Archive for the ‘USA’ Category
Why Ukrainians should support Palestinians – Daria Saburova
We thank Dick Nichols for drawing our attention to this article.
Source : Open Democracy https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine-israel-palestine-russia-zelenskyi-hamas-gaza-offensive/
Why Ukrainians should support Palestinians
How can we look at images of Gaza and not see Mariupol or Bakhmut?
(c) Mahmoud Khaled/Getty Images. All rights reserved
As Israel’s assault on Palestine continues, apparent similarities with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grow. Israel’s “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip – cutting off water, electricity and food to more than two million inhabitants – echoes Russia’s intentional destruction of our energy infrastructure last winter. This, among other things, earned Russia the label of a “terrorist state” among Ukrainians.
From the moment an evacuation order for northern Gaza’s 1.1 million inhabitants was announced, Ukrainians must have known it would expose the most vulnerable – the elderly and sick – to certain death. We know that when people have no viable alternatives, they often prefer to stay.
The images of widespread devastation that reach us from Gaza, which suggest the Israeli army’s disregard for international humanitarian law, also resemble those from Mariupol or Bakhmut last year. Israel – like Russia in Ukraine – has been accused of bombing residential areas, evacuation corridors and the only exit point from the city, Rafah.
Of course, Hamas’s brutal attacks on civilians in Israeli kibbutzim also appear similar to Russia’s massacres in Bucha in March 2022. It is only right that these were condemned by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyi and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. But their messages of support for victims and their families were accompanied by problematic assertions, including Zelenskyi’s truly catastrophic conclusion that Israel has the unconditional right to defend itself.
Read the rest of this entry »The Israeli Defence Forces Blew Up that Hospital – October 18 2023
James Doyle writes :
The IDF blew up that hospital. The fact that they’re now lying about is just insulting to everyone’s intelligence. Netanyahu is a war criminal. Of course, he has been for 15 years now, but this is genocidal.
Steve Bell, for 40 years, has drawn brilliant cartoons for the British newspaper, the Guardian, which has banned this image from its site :
The British Guardian has sacked Steve Bell.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/nationals/guardian-steve-bell-cartoons-sacked-israel/
The Israeli Defence Forces have form on incidents like this :
Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan noted that some observers have questioned Israel’s version of events, with some pointing to Israel’s history of falsely attributing acts carried out by its own forces to armed Palestinian groups.
Read the rest of this entry »Notes from Kyiv: Which side are we on? – An article the USA Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Leadership removed from the organisation’s website
Vladyslav Starodubtsev reports :
Two days ago Democratic Left, Democratic Socialists of America’s online publication, ran Eric Lee’s article about his recent visit to Ukraine. It was entitled “Notes from Kyiv: Which side are we on?”
DSA has now answered that question — by removing the article from its website.
Thanks to Des Derwin and Adam Novak for drawing our attention to this Undemocratic Anti-Socialist Censorship hatchet job.
We are advised this is the result of a decision taken by the organisation’s National Political Committee.
The full article is below; a link is here :
We are advised that the long-standing editor of Democratic Left, Maxine Phillips, has resigned in protest.
Notes from Kyiv: Which side are we on?
September 26, 2023 by Eric Lee
As I walked around Kyiv on a beautiful, sunny morning in early September, I noticed the scaffolding in the city’s squares. Statues had been covered up to protect them from bomb damage. Later, I saw a statue with no protection around it– a graffiti-covered memorial to a Red Army general whose name nobody remembered. I was told that this statue had been covered by protective scaffolding before the war. The protection was removed when the war broke out. There was some hope that Russian bombs might solve the problem of what to do with this relic of Soviet rule.
You cannot understand the war in Ukraine without knowing its history. This was made very clear to me in a conversation I had with Olesia Briazgunova, who works for one of Ukraine’s two national trade union centers, the KVPU (Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine). I suggested that I saw some similarities between the situation in Ukraine today and the Spanish Civil War.
Olesia stopped me right there and asked if there had been genocide in Spain. I said there hadn’t been. She said, “Well there’s genocide here — and the Russians have been trying to wipe out the Ukrainian nation for a very long time.” I thought of Stalin’s terror-famine of the early 1930s, which Ukrainians call the Holodomor, and which they rightly consider an act of deliberate genocide. She had a point.
Read the rest of this entry »Irish troops to provide weapons training to Ukraine despite Government’s ‘non-lethal’ assistance pledge – Irish Times News Report, August 18 2023
“Department of Defence insists training does not impact neutrality and that there was no attempt to mislead public” – Irish Times
A copy of Conor Gallagher’s report is here :
Paul Murphy TD (Dublin South-West, People Before Profit) has issued a deeply mistaken public response, consistent with his party’s previously stated opposition to any military anti-imperialist solidarity action in support of the Ukrainian masses’ fight against a genocidal Russian invasion. Source :
This is a grim PBP Left-Evasionist chapter, part of the shocking story: failure to show anti-imperialist solidarity with the masses of Ukraine who are resisting a genocidal Russian invasion.
On July 29 2023 the PBP helped to organise a well-supported anti-racist rally in Dún Laoghaire, a town which proudly hosts a magnificent statue honouring the Irish anti-imperialist gun-runner and human rights activist Roger Casement.
PBP speakers drew attention to the many reasons we honour Casement today : but they overlooked a vital fact : this Easter 1916 rebel imported weapons from Kaiser Wilhelm’s German Empire in order to strike a blow against the then mighty British Empire.
John Meehan August 18 2023
Correcting Mandel: Why arming Ukraine is the road to peace
This is a very good polemical article, written by the Canadian author David Gutnick, examining Professor David Mandel’s calls for Ukrainians to accept a ceasefire and negotiate with Russia immediately.
The source is :
Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
David Gutnick’s article was originally published in :
Canadian Dimension
Monday 14 August 2023, by GUTNICK David
Correcting Mandel: Why arming Ukraine is the road to peace
“Pacifism has its place, but not here and not now,” writes David Gutnick
David Mandel and I share much more in common than our given name. We’re both French-speaking Anglophones who live in Montréal. Like professor Mandel, I worked for decades at a publicly funded institution: he taught at universities, while I produced documentaries for CBC Radio. We both consider ourselves humanists who want to help build a kinder, more democratic and socialist world.
But while reading Mandel’s August 2 piece in this publication, it became clear that we profoundly disagree on how to get there.
In a nutshell, Mandel calls for Ukrainians to accept a ceasefire and negotiate with Russia immediately, while I—following the lead of Ukrainians—believe the country needs more arms: the deadlier the better, unfortunately.
Mandel—like Vladimir Putin—says his position is the humanist one, as it will save lives.
I think that is wrongheaded. A wealth of evidence proves Volodymyr Zelensky’s position is right: Russia’s present leadership is bloodthirsty, intent on building an untrustworthy imperialist power. Putin slaughtered Chechens and Georgians when they would not submit to Russian domination, and now he is slaughtering Ukrainians. He will not hesitate to slaughter whoever is next to get in his way.
Humanists think of peace-building in the long term, and that means standing up to aggression now, not turning the other cheek.
Pacifism has its place, but not here and not now.
Unless Putin pulls back his army, Ukrainians have no choice but to fight.
Mandel writes that over the decades he has been “opposed to the policies of the regimes of these states, which were and remain deeply hostile to workers’ interests.”
We share that view.
But since the first Russian tanks illegally crossed Ukraine’s border into Crimea on February 20, 2014, then again into Kyiv on February 24, 2022, it is not just “workers’ interests” which have suffered: tens of thousands of Ukrainian trade unionists, kindergarten monitors, university students, mothers and fathers and innocent children have been killed by Russian invaders.
Read the rest of this entry »Cluster bombs in Ukraine – hypocrisy in the Morning Star (a British Tankie publication) and the Irish organization People Before Profit
Jim Denham writes a useful article about cluster bombs controversy and Russia’s genocidal imperialist invasion of Ukraine.
Jim’s text (reprinted in full below) is recommended reading, especially for unfortunate, misled, and baffled readers who saw a slogan circulated by the Irish radical left organization, People Before Profit (PBP) : “Cluster Bombs Shouldn’t Exist – Never Mind Be Used”. Did these people raise the issue of cluster bombs when the Russian military was using them to kill Ukrainians? We have been over this PBP ground already, and a key point needs repetition here and in the future :
The only mentions of what might be the wishes and intentions of the people of Ukraine, in an article devoid of any reference to Russian war crimes are, “In Ukraine, there are even demands for cluster bombs and phosphorus weapons”and “We stand in solidarity with all those protesting, and with those in Ukraine and Russia who are bravely raising their voices against war.” Who in Ukraine is bravely raising their voices against the heroic resistance of the mass of the Ukrainian people? There is not a word of solidarity for those in Ukraine raising their bodies and weapons against Russia’s war upon their lives, their homes and their freedoms.
https://tomasoflatharta.com/2023/06/16/neutrality-yes-solidarity-yes/
Above: a cluster bomb capsule on the ground amid the Russia-Ukraine war in Avdiivka, Ukraine, on March 23, 2023 [GETTY IMAGES]
Cluster munitions are horrible weapons that can be delivered by rockets, missiles, and aircraft. They open in mid-air and disperse dozens and even hundreds of smaller submunitions, also called capsules or bomblets, over an area the size of a city block. Many submunitions fail to explode on impact, leaving duds that act like landmines, posing a deadly threat to civilians for years and even decades.
Read the rest of this entry »Neutrality Yes! Solidarity Yes!
Guest post by Des Derwin
Neutrality is not opposition to ‘both sides’, or to Ukraine, in the war in Ukraine. But it is being presented that way in the build up for the People’s Forums On Irish Neutrality being held throughput the month of June.
A range of organisations are hosting fora in Limerick , Dublin, Cork and Galway. Some of them are organising demonstrations at the three locations of the government Consultative Forum on International Security Policy at Galway, Cork and Dublin.
There is also another, separately organised apparently, public meeting in Dublin on 24th June.
There are some heavy hitters speaking at some of the meetings, like Clare Daly, Mick Wallace, George Galloway, Bernadette McAliskey, Medea Benjamin and Yanis Varoufakis.
Many of the speakers have been associated with strong opposition to solidarity with Ukraine and with blame on NATO and ‘the West’ for the war. The hosting organisations largely represent positions between regarding the war as a war of NATO against Russia and regarding the war as a war between NATO and Russia.
A leading figure in Galway Alliance Again War posted on Facebook (11th June) what is designated as “an excellent article by Scott Ritter on the West’s proxy war against Russia”.
In its newsletter to members (9th June) urging them to support the People’s Forums On Irish Neutrality, People Before Profit says,
“They [the government] are using the Ukraine war to end neutrality. But a recent poll shows that 87% of people support a ceasefire to facilitate negotiations. If we had a government that really supported neutrality, it would be promoting negotiations”.
On 3rd March the Irish Anti-War Movement re-posted an article from Stop The War in Britain, titled One Year On, This Is Clearly a Proxy War Between NATO and Russia. It says,
“That means recognising that the war in the east has been going on for nearly a decade, and that the western powers represented by NATO have developed a firm policy of expansion taking in most of the east European states on or close to Russia’s borders. Russia was opposed to Ukraine joining NATO which it saw as a threat to its own security…One year on, this is clearly a proxy war between NATO and Russia, with western troops stationed very close to Russian borders, two formerly neutral countries – Sweden and Finland – joining NATO, Ukraine becoming a de-facto member of NATO, and the provision of weapons growing.”
The only mentions of what might be the wishes and intentions of the people of Ukraine, in an article devoid of any reference to Russian war crimes are, “In Ukraine, there are even demands for cluster bombs and phosphorus weapons”and “We stand in solidarity with all those protesting, and with those in Ukraine and Russia who are bravely raising their voices against war.” Who in Ukraine is bravely raising their voices against the heroic resistance of the mass of the Ukrainian people? There is not a word of solidarity for those in Ukraine raising their bodies and weapons against Russia’s war upon their lives, their homes and their freedoms.
On its Facebook page on 27th April PANA (Peace and Neutrality Alliance) introduced a video with:
“In this short video [US economist] Jeffrey Sachs gives us a brief historic background on the ongoing proxy war between Russia and the United States in Ukraine and explains why we need immediate peace and negotiations here to avoid a nuclear war between these superpowers.”
Among the speakers at the People’s Forums, George Galloway was a regular contributor on RT (Russia Today), a Russian government television station. On 14th February 2022 he famously tweeted:
“Y’all said #Russia was about to invade #Ukraine. I told you it wasn’t. You were wrong. I was right. Again. Show some bloody humility. Especially if they’re not even paying you to act like an idiot” (my emphasis – DD.)
In an interview with the Global Times on 12th February 2023 he said:
“The West is ready to fight to the last drop of Ukrainian blood, but not their own…They [the Russian leadership] just want not to have enemy missiles on their border. That’s why Ukraine will have to be completely demilitarized and properly neutralized before this conflict can end.”
At the Eurasia Media Forum in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in May 2019 George Galloway shared a plush platform with far right Trump strategist Steve Bannon:
A speaker at the second Dublin meeting (24th June), Neutrality: Who Cares?, Medea Benjamin of the US ‘women-led’ peace organisation CODEPINK, together with Nicolas J.S. Davies, wrote the book War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published last year. It is probably the premier text now of the ‘proxy war, NATO caused it’ current throughout the English-speaking world. It was famously reviewed in a podcast by Bill Weinberg and in an article by Linda Mann, ‘Their Anti-Imperialism and Ours’.
In his podcast Bill Weinberg (11th December 2022) indicates, page by page, how the Benjamin and Davies book designates the 2014 popular Maidan revolt a US orchestrated coup, “engineered” and an “operation”, bemoans the “flooding” (sounds familiar) of Ukraine with Western weapons, and repeats the ‘arguments’ against Ukrainian nationhood, including those in Putin’s pre-invasion speech. Weinberg indicates how the book sets out to legitimise the Russian referenda for ‘independence’ in the Donbas separatist republics, regrets how the “corporate media” “amplifies” “allegations” of Russian war crimes and compares reports of Russian atrocities to the notorious Kuwait atrocity reports, and opposes cultural boycotts and sanctions against Russia. And Weinberg points out how it reflects the New York Times editorial gently suggesting concessions brokered over the heads of the Ukrainians, talks up Russia’s security concerns and ‘encirclement’ from NATO, and NATO’s “role” in provoking the war, and chants the US and NATO’s undoubted crimes while neglecting Putin’s and Wagner’s record in neighbouring countries, Syria and Africa.
Linda Mann picks out for special attention a passage from Benjamin and Davies which both justifies the invasion and which, as Mann says, implies that “an aggressive war was on the table from the beginning”:
“The massive Western [military] support put Russia in a predicament…. In November 2021, Russia still enjoyed ‘escalation dominance,’ meaning that it could bring greater military force to bear than the US or NATO in any war in Ukraine. But Russia’s escalation dominance would keep diminishing as Ukraine’s military was gradually armed and trained up to NATO standards, with or without actual NATO membership.
“This meant that from Russia’s perspective, if they were going to have to fight to defend the Donbas and Crimea, every year they waited to do so would reduce their escalation dominance, tipping the balance in favor of Ukraine and increasing the risk of a potential nuclear war with the US and NATO.
“The United States military was well-aware of the predicament in which it was deliberately placing Russia’s leaders” (pp. 66 – 67, my emphasis – DD).
Medea Benjamin attended the (poorly-attended) Rage Against The War Machine rally in Washington on 19th February. This event brought together ‘leftists’ like herself and right-wingers and far-right-wingers, and featured some attendees with Russian flags and Z signs. She was to speak but told Chris Hedges, who did speak, in an email that,
“I supported the Rage Against the War Machine Rally from the time of its conception and I support it today, even though I will not be one of the speakers because the organisation I have been associated with for 20 years, CODEPINK, urged me not to speak…”
In the same article Chris Hedges wrote:
“I will also be joined by Ron Paul, Scott Horton and right-libertarian, anti-war figures whose political and cultural opinions I often disagree with. The inclusion of the right-wing has seen anti-war groups I respect, such as Veterans for Peace, refuse to join the rally. VFP issued a statement sent to me on Friday saying that ‘to endorse this event would have caused a huge disruption in VFP and had little effect on the outcome of the demonstration.’”
Sevim Dagdelen, an MP and deputy leader of Die Linke party in Germany, was a regular guest on the Russian state television channel Russia Today. There “she repeatedly explains that the European Union, the German government and NATO had overthrown the Yanukovych regime with the help of fascists in Ukraine”(Suddeutsche Zeitung, 16th March 2014). She dismissed fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, days before the invasion, as an “information war” and reminiscent of 2003, when the US and the CIA “drew the world into a murderous Iraq war” with “told stories” (NTV, 13th February 2022). “NATO has expanded, not Russia” Sevim Dagdelen told a primetime audience [on the ARD channel] a week before the invasion. (Politico, 24th February 2023). In March 2020 the leadership of Die Linke were “appalled” by Dagdelen and others in the Sahra Wagenknecht caucus of the party for blaming NATO for the Russian invasion (SPIEGEL Politik, 1st March 2022). She refused to call the massacres in Bucha and Mariupol “war crimes” (Zeit Online, 11th May 2022).
Dagdalen’s ally in Die Linke, Sahra Wagenknecht, and writer and feminist Alice Schwarzer have led the “negotiations and compromises” initiative in Germany around their Manifesto for Peace “in which they call for a halt to arms deliveries and for negotiations”(quote from Alice Schwarzer’s website introducing the Manifesto). They and other signatories organised the Rebellion for Peace rally in Berlin on 25th February 2023. “Speakers at the rally on Saturday included Wagenknecht, Schwarzer, a US-based professor… Jeffrey Sachs [again – DD], and a retired Bundeswehr officer turned private sector consultant, Erich Vad. All argued for negotiations with Russia, some were highly critical of NATO and the German government”(Deutsche Welle website, 27th February 2023).
Wagenknecht and the rally faced criticism from her own party Die Linke, before and after the event, even though the party holds “a position comparable to Wagenknecht’s on Ukraine: that Berlin should engage more for negotiations and less for weapons exports. However, the party has often sought to distance itself from its outspoken former leader’s comments on the war.”(Deutsche Welle, ibid).“Leading members had warned that the rally would attract far-right factions of Germany’s society. Observers noted many isolated cases of pro-Russian or right-wing symbols among the participants. Germany’s populist far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was vocal in its support for the event while also noting the participation of its members” (Deutsche Welle, ibid). When asked whether AfD politicians could also take part in the demonstration, co-organiser, and former Finance Minister, Oskar Lafontaine replied that there was no “attitude test “ (Global Happenings website, 24th February 2023).
“‘Our fears were confirmed,’ Die Linke‘s vice chairperson Katina Schubert told the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper [following the rally]. Schubert used the term “Querfront” (cross-front) to refer to collaborating with conservative revolutionaries, an expression used in Germany’s Weimar Republic…‘Whoever starts a call appealing to the cross-front, reaps the cross-front,’ Schubert said. Schubert said that ‘the confusion of victim and perpetrator was a recurring theme in the speeches’” (Deutsche Welle, ibid).
At the end of the rally, Lafontaine, Wagenknecht, Schwarzer and Vad, as well as Left Party politician Sevim Dagdelen, stood hand in hand on the stage.
In January Clare Daly and Mick Wallace were among 19 members of the European Parliament to vote against a resolution calling for the establishment of a special international tribunal to prosecute Russia’s leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine (Irish Times, 19th January 2023). In April 2022 Mick Wallace told the radio station, Ireland South East, that, “In my opinion Ukraine is being used by the US and NATO in their war to undermine Russia.” In October 2022 Clare Daly and Mick Wallace were among 26 MEPs to vote against a resolution to condemn “gunpoint” referenda and call for increased support for Ukraine.
Explaining her October vote Clare Daly said:
“I condemn the illegal aggression of Russia, but I disagree with a one-sided narrative that excuses the Western role in what is now happening. I urge a ceasefire, negotiations and genuine EU efforts to secure a peace. I oppose the policy of collective punishment, sanctions that also hurt European citizens, the flooding of Ukraine [sic] with weapons, and other actions that escalate the war and run the risk of igniting a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. I find much to agree with in this resolution. But unfortunately, this text also contains elements I cannot vote for. Demands for pumping even more weapons into Ukraine, demands for neutral states to abandon their neutrality, unrealistic conditions for ending the conflict, the continuation and entrenchment of a sanctions policy that isn’t helping anyone, and the presence of ominous threats and bellicose rhetoric which only inflame tensions and make peace less likely. That is why I cannot vote in favour of the resolution.”
Another speaker is Catherine Connolly TD. She accompanied Clare Daly and Mick Wallace on one of their journeys to Bashar Al-Assad’s sector of war-torn Syria. Her take on another of Putin’s wars may be illustrated by her address to the Ukrainian ambassador visiting Dáil Eireann on 23rd February 2022 (the day before the invasion):
“I do not want to waste my time giving my opinion of Putin. I am on the record about it. He is a dictator with no respect for democracy. NATO’s role in all of this has already been outlined by some colleagues on the left, but certainly not on the right. NATO has played a despicable role in moving forward to the border and engaging in warmongering”
Our neutrality and theirs
Neutrality is under pressure from government, media and establishment, using the war in Ukraine to open the possibility of ending Ireland’s formal military neutrality. It must be added that this pressure is accelerated from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Putin has been the best recruiter NATO could hope for, ending Finland’s and Sweden’s long-standing neutrality overnight. The biggest diffusion of the assault on neutrality in Ireland would be the defeat of Putin’s aggression.
Ireland’s neutrality does need to be defended. A broad alliance organising a campaign of meetings and demonstrations is needed. But the campaign should be about neutrality. It should not be about equating both sides in the war in Ukraine, blaming NATO and ‘the West’ for the war, opposing the military means for Ukraine’s defence or pushing a strategy of ‘ceasefire and negotiations’ now which would halt Ukrainian defence and freeze the murderous Russian occupation in its present positions.
Irish neutrality is perfectly compatible with demanding that Russia withdraw from Ukraine immediately and stop its barbarous assaults on civilians and civilian infrastructure, with support for the right of Ukraine to arm and defend itself, with support and solidarity for the Ukrainian people and labour movement, and with backing for self-determination for Ukraine.
Irish neutrality – in so far as it still survives or ever really applied at all – is about staying out of superpower military alliances and remaining neutral in wars between the powers or between countries or forces waging rivalries for local capitalist domination. In practical words it might be expressed as staying out of NATO and common European armies, and not multiplying military spending when there’s a crushing housing crisis (or at all). That neutrality should be maintained and defended. It is the neutrality that we who support the resistance of the Ukrainian people claim! It is the neutrality that we have as much right to defend as any alliance of political positions seeking to monopolise and define neutrality for their own purposes in relation to the war in Ukraine. Those claiming to defend Ireland’s neutrality are, for all practical purposes, not neutral when they oppose military aid to Ukraine. In effect that policy if implemented would lead to the defeat of Ukraine, and victory for Russian aggression.
No socialist, democrat or humanitarian should be neutral in a war of liberation of an oppressed people, a war of revolution against capitalism, a civil war against counter-revolution or a war of democracy against dictatorship or fascism, or, as in the case of the war in Ukraine, a war of national defence against an imperialist invasion. The left wasn’t neutral on Vietnam. The left wasn’t neutral on Iraq. February 2022 was not July 1914. When we are ‘anti-war’ we realise that there is a huge difference between wars of occupation and domination and wars of resistance. When we are neutral we remember the words of Desmond Tutu that, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”. When we long for peace, as we always do, it is not the peace of the graveyard, Pax Romana, the peace of capitulation or acceptance of the status quo, but the peace of justice and of the defeat of aggression, torture, reaction, rape, mass murder and ecocide.
James Connolly as ever put it so well in January 1916:
“We believe that in times of peace we should work along the lines of peace to strengthen the nation, and we believe that whatever strengthens and elevates the working class strengthens the nation. But we also believe that in times of war we should act as in war. We despise, entirely despise and loathe, all the mouthings and mouthers about war who infest Ireland in time of peace, just as we despise and loathe all the cantings about caution and restraint to which the same people treat us in times of war. Mark well then our programme. While the war lasts and Ireland still is a subject nation we shall continue to urge her to fight for her freedom.” (‘What Is Our Programme’, Workers Republic, 22 January 1916).
The view of the war in Ukraine as a war by NATO, or a ‘proxy inter-imperialist war’, and an urge to deny all support to Ukraine, even sanctions on Russia, even training on de-mining, underpins the neutrality being presented in the June series of People’s Forums On Irish Neutrality and the ‘Conversation’ on Neutrality:Who Cares?. The view – obvious to almost everyone independent of the shocking campism which is almost universal across the organised radical socialist left in Ireland – that Ukraine has been subject to aggression, invasion, war crimes and occupation, supports the belief that neutrality cannot be an argument for denying solidarity to Ukraine or for effectively giving succour to Putin. That neutrality cannot be an excuse for almost complete ‘anti-war’ inactivity on the streets against the horror right here in Europe. A horror that cannot be downplayed and has been recognised by the UNHCR as the largest annual global increase of people forcibly displaced in decades (Irish Times, 15th June 2023).
Certainly there are supporters and organisers of these events who are interested only in the principle of neutrality, or who firmly believe that a just peace is a possible option right now in Ukraine. And one of the Dublin speakers (from Sinn Fein) has often expressed his solidarity with Ukraine. But we must go on the declared positions and records of the principal figures to observe what is being broadcast through these initiatives.
The cancellation of the original venue for the Galway meeting, or the venues of similar meetings in London and Vienna, is not an appropriate or democratic response to them, or even to the strongest apologists for Putin. The meetings should be allowed go ahead without hindrance or disruption and the case for solidarity with Ukraine argued, and given a voice, in other fora like this one.
That opinion poll
The deployment of the PANA (Peace and Neutrality Alliance) opinion poll in their newsletter supports the ‘ceasefire and negotiations’ position of People Before Profit. Many of the organisers of these meetings are determined to maintain this position, so boldly led by Sabina Higgins in July 2022 yet so promptly clarified by President Michael D. Higgins in a statement which called for “an immediate Russian withdrawal”. Indeed some of the speakers in these Forums signed the Oireachtas members’ letter last February reiterating the ‘ceasefire and negotiations’ position. This too was promptly clarified by Senator signatories “endorsing stronger sanctions, recognising the importance of prosecution for war crimes”, condemning “the illegal Russian invasion”, recognising “Ukraine’s right to national sovereignty” and supporting “initiatives towards peace based on the strong principles of the UN Charter” including “Article 51 on the inherent right to self-defence”.
A PANA press release on 25th May 2023 carried the results of an Ipsos Omnipoll it had commissioned which,
“Reveals 87% of people in Ireland support a ceasefire to facilitate negotiations to end the War in Ukraine…The question asked: “Are you in favour or not in favour of a ceasefire to facilitate negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the war?” The response was: In Favour 87%, Not in Favour 8%, DK/No Opinion 5%. This is a massive endorsement of PANA’s position taken at the very start of the war.…In the year that marks the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that brought the war in Ireland to an end through a process of a ceasefire and negotiations, should we not retain this same philosophy in the horrific war now raging in the Ukraine.”
Whatever about the effect of a question on ‘peace’ put to people by a pollster, the same 87% or so of Irish people are very likely to give a similarly positive response to a question of Russia getting its troops out of Ukraine now, or of whether Ukraine should be given the resources it needs for its defence.
Actually the PANA (Peace and Neutrality Alliance) poll jars with a series of recent polls whose finding would not at all support the thrust of PANA’s message on the war.
An Irish Times/IPSOS poll (reported 28th October 2022), found that,
“An overwhelming majority of voters (72 per cent) say that Ireland and the EU “must continue to stand by Ukraine even if this means energy shortages”, with just 20 per cent disagreeing with the statement.”
As reported in The Irish Examiner (24th February 2023) a poll by the European Commission,
“found 76% of Irish people expressed satisfaction with measures taken by the EU to support Ukraine following the start of the war with Russia a year ago. It is the second highest level of support among the 27 EU member states after Portugal (79%) and considerably above the EU average of 56%. The Eurobarometer poll also showed even higher levels of satisfaction among Irish people with the Government’s reaction to the invasion. According to the survey, 78% of respondents in Ireland have supported measures taken by the Government to date. The EU average is 55%.”
On neutrality the findings would moderate perceptions that the eroders are vastly out of step with the Irish people:
“However, Irish people were less enthusiastic than most Europeans about having a common EU defence and security policy. Just over two-thirds (69%) were supportive of such a measure compared to the EU average of 77% with other countries including Austria, Romania and Sweden even more lukewarm about a common defence and security policy.”
The Irish Examiner (28th March 2023) reported on another Eurobarometer poll which indicated that,
“…91% of people here [in Ireland] agree the EU should reduce its dependency on Russian energy as soon as possible, compared to the EU average of 84%…The public here are much more likely to be satisfied with both the Government’s (78%) and the EU’s (76%) reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine than the EU averages of 55% and 56%.”
A new Irish Times/Ipsos poll (Irish Times, 17th June 2023) shows people holding the line on Irish neutrality, with 61% saying they support Ireland’s current model of military neutrality (a decline in support for neutrality of five points since last year). There is 55% support for “significantly increasing Ireland’s military capacity”. “More than half of all voters”, the paper reports, “say that Ireland should continue to accept all Ukrainian refugees who arrive.” In an Irish Times/Ipsos poll last year 36% said that Ireland should continue to accept Ukrainians “no matter how many arrive”. On refugees in general 48% said “they think that there are ‘too many refugees in Ireland now'”, but, the Irish Times says, “the numbers suggest that at least some of those…also believe that Ireland should keep taking them”.
And whatever about Irish opinion, in a Gallup poll across Ukraine in September 2022, 70% of Ukrainians favoured fighting to win, and 91% of those who backed the war defined victory as retaking all seized territory. In a poll conducted in October 2022 across the ‘pre-February’ territory of Ukraine by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 86% of respondents answered that it is necessary to continue the armed struggle anyway, even if shelling continues. In particular, 71% among them fully agree with this opinion (the remaining 16% rather agree). Only 10% of respondents answered that it is necessary to proceed to negotiations to stop the shelling as soon as possible, even if it is necessary to make concessions to Russia.
In May 2023 the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology conducted a telephone poll across Ukraine, except for Crimea, in its latest round of questions about the population’s readiness for territorial concessions. 84% of respondents continued to adhere to the view that no territorial concessions are acceptable, even if this means that the war will last longer and there will be other threats. Only 10% believe that in order to achieve peace and preserve independence, it is possible to give up some territories.
The nuanced and varied, but almost universal, consensus on Ukraine, on the Irish organised radical socialist left, is conspicuously put on display in the unitary and cross-over platforms for these People’s Forums and Conversations. It is a consensus that essentially abandons the people of Ukraine, and either soft-peddles on Putin or blames ‘the West’ equally for the war. It is a consensus that is branding the left as defenders of dictatorship and playing right into the hands of politicians, press, publicists and propagandists that have always tried to brand the left in this way.
Neutrality Yes! Solidarity Yes!
Des Derwin
17th June 2023
Tomás Ó Flatharta 