A guest post by JOHN LAWRENCE, from the People and Nature Blog hosted by Simon Pirani.
This article is relevant to the European Parliament Election campaign in Ireland and other parts of Europe.
“Genocide is genocide, a mass grave is a mass grave. We are with the people who are in there, and against the people who put them there”, journalist Ed Vulliamy told a discussion meeting in London on Monday.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Israel’s war on Gaza – both of which have settler colonial and genocidal dimensions – had thrown an unusually clear light on the hypocrisy of people who oppose one, but not the other, Vulliamy said.
In the United Nations, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky abstains over Gaza, and South Africa abstains over Ukraine, Vulliamy said.
“Large sections of the left wonderfully support Gaza but, having denied and justified [the massacre in 1995 of Bosnians by Serb troops at] Srebrenica, at best indulge, or support, Vladimir Putin and his imperial endeavour,” he continued.
Far-Right agitators in Ireland are escalating their attacks.
Ruth Coppinger, a Solidarity- People Before Profit candidate in Castleknock, and a former Dublin West TD, is the latest target.
Ruth’s press statement below explains the context well, and she makes an excellent proposal :
I am going to make contact with other parties / candidates – in particular those in opposition and on the left who are targeted more by the far right – to suggest that a central log of incidents and threats should be kept in order to take measures for the safety of all those ordinary activists who come out and campaign, as well as community safety in general. “The far right can’t be allowed to create an atmosphere designed to frighten and to limit the campaigns of the left
Swastika cut into poster in sinister Far Right threat to socialist candidate
A “menacing atmosphere” is being generated by the far right according to a former TD and local election candidate who has had a swastika cut into her image on an election poster. Ruth Coppinger, socialist candidate with People Before Profit-Solidarity in Castleknock ward, Fingal, says supporters found the poster and that “it shows the danger of the far right in these elections, the threat they are to safety and how they would take away democratic rights.”
The photographer Chris Reid tells us everything we know about “tent city” in Dublin :
Some views of the ‘Tent City’ that was removed from Mount Street only to regenerate phoenixlike along the banks of the Grand Canal. Both Mount Street and Grand Canal are now fenced off to prevent a return of the tents. I’m wondering where in Dublin ‘Tent City’ will reappear and what other parts of Dublin will consequently become fenced off. The photos were taken on Sunday last, May 5 2024.
Rows of tents occupied by male asylum seekers and refugees on the banks of the Grand Canal, Dublin. The tents were removed on the morning of 9 May 2024.Rows of tents occupied by male asylum seekers and refugees on the banks of the Grand Canal, Dublin. The tents were dismantled and the occupants removed on the 9 May 2024.Rows of tents occupied by male asylum seekers and refugees on the banks of the Grand Canal, Dublin.
The comments on Chris Reid’s facebook page say it all :
Tents were set up at the East Link and Ringsend last night but removed after locals intervened Chris. The problem will just move around.
I didn’t hear about the East Link/Ringsend. I agree, it will move about.
Phoenix Park would be spacious enough! I hope our government will be kind to them
Sure if they’re house-less, they still have to live *somewhere*. Where are they expecting those kicked out to go?
“Patrick Somers, 84, wondered what would happen to people he used to consider neighbours. ‘I feel sorry for them. Wherever they’ve come from, they have to live somewhere’. Somers recalled the taunts he experienced as a labourer in London in the 1960s. ‘They’d say: ‘Go home, Paddy, go home.’ I remember that when I see these poor people’.”
in the 60’s pubs in UK had signs displayed saying ‘ no blacks, Irish or dogs allowed’ petered out in the 70’s but the feeling was there.
No country is dealing with the immigrant problem. No one has any policies, hate to think where it will end up for everyone
It’s very sad and not humanitarian. Sweeping one place up and transferring to another, as if they are not humans. They spoiled the Ukrainians and deal with those in a very inhumane way.
I like the old man who make more sense.
They have to sleep somewhere while they are here. Exactly. They cannot make themselves invisible during the night, only because it doesn’t fit an image. I think they should set up in front of the Dail. Or on the front lawns of the politicians and property tycoons. I am sure they have nice big and spacey ones
Phoenix park. Not annoying anyone out there. Bylaws will prevent it. Government has made a complete balls of this.
All those billions in budget surplus yet they can’t build social housing ?
This crisis was caused by racist terrorists, who burned several buildings prepared to accommodate asylum seekers and refugees (in some cases buildings which were not going to be used to house migrants were reduced to ashes).
The state ceased to house people, and the voluntary agency Tiglin tried to fill the gap, by supplying tents.
More about Tiglin :
Tiglin is a registered charity in the Republic of Ireland that helps people overcome addiction, homelessness and other life-controlling issues. We have assisted hundreds of people and their families in improving their lives. This is because we believe and invest in each person’s potential. We work with anyone in need of help. Therefore we get results that benefit the whole of society. Tiglin provides a variety of social care services, such as street outreach, crisis homeless services, residential rehabilitation programmes, aftercare supports, supported housing, educational opportunities, employment upskilling, and family support for men and women affected by drug and alcohol misuse and frontline services for those seeking international protection. Our therapeutic programmes take an evidence-based approach to supporting people with life-controlling issues. We also want to equip those in our care with personal and professional skills to help them in the life beyond our care. This means providing life skills and training opportunities ranging from courses in further education courses, qualifying employment certificates, counselling, parenting skills, and family therapy and barista training in our social enterprise café café.
In some cases the state asked Tiglin to take on this job. Then the state sent in diggers and other vehicles which threw the new tents into skips. Migrants moved on to different parts of the city – and arsonist racists threatened them. The state effectively gave the thugs a green light.
People Before Profit is proposing a “Vote Left” transfer pact to operate in the June 2024 Local and European Elections, 26 Counties
Presenting this positive initiative Paul Murphy TD said
He was fully aware that there would be different perspectives and, but People Before Profit “sees this as just the start of a process to form a left alternative.”
Paul Murphy TD
PBP TD’s Richard Boyd-Barrett, Paul Murphy, and Brid Smith
In the article below, important points from the discussion are highlighted.
This is a serious matter, especially in a context where it is necessary to confront and defeat the extreme racist right.
Colm Breathnach offers a very good template :
Just a personal thing, but here’s my own general set of rules when it comes to voting where a Proportional Representation system is in operation (obviously First Pat The Post system is much more challenging in terms of decisions):
Start with the furthest left and keep voting until you reach the border of what you consider to be the left (for me, that’s social democratic or social liberal parties). Of course that border can shift – the Irish Greens were once inside my border of “left”, now they are definitely outside.
Exclude candidates who consistently hold reactionary positions regardless of their ostensible politics – favour genocide, homophobic etc etc. So the Daly’s of the world don’t feature or let’s say a centre left candidate who justified Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Adjust to take account of specific concerns which one might deem important for progress to radical transformation of society. So for example you may alter your ranking to the take into account the candidates position on climate change or Irish unity etc.
A number of Irish human rights organizations and Trade Unions have issued a very strong statement following a stampede of racist publicity concerning “Open Borders”.
Here is an example from the Sunday Independent (May 5 2025)
Do you believe there should be checkpoints at the border with Northern Ireland to limit the number of asylum-seekers coming from the U.K.?
The newspaper published this summary of its survey :
Once again, Andrew Flood offers a devastating reply
With the trap carefully baited & Sinn Féin blundering into it here’s the spring being sprung. Farage & Dowson cackling with glee as their weird investment pays off. It’s a trap all the way down of course because …
Andrew Flood
It gets dafter – 82% want to go through an expensive deportation process to somewhere we have a common travel area with & where people deported can just walk back across any of the 400+ border crossing points again you can see where accepting this logic rapidly leads
Ireland’s Open(ish) Border – Sinn Féin on the Warpath
Sinn Féin’s is warning Irish voters about “Open Borders”.
The party is promoting relentless propaganda in the run-up to the June 7 2024 European and local elections in Ireland.
This leaflet from Balbrigggan (Dublin) is a local version of statewide propaganda.
Let’s ask ourselves a question : What’s wrong with Open Borders?
Andrew Flood calls the border in Ireland Open(ish) – and he is spot on. Here is why :
I say Open(ish) because for two decades black or brown people crossing that border have been stopped and told to produce ‘papers’ by the Garda (claiming to be doing random checks). Maybe they want such checks stepped up, if not what is the demand here?
The border between the EU and the rest of the world is so closed that 3,000 people died trying to sneak across it last year. Over 20 times the number of people killed crossing the Berlin Wall in the 28 years it existed. The border with the 6 counties is Open(ish) – is it that?
OK we all know this is a response to the far right working with FFFGGP to blame Sinn Féin on the government’s failure to plan & communicate for large number of Ukrainian refugees. But this shite is just going to underline that Sinn Féin are no more principled that the rest.
The boss of An Garda Síochána (police force in the 26 county bit of Ireland), Drew Harris, was recruited from the cops in the 6 county bit of Ireland. The people running the two states in partitioned Ireland have developed very close social, political and personal relationships since the the 1998 triumph of the Good Friday Agreement. I recently circulated details of Harris’s “Hug-a-Thug” policy towards growing far-right violence in the 26 counties to a 6 county political activist, who commented this was “reminiscent of the historic style of policing up here”.
Ruling class forces were extremely happy about the continuation of partition guaranteed by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. They did not foresee that the foundations of partition in Ireland are more rotten than their constitutional plan conceding a Unionist Veto to a majority of the voting population of the six county state. The Brexit referendum result of 2016 lit a slow-burning fuse under the GFA structure; in the meantime we are witnessing the creation of a possible “United Ireland from Hell” which consists of knitting together the most reactionary features of both partitioned states in Ireland.
The following article from the Cedar Lounge Revolution Blog powerfully illustrates the dangers arising from importing 6 county softly-softly policing methods towards the far-right (loyalist paramilitaries), fine-tuned by Garda boss Drew Harris.
Gardaí were called to the home of Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman on Thursday night when a gang of up to 12 masked men gathered outside his house and huge placards and banners were stretched across his driveway gate, along his wall and fastened to outside polls.
Gerry Carroll, a People Before Profit member of the Stormont Assembly in Belfast, raises very disturbing questions.
This is a Suzanne Breen Belfast Telegraph Report, April 18 2024
People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll has slammed Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly for meeting a US engineering company which supplies the Israeli military with machinery to use in Gaza.
During their visit to Washington last month, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister met with Caterpillar, which provides its huge D9R armoured bulldozers to Israel.
The machines have a highly controversial history.
They were also used in the 2008-09 Gaza War, which left up to 1,400 people dead.
In 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a D9R as she tried to stop a bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes in southern Gaza.
Rachel Corrie, crushed to death by Caterpillar armoured bulldozer in 2009
Mr Carroll lambasted Ms O’Neill and Ms Little-Pengelly for also meeting Israeli-founded cybersecurity firm Forescout, which has a contract with the US Department of Defense.
He said: “It is deplorable for the First and Deputy First Minister to meet these firms during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Caterpillar is complicit in the Israeli occupation, enabling the illegal bulldozing of Palestinian homes. This is not reflective of Caterpillar workers, but of the horrific profiteering of Caterpillar bosses.
“Israeli-founded Forescout continues to do business with Israel’s chief military backer, and should never have been at that meeting.”
Two men – Jospi Strok and David Druzinec – working in Ireland, attacked for what appears to be no reason at all – apparently they weren’t speaking English.
But note that the father of Josip Strok has heard nothing from the authorities about his son’s death:
Josip Strok RIP and David Druzinec
“I can’t believe that no one from the Dublin higher authorities or the Irish embassy ever called or said anything to me about my loss. It was just Irish ordinary people.”
David Druzinec speaking on “Prime Time” to Irish broadcaster RTÉ
As bad is the initial response of the gardai as reported.
On Easter Sunday, after he [Druzinec] was discharged from hospital, he spent most of the day travelling around with the gardaí trying to re-trace their route.
Exclusive: Chris Heaton-Harris accused of ‘unprecedented political intervention’ in legacy inquest – Irish News Newspaper
Northern Ireland Office minister seeks to block information being passed to family of murdered Catholic man Fergal McCusker
Family Members of Fergal McCusker attend the Inquest at Laganside courts on Tuesday April 9 2024
News like this does not get the attention it deserves. Low standards of justice remain very common in the sick state of Northern Ireland.
Here are the details.
Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris has been accused of “an unprecedented political intervention” as it emerged he has written to chief constable Jon Boutcher questioning his actions.
Dramatic details came to light during an inquest hearing liked to the LVF murder of Fergal McCusker (28) in Maghera, Co Derry, as he made his way home from a night out on January 18, 1998.
No-one has ever been charged with the Catholic man’s murder, although four men were arrested and later released.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 