What Are We Doing Here & Where Are We Going?

A recent trip back to the old sod coincided with very warm weather last week. We all know how beautiful Ireland is when the sun shines, and my heart was warmed by the many Palestine flags I saw flying from buildings and from homes in the sunshine. This hope was short-lived as photos of the boat of refugees effigy on top of a huge bonfire pyre in Northern Ireland began to circulate. Accompanying this physical manifestation of hate and ignorance on the pyre were Palestine flags, pictures of Kneecap, and placards that read “K.A.T.” (Kill All Taigs). It's difficult to imagine the hate needed within a person to be so racist and twisted as to first conceive of this idea as a bonfire “topper”, and then to acquire mannequins representing people of colour, fit them with life jackets, and post a sign with the thinnest, lamest veil of an excuse for racism saying “veterans before immigrants”. That isn't culture, it's inequality and deprivation wrapped in hate and racism, delivered in a package of staggering ignorance of history and of current events.

Later in the week, word spread that the planned GAA Palestine tour of Ireland could not proceed because the Department of Justice denied visas to the Palestinian adults and children to enter the country. I don’t mind admitting that I shed a tear at the news. It’s easy to take the GAA for granted, and for some, giving out about the GAA is a national sport on par with hurling or football. Despite this, the GAA as a community organisation can be a powerful force for good. We saw this during the pandemic when local clubs organised shopping trips and help to sheltering and vulnerable people across the country.

The GAA Palestine tour of Ireland planned to bring 33 children and 14 mentors to clubs around the country, hosted by local families, to give the children respite from the oppression using the sports and something as simple as a trip to the beach, a privilege many of us don’t even recognise that we have but would have been a first for some of the children. This same kindness and empathy was marshalled by Adi Roche to bring over 25,000 children from Chernobyl on visits to Ireland, and the same cross-community solidarity has been employed for the benefit of children by the GAA and other sports for decades. For the Irish Immigration Service to use bureaucracy to further oppress the touring group is a disgrace. Requiring additional documentation that adults on the trip show “evidence of financial means, employment or other ties that indicate a person intends to return home” is obscene given these people are living under apartheid in the West Bank. GAA Palestine took the best of the community spirit contained in the DNA of the GAA, and sought to use it to provide some dignity and hope to Palestinian children. The Irish state spat in their face for trying. Dame St in Dublin can be closed to facilitate a TV broadcast while an American Football college game is played at the Aviva, but a community led project that is the epitome of Irish culture is told no.

These two news items, small as they are in the current landscape of crises in Ireland and the atrocities abroad, led me to ask questions like what are we doing here, and where are we going with this?

The examples are legion at this point of the small and not so small changes in attitudes among some in Western society that think common decency and empathy are no longer a requirement. This is no more obviously the case than Western leaders ignoring the genocide convention and in doing so being complicit in Israel's continued genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza and the apartheid in the West Bank. The free world is becoming a fascist world, whether or not we have yet to openly admit it. In America, secret police are kidnapping people the regime deems illegal & sending them to concentration camps, at home and abroad. In the UK, you will now be arrested as a terrorist if you hold a sign saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. In Germany, you are banned from using your native language at a protest if it's not English or German, and you can be brutally detained for peacefully protesting.

Neoliberalists and hypercapitalists have graduated from using privatisation and austerity to drive inequality and greater profits, to using racism and authoritarianism to grab power and trample dissent. Some governments are in the driving seat in this new vehicle of oppression, others are sitting idly by in the passenger seat. Our civil liberties, along with our humanity, are being eroded week after week. Is it any wonder that the example being set from the top has started to seep out into more and more facets of life, where decisions are being made completely devoid of empathy.

What we are doing here is seeing fascism take hold.

However, it is not a foregone conclusion that this is where we are going. We are not powerless to stop it, despite governments wanting us to think there is nothing we can do. They want to normalise the murder, the trauma, the devastation, the othering, and the dehumanisation. They want us to think we are too small to do anything, as a people and as a country. They want us to think nothing can be done because consensus is needed between countries, or that any action will jeopardise economic activity. They want us to become small, petty, afraid, and against each other. We do not have to comply, and we must not. If we do, when they are finished with Palestinians, immigrants, trans people, disabled people, homeless people, and whomever else is being attacked, scapegoated, or thrown under the bus, who do you think will be next?

When we stand by, or let apathy set in, we give those people even more licence to ignore the international rule of law, demonise people of decency, censor those who speak up, and attack and murder people they don't like. Immoral opportunists that build platforms based on lies about Ireland being full, or about being God given owners of Palestine, or making the country great again, will keep going until they are stopped. But there is hope. The majority of people are not immoral opportunists. The good people in GAA Palestine, and those in Northern Ireland condemning the racism on show, are leading the way.

We have the power to make change, with our voices, our feet, and our votes. It’s no coincidence that governments are targeting protests and citizenship rights. While we still have them, we must use them and fight for them.

In a conversation about the genocide during my travels I was asked what can a normal person do about the genocide in Gaza. We discussed participation in the BDS movement, a point of specific pride for Irish people given we invented the Boycott and given Mary Manning and the other Dunnes Stores workers used it to draw international attention to the apartheid in South Africa (even though they were vilified by the establishment at the time). Attending one of the many marches for Palestine that take place every week was suggested. I answered with writing to your TDs about the missing parts of the Occupied Territories Bill, the use of Shannon Airport and Irish airspace to traffic weapons of war, and the validation of genocide bonds by the Irish Central Bank. Other action is available, like supporting the peace camp at Shannon Airport, or donating to fundraisers that get food and supplies directly to Palestinians, like the Dignity for Palestine campaign.

Along with the different types of direct action it is important, at the very least, to use your voice to have conversations with those around you and to speak out against all that is happening, because the majority of us don't agree with any of it, and rightly so. In recent years, the Irish governments of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have become expert at slowly eroding our expectations of what a government should do and provide, using a multitude of excuses and bureaucratic processes. We must not let this become or stay as the norm and we must continue to call them out. The politicians represent us, and we need to keep telling them that we want all this to stop.

A quote I heard recently that gives me solace is “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something”. Now is the time for everyone to do something, so pick what you can do and do it with all you've got, while you still can.