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Brandon Sullivan ✍ I wasn't particularly interested in seeing this film at the cinema, Baby Girl, directed by Halina Reijn.


And having now watched it twice, I'm still unsure if I think it's a good film. But it certainly is a cultural object worthy of discussion, and that alone perhaps attests to a certain quality it possesses.

Central to this film is Nicole Kidman's character, Romy. The high-powered, wealthy CEO of a "robotic automation company," Romy presents as highly capable, yet clearly discontent. Through a fairly contrived scenario, she is introduced to Samuel, a 20-something, chiselled man who is employed as an intern at her company. Samuel is played by Harris Dickinson, who gives an extremely impressive performance. Nicole Kidman, at 57, is basically double Dickinson's age. The age dynamic is present throughout. Immediately, Samuel identifies something in Romy, what the source of her unhappiness might be and, crucially, how he could be the person to give her what she isn't quite sure she needs. Her unhappiness, he seems to instinctively understand, is a type of sexual frustration that has lasted for decades and is centred around having never acted on a strong desire to be sexually submissive. Samuel, for reasons never really explained, is a man comfortable with fulfilling her desires, which are presumably in line with his own.

The film succeeds or fails on the dynamic between Samuel and Romy, and I found it compelling. Who was exploiting whom? Or was nobody being exploited? Except, perhaps, Romy's husband (Jacob), and Samuel's girlfriend, another senior colleague. Romy's relationship with her husband, excellently portrayed by Antonio Banderas, provides a grating realism affecting Romy from fully enjoying the intense sexual ecstasy as she gradually, and then completely, enters into a fully sexually submissive role with Samuel.

I found the film most interesting when it contrasted those with a deep interest in BDSM with those who didn't. Romy variously told her husband that she wasn't like other women, that she "wasn't normal" and that she'd had "dark" and "depraved" fantasies as far back as she could remember. Clearly contemptuous of what he perceived as the selfishness of her acting on these impulses, Jacob spits at her that she jeopardised "what was most important … (their children) for banal sexual fantasies." Romy never revels in her fantasies, and even when in the midst of the highly charged sexual affair she has with Samuel, her visible torment never really seems to lift.

Samuel, unsurprisingly, is not a one-woman man, and Romy is clearly threatened by his dating his senior colleague, Esme (played by Sophie Smith). At a club night, Samuel texts Romy, who lies to Jacob about where she's going (and disappoints her daughter). When she gets there, she sees Samuel dancing, clearly on drugs, and euphoric. He gives something to Romy to smoke, and she does. She then asks Samuel, "do you do with her what you do with me?" - to which he replies "no, she's not like you. I'm not like this when I'm with her. That's why I like you. And why I like her." This is as close as we get to understanding Samuel. Romy repeatedly said, in the early days of their entanglement that she was "worried" about him, or felt "protective" – Samuel retorted that she "keeps saying that – I'm OK" and that she should be worried, because he could make one phone call to the company’s hierarchy and reveal all and she'd be finished. Later on, Samuel asks Romy if she wants to lose everything and is using him to do this, a sort of "suicide by cop" scenario. This shows that Samuel has at least some awareness of the conflict raging in Romy's inner world.

But Samuel's inner world is never really fully explored. Why does he do what he does? What drives him? He doesn't seem depressed, but he doesn't seem particularly happy either. Many men would envy the charisma he possesses and his ability to seduce women from a range of backgrounds, but he seems to pay some sort of psychic price for his actions. Or perhaps he's just a sensualist, and the sex, drugs, and NYC EDM are him living his best life. But I didn't think that's the whole story. He wasn't like the tortured lead character in Steve McQueen's film Shame, living a life in the throes of sex addiction, but neither was he a sexually liberated hedonist. So what was going on? It is a testament to Dickonson's skill as an actor that we are left curious about this complex, confident, yet quiet character. Perhaps Samuel would in time develop the crushing addiction issues featured in Shame, but I don't think they're cut from the same cloth.

Apparently, Reijn was inspired by films such as Basic Instinct and 9&1/2 Weeks, but I think Baby Girl would make a good companion piece with Shame. Samuel and Michael Fassbender's character in Shame are both men for whom seducing women is easy but who have difficulties maintaining loving relationships (Samuel to a lesser extent). And Romy is not as troubled as the character Sissy in Shame. But neither is she untroubled. In fact, her alienation from her outwardly successful life has shades of Shame to it. For me, what was missing was the inner world of Samuel. Dickinson said that he devised a backstory for Samuel, and that part of his inhabiting the character was imagining that Samuel was "wading around in his mess." This is interesting and hints at what I believe was missing from the film.

Samuel and Romy are both participants in a game, and both believe in what they are doing. To the extent that Samuel challenges someone who bluntly states that BDSM means nothing with a simple "sorry, but you are wrong." For Romy, clearly, it is almost a form of therapy. Is it the same for Samuel? 

Whilst almost everyone is possessed of a sexual drive, not everyone risks the fabric of their lives to act out in a transgressive way. In this film, it is the female lead who does this and takes serious risks. It's a much less hazardous scenario for Samuel, who simply doesn't have the stakes that Romy does. But would he be so driven to engage if the consequences for participation were potentially so serious? I don't think so.

Baby Girl is a conversation starter. Should we actualise that which we crave? Or should we be careful what we wish for?

It's worth a watch. And it's given me a few appreciation for a George Michael song, and some modern EDM.
 
⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle-aged West Belfast émigré. He juggles fatherhood & marriage with working in a policy environment and writing for TPQ about the conflict, films, books, and politics.

Baby Girl

Anthony McIntyre ☠ The weekly Gaza vigil in Drogheda's West Street continues, now in its third calendar year. 

It is heartening to see people from this town give up a portion of their time on a Saturday to come out in solidarity with those subject to Nazi-like genocide. There are other things people would rather be doing on a Saturday, especially one as sunnily beautiful as today, but have no intention of doing while people of the same race as themselves - the human race - are being mercilessly slaughtered by Israeli Einsatzgruppen in what has come to take on the features of a war of extermination. 

Hitler's greatest achievement, arguably, was to have moulded a Jewish state in his own image. How absurd and repellant is that? The Jewish Kapos in Hitler's concentration camps were the vilest of people, every bit as pernicious as their SS guards. They brutalised and murdered their fellow Jewish inmates to curry favour with the Nazi authorities. Their type, with their penchant for savagery and brutality, now govern the state of Israel and are merely carrying on in the tradition of the camp Kapos. 

These people are no better than Nazis and we should never refrain from saying it, particularly so when we can so readily intuitively sense that there are few moral qualms in Israel about solving the Palestinian question through the gas chamber. 

When the Israeli SS officer Tomer Grinberg was taken out by Palestinian fighters in December 2023 as he sat planning the murder of Palestinian children, there was much made in the pro-Zionist media of his love for his three year old daughter. Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, lived with his wife and five children in the camp where daily he gassed thousands of Jews. Like, Grinberg, after his murderous work, he would walk the few yards to his children and resume family life. Loving one's own children is not enough to comply with the human moral code. The refusal to kill the children of others is just as important. 

In less than an hour's time we shall gather again in West Street in solidarity with the children of Gaza and their families being bombed and starved to death. Most if not all of us will have consumed a full breakfast before we leave our homes. There will be no hunger pangs assailing us as we stand. In Gaza, both homes and breakfasts are in short supply. Even Donald Trump complains that people are starving in Gaza. For once he is not lying. Anybody familiar with World War 2 will most likely understand the Wehrmacht siege of Leningrad. Unlike Stalingrad, where the Nazis sought to swiftly murder their way to victory, in Leningrad the war of extermination was to be won through slow starvation.

During the week I had an exchange with a Christian pastor. He professed his pride in being a member of the British empire. I can understand a person having a sense of pride at being a member of British society. But pride at belonging to a blood soaked empire that brought murder, slavery, genocide, torture, starvation to millions across the globe occupies a lowly moral plain to which the pastor has descended. He has achieved something very few others have in his lifetime: started at the bottom and worked his way down. It is no surprise that he also supports Israel in its war of extermination. Tomorrow Pastor Pompous will don his funny clothes and in true Pharisean style mumble pious platitudes from his bible while sermonising to his flock about all manner of things except one thing: Israeli atrocity in Gaza. He didn't preach against it last week. He will not preach against it next week. His well-filled stomach will help him forget the empty stomachs of children dying from starvation in Gaza. But at least he will help aid our understanding of how Christian pastors - pastords is perhaps a more appropriate term for the type - could come to serve in the Einsatzgruppen while it lined up Jewish men, women and children at the side of the ravine that would become their mass grave at Babi Yar. Against such a backdrop, the phrase there is no hate like Christian love is easier understood.

Sometimes as we stand in West Street a racist will approach and hurl abuse, demanding in perfect English that we abandon all that is foreign and concentrate on the Irish. When responded to in the Irish tongue a vacant blank gaze draws across their faces. The Irish language too it seems is foreign to them.

In spite of it all, abandonment is not on our agenda as the young and the not so young continue to assemble here in the full knowledge that while we are standing Gaza is starving. 300 Gazans reported dead since Thursday. For that reason alone we can never fail to turn up.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Starvation

Jacobin ☭ The late Uruguayan statesman José “Pepe” Mujica argues that capitalism is not just property relations but a set of cultural values that the Left must confront with a culture of solidarity.

My generation made a naive error. We believed that social change was only a matter of challenging modes of production and distribution in society. 

We did not understand the immense role of culture. Capitalism is a culture, and we must respond to and resist capitalism with a different culture. Another way to put this: we are in a struggle between a culture of solidarity and a culture of selfishness.

I am not thinking of culture that is sold, like professional music or dance. All that is important, of course, but when I speak of culture I am referring to human relations, to the set of ideas that govern our relationships without us realizing it. It is a set of unspoken values that determine the way in which millions of anonymous people around the world relate to each other.

Consumerism is part of that culture. It is an ethic needed for capitalism in its struggle for infinite accumulation. The worst problem for capitalism would be for us to stop buying or to buy very little. And this has generated the consumerist culture that envelops us. But a capitalist social system is not only property relations; it is also a set of unspoken values common to the society. These values are stronger than any army and they are the main force maintaining capitalism today.

My generation believed it was going to change the world by trying to nationalize the media and distribution, but we failed to understand that at the center of this battle must be the construction of a different culture. You cannot build a socialist building with bricklayers who are capitalists. Why? Because they are going to steal the rebar, they are going to steal the cement, because they are only looking to solve their own problems, because that is how we are formed. My generation, rationalist with a programmatic vision of history, did not understand that humans often decide with their guts and then their conscience constructs arguments to justify their decisions. We choose with our hearts, and here culture becomes a vital issue because it tempers our irrationality.

For example, what happened to our left leaders?

Continue reading @ Jacobin.

Pepe Mujica 🪶 My Generation Made A Naive Error

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Six Hundred And Sixty

 

A Morning Thought @ 2624

 

A Morning Thought @ 2623

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 8-May-2025.


Kneecap, the Belfast Irish language rap group, have found themselves at the centre of what is an artificially contrived furore dreamt up by people with little sense of real moral outrage. The basics of the story are well known. They finished off their act at the Coachella event projecting pro-Palestinian statements. Given the band’s history and well-known politics, it could hardly have come as a surprise. Perhaps it was more that the fans welcomed it that upset some.

The non-entity known as Sharon Osbourne, a reality star famous for being the wife of Black Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne and also the mother of another reality star, her daughter Kelly Osbourne, who to her credit did carve out a brief musical career on the back of her reality tv exposure. Sharon as part of the wider Zionist attempt to silence all those who criticise the genocide called for their visas to be cancelled, which in effect happened following the decision by their promoter and sponsor to drop them. She also called for them to be more like Bono. Kneecap responded with a humorously devasting comeback that they would rather be Rangers fans than emulate Bono.

Bono still has some credibility in certain parts, mainly where they haven’t a clue about the man’s actual politics and obviously amongst the clueless, witless, gutless glitterati like Sharon Osbourne. But what would it mean to be like Bono? Is he actually some sort of reasonable counterweight to Kneecap?

Well, first of all, in relation to Palestine, Bono is a Zionist, so even before the genocide began, he, unlike them, was already on the wrong side of history. Not for the first time, mind you. Bono has a habit of cropping up where he is not wanted like an ugly cold sore (my apologies to the virus). He has, as Harry Browne, the author of The Frontman: Bono in the name of power, pointed out dedicated a lifetime to the service of imperialism and was rewarded with a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Genocide Joe.[1] I am sure it will go well on his mantlepiece alongside his KBE (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), for which he was fulsome in his praise of Her Majesty’s Ambassador, as he put it, and grinned like a Cheshire cat during the ceremony.[2] 

The claims made by Blair and others about Bono’s achievements were exaggerated, of course. But he is, if nothing, an equal opportunities imperialist and will get around to doing his bit for the others. The idea that Kneecap would prostrate themselves before the British king is laughable and they wouldn’t be the first artists to reject one, were the Brits ever to mistakenly consider them for it. The late black poet Benjamin Zephaniah was offered the lesser award of OBE (Order of the British Empire) by the same Tony Blair. He turned it down stating:

I get angry when I hear that word "empire"; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised…
Benjamin Zephaniah OBE - no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire…
If they want to give me one of these empire things, why can't they give me one for my work in animal rights? Why can't they give me one for my struggle against racism? What about giving me one for all the letters I write to innocent people in prisons who have been framed? I may just consider accepting some kind of award for my services on behalf of the millions of people who have stood up against the war in Iraq. It's such hard work - much harder than writing poems.[3]

He also referred to his brother’s death in police custody and to Lizzie II as Mrs Queen, not Her Majesty. A display of dignity. He pointed out that those who accept such awards, the Queen’s Shilling, though he didn’t use that archaic military expression for those who enlist in the British armed forces to put down uppity types in the colonies, always sell out. However, calling Bono a sell-out, presumes he was ever anything other than a fan of empire. He tied his mast to the pro-British politics of the Irish chattering classes in the 1980s. His song Sunday Bloody Sunday was always introduced with the line This is not a rebel song, lest someone think Bono actually had something interesting to say. The song is quite vacuous though clear in saying he “won’t join the battle cry,” i.e. denounce those who had massacred 14 people on the streets of Derry. The British army is not mentioned once in the song. You wouldn’t know who had done what, but you know not to point the finger “Cause tonight we can be as one”. John Lennon on the other hand, shortly after the massacre did not hold back.

Is there any one among you
Dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding
When they nailed the coffin lids![4]

Bono couldn’t bring himself to condemn the British army for a televised massacre, so it comes as no surprise that he has little to say about a live streamed genocide.

He hob knobbed with neoliberals such as Jeffrey Sachs, various presidents of the World Bank, promoted pharmaceutical companies in Africa and of course was on the side of Bush in the Iraq War, at least in practice and helped whitewash the reputations of many of those involved. He hedged his bets a bit on Iraq, not wanting to seem too hawkish, saying the war was justified but the US should get UN backing for it. He then went on to endorse Clinton and Blair time and again. Jim Kerr from the Scottish band Simple Minds put it succinctly at the time:

How can Bono, having graced concert stages for over two decades, draped in the white flag of peace and screaming ‘No More War’ [sic] at the top of his lungs contemplate praising and back slapping Tony Blair? … I can’t believe that anyone could fail to identify that no matter what gesture Blair may make towards African debt relief, his slippery hands are currently dripping in the fresh warm blood of Iraqi men, women and children.[5]

Bono of course, could and did, and wined and dined with such hawks as Senator McCain. There were no depths to which he would not plummet, which brings us to Palestine. Shortly after October 7th he endorsed the Zionist genocide by changing the lyrics of his song about Martin Luther King, Pride (In the name of love)[6]to “Early morning, Oct 7, the sun is rising in the desert sky… Stars of David, they took your life but they could not take your pride.”[7] As part of the introduction to the reworked song he state “our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence… But our hearts and our anger, you know where that’s pointed.” Not at the Zionist occupiers was the answer. Roger Waters lambasted him for it.[8]

Not only that, he was criticised by Irish singer Mary Coughlan for his links to Israeli companies.[9] He did not fly out to Gaza as he had done in Ukraine, nor did he have much to say. When he eventually did mention Gaza, he was always careful to lay the blame on Hamas for starting it all, ignoring history since the Nakba in 1948. A good example of that is his piece in The Atlantic after receiving his Medal of Freedom from Genocide Joe.[10] An exercise in saying nothing, whilst attempting to sound profound, something Ireland’s most famous poisonous dwarf never pulls off.

Kneecap on the other hand have been clear from the word go about their support for the Palestinian cause. It didn’t take a genocide for them to take note. They have consistently been on the side of the oppressed, in this case the Palestinians, against the oppressor the Zionists. So, Sharon Osbourne should probably stick to what she knows best, which is precious little. As for Bono, as Harry Browne points out, perhaps nothing sums him up quite so succinctly as a piece of graffiti in Dublin that appeared following the scandal when they moved one of their companies to the Netherlands for tax purposes, “Bono is a poxbottle”.

We need more like Kneecap who stand with the oppressed, and a lot less of Bono and the likes who can’t condemn the powerful ever. At best you can expect some We are all guilty type of fudge, which was the preferred slogan of the Irish trade union bureaucracy when the British or their proxies in the UVF or UDA ever did anything, coming as no surprise that they have also done next to nothing on Palestine other than issue the occasional banal statements. I fully expect them to turn up with Bono somewhere to chastise Kneecap.

References

[1] Rebel News (07/01/2025) This Song is not a Rebel Song. Harry Browne. 

[2] U2 (29/03/2007) A Knighthood for Bono. 

[3] The Guardian (27/11/2023) ‘Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought’. Benjamin Zephaniah. 

[4] See.

[5] Browne, H. (2013) Bono The Frontman: In the name of power. London. Verso. Para 8.116

[6] See.

[7] See.

[8] The Independent (21/02/2024) Roger Waters brands Bono ‘disgusting’ over Israel speech. Kevin E G Perry. 

[9] The Sunday World (13/05/2024) Mary Coughlan ‘lost all respect’ for Bono over alleged links to Israeli companies. Eugene Masterson. 

[10] The Atlantic (04/01/2025) The Gorgeous Unglamorous Work of Freedom. Bono. 

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

To Be Like Bono Or Kneecap?

Christopher Owens 🔖 I can already hear the knives being sharpened. But I get it.


At the 2021 Historical Materialism conference, Evan Smith offered up a summation of why the party lives rent free in the minds of so many:

Although it remained a tiny group during the 1980s, the Revolutionary Communist Party has become infamous for the number of ventures that grew out of the far-left group and the prominent role that many of the party’s former leading members occupy in the British media and political landscape nowadays. The RCP formally dissolved in 1996, but became infamous after its journal, Living Marxism, was sued for libel by ITN . . . After losing the case . . . the magazine’s former editors, alongside other leading RCP members, formed the website, Spiked Online. In the last twenty years, Spiked has become an increasingly vocal and visible actor in Britain’s culture wars, combining libertarianism and right-wing populism with a penchant for contrarianism. A number of its editorial team and contributors have made headway in the mainstream media, such as Frank Furedi, Joanna Williams, Mick Hume, Brendan O’Neill and Tom Slater. At the same time, Claire Fox was an MEP for the Brexit Party (and now a Baroness in the House of Lords) and Munira Mirza is a chief political advisor for Boris Johnson.

Quite the trajectory, I’m sure you’ll agree. Up there with BICO going from defending nationalists in August 1969 to collaborating with Ulster Unionists or the Workers Party effectively disowning republicanism, some would argue.

So this book from Jack Hepworth (who has written extensively about the conflict in the North) ought to help outsiders see how the party functioned, how it came to take positions that are still controversial in left leaning circles today and the political journeys that certain members have taken since the party’s dissolution. And while it certainly does, it also teases other intriguing lines of enquiry that it fails to deliver on.

Telling the story of how three members of the Revolutionary Communist Group split to form their own organisation, Hepworth does a solid job at narrating the various twists and turns as well as discussing the party’s pariah status among left wing activists in a time where it was felt that radical change was in the air.

One position that remains controversial among right wingers is the party’s unconditional support of “…the right of the Irish people to carry out their struggle for national liberation in whatever way they choose”. Here, former members argue (albeit unconvincingly at times) that it had less to do with supporting Irish republicanism and more to with opposition to British imperialism and thus anyone striking a blow against such tyranny was worthy of support. As one ex-cadre tells Hepworth:

The reason why…Ireland and racism were so important is…they were issues where the establishment could get people to rally around the flag by being British. If you supported the actions of the British state in Ireland, how are you ever going to be capable of fighting for your independent interests within Britain?

This position has often been wielded as a stick to beat the likes of Claire Fox with, especially when Boris Johnson elevated her to the House of Lords to represent Warrington. In some ways, it’s possible to view this position as being akin to those Saturday night republicans who viewed the PIRA, INLA and IPLO as being exactly the same and therefore were all worthy of support. At the same time, the failure for right wingers to understand nationalist support for the republican movement means that such positions can be easily obfuscated to create political drama.

Other controversies, such as demanding the miners’ ballot for strike action during the Second English Civil War and suggesting that straights were less likely to catch AIDS are depicted as having roots in the party’s distrust of trade unions (which members felt was compromised and more attuned to capitalism as opposed to workers interests) and the state. While making sense from an ideological perspective, it put them at odds with every other left-wing movement and combined with the intense reading and debates, imbued within cadres a sense of superiority.

Former RCP member Chris Gilligan has criticised Hepworth for failing to wrestle with larger questions regarding shifting ideologies, the challenges faced by revolutionaries in periods where revolutionary zeal is at an all time low and not disclosing his own links to the party via a relative. All valid criticisms and worthy of a follow up book in its own right. Personally, I was disappointed with the segment covering the LM vs ITN libel trial. Although Hepworth reels off what happened fairly accurately and lists the various detractors who accused LM of genocide denial, it never takes a stand on the case, choosing to highlight how it led to the Academy of Ideas.

For my money, this was a case where everyone involved was an arsehole: LM for effectively claiming that ITN had faked footage of the Trnopolje camp, and major news network ITN for deciding to crush a small magazine via libel.

Closing with the advent of Brexit (seen as the first genuine chance for political upheaval in three decades) and the prominence of former RCP’ers in the media landscape, the reader is left to marvel at how the revolution has gone. Here, Hepworth argues that the shift from revolutionary to libertarianism is in keeping with the beginnings of the party because of the belief in humanity and the belief that freeing people will lead to revolution. Thus, they cannot be right wing as right wing libertarians believe in being left alone.

While undoubtedly true, the trajectory is presented in rather flimsy terms.

There’s an awful lot for a curious newbie to sink their teeth into and it certainly points out that the ex-RCP circle is nowhere near as harmonious as some conspiracy theorists like to make out. But those who have been in left leaning circles for a number of years might be disappointed.

Jack Hepworth, 2025, ‘Preparing for Power’: The Revolutionary Communist Party and its Curious Afterlives, 1976-2020. Bloomsbury Academic Press. ISBN-13: 978-1350242401

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

‘Preparing for Power’ 🔖 The Revolutionary Communist Party And Its Curious Afterlives, 1976-2020

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Six Hundred And Fifty Nine

 

A Morning Thought @ 2622

 

A Morning Thought @ 2621

Dixie Elliot ✍ I've seen a lot of vile and sick racist posts and comments on social media these last few months.

But what this American Patrick Downey said in this video about the parents of the two boys who tragically drowned in Buncrana, is the most depraved yet.

He said that RTÉ reported the story of the tragic deaths of the two boys and what he did to:

counter the anti-Irish, pro-unvetted migrant, pro-invader propaganda is leave remarks on RTÉ's post regarding the deaths, something to the effect of the parents being ... em ... the grieving parents... being unvetted invaders, which is what they are. Now if you're an Irish person and you can't handle that then you're a fool and you're never going to handle what lays in store for you...

This degenerate racist Downey begins the video by letting us know that, besides being a sick racist, he is also an absolute bullshitter.
 
According to him he's an Irish American who was educated in Ireland, an NUI Maynooth graduate. He applied for politicial asylum in the Republic of Ireland in September 23rd 2009, (why and from where, the US?) only to be arrested imprisoned and psychologically tortured at Dublin's Cloverhill Prison D2 landing via auditory means and deported from Ireland 17 days later on Saint Patrick's Day 2012.
(Is there something not right about those dates?)

There is more bullshitting and he just had to get a dig at the Palestinians. I was sickened that about 118 individuals liked the video, including four who were quickly removed from my list of friends, one of whom was from Buncrana.
Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Sick Racist Refers To The Parents Of The Two Boys Who Tragically Drowned In Buncrana As 'Unvetted Invaders'

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ As we watch with horror the rise of far-right and fascist groups across Europe surely the time has come when action against these bastards must be taken. 

They hold an ideology which is sick to any sane person. We must not make the mistakes of the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) and SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) during 1920s Germany. It was the failure of these groups to unite in an anti-Nazi front which allowed Hitler's SA thugs to control the streets. The KPD received orders from Stalin in Moscow ‘no alliance with reactionaries of the SPD’ (Social Democrats). Such orders were music to Hitler's ears because they divided the left-wing opposition which he would, on coming to power, eradicate one by one starting with the communists. Such divisions within the anti-fascists must not be allowed to happen again, learn the lessons of the past, or suffer the same fate! The fates of the KPD and SPD were final and fatal resulting in many of these groups being gassed in the murder chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor or any other of the Nazi death camps. Alternatively the former political activists of the left could be worked to death on one of Nazi Germany’s bizarre projects. Either way the end was not pleasant. Across Europe such groups masquerading as political parties are on the march again, not as large as the 1930s yet but nevertheless present. In Ireland we have our share of embryonic fascist groups in the ascendancy.

As with their predecessors these groups are praying on the political ignorance and fears of local people who feel under threat from ‘asylum seekers’ and ‘refugees’ most of whom are ‘International Protection Applicants’ and have a legal right to seek protection from persecution and even death in their native countries. It is true the situation has been handled so badly by the government, I often wonder to create a backlash situation if not on purpose. Very little or no consultation has been afforded local people in the areas where these ‘refugees’ are to be accommodated which was wrong and an insult to local people. That said the groups who have latched on to these protests by local people are no more interested in these people’s concerns than I have of becoming the next Pope. People like Malachy Steenson, once in the opposite political camp in the Workers Party who espoused the absolute opposite of what he spouts now, are opportunists. Unable to be accepted in Sinn Fein/Workers Party – later just the Workers Party – or any other groups on the republican left-wing Steenson has found a home with the politics of the far-right. The politics of the groups he was formerly associated with and those he preaches now are poles apart. Why the shift, Malachy? Steenson is not alone, merely perhaps the highest profile.

Other more dangerous groups are present in Ireland and are openly Nazi such as Justin Barret and his
Clann Éireann movement. In 2024 Barrett hailed Hitler as “the greatest leader of all time” and has publicly quoted ‘Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, performed Nazi salutes, and engaged in Holocaust denial.’ At the 102nd anniversary of the assassination of Michael Collins at Beal na Blath Barrett announced his Sciath Naisuinta organisation, the paramilitary Nazi wing of his Clann Éireann movement, so the Nazis are now reportedly armed it appears. He has also reportedly said ‘he would strip the Irish citizenship rights of local government politician Hazel Chu’. This is in spite of the fact that Hazel was born in Ireland and spent her entire life here. Hazel also served as Lord Mayor of Dublin and is well respected. It would be fair to say Barrett is a very dangerous man complemented, either directly or indirectly, accidently or otherwise, by the policies advocated by the likes of Malachy Steenson and his cohorts. These people prey on the fears of locals, many of these fears being justified, though unfounded, and exploit these fears for their own political ends. Right-wing populism espoused by former left-wing advocates is uncommon but not unknown. Oswald Moseley crossed the floor from the Labour Party to the Conservatives and kept walking in this right-wing direction, forming the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932 ending up interned during the Second World War as he was deemed a supporter of the Nazis. I would suggest these people many who hitherto have not being involved in politics who are following these far-right groups think very hard. Many of these Irish groups have contacts with British far-right and fascist organisations who, it should be remembered, are linked to loyalists in the north so when they are preaching their shite, remember this. Also, I would suggest, that reactionary people like Malachy Steenson, who I do not believe is yet a fascist, read about the Night of the Long Knives which took place in Nazi Germany between 30th June and 2nd July 1934. Here people like Steenson, having been used, were murdered by the SS on the orders of Adolf Hitler, the man who Barret claims is “the greatest leader of all time”. If these people, using the fears of the good people of East Wall in Dublin for example, ever achieve their aims on the backs of people’s ignorance imagine what may well happen. Stop these gangs and stop them now

How do we deal with this fascist threat? History teaches us they must be stopped in the early days. Failure to do this could result in Ireland becoming a fascist 26-County state, or even a 32-County state bearing two flags! Back in the eighties groups like Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) confronted the fascists off the streets of London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow. This approach of meeting violence with street resistance worked but, supported by ideological polemics, worked all the better. Supporting the street resistance, ideological debates and polemics must take place because beating the far-right ideologically is as important, if not more so in many respects, as is the confrontations on the streets. AFA is active in Ireland, and all groups, I would suggest, should join or affiliate to this broad-church anti-fascist group. Back in the 1930s republicans openly engaged and fought the fascist Blue Shirts in Ireland so we do have a tradition of anti-fascism.

The Israeli historian of the Holocaust, Yehuda Bauer, a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and a two-state solution with a Palestinian nation state alongside Israel, had, regarding the Holocaust, three commandments:

1) “There should be no victims”.

2) “There should be no perpetrators”

3) “There should be no bystanders”

Put bluntly such horrors as the Holocaust should not happen ever again yet we see groups, such as those led by the likes of Justin Barrett, openly advocating the policies of the Nazi Third Reich for Ireland! The Nazi Holocaust was a huge iceberg which the far-right across Ireland and the rest of Europe represent only the tip of. Do the people, initially under genuine concerns over lack of consultation regarding International Protection Seekers, who are following these groups realise what they really stand for? Do they realise if such ideologies ever come to fruition in Ireland or anywhere else in the world that today’s followers could well be tomorrow’s victims? Today in Ireland we have many non-fascists, that is those who would not support fascism but neither would they fight it either on the streets or ideologically. These would loosely be classed in today’s world as Bauers “bystanders”. Some see anti-fascists as being too communist led and, not understanding communism apart from what they read in the media, want nothing to do with anti-fascist groups. It is true groups such as AFA do contain Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists but they also have within their ranks many non-communists, even liberals, who are equally anti-fascist. This is a single-issue task and all other ideologies, apart from combatting fascism, goes out of the window otherwise we will lose the fight. Learn the lessons of history: the failure of the KPD and SPD in Germany to unite allowed Hitler's Nazis to control the streets. A similar situation arose during the Spanish Civil War near Barcelona when the Stalinists and the Syndicalists opened fire on each other. This incident which turned into a battle between the two ideological opponents was music to Franco and the fascists ears.

In the 26-Counties members of Sinn Fein, Labour, People Before Profit/Solidarity, and the Social Democrats hold anti-fascist views along with organisations outside Dail Eireann such as the IRSP. Any anti-fascist movement will be broad churched and, for example, younger members of street fighting age from Sinn Fein, may be standing alongside rival republican organisations like the IRSP. Any ideological infighting should be parked for the purposes of fighting fascism. This does not mean any political party’s ideology should be forgotten, merely parked up for ad hoc anti-fascist reasons. The time for action against the far-right is now, not when they have half the Dail filled with TDs and local authorities are bursting at the seams with them. Do not allow what happened in Germany during the late 1920s and early 1930s to happen here. At the moment the fascists control the streets. This must stop. Only on these streets can younger able bodied anti-fascists stop them. In the debating chambers is where the political-ideological debates and even polemics begin and are won! AFA appear to be the major anti-fascist organisation in Ireland. and the larger and more influential they become the better, at least in theory, but beware of infiltration something which is always a problem. Remember these far-right groups do not have the long-term interests of those who naively follow them now at heart. Those who are encouraged to burn refugees out of their temporary accommodation are being used by a faceless leadership who are often under the control of fascist and right-wing groups in Britain.

The recent electoral success in England of the Reform UK Party, led by Nigel Farage, is concerning. Reform UK do not tell us their long-term plans regarding the Six-Counties and the Good Friday Agreement. They wish to renegotiate the GFA along unionist lines even more so than the present unionist weighted version. Longer-term, they allegedly have ideas to reunite Ireland under the union flag with the British Monarch as head of state. The far-right in Ireland are merely tools in a far bigger toolbox so, to those who follow these, in many cases, pawns to the British far-right, think again. To those good folk on Dublin’s East Wall, who claim the tradition of James Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army, remember this; it was Connolly who welcomed Jewish people into Ireland, even having his 1903 Wood Quay election manifesto translated and written in Hebrew so that the Jewish population could understand. It was James Connolly who while in the USA argued vehemently with Irish American workers against racism and their harassment of Italian, Chinese, and Polish workers. It was the same James Connolly who remonstrated with the descendants of George Washington over their treatment of black people. This is the tradition you belong to, not this neo-Nazi front you have been led down the garden path with.

Stop The Fascists And Stop Them Now!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Confront The Fascists On The Streets

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