime has sworn to retake the Crimea which does not look possible.

One of the people in attendance displays a satirical poster of Zelensky. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

CONVERSATIONS

I interviewed one person from the Ukraine/Russian region who was willing to talk and who asked me first whether I would report truthfully, to which I replied that I would. (But wouldn’t most reporters claim that they were being truthful?).

Larisa Keller told me that although born in Georgia she has lived in other countries during her life and now in Ireland for 14 years. Ms. Keller has grandchildren and wants an environmentally-sound and peaceful world for them in which to grow.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

“Dismantle NATO is the solution”, she said and “Weapons kill everything in nature” and “new types of weapons” are worse, she indicated, arguing for a ban on the development of weapons. But isn’t Russia also a state with a military, I asked – how does she feel about that?

“At this moment Russia is defending itself,” Ms. Keller said and she herself is supportive of “activities against the pressure of fascism”.

In conclusion, she had this to say: “Tell the world that they should recognise that we live in one world and we should appreciate our ability to stay there; it’s important that we support one another”.

One of the placards displayed at the event (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A young man with an Irish accent in attendance approached and told me that he had an East European girlfriend. He told me also that priests from his Russian Orthodox Church have been killed while pastoring with troops in the Donbas,2 that they are targeted “because they are morale-boosters”.

The young man told me he had friends among the Chechens also.

End.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Truth and Neutrality Alliance: https://rebelbreeze.com/2024/02/25/thinking-of-sinn-fein-trying-not-to-think-of-palestine/

1Many protests and other events take place in this vicinity, not only due to its central location but also because the building was occupied by the leadership of the 1916 Rising against British occupation for five days.

2The area in the east of Ukraine that is predominantly Russian-speaking where the war is taking place and was besieged by Ukrainian troops, often fascist-led, from 2014 onwards (i.e 8 years before the Russian invasion).

Thinking of Sinn Féin, trying not to think of Palestine

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

(1. Letter in reply to claims that Sinn Fein has betrayed the Palestinians; 2) Reply by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh)

Greetings Comrades,

I am a former member of Sinn Féin who still lives in a Republican and working-class community. I see a lot of point to your views on Sinn Féin and the peace process. But I think you hit the wrong note in your article: Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh.

The idea that: “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”

Is not true, is offensive and will put off the people who might otherwise listen to you. The leaders put forward a political analysis and the members accept it. If you want to oppose this, kick the ball and not the player.

Yours, Owen

Reply

Thinking of Sinn Féin, trying not to think of Palestine

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

22 February 2024

Biden poses for a selfie with Gerry Adams.

To my surprise I have received some feedback from a Republican on my article Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians, published on the Socialist Democracy site and elsewhere in which I took issue with Sinn Féin’s abominable decision.

Which was to fly to Washington to meet and greet Joe Biden, a man whose hands drip with Palestinian blood. Though given the scale of the genocide, dripping with blood is an understatement as Palestinian blood gushes off his hands, like a burst oil well.

There were a number of points made, some of them more important than the others. One, was my insinuation that corruption was at the heart of the decision, that Sinn Féin were not going to give up on a hooley and a lavish shindig paid for by others.

My comment on the matter was a bit facetious in part. I did describe the event as a hooley, and it is fair to say that it is a lot more than that, though the drunken shenanigans are a part of the festivities and the informal deals to be struck.

Colum Eastwood from the SDLP stated that “I could not rub shoulders, drink Guinness and have the craic while the horrifying impacts of the brutal war in Gaza continue”(1).

I had stated that “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”

There is a part of those sentences that is obviously tongue in cheek. I don’t actually believe that Mary Lou will be trying to get her leg over anyone at the White House, though I wouldn’t discount any of the lower ranking minions on the junket trying their hand.

The furtive political romance was a more serious comment.

St Patrick’s Day at the White House is one for showcasing Ireland, not just in the paddywhackery sense of the word, but it is where informal and formal discussions can take place on economic policy, foreign policy and other matters.

Not for nothing that Varadkar used last year’s event to shore up his support for the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with a false historical narrative about US government support for Irish freedom.(2) The Government’s own propaganda about its importance actually says as much.

Sinn Féin have various corrupt reasons for going. I should point that there are various forms of corruption, there is the type of corruption of brown paper envelopes from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians seeking or giving favours.

There is another type of corruption, which is that where politicians go along with policies they know to be wrong, immoral, damaging or dangerous for reasons of political expediency, as part of an overall strategy.

Or because money will be legally made by the chosen few as a result of these decisions.  Current government policies around vulture funds, the bank bailout (for which Sinn Féin also voted), privatization of the health industry etc., are examples of this type of corruption.

I have no doubt that Sinn Féin members are involved in the brown paper envelope type of corruption, the building industry still reeks of Republican involvement, though they have a long way to go yet to outdo Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

But it is more the latter type of corruption that is important.

Two and a half years ago, Pearse Doherty stated that “big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them”(3). The issue has come up again recently with Sinn Féin seeking to assure US companies that the corporate tax rate is safe with them.

The new head of the Industrial Development Authority Fergal O’ Rourke, in January this year described Sinn Féin as being on an outreach programme to reassure US companies.(4) He was fulsome in his praise for Sinn Féin and he wasn’t the only one.

Henry Goddard from Deloitte Ireland claimed that Sinn Féin had done a good job in calming down international investors by reaching out to them, by meeting with them and even Mary Lou McDonald visiting Silicon Valley was cited as an example.

He stated “Fair play to Sinn Féin, they went out to the US, they engaged, said all the right things and provided a lot of confidence. They now need to follow through on that.”(5)

They are going to Washington to follow through, to reassure not only US businesses but the Irish capitalist class that the economy will be in safe hands with them and those business leaders from IBEC, various companies like PwC and others who have praised Sinn Féin are not mistaken.

Sinn Féin has stated that it is worried that it might not win the next election and has repeatedly spoken about reassuring the so-called business community.

The other aspect of the visit is that were they not to go, it would send a message to their reactionary base in the US that they are on the side of “Islamic terrorists”. It doesn’t matter how true this is, their base in the US has never been very discerning about these issues.

It would also give the government parties something to beat them with and allow them to claim that Sinn Féin are a party unfit for bourgeois government.

Implicit in the feedback is the idea that my criticisms of the provos would annoy or offend Republicans who would otherwise be open to the general message i.e. ‘kick the ball not the player’. But the player and the ball cannot be separated in politics.

If someone is upset at facetious comments about romances and would otherwise be won around, then they clearly haven’t appreciated the scale of the slaughter in Gaza, nor Biden’s role in it and Sinn Féin’s ditching of what would, once upon a time, have been a no-brainer for their base.

Proof is in the pudding and the fact that some Sinn Féin supporters see through the party’s position shows that those who can be won round have been won round already. Those in attendance at the meeting from which three Palestinians were ejected are all lost causes, political degenerates.

This brings us to the last item which is how Sinn Féin is selling this to their base. Part of the criticism of ‘kicking the player’ is that Sinn Féin has taken a position, spelt it out publicly and its members have accepted this. This is not how democracy works in that organisation.

But the position was best spelt out by Gerry Adams. He stated that Palestinians would understand why they had to go. Would they really?

Apart from the corrupt and contemptible Palestinian Authority that spends a full third of its budget on security and repressing other Palestinians, who in Palestine would understand? The parents who saw their children shot and bombed? The prisoners? The families of prisoners?

The thousands of people who pulled others from the rubble with their bare hands? Or just Abbas who while busy stifling Palestinian dissent has had little to say or do on the genocide.

Adams made one further point. He claimed there was a lack of coherence amongst Sinn Féin critics.

“Some folks are saying the Sinn Féin leadership shouldn’t meet with the American political system… They are not saying we shouldn’t meet with the British political system. The Brits are up to their neck in this.”(6)

He is right about the contradiction, but it doesn’t absolve him, rather it condemns those who are ambivalent about it.

All Adams is pointing out, indeed boasting about, is that they are in cahoots with British imperialism and treasure that relationship as much as they do their “special relationship” with the US. He went on to underline this point.

Serious people involved in struggle, particularly people who are involved in national liberation struggles, understand that your own struggle whether it be internationalist has to be your primary focus.

So, they will expect you to raise their issues and we should. They would expect you to stand with them, and so we should. But they would not expect us to do anything – any more than we would expect them to do anything – which would set back our own struggle.

So, I think it’s Irish-America’s day, it may be dominated by what’s happening in Washington.(7)

Adams clearly hasn’t a clue about what an internationalist struggle is. How could boycotting Biden harm the Irish struggle?

Adams’ question goes to the heart of the matter, he and Sinn Féin not only cling to the illusion that the Irish peace process is bringing unity closer but also that US imperialism plays a progressive role in Ireland.

And that upsetting Biden would be a setback and annoy a regime that is committed to some progressive outcome in Ireland.

Adams is not the only one to believe in this progressive role of US imperialism, Yasser Arafat also believed in it and thus we got the Oslo Accords and 30,000 people in Gaza have been murdered by this progressive imperialism of Adams and Arafat.

Courting reactionary elites in the US is not putting the Irish struggle first, it is continuing with Sinn Féin’s gallop to the right. It is to paraphrase the expression about the struggle for socialism in Ireland that Labour Must Wait!

Now Palestine must wait, indeed everything and everyone must wait. What must never happen is that US imperialisms and Sinn Féin’s reactionary base in the US be upset.

Whilst the Republican who gave the feedback is clearly aware of Sinn Féin’s limitations on the issue of Palestine, there is no republican milieu waiting to be won round on this issue that may be put off by the tone of my last piece or other such pieces by other writers elsewhere.

There is no world in which the player and the ball do not both get a well-deserved kicking, indeed, were I in a position to do so, I would give them the hiding of their lives. Alas my efforts are unfortunately more modest than that.

Anyone who is Republican and thinks Sinn Féin is right to go to Washington is thinking only of Sinn Féin and not of Palestine. They are, like Adams and co, looking the other way in the midst of a genocide, something you would have thought was an easy issue to take a position on.

But when you drink of the Peace Process Kool Aid, you don’t drink half the glass, but chug the whole glass down in one go, like Mean Joe Greene in the famous Coca Cola ad of the 1970s. Like Greene, Sinn Féin has been asked to reshoot the scene time and again.

Greene vomited after his sixth coke, though he had to swallow eighteen, 16-ounce bottles on the final day of shooting.(8)

There is no end to what peace process supporters are asked to swallow and unlike Greene, no sign anyone in Sinn Féin is about to puke at the nauseous spectacle of being asked to sideline a genocide for the meet and greet in Washington DC.

End.

Notes

(1)  The Derry Journal (29/01/2024) SDLP Leader, Derry MP Colum Eastwood ‘cannot in good conscience’ go to US for St Patrick’s Day.  Brendan McDaid. https://www.derryjournal.com/news/people/sdlp-leader-derry-mp-colum-eastwood-cannot-in-good-conscience-go-to-us-for-st-patricks-day-4495907

(2)  Remarks by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the White House Shamrock Ceremony and St. Patrick’s Day Reception https://www.gov.ie/en/speech/5b46b-remarks-by-taoiseach-leo-varadkar-td-at-the-white-house-shamrock-ceremony-st-patricks-day-reception/

(3)  Irish Independent (10/10/2021) Pearse Doherty Interview: ‘Big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them’ Hugh O’ Connell.  https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pearse-doherty-interview-big-business-and-investors-know-sinn-fein-wont-go-after-them/40933992.html?

(4)  Business Post (14/01/2024) IDA boss reveals Sinn Féin plans to woo US firms on corporate tax. Donal MacNamee and Lorcan Allen. https://www.businesspost.ie/news/ida-boss-reveals-sinn-fein-plans-to-woo-us-firms-on-corporate-tax/

(5)  Ibíd.,

(6) Irish Independent (27/01/2024) Gerry Adams says calls for Sinn Féin to boycott St Patrick’s Day visit to US are ‘inconsistent’. Maeve McTaggart and Hugh O’Connell. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gerry-adams-says-calls-for-sinn-fein-to-boycott-st-patricks-day-visit-to-us-are-inconsistent/a410016838.html

(7) Ibíd.,

(8)  See Pendergrast, M – For God, Country and Coca Cola.  New York. Basic Books. paragraph 34.99 and footnote 34.117

DEMONSTRATORS DEMAND US WARPLANES OUT OF SHANNON

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Gaeilge, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Language, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

On a day when the Irish Attorney General repeated Israeli Zionist lying propaganda in the ICJ and the Irish State’s expenditure of at least €8.5 million on Israeli military equipment was reported, people protested the Irish Dept. of Transport’s complicity at Shannon.

Around 30 protesters gathered with flags, banner and placards at short notice this afternoon outside the Irish Dept. of Transport’s office in Leeson Lane, Dublin 2 (very close to Stephen’s Green). They chanted: Irish Government you can’t hide – You’re supporting genocide!

View of some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators outside the Dept. of Transport Thursday afternoon. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Slogan chanting specific to the Dept. of Transport and to Ireland generally included: US warplanes – Out of Shannon! US Military – Out of Shannon! From Ireland to Palestine — Occupation is a crime! No peace – On stolen land! No justice – No peace! Resistance is an obligation – In the face of occupation!

Other chants included the now-familiar: 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state!1 From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! Free, free – Palestine! Boycott – Israel! Sanction – Israel! Saoirse don – Phalaistín! In our thousands and our millions – We are all Palestinians!

The Irish Department of Transport has Government oversight on the safe and appropriate use of airports within the Irish state. USA military use of Shannon airport in violation of Irish neutrality has repeatedly been witnessed and reported for decades.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The position of Irish Governments has been, without proof and in the face of collected evidence, that the US are not flying military material through the international airport. However, The Village magazine reported a significant increase in exemptions on such US traffic during the current war.

The Irish state, its deference to the world’s major superpower (as repeatedly shown by Government and even Opposition parties), declines to board the planes for inspection, though it is entirely legally entitled to do so and, in defence of neutrality, obliged, declines to do so.

Three people took turns to read out a short letter the organisers, Dublin For Gaza, had delivered to the Department of Transport, calling attention to the increased military flight exemptions through Ireland granted and on it to prevent military air traffic through Irish airports and Irish airspace.

Another view of some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators outside the Dept. of Transport Thursday afternoon. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Irish Attorney-General repeats Israeli lies in the ICJ

While many will be glad that the Attorney-General of the Irish State was in the International Court of Justice presenting a case that the Israeli State was colonising Palestinian land, unfortunately he repeated zionist propaganda against the Palestinian resistance.

Israeli accusations of rape against the Palestinian resistance fighters on October 7th, among other items of Israeli propaganda, have been thoroughly debunked but Fanning, the Irish Attorney-General repeated them as allegedly established fact in his presentation of the Irish case in the ICJ.2

He repeated the false accusation of rape against the resistance but also included others which ignore the effect of Israeli military bombardment, tank shells and Hellfire missiles fired from Israeli helicopters on October 7th against fleeing and captive Israelis.

As usual, he also ignored the thousands of Palestinian civilian hostages held and tortured by the zionist authorities, to exchange for which was the main reason for taking Israeli prisoners.

View of some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators with the Dept. of Transport in the background Thursday afternoon. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

ELSEWHERE

UN: “… a UN report released on Monday by a group of UN experts expressed alarm over “credible allegations” of Palestinian women and girls being subjected to “multiple forms of sexual assault … by male Israeli army officers”.

The allegations include rape and detention of Palestinian women in cages, in addition to “photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances … reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online”

USA/ UN: The exposure of Israeli lies and western government acceptance of them continued with a US Intelligence briefing that the Israeli claims of UN refugee aid agency (UNRWA) workers participating in the Hamas operation “could not be independently verified.”

Let us recall that Israel, which hates UNRWA for providing aid to Palestinians in need and from time to time criticising Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights, claimed to have intelligence confirming the participation of 12 UNRWA workers in the Palestinian operation on October 7th.

Without even seeing the Israeli ‘intelligence’, the UNWRA bosses sacked 10 workers3 and 10 western states, including the US and most of the EU, suspended their contributions to the agency’s funding, in other words cutting off food, heating and shelter to the Palestinians under Israeli attack.

UK: The negative impact on democratic norms by Israeli allegiance of the western powers was demonstrate by subversion of Parliamentary procedures in London yesterday in response to a scheduled motion from the Scottish National Party calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The norms laid down are that the proposer of the motion speaks first and, if not carried by the required majority, amended versions proposed will be discussed and voted upon. The British Labour Party proposed an amendment calling for the ceasefire requiring the surrender of Israeli “hostages”.

If the SNP’s motion had gone forward, the indications were that many Labour MPs would vote for it against the instructions of the party’s ‘whips’ (party discipline enforcers). The Speaker of the House however allowed the Labour motion/ amendment to go to vote before the SNP’s!

The result was uproar in the UK Parliament and that Labour’s motion, more hostile to the Palestinian resistance, was voted and accepted and the SNP’s was never discussed.

Since then 60 MP’s have signed a petition demanding the resignation of the Speaker, a previous Labour Party member who, in order to demonstrate the Speaker’s political independence, had to resign from Party when he took up the post.

Frances Black speaking at the rally prior to the vote in the Seanad, Wednesday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Ireland: Though receiving little coverage in the mass media, a motion proposed by Civic Engagement Group members of the Irish Senate calling for an end to the Israeli genocide in Palestine and concrete Irish Government measure in support was passed without opposition.

Unreported by the media, a few hundred gathered outside Leinster House in a Palestinian solidarity rally and were addressed by two of the proposers, Frances Black and Alice Mary Higgins.4 A speaker for Healthworkers for Gaza, occasionally overcome by emotion, was given rapt attention.

A few minutes earlier, a colleague in blue surgical overalls was also applauded as she announced the group’s presentation of a petition signed by their colleagues. This action of support for their colleagues in Gaza however also underlined the abysmal failure of the relevant Irish trade unions.

The motion passed in the Senate has no enforcing effect on the Irish Government but adds its weight to that of a number of Opposition motions calling for the Government to support the genocide charge by South Africa in the ICJ and to expel the Israeli Ambassador.

Speaker for Health Workers for Palestine at the Palestine solidarity rally outside Leinster House prior to the Seanad vote Wednesday . (Photo: D.Breatnach)

It adds too the more widely demonstrated and visible solidarity with Palestine of the vast majority of the Irish population expressed in marches, pickets, demonstrations, opinion surveys and in beeps of support from passing vehicle traffic, from drivers of private, company and public transport.

The Irish state and government, like many throughout the world, continues in its failure to reflect the will of its people in this matter.

End.

Music piece composed for Gaza played at solidarity gig in the Olympic Theatre, Dublin, last November:

FOOTNOTES

1Though “fascist state” seems closer to the truth.

2See report link in Sources.

3UNRWA quickly fired 10 of the 12 staff members accused by Israel of involvement in the October 7 attacks and launched an investigation into the allegations, in hopes of keeping international funding to the agency flowing at a critical time. The UN said two of the 12 had died. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/16/middleeast/israel-allegations-unrwa-october-7-intl/index.html

4Of the other two proposing Senators, Eileen Flynn was present outside Leinster House but did not speak and apologies were given for the absence of Lynne Ruane.

SOURCES

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/02/22/ireland-spends-85m-on-israeli-surveillance-drones-and-military-equipment/
Irish Attorney-General statement in ICJ: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/israels-actions-in-gaza-are-not-proportionate-ireland-tells-un-court-1592196.html

Largest amount of exemptions for military flights through Irish airspace since 2016 granted during Israeli war on Gaza: https://villagemagazine.ie/pressure-mounts-on-government-over-shannon-airport-munitions-inspections/

Reference to report of ‘credible allegations’ of ‘multiple forms of sexual assault’ against Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers near end article https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/22/us-intelligence-unrwa-hamas

Irish Senate motion passed: https://www.ipsc.ie/sanctions/seanadsanctions

JULIAN ASSANGE LAST DITCH FIGHT IN UK LAW AGAINST EXTRADITION TO USA

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, NATO, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Crowds gathered in London on Tuesday and a solidarity picket with the Australian whistleblower was held in Dublin on Monday night as Julian Assange and his legal team fight their last chance in UK law to prevent his extradition to the USA.

On Wednesday the crowds in attendance inside and outside of the High Court and watching from around the world had to be content with awaiting the decision of the judges to be given at a later date.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Julian Assange has been hounded since he exposed murders and other murky secrets of the USA through the Wikleaks website he set up, posting items sent to him by former serving US Marine Chelsea Manning (who served military prison time but was pardoned by Obama) and others.

The CIA planned to assassinate Assange physically and then tried to assassinate his character by setting up a false rape allegation in Sweden and when all that failed, applied for his extradition from the UK under USA espionage legislation — though Wikileaks posting was entirely public.

Shamefully the UK colluded with the USA and, not trusting UK ‘justice’, he skipped bail from extradition hearings, sought and was granted asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. There a Spanish agency spied on confidential conversations between him and his legal team.

Assange lived in the Embassy under siege from 2012 to 2019, when the Ecuadorian State abrogated his asylum and allowed British police to enter what is legally Ecuadorian sovereign territory and remove him, since when he has been nearly seven years in high-security Belmarsh jail.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Premier of Australia has now called for his release after the Parliament passed a motion valuing Wikileaks exposure of US wrongdoing and calling for dropping the case1 but for years governments of the ex-British colony, now much more under USA influence, did not do so.

As an indication of what Assange can face in the US system, the Guardian reports that “Earlier this month, in a separate case, Joshua Schulte, a former CIA officer, was imprisoned for 40 years for passing classified material to WikiLeaks.”

The small size of the picket in Dublin was in my view less a reflection of the level of concern in Ireland but about the organisation of his support being on occasion taken over and undermined and in earlier times depended on high-profile individuals rather than collective organisation.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The western mass media for which Assange provided a huge amount of column inches and many headlines through the Wikileaks exposés hardly fought for him. The Guardian spoke out for him recently but also took part in his character assassination years ago.

Even though it had been the main British benefactor of his news items. And the media is still getting footage viewing his travail, being drawn behind the cart on his way to – his execution?

The Irish Times recently spoke out for him and so did the Irish branch of the National Union of Journalists but the latter had no presence on the picket or on any other public protest at this time of which I’m aware.

Scene from very wet and windy day outside the High Court in London (note Irish Tricolour and Palestine joint flags in background). (Photo cred: Kin Cheung/ AP)

However, the Irish Tricolour flew near the Australian flag in London outside the High Court building. Our people have been executed in that city too and we’ve had their executioners here in Ireland as well.

What we are witnessing is years of mental torture and attempt to silence permanently a man whose “crime” is to expose the sins of the world superpower and some of its allies and clients. The chief criminal of the world is hunting down a whistleblower to shut him up about its crimes.

And the ruling class of the UK, a world-class criminal also but in this case the accomplice of Mr. Big, is assisting him. The writers and editors in the mass media should be outraged and campaigning as Victor Hugo did in the Dreyfus case.

But they know who buys their bread and on which side it is buttered, as their ‘reporting’ on the genocidal Israeli campaign in Palestine has shown every day – and on the war in Ukraine before that.

My father was a journalist who had been made somewhat cynical about “the free press” by his experiences but even so he would be thoroughly sickened were he alive today.

End.

US Liberty satirised outside the High Court in London (Photo cred: Alastair Grant/ AP)

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/20/julian-assange-court-considers-last-ditch-bid-to-fight-us-extradition

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/18/the-guardian-view-on-julian-assange-why-he-should-not-be-extradited

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/julian-assange-faces-wait-for-decision-on-whether-appeal-can-go-ahead-1591927.html

1https://www.reuters.com/world/australia-pm-backs-parliament-motion-calling-julian-assanges-release-2024-02-14/

LESSONS OF POWER, RESISTANCE, SOLIDARITY AND HYSTERIA

On By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Mass Media Criticism, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach: originally published in 2017, republished February 2024.

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The Wikileaks/ Assange persecution saga should teach us some important lessons.

In the first place chronologically, it should teach us the lengths to which allegedly democratic countries such as the United States will go to dominate weaker countries and attack movements of resistance.

Where the USA feels its imperial interests are threatened, i.e where anyone may attempt to loosen its grip on the markets, natural resources and strategic emplacements, or to prevent its grip from clawing further than it has already.

Wikileaks also exposed some of the extent to which the US will interfere in the internal or foreign policy matters of even its allies, including the European powers.

Possibly most instructive of all was the determination of the USA to hunt down the chief executive of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, flying in the face of US Constitutional principles and law, as well as international law, with politician statements confirming that determination.

Statements even from Presidents, senior politicians and Government appointees, such as former US Secretary of State and the Democratic Party’s candidate for the US Presidency last year.1

In the course of hunting him down, the USA turned to Sweden, subverting the country’s laws and criminal investigative procedures, then to the UK government (which, as a junior partner in many of the US crimes exposed by Wikileaks, was probably only too keen to assist).


Swedish Prosecutor Marianne Ny, who commenced an investigation after another Prosecutor had already investigated and decided there was no case for Assange to answer (Photo source: Internet).

Australia was brought to assist under threat and France turned away from Assange’s plight and his plea for asylum there. “No hiding place from the World Policeman,” seemed to be the message.

Eventually, however, he did find refuge (if not a hiding place) from Ecuador, a tiny power on the world political, economic and political stage.

In the midst of this, how did the mass media perform, that which we are often assured is the guardian of democracy, even more than the vaunted parliament? Badly, in a word.

Investigative journalism, intelligent evaluation, if they had been evident before, all went into the rubbish bin as print, radio and TV media joined in the lynch mob to a greater or lesser degree, including the British newspaper The Guardian.

The newspaper that had been given exclusive first use on the Wikileaks stories, “the greatest scoop in 30 years”, according to its Editor, not only refused to assist him but allowed its pages to be occupied by witch hunters and made money out of publishing a book about the affair.2

“Anti-journalism”, is what Australian film-maker and renowned journalist (Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award-winner in 1967 and 1978), John Pilger called it.

Assange learned some personal lessons too which should not be lost on us.

Sometime lovers manipulated by police, Prosecutor and media; a close working colleague denouncing him and flinging allegations against him (unsubstantiated but that did not prevent the media from publishing them).

Julian Assange on the balcony of his asylum quarters, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, after receiving news of the dropping of the Swedish ‘investigation’ of allegations of ‘rape’ against Assange and the voiding of the International Arrest Warrant. (Photo source: Internet)

LESSONS FOR US SPECIFICALLY

Suppose for a moment that one did not take to Assange’s character. Suppose one even objected to his work. Still, he was entitled to fair due process. That he did not receive it from so many is obvious. Did he receive it from us?

That community of people who would lay claim to having an alternative view, to be opposed to the status quo and, most of all, to be for Justice?

Injustice meted out by those in power often needs collusion and the more independent of the power the colluders are, the more justified the witch-hunt is made to seem.

The media whipped up a passionate hue and cry against Assange, who had not even been charged and had cooperated to all extents reasonable with the investigation of allegations against him.

That hysteria sought to drown Assange but also to catch in its flood any, no matter how puny or how mildly, calling for justice and due process. The cry of the mob must be “Hang him!” and no dissenting voices must be heard.

The hysteria generated in some sectors, even among people who would normally insist on justice and who opposed the status quo, reached a very high pitch.

For the crime of suggesting on Facebook at the time that the case against him seemed “dodgy” and that besides he was in any case entitled to due process, a person called me a “rape apologist” in public while people I had considered comrades (and had thought one even a friend) remained silent.

Shortly after that, a clutch of FB friends (which I made FB ex-friends quickly) backed up the allegation.

That taught me a valuable lesson about comrades and solidarity but it pales beside the severity of the lesson Assange has been taught, the mark of which he may carry for the rest of his life.

But the function of such a process goes far beyond the personal; it is intended to make dissent very uncomfortable and even painful.

We may face the attacks of our declared enemies with courage or at least resolve and commitment but it is a different matter when we are attacked, politically and personally, by those we take to be broadly on our side against the oppressive powers.

Most people would say they are for justice. It is usually easy to say so.

But unless we can stand up for it whether we like the victim or not, whether we approve of his work or not and, even in the midst of the hysteria calling for a hanging, we are prepared to cry instead for justice, our declarations are worth nothing.

There are many lessons in the saga for us to learn — but will we?

end

Footnotes

1“Can’t we just drone this guy?” Hillary Clinton, quoted in the Pilger summary article.

2Stated in the Pilger summary article.

Links

Excellent article by John Pilger summarising the persecution

DUBLIN STREETS RESOUND WITH “FREE PALESTINE!” AND AWASH IN PALESTINIAN NATIONAL COLOURS

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Gaeilge, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Language, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

On a day when the Israeli military killed another 83 Palestinians, to bring the state’s death-tally since October 8th to almost 29,0001 known dead and thousands injured and missing,2over 50,000 people marched in solidarity through Dublin city centre.

The Israeli military is killing, on average, a Palestinian child every ten minutes.

Section of Mothers Against Genocide Ireland marching with bundles simulating children killed by Israel (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The national demonstration was convened by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity campaign and, though people came from all over the country and from many organisations, the numbers did not seem to quite match their last national demonstration, believed attended by 100,000.

As they marched from the Garden of Remembrance, the usual slogans were prompted and taken up in chanting responses: 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state!3 Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry – Palestine will never die! Free, free – Palestine!

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Taking over 20 minutes to pass through the north city centre’s O’Connell Street, they marched over O’Connell Bridge into D’Olier Street, through College Green and right into Dame Street, constantly chanting out the slogans4 of solidarity to which, by now, thousands have become accustomed.

From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! In our thousands and our millions – we are all Palestinians! Netanyahu (also Joe Biden, Western Powers etc) what do you say? – How many kids did you kill today? Zionist Ambassador – Out, out, out!

In some sections could also be heard: There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! Irish Government (also Western powers, USA), you can’t hide – You’re supporting genocide!

Section of the march about half-way through O’Connell Street, looking northwards. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Section of the march about half-way through O’Connell Street, viewing southward. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Irish Government, the EU and the Genocidal Israeli State

Among EU states, the leaders of the Irish Government have been the most pressing on the EU to call for a ceasefire and have now teamed up with the Spanish state’s current government leadership to press the EU to revise its preferential trade agreement with the Israeli State.

They are not likely to succeed since Germany and France have led the strident pro-Israel position of the EU, rejecting even a call for a humanitarian pause to deliver food, fuel and shelter to starving Palestinian refugees or any attempt to restrain the Zionists’ leaders from their genocidal bombing.

But in addition the main concern of the Irish Government ministers (probably Spain’s also) is that the whole situation is going to escalate further in Palestine and further, across the Middle East; in other words they are offering ‘good advice’ and concerned that it’s being ignored by Israel.

Children on the march – a reminder that the Israeli state kills a Palestinian child on average every ten minutes. Also Irish language flag and placard in this photo employing the “Saoirse don Phalaistín” slogan. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

In any case, although the USA is the main supplier of finance and arms to Israeli Zionism, the EU is by far the Zionist state’s largest export market and could stop the genocide tomorrow with an ultimatum to stop bombing or face an embargo on Israeli products.

The International Court of Justice determined that the Israeli State is plausibly guilty of genocide but declined to order a ceasefire and again during the week rejected a South African application to order a cessation of genocidal actions though it did warn the zionists not to commit genocidal acts.5

Meanwhile the UN court is to begin hearings on Monday to determine whether the Israeli occupation is guilty of practising apartheid but the verdict is months away and the Israeli State continues its genocide unabatedly.

Palestinian solidarity in the Irish language

Small banner, group unknown with what has become a common slogan in Irish. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

At the junction with South Great George’s Street the marchers turned left and continued up into Aungier Street and then left again into Cuffe Street with people gathered on the pavements and at junctions, sometimes applauding but never expressing hostility.

A number of slogans and messages of solidarity in the Irish language could be seen on placards, flags and banners; two of the latter calling for Saoirse don Phalaistín. One of the banners had a large group behind it which included marchers calling out slogans in Irish.

Ón dtalamh go dtí an spéir – Beidh an Phalaistín saor! Stad an slad!

The Mothers Against Genocide group used Irish too, singing the chorus from Róisín Elsafty’s song and video with Irish and Arabic: A Phalaistín, a Phalaistín, hosni alaikum ya falastin. (Good luck to you, Palestine) and mixed the singing with chants of solidarity.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Once reaching the south side of Stephens’ Green,6 where the IPSC stage was set up near the Department of Foreign Affairs’ building,7 many marchers just stopped, began socialising, folding up banners or just going off for coffee etc (some also had long journeys ahead to return home).

Of course some stayed to hear speakers and performances but I didn’t.

Once again the thought struck me that this period could be used to advantage in small public meetings on the street but removed from the central stage; different currents in the solidarity movement could be discussed, along with basic principles and demands in our solidarity.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Collusion and Repression

As a Sinn Féin contingent self-identified by banners and placards marched in, some greeted them with Oh hey, oho! — No shamrocks for Genocide Joe! in a clear rebuke to the party’s leader’s intention to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with the US President at the White House.8

Passing through the southside’s city centre afterwards, people were frequently seen wearing Palestinian keffiyehs in various colours (black and white, red and white, green and white and the Irish green, white and orange version) as were people walking with furled Palestinian flags.

Indeed, action the health worker unions could have taken but failed to do so (Photo: D.Breatnach)

At least two people were arrested by Public Order Gardaí for demonstrating in the city centre outside Israeli-colluding businesses, to be bailed until their case in March, amid reports9 that activists have been threatened with charges and court for December’s Israeli Embassy occupation.

Although people came from many parts of Ireland, there were smaller solidarity demonstrations in many of those too.

End.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

1https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/17/israels-war-on-gaza-live-icj-warns-of-perilous-situation-in-rafah

2Another 7,000 are believed buried under rubble of buildings bombed by the Israeli military. Palestinians had very little undamaged digging and earth-moving equipment and the pieces of masonry are often massive but they do try and dig through it, often with their bare hands.

3I think “israel is a fascist state!” would be entirely appropriate.

4“slogan” in English is of Irish-language origin, perhaps via Scottish Gaedhlig, from ‘slua/ slóga’ = “a host/ large gathering, troop” and ‘gairm’ to “call, address”. The original root is of Indo-European origin.

5Which the Israeli State has continued to do every single day since the ICJ initial judgement, killing thousands of civilians since then and bombing and invading hospitals.

6As in most parts of Dublin city the Green has been the scene of important historical events but this one perhaps more than most: it was a 1916 battleground, the location of a force of mostly Irish Citizen Army during the 1916 Rising before they were forced to relocate to the Royal College of Surgeons, where the garrison remained until the surrender. The Commandant Michael Malin and another senior officer, Constance Markievicz, were both sentenced to death by British Army military court. Michael Malin was shot dead by firing squad but Markivicz’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

7A Palestine solidarity activist accused of ‘decorating’ the building with red paint in protest at the Government’s collusion with Israeli zionism was in court last week, having been raided at 7am, arrested and charged. The case has been deferred until next month.

8In a Belfast meeting organised by the party in Palestine solidarity recently a small group of Palestinians were ejected for pointing out that one of the speakers, the Palestine Ambassador is “a mouthpiece of the Palestine Authority” which is an undemocratic organisation working in collusion with the zionist occupation and has not held an election since 2006 (though supposed to do so every five years).

9Report from Anti-Imperialist Action.

AN PHOBLACHT ABÚ CALLS FOR BROAD UNITY IN STRUGGLE

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Journalism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Socialist RevolutionLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The first edition of the socialist republican weekly newspaper An Phoblacht Abú for 2024 has been available in hard copy from sellers now for several weeks; I am reviewing it here as I have done on occasion with another few issues during 2023.

APA is a hard-copy newspaper of usually 12 x A4 sides, produced monthly from I believe the last months of 2022, including articles on anti-imperialism, anti-fascism, recent Irish history, internationalist solidarity and sometimes on older history, culture and reports on events, selling at €2/£1 per issue.

Hard-copy revolutionary papers are important as a means of distribution to those who don’t wish – or are unlikely — to seek it online but more than that, they also provide the opportunity to make contact on a personal and organisational level with people with whom to discuss events.

Masthead image taken from the An Phoblacht Abú Facebook page.

However, back issues are also available electronically, I’m told, from the producers.

This particular issue reports on the Palestinian struggle and the solidarity movement in Ireland, featuring a report of an occupation of the Israeli Embassy on 19th December with a following picket and blockade of the gates to the building which hosts it for many hours.

Another page carries a report on Palestine solidarity actions across the country and a “Hands Off Iran & Iraq” item, also an obituary on the death of a recent comrade of the organisers. Separately there is a report and comment on the death of an Irishman in the conflict in Ukraine.

Political prisoners in Ireland and the Basque Country are also covered, the latter focussing on the ‘non-compliant’ Basque prisoners and their support network, in contrast to the colluding “official leadership” and the great majority of prisoners who have come under their influence.

An article comments on the upcoming Referendum on Article 41 of the Constitution of the Irish State, condemns the treatment of women historically by the Irish ruling class and, without recommending how to vote, calls for the destruction of the State.

Commemorations of historical events, including martyrs, are an important part of the culture of all peoples in struggle and APA reports on some. A statement on the escape from justice by natural death of war criminal Brigadier Kitson was widely shared in appreciation on social media.

NEW YEAR CALL FOR BROAD FRONT UNITY

Organisations traditionally issue New Year statements, perhaps reflecting on the past year but always looking to the coming year. The ISR NY Statement covered three pages and called attention to all the struggles discussed in the reports, along with some others.

The one theme in the Statement dominating all others was the call for united action in developing a broad anti-imperialism united front to work for unity “around common Republican principles” while at the same time maintaining “the autonomy and independence of different groups.”

In furtherance, ISR proposes that a “Broad Front Congress” be organised before the end of this year and called on those interested to contact them “to turn the demand of the Republican base into action.”

COMMENT

The importance of revolutionary newspapers is underlined historically by the preparations of the British Government prior to the General Strike of 1926, when they purchased all stocks of newsprint paper to deny them to revolutionaries and other strikers.

Governments today can close down social media transmission and reception over an area and even nation-wide.

The APA editorial is undoubtedly correct in its call for a broad front while stipulating independence of organisations within that front. A congress may further this aim but I wonder if it will, without some advance agreement on working principles (about which I have written previously).

I find it striking that in the New Year’s message which mentions working class communities, there is nothing about workplace organisation, or trade unionism, to give it another name. Working class people do not live in communities alone – they also work many hours outside them.

And in the most commonly-imagined scenario for revolution in western countries, revolution is preceded by a general strike. To organise and carry out such a strike and maintain it against external repression and internal undermining, requires leadership deep and wide within the movement.

How this is to be achieved is an issue, the resolution of which can only follow of course from recognition of its necessity. Across the Left and Socialist Republican movement I see no sign of this recognition.

The founding of this newspaper for socialist republicanism and its monthly production and distribution is a great achievement and to their credit for a young and still relatively small organisation.

Some typographical errors persist in APA which could be removed by greater editorial checking. The reproduction of images might be improved substantially too, space made for enlargement possibly by reduction in the area covered by print, increasing the visual attractiveness of the page.

However, APA is right to concentrate on the written word and the spread of themes, the reporting of actions and the reasoning behind them. A regular revolutionary newspaper has long been needed but missing and monthly production at least is needed for its effectiveness.

Fáilte uaimse roimh an nuachtán míosúil réabhlóideach seo, An Phoblacht Abú!

end.

Note: Back copies of An Phoblacht Abú are available electronically from isrmedia@protonmail.com