A few days ago the catholic bishops yet again dared to lecture people in Ireland with their statement against marriage equality. This morning Díobháil, a new Galway feminist group, has used Galway cathedral to speak out for and help the women trapped in unwanted pregnancies because of the bishops' role in another referendum, the 1983 anti choice referendum.
In the years since 1983 it emerged that the same bishops had conspired to hide priests who had raped children, not just on one or two but on many occasions. Despite that this same group of supposedly celibate men still continue to bother us with lectures opposing sexual freedom, bodily autonomy and even same sex relationships. The same bishops still have de facto control over most of our schools and many of our hospitals and community centres.
You'd think Enda Kenny had never seen a homeless person before. In the wake of the sad death of Jonathan Corrie, who was sleeping rough in the shadow of Dáil Éireann, Ireland's parliament, the Taoiseach went walk about in the city centre to meet Dublin's homeless. In an interview with the media, he said he was "taken aback" by what he saw.
Like Ebeneezer Scrooge, whisked around the capital by the ghost of Christmas present, he got a first hand view of the conditions that people without homes or hostel places have to endure. He saw the effects of addiction, the sleeping bags and the syringes, that dominate the lives of those who have been left at the margins. But, it's hard to believe that he didn't know this was happening; It's difficult to imagine, that after three and a half years in power, he has suddenly had a Scrooge like epiphany, and is going to pull out all the stops to transform the lives of the country's homeless people.
There has been much discussion of the 'Irish Exemption' to the EU Water Framework directive, with some suggesting that 'this changes everything', but it's important to note that the Real Irish Exemption is our widespread and continuing resistance.
Background
Despite assertions from the government that Ireland is required by the EU directive to impose water charges, there is actually a unique exclusion of Ireland in article 9.4, negotiated in 2000 - which former MEP Kathy Sinnott brought to light 2 weeks ago. Therefore the imposition of domestic water charges is, unsurprisingly, a choice made by the Irish government.
This legal exemption, however, is under threat as Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly – who continues to deny the existence of the exemption – intends to rescind it on the 1st of January. The exemption can only be rescinded by the Irish government, and must be renewed (or cancelled) every 7 years in Ireland's River Basin Management Plan which is submitted to the EU Commission.
The Real Exemption
Although this is significant, it is most important to note that the huge anti-water charges movement was in full swing before many were aware of this legal exemption. We are opposed to the water charges because they are unfair and an assault on our living standards, not because they aren't really required by some EU directive.
DAF, an anarchist group in the Turkish state held a demonstration for the anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos who is in hunger strike for 29 days in Greece and for our sisters and brothers who has been murdered while resisting in Greece, in Ferguson, in Mexico, in Kobanê.
Nikos is a 21-year-old who has been on hunger strike at a prison near Athens since Nov. 10 after authorities rejected his demand for educational leave. He had managed to win a place at Athens’ School of Business Administration. His father has told the Guardian “He is a fanatical lover of life. He wants to live But this is his 27th day without food and his condition is deteriorating. He is getting weaker.” On Saturday 6000 protesters clashed with police in Athens in the aftermath of occupations of municipal, university and union buildings
We think its a disgrace that people are being to forced to queue in freezing temperatures overnight at the Garda National Immigration Bureau in Dublin.
We met up with a North American student to ask her why this was happening and how we could help.
Q. Why are people queuing over night on Burgh Quay in the middle of winter?
A. There are 39,000 international students at present in Ireland, whereas there are only about 7,000 here on work visas (including new applications and renewals). All non-EU students, with a few special programme exceptions must register annually. The queues are huge, so now people are now *queuing overnight*, from 8 pm, until 8 am the next morning.
It’s appalling to realise that those of us queuing in the freezing cold are amongst the most privileged immigrants in Ireland. This shows the depths of indignity people bear against fortress Europe.
Regime sources are claiming there were only 12 people with a lot or mirrors at the Dec 10th huge water charges protest. And that they were in any case anarchist dissidents with bad haircuts who in no way represent middle Ireland which was safely tucked up in bed.
One of our dissident anarchist types was leafletting the march as it arrived at Merrion Square and doubled up by videoing sections of it . He then took a stroll down a jam packed Nassau street to have a look at the anti democracy barrier before, lured by the singing of Damien Dempsey returning to Merrion square itself . He kept the camera running and has edited together this video which gives a very good idea of both the size and composition of the crowd.
Note there are lots of places where lots of people were that he didn't get to, this is actually just a small section of a very much larger crowd.
WORDS Andrew Flood (Follow Andrew on Twitter )
The scene at the bottom of Kildare street where the anti democratic protest barrier was erected to stop people getting within earshot of the politicians in the Dail. All days thousands of people stopped here to demand access to Kildare street.
In this scene one man turns to the crowd and asks if he will really be arrested if he tries to walk up the street. He then climbs over the barrier and starts to walk only to be rushed by several Gardaí. As the crowd chants 'shame' more Gardaí come down the street and stand on the inside of the barrier, and after some time the man is allowed to climb back over the barrier.
So during a press event yesterday, Alan Kelly (Minister of Environment, Community & Local Government) said that he has other career opportunities if the whole water charges initiative ends his political career. We would certainly believe that, considering the fact that former political insiders can be valuable assets to wealthy individuals.
For example, former Taoiseach Brian Cowen went on to become an employee of Denis O'Brien. He was appointed to the board of fuel supply chain Topaz Energy Group as part of a team of seven new directors. Earlier this year Topaz won a €20m contract to supply fuel charge cards to the Gardaí, the Irish Prison Service and the Office of Public Works.
Sometimes the media don't do a very good job of hiding their agenda. Wednesday's mass protest against water charges in Dublin city centre was a prime example. While anyone who was present could see that this was one of the biggest demonstrations in recent times, despite being on a workday afternoon in the middle of winter, the media tried to downplay the numbers.
While initially, the Garda press office said it wouldn't be releasing an estimate of the crowd numbers, within the hour, it backtracked, and said gave a number of 30,000 "plus". Of course, that is technically correct, the crowd did number over thirty thousand, but citing that figure insinuates that there might have been one or two thousand more, not the massive numbers that people who experienced the demo for themselves witnessed. It was as if they plucked a number out of the air.
The revolt against the water charges is of a size and militancy that if we stay on the streets we will certainly win. But the revolt has also exposed in plain view the level of co-operation between media, politicians, big businessmen like Denis O’Brien and the gardaí. All have acted together to cajole, bully and suppress protest and then to lie and distort events.
'Smear Them' - Indo makes shocking newspaper vilification of anti-Water Charges campaign
The conveyor belt of smears against Water Charges protesters has lurched back into Full-Speed Mode, with Denis O'Brien's Irish Independent deciding to run this incendiary headline: ''Shoot him' - Protester makes shocking Facebook threat towards Taoiseach'.
This story, featuring in one of the largest publications on the island, is based on some Facebook comment a person seemingly made in anger: 'Shoot him make a martyr haven't had one in a long time'. This headline is ludicrous for a few reasons.
On Thursday night RTE Primetime presented what many have described as a 'regime broadcast', an utterly transparent hatchet job of the anti-Water Charges campaign. This featured, supposedly, an anonymous water meter installer describing being accosted by knife, hatchet, baseball bat, and golf club wielding maniacal protesters – the sinister fringe. The core message transmitted in the program was 'you can protest, but don't protest effectively'. If you watched it (link below), what did you think?
But as Wilde points out, a reading of history clearly shows that it has been disobedience, rebellion, and heresy, which have driven progress over the millennia. It seems almost too obvious to say, because the absence of resistance will obviously lead to nothing changing for the better.
The Denis O'Brien media published a remarkably badly considered Sunday Independent magazine cover story trying to convince us the good times were back. The reality as demonstrated by a recent ESRI report is that while Budget 2015 did indeed make those on high incomes richer it made most people poorer and hit the poorest 10% hardest of all.
The years of crisis have been used to impose a shock doctrine of neo-liberal restructuring of society in Ireland. Our health services have not just been destroyed but it's become all too common to see people trying to fundraise for needed surgery through online fundits. People are sleeping on the streets in freezing conditions right beside buildings which have remained empty for years after being bought up by property speculators. Tens of thousands of young people have been forced to emigrate, tens of thousands more forced onto Jobsbridge - a scheme that provides a massive subsidy to employers at our expense.
'Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible' – democratic socialist George Orwell.
You wake up, and the radio is saying something about hundreds of billions of euro again. Police somewhere just shot a load of protesters, and something about the polar ice caps melting faster than we thought. It's awful, but you're just one person. Things are pretty bleak.
You're not the first to feel hopeless
As Orwell says, the rulers of society, the people in charge who control the resources and make the decisions, will seem invincible. Put yourself in the position of a feudal serf, or a slave? Do you think they ever thought that the feudal regime would crumble, that slavery would be abolished? People said it wasn't possible, that human nature wouldn't allow it, and that we should just aim to have a 'better feudalism', a 'better slavery'. But, lo and behold, it happened and only because there were people who refused to settle, who dared to believe that a fundamentally better world was possible.
The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) revealed yesterday that over the last 12 months alone they have seen 26 asylum seekers or women with travel restrictions who indicated they wanted an abortion but were unable to travel abroad. At least 5 of those women were forced to continue the pregnancy to term.
For too long people have allowed the state to continue to deny bodily autonomy because the trip to Britain for an abortion was a difficult and expensive option but one still available to many. What was ignored was that those unable to access such abortions were the most marginalised, those with little or no voice. As the IFPA revealed as well as Asylum Seekers this includes "women in poverty or on low income, young women, women with disabilities, women in State care, women experiencing domestic violence and women with travel restrictions”.
We have an easy winner for the WTF example of media bias this week in relation to the water charge resistance. The Sunday World journalists have pulled out all the stops in the service of Denis O'Brien as illustrated below. In case you miss the small print under the photo we have underlined it in yellow 'How it Could have Looked'.
The non exploding Drogheda 'petrol bomb' was a weak story in any case, a scare that felt manufactured before the Sunday World got creative with its photographs of a burned out van from somewhere else altogether. But really what sort of excuse can be offered up for such transparent bias?
Demonstrations took place overnight across the Spanish state against the series of police raids targeting the anarchist movement. The Barcelona demonstration of 2000 people was led by a banner proclaiming "If you touch one; you touch all".
Demands include "Freedom for those arrested for struggling", "Down with prison walls" and "Social war against the state of capital".
Media reports say that the raids took place in 15 locations in Barcelona, Sabadell, Manresa and Madrid and that 11 have been arrested. The usual excuse is given, 'terrorism', but the same reports reveal that all that the raids have discovered are "computers, mobile phones and notebooks found during searches"
Some International Students & Workers organised a solidarity gathering to stand up and speak out against the humiliating treatment of international students and workers required to register at the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB).
Many have seen the recent reports and photographs of students and workers queueing overnight at the GNIB in order to obtain required visa permissions to remain in the state. Under huge pressure from students, workers and allies the Department of Justice (DoJ) were forced to temporary alleviate the situation by placing more resources into processing claims, especially for re-entry visas.
Like what you're reading?
Find out when we publish more via the
WSM Facebook & WSM Twitter