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Muiris Ó Súilleabháin ✍ "People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use” -Soren Kierkegaard

I must confess, I am somewhat conflicted by the current outcry over Irish language rap band Kneecap. In my last contribution to TPQ on the subject (Kneecap) I suggested that “na buachailli” would gloriously ride on the crest of the publicity wave created for them by the DUP and the TUV until the “wheels fell off”.

Not content with letting the quality of the group’s music become the instrument of their own downfall, the British Government and the Prime Minister have interjected to create a mega tsunami of publicity around 3 guys from the north who until recently occupied a small space in an even smaller niche market.

There is a small juvenile part of me that says fair play to them for putting it up to the Brits and the “orangies” (which is not very Republican) and there is a big part of me that welcomes “the lads” using their now global platform to speak out in support of Palestine and against the latest instalment of the Israeli genocide.

There is also a more mature and reflective inner me that is entirely uncomfortable with their pronouncements on Hamas and Hezbollah and the “kill your MP” bunkum.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I fully support freedom of speech as outlined in the Universal Declaration, but I also recognise that there are situations where rights can compete and clash and where careful judgement needs to be exercised.

I do not suspect for one second that Kneecap support Hamas or Hezbollah or that they want people to kill their MPs. Also, I do not believe that anyone who listens to their music would take three drink and drug fuelled rappers at their word and follow through on what was nothing more than intoxicated bluster.

Therein lies my catch 22, I want to live in a rights-based society, I do not think that we can progress as a community unless we accept that all rights are universal and inalienable and that they apply to all members of the human family, even three guys from the north, held in affection by many in the CNR communities.

Their onstage bravado, however well-meaning in supporting an entirely legitimate cause, conflicts with multiple other articles in the Universal Declaration and allegedly with the law in the United Kingdom, which is where they made their pronouncements.

If the assertion is that Kneecap can say or do what they want on and off stage, and that somehow, they are “unequal before the law” (Article 7) then we are entering very dangerous territory. “The law is an ass” but the line of reasoning that loyalists do worse and that it is Israel who should be in the dock, ring hollow. The Met Police do not have jurisdiction in either the north or the International Criminal Court.

Contentions that the charges are politically motivated and a clumsy attempt to silence criticism of the Israeli onslaught against a defenceless population are without reservation true, but it is the duty of the police to investigate a complaint, the CPS to decide if a crime may have been committed and the duty of a jury to decide on guilt.

Those who attempted to create a false equivalence with the Birmingham Six and in one case Bloody Sunday are being disingenuous. The most contemporaneous case that warrants comparison is Gerry A vs the BBC.

The multiple sycophants who have nauseatingly heaped praise upon Adams for “putting manners” on an award-winning BBC programme that has exposed collusion, and British state violence for decades don’t seem to comprehend that freedom of speech extends to journalists also. Sinn Fein keen to portray themselves as “down with the kids”, have declared that they stand with both Kneecap and Adams. Sinn Fein, once again ostensibly ignorant to the fact that under their proposed changes to the hate crime legislation of 2024, Kneecap would have been prosecuted in the south.

To support Adams against the BBC is an inherent contradiction to the freedom of speech defence of Kneecap.

Adams, who had to prove that he had enough money in the bank to pay for the totality of the case’s legal costs (estimated to be circa £5 Million) took the BBC and Jennifer O’Leary to court to prevent them from exercising their right to free speech.

The multi-millionaire from Ballymurphy, did not strike a blow for freedom on behalf of the movement or the Irish people. Unlike many whom he led, Gerry had the considerable financial resources to hire the world’s leading defamation lawyer to challenge the BBC on his reputation.

The gist of his legal argument was that while yes, he May have had a reputation as being a senior member of the IRA (which he denied), his role in delivering the IRA ceasefire meant that he was entitled to a re-invented reputation. Gerry A, from here on in, must be referred to as Gerry the peace maker.

Just because someone has a past does not mean that they cannot have a future, was Trimble's mantra throughout the GFA negotiations and it is indeed a noble sentiment. Everyone deserves a second chance.

Unfortunately, there are many who entered the fray during the war who do not have the financial clout to purchase their reputation in Court. There are many men and women of character who would squirm at the opportunity to reinvent themselves, if it demanded a denial of their role in a just war. For people of character neither a grubby gratuity from the BBC or a eulogy that quite frankly no one will believe would be worth the shame of hearing the rooster crow. There is a considerable difference between reputation and character.

Adams took Spotlight to court for Adams’s sake, in much the same way that the Pro-Israeli lobby sought to have Kneecap silenced through spurious allegations. Both are opposed to freedom of speech, both can claim a pyrrhic victory in their own warped mentality, but neither is likely to remembered as they wish to be.

Reputation is what others think, character is what you know about yourself.

⏩Muiris Ó Súilleabháin was a member of the Republican Movement until he retired in 2006 after 20 years of service. Fiche bhliain ag fás.

Kneecap Act Ⅱ

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

Barry Gilheany ✍ The term “Palestinianism” has entered the mainly online world, especially in the Twitter or X sphere, as a bitterly contested term to describe the evolution and constituent elements of Palestinian identity. For supporters of the Palestinian cause like the celebrated exiled Palestinian scholar Edward Said. it is a statement of the “reassertion of Palestinian multiracial and multireligious history.” For its detractors, it represents a new version of antisemitism in which all the ancient, supposed ''evils'' of Jewry and Judaism are projected onto the State of Israel. To make sense of this intractable debate, it is necessary to understand the peculiar circumstances in which the notion of a Palestinian national identity came into being at the turn of the 20th century and how, through the twists and turns of the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine later morphing into the Israeli/Palestinian one in the 20th and 21st centuries, it has assumed such a totemic signifier for wider geopolitical ideological contestation.

As an admittedly clunky term, Palestinianism, as the mantle claimed by Hamas, Fatah and other major Palestinian identified groups, is best understood as a movement, an ideology, and/or a belief system. At the outset, it is important to understand that the idea of a unified, independent Palestinian state did not evolve naturally from its history.[1] This statement could also be valid for the emergence of European nation-states and that of post-colonial independent states in the Global South. But the site of the Levant or Middle East at the confluence so many different civilisations and cultures poses particular questions for the study of the development of Palestinian identity.

In ancient times, Levantine states like Phoenicia (primarily modern-day Lebanon) and Syria consisted of independent city states like Tyre, Sidon and Byblos in Phoenicia or Damascus or Aleppo in Syria. The Phoenician cities were maritime hubs and separate entities, each governed by its own royal lineage, worshipping their specific pantheons and speaking dialectical variations. Even though they shared a common cultural backdrop marked by their unique alphabetic script and seafaring prowess, they never coalesced into a unified Phoenician nation. Syria was a melting pot of diverse thought and religious practices, from the Canaanites and Amorite to the later influence of the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Roman and Byzantine empires. Damascus and Aleppo became epicentres of learning, trade, and power, each contributing to a multifaceted Syrian identity that was very heterogenous.[2]

While the Islamic Caliphates, from the Umayyad to the Abbasid and the Fatimid, brought a semblance of religious and administrative unity they did not erase the unique characteristics of each region.[3]

Palestine offers a particular conundrum in the quest for nationhood in the Levant. Since its population was comprised largely of Arabs who transcended the artificial boundaries imposed by the Anglo-French, Sykes-Picot arrangements for the Middle East in 1916 across Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, its path towards statehood was always going to be complicated, even more so by the Israel/Palestine conflict.[4]

Palestine has long been a meeting point of civilisations, religions, and empires – from the Byzantines and Romans to the Ottomans and the British Mandate. But its history is deeply interwoven with the Jewish people who according to biblical accounts settled in ancient Canaan. They established the kingdoms of Israel and Judea, contributing significantly to the region’s cultural and religious landscapes, such as the construction of the First Temple of Jerusalem. These kingdoms faced invasions and exile, but their legacies are integral to modern Judaism. The land underwent various phases of foreign rule, eventually becoming part of the Roman Empire "Syria Palestina" to distance from its Jewish roots.[5]

The idea of a unitary Palestinian state did not emerge evenly and naturally from its history. During the Ottoman Empire, for example, what is now called Palestine was administratively fragmented into different districts, integrated into a larger, relatively decentralised empire. Identity was often tied to locality – village, clan, or religious community – rather than a wider sense of national belonging. Therefore, any initial inertia towards statehood must be seen in the context of this historical backdrop marked by administrative fragmentation and a conglomeration of localised identities.[6]

The establishment of the British Mandate in the aftermath of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and their German allies in World War I introduced new terminologies and geographical units. [7]  Territories were redefined, borders were drawn, and identities were often externally imposed. The new geographical realities forced the local populations to navigate a spectrum of loyalties and identities which hitherto had been largely shaped by more immediate social and religious fabrics. While the Sykes-Picot Agreement provided a pathway to statehood for the new entities they brought into being be it the Hashemite dynasty forming new thrones in Jordan and Iraq or the unique confessional system institutionalised in Lebanon, Palestine’s Arab population found themselves in a less straightforward and more anomalous situation.[8]

For nationalism, as a concept and aspiration, was imported into Palestine as a response to external challenges, namely the British Mandate and the immigration of Jews making Aliyah to the homeland aspired to by the Zionist movement set up in the 19th century and then promised in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The resistance was not for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state per se but against the external forces that were destabilising the existing socio-political equilibrium.[9]

Contrary to the assertions of the Palestinian cause’s detractors, Palestinian national identity was not the artificial creation they claim of the USSR inspired formation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in 1964. There is clear evidence of attempts at the formation of a Palestinian national consciousness at the beginning of the 20th century. In his book Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (1997), Rashid Khalidi describes the Arab population as having “overlapping identities” incorporating loyalties to villages, regions, a projected nation of Palestine, an alternative of inclusion in a Greater Syria, an Arab national project as well as to Islam.[10]

He documents active opposition by the Arab press to Zionism in the 1880s. He described the identity as organically developed due to the challenges of peasants forced from their homes due to Zionist immigrant pressure, but that Palestinian nationalism was far more complex than merely an anti-Zionist reaction.[11]

Unlike the unitary purpose and organisation of the Zionist movement, Palestinian leadership in the Mandate years was characterised by divisions along clan lines. A pivotal Palestinian religious and political figure in this era was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini who forged up to and during World War II an alliance with Nazi Germany, motivated by mutual antisemitic convictions. This alliance involved active collaboration such as propogandist radio broadcasts throughout the Arab world and even meetings between the Mufti and Hitler. [12] Not for the first time in their modern history, the Palestinian people were badly served by decisions taken by their leadership. Husseini’s embrace of Nazi ideologies exacerbated the already existing animosity towards Jews which fed into the cycles of communal violence which had their denouement in the three-cornered civil war between Zionist and Arab militants and the British Mandate authorities prior to the latter’s withdrawal in 1947. It also provided a potent generational propaganda weapon for Israel.

The Arab Israeli war of 1948 and the resultant trauma of the Nakba (the flight or expulsion of 700,000 Palestinian Arabs) is the transformative moment in the development of Palestinian identity and consciousness. It has to be borne in mind that the primary objective of the Arab states that attacked Israel in 1948 was not the establishment of an independent Palestinian state but the eradication of the Jewish state. In the two decades after the formation of the State of Israel and the Nakba, Palestinian identity developed as a reaction to the situation Palestinian Arabs found themselves in; in the crossfire of competing nationalisms and regional entities and their statelessness and refugee status created by the failure of the Arab states to defeat Israel. Palestinian nationalism in this era was essentially reactive and did not contain a coherent vision for what it was for, such as a concrete programme for statehood and government.[13]

All this changed in the 1960s with the emergence of Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Now the Palestinian cause was to be transformed from a reactive to a proactive project. Under Arafat, the PLO adopted a distinct Palestinian flag and endeavoured to standardise and disseminate a unique Palestinian lexicon and separate national consciousness. In his understanding of the power of symbolism and narrative, Yasser Arafat can be regarded as the founder of modern Palestine even if its road to statehood has, sadly, been largely one of thwarted achievement. Arafat’s imprimatur as de facto leader of the Palestinian nation was the recognition by the Arab League of the PLO in 1974 as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people’. Palestinian identity thus became divorced from the pan-Arab negativity of the Khartoum Resolution “Three Nos” of 1967 – no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiation with Israel. [14]

It was in the 1960s also that support for Palestine became the totemic rallying issue for much of the left that is arguably even more potent today as the humanitarian catastrophe of Gaza plays out; a catastrophe which many see as genocide. There has long been agreement among historians that it was the Six Day War of 1967 that was the catalyst for the shift from support for Israel from, admittedly, the Old Labourist Left, a support grounded in the global revulsion at the Holocaust and solidarity with the socialist ideology of the early Zionists, to support to Palestine from the New Left movements (as well as the Marxist- Leninist Left) as a front line cause in a broader Third World struggle against capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and US hegemony. The latter element was pivotal for many nascent pro-Palestinians, due to its position in the oil-rich Middle East.[15]

Having adopted a view of themselves as ‘cosmopolitan revolutionaries’ prior to 1967, the PLO launched a global offensive that was partly supported by the People’s Republic of China, and which aided its integration into the Cuba-led “Tricontinental movement”. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Palestinians consciously and successfully connected with the global revolutionary and worldwide national liberation movements which allowed them to tap into radical networks across the Third World Social relationships forged in this era created a legacy of pro-Palestinian activity in the NGO sectors in nations such [16] as Denmark and Norway and leftist political parties in Western Europe.[17]

Said’s Use of the Term

Arguably Palestine’s foremost public intellectual, Edward Said defined the term “Palestinianism” as a “political movement that is being reborn out a reassertion of Palestinian multiracial and multilingual history.” According to Adam Shatz, US editor of the London Review of Books, Said endeavoured to elaborate a “counter-myth” to that which underwrote Zionism and one written in counterpoint to the “dark historical fatalism and exclusionary fear of the other” characteristic of the Zionist narrative.[18]

As construed by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, “Palestinianism” strove to overcome both Zionism and Arab tyrannies by the three principles of acknowledgement , accountability and acceptance: namely global recognition of the Nakba which was more important than achieving Palestinian statehood; in obeisance to universal principles, Israel should accept accountability for ethnic cleansing as a prelude for a future return of refugees and, thirdly, an acceptance of the historic reality of Jewish suffering, a precondition for integrating Israelis into the larger Arab world within which their state was founded.[19]

Jason Franks in 2006 argued that Palestinianism stood in diametric opposition to Zionism and both it and Zionism were twin ideological codes both accounting for the terroristic, nationalist, and religious elements driving the Israel/Palestine conflict. He further argued that the roots of Palestinianism lie in the Young Turks revolt in 1908 in that it was crucial to the emergence of a Palestinian nationalist sentiment in that period because the revolution in Turkey freed up the press from Ottoman censorship and enabled the local assertion of a distinct Arab identity to emerge. Thereafter, it developed not only as a reaction against Zionism and British imperialism but also against the wider Arab world.[20]

Anti-Palestinianism: A Conspiracy Theory?

A counter discourse has emerged, especially since the collapse of the Oslo Accords and the resumption of perpetual conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, to the articulation of Palestinian national identity. Heavily conspiratorial in nature and drawing on global articulation of Islamophobia/anti Muslim sentiment as much as support for Israel, it essentially posits Palestinianism as a threat to Western civilisation.

Writing in the context of the Al-Aqsa Intifada Bat Ye’or in her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis[21] which advanced a conspiracy theory surrounding the emergence of Palestinianism, which she derided as “Palestinolatry” positing that it was both a new vehicle for traditional European anti-Semitism, (and "a return of the Euro-Arab Nazism of the 1930-1940s.") In her view, it emerged with the works of the Anglican bishop Kenneth Cragg[22] and the Palestinian Anglican priest Naim Ateek, director of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre.

Neither of these writers, however, had ever used the term at the time of her writing, but Bat Ye'or deployed it to characterize what she saw as ecclesiastical attempts to play on European consciences by depicting Palestinian suffering under Israeli occupation.[23]. The impact of this "Palestinianism" can be discerned, she claimed further, in the positions of major politicians in Europe, ranging Jacques Chirac, Javier Sola, Romani Prodi, Dominique de Villepin and Mary Robinson who came to consider the Palestinian problem a central issue for world peace[24]. For her, Christian evocations of the plight of Palestinians betrayed an underlying tradition of Christian demonization of Jews, and had assumed the status of a "modern Eurabian cult".[25]

The term was subsequently picked up as a negative description for the Palestinian cause, by British journalist Melanie Phillips in her book Londonistan in which she claimed that the Muslim Association of Britain, in her opinion the British franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood, had become the “spearhead” of “radical Palestinianism” in Great Britain.[26] Among the many more controversial things she has gone onto state about Palestinianism is that it “is opening up a posthumous Nazi front against Jews”[27] A voluntary retirement of All Nazi analogies and comparisons by All actors in the Israel/Palestine conflict would, if nothing else, lower the temperature of discussions on it.

In 2010 Palestinianism was described by Israeli journalist Moshe Dann as an "ideology", that viewed Israel as a settler-colonial state, and one which had two immediate Palestinian statehood in the Palestinian territories defined by the 1949 Armistice lines, and the implementation of the right of return of Palestinian refugees. According to Dann, who repeated his claims in 2021, the long-term goal of the "elimination of Israel" was explicitly called for in both in both the Palestinian National Covenant, (nullified in 1996 after the Oslo Accords), and the Hamas Covenant (a provision officially cancelled in 2017, but still endorsed by Hamas).[28]

This "ideology" had been, he asserted, legitimized by Israel itself by the 1993 Oslo Accords. Dann claimed that Palestinian identity is a fiction contrived to oppose Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and that Israel was entitled to the Palestinian West Bank as it was full of Jewish archaeological sites, with no evidence for any Palestinian historical heritage there or anywhere else in Palestine. [29]

In conclusion, the emergence of a modern Palestinian identity not out of a long-term pursuit of statehood but a complex and contingent response to a series of external circumstances. These included shifting geographical and tribal boundaries occasioned by the transfer of power from the dominion of the Ottoman Empire to that of the British League of Nations mandate, the independence of neighbouring Arab states and the influx of Jewish immigrants with national aspirations over a stateless land. While Palestinian Arab national consciousness most certainly developed as early as the 1880s, the concepts of the nation state and distinct identity were thrust upon the Palestinians as a result of the collision of highly consequential regional events; most notably the 1948 War and Nakba. Consequently, there has been degrees of ambiguity about the ultimate goals of the Palestinian movement by its leaders and the difficulty of fitting the Palestinian journey towards nationhood (and eventually statehood) into the explanatory models used to describe other emancipatory movements. Therefore, both supporters and opponents of the Palestinian cause have tried to put flesh on the rather clunky word and concept of “Palestinianism” which in its almost andromorphic way. has had the effect of adding to the toxicity and divisiveness of the Israel/Palestine debate.

References

[1] Jordan Schachtel, The Roots of Palestinianism. The Dossier 24 October 2023.

[2]Ibid

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid

[10] Wikipedia

[11] Ibid

[12] Schachtel, op cit

[13] Ibid

[14] Ibid.

[15] Sune Haugbelle and Pelle Valentin, Olsen Emergence of Palestine as a Global Cause Middle East. Critique Volume 32 2023 Issue 1 pp.129-148

[16] Edward Said, (2007) The Palestinian Experience (1968-1989) in Robin Andrew and Bayoumi Moustafa (eds). The Selected Works of Edward Said 1966-2006. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, pp.14-37

[17] Ibid

[18] Adam Shatz (2021) Palestinianism. London Review of Books Volume 43, No.9


[19] Ilan Pappe (June 2010) Diaspora as Catastrophe. Diaspora as a Mission and the Post-Colonial Philosophy of Edward Said Policy Futures in Education 6 (3)

[20] Jason Franks (2006) Rethinking the Roots of Terrorism. Springer.

[21] Bat Ye’or (2005) Eurabia. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

[22] Kenneth Cragg (1991) The Arab Christian: A History in the Middle East Westminster. John Knox Press.

[23] Ye’or pp. 176-188

[24] Ibid p,185

[25] Ibid, p.177

[26] Melanie Phillips (2008) Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within. Gibson Square p.120

[27] 17 July 2021. Jewish News Syndicate

[28] Moshe Dann Who are the Palestinians? Ynetnews, Ynet; The Immoral Goals of Palestinianism. Jerusalem Post 7 August 2021

[29] Ibid

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Palestestinianism 🪶 Valid Descriptor Of Palestinian National Identity Or Crude Conspiracy Theory?

 

A Morning Thought @ 2716

 

A Morning Thought @ 2715

A Digest of News ✊ from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 2-June-2025.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤ “Try me for treason” – antiwar Russian.
⬤ Socialists & Ukrainian national question.
⬤ Russification drive in occupied areas. 
⬤ More evidence of Russian torture.
⬤  Execution of unarmed prisoners.
⬤ UN accuses Russia of crimes against humanity.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

The face of resistance: Crimean citizen journalist Ruslan Suleimanov (Crimea Platform, 30 May)

Russian FSB holds abducted 62-year-old Crimean woman incommunicado for almost four months without vital medication (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, May 30th)

Ukrainian sentenced to 20 years in ominous twist to Russia’s ‘Crimean Tatar Battalion’ repression (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, May 28th)

Weekly Update on the situation in occupied Crimea (Crimea Platform, 27 May)

Court frees blind and disabled Crimean political prisoner sentenced to 17 years for protest over Russian repression (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, May 27th)

Merciless brutality against 74-year-old Donetsk hostage imprisoned since 2018 for supporting Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, May 26th)

Russians execute unarmed Ukrainian prisoners (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, May 26th)

The Criminal Palimpsest of Occupation (Alterpravo, 2025)

News from the front and ‘peace talks’

Ukraine ready for ceasefire, but waiting for Russian memo (Meduza, 30 May)

Weekly war summary: Russian advance in Sumy region (The Insider, 30 May)

News from Ukraine

Ukrainian Urban Forum 2025 will take place on September 19–20 in Lutsk (Cedos, May 27th)

Enhancing Education Resilience in Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia: Cedos launches new project (Cedos, May 26th)

OPORA Designs a Dashboard Following the Pilot Security Audit in 4 Hromadas (Opora, May 21st)

"Mom, They're Here for Me." The Story of Kherson Volunteer Iryna Horobtsova, Held Hostage by Russian Occupiers for Over Two Years (Signal to Resist, February 11th)

War-related news from Russia

Hidden Bear: the GRU hackers of Russia’s most notorious kill squad (The Insider, 31 May)

Russkaya Obshchina: a nationwide vigilante group (Meduza, 30 May)

Russian manpower: more than 407,000 contracts signed in 2024 (iStories, 30 May)

Andrei Trofimov: “Try Me for Treason” (Russian Reader, May 23rd)

Analysis and comment

Socialists and the national question in Ukraine, yesterday and today (Links, May 31st)

Russian Drone Campaign Targets Civilians (Human Rights Watch, June 2nd)

Sanctions: Old money, new problems (Meduza, 30 May)

The Mineral Deal: Benefits and Risks for Ukraine (Posle.Media, May 28th)

Putin’s War, Ukraine’s Endurance, Western Wavering (Left Critique of the Left, May 20th)

Research of war crimes and human rights abuses

Russia has dragged occupied Ukraine far below North Korea and other ‘worst of the worst’ - Freedom House (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, May 30th)

Bitter frustration over Russia’s (non) release of Ukrainian political prisoners and civilian hostages (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, May 29th)

Russian armed forces’ drone attacks against civilians in Kherson Province amount to crimes against humanity of murder (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, May 28th)

«Some of these people may not survive until the end of the political process». Briefing of the People First! Campaign (Centre for Civil Liberties, May 27th)

ZMINA participated in the EUAM conference “Building Bridges Through Justice: Overcoming the Consequences of Russian Aggression” (Zmina. May 27th)

International solidarity

Bulletins for UK trade union conferences (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 31 May)

🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

We are also on twitter. Our aim is to circulate information in English that to the best of our knowledge is reliable. If you have something you think we should include, please send it to 2U022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.


We are now on Facebook and Substack! Please subscribe and tell friends. Better still, people can email us at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com, and we’ll send them the bulletin direct every Monday. The full-scale Russian assault on Ukraine is going into its third year: we’ll keep information and analysis coming, for as long as it takes.

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News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 148

Maryam Namazie ✊ protests what is happening in Gaza.


o|o 
Israel & Hamas 
get the fuck
out of 
Gaza

Maryam Namazie is a political activist, campaigner and blogger

Israel & Hamas 🪶 Get The Fuck Out Of Gaza

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

The Fenian Way 🔖 The author sets out his stall early.


This work looks at the influence Martin McGuinness brought to bear on the Provisional IRA from its early tumultuous origins to its public capitulation at the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. The incentive to continue reading is to see whether the book addresses competently, and concludes authoritatively, on the simple but salient question, Cui bono? Who benefitted from that undeniable influence, the British or the IRA?

As with his previous work concerning the IRA in Tyrone, Trigg has displayed a capacity for solid research and a demonstrable record of interviews with key players from all sides which in itself offers a valuable insight into events of those times. Referencing Dorothy McArdle’s immense work The Irish Republic is always an encouraging indicator of proper groundwork.

The deficiency with his previous work, Death in the Fields: The IRA in East Tyrone, from a republican perspective, is that the British Military take on the IRA campaign is depressingly apolitical, more focussed on the wherewithal of ‘events’ as opposed to their political implications. The hoped for difference in this work is that because its core subject was to the fore in shaping those political implications more light would be shed on their consequences and how they evolved.

The first one hundred pages or so set out in stark terms the chaos that was the Six Counties in the early to mid seventies for both British and republican forces. British soldiers in the main hadn’t a clue as to what their initial function was once deployed. Even less was their own understanding of the politico/religious dynamic that drove the deep divisions within that region of Ireland, which they were told was British.

From the republican perspective the IRA was caught short most notably in terms of manpower and weaponry for the defence of nationalist areas besieged by loyalist mobs, fully backed by the Unionist hegemony and their paramilitary forces in the RUC, B-Specials and the UDR.

It was also an era of haphazard warfare; bombings in urban settings with parochial led strategies of attacking economic targets with a high attrition rate of civilian and volunteer deaths. Basic training and equipment at best coupled with a naive understanding of guerrilla warfare.

The British side fared little better. Squaddies and grunts sent over to keep the warring factions apart. Hated by one side for killing theirs and hated by the other for not killing enough of them. A purely reactionary war which would take a huge casualty toll before it evolved into a more intelligence and strategy led conflict, on both sides.

Like in other operational areas highly effective volunteers emerged, most notably in rural commands and in this instance South Derry, more specifically the village of Bellaghy. The emergence of volunteers Francis Hughes, Dominic McGlinchey and Ian Milne - and their operational record -  coincided with, or had influence on, the emergence of what the author calls the ‘cynical and prophetic’ policy of Ulsterisation.

In a deliberate policy of trying to depict itself as an honest broker the British government placed local security forces in the front line, relegating the British Army into a supporting role. Cynical in the sense that the British were anything but neutral and prophetic in the sense that by defining the conflict in terms of nationalist against unionist the British were ensuring the future parameters for a purely internal settlement.

At times the war is reduced to a list of casualties and their marital and parental status, reminiscent of a BBC/RTE news report, a groundhog day of repetitive condemnations with not an iota of political insight. But every so often the mantra is punctuated by a political observation that the author must be lauded for unearthing. The first case in point was a comment by John Hume directly after Bloody Sunday which in its simplicity defined precisely what constitutional nationalism was willing to settle for and what Irish republicans were gifted to achieve.

At this remove the influence of Martin McGuinness is portrayed as almost spectral, aloof, leadership via third parties. Even his elevation to the position of Chief of Staff is portrayed as detached from the day to day workings of the Derry IRA. The dearth of detail regarding his involvement in the Seventies in the chapters before the photographs provokes an expectation that the influence of McGuinness is to be given more scrutiny in the chapters which follow.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that the chapter which bridges the two halves is one set aside for informers, agents and supergrasses whose debilitating impact on the IRA in the region is bluntly acknowledged and detailed by the author.

Raymond Gilmour, an early supergrass within PIRA ranks, is introduced as a petty criminal, the brother of petty criminals punished by PIRA for their activities. His motivations for working for the British, before he joined any republican group, apparently stems from a punishment beating received by a close friend. Whether this is true or not it seems incredulous that such an individual could be recruited into republican ranks to the degree that he could cause the damage which he did.

Without question there was a serious informer/infiltration problem in the Derry Brigade area. A comprehensive list of compromised operations, ambushes by the security forces and munitions seizures in the text certainly adds considerable weight to this conclusion. However, what is absent is a prudent analysis as to why this was the case within this specific command.

Informers are one thing, bad security is another. The former can be shot, the latter is like trying to pick up mercury with the proverbial fork. Why recruit petty criminals like Raymond Gilmour is a good starting point but the book does not delve into this type of inquiry which is deeply disappointing because if the book concerns itself with the influence of Martin McGuinness on this operational area it must also look at his influence on matters of internal security, and not simply from the accusation point of view, but from the better practice of insisting on good common sense security. Blaming informers on all your ills is a very dangerous deception.

It is irritatingly odd that the influence of Martin McGuinness is kind of addressed in the final and shortest chapter. The niggling accusations against McGuinness are met head on, both from republican and security sources, but the opportunity to give a more detailed context to those accusations is missed because, quite simply, the book does not gauge that influence in the preceding chapters.

Accusations of Martin McGuinness being a British agent are simply that, accusations. And as the author correctly points out in an organisation like the IRA, and in a conflict scenario, such accusations can have tactical agendas to serve a multitude of vested interests. Key players interviewed from the republican side are adamant that he was. They cite specific incidents to demonstrate culpability but they do so from a position of anonymity which devalues to a degree the charge. From the British side accounts are more hazy, raised eyebrows stuff which if it was put forward as evidence would struggle even in a Diplock Court. How did he escape the clutches of a supergrass undoubtedly known to him?

That said, the tree is known by its fruit; the politician for what they negotiated and settled for. And as stated from the outset Cui bono? The British or the IRA? Was it agency or incompetence that explains Powell’s Equation?

Jonathan Trigg, 2025, Death in Derry: Martin McGuinness and the Derry IRA’s War Against the British. Merrion Press. ISBN-13: ‎978-1785375477

⏩ The Fenian Way was a full time activist during the IRA's war against the British. 

Death In Derry

 

A Morning Thought @ 2714

 

A Morning Thought @ 2713

Tommy McKearney ☭ The presence of the far right in Ireland has not gone unnoticed to date, yet some further analysis is required.

6-June-2025

Several recent developments need our attention. There is, for example, the spreading of meetings and rallies to areas not previously centres of such public displays. Disturbing too is the presence at these marches of many young people and others not previously known as sympathetic to reactionary movements. While it is correct to condemn this behaviour, more is needed than moral outrage, no matter how justified or well-intentioned. It is important that we understand the conditions giving rise to this phenomenon and identify a meaningful response.


Let us first explore the material conditions. Capitalism by its nature is subject to cyclical crises, the last major one occurring in years 2008-2010 with the economic crash. This was largely due to a move away from manufacturing and towards a concentration on the financial sector. As part of this departure, free-market dominated states, the Republic included, had embarked on a widespread policy of privatisation including, significantly, in housing and health.

Following the crash and in order to preserve the capitalist system (and the class that benefited from it), the Republic’s government bailed out the financial system. The cost for doing so was at the expense of citizens through the imposition of austerity. What was ever a flawed system became still worse. Profit driven house builders and medical corporations made access to a home or health care prohibitively expensive for most and beyond the reach of many.

The underlying cause of this situation was and is the prevailing capitalist economic system. However, for the establishment to admit that would be to undermine the viability of the system, leading obviously to the search for a suitable replacement. At which point there arises that spectre so disturbing to the minority benefitting from the free-market. A spectre epitomised currently by the Peoples Republic of China.

Because, as Carlos Martinez poignantly explained recently during a presentation at the Connolly Festival in Dublin that, unlike his experience in our capital city, there are no unfortunate people sleeping in the streets of Beijing or elsewhere in the PRC. Nor indeed is there an issue in China with access to state provided health care, something available to all. In short, a concrete example of how to address a major cause of misery, not only in this country but across much of the free-market West.

Therein lies the real raison d’être for the latest spread of the far-right. There is a housing and health crisis in the Republic and the fascists are attempting to lay the blame on our immigrant population. So they don’t find fault with the capitalist system and most certainly don’t look East for a solution, but instead demand the expulsion of our recently arrived neighbours.

To what extent this dangerous campaign is an organic movement coming from the grass-roots up is a moot point. There is evidence of input from fascist organisations in Britain and funding being provided by sources in the USA. While it is not possible at present to prove a link between these elements and their states’ intelligence agencies, such a connection is a distinct possibility if not an actual probability. British and US spooks are not renowned for their tolerance of threat to their hegemony or a reluctance to intervene subversively. Anyone doubting the lengths to which Britain’s deep state will go need only read the recently published Kincora: Britain’s Shame.

Ireland, although no longer the vital strategic asset to Britain, retains the potential to become an example to many others if it solved its social problems through adoption of a socialist model. The old Tory nightmare of a Cuba in Europe. And is such a scenario remotely possible? There is in Ireland a history of passively accepting maltreatment for decades before suddenly resisting. Moreover, as for the establishment here and overseas, there are now disturbing signs of stirrings among the young, let’s call it the Kneecap generation.

While it is important to recognise the very likely input from these guardians of imperialism at its highest stage, it is equally essential to identify a pathway to overcome the threat posed.

As a first step it is necessary to understand that the problems presenting fascists with this opening must be addressed. Housing and health are the principal issues impacting many working people attracted to the far-right message. Public housing and a national health service are the only answers to these problems. Not social and affordable houses but an intense programme of well-designed public housing. Not expanding access to healthcare abroad through the Cross Border Directive (CBD), but by providing an extensive health service domestically.

Of course, making people aware of the danger posed by fascism is also vital, but that could be done in the course of a campaign to remedy the problems highlighted above. Perhaps it may be possible to persuade the trade union movement, or at least a significant part of it, to lead the fight as happened through the anti-water charges campaign.

Failing that, what about asking Kneecap to lead off?

Tommy McKearney is a left wing and trade union activist. 
Follow on Twitter @Tommymckearney

Far Right Propping Up The System

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