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Showing posts with label Sean Bresnahan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sean Bresnahan. Show all posts
Sean Bresnahan ✒ Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Al-Sinwar was born in the Khan Yunis Refugee Camp, in the then Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip, Palestine, on 29th October 1962.


His parents had been forcibly evicted from their homes in the since destroyed city of al-Majdal Asqualan, dispossessed of their land by Zionist forces as they rampaged through Palestine, carrying out what would become known as ‘The Nakba’. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians endured the same fate — driven at gunpoint to the Gaza Strip as the newly-formed Israeli state cleansed the land of those who had lived on it for centuries. All would remain refugees for the rest of their lives. They would die still holding the keys to their homes.

It was there, in that deeply disturbing environment, where Yahya Al-Sinwar grew to be a man. A man of intelligence and highest principle, it could be no other way than that the desperate conditions endured all around him fostered within an unwavering desire for the freedom of his people — a want for freedom that we here in Ireland know only too well, having too been victim to the scourge of colonialism. We, too, were driven from our homesteads, only to the hills and not to the camps. We, too, were starved to our deaths by a power intent on our destruction as a nation. Like the suffering people of Palestine, we too refused to give up on our dreams.

 

‘They wanted prison to be a grave for us, a mill to grind our will, determination and bodies. But, thank God, with our belief in our cause we turned the prison into sanctuaries of worship and academies for study’ — Yahya Al-Sinwar

 

He joined the Resistance at an early age and spent several spells in prison. There he came into his own as a leader, rising to the rank of ‘emir’. He used his time well, studying many subjects including history and even Hebrew, which he used to gain an astute understanding of the workings of Zionism. He was eventually released, after 22 years in prison, as part of a 2011 prisoner swap. He went on to take up a senior role within Hamas, developing the movement’s emerging relationship with Iran. Eventually he became overall leader in Gaza, working to advance Palestinian unity.

Back in Khan Yunis he married Samar, with whom he had three children. In May 2021, long before the raid into Zionist Occupied Palestine from Gaza, on October 7th last year, their home was bombed from the air by the Israelis. Yahya refused to accept that the future for his family would be more of the same. The relentless persecution endured through the years, the denial of basic needs through from childhood, would not be the lot for them. And so, dedicated to securing for his people a future with dignity and honour, he set about planning for a different tomorrow. 

‘Israel is made up of a nation of soldiers with few civilians’ — Benjamin Netanyahu

 

When the Palestinian Resistance crossed the fences holding them in the cage the Israelis made of Gaza, they entered onto stolen lands once their own. In a dawn raid on Zionist positions, they quickly overpowered the Israeli garrison tasked with securing their perpetual imprisonment. Such was the embarrassment for this ‘nation of soldiers’ and supposed regional superpower that many lies were quickly concocted to warp what was a devastating military operation into a supposed act of wanton terrorism. In truth, however, the Al-Qassam Brigades of the Resistance achieved a stunning success, using legitimate military force and action to secure their objective of overpowering Zionist forces to then take back to Gaza as many prisoners as could possibly be attained, for the purposes of enacting a later prisoner swap. History had taught them that this was the only conceivable way to return the thousands held unduly in the Zionist’s dungeons.
 
Behind the planning for this daring operation was the strategic mind of Yahya Al-Sinwar. At its end, many hundreds of Zionist forces lay dead on the battlefield, the Israeli army proving no match for the Palestinians in the hand-to-hand combat of that morning. In the chaos ensuing, hundreds more were butchered by their own as panicked Israeli commanders implemented the ‘Hannibal Doctrine’, killing with abandon all around them. This mass killing of their own people would soon be used, duplicitously, to license the total destruction of Gaza. In the year since, the world has bore witness to a crazed unrelenting genocide.

‘It hurts to lose people, especially unique leaders like Yahya Sinwar, but we are sure we will win in the end’ — Basem Naim

 

On 16th October, Yahya Al-Sinwar died on the front lines of battle — the final chapter for this humble warrior. In the ruins of Rafah, with fellow soldiers he engaged the enemy before retreating to shelter in a nearby building. Their position was pounded by artillery. In the onslaught, three of their number fell dead. But when Israeli forces tried to move in, unexpectedly they met with grenade fire. Driven back by a lone survivor, they again pounded the building from a distance. Fearful, yet, of a further response, rather than attempt to re-enter the battlefield, they sent in a drone. What it found was a fighter in military fatigues, severely wounded to the point of death. Yet still, even then, he resisted — yes, with his dying breaths. The man was Yahya Al-Sinwar. He did not break. He fought bravely to the end.

No better-fitting figure can there be for the suffering people of Palestine and their struggle than Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Al-Sinwar. A man of tremendous courage and character — a man amongst men — you refused to go meekly into the night. A soldier to the last, history will know you as a Founding Father of the coming Free Palestine, as a man whose convictions and actions were something much more than the personal, whose achievements will stand as a universal achievement, for Palestine is the universal cause. What you begun, in course, will change our world for the good. If there is a Heaven, without doubt, you are already there.

Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79

If There Is A Heaven

Sean Bresnahan ✒ The outcome of Thursday’s vote in the Six Counties further demonstrates the changed demography in that colonial gerrymander. 
And yet, despite outward appearances, the ‘gut’ feeling engendered by the result can only be one of disillusionment.


It surely disheartens to see the nationalist vote finally outstripping its unionist counterpart only for it to be steered down the path being taken by the new Sinn Féin. For the ‘agreed’ Ireland of O’Neill and McDonald — stooges, of course, for Kearney and his ilk — will be a pale imitation of the Ireland for which so many fought across the years, too many of whom paid the supreme sacrifice.

It saddens to think that their vote in many ways results from their being linked to that struggle of the past. And yet they are wasting it — on orders from their ‘betters’ no doubt — to make sure that the objects of that struggle are disabled. Opportunism and sycophancy are motivators for some; for others a darker causality lies hidden.

Who knows what will be the final detail of it all but, suffice to say, this compromised arrangement will be laced with every manner of concession — concession that ultimately serves to protect and give endurance to Britain’s continued involvement in our country.

New Sinn Féin’s vote could easily be put to a much better use but alas. The Brit, as ever, has done his work well. What a waste of such massive potential, of political capital that could have been used to build a genuine Republican base seeking genuine Republican outcomes. That is what ultimately lies at the heart of Thursday’s result.

Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79

Massive Political Capital Wasted

Sean Bresnahan ✒ At the ‘Ireland’s Future’ event on Saturday, Jim O’Callaghan of Fianna Fáil and Leo Varadkar of Fine Gael mounted a case for the current Northern Ireland statelet to be continued into a so-called United Ireland. 

In truth, however, this is far from a new idea on their part. It has been built towards across recent years by resident hacks of the new Sinn Féin in the northern media, from Chris Donnelly to Jarlath Kearney to Jim Gibney (to name but a few).


You would almost think that they’re working as one towards an agenda, that seeks to ensure that a dis-united United Ireland is all that Irish Unity should amount to. The Republican notion that all Irish people can live together as one citizenry — regardless of divisions contrived to divide a minority from the majority in the past — sadly seems lost on them all, in their headlong rush to do the bidding of Britain and advance her strategic imperatives in Ireland, whether wittingly or otherwise.

Surely the Irish people deserve better than to be further divided as this going forward. For people as myself, from County Tyrone, having waited for so long for the chance to be part of our own country, we want nothing less than our rightful place within the body of the nation. ‘Lest they forget’, we too are from Ireland. Why, then, must we be denied our full place in any future United Ireland? Does Our identity and Our aspirations really count for so little? It sadly seems so.

Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79


Britain’s Design For Ireland’s Future Given Centre Stage In Dublin

Sean Bresnahan ✒ Address to Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum seminar, ‘What Is To Be Done’ — 28th May 2022, Armagh.

Dia daoibh a chairde agus go raibh maith agaibh as an deis a labhairt anseo inniu. Tá sé go hiontach a bheith anseo i measc Poblachtanach agus sóisialaithe ag pleanáil ‘Éire Nua’ a thógáil. Ar aghaidh le chéile chuig an cuspóir sin agus lig dúinn oibriú le chéile amach anseo.

Sean Bresnahan

The seismic event that was and is Brexit, in tandem with demographic change across Ireland, both north and south, is speeding new political realities upon which Irish Unity is emerging as a consequence. For the first time in generations, the political basis of Ireland is subject to change — change with a potential to unfold much quicker than expected.

But with the advent of constitutional change in Ireland, a lot of energy is now being expended on ring-fencing the scope of same — on shaping the would-be parameters of a United Ireland in order to effect a minimal change, rather than for the full potential of Irish Unity to be realised. Though cleverly disguised in the language of a ‘new’ Ireland, in reality the aim is to ensure that the current order — the OLD Ireland — is retained as far as is possible into whatever be the ‘post-change’ scenario.

It is the job of Irish Republicans, here, to advance the radical ‘big idea’ that Ireland, reunified, should stand as that sovereign and independent state set out under the Proclamation. We must win the idea that, for it be worthwhile, the point of Irish Unity should comprise no less. To undercut the tactics of the colonialist, we must seek out a convergence of all sections of society on that basic political premise. It is there where can be found the best contribution that we can make to the history being carved.

But while that is the context that greets us today, where things are at for ourselves, as Republicans, is that in this time long awaited, with rapidly changing events unfolding that are unsettling the status quo — prising open the prospect of political change — we are essentially absent from the picture and powerless, thus, to exert the influence demanded for the realise of Republican objects. But it is not Republicanism or its objects that are wanting. It is Irish Republicans ourselves and our approach.

We are absent from the picture because our approach, not our politics, is lacking in appeal to the people. Not without reason, it is seen by that body as anachronistic. This is often the case for movements who have been reduced to waiting on events — for the proverbial ‘worm’ to turn. For when changed events at last speed a context where their ideas are of merit, and are thus more deliverable, they fail to adjust as they ought to and need to, often having already retreated into niche projects, pushing niche ideas, in a forlorn hope of finding relevance. With the wider Left, this is the current experience of Republicanism.

The consequence here is that, with Brexit and demographic change in the North picking and pulling at the fabric of the Union, the forces we might think of as constitutional nationalism (with whom Republicans are always in contest) are those best positioned to channel these energies and dictate the parameters of what should proceed upon an end to the Union. As Britain reckons with a potentially seismic re-framing of its relationship with Ireland, this stands to safeguard its vital interests.

So while the prospect for a revolutionary transformation is there, bound up in the opening that constitutional change would present, a strategy of containment is also there with it. As the balance of forces is currently constituted, the latter is more sure of foot. But this need not remain so. Tipping the scale towards Republican offerings for political change is a strategic must if Republicans are to be anything but bystanders to the process unfolding. This requires a campaign of substance based on proposals of substance — not one built on rhetoric, as we are prone to.

We owe much more than that to our history, to all that was fought for and suffered. And we recall the sacrifices of the past along our journey, remembering in particular George McBrearty and ‘Pop’ Maguire, who died for the Republic ‘on the slopes of the Creggan’ on this day in 1981.

Given all that was faced and endured, we must utilise the events unfolding around us and bend them to our purpose — to the purpose of the Irish Republic. But to do so involves our moving with the times. While maintaining a critique of the status quo and remaining apart from its processes, we must have more to offer than the ‘politics of rejection’, on which we can tend to rely. We must speed and rally behind what we are for, as opposed to what we’re against (no matter how comforting be the latter).

But while the ‘politics of rejection’, alas, won’t cut it, nor will imitating the well-worn tactic of standing in potholes with cameras to the ready, in the hope of pocketing a future support base for campaigns still to be specified. Let there be no doubt that the war for ideas, already raging, will not be fought or won in a pothole. It must be won by securing the much bigger premise that maximum change should proceed at the point of constitutional movement. There lies the battle.

While a grass roots initiative of course needs moulded — one that directly engages the people — it must, then, be premised on the big issue of sovereignty — of national freedom and self-determination — rather than on parochial matters. While that’s not to say that local endeavour has no place in our approach, our focus must be exactly where is that of the enemy: on the ‘macro’ matter of who is to exercise sovereignty in Ireland — the British parliament or the Irish people — and how this can serve as a staging point to change all.

With the nationalist community now emerging as the majority community in the colonial gerrymander, though this is problematic and in no way a panacea, we must consider the prospect and scenario for the prospect whereby constitutional nationalism secures a ‘Yes’ in a so-called border poll. It is nowhere near good enough to just ignore the likelihood of such a scenario — to posit it as none of our business, ‘sure we’re Republicans’. Of course it is our business.

While the sovereignty of Ireland should not depend on a vote, and it is right to stand over that principle, we still need to account for political reality and how this might impact on political change. We must better influence the trajectory of such change, no matter our issues with the mechanisms that give onto it. The Irish Republic here needs positioned as the ‘Day One’ outcome of any such vote. We can do this without accepting, or internalising, the legitimacy of British constitutional constraints. Indeed the prospects for the Republic demand that we do so.

In mounting a campaign with the Republic at its masthead — as the outward expression of our demands and ideals — locally, nationally and internationally — our movement can regain its purpose. If we are serious about forging political change, in a time where change is a real and live matter, then this is the ground we must capture.

It cannot be abandoned to those now bent on a further compromise with the British state, with this to be dressed as a United Ireland. Nor can we afford to abscond into irrelevancy as these developments of critical import gather momentum. The object before us seems obvious: there must be a campaign — a Republican campaign. Friends and comrades, that campaign needs begun now today.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh arís a chairde as an deis a labhairt anseo inniu agus as éisteacht liom. Lig dúinn amach anseo an Phoblacht a bhuachan le chéile. Anois an t-am atá againn.

Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79

The Irish Republic Is The ‘Big Idea’ Of Our Time

Sean Breshnahan ✒‘They shall be spoken of among their people. The generations shall remember them, and call them blessed’ — Pádraig Pearse.

Volunteer Josie Connolly

The military record of the West Tyrone-East Donegal Irish Republican Army, across the most recent phase of the long war for Irish Independence, reveals a comprehensive and continuous assault on the fabric of British rule in this area — an assault on crown rule that left nowhere safe for the British forces. Indeed resistance to British rule in Ireland has here been maintained across many generations — even through the leanest of times in our struggle. Suffice to say that the occupation has never held West Tyrone absent contest.

Across a war sustained for full-on 25 years, throughout which the British were never at any point secure in position — not even while in their barracks — fourteen IRA Volunteers went to their graves before time. Among their number — among the rank of those who stood up to defend our people — was IRA Óglach James ‘Josie’ Connolly. Fatally wounded while on Active Service, at Drumquin, near Omagh, he died on this day in 1989. Volunteer soldier of the Irish Republic, we salute you.

A loving and caring son and brother, he had much to offer in his short young life, from his precocious ability in the boxing ring and on the field of St. Eugene’s GFC to his work with the youths in his local area, to help them fulfill their own sporting promise. The determined service he gave to the Army was a reflection of his trusty character as a man — his love for his country a mirror of that he held for his family and friends, as it ought to have been. A soldier of the people, Josie personified everything that is right and decent about our struggle.

His memory and ideals will forever remain in the hearts of the people of West Tyrone. His generosity of spirit, his dignity as a man and his selfless dedication to the cause of freedom stand tall. They endure and inspire us to keep moving forward, to carry the baton, to finish the task and win the Republic for which he gave his young life. May the time to hand speed the final demise of British colonialism, in all of its hideous manifestations in our country. In the memory of this fearless Irish soldier, let ours be the generation that sees the flag unfurled.

‘A true son of Ireland, so let it be said. We salute you Volunteer Josie Connolly.’


Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79

Ar Son Saoirse — ‘Josie’ Connolly

Sean Bresnahan ✒ remembers two IRA volunteers who died on active service 40 years ago today. 


Today marks the 40th Anniversary of IRA Volunteers George McBrearty and Charles ‘Pop’ Maguire — Derry Brigade, Óglaigh na hÉireann — who made the ultimate sacrifice while engaging enemy forces, defending the Irish Republic and the right of the Irish people to be free, ‘on the slopes of the Creggan’, 28th May 1981.


Exceptional soldiers both, they took the war to the British state and more, leading the fight from the front without fear. The continuing respect with which they are held, by those who with them stood on the line, is testament not only to their courage and dedication but to their leadership abilities as well — for as leaders they are remembered above all else.

Every day must carry sadness for their families, who have lived the last decades without the one they called brother, father, son. But the anniversary itself must be doubly so, as their trauma will no doubt be magnified. I want them to know that they are in the thoughts of Republicans today.

Thinking on these brave men, and what they gave, there is surely one thing that needs said. While we will hold them up for the heroes that they are, yes, rightly, this alone will not suffice. This generation of Irish Republicans must work in campaign to advance the object for which they gave their lives, the Republic. That is the only action we can set towards worthy of all that those young men gave up. The Irish Republic will stand as our monument to George and Pop.

When the story of Ireland’s freedom is then told, among the names of the gallant will be Charles Maguire and George McBrearty. Rightly, they will be to the fore. We will speak of you for what you were — brave and principled Irish soldiers who stood in the gap of danger, that others might know a better future.

While the struggle to carve that better future for our people and our country has not yet ended, we who remain will continue on the path set by these magnificent Patriots. In their name and in their memory, let us win that Republic for which they fought and died. Always remember — don’t ever forget; they died for our freedom, we owe them a debt. An Phoblacht Abú.

Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79

Ar Son Saoirse ➖ George And Pop

Sean Bresnahan ✒ Writing in the Irish News (Letters, April 9th), Paul Laughlin, Doire, argued that a border poll held under the Good Friday Agreement would constitute an exercise in self-determination by the people of Ireland. In this, however, he would be wrong.


The Good Friday Agreement, as it relates to Irish Unity, stands in fact to deny the exercise of self-determination by the people of Ireland, this through awarding power of veto to a gerrymandered constituency within their rank — a minority among their number who live in the occupied North.


The raison d’être of that Agreement is to give primacy to the wishes of a contrived gerrymander over those of the wider Irish people. Indeed this same function is implicitly acknowledged in its recognition that the wish of the Irish people is to live in a United Ireland, before proceeding in turn to impose conditions which prevent this coming to pass.

Where there is self-determination in any of this it is for that section of our people still bound within the northern remnant of colonialism only. But that is not self-determination for Ireland. How so? Because even if the electorate in the South, to a man, were to support in a vote the reunification of Ireland and even were this married to a full-on 49.9 percent vote towards same in the North, Irish Unity would still be held back.

The wishes of the people of Ireland, then, are secondary and circumscribed by the wants of those who live in the North, whose wishes take precedence. This may be many things, depending on your perspective, but it is not and can never be self-determination by and for the people of Ireland.

While a day may be approaching where unionism is eclipsed and reduced to a minority even within its own artificial gerrymander, potentially speeding the numbers required for to unlock Irish Unity in accord with the Agreement, nevertheless, this should never be held up and spoken of as though it would constitute self-determination.

For there to be self-determination for Ireland and her people then all of her people — acting as one unit, with equal weight given each of their number — must be free to determine their future for themselves absent external impediment, among such the continuing claims to sovereignty in Ireland by the British Government.

As an earlier version of Gerry Adams once called it, many years ago, it remains: ‘the Unionist Veto must go; the British Government must go; Partition must go.’ Only then will there be self-determination for our people, as is their national right and entitlement. Speed that day.

Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79

Good Friday Agreement Denies To Ireland Her Right To Self-Determination

Sean Bresnahan ✒ Much by way of criticism has been levelled in the wake of Claire Byrne’s United Ireland broadcast, with much of it no doubt warranted. 
And yet it remains that a wide-ranging discussion on Irish Unity was front and centre on prime time television, which arguably should be seen in the first light as a positive.


The trajectory of demographics in the North would always, of themselves, have eventuated in an increased momentum towards Irish Unity. But the additional context that is Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, and the impact of same on efforts to ‘normalise’ the Six Counties, has only added grist to the mill.

The combined weight of both is speeding a momentum towards Irish Unity that the political establishment recognises and hopes to control. Through the artificial political constituency that is ‘civic society’, so-called, it is engaged in a lowering of expectations as to what a United Ireland should comprise.

It cannot, though, be afforded ability to do so, or at least not without challenge. While there is an obvious issue here to be countenanced, in that caution as to the agenda of others is needed, we must ensure that we don’t, in our caution, remove ourselves from the wider equation.

The tendency in Republicanism to reject all and everything, without putting forward a progressive alternative, is not going to cut the mustard. Republicans, then, need to engage the discussion with something other than the politics of rejection. The revisionist wing in the nationalist tradition will otherwise have a field day, uncontested.

The function of Republican struggle, in this context, is to build and assert pressure from below. This demands more than rejecting what we don’t like or agree with and a building of support for that we are set on: the Republic. We must win the idea that any future United Ireland must comprise the sovereignty of the Irish Republic.

As Irish Republicans, we need to embrace and engage the developing space and fill it to the best of our abilities, with Republican notions, solutions and politics and a confident assertion of same. We need to be better at promoting OUR prescription for a United Ireland: a republic based on the Proclamation. As Connolly rightly encouraged, the Irish Republic must be made a word to conjure with.

Rather than ‘rejectionism’, despite its comforts, this must be the mainstay of our forward approach. Do this and then discussions on Irish Unity, rather than a foil for revisionist Ireland, can be held for the positive that they are — as a staging point on the road to our long-cherished object. This is where things are now at.

Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79


Discussion On Irish Unity Should Be Understood As A Positive

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