My final piece of work before I turned on the ‘out of office’ for Christmas was to return to some sources I accessed in the Leon Trotsky papers, now stored in Harvard, and partly digitised.
Among the documents I looked through were postcards sent to Leon Trotsky from Paul Kirchoff, a German revolutionary and anthropologist who spent part of the early 1930s working with the Harvard-Irish study.
One of Kirchoff’s letters to Trotsky from Ireland stood out because it opened with the Irish-language greeting ‘A Chara’, meaning ‘Dear friend’ (more-or-less). It was sent in May 1933 and is otherwise written in German:
I don’t have any deep analysis of this document for you.
The evening of 23 November 2023 in Dublin saw a mixture of racist protest fuelled by the far right and “riots” by marginalised youth taking what they could from stores, for which they will be punished. The alarm at the potent combination of populist rage and popular resentment was palpable (I arrived on Friday afternoon and heard accounts of what had gone on), and that Saturday’s Palestine solidarity march (which I had planned to attend) was postponed for a week.
On the Sunday evening this year’s Booker Prize was announced, Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song (Oneworld, 2023). Some enthusiasts for the book are treating it as prophecy, and it does trace a downward spiral into chaos that engulfs the south of Ireland after the election of a “National Alliance Party”.
Austerity and reaction
There has been plenty of speculation in Ireland and abroad about how Lynch touches nerves about austerity and reaction, and warnings about plot spoilers now are hardly necessary. You know what is coming before you open the book.
Very often, like many others (in their millions), I walk into Dublin city centre, passing through Parnell Square. November 23 2023, shortly before 1.00pm seemed no different. That impression was soon shattered. I collected a monthly prescription from a chemist on Portland Row, off the North Circular Road. Proceeding into town past Mountjoy Square, I dropped into my former place of work – the FÓRSA Trade Union headquarters in Nerney’s Court off Gardiner Place – for a chat, a cup of coffee, and a visit to the jacks. The staff at reception were, as usual, very friendly. Then a woman in her 30’s entered, very shook. She told us about a big police cordon around Parnell Square and a horrible incident – news was spreading about a man who stabbed children and an adult outside an Irish language school. Rumours were circulating.
At this point I encourage readers to read and listen to a very good short Dáil speech of Paul Murphy delivered on November 28 2023. It explains a lot :
First, I send my thoughts and solidarity to the victims and the families of the victims of the stabbing attack. It is just horrifying and so nightmarish to think of children being attacked in such a way. In the response to that horror, we saw the very best of our city – Warren, Caio, Leo, Siobhán and others – people who were white Irish and immigrants coming together and putting their lives on the line to try to protect children. Our city and country should have now been uniting around the families of the victims in solidarity with them. Instead, sickeningly and disgustingly, far-right, racist and fascist agitators said this was their chance to incite a riot and to spread hatred and division. We know who incited this riot and called for people to come out on the streets. These people did not hide themselves or issue the calls anonymously. At 2.16 p.m., a white supremacist, Mick O’Keefe, issued his first tweet. He followed that at 2.50 p.m., saying that a foreign man entered the school and stabbed five children and he said the kids were dead. Fergus Power tweeted at 2.55 p.m. that a five-year-old girl was alleged to have passed away and that “This better get people off their arses and out onto the streets”. Phillip Dwyer, a crèche creeper and dog kicker, streamed a video at 4.04 p.m. in which he said he would be in town at 6 p.m. Gavin Pepper, another far-right agitator, called people onto the streets for 7 p.m. in town. Derek Blighe had a video in which he said “We are at war,” echoing the words of Conor McGregor. We know who called people out. We also have to look at the role of some people in this Chamber. I will mention one. Deputy Mattie McGrath earlier called for a “reasonable debate” on migration. Fine, let us have the debate but a part of that will be Mattie’s connections with the far-right. He has been photographed with Gavin Pepper; photographed with Andy Heasman; a street meeting with many of the people who were involved in organising this. He has been laundering far-right conspiracy theories using his platform in this Dáil repeatedly and he is not the only one.
Paul Murphy TD (Dublin South-West), People Before Profit, Dáil Éireann, November 28 2023
This article should encourage all Irish revolutionary socialist activists who are anti-racists to examine our connections with the Eastern part of the European continent.
Below Maurice’s article we publish the words of Imelda May’s stunning poem “You Don’t Get to be Racist and Irish”.
An Immigrant History of a Dublin Street – From O’Connell Bridge to the Gate Theatre, via Jamaica, Finland, Ukraine and France
My thoughts are with all those impacted by the attack that took place in Parnell Square, Dublin, on 23 November. You can find some fundraisers to help here.
Irish migration history is traditionally told as a history of emigration outwards. We rarely talk about the history of immigration inwards to Ireland.
Yet a migrant population has existed in Ireland throughout its modern history. And this community’s overlooked story reflects common European migrant experiences: adversity, cultural influence, assimilation, xenophobia, and so on.
In other words, it is the kind of history that defies notions of Irish exceptionalism.
To explain more, let me take you through the immigration history of a single patch of Dublin city centre. Together, we can traverse the same streets associated with the appalling images from last Thursday; from O’Connell Bridge up towards the Gate Theatre.
I’ll try and give those images of the far-right instigated riots, now burned into so many of our anxious minds, a few historical counterpoints.
This is a remarkable CLR James essay from 1938, where the writer explains that a proposal to deport Jews from Nazi Germany to Africa is a form of racist European colonialism :
The transference of Jews from Germany to Africa means the extension of the Palestine policy to Africa, the strengthening of European imperialism in Africa, with the additional crime that the emigrant Jews will be forced to occupy the position in Africa in regard to the Africans that the Nazis occupy in regard to the Jews in Germany. That is how the ordinary African will see it. He could not help seeing it otherwise.
Yes, one of the ideas floated by the Roosevelt administration when it was turning away Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution was to send them to Ethiopia or Uganda. ‘An African “Homeland” for the Jewish Refugees?’ by C.L.R. James from Socialist Appeal. Vol. 2 No. 51. November 26, 1938. New “Panacea” Put Forward by World Imperialists […]
Among Africans, as all over the world, there is widespread sympathy for the Jews and detestation of this latest brutality of the Nazis. Africans, more than most other social groups, can understand what it is that the Jews are being subjected to. They are ready to take common action against the imperialists, Fascists and “democrats” who have for generations subjected them to similar persecution in their own country. But the land situation in South and East Africa makes inevitable a wide-spread resentment among Africans at any proposal to send Jews there.
Wherever whites have been able to live in large numbers in Africa, there exists an economic, political and social situation of the most acute tension. The accepted policy is to take the best land for the whites and to segregate the Africans in areas too small for them. This is one of the means by which black labor is assured. Unable to earn a living and money for the Government tax in the restricted areas assigned to him, the African must go to the settler and seek employment at whatever terms the settler offers.
This article comes with a strong recommendation from Joan McKiernan :
“This terrific article should be widely circulated….
“I must say that with all the classes I had long ago in the IS (International Socialists) on the Russian Revolution, I have no recollection of discussions of Ukraine. So the author’s discussion of that history is important for all of us involved in supporting Ukraine now.”
Paul Le Blanc is launching a new book in Dublin on Tuesday November 7 (the anniversary of the October revolution) in the New Theatre, behind Connolly Books in Temple Bar. Doors open at 7pm, with Paul Le Blanc giving a short talk on Lenin’s politics and theories starting at 7:30. This will be followed by an interview including opportunity for some questions from the crowd.
Paul Le Blanc reviews a critical thread of Marxist theory and history on the right of national self-determination, and the question of Ukraine, concluding that revolutionaries today need to defend the current resistance to the Russian invasion including its rights to seek arms.
In his critique of ultra-left sectarianism, Lenin denounced a tendency to present quotes from Marx as the basis for settling on a tactical orientation to guide us through the complexities of our own time. He insisted that “what is most important, that which constitutes the very gist, the living soul, of Marxism” is “a concrete analysis of a concrete situation.” That is certainly the case when we are considering realities so complex as the Russian-Ukrainian War.
I have attempted such a “concrete analysis of a concrete situation” in an 8900-word article entitled “Making Sense of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine” for the online publication Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal. In the final 2400 words of the article, I seek to relate the larger analysis of the invasion to previous Marxist theory and lessons from revolutionary history. I urge readers to consult the first 6500 words of the larger article. At the same time, I am hopeful that my review here of some of the relevant history and theory will be useful for those working to sort things out regarding these momentous developments.
Is Genocide happening today in Palestine 🇵🇸 and Ukraine 🇺🇦?
Let us consider carefully a robust definition :
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people[a] in whole or in part. In 1948, the United NationsGenocide Conventiondefined genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly
Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF) has published a number of statements about the Israeli-Palestine conflict from across the globe. In addition we publish a letter which appeared in the October 11 2023 edition of the Irish Times, and solidarity statements issued by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and the SIPTU Global Solidarity Committee.
Israeli Apartheid Must Be Dismantled
Sir, – Michael Jansen (“Hamas attack on Israel followed years of containment and dire poverty in Gaza”, World, October 9th) rightly notes that the attack on Israel by Hamas was inevitable. Gaza has been under siege and blockade for 16 years, with 60 per cent of its people living in poverty, and tens of thousands suffering from post-traumatic stress after suffering four full-scale Israeli military attacks between 2008 and 2021. When people protested at the Gaza fence in the Great March of Return, they were met by snipers’ bullets.
The response of the Israeli government to the Hamas attack in recent days is shocking. It intends to punish the civilian population of Gaza, in knowing breach by a government of international law.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant has ordered a total siege on Gaza. “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, it’s all closed. We are fighting against human animals,” he said. The dehumanisation of Palestinian residents is the prelude to massacre. The bombs have started to fall on Gaza wiping out entire families. The statement by the Israeli ambassador Dana Ehrlich (News, October 9th) that lawyers sit with “very strict rules” observing each target is palpable nonsense.
Several public representatives and supporters of the Irish left-wing party People Before Profit (PBP) attack the Dublin Government’s Double Standards over two major 2023 genocidal wars : Israel’s Genocidal Assault on the Palestinian People and Russia’s Genocidal Invasion of Ukraine.
For example Paul Murphy TD (Dublin South-West) declares on his Facebook page :
“Since Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, the right of an occupied nation to defend itself has been widely recognised.
Now as Israel begins to unleash hell on Gaza and governments prepare to excuse Israeli war crimes, it’s clear that right doesn’t apply to Palestinians. Why not?”
Big problem here : Paul and and others on the left are throwing a dangerous political boomerang : instead of using exactly the same principled framework for supporting Ukraine and Palestine, they operate double standards. When they add denunciation of mass media inconsistency, the government, the European Union, in supporting Ukraine while opposing Palestine, we witness inconsistency in reverse from the left, supporting Palestine while opposing Ukraine.
John Meehan October 10 2023
Aden Shaheen, a Palestinian living in Britain, offers a far better policy.
In this interview, Adeeb Shaheen shares his perspectives on the ongoing war in Ukraine. As someone who has experienced life under military occupation, he draws parallels between Israel’s actions in Palestine and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, speaking to the suffering of civilians under aggression from a more powerful military force. Interview by Fred Leplat.
Fred Leplat – Adeeb, you describe yourself as a Ukrainian Palestinian and you are now in Britain. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and why you are now in Britain today?
I was born in Palestine and lived there until the Israeli occupation administration expelled my father to Jordan in 1968 for his activities against the occupation. My mother took us, her children, and left for Jordan to join him. I finished school in 1976 and set off for the Soviet Union to study electrical engineering. After finishing my studies, I went back to Jordan, worked there for a couple of years, and then moved to live in Palestine with my wife and son. In Palestine, I took part in the first Intifada and the resistance movement. In 1990, I was arrested by the Israeli occupants and sent to prison for four years. After jail, I resumed my life in Palestine, where the Palestinian Authority began to operate the civilian life of the Palestinians on the occupied Palestinian land. After two years of the second Intifada, I left my home town of Nablus with my family and moved to live in Jordan. It was difficult there as well. In September 2003, I received a job offer from an international trading company to work in its branch in Ukraine. I moved there with my family to Ukraine, to Kharkiv, where I finished my studies when Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union. I worked there and had a normal life there until February 24, 2022. Putin’s war against Ukraine forced us to leave for Poland, then for the UK.
Hamas’s attack and the events unfolding since yesterday are unspeakable. We could talk about their cruel and criminal actions, or focus on how our Jewish-supremacist govt brought us to this point. But as former Israeli soldiers, our job is to talk about what we were sent to do
Israel’s security policy, for decades now, has been to “manage the conflict”. Successive Israeli governments insist on round after round of violence as if any of it will make a difference. They talk about “security”, “deterrence”, “changing the equation”.
All of these are code words for bombing the Gaza Strip to a pulp, always justified as targeting terrorists, yet always with heavy civilian casualties. In between these rounds of violence we make life impossible for Gazans, and then act surprised when it all boils over.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 