As much as I enjoy it – for the most part – it’s a laborious task with little thanks, and leaves rather only the satisfaction that I have expressed myself as best I could, compiled my scattered thoughts and maybe left something small but indelible that another human may share in.
Time is at a premium too. My daughter’s getting older, and me, my partner and everyone around us try to ensure she has experiences that’ll impress on her a lifetime. I often find myself staring into blank spaces, locked stoically in nostalgic trance, only to be abruptly taken back to the present. It was thinking about the passing of time that a friend recently informed me:
That scared me, but then again there are always exceptions, because my sister’s never out of my Ma and Da’s house.
So, thinking back as I do – to June, to be precise – another thought scared me: a rather crude and poorly made poster appeared online. It was littered with contradicting themes, using an unmistakable socialist red fist with some crudely placed writing on top. Spitting racist and anti-migrant rhetoric, it was rallying the lumpen locally to protest.
This all came on the back of what was no less than an attempted racist pogrom in a loyalist heartland only two weeks earlier. Ballymena was an incident which reverberated beyond the six counties, emboldening racists up and down the country. That carnage, followed by social democrats and liberals – both shades of green, and the yellow of Alliance – on Newry, Mourne and Down District Council announcing their intention to join the City of Sanctuary Movement, presented shadowy white-supremacists with a onetime opportunity to stoke fear and attempt to make inroads locally.
While a somewhat symbolic gesture, the stated aim of the City of Sanctuary proposal was to link Newry in with a wider network which aims to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for vulnerable migrants. Which I’m not averse to per se, but rather my criticisms lie with the proposal’s inability to really address the material conditions of poor people – migrants and refugees included – and is typical of the ideas spun out by the subscribers of neoliberalism: those middle-class constitutional nationalists and soft unionists alike, who peer in from the sides with their genteel morality, proposing such initiatives yet failing to challenge the very system that creates the poverty and the conditions which leads to the forced displacement. It’s their weak and watery approach that creates the conditions for racism to incubate and grow. And where all shades of good people are forced to come out and face down fascists, defending the very proposals that council careerists haven’t the courage to defend themselves.
Feeling caught between watery liberals and a festering far-right, I felt like shouting: “No one leaves home, unless home is the mouth of a shark!”
But who would listen? And how do you explain to someone who sees the world in black and white that the immediate crises in housing, health and education were forged almost 50 years ago when Thatcher and her neo-liberal policies burst into being, perpetuated by every subsequent British government, and imitated and fine-tuned by a neo-colonial Free State? Those policies have unabatedly been smashing working-class communities to pieces ever since. Where once former neighbours morphed into petty landlords, and social housing into commodities and speculative assets.
And sure, isn’t it convenient for the landlord class of Leinster House and their compeers in Stormont to remain virtually silent when it comes to racism? Because while poor people are whipped into beating lumps out of other poor people - who don’t look or speak like them - for the scrapings of the plate. The very people (landlords, capitalists, politicians, etc.) depriving them of all the things humans require to live with a little dignity, are making a killing – quite literally in some respects.
With the pot on a steady simmer; locally we began to see some insidious actors – once afraid to put their heads above the parapet – attempt to ride a racist wave of right-wing reaction, seeding the same false fear and spreading the same misinformation which catapulted racism to the fore in Ballymena with horrific and horrible consequences.
Surely Newry is better than this? And is ignorance really so prevalent that I would see some in my own community applaud the exploits of loyalists? Loyalists, who, given different circumstances, would call those same people “Fenian Bastards!” – the answer was unfortunately, yes. And knowing that answer made me feel as though the world had been tipped on its head.
Online, the racist call to protest locally was gathering traction, and not that I believe schools should be the metric system to measure a person’s intellect – as I did very little myself in all the years I spent in St Paul’s, Bessbrook – but the people I saw sharing it I believe wouldn’t excel in any arena.
Now, suddenly, they presented themselves as being experts in economics and were concerned with issues of sovereignty, housing, health, education and wages, that I, along with my comrades – republicans, socialists, trade unionists etc. many much older than me – have been fighting for, for decades.
It’s one thing to pretend you care about health, housing and your community. It’s another to do so wrapped in a rag of racism whilst attempting to expropriate the iconography of our centuries-long struggle against British colonialism. And in truth, I’ve never seen these now ‘concern’ people ever work for the betterment of their communities. They have no civic pride. Many have never done a hand’s turn in their lives. So isn’t it ironic that some, who depend wholly on state welfare, will unashamedly cry that the same system that supports them should deny some meagre generosity to others who have found themselves the victims of imperialism. It’s hard to comprehend that level of hypocrisy, and it all sounds very familiar thinking back to the era of civil rights. Except that in this post-Good Friday world, where Britain’s colonial claw remains dug in as deep as ever into its six-county sectarian carve-up; racism is the new trendy sectarianism, reinforcing division and tightening the vice-grips on partition.
So, back in June, as I came out the gate of work that Monday afternoon, after completing a seven-and-a-half-hour battle of numerical madness, the first real opportunity to check my phone presented itself to me:
“Are you countering this the night?” read a message from a comrade.
I didn’t even think there was a counter-protest. I, like others, had dismissed the right’s ability to bring people onto the streets of Newry; I really didn’t think they’d appear. It all seemed too chaotic, their efforts uncoordinated with no real organisation. In truth, I thought it was a false flag, maybe just some right-wing agitators stirring the pot and throwing it out there to gauge reaction. However, I committed myself to go, providing my partner was home in time to look after our daughter.
At about half six I decided to walk into town. I came down through the Mourne View estate, passing a Celtic mural. Which is ironic now, considering Celtic was a club established by Brother Walfrid to raise money for the poor and hungry in Glasgow’s East End - poor and hungry who were predominantly Irish immigrants - only a few weeks earlier, in this same estate, graffiti was scrawled across a house in a racist incident.
I continued on past the courthouse and towards Stone Bridge where I met some comrades. Standing with them briefly, we observed small groups of shifty and nervous people passing us. At this point it was difficult to ascertain who was countering or who was throwing their lot in with the right-wing headbangers. People I thought to be republican - no longer - passed me. Looking across Kildare Street, I spotted more comrades, in a small group, who had taken a stand on the steps of the Town Hall. I promptly hurried my way to them.
Once there it was evident that we were outnumbered. Refusing to concede the steps – which they wanted for the symbolism – made certain that for the next while we’d have to endure their slurs and insults.
In unison, we chanted back:
“Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here!”
Ultimately, our actions - namely our refusal to concede the steps - forced them to have their anti-immigration demonstration under a Palestine flag. Then, exhausting themselves of speakers, they attempted to march round the Town Hall completing loop - over Needham Bridge and back round via Sugar Island. However, so chaotic and disorganised was their march, that in the short time it took them to loop the Town Hall, the march had effectively dispersed itself for but a few stragglers.
It was after that event that I had some conversations with friends and comrades. As chaotic as their demonstration was, we knew they were emboldened. We knew they’d try again, and we knew we they had to be properly challenged. Ok, yes, it wasn’t quite like the 30s. We weren't caught up a lamppost like Peadar O’Donnell with spud with razor blades in them being launched at us, but it was grisly enough all the same. And while local politicians remained silent – no condemnation online – if not for a handful of brave and decent people who stood their ground – republicans, a number of old stickies, trade unionists, a cúpla Gaeilgeoir, a civil rights activist or two etc. – they would never have been confronted.
This set the stage for what happened last Saturday in Marcus Square. Under a racist guise called the ‘Locals First Initiative’, they tried to arrange a public meeting supposedly to hold councillors to account yet knew well that none would respond. Whether coincidental or not, their racist ‘Locals First Initiative’ event happened to be coinciding at the same time and in the same venue as a Newry Pride event. However, once the proprietor became alerted to who had actually booked the venue and had been informed of their leanings – highlighting their links to the British far right, loyalists and a smattering of confused conspiracy-fuelled lunatics and fascists – the ‘Locals First Initiative’ was cancelled for reasons other.
In my own opinion, it would have been better to come out and tell the hate group why their event was cancelled without beating around the bush: push them out of our community and let them know that they’re despised. For I’m yet to meet a right-winger sympathetic to our friends and comrades in the Rainbow community. Which leads to me think of the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o:
So, I dare not think, given an opportunity to cross paths, how the exhibitionists of colonial thinking would view or treat a young, black, gay woman attending Newry’s Pride event.
Feeling aggrieved about their cancellation, they planned to take their congregation of hate to the streets of the town. If their agenda wasn’t already obvious to some – with the egos and personalities that exist in far-right circles – it wasn’t long before the mask began to slip, and the racism was exposed. With three weeks to organise, besides bombarding social media, they heavily leafleted working-class estates in Newry. Racists, white nationalists, fascists, unionists – in the form of the DUP – loyalists and conspiracy space cadets the length and breadth of Ireland - united only in hate and bigotry - were now promoting the protest, and sure enough on Saturday didn’t the circus come to town. Such a gathering of lunatics the town has never seen before. And for what had been billed as a rally about ‘local issues’, standing behind a cordon of Peelers was a group that consisted of very few local people. Further proof, and a sure test if anyone ever needed an instrument to measure or gauge the low level of local attendance, was the appearance of Union Jacks and the applause given to a former UDR man. For Newry people aren’t so hoodwinked.
The applauding by the drab ‘concerned’ not-so-local crowd was soundly drowned out by laughs and chants from local organised workers, republicans, socialists, communists, community activists and good decent people, who frustrated the ex-UDR man so much so that he became animated with finger pointing and screams of “Nazis!” – ironic considering who he was sharing the platform with.
Whilst others were found wanting, the unions weren’t. They did the pulling and stepped up to the mark. Saturday made me proud to be in one. Each proponent of hate, mounting the improvised stage on the back of a banger, had their speeches resolutely disrupted. Their frustrations both vocal and visible.
It was a fine demonstration of how organised workers can frustrate and defeat the efforts of racists. And although there’s work yet to be done, it diminished the concern and worry I shared with my comrades some weeks earlier; when, outnumbered, we challenged them on the steps of the Town Hall.
Afterwards, walking home, I could only laugh and smile at the terminal blows served. Be it the platforming of an ex-UDR man, or the subsequent pantomime which unfolded involving fascists, flags and “Nazi” screaming finger-pointers.
As a friend smiled and remarked on passing:
“an’ to think we were worried about this lot, there’ll be nobody writin’ rebel songs about these clowns!”
Time is at a premium too. My daughter’s getting older, and me, my partner and everyone around us try to ensure she has experiences that’ll impress on her a lifetime. I often find myself staring into blank spaces, locked stoically in nostalgic trance, only to be abruptly taken back to the present. It was thinking about the passing of time that a friend recently informed me:
"So here, did ye know 75% of the time you spend with your daughter in your lifetime will be spent by age 12?"
“No, I didn’t know that.”
That scared me, but then again there are always exceptions, because my sister’s never out of my Ma and Da’s house.
So, thinking back as I do – to June, to be precise – another thought scared me: a rather crude and poorly made poster appeared online. It was littered with contradicting themes, using an unmistakable socialist red fist with some crudely placed writing on top. Spitting racist and anti-migrant rhetoric, it was rallying the lumpen locally to protest.
This all came on the back of what was no less than an attempted racist pogrom in a loyalist heartland only two weeks earlier. Ballymena was an incident which reverberated beyond the six counties, emboldening racists up and down the country. That carnage, followed by social democrats and liberals – both shades of green, and the yellow of Alliance – on Newry, Mourne and Down District Council announcing their intention to join the City of Sanctuary Movement, presented shadowy white-supremacists with a onetime opportunity to stoke fear and attempt to make inroads locally.
While a somewhat symbolic gesture, the stated aim of the City of Sanctuary proposal was to link Newry in with a wider network which aims to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for vulnerable migrants. Which I’m not averse to per se, but rather my criticisms lie with the proposal’s inability to really address the material conditions of poor people – migrants and refugees included – and is typical of the ideas spun out by the subscribers of neoliberalism: those middle-class constitutional nationalists and soft unionists alike, who peer in from the sides with their genteel morality, proposing such initiatives yet failing to challenge the very system that creates the poverty and the conditions which leads to the forced displacement. It’s their weak and watery approach that creates the conditions for racism to incubate and grow. And where all shades of good people are forced to come out and face down fascists, defending the very proposals that council careerists haven’t the courage to defend themselves.
Feeling caught between watery liberals and a festering far-right, I felt like shouting: “No one leaves home, unless home is the mouth of a shark!”
But who would listen? And how do you explain to someone who sees the world in black and white that the immediate crises in housing, health and education were forged almost 50 years ago when Thatcher and her neo-liberal policies burst into being, perpetuated by every subsequent British government, and imitated and fine-tuned by a neo-colonial Free State? Those policies have unabatedly been smashing working-class communities to pieces ever since. Where once former neighbours morphed into petty landlords, and social housing into commodities and speculative assets.
And sure, isn’t it convenient for the landlord class of Leinster House and their compeers in Stormont to remain virtually silent when it comes to racism? Because while poor people are whipped into beating lumps out of other poor people - who don’t look or speak like them - for the scrapings of the plate. The very people (landlords, capitalists, politicians, etc.) depriving them of all the things humans require to live with a little dignity, are making a killing – quite literally in some respects.
With the pot on a steady simmer; locally we began to see some insidious actors – once afraid to put their heads above the parapet – attempt to ride a racist wave of right-wing reaction, seeding the same false fear and spreading the same misinformation which catapulted racism to the fore in Ballymena with horrific and horrible consequences.
Surely Newry is better than this? And is ignorance really so prevalent that I would see some in my own community applaud the exploits of loyalists? Loyalists, who, given different circumstances, would call those same people “Fenian Bastards!” – the answer was unfortunately, yes. And knowing that answer made me feel as though the world had been tipped on its head.
Online, the racist call to protest locally was gathering traction, and not that I believe schools should be the metric system to measure a person’s intellect – as I did very little myself in all the years I spent in St Paul’s, Bessbrook – but the people I saw sharing it I believe wouldn’t excel in any arena.
Now, suddenly, they presented themselves as being experts in economics and were concerned with issues of sovereignty, housing, health, education and wages, that I, along with my comrades – republicans, socialists, trade unionists etc. many much older than me – have been fighting for, for decades.
It’s one thing to pretend you care about health, housing and your community. It’s another to do so wrapped in a rag of racism whilst attempting to expropriate the iconography of our centuries-long struggle against British colonialism. And in truth, I’ve never seen these now ‘concern’ people ever work for the betterment of their communities. They have no civic pride. Many have never done a hand’s turn in their lives. So isn’t it ironic that some, who depend wholly on state welfare, will unashamedly cry that the same system that supports them should deny some meagre generosity to others who have found themselves the victims of imperialism. It’s hard to comprehend that level of hypocrisy, and it all sounds very familiar thinking back to the era of civil rights. Except that in this post-Good Friday world, where Britain’s colonial claw remains dug in as deep as ever into its six-county sectarian carve-up; racism is the new trendy sectarianism, reinforcing division and tightening the vice-grips on partition.
So, back in June, as I came out the gate of work that Monday afternoon, after completing a seven-and-a-half-hour battle of numerical madness, the first real opportunity to check my phone presented itself to me:
“Are you countering this the night?” read a message from a comrade.
I didn’t even think there was a counter-protest. I, like others, had dismissed the right’s ability to bring people onto the streets of Newry; I really didn’t think they’d appear. It all seemed too chaotic, their efforts uncoordinated with no real organisation. In truth, I thought it was a false flag, maybe just some right-wing agitators stirring the pot and throwing it out there to gauge reaction. However, I committed myself to go, providing my partner was home in time to look after our daughter.
At about half six I decided to walk into town. I came down through the Mourne View estate, passing a Celtic mural. Which is ironic now, considering Celtic was a club established by Brother Walfrid to raise money for the poor and hungry in Glasgow’s East End - poor and hungry who were predominantly Irish immigrants - only a few weeks earlier, in this same estate, graffiti was scrawled across a house in a racist incident.
I continued on past the courthouse and towards Stone Bridge where I met some comrades. Standing with them briefly, we observed small groups of shifty and nervous people passing us. At this point it was difficult to ascertain who was countering or who was throwing their lot in with the right-wing headbangers. People I thought to be republican - no longer - passed me. Looking across Kildare Street, I spotted more comrades, in a small group, who had taken a stand on the steps of the Town Hall. I promptly hurried my way to them.
Once there it was evident that we were outnumbered. Refusing to concede the steps – which they wanted for the symbolism – made certain that for the next while we’d have to endure their slurs and insults.
In unison, we chanted back:
“Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here!”
Ultimately, our actions - namely our refusal to concede the steps - forced them to have their anti-immigration demonstration under a Palestine flag. Then, exhausting themselves of speakers, they attempted to march round the Town Hall completing loop - over Needham Bridge and back round via Sugar Island. However, so chaotic and disorganised was their march, that in the short time it took them to loop the Town Hall, the march had effectively dispersed itself for but a few stragglers.
It was after that event that I had some conversations with friends and comrades. As chaotic as their demonstration was, we knew they were emboldened. We knew they’d try again, and we knew we they had to be properly challenged. Ok, yes, it wasn’t quite like the 30s. We weren't caught up a lamppost like Peadar O’Donnell with spud with razor blades in them being launched at us, but it was grisly enough all the same. And while local politicians remained silent – no condemnation online – if not for a handful of brave and decent people who stood their ground – republicans, a number of old stickies, trade unionists, a cúpla Gaeilgeoir, a civil rights activist or two etc. – they would never have been confronted.
This set the stage for what happened last Saturday in Marcus Square. Under a racist guise called the ‘Locals First Initiative’, they tried to arrange a public meeting supposedly to hold councillors to account yet knew well that none would respond. Whether coincidental or not, their racist ‘Locals First Initiative’ event happened to be coinciding at the same time and in the same venue as a Newry Pride event. However, once the proprietor became alerted to who had actually booked the venue and had been informed of their leanings – highlighting their links to the British far right, loyalists and a smattering of confused conspiracy-fuelled lunatics and fascists – the ‘Locals First Initiative’ was cancelled for reasons other.
In my own opinion, it would have been better to come out and tell the hate group why their event was cancelled without beating around the bush: push them out of our community and let them know that they’re despised. For I’m yet to meet a right-winger sympathetic to our friends and comrades in the Rainbow community. Which leads to me think of the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o:
I believe that black has been oppressed by white; female by male; peasant by landlord; and worker by lord of capital. It follows from this that the black female worker and peasant is the most oppressed. She is oppressed on account of her colour like all black people in the world; she is oppressed on account of her gender like all women in the world; and she is exploited and oppressed on account of her class like all workers and peasants in the world. Three burdens she has to carry.
So, I dare not think, given an opportunity to cross paths, how the exhibitionists of colonial thinking would view or treat a young, black, gay woman attending Newry’s Pride event.
Feeling aggrieved about their cancellation, they planned to take their congregation of hate to the streets of the town. If their agenda wasn’t already obvious to some – with the egos and personalities that exist in far-right circles – it wasn’t long before the mask began to slip, and the racism was exposed. With three weeks to organise, besides bombarding social media, they heavily leafleted working-class estates in Newry. Racists, white nationalists, fascists, unionists – in the form of the DUP – loyalists and conspiracy space cadets the length and breadth of Ireland - united only in hate and bigotry - were now promoting the protest, and sure enough on Saturday didn’t the circus come to town. Such a gathering of lunatics the town has never seen before. And for what had been billed as a rally about ‘local issues’, standing behind a cordon of Peelers was a group that consisted of very few local people. Further proof, and a sure test if anyone ever needed an instrument to measure or gauge the low level of local attendance, was the appearance of Union Jacks and the applause given to a former UDR man. For Newry people aren’t so hoodwinked.
The applauding by the drab ‘concerned’ not-so-local crowd was soundly drowned out by laughs and chants from local organised workers, republicans, socialists, communists, community activists and good decent people, who frustrated the ex-UDR man so much so that he became animated with finger pointing and screams of “Nazis!” – ironic considering who he was sharing the platform with.
Whilst others were found wanting, the unions weren’t. They did the pulling and stepped up to the mark. Saturday made me proud to be in one. Each proponent of hate, mounting the improvised stage on the back of a banger, had their speeches resolutely disrupted. Their frustrations both vocal and visible.
It was a fine demonstration of how organised workers can frustrate and defeat the efforts of racists. And although there’s work yet to be done, it diminished the concern and worry I shared with my comrades some weeks earlier; when, outnumbered, we challenged them on the steps of the Town Hall.
Afterwards, walking home, I could only laugh and smile at the terminal blows served. Be it the platforming of an ex-UDR man, or the subsequent pantomime which unfolded involving fascists, flags and “Nazi” screaming finger-pointers.
As a friend smiled and remarked on passing:
“an’ to think we were worried about this lot, there’ll be nobody writin’ rebel songs about these clowns!”
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"“Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here!”
ReplyDeleteI don't remember any republican from any area offering that shower of cunts from Ballymena a safe place to stay in any republican area?
Republicans are as opposed to cunts as most other people. Many people targeted in Ballymena hardly fit the definition of cunt, unless being from a foreign clime makes one a cunt. Not a perspective you subscribe to.
DeleteIn fact, those behind the targeting are better described as cunts given their history of criminality and drug plaguing. It was an apt application of the old Czech proverb - the big thieves hang the little ones.
Ballymena has echoes of Holy Cross - a hate driven enterprise.
Not that republicans or those who claim to be have an unsullied track record. Muiris who often writes for TPQ thinks nationalists/republicans can be every bit as racist as loyalists. I don't agree with him but he is a hugely intelligent guy who thinks before he writes so . . .
This is an excellent piece both from a political perspective and a human interest narratorial one. TPQ is delighted to feature it. Keep up the good work Brian and colleagues. Thanks for putting this our way.
ReplyDelete