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Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 11-June-2025.


The race riots in Ballymena have shocked some, but are not one bit surprising, not only because we have already had racial disturbances in the north of Ireland with loyalist paramilitaries kicking in people’s doors and moving them out, but because on the one hand Ballymena is a sectarian cesspit and on the other hand the riots fit right in with the logic of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA)

The GFA brought an end to the IRA’s armed campaign, its partial dissolution and disarming (no one believes that a rump muscle squad was not left standing). It also saw Sinn Féin sign up to an agreement which divided the population along sectarian lines. The text does not say Catholic or Protestant, but uses the euphemism of nationalist or unionist. As an agreement that claimed to bring an end to sectarian tensions, it could hardly say it was going to divvy up political power and the public purse along sectarian lines, but that is what it did. As everyone knows, votes in the make-believe parliament of Stormont only count if the representatives are declared to be Catholics or Protestants. There must be an overall majority and a majority within each community i.e. there must be sectarian agreement.

The public purse is shared out on the basis of a sectarian headcount as are public services. The result of course is that public housing is also shared out on a sectarian basis and when the administration slips up and allocates a house to a Catholic in what is considered a Protestant area, then the masked thugs of unionism, the loyalists of the UDA and UVF are on hand to forcibly move people out. Most housing estates are 90% Protestant (in the broad sense) or Catholic. This is not an accident it is policy.

…the position of the DUP and SF whilst in office, since 2007, has not seriously got to grips with any of this; their agreed policy positions as first expressed in the Programme for Cohesion, Sharing and Integration and then in what remains the leading policy document Together: Building a United Community, have been framed within the consociational political logic that accepts the existence of the sectarian divide, and believes that it is best addressed through seeking to maintain the ‘Unionist’ and ‘Nationalist’ communities in a state of equilibrium whilst upholding a spirit of mutual accommodation, co-existence and tolerance. Amongst much else, this has meant that ideas around mixed housing or integrated education have been held back in favour of promoting a limited number of shared neighbourhood projects, shared spaces plans and shared post-primary education sites.[1]

All this happens because the GFA says there are two communities, two cultures and that they shall be respected and maintained as such and all decisions must have the approval of the “leaders” of both communities, lest those communities influence be diluted. Of course, by leaders they not only mean elected politicians but the thugs and boot boys from the UDA and UVF. In May, less than two weeks before the Ballymena riots there were attacks in north Belfast in an attempt to “cleanse” the Clanmill estate of Catholics.[2] It is not past history.

Once you accept the nonsense of sectarian communities and people living in areas according to their religion, it is not much of a push to demand that they also be separated on the basis of other classifications such as nationalities, non-Christian religions and cultures. The unionists in Ballymena know this very well. They have a particularly nasty history of sectarianism. Many will have forgotten the disgusting spectacle of Harryville Catholic Church, where loyalists organised pickets to prevent Catholics going to mass. Harryville was a 98% Protestant neighbourhood, but had a Catholic church in it. The sectarian pickets led by DUP stalwarts saw up to 1000 people and up to 22 Loyalist Marching Bands on occasions turning up to prevent Catholics going to mass, hurling insults and abuse at them. Harryville was Protestant and no Catholics should be there was the logic. The pickets began in September 1996 and went on up till May 1998. The Catholic Church at the centre of the sectarian assault has since closed. It is no accident that this cesspool is also at the centre of racial tensions now.

The god-fearing bible thumping thugs of Ballymena claim to be motivated by sexual assaults allegedly carried out by two migrants. You may think their concern for women’s safety is touching, but you would have to ignore the record of loyalist paramilitaries on women’s rights and also that the head of the DUP, Jeffrey Donaldson, the party most of Ballymena votes for, was accused of sexually abusing, over a long period, two women without so much as a rock from the hellfire and brimstone gang. Emma Little-Pengelly, the Deputy First Minister got her seat at Stormont as Donaldson’s replacement following his decision not to take his seat there but to continue as an MP at the British parliament in London. There is no explanation for it, other than naked racism from the naked sectarians.

If you believe in and accept the logic of the GFA that there are two communities in the North and that they shall be separated forever on that basis, and that no other basis, such as social-class is to be countenanced then you are following the same logic as the Ballymena thugs. Sectarianism and racism go hand in hand, they are not distinct. and a system that shares out position, power and privilege on the basis of religion will eventually get around to doing it on the basis of race. The KKK wasn’t just anti-black it was also a sectarian organisation that detested Catholics and Jews. Loyalists share a similar political perspective and just like the official backing for Jim Crow in the southern United States, sectarianism is official in the North.

Sectarianism is not just a question of ‘religious bigotry, the promotion of one’s religion or religious background at the expense of the alternative’; it is a system. In truth, sectarianism is best interpreted as constituting an intersecting self-perpetuating matrix of social closure around land, housing, education and employment, based on the categorical markers of Protestant and Catholic that result in inequality and social injustice. This is a system centred on an interlinked and mutually reinforcing pattern of exclusion, one that results in cumulative advantage for Protestant people and disadvantage for Catholic people. It is, to be clear, a dehumanising system. And the key point to be made is that Protestant people and Catholic people still confront unequal life chances as a result of how the positional structure of society has been and continues to be overdetermined by the systemic pattern of categorical exclusion.[3]

Protestantism and Catholicism are religious fantasies, they are no basis for anything. Catholic and Protestant workers have a common interest, that of their class. They are working class and have a class enemy. That common interest extends to migrants; they are also workers. Migrants have common class interests with Protestant and Catholic workers and a common enemy. The GFA explicitly discounts this common cause and ruling out unity with migrants is the logical conclusion. Those who condemn the racist riots and intimidation in Ballymena, but support the logic of the GFA must deal with their massive and glaring contradiction: they already support division in society.

Migrants represent a challenge to the sectarianism of the North and the underlying logic of the peace process. If there are only two communities that must be kept apart, then new communities must also be separated. It is at such moments that the reactionary nature of the GFA can be seen. Opposition to racism means opposition to the sectarian set up and the GFA. Let’s not pretend that the racism in Ballymena is something distinct from the sectarianism, it is not. They are flip sides of the same coin and they are fomented by the same system and institutional set up i.e. the Good Friday Agreement and all its inherent sectarian and reactionary elements.

Working class unity means Catholic and Protestant workers side by side with migrant workers. The GFA means each should stick to their ghettoes.

References

[1] Taylor, R. (2024) Systemic sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Race & Class. Vol 66, Issue 4 pp 55-70.

[2] BBC (28/05/2025) NI leaders condemn sectarian attacks on homes. 

[3] Taylor, R. (2024) op.cit.

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

Ballymena Race Riots 🪶 The Good Friday Agreement In Action

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

Brandon Sullivan ✍ The murders of Karen McKeown and William Nixon in 1982 have stuck in my mind ever since I learned about them.

The two victims, completely different from each other except it seems, their membership of the Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist community. In Ms McKeown’s case, her faith was an important part of her life and she worked at a church, teaching children about the bible. I could not find many details about the life of William Nixon, but I do know he was retired, and had no links to the security forces or loyalist paramilitaries. They were murdered in random, sectarian attacks, as were Edward McMaster, Marius O'Neill and Paul McCrory, Michael Fay, and many others of that era, I did not come much closer in finding out who murdered Ms McKeown and Mr Nixon, but I found a chronology of related incidents which I found intriguing. As ever, my hope is that respectful debate will follow.

The Murderer And The Mechanic

1982 was a violent year in Northern Ireland. Whilst the last few years of the 1970s had seen a marked decrease in political murder and violence, the early 1980s were times of extreme political tension and conflict. Republican hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981 had convulsed society, casting a shadow into the next year. The summer of 1982 saw the release of Lennie Murphy, and an attendant increase in murder. The killings continued, some of them linked to Murphy from beyond the grave.

A funeral took place in Belfast in late November 1982 for Michael Fay. The Protestant Action Force had said he was one of three Catholic men who were to die to "avenge Lennie Murphy." The murdered man, a 25-year-old, was buried following a service at St. Colmcille's church. The church was and is a beautiful ornate stone building with an imposing roof and long windows, no doubt built to accommodate the spiritual needs of Catholics from all over Ireland who went to Belfast in search of work at various points, when all of Ireland was under British rule. The church and its parish are in East Belfast, an area synonymous with the pillars of unionism and loyalism. Catholics were in a minority in Belfast in the 1980s, and in fact until a few years ago. In East Belfast, Catholics were a much smaller minority, living amongst, as one Belfast wit put it, "acres of Prods." Fay's workplace was on Gilnahirk Road, close to particularly tough loyalist estates such as the Braniel. It's possible that Michael felt a degree of safety in such a potentially dangerous situation because of his friendly relationships with members of the unionist community. One man with whom Michael socialised was his workmate, Billy Giles. Like Michael, Billy was a mechanic. In the early 1980s, home entertainment had been revolutionised with the advent of video cassettes, and Michael and Billy would have a cup of tea together at Billy's house in Kilmorey Gardens, in the Tullycarnet area of East Belfast, and watch a film, rented from one of the new video libraries which had sprung up.

Michael Fay lived with his family in a house on Brae Grove, Ballygowan, a pleasant street of terraced houses many miles from the paramilitary hotspots of North and West Belfast. His widow had believed he was going to visit their 14-month-old daughter, who was sick in hospital. Instead, on his way there, he was abducted by two armed men who drove him in his car to a garage. One of the armed men was Billy Giles. The garage, in the Tullcarnet area, was rented by Giles and was to be the venue for the sectarian murder of Michael Fay. Giles shot Michael through the head twice, and then, with his accomplice William Wright, placed the dead body into the boot of his car, and left it on Mountregan Avenue, Dundonald. Last seen alive at 15:30 on a Friday, it was one hour short of a full day before the RUC, accompanied by Michael Fay's brother, opened the abandoned car and discovered the murdered man.

The statement released by the organisation responsible for murdering Michael may have claimed it was directly linked to a desire to avenge Lennie Murphy, but it was a very different murder that radicalised Billy Giles, in his own words "turning him into a killer." That murder, of a 20-year-old Sunday School teacher named Karen McKeown, is one of a number that this article will reexamine, identifying a trail of violent actions that claimed innocent lives and ultimately concluded with a suicide, 25 years later.

“Take on a Strandman, and you take on the Strand” – The Catholic Defence League.

In December 1977, Magill published an excellent article written by Kevin Myers about the Short Strand. Among many fascinating observations on the area, he had this to say:

The letters CDL mean little to most people in Belfast. They evoke small response from Strand people when you mention them, but that is not from ignorance. Probably the best equipped and most secret organisation in the Short Strand is the CDL The Catholic Defence League - which does not lose guns or personnel, and waits for the day of the great conflagration. That that conflagration seems to be receding does not seem to lower the CDL's guard. They encourage silence about their existence, but they are there, awaiting the fateful day. While some Strand residents' dream of freedom from the centre to the sea, others remember where they live, in a tiny enclave surrounded by a vast Protestant population.

On the 8th of November, 1979, loyalist gunmen shot dead two Short Strand men, Marius O'Neill and Paul McCrory, both aged 23. In his Magill article, Myers had written that "if you take on a Strandman, be prepared to take on the Strand." Within two hours of the O'Neill and McCrory murders, two members of the CDL had taken weapons from an arms dump, scaled a wall of the Sirocco works nearby, opened up a security guard's hut and shot dead the Protestant civilian Edward McMaster. The CDL members later convicted of involvement in the attack (Noel Halfpenny and James Burns), in keeping with an agreement between the CDL and the IRA, served their jail terms on IRA wings.

Shortly after the Magill article was published, Kevin Myers received a phone call from an IRA member who told him the IRA wanted to talk to him and that he should attend a pub in the Clonard area at a specified time and date. This Myers did, went into a back room and was confronted by a then IRA Belfast Brigade staff member, who later became an elected Sinn Fein representative and a household name. Let's call him P. O'Neill. He informed Myers that his article had damaged "the cause" and demanded to know his source. Myers informed P. O'Neill that "your cause is not my cause" and that, of course, he wouldn't reveal his source. The meeting went on for some time, with Myers describing it as the closest thing to a court martial that he had experienced.

Murder Begets Murder: The Logic of Sectarian Gunmen

On the 24th of September 1982, 28-year-old Stephen Andrew Crowe spent the day drinking in various bars in Sandy Row. Later, he was given a Smith & Wesson revolver supposedly to "store." Instead, Crowe "found himself" in the Short Strand, where he burst into a house at random and shot at a 21-year-old male inhabitant. The man was hit three times, but Crowe missed the man's girlfriend who was sitting with him. The man survived. Crowe later went to the Markets area where he opened fire at a group of people, missing all of them. He was sentenced to 15 years at his trial in 1983, where he was described as an alcoholic who had been drinking since the age of 12. Crowe had previously been charged with armed robbery – using a revolver, and other theft charges.

Crowe was arrested hours after the shootings, remanded, and later tried and convicted. But it appears that for some men with access to guns, the arrest was not enough. The "reprisal" shootings carried out were among the most wanton and vicious of the entire conflict, made even worse by the fact that no convictions followed.

A man, or men, armed with INLA weapons, previously used to attempt to murder a DUP man, Billy Dickinson, just over three weeks earlier, shot dead 68-year-old civilian Billy Nixon and shot and fatally wounded 20-year-old Karen McKeown. The murder of Ms McKeown was particularly squalid and brutal. She walked out of the church where she had been attending a service, was approached from behind and shot in the neck, the gun a matter of inches from her. She survived for three weeks before succumbing to her injuries. As far as I am aware, nobody has ever been arrested for these murders. In all of the killings and events that I have looked into, the absence of information has never been greater. The INLA, for their part, denied any part in the double murder, and said that they did not target people because of their religion but individuals who were behind such sectarian attacks and actively promoted them" were targets (Belfast Telegraph, 01/10/82).

So who killed Karen McKeown and Billy Nixon? An obvious answer is the INLA. After all the weapons were INLA, and they had a unit operating in East Belfast in 1982 who in addition to the attempt on Billy Dickinson, had shot dead the former highly influential loyalist leader, John McKeague.

But could it have been the CDL using INLA guns? Or CDL members who had an affiliation with the INLA? Murdering a female barely out of her teens was unusual, but not entirely unique, to republican paramilitaries. 17-year-old Heather Thompson was shot dead in the mid-1970s. But the IRA hadn't carried out an overtly sectarian murder for some time, and the INLA were still a year away from Darkley. Could it have been a case of men and women from the Strand being attacked, and therefore CDL members attacked men and women from the Protestant community?

One challenge to my theorising that the CDL was involved comes from the then INLA member Gerard Steenson, who was imprisoned on the words of a supergrass. A "comm" he sent to comrades on the outside had this to say about the murderers of Ms McKeown and Mr Nixon:

Do the current INLA L/S (leadership) have the potential to further the movements' aims? No. Even worse, they permit Darkley and murder old men, and Sunday school teachers.

Steenson’s comms from inside prison are highly articulate, the work of man who appears to abhor sectarian murders, and contrary to “Doctor Death” persona in the media, he was a man capable of sober political reflection.

The Aftermath: From Revenge to Ruin

In 1997, the BBC broadcast three seminal series on the Troubles, Provos, Loyalists, and Brits. Groundbreaking at the time, the presenter Peter Taylor interviewed those who had "stained Northern Ireland with blood" with shocking results. An especially memorable interview was with UVF member Billy Giles. As previously discussed, Giles had committed a sectarian murder in 1982, for which he was convicted and served a life sentence. The murder of Michael Fay was condemned in strong terms across the political spectrum, and his funeral was an ecumenical affair, with more than 40 Protestant clergy attending the Catholic service. Amidst the commendable demonstration of faith and unity at the funeral, however, was the haunting sight of the now widowed Mary Fay sobbing "I don't want him to go away."

Again, as we have seen, an organisation calling itself the Protestant Action Force put out a statement claiming they were responsible for killing Michael Fay. But what drove Giles to kill was the murder of Karen McKeown, as he admitted himself in Taylor's documentary. He also said this, about becoming a murderer:

When it happened, it felt to me that, that somebody had reached down inside me and ripped, ripped my insides out. That's what it felt like. It felt as if somebody had just put their hand down in through my head and just ripped the inside out of me, and I was empty - I felt empty.

You hear a bang and it's too late. You hear the bang and that's it. It's too late then, you've went, you've went somewhere you've never been before and it's not a very nice place and you can't, you can't stop it, it's too late then … (1) never felt a whole person again. Never felt, never felt like that again. So I lost something that day I don't think I'll ever get back.

A year after that interview, Billy Giles took his own life. A chain of events that started in 1982 with a drunk, Stephen Crowe, shooting at civilians, ended with deaths, bereaved families, heartbroken partners, and decades in jail.

⏩ 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.

Sectarian Murder In 1982 🪶 When Revenge Ruled Belfast

 

A Morning Thought @ 2678

 

A Morning Thought @ 2677

TPQ ⚈ A page for those who hate so that they are kept at a distance from those who do not. 

Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men.
For though the bastard is dead, 
the bitch that bore him is again in heat - Bertolt Brecht

Nationalists Ireland, or Natsis for short, every so often make an appearance on TPQ where neither they nor their warped sense of superiority coupled to their belief in eugenics make for intellectual stimulation. 

They believe in their own splendid sense of isolation, at times venting the deranged view that nationalism is in the DNA, a biological imperative by which we must all be driven and to which we must conform. They are welcome to their splendid isolation and not be compelled to have their superior genes diluted by the untermenschen or via contact with people of foreign origin. 

They claim to be on a mission to protect the women of Ireland while strangely believing that women are not in danger from the clerics of the Catholic Church. Nor do they seem to get that many women want protected from the Natsis rather than immigrants. 

They delude themselves that Ireland is not a crime-free zone because of immigrants; that Hutch and Kinahan are African names, that Larry Murphy is of Romanian origin; that racist riots are not criminal but rather the outpourings of ordinary people venting their frustration. 

Their faces firmly set against cultural integration, we will accede to their wish and not integrate with them. The Natsis can have their own place on this blog where they can reinforce the superior gene pool.

Natsis

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

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ Most of us will have read or heard the story of the legendary battle between alpha Greek warrior Achilles and the Trojan Prince, Hector, during the mythical Trojan Wars.

It invokes images of the apex fighter, Achilles, chasing Hector around the walls of Troy the ancient city which is the background of the fabled Trojan Wars, a city supposedly under siege for ten years. The story, fascinating as it is, is at best a legend and at worst a load of bollocks though there are Bronze Age findings to strongly suggest such a city as Troy did perhaps once exist. The rest about a wooden horse containing Greek soldiers is not perhaps so factual. The epic battle between Achilles and Hector who, getting a little tired of being chased round the walls of the city, turned to fight his tormentor and lost fatally. That was the end of this fantastic though totally imagined tale but what happened on Friday 6th June in the USA is not so fanciful. Here two titans of the modern age did verbal battle over the internet then the media of the world!

People of various time zones some perhaps just awakening could have been forgiven for thinking the end of the world had arrived as newscasters and reporters transmitted the verbal battle between US President, Donald Trump, and his former best ‘buddy’ and world’s richest man, Elon Musk. The world’s most powerful man and biggest bullshitter and the planet's largest parasite and wealthiest man on earth had a lover’s tiff of no small magnitude. Both were taking lumps out of each other but who will win this potentially dangerous battle of the giants should it continue? Remember when Trump was first elected? These two cowboys were on stage with Musk performing the now infamous Nazi salute on stage followed by him enacting a macabre act waving a chainsaw in the air as a gesture of how he was going to cut tens of thousands of public service jobs. All this with the Presidents approval and support as he encouraged Musk with the cry; “go on Elon give it to em” which should show the level of lunacy possessed by both men. Could anybody imagine in the 26 County Dail, ridiculous as it sometimes appears, Micheal Martin giving a Nazi salute? No, definitely not, it just would not happen. Imagine Pearse Doherty of Sinn Fein waving a chain saw switched on shouting obscenities across to government benches? Again, it just would not happen but this is not Ireland, Britain, Spain, Germany or any other relatively stable country – as far as stability can be perceived and judged within capitalism – it is the barmy USA. When this mega argument was transmitted across the globe people could initially have been forgiven thinking the world had stopped revolving on its axis (something else which does not really exist, it is imaginary for those who think it is real) so much was the magnitude of the reporting.

After the break newscaster Sharon Tobin spoke to Associate Editor for the Washington Post, Jean Jordan, about the raging row between the two so-called ‘heavyweights’ beginning by asking in a matter-of-fact kind of way; “it looks like a very childish row what’s the significance?” The Associate Editor replied “For one thing Elon Musk has 220 million followers which Trump used during his election campaign”. This is to mean Musk has a huge following on his account, Twitter I understand, which was of great assistance to Trump during his election campaign in 2024. “The significance of having the world’s most powerful man against the world’s richest man” bears much significance. “Musk can do some damage to Trump” - the two men have done something which should not be encouraged according to Jean Jordan who noted; “how they have entwined their business and political interests.” With Musk taunting the President “without me you would never have been elected” suggests to the electorate how bent and corrupt the US Electoral College system of voting really is. The US electorate do not vote for the candidate standing for the presidency, they vote for an elector who then casts a number of votes given to him/her for their preferred presidential candidate. Did Musk’s money influence any of these electors? Is such a thing possible? Well, it has happened in the past what are termed “faithless electors” have changed their votes to the other candidate. “Usually, faithless electors act alone, although on occasion a faithless elector has attempted to induce other electors to change their votes in concert.” Though these occurrences are rare and were usually recorded late 19th early 20th centuries. The fact remains it can happen. For example, so many hundreds of thousands vote for the elector to vote candidate A, only for this elector, possibly through financial inducement, change to candidate B. Is this what Musk meant when he stated; “without me you would never have been elected”? The remonstration continued over last weekend and beyond and brought into question Musk’s ability, should he choose, to leave the US Astronauts stranded in space to die as the argument took a sinister twist! Jean Jordan pointed out, and this is very important regarding Musk: “he has the only space vehicle which can go up and bring back our Astronauts back from the space station.” Elon Musk has apparently suggested the use of his space vehicles could be denied! Would Musk really use his wealth and arguments with the President to sabotage the Astronauts? Even if he implies this surely it amounts to treason? So we could have one corrupt President and one blackmailing billionaire fighting it out!

The United States are the most vociferous opponents of other countries interfering with elections held outside their own jurisdiction but what about interference in elections held in the US. Was the 2024 election influenced by Musk’s financial might? Were the scales weighted in Trumps favour over Kamala Harris? Is this what Musk meant by his comments about Trump “never have been elected” without his influence? Sharon Tobin asked of Musk; “he does seem to have endless resources can he make it difficult for Trump”? Mary Jordan replied; “he can make it extremely difficult for Trump.” Was this a reference to Musk’s wealth? 

Over in London, England, the Mountbatten-Windsor family who reside in a 775-room detached house situated in the City of Westminster are also getting a little hot under the collar over this tiff between Trump and Musk! Apparently, Elon Musk is implying he may reveal the list of ‘powerful names’ on the Epstein Files. Jefferey Epstein was the paedophile who committed suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking offences and was a friend of President Trumps. Trump “is one of the powerful names on the dossier” (Irish Daily Mirror Saturday 7th June 2025 P.4) claims Musk and has hinted he may publish the full list of these names. Musk claims “dozens of powerful men are named, including the Duke of York” (ibid). For the readers who are unaccustomed with the pecking order of Britain’s Royal Family, who live in the aforementioned detached house with 775 rooms, the Duke of York is the King of England’s brother, Prince Andrew. Its ‘squeaky bum time’ for the Mountbatten-Windsor family as Musk could open a huge can of worms, a very fitting word for the kind of person on the ‘Epstein Files’. One insider said:

if Elon is willing to drop Trump, no one is safe, not even royalty. While he had close ties to the Trump administration, Musk had eyes and ears everywhere. He knows exactly who was connected to Epstein. No one could do more damage to Trump than Elon right now and the President’s aides know it (ibid).

It must be imagined the ‘damage limitation’ squad at Buck House will be on red alert and perhaps even the ‘assassination lads’ could be called in if the danger of Randy Andy’s involvement with Epstein becoming of major public interest increases? Britain’s Prince Andrew has “denied any wrongdoing during his friendship with Epstein” (ibid).

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the whole issue is the apathetic attitudes of the people on the streets in the US. They appear indifferent to the whole affair, claiming in many instances “the rift is inevitable between these two men” as the arguments continue. Elon Musk who supported what is termed; “Trumps Beautiful Bill” now terms it a “disgusting abomination”. The capitalist class of the USA are at loggerheads as to whether this Presidential Bill is good or bad, they cannot make their minds up. Much depends on whether you are a Trump or Musk supporter and then begs the question - now Musk is no longer part of the US government having left his post last week as his position was only temporary for about three months - what does governing the country have to do with him? Answer: he is the wealthiest man on the planet and the government are there to serve his, and his class’s interests! Who else could Musk do damage to? Who else could be on the list, Bejamin Netanyahu perhaps? What about Vladimir Putin, he was and remains a mate of Trump's - could he be on the Epstein list?

As we started with Achilles chasing Hector around the walls of the mythical ancient city of Troy, we can now envisage the younger Elon Musk chasing Donald Trump around the White House Rose Garden. Eventually Hector stopped, turned and faced Achilles to fight him face to face, and lost. The question in the White House battle of the giants is – who is chasing who and what could the outcome be for the rest of the planet? Perhaps Trump will go down as the US President of uncontrollable madness, possibly in the same league as Britain’s mad King, George III! 

What of Elon Musk? Perhaps the CIA for once doing something for the good could place Musk on one of his own rockets to Mars, one way, he could be the first coloniser of the Red Planet!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Achilles Versus Hector 21st Century Style

 

A Morning Thought @ 2676

 

A Morning Thought @ 2675

Azar Majedi ✊ On May 8 and 9 of this year the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII and the defeat of Nazis was commemorated in two different ceremonies, one in Ukraine with British, French, German and Polish heads of states, and one in Russia that was attended by 30 state leaders including the Chinese.


80 years after the end of WWII the world has turned around a whole circle and is back to where it left off. WWII is considered to be a determining point in the history of modern world. The war exposed the inherent inhumanity and brutality of capitalism. The death and destruction that the war imposed on the world was brutal.

Now 80 years later, after a year and a half of genocide, slaughter and mass murder in Palestine and the Middle East, few years of warmongering propaganda, expansion of NATO, monumental investment in arms, the extreme suppression of civil liberties (1), complete censorship of mainstream media and extreme measures against social media, suppression of freedom and the right to protest, we are witnessing the same horrid situation. Fascism is taking over the whole West. The threat of another world war is looming over us. It is unbelievable how it only took 80 years for the monster to reappear.

The war started by a European power and led to an unimaginable death and destruction. Around 80 million people lost their lives worldwide; 7 million Germans, 2.7 million Western Europeans and Americans, 27 million from the Soviet Union, 20 million Chinese and millions in Africa and Asia. WWII is recorded as the most horrendous crime of modern time (from 1500 to today) considering that since the rise of colonialism there have been many genocides committed by Western states, on top of slavery which is one of the darkest chapters of human history; it shows the extent of brutality and inhumanity exerted in this war.

WWII Just like the first one was about world domination and power. It was created to resettle the results of WWI which aimed at re-dividing the world. And the world indeed changed; some empires fell and some gained more power; new countries were created. However, one thing nobody had expected was the October 1917 revolution in Russia which changed the political dynamic and relationships and created a great challenge for the world powers. The threat of communism became the biggest threat of all time for capitalism and western imperialism. As a result fascism started to grow in Europe.

Hitler’s and the fascists’ aim was to defeat the working class and communist movements which were strong in Germany and also in Europe and to crush the Soviet Union. Many communist and labour activists were sent to concentration camps, something which is never talked about. Since WWI, when Russian revolution shook the world, fascism came to the political scene in Europe first and foremost as an anti-communist movement to combat the Soviet Union and the rise of socialist and working class movements in Europe, and in great parts of the world. Italy is considered the birth place of fascism, but it became very strong in Germany, it was in power in Portugal (Salazar regime) and Spain (Franco regime) collaborating with Hitler but officially neutral, it was the de facto power in France, and very strong in Austria, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Even though British government officially opposed Hitler, Its leaders, notably Winston Churchill were ideologically fascist.

In 1937, while speaking in favour of allowing Jews to settle in Palestine, Churchill made a statement which is eye-opener:

I do not admit ... for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

Soviet Union was the main force in defeating the Nazis; the force that they waged the war against. According to all historical documents Soviet Union played the main role in defeating the Nazis, after losing around 27 million of its population. It was the “Red Army” who freed Auschwitz. The picture of the Red army soldiers raising the red flag over the Reichstag Building in Berlin has become iconic. (2) This is not about taking sides. It’s about historical facts and trying to understand and expose the West’s intentions for falsifying the history. Soviet Union was not a socialist state. It claimed to be one. But the world capitalism could not even tolerate a fake socialist state.

However, Western imperialism has been trying to change the history by creating a false narrative. This narrative portrays US as the saviour of the world from fascism and the country that ended the war. They even try to bury the abhorrent US crime of dropping nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the war, just as a show of force, testing nuclear bombs or warning the world who the real boss is! The ruling class has created this fantasy world of the good and evil worlds fighting each other, and of course the West is the good, and Russia the evil.

As Western imperialism practically lost the war to the Soviet Union and as a result Soviet Union grew bigger and took over part of Europe, the West chose a very clever ideological-political path or solution to raise the flag of democracy, human rights, individual freedom, rationalism and international law. To create a welfare state with democracy in the West as a propaganda showcase against the Soviet Union and to destroy any socialist movement in the world under the banner of fight for democracy. It was this goal and obsession that led to the creation of Truman Doctrine (3) to rule the world and Marshal Plan (4) to assist Europe.

This only lasted a few decades. By the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, the “sweet” era of democracy and human rights came to an end in the West.

Comparing the world today with 80 years ago, brings to mind Marx’s deep observation of human history: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte) However, the farce has gone to the point of absurdity. Two years ago in May 2023 the G7 held a summit in Hiroshima and condemned the war crimes of Russia without even mentioning the nuclear bombs dropped by the US on that very same city!

This only shows how far the ruling class has come and how obnoxious they’ve become. They’re completely disconnected and feel untouchable. They don’t give a damn about what the public think and feel. This is when you scratch your head and ask how far they’re prepared to go and how far will the people take it? The answer to the first question is as long as they are forced to stop. The answer to the second one is more complicated.

The rise of fascism in the West is real. The ideological narrative promoted by the ruling class is fundamentally the same as the Nazi era, but turned around. Throughout history the WWII narrative has completely changed to Nazis against Jews and all the other factors have been minimised and sidelined. And now in a bizarre way anti-Judaism (anti-Semitism is used in mainstream discourse) has come to mean anti-Israel. By this jugglery they have arrived at the position to call anyone who opposes and condemns Israel an anti-Semite and therefore a criminal. Criminalising any opposition to Israel and its genocidal crimes and to criminalising defence of a suppressed and downtrodden people are the best proof of the rise and power of fascism. Upholding Talmudic values and principles has become officially acceptable and promoted: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently stated that “Europe holds the values of the Talmud,” referring to the central text of Rabbinic Judaism. (5)

NATO has expanded both in size and military capability; warmongering is an integrated official narrative and more bold and practical steps are taken to violate the current international law in order to provoke Russia and China. These are worrying signs.

The West has never stopped creating wars. The West has been more or less safe from war, but wars have been ravaging all over the world, thanks to US, Britain, France, Israel, etc. (We said “more or less”, this refers to the war NATO waged against Yugoslavia that led to thousands killed and misplaced. Belgrade was bombed by NATO for 78 days in 1999). But when the dominant and mainstream spokesmen speak of world war, they mean war in Europe like the 2nd one. The US and the West are struggling with deep crises. Crisis is an inherent nature of capitalism. It is periodical; and each time to overcome the crisis, the stronger becomes stronger, and concentrate more wealth under its control and the weak gets eliminated. The chaotic nature of crisis, if deep enough, can lead to wars.

US while creating the UN as an international institution to deal with world issues, started a brutal campaign to take over the world, suppress any voice for equality, freedom and progress. In fact, the nuclear bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a glimpse to the future, a sign of the shape of the world to come. US organised more than 70 coups during the cold war, bombed many countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea and Laos. Millions were killed under US bombs, by famine and starvation imposed as a result of war, under military juntas supported by the US.(6)

UN has been exposed as the instrument of US and the West to keep their supremacy and power over world affairs. UN is nothing but a theatrical show to engage and distract the minds. Its downfall was accelerated by the genocide in Gaza and its total inability to make any difference. However, when one delves into its history one discovers that from the beginning it was nothing but farce. The former UN general secretary Kurt Waldheim was a former Nazi military officer. He served in the German Wehrmacht during World War II, including in Greece and Yugoslavia.(7)

80 years from its inception, UN has become an exposed, discredited joke in the world. The Genocide of the Palestinians tore the mask and charade of human rights, international law and democracy. All the propaganda about democracy, human rights, superior science-based, humanitarian-based civilisation has been shredded into pieces.

We have enough proofs and documents to expose the ruling class and its plan for the world destruction in an attempt to deal with capitalist crisis on world scale. We need to mobilise. We need to wake up. We need to fight back. The future of humanity is at stake. Tomorrow might be too late.

(1) UK police is investigating Kneecap, an Irish band, and has charged for terrorist offence under terrorism act for singing against Israel and shouting Free Palestine.

(2)  The Red Army raised the flag over the Reichstag building in Berlin on May 2, 1945, marking the end of the Battle of Berlin and a symbolic victory over Nazi Germany. This iconic image, often referred to as "Raising a Flag over the Reichstag," is a well-known symbol of Soviet triumph in World War II.

(3) The Truman Doctrine, articulated by US President Harry S. Truman in 1947, committed the United States to providing political, military, and economic aid to countries threatened by communism. It aimed to counter the spread of Soviet influence and establish a policy of containment, where the US would work to prevent the expansion of communism. Another aim not addressed openly in this doctrine is threat of Arab nationalism which Eisenhower Doctrine, announced in 1957, addresses more openly. Eisenhower privately admitted that the real goal of the doctrine was to combat Arab nationalism. US under Truman was the first country to recognise Israel.

It’s been documented that former US National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was promoting China to support the Khmer Rouge in 1979: “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him, but China could.” According to Brzezinski, the USA “winked, semi-publicly” at Chinese and Thai aid to the Khmer Rouge.

(4) The Marshall Plan was a US-led program of economic aid to Western Europe following World War II, aimed at rebuilding war-torn economies and preventing the spread of communism was a US foreign policy that pledged American support to nations resisting communist aggression or subversion.

(5)  1953 coup ‘d’état in Iran, Turkey 1960 and 1980, Greece 1967, Korean war 1950-53 which resulted in at least 3 million death, Indonesian coup 2-3 million death, genocides in Vietnam and Cambodia, bloody coups all over Latin America; these are some of the atrocities committed by US in cold war under the banner of defence of democracy.

(6) What is dumbfounding is the complete silence of the secularists and feminist movement and organisations with regard to this statement. Those who are lamenting over Islam condemn the misogyny and backwardness of Islam, said nothing, even to raise concern over such outright misogynist and reactionary values. Their silence is deafening.

(7) There were more high Nazi officers and collaborators in Western establishments including Hans Speidel: A general who served in the Wehrmacht and later became the Supreme Commander of Allied NATO ground forces in Central Europe. Adolf Heusinger: A general who served in the Wehrmacht and later became the head of the West German military and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. Many were employed by NASA.

⏩Asar Majedi is a Member of Hekmatist Party leadership & Chairperson of Organisation for Women’s Liberation.

80 Years After WWⅡ 🪶 Fascism On The Rise

Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.


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

John Crawley 🎤 Why do we gather today at the grave of this Church of Ireland patriot who never considered for a moment that because he was Protestant, he was British? 

Why did Pádraig Pearse believe that Wolfe Tone was ‘the greatest of Irish nationalists…the greatest of Irishmen?’

Who was this young Kildare lawyer whom the Duke of Wellington said was:

… a most extraordinary ma n…With 100 guineas in his pocket, unknown, un-recommended, and without friends, he went to Paris and persuaded the French Government to send an army of 15,000 men to over-throw British authority in Ireland. This was an achievement of genius.

Thomas Davis and the Young Irelanders laid a stone on this grave in 1844. The IRB, the Irish Volunteers, and the Irish Citizen’s Army all gathered here over the years. Tom Clarke, executed in 1916, spoke here on four consecutive occasions. Liam Mellows, later executed by the Free State, spoke beside this grave to the Four Courts garrison just before the start of the Civil War. So, too, has a succession of Sticks, Provos, and Fianna Fáilers.

Many wish to pay homage to his inspirational life, others to opportunistically bask in his reflected glory. Some to claim his posthumous endorsement of one republican project or to imply he would have supported the surrender of another. All gather here because few in Irish history talked the talk and walked the walk like Theobald Wolfe Tone.

Wolfe Tone did not view himself as a Protestant of the ascendancy or the plantation but of the enlightenment. It was Wolfe Tone who gave the United Irishmen their name. Founded in Belfast in 1791, they were not campaigning for a united Ireland in the territorial sense; Ireland wasn’t partitioned until 1922. They were seeking to unite Irishmen in the interest of Ireland, as opposed to dividing Irishmen in the interest of England. The Irish people, Tone wrote, had ‘one common interest and one common enemy.’ The manifesto of the United Irishmen declared:

We have no National Government; we are ruled by Englishmen and the servants of Englishmen, whose object is the interest of another country; whose instrument is corruption; whose strength is the weakness of Ireland.

Ireland still has no national government. There is an Irish government in Dublin, but it is not the Government of Ireland. There are two governments of Ireland—one based in Leinster House and the other at Westminster in London. Stormont is a regional assembly of the British parliament.

Instead of national politics, we have partition politics. And who could look at Stormont and Britain’s Secretary of State and deny that part of Ireland continues to be ruled by Englishmen and the servants of Englishmen?

Unionists never had an issue with a united Ireland per se. They lived in a united Ireland under Crown jurisdiction for hundreds of years. The Orange Order is an all-Ireland institution. The Presbyterian and Methodist churches are all-Ireland ministries. And, of course, the Church of Ireland is not the Church of Northern Ireland. Their real objection is becoming subject to the democratic decision-making of a national electorate that contains a Catholic majority.

When Republicans speak of reaching out to unionists, we mean reaching out to them as fellow citizens and not as foreigners who happen to live here. Foreigners are born in another country. The vast majority of Ulster Unionists were born in Ireland. They must not be treated as the civil garrison of an alien state. That is not pluralism; that is submitting to the social and political modelling of colonial conquest.

Pádraig Pearse said of Wolfe Tone:

He has spoken for all time, and his voice resounds throughout Ireland, calling to us from this grave when we wander astray following other voices that ring less true.

Today, the voices that ring less true tell us that far from breaking the English connection, we must work within it. That sectarianism, inequality, and partition will eventually be ended by collaborating with the government that created and sustains them.

If you want to believe that, then work away. Good luck to you. If you manage to get elected or co-opted to Stormont, the British government will subsidise your belief with a salary, expenses, and ultimately a pension. But don’t internalise Britain’s pacification project and call it a republican peace strategy. We have had pacification many times in our history. We have it now. However, we will never achieve lasting peace in our country until the root cause of conflict is definitively addressed, which is Britain’s claim to govern any part of Ireland.

Irish republicanism is fundamentally about replacing sectarian and ethnic divisions with a united civic identity in a sovereign republic. It is not about a ‘Shared Island’ rooted in British/Irish identity politics.

Many supporters of the Good Friday Agreement believe the intergovernmental British-Irish Council should keep functioning even after a pro-unity referendum is won so that Britain can continue to represent its citizens in the north east of Ireland. Far from achieving sovereignty over our whole territory and population, a part of Ireland will continue to be administered under British government supervision. Many Shared Islanders also advocate a continuation of Stormont and champion an enduring role for the British royal family as an institutional point of reference for the loyalties of those who would prefer to see themselves as a civic outpost of London rather than as equal citizens of a national democracy. A 32-county state built upon the political architecture of the Good Friday Agreement will not be a united Ireland.

A Shared Island means we share in Britain’s analysis of the nature of the conflict as a domestic dispute between sectarian factions, we share in the colonial legacy of sectarian apartheid, and we share in the imperial project of divide and rule. Differences that would become incidental in a genuine Republic remain fundamental in a ‘Shared Island’. The Shared Islanders call on us to embrace these differences for the sake of peace, as opposed to Tone’s republican vision of ending these differences for the sake of peace. Robert Emmet did not request that his epitaph be withheld until his country had taken its place as two nations among the nations of the earth.

Those who believe that unionists may be enticed into a 32 County state by discarding or eroding Irish national flags and symbols, by changing the national anthem, by chasing English royalty around Ireland, or by attending British war memorials forget that Ulster unionists chose to opt out of joining the 26-County state in 1922 when that state had substantially closer links with Britain than it does today. The Free State government had retracted its allegiance to the Irish Republic, set up a subordinate parliament in the name of the King, took an oath to be faithful to that King, was a member of the British Commonwealth, and was eagerly murdering republicans with arms supplied by the British government. And yet, unionists wanted no part of it then and want no part of it now. Britain ensures they don’t have to.

Republicans know that a genuine process of national reconciliation can only begin when Britain leaves Ireland and can no longer interfere in our internal affairs. This includes Britain’s claim to act on behalf of Ulster Unionists in a future non-partitioned Ireland.

Britain was awarded no right to represent Ulster Unionists in the three Ulster counties incorporated into the Free State in 1922. Many of these unionists in Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal had signed the Ulster Covenant and were as loyal to the Crown in their day as their brethren a mile up the road in Fermanagh or Tyrone are today. One hundred three years later, their descendants are still Protestant; those who wish to be are still Orangemen, but they are not the British presence. They are equal and valued citizens of the Irish State.

During the Troubles, the UK government portrayed the war as a criminally motivated conflict in which Britain selflessly held the line between sectarian factions in six Ulster counties. However, there was no trouble between these same factions in the three Ulster counties outside of Crown jurisdiction after the British government left in 1922. Isn’t it amazing what can be accomplished when you take London out of the equation?

Ending the partition of our country while sustaining the partition of our people, giving it constitutional legitimacy, and imprinting that division with a democratic mandate is a dream come true for the Brits. It ensures that unionists will remain forever in Ireland but not of it. It makes us willing accomplices in our national discord. It guarantees that the political malignancy through which Britain historically controlled and manipulated Ireland will endure.

Despite the assertion of many Irish politicians, the United Kingdom is not our friend or ally. It is not a force for peace and should not be allowed to define the concept of peace in Ireland. Britain continues to occupy our country. It has invaded or established a military presence in 171 of the 193 countries that are currently UN member states. Britain has caused chaos across the globe. To cite one of countless examples, it played a pivotal role in engineering the catastrophe in Palestine. More recently, there have been hundreds of Royal Air Force reconnaissance flights over Gaza and aerial bombings throughout the region in support of Israel. We must not be harnessed to Britain’s war chariot. We must not be lured into a British border poll by promises of the wonderful things that can happen if we join NATO. Ireland has a democratic right to determine the Irish national question on an Irish national basis without preconditions from unionists, partitionists, or the British government. British jurisdiction in Ireland is an affront to our national sovereignty, an assault on our national democracy, and their openly stated intention to exploit our national territory in any future global conflict presents an existential threat to our national survival.

There are those donning the mantle of Irish republicanism who are so shallow, so opportunistic, so cynical they would support a 32-county Irish state becoming a British protectorate within the British Commonwealth in order to claim they helped to achieve the united Ireland republicans fought and died for. They reveal a form of corporate narcissism in which they convince themselves that anything they do is republican, no matter how counter-republican it proves to be. Wolfe Tone would roll in his grave.

Returning to the man himself, Tone tried and failed to bring French republican forces to Ireland in 1796 and again in 1797 but was thwarted on both occasions by unfavourable winds and weather.

Tone attempted a third time to bring an expeditionary force containing 3,000 men to Ireland. This last action of the 1798 rebellion took place in October when the Royal Navy defeated the French in a naval battle off the coast of Donegal. Wolfe Tone refused an offer to escape and was captured in the uniform of a French officer. Recognised by a fellow Trinity graduate, he was brought to Dublin.

Tone was tried and sentenced to death. He was placed in the same cell that his executed brother Matthew had been placed in a month previously. In the cell, he found a small razor, possibly Matthew’s, and reportedly cut his throat to deny the British government the spectacle of hanging him. He died a week later, on the 19th of November 1798. He was 35 years old. The British government would permit only two people to attend his burial here in Bodenstown.

Sean O Faoláin wrote:

If Tone did not in his life time achieve much, he started much. Without him republicanism in Ireland would virtually have no tradition.

Today we honour this intelligent and sincere man who gave the United Irishmen their name. This articulate man who defined their cause. This resourceful and persuasive man who organised three invasion fleets in an attempt to free his country from foreign rule and the sectarian structure that propped it up. This courageous man who said that if necessary, he would land in Ireland with nothing more than a corporal’s guard.

We stand today beside the grave of this remarkable patriot to honour his service and sacrifice and to reaffirm our commitment to his ideals. We stand here not as southern or northern Irishmen and women, not as Catholics or Protestants, not as inhabitants of this ‘island’ nor advocates of insipid All-Island institutions, but as United Irishmen and women. We stand today as Tone and his comrades stood then – as unapologetic Irish republicans.

Leaving Wolfe Tone’s grave, we take with us an inspiring reminder of what authentic leadership looks like. We depart re-energised by his immortal words:

To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country—these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissentions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in the place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter—these were my means.

Up the Republic!

John Crawley is a former IRA volunteer and author of The Yank.

Bodenstown Address 🪶 8-June-2025

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